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<p>You already know the basics: Salary? You better be negotiating. Vacation? Also on the table. In fact, here are <a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2014/03/things-to-negotiate-at-work/" type="external">six things beyond your paycheck you can negotiate on the job Opens a New Window.</a>, at pretty much any level.</p>
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<p>Since most of us spend more time at work than we do at home or with friends and family, asking for what you deserve is important.</p>
<p>But&#160;if you’re a senior, high-earning employee, such as a vice president or higher, did you know that a little artful negotiation may help you secure even more unique extras?</p>
<p>Here are six perks you might want to know about if you’re within spitting distance of the C-suite.</p>
<p>As for what’s worth asking for, Roy Cohen, career coach and author of “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Professional%C2%BFs-Survival-Guide/dp/0137052642" type="external">The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide Opens a New Window.</a>,” says you’ll have the most success negotiating perks that have some bearing on your position and may support your ability to do your job more effectively.</p>
<p>We talked to career experts and real workers to find out which of these six nice-to-haves seemed nicest to them, and how they went about asking for said perk.</p>
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<p>1. Sabbaticals</p>
<p>Lincoln Smith, a minister in Huntsville, Ala., has spent more than 20 years working at Twickenham Church of Christ, eventually moving up to an executive-level position. As his twentieth year approached, and he was wrapping up a major project, Smith asked for—and received—a three-month paid sabbatical. He spent the time biking across the country, covering 2,700 miles in 32 days, resting and traveling to visit other churches to pick up new ideas.</p>
<p>“The biggest benefit for me was getting a chance to be free of the daily grind and recharge my batteries,” Smith says. “We had just finished a building renovation, which I oversaw, and I was pretty worn out. The church hopefully was reenergized because I was recharged when I returned.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2014/04/im-getting-ready-to-retire-in-my-30s/2/" type="external">Money Mic: I’m Getting Ready to Retire in My 30s Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>How to Get It: Elizabeth Pagano McGuire, a founding partner at <a href="http://yoursabbatical.com" type="external">YourSabbatical.com Opens a New Window.</a>, says a sabbatical is more than an extended vacation; it should have a purpose. So before you talk to your employer, make sure you have one—and that you’re a valued employee.</p>
<p>Then outline a specific plan for what you’ll be doing during your sabbatical—volunteering in another country, finishing your novel, learning to make cheese? Articulate how your time off will positively affect your organization. Maybe you’ll feel rejuvenated and more productive upon your return like Smith was, or you’ll have learned valuable lessons you can share with your co-workers.</p>
<p>But be aware of the timing: You’re more likely to hear yes if you don’t ask to skip your company’s busy season this year.</p>
<p>2. Training Opportunities</p>
<p>The best performers are interested in constantly improving throughout their careers. One surefire way to do that? Pursue an advanced degree or certificate program, or attend conferences and other industry events.</p>
<p>As a senior-level employee, you may be able to secure approval to take paid time off for these endeavors; however, at many companies, training expenses are not included in the regular budget—so you’ll have to ask for them.</p>
<p>How to Get It:&#160;Stacy Lindenberg, owner of workplace development firm&#160; <a href="http://growyourtalent.com" type="external">Talent Seed Consulting Opens a New Window.</a>, says the right companies will actually encourage you to seek out these opportunities—so long as you frame them in the right way. Spell out how your coursework or conference attendance will benefit you and your company, she says. “For instance, if attending a conference, offer to share best practices and learnings with others when you return, thus benefitting more employees in the organization.”</p>
<p>In the case of an educational benefit, such as your company footing the bill for an executive MBA, Cohen says you’ll likely be asked to commit to staying at the company for two to five years after completing the degree. Use this to your advantage in negotiations, explaining how your employer can continue to reap the rewards of your additional knowledge—not to mention the money they’ll save in recruiting and training a replacement.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/knowledge-center/grad-school-calculator/" type="external">Grad School Calculator Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>3. Telecommuting</p>
<p>As the mother of a special-needs daughter and a longtime corporate officer for technology companies, Brenda Christensen has frequently negotiated for the ability to work away from the office when necessary.</p>
<p>Before starting her current job as director of communications at email solution provider Contatta, Christensen says she was completely transparent about her needs, which require working from home and odd hours—sometimes even having to leave a meeting or work at a moment’s notice.</p>
<p>To negotiate for the telecommuting schedule she needed, Christensen relied on her network of contacts who were willing to recommend her work and vouch for her 25-year record of success.</p>
<p>And—this is key—she was able to demonstrate how working away from the office would fit well with her job: “Since so much of my position is outwardly facing—building relationships with influencers, bloggers and social media types—it wasn’t a problem,” she says. “My value translates into being able to work anytime and anywhere I want.” Fortunately, her employer agreed.</p>
<p>Even if your needs aren’t similar to Christensen’s, the ability to do your work from somewhere outside the office—at least at times—can still be a perk worth negotiating. But it’s important to understand that telecommuting is different from flex time: It’s not about arriving to the office later than usual and leaving when your work is done; it’s about having the freedom to do your work wherever you’d like.&#160;In many cases, this perk is more negotiable for high-level employees because they have more experience and are trusted to maintain their responsibilities without close supervision.</p>
<p>“High-wage earners can bring some balance into their lives by telecommuting, working a schedule with varied work times and full or half days off each week,” Lindenberg says.&#160;“For those who travel regularly or work in territories within their cities, they can arrange to complete office work from home, rather than being expected to come in to the office right after a long trip or a day in the car.”</p>
<p>How to Get It: Before broaching this topic with your boss, find out your company’s policy and whether there are other employees who successfully telecommute. If so, you may be able to pattern your request to match similar existing situations that have worked out well. Then demonstrate how you can still be successful in your position regardless of how much face time you put in at the office by staying on top of your deadlines and making yourself available for check-ins with your boss.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2013/11/flex-jobs-3-real-parents-explain-how-they-found-them/" type="external">Flex Jobs: 3 Real Parents Explain How They Found Them Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>4. Lifestyle Perks</p>
<p>To attract—and retain—the best talent, some companies are sweetening their benefits packages with lifestyle perks, especially ones that help their most valued employees perform their jobs better.</p>
<p>For example, if entertaining your clients is an important part of your position, you may be able to justify a club membership for golf or dining. The same goes for positions that require frequent car travel: Cohen recommends asking for use of a company car or leased vehicle.</p>
<p>A number of Cohen’s clients have also successfully negotiated for wardrobe allowances from their employers, and he says it’s not unusual for other high-level employees in client-facing roles to receive this type of compensation as well. “When you have a highly visible role, the right image is critical,” he says.</p>
<p>And a polished look doesn’t end with your wardrobe: In some industries, such as advertising, the way your office is decorated is just as much a reflection on your employer as your personal appearance. Cohen says this benefit is fairly common if clients visit often or your office is considered an extension of your brand.</p>
<p>Don’t underestimate how far a company may go to make their top employees happy: “I once got $10,000 added to my salary to fly to see my boyfriend every other weekend,” says Meredith Andrews*, 44, who’d agreed to take a job in another state.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/2013/09/what-does-business-casual-really-mean-4-real-employees-share-what-they-wear/" type="external">What Does ‘Business Casual’ Really Mean? 4 Real Employees Share What They Wear Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>How to Get It: As with other negotiations, lobbying for lifestyle perks requires a strategy. Start with a clear idea of what you want and why you want it (to impress clients' to feel more comfortable and thus more satisfied at work?). Each employee is different, so make a personal case to show how a lifestyle improvement will help you be more effective at work. Be able to rationally defend your requests, but compromise on items that don’t rank at the top of your list.</p>
<p>For example, in the case of a wardrobe benefit, this is a perk you’re most likely to get if you work for an apparel manufacturer or another business in the fashion, design or entertainment industry. But remember how important it is to negotiate extras that have a direct bearing on your position: Asking for a wardrobe allowance in a field that doesn’t place a high value on appearance could indicate you don’t understand industry standards or know what’s appropriate to request.</p>
<p>5. Severance Pay</p>
<p>Maybe you’re recruited away from a stable, corporate job to take a leadership role at a thriving startup. While the challenge can be exciting, there are inherent risks: If the startup fails or you don’t fit in with the small company culture, you could wind up on the job hunt again.&#160;Before taking the leap, consider negotiating a guaranteed severance package and outplacement services.</p>
<p>While a severance package is a valuable benefit in any industry, it’s especially worth pursuing if you’re considering a company or industry that is experiencing a downturn or other instability.&#160;“In the event that your position is eliminated through no fault of yours, this is a payment to ease in the transition and to provide job search support,” Cohen says.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/knowledge-center/checklist-i-lost-my-job/" type="external">Checklist: I Lost My Job Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Several of Cohen’s clients have successfully negotiated enhanced severance packages, both prior to joining the company and during their employments at their annual reviews. “It is relatively easy to negotiate: Severance costs the company absolutely nothing if it is never exercised,” he says. “But the benefits of feeling safe and secure are infinite.”</p>
<p>How to Get It: If you are a prospective employee being offered a new job, start by explaining that leaving your current company to join a new one is a risk for you. Present in detail the severance package you’d like to include in your contract (such as three months’ pay), and remind your employer (tactfully) that this agreement is free to them if they keep you on board.</p>
<p>If you are a highly valued employee working in an unstable situation, point out that in light of industry or company hardships, you feel you need this insurance policy.</p>
<p>6. Stock Options</p>
<p>Feeling a sense of ownership is an important aspect of any professional culture—and especially in high-tech startups. “I would never even consider working somewhere unless I had some skin in the game,” Christensen says.</p>
<p>Depending on your company’s retirement offerings, you may be able to negotiate for accelerated vesting in a pension plan (though likely not for your 401(k), due to restrictions in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act). But Cohen says you can negotiate vesting in restricted stock and stock options, an exercise that’s quite common for senior executives.</p>
<p>How to Get It: Start by finding common ground between your request and your employer’s needs. For instance, if having restricted stock options would encourage you to help build a stronger, more highly valued company (and you are in a position to do so), explain how that’s a positive result for both of you. Also, point out that stock options offer a way for the company to increase your earnings package without taking any money out of the payroll account. And be ready to show how your contributions are worth the extra earnings.</p>
<p>Christensen’s contributions to the organizations she’s worked for have led to higher company valuations on several occasions—a point she’s used in negotiations.&#160;“It makes sense [for employers] to include incentives toward that goal,” she says. “When it comes right down to it, it’s about knowing your value and being willing to be completely transparent about it.”</p>
<p>*Name has been changed.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.learnvest.com/" type="external">LearnVest's Opens a New Window.</a> mission is to help people feel amazing about their money.</p> | 6 Perks High-Earners Can Negotiate at Work | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/04/30/6-perks-high-earners-can-negotiate-at-work.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
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<p>President Trump has already started fulfilling his election promise of bringing back jobs and industry back to the American citizens by setting an official policy on the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the renegotiation of NAFTA.</p>
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<p>Shortly after President Trump was sworn in, his administration got down to business and promised to negotiate toughly and fairly, the trade agreements in a move aimed at creating more jobs in the U.S. and consequently make the United States a manufacturing powerhouse. The <a href="http://Whitehouse.gov" type="external">Whitehouse.gov</a> has listed the above strategy as one of the top policy issue for President Trump's administration.</p>
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<p>The statement clearly states that the strategy starts by the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and ensure that any new trade deals that are signed will be in favor of the American workers. Adding that President Trump is fully committed to renegotiating NAFTA. However, if American partners refuse a renegotiation that will give American workers a fair deal, then President Trump will give notice of the United States intent to withdraw from NAFTA.</p>
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<p>In a report issued by the Detroit Free Press, automakers and auto executives have been reluctant to publicly speak out about the adverse consequences of renegotiating or pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement since Trump's comments during the campaign trail had not been made official in the White House policy.</p>
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<p>President Trump's goal is to put American workers and businesses first when it comes to trade, he intends to bring back millions of jobs back to America. Majority of analysts and economists agree with the fact that America lost majority of its jobs to China and the automation of the manufacturing industry than to Mexico.</p>
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<p>It's a well-known fact that NAFTA has greatly contributed to the decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs. However, this has led to massive automotive industry investment in Mexico and the growth a huge supplier network. Its no surprise to find out that Mexico has surpassed Canada in annual vehicle production since nearly every automaker has built new plants in Mexico in recent years.</p>
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<p>In a statement made by Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, the automaker could be forced to halt its production in Mexico due to the 35% border tariff.</p> | Trump Dumps Trans-Pacific Partnership: Vows To Make USA Car Manufacturing Hub Of The World | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/1114-Trump-Dumps-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Vows-To-Make-USA-Car-Manufacturing-Hub-Of-The-World | 2017-01-22 | 0 |
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<p>Last year saw a 58% increase in the number of global technology transactions from 2013, the most in over five years, according to a new report from CB Insights. The study identifies 2,886 tech deals, with 79 IPOs and 2,809 M&amp;A transactions taking place in 2014.</p>
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<p>The most active acquirer was Google (NASDAQ:GOOG.L), which purchased music streaming service Songza, high-tech utensil creator Lift Labs, and smart home technology maker Nest. Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), j2 Global (NASDAQ:JCOM), Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) rounded out the top five most acquisitive technology companies last year.</p>
<p>“A number of larger tech incumbents are taking advantage of large cash balances and making more acquisitions,” said Eric Liaw, partner at Institutional Venture Partners.</p>
<p>The year saw 32 deals for “unicorns,” tech companies with a valuation exceeding $1 billion, nearly double the 17 seen in 2013. Yet 41% of the tech transactions with disclosed prices were under $50 million.</p>
<p>Accel Partners backed more of the technology deals than any other venture firm, taking the lead from SV Angel. Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates and Battery Ventures also topped the “exit” rankings.</p>
<p>The United States led in tech deal activity, followed by the United Kingdom and Canada. India and Israel also made the top ten.</p>
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<p>The strong deal environment also contributed to an increase in investment activity, with 2014 seeing the most dollars raised since 2000, with $47.3 billion in venture capital financing.</p>
<p>“It’s always easier to raise money after you’ve given some back,” said Jeff Grabow, Ernst &amp; Young’s U.S. Venture Capital Leader, suggesting that venture firms were able to point to successful investments when raising new funds.</p>
<p>“Those same venture investors have turned right around and have gotten increasingly aggressive in their investment posture, which means there is ready access to capital for companies at all stages right now,” said Jeff Crowe, managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners.</p>
<p>Yet, the outlook for 2015 tech dealmaking remains unclear.</p>
<p>“I think that 2015 will start out as strong as 2014 ended,” said Crowe, but “sooner or later, these cyclically elevated valuations for tech companies are going to come back down to earth. &#160;Some set of events will occur that will turn everyone’s outlook negative, and the current frothiness will evaporate.”</p> | 2014 Saw Sharp Increase in Tech M&A, IPOs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2015/01/28/2014-saw-sharp-increase-in-tech-ma-ipos.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>PENNSYLVANIACentre Daily Times By Mike Joseph <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>Clergy throughout the Roman Catholic diocese serving Centre County received a letter of demands Thursday concerning clergy sexual-abuse cases, purportedly written by a secret group of 26 diocesan priests.</p>
<p>Bishop Joseph Adamec, head of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, received a copy of the letter inasmuch as he is a member of the diocesan clergy, said his spokeswoman, Sister Mary Parks. The diocese refused to comment on the letter because the writers were anonymous.</p>
<p>"We're not going to respond to an anonymous letter," Parks said.</p>
<p>The letter called for the bishop to settle sexual misconduct cases out of court to protect the reputation of priests. The three-page letter was postmarked Wednesday in Johnstown and was received Thursday also by newspapers and TV and radio stations throughout the eight-county diocese.</p>
<p /> | Letter calls for ending clergy abuse | false | https://poynter.org/news/letter-calls-ending-clergy-abuse | 2003-05-16 | 2 |
<p>They're really up in arms about Maureen Dowd's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinion/sunday/dowd-neocons-slither-back.html?_r=3" type="external">column</a> yesterday, and I don't quite get it. So it's just the phrase "puppet master," referring to Dan Senor, supposedly (as Dowd had it) pulling Paul Ryan's strings. And the verb "slither."</p>
<p>Dowd's adjective is being likened <a href="http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2012/09/maureen-dowd-on-neoconservatives" type="external">by some</a> to Glenn Beck's transgression from 2010, when he called a several-part "expose" about George Soros "The Puppet Master." If liberals complained then about anti-Semitic overtones, why should Dowd get a pass?</p>
<p>That's a fair question. And there's a fair answer: Beck went a hell of a lot of farther than just using the phrase. His whole argument was built around it. And, more importantly than that, his series delved into charges around which Soros's ethnic identity was central--lots of allegations about controlling the world, being the secret mastermind behind currency collapses, owning the media, giving marching orders to the Fed, and so on.</p>
<p>And don't forget the main thing: Beck <a href="http://forward.com/articles/133080/beck-attacks-soros-jewish-leaders-outraged/" type="external">accused</a> a youthful Soros of letting other Jews be captured and killed. Not true, obviously. Soros, in fact, wrote about the truth of the situation in The New York Review of Books in June 2011. I can read it <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/23/my-philanthropy/" type="external">here</a>, because I have a pass, but you might just get the paywall if you click through. In any case, Soros wrote:</p>
<p>When the Germans occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944, my father knew exactly what to do. He realized that these were abnormal times and people who followed the normal rules were at risk. He arranged false identities not only for his immediate family but also for a larger circle. He charged a fee, sometimes quite an exorbitant one, to those who could afford it, and helped others for free. I had never seen him work so hard before. That was his finest hour. Both his immediate family and most of those whom he advised or helped managed to survive.</p>
<p>I suppose I have to say that yes, I know Soros, although only a little, and the journal I edit did once receive a grant from the Open Society Institute, but it was before I worked here, or maybe I was here for the last year of a three-year commitment that in any case underwrote only a small portion of the journal's budget.</p>
<p>But this is a digression. The point is that Beck didn't just use a phrase one time. He made a series of accusations laced with historic anti-Semitism, and one totally false accusation that was a hideous libel centered around the Holocaust.</p>
<p>The thing is, I'm not even a Dowd fan. I think she writes too much about herself, not enough about actual policy, and is too mannered. So this post shouldn't be taken as rallying to her defense.</p>
<p>And I'm not Jewish and therefore not properly sensitized and aware of the history perhaps, but it just seems to me this is more of a fuss than that adjective deserves. I'd like to see some of the people expressing outrage at Dowd today express a little retrospective outrage at, oh, Paul Wolfowitz's <a href="http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-23567.html" type="external">failure</a> even know how many young men and women he'd helped send off to die back shortly after the war started.</p>
<p>And yet I confess in researching this post I did learn about the history of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangiafuoco" type="external">Mangiafuoco</a>, the evil Pinocchio antagonist whom Disney's illustrators apparently portrayed in an anti-Semitic light, although I don't recall picking up on that at age five or whatever. In any case we ought to be more concerned with keeping the neocons out of power than with one adjective, and the general thrust of Dowd's column, that these people (whatever their religion and ethnicity) are dangerous and reckless was spot on.</p> | The Dowd Imbroglio | true | https://thedailybeast.com/the-dowd-imbroglio | 2018-10-07 | 4 |
<p>New polls show that Alabama Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore's once comfortable lead over Democrat Doug Jones has evaporated after The Washington Post published allegations against Moore from four women claiming he pursued them romantically or sexually in the late 1970s when they were ages ranging from 14 to 18. Though the polls generally show Moore now in a dogfight with Jones, a number of voters have said they are now more likely to vote for Moore after the allegations — allegations which Moore adamantly denies.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://winwithjmc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Alabama-Senate-Executive-Summary-General-Election-Poll-2.pdf" type="external">JMC Analytics and Polling</a> landline survey conducted Thursday through Saturday found that Moore now trails Jones by 4 points, 48% to 44%. About a month ago, JMC showed Moore ahead by 8 points.</p>
<p>Slightly less than a third (29%) of all respondents said they are more likely to vote for him now, while about the same percentage (28%) said they are less likely. A total of 34% said the allegations made no difference. <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/360010-poll-37-percent-of-alabama-evangelicals-more-likely-to-vote-for-moore-after" type="external">The Hill</a> notes that more Evangelicals say they are more likely to vote for Moore than are less likely to do so, 37% to 29%, respectively.</p>
<p>Three other polls show a tight race between the two candidates. Two flash polls, <a href="http://decisiondeskhq.com/news/opinion-savvyddhq-alsen-poll-roy-moore-46-4-doug-jones-46/" type="external">Opinion Savvy</a> (conducted Thursday night) and <a href="http://bigleaguepolitics.com/big-league-gravis-alabama-poll-roy-moore-clings-slim-lead-doug-jones-48-46/?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter" type="external">Gravis Marketing</a> (conducted Friday), found the margins to be razor thin or nonexistent: 46 - 46 and 48 - 46, respectively. A <a href="https://medium.com/@ChngRsrch/after-abuse-allegations-moore-leads-by-4-in-alabama-e476105ef41b" type="external">Change Research</a> poll, like the JMC survey, found the margin to be 4 points but in favor of Moore: 44 - 40.</p>
<p><a href="http://​https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/12/alabama-senate-moore-jones-244816" type="external">Politico</a> notes that Breitbart, which has supported Moore, reports that an unpublished in-state survey conducted Saturday showed Moore with a 10-point lead. As Politico underscores, all of the new surveys have "potential shortcomings" based on sample-size, method and timing.</p>
<p>Amid mounting pressure to step aside, including from some Republicans, Moore has maintained his innocence.</p>
<p>Last week <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?utm_term=.2c2394b6aa44" type="external">The Washington Post</a> published allegations from four women who say that over three decades ago Moore pursued them romantically or sexually. The allegation that is causing the biggest stir is one coming from a 53-year-old woman who says that in 1979, when she was just 14 and Moore was 32, he initiated sexual contact with her. Moore denies the "completely false" allegations and has questioned their timing since he has been a public figure for decades.</p>
<p>In a series of statements issued last week, Moore denied the allegations and blamed the " <a href="https://twitter.com/MooreSenate/status/928770918758928384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Finsider.foxnews.com%2F2017%2F11%2F09%2Froy-moore-responds-twitter-sexual-misconduct-accusations-1979-senate-race" type="external">Obama-Clinton Machine’s liberal media lapdogs</a>" for attempting to sabotage his campaign.</p> | Alabama Polls Show Some Surprising Results After Moore Allegations | true | https://dailywire.com/news/23477/alabama-polls-show-some-surprising-results-after-james-barrett | 2017-11-13 | 0 |
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<p>Dexter Manley celebrates a TD catch during the 2013 season. (Observer—GARY HERRON photo)</p>
<p>The New Mexico Stars added more firepower to their roster for the coming season by signing Cale Ware of Haskell Indian Nations University, Justin Sydney of Dakota Wesleyan University and Victor Rogers of the Knoxville Nighthawks of the Professional Indoor Football League (PIFL).</p>
<p>The Stars also re-signed popular wide receiver Dexter Manley.</p>
<p>Manley led the LSFL last season with 77 catches for 1,221 receiving yards and 29 touchdowns. He has a private workout scheduled with the San Antonio Talons of the Arena Football League Oct. 29-30.</p>
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<p>“I’m glad I was able to resign with the Stars because I love the state of New Mexico,” Manley said. “I fell in love with New Mexico last season because of the fans. I met so many wonderful people that I have kept in contact with after the season, and I can’t wait to get back to meet even more. Plus, now we have a new owner and new head coach, so I am looking forward to working with both of them and bringing a championship banner to hang in the Star Center.”</p>
<p>Coach Dominic Bramante said, “Dexter is part of our team’s foundation, and a guy you can build an offense around. My No. 1 priority was to get him back when I took over, so I am excited about that for sure.”</p>
<p>Ware is a 23-year-old full-blooded Kiowa Indian who started at linebackers for three seasons in college and will play LB and fullback for the Stars.</p>
<p>“Being Native American it is important for me to play with a team that has our traditions and culture engrained into it,” Ware said. “New Mexico has 22 different tribes, I believe; I would like to bring fans from all the tribes so we can showcase Native American pride both on the field and in the stands.”</p>
<p>Sydney is a 5-foot, 9-inch wide receiver and kick returner who recently spent time with West Texas Roughnecks and Pittsburgh Power in their training camps, and lives in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Sydney may lack height, but he makes up for it with his legs as he runs a 4.45 in the 40-yard dash — that 40 time would have ranked him in the top 20 for WRs this past NFL combine.</p>
<p>Rogers is a graduate of McNeese State University, where he returned kicks and played cornerback and free safety.</p>
<p>Seeing Stars: The 2014 Lone Star Football League season kicks off in mid-March and features two new teams, the Odessa Wildcatters and the Rio Grande Valley Sol.</p>
<p>… The Stars will hold an open tryout on Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. at Wilson Stadium. New head coach Bramante, along with several staff members, will evaluate players. Those interested should call 891-7318.</p> | New Mexico Stars ink four players | false | https://abqjournal.com/282792/new-mexico-stars-ink-four-players.html | 2013-10-16 | 2 |
<p>American consumers give today’s economy the highest grade in more than 16 years.</p>
<p>The Conference Board said Tuesday that consumers’ assessment of current economic conditions hit the highest level this month since July 2001. The business research group’s overall consumer confidence index, which takes into account Americans’ views of current conditions and their expectations for the next six months, rose to 122.9 in August from 120 in July.</p>
<p>Americans’ spirits have been lifted by a healthy job market. Employers added a robust 209,000 jobs in July, and the unemployment rate has dropped to a 16-year low of 4.3 percent.</p>
<p>The Conference Board found that 34.5 percent of respondents described business conditions as “good” — the highest percentage since January 2001. Similarly, 35.4 percent described jobs as “plentiful” — most since July 2001.</p>
<p>The overall index hit bottom at 25.3 in February 2009 at the depths of the Great Recession before rebounding at the U.S. economy recovered.</p>
<p>Economists pay close attention to the numbers because consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.</p> | Consumer Confidence Improves to 16-Year High on US Economy | false | https://newsline.com/consumer-confidence-improves-to-16-year-high-on-us-economy/ | 2017-08-29 | 1 |
<p>CIA Chief Michael Hayden has issued a passionate <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7070483.stm" type="external">defense</a> of extraordinary rendition, claiming that the practice, which so often involves abduction and torture, is justified by the "irreplaceable" intelligence it produces. Meanwhile, President Bush's preferred successor to loyal henchman Alberto Gonzales refuses to call torture by its name, though he claims to find it "repugnant."</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
<p>[Attorney General] nominee Michael Mukasey condemned one technique, water-boarding, as "repugnant" and possibly "over the line," but declined to explicitly rule it out as torture, saying he could not speculate on classified procedures.</p>
<p>Water-boarding simulates drowning by immobilizing a prisoner with his head lower than his feet and pouring water over his face.</p>
<p />
<p>Leading Democrats in the Senate have threatened to block Mr Mukasey's confirmation if he does not explicitly rule out water-boarding as illegal.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7070483.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Bush Cronies Defend Torture | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/bush-cronies-defend-torture/ | 2007-10-31 | 4 |
<p>A bill that would change forensics tests for drivers suspected of being high on marijuana uses a more scientific detection method, proponents of the proposal told the Nevada Assembly Judiciary Committee on Friday.</p>
<p>Assembly Bill 135 would mandate the use of a blood test to detect marijuana metabolite and eliminate urine tests for traces of the drug.</p>
<p>“It is simply updating the law with scientific facts,” Touro University Nevada student doctor Graham Lambert told the committee.</p>
<p>Nevada law defines marijuana impairment for drivers as someone who has a certain amount of “marijuana” and “marijuana metabolite” in their urine or blood.</p>
<p>But the metabolite that most of the state’s forensics labs look for, Carboxy THC, does not have a psychoactive effect and has been shown to stay in the body for extended periods of time, Lambert said.</p>
<p>Proponents of the measure argued that police labs should test for the marijuana compounds that do affect the brain, Delta-9 THC and the metabolite 11-Hydroxy THC. Urine tests for marijuana would be eliminated because these psychoactive compounds are not present enough in urine.</p>
<p>A provision that instructed police labs to test saliva as well was met with resistance by state law enforcement agencies. The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office reported that it would cost the agency more than $1 million to set up saliva testing.</p>
<p>An amendment discussed Friday removed the saliva provision and police dropped their opposition.</p>
<p>Several medical marijuana patient advocates opposed the measure, saying that the bill does not go far enough. They said statutory thresholds for marijuana impairment — measured in the blood as 2 ng/mL of marijuana or 5 ng/mL of metabolite — also need to be changed because marijuana patients could meet those thresholds long after use.</p>
<p>Ng/mL is nanograms per milliliter, a unit of measurement often used for lab test results.</p>
<p>Committee Chairman Steve Yeager, D-Las Vegas, said the measure would not affect those thresholds.</p>
<p>No action was taken.</p>
<p>Contact Wesley Juhl at [email protected] and 702.383-0391. Follow <a href="http://www.twitter.com/WesJuhl" type="external">@WesJuhl</a> on Twitter.</p>
<p />
<p>POT NEWS</p>
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<p><a href="" type="internal">Click here for complete coverage</a></p>
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<p>RELATED</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Las Vegas lawmaker wants blood test to check for marijuana DUI</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Recreational marijuana may be legal now, but driving while high is not</a></p>
<p /> | Bill would change testing for marijuana DUI in Nevada | false | https://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/bill-would-change-testing-for-marijuana-dui-in-nevada/ | 2017-03-03 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Bank of America's struggles to earn a respectable profit since the financial crisis underscore the role that liquidity plays in bank earnings. Image source: iStock/Thinkstock.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>As someone who reads, thinks, and writes about banks almost every day, I'm still getting my head around the lasting impact that the increasingly burdensome post-financial crisis regulatory regime will have on the industry's profits going forward. It's still too early to predict what things will look like once all the rules and regulations passed in the wake of the crisis are fully implemented, but a glance at Bank of America's balance sheet shows one important way that profitability has been impaired.</p>
<p>The concept of liquidity is central to banking. Banks earn money first and foremost by borrowing funds from depositors and wholesale lenders, and then investing those funds into higher-yielding assets, such as loans and debt securities (i.e., bonds). The yield a bank earns on a particular asset class is determined in part by liquidity -- that is, the ability to convert them into cash quickly. Assets that are less liquid, like loans, yield more than assets that are more liquid, like money that's on deposit at the Federal Reserve.</p>
<p>In Bank of America's case, its loan portfolio yielded 3.67% last year. That compares to the 0.27% yield that it earned on money deposited at the Fed and other central banks around the world.</p>
<p>Data source: Bank of America's <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MzE5NTQ2fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&amp;t=1&amp;cb=635884527105313575" type="external">4Q15 financial supplement Opens a New Window.</a>, page 13.</p>
<p>One way for Bank of America to increase its revenue and earnings, in turn, is to decrease the liquidity of its asset portfolio. This is done by increasing the percentage allocated to loans and debt securities relative to cash and money on deposit with other banks. This makes a bank riskier, as loans aren't as safe as cash, but it also makes a bank more profitable.</p>
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<p>The problem insofar as liquidity goes, however, is that the post-crisis regulations require the nation's biggest banks, including Bank of America, to do just the opposite. In an effort to stave off future bailouts, federal regulators now require banks to not only hold much more capital than they did before the crisis, but also to allocate a larger share of their asset portfolios to highly liquid assets.</p>
<p>You can see this change by comparing the allocation of Bank of America's earning assets in 2007 to last year:</p>
<p>Data source: Bank of America and author's calculations.</p>
<p>There are two trends to note here. The first is that Bank of America decreased the proportion of its asset portfolio that's allocated to trading account assets by six percentage points. As opposed to reinvesting the proceeds, it deposited them at the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world, where it earns a mere 0.27% on the funds as opposed to the 3.30% yield generated by its trading account assets.</p>
<p>Second, Bank of America decreased the proportion of earning assets allocated to loans. In 2007, loans accounted for 55% of its cash and earning assets. By 2015, the percentage dropped to 47%. The funds were then invested into debt securities, which yielded an average of 2.41% last year compared to a yield of 3.67% on its loans.</p>
<p>The net result is that Bank of America is safer today than it was in 2007, as its asset portfolio is much more liquid, but it's also less profitable, given the lower yields associated with the heightened liquidity of its asset portfolio.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/20/heres-why-bank-of-america-is-so-much-safer-today-a.aspx" type="external">Here's Why Bank of America Is So Much Safer Today (and Less Profitable) Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/JohnMaxfield37/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">John Maxfield Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Bank of America. The Motley Fool recommends Bank of America. 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> | Here's Why Bank of America Is So Much Safer Today (and Less Profitable) | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/20/here-why-bank-america-is-so-much-safer-today-and-less-profitable.html | 2016-04-20 | 0 |
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<p>I’d like to learn more about his first marriage, but it’s clearly something from my father’s past that I can’t talk to him about. I also wouldn’t want to sour relations with his side of the family by bringing it up with them. What should I do? –</p>
<p>WANTS TO KNOW MORE</p>
<p>DEAR WANTS TO KNOW MORE: The shortest distance between two points is a direct line. How do you know this is “clearly” something your father won’t discuss? If his first marriage was a deep dark secret, those photos would not have been kept in an album. The solution to your question would be to tell him you saw them and ask him to tell you about it. He may have learned lessons from his first marriage from which you could benefit.</p>
<p>DEAR ABBY: I am a man in my late 20s dating my on-and-off-again boyfriend of five years. I dread the parties and family gatherings he brings me to. I’m polite and good at holding conversations, but generally quiet around his friends and family members I don’t know well.</p>
<p>He jokingly puts me down at each event and says things like, “Why do I even bring you?” or, “Thanks for not doing or saying anything” (which isn’t true). When I tell him afterward that I find his jibes offensive and suggest maybe he should date someone else who doesn’t irritate him at social events, he either plays it off as “joking” or says, “Well, it’s true.”</p>
<p>Any advice on how to handle this situation? – QUIET ONE IN PENNSYLVANIA</p>
<p>DEAR QUIET ONE: Humiliating someone isn’t funny; it is cruel. If the shoe were on the other foot, I’m sure your boyfriend wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end. If you have told him you don’t like his jibes and want them stopped and yet he persists, handle it by re-evaluating your relationship and looking for someone who is more sensitive to hang out with. If the ridicule happens often, it may be a clue that you are really not compatible.</p>
<p>DEAR ABBY: I lost my mother a month ago. I just could not accept it because she was always there for me through the good and bad times. I would like to know how long my grieving period will last for me. – SON MOURNING IN MICHIGAN</p>
<p>DEAR SON MOURNING: Please accept my sympathy for the loss of your mother. To answer your question, there is no set timetable for grief, and there are different stages of it. Right now, your grief is intense because it is fresh. With time, that intensity should fade to a level where it is tolerable. A grief support group could provide you the chance to talk about your feelings. Although you will always miss your mother, the sadness of her loss should not rule your life.</p>
<p>Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.</p>
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<p /> | DEAR ABBY: Family photo album reveals a surprise in father’s past | false | https://abqjournal.com/936770/headline-here.html | 2 |
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<p>Wind gusts reaching hurricane strength at 89 miles per hour blew over trees and power poles in Southern California over the weekend, leaving thousands without power.</p>
<p>More than 54,000 customers in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles had lost power after 3 a.m. on Saturday by the strong winds, which blew over a billboard in Burbank and dropped a huge tree into the kitchen of a Van Nuys residence, according to an <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-california-winds-20150124-story.html" type="external">Associated Press report</a>.</p>
<p>Another 1,700 residents in Fontana and Ontario east of Los Angeles were without power as well.</p>
<p>A wind gauge in San Diego run by the National Weather Service registered an 89 mph gust at 7:30 a.m., and an 82 mph gust int he Malibu hills that afternoon.</p>
<p>The winds subsided later in the day.</p>
<p>Experts believe the gusts were tied to a high-pressure ridge that brought hot temperatures, including a record-breaking 80 degrees in Newport Beach, which beat its 1990 record. In Laguna Beach and Santa Maria, the temperature was 82 degrees, which both tied records.</p>
<p>Known as the Santa Ana winds, they are created in the cooler months from westward currents that are squeezed through the mountain ranges of Southern California, causing humidity to drop and winds to increase. They can also lead to wildfires.</p>
<p>Authorities issued warnings of high surf of up to 11 feet that was effective through Sunday. Winds blew two kayakers out to sea near Malibu, and they were missing for about an hour before lifeguards were able to track them down and help them back to shore.</p>
<p /> | Hurricane-strength winds blast Southern California, knock out power | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/01/25/hurricane-strength-winds-blast-southern-california-knock-out-power/ | 2015-01-25 | 3 |
<p>Todrick Hall (Photo by Shawn Adeli)</p>
<p>Todrick Hall &#160; ‘Straight Outta Oz’ &#160; Tuesday, April 18 &#160; Wednesday, April 19 &#160; 8 p.m. &#160; Howard Theatre &#160; 620 T St., N.W. &#160; $35-100</p>
<p>Dancer, singer and YouTuber Todrick Hall has become a dance staple with his more than two million subscribers and videos earning millions of views.</p>
<p>The Beyoncé stan became known as an internet sensation for his medley mashups of her songs (as well as Rihanna, Arianna Grande and Taylor Swift). His “End of Time” Target dance flash mob video, where Hall and a group of dancers bust out a choreographed dance routine on unsuspecting shoppers, even grabbed the attention of the Queen B herself. Beyoncé posted a thank you to Hall on her own YouTube page.</p>
<p>His credentials reach beyond YouTube with Hall competing on “American Idol” and being a guest judge on “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Hall eventually took his talent to Broadway starring as Lola in “Kinky Boots” from November until March of this year.</p>
<p>The 32-year-old choreographer released “Straight Outta Oz,” a semi-autobiographical visual album in a similar vein as his idol Beyoncé’s “Lemonade,” in June with a rerelease of a deluxe edition in March. This time, the celebrities were singing Hall’s original work with appearances from RuPaul, Bob the Drag Queen, Amber Riley, Jordin Sparks, Raven Symoné, Tamar Braxton and more. “Straight Outta Oz” has now been adapted from the computer screen to stage with a live tour.</p>
<p>Hall took a break from rehearsing to speak with the Washington Blade on being out in the public eye, RuPaul’s life advice and just what happened to Lola’s boots.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON BLADE: What about “Wizard of Oz” did you feel such a personal connection to that you wanted to do your own version?</p>
<p>TODRICK HALL: I think subconsciously I’ve always felt that my life was parallel to Dorothy. I just didn’t realize that until last year. I grew up in a small town in Texas. I always knew there was something out there that was greater for me that I wanted to get out there and see. And that’s what Dorothy does. She knew that Oz was there. Even though she realizes in the end that there’s no place like home and that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, without those experiences she would have never realized those things. I feel like I have realized so many things and put my faith, trust and my career in other people’s hands when really I had the power all along to be able to control my destiny. I realized that and said this is a story that I have to write and tell. If I feel this way and so passionate about it, a lot of other people will feel this way and identify with this as well.</p>
<p>BLADE: The visual album was released in June but in March you released a deluxe edition. Did you think of the additions you made after the initial release?</p>
<p>HALL: No. The initial release was supposed to be much smaller, but I am a perfectionist and I always want to tell the story in full. For me, I said, “Well if you tell the story of Dorothy you have to have the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. If you have those four characters you have to have the Wizard and the Witch.” Eventually the visual album, which was supposed to be eight songs, turned into 16 songs. When we went on tour, my fans really loved the numbers that they were getting to watch that they knew and recognized. But they weren’t able to follow along to the songs that I wrote for the musical that were not a part of the tour. It got to a place where I was like, “I really want them to be able to hear the songs and the lyrics from the songs that we performed at the live concert last year that weren’t on the visual album.” So this year I rereleased it so that the songs that they didn’t know they could learn and be familiar with.</p>
<p>BLADE: The deluxe album has some big names like RuPaul and Raven-Symoné. Did you reach out to them to collaborate?&#160;</p>
<p>HALL: I reached out to them and I reached out very last minute. I was so thankful that they all were able to jump on board with sometimes 24-hours notice before they had to shoot the video.</p>
<p>BLADE: You’ve worked with RuPaul on your album and also you were a judge on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” for the last couple seasons. What’s the best piece of advice Ru gave you?</p>
<p>HALL: I don’t know if this is a piece of advice but the entire way that he looks at life. There was a moment of time when my MTV show was on television. It was airing and I was very nervous whether it would be successful. He said, “You need to live in the moment. You need to appreciate that the stars have aligned for you to have this moment and you can’t sit at home every day wondering whether or not it will be successful. It’s successful because it happened. If it doesn’t happen again, you’ll go on and have another opportunity.” My whole life I’ve always put so much pressure on each opportunity I’ve been given. We, as humans, do that often. We think that if this relationship doesn’t work, if this job isn’t the one that gets me to the top, if I don’t ace this test, then my life is over. It’s not the case. It’s a life experience. You will move on and you will be able to experience other things. That’s kind of what he taught me. So now when I’m doing a project, I give it 100 percent of my energy and then I leave that energy in that project and I say, “I hope that this does really well. But if it doesn’t, there’s a reason God gave me these gifts. So I can keep using them.” They’re not over, they’re not done, they’re not running out. I’ll go do something else. His whole insight about everything has really helped me be able to approach everything that I do with a much different lens.</p>
<p>BLADE: Your song “Water Guns” was a tribute to those who were lost to gun violence from the Pulse nightclub victims, to YouTuber Christina Grimmie and Trayvon Martin. All these people are parts of your identity: gay, YouTuber, black. How emotional was it for you to record?</p>
<p>HALL: It was very emotional for me to record. The inspiration for that song was a huge coincidence because I wrote it because I had a friend who got murdered. She was a police officer. Some people perceive that song to be a pro-Black Lives Matter song or an anti-police song. It’s not. My friend was actually an African-American police officer. She was shot and killed. I wrote the song because I’m very anti-guns and anti-violence in general. The night that I wrote the song Christina Grimmie got shot. The next night after we filmed the video the Pulse situation happened. So I went back and shot the scenes of me spray painting the names of these people because it couldn’t have been more relevant at the time that I wrote the song for my friend. That was a crazy coincidence and they both hit me really hard.</p>
<p>Pulse was one of my old stomping grounds. My first job out of high school was dancing at Walt Disney World. I knew a lot of people who worked at that club, I knew a lot of people who were there that night and some of the people who unfortunately didn’t make it out had pictures of me and them on their Instagram. These were people I didn’t know personally but I had met that were fans of mine and came to my concerts. It was just a very weird thing to think this was so close to home and that I could have been there that night. Every time I go to Orlando for my tours I go to Pulse afterward. It was a very scary thing for me and a really eye-opening thing to remind you how fragile life is and we should really live each day to the fullest.</p>
<p>BLADE: You were also on season nine of “American Idol.” You’ve mentioned before that you were concerned about being out while on the show. What made you decide to be out in your career?</p>
<p>HALL: When I was on the show I felt this pressure. They kept saying, “Appeal to middle America,” and what I translated that as was, “Don’t be so openly gay because that could offend people.” I don’t think they were saying it in a mean way. They just wanted me to be successful. After I was eliminated I realized that I got eliminated being someone I wasn’t. I would rather have been eliminated from the show for really showing people who I was. There was nothing I could have thought that was a worse feeling than getting eliminated when I didn’t even recognize the person that I was being on television. I vowed to myself after that, “I will be 100 percent myself and I will be out waving my flag and letting people know who I am.”</p>
<p>I felt it wasn’t important because it wasn’t any of their business. But it’s so important because it gives people that are coming out the confidence to say, “Well if Todrick did it, I can do it. If RuPaul did it, I can do it. If Joey Graceffa, Tyler Oakley, Kingsley and all these people who are such huge influencers online can do it than I can do it as well. There is a place for me in the entertainment industry and I don’t have to hide.” Like Colton Haynes has come out and is being celebrated and I hope and pray it doesn’t do anything negative for his career. He should not only be considered for gay roles, he should be able to play any role that he wants because that’s what actors do. It was very important for me to come and say who I truly am and I would rather maybe not reach the level of success I could have pretended to be straight. I’d rather reach the level of success that I can as the real me and be happy and free to be who I am.</p>
<p>BLADE: You just mentioned quite a few gay YouTubers. As a gay YouTuber yourself, what are your thoughts on the recent controversy of YouTube censoring LGBT content on its restricted mode?</p>
<p>HALL: I don’t know all the details. I don’t like to comment when I’m not educated on something. I was releasing my album during the time that this happened and flying from coast to coast. So I didn’t really get all the information about this. But I am positive that the gay community is so strong that if anything like that were to ever happen we would be able to get it banned and YouTube wouldn’t stand for it. YouTube has an entire department that is dedicated to the LGBTQ community. They do so much research and so much to help our community that I don’t believe this will stand.</p>
<p>BLADE: You have been busy. You just finished your run as Lola on Broadway in, “Kinky Boots.” Did they let you keep the boots?</p>
<p>HALL: Yes they did. My boots might be making a quick appearance in my upcoming tour as well.</p>
<p>BLADE: How do you go about translating the visual album to the stage?</p>
<p>HALL: It’s not a difficult transition for me because I love theater. As I was writing all the songs and shooting the videos I was already thinking of ways to bring it to life on stage. It’s not very complicated. The story kind of tells itself and the staging and a lot of the choreography is the same. We just have transitions that are not on the album still. There are three or four songs that you can only hear on the tour. I think it’s really fun to bring all those things to life on stage in front of everyone.</p>
<p>BLADE: How does it feel to bring “Straight Outta Oz” to D.C.?</p>
<p>HALL: D.C. is just one of my favorite cities to perform in. I love how much D.C. supports its fine arts. I love how much effort and energy they spend to make sure there are theaters there for people to perform in. I love specifically how the Howard Theatre is such a historical venue. It’s such a landmark for people who are African-American performers. I’m so honored to join the roster of legends of people who have performed there before me. There’s something about the energy in that building that just feels really epic. I’m so grateful to be able to get on that stage and share the story of a proud, gay black man. I think it’s very progressive and beautiful and I appreciate D.C. for supporting me the way they do.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Amber Riley</a> <a href="" type="internal">American Idol</a> <a href="" type="internal">Arianna Grande</a> <a href="" type="internal">Beyonce</a> <a href="" type="internal">Bob the Drag Queen</a> <a href="" type="internal">Christina Grimmie</a> <a href="" type="internal">Colton Haynes</a> <a href="" type="internal">Howard Theatre</a> <a href="" type="internal">Joey Graceffa</a> <a href="" type="internal">Jordin Sparks</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kingsley</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kinky Boots</a> <a href="" type="internal">Orlando massacre</a> <a href="" type="internal">Raven-Symone</a> <a href="" type="internal">Rihanna</a> <a href="" type="internal">RuPaul</a> <a href="" type="internal">RuPaul's Drag Race</a> <a href="" type="internal">Straight Outta Oz</a> <a href="" type="internal">Tamar Braxton</a> <a href="" type="internal">Taylor Swift</a> <a href="" type="internal">the Pulse nightclub</a> <a href="" type="internal">Todrick Hall</a> <a href="" type="internal">Trayvon Martin</a> <a href="" type="internal">Tyler Oakley</a> <a href="" type="internal">youtube</a></p> | Todrick Hall on his ‘Oz’ show, RuPaul, ‘Kinky Boots’ and more | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/04/12/todrick-hall-oz-show-rupaul-kinky-boots/ | 3 |
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<p>When news of Pakistan’s clandestine program involving its top nuclear scientist selling rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, blueprints for building an atomic bomb was uncovered last month, the world’s leaders waited, with baited breath, to see what type of punishment President Bush would bestow upon Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharaff.</p>
<p>Bush has, after all, spent his entire term in office talking tough about countries and dictators that conceal weapons of mass destruction and even tougher on individuals who supply rogue nations and terrorists with the means to build WMDs. For all intents and purposes, Pakistan and Musharraf fit that description.</p>
<p>Remember, Bush accused Iraq of harboring a cache of WMDs, which was the primary reason the United States launched a preemptive strike there a year ago, and also claimed that Iraq may have given its WMDs to al-Qaeda terrorists and/or Syria, weapons that, Bush said, could be used to attack the U.S.</p>
<p>Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top members of the administration reacted with shock when they found out that Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist, spent the past 15 years selling outlaw nations nuclear technology and equipment. So it was sort of a surprise when Bush, upon finding out about Khan’s proliferation of nuclear technology, let Pakistan off with a slap on the wrist. But it was all an act. In fact, it was actually a cover-up designed to shield Cheney because he knew about the proliferation for more than a decade and did nothing to stop it.</p>
<p>Like the terrorist attacks on 9-11, the Bush administration had mountains of evidence on Pakistan’s sales of nuclear technology and equipment to nations vilified by the U.S._nations that are considered much more of a threat than Iraq_but turned a blind eye to the threat and allowed it to happen.</p>
<p>In 1989, the year Khan first started selling nuclear secrets on the black-market; Richard Barlow, a young intelligence analyst working for the Pentagon prepared a shocking report for Cheney, who was then working as Secretary of Defense under the first President Bush administration: Pakistan built an atomic bomb and was selling its nuclear equipment to countries the U.S. said was sponsoring terrorism.</p>
<p>But Barlow’s findings, as reported in a January 2002 story in the magazine Mother Jones, were “politically inconvenient.”</p>
<p>“A finding that Pakistan possessed a nuclear bomb would have triggered a congressionally mandated cutoff of aid to the country, a key ally in the CIA’s efforts to support Afghan rebels fighting a pro-Soviet government. It also would have killed a $1.4-billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad,” Mother Jones reported.</p>
<p>Ironically, Pakistan, critics say, was let off the hook last month so the U.S. could use its borders to hunt for al-Qaeda leader and 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.</p>
<p>Cheney dismissed Barlow’s report because he desperately wanted to sell Pakistan the F-16 fighter planes. Several months later, a Pentagon official was told by Cheney to downplay Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities when he testified on the threat before Congress. Barlow complained to his bosses at the Pentagon and was fired.</p>
<p>“Three years later, in 1992, a high-ranking Pakistani official admitted that the country had developed the ability to assemble a nuclear weapon by 1987,” Mother Jones reported. “In 1998, Islamabad detonated its first bomb.”</p>
<p>During the time that Barlow prepared his report on Pakistan, Bryan Siebert an Energy Department analyst, was looking into Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program in Iraq. Siebert concluded that “Iraq has a major effort under way to produce nuclear weapons,” and said that the National Security Council should investigate his findings. But the Bush administration–which had been supporting Iraq as a counterweight to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran–ignored the report, the magazine reported.</p>
<p>“This was not a failure of intelligence,” Barlow told Mother Jones. “The intelligence was in the system.”</p>
<p>Cheney went to great lengths to cover-up Pakistan’s nuclear weaponry. In a New Yorker article published on March 29, 1993, &lt;http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?040119fr_archive0 2&gt;, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted Barlow as saying that some high-ranking members inside the CIA and the Pentagon lied to Congress about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal so as not to sacrifice the sale of the F-16 fighter planes to Islamabad, which was secretly equipped to deliver nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities and the had become so grave by the spring of 1990 that then CIA deputy director Richard Kerr said the Pakistani nuclear threat was worse than! the Cuban Missile crisis in the 1960s.</p>
<p>“It was the most dangerous nuclear situation we have ever faced since I’ve been in the U.S. government,” Kerr said in an interview with Hersh. “It may be as close as we’ve come to a nuclear exchange. It was far more frightening than the Cuban missile crisis.”</p>
<p>Presently, Kerr is leading the CIA’s review of prewar intelligence into the Iraqi threat cited by Bush.</p>
<p>Still, in l989 Cheney and others in the Pentagon and the CIA continued to hide the reality of Pakistan’s nuclear threat from members of Congress. Hersh explained in his lengthy New Yorker article that reasons behind the cover-up “revolves around the fact… that the Reagan Administration had dramatically aided Pakistan in its pursuit of the bomb.”</p>
<p>“President Reagan and his national-security aides saw the generals who ran Pakistan as loyal allies in the American proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan: driving the Russians out of Afghanistan was considered far more important than nagging Pakistan about its building of bombs. The Reagan Administration did more than forgo nagging, however; it looked the other way throughout the mid-nineteen-eighties as Pakistan assembled its nuclear arsenal with the aid of many millions of dollars’ worth of restricted, high-tech materials bought inside the United States. Such purchases have always been illegal, but Congress made breaking the law more costly in 198! 5, when it passed the Solarz Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act (the amendment was proposed by former Representative Stephen J. Solarz, Democrat of New York), providing for the cutoff of all military and economic aid to purportedly non-nuclear nations that illegally export or attempt to export nuclear-related materials from the United States.”</p>
<p>“The government’s ability to keep the Pakistani nuclear-arms purchases in America secret is the more remarkable because (since 1989) the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Department (under Cheney) have been struggling with an internal account of illegal Pakistani procurement activities, given by a former &lt;C.I.A&gt;. intelligence officer named Richard M. Barlow,” Hersh reported. “Barlow… was dismayed to learn, at first hand, that State Department and agency officials were engaged in what he concluded was a pattern of lying to and misleading Congress about Pakistan’s nuclear-purchasing activities.”</p>
<p>Hersh interviewed scores of intelligence and administration officials for his March 1993 New Yorker story and many of those individuals confirmed Barlow’s claims that Pakistani nuclear purchases was deliberately withheld from Congress by Cheney and other officials, for fear of provoking a cutoff in military and economic aid that would adversely affect the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>It seems that today, Cheney is advising President Bush to deal with Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation much in the same way he did more than a decade ago. Give the country a pass, lie to the public about the seriousness of the matter and tell Pakistan you’ll turn the other cheek if the country agrees to allow U.S. troops to use its borders to hunt for Bin Laden before the November election.</p>
<p>JASON LEOPOLD may be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Cheney Helped Cover-Up Nuclear Proliferation in 1989, So Pentagon Could Sell Pakistan Fighter Jets | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/03/08/cheney-helped-cover-up-nuclear-proliferation-in-1989-so-pentagon-could-sell-pakistan-fighter-jets/ | 2004-03-08 | 4 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-67992p1.html?cr=00&amp;pl=edit-00"&gt;miker&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
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<p>This week, 11 Muslim American civil rights organizations issued a plea to the GOP: stop alienating us.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.cair.com/" type="external">Council on American-Islamic Relations</a> (CAIR), along with 10 other groups, took out <a href="" type="internal">a full-page ad</a> in the conservative <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/" type="external">Washington Times</a> on Wednesday, offering “an open invitation to reassess your party’s current relationship with American Muslims.” Pointing out that while in the past the Muslim community largely voted Republican, the letter argues that “government-sanctioned discrimination against Muslims” and “despicable Islamophobic remarks”&#160;have driven away Muslim voters in recent years.</p>
<p><a href="http://islamicommentary.org/2012/12/john-zogby-the-muslim-influence-vote/" type="external">According to James Zogby</a>, the Arab American Institute’s (AAI) president, the GOP&#160;should have an opening with the Muslim American community because of its conservative values. CAIR National Legislative Director Corey Saylor agrees:&#160;“Muslims follow a conservative traditional religion and many of those values are reflected in the Republican party.” But the Party hasn’t tried very hard to capitalize on this;&#160;an August&#160; <a href="" type="internal">poll from the AAI</a> found that 47 percent of Republicans viewed Muslim Americans unfavorably.</p>
<p>And it hurt them come November. A post-election <a href="http://www.cair.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?ArticleID=26999&amp;&amp;name=n&amp;&amp;currPage=1" type="external">poll released by CAIR</a> (where I formerly interned) indicated that in a national survey of more than 650 American Muslim voters, 7 percent identified as Republicans, and only 4 percent voted for Romney. By contrast, in 2000, the American Muslim Political Coordination Counsel <a href="" type="internal">endorsed the Republican ticket</a> and <a href="http://www.mpac.org/programs/government-relations/dc-news-and-views/make-your-voice-heard-the-importance-of-voting.php" type="external">over 70 percent of Muslims voted for George W. Bush</a>.</p>
<p>This loss of Muslim voters could be due to increasing Islamophobic rhetoric and action taken by GOP&#160;politicians over the past couple of years, including <a href="" type="internal">Rep. Peter King’s hearings</a> on the radicalization of the Muslim community, Ill. Republican congressional candidate <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/13/679561/gop-rep-joe-walsh-muslims-are-trying-to-kill-americans-every-week/" type="external">Joe Walsh’s comment</a> that there is a “radical strain of Islam in this country,” and Herman Cain’s demand during the Republican primaries that any Muslim seeking a role in his cabinet would need to take <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnm0x3xeH_M" type="external">a loyalty oath</a>.&#160;By not denouncing these extreme voices, the Muslim organizations argue that the GOP is essentially giving them “tacit approval.”</p>
<p>2011 and 2012 also saw <a href="" type="internal">a flurry of anti-Sharia laws</a> being proposed throughout the country, with the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/kansas-governor-signs-bil_n_1547145.html" type="external">latest one passing in Kansas</a>. By CAIR’s count, of the 78 “bills or amendments aimed at interfering with Islamic religious practices” proposed in 2011-12, 73 were introduced by Republicans.</p>
<p>There are exceptions, of course. When Rep. Michele Bachmann accused Secretary of State <a href="" type="internal">Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison</a> of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, <a href="" type="internal">Sen. John McCain blasted Bachmann</a> for her “…specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for.” While appreciative of efforts like McCain’s, CAIR calls for stronger action against biased speech, increased efforts to engage Muslim voters, and opposition to discriminatory legislation.</p>
<p>Attacking Muslims may ultimately turn out to be a <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/anti-islam-caucus/" type="external">losing political strategy for the GOP</a>. CAIR published a round-up of how the <a href="" type="internal">“anti-Muslim caucus” fared</a> on November 6 and found that of the 11 members of Congress who make “repeated use of biased themes regarding Muslims,” four will not be returning for the 113th session. The seven who remain will need to weigh whether continuing to estrange Muslim voters—a group that’s concentrated in swing states like Florida, Ohio, and Virginia—is a risk they’re willing to take.&#160;</p>
<p>This post has been revised.</p>
<p /> | US Muslims to GOP: If You’re Trying to Lose Our Votes, You’re Doing a Good Job | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/muslim-americans-plea-gop-clean-your-act/ | 2012-12-07 | 4 |
<p>More than one Las Vegas city employee was disciplined after an investigation into alleged sex at a city fire station and a subsequent cover-up of the tryst.</p>
<p>The city’s internal investigation has wrapped up, but city officials won’t say how many employees were disciplined, who they are or what punishment they received.</p>
<p>“I can’t divulge who was involved,” Las Vegas Communications Director David Riggleman said. “I’m not at liberty to say what the discipline was.”</p>
<p>The Review-Journal in September <a href="" type="internal">obtained a document</a> alleging that in August a firefighter flouted department rules by having sex at a fire station. The firefighter who made the accusations also claimed that fire department supervisors tried to cover up the sexual encounter and intimidate the whistleblower.</p>
<p>None of the fire department employees named in the document have apparently been fired or demoted from the positions they held before the investigation, based on employment information provided by the city.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>When the allegations came to light in September, Las Vegas Councilwoman Michele Fiore raised questions about the whistleblower’s credibility. Fiore said Thursday she isn’t satisfied with the city’s handling of the situation.</p>
<p>“I’m on the side of our firefighters with this,” she said.</p>
<p>The conclusion of the investigation doesn’t necessarily mean the process is over, however. The firefighters’ union contract allows employees to challenge the city’s action by filing a grievance or take the issue to arbitration.</p>
<p>The Las Vegas Fire Department, the city’s human resources department and the city manager’s office investigated the claims.</p>
<p>An unauthorized visit to the fire department is a violation of Fire Department policy, whether or not sex is involved.</p>
<p>The August allegations of sex in a city fire house came months after former Las Vegas Fire Capt. Richard Loughry was <a href="" type="internal">charged with having sex</a> with a 15-year-old prostitute inside Station 47. He later resigned from the department and faces multiple felony charges.</p>
<p>In a news conference in May, Fire Chief Willie McDonald announced plans to <a href="" type="internal">install cameras</a> at fire station entrances to monitor visitors and activities. McDonald couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.</p>
<p>The department’s west valley Station 47 received the first round of camera installations in September. Cameras are installed at every station but Station 3, which is scheduled to undergo renovations before the cameras will be put in place, Riggleman said.</p>
<p>Contact Jamie Munks at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a> or 702-383-0340. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/JamieMunksRJ" type="external">@JamieMunksRJ</a> on Twitter.</p> | Las Vegas officials finish investigation into firehouse sex | false | https://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/las-vegas/las-vegas-officials-finish-investigation-into-firehouse-sex/ | 2017-12-21 | 1 |
<p>Civil society is rapidly deteriorating in Venezuela. Once a prosperous oil producer, the nation is slipping into a state of chaos that is beginning to resemble Somalia. And things just keep getting worse, says&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/hannahdreier" type="external">Hannah Dreier</a>, an Associated Press correspondent in Caracas.</p>
<p>“What we’re seeing right now is really the start of a humanitarian crisis,” she says. “What’s so strange and so unique to Venezuela is that they won’t take any international aid.</p>
<p>"I have readers who write to me and ask, ‘How can I help? I really want to do something — to give some money; some food to these people.’ The truth is they can’t, because all of that kind of help is prohibited. You can’t give these people medicine, you can’t give people food, you can’t even just give people $100, which would make a huge difference in anyone’s life here. ”</p>
<p>Food riots are breaking out daily, rolling blackouts are becoming a regular occurrence, and basic medical supplies are running out. As instability&#160;cripples the country, some fear that the Western Hemisphere will soon see its own refugee crisis.</p>
<p>“You hear stories almost daily now of people drowning trying to cross through the [border] rivers,” Dreier says. “People are dying on the bridge that they let some very sick people use to walk between [Venezuela and Colombia]. <a href="https://twitter.com/hannahdreier/status/737285356035448832" type="external">Airlines are also fleeing the country</a> — right now it’s very hard to get a flight out. ... It’s very isolated, and people who want to leave can’t because they don’t have the money to buy a plane ticket. Almost everyone I know wants to leave.”</p>
<p>International news out of Venezuela is also getting harder and harder to come by as some media outlets pack up. Those who have stayed are also facing danger.</p>
<p>“I recently had a group of armed gangs tell me that I needed to leave the neighborhood because I was a gringo imperialist,” Dreier says. “It can feel threatening, and there are also some issues with getting people accredited … Physically getting information from Venezuela to other countries has gotten very hard. There’s no international calling anymore so if something happens, I can’t just call up my editors. It also means that if you’re a Venezuelan — a lot of people have family in Colombia and the United States, and you can’t make those calls anymore.”</p>
<p>For the first time in years, Dreier&#160;can't find enough food.&#160;"That's really saying something because usually the problem is that food is too expensive for people to buy, but there's enough of it. Right now, even me with my access to dollars, even going to the black market, I can't find a lot of the things that I want."</p>
<p>The nation's educational system is also beginning to completely fail. Venezuela's 7 million schoolchildren have missed about 40 percent of their academic year, primarily because there is no one there to teach them. Like other civilians, educators must wait for hours in food lines, and some have gone missing or have been killed amid rising vigilantism.</p>
<p>“The school situation here is so sad —&#160;that was really one of the crown&#160;jewels of the socialist revolution,” Dreier says. &#160;“For years, schools were getting better and better, and it seemed like people really might escape poverty. But now, the estimates are that about 40 percent of teachers aren’t showing up — they’re in food lines and trying to make their own lives work. So you have these kids who risk their lives to get through the slums and get to their schools, and they show up and it’s like an all-day lunch hour — they’re just hanging out and waiting for someone to come teach them.”</p>
<p>At least 45 school cafeterias in Caracas have been robbed this year as the thieves search for school lunch supplies to sell on the black market. Dreier says the nation’s largest beer distributor has been taken over, too.</p>
<p>As the nation continues its downward spiral, activists are fighting to have a nationwide vote to recall President Nicolás Maduro from office.</p>
<p>“Polls show that a big majority of Venezuelans want him gone, but it’s very unlikely that the administration will let that vote go ahead,” she says. “Today, we have people who have to go and give their fingerprints to administrators to prove that they really do want to sign this petition to recall the president.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wnyc.org/story/venezuelas-failing-schools/" type="external">A version</a>of this story first appeared on PRI's <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/takeaway/" type="external">The Takeaway</a>, a daily national conversation. Additional reporting came from PRI's The World.&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | In desperate Venezuela, thieves target school cafeterias for food | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-06-21/venezuela-now-thieves-even-hit-school-cafeterias-food | 2016-06-21 | 3 |
<p>BERLIN (Reuters) – Volkswagen (DE:) said plans to spend about 560 million euros ($654 million) at its Argentinian plant to build a new sport-utility vehicle will yield about 2,500 new jobs.</p>
<p>News of the investment at Volkswagen’s (VW) automotive terminal in Pacheco was disclosed earlier on Friday by the governor of Buenos Aires province.</p>
<p>The German carmaker plans to launch 20 new models in Latin America by 2020, stoking demand with a goal of returning to profit in the region by that year, it said on Friday.</p>
<p>($1 = 0.8568 euros)</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Volkswagen says 560 million euros Argentina investment to create 2,500 jobs | false | https://newsline.com/volkswagen-says-560-million-euros-argentina-investment-to-create-2500-jobs/ | 2017-11-10 | 1 |
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Tuesday ordered the expulsion of 15 diplomats from Cuba’s embassy in Washington following last week’s U.S. move to pull more than half of its own diplomats out of Havana, a State Department official said.</p>
<p>The U.S. decisions were based on the Cuban government’s failure to do enough to protect American personnel in Cuba who have been targeted in mysterious “attacks” that have damaged their health, the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Cuban diplomats have been given seven days to leave.</p>
<p>The steps being taken by President Donald Trump’s administration mark a further blow to his predecessor Barack Obama’s policy of rapprochement between Washington and Havana, former Cold War foes.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | U.S. orders expulsion of 15 Cuban diplomats | false | https://newsline.com/u-s-orders-expulsion-of-15-cuban-diplomats/ | 2017-10-03 | 1 |
<p>The city of Las Vegas and Clark County inked an agreement this week to smooth some of the issues the two have squabbled over, including annexations and sewer service.</p>
<p>The Clark County Commission on Tuesday and the Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a 10-year agreement governing a number of land-use issues in the northwest portion of Las Vegas, where there are several large, land-locked “islands” of unincorporated Clark County land.</p>
<p>The city and county previously had an interlocal agreement governing land-use issues in the northwest portion of Las Vegas, but until recently the sides couldn’t reach a consensus to extend that agreement or strike a new deal.</p>
<p>Nat Hodgson, executive director of the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, told commissioners Tuesday that he appreciated the county and city’s efforts to revive the agreement.</p>
<p>“It’s the only thing I asked for Christmas this year,” he said. “Not being able to get sewer has kind of halted our home building in that area.”</p>
<p>City and non-city residents will pay the same rate for Las Vegas sewer service under the new agreement. The agreement allows non-city residents to connect to the city’s sewer system if the property owner provides the necessary infrastructure and pays sewer connection fees. That area of Las Vegas has seen a substantial amount of growth in recent years, and because the county’s system doesn’t extend north of Sahara Avenue, that’s meant anyone in those county islands that wants municipal sewer service must hook into the city’s system.</p>
<p>The interlocal agreement is effective immediately, but the City Council’s action Wednesday to allow for sewer service to properties outside the city’s boundaries is contingent on Clark County repealing an ordinance and withdrawing a bill draft request for the upcoming 2017 Nevada Legislature session. Both measures dealt with annexations.</p>
<p>At their zoning meeting Tuesday afternoon, commissioners introduced an ordinance to repeal the anti-annexation ordinance they approved in July. The commissioners will vote on the repeal on Jan. 4.</p>
<p>Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown thanked county and city staff who worked tirelessly to work through “politics” of this issue to “get back to the policy.”</p>
<p>“I think we’re back in the place we all wanted to get, including the city, and that’s to recognize, protect and preserve a very unique area both west of the 95 and east of the 95 that have been out there for decades and the city literally has grown up around it.”</p>
<p>The agreement also states that the city must agree with any annexation-related state legislation the county supports or sponsors. The City Council at nearly every meeting approves annexations, which must come at the request of the current property owner.</p>
<p>Jorge Cervantes, the city’s director of community development, said Wednesday the deal is workable for both sides and provides more certainty for residents in the northwest.</p>
<p>Annexation-related issues have been at the heart of the city-county tension that’s simmered over the past couple years. In September, city management presented the council with two options: maintain the status quo on annexations and the city’s sewer service area, or create a road map toward mending the relationship with the county with a series of measures that would see both local governments compromise.</p>
<p>Since then, the sides have taken the second path, either approving or working toward a series of measures that include the city annexing land, fire protection and sewer services. Since September, conversations with the county about these issues have happened every couple days, City Manager Betsy Fretwell said recently.</p>
<p>The county “islands” aren’t only in the northwest part of the city — Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian said she will push for the city to annex those areas in her south-central LasVegas ward, which is concentrated largely west of Interstate 15 and south of U.S. 95. Councilman Bob Coffin’s east Las Vegas ward has a county peninsula which he called “neglected,” and he’s wondered why the city doesn’t annex that.</p>
<p>“If they don’t want us to have it, they could at least take care of it,” Coffin said.</p>
<p>Contact Jamie Munks at [email protected] or 702-383-0340. Find <a href="https://twitter.com/JamieMunksRJ" type="external">@JamieMunksRJ</a> on Twitter. Contact Michael Scott Davidson at [email protected] or 702-477-3861. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/davidsonlvrj" type="external">@davidsonlvrj</a> on Twitter.</p> | Las Vegas City Council, Clark County land-use agreement could ease tensions | false | http://reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/las-vegas/las-vegas-city-council-clark-county-land-use-agreement-could-ease-tensions/ | 2016-12-21 | 1 |
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<p>Kohl’s is looking to hire more than 50,000 seasonal associates for the holidays. That could mean about 200 jobs in New Mexico’s five Kohl’s stores.</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Kohl’s is in the midst of a holiday hiring frenzy — one that could mean about 200 seasonal jobs in New Mexico.</p>
<p>The Wisconsin-based department store chain on Thursday announced its plans to hire more than 50,000 associates around the country for the 2013 holiday shopping season.</p>
<p>That means an average of 40 positions at each store, according to a company spokeswoman. New Mexico has five locations: Three in Albuquerque and one each in Santa Fe and Las Cruces.</p>
<p>Kohl’s holiday hiring began this month, and the jobs should be filled by mid-November.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>There were only 22 New Mexico job openings listed on the Kohl’s website on Thursday, but spokeswoman Sydney Hofer said the company will continue adding positions as the holiday season ramps up.</p>
<p>Seasonal associates can work anywhere from a few hours to more than 20 hours per week, according to a news release. Jobs include unloading trucks, freight processing, stocking and cash-register duties.</p>
<p>For more information about employment opportunities go online to kohlscareers.com.</p> | Want a holiday job? Kohl’s may add 200 in N.M. | false | https://abqjournal.com/265901/want-a-holiday-job-kohls-may-add-200-in-n-m.html | 2013-09-19 | 2 |
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Department of Public Safety is being sued by a Grants family who claims officers used excessive force, disrupting a birthday party, while searching their neighborhood last summer for an escaped prisoner.</p>
<p>Lawyer Adam Flores, who is representing the family, said his clients were victims of a massive, misguided show of police power. He detailed the event in a lawsuit filed last week in state district court, the Santa Fe New Mexican <a href="http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/state-police-face-lawsuit-for-civil-rights-violations/article_4a0a0c47-8009-5aad-bb65-690033c46e26.html" type="external">reported</a> .</p>
<p>“As manned and unmanned aircraft combed the skies, officers of the New Mexico State Police — some clad in olive combat fatigues and outfitted with high-powered assault rifles — drove their Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck (“Bearcat”) through the neighborhoods of Grants conducting a house-to-house search for the escapee,” Flores wrote.</p>
<p>The lawsuit claims officers entered the subdivision where Rueben Olveda was hosting a barbecue in celebration of his 21st birthday in June.</p>
<p>The people in Olveda’s home were ordered outside while officers pointed guns at them. They were handcuffed, frisked for weapons and held in hot patrol units for an hour or more while officers ransacked the home, according to the complaint.</p>
<p>The family also claimed that multiple officers trained their weapons on a 9-year-old girl who was holding an infant.</p>
<p>The complaint seeks damages for each of the adults and children at the home during the raid.</p>
<p>State police declined to comment on the pending litigation.</p>
<p>Police recaptured the prisoner several days later. He had no connection to the family.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs say officers asked them almost nothing about the escaped prisoner but ran criminal background checks on them.</p>
<p>Their lawsuit claims officers told a 13-year-old girl she was being detained so police could investigate her immigration status and threatened to call child protective services on a woman who returned after leaving her two children at the home with family members while she went to the store.</p>
<p>According to the complaint, one officer called the decision to raid the home “a wild goose chase” while others allegedly minimized the incident.</p>
<p>The family contends that authorities failed to preserve footage from their dash cameras and from belt tape recordings, thereby concealing their conduct at the scene.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, <a href="http://www.sfnewmexican.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.sfnewmexican.com" type="external">http://www.sfnewmexican.com</a></p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Department of Public Safety is being sued by a Grants family who claims officers used excessive force, disrupting a birthday party, while searching their neighborhood last summer for an escaped prisoner.</p>
<p>Lawyer Adam Flores, who is representing the family, said his clients were victims of a massive, misguided show of police power. He detailed the event in a lawsuit filed last week in state district court, the Santa Fe New Mexican <a href="http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/state-police-face-lawsuit-for-civil-rights-violations/article_4a0a0c47-8009-5aad-bb65-690033c46e26.html" type="external">reported</a> .</p>
<p>“As manned and unmanned aircraft combed the skies, officers of the New Mexico State Police — some clad in olive combat fatigues and outfitted with high-powered assault rifles — drove their Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck (“Bearcat”) through the neighborhoods of Grants conducting a house-to-house search for the escapee,” Flores wrote.</p>
<p>The lawsuit claims officers entered the subdivision where Rueben Olveda was hosting a barbecue in celebration of his 21st birthday in June.</p>
<p>The people in Olveda’s home were ordered outside while officers pointed guns at them. They were handcuffed, frisked for weapons and held in hot patrol units for an hour or more while officers ransacked the home, according to the complaint.</p>
<p>The family also claimed that multiple officers trained their weapons on a 9-year-old girl who was holding an infant.</p>
<p>The complaint seeks damages for each of the adults and children at the home during the raid.</p>
<p>State police declined to comment on the pending litigation.</p>
<p>Police recaptured the prisoner several days later. He had no connection to the family.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs say officers asked them almost nothing about the escaped prisoner but ran criminal background checks on them.</p>
<p>Their lawsuit claims officers told a 13-year-old girl she was being detained so police could investigate her immigration status and threatened to call child protective services on a woman who returned after leaving her two children at the home with family members while she went to the store.</p>
<p>According to the complaint, one officer called the decision to raid the home “a wild goose chase” while others allegedly minimized the incident.</p>
<p>The family contends that authorities failed to preserve footage from their dash cameras and from belt tape recordings, thereby concealing their conduct at the scene.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, <a href="http://www.sfnewmexican.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.sfnewmexican.com" type="external">http://www.sfnewmexican.com</a></p> | Family sues New Mexico police over civil rights violations | false | https://apnews.com/40f9428bf7644a8e9e55b3cfc0e25542 | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
<p>ROGER STONE: In the end, as Donald Trump has said, I have a genuine fear that they will try to rig the outcome. &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>[…]</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton and her husband know that if Donald Trump wins this election, they will be prosecuted. They will probably go to prison. And therefore they’re not above stealing this.</p>
<p>Previously:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Fox News Mainstreams Trump's "Conspiratorial" Claims Of A “Rigged” Election</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Roger Stone Tells Alex Jones He Will Be "Laying Out A Very Specific Plan" To Fight The "Effort To Steal The Next Election"&#160;</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">CNN's Stelter Blasts "Conspiratorial" Trump For "Preposterous" Charges Of A Rigged Election</a></p> | Trump Ally Roger Stone: The Clintons Will Try To Rig The Election Because "They Will Probably Go To Prison" Under President Trump | true | http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/08/08/trump-ally-roger-stone-clintons-will-try-rig-election-because-they-will-probably-go-prison-under/212239 | 2016-08-08 | 4 |
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>Eight Democratic senators including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and former Saturday Night Live star Al Franken asked the Department of Education in a letter Dec. 18&#160;to make public the names of colleges and universities asking for Title IX waivers that allow them to discriminate against LGBT students.</p>
<p>Senators Ron Wyden, Patty Murray, Jeff Merkley, Edward Markey, Barbara Boxer and Tammy Baldwin joined in the letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan asking for greater transparency in the waiver process to Title IX, a federal law passed in 1972 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity.</p>
<p>“We are concerned these waivers allow for discrimination under the guise of religious beliefs,” the senators <a href="http://thecolu.mn/21974/franken-dept-ed-publish-names-schools-ask-discriminate" type="external">said</a>. “Already we have seen this same path used in our legal system to undermine benefits for women, and used to facilitate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”</p>
<p>The Column, a nonprofit LGBT media organization in Minnesota, recently <a href="http://thecolu.mn/21270/dozens-christian-schools-win-title-ix-waivers-ban-lgbt-students" type="external">reported</a> the names of nearly three dozen private Christian colleges and universities asking the government to waive Title IX restrictions compiled from documents&#160;obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in July. More than a dozen of the schools are affiliated with Baptist state conventions.</p>
<p>Similar language recommended to Baptist schools by Southern Baptist Convention attorney Jim Guenther sought waiver from Title IX provisions that “would not be consistent with the [Southern Baptist] Convention’s religious tenets regarding marriage, sex outside of marriage, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy and abortion.”</p>
<p>Schools began requesting such waivers after the Obama administration&#160; <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/transgender-students-protected-under-title-ix" type="external">issued</a> guidance in 2014 that the Title IX discrimination prohibition “extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity.”&#160;</p>
<p>In September the Christian Legal Society hosted a <a href="http://clsnet.org/school-guidance" type="external">webinar</a> for religious schools and colleges offering guidance on same-sex issues in light of the June Supreme Court ruling in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556" type="external">Obergefell v. Hodges</a> legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states, along with a white paper and <a href="http://clsnet.org/document.doc?id=874" type="external">sample policies</a> to safeguard against potential litigation.</p>
<p>According to The Column, total enrollment of schools that have received Title IX waivers tops 80,000 students and nearly $130 million in federal student aid and research dollars. The senators asked the Education Department to publish the waiver requests and responses on a searchable website accessible to the public.</p>
<p>“At the very minimum, we believe students, parents and taxpayers have a right to know when institutions of higher education —&#160;as recipients of tax dollars —&#160;seek and receive exemptions under Title IX as well as the justifications for those exemptions,” they said.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.soulforce.org/" type="external">Soulforce</a>, an LGBT rights organization founded in 1998 by Mel White —&#160;a ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham and Pat Robertson before he came out as gay&#160;—&#160;held a strategy and action call Dec. 23 with students at schools that have received or requested religious exemptions to Title IX.</p>
<p>Soulforce has visited 13 of the schools during its Equality Ride, a periodic bus tour where young adults travel to conservative Christian schools to discuss homosexuality with students and administrators.</p>
<p>“We have spent more time&#160;debating with school presidents about their ‘right to discriminate’&#160;than the substance of the impact of their discrimination,” said a Soulforce fundraising letter.</p>
<p>In the future Soulforce, now led by one-time Equality Ride co-director Haven Herrin, plans to organize students on campuses affected by the Title IX waivers to raise awareness about their impact on students and faculty.</p>
<p>Previous stories:</p>
<p><a href="ministry/organizations/item/30758-alumni-pair-ask-carson-newman-to-revoke-title-ix-waiver" type="external">Alumni pair ask Carson-Newman to revoke Title IX waiver</a></p>
<p><a href="culture/social-issues/item/30749-baptist-schools-seek-waiver-from-lbgt-discrimination-ban" type="external">Baptist schools seek waiver from LBGT discrimination ban</a></p>
<p><a href="archives/item/3629-equality-riders-arrested-brat-union-university" type="external">Equality Riders arrested at Union University</a></p> | Senators ask government to publish names of schools requesting Title IX waivers | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/senators-ask-government-to-publish-names-of-schools-requesting-title-ix-waivers/ | 3 |
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<p>Stocks are surging after the government reported a burst of hiring last month.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 207 points, or 1.3 percent, to 17,008 as of 12:45 p.m. Eastern time Friday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor's 500 rose 22 points, or 1.2 percent, to 1,969.</p>
<p>The government reported that employers added 248,000 jobs in September. The unemployment rate fell to 5.9 percent, the lowest since July 2008.</p>
<p>The dollar surged 1 percent against the euro and the yen as traders anticipated higher U.S. interest rates and economic growth. Prices for gold and U.S. government bonds fell for the same reason.</p> | Dow Jones industrial average surges 200 following jump in hiring by US employers last month | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/10/03/dow-jones-industrial-average-surges-200-following-jump-in-hiring-by-us.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>On July 18, the White House convened a forum on disability and criminal justice reform. Ronald Hampton, an advisory board member for the National Association for Police Accountability, was a panelist at the event. A retired police officer with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department with more than 20 years on the force, Mr. Hampton is the father of an adult son with autism. He shared his concern for his son interacting with police, given the possibility for misunderstanding in such situations. He and other parents of children with autism in the metro D.C. area have developed a support system and phone network so they can call each other, rather than calling police, when assistance is needed.</p>
<p>That same day in North Miami, Fla., police shot Charles Kinsey in the leg as he was attempting to assist a man with autism who had wandered from his group home. Kinsey, a behavioral therapist at the group home, located the man with autism who was sitting in the street playing with a toy truck. In a cell phone video of the incident, Kinsey can be heard trying to calm the man while telling police he was holding a toy truck, not a gun. The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/21/fla-police-shoot-black-man-with-his-hands-up-as-he-tries-to-help-autistic-patient/?tid=sm_fb" type="external">reported</a> that a police union representative indicated “the officer was aiming for the man with autism — apparently thinking he was armed — and was trying to protect Kinsey.”</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the Ruderman Family Foundation released a <a href="http://www.rudermanfoundation.org/news-and-events/ruderman-white-paper" type="external">report</a> noting that individuals with disabilities comprise one-third to one-half of all people killed by law enforcement officers and are “the majority of those killed in use-of-force cases that attract widespread attention. This is true both for cases deemed illegal or against policy and for those in which officers are ultimately fully exonerated.” The report faults the media for ignoring the disability component in these stories or telling them in ways that intensify stigma and ableism.</p>
<p>According to the report, “When we leave disability out of the conversation or only consider it as an individual medical problem, we miss the ways in which disability intersects with other factors that often lead to police violence. Conversely, when we include disability at the intersection of parallel social issues, we come to understand the issues better, and new solutions emerge.”</p>
<p>One of these solutions is the use of crisis intervention teams in law enforcement. States and localities that have employed these teams have seen fewer injuries and deaths among officers and people with psychiatric or intellectual and developmental disabilities, increased jail diversion rates, fewer lawsuits following crisis incidents, and stronger ties with mental health and disability communities.</p>
<p>In addition, appointing police liaison officers and deploying specialized police officers and non-police officers, including police chaplains trained in crisis intervention techniques, improves police responses in situations involving psychiatric and other disabilities through the delivery of specialized knowledge, skills and experience. And better training of police officers to understand intellectual and developmental disabilities and psychiatric disabilities improves interactions between police and individuals with disabilities in crisis situations.</p>
<p>Most important, however, is ensuring that people with disabilities receive the community services they need and preventing these law enforcement encounters from happening in the first place. We must stop using our law enforcement system as a substitute for a failing disability service system. The rates of justice involvement among people with disabilities reflect in large part the failure to offer people services such as supportive housing, employment services and mobile crisis services. Providing these services to more individuals who need them would enable us to avoid many preventable deaths of individuals with disabilities during encounters with law enforcement, avoid spending costly sums on incarcerating individuals with disabilities in jails and prisons where they are poorly served, and prevent arrests and convictions that follow individuals for the rest of their lives, making it substantially more difficult for them to obtain housing and employment and reintegrate successfully into community life.</p>
<p>Faith communities can support these efforts by advocating for improved training of police officers that serve their communities and by reaching out to parents of children with disabilities to better understand their circumstances and how to be a part of their network of support. The <a href="http://autisticadvocacy.org/" type="external">Autistic Self Advocacy Network</a>, <a href="http://www.ncil.org/" type="external">National Council on Independent Living</a> and other organizations serving the disability community offer resources and points of connection.</p>
<p>Working together we can improve interactions between law enforcement and people with disabilities, to the overall benefit of both officers and citizens alike.</p>
<p>Reprinted with permission of the <a href="http://www.aapd.com/improving-police-interactions-with-people-with-disabilities/" type="external">American Association of People with Disabilities</a>.</p> | What would it take to improve police interactions with people with disabilities? | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/what-would-it-take-to-improve-police-interactions-with-people-with-disabilities/ | 3 |
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<p>The real story of the German election, which has not been accurately reported in the American corporate media, is that the left won.</p>
<p>The combined tallies of the ruling Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder, its coalition partner the Green Party, and a new leftist party, the Left Party, composed of the former Communist Party of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and breakaway leftists from the SDP, add up to almost 52 percent of the vote, and represent a majority of the Bundestag, the German parliament.</p>
<p>But Schroeder and the SDP, which like Tony Blair and the British Labour Party, has moved decisively away from its socialist roots and traditions, are vowing not to cut a deal with the Left Party, which of course, would be able to demand significant concessions (and important cabinet posts) from the SDP on things like continued funding of social programs, protection of unions and union jobs, and the like in return for its participation in the government.</p>
<p>Absent such an agreement with the Left Party, Schroeder would have to cut a deal with the economically conservative Free Democratic Party, which would pull the coalition much farther to the right than even the main SDP membership wants. There is also the risk that the Greens would refuse to join such a coalition, leaving the SDP still without a governing majority.</p>
<p>In the end, absent selling his party’s soul to the FDP (which would likely lead to further SDP defections to the Left Party), Schroeder’s only real choices are to accept a coalition that includes the Left Party, or to agree to a secondary role in a so-called “grand coalition” with the Conservative Union of his opponent, Angela Merkel, who has been described as a German Margaret Thatcher, hell-bent on dragging Germany and Germans away from the welfare state and into an American-style society where the rich get to keep their money and losers are left by the wayside to fend for themselves.</p>
<p>The reality shown in the election results is that a majority of Germans don’t want to see such a disaster foisted upon them, but you wouldn’t know that from following the American press, which was rooting for a big Merkel win, characterized typically in pre-election reports as a victory for “reform.”</p>
<p>Schroeder himself, and his SDP, have clearly taken a deserved drubbing, but not because they have been pursuing a socialist political model. It is defections to the left, in the form of the Left Party, that forced the chancellor to call early elections, and that have left him without a governing majority to stay in power.</p>
<p>Germans, despite 11 percent unemployment, are not clamoring for Thatcherism. Indeed, Merkel’s CDU, with 35.2 percent of the vote, suffered one of its worst electoral showings, garnering only .9 percent more votes and 3 more seats than Schroeder’s own discredited and fractured SDP.</p>
<p>The newly formed Left Party, in its first national election foray, garnered 8.7 percent of the vote, out-polling the Green Party-not a bad showing when one considers how many Left Party sympathizers must have held their noses and voted for Schroeder and the SDP, fearing that polls predicting a Merkel win might have been correct.</p>
<p>The U.S. media seem unwilling to admit that a country as economically well off, and as socially and politically conservative, as Germany, might have a majority that favors socialist or progressive solutions to economic and social problems, and might reject a candidate as sympathetic to American political views and American foreign policy as Merkel and the CDU, but that is the real message of the German election.</p>
<p>Whatever the outcome of intraparty negotiations to form a new government, it is clear that a majority of Germans still want a government that protects workers, protects the elderly, and that controls corporate power, and that maintains a foreign policy independent of the U.S.</p>
<p>DAVE LINDORFF is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512283/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal</a>. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512984/counterpunchmaga" type="external">This Can’t be Happening!</a>” is published by Common Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff can be found at <a href="http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/" type="external">www.thiscantbehappening.net</a>.</p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>CLARIFICATION</p>
<p>ALEXANDER COCKBURN, JEFFREY ST CLAIR, BECKY GRANT AND THE INSTITUTE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC CLARITY, COUNTERPUNCH</p>
<p>We published an article entitled “A Saudiless Arabia” by Wayne Madsen dated October 22, 2002 (the “Article”), on the website of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity, CounterPunch, www.counterpunch.org (the “Website”).</p>
<p>Although it was not our intention, counsel for Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi has advised us the Article suggests, or could be read as suggesting, that Mr Al Amoudi has funded, supported, or is in some way associated with, the terrorist activities of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network.</p>
<p>We do not have any evidence connecting Mr Al Amoudi with terrorism.</p>
<p>As a result of an exchange of communications with Mr Al Amoudi’s lawyers, we have removed the Article from the Website.</p>
<p>We are pleased to clarify the position.</p>
<p>August 17, 2005</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Real Story of the German Elections | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/09/21/the-real-story-of-the-german-elections/ | 2005-09-21 | 4 |
<p>Illustration: Gina Triplett</p>
<p>THE INTERNET CAFÉ in the Fijian capital, Suva, was usually open all night long. Dimly lit, with rows of sleek, modern terminals, the place was packed at all hours with teenage boys playing boisterous rounds of video games. But one day soon after I arrived, the staff told me they now had to shut down by 5 p.m. Police orders, they shrugged: The country’s <a href="" type="internal">military junta</a> had declared martial law a few days before, and things were a bit tense.</p>
<p>I sat down and sent out a few emails—filling friends in on my visit to the Fiji Water bottling plant, forwarding a story about foreign journalists being kicked off the island. Then my connection died. “It will just be a few minutes,” one of the clerks said.</p>
<p>Moments later, a pair of police officers walked in. They headed for a woman at another terminal; I turned to my screen to compose a note about how cops were even showing up in the Internet cafés. Then I saw them coming toward me. “We’re going to take you in for questioning about the emails you’ve been writing,” they said.</p>
<p>What followed, in a windowless room at the main police station, felt like a bad cop movie. “Who are you really?” the bespectacled inspector wearing a khaki uniform and a smug grin asked me over and over, as if my passport, press credentials, and stacks of notes about Fiji Water weren’t sufficient clues to my identity. (My <a href="" type="internal">iPod</a>, he surmised tensely, was “good for transmitting information.”) I asked him to call my editors, even a UN official who could vouch for me. “Shut up!” he snapped. He rifled through my bags, read my notebooks and emails. “I’d hate to see a young lady like you go into a jail full of men,” he averred, smiling grimly. “You know what happened to women during the 2000 coup, don’t you?”</p>
<p>Eventually, it dawned on me that his concern wasn’t just with my potentially seditious emails; he was worried that my reporting would taint the Fiji Water brand. “Who do you work for, another water company? It would be good to come here and try to take away Fiji Water’s business, wouldn’t it?” Then he switched tacks and offered to protect me—from other Fijian officials, who he said would soon be after me—by letting me go so I could leave the country. I walked out into the muggy morning, hid in a stairwell, and called a Fijian friend. Within minutes, a US Embassy van was speeding toward me on the seawall.</p>
<p>Until that day, I hadn’t fully appreciated the paranoia of Fiji’s military regime. The junta had been declared unconstitutional the previous week by the country’s second highest court; in response it had abolished the judiciary, banned unauthorized public gatherings, delayed elections until 2014, and clamped down on the media. (Only the “journalism of hope” is now permitted.) The prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, promised to root out corruption and bring democracy to a country that has seen four coups in the past 25 years; the government said it will start working on a new constitution in 2012.</p>
<p>The slogan on Fiji Water’s <a href="http://www.fijiwater.com/Ecosystem.aspx" type="external">website</a>—”And remember this—we saved you a trip to Fiji”—suddenly felt like a dark joke. Every day, more soldiers showed up on the streets. When I called the courthouse, not a single official would give me his name. Even tour guides were running scared—one told me that one of his colleagues had been picked up and beaten for talking politics with tourists. When I later asked Fiji Water spokesman Rob Six what the company thought of all this, he said the policy was not to comment on the government “unless something really affects us.”</p>
<p />
<p>The Audacity of Branding Seizing on the bottles’ ubiquity, Tourism Fiji has taken to circulating a photo of President Obama at an event featuring Fiji Water.</p>
<p>If you drink <a href="" type="internal">bottled water</a>, you’ve probably drunk Fiji. Or wanted to. Even though it’s shipped from the opposite end of the globe, even though it retails for nearly three times as much as your basic supermarket water, Fiji is now America’s leading imported water, beating out Evian. It has spent millions pushing not only the seemingly life-changing properties of the product itself, but also the company’s green cred and its charity work. Put all that together in an iconic bottle emblazoned with a cheerful hibiscus, and everybody, from the Obamas to <a href="" type="internal">Paris</a> and Nicole to Diddy and Kimora, is seen sipping Fiji.</p>
<p>That’s by design. Ever since a Canadian mining and real estate mogul named David Gilmour launched Fiji Water in 1995, the company has positioned itself squarely at the nexus of pop-culture glamour and progressive politics. Fiji Water’s chief marketing whiz and co-owner (with her husband, Stewart) is Lynda Resnick, a well-known liberal donor who casually name-drops her friends <a href="" type="internal">Arianna Huffington</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Laurie David</a>. (“Of course I know everyone in the world,” Resnick told the UK’s Observer in 2005, “every mogul, every movie star.”) Manhattan’s trendy Carlyle hotel pours only Fiji Water in its dog bowls, and this year’s <a href="" type="internal">SXSW</a> music festival featured a Fiji Water Detox Spa. “Each piece of lobster sashimi,” celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa declared in 2007, “should be dipped into Fiji Water seven to ten times.”</p>
<p />
<p>Drinking Buds Fiji Water owner Lynda Resnick, pictured with Arianna Huffington, has aimed her brand squarely at the nexus of glamour and green.</p>
<p>And even as bottled water has come under attack as the embodiment of waste, Fiji seems immune. Fiji Water took out a full-page ad in <a href="" type="internal">Vanity Fair‘s 2007 green issue</a>, nestled among stories about the death of the world’s water. Two bottles sat on a table between <a href="" type="internal">Al Gore</a> and Mos Def during a 2006 MySpace “Artist on Artist” discussion on climate change. Fiji was what panelists sipped at the “Life After Capitalism” conference held in New York City during the 2004 RNC protests; Fiji reps were even credentialed at last year’s Democratic convention, where they handed out tens of thousands of bottles.</p>
<p>Nowhere in Fiji Water’s glossy marketing materials will you find reference to the typhoid outbreaks that plague Fijians because of the island’s faulty water supplies; the corporate entities that Fiji Water has—despite the owners’ talk of financial transparency—set up in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg; or the fact that its signature bottle is made from Chinese plastic in a diesel-fueled plant and hauled thousands of miles to its ecoconscious consumers. And, of course, you won’t find mention of the military junta for which Fiji Water is a major source of global recognition and legitimacy. (Gilmour has described the square bottles as “little ambassadors” for the poverty-stricken nation.)</p>
<p>“We are Fiji,” declare Fiji Water posters across the island, and the slogan is almost eerily accurate: The reality of Fiji, the country, has been eclipsed by the glistening brand of Fiji, the water.</p>
<p>ON THE MAP, Fiji looks as if someone dropped a fistful of confetti on the ocean. The country is made up of more than 300 islands (100 inhabited) that have provided the setting for everything from The Blue Lagoon to Survivor to Cast Away. Suva is a bustling multicultural hub with a mix of shopping centers, colonial buildings, and curry houses; some 40 percent of the population is of Indian ancestry, descendants of indentured sugarcane workers brought in by the British in the mid-19th century. (The Indian-descended and native communities have been wrangling for power ever since.) The primary industries are tourism and sugar. Fiji Water says its operations make up about 20 percent of exports and 3 percent of GDP, which stands at $3,900 per capita.</p>
<p>Getting to the Fiji Water factory requires a bone-jarring four-hour trek into the volcanic foothills of the Yaqara Valley. My bus’ speakers blasted an earsplitting soundtrack of Fijian reggae, Bob Marley, Tupac, and Big Daddy Kane as we swerved up unpaved mountain roads linked by rickety wooden bridges. Cow pastures ringed by palm trees gave way to villages of corrugated-metal shacks and wooden homes painted in Technicolor hues. Chickens scurried past stands selling cell phone minutes. Sugarcane stalks burning in the fields sent a sweet smoke curling into the air.</p>
<p>Our last rest stop, half an hour from the bottling plant, was Rakiraki, a small town with a square of dusty shops and a marketplace advertising “Coffin Box for Sale—Cheapest in Town.” My Lonely Planet guide warned that Rakiraki water “has been deemed unfit for human consumption,” and groceries were stocked with Fiji Water going for 90 cents a pint—almost as much as it costs in the US.</p>
<p>Rakiraki has experienced the full range of Fiji’s water problems—crumbling pipes, a lack of adequate wells, dysfunctional or flooded water treatment plants, and droughts that are expected to get worse with climate change. Half the country has at times relied on emergency water supplies, with rations as low as four gallons a week per family; dirty water has led to outbreaks of typhoid and parasitic infections. Patients have reportedly had to cart their own water to hospitals, and schoolchildren complain about their pipes spewing shells, leaves, and frogs. Some Fijians have taken to smashing open fire hydrants and bribing water truck drivers for a regular supply.</p>
<p>Suva, Fiji – Photo by Anna Lenzer</p>
<p>The bus dropped me off at a deserted intersection, where a weather-beaten sign warning off would-be trespassers in English, Fijian, and Hindi rattled in the tropical wind. Once I reached the plant, the bucolic quiet gave way to the hum of machinery spitting out some 50,000 square bottles (made on the spot with plastic imported from China) per hour. The production process spreads across two factory floors, blowing, filling, capping, labeling, and shrink-wrapping 24 hours a day, five days a week. The company won’t disclose its total sales; Fiji Water’s vice president of corporate communications told me the estimate of 180 million bottles sold in 2006, given in a legal declaration by his boss, was wrong, but declined to provide a more solid number.</p>
<p>From here, the bottles are shipped to the four corners of the globe; the company—which, unlike most of its competitors, offers detailed carbon-footprint estimates on its website—insists that they travel on ships that would be making the trip anyway, and that the Fiji payload only causes them to use 2 percent more fuel. In 2007, Fiji Water announced that it planned to go carbon negative by offsetting 120 percent of emissions via conservation and energy projects starting in 2008. It has also promised to reduce its pre-offset carbon footprint by 25 percent next year and to use 50 percent renewable energy, in part by installing a windmill at the plant.</p>
<p>The offsetting effort has been the centerpiece of Fiji Water’s $5 million “Fiji Green” marketing blitz, which brazenly urges consumers to drink imported water to fight climate change. The Fiji Green website claims that because of the 120-percent carbon offset, buying a big bottle of Fiji Water creates the same carbon reduction as walking five blocks instead of driving. Former Senior VP of Sustainable Growth Thomas Mooney noted in a 2007 Huffington Post blog post that “we’d be happy if anyone chose to drink nothing but Fiji Water as a means to keep the sea levels down.” (Metaphorically speaking, anyway: As the online trade journal ClimateBiz has reported, Fiji is using a “forward crediting” model under which it takes credit now for carbon reductions that will actually happen over a few decades.)</p>
<p>Fiji Water has also vowed to use at least 20 percent less packaging by 2010—which shouldn’t be too difficult, given its bottle’s above-average heft. (See “ <a href="/politics/2009/09/how-far-did-voss-and-san-pellegrino-travel-my-whole-foods" type="external">Territorial Waters</a>.”) The company says the square shape makes Fiji Water more efficient in transport, and, hey, it looks great: Back in 2000, a top official told a trade magazine that “What Fiji Water’s done is go out there with a package that clearly looks like it’s worth more money, and we’ve gotten people to pay more for us.”</p>
<p>Selling long-distance water to green consumers may be a contradiction in terms. But that hasn’t stopped Fiji from positioning its product not just as an indulgence, but as an outright necessity for an elite that can appreciate its purity. As former Fiji Water CEO Doug Carlson once put it, “If you like Velveeta cheese, processed water is okay for you.” (“All waters are not created equal” is another long-standing Fiji Water slogan.) The company has gone aggressively after its main competitor—tap water—by calling it “not a real or viable alternative” that can contain “4,000 contaminants,” unlike Fiji’s “living water.” “You can no longer trust public or private water supplies,” co-owner Lynda Resnick wrote in her book, Rubies in the Orchard.</p>
<p>A few years back, Fiji Water canned its waterfall logo and replaced it with a picture of palm fronds and hibiscus: “Surface water!” Resnick wrote in Rubies. “Why would you want to suggest that Fiji came from surface water? The waterfall absolutely had to go.” One company newsletter featured the findings of a salt-crystal purveyor who claimed that Fiji Water rivals the “known and significant abilities of ‘Holy Healing Waters’ in Lourdes, France or Fatima, Portugal.” Switching effortlessly from Catholic mysticism to sci-fi, he added that the water’s “electromagnetic field frequency enables Fiji Water to stimulate our human self-regulation system.”</p>
<p>In keeping with this rarefied vibe, Fiji Water’s marketing has focused on product placement more than standard advertising; from appearances on The Sopranos, 24, The View, and Desperate Housewives to sponsorship of events like the Emmy Awards, the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, and Justin Timberlake’s “Summer Love” tour, it’s now “hard to find an event where our target market is present and Fiji isn’t,” according to Resnick. As far back as 2001, Movieline anointed it one of the “Top 10 Things Young Hollywood Can’t Get Through the Day Without.” At the Academy Awards, E! has handed out Fiji bottles to the stars; as it happens, the complex where the Oscars is held was owned until 2004 by Fiji Water founder David Gilmour’s real estate empire, Trizec (which before its acquisition by Brookfield Properties in 2006 was one of the largest real estate companies in North America, with projects including everything from the Sears Tower to Enron HQ).</p>
<p>In a 2003 interview, Gilmour told the London Times that “the world’s water is being trashed day by day.” He would know: Before launching Fiji Water, he cofounded Barrick Gold, now the largest gold mining enterprise in the world, with operations in hot spots from Tanzania to Pakistan. Its mines, often in parched places like Nevada and Western Australia, use billions of gallons of water to produce gold via a toxic cyanide leaching process. Barrick’s practices are so damaging that after an environmental review of the company, the Norwegian government announced last year that it would divest itself of some $200 million in Barrick stock.</p>
<p>Gilmour was a powerful presence in Fiji long before he got into the water business. Back in 1969, he launched what would become—with help from a couple of Saudi princes—the region’s biggest hotel chain, the Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation, which built a massive resort complex in Fiji. His investors and advisers have included everyone from notorious arms trader Adnan Khashoggi to George H.W. Bush; in 2004, Colin Powell presented him with the Secretary of State’s Award for Corporate Excellence for his work in Fiji. Gilmour’s Fijian holdings include the exclusive Wakaya resort, which boasts six staffers to each guest and has hosted Bill Gates, Nicole Kidman, and Keith Richards (who famously fell off a tree there); he also owns Zinio, an electronic publishing company that produces the digital version of Mother Jones magazine. He declined to be interviewed for this story.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s, Gilmour got wind of a study done by the Fijian government and aid organizations that indicated an enormous aquifer, estimated at more than 17 miles long, near the main island’s north coast. He obtained a 99-year lease on land atop the aquifer, brought a former Fijian environment minister on board, and launched an international marketing blitz inviting consumers to sample water preserved since “before the Industrial Revolution.” To this day, Fiji Water has nearly exclusive access to the aquifer; the notoriously corrupt and chronically broke government has not been able to come up with the money or infrastructure to tap the water for its people.</p>
<p>BY THE TIME Gilmour put Fiji Water up for sale in 2004, it was the fourth most popular imported bottled water in the United States. He found eager buyers in the Resnicks, who made their fortune with the flower delivery service Teleflora and the collectibles company Franklin Mint. The Beverly Hills-based couple are also agribusiness billionaires whose holdings include enough almond, pistachio, and pomegranate acreage to make them the biggest growers of those crops in the entire Western Hemisphere; a 2004 report by the Environmental Working Group calculated that in 2002 alone, their agricultural water subsidies totaled more than $1.5 million. They own a pesticide company, Suterra, and Lynda Resnick almost single-handedly created the pomegranate fad via their Pom Wonderful brand.</p>
<p>Fiji Water wasn’t the Resnicks’ first foray into the water industry: Years ago, they gained control of one of the largest underground water reservoirs in the nation, the Kern Water Bank on the edge of California’s Central Valley. This vast holding system—built with public funds in 1999 to help buffer the effects of droughts—stores water from California’s aqueducts and the Kern River; it’s estimated to be worth more than $180 million on the open market and has allowed the Resnicks to double their acreage of fruits and nuts since 1994, according to the Los Angeles Times. &#160;</p>
<p>With the profits from their enterprises, the Resnicks have been major players on the political scene, giving more than $300,000 each over the past decade. They have supported mostly marquee Democrats—Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Al Franken—though both also donated to the McCain campaign. They give millions to museums, environmental organizations, and other charities: Lynda is a trustee of the Aspen Institute, and Stewart is on the board of Conservation International. One of Britney Spears’ recent meltdowns led to her stay at the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA. In June, the California Institute of Technology announced the creation of the Resnick Sustainability Institute after receiving a $20 million donation from the couple. Fiji Water also gives to a range of conservation groups, including the Waterkeeper Alliance, Oceana, the Nature Conservancy, and Heal the Bay.</p>
<p>The charitable works Fiji Water brags about most often, however, are its efforts in Fiji itself—from preserving rainforests to helping fund water and sanitation projects to underwriting kindergartens. This January, after catastrophic floods swept the main island of Viti Levu, the company also donated $500,000 to the military regime for flood relief, and gave another $450,000 to various projects last summer. True, some of Fiji Water’s good works are more hope than reality: Though Lynda Resnick insists that “we only use biofuels,” the Fiji plant runs on diesel generators, and a project to protect 50,000 acres of rainforest—plugged on the actual bottle label—has yet to obtain a lease. Still, Resnick told New York’s WNYC last year, “We do so much for these sort of forgotten people. They live in paradise, but they have a very, very hard life.”</p>
<p>Fiji Water may be well advised to spread a bit of its wealth around locally. During the 2000 coup, a small posse of villagers wielding spearguns and dynamite seized on the chaos to take over the bottling plant and threaten to burn it down. “The land is sacred and central to our continued existence and identity,” a village spokesman told the Fiji Times, adding that “no Fijian should live off the breadcrumbs of past colonial injustices.” Two years later, the company created the Vatukaloko Trust Fund, a charity targeting several villages surrounding its plant. It won’t say how much it has given to the trust, but court proceedings indicate that it has agreed to donate .15 percent of its Fijian operation’s net revenues; a company official testified that the total was about $100,000 in 2007. (For perspective, the trade journal Brandweek put Fiji Water’s marketing budget at $10 million in 2008; it recently dropped $250,000 to become a founding partner of the new Salt Lake City soccer stadium.)</p>
<p>Perhaps mindful of the unpleasantness of 2000, today Fiji Water executives refer constantly to the company’s role in Fiji’s economic life. “Our export revenue is paying for the expansion of water access at a pace that Fiji’s government has never achieved,” the company told the BBC in 2008. “If we did…cease to exist,” sustainability VP Mooney told U.S. News &amp; World Report the same year, “a big chunk of the economy would be gone, the schools that we built would go away, and the water access projects would go away.”</p>
<p>What Mooney didn’t say is that though Fiji Water may fill a void in the impoverished nation, it also reaps a priceless benefit: tax-free status, granted when the company was founded in 1995. The rationale at the time, according to the company: Bottled water was a risky business with uncertain chances of success. In 2003, David Gilmour said that his ambition for Fiji Water was “to become the biggest taxpayer in the country.” Yet the tax break, originally scheduled to expire in 2008, remains in effect, and neither the company nor the government will say whether or when it might end. And when Fiji has tried to wring a bit of extra revenue from the company, the response has been less than cooperative. Last year, when the government attempted to impose a new tax on water bottlers, Fiji Water called it “draconian” (a term it’s never used for the regime’s human rights violations) and temporarily shut down its plant in protest.</p>
<p>While Lynda Resnick has called for “very public conduct” by private companies, she seems to appreciate that, as she wrote in her book, “transparency is a lot easier to talk about than it is to realize.” The closely held company won’t disclose basic data about its business (such as total charity expenditures), and it’s gone to some length to shelter assets in secretive tax havens: The Fijian operation, according to court documents filed last year, is owned by an entity in Luxembourg, while its American trademarks are registered to an address in the Cayman Islands.</p>
<p>At the moment, Fiji’s government certainly seems in no mood to confront Fiji Water—quite the contrary. “Learning from the lessons of products, we must brand ourselves,” Fiji’s ambassador in Washington told a news site for diplomats in 2006, adding that he was working with the Resnicks to try to increase Fiji Water’s US sales. A Fiji Water bottle sits at the top of the embassy’s home page, and the government has even created a Fiji Water postage-stamp series—the $3 stamp features children clutching the trademark bottles.</p>
<p>Fiji Water, for its part, has trademarked the word “FIJI” (in capital letters) in numerous countries. (Some rejected the application, but not the United States.) It has also gone after rival Fijian bottlers daring to use their country’s name for marketing. “It would have cost too much money for us to fight in court,” says Mohammed Altaaf, the owner of Aqua Pacific water, which ended up taking the word “Fiji” out of its name. “It’s just like branding a water America Water and denying anyone else the right to use the name ‘America.'”</p>
<p>When such practices are criticized, Fiji Water’s response is simple: “They don’t have a ton of options for economic development,” Mooney told U.S. News &amp; World Report, “but bottled water is one of them. When someone buys a bottle of Fiji, they’re buying prosperity for the country.” Without Fiji Water, he said, “Fiji is kind of screwed.”</p>
<p>UPDATE:&#160;News broke in Fiji today (11/18/10) that Fiji Water’s top official on the island, Director of External Affairs David Roth, was the reason for the abrupt resignation of the country’s acting prime minister, Ratu Epeli Ganilau. Ganilau shocked the island nation, which has been under martial law since 2009, by emailing his resignation to Prime Minister Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama, who is traveling in China. Fiji Water is a huge economic force on the island, and the company has been criticized for tolerating Bainimarama’s military regime; see my in-depth report, below.”We had some differences over the David Roth issue,” Ganilau told the site&#160; <a href="http://www.fijilive.com/news/2010/11/18/28767.Fijilive" type="external">FijiLive</a>, without elaborating. Reports from Fiji indicate that a deportation order had been issued for Roth, and Ganilau resigned in protest. (Fiji Water has not yet responded to our request for comment.)</p>
<p>The fight comes at a potentially awkward moment for Fiji Water, which has just been nominated by the US State Department for its 2010 Corporate Excellence Award. The US Ambassador in Fiji has also been making “surprise” visits to Fiji Water’s charity events,”touting Roth’s work. US relations with Fiji have been cool, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced during her Asia tour that the US will be re-engaging with Bainimarama’s regime by locating a $21 million USAID climate change office in Fiji—a step some consider an attempt to counter China’s rising influence there. “We are going to be working together with Australia to persuade the military government in Suva to meet its commitment to bring democracy back to Fiji,” Clinton said.</p> | Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/08/fiji-spin-bottle/ | 2018-09-01 | 4 |
<p>CNN reporter <a href="" type="internal">Erin Burnett</a>‘s comment ( <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1210/29/ebo.01.html" type="external">10/29/12</a>) that it was “kind of neat” to see New York City break its flooding record as the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy flooded Battery Park was bizarre, to say the very least:</p>
<p>CNN‘s Erin Burnett</p>
<p>I just want to give everyone an update of where we are right now in terms of the record books. This is one for the record books. In terms of the storm surge here in Manhattan, Lower Manhattan where I am right now, almost a three-foot record, three feet. We’re at 12.75 feet, as you can see, it’s above my ankles now and obviously well over the promenade in Lower Manhattan. The previous record set back in 1960 of just over 10 feet.</p>
<p>So it’s almost certain at this point that we will break that by about three full feet as the water continues to rise here. High tide is breaking now or just in a few minutes. We’re going to see in the next 45 minutes exactly what that record will be.</p>
<p>I will bring in Chad Myers from the severe weather center. Chad, it’s kind of neat, we’re breaking the record here by almost three full feet right now and I guess it seems certain it’s probably going to be that much within the next 45 minutes when we hit the peak of high tide.</p>
<p>But then consider this exchange from CBS‘s Face the Nation yesterday ( <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57544877/face-the-nation-transcripts-november-4-2012/?tag=showDoorFlexGridRight;flexGridModule" type="external">11/4/12</a>):</p>
<p>CBS‘s Bob Schieffer</p>
<p>BOB SCHIEFFER: So, Peggy, let me just start with you. What do you think the impact of this storm is going to be? Did it hurt Romney, did it help the president?</p>
<p>PEGGY NOONAN: Well, the impact in the Northeast itself has been very bad. A lot of people suffering up there. Some people calling it their Katrina in–in a very unhappy way, of course, in part because it’s cold. It’s a cold Katrina and people are without heat and electricity, so it’s very tough.</p>
<p>It’s a little strange to assess the “impact” of the storm primarily through the lens of the election prospects of Obama and Romney.</p>
<p>And what’s the happy way to talk about “your Katrina”?</p> | Worst Media Moment on Hurricane Sandy? | true | http://fair.org/blog/2012/11/05/worst-media-moment-on-hurricane-sandy/ | 2012-11-05 | 4 |
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<p>FILE – In this May 9, 2012 file photo, a Visa credit card is tendered at the opening of the Superdry store in New York’s Times Square. More than 35 percent of Americans have debts and unpaid bills that have been reported to collection agencies, according to a study released Tuesday, July 29, 2014, by the Urban Institute. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — More than 35 percent of Americans have debts and unpaid bills that have been reported to collection agencies, according to a study released Tuesday by the Urban Institute.</p>
<p>These consumers fall behind on credit cards or hospital bills. Their mortgages, auto loans or student debt pile up, unpaid. Even past-due gym membership fees or cellphone contracts can end up with a collection agency, potentially hurting credit scores and job prospects, said Caroline Ratcliffe, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank.</p>
<p>“Roughly, every third person you pass on the street is going to have debt in collections,” Ratcliffe said. “It can tip employers’ hiring decisions, or whether or not you get that apartment.”</p>
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<p>New Mexico is among 12 US states that have more than 40 percent of their populations in collection.</p>
<p>The study found that 35.1 percent of people with credit records had been reported to collections for debt that averaged $5,178, based on September 2013 records. The study points to a disturbing trend: The share of Americans in collections has remained relatively constant, even as the country as a whole has whittled down the size of its credit card debt since the official end of the Great Recession in the middle of 2009.</p>
<p>As a share of people’s income, credit card debt has reached its lowest level in more than a decade, according to the American Bankers Association. People increasingly pay off balances each month. Just 2.44 percent of card accounts are overdue by 30 days or more, versus the 15-year average of 3.82 percent.</p>
<p>Yet roughly the same percentage of people are still getting reported for unpaid bills, according to the Urban Institute study performed in conjunction with researchers from the Consumer Credit Research Institute. Their figures nearly match the 36.5 percent of people in collections reported by a 2004 Federal Reserve analysis.</p>
<p>All of this has reshaped the economy. The collections industry employs 140,000 workers who recover $50 billion each year, according to a separate study published this year by the Federal Reserve’s Philadelphia bank branch.</p>
<p>The delinquent debt is overwhelmingly concentrated in Southern and Western states. Texas cities have a large share of their populations being reported to collection agencies: Dallas (44.3 percent); El Paso (44.4 percent), Houston (43.7 percent), McAllen (51.7 percent) and San Antonio (44.5 percent).</p>
<p>Almost half of Las Vegas residents– many of whom bore the brunt of the housing bust that sparked the recession– have debt in collections. Other Southern cities have a disproportionate number of their people facing debt collectors, including Orlando and Jacksonville, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee; Columbia, South Carolina; and Jackson, Mississippi.</p>
<p>Other cities have populations that have largely managed to repay their bills on time. Just 20.1 percent of Minneapolis residents have debts in collection. Boston, Honolulu and San Jose, California, are similarly low.</p>
<p>Only about 20 percent of Americans with credit records have any debt at all. Yet high debt levels don’t always lead to more delinquencies, since the debt largely comes from mortgages.</p>
<p>An average San Jose resident has $97,150 in total debt, with 84 percent of it tied to a mortgage. But because incomes and real estate values are higher in the technology hub, those residents are less likely to be delinquent.</p>
<p>By contrast, the average person in the Texas city of McAllen has only $23,546 in debt, yet more than half of the population has debt in collections, more than anywhere else in the United States.</p>
<p>The Urban Institute’s Ratcliffe said that stagnant incomes are key to why some parts of the country are struggling to repay their debt.</p>
<p>Wages have barely kept up with inflation during the five-year recovery, according to Labor Department figures. And a separate measure by Wells Fargo found that after-tax income fell for the bottom 20 percent of earners during the same period.</p> | Study: 35 percent in US facing debt collectors | false | https://abqjournal.com/437149/study-35-percent-in-us-facing-debt-collectors.html | 2 |
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<p>CHICAGO (AP) — Grain futures were mixed Friday in early trading on the Chicago Board of Trade.</p>
<p>Wheat for July delivery was 3.25 cents higher at $4.76 a bushel; July corn was 1.25 cents lower at $3.6025 a bushel; July oats were unchanged at $2.3250 a bushel; while July soybeans lost 3 cents to 9.72 a bushel.</p>
<p>Beef higher and pork were higher on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.</p>
<p>June live cattle was 1.53 cents higher at $1.5090 a pound; August feeder cattle was .70 cent higher at 2.1750 a pound; June lean hogs gained .25 cent at $.8375 a pound.</p>
<p>CHICAGO (AP) — Grain futures were mixed Friday in early trading on the Chicago Board of Trade.</p>
<p>Wheat for July delivery was 3.25 cents higher at $4.76 a bushel; July corn was 1.25 cents lower at $3.6025 a bushel; July oats were unchanged at $2.3250 a bushel; while July soybeans lost 3 cents to 9.72 a bushel.</p>
<p>Beef higher and pork were higher on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.</p>
<p>June live cattle was 1.53 cents higher at $1.5090 a pound; August feeder cattle was .70 cent higher at 2.1750 a pound; June lean hogs gained .25 cent at $.8375 a pound.</p> | Grain mixed, livestock higher | false | https://apnews.com/amp/6e4450434893467bb36c133e0392e5e0 | 2015-05-08 | 2 |
<p>The Obama administration said it had confirmed that Syria used chemical weapons and announced that the U.S. would send arms to rebel fighters there. The move went along with former President Clinton’s recent warnings that Obama risked looking like “a total fool” if he behaved too cautiously in the region. The administration’s plan drew much criticism, including from James Traub of Foreign Policy magazine.</p>
<p>The commentators consider whether Edward Snowden is a laudable whistle-blower or a threat to our security. Host Matt Miller believes the latter. It all depends on your position on the newly coined Scheer O’Meter.</p>
<p>Also on this week’s show, immigration reform finally hits the Senate.&#160;And “Lincoln Unbound,” the new book by Rich Lowry (who joins the panel to offer the right’s perspective) hits the shelves.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/lr/lr130614the_syrian_shift_and" type="external">Read more</a>.</p>
<p />
<p>— Adapted from KCRW by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p>
<p>KCRW:</p>
<p /> | 'Left, Right & Center': The Syrian Shift and the Meaning of Edward Snowden | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/left-right-center-the-syrian-shift-and-the-meaning-of-edward-snowden/ | 2013-06-15 | 4 |
<p>In the morning after the U.S. election, the host of a popular morning radio show broke down repeatedly as she took calls and emails about Obama, and she says it's given her hope for her own country. Many South Africans say they're proud to see a man of African descent become the leader of the U.S., but this South African lawyer says it's more than that. He says it makes him believe that the world's perception of blacks is changing and it gives him hope that other countries could elect blacks to leading positions. Many South Africans feel they indirectly had a hand in Obama's victory because of Mandela, the world's first democratically elected black president. But many South Africans were also impressed with McCain's gracious acceptance of defeat, and this man wishes South African politicians would take cues from that speech. South African politics have become more tense as of late after the ANC recently broke off into two parties.</p> | South Africa looks to the U.S. for political hope | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-11-06/south-africa-looks-us-political-hope | 2008-11-06 | 3 |
<p>This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (September 7, 2017).</p>
<p>SINGAPORE -- KBS Realty Advisors LLC, an American real-estate investment firm, is planning to raise about $500 million via a Singapore initial public offering of some of its U.S. office assets, according to people familiar with the matter.</p>
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<p>The Newport Beach, Calif.-based company is in talks with the asset-management arm of Singapore conglomerate Keppel Corp. to form a joint venture that they plan to list as a real-estate investment trust later this year, the people said.</p>
<p>The new company, based in Singapore, would have an initial portfolio of close to a dozen properties, including office buildings in Seattle, Houston, Denver and other U.S. cities, according to the people familiar with the planned stock offering.</p>
<p>If the IPO goes ahead, the company would be the second Singapore-listed REIT to give investors in the city-state exposure to U.S. commercial properties. Last year, Canadian insurer Manulife Financial Corp. raised $470 million with a Singapore listing of some of its U.S. office properties under a real-estate investment trust called Manulife US REIT.</p>
<p>Singapore is a sought-after destination for REITs in Asia. The country is home to more than 40 REITs with a combined market capitalization of nearly $60 billion. Large and small investors are drawn to their yields, which average 6% to 7%.</p>
<p>The KBS-Keppel joint venture company could offer an investment yield of close to 7%, according to people close to the matter, in line with what Manulife US REIT pays.</p>
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<p>Founded in 1992, KBS Realty invests, manages, develops and sells U.S. commercial real estate on behalf of pension funds, sovereign-wealth funds and other institutional investors. As of June 30, the total value of KBS's real estate and real estate-related investments stood at about $11 billion, according to the company's website. It owns office towers, hotels, apartment complexes and other properties all over America.</p>
<p>A spokeswoman for KBS declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Keppel Capital, the asset-management arm of Keppel Corp., declined to comment on the tie-up, but said the company is always on the lookout for opportunities to grow its fund-management business. "We will evaluate all possible growth avenues, and will issue an announcement if there is any material development," she said.</p>
<p>Keppel Capital has about $19 billion worth of assets under management, including real estate, infrastructure and data center assets in various global markets.</p>
<p>Write to P.R. Venkat at [email protected] and Saurabh Chaturvedi at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 07, 2017 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)</p> | U.S. Firm Readies REIT Listing in Singapore -- WSJ | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/07/u-s-firm-readies-reit-listing-in-singapore-wsj.html | 2017-09-07 | 0 |
<p>Americans stepped up their spending at retailers in May, especially for autos, clothes and building materials, in a sign that strong job growth has begun to boost store sales.</p>
<p>Retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2 percent after a 0.2 percent gain in April, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Over the past 12 months, sales have risen a solid 2.7 percent.</p>
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<p>The upswing in shopping reflects greater confidence in an economy still shaking off the ravages of a recession that officially ended six years ago. Employers have added more than 3 million jobs over the past year. Yet until last month, many workers appeared to be saving as much of their paychecks as they could.</p>
<p>"The whole package is looking heartier," said Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. "Robust job growth, near decade-high auto sales, revolving credit rising at its second-fastest pace in eight years, and now, solid retail sales."</p>
<p>Excluding the volatile categories of autos, gas, building materials and restaurants, so-called core retail sales — which factor into the government's official measure of economic growth — rose a solid 0.7 percent in May.</p>
<p>Some economists saw the increase as evidence of stronger economic growth during the current April-June quarter than earlier assumed. Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, responded to the report by suggesting that second-quarter growth could approach a healthy 3 percent annual rate.</p>
<p>Spending at auto dealers and building materials stores jumped 2 percent in May, evidence that consumers are making longer-term investments in their homes and cars.</p>
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<p>The figures confirm the strength seen in separate reports on autos and housing. People bought cars and trucks last month at an annual pace of 17.8 million — the fastest monthly rate since 2005, according to industry analyst Autodata Corp.</p>
<p>And the number of new-home purchases has surged nearly 24 percent year-to-date, according to the government.</p>
<p>More Americans are also upgrading their clothing. Thursday's report showed that shopping at clothiers rose 1.5 percent last month.</p>
<p>Sales at gasoline stations increased 3.7 percent, largely reflecting the higher costs of gas since April. Prices at the pump rose by roughly 14 cents a gallon to $2.74 during Memorial Day weekend, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report.</p>
<p>Spending growth at restaurants was subdued last month, inching up just 0.1 percent. But over the past year, restaurant and bar receipts have surged 8.2 percent.</p>
<p>Economists watch the retail sales report closely because it provides a limited but early indication each month of the willingness of Americans to spend. Overall consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. Retail sales are about one-third of spending, with services such as haircuts and Internet access making up the remaining two-thirds.</p>
<p>Some economists interpreted the solid retail sales as showing that economic growth is improving enough for the Federal Reserve to raise historically low interest rates as early as September. The Fed has kept rates near zero since late 2008 to try to boost spending and borrowing by businesses and consumers who were clobbered by the recession.</p>
<p>Gregory Daco, head of U.S. macroeconomics at Oxford Economics, predicted that growth would average an annualized 3 percent in the second half of the year, enough for the Fed to start the process of lifting rates.</p>
<p>Job gains over the past year have helped drive down the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent from 6.3 percent in May 2014. Still, many Americans were hesitant to spend, probably because their incomes were barely rising above inflation. Average hourly earnings grew just 2.3 percent over the past 12 months, a pace that has recently accelerated but remains below the 3 percent level typical in a healthy job market.</p>
<p>Broader consumer spending — which includes services — was unchanged in April, the Commerce Department reported separately. On the whole, Americans chose to set aside a larger share of their paychecks. The savings rate reached 5.6 percent of after-tax incomes, the second highest level since December 2012.</p> | US retail sales rose 1.2 percent in May; autos, building materials and clothing lead gains | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/06/11/us-retail-sales-rose-12-percent-in-may-autos-building-materials-and-clothing.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Intel.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It's well-known that Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (NYSE: TSM) is the sole supplier of Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) A10 Fusion processor that powers the recently released iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones. The chip is manufactured in TSMC's 16-nanometer technology, and according to Chipworks, it even employs TSMC's InFO chip packaging technology. (In a nutshell, this means more dollar content for TSMC beyond wafer manufacturing services.)</p>
<p>Although much of the focus in the press is around the manufacturer of Apple's A-series processor, it's important to note that there are a lot of chips inside of a smartphone. None are as high value as the applications processor, but the content is significant nonetheless.</p>
<p>TSMC has clearly done a good job of nabbing Apple's A-series business over the last several years, but investors shouldn't ignore the fact that it builds many of the other chips inside of Apple's iPhones, as well.Let's take a look at several examples.</p>
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<p>Apple is probably the last major smartphone vendor to use stand-alone applications processors and cellular modems. In the iPhone 7, teardown reports have revealed that Apple is sourcing cellular modems (and associated chips) from both Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), a longtime supplier of Apple modems, and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC).</p>
<p>The Qualcomm modem, known as MDM9645, is known to be manufactured in TSMC's 20-nanometer manufacturing process. The Intel modem, branded XMM 7360, is built in a foundry 28-nanometer process. BlueFin Research Partners <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/08/report-tsmc-to-ramp-production-of-intel-corp-modem.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">say Opens a New Window.</a>that this part, too, is manufactured by TSMC.</p>
<p>Beyond the baseband processor, though, TSMC is believed to be a key manufacturer of the RF transceivers used in iPhones, as well. Chipworks says that the RF transceiver that's used in the Intel version of the iPhone 7/7 Plus is built by TSMC, and it's likely that Qualcomm's RF transceivers are built by TSMC, as well.</p>
<p>Back in 2015, DigiTimes reported that the fingerprint sensors inside of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones were manufactured in TSMC's 0.18-micron manufacturing technology. That same report also claimed that the second-generation fingerprint sensors inside of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are manufactured in TSMC's newer 65-nanometer manufacturing technology.</p>
<p>At Apple's keynote and in its marketing materials for the iPhone 7-series smartphones, the company makes no mention of dramatic changes to the fingerprint sensor. It's likely, then, that Apple is using the same sensor in the iPhone 7-series phones as it did in the iPhone 6s-series phones.</p>
<p>In that case, TSMC profits from the iPhone by manufacturing the Touch ID sensor, as well.</p>
<p>The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity combo chip, as well as the GPS chip inside of the iPhone 7-series phones, are almost certainly both provided by Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO). (Chipworks confirmed the latter, and Broadcom's public commentary confirms the former.)</p>
<p>According to a 2014 form 10-K filing, Broadcom counted TSMC as one of its main contract chip manufacturing partners. And back in 2012, Chipworks confirmed that the Broadcom Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo chip inside of the iPhone 5 was manufactured by TSMC.</p>
<p>I believe that it's very likely that TSMC is one of the manufacturers -- if not the only one -- of the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity combo chips inside of the iPhone 7-series smartphones.</p>
<p>In TSMC's most recent earnings presentation, the company said that a full 60% of its revenue in the quarter came from communication products. This includes, and is likely mostly comprised of, chips that go into smartphones.It's not surprising, given how much content within major smartphones like the iPhone 7 it is responsible for manufacturing, that the company has benefited so much from the smartphone boom.</p>
<p>Going forward, as smartphone unit shipment growth cools off, TSMC is going to have to rely increasingly on content growth within smartphones -- through share gains, selling higher value technologies, and so on -- to try to outperform the overall smartphone market.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2668&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/aeassa/info.aspx" type="external">Ashraf Eassa Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Intel and Qualcomm. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple and Qualcomm. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and Intel. 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> | Why This Apple Inc. Supplier Deserves More Credit | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/17/why-this-apple-inc-supplier-deserves-more-credit.html | 2016-10-17 | 0 |
<p>In this segment from the <a href="https://www.fool.com/podcasts/marketfoolery/?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=6e32c3b4-bbf1-11e7-8241-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Market Foolery Opens a New Window.</a> podcast, host Chris Hill and David Kretzmann of Motley Fool Rule Breakers and SuperNova take a close look at Twitter&#160;(NYSE: TWTR), which posted higher than expected revenue and raised guidance.</p>
<p>Sales were still down, but the pace of the slowdown is slowing. And they're close to GAAP profitability. Was the day's optimism a case of genuine positivity, or a matter of beating low expectations? And what's next?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than TwitterWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of October 9, 2017</p>
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<p>This video was recorded on Oct. 26, 2017.</p>
<p>Chris Hill: Shares of Twitter are up 15% this morning. The third-quarter revenue came in higher than expected. They raised guidance for the fourth quarter. This has been a long time coming. If you're a Twitter shareholder, you're having a good day, and it's been a long time since you've had a day like this.</p>
<p>David Kretzmann: Yeah. Honestly, I think part of it, going back to our IBM&#160;conversation last week, it really helps when expectations are low. You have a low bar to jump over. I think that's part of what Twitter is dealing with. Their sales were still down 4% this quarter, so they are still shrinking, but the pace of sales declines is slowing. So that's a plus. Last quarter was down 5%. That's improving. They're also really improving their expense management. Their GAAP expenses were down 16%. It's nice when you can cut costs more than your sales are dropping. They're getting closer and closer to GAAP profitability. They're still not quite there, but they think within the next couple of quarters they could hit that mark.</p>
<p>In general, a lot of things moving in the right direction for Twitter, although there's still a lot of room for improvement. But their daily active users are up 14%, so they're just finding ways to increase engagement on that platform, which is obviously what they need right now.</p>
<p>Hill: It absolutely is. When you think about what's driving the revenue, when you think about advertising, I think part of what helps them, part of why I think there's some optimism about the next six months, particularly if they get the profitability next quarter or the one after that, is, one of the things a quarter like this does is it makes people whose job it is to control large advertising budgets, it makes them think twice about skipping Twitter. There was a good stretch of time where Twitter was, if not outright ignored by a lot of ad companies and ad firms and major brands, that sort of thing, this keeps them in the conversation, particularly, as you mentioned, the growth users. When you can add a few million users, that makes it more likely that advertisers are going to come your way.</p>
<p>Kretzmann: Yeah, and ad engagement on the platform almost doubled this quarter. The cost per engagement was down about 50%. But still, in general, moving the right direction. The volume of engagement, people are seeing more ads, which is obviously the direction it needs to go. They are pushing more and more into live video. This past quarter, they streamed 830 events. For the life of me, I don't know where to go on Twitter to find the live video. And I feel like I'm a semi-smart guy. I can use Snapchat, which is supposed to be the most complicated social-media app out there. But Twitter, for the life of me, I can't figure out where they host the live video on their platform. And even people who are die-hard Twitter users, like Jay-Mo here at Fool HQ, even he has a hard time finding it. It's like, guys, discovering live video shouldn't be this hard on your platform when that's supposed to be a key tenet of your strategy.</p>
<p>Hill: Absolutely. I can't remember if it was on Market Foolery or Motley Fool Money, Jason has mentioned that recently, and it's absolutely true. And I am, in fact, reminded of the lack of visibility on their video strategy every time I open up Twitter on the desktop, because when I go to Twitter, it automatically opens up a video screen on the right-hand side of the page. And so, whatever is the thing you mentioned -- how many?</p>
<p>Kretzmann: 830.</p>
<p>Hill: 830, OK. So when I open up Twitter on desktop, whatever is the one live video that they're promoting at that moment -- sometimes it's financial news; sometimes it's a sporting event if it's the evening -- if it's got my attention, I'll start watching it. But every single time, whether I watch it or not, I'm reminded of the fact that, there's still no central section for video where I can click through and say, I know you're streaming other stuff live; where can I find it?</p>
<p>Kretzmann: It seems like a no-brainer. They are testing other ways to increase user engagement, test different things around. They're testing longer character limits. It took them 11 years to figure out that people actually max out their 140 characters in Twitter when they have all sorts of numbers and symbols trying to squeeze as much as possible into 140 characters. So they're at least starting to test rolling out longer character limits, going up to 280 characters, essentially doubling the number of characters you can put in your quality Twitter posts.</p>
<p>In general, this is the most optimistic I've been about Twitter in a while. For a long time, this has been an easy company to hate on, but they are controlling their stock-based compensation, their other expenses, bringing their expenses in general into a better position, better contained. They have $2.5 billion of net cash on the balance sheet. They are more and more free cash flow positive, and that's not just due to stock-based compensation. And they are getting closer to GAAP profitability. So in general, I think the company is in a stronger position today, even though sales are still dropping. But I think there are better days ahead.</p>
<p>Hill: I'm glad you mentioned the compensation, because that was one pretty significant reason why, a year ago, two years ago, plenty of smart people looked at Twitter and thought that company is going to be bought, because they can't maintain the path they're on right now. And a big part of that was the stock-based compensation.</p>
<p>Kretzmann: And it's still high. Last year, it was about 25% of total sales that was made up of stock-based compensation, which is very high. Alphabet, for comparison, was 7%-8%. Facebook&#160;was 15%. I'm not sure where Facebook is at this year. But now, Twitter has gotten that number down to 17%. So it's still on the high end of the spectrum. The diluted share count is still almost growing 1% each quarter, but that number has, bit by bit, decelerated. So, moving in the right direction but still some work to do.</p>
<p>Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFWizard/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=6e32c3b4-bbf1-11e7-8241-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Chris Hill Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFPencils/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=6e32c3b4-bbf1-11e7-8241-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">David Kretzmann Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Alphabet (C shares), Facebook, and Twitter. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Facebook, and Twitter. 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=6e32c3b4-bbf1-11e7-8241-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Is Twitter Finally Singing the Song Wall Street Wants to Hear? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/28/is-twitter-finally-singing-song-wall-street-wants-to-hear.html | 2017-10-28 | 0 |
<p>CINCINNATI (AP) — Southwest Airlines plans a new seasonal flight service from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to Phoenix this spring.</p>
<p>The Cincinnati Enquirer <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2017/12/20/southwest-airlines-expands-seasonal-cvg-service-phoenix/967689001/" type="external">reports</a> the carrier will fly from the airport in Hebron, Kentucky, to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport from March 8 to April 7. Southwest will operate flights Monday through Friday.</p>
<p>Its new flight service coincides with the Cincinnati Reds spring training in Arizona, which is less than 30 minutes from the Phoenix airport.</p>
<p>Southwest announced it would start flying out of the Cincinnati airport, known as CVG, in January. Airline officials told the newspaper in November that flights to Chicago and Baltimore exceeded expectations, but they didn't disclose plans then for new flight services.</p>
<p>CVG officials say lower prices and more passengers are drawing more low-cost carriers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Cincinnati Enquirer, <a href="http://www.enquirer.com" type="external">http://www.enquirer.com</a></p>
<p>CINCINNATI (AP) — Southwest Airlines plans a new seasonal flight service from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to Phoenix this spring.</p>
<p>The Cincinnati Enquirer <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2017/12/20/southwest-airlines-expands-seasonal-cvg-service-phoenix/967689001/" type="external">reports</a> the carrier will fly from the airport in Hebron, Kentucky, to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport from March 8 to April 7. Southwest will operate flights Monday through Friday.</p>
<p>Its new flight service coincides with the Cincinnati Reds spring training in Arizona, which is less than 30 minutes from the Phoenix airport.</p>
<p>Southwest announced it would start flying out of the Cincinnati airport, known as CVG, in January. Airline officials told the newspaper in November that flights to Chicago and Baltimore exceeded expectations, but they didn't disclose plans then for new flight services.</p>
<p>CVG officials say lower prices and more passengers are drawing more low-cost carriers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Cincinnati Enquirer, <a href="http://www.enquirer.com" type="external">http://www.enquirer.com</a></p> | Southwest plans spring flights between Cincinnati, Phoenix | false | https://apnews.com/amp/43ed2b91c1204a0ebc07cda33969c710 | 2017-12-27 | 2 |
<p>MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's highest court on Saturday upheld a decision barring opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running for president in March.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court turned down Navalny's appeal against the Central Election Commission, ruling that the commission's decision to bar him from the race fully conforms to law.</p>
<p>President Vladimir Putin, whose approval ratings top 80 percent, is expected to easily win a fourth term in the March 18 election.</p>
<p>Navalny has campaigned for the presidency all year despite an implicit ban on his candidacy due to a fraud conviction seen by many as politically driven. Election officials formally barred him from the ballot Monday.</p>
<p>Navalny responded by calling for a boycott of the vote, and the Kremlin said authorities will look into whether such a call violates the law.</p>
<p>In a tweet Saturday, Navalny denounced the judge who made the ruling, saying that "such judges should face trial themselves." He also repeated his call for a voters' strike.</p>
<p>"We don't acknowledge elections without competition," he said.</p>
<p>Navalny's associates said they would appeal the ruling.</p>
<p>"It's obvious that this decision is political," said Ivan Zhdanov, who represented Navalny in court.</p>
<p>Many others have declared their intention to run in March. They include veterans of past campaigns — ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and liberal Grigory Yavlinsky — as well as communist nominee Pavel Grudinin and TV host Ksenia Sobchak.</p>
<p>While none poses a serious challenge to Putin, the Kremlin is worried about voter apathy and has focused on boosting turnout to make Putin's victory as impressive as possible.</p>
<p>The involvement of 36-year old Sobchak, the daughter of a late St. Petersburg mayor who was Putin's boss in the 1990s, could raise public interest in the race. While Sobchak has denied colluding with the Kremlin, her participation could draw some Navalny supporters to back her and help improve turnout.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press journalist Francesca Ebel contributed to this report.</p>
<p>MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's highest court on Saturday upheld a decision barring opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running for president in March.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court turned down Navalny's appeal against the Central Election Commission, ruling that the commission's decision to bar him from the race fully conforms to law.</p>
<p>President Vladimir Putin, whose approval ratings top 80 percent, is expected to easily win a fourth term in the March 18 election.</p>
<p>Navalny has campaigned for the presidency all year despite an implicit ban on his candidacy due to a fraud conviction seen by many as politically driven. Election officials formally barred him from the ballot Monday.</p>
<p>Navalny responded by calling for a boycott of the vote, and the Kremlin said authorities will look into whether such a call violates the law.</p>
<p>In a tweet Saturday, Navalny denounced the judge who made the ruling, saying that "such judges should face trial themselves." He also repeated his call for a voters' strike.</p>
<p>"We don't acknowledge elections without competition," he said.</p>
<p>Navalny's associates said they would appeal the ruling.</p>
<p>"It's obvious that this decision is political," said Ivan Zhdanov, who represented Navalny in court.</p>
<p>Many others have declared their intention to run in March. They include veterans of past campaigns — ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and liberal Grigory Yavlinsky — as well as communist nominee Pavel Grudinin and TV host Ksenia Sobchak.</p>
<p>While none poses a serious challenge to Putin, the Kremlin is worried about voter apathy and has focused on boosting turnout to make Putin's victory as impressive as possible.</p>
<p>The involvement of 36-year old Sobchak, the daughter of a late St. Petersburg mayor who was Putin's boss in the 1990s, could raise public interest in the race. While Sobchak has denied colluding with the Kremlin, her participation could draw some Navalny supporters to back her and help improve turnout.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press journalist Francesca Ebel contributed to this report.</p> | Court upholds ban on Navalny running for Russian presidency | false | https://apnews.com/amp/28acc65fc3a747abb8d28029e23483e7 | 2017-12-30 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) raised Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) price target to $78 from $70 on Friday citing "increased confidence" in the social network’s advertising return on investment and mobile strategy.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares of Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant edged up 0.86% to $69.52 in recent trade.</p>
<p>The target increase comes amid Goldman Sachs' social media forum, where panelists, including executives from American Express (NYSE:AXP), Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and IPG Mediabrands’ UM gave their prediction on social video, mobile-first ad campaigns and changes in consumer behavior.</p>
<p>Among the key takeaways was that brands now view Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook as their advertising “sweet spot” amid a recent three-fold increase in return on investment.</p>
<p>“Overall, the perspective from the panelists was that social advertising continues to gain momentum with brand advertisers,” Goldman analysts said in a note. The panelists were also bullish on Facebook and Instagram’s foray into video ads.</p>
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<p>The panelists said Facebook and other platforms still lag real-time data on ads. However, Goldman said advancements in analytics will continue to come to market this year. It predicted that Facebook’s ROI will “only continue to increase.”</p>
<p>Another interesting point of discussion at the forum was whether Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) will emerge as the next major e-commerce platform. AmEx, for example, recently partnered with Twitter on a “Tweet to Buy,” promotion, enabling consumers to buy things simply by retweeting.</p>
<p>Shares of Twitter were down 0.50% to $55.49 in recent trade.</p> | Goldman Bullish on Facebook Ads, Ups Target to $78 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/02/28/goldman-bullish-on-facebook-ads-ups-target-to-78.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>from flickr user &lt;a href= "http://www.flickr.com/photos/babydinosaur/20535746/"&gt;BabyDinosaur&lt;/a&gt; under creative commons license</p>
<p />
<p>Despite the summertime fun that ensues when a burst pipe transforms a neighborhood street into a water park, the problem has gotten a bit out of hand. Last year alone, America experienced 240,000 water main breaks, resulting in the loss of billions of gallons of water. And it’s only going to get worse. In the next 20 years, the EPA predicts a shortfall of more than $500 billion in needed drinking and wastewater infrastructure investments. We’re headed towards a future of sputtering faucets and overflowing sewage plants.</p>
<p>This week, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) <a href="http://dc.streetsblog.org/2009/07/15/blumenauer-and-co-face-off-with-utility-industry-over-clean-water/#more-8441" type="external">proposed</a> an interesting solution: funding the repair of America’s water works with a tax on products that burden it. He’d extract funds from cosmetics, toothpaste, and pharmaceuticals–they’re often difficult to remove in wastewater plants and can harm the environment–and bottled beverages, which have a carbon and water footprint that goes far beyond the liquids that they contain.</p>
<p>The tax might be a tough sell in Congress (see the gas tax), but it begins to lay the groundwork for a more logical approach to regulating water. Scientists now have the tools to calculate the water footprints of a wide range of businesses and products. I explore how crunching those numbers could help solve the water crisis in our <a href="" type="internal">current issue</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | The Case for a Water Tax | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/case-water-tax/ | 2009-07-18 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a European space monopoly. Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p><a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/09/can-airbus-evolve-into-a-space-company.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Will they? Won't they? Opens a New Window.</a> They will -- and they did.</p>
<p>In a decision that will reverberate throughout the space industry for decades, last month the European Commission gave final approval to Airbus'(NASDAQOTH: EADSY) plan to acquire a controlling stake in European rocket launch company Arianespace.</p>
<p>For the piddling sum of just $166 million, Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL -- Airbus' joint venture with Safran) will buy French government space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales' (CNES) 35% stake in Arianespace. ASL will add it to the 39% it already owns, and thus acquire 74% supermajority control over the space launch company.</p>
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<p>On the surface, this may sound like a run-of-the-mill corporate organization. It's not. In fact, it's hard to overestimate the significance of ASL's move to investors in Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) here in the U.S.</p>
<p>Here's the reason in a nutshell: In the U.S., two companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, both build space launch vehicles -- Delta IV and Atlas V, respectively. These two companies provide these vehicles to their 50-50-owned joint venture, United Launch Alliance (ULA), which uses them for commercial and government (but mainly government) space missions. From start to finish, therefore, Boeing and Lockheed enjoy the synergies of being both rocket makers and rocket launchers.</p>
<p>Similarly, in Europe, two companies -- Airbus and Safran this time -- build space launch vehicles. Up until now, their ASL joint venture did not fully control the company that launched those vehicles: Arianespace. But once ASL acquires CNES' stake in Arianespace, itwill control the subsidiary. ASL's and CNES' businesses will basically be controlled by a unified management, and Airbus and Safran can begin to enjoy the same synergies that have benefited Boeing and Lockheed for a decade, since the formation of ULA in 2006.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-opens-in-depth-investigation-into-airbus-safran-acquisition-of-arianespace-1456502184" type="external">The Wall Street Journal Opens a New Window.</a>pointed out in February, the formation of ASL was intended to give Airbus and Safran "cost efficiencies to compete more nimbly" against rivals, such as ULAand SpaceX (because SpaceX also both builds and launches its own rockets). But that was just the start. ASL also needed to control the launching business. As Airbus CEO Thomas Enders told theJournalback then: "I'm not satisfied with the progress we have achieved so far," and Arianespace still needed to be brought within the fold.</p>
<p>Now it will be, and the playing field will be leveled among all three of these big space-launch companies.</p>
<p>This development has been a long time coming. Not just since ASL announced plans to buy CNES' Arianespace stake in June of last year,or since Airbus' alliance with Safran to form ASL in 2014,but ever sinceBoeing and Lockheed stopped fighting each other and teamed up to form ULA 10 years ago.ASL gaining control over Arianespace is just the last step in a long process of Airbus and Safran playing catch-up, and as Enders lamented in the Journal earlier this year, Airbus has been "losing precious time against the competition" all the while.</p>
<p>To fix that, the deal to acquire control over Arianespace, which required clearance from the European Commission, was expected to sail through by February. Instead, it was held up for nearly six months over EC concerns that an effectively merged ASL/Arianespace might exchange confidential information one with the other, to the detriment of competitors of both ASL (in rocket and satellite manufacture) and Arianespace (in rocket launch), who would not have access to such inside information on competing bids for products and services.</p>
<p>To allay these concerns, Airbus and Arianespacehave made binding commitments to set up "firewalls" to prevent such transfers of confidential information, so as to not harm competition in the fields of satellite manufacture or space launch. At the same time, the <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2591_en.htm?locale=FR" type="external">EC's review Opens a New Window.</a> confirmed that past worries over potential "discrimination in satellite manufacturers' access to Arianespace's launch services," and worries that Arianespace would choose to buy only ASL launchers and payload adapters in the future, shutting down competing products from, for example, Russia's Progress State Research and Production Space Centre (TsSKB) or Italy's ELV, were in fact unfounded.</p>
<p>That's good news for ASL and Arianespace going forward, as the companies were not required to make any commitments to preserve competition in these areas. It's less good for rival rocket makers, should it turn out that Arianespace will in the future begin giving more business to its de facto owner, and less to competing companies.</p>
<p>Was the European Commission right to give Airbus and Arianespace the benefit of the doubt on these latter issues? Will the firewalls the companies say they will put in place in fact protect their rivals from unfair competition?</p>
<p>Time will tell. For now, what we know is this: With the EC on board with the deal, Airbus and its partner are free to proceed with their acquisition of a controlling stake in Arianespace. The creation of a de facto monopoly in European space launch has begun -- and SpaceX, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin now face a tougher rival when competing for international launch contracts.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early, in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2691&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDitty/info.aspx" type="external">Rich Smith Opens a New Window.</a>does not own shares of, nor is he short, any company named above. You can find him on <a href="http://caps.fool.com/" type="external">Motley Fool CAPS Opens a New Window.</a>, publicly pontificating under the handle <a href="http://caps.fool.com/ViewPlayer.aspx?t=01002844399633209838" type="external">TMFDitty Opens a New Window.</a>, where he's currently ranked No. 309 out of more than 75,000 rated members.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley" 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> | Europe Green-Lights a Space Monopoly to Combat ULA and SpaceX | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/07/europe-green-lights-space-monopoly-to-combat-ula-and-spacex.html | 2016-08-07 | 0 |
<p />
<p>China's state-owned ChemChina is nearing a deal to take over Swiss seeds and pesticides group Syngenta for roughly 470 Swiss francs ($460.5) per share, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.</p>
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<p>The deal will likely be announced on Wednesday, when Syngenta is scheduled to release its 2015 results, the people said, with one source saying minor adjustments to the price were still being discussed.</p>
<p>Syngenta declined to comment.</p>
<p>Sources last month said that ChemChina, which is being advised by HSBC, was seeking a loan package by several large Western banks to fund a possible Syngenta takeover deal, which later may be refinanced by Chinese banks.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Arno Schuetze and Pamela Barbaglia; Writing by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Maria Sheahan)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | ChemChina Close to Buying Syngenta | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/02/02/chemchina-close-to-buying-syngenta.html | 2016-02-02 | 0 |
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<p>Two years ago, department store giant Macy's (NYSE: M) decided to explore the possibility of creating a Macy's off-price business. After years of market share losses to off-price retailers like TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX) it clearly made sense for Macy's to try moving into this growing segment of the retail market.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The first six Macy's Backstage pilot stores opened in the New York metro area during fall 2015. During 2016, Macy's further developed its off-price business by opening a handful of Backstage off-price stores within existing Macy's locations. The company has been particularly pleased with the economics of the store-within-a-store concept.</p>
<p>Macy's has started adding Backstage off-price stores to some of its full-line locations. Image source: Author.</p>
<p>I visited one of the stores-within-a-store -- at the Galleria in White Plains, New York -- on New Year's Eve. What I saw suggested that adding Backstage off-price sections to Macy's full-line stores could be a profitable strategy in many cases.</p>
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<p>There was plenty of apparel to be found at the Macy's Backstage store. Image source: Author.</p>
<p>One of the biggest risks of putting an off-price store within a full-line location is that it could cannibalize sales from the rest of the store. Why would customers pay full price when they can find the same items for less in a different part of the store? (TJX has had great success marketing T.J. Maxx and Marshalls as offering department store-type merchandise for 20%-60% less.)</p>
<p>There were plenty of racks of clothing in the Macy's Backstage store. As a result, the full-price and off-price sections of this Macy's store are competing with one another to some extent.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Macy's management has emphasized that the Backstage stores also carry a lot of merchandise that wouldn't be found in a typical Macy's. Toys and home decor have been two particularly successful non-traditional merchandise categories.</p>
<p>Macy's Backstage stores sell toys and other items that regular Macy's stores don't offer. Image source: Author.</p>
<p>Based on the overall merchandise selection and store configuration, the Macy's Backstage store looked eerily similar to a Marshalls store I visited later the same day.</p>
<p>There was a wide range in the amount that items were marked down at the Macy's Backstage location I visited. Two pairs of pants on the same clothing rack illustrate the range of discounts.</p>
<p>The first pair of pants was priced at $19.99 compared to a $36 MSRP: a modest 44% discount. The other pair was marked down to $9.98 from a $59.50 MSRP and had a yellow "buy one get one free" tag. This meant it was effectively selling for more than 90% off.</p>
<p>Some Macy's Backstage merchandise is deeply discounted. Image source: Author.</p>
<p>Even moderately discounted merchandise could make Macy's Backstage an attractive option for many shoppers. For customers, part of the appeal of TJX's business model is that there are good deals available no matter when you shop. By contrast, Macy's full-line stores tend to rely on coupons, a steady stream of "one-day sales," and other promotions to drive customer traffic.</p>
<p>If there aren't good deals available in the Macy's full-line store on a given day, the availability of 40%-50% discounts in the Macy's Backstage could keep customers from walking out and going to T.J. Maxx or Marshalls instead.</p>
<p>The furniture section of the full-line store looked like a ghost town when I visited. Image source: Author</p>
<p>The main level of the White Plains Macy's store was fairly busy when I visited. That part of the store features the jewelry and beauty sections and most of the men's and women's apparel. By contrast, the home section on the lower level was nearly deserted.</p>
<p>The Macy's Backstage store occupies perhaps a quarter to a third of the lower level. Given the lack of traffic in the surrounding home department, the Backstage store doesn't have to meet a very high bar to be a better use of space. Macy's management has indicated that, on average, adding a Backstage store to a full-line Macy's increases the sales for that location.</p>
<p>Sure enough, the White Plains Macy's Backstage was quite busy. It was a fairly dramatic contrast with the rest of the lower level. The first floor location has the secondary benefit of providing an exterior entrance from Main St. directly to the Macy's Backstage store, which is prominently advertised on the street outside.</p>
<p>There were plenty of shoppers at Macy's Backstage on New Year's Eve. Image source: Author.</p>
<p>At this point, the Macy's Backstage store-within-a-store concept is less than a year old. Clearly, Macy's is still within the test-and-learn stage. However, based on my visit to the new Backstage store in White Plains, New York, this concept looks very promising.</p>
<p>Macy's full-line stores already rely on coupons and discounts to drive customer traffic. Very little merchandise is sold at full price. Thus, investors may be exaggerating the downside risk of Macy's Backstage cannibalizing full-price sales.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, with mall traffic on the decline, most Macy's stores have more space than they really need. Installing a Macy's Backstage store could significantly improve the sales productivity of these locations, leading to higher overall profitability.</p>
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<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=48f6c9fb-c261-4993-87ea-dafdeb834374&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks</a> for investors to buy right now... and Macy's 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 January 4, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGemHunter/info.aspx" type="external">Adam Levine-Weinberg</a> owns shares of Macy's and is long January 2018 $60 calls on The TJX Companies and short January 2018 $90 calls on The TJX Companies. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p> | I Visited a Macy's Backstage on New Year's Eve: Here's What I Saw | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/04/visited-macy-backstage-on-new-year-eve-here-what-saw.html | 2017-01-04 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://wp.me/p3bwni-3tJ" type="external">21st Century Wire</a> says…</p>
<p>It’s a name that most people today aren’t familiar with, yet he was a man so far ahead of his time, one of those rare American individuals who could not only see what direction society and world was moving, but was courageous enough to challenge the elite power structure through his public life.</p>
<p>Some 30 years ago in September of 1983, Korean Airliner KAL007 was shot down in one of the most mysterious and murky episodes in modern history.&#160;Among the passengers on the ill-fated flight was as a U.S. representative from northwest Georgia’s 7th Congressional District,&#160;Congressman Lawrence Patton McDonald M.D.</p>
<p>As it turns out, Larry McDonald&#160;was right about so much, and possessed the foresight to see today’s globalization, WTO, the EU super state and the disintegration of the United States as a constitutional republic.&#160;Incredibly, McDonald also outlined (in the video interview below) how the US federal government would eventually move towards socialism, and restrict the Second Amendment and gun ownership in America. A visionary, to say the least.</p>
<p>He was also a member of the national council for the John Birch Society since 1966, and was named its chairman in March of of 1983. He described the society as “a constitutionalist education-action organization.”</p>
<p>Sadly, he life and political career were cut short…</p>
<p><a href="http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/news-media-corruption-1/congressman-larry-mcdonald-.html" type="external">Brasscheck TV</a> revisits… ‘Dead within four months of this interview’</p>
<p>• He was right about Bill Casey who turned out to be a criminal on an EPIC scale.</p>
<p>• He was correct about the negative impact of the government-created phenomenon of inflation (starting in 1983.) • He was also correct about about the Federal government’s obsession with impinging on gun rights and shredding the Constitution.&#160;</p>
<p>And then there’s this…</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Around May of 1983, approximately 4 months before being shot down in Flight KAL 007, Congressman Larry McDonald takes on Pat Buchanan and Tom Braden on Crossfire, as they badger him about his new role as Chairman of the John Birch Society. He easily handles them and answers questions concerning the Elite’s Conspiracy for a One World Government…</p>
<p>. McDonald explains why Congress passes too many laws and warns of the dangers of an uninformed electorate…</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>READ MORE NWO NEWS AT: <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire NWO Files</a></p> | Visionary: Larry McDonald’s Stark Predictions Manifest Today | true | http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/05/12/visionary-larry-mcdonalds-stark-predictions-manifest-today/ | 2013-05-12 | 4 |
<p>I spoke too soon. In the <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/03/05/these-3-stocks-just-raised-their-dividends.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=344f25a1-58ba-47e7-adfb-d48ab089d4c2&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">previous installment of this series Opens a New Window.</a>, I stated that we were about to enter a fallow post-earnings season period with fewer dividend raises.</p>
<p>Whoops. Last week we saw a fresh batch of raises, including three top names in their respective industries -- consumer-goods giant Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL), high-rolling casino operator Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN), and powerhouse chipmaker Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM). Read on for the details.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Saying that Colgate-Palmolive is raising its quarterly dividend is almost like saying the grass is green. The consumer-goods megalith is one of the most regal of the <a href="https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/what-is-a-dividend-aristocrat.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=344f25a1-58ba-47e7-adfb-d48ab089d4c2&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Dividend Aristocrats Opens a New Window.</a>, with an annual dividend raise streak that stretches back over 50 years. The latest in a very long line of increases will see the company lift its payout by 5% to $0.42 per share.</p>
<p>That's the good news. The bad news is the company's recent performance. In all, 2017 was a relatively weak year. Net sales inched up by only 1.7% to $15.5 billion, while adjusted net profit increased by over 4% to land at $2.5 billion. Cost-cutting and increased advertising spend were two of the key reasons for these fairly modest increases.</p>
<p>My colleague Brian Stoffel has speculated that Colgate-Palmolive's long-established <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/07/death-of-big-brands-5-safe-dividend-stocks-that-co.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=344f25a1-58ba-47e7-adfb-d48ab089d4c2&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">dividend might be at risk Opens a New Window.</a> because of changes in technology and the shifting tastes of consumers. I think he's got a good argument there; although the company has sufficient cash flow to keep up those dividend raises for the time being, I'm not 100% sure this is a buy-and-hold-forever income play.</p>
<p>Colgate-Palmolive's upcoming distribution is to be handed out on on May 15 to stockholders of record as of April 20. Its payout ratio is 56%, and it would yield 2.4% on the most recent closing stock price -- comfortably above the current 1.8% average yield of dividend-paying stocks on the S&amp;P 500.</p>
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<p>2018 has already been quite a year for Wynn Resorts. The company's top global region is on a serious upswing, yet its founder and namesake, <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/16/steve-wynn-is-losing-control-of-wynn-resorts.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=344f25a1-58ba-47e7-adfb-d48ab089d4c2&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Steve Wynn Opens a New Window.</a>, stepped down abruptly, following allegations of sexual misconduct. Nonetheless, Wynn Resorts declared a dividend increase, saying its quarterly distribution would get a hefty 50% increase to $0.75 per share.</p>
<p>These days, most of Wynn's take comes from the busy Chinese gaming enclave of Macau. After years of serious revenue declines because of a government crackdown on casino junket operators, the region has come roaring back. Its full-year 2017 take was 19% higher on a year-over-year basis, the first annual increase since 2013.</p>
<p>This propelled Wynn's revenue 44% higher to just over $6.3 billion, while adjusted net profit rose by 62% to over $560 million.</p>
<p>The loss of Steve Wynn, a towering figure in the industry, is going to sting. But the company is well primed for future growth; Macau should remain a vibrant market, while a new casino near Boston is scheduled to open its doors next year. But Wynn the company has a bright future ahead of it. Barring another government crackdown in Macau, I'd bet that the new dividend will at least be maintained for now.</p>
<p>Wynn hasn't yet set the record and payment dates for the new dividend. Regardless, it would yield 1.6% and boast a payout ratio of only 36%.</p>
<p>Qualcomm is dialing up a new quarterly dividend. The company has declared that its next payout will be $0.62 per share, a 9% increase.</p>
<p>Qualcomm is very profitable, netting $1.5 billion in profit on $6 billion in revenue in its most recently reported quarter. It's a power player in the field of chips for mobile devices, and it draws much of its revenue from technology licensing activities.</p>
<p>That's not what has driven up the stock's price over the past few months, however. In late 2017, acquisitive Asian chipmaker Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) made a play to buy out Qualcomm with a mix of cash and stock. This and a subsequent higher bid from Broadcom were rejected, but the soap opera is still playing out.</p>
<p>Complicating matters is Qualcomm's own acquisition activity. Apparently, it's about to <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/03/09/qualcomms-nxp-semiconductors-offer-finally-looks-l.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=344f25a1-58ba-47e7-adfb-d48ab089d4c2&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">land its own large takeover target Opens a New Window.</a>, auto-computing specialist NXP Semiconductors.</p>
<p>So there are deals whipsawing back and forth, and we don't yet know how the whole mess is going to settle. As for Qualcomm's internal resources, it has more than enough free cash flow to pay for this raised dividend, plus a round of share buybacks. Still, given that the company's future ownership and structure is up in the air, it's hard to gauge the viability of this new payout. Income investors should exercise caution here.</p>
<p>The new $0.62-per-share amount will, in the company's words "be effective for quarterly dividends payable after March 21, 2018." It didn't get more specific. The theoretical yield is 3.9%, while the payout ratio stands at 63%.</p>
<p>I like it when my pessimistic assumptions turn out wrong. Last week turned out to be another good one for dividend increases, after all. 2018 has been a great year for lifts so far. Let's hope that trend will last.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than QualcommWhen 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=3e956f77-36ad-4c70-a1ad-3cbdff9ea2a5&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=344f25a1-58ba-47e7-adfb-d48ab089d4c2&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Qualcomm 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 March 5, 2018</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFVolkman/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=344f25a1-58ba-47e7-adfb-d48ab089d4c2&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Eric Volkman Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Qualcomm. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom Ltd and NXP Semiconductors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=344f25a1-58ba-47e7-adfb-d48ab089d4c2&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | These 3 Stocks Just Raised Their Dividends | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/20/these-3-stocks-just-raised-their-dividends.html | 2018-03-12 | 0 |
<p>If actions speak louder than words, then Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda, screamed on Monday.</p>
<p>That's the day he&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140224/defiant-ugandan-president-signs-tough-anti-gay-bill-0" type="external">signed into law the infamous anti-gay bill</a>, which defines some homosexual acts as crimes punishable by life in prison.</p>
<p>But still, there have been so many upsetting things said by those in power in Uganda on the matter. Here's a selection from recent years:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>(Marcel Mochet/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Museveni had gone back and forth over whether he wanted to sign the bill. Back in January, he said he wouldn't sign it because gay people were "sick" and in need of rehabilitation, not imprisoment.&#160;</p>
<p>But this month he changed his tune, saying there is definitively no gene for homosexuality and it is merely a choice people make to embrace "abnormal" behavior.</p>
<p>He said at the signing:</p>
<p>"I could not understand why a man could fail to be attracted to the beauties of a woman and, instead, be attracted to a fellow man. It meant, according to me, that there was something wrong with that man — he was born a homosexual — abnormal.</p>
<p>"Since my original thesis that there may be people who are born homosexual has been disproved by science, then the homosexuals have lost the argument in Uganda. They should rehabilitate themselves and society should assist them to do so."</p>
<p>Here is a full&#160; <a href="http://www.independent.co.ug/ugandatalks/2014/02/president-musevenis-statement-during-signing-of-anti-homo-bill/?Itemid=410" type="external">transcript</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>(Trevor Snapp/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Defending Museveni's decision to sign the bill, Lokodo expressed his various anatomical concerns about homosexuality to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/africa-homophobia-uganda-anti-gay-law" type="external">The Guardian</a> last week.</p>
<p>"Excretion is through the anus, like the exhaust of an engine. The human body receives what it takes from the mouth. They're twisting nature the wrong way. Homosexuality will destroy humanity because there is no procreation; it will destroy health because the backsides will not hold."</p>
<p>In 2013, <a href="http://oblogdeeoblogda.me/2013/06/01/ugandan-minister-of-ethics-and-integrity-says-men-raping-girls-is-natural/" type="external">Lokodo told English actor Stephen Fry</a> — who was in Uganda working on his documentary "Out There," about what it's like to be gay in different parts of the world — why Ugandans are more concerned with what gays do in the privacy of their homes than with the high incidence of men raping girls.</p>
<p>Fry: There’s so much more to worry about in your country than the odd gay person going to bed with the other gay person. For example, you have almost an epidemic of child rape in this country, which is just frightening.</p>
<p>Lokodo: Ah, But it is the RIGHT kind of child rape. It is men raping girls and that is natural.</p>
<p>Here is Fry giving his version (min. 5:05):</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>In a now-infamous speech at a press conference in January 2010, Ssempa shocked reporters by showing them hard-core gay porn. The following month, he showed extreme gay porn to his church congregation that included minors.</p>
<p>The video below, widely circulated on the internet as "Eat da poo poo," captures the essence of his anti-homosexuality campaign:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Ssempa, of the "Task Force Against Homosexuality," has also become known for depicting fisting and anilingus at conferences.</p>
<p>He went on Uganda television in December 2012 and <a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/04/24/anti-gay-ugandan-pastor-martin-ssempa-tweets-pinknews-to-warn-of-sodomy/" type="external">demonstrated with fruit and vegetables</a> how he believes gay men and women have sex.</p>
<p>Ssempa said the “anus is for exit only,” and illustrated his opinion with a banana.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>(Trevor Snapp/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Bahati, who introduced the anti-gay bill in 2009, told the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/24/uganda-president-signs-anti-gay-laws" type="external">Guardian</a> this week that Museveni's signing into law was a victory for all.&#160;</p>
<p>"This is a victory for the family of Uganda, a victory for the future of our children…"</p>
<p>Investigative journalist Jeff Sharlett recalls meeting Bahati in 2010. <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129422524" type="external">NPR</a> reports:</p>
<p>"Bahati said: 'If you come here, you'll see homosexuals from Europe and America are luring our children into homosexuality by distributing cell phones and iPods and things like this,' " Sharlet recounts.</p>
<p>"And he said, 'And I can explain to you what I really want to do.' " Sharlet accompanied Bahati to a restaurant and later to his home, where Bahati told Sharlet that he wanted "to kill every last gay person."</p>
<p>"It was a very chilling moment, because I'm sitting there with this man who's talking about his plans for genocide, and has demonstrated over the period of my relationship with him that he's not some back bencher — he's a real rising star in the movement," Sharlet says. "This was something that I hadn't understood before I went to Uganda, that this was a guy with real potential and real sway and increasingly a following in Uganda."</p>
<p>(Wikicommons)</p> | You will not believe the appalling things Ugandans in power are saying about gay people | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-02-25/you-will-not-believe-appalling-things-ugandans-power-are-saying-about-gay-people | 2014-02-25 | 3 |
<p>U.S. retailers reported a surprise decline in sales in May, the first in eight months, stirring nagging fears that the much-discussed road to economic recovery isn’t as on track as once believed. –JCL</p>
<p>Reuters:</p>
<p>Sales at retailers unexpectedly fell in May for the first time since September following a record slump in purchases of building materials, adding to fears the economic recovery was losing some steam.</p>
<p>Friday’s report follows last week’s data showing a sharp slowdown in private hiring in May, but analysts still saw little risk of the economy slipping back into recession.</p>
<p />
<p>“The report is not evidence that the economy is getting ready for a double-dip or that consumers, facing headwinds of double-digit unemployment and bank credit restriction, are taking their ball and going home,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo/Mitsubishi in New York.</p>
<p>Total retail sales dropped 1.2 percent after rising 0.6 percent in April, the Commerce Department said.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6592N720100611" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Retail Sales Drop Stirs Fears | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/retail-sales-drop-stirs-fears/ | 2010-06-11 | 4 |
<p>Word is there's an economic recovery going on. <a href="http://ourfuture.org/thenewpopulismconference" type="external">But approximately 99 percent of us have no reason to believe that.</a></p>
<p>The public sees that the government bailed out the biggest banks and that the "recovery" is going really well for a very few people. But most Americans are actually falling behind, and know it. Wages are still stagnant at best and the minimum wage has fallen so far behind that people working full time remain in poverty. Unemployment is down largely because of people "leaving the workforce." And all along government services are being cut and cut and cut.</p>
<p>People see the government working for a wealthy few at the top, and against the rest of us. People see the rigged game at work against them. This is not just an economic and human catastrophe. With an election coming, key Democratic constituencies <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/us/politics/economic-recovery-is-leaving-major-democratic-constituencies-behind.html?_r=0" type="external">have simply been left behind</a> during the Obama administration. "Are you better off now than you were 4 or 8 years ago? HELL NO!"</p>
<p>So this could become a political catastrophe as well, potentially bringing the return of the very people and conditions that got the country into this mess.</p>
<p>An Ongoing Catastrophe For Regular People</p>
<p>What Washington has done <a href="http://ourfuture.org/category/featured-stories/reagan-revolution" type="external">since the "Reagan Revolution"</a> and especially since the 2008 crash has benefited the few, usually at the expense of the general public. Washington rescued the big banks, and left homeowners and the rest of us to fend for ourselves.</p>
<p>Anti-inflation monetary policy has been a catastrophe for regular people. (Protecting Wall Street at the expense of Main Street? Really?)</p>
<p>Washington's austerity, budget-cutting fixation has been a catastrophe for regular people. (Laying off hundreds of thousands of public employees, cutting public investment and cutting back on the safety net during an unemployment crisis? Really?)</p>
<p>Washington's <a href="http://ourfuture.org/20130917/do-free-trade-agreements-create-jobs" type="external">"free trade" policies</a> have been great for giant, multinational corporations but have been a catastrophe for regular people, sending millions upon millions of jobs out of the country. (Not even confronting blatant currency manipulation that is <a href="http://ourfuture.org/20140226/want-5-8-million-new-us-jobs-do-this" type="external">costing 5.8 million jobs</a>" Really")</p>
<p>Washington's corporate tax policies have been a catastrophe for regular people. (Giving companies <a href="http://ourfuture.org/20140508/shouldnt-giant-corporations-pay-taxes-they-owe" type="external">huge tax breaks for moving jobs</a>, factories and profit centers out of the country? Really?)</p>
<p>One catastrophe after another hitting regular people. And people see it coming from a system that is rigged against them, working just fine for a wealthy few.</p>
<p>We did get the "stimulus." The <a href="http://ourfuture.org/20140217/stimuus-5th-anniversary-did-it-work" type="external">stimulus reversed the terrible plunge</a> in jobs and showed that our government could fix the jobs emergency.</p>
<p />
<p>But that was all it did, and that was it. It worked but it was just not enough to get things going again. And now it's five years later. As most people can see, after the stimulus the Obama administration capitulated to Republican/Wall Street demands for austerity - and outright budget blackmail. The President even at times <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0910/Obama_government_cant_create_jobs.html" type="external">reinforced the right's ideological position</a> by boasting about government progress in balancing its books rather than emphasizing the human cost of not boosting government resources to drive job creation. Democrats even <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/178247/farm-bill-cuts-8-billion-food-stamps-preserves-handouts-koch-industries" type="external">voted to cut food stamp spending</a> and the president <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut" type="external">signed the bill</a>! (Cutting Food Stamps in the middle of a national jobs and poverty emergency? Really?)</p>
<p>We Demand Full Employment</p>
<p><a href="http://ourfuture.org/thenewpopulismconference" type="external">The New Populism Conference</a> on Thursday will demand full employment as the first principle of the new populism.</p>
<p>We demand full employment! Full employment means there is a job for everyone who wants a job. There is simply no reason whatsoever that we can't have full employment - except for policies that are intentionally keeping us from having full employment.</p>
<p>We demand full employment! Why isn't our government stepping up and just hiring all of the people who need jobs? It's not as if there are not enough things that need to be done. Our infrastructure is in <a href="http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/" type="external">serious need of repair</a>. We need to retrofit millions of buildings and homes in the country to be energy efficient. We need to build a modern energy grid to bring energy from wind farms that we need to build in the plains states (where the wind is) to the cities and industrial centers (where the need is). We need to cut the number of children per classroom in half. We need to do ... so many things. Why isn't our government the employer of last resort, just hiring people to do those things we need done - in the middle of an employment emergency?</p>
<p>We demand full employment! Unemployment is a human and economic catastrophe. There are so many things our government could do besides direct hiring (which they should be doing). Our government could fix our job-sucking trade deals and balance the trade budget. Our government could demand that corporations return the trillions of dollars they are holding outside of the country to avoid paying <a href="http://ourfuture.org/20140508/shouldnt-giant-corporations-pay-taxes-they-owe" type="external">the taxes due on that money</a>. That's a double whammy; take away the huge incentive to move jobs out of the country because of the tax break - and use the money they already owe to just hire millions of people!</p>
<p>The New Populism Conference</p>
<p>Two speakers at this week's <a href="http://ourfuture.org/thenewpopulismconference" type="external">New Populism Conference</a>, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and economist Jared Bernstein will talk about the importance of growth and jobs in order to bring about a rapid change in inequality.</p>
<p>Rep. Ellison will talk about the Progressive Caucus investment strategy for full employment. <a href="http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/" type="external">Bernstein</a> will talk about full employment and his recent book, " <a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/getting-back-to-full-employment-a-better-bargain-for-working-people" type="external">Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better Bargain for Working People</a>," co-written with economist Dean Baker.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>This post originally appeared at <a href="http://www.ourfuture.org/" type="external">Campaign for America's Future</a> (CAF) at their <a href="http://www.ourfuture.org/blog" type="external">Blog for OurFuture</a>. I am a Fellow with CAF. <a href="http://ourfuture.org/progressivebreakfast" type="external">Sign up here for the CAF daily summary</a> and/or <a href="Thttp://ourfuture.org/progressivebreakfast" type="external">for the Progress Breakfast</a>.</p> | Full Employment: First Principle Of New Populism | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2014/05/full-employment-first-principle-new | 2014-05-21 | 4 |
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is offering a discount fare for fans attending Sunday's NFC Championship between the Eagles and Minnesota Vikings.</p>
<p>The $4 roundtrip pass goes on sale Friday and can be used to get to and from the game on the Broad Street Line subway.</p>
<p>The passes will be sold at 15th Street Station, Frankford Transportation Center, Olney Transportation Center, 69th Street Transportation Center and SEPTA Headquarters.</p>
<p>The passes will also be sold for cash only on game day starting at 10 a.m. at Fern Rock Transportation Center, at the Dilworth Park entrance to the City Hall Station and at the Walnut/Locust Station.</p>
<p>SEPTA is expecting 18,000 riders.</p>
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is offering a discount fare for fans attending Sunday's NFC Championship between the Eagles and Minnesota Vikings.</p>
<p>The $4 roundtrip pass goes on sale Friday and can be used to get to and from the game on the Broad Street Line subway.</p>
<p>The passes will be sold at 15th Street Station, Frankford Transportation Center, Olney Transportation Center, 69th Street Transportation Center and SEPTA Headquarters.</p>
<p>The passes will also be sold for cash only on game day starting at 10 a.m. at Fern Rock Transportation Center, at the Dilworth Park entrance to the City Hall Station and at the Walnut/Locust Station.</p>
<p>SEPTA is expecting 18,000 riders.</p> | SEPTA offers discount to NFC Championship | false | https://apnews.com/amp/720e3ea877c64529be713315bf8f6cb5 | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p>BERLIN (Reuters) – Carmaker BMW (DE:) plans to build its new 8 series model at its plant in the southern German town of Dingolfing from 2018, strengthening the site’s role in the production of premium models in addition to electric vehicle components.</p>
<p>The plant currently makes BMW’s 3 to 7 series models and expects to beat its record annual output of 369,000 vehicles this year, BMW said in a statement on Saturday.</p>
<p>It reiterated that its new electric, autonomous iNEXT model was to be built at Dingolfing from 2021, and that the plant will be involved in the supply of electric motor, components and a battery for the electric MINI to be built in Oxford.</p>
<p>“And that is certainly not the end of it,” Andreas Wendt, head of the plant, said in a statement.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | BMW to build new 8 series at German Dingolfing plant from 2018 | false | https://newsline.com/bmw-to-build-new-8-series-at-german-dingolfing-plant-from-2018/ | 2017-09-22 | 1 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>FILE - In this Feb. 2, 2015, file photo, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady poses with NFL Commissioner Rodger Goodell during a news conference after NFL football's Super Bowl XLIX in Phoenix, Ariz. A federal judge deflated "Deflategate" Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015, erasing New England quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension for a controversy that the NFL claimed threatened football's integrity. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell went too far in affirming punishment of the Super Bowl winning quarterback. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)</p>
<p>NEW YORK - The latest on a federal judge's decision to overturn the NFL's four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the "Deflategate" scandal (all times Eastern):</p>
<p>4:10 p.m.</p>
<p>Patriots Nation is crowing after a federal judge erased quarterback Tom Brady's four-game "Deflategate" suspension.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The decision rippled through lunchtime conversations among office workers, construction crews and tourists in downtown Boston on Thursday.</p>
<p>Fans heading to Gillette Stadium for Thursday's final exhibition against the New York Giants said they were energized by the ruling.</p>
<p>Many, like Peter Cordero, of Revere, Massachusetts, never doubted the NFL's punishment would be overturned.</p>
<p>Some, like Maine resident Rachel Cote, expressed frustration the controversy even got this far, dampening the glow of last season's championship and casting a shadow over the franchise.</p>
<p>But like their beloved team, fans like Eric Newman of Swampscott, Massachusetts, said they're laser focused on exacting revenge in the season ahead.</p>
<p>Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, meanwhile, jokingly declared September 3 "Tom Brady Day" as other New England politicians joined in celebrating on social networks.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>4 p.m.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell won't attend the league's season opening showcase between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers.</p>
<p>League spokesman Brian McCarthy said Thursday that Goodell wants the focus to be the game itself and celebrations of New England's win in the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>McCarthy says Goodell will watch the game on TV and attend another game during the league's opening weekend.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>3:30 p.m.</p>
<p>The White House has weighed in on the "Deflategate" ruling.</p>
<p>When asked about the scandal during a briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he thinks the people happiest with the ruling are Patriots fans and fantasy football players who drafted Tom Brady at a bargain price.</p>
<p>Earnest says he thinks "there is a lot of good natured ribbing that is going on in fantasy football leagues even before the season starts."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>3:15 p.m.</p>
<p>The NFL has appealed its overturned suspension of New England quarterback Tom Brady to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.</p>
<p>The league filed its appeal Thursday, several hours after U.S. District Judge Richard Berman sided with Brady and nullified a four-game suspension backed by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.</p>
<p>The NFL notified Berman of its decision. A clerk for the judge then forwarded the electronic case file to the appeals court, which also sits in Manhattan.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1:55 p.m.</p>
<p>NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy says that while the league is appealing the federal judge's decision in "Deflategate," it isn't seeking an emergency stay.</p>
<p>That frees New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to play while an appeals court considers the case. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman overturned the NFL's four-game suspension of Brady on Thursday.</p>
<p>The Patriots open Sept. 10 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1:45 p.m.</p>
<p>A person with knowledge of Greg Hardy's plans says the NFL Players Association will be consulted over whether the Dallas defensive end will challenge his four-game suspension in court after a federal judge tossed Tom Brady's punishment.</p>
<p>The person, speaking on condition of anonymity because a decision hasn't been made, said Thursday that Hardy would seek a recommendation from the union.</p>
<p>Hardy was suspended for his involvement in a domestic violence case in North Carolina while he played for the Carolina Panthers. He was on the commissioner's exempt list for all but one game last season while his case was still in the legal system. He received his $13 million salary.</p>
<p>A 10-game suspension from Commissioner Roger Goodell was reduced to four games by arbitrator Harold Henderson in July.</p>
<p>Goodell suspended Hardy after the NFL saw photos and other evidence that led the league to conclude the 27-year-old player roughed up ex-girlfriend Nicole Holder in his apartment in May 2014. He was convicted by a judge, but the case was thrown out on appeal when Holder couldn't be located to testify.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>1:15 p.m.</p>
<p>Patriots owner Robert Kraft says his team can finally return its focus from "Deflategate" to the game on the field.</p>
<p>Kraft said in a statement Thursday that he is grateful for the "thoughtful" decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman to overturn the NFL's four-game suspension of Tom Brady over underinflated footballs in a playoff game last season.</p>
<p>Kraft says Brady is of the "highest integrity" and represents everything that is great about football and the NFL.</p>
<p>Kraft says the league's lawyers insisted on imposing and defending unwarranted discipline, despite having no evidence of wrongdoing.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>12:20 p.m.</p>
<p>NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league will appeal a federal judge's ruling striking down Tom Brady's four-game suspension in "Deflategate."</p>
<p>Goodell said in a statement Thursday that it's paramount to protect the integrity of the game and his office's responsibilities under the collective bargaining agreement with players.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>11:45 a.m.</p>
<p>The executive director of the NFL Players Association says a judge overturning Tom Brady's four-game "Deflategate" suspension shows that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell needs to act fairly.</p>
<p>DeMaurice Smith said in a statement Thursday that the players contract does not allow Goodell to be arbitrary and misleading when he uses his power to discipline players.</p>
<p>Smith says the decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman should signal to all NFL team owners that collective bargaining is better than legal losses, leading to "far better results."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>11:25 a.m.</p>
<p>Sports books in Las Vegas are shifting their odds on the Patriots now that a federal judge has ruled quarterback Tom Brady can play right away.</p>
<p>Odds compiled by gambling expert R.J. Bell of Pregame.com show New England's chances of winning the Super Bowl at 8-1, compared with 10-1 before the resolution in the "Deflategate" scandal.</p>
<p>The ruling erased a four game suspension dished out by the NFL in the dispute over underinflated footballs in the AFC championship game last season.</p>
<p>Las Vegas casinos moved the Patriots from a 2.5-point favorite to a 7-point favorite in their opener Sept. 10 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.</p>
<p>Had the suspension been upheld, the Patriots would have started Jimmy Garoppolo instead of Brady.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>11:15 a.m.</p>
<p>The Patriots are letting a photo do their talking on "Deflategate."</p>
<p>Team owner Robert Kraft and coach Bill Belichick have not yet commented on a judge overturning the four-game suspension of quarterback Tom Brady on Thursday, but the team tweeted a celebratory photo of its star.</p>
<p>The photo ( <a href="http://bit.ly/1L7rnN2" type="external">http://bit.ly/1L7rnN2</a> ) shows Brady pumping his right fist and celebrating during the Patriots? Super Bowl win last season.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>10:45 a.m.</p>
<p>The federal judge who overturned a four-game suspension for Tom Brady says the discipline over underinflated footballs was NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's "own brand of industrial justice."</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said Thursday that the suspension was based on several significant legal deficiencies.</p>
<p>Berman says that includes failing to notify Brady of potential penalties equivalent to what would be imposed on a player who used performance-enhancing drugs.</p>
<p>The judge says Brady was also denied equal access to investigative files, including witness interview notes, and didn't have a chance to examine one of two lead investigators.</p>
<p>The written decision frees Brady to prepare for the Sept. 10 season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>10:15 a.m.</p>
<p>New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady can suit up for his team's season opener after a judge erased his four-game suspension for "Deflategate."</p>
<p>The surprise ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman came Thursday after more than one month of failed settlement talks between the NFL and its players' union. Many legal experts believed the judge was merely pressuring the sides to settle when he criticized the NFL's handling of the case at two hearings in August.</p>
<p>But the judge wasn't posturing.</p>
<p>He came out forcefully in Brady's favor, maligning the NFL for its handling of the scandal that erupted after the AFC championship game in January, when officials discovered during the first half that Brady used underinflated footballs. New England beat the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 then won the Super Bowl two weeks later.</p>
<p>An NFL investigation led to Brady's suspension, which Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Philip Marcelo in Boston, Nancy Benac in Washington and AP sports writers Schuyler Dixon in Dallas and Jimmy Golen in Boston contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP NFL websites: <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> | The Latest: Pats fans celebrate 'Deflategate' judgment | false | https://abqjournal.com/638818/the-latest-pats-fans-celebrate-deflategate-judgment.html | 2 |
|
<p>Photo Credit: AFP</p>
<p>Since last October, Chris Christie has been embraced by President Obama, friended by Mark Zuckerberg, and praised by Bill Maher. In a political time of fracture he’s seemingly been the healer; in a time of discord, he’s been portrayed as leading the singers in Kumbaya -- all five verses.</p>
<p>Nonsense. The only true bipartisanship the governor has managed has been the delicate balance between his glistening public persona and the ugly reality of his stewardship of an essential northeastern state. He is extraordinarily deft at it: he can annoy the rowdies who wouldn’t invite him to CPAC yet still get the Koch brothers to welcome him to their table and happily help him write his laws. Christie knows that conservatives come in two main types: the loud bullies who always back the wrong horse and always steer him straight to the glue factory, and the stealth guys in the suits who have all the money.</p>
<p>Embrace the president after Superstorm Sandy and you enrage the former. Bill O’Reilly tried to blame Mitt Romney’s loss on it. One of the interchangable umbrage merchants at the Washington Times called for Christie’s excommunication. The governor even caused Laura Ingraham to bray loudly about him becoming a Democrat.&#160;</p>
<p>But the political genius of Chris Christie lies in his awareness that you can piss off some of the people some of the time, just so long as you don’t rock the billionaires’ boats. More over, sacrifice the correct group of the overheated -- like the ones still clinging to a Romney victory only they and Romney believed still possible -- and you suddenly look like you’re putting the public interest over political dogma, and you stand out like a beacon to milder liberals looking for somebody on the other side who just might possibly not be stark raving mad.</p>
<p>As Christie tries to hone this high-wire act on a national stage and shove the Marco Rubios and Jeb Bushes off the 2016 stage, it is instructive to realize that the act is not new -- only the venue is. Stage dramatic budget cuts in front of the gullible local media and they’ll write encomiums about your courage that the hurried national media will devour amid their limited research. The national guys may find out about the $28 million Christie cut from healthcare for women and the elderly; they’ll never be told about the $260 million in his budget wasted on an Atlantic City casino that reported $35 million in losses in just its first three months of operation.</p>
<p>The national media sees the hug with Obama and the daring pushback against “Corzine Democrats.” It never sees the state teetering on the verge of 10% unemployment, nor the seemingly impossible reality of Christie advocating tax cuts that would drain more than a billion dollars from the money the state is taking in, while he still managed to increase his budget by a whopping 6.8% from 2011 to 2012.</p>
<p>And Christie bipartisanship -- maintaining his own image despite vast piles of facts that contradict it at every turn -- runs through not merely legislation but also ethics. This is New Jersey we're talking about: the four governors elected before Christie were: 1) the guy who went back to private business and lost $1.6 billion in customer investments in about 18 months; 2) the guy who resigned with his wife at his side at a news conference during which he announced he was gay; 3) the woman who claimed black men competed with each other to see who could produce the most children out of wedlock, and then personally frisked one of them during a police ride-along; and 4) the anti-gun liberal who desperately tried to hold onto the governor’s mansion by promising to crack down on “welfare mothers.”&#160;</p>
<p>Seen against the backdrop of that pile -- at least from a distance -- Christie looks clean. This is hardly the case; in fact it’s just another example of his amazing ability to look good while acting badly. In that light, we offer the five corrupt actions by Governor Christie.</p>
<p>1. Handed a No-Bid Contract to Firm With Questionable Political Ties&#160;</p>
<p>In the wake of Sandy, Governor Christie gifted a no-bid contract to AshBritt, a Florida-based debris-removal firm with eyebrow-raising political affiliations. AshBritt's founder and chief executive, Randal Perkins, has personally contributed $218,500 to political candidates and committees since 2001, nearly all of which went to Republican causes including George W. Bush and the Florida GOP. The firm has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on high-profile Washington lobbyists, including the company founded by Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor whom Christie identifies as a mentor. If AshBritt's name sounds familiar, it's because it was among those criticized during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for hiring subcontractor on top of subcontractor, leading some in Congress to accuse it of inflating the cost the government had to pay in reimbursements.</p>
<p>While it is not mandatory for all Jersey towns to agree to use AshBritt for debris removal, media outlets are reporting it's been implied that if they look elsewhere those communities won't get adequate FEMA funds.&#160;</p>
<p>Christie has dismissed criticisms of this contract as nothing more than "shoddy journalism."</p>
<p>2. Betting On Casinos, Not Women's Health</p>
<p>Christie's economics are often remarkably arbitrary. In his first three budgets, Christie cut women's health funding claiming the state didn't have the money. Then, he somehow found the aforementioned $260 million to spend on Revel, an Atlantic City casino (which just went bankrupt). In his fourth budget, he cut women's health funding again. Once again, the governor is also a miracle worker here; you can be seen as pro-business&#160;even if the business quickly goes under and you’ve poured enormous amounts of taxpayer money down a hole.</p>
<p>3. Lying To Kill ARC Tunnel&#160;</p>
<p>Christie employed inflated cost estimates to justify canceling the ARC rail tunnel to Manhattan, which would have created thousands of both short- and long-term jobs, cleared up congestion and lessened pollution caused by commuters. The result of Christie's action was to give him credibility as a staunch fiscal conservative within the national Republican party, which was likely his ultimate objective.&#160;</p>
<p>4. Moderate Talk, Tea Party Walk&#160;</p>
<p>Christie may have strengthened his reputation as a moderate through his public embrace of President Obama days after the state was ravaged by the post-hurricane storm, but even if they turn it into a statue it won’t erase his history of advocating for some of Congress's most extremist conservatives. Steve King (IA-4), Paul Ryan (WI-1), Susan Brooks (IN-5), Ann Wagner (MO-2) and Tom Lathan (IA-3) all received Christie's endorsement. What's more, each of those Christie-approved representatives went on to vote against the Sandy relief bill…just as their radical, right-wing track-records indicated they would.</p>
<p>5. Weakened Over 100 Essential Environmental Protections&#160;</p>
<p>In 2011, not long after his&#160; <a href="//www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/audio-chris-christie-koch-brothers-seminar" type="external">secret meeting with the Koch brothers</a>, Governor Christie proposed a Department of Environment Protection waiver rule which would allow landowners to request exemptions from the DEP if a rule is considered "unduly burdensome." The vagueness of that phrase sparked concerns among environmentalists -- and many regular people who are fond of clean air and water -- that Christie's rule would provide too big of an advantage to large corporations and land developers who already carry enormous influence in Trenton. &#160;</p>
<p>Surely the timing of the proposal was merely a coincidence. Even though Koch Industries is a major polluter and leader in nearly every kind of unsustainable industry, and Christie had already proven his allegiance to the Koch agenda by pulling out of one of the Kochs’ biggest pet peeves, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), there couldn’t be linkage between these things, could there?&#160;</p>
<p>I mean, after all, this is Chris Christie. He can embrace the President and Charles and David Koch. He can draw praise for cutting health care while not even getting smudged by the fourth-worst statewide unemployment in the nation. He can be the hero of a hurricane and the endorser of fellow Republicans who kill bills meant to repair that hurricane’s damage. This is the man whose ability to get himself judged by one set of standards while actually operating with almost none could seemingly be summarized by a twist of the old phrase: Who you gonna believe? His reputation, or your lyin’ eyes?</p>
<p>Olivia Nuzzi is a freelance writer who has also particpated in speechwriting and media relations.</p> | 5 Corrupt Things About New Jersey Governor Chris Christie | true | http://alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/5-most-corrupt-things-about-new-jersey-governor-chris-christie | 2013-03-15 | 4 |
<p>Aug. 10 (UPI) — <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/North_Korea/" type="external">North Korea</a> weapons production plants are being turned into fishing boat operation centers, according to sources in the country.</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Kim_Jong_Un/" type="external">Kim Jong Un</a> regime <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2017/08/08/North-Korea-threatens-strike-near-Guam-after-US-bomber-mission/6121502216475/" type="external">continues to threaten</a> a missile strike near U.S. territories, the country may also be desperate for cash from the outside world, <a href="http://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/north-korean-munitions-factories-turn-to-fishing-to-generate-foreign-currency-08092017152812.html" type="external">Radio Free Asia reported</a> Wednesday.</p>
<p>“The waters of Chongjin are full of munitions factories’ fishing vessels,” said a source in North Hamgyong Province, which faces the body of water known as the East Sea or the Sea of Japan. “Many fishing vessels from Base 317 of Department No. 6 under the Second Economic Committee are making an effort to earn foreign currency by catching squid.”</p>
<p>Some of the munitions factories began to be repurposed in early 2017, according to RFA’s sources.</p>
<p>North Korea has publicly stressed the importance of its military, through annual parades and frequent missile provocations.</p>
<p>But domestically the earning of U.S. dollars may be a bigger priority for the reclusive state.</p>
<p>Fish exports are more lucrative than weapons production, and selling fish can bring in Chinese and U.S. currency, according to the report.</p>
<p>“The Puyun munitions factory at Base 317 is new to the Sinjin Port, and its fishing vessels are there to earn foreign currency,” RFA’s source said. “Their assignment is to generate U.S. $2,000 a year per ship. The base’s yearly assignment is to make U.S. $500,000.”</p>
<p>North Korea state media has previously touted military-run fishery stations, and has claimed the fish produced at the plants are for domestic consumption.</p> | Report: North Korea turning weapons plants into fishery stations | false | https://newsline.com/report-north-korea-turning-weapons-plants-into-fishery-stations/ | 2017-08-10 | 1 |
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<p>Michael Swickard / Tuning in</p>
<p>“I’m accustomed to a smooth ride or maybe I’m a dog who’s lost its bite.” — Paul Simon</p>
<p>Thanksgiving looks different to me with miles and age upon my eyes. The splendor of Thanksgiving to me is always tempered by the realization these gifts are not always deserved. For my undeserved gifts, I am thankful and mindful of my life made better.</p>
<p>Our nation has changed in my lifetime from these feelings of thankfulness to the point that some people feel entitled to Thanksgiving. They forget being thankful. Rather than pleased, they are bored since they are supposed to get everything they want.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Our nation has gone from some who look at their glass to see if it is half full to those who are stuck just looking for a glass. The majority do not dialog the glass half empty or full, they maintain they are entitled to the glass, so hand it over.</p>
<p>Some will spend time on Thanksgiving remembering Thanksgivings past when glasses were held by loved ones who are long since gone. It is the consequence of age to live beyond people we have loved. In my lifetime, so much has been gained in our society and so much lost.</p>
<p>Like Paul Simon says, there are times when I think I am a dog who has lost his bite in today’s world. That is a common thought to those over the age of 60 in a world that worships youth. When I was young, old people were revered. No longer. Knowledge is not even revered, only political advantage.</p>
<p>It is Thanksgiving week and as usual I am thankful. However, none of what I really hold close to my heart is material. There was a time when I was younger that all I could think of was Martin guitars. Forty-some years later, I still have those two guitars, a six-string and a 12-string Martin. They have traveled with me for decades and they mean less to me than a granddaughter’s smile.</p>
<p>While I do occasionally have a smooth ride in life, compared to others, I have never become accustomed to a smooth ride. No, this life of mine has always been stormy, just as I have liked it to be. Early in my life, I found that a placid ride held no interest for me.</p>
<p>In the storms of life, I am captain of my ship, though I cannot control the weather. So I must adjust to the changing weather of life. While I habitually am not much to worry, the future of this nation does worry me because of the challenges, not to me, but to the next generations.</p>
<p>In fact, I am worried not because of what our leaders are doing, rather, because of what my fellow citizens are not doing. This Thanksgiving is a good example of this change in America.</p>
<p>Years ago we got down on our knees to give thanks to Almighty God for that which we were given, despite being flawed humans. We were honestly and completely thankful. It was not just a photo opportunity, it was what we felt.</p>
<p>Today, many Americans rise from their Thanksgiving table saying, “I certainly deserve this and more.” Rising from the table with the butter from the rolls still on their lips, many citizens do not see the thanks in Thanksgiving. For these modern American citizens, the holiday does not resemble what it has been in the past.</p>
<p>In years gone by, Americans were humbled by the challenges and thankful for the deliverance. Today, there is only the expectation that what comes our way is our entitlement. How strange to not feel real gratitude.</p>
<p>Many citizens expect the smooth ride because they voted correctly and, therefore, are entitled to the very special bounty that one political party has promised: The freedom from want. The concept was from President Franklin Roosevelt in his Four Freedoms Speech. But until lately, no one took it seriously. Imagine a government trying to provide for all citizen wants. Ridiculous, but no longer.</p>
<p>Those who seek freedom from wants this Thanksgiving may soon find the ride is no longer smooth. They will come to realize that dog has lost its bite.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Seek freedom from want? The ‘dog has lost its bite’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/310113/seek-freedom-from-want-the-39dog-has-lost-its-bite39.html | 2 |
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<p>Days before the pivotal race, Shelby, who is Alabama’s senior senator, said he had already cast an absentee ballot for another, unspecified Republican, even as other prominent state Republicans fell in line behind Moore.</p>
<p>Moore faces Democrat Doug Jones in the special election Tuesday to replace Jeff Sessions, now the U.S. attorney general.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t vote for Roy Moore. I didn’t vote for Roy Moore. But I wrote in a distinguished Republican name. And I think a lot of people could do that,” Shelby told CNN’s “State of the Union.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The state of Alabama deserves better,” he said.</p>
<p>“There’s a lot of smoke,” Shelby said of Moore and his accusers. “Got to be some fire somewhere.”</p>
<p>The accusations against Moore have left many GOP voters and leaders in a quandary. Voters face the decision of whether to vote for Moore, accused of sexual misconduct with teenagers decades ago when he was a county prosecutor, or sending Jones to Washington, which would narrow the GOP’s already precarious majority in the Senate.</p>
<p>They also could write in a name on their ballots or simply stay home. Meanwhile, most GOP politicians in the state must run for re-election next year — where they will face Moore’s enthusiastic voting base at the polls.</p>
<p>Shelby said allegations that Moore had molested a 14-year-girl in particular were a “tipping point” in disqualifying him. His latest comments cast fresh doubt on a former judge that President Donald Trump and most Republican leaders in Alabama are backing to help maintain the party’s narrow 52-48 majority in the Senate.</p>
<p>Shelby’s outspokenness against a man who could become his colleague was the exception rather than the rule.</p>
<p>“I have stated both publicly and privately over the last month that unless these allegations were proven to be true I would continue to plan to vote for the Republican nominee, Judge Roy Moore,” Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill wrote in a text message to The Associated Press. “I have already cast my absentee ballot and I voted for Judge Moore.”</p>
<p>The AP tried to find out how Republican leaders from Alabama plan to vote. Most officeholders or their staffs responded, while others have publicly stated their plans during public appearances or to other media outlets.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>However, several officeholders did not respond to calls, emails or texts from the AP. They include U.S. Reps. Martha Roby, Mike Rogers and Gary Palmer, as well as state Treasurer Young Boozer and state House Speaker Mac McCutcheon.</p>
<p>State officeholders who said they intended to vote for Moore often cited the need to keep the seat in Republican hands.</p>
<p>In addition to Merrill, others who plan to vote for Moore include Gov. Kay Ivey; Attorney General Steve Marshall; state Auditor Jim Zeigler; Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan; state Senate President Pro Tempore Del Marsh; and Public Service Commissioner Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, who previously led the state GOP. Also voting for Moore are current state party head Terry Lathan and U.S. Reps. Mo Brooks of Huntsville and Robert Aderholt of Haleyville.</p>
<p>Shelby’s decision has played prominently in Jones ads pointing out Republicans who are not voting for their party’s nominee.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Shelby acknowledged that if Moore is elected, he would probably have to be seated in the Senate but that an Ethics Committee investigation was already been contemplated to remove him. “I think that the Senate has to look at who is fit to serve in the Senate,” he said.</p>
<p>CNN reported last month that U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne said he will vote Republican and that he does not cast write-in votes. In a statement to the AP, Byrne said it is up to voters to decide.</p>
<p>“Some serious allegations have been made and Judge Moore has vehemently denied them. Frankly, I don’t think the people of Alabama want me, any national politician, or the national news media telling them what to think or how to vote,” Byrne said in the statement. “The decision is ultimately up to the people of Alabama to evaluate the information they have before them and make an informed decision. We must respect the voters’ decision.”</p>
<p>Sen. Luther Strange, who lost to Moore in the Republican primary, did not respond to a request for comment from AP, but told The Washington Post recently that the election is up to voters.</p>
<p>“I’m staying out of it now. I think everybody knows how I feel about Judge Moore. We made our case and the voters made a different decision,” Strange told the newspaper in a video on its website.</p>
<p>Sessions, who resigned from the Senate to join the Trump administration, declined to say how he would vote. Moore and Jones are competing for his old job.</p>
<p>“There have been some ads that may have suggested I endorsed a candidate, that is not so,” Sessions said. “I believe that the people of Alabama will make their own decision.”</p>
<p>State party loyalty rules could prohibit a GOP politician, or someone who aspires to be one, from publicly backing Moore’s opponent. The rule says anyone who openly supports another party’s nominee over a Republican could be barred from running as a Republican in the future.</p>
<p>Ivey became governor earlier this year after Robert Bentley resigned amid a sex scandal involving a much younger female political aide. When reached by the AP, Bentley declined to say who he is voting for Tuesday.</p>
<p>Ivey said last month that she has no reason to disbelieve the women who have accused Moore and is bothered by their allegations. But Ivey, who plans to run for governor in 2018, said she will vote for Moore anyway for the sake of GOP power in Congress. Her office did not respond to a request for an updated comment.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Sadie Gurman, Donna Cassata and Hope Yen in Washington contributed to this report.</p> | Shelby bucks Alabama GOP leaders in voting against Moore | false | https://abqjournal.com/1104793/shelby-bucks-alabama-gop-leaders-in-voting-against-moore.html | 2017-12-10 | 2 |
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<p>A new date has been set for the foreclosure auction of Albuquerque Studios.</p>
<p>According to a legal ad placed in Monday’s Journal, the studios’ parent company, Pacifica Ventures of California, is still in default on one of its loans. The bank, Workers Realty Trust II, will sell the loan and its interest in the ownership of the studios at a public auction. This loan is the smaller of two on the studios in Mesa Del Sol, which have hosted the TV show “Breaking Bad” and numerous films.</p>
<p>“We’ve communicated with them and the senior lender, and so far no deal and no money,” said Albuquerque attorney Louis Puccini Jr., who represents Workers Realty Trust.</p>
<p>Pacifica has been in default on the loan since last September. A notice of a foreclosure auction was first published in April by Workers Trust and said there would be a foreclousre auction on May 14. The new date, however, is set for Friday, July 23.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Company representatives didn’t return calls on Monday seeking comment.</p>
<p>But, the company CEO, Hal Katersky, has said that Pacifica is working to rectify the situation and is expecting several new movies to rent space at Albuquerque Studios this summer.</p>
<p>The first foreclosure notice from April said Workers Trust was owed $21,480,642. Now, with interest and penalties, that figure has risen to $23,804,380.34.</p>
<p>The company’s website, however, says the company is working on building new studio projects in Connecticut, Philadelphia, and an office building in Hollywood, Calif.</p> | Back on the Auction Block | false | https://abqjournal.com/13548/back-on-the-auction-block.html | 2 |
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<p>Stocks gave up more ground last week, due to concerns over an escalating trade war and news that job growth slowed in the U.S. during the month of March. Through the last five trading days the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) and the S&amp;P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) each shed about 1% to bring year-to-date losses to roughly 3%.</p>
<p>First-quarter earnings season kicks off over the next few trading days, and the most anticipated reports will be coming from MSC Industrial (NYSE: MSM), Bed Bath &amp; Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY), and Citigroup (NYSE: C). Here are trends for investors to keep an eye on in these announcements.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Industrial parts specialist MSC Industrial Supply will post its results before the market opens on Tuesday. Its last quarterly report was mixed, with average daily sales rising 8% as gross profit margin slipped. However, CEO Erik Gershwind and his team said at the time that there were <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/01/16/msc-industrial-direct-faces-a-pivotal-second-quart.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=0663c1b5-05f0-446f-90ea-ea1fae256103&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">good reasons for optimism Opens a New Window.</a> about both these core metrics.</p>
<p>Suppliers are finally starting to raise their prices, which should leave room for MSC Industrial to boost its prices, too. Manufacturing activity appeared to be speeding up as well, a boost that might have been accelerated by recent tax law changes.</p>
<p>MSC Industrial's forecast calls for sales to rise by 9.1%, at the midpoint of guidance for between $761 million and $775 million. Executives are targeting earnings per share of between $1.93 and $2.03.</p>
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<p>Bed Bath &amp; Beyond announces its fiscal fourth-quarter results on Wednesday afternoon. The home-furnishings retailer has been struggling lately with falling customer traffic, which has led to reduced profitability as it cut prices to keep inventory moving. Operating profit tumbled over the past nine months, diving to $424 million from $705 million in the year-ago period. And its most recent quarter was marked by a modest decline in comparable-store sales.</p>
<p>The stock has dropped significantly in response to that earnings slump, and the dip <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/03/20/1-reason-to-buy-bed-bath-beyond-stock-and-1-reason.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=0663c1b5-05f0-446f-90ea-ea1fae256103&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">could set investors up for decent returns Opens a New Window.</a> from here. However, the business will first have to demonstrate that it can reliably grow sales at its 1,600 stores while profitably expanding its digital distribution channel.</p>
<p>That will be a tough bar to meet given today's competitive selling environment in its industry. Thus, it's likely that Bed Bath &amp; Beyond will announce lackluster sales results this week, while detailing plans to cut costs as aggressively as possible in hopes of adjusting to the new lower pace of customer traffic.</p>
<p>Bank stocks outperformed the broader market by a wide margin in 2017; with their fiscal first-quarter results due to start coming out this week, it's time to find out how much of that momentum will carry on into the new year. Citigroup is one of the first financial giants to issue its numbers, and investors are optimistic that it will have good news to announce.</p>
<p>Its last quarterly outing showed progress in management's long-term initiatives, including an improved efficiency ratio, higher capital returns to shareholders, and steady growth in its consumer banking segment. In early comments on the upcoming fiscal year, CEO Michael Corbat and his team said they're targeting healthy growth both in the bank's return on invested capital and in its return of capital to shareholders.</p>
<p>Citigroup's reputation as a slightly <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/10/heres-why-citigroup-stock-is-riskier-than-other-ba.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=0663c1b5-05f0-446f-90ea-ea1fae256103&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">riskier bank Opens a New Window.</a> has kept its valuation lower than those of many of its peers. However, it seems to be slowly shedding that reputation, and could make more progress in that direction by announcing better capital-generation numbers on Friday.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than CitigroupWhen 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=60ae465c-5c02-4252-85cc-f54f12990f59&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=0663c1b5-05f0-446f-90ea-ea1fae256103&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Citigroup wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=60ae465c-5c02-4252-85cc-f54f12990f59&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=0663c1b5-05f0-446f-90ea-ea1fae256103&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of April 2, 2018</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSigma/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=0663c1b5-05f0-446f-90ea-ea1fae256103&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Demitrios Kalogeropoulos Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of MSC Industrial Direct. The Motley Fool is short shares of Bed Bath &amp; Beyond. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=0663c1b5-05f0-446f-90ea-ea1fae256103&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Things to Watch in the Stock Market This Week | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/07/31/3-things-to-watch-in-stock-market-this-week.html | 2018-04-08 | 0 |
<p>Frankly, I don't follow <a href="http://www.drudgereport.com" type="external">The Drudge Report</a> enough to have noticed this, but new-media maven and blogger J.D. Lasica (in a post to Poynter's <a href="" type="internal">Online-News</a> list) says that the archive search for Drudge content is new. Says Lasica, "This should be of interest to online journalism profs, their students, and anyone interested in chronicling the hateful ideological agenda and ethical blind spots of a certain famed hack reporter." (That would be Matt Drudge, in case you slept through the 1990s Internet mania.)</p> | Drudge Gets an Archive | false | https://poynter.org/news/drudge-gets-archive | 2003-06-05 | 2 |
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<p>The West Mesa Animal Emergency Clinic, 373 Unser Blvd. SE, is a stand-alone, 4,400-square-foot state-of-the-art building with four exam rooms, five large dog runs and 21 cages for in-patient care, two isolation rooms, three treatment stations, a Snyder oxygen cage, digital radiography, in-house laboratory, a large surgery suite and outside dog run.</p>
<p>It will be open overnight from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. Monday through Friday, and 24 hours Saturdays, Sundays and major holidays.</p>
<p>The clinic will request that overnight patients be picked up by their owners by 8 a.m. the following morning to be taken to their regular veterinarian for follow-up care and treatment as needed.</p>
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<p>The clinic, which is about three-quarters of a mile north of Southern, is owned by Peter D. Schwarz, DVM, DACVS. Lynda Stevens is the hospital administrator. The phone number is 314-8024.</p>
<p>Schwarz also owns clinics in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Emergency veterinarian clinic to offer after-hours pet care | false | https://abqjournal.com/351941/emergency-veterinarian-clinic-to-offer-after-hours-pet-care.html | 2 |
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<p>The privately held Great Western Bancorporation has just been bought by the National Australia Bank for $798 million. Great Western, chartered in 1907, is a successful byproduct of American populism. The NAB is a successful byproduct of Australian corporatism.</p>
<p>With head office in South Dakota, Great Western’s 100 branches span Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and a foothold in Arizona. Last financial year GWB earned $35 million net profit on a deposit-based $2.6 billion loan book (83% of which is business lending including 11% agricultural), with $3.4 billion gross assets and net equity of $223 million. GWB appears to be a smartly and conservatively managed institution.</p>
<p>To September 2007 NAB delivered A$4.6 billion (approx. $4 billion) net profit on a A$395 billion loan book and A$565 billion gross assets with net equity just under A$30 billion. The NAB is the largest of the four deposit-taking commercial banks that dominate Australia’s financial sector. A relative giant is taking over a minnow.</p>
<p>The NAB is Australia’s largest agribusiness lender (A$41 billion) and the largest lender to ‘small and medium enterprises’. GWB is community-oriented, and NAB also spends on community activities. Is NAB a suitable parent?</p>
<p>The NAB is a complex beast. The profit mass indicates that the bank must be doing something right. But the bank has its thick dark side. The NAB has been a persistent exemplar of managerial incompetence and malpractice. Do GWB management and customers know what is in store? Some examples: Systems management</p>
<p>In 1996, NAB entered into a contract with Idoport to purchase the latter’s AUSMAQ software and associated management to streamline managed funds administration. The relationship soon soured dramatically, and Idoport principal John Maconochie sued NAB for breach of consultancy and technology contracts.</p>
<p>The case still simmers, with NAB having run up an estimated A$80+ million in litigation costs.</p>
<p>In 1997, NAB bought a US mortgage processor called HomeSide. The presumption was that HomeSide’s technology would provide a common platform across the bank’s global operations and savings in home mortgage offerings. NAB was finessed by its vendor, as goodwill constituted 65% of the $1.7 billion purchase price. HomeSide was an early securitizor. But the model was both complex and fragile, and the value of the ‘mortgage servicing rights’ package underpinning block securitization varied dramatically with interest rate changes, supposed to be offset by sophisticated hedging. Losses escalated in the early 2000s. HomeSide operated from Florida (on the highest salaries in the entire company) without internal risk management procedures and without oversight from Australia. Homeside was eventually sold by late 2002, with NAB running up over A$3.6 billion in losses. Curiously, the financial brokers that took NAB into this fiasco, Keefe, Bruyette &amp; Woods, are the advisors on the current takeover of GWB.</p>
<p>In 1999, NAB bought SAP software off the shelf with the aim of integrating the myriad personnel and ledger systems operating domestically and across its acquired overseas subsidiaries. The ‘integrated systems implementation’ process was an expensive fiasco, with multiple external consultants benefiting without delivering, and write-offs of at least A$400 million.</p>
<p>Lending control</p>
<p>In the late 1990s, NAB lent a certain Tony Mokbel A$5.7 million to pursue various business interests. The suburban Melbourne bank manager’s credit reports described Mokbel thus: ‘Visionary Mokbel’s integrity is beyond reproach Business associates hold Mokbel in the highest esteem’. Part of the credit involved unauthorized overdrafts and an unsecured loan. Mokbel was arrested in 2001 on drugs charges and his assets frozen, prompting NAB to review its credit evaluation. Mokbel, described by the media as ‘the state’s most prolific amphetamines manufacturer’, fled Australia and is currently fighting extradition from Greece.</p>
<p>Anthony and Peter King ran a successful bus company in regional New South Wales. In 2000, NAB finalized a total loan of A$100 million to the King’s company by signing off on A$44 million for the purchase and leaseback of 140 buses. The problem was that the Kings didn’t own the buses but NAB managers didn’t check the proffered documentation. The business collapsed in 2002, and NAB has spent the succeeding five years chasing the King brothers via expensive litigation to overcome its managers’ laxity.</p>
<p>Employee fraud</p>
<p>To feed a ‘comfort shopping’ addiction following a failed marriage, NAB employee Catherine Asley stole $1,126,000 from her suburban Melbourne branch from 1994 over four years and covered it up by creating false accounts. Keith Benning, business banking manager at regional Kilmore, Victoria, stole A$5.7 million over four years from 1998 to feed a gambling addiction. Employee fraud is a perennial dilemma in banking, but four years is a gracious period to feed one’s habit. During 2007, suburban Melbourne business banking manager Akshay Batra had gradually misappropriated A$22 million, directed into false loans and channeled through a migration agent associate. The loans were used to purchase government bonds by which potential (Indian) migrants would beef up their reported capital assets to enhance prospects of a successful migration application. NAB is currently pursuing Batra in the courts, but immigration authorities have accused NAB of delaying notification of the fraud and thus impeding detection.</p>
<p>Institutional fraud, deception and laxity</p>
<p>NAB’s Irish subsidiary, National Irish Bank, was discovered in 1998 to have been evading taxation and overcharging its customers, via deceptive accounting practices, for at least the previous ten years. A six year investigation by the Irish regulatory authority brought down a condemnatory report in July 2004. The authority’s Director noted ‘the report is deeply disturbing in revealing the extent to which illegality and bad practice was tolerated (and to some extent encouraged) within the organisation between 1988 and 1998’. Tax evasion was then widespread in Irish banks, but the NIB had institutionalized shonky procedures.</p>
<p>The authority’s report faults the bank’s culture: ‘The branch network was target-driven but limited support by way of systems of training to enable the achievement of these targets. Managers felt under pressure to meet these targets, in the setting of which they had negligible participation and which many considered unreasonable; they feared criticism and possible humiliation before their fellow mangers if they did not meet the targets set’. NAB countered with a report from the now discredited and defunct Arthur Anderson, and sued the public broadcaster for libel, but lost the battle. NAB incurred costs of $110 million in tax payments and customer remissions.</p>
<p>Over 2002-03, NAB’s dealing room traders bet heavily that the Australian and New Zealand dollars’ rise against the US dollar would run out of steam. The rise continued, losses mounted, and the traders sought to cover their losses with fictitious trades. Stop-loss safeguards (capitalizing to-date losses) were ignored.</p>
<p>Key traders had been brought over as a bloc from another bank but standard recruitment processes were bypassed and their reputation for aggressive trading was ignored. There was no independent back office to monitor trades (a comparable failing destroyed the famous British merchant bank Barings). Losses were belatedly estimated at A$360 million. When the fraud was exposed, senior management attempted to minimize its significance. At least in this case, both the Chief Executive Officer and the Board Chairman ultimately fell on their swords and were replaced.</p>
<p>NAB owned a subsidiary in Northern Ireland called Northern Bank. In December 2004, a raid on central Belfast branch netted A$67 million in bank notes. The raid involved the raiders being admitted to the bank’s vaults while the families of senior staff were held as ransom. Northern Bank was in the process of being sold to a Danish bank. The serendipitous capital gain from sale provided an upbeat background for the NAB’s claim that the loss from the robbery was inconsequential.</p>
<p>NAB owns two northern British banks, Clydesdale and Yorkshire. In 2005 Ann Davies was lured to NAB Europe from Price Waterhouse Coopers to assist in post-Enron compliance procedures. Within a year she had been sacked for ‘behavioral’ reasons. Ms Davies fault was to have discovered a discrepancy of £178 million in ledger transfers between the two subsidiaries. Although initially offered full support by senior management, within a month she was removed from the investigation. When she continued to discover further discrepancies incidentally, she was sacked on the spot.</p>
<p>NAB’s reporting of financials for 2006-07 neglected to account for off-balance sheet exposure. Pressure from an unknown source had NAB belatedly issuing an announcement via the Australian Stock Exchange on 15 November. Total off-balance sheet exposures at September 2007 were almost A$33 billion. NAB net equity is under A$30 billion. This announcement is not available on NAB’s own website.</p>
<p>Small business depredation</p>
<p>NAB malfeasance against small business borrowers keeps appearing, mostly under the radar but occasionally given publicity. Two dramatic examples follow.</p>
<p>In 1984 A semi-retired couple, Ned and Joy Somerset, moved to provincial Queensland after a lifetime of successful broadacre farming. They were talked into purchasing a strawberry farm by the local NAB manager. The property was a total lemon; the then owner faced impending foreclosure but he was a friend of the manager. The manager misrepresented the fecundity of the property to the Somersets. He also revalued the property three times, from A$210,000 to A$575,000, presumably to achieve a loan to valuation ratio that fitted within his Delegated Lending Authority, thus escaping the necessity to submit the proposal to higher management for scrutiny.</p>
<p>The Somersets duly purchased the property, partially funded by an NAB loan, and were bust within a year. In the subsequent court case, NAB chose to protect rather than expose its corrupt manager. The court was presented with falsified documents and false statements by bank staff, but the Queensland Supreme Court judge found bank staff to be more reliable witnesses. The Somersets went to NAB with net assets of A$700,000 and were left penniless. They now live in rented accommodation on a veterans’ pension.</p>
<p>Sante and Rita Troiani came to Australia as penniless Italian migrants in 1956. By the 1980s the Troianis were in possession of substantial property, of which the centerpiece was Wide Bay Brickworks in provincial Bundaberg, Queensland, with Sante as dominant owner and manager. Troiani was an innovator and had a keen eye for quality local materials. Business was booming and he was exporting to the region. In 1993, NAB assiduously sought his business, at the same time finessing him with receipt of a national ethnic business award.</p>
<p>Troiani eventually moved his business to NAB in late 1993, but not before being given assurance that NAB had no relations with Boral. Boral was WBB’s giant building supplies competitor, but also monopoly supplier of gas to WBB’s kilns, gas of perennial contaminated quality that impeded WBB’s brick production. It turns out that NAB and Boral had directors in common. Troiani was introduced to a person described as a Boral representative when he attended the opening of Boral’s gas supply depot in Gladstone in 1984. In a 1987 mediation over gas quality in the Queensland Premier’s office, after which Boral admitted fault, the same individual was again present as a ‘Boral representative’. The individual in question was NAB’s then Credit Bureau General Manager and shortly to become NAB’s CEO.</p>
<p>One can infer from bank documents, released (after being jumbled) by the receivers to Troiani post bankruptcy, that NAB had set out almost immediately to divest the Troianis of their considerable assets and of WBB itself. Troiani was a good craftsman but left the accounts and financials to others. What has the hallmarks of a sting operation could only have been achieved with the assistance of some WBB insiders, with Troiani’s signature being forged on some documentation. Troiani was foreclosed in 1998 and bankrupted in 2002. Assets worth well over A$50 million were appropriated, and the Troianis left penniless. Sante, in his mid-70s, died of a stroke in October, product of long hours growing flowers to put food on the table.</p>
<p>Troiani publicly accused NAB of colluding with Boral to destroy his business, first via speeches by a Queensland State Parliamentarian in November 2005, the substance reproduced in the Member’s local paper, the Fraser Coast Chronicle; second in a television network current affairs program, Channel 7’s Today Tonight, in various States in April 2006 and January 2007. NAB chose to privately harass both media outlets, but the claim remains in the public domain.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Financial deregulation in Australia in the early 1980s saw the strand of caution in banking culture jettisoned. The dash for market share was coupled with the slashing and unstable placement of front-line lending staff. The small business lending model becomes one of ‘easy in’ at the front end with any problems that arise to be sorted out at the back end at the borrower’s expense, with foreclosure as a key option. What matters is the securing of the borrower’s assets, especially the family home or, in the case of farmers, the entire property.</p>
<p>As the largest small business lender in Australia, NAB has exhibited a cavalier streak. Over 1999-2001, in the context of a sugar industry crisis and dairy deregulation, NAB put a swathe through Queensland farmer borrowers. A Legal Aid advisor, charged with the job of moving traumatized farmers onto public welfare, was queried by one NAB agent ‘Why do you bother yourself with this rabble?, or words to that effect. In 2002, NAB put a heavy-handed swathe through its small business loan book on the grounds that 9/11 was likely to induce a global recession!</p>
<p>NAB’s often brutal foreclosure of small business and family farmers has been facilitated by a permissive Australian culture – a bought legal fraternity, bought receiver/manager and valuer sectors, a compliant judiciary and a fragmented and lax regulatory environment.</p>
<p>Market analyst pressure on the banking sector’s cost/income ratios has hit lending office staffing, but hasn’t touched the fat elsewhere. NAB has one of the largest public relations outfits of any Australian company, devoted to countering adverse publicity while fostering an image of the soulful corporation at large. NAB sponsored the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. It sponsors the National Press Club. It sponsors Professorial Chairs of Banking/Finance and other bodies at prestigious universities. Moreover, NAB has 100 in-house lawyers, the largest contingent of any Australian company (an honour shared with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia), dwarfing even the mining behemoth BHP Billiton with 30 in-house lawyers.</p>
<p>Public relations and litigation are NAB’s comparative advantage. And the basic skills? In the Investor Presentation document on 29 November for the GWB takeover, NAB claims ‘relationship management expertise’ on small business banking capability and systems. NAB contrasts GWB’s ‘basic regulatory and risk management processes, reflecting community bank’ with its own ‘advanced regulatory and risk management capability’. How do these claims mesh with the accumulated evidence outlined above?</p>
<p>The NAB takeover of Great Western as a great leap forward? On the contrary, the US farm belt needs the National Australia Bank like it needs a hole in the head.</p>
<p>EVAN JONES is a retired political economist at Sydney University. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Raid on Great Western | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/12/12/the-raid-on-great-western/ | 2007-12-12 | 4 |
<p>Jan 19 (Reuters) - Lowe’s Cos Inc said on Friday it added two board members, a week after reports that hedge fund D.E. Shaw &amp; Co had built an active stake in the home improvement chain, sending its shares up 2 percent.</p>
<p>David Batchelder, co-founder of Relational Investors, and Lisa Wardell, CEO of Adtalem Global Education, were named to the board after “constructive discussions” with D.E. Shaw, the company said.</p>
<p>Lowe’s also said it would nominate Brian Rogers, chairman of T. Rowe Price Group and its former chief investment officer, for board election at its annual shareholder meeting. (Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SANTA ROSA, Calif./CHICAGO (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the incoming chief of the New York Fed on Friday stuck closely to a unified script on the economic outlook, in separate appearances sketching a picture of gradual interest-rate hikes ahead.</p>
<p>But as global stocks fell on jitters over escalating U.S.-China trade tensions, Powell merely said it was too soon to know if the trade issue would take a toll on the U.S. economy, which has been steadily strengthening.</p>
<p>For his part, San Francisco Fed President John Williams, whose appointment to head the Fed’s New York branch means he will also be vice chair of the Fed’s policy-setting committee and a permanent voter on the committee, did not mince words.</p>
<p>Williams said that although the rhetoric on tariffs so far has been more extreme than the actions taken, he loses sleep over the prospect of an actual trade war, which he warned could result in slower growth, an inflationary spike and lower productivity.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-fed-powell-tariffs/feds-powell-too-early-to-say-how-tariffs-would-affect-u-s-economic-outlook-idUSKCN1HD2L2" type="external">Fed's Powell: Too early to say how tariffs would affect U.S. economic outlook</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-fed-instant-view/instant-view-feds-powell-sees-more-gradual-rate-hikes-idUSKCN1HD2J7" type="external">Instant View: Fed's Powell sees more gradual rate hikes</a>
<p>“My concern here is not who loses more or what happens specifically. It’s that if this path goes to one where all of us are pulling away from being open, I think those implications are negative,” Williams told reporters, after a speech here. Still, he said, “I haven’t seen that kind of change yet.”</p>
<p>The remarks by the two came as the United States and China exchanged new threats on the trade front. China warned on Friday it was fully prepared to respond with a “fierce counter strike” of fresh measures if the United States follows through on President Donald Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on an additional $100 billion of Chinese goods.</p>
<p>Williams downplayed the leverage that some believe China’s vast holdings of U.S. debt give it in trade negotiations, saying he believes it is unlikely China would dump U.S. Treasuries and would do itself great damage if it did.</p>
<p>China as of the end of January held around $1.7 trillion of Treasuries, making it the No. 2 overall owner of U.S. government bonds after the Federal Reserve.</p>
<p>But Williams said some sectors of the U.S. economy, such as farming, are particularly vulnerable if proposed tariffs on crops like soybeans go into effect. Soybeans are the top U.S. agricultural export to China.</p>
<p>“It’s definitely something we are paying close attention to,” he said. “The global economy is built on trading with each other, and if we were to try to unwind all of that it would be extremely disruptive and very costly, both for the U.S. and the world.”</p> CLOSE TO FULL EMPLOYMENT
<p>Powell, in his first speech on the economic outlook since assuming the helm at the U.S. central bank in early February, said the labor market appeared close to full employment and that inflation was poised to rise toward the Fed’s 2 percent objective in the coming months.</p>
<p>“As long as the economy continues broadly on its current path, further gradual increases in the federal funds rate will best promote these goals,” Powell said at an event in Chicago.</p>
<p>Powell said the risks to the U.S. economic outlook appeared “roughly balanced.”</p> FILE PHOTO: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks at a news conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meetings in Washington, U.S., March 21, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
<p>Earlier on Friday the Labor Department reported the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1 percent for a sixth straight month in March as 103,000 jobs were created, the lowest amount in six months.</p>
<p>The Fed has been slowly raising interest rates since 2015, most recently in March when policymakers signaled they expected to increase borrowing costs two or three more times in 2018. Prices for interest rate futures have suggested that investors expect the Fed to do just that.</p>
<p>Williams’ comments on the economy were similarly rosy, and he suggested he supports continued gradual rate hikes through 2020, by which time rates should be around 3.5 percent.</p>
<p>Reporting by Jason Lange in Chicago and Ann Saphir in Santa Rose, Calif.; Additional reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) - The United States, Mexico and Canada still have to resolve major issues around NAFTA, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Friday, casting doubt that the quick deal sought by Washington would materialize.</p> FILE PHOTO: Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland gestures during a joint news conference on the closing of the seventh round of NAFTA talks in Mexico City, Mexico March 5, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido
<p>Freeland met with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo for several hours on Friday but made clear there was a lack of consensus on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).</p>
<p>“We had some constructive conversations both yesterday and today ... and that intensive pace of work, which has been happening over the last couple of weeks, will continue in the days to come,” she told reporters outside the Washington building where the talks took place.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-trade-nafta-mexico-ministry/nafta-teams-to-continue-meeting-in-coming-days-mexico-idUSKCN1HD2X3" type="external">NAFTA teams to continue meeting in coming days: Mexico</a>
<p>“We are going to keep on working until we get a good deal,” she added, saying negotiations would continue at the level of officials.</p>
<p>Lighthizer, citing the need to reach a deal an agreement before the Mexican presidential election on July 1, says he wants the outlines of a deal soon to update the regional trade agreement.</p>
<p>A brief statement from Lighthizer’s office said the talks had been positive and added that “we will continue working to achieve an agreement that benefits our three countries.”</p>
<p>Mexico’s economy ministry said the three countries agreed on Friday that their negotiating teams should press on with technical work in coming days and try to find “the balance that enables the process to move forward in its entirety.”</p> U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer testifies before a Senate Finance Committee hearing on "President Trump's 2018 Trade Policy Agenda" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 22, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
<p>Mexican business lobby CCE said in a statement that it would accompany the country’s negotiating team.</p>
<p>“The continuation of the meetings is a positive sign, and there is a window of opportunity to advance substantially toward an agreement,” Juan Pablo Castañón, president of the business lobby, said in the statement.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to walk away from the $1.2 trillion pact unless major changes are made, on Thursday said the three nations should have something to announce fairly soon.</p>
<p>Unveiling the outlines of a deal — which Canadian and Mexican officials had initially suggested might happen at a regional summit in Peru next week — would allow leaders to claim a political victory while leaving officials to work out the precise details in the months to come.</p>
<p>It would also enable Trump and his trade team to focus on a widening trade dispute with China that could hurt the world’s two biggest economies.</p>
<p>But there are major challenges to overcome, in particular a contentious U.S. demand that the North American content of vehicles made in NAFTA countries be increased to 85 percent from 62.5 percent.</p> Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo holds a news conference in Mexico City, Mexico March 13, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
<p>“We continue to work in that area and to make some good progress and advances,” said Freeland, who gave no details.</p>
<p>Insiders say the issue of automotive content has to be nailed down before an agreement in principle can be struck.</p>
<p>“We are dealing in black and white. You can’t leave things gray,” said one source with direct knowledge of the talks, citing the huge complexity of the industry.</p>
<p>“The last thing you want to do is to be making something that isn’t compliant and to be told in an audit, ‘You’re not NAFTA compliant and you owe duties,’” said the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.</p>
<p>Talks to modernize NAFTA started last August but have made little progress, prompting the United States to suggest at the end of the seventh formal round last month that the three nations aim in the first instance for a deal in principle.</p>
<p>The lack of clarity over the pact’s future has hit the Canadian and Mexican currencies in recent months as well as worried financial markets, which are on edge about possible damage to the highly integrated North American market.</p>
<p>The chief executive of Royal Bank of Canada, Dave McKay, on Friday said uncertainty over the pact was a concern for customers of the bank, Canada’s biggest lender, but he remained hopeful a deal would be reached.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Sharay Angulo and Anthony Esposito in Mexico City, Matt Scuffham in Toronto; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is considering ways to require imported automobiles to meet stricter environmental standards in order to protect U.S. carmakers, according to two sources familiar with the administration’s thinking.</p> FILE PHOTO: New cars sit in the lot at the Boston Autoport, which handles automobile import, processing and distribution for approximately 50,000 cars per year, in Boston, Massachusetts July 1, 2008. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
<p>White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said President Donald Trump “will promote free, fair and reciprocal trade practices to grow the U.S. economy and continue to (bring) jobs and manufacturers back to the U.S.”</p>
<p>Two U.S. automotive executives said Friday they believed the idea had been floated in White House talks last week by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, but said the auto industry had not asked for the changes or backed them.</p>
<p>A Commerce Department spokesman referred a Reuters request for comment back to the White House, which has not responded.</p>
<p>U.S. automakers have long urged removal of non-tariff barriers in Japan, South Korea and other markets that they believe unfairly hinder U.S. exports. There are also concerns that any new non-tariff U.S. barriers could violate WTO rules.</p>
<p>The story was first reported Friday by the Wall Street Journal.</p>
<p>Citing unnamed senior administration and industry officials, the Journal said Trump had asked several agencies to pursue plans to use existing laws to subject foreign-made cars to stiff emission standards.</p>
<p>It appears such non-tariff barriers could have a greater potential effect proportionately on European automakers, which collectively import a greater percentage of cars from plants outside the United States, according to sales figures from Autodata.</p>
<p>In comparison, Japanese and Korean brands made about 70 percent of the vehicles they sold last year in the United States at North American plants. European brands built only 30 percent in North America.</p>
<p>Foreign automakers operate 17 assembly plants in the United States, 12 of which are owned by Asian manufacturers. Virtually all of those are non-union plants, many of them in southern states.</p>
<p>Imported vehicles accounted for about 21 percent of the 17.2 million sold last year in the United States, according to Autodata.</p>
<p>The White House initiative was still in the planning stage, with officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency working to craft a legal justification for the policy, the paper said.</p>
<p>The EPA and the Commerce Department, which the newspaper said was also involved in the effort, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. Neither did representatives for Ford Motor Co and General Motors, nor for the United Auto Workers union, which represents workers at those automakers.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Tim Ahmann and David Lawder in Washington and Paul Lienert in Detroit; Editing by Frances Kerry and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Netflix Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">NFLX.O</a>) is offering more than $300 million to buy a company that owns billboards across Los Angeles, including on West Hollywood’s famed Sunset Strip, a move that could help it save money maintaining a high profile in the world’s entertainment capital, according to people familiar with the matter.</p>
<p>The purchase of Regency Outdoor Advertising, if successful, would be the largest yet for the fast-growing Silicon Valley streaming video company, which has a studio in Hollywood and is now one of the world’s biggest film and TV producers.</p>
<p>Netflix’s motivation was not immediately clear, but it could save money over time with the deal, according to industry analysts, as it ramps up spending on marketing for its original shows and movies to $2 billion this year. Netflix used Regency Outdoor billboards to promote its “Stranger Things” and “The Crown” drama series.</p>
<p>A billboard ad on Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip can cost $140,000 per month, said Barry Lowenthal, president of The Media Kitchen, a New York-based media buyer.</p>
<p>“This is a smart move for Netflix because it is a very important viewing market,” Lowenthal said. “Los Angeles matters to the people in the industry.”</p>
<p>Tech firms Amazon.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AMZN.O" type="external">AMZN.O</a>), Hulu and Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) and traditional media companies such as Walt Disney Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DIS.N" type="external">DIS.N</a>) are all vying with Netflix to win subscribers.</p>
<p>Netflix is just one of the bidders for Los Angeles-based Regency Outdoor and there is no certainty that its offer will prevail, the sources said this week, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential.</p>
<p>Netflix declined to comment. Its shares were close to unchanged in a slightly lower market. Regency Outdoor did not respond to a request for comment.</p> ANALOG ADS, DIGITAL CONTENT
<p>The world’s leading streaming media company still uses physical advertising space such as billboards to promote its shows. Billboards are holding their own compared to other forms of traditional advertising such as ads in newspapers or TV that are easy to skip.</p> The Netflix logo is pictured on a television in this illustration photograph taken in Encinitas, California, U.S., January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake
<p>Regency Outdoor, owned by brothers Drake and Brian Kennedy, owns billboards on Sunset Strip, a portion of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles known for its live music and night clubs and filled with splashy billboards promoting upcoming TV shows and movies.</p>
<p>It also has billboards at Los Angeles International Airport, on major freeways, near the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, and close to the Los Angeles Angels baseball stadium, according to the company’s website.</p>
<p>Netflix said in a letter to shareholders earlier this year that its marketing spending was growing “a little faster” than its revenue.</p>
<p>As a result of the bigger marketing expenditure, Netflix’s expenses per subscriber will jump around 25 percent to $16 per subscriber, up from $13 per subscriber, according to a recent MoffettNathanson report. The company reported it had 117.6 million worldwide streaming subscribers at the end of 2017, more than any direct competitor.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NFLX.O" type="external">Netflix Inc</a> 288.85 NFLX.O Nasdaq -5.12 (-1.74%) NFLX.O AMZN.O FB.O DIS.N
<p>“As the marketplace for original content becomes more crowded, Netflix is turning up the volume to promote the increasing number of Netflix originals,” Michael Nathanson, a MoffettNathanson analyst, wrote in the research note.</p>
<p>Netflix’s first known acquisition was last year’s purchase of comic book publisher Millarworld for an undisclosed sum.</p>
<p>Reporting By Liana B. Baker and Jessica Toonkel in New York; Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Rigby</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Lowe's names two directors after talks with activist investor Fed chair vague on trade risks; his next No. 2, anything but No breakthrough at NAFTA talks, U.S. timeline could be in doubt Trump administration mulls stiffer rules for imported cars Netflix offering more than $300 million for billboard company: sources | false | https://reuters.com/article/lowes-board/lowes-names-two-directors-after-talks-with-activist-investor-idUSL3N1PE3UD | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p>Just 12 days into April, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/world/13cnd-iraq.html?ex=1145505600&amp;en=e3b52e42b243e57b&amp;ei=5070&amp;emc=eta1" type="external">33 soldiers have been killed</a>–a figure that surpasses American military deaths for all of March. U.S. soldiers’ deaths had been on the wane, but they now are rising quickly, especially in the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency.</p>
<p>The New York Times:</p>
<p>April 12, 2006 Deaths of U.S. Soldiers Climb Again in Iraq By EDWARD WONG</p>
<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 12 – The death toll for American troops is rising steeply this month, with the military today announcing the deaths of two more soldiers, bringing the number of troops killed this month to at least 33. That figure already surpasses the American military deaths for all of March, and could signal a renewed insurgent offensive against the American presence here.</p>
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<p>When 31 service members died last month, it was the second lowest monthly death toll of the war for the Americans, and the fifth month in a row of declining fatalities, according to statistics from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent organization.</p>
<p>But deaths have begun to rise quickly. Many of the fatalities this month have taken place in the parched Anbar Province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency. The province was rated “critical” in a confidential report written recently by the American Embassy and the military command in Baghdad.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/world/13cnd-iraq.html?ex=1145505600&amp;en=e3b52e42b243e57b&amp;ei=5070&amp;emc=eta1" type="external">Link</a></p> | U.S. Death Toll Climbs Sharply in Iraq | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/u-s-death-toll-climbs-sharply-in-iraq/ | 2006-04-12 | 4 |
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<p>The latest incident – Wednesday night, on East Central, near Eubank – injured Ferdlyn Lee, 51, who’s in critical condition at the University of New Mexico Hospital.</p>
<p>Police have asked anyone with information about that crash, or similar ones, to call 242-COPS (2677).</p>
<p>Two other collisions resulted in death:</p>
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<p>Witnesses say Gonzales was struck by one vehicle, then fell into an adjacent lane, where he was hit a second time.</p>
<p>He was transported to UNMH, where he died.</p>
<p>Albuquerque Police Sgt. Ferris Simmons said it’s never OK to leave the scene of an accident without exchanging insurance information or offering help if someone’s hurt.</p>
<p>“I just want to remind the community to please be safe and take care of each other,” Simmons said Thursday in an interview.</p>
<p>She noted that one of the recent hit-and-run incidents involved more than one vehicle.</p>
<p>“Not one person, but two people ran over a human being and left,” Simmons said. “That’s unacceptable.”</p>
<p>She advised pedestrians to use only designated crosswalks and to follow the lights.</p>
<p>As for drivers, Simmons said they should stay alert and slow down.</p>
<p>“Going slow enough to have the ability to stop should somebody stumble out in front of you could save somebody’s life,” she said.</p>
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<p /> | Hit-and-runs claim lives of 2 pedestrians in ABQ | false | https://abqjournal.com/424863/2-killed-1-hurt-in-abq-in-recent-hitandruns.html | 2 |
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<p>On Tuesday, CNN host Alisyn Camerota asked Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) a relatively straightforward question: "Why is [Nancy Pelosi], of all people, getting this backlash from DREAMers?" The "backlash" Camerota referred to came on Monday, when House Minority Leader Pelosi was literally surrounded at a community event by illegal immigrant activists who shouted, screamed and heckled her off the stage.</p>
<p>First of all, a clarification: In the CNN clip, Camerota and Shaheen both refer to those protesting Pelosi as DREAMers, however in a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/video/nancy-pelosi-is-confronted-by-protesters-at-pro-daca-event-1049120835865" type="external">longer edit of the original protest video</a>, the activists become extremely irate when Pelosi refers to them as such, and they clarify (in loud, angry voices) that they are not DREAMers, just illegals. They make it clear that anything less than full amnesty for every illegal immigrant in the United States is a failure. Essentially, they’re fanatics; which is why they were protesting someone as left-leaning as Nancy Pelosi.</p>
<p>Senator Shaheen could have easily given this response to Camerota’s question, but instead decided to go down a very different path. When Camerota suggested that the anger may stem from Pelosi’s willingness to work with President Trump on immigration matters, the senator replied with the following bizarre series of non sequiturs:</p>
<p>"Listen, you'll have to ask them," she said. "Who knows who’s stirring up this kind of animosity. What we know about the Russians and their interference in the 2016 elections is that they tried to increase divisions within this country. We saw it again in Charlottesville. We don't know what's behind this, but what we do know is we need to take action to protect the DREAMers to allow them to stay in America."</p>
<p>Wow… from Mexico, to Russia, to Charlottesville in under 30 seconds. She’s clearly got the Democrat talking points memorized, now she just needs to figure out how to string them all together in a way that’s more than random anti-Trump gibberish.</p>
<p>Watch the full clip below (via <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/19/dem-senator-suggests-russia-to-blame-for-dreamers-protesting-pelosi-video/" type="external">TheDC</a>):</p> | WATCH: Democratic Senator Blames Russia For Pelosi’s Disastrous Community Event | true | https://dailywire.com/news/21326/watch-democratic-senator-blames-russia-pelosis-tyler-dahnke | 2017-09-20 | 0 |
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<p>Image Source: Verizon.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Competition in the wireless industry has never been more fierce. T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS), specifically, is putting tons of pressure on the prices of bigger players Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and AT&amp;T(NYSE: T)and stealing millions of customers away from them.</p>
<p>One area where AT&amp;T has been able to stymie its losses is in prepaid customers. Unlike postpaid customers, prepaid customers pay for services before they receive them. These customers are generally considered lower value with less creditworthiness and lower average revenue. But with the removal of two-year contracts, phone subsidies, and early termination fees (your new carrier will take care of them for you), prepaid customers are starting to look an awful lot like postpaid customers.</p>
<p>Cricket Wireless -- AT&amp;T's prepaid brand -- saw subscribers climb by 2 million over the past year.On the other hand, Verizon has largely ignored that market, losing thousands of subscribers. That is at least until recently.</p>
<p>New reports indicate that Verizon is experimenting with new retail locations exclusively offering prepaid plans. Additionally, it revamped its prepaid pricing in the third quarter and started putting more marketing dollars toward its prepaid service. The result was a turnaround in prepaid net adds, and investors should expect continued success going forward.</p>
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<p>Verizon ended the third quarter with less than 5.5 million prepaid customers. By comparison, AT&amp;T has 13 million and T-Mobile has over 19 million. Verizon may be the largest consumer mobile carrier, but it's one of the smallest prepaid service providers.</p>
<p>There's a reason for that, too. During Verizon's first-quarter earnings call last year, CFO Fran Shammo told analysts, "We're really not competitive in that environment for a whole host of reasons and it's because we have to make sure that we don't migrate our high-quality postpaid base over to a prepaid product." In other words, Verizon was worried that providing a good value to prepaid customers would cannibalize its highly profitable postpaid business.</p>
<p>Instead, Verizon started losing customers to lower-cost competitors like T-Mobile. Through the first half of 2016, Verizon added a total of 78,000 postpaid phone subscribers, down from 183,000 postpaid phone net adds in the first half of 2015.</p>
<p>When Verizon finally started paying attention to prepaid in the third quarter, it saw some cannibalization. It lost 36,000 postpaid phone subscribers that quarter, but it added 83,000 prepaid subscribers. CFO Fran Shammo says Verizon saw double the amount of postpaid subscribers move over to prepaid from postpaid in the third quarter, and those converters "accounted for a little less than 50% of our prepaid net adds." Still, it's better than losing them.</p>
<p>Considering Verizon's new prepaid plans, which start at $50 per month and offer similar revenue per subscriber as its postpaid plans (albeit with larger data allotments), the cannibalization is mostly a wash.</p>
<p>Verizon's next step to penetrate the prepaid market is to establish more physical locations in areas better served by prepaid plans. It's already starting to experiment with such stores in Las Vegas and Phoenix, according to a report from <a href="http://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/confirmed-verizon-testing-sales-prepaid-service-through-exclusive-dealers" type="external">FierceWireless Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>T-Mobile's MetroPCS already has around 8,500 stores. Cricket Wireless has 3,349 stores.</p>
<p>Building out more physical storefronts dedicated to prepaid service will help Verizon penetrate the market, especially with its new high-value prepaid options. It also needs to do a good job advertising those prepaid options to the markets it's serving with those physical locations. That's how Verizon will continue to grow its prepaid market share. And as mentioned above, a little bit of cannibalization isn't going to hurt it nearly as much as losing customers entirely.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Verizon Communications 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=0ccdd38c-3268-4264-91db-9c0acf880eb8&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Verizon Communications wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=0ccdd38c-3268-4264-91db-9c0acf880eb8&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of January 4, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/adamlevy/info.aspx" type="external">Adam Levy Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool recommends T-Mobile US and Verizon Communications. 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> | Verizon Is Finally Paying Attention to This Valuable Market | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/22/verizon-is-finally-paying-attention-to-this-valuable-market.html | 2017-01-22 | 0 |
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<p>The fashion industry has always been out of sync with normal women’s shopping cycles. Stores routinely trot out the latest in fall fashions–corduroy Peter Pan jackets, knee-high boots-when most of us are still in dire need of a new swim suit for the beach. But global warming is making these practices seem even more ridiculous.</p>
<p>Here in DC, for instance, this month may go down on record as the hottest October in 137 years. The average normal high temperature for DC in October is 67 degrees. This month, it’s been <a href="http://climate.weather.com/science/climatedata/" type="external">well over 80 almost every day</a> (we even had a day in the 90s), and yet, just try to find something decent to wear that doesn’t involve wool! Eventually, the fashion folks are going to have to come to grips with the fact that D.C. is now basically California, not New York, when it comes to the weather. At this rate, all those cute cord jackets in store windows are going to be obsolete long before the the temperature drops below 70.</p>
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<p /> | Earth to Fashion Industry: It’s Still Really Hot Outside | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/earth-fashion-industry-its-still-really-hot-outside/ | 2007-10-23 | 4 |
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<p>CALIFORNIAOrange County RegisterBy JIM HINCH The Orange County Register</p>
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<p>A former student at Mater Dei High School sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange on Tuesday, alleging that church officials covered up for a choir master who molested her from 1986 to 1988, starting when she was 15.</p>
<p>Joelle Casteix, a marketing professional in Corona Del Mar, said the choir master abused her for two years, starting soon after she tried to commit suicide. The choir master, now a music teacher at a Methodist school in Michigan, said the suit's allegations are not accurate. He is not identified by name in the lawsuit.</p>
<p>The suit says the choir master had sex with Casteix more than 200 times in a school van, on school trips and in the choir closet. The choir master gave Casteix a venereal disease and impregnated her, after which she had an abortion, the suit says.</p>
<p>Casteix said she told an assistant principal of the abuse but was encouraged to keep it secret and was told that she and the choir master were in love and that "everything is great the way it is."</p>
<p>Peter Callahan, lawyer for the diocese, said officials promptly fired the choir master and reported him to authorities when allegations of the affair surfaced. Casteix said neither child-protection nor law-enforcement authorities contacted her.</p>
<p>She did not report the abuse herself because she feared it would damage her family, she said.</p> | Ex-student sues Diocese, alleging abuse | false | https://poynter.org/news/ex-student-sues-diocese-alleging-abuse | 2003-07-09 | 2 |
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tavrion Dawson had 23 points and 10 rebounds and Lyrik Shreiner scored 12 points with a career-high 11 boards and CSU Northridge beat Cal Poly 72-54 on Saturday night.</p>
<p>Freshman Terrell Gomez added 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting and Micheal Warren scored 10 for CSUN (5-14, 2-3 Big West).</p>
<p>After Cal Poly's Josh Martin made a layup to open the scoring, Dawson scored 11 points — including the first seven — in a 19-4 run and the Matadors led the rest of the way. The Mustangs (6-13, 1-4) scored 11 of the first 13 second-half points to trim their deficit to 38-32, but Shreiner hit two 3s during an 11-0 spurt over the next two-plus minutes and CSUN led by double figures the rest of the way.</p>
<p>Donovan Fields scored 14 points and Martin added 13 with 10 rebounds for Cal Poly. The Mustangs hit just 3 of 21 (14.3 percent) from 3-point range.</p>
<p>CSUN made 25 of 48 (52.1 percent) from the field and 16 of 19 from the free-throw line.</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tavrion Dawson had 23 points and 10 rebounds and Lyrik Shreiner scored 12 points with a career-high 11 boards and CSU Northridge beat Cal Poly 72-54 on Saturday night.</p>
<p>Freshman Terrell Gomez added 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting and Micheal Warren scored 10 for CSUN (5-14, 2-3 Big West).</p>
<p>After Cal Poly's Josh Martin made a layup to open the scoring, Dawson scored 11 points — including the first seven — in a 19-4 run and the Matadors led the rest of the way. The Mustangs (6-13, 1-4) scored 11 of the first 13 second-half points to trim their deficit to 38-32, but Shreiner hit two 3s during an 11-0 spurt over the next two-plus minutes and CSUN led by double figures the rest of the way.</p>
<p>Donovan Fields scored 14 points and Martin added 13 with 10 rebounds for Cal Poly. The Mustangs hit just 3 of 21 (14.3 percent) from 3-point range.</p>
<p>CSUN made 25 of 48 (52.1 percent) from the field and 16 of 19 from the free-throw line.</p> | Dawson, Shreiner have double-doubles, CSUN beats Cal Poly | false | https://apnews.com/amp/58f9722c29e1467f8f36f846522cbcd2 | 2018-01-21 | 2 |
<p>Katherine moved to Switzerland from Ohio in 2008 to be an au pair.</p>
<p>The United States was in the middle of its financial crisis and she figured “why not?” First order of business in Zurich was to get a bank account.</p>
<p>“I had gone to, I think it was, UBS the first time, and they had said that they didn’t offer any bank accounts to Americans who had less than $250,000,” she said. “My boyfriend, at the time, and I just laughed at that, like, ‘she has to have a bank account. She’s going to be living here.’”</p>
<p>Katherine was ultimately granted a young person’s account at UBS. Now, years later, the graphic designer and her husband are having account troubles again, trying to get a mortgage.</p>
<p>“We got so far along in the mortgage process that people were telling us it was a good time to buy, and then it was only literally right before we were going to sign the contract that we were finding out, ‘Wait a minute, she’s American, this is a red flag, this is a problem.’”</p>
<p>David Kuenzi, founding partner at Thun Financial Advisors, a Madison, Wisc., firm that helps Americans abroad, said he had heard similar stories.</p>
<p>“I’ve heard stories where, the client withdrawing money or doing a transfer was told, ‘Oh, your movement of money prompted us to do a review of your account and we realize you’re an American, and we want you to leave.’”</p>
<p>Kuenzi said Swiss banks are reacting to U.S. investigators trying to catch the rich in what is often vilified as a tax haven. But they are also reacting to American legislation called FATCA, or the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It will enter into effect next year and requires foreign banks to automatically send the IRS information on American clients, presumably to more easily find tax evaders.</p>
<p>“To use the weight of your financial and political power to enforce, in an extraterritorial way, that banks around the world act as tax agents for the U.S. government is preposterous,” Kuenzi said.</p>
<p>Manuel Ammann, director of the Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance, said besides the possible legal problems, FATCA costs Swiss banks money, leading most banks, with the exception of a few large or specialized ones, to dump American clients.</p>
<p>“Banks have become increasingly aware of the fact that having U.S. clients often means to be in non-compliance with U.S. regulations, and banks are becoming increasingly risk averse in that sense,” he said.</p>
<p>The Swiss bank, as thought of in American mythology, as a place to stash large sums of money, probably won’t change all that much for the super-rich — in the short term. Most of the assets now affected are relatively small savings or investment accounts and mortgages.</p>
<p>But Ammann said with more and more regulation, cross-border business will be increasingly tricky for banks to handle. And he said the entire banking industry is taking a hard look at the good and bad of its future.</p>
<p>“Swiss banks still have a number of advantages to them, like the innovation capacity at the service level,” Ammann said. “So from a competitive point of view I am not pessimistic with respect to Swiss banking in general, but the regulatory framework becomes increasingly difficult. ”</p>
<p>And that means no one – not regulators, bank officials, or clients – knows exactly what Swiss banking will look like when the dust finally settles.</p> | U.S. legislation complicating Americans' use of foreign banks abroad | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-05/us-legislation-complicating-americans-use-foreign-banks-abroad | 2012-07-05 | 3 |
<p>While conducting a gun safety training course, an employee of the National Rifle Association (NRA)&#160;was the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.</p>
<p>According to NBC Washington, the pro-gun organization was holding a gun class at its organizational headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia when the 46-year-old instructor — whose name has been withheld as of this writing — <a href="http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Man-Accidentally-Shoots-Himself-at-NRA-Headquarters-418677433.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_DCBrand&amp;cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma" type="external">accidentally discharged his firearm</a> while he was placing the gun in its holster. The man’s injuries were non life-threatening, and he is being treated for a gunshot wound to his lower body at a local hospital.</p>
<p>The accident at the NRA headquarters is particularly ironic, given the group’s hardline stance against any and all forms of firearm regulation. Even in the wake of the <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/newtown-shooting-victims-photos-1.4336461" type="external">massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School</a> in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 children between the ages of six and seven dead, <a href="http://pix11.com/2013/03/25/nra-robocalls-upset-newtown-residents/" type="external">the NRA robocalled homes in Newtown</a> during the Obama administration’s unsuccessful push for expanded background check laws for new firearm purchases.</p>
<p>Fairfax County officials say no charges are expected to be filed in the wake of the accidental shooting. As of this writing, the NRA has not made a public statement to the media or on any of its social media profiles.</p>
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<p>Kevin Wallace is a journalist with five years’ experience in print and digital media, and covers politics, media, and culture for the Resistance Report. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.</p> | NRA employee shoots himself at NRA headquarters during firearms training | true | http://resistancereport.com/news/nra-employee-shoots-himself/ | 2017-04-07 | 4 |
<p>A disgustingly vile video reveals a black man shaming an interracial couple at a restaurant.</p>
<p>The video begins with the couple, a black man and a white woman, sharing what appears to be some sort of Asian meal at a restaurant. The cameraman laments, "'Look at the f***ery, in a black-owned restaurant. Look at the f***ery."</p>
<p>The cameraman asks the couple if they are in an "intimate relationship." The black man replies in the affirmative and asks with an uncomfortable smile, "What's up?"</p>
<p>"Really? You couldn't find no black woman?" the cameraman says. "Like you had to go that low to the lowest rung of humanity. If they even humans, it's arguable that they even humans."</p>
<p>The cameraman then asks the black if he is "that weak."</p>
<p>"Just the fact that you had the audacity to sit in a black-owned restaurant and share this, you know I had to ask like, what's wrong with you?" the cameraman continues. "You couldn't find no black woman? What was it? What was it that made you that weak that you would get on your knees and bow to this less of a female that's lesser than a black woman in every way?"</p>
<p>The video concludes with the cameraman asking the black man if his mother was black.</p>
<p>Throughout the video, the black man keeps trying to interrupt the cameraman although his words are inaudible. He somehow keeps a smile on his face and doesn't lose his temper at the cameraman.</p>
<p>SooperMexican writes at <a href="http://therightscoop.com/disgusting-video-of-racist-black-man-shaming-inter-racial-couple-goes-viral/" type="external">The Right Scoop</a> that he was shocked that the cameraman "didn't get his face beaten in by that guy."</p>
<p>"What a despicable racist," writes SooperMexican. "The amazing thing is that we’re told that white racism against minorities would get worse because of Trump, but this video shows how black racism seems to be getting worse. Let's not even bring up the horrific torture video from Chicago. But on the other hand, let’s not exaggerate and pretend only one side is heightening the racial division – we have plenty of idiots on our side unfortunately."</p>
<p>The video was originally published at the <a href="http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh00q18cMG13M9f21V" type="external">WorldStar Hip Hop website</a>.</p>
<p>(h/t: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4126606/Interracial-couple-confronted-called-inhuman.html" type="external">UK Daily Mail</a>)</p>
<p>Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter" type="external">@bandlersbanter</a>.</p> | WATCH: Black Man Shames Interracial Couple At Restaurant | true | https://dailywire.com/news/12542/watch-black-man-shames-interracial-couple-aaron-bandler | 2017-01-18 | 0 |
<p>The latest jobs report is out, showing the economy added 114,000 jobs, beating estimates of 113,000. The unemployment rate fell to 7.8%, the Department of Labor reported, due to the addition of 873,000 people who self-identified as employed.</p>
<p>That rate was a sharp drop from the 8.1% a month earlier. Those jobs were mostly part-time in nature. Also, the 7.8% jobless rate understates the problem of the underemployed.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What would the unemployment rate be if all the people who want a job suddenly re-entered the workforce? Answer: 11.63%. For the math, see below.</p>
<p>If the labor force participation rate had remained constant at the 67.5% level at the end of the recession (in June 2009), the unemployment rate would have been reported at around 11%. Count the underemployed, meaning part-timers wanting full time work, and the rate is 14.5%.</p>
<p>The economy must add 13.3 million jobs over the next three years -- 375,000 jobs each month -- to bring the unemployment rate down to 6%, notes economist Peter Morici. That means GDP growth must be running at a 4% to 5% pace, not the 1.3% rate it’s running at now, a pace that has been trending downhill since last year.</p>
<p>Not good for a recovery that began in June 2009—since then, GDP growth has been anemic.</p>
<p>Here’s the math behind the unemployment rate if all the people who want a job suddenly re-entered the workforce, according to FOX News analyst James Farrell:</p>
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<p>In September 2012, there were 6.73 million people who say they currently want a job, but are not in the labor force because they are not looking for work, says Farrell. If all 6.727 million of these workers suddenly started looking for a job, and would in turn be counted both in the workforce and as unemployed, then the unemployment rate would rise to 11.63%. Sept. 2012 civilian labor force &#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;155.063 million Sept. 2012 – people who want a job but not looking &#160;&#160;6.727 million Adjusted labor force &#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;&#160;&#160;&#160;161.79 million</p>
<p>Employed in Sept (household survey) &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;142.974 million Employed as % of adjusted labor force: &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;(142.974 / 161.79) = 88.37% Unemployed as % of adjusted labor force &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;(100.00 – 89.27) = 11.63%</p>
<p>Here are other numbers to keep handy as the presidential election nears. The two important jobs reports are the household survey versus the establishment survey. These reports show the size of the U.S. workforce.</p>
<p>The household survey includes agricultural workers, the self-employed, unpaid family workers, and private household workers among the employed. These groups are excluded from the establishment survey.</p>
<p>Month &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Household survey (# employed) &#160;&#160;&#160;Establishment survey (# employed) Jan 2012 &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;141.637 million &#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;132.461 million Sept 2012 &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;142.974 million &#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;133.500 million (prelim) % change: &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;+0.94 &#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;+0.78</p> | The Real Unemployment Rate | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2012/10/05/real-unemployment-rate.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p>Thirty years ago, Jennifer Fox won the grand jury prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival for her documentary “Beirut: The Last Home Movie,” engaging with sex-positive and progressively feminist topics in her subsequent nonfiction work, most notably “Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman.” Both a natural extension of Fox’s career to date and a […]</p> | Sundance Film Review: ‘The Tale’ | false | https://newsline.com/sundance-film-review-the-tale/ | 2018-01-21 | 1 |
<p>Roger Steffens at the Reggae Archives, Los Angeles. Photo: Stephen A. Cooper.</p>
<p>In reviewing Roger Steffens’s latest book, <a href="" type="internal">So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley,</a>&#160;Hua Hsu <a href="" type="internal">asserts</a> in The New Yorker that Steffens’s contribution to the Marley canon is his “nerdish monomania.” But <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Steffens" type="external">Steffens</a>, who invited me to tour his overstuffed “ <a href="" type="internal">Reggae Archives</a>” in L.A., epitomizes cool – as does his magnum opus on Marley – right down to its subtle red, green, and gold binding. Moreover, it is Steffens’s avidity and accuracy that allow readers to “really know the man” as Steffens did when he toured with Marley, subsequently devoting his life to safeguarding his legacy. Jamaican poet laureate <a href="http://www.lintonkwesijohnson.com/" type="external">Linton Kwesi Johnson</a> writes in his introduction to Steffens’s oeuvre, that Steffens shows “how serious Marley was about his art: his single-mindedness and his consummate professionalism.” Steffens’s book exudes those same qualities.</p>
<p>On July 29, 2017, Steffens blessed me with a return invitation to the Reggae Archives to interview him. The topics we discussed included what got him interested in reggae; how his passion for the music developed; The New Yorker’s review of his new book; the book’s main dramas and themes; and finally, Steffens’s hopes for “So Much Things to Say”’s enduring legacy. What follows is a transcription of our discussion modified only slightly for clarity and space considerations.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Q: Where were you born?</p>
<p>Steffens: Brooklyn. I’m an all-American boy from Brooklyn. I tell my Rasta friends not to mess&#160;with me because I was born in Zion. I was born in a Jewish hospital called “Israel Zion” hospital.&#160;So, Rasta don’t mess with me. I’m from Zion (laughing).</p>
<p>Q: What was your pursuit before you got involved in reggae?</p>
<p>Steffens: It was poetry. And drama. I’m a trained Shakespearean actor. I started acting when I&#160;was five years of age. I’ve always been involved in the stage.</p>
<p>Q: What got you interested in reggae music initially?</p>
<p>Steffens: There were two strains that brought me to reggae. One was my love of doo-wop – the&#160;harmonies. And the other was the conscious music of Dylan and the folk movement in the&#160;sixties. The music pretty much died around ’70 and ’71. The last great sixties album was really&#160;[Marvin Gaye’s] &#160;“What’s Going On.” After that, the little companies were all bought up by&#160;conglomerates. And so, they emasculated the music. It was disco – and crap. And I was looking&#160;for something to <a href="" type="internal" />reignite my passion for music. So, in 1973, [when I was thirty-one years old], I&#160;heard “ <a href="" type="internal">Catch a Fire</a>” and saw Perry Henzell’s “ <a href="" type="internal">The Harder They Come</a>.” And it was different&#160;than anything I had ever experienced in my life. I couldn’t believe this huge culture existed&#160;just below the United States. How did I miss it all those years!? Where was I? So, that was the&#160;major eye-opener. And being in a place that had a lot of imports from England on the Trojan&#160;[Records] label. And a record store in San Francisco, [on Filmore Street,] called Trench Town&#160;Records, that brought 7 inch singles up from Kingston. And brought Count Ossie and the Mystic&#160;Revelation of Rastafari – their “ <a href="" type="internal">Grounation</a>” album. Ruel Mills, who ran the store, was an old&#160;friend of Bob’s. He opened my eyes. He taught me a hell of a lot [about reggae music] in the&#160;initial stages.</p>
<p>Q: And you really got into it then?</p>
<p>Steffens: Totally got into it. And I couldn’t wait to go to Jamaica to find all these records –</p>
<p>Q: Because you couldn’t find some of these records where you were?</p>
<p>Steffens: No. British imports and Tower Records and other Berkeley record stores, you could&#160;find some English pressings of reggae. And the “Tighten Up” series, which taught me that ninety&#160;percent of reggae was crap. And so, I needed somebody to guide me to the real stuff – Alton&#160;Ellis, Desmond Dekker, Techniques, and all the rocksteady [artists], Ras Michael….</p>
<p>Q: Notwithstanding that you suddenly had this great passion for reggae, and you fell in love with&#160;it, did anyone, like your wife or other family members, say “Hey, Roger, we understand you&#160;love reggae, but maybe you shouldn’t go to Jamaica looking for records during one of the&#160;country’s most dangerous, most tumultuous periods?”</p>
<p>Steffens: We arrived the week [Michael] Manley declared the state of emergency. An imminent&#160;invasion was about to take place. And he was right, in fact. Many years later, <a href="" type="internal">Phillip Agee</a>,&#160;the renegade CIA agent…You know, Phillip Agee? He eventually fled to Havana and lived the&#160;rest of his life under the protection of Castro. And so, that whole period was one of revelation&#160;and I wanted to get to the roots. So, when we arrived in Jamaica, everybody said for God’s sake,&#160;don’t go to Kingston! They’re killing people on the streets. But, I said, you know I’ve come all&#160;this way. I’d saved $400 up to go buy records. I have to go to Kingston, I said! And as soon as&#160;we arrived, one of the biggest reggae stars at the time picked my pocket in Bob Marley’s record&#160;shack.</p>
<p>Q: You mention that in your new book, but then you never tell who it was…?</p>
<p>Steffens: It wouldn’t be smart for me. I’ll tell you later (laughing).</p>
<p>Q: I have a few questions about the review of your new book by Hua Hsu that appeared in the&#160;July 24 issue of The New Yorker. Did Hua Hsu ever come here, to visit your Reggae Archives?</p>
<p>Steffens: No. I’m told he’s an English Professor at Vassar. I guess my publicist may have sent him the book. Just the very idea that The New Yorker devoted six pages to my book is so mind-blowing to me.</p>
<p>Q: You must have felt good about that?</p>
<p>Steffens: Oh, better than good. I was levitating (laughing). And, did I tell you I was invited&#160;to read my book at The Library of Congress?</p>
<p>Q: No! That’s awesome! When?</p>
<p>Steffens: Sometime in November. November 2nd, I think. They just asked me yesterday, so the&#160;date hasn’t been finalized. So, I mean, anyways, The New Yorker, the Library of&#160;Congress….Jesus!</p>
<p>Q: It’s such a big feather in your cap, Roger. Congratulations man! Now, there were one or two&#160;things that seemed a bit off about Hua Hsu’s review of your book I want to ask you about.&#160;One of Hsu’s assertions is that “the book’s drama accumulates around the question of what set&#160;Marley apart from his bandmates Livingston and Tosh.” Do you agree with that?</p>
<p>Steffens: Well, there was a certain amount of drama. I think he has a point there. The fact that at&#160;the height of [The Wailers’s] breakthrough they just couldn’t stay together anymore. It’s kind of&#160;sad. And I was very angry for many years that Chris Blackwell seemed to almost take joy in the&#160;fact that he broke The Wailers up. But, at the same time, what happened is, he gave us three&#160;times the amount of music we would have had otherwise. It was like the Beatles. They were all&#160;capable of being leaders. And a lot of the Bunny and Peter songs didn’t get a chance to manifest&#160;because mostly the songs were Bob’s that were on the albums. It was time for them to make&#160;their step. We never would have had [Bunny Wailer’s] “ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BkB3G7AhQI" type="external">Blackheart Man</a>,” we never&#160;would have had [Peter Tosh’s] “ <a href="" type="internal">Equal Rights</a>” if they had stayed together.</p>
<p>Q: What was most convincing to me, similar to what you said about The Beatles, is the quotation&#160;in your book from Bob Marley’s former manager, Danny Sims. Sims said, “Bob had a style, a&#160;charisma, and was the obvious superstar. But, you could tell in that setup, all three of those guys&#160;were superstars.” Amazingly, blessedly, they just managed to coalesce on this small island of&#160;Jamaica. And they got together in Trench Town with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Higgs" type="external">Joe Higgs</a>, the Wailers’s first teacher – a&#160;legend himself. It was just amazing that you had such a confluence of strong personalities. And&#160;talents! Now, I brought up Hsu’s assertion about the book’s central drama because while I&#160;found the differences between Bob, Peter and Bunny was certainly one of the book’s dramas, I&#160;thought there were many dramas in the book about Bob’s life that were presented. Dramas that&#160;potential readers of your book might want to know about concerning Bob’s early life and career;&#160;conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination attempt; how Bob developed his health issues&#160;and the treatment of them; and the personal dramas that Bob had within his family, with women,&#160;and more. In my opinion, the best parts of the book are the concentration on what made Bob such&#160;a great artist – what his process was. On his discipline. And, his professionalism. One of the first&#160;reggae stars I interviewed was David Hinds, lead singer of Steel Pulse. And, during that&#160; <a href="http://caribbeannewsnow.com/headline-Fifteen-scintillating-minutes-with-reggae-superstar-David-Hinds-31244.html" type="external">interview</a>, Hinds spoke specifically about how he missed Bob’s professionalism and his&#160;discipline. And throughout your book, there are passages where people in Bob’s life are also&#160;quoted about how Bob was a perfectionist. How he made them be better at what they did. How&#160;he made them explore things and challenge themselves. To come out of their comfort zone. Such&#160;as when Bob encouraged his art director Neville Garrick to not just do art, but to get into music.&#160;Or, how Bob would always be off in some corner alone, practicing; strumming his guitar off to&#160;the side. Always, he’d be working. Sometimes in the studio without the band, he’d be working.&#160;Those are the parts of your book that move me the most. They explain the makings of creative&#160;genius.</p>
<p>Steffens: Yeah. I wanted [the book] to supplant Timothy White’s book [on Bob Marley, “Catch&#160;a Fire”]. Because it’s such a flawed book. All those made up conversations just bugged the hell&#160;out of most of the people I know who read that book. How did he know what Rita and Bob&#160;whispered in each other’s ear when they were making love on the backdoor? That was just so&#160;wrong, you know? And he raced through the last four years of Bob’s life as if he was under&#160;deadline. There’s very little [in White’s book] about Bob’s last years.</p>
<p>Q: Also, your book, unlike White’s, presents primary source material. Your book is a collage of&#160;over 75 interviews you’ve curated of the people who were there, who know firsthand about Bob&#160;Marley’s life and career.</p>
<p>Steffens: Yeah. I love <a href="http://kwamedawes.com/about/" type="external">Kwame Dawes</a>’s quote [about the book]. Dawes is an amazing actor and poet. Incredibly respected guy. He’s half Ghanaian and half Jamaican. Raised in Kingston. He said, “[t]he book is a triumph of the storytelling virtuosity of Jamaican people.” I wanted this book to be something Jamaican people could be proud of. And to keep my voice out of it as much as possible. Everything I do in reggae comes from one specific point of view. I’m a lucky fan who got on the inside. So, I want to carry that kind of consciousness into everything that I do in reggae. What would you do if you were the biggest Beatles fan in the world and John Lennon said, “come on the road with me?” That’s the equivalent of what happened to me [with Bob Marley]. And so, I write as honestly as I can. And, as passionately and as enthusiastically as I can.</p>
<p>Q: At the beginning of your book you quote an old Jamaican folk saying: “There are no facts in Jamaica, only versions.” And Jamaican music is so much about versions. Putting a different and unique spin on a song, a different take. So, I liked that you begin the book with that quote. Additionally, you cite to and quote so many different characters in Bob’s life – all these people that we are introduced to in the book, the central people in Bob Marley’s life – and they all sometimes have different versions about how things went down. Hua Hsu said in his review that when you, Roger Steffens, show up in the book, that you’re mostly there to “direct traffic.” Linton Kwesi Johnson says something similar in his introduction, that you don’t allow your voice to dominate. Mostly, I agree with their assessment. But, I do think there is a crafty editing that’s being done. And, when you are really trying to get to the truth of a nugget about Bob Marley’s life, you’ve structured the book so you can see when someone’s version is b.s. –</p>
<p>Steffens: Without having to say anything. Discretion, Stephen, is the better part of valor. Every time.</p>
<p>Q: Roger, you have such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Bob Marley, but also all of reggae music. What are the top four or five non-Bob Marley albums that every reggae fan should have in their collection?</p>
<p>Steffens: “Blackheart Man” by Bunny Wailer. “Black Woman” by Judy Mowatt. “Right Time” by The Mighty Diamonds. “Two Sevens Clash” by Culture. “A Song” by Pablo Moses. Any Alton Ellis or Coxson [Dodd, Studio One] album – they get repackaged in so many ways. Johnny Osbourne’s “Truths and Rights.” “Bobby Bobylon” by Freddie McGregor.</p>
<p>Q: Can you say what your top two favorite Bob Marley songs are? And why?</p>
<p>Steffens: “ <a href="" type="internal">Waiting In Vain</a>.” Because it’s one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. Linton Kwesi Johnson says it is the most beautiful love song. And also, because it’s the song that got me introduced to Bob. So, it has emotional resonance for me.</p>
<p>Q: Is that when you walked up and congratulated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Marvin" type="external">Junior Marvin</a> for his guitar solo – during that song – before one of Bob Marley’s shows?</p>
<p>Steffens: Yeah. And, he took me backstage to meet Bob [for the first time]. I also love the “ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA1MSU6cDqc" type="external">Time Will Tell</a>” that’s on the soundtrack with from the Countryman album which is a whole different take – much more mysterious and haunting.</p>
<p>Q: You give thanks in your book to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutabaruka" type="external">Mutabaruka</a> and his efforts to help you relocate your Reggae Archives [containing a massive collection of reggae music and artifacts, including the world’s largest collection of Bob Marley material] to Jamaica. Can you speak more about that?</p>
<p>Steffens: Mutabaruka is a major broadcaster down in Jamaica. He’s got two weekly shows the whole island listens to. He’s a dub poet as Linton Kwesi Johnson is. Very deep, deep voice. Very provocative. Very intelligent. He’s a major figure in Jamaica. He’s been a major backer [of moving Steffens’s Reggae Archives to Jamaica]. I was on the air with him last fall. He’s calling fire and brimstone on the Jamaican authorities who don’t have the intelligence to see how important this collection could be to Jamaica. And how much money they could be making off of it. The Marley family has offered to buy it several times, but all they want is the Marley stuff.</p>
<p>Q: By the way, I really like the picture you chose for your book’s cover. It shows, as you discuss in the book, that though Bob was dealing with many trials and tribulations, and strife, he still had a joy for life. You can see that in his smile on the cover of your book’s jacket.</p>
<p>Steffens: That was the only time in the hour-long press conference in the San Diego Sports Arena dressing room on November 24th, 1979, that Bob smiled. Every flashbulb in the place went off at once.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Safeguarding Bob Marley With “So Much Things to Say” | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/08/07/safeguarding-bob-marley-with-so-much-things-to-say/ | 2017-08-07 | 4 |
<p>The <a href="http://www.iaea.org/" type="external">International Atomic Energy Agency</a> (IAEA) has reached a deal with Iran to resume its investigation into Iranian nuclear activities, the head of the UN watchdog said today.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/world/middleeast/un-nuclear-monitor-strikes-deal-with-iran-reports-say.html?hp" type="external">The New York Times reported</a> that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano returned this morning from Tehran, where he says there was an "important development" in negotiations to enable his agency to investigate whether Iran's nuclear program is peaceful.&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iran/120514/iran-iaea-new-nuclear-talks" type="external">Iran, IAEA begin new nuclear talks</a></p>
<p>"The decision was made to conclude and sign the agreement," Amano said, following his meeting with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili.</p>
<p>They have not yet agreed on everything, he added, but the IAEA expects the "almost clean text" to be signed "quite soon."</p>
<p>Amano specified that the deal would address the question of access to Iran's Parchin military site, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18157944" type="external">the BBC reported</a>. The IAEA suspects that scientists may have carried out tests of explosives suitable for use in nuclear weapons there, but has not yet been allowed to carry out an inspection.</p>
<p>Iran is due to meet for talks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad tomorrow with&#160;Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/chatter/iran-and-the-nuclear-double-standard" type="external">Iran and the nuclear double standard</a></p>
<p>"The Iranian nation welcomes real and fair negotiations and meantime insists on its rights," Iran's <a href="http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9102113005" type="external">Fars news agency</a> cited Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani as saying today.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned the group of six not to let Iran "push them around" at tomorrow's talks, Israeli daily <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-warns-world-powers-not-to-let-iran-push-them-around-1.431792" type="external">Haaretz reported</a>. Netanyahu insists they should demand that Iran halt all uranium enrichment, get rid of any uranium already enriched, and dismantle its enrichment facilities.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/120430/yandex-search-engine-startup-russia-google-crowd-sourcing" type="external">Yandex, Russia's Google, takes off</a></p> | IAEA says Iran nuclear deal coming 'soon' | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-05-22/iaea-says-iran-nuclear-deal-coming-soon | 2012-05-22 | 3 |
<p>According to the office of emergency management at the Westwood campus in Los Angeles, there has been a shooting.</p>
<p>Campus is currently on lockdown.</p>
<p />
<p>According to the campus alert system, the shooting happened in the Engineering 4 building.&#160;</p>
<p>Will update when more information is available.</p>
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<p /> | BREAKING! SHOOTER AT UCLA, CAMPUS ON LOCKDOWN! | true | http://fury.news/2016/06/breaking-shooter-ucla-campus-lockdown/ | 2016-06-01 | 0 |
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<p>According to the lawsuit, filed in state district court this week, John Dahill was laid off in August from his position as executive director of Western region sales at Gold Buyers of America, a Florida company with outlets in Santa Fe.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that he had signed a contract that included a non-compete clause, the lawsuit says, Dahill immediately incorporated Gold &amp; Diamond Buyers USA and contacted managers at De Vargas Center to rent space for his new business.</p>
<p>At the time, according to the lawsuit, the space in question was occupied by his former employers and was “one of its most significant and profitable operating locations.” The lawsuit also accuses Dahill of “intentionally and maliciously” persuading De Vargas’ managers to cancel Gold Buyers’ lease, playing on the fact that the name of his business – and his inside knowledge – created confusion.</p>
<p>Dahill’s negotiation with De Vargas Center “was done maliciously with full knowledge of the falsity of the circumstances to take over (Gold Buyers’) location for (his) nbenefit,” the lawsuit says.</p>
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<p>Contacted Wednesday, Dahill said he couldn’t discuss the lawsuit. He indicated he would contact someone who might be able to speak for him, but no one had contacted the Journal by the end of business hours.</p>
<p>The lawsuit says Dahill’s contract with Gold Buyers specified that he agreed not to compete directly or indirectly with the business for five years after his termination. According to the lawsuit, Dahill also “was unskilled regarding the gold buying business when he was initially hired,” and that “by virtue of his employment … Dahill developed and maintained valuable customer lists and other confidential data, including its local current and past employees” and has used this information “to maintain and procure business” for his own business.</p>
<p>Gold Buyers of America, the plaintiff, is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages against Dahill and has asked the courts for a permanent injunction to prevent him from operating his competing business.</p> | Company Suing Former Worker | false | https://abqjournal.com/148163/company-suing-former-worker.html | 2012-11-22 | 2 |
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<p>BECKLEY, W.Va. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that it must begin evaluating how many power plants and coal mining jobs are lost because of air pollution regulations, analysis it hasn’t done in decades.</p>
<p>Judge John Preston Bailey ruled in October that the EPA is required by law to analyze economic impact on a continuing basis when enforcing the Clean Air Act.</p>
<p>Murray Energy Corp. brought the suit years ago and was joined by other mining companies. Thirteen states support the suit, which blames the EPA for the coal industry’s declining fortunes.</p>
<p>The EPA’s attorneys have filed an appeal notice to the Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.</p>
<p>The judge wrote that the most the EPA does is “proactive analysis” of its rules’ effect on employment.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Register-Herald, <a href="http://www.register-herald.com" type="external">http://www.register-herald.com</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | EPA to appeal court-ordered analysis of coal jobs lost | false | https://abqjournal.com/910796/epa-to-appeal-court-ordered-analysis-of-coal-jobs-lost.html | 2 |
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<p>The Republican National Committee filed two lawsuits on Wednesday seeking to obtain emails related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's tenure as U.S. secretary of state.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Clinton, front-runner to be her party's candidate in November's general election, has faced questions about her emails since it emerged a year ago that she used a private email account and a private server during her time in the post from 2009-2013.</p>
<p>Clinton has apologized for the email arrangement, which is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but has said she did nothing wrong and believes the government will vindicate her.</p>
<p>The RNC said it filed the lawsuits after the State Department failed to respond in a timely manner to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in December. It sought the information to ensure the public has information to decide if Clinton is "fit to serve" as president, the RNC said in a statement.</p>
<p>The first lawsuit seeks emails, BlackBerry Messenger or text messages between then-Secretary of State Clinton and several key senior aides, including her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and director of policy planning, Jake Sullivan.</p>
<p>The second lawsuit seeks emails and other electronic exchanges between nearly a dozen State Department officials and any Clinton associate using one of more than a dozen different internet domain names. It covers the period between Feb. 1, 2013, when Clinton left the job, and Dec. 4, 2015.</p>
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<p>The request includes any emails to the State Department officials from Clinton's campaign website, HillaryClinton.com, or the website of former President Bill Clinton's foundation, ClintonFoundation.org.</p>
<p>The suit also targets emails from domains like MediaMatters.org, a liberal non-profit group that seeks to counter what it believes is misleading conservative information in the U.S. media.</p> | RNC Sues State Department For Clinton Emails | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/03/09/rnc-sues-state-department-for-clinton-emails.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
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<p>SEATTLE — Veteran New Mexico banker Michelle Coons has been named senior vice president and regional president for Washington Federal’s New Mexico territory, according to a news release from the company.</p>
<p>Washington Federal Announces Michelle Coons as Its New New Mexico Regional President (Photo: Business Wire)</p>
<p>Bill Synnamon, the current New Mexico regional president, is retiring effective Dec. 31.</p>
<p>Coons will maintain offices in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and will oversee 25 branches, four commercial banking markets, $843 million in deposits, $597 million in loans and 49 licensed mortgage officers.</p>
<p>Coons is a 34-four-year veteran of banking in the state with a BBA from UNM’s Anderson Schools of Management.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Washington Federal taps Michelle Coons for NM president | false | https://abqjournal.com/1098508/washington-federal-taps-michelle-coons-for-nm-president.html | 2 |
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<p>More than a half-million patients could have been exposed to bacteria that can cause serious illness or death. That’s the estimated number of patients who had open-chest surgery involving potentially contaminated equipment in the past several years. The bacteria are a type of nontuberculous mycobacteria, or NTM. Although infections are rare, experts are worried because patients may not develop symptoms or signs of infection for months, so diagnosis may be missed or delayed.</p>
<p>The device is a heater-cooler unit, which helps keep a patient’s circulating blood at a specific temperature during operations. It’s used in an estimated 250,000 surgeries in the United States every year, including cardiac bypass, valve replacement and liver transplants. About 60 percent of these procedures use the German-made model that has been linked to the infections, the Stöckert 3T heater-cooler, made by LivaNova PLC, formerly Sorin Group Deutschland GmbH.</p>
<p>The CDC is advising hospitals to notify patients who had open-chest surgery involving these devices going back to Jan. 1, 2012. There is new information that indicates these devices were probably contaminated during manufacturing.</p>
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<p>The Washington Post’s Lena H. Sun spoke with consumer advocates and health experts, including CDC’s Mike Bell, deputy director of health-care quality promotion, about what patients should do.</p>
<p>Q: How do I know if I need to be worried?</p>
<p>A: If you’re not having symptoms, there’s nothing you need to do. But patients who have had open-heart surgery should seek medical care if they’re having nonspecific symptoms associated with infections, such as night sweats, muscle aches or pain, weight loss, fatigue or unexplained fever.</p>
<p>Q: What if I don’t have symptoms but want to make sure my doctors know about this situation?</p>
<p>A: The CDC has a sample letter that patients can download, customize and take to their cardiologist or family doctor or whomever you see for ongoing medical care. The letter explains the risk of infection and CDC’s recommendation that clinicians consider NTM as a potential cause of unexplained chronic illness.</p>
<p>“Patients should say to their doctors, ‘I want you to put this in my file and be aware this could happen. If I start having infection symptoms, I want to be tested,’ ” said Lisa McGiffert, director of Consumers Union’s Safe Patient Project.</p>
<p>Q: What if my open-chest surgery took place before Jan. 1, 2012?</p>
<p>A: The CDC’s Bell said the vast majority of infections flare up within four years of exposure. But regardless of when you had this type of surgery, if you are having symptoms, you should contact your health-care provider as soon as possible.</p>
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<p>Q: Are there any drugs I can take to prevent these infections?</p>
<p>A: Currently, there aren’t any safe prophylactic treatments.</p>
<p>Q: Are these infections treatable?</p>
<p>A: Yes. A specific combination of antibiotics can treat NTM infections.</p>
<p>Q: Why is the CDC worried about these devices?</p>
<p>A: Researchers have found that fans on these units may blow bacteria from inside the machine into the operating room. If the bacteria land on a heart valve that is about to be implanted or a surgical wound, it could cause an infection.</p>
<p>Q: How many hospitals do this kind of operation in the United States?</p>
<p>A: An estimated 1,200 hospitals in the United States perform bypass operations, according to federal government sources.</p>
<p>Q: What if my hospital used a different brand of heater-cooler?</p>
<p>A: These machines operate in similar ways. They could be contaminated in similar ways and also pose infection risk.</p>
<p>Q: What is the risk of infection?</p>
<p>A: In hospitals where at least one infection has been identified and linked to the device in question, the risk was low, between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1,000. CDC officials say patients who had valves or other prosthetic implants are at higher risk.</p>
<p>Q: How long does it usually take for these infections to show up?</p>
<p>A: It may take months and up to several years after the operation. Virtually all the cases reported so far in Europe and the United States have occurred within four years of surgery.</p>
<p>Q: What are these bacteria? Can an infected person spread it to others?</p>
<p>A: NTM is common in water and soil. The bacteria rarely make healthy people sick. The danger arises when these bacteria enter the chest cavity or an open wound, especially in someone with a weakened immune system. The bacteria cannot be spread to others.</p>
<p>Q: How many illnesses and deaths have been linked to these infections?</p>
<p>A: Between January 2010 and August 2016, the FDA received 91 reports from around the world about these devices. At least 79 were patient infections, with 55 in the United States. The infections include at least 12 deaths, including seven U.S. deaths. (In some cases, a report may describe a cluster of patients. In other cases, more than one report may be submitted from the same incident.)</p>
<p>Hospitals in Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania have reported infections.</p>
<p>Q: Is there a test to know whether I’ve been exposed?</p>
<p>A: There is no such test. Infections can only be diagnosed by growing the bacteria in a lab. But that may take up to two months or longer. What’s more, getting the right kind of specimen depends on where the infection is. It could be in the blood, or it might show up in an infected wound.</p>
<p>“It has to be cultured under the right circumstance so the finicky bacteria will actually grow,” Bell said.</p>
<p>Q: Why hasn’t my hospital notified me? There’s nothing on the website, and I can’t reach a person who knows anything.</p>
<p>A: Many patients say they’re frustrated by their inability to find out anything from the hospital where the operation took place. The hospitals have been getting alerts for the past year from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration. But the CDC and FDA don’t have authority to require hospitals to notify patients. The American Hospital Association, an industry association, says it has advised its members to review and determine how best to follow the CDC recommendations. But Jay Bhatt, the AHA’s chief medical officer, said it takes time to review records and identify patients who might have been affected.</p>
<p>Q: How many of these Stöckert 3T heater-cooler devices are there? Why haven’t these devices been recalled?</p>
<p>A: As of July 2015, the company publicly reported there were 1,914 devices in health-care facilities around the world, including in the United States. In 2015, the company recalled the instructions for use, but not the device itself. The FDA imposed an import alert in December 2015. The devices are critical for lifesaving surgery, and a recall could result in many patients being harmed.</p>
<p>Q: I’m supposed to have elective surgery to have a heart valve replaced. Should I postpone the surgery?</p>
<p>A: For nonemergency surgeries, patients might want to ask their doctors if they have the option of waiting for a little while, says CDC’s Bell. Patients should make sure their surgeons and hospitals disclose these risks, in writing, during the pre-surgery informed-consent discussions.</p>
<p>Q: What are hospitals doing in the meantime?</p>
<p>A: Hospitals are working through the logistics involved in notifying patients.</p>
<p>“Facilities are not well set up to receive a large number of public calls,” said Bell. He said hospitals in Pennsylvania and Iowa that had clusters of infections had to set up a special telephone number to receive inquiries and guide people to the next step.</p>
<p>Hospital officials are also looking to find ways to minimize the risk of infection, such as keeping the devices outside the operating room, or looking for alternative machines that don’t have fans, Bell said.</p>
<p>“Every hospital is thinking about how to make this problem no longer exist,” he said.</p>
<p>– – –</p>
<p>Video link:</p>
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<p />
<p>heart-infection-qanda</p> | What you need to know about those new, deadly heart-surgery infections | false | https://abqjournal.com/874560/what-you-need-to-know-about-those-new-deadly-heart-surgery-infections.html | 2 |
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<p>Image source:Crocs.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares ofCrocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX)lost 30% of their value throughout 2016, according to <a href="https://www.capitaliq.com/home.aspx" type="external">S&amp;P Capital IQ Opens a New Window.</a>data. The iconic rubberized-clog company has had a volatile year with drastic share-price swings both ways as the market tried to make sense of mixed earnings each quarter. Though the company gained some steam early in Q1, the stock was pushed lower following Q2 and Q3 earnings. Still, some analysts think the company's fortunes could turn.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/CROX" type="external">CROX</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a></p>
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<p>Crocs' stock got a major boost following Q1 earnings, which showed rising sales, year over year, and net income of $0.07 for the quarter. In the few months following the earnings, the stock nearly doubled. By mid-July, the stock was up around 20% from the start of the year.</p>
<p>However, the market wasn't as excited about the following quarterly earnings. In Q2, sales declined 6.3%, year over year,and in Q3 another 11.6%. The company had some highlights in 2016, such as improved inventory management that could lead to higher gross margin in the future, though gross margin has declined substantially in the past three years. Net losses for the nine months ended Sept. 30 were $13 million, compared with net income of $24 million for the same period of 2015.</p>
<p>Crocs' "Find Your Fun" campaign has been a highlight in recent earnings calls. Image source: Crocs.</p>
<p>Another problem that has plagued Crocs this year is continued legal and patent battles, both from and toward the company, that have diverted money and focus away from the company's already tough uphill climb.</p>
<p>Looking ahead to 2017, Crocs will be seeking to prove that it can reduce the trend of declining sales and gross margins and especially show that it's on the path to produce a profit again. It'll have to do that while other young companies are growing aggressively in the footwear market, such as Under Armour (NYSE: UAA)(NYSE: UA), which <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/02/under-armours-growing-footwear-opportunity.aspx?source=yahoo-2-news&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=yahoo-2-news&amp;yptr=yahoo&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">grew its footwear sales Opens a New Window.</a>more than 50% in the first nine months of 2016, year over year.</p>
<p>Still, some analysts are bullish that Crocs can still do just that. The average analyst estimate for those covering the stock is that full-year 2017 earnings will be $0.12, up considerably from the $0.13 loss expected for the full year 2016. With new spokespeople, such as Drew Barrymore and others, as well as more disciplinedcost management, 2017 could be a much better year for Crocs.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Crocs 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=a55b2922-bffc-4a7c-b3a9-3344c0a49e19&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Crocs wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=a55b2922-bffc-4a7c-b3a9-3344c0a49e19&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/BSMcNew/info.aspx" type="external">Seth McNew Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Under Armour (A Shares) and Under Armour (C Shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Under Armour (A Shares) and Under Armour (C Shares). The Motley Fool recommends Crocs. 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> | Crocs, Inc. Stock Was Hammered in 2016 -- Here's Why | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/05/crocs-inc-stock-was-hammered-in-2016-here-why.html | 2017-01-05 | 0 |
<p>Shares of wholesale power company NRG Energy Inc (NYSE: NRG) surged as much as 22.6% on Wednesday after it disclosed another plan to transform its business. At 11:45 a.m. EDT, shares were holding at a gain of 17.8% on the day.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Under pressure from activist investors, NRG has agreed to sell most of its renewable energy assets and dramatically lower costs. The plan says NRG will sell $2.5 billion to $4.0 billion of asset sales, mostly in renewables, and divest entirely from NRG Yield (NYSE: NYLD). The proposal is intended to remove $13 billion of debt from the balance sheet, which has a current level of $19.4 billion.</p>
<p>Long-term, the plan is to cut $1.065 billion in costs from the business to try to squeeze as much cash as possible from the remaining utility and fossil-fuel plants. If successful, NRG could be profitable with relatively low debt, but that's no guarantee in an environment where utilities are under pressure from rooftop solar and <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/25/can-aes-succeed-where-nrg-energy-failed.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=31205300-671f-11e7-8bb4-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">wholesale power prices are plunging with no sign of improvement Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The real story here is that NRG is trying to sell renewable assets it thinks the market isn't valuing highly enough, in an effort to improve its balance sheet. The utility and power producer that will be left will then be squeezed for as much cash as possible, but probably won't invest in growth the way NRG would have in the past.</p>
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<p>That's likely the right move short-term, given NRG's share price, but the long-term future of the company is now more uncertain than ever. Doubling down on fossil fuels, in a world where wind and solar are dominating new electricity generation, isn't a path for growth...and the effort to squeeze value from NRG may doom the company long-term.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than NRG EnergyWhen 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=2a912aca-9c3e-4e4c-a504-8e8232008280&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=31205300-671f-11e7-8bb4-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and NRG Energy 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 July 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFlushDraw/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=31205300-671f-11e7-8bb4-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Travis Hoium Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of NRG Energy. 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=31205300-671f-11e7-8bb4-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why NRG Energy Inc.'s Shares Popped 23% Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/12/why-nrg-energy-inc-s-shares-popped-23-today.html | 2017-07-12 | 0 |
<p>SYDNEY (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar fell sharply against the safe-haven yen and Swiss franc in early Asian hours on Friday on reports North Korea had fired another missile, though losses were quickly pared in very jittery trade.</p>
<p>The dollar sank over half a yen to as deep as 109.55 yen in a blink, before rebounding to 110.01. The market has been braced for a missile test for some time, so the move by Pyongyang was no major surprise.</p>
<p>North Korea fired an unidentified missile early on Friday from the Sunan district in its capital, Pyongyang, toward the eastern direction, South Korea’s military said.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | U.S. dollar whiplashed on reports of North Korea missile | false | https://newsline.com/u-s-dollar-whiplashed-on-reports-of-north-korea-missile/ | 2017-09-14 | 1 |
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<p>The 39 graduating seniors completed 424 CNM courses, totaling 1,273 credit hours, with one student earning 77 credit hours. Vyvian earned 76. The credit hours are transferable to the University of New Mexico and public <a href="" type="internal" />universities across the state. Vyvian and some of her fellow CCHS graduates will be able to enter a college or university as 18-year-old juniors.</p>
<p>The College &amp; Career High School was founded through a partnership between Albuquerque Public Schools and CNM. It opened on CNM's Main Campus in fall 2013 with 75 students. This year, the number jumped to 122.</p>
<p>High school sophomores, juniors and seniors are eligible to attend CCHS. They spend half of their school day taking APS classes and the other half taking CNM dual credit classes that count for both high school elective and college credit. The CCHS students have the same access as regular college students to all of CNM's support services, such as tutoring, academic advisors and libraries.</p>
<p>Best of all, CNM tuition and textbooks are free to the students, allowing their families to save significant time and money on a college education.</p>
<p>The 39 graduates from CCHS joined more than 2,200 CNM graduates in reaching their momentous milestones earlier this month. The 2,200-plus graduates are well-prepared to help strengthen our region's economy, add momentum to entrepreneurship, become leaders for businesses across the state and contribute to the overall wellbeing of our communities. They'll fill important workforce needs in our local economy in far-ranging fields from biotechnology to business administration, from welding to nursing, from computer science to teacher education, and so many disciplines in between.</p>
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<p>On behalf of CNM, we congratulate all high school and college graduates across New Mexico for persevering, excelling and improving the future of our state by graduating and advancing to the next step in their lives.</p>
<p>As we know, there is not a more proven path to a good life than education, especially higher education. And in the coming years, higher education is going to be more important than ever in the pursuit of happiness, as good-paying jobs become more technical and require more specialized skills. According to the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, 62 percent of jobs will require at least a certificate or associate degree by 2020. In New Mexico, we're behind the curve in being prepared for those jobs. Only 32 percent of the population in New Mexico has an associate degree or higher.</p>
<p>As our College &amp; Career High School students have proven, it's never too early to start striving for a college education and exploring broader educational opportunities. It's also never too late.</p>
<p>As the cheers for this year's high school and college graduates fade, I hope we can all start rousing new cheers for every person in our community, young or old, who is pursuing a college education or considering the pursuit. We all need them to go for it. And graduate!</p>
<p /> | An early start on college | false | https://abqjournal.com/586893/an-early-start-on-college.html | 2 |
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<p>PHOENIX (AP) — Senate President Steve Yarbrough is retiring from an outside nonprofit that provides scholarships to students for private school tuition.</p>
<p>The Chandler Republican announced Thursday he will retire Sunday as executive director and general counsel of the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization and that he looks forward to spending more time with his family and legislative responsibilities.</p>
<p>Arizona permits state income tax credits for qualifying donations to the group and similar organizations.</p>
<p>Yarbrough has been an ardent supporter of so-called school choice programs and he has been criticized over the years for voting for legislation that would help groups such as the one he’s now departing.</p>
<p>Yarbrough has brushed off any criticism, saying he ran the organization long before he entered the Legislature and has been completely transparent about his position.</p>
<p>PHOENIX (AP) — Senate President Steve Yarbrough is retiring from an outside nonprofit that provides scholarships to students for private school tuition.</p>
<p>The Chandler Republican announced Thursday he will retire Sunday as executive director and general counsel of the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization and that he looks forward to spending more time with his family and legislative responsibilities.</p>
<p>Arizona permits state income tax credits for qualifying donations to the group and similar organizations.</p>
<p>Yarbrough has been an ardent supporter of so-called school choice programs and he has been criticized over the years for voting for legislation that would help groups such as the one he’s now departing.</p>
<p>Yarbrough has brushed off any criticism, saying he ran the organization long before he entered the Legislature and has been completely transparent about his position.</p> | Arizona Senate president to retire from tuition group | false | https://apnews.com/94eeb4a0993842b8871cb0f70886be69 | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
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<p>The group had missed two deadlines to file the disclosure reports, the first on March 23 and the second Friday. By City Council action, 2-cent-per-ounce on soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages will be the ballot in a May 2 special election. <a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>The group had missed two deadlines to file the disclosure reports, the first on March 23 and the second Friday. By City Council action, a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages will be on the ballot in a May 2 special election.</p>
<p>Smart Progress says in its Monday filing that it has raised $11,300 since February and spent $9,510. Its big donor is Coca-Cola Bottling of Santa Fe, which on Friday announced $10,000 in contributions to Smart Progress via news release. The group’s other cash donors are The Boxcar Bar and Grill, which gave $1,000, and Loveless Johnson, head of Smart Progress, who put in $300.</p>
<p>Smart Progress’s report also lists its treasurer, Heidi R. Pierce, a massage therapist, as providing $200 worth of non-monetary in-kind services, described as administrative support.</p>
<p>Smart Progress’s biggest expenditures include $1,083 in radio ads, $1,663 for “beverage coaster printing,” $2,500 to CTR Media of Santa Fe for website and digital design services and canvassing, $1,000 to High Desert Public Relations of Santa Fe for issues and policy research, and $1,100 to Adelo Law Firm for legal services.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The group’s fundraising and expenditures amount to a drop in the bucket in the campaign battle over the soda tax, which would finance pre-kindergarten services in Santa Fe. Between them, two other dueling political committees – Pre-K for Santa Fe, for the tax, and Better Way for Santa Fe &amp; Pre-K, in opposition – have reported taking in more than $900,000 in cash and $675,000 in in-kind services.</p>
<p>Better Way has reported $800,000 in cash and another $74,474 in in-kind services donated by the American Beverage Association. Pre-K for Santa Fe has been given nearly $330,000 in in-kind support for research and media by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and has started running television ads.</p>
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<p /> | Smart Progress group finally files disclosure report in soda tax fight | false | https://abqjournal.com/985776/smart-progress-group-finally-files-disclosure-report-in-soda-tax-fight.html | 2017-04-10 | 2 |
<p>In tragic, stomach-turning news, the remains of former “Food Network Star” contestant Christie Schoen Codd and her husband Joseph Codd were discovered in a wood-burning stove belonging to their neighbor, Robert Owens. In an even more gruesome turn of events, Christie was five months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.</p>
<p>Christie and Joseph were&#160;reported missing earlier in the month, after neighbors were unable to locate them near their North Carolina&#160;home. Owens, the couple’s neighbor and handyman, was <a href="https://www.eater.com/2015/3/19/8257199/man-arrested-murder-of-food-network-star-cristie-schoen-codd" type="external">arrested for the murders last week</a>. Though cops had searched exhaustively, they were unable to find the remains of the couple, whose home had also been burgled of a laptop, a handgun, and some jewelry.</p>
<p>Owens has been charged with first-degree murder for both Christie and Joseph, as well as the murder of an unborn child. He told police in an interview that he had “stored and destroyed part of the remains” at a separate home that he owned, and his wife told detectives that her husband had admitted to running over and killing Joseph with a Dodge Ram that belonged to the Codds. [ <a href="https://www.eater.com/2015/3/23/8279105/remains-murdered-food-network-star-contestant-found-in-wood-oven" type="external">Eater</a>]</p> | Missing “Food Network Star”‘s Remains Were Discovered In A Wood-Burning Oven | true | http://thefrisky.com/2015-03-23/missing-food-network-stars-remains-were-discovered-in-a-wood-burning-oven/?utm_source%3Dsc-fb%26utm_medium%3Dref%26utm_campaign%3Dchristie-codd | 2018-10-07 | 4 |
<p>“[President Donald Trump] is beginning to send signals that [white nationalist terrorism] is okay,” said CNN’s Van Jones on Saturday.</p>
<p>Joining a discussion panel hosted by CNN colleague John Berman, Jones described President Donald Trump as shaping federal policy to accommodate white nationalist terrorism.</p>
<p>The Trump administration, said Jones, is moving counterterrorism resources "away from these white supremacist hate groups and focusing solely on, almost exclusively on radical Islam."</p>
<p>"So it’s not just that you have a president who kind of forgets to point out terrorism when it’s white nationalist groups, you have him at a policy level taking his eyes off of these haters, taking his eyes off these murderers, taking his eyes off of the oldest terrorist group in the country," Jones continued. "The oldest terrorist group is not ISIS, they’re brand new. The oldest terrorist group in the world, certainly in the United States, is the Ku Klux Klan, and there’s a policy now to take the eyes of the federal government off of these people."</p>
<p>"Donald Trump is now away from his party, with now Putin, apparently, [and] with white supremacists," said Jones.</p>
<p>Partial transcript below (emphases added).</p>
<p>JONES: Sometimes we act as if the only things that matter here are the words and language when you say something, that’s very very important, but there is a policy implication that we haven’t talked about enough, which is that you have an administration that when it comes to counterterrorism, it’s been reported, is moving its resources away from these white supremacist hate groups and focusing solely on, almost exclusively on radical Islam.</p>
<p>So it’s not just that you have a president who kind of forgets to point out terrorism when it’s white nationalist groups, you have him at a policy level taking his eyes off of these haters, taking his eyes off these murderers, taking his eyes off of the oldest terrorist group in the country. The oldest terrorist group is not ISIS, they’re brand new. The oldest terrorist group in the world, certainly in the United States, is the Ku Klux Klan, and there’s a policy now to take the eyes of the federal government off of these people. So that’s part of why you have so much concern.</p>
<p>If you say, “Look, I’m not gonna call you a terrorist. I’m not gonna say, ‘white supremacist.’ I’m not gonna say, ‘neo-Nazi.’ I’m not gonna mention your name. I’m not call you a thug. I’m not gonna do anything, and I’m gonna move the eyes of law enforcement off of you," you are beginning to send signals that this kinda stuff is okay, at a policy level as well as at a rhetorical level, and that is dangerous in America.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Donald Trump is now away from his party, with now Putin, apparently, [and] with white supremacists.</p>
<p>Jones praised Republican politicians who specified white nationalists, white supremacists, and the KKK for condemnation.</p>
<p>Neither Berman nor any of Jones’ co-panelists challenged his assertions.</p>
<p>Watch Jones' comments below.</p>
<p>CNN presents itself as a politically objective and non-partisan news media outlet, billing itself as “The Most Trusted Name In News.”</p>
<p>Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | Van Jones: Trump 'Beginning To Send Signals' White Nationalism 'Is Okay' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/19664/van-jones-trump-beginning-send-signals-white-robert-kraychik | 2017-08-14 | 0 |
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<p>The past three blog entries (start at the beginning by clicking <a href="http://sage.abqjournalfit.com/2013/05/02/headline-156/" type="external">here</a>) have all pertained to increasing your savings percentage. After all, the amount you save is the primary factor in becoming financially secure.</p>
<p>This entry focuses on big-ticket items, which can have a huge impact on increasing your savings percentage. Clearly, these are not easy changes, such as eating out less often to save money. However, ponder these with an open mind.</p>
<p>Do you live in a house that is more than you need? Oftentimes, it is not just the house or the monthly mortgage payment that is a problem. It is the maintenance, paying someone to take care of the lawn and gardens, the property taxes and the homeowner’s insurance.</p>
<p>Downsizing to a smaller house or apartment may seem like an overwhelming task. However, it can lead to drastic reductions in your annual budget and much less stress. It would have a very positive impact on your financial security, and it may improve your health at the same time. It can also free up time so you can explore new hobbies, spend more time with friends or exercise more. A simpler lifestyle has wide-reaching benefits.</p>
<p>Do you need to replace your car during the next few years? Could you stretch your car’s life to ten, twelve or fifteen years? Do you need to take an expensive vacation this year, or would weekend or day trips nearby be just as fun?</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Certainly, short trips require less time to plan, and they are often less stressful. There are probably nearby areas you have never explored. You could decide to take a major vacation every other year instead of every year. These “big ticket” items can have a major impact on your savings. Instead of taking a $5,000 vacation this year, spend $1,000 on small trips and save the remaining $4,000.</p>
<p>Once you have identified some areas where you can reduce your expenses, set up an automatic saving system to “scoop” that money into your savings or investment account at the beginning of each month going forward. Within a few months, you will not notice that you have reduced your spending, but you can celebrate that your savings percentage has increased.</p>
<p>I welcome your feedback on strategies that have helped you reduce your expenses and increase your savings.</p>
<p>Ask the Experts panelist Donna Skeels Cygan is a certified financial planner in Albuquerque and owner of Sage Future Financial Services. Find her at sagefuture.com.</p>
<p>To ask Donna a question, type your question in the comments field below. Or email your question to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a> or <a href="" type="internal">[email protected].</a></p> | Big Ticket Items to "Fast Forward" Your Savings Percentage, from Ask the Experts' Donna Skeels Cygan | false | https://abqjournal.com/510897/headline-162-2.html | 2 |
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<p>The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's award-winning loan document.Center for Plain Language; &lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-124135240/stock-vector-set-of-bright-emblems.html?src=h8m0hbL62VXXJqzLwOtWew-1-94"&gt;iro4ka&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
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<p>It’s like the Oscars, but for paperwork.</p>
<p>The Clearmark Awards, sponsored by the DC-based Center for Plain Language,&#160;are handed out annually to the government agencies, corporations, and nonprofits that produce the most coherent literature. On Tuesday, for the 11th-consecutive year, the nominees gathered at the National Press Club in downtown Washington to nibble on chocolate mousse and celebrate their colleagues for making bureaucratic copy comprehensible. Up for awards were the Social Security Administration, for its redesigned website; the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, for its revision of its rules of procedure; and the National Diabetes Education Program, for its&#160;pamphlet on taking care of your feet. In a year in which a broken website became a symbol of bureaucratic ineptitude, these were the heroes the media never told you about.</p>
<p>CPL’s mission is a simple one: Help public- and private-sector institutions produce text that humans can understand. The organization lobbies Congress, hosts seminars, and issues an annual report card rating&#160;government agencies on the clarity of their output. “Plain language isn’t a new concept,” explained&#160;CPL board member Jana Goldman, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration public affairs officer. “There was a Swedish king about 400 years ago who wanted everything in plain Swedish.”&#160;</p>
<p>CPL’s&#160;roots trace back to&#160;1998, when&#160;Annetta Cheek, the plain language expert for Al Gore’s Reinventing Government task force, convinced the vice president to hand out a monthly “No Gobbledygook” award to agencies that successfully translated their agenda into vernacular. After she left the administration, she helped launch CPL, and in 2010, the organization scored its biggest win, when Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa)—now a candidate for US Senate—pushed the Plain Writing Act through Congress and across the president’s desk. The law requires agencies to emphasize “clear Government communication that the public can understand and use.”</p>
<p>Big health care companies such as Aetna have emerged as the Meryl Streeps of the clear-language&#160;competition, bringing home awards year after year for documents like a Medicare age-in letter&#160;(contact information printed in a box in the top-right corner!). At this year’s ceremony, attendees speculated that because health care paperwork can literally mean&#160;life or death, the insurance industry was compelled to gets its act together in the clarity department.&#160;</p>
<p>There was&#160;also a consensus on which sector is consistently the worst at making its content readable. “The finance industry doesn’t get it,” said&#160;Cheek.</p>
<p>I asked her why that is, and she paused for a moment.</p>
<p>“Arrogance.”</p>
<p>At the Press Club, the competition was&#160;intense, but good-spirited. A woman shrieked for joy when Aetna took&#160;home a prize for the redesign of its Medicare Advantage enrollment packet. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s “Don’t Mess With Mercury” project edged&#160;out the Social Security Administration and Texas Department of Information Resources for the honor of best public website. According to the citation, “this website may be targeted for students and teachers, but it’s informative and fun for everyone”—which is something that can’t be said of mercury. Health Care Services Corporation’s new claims letters won&#160;best “revised document” in the nonprofit category. March of Dimes, last year’s overall winner, failed to repeat, despite a crisp booklet on post-partum depression. Category winners took&#160;home a hockey-puck sized glass disk with the Clearmark emblem. The grand-prize winner received a glass cylinder, the length of a relay race baton, with a lightbulb inside.</p>
<p>The&#160;institutions that&#160;haven’t mastered the art of plain language (which is to say, most of them) have their place, too. The CPL’s version of the Razzies, the Wondermarks, honors the year’s worst messaging efforts, such as the byzantine discharge form used by Charlotte, North Carolina’s Presbyterian Hospital, and an impenetrable consent decree from the Federal Motor Carrier and Safety Administration. Also called out was a road sign from the California Department of Transportation. It’s 47 words long—one for every car you’ll rear-end when you try to read it:&#160;“No person shall, on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday the day preceding a public holiday, or on a public holiday, drive or cause to be driven between the hours of 6 p.m. and midnight, a motor vehicle which exceeds 10.5 m in length in all main roads.”</p>
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<p>The big winner of the night was&#160;the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, at Elizabeth Warren’s behest, and designed to safeguard regular folks from financial chicanery. The agency received&#160;the Grand Clearmark award, the CPL’s top honor, for its new loan modification tutorial. “There’s a sense of full revelation—no tricks, no hidden revelation,” one judge gushed.</p>
<p>A dozen or so employees of the&#160;young bureau were euphoric as they took the stage to claim the award. Helping consumers decipher complicated legalese they’re not meant to understand is one of the&#160;CFPB’s main missions, and they view this as validation. “It’s our bread and butter,” said&#160;Kelly Cochran, the agency’s acting assistant director for regulations. “It’s one of our most basic tools—providing information consumers need.”</p>
<p>The CFPB’s win was&#160;a victory of sorts for the center, which, as Cheek noted, has struggled to bring the financial sector on board. But the mission of ridding the nation of&#160;bureaucratese&#160;has lately hit a snag in place that, fittingly, often defies comprehension: Congress. After the passage of&#160;the Plain Writing Act in 2010, CPL has been stymied in its push for a sequel: The Plain Regulations Act, which would extend the bill’s guidelines to cover rulemaking, has gone nowhere. Cheek lamented&#160;that with Braley locked in a high-profile election, the odds of another bipartisan victory are slim.</p>
<p>“Things have been so partisan lately, we can’t do anything,” Cheek said.&#160;</p>
<p /> | There’s an Award for Comprehensible Writing in Government. Guess Who Won. | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/center-for-plain-language-awards-cfpb/ | 2014-04-23 | 4 |
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<p>After interviewing for the top job with Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools on Thursday, Boyd took to Twitter early Friday morning to announce that he had withdrawn his name from consideration. The tweet said: "Thank you #SantaFe for your support this week. I have notified the MNPS search firm that I am withdrawing my candidacy. Santa Fe is home!"</p>
<p>Later, Boyd said he had pretty much decided he would withdraw by the time he and his wife landed at the Santa Fe airport about 11 p.m. Thursday, but he allowed himself a night to sleep on it.</p>
<p>The 37-year-old Boyd was one of six candidates interviewed by the MNPS school board. It narrowed the candidates to three Friday.</p>
<p>Boyd said a gut feeling told him the job in Nashville wasn't the right fit. "There didn't seem to be the evidence that I saw when I came out here (to Santa Fe) of the alignment between the school board and the city as a whole," he said. "In considering all options there, I determined that the right fit for me was here in Santa Fe. I took it as an opportunity to articulate the success of our community and to demonstrate the success of our children, and I think that was an opportunity worth taking."</p>
<p>Boyd highlighted Santa Fe's improved graduation rates and the importance of building coalitions during his interview in Nashville. Boyd said Friday it was evident to him that the school board in Nashville was divided, though he added the Santa Fe school board is also divided.</p>
<p>The Nashville-based newspaper The Tennesseean reported that, at the end of a long day of interviews on Thursday, the MNPS school board voted 6-3 not to allow a seventh candidate to be interviewed - the former superintendent of Boston Public Schools, who had turned down the Nashville job in 2001.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Boyd, who was hired in Santa Fe in 2012 from a post in the Philadelphia school system, has one year left on his contract, which pays about $180,000 per year.</p>
<p>Last year, Boyd was the Fort Worth Independent School District's choice for superintendent, but he withdrew his name after a top Fort Worth teachers union official and two longtime school district volunteers questioned Boyd's experience.</p>
<p>Boyd said he hasn't applied for another job himself since he's been in Santa Fe, but occasionally is contacted by search firms.</p>
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<p /> | Santa Fe schools superintendent to stay | false | https://abqjournal.com/769615/santa-fe-superintendent-to-stay.html | 2016-05-06 | 2 |
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<p>RUSH: Snerdley is pointing out to me that all hell broke loose in the last 24 hours. Let me guess. I assume you’re talking about Trump’s interview in the New York Times. You’re talking about what he said about Sessions. You’re talking about the Mueller investigation. It’s getting ridiculous. And it’s just confirming everything I have thought about what’s really going on here between the establishment and Trump.</p>
<p>You know, not only is this program’s 30th anniversary coming up a week from Tuesday, today is an anniversary, folks. Today marks Donald Trump’s sixth month in office. And you know what that means? It means that it is a full, solid six months of an unhinged media conducting a full-scale coup attempt against Donald Trump. And that, to me, is the big scandal.</p>
<p>We’ve even got the news here that one of the big unmaskers is Samantha Power. “Fmr. U.N. Amb. Power Emerges As Central Figure In Obama Unmasking Investigation.” That headline’s kind of misleading. Nobody unmasked anybody in the Obama administration. What it means is, in addition to Susan Rice, Samantha Power, who was Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations. She is the freckle-faced wife of Cass Sunstein. Now, you may have heard me mention Cass Sunstein before. He’s a heralded leftist lawyer, and it is Cass Sunstein who has led the left in the belief that the Constitution is insufficient because it does not tell government what it can do.</p>
<p>Cass Sunstein is one of the leading lights, one of the leading figures in promoting the leftist view that United States Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. I’ve heard Obama use that descriptive phrase when talking about it. And what they mean — you know, the Bill of Rights, in fact, the entire Constitution — tells government what it can’t do. This is American exceptionalism, the exception to the way human beings have lived and have been forced to live since the beginning of time.</p>
<p>The United States is the first country ever in which the leaders and the government are limited by our Constitution in terms of what they can and cannot do, essentially in encroaching on the freedoms of the people. And leftists don’t like it. They don’t like that the Constitution limits government and promotes individuals. They despise it. And so they have created this idea that it is a charter of negative liberties ’cause it doesn’t spell out what government can do. It only spells out what government can’t do, thank God.</p>
<p>And that’s why so many of the left don’t like the Constitution. Obama didn’t like it. Sunstein didn’t like it. Franklin Delano Roosevelt also believed in this notion of a charter of negative liberties, and he came up with a second Bill of Rights, which was the exact opposite of the original Bill of Rights. The second Bill of Rights was specifically written to define what government could do, parentheses, in limiting and encroaching on individual liberty and freedom.</p>
<p>Anyway, Samantha Power is his wife, and she is a doctrinaire, uber-leftist. She fits the bill. She fits the stereotype of a leftist, and she fits the prototype. She is every inch a dyed-in-the-wool, incorrigible American liberal leftist, socialist or what have you. And it is she now who is said to be among the primary figures unmasking American citizens.</p>
<p>What this is, again — and I go through these things repeatedly, folks, because it’s clear now, and you can tell from calls just this week alone, we have new audience members every day here. People are tuning in for the first time. Even though our audience growth is now up to 27 million, the audience continues to expand. And as you’ve also heard, many of the new audience members come from the Millennial generation, and many of them have not heard much of this program. They’ve heard felonious, erroneous things about it.</p>
<p>The unmasking occurs when the CIA or the NSA is legally surveilling foreign individuals, such as the Russian ambassador or such as the ChiCom ambassador. This is routine. It’s part of national security. Now, during that kind of surveillance, if the Russian ambassador happens to make a phone call with an American, the American is also going to be caught on the wiretap. But the American isn’t the target.</p>
<p>So when any of these wiretaps produce active intelligence, the American participant caught up in this is supposed to be redacted and not mentioned because he or she is not the target and therefore there isn’t any real permission. The warrant that would have been sought and granted for the surveillance would not have included, in the circumstance I’m describing, the American individual. This is how Mike Flynn got caught up in all this.</p>
<p>He was talking with the Russian ambassador. He was unmasked. Meaning somebody in the intelligence community who saw a transcript of that phone call or maybe heard the audio decided to go ahead and call the media and say, “Mike Flynn said X, Y, and Z to the Russian ambassador.” That process is called unmasking the American, and it has largely been thought that many Obama administration officials, embeds remaining in the intelligence community, have been responsible for this.</p>
<p>One of the figures most likely has been thought to be Susan Rice. And now Samantha Power has emerged as one of the leading figures in this unmasking investigation. And again, she was Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations I think for the last two or three years of his second term. She’s an uber-leftist.</p>
<p>Unmasking is illegal. All of these leaks involving unmasked Americans. Those are felonies. Those are illegal. The media is printing this stuff. The media is taking this illegal information and running with it. And that is another real crime that’s not being investigated by anybody, or — well, we don’t think it is, not seriously. And that is, who are these people doing the unmasking? And the media knows. Classic illustration.</p>
<p>The media knows who’s breaking the law. The media’s benefiting from these felonies. The media is benefiting not just ideologically, but because they are part of the cabal that wants to take Trump down. I’m not surprised that Samantha Power has now been said to be at the top of the list of suspects who might be engaging in this.</p>
<p>These are activists, folks. These are dyed-in-the-wool true believers who would stop at nothing to corrupt anything in order to prevail with their ideology and their point of view. And that’s just one of the things that has featured this six-month effort by the left, by the establishment, the media, to get rid of Donald Trump. And I do think that it’s the big scandal.</p>
<p>I think the big scandal is the media knows who the felons are. The media are willing accomplices to this felonious behavior. And it may be one of the biggest scandals in our nation’s history. The only other scandal that might rival it would be the Obama administration spying on the Trump campaign, which is pretty outrageous and unprecedented too. But I kind of doubt that that’s part of this investigation.</p> | Obama Unmasking Investigation Focuses on Samantha Power | true | https://rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/07/20/obama-unmasking-investigation-focuses-on-samantha-power/ | 2017-07-20 | 0 |
<p>TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas saw its unemployment rate drop slightly in December to 3.4 percent and reach its lowest point in nearly 18 years.</p>
<p>The state Department of Labor reported Friday that last month’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was lower than both the 3.5 percent reported in November and the 4.3 percent rate in December 2016. The state’s unemployment rate has remained below 4 percent since March 2017.</p>
<p>According to department statistics, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate last dropped to 3.4 percent in February 2000.</p>
<p>The department also said the number of people working in private-sector, nonfarm jobs also grew by about 8,000 in December from December 2016. The increase was 0.7 percent.</p>
<p>Labor Secretary Lana Gordon said hours worked and real earnings also increased over the years as employers sought workers.</p>
<p>TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas saw its unemployment rate drop slightly in December to 3.4 percent and reach its lowest point in nearly 18 years.</p>
<p>The state Department of Labor reported Friday that last month’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was lower than both the 3.5 percent reported in November and the 4.3 percent rate in December 2016. The state’s unemployment rate has remained below 4 percent since March 2017.</p>
<p>According to department statistics, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate last dropped to 3.4 percent in February 2000.</p>
<p>The department also said the number of people working in private-sector, nonfarm jobs also grew by about 8,000 in December from December 2016. The increase was 0.7 percent.</p>
<p>Labor Secretary Lana Gordon said hours worked and real earnings also increased over the years as employers sought workers.</p> | Kansas unemployment rate drops in December to 3.4 percent | false | https://apnews.com/90f03f865b1245fd86313b7ee14bddcf | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
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<p>Wildcats 42, Lobos 37: Backup quarterback Austin Apodaca completes a 40-yard scoring drive with an option keeper. A two-point conversion attempt fails with 13:52 left in the game.</p>
<p>After three quarters: Arizona 42, New Mexico 31. Apologies for not updating after the Lobos drove 50 yards on 10 plays for a touchdown. As we enter the fourth quarter, UNM has recovered an onside kick and has the ball first and 10 on the Arizona 19-yard line. Lobos starting quarterback Lamar Jordan went out with an injury; junior Austin Apodaca is in the game.</p>
<p>Wildcats 42, Lobos 24: Throwing from his own interception, Lobos quarterback Lamar Jordan hits an Arizona defender in the chest for an easy interception. The Wildcats score two plays later. There's 7:35 left in the third quarter.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Wildcats 35, Lobos 24: New Mexico drives 72 yards on nine plays to tighten the game. Quarterback Lamar Jordan has runs of 23 and 11 yards, the latter for the touchdown. Jhurell Pressley has a 26-yard run.</p>
<p>Wildcats 35, Lobos 17: Arizona drives 75 yards on just four plays to take a commanding 35-17 lead early in the third quarter.</p>
<p>Halftime: Arizona 28, New Mexico 17. A 46-yard Anu Solomon-to-Cayleb Jones pass sets up a 1-yard touchdown pass from Solomon to David Richards with 30 seconds left in the half.</p>
<p>Wildcats 21, Lobos 17: Delane Hart-Johnson catches a 92-yard touchdown pass from Lamar Jordan on a third-and-12 play. There's 2:09 left in the half.</p>
<p>Wildcats 21, Lobos 10. Quarterback Anu Solomon finishes a 53-yard drive with a 14-yard run. There's 3:22 left in the second quarter.</p>
<p>Wildcats 14, Lobos 10. New Mexico drives 67 yards on six plays, all on the ground. Quarterback Lamar Jordan gets the touchdown on an option keeper from 31 yards out. There's 8:50 left in the second quarter.</p>
<p>Wildcats 14, Lobos 3: On the first play of the second quarter, Arizona's Jared Baker runs 27 yards for a touchdown. Three missed tackles by UNM made it possible. There's 14:51 left in the second quarter.</p>
<p>After the first quarter: Arizona 7, New Mexico 3. The Wildcats have the ball at the UNM 27-yard line as the second quarter begins, having just completed a 48-yard pass.</p>
<p>Wildcats 7, Lobos 3: After a failed fake punt by Arizona, the Lobos take over at the U of A 37. Lamar Jordan's pass to Carlos Wiggins is intercepted in the end zone. Two plays later, Wildcats quarterback Anu Solomon hits Cayleb Jones for a 78-yard touchdown.</p>
<p>Lobos 3, Wildcats 0: After forcing and recovering an Arizona fumble, New Mexico stalls at the Wildcats 25-yard line. Zack Rogers boots a 37-yard field goal with 9:52 gone in the first quarter.</p>
<p>We're under way.</p>
<p>Good morning from University Stadium, where the New Mexico Lobos (7-5) and the Arizona Wildcats (6-6) are about to tee it up in the 10th annual Gildan New Mexico Bowl. I'll be blogging here with score changes and updates at the quarter and halftime breaks. I'll also be tweeting @burquerick.</p> | UNM football: Arizona 45, New Mexico 37, final | false | https://abqjournal.com/693700/unm-football-the-new-mexico-bowl.html | 2015-12-19 | 2 |
<p>People are either saints, corrupt or corruptible; to which group the President of Central Labor Council of New York City who has just been indicted for racketeering, belongs, we will only know when his trial is over. But this much we do know. If Brian McLaughlin is innocent, he is a saint; in the world of government contracting and union bossism in which he was functioning, temptations are irresistible.</p>
<p>Normally the problem with government contracting is that the contractor wants to cut corners and there is a government official who gives him what he wants. Halliburton and Cheney, defense contractors and U.S. representative Duke Cunningham, contractors in Illinois and Connecticut and Governors Mitchell and Rowland all come to mind. But paradoxically, according to the indictment, McLaughlin started his slide because in one case the contractor did not want to cut corners and all the government officials were upstanding. The problem started when after submitting the lowest bid for a street lighting contract, the contractor decided that his bid was too low. He asked government officials for permission to withdraw the bid, but they refused. It was then that the contractor approached McLaughlin in order to buy his assurance that there would be no union action against him if he hired some non-union workers instead of union members. For government contracting even honesty is a problem, it turns out.</p>
<p>A contractor is normally free to hire non-union workers, but when it comes to work for the government, there is a law that requires the contractor to pay his workers the “prevailing wage,” which normally is the union wage. The enforcement of the law is lax, however, and the penalties for non-compliance miniscule. So far this year in New York City the penalties for contractors who were caught underpaying their workers amounted to only 14% of the underpayment. As a result, contractors are justifiably fearful that if they abide by the law they may lose a contract to a contractor who will not. Some contractors skirt the law by paying the prevailing wage for only some of the work that is eligible for it. But the contractor who contacted McLaughlin found a full-proof way of not getting caught no matter how many union members he did not hire because McLaughlin, in addition of being the President of the Central Labor Council, was also the boss of the union of the street-lighting electricians. So profitable was this partnership that that according to the indictment the contractor and McLaughlin agreed to continue it in later contracts.</p>
<p>Of course, McLaughlin’s lifestyle might have made union members suspicious. But although representing electricians, McLaughlin did not earn an electrician’s salary. Too many union bosses subscribe to the view that employers will not negotiate in good faith with them unless they earn comparable salaries and enjoy a similar standard of living. As a result union members and their representative live in different worlds, and the members have little ability to judge whether their representatives, who are after all their employees, serve them well, or are on the take. McLaughlin benefited from this fog for a while, but ultimately this may have been his downfall. Had he known that spending the money that the contractor allegedly offered him would lead to suspicions by the union members, it is possible that he would have rejected the bribe (assuming that he did accept it).</p>
<p>If McLaughlin is guilty, he will join a long list of powerful men who succumbed to the same temptations before him. It is therefore clear that the problem calls not for building more jails but for changing incentives. In the first place, government work should be done by government employees, not by contractors. Unlike contractors, government employees do not stand to gain financially from cutting corners.</p>
<p>In addition, expecting contractors to submit low bids and at the same time pay high wages will never work. If the government wants workers who do public works to earn decent wages, it should perform the works with government employees, not contractors.</p>
<p>As for the life style of union bosses, when Mahatma Gandhi negotiated with the British Empire he came to London wearing a plain white sheet. Union members should realize that an expensive suit on their representative may be more an indication that the representative is for sale than that he or she deserves respect.</p>
<p>Government governance and union governance are the real culprits in this drama, even if Brian McLaughlin is indeed guilty.</p>
<p>MOSHE ADLER is the director of Public Interest Economics, an economic consulting firm, and is writing a handbook about the construction industry. He can be reached at: <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Tempations of a Union Boss | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/11/01/the-tempations-of-a-union-boss/ | 2006-11-01 | 4 |
<p>Don’t believe everything you read when it comes to supposedly ‘healthy’ foods. The health food industry cares about profits first. (Photo by Panatenda; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>With the public generally more health conscious these days, every food company says their product is a health food. If they can’t say their food is healthy from conception, they are quick to come out with a so-called healthier version.</p>
<p>With all of this health food propaganda going on, it’s time we really ask ourselves, are these foods really healthier than our regular meals?&#160;As someone who generally doesn’t trust the food industry because they tell you what ever you want to hear in order to sell the product, I’ve decided to highlight five of the unhealthiest “health foods.”</p>
<p>Cereal: I was fat until I stopped eating cereal.&#160;God, how I miss my friends Captain Crunch, Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.&#160;But my friends were making me hold on to extra weight.&#160;Breakfast cereals tend to be ladened with sugars and during the process of turning the grains into a fun bite-size breakfast, the food loses most of its vitamins and minerals.&#160;Oh you eat the healthy cereals?&#160;Still check the sugar content and ingredients.&#160;You may be organically reaching a day’s worth of sugar with just your first meal.&#160;Better breakfast options: protein shakes, fruit, Greek yogurt, oatmeal, eggs.</p>
<p>Granola: If you’re really working on weight maintenance, granola should be called grano-NO.&#160;Most granola bars and granola mixes are so high in calories and sugar that they negate its positive qualities.&#160;If you’re competing or hiking and need the energy, I’m all about you providing healthy sources of energy for snacks, but let’s be real, most of us are eating these while sitting all day.&#160;Better snack options: popcorn, fruit, raw veggies, kale chips.</p>
<p>Fake butter: You can’t believe it’s not butter, well your body can’t believe you are feeding yourself this.&#160;Bottom line is fake butter gives you real heart attacks.&#160; Margarine and low-fat oils are filled with the evil trans fats which have been linked to cardiovascular disease.&#160;For those who don’t care about your heart but just want to look good, remember that fats don’t make you fat.&#160;Watch your calorie intake and include healthy fats into your diet and you will be just fine.&#160;Better oil options: olive oil, coconut oil, 100 percent butter.</p>
<p>Fake milk: I’m not a big fan of dairy in general, but if you’re using milk, use whole milk.&#160;Again as manufactures take away the fat in milk they are also taking away key fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin A, D, E and K.&#160;Besides that, the whole milk fat actually helps boost your body’s metabolism helping you burn more calories throughout the day.&#160;I challenge you to try to switch to a&#160; dairy-free diet for 30 days just to see how you feel.&#160;I have had many clients who were lactose intolerant on some level and never knew it until they cut it out for 30 days.&#160;They now say they feel so much better. Better options: whole milk, almond milk, coconut milk.</p>
<p>Sports drinks: As someone who loves to drink blue anything, believe me I get the appeal, but most of these drinks should be called calorie-ade.&#160;Yes there are electrolytes in these drinks, but they come along with buckets of sugar and extra calories that nullify your workout. Science shows that most people who are pre-hydrated before competition don’t even need electrolyte replenishment during a workout unless the workout last more than two hours.&#160;If it’s just the taste you’re after, at least take your sports drink and cut it in half with water to reduce the calories and excess sugar.&#160;Better options: lemon water, sparkling water.</p>
<p>As we can see, so called health food isn’t always healthy.&#160;When labels try to draw your attention to one health benefit, remember they’re drawing you away from another.&#160;Real health food (like veggies) needs no label.&#160;It is and always has been healthy with or without marketing.&#160;Remember the food industry is out to make profit first not necessarily to make you healthy.&#160;Take responsibility of your health by examining your foods, monitoring the sugar content and knowing where it’s from.&#160;If you aren’t sure, Google it.&#160;A knowledgeable mind&#160;leads to a healthy body.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">creal</a> <a href="" type="internal">fake butter</a> <a href="" type="internal">fake milk</a> <a href="" type="internal">granola</a> <a href="" type="internal">health foods</a></p> | Healthy options? | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2015/09/17/healthy-options/ | 3 |
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<p>Published time: 8 Aug, 2017 23:57Edited time: 8 Aug, 2017 23:57</p>
<p>© earthquake.usgs.gov</p>
<p>A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck China’s autonomous region of Xinjiang, with tremors reportedly felt in neighboring Kazakhastan.</p>
<p>Prelim M6.3 earthquake northern Xinjiang, China Aug-8 23:27 UTC, updates <a href="https://t.co/gEFJWMbjgZ" type="external">https://t.co/gEFJWMbjgZ</a></p>
<p>— USGS Big Quakes (@USGSBigQuakes) <a href="https://twitter.com/USGSBigQuakes/status/895068691376820225" type="external">August 8, 2017</a></p>
<p>M6.4 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/earthquake?src=hash" type="external">#earthquake</a> ( <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D1%8F%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5?src=hash" type="external">#землетрясение</a>) strikes 96 km S of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Dostyq?src=hash" type="external">#Dostyq</a> ( <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Kazakhstan?src=hash" type="external">#Kazakhstan</a>) 18 min ago. Updated map of its effects: <a href="https://t.co/qWLJv9VRDr" type="external">pic.twitter.com/qWLJv9VRDr</a></p>
<p>— EMSC (@LastQuake) <a href="https://twitter.com/LastQuake/status/895068503278931976" type="external">August 8, 2017</a></p>
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<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/398986-earthquake-china-sichuan-killed/" type="external">7 dead, dozens injured as earthquake strikes Sichuan, China – reports (PHOTO,VIDEOS)</a></p> | 6.5 quake hits western China, tremors reach Kazakhstan | false | https://newsline.com/6-5-quake-hits-western-china-tremors-reach-kazakhstan/ | 2017-08-08 | 1 |
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