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<p>The current brouhaha over a U.S. plan to deploy anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) in Poland has nothing to do with a fear that Iran will attack Europe or the U.S. with nuclear tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), but a great deal to do with the Bush Administration’s efforts to neutralize Russia’s and China’s nuclear deterrents and edge both countries out of Central Asia.</p>
<p>The plan calls for deploying 10 ABMs in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic, supposedly to interdict missiles from “rogue states”-read North Korean and Iran.</p>
<p>U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security John Rood claims “North Korea possesses an ICBM range missile,” and it is “certainly possible” that Pyongyang could sell some to Iran. Barring that, Tehran could build its own missile capable of striking Europe and the U.S.</p>
<p>But the North Korean Taepodong-2, which failed a recent test, is not a true ICBM-in a pinch it might reach Alaska. And Iran pledged in 2003 not to upgrade its intermediate missile, the Shihab-3.</p>
<p>“Since there aren’t, and won’t be, any ICBMs [from North Korea and Iran], then against whom, against whom, is this system directed?” First Deputy Prime Minister Sergi Ivanov said to the Financial Times, “Only against us.”</p>
<p>The Chief of the Russian General Staff added, “The real goal [of the U.S. deployment] is to protect [the U.S.] from Russian and Chinese nuclear-missile potential and to create exclusive conditions for the invulnerability of the United States.”</p>
<p>U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded that “The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet [sic] strategic return is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it.”</p>
<p>But once you start adding up a number of other things, it isn’t just 10 missiles and a radar site. There is already a similar site in Norway, and the plan is to put similar systems in Georgia and Azerbaijan. Britain is considering deploying ABM missiles at Fylingdales, which even the U.S. admits would pose a threat to Russian missiles.</p>
<p>“If the [Russians] are concerned about the U.S. targeting their intercontinental ballistic missiles, I think that would be problematic from the UK because I believe we probably could catch them from a UK launch site,” says U.S. Lieutenant General Trey Obering, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.</p>
<p>An editorial in the Guardian called the Fylingdales plan “the far side of folly.”</p>
<p>The Russians are also suspicious that the Polish missiles are the camel’s nose under the tent.</p>
<p>Poland has made it clear that it doesn’t feel threatened by Iran. For Warsaw, this is all about its traditional enemy to the East, Russia. Besides the ABM missiles, Poland is pressing Washington for Patriot missiles and high altitude THAAD missiles, plus it is purchasing American F-16s. In response, the Russians have moved surface-to-air missiles into Belarus.</p>
<p>“It would be naïve to think that Washington would limit its appetite to Poland or the Czech Republic, or the modest potential that it is now talking about,” writes Victor Litovkin of Russia’s Independent Military Review,</p>
<p>All these systems will be tied into ABM systems in Alaska and California, plus similar planned systems in Japan, Australia and the Philippines (not to mention sea-borne ABM systems in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean).</p>
<p>Keep in mind the Bush Administration unilaterally withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.</p>
<p>Total all those things up, and toss in the recent decision by the Bush Administration to start designing another generation of nuclear warheads, and it is no wonder the Russians have turned cranky.</p>
<p>The European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have-with reservations- gone along with the plan, in part because the EU would like to squeeze Russian control over gas and oil pipelines coming out of Central Asia.</p>
<p>According to K.M. Bhadrakumar, the former Indian ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey, the U.S. has financed a pipeline that runs natural gas from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan through Turkey, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. The pipeline will be “a rival to Russian Gazprom’s Blue Stream-2,” scheduled to open in 2012.</p>
<p>“Moscow is well aware that Washington is the driving spirit behind the EU’s energy policy toward Central Asia,” Bhadrakumar writes in the Asia Times, arguing that the U.S. “calculates that Moscow will be inexorably drawn into a standoff with the EU over the latter’s increasingly proactive polices in Eurasia.”</p>
<p>While Rice may suggest that “everyone” thinks Russian paranoia is “ludicrous,” in fact the EU is split over the missiles, and unhappy that Washington bypassed NATO to make bilateral agreements with both countries.</p>
<p>Neither the rightwing Polish government nor the center-right Czech governments dare put the issue up for a referendum. Sentiment in the Czech Republic is running 60-40 against the radar, and there is strong opposition to the missiles in Poland.</p>
<p>The German Social Democrats (SPD), junior partners in the current coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel, also oppose it. “We do not need new rockets in Europe,” says SPD chair Kurt Beck. “The SPD doesn’t want a new arms race between the U.S. and Russia on European soil. We have enough problems in the world.”</p>
<p>French President Jacques Chirac also warned, “We should be very careful about encouraging the creation of a new dividing lines in Europe or a return to the old order.”</p>
<p>The Russians have threatened to withdraw from the European Conventional Forces Treaty, and have even hinted they might reconsider their participation in the 1987 Intermediate Ballistic Missile Treaty. Russia is also making plans to quadruple its production of new ballistic missiles and add to its nuclear submarine fleet.</p>
<p>Stockholm International Peace Research Institute researcher Shannon Kile says the Russians view the deployment “as a violation of the original NATO enlargement agreement,” where the U.S. pledged it would not permanently deploy or station “military assets on the territories of former Warsaw pact countries.”</p>
<p>Last month, the White House urged admitting Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia and the Ukraine to NATO.</p>
<p>Implicit in Rice’s “ludicrous” comment is that an ABM system would be incapable of stopping a full-scale nuclear attack by a major nuclear power, and critics point out that the system has a dismal track record. Kile characterized the proposed ABM as “A system that won’t work to fight a threat that does not exist.”</p>
<p>But it doesn’t have to work very well. ABM systems have a dark secret: They are not supposed to stop all-out missile attacks, just mop up the few retaliatory enemy missiles that manage to survive a first strike. First strikes-called “counterpoint” attacks in bloodless vocabulary of nuclear war-are a central component in U.S. nuclear doctrine.</p>
<p>Last week the Democrats blocked funds for the European ABM system. Robert Wexler (D-Fl), chair of the House subcommittee on Europe, said, “Europeans also question why-if this program is really intended to protect Europe-did the administration choose to bilaterally negotiate with Poland and the Czech Republic rather than collectively decide this issue in NATO?”</p>
<p>But whether the Democrats will stand up to the White House is anyone’s guess.</p>
<p>If you are sitting in Moscow or Beijing and adding up the ABMs, the new warheads, and the growing ring of bases on your borders, you have little choice but to react. Imagine the U.S. response if the Russians and the Chinese were to deploy similar systems in Canada, Mexico and Cuba.</p>
<p>A nuclear arms race, an increase of tension in Europe, and the launching of a new Cold War: That is what is at stake in the European missile crisis.</p>
<p>CONN HALLINAN is an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, a winner of a Project Censored Award, and did his PhD dissertation on the history of insurrectionary organizations in Ireland.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | European Missiles and the Camel’s Nose | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/05/12/european-missiles-and-the-camel-s-nose/ | 2007-05-12 | 4 |
<p>Expect the usual hot spots to be in full festival mode and buzzing with industry gatherings. Soho House Toronto will be celebrating its fifth anniversary with a kickoff fete (Grey Goose is partnering with the venue); the Ritz-Carlton, Toronto, has a custom Cristal Champagne and Remy Martin cocktail, the 6ix75 (selling for a cool $650), to mark major film acquisitions or any celebratory moment; and the Thompson hotel rooftop and lobby bar will offer several TIFF-themed cocktails. Their (Bill) Marshall (a mix of two scotches, bitters and a cinnamon simple syrup) honors the late TIFF co-founder.</p>
<p>SEE MORE: <a href="https://variety.com/access-digital/" type="external">From the September 05, 2017, issue of Variety</a></p>
<p>For future reference: sales have opened for the 660 condos at the Nobu Residences. The two towers on Mercer Street will also be home to Canada’s first Nobu restaurant and a Nobu hotel and spa from actor-producer-hotelier <a href="http://variety.com/t/robert-de-niro/" type="external">Robert De Niro</a> and his partner Nobu Matsuhisa.</p>
<p>Here are more places to toast, chill out or grab a bite in Toronto.</p>
<p>Victorian high lifeIn its former life, the circa 1891 building housing the 58-room <a href="http://www.thebroadviewhotel.ca/" type="external">Broadview Hotel</a> (pictured above) was a renowned strip club. Now it has a more respectable calling as a boutique hotel with a rooftop bar (aptly called The Rooftop), ground floor restaurant (The Civic), multiple event spaces and a casual cafe. Developed by Dream Unlimited and Streetcar Development, the 126-year old building underwent a complete makeover by the Design Agency and reflects the East End’s Victorian origins. Exposed brick walls and brass accents abound; room decor is boudoir-inspired. Corner rooms have brass stripper poles in a cheeky ode to the past. From the rooftop there’s a 360-degree view of Toronto’s skyline including the Don Valley and historic East End. The cafe becomes a neon-lit cocktail and Champagne bar at night, ideal for sophisticated meet-ups.106 Broadview Ave.</p>
<p>Local sudsThe made-in-Toronto brewery <a href="http://northernmaverick.ca/" type="external">Northern Maverick Brewing</a> plans on opening its 400-seat gastropub in time for the festival. The King West locale promises a hefty brewing facility complemented by retail store and bar. Settle into the oyster bar for a genial pairing with their delicate White IPA. Charcuterie board meats are house-cured and are intended to go well with the nine craft beers on tap. Look for Ontario craft cheeses, bacon-topped burgers and crisp fries to round out the menu of locally sourced ingredients. The brewery aimed to make beer great again by releasing its publicity generating “Fake News Ale,” a tongue-and-cheek salute to the U.S. president.115 Bathurst St.</p>
<p>Entertainment District GiantLifetime Developments (Four Seasons Hotel &amp; Residences is only one of their many projects) and Charles Khabouth, INK Entertainment’s CEO, are behind this 44-story hotel/condo project slated to open around the festival. <a href="http://www.bishahoteltoronto.com/" type="external">Bisha Hotel Toronto</a>&#160;is steps from the TIFF Bell Lightbox and will ultimately hold a 44th floor rooftop restaurant, 24-hour cafe and lobby bar all from Iconink hospitality. (Byblos is another one of their eateries). Celebrity chef <a href="http://variety.com/t/akira-back/" type="external">Akira Back</a> will open his first Canadian namesake restaurant within the complex in October.&#160;The 96-room hotel presents high style; actor and rocker Lenny Kravitz designed one floor of the hotel’s rooms.80 Blue Jays Way</p>
<p>Chic Steakhouse <a href="http://togrp.com/brand/stk/" type="external">STK Toronto</a>’s moody lighting and theatrical interiors set it apart from other meat emporiums. The emphasis is on elevated comfort foods like Tater Tot bacon poutine and truffle fries paired with dry-aged prime cuts. The multi-level seafood platter features Canadian lobster and other cold-water shellfish. Cocktails are ample with Moscow mules in demand. Two private dining rooms, large booths and an expansive bar complete the nightclub vibe.153 Yorkville Ave.</p>
<p>Hidden CantinaFrom the owner of the stylish Bar Raval, <a href="http://elreybar.com/" type="external">El Rey Bar</a> spotlights mezcal. Stop in for a shot or house-made cocktails at the 30-seat bar. The compact menu features bar snacks, piquant ceviche and meat, shrimp and veggie tostadas. There’s an outside patio when the weather is fine.2A Kensington Ave.</p>
<p>New PubThe latest from the Oliver &amp; Bonacini restaurant family, <a href="http://www.libertycommons.ca/" type="external">Liberty Commons</a> at Big Rock Brewery takes its cues from the craft brews made on site. There’s an ode to British standards too — cottage pie and fish &amp; chips — but the menu covers all the contemporary gastropub bases from barbeque baby back ribs to beer-can chicken. Vegetarians have options, too, though the Pilsner beer-battered bacon bar snack is not one of them. There are two private dining rooms with beer-related decor.42 Liberty St.</p>
<p>Picture PerfectTake a break for a sugar rush and meet locals and Instagrammers at Queen Street’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ihalokrunch/" type="external">iHalo Krunch</a>. All are in line for the foodie fad du jour: multi-hued, soft-serve ice cream served in black cones. The black comes from activated charcoal made from coconut husks. The selections are colorful: Ube Haze is made from purple yam, green soft serve is infused with Japanese matcha and Black on Black is coconut charcoal ice cream served in a photogenic black cone. Wait times vary but midday, weekdays are best for those pressed for time.915 Queen St. W;&#160;(647) 505-3777</p> | Toronto Film Festival: Where to Eat, Drink, and Stay | false | https://newsline.com/toronto-film-festival-where-to-eat-drink-and-stay/ | 2017-09-07 | 1 |
<p>Maybe oil companies like BP are careless with safety standards because, after devastating the tourist and fishing industries (not to mention the environment) of the Gulf, they’re on the hook for about <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/democrats-push-to-eliminate-liability-cap/" type="external">one day’s oil profits</a> in economic damages. In protest of that liability cap and one of the senators who wants to keep it, a woman <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/woman-oils-herself-to-protest-bp-liability-cap.php" type="external">poured</a> “oil” on herself in Congress Wednesday.</p>
<p>Treehugger: Diane Wilson, one of the founders of the Code Pink protest group, today anointed herself with a glass jar of toffee-colored oil at a Senate Energy Subcommittee meeting to protest, she says, Senator Lisa Murkowski’s blocking of a bill that would have lifted BP’s liability cap. President Obama had earlier in the week announced he was supporting lifting the $75 million cap, to raise it to $10 billion. Wilson was removed from the meeting and arrested, according to the Code Pink web site. <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/woman-oils-herself-to-protest-bp-liability-cap.php" type="external">Read more</a></p>
<p>More about Wilson and the events on <a href="http://codepink4peace.org/blog/2010/06/diane-wilsons-statement-to-sen-murkowski/" type="external">Code Pink’s website</a>.</p>
<p>David Sirota writes in a recent column: Considering the fact that oil-spill costs can far surpass $75 million, this is the old “too big to fail” idea propping up the oil companies. Applied specifically to the gulf cataclysm, the statute suggests that the national interest is best served by having taxpayers and communities foot the bill for the destruction rather than having companies like British Petroleum suffer the balance-sheet pain of paying the full damages. <a href="" type="internal">Read more</a></p>
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<p>The Caucus reports on efforts to raise the liability cap: At a hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday, the bill’s sponsors — Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, and Bill Nelson of Florida — as well as a parade of witnesses from the Gulf region’s tourism and fishing industry demanded that BP be held responsible for every penny of pain caused by the disaster.</p>
<p>The administration and Congressional Democrats are united in their support of the bill, saying that it would institute an incentive for companies to play it safe in the future. <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/democrats-push-to-eliminate-liability-cap/" type="external">Read more</a></p>
<p>— PZS</p> | Senate Protester Gives Herself the Pelican Treatment | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/senate-protester-gives-herself-the-pelican-treatment/ | 2010-06-10 | 4 |
<p>Director Roman Polanski’s 1977 sex crime case has become an international and intergenerational saga, now that members of at least four governments have become involved, the former minor in question has grown up and requested that the issue be put to rest, and the original judge has been dead since 1993. However, after Polanski’s arrest last Saturday in Zurich, it’s clear this drama is far from over.</p>
<p>The filmmaker, 76, who holds French and Polish citizenship, was en route to accept a lifetime achievement award last weekend when he was detained by Swiss police — a move that angered some of his allies from the entertainment industry and added yet another controversial chapter to his tumultuous life story and, as the Los Angeles Times’ Patrick Goldstein <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2009/09/roman-polanski-still-being-stalked-by-la-county-prosecutors.html" type="external">noted</a> on Sunday, made Polanski a fugitive once again. He will probably contest an expected extradition request from the United States, but according to his lawyer, Polanski’s in a “fighting mood.” –KA</p>
<p>Update: Click <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/article/petition-release-roman-polanski-7901" type="external">here</a> to see a petition signed by dozens of Polanski’s allies in the international entertainment community, including Pedro Almodovar, Wes Anderson, Jeanne Moreau, Monica Bellucci and Wim Wenders.</p>
<p>BBC:</p>
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<p>Mr Polanski’s agent, Jeff Berg, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the arrest was “surprising because Roman for the last 12, 15 years has lived in Switzerland, he has a home, he travels there, he works there”.</p>
<p>Justice spokesman Guido Balmer said the difference with this particular trip was that authorities knew exactly when and where Mr Polanski would arrive.</p>
<p>Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said that because of agreements with the US, “when Mr Polanski arrived we had no choice from a legal point of view but to arrest him”.</p>
<p>Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley comments on Roman Polanski’s arrest</p>
<p>The Swiss media has rounded on the authorities.</p>
<p>“Switzerland let a guest walk into a nasty trap. We should be ashamed,” said tabloid newspaper Blick.</p>
<p>Daily paper Le Temps said Switzerland had “shocked film buffs and friends of the arts with its kindly and efficient co-operation with US justice. It has angered Poland and France”.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8279466.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Polanski Preps for a Fight After Arrest | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/polanski-preps-for-a-fight-after-arrest/ | 2009-09-29 | 4 |
<p>Liberals will find any reason to whine and complain about the most asinine BS as they shrink into the comfort of their designated safe spaces. The recent attack in Orlando has caused gun sales to SKYROCKET&#160;and in turn has caused the gun-banning leftists shrieking in horror as they become keyboard-warriors in the fight for gun control. Amidst all of the skewed pie charts and forum screen shots that have been&#160;swaying people to pull an Austrailian-style gun roundup,&#160;this epic video absolutely DESTROYS all of their arguments.</p>
<p>This avid gamer perfectly demonstrates through the use of the video game Fallout, just how absurd it would be to disarm the population… and it’s hilarious.</p>
<p>WATCH:</p>
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<p>Do guns make people safer or do they make people less safe? Did your opinion change after you saw the scenarios play out? Let us know in the comments! Be sure to like and share with all of your liberal friends!</p>
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<p /> | Gamer DESTROYS Liberal’s Gun Control Argument With This HILARIOUS VIDEO RANT | true | http://fury.news/2016/06/gamer-destroys-liberals-gun-control-argument-epic-video-rant/ | 2016-06-18 | 0 |
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<p>The changes include:</p>
<p>Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park Gate and Visitor Center will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays from Dec. 1, 2012, through March 31, 2013. The park trails will still be open to walk-in visitation.</p>
<p>The Visitor Center at Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park will also be closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from Nov. 1 through March 31. The grounds and the chapel will remain open every day. Please monitor winter weather on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as parking lots may be inaccessible.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The parks will continue to conduct regular programs and special events.</p>
<p>For more information about park hours and events, go to <a href="http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/SPD/" type="external">www.nmparks.com</a> or call 888-NMPARKS.</p> | 2 N.M. State Parks Announce Changes | false | https://abqjournal.com/142996/2-n-m-state-parks-announce-changes.html | 2 |
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<p>The <a href="https://www.abodo.com/blog/wage-gap-in-america/" type="external">study by Adobo</a>, an economics and housing research firm, ranked Albuquerque No. 14 among the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, with women earning 83.8 percent of men’s pay. The median income for men in New Mexico is $44,817, while it’s $37,554 for women, according to the study.</p>
<p>Nationally, the pay gap is 78.9 percent, with women earning a median income of $39,315 and men earning $49,828.</p>
<p>The report is based on data from the 2015 U.S. Census Bureau, looking at five-year estimates.</p>
<p>Santa Fe and Las Cruces — which are not among the 100 largest metro areas — did even better, when looking at the less reliable one-year estimates, the study said. They were the only two among all cities in the nation that had no gender gap.</p>
<p>However, the study focused primarily on the five-year findings because they are a more “reliable and accurate depiction of the trends” than the single-year figures, Adobo spokeswoman Sam Radbil said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The top city for equal pay among the 100 largest metro areas is Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C., location of the Research Triangle of major universities. Women there are paid 92.6 percent of what men earn. Coming in at second and third are the Los Angeles area and Fresno, Calif., areas.</p>
<p>The least equal pay is found in&#160; Provo-Orem, Utah, and Baton Rouge, La., the study said.</p>
<p>“Lower earnings have concrete consequences, and not only on pay day,” says the study, called “Living in the Gap: A Look at Gender, Wages and Housing Affordability.” “Wage disparities can limit an individual worker’s economic mobility and even their ability to get hired in the future. For example, employers could look at the disparate salaries of two candidates for a job, and perhaps assume that the higher-earner is a harder worker.”</p>
<p>The study, quoting the American Association of University Women, says “the current path we’re on won’t take us to full wage parity until 2152 — that’s another 135 years.”</p> | ABQ pay gap among smallest in U.S. | false | https://abqjournal.com/996350/abq-pay-gap-among-smallest-in-u-s.html | 2 |
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<p>Boston police arrested 27 people in protests surrounding a “Free Speech” rally, Police Commissioner William Evans told reporters on Saturday.</p>
<p>Most of the arrests were for disorderly conduct, with some for assault and battery during scuffles between police and protesters, Evans said.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Boston on Saturday to protest a “free speech” rally featuring far-right speakers a week after a woman was killed at a Virginia white-supremacist demonstration.</p>
<p>Rally organizers had invited several far-right speakers who were confined to a small pen that police set up in the historic Boston Common park to keep the two sides separate. The city avoided a repeat of last weekend’s bloody street battles in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one woman was killed.</p>
<p>Police estimated that as many as 40,000 people packed into the streets around the nation’s oldest park.</p>
<p>Officials had spent a week planning security for the event, mobilizing 500 police officers, including many on bikes, and placing barricades and large white dump trucks on streets along the park, aiming to deter car-based attacks like those seen in Charlottesville and Europe.</p>
<p>The rally never numbered more than a few dozen people, and its speakers could not be heard due to the shouts of those protesting it and the wide security cordon between the two sides. It wrapped up about an hour earlier than planned.</p>
<p>Protesters surrounded people leaving the rally, shouting “shame” and “go home” and occasionally throwing plastic water bottles. Police escorted several rally participants through the crowds, sometimes struggling against protesters who tried to stop them.</p>
<p>Some people dressed in black with covered faces several times swarmed rally attendees, including two men wearing the “Make America Great Again” caps from President Donald Trump’s campaign.</p>
<p>The violence in Charlottesville triggered the biggest domestic crisis yet for Trump, who provoked ire across the political spectrum for not immediately condemning white nationalists and for praising “very fine people” on both sides of the fight.</p>
<p>On Saturday, Trump on Twitter praised the Boston protesters.</p>
<p>“I want to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate. Our country will soon come together as one!” Trump tweeted. “Our great country has been divided for decades. Sometimes you need protest in order to heal, &amp; we will heal, &amp; be stronger than ever before!”</p>
<p>As for the arrests, “There was a little bit of a confrontation,” Evans said. “99.9 percent of the people who were here were here for the right reasons.”</p>
<p>Several protesters said they were unsurprised that the “Free Speech” event broke up early.</p>
<p>“They heard our message loud and clear: Boston will not tolerate hate,” said Owen Toney, a 58-year-old community activist who attended the anti-racism protest. “I think they’ll think again about coming here.”</p>
<p>U.S. tensions over hate speech have ratcheted up sharply after the Charlottesville clashes during the latest in a series of white supremacist marches.</p>
<p>White nationalists had converged in the Southern university city to defend a statue of Robert E. Lee, who led the pro-slavery Confederacy’s army during the Civil War, which ended in 1865.</p>
<p>A growing number of U.S. political leaders have called for the removal of statues honoring the Confederacy, with civil rights activists charging that they promote racism. Advocates of the statues contend they are a reminder of their heritage.</p>
<p>Organizers of Saturday’s rally in Boston denounced the white supremacist message and violence of Charlottesville and said their event would be peaceful.</p>
<p>Republican U.S. Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai spoke at the rally, surrounded by supporters holding “Black Lives Matter” signs.</p>
<p>“We have a full spectrum of people here,” Ayyadurai said in a video of his speech posted on Twitter. “We have people from the Green Party here, we have Bernie (Sanders) supporters here, we’ve got people who believe in nationalism.”</p>
<p>Protests are also expected on Saturday in Texas, with the Houston chapter of Black Lives Matter holding a rally to remove a “Spirit of the Confederacy” monument from a park and civil rights activists in Dallas planning to demonstrate against white supremacy.</p>
<p>A Lee statue in Dallas was vandalized overnight, Mayor Mike Rawlings said.</p>
<p>While Boston has a reputation as one of the nation’s most liberal cities, it also has a history of racist outbursts, most notably riots against the desegregation of schools in the 1970s.</p>
<p>Monica Cannon, an organizer of the “Fight White Supremacy” march, called racism a fact of life in the city.</p>
<p>“Ignoring a problem has never solved it,” Cannon said in a phone interview. “We cannot continue to ignore racism.”</p>
<p>Karla Venegas, a 22-year-old who recently moved to Boston from California, said she was not surprised that the Free Speech rally petered out so quickly.</p>
<p>“They were probably scared away by the large crowd,” Venegas said. “We will not stand for discrimination, racism and Nazis.”</p> | Boston Avoids Charlottesville Chaos, 27 Protesters Arrested | false | https://newsline.com/boston-avoids-charlottesville-chaos-27-protesters-arrested/ | 2017-08-19 | 1 |
<p>FBI Director James Comey, speaking at a Boston College cyber security conference, stressed his plea for technology companies to allow and enable authorities to access encrypted data on mobile devices as well as in necessary applications.</p>
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<p>Comey pointed that strong encryption had become more popular in the past recent years, especially after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden's revelations about U.S. spying programs.</p>
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<p>The bureau chief also reiterated that the use of technology for scrambling has made it even more difficult for law enforcement agencies to investigate crimes, even if the authorities have in their possession court orders allowing them to access data. Comey said that FBI technicians were unable to access around 1,200 of some 2,800 devices that state and local agencies asked the FBI to help open from the period of October to December last year, and in the process delayed the progress of criminal investigations.</p>
<p />
<p>In the same event, Comey mentioned that he has no plans of resigning or vacating his position at the bureau. He said the public would be stuck with him for the next six years and a half as he fully intends to complete his 10-year term.</p>
<p />
<p>There are talks that his relations with the White House might be marred by his disagreement with President Trump's claims that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Towers during the election. Comey also urged officials from the Justice Department to refute Trump's assertion of wiretapping because he claims it falsely suggest that the FBI may have broken the law with its supposed complicity for the illegal act during Obama's term.</p>
<p />
<p>For its part, the White House declared that Comey continues to enjoy the administration's confidence despite challenging Trump's statements on the wiretapping incidence.</p>
<p />
<p>Earlier, Democrats led by Hillary Clinton and their liberal supporters blamed Comey with Hillary's humiliating election defeat by claiming his decision to announce the reopening of the FBI's investigation into Hillary's private email server during the crucial homestretch of the campaign badly hurt her ambitions to become the first woman American president.</p> | FBI Director Comey Says He Will Stick Around For The Remaining 6 Years Of His Term | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/1666-FBI-Director-Comey-Says-He-Will-Stick-Around-For-The-Remaining-6-Years-Of-His-Term | 2017-03-09 | 0 |
<p>Twice a year, a group of experts release a ranked <a href="http://www.top500.org/lists/2012/11/" type="external">list</a> of the world’s most powerful computers called TOP500. It is likely that the new list in June will have a new member of the Top 10 of the Top 500: a computer dubbed Pangea. Its output is is 2.3 petaflops. A petaflop is a quadrillion “floating-point operations per second.” Today’s desktop computers deal in gigaflops, or billions.</p>
<p>The system is the fastest commercially-owned computer in the world. The other faster computers on TOP500’s list are owned by governments or academic institutions and therefore used for research.</p>
<p>Pangea is owned by Total SA, the fifth-largest oil and gas company in the world. So the supercomputer will not be <a href="" type="internal">changing the future of health care IT</a> like former Jeopardy champion Watson or revolutionizing <a href="http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20121029-00" type="external">climate projections</a> and <a href="http://techland.time.com/2012/10/17/the-worlds-most-powerful-climate-change-supercomputer-powers-up/" type="external">weather research</a> like supercomputers at NCAR and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It will be <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/22/us-total-supercomputer-idUSBRE92L0XF20130322" type="external">searching for oil and gas</a>, according to Reuters.</p>
<p>Pangea helped analyze seismic data from Total’s Kaombo project in Angola in just nine days, instead of the four and a half months it would have taken with its previous computer, Philippe Malzac, IT director at Total’s Exploration division, told Reuters:</p>
<p>Total trumps British rival BP with the 2.3-petaflop supercomputer. BP said last December it was building a 2 petaflop supercomputing facility in Houston, Texas.</p>
<p>“Our competitors are also working on these kind of algorithms, but we think this is giving us a head start,” Malzac said.</p>
<p>The price of the system is undisclosed, but it will cost nearly $20 million per year just to run Pangea. The technological achievement may be impressive, but the reality is that oil and gas reserves are finite and getting more expensive to extract, while renewable fuels like <a href="" type="internal">wind</a> and <a href="" type="internal">solar</a> are getting cheaper to utilize.</p>
<p>Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, a lead author on the third IPCC Assessment Report, explained last month in Slate that it is getting <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/02/u_s_shale_oil_are_we_headed_to_a_new_era_of_oil_abundance.single.html" type="external">harder and more expensive</a> to squeeze oil out of the ground.</p>
<p>Oil production technology is giving us ever more expensive oil with ever diminishing returns for the ever increasing effort that needs to be invested. According to the statistics presented by J. David Hughes at the AGU session, we are now drilling 25,000 wells per year just to bring production back to the levels of the year 2000, when we were drilling only 5,000 wells per year. Worse, the days are long gone when you could stick a pitchfork in the ground and get a gusher that would produce for years.</p>
<p>That is when an oil company knows where to drill without the help of a historically fast supercomputer. Global oil and gas exploration and production costs are expected to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/energy-spending-barclays-idUSL1E8N440R20121204" type="external">rise</a> again to $644 billion in 2013, according to an annual survey by Barclays. These fuels are getting increasingly expensive and difficult to produce, requiring massive computational power to find a way to squeeze more dinosaur juice out of the Earth’s crust. The climate clock is <a href="" type="internal">ticking</a>, and it is worth asking if such investments in oil &amp; gas extraction are worth it. Pierrehumbert again puts the scenario plainly:</p>
<p>Whales were driven to the brink of extinction before petroleum replaced whale oil, and we may well fry our planet — and bankrupt ourselves while doing so — before we’re finally forced to kick the fossil fuel habit. It will be hard to muster the resources to develop replacements for fossil fuel energy if we wait until both the economy and climate are in ruins. We are in for a hard landing if we don’t use our current prosperity to pave the way for a secure energy and climate future.</p>
<p>That includes using recent powerful technological advances to get ourselves off fossil fuels and onto renewables.</p> | World’s Most Powerful Private Supercomputer Won’t Cure Cancer, But Will Find Oil Super Fast | true | http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/26/1771741/worlds-most-powerful-private-supercomputer-wont-cure-cancer-but-will-find-oil-super-fast/ | 2013-03-26 | 4 |
<p>Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer created what is arguably one of the most dangerous acts of legislation in modern day history.</p>
<p>In 1990, Chuck Schumer was instrumental in helping pass the Diversity Lottery program, which allows some 50,000 immigrants to be granted visas seemingly at random.</p>
<p>And while one terrorist attack has already been linked to an immigrant from the program, the situation may be even worse than it originally seemed.</p>
<p>According to statistics released by the White House this week, four other terrorists have been let into the country via the Diversity Lottery Visa program.</p>
<p>Though President Trump has been vocally active this month to dismantle the bill, damage has already been dealt to innocent citizens.</p>
<p>In late October, a recipient of the program killed eight people in a premeditated attack and injured several more.</p>
<p>But even more shocking may be the news that has been revealed about several other recipients.</p>
<p>One beneficiary was sentenced to 15 years for conspiring to help ISIS just days before the attack in New York.</p>
<p>Yet another was found guilty of terrorist attacks in the US and beyond in 2009.</p>
<p>The Daily Caller reported: In the days before Saipov’s attack, Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, another Uzbek national and Diversity Visa beneficiary, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State.</p>
<p>Syed Harris Ahmed of Pakistan, another Diversity Visa Lottery beneficiary, was convicted in 2009 of terrorist activities in the U.S. and abroad.</p>
<p>In 1997, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, a Hamas leader, was deported for terrorist activities. The White House said that he received his green card “through the predecessor program to the Visa Lottery.”</p>
<p>Two other terrorists received green cards due to relatives winning the Visa Lottery.</p>
<p>Hesham Hohamed Ali Hedayet, an Egyptian who killed two during a July 2002 shooting at Los Angeles International Airport, received his green card due to his wife being a winner of the Diversity Visa Lottery. He claimed a green card when his wife was selected as a beneficiary and was able to immigrate because his parents had previously benefited from the program.</p>
<p>Pakistani national Imran Mandhai pleaded guilty in 2002 to conspiring to bomb both electrical power substations in the Miami area and a National Guard Armory. Mandahi immigrated to the U.S. because his parents were Visa Lottery winners.</p>
<p>Chuck Schumer’s disregard for the safety of the American people can also be matched with his naivety concerning immigrant control.</p>
<p>The Diversity Lottery Visa program is one bill that must be dealt with swiftly if further attacks are to be thwarted.</p>
<p>Leave us your thoughts in the comments section below.</p> | Chuck Schumer’s Diversity Lottery May Be a Bigger Problem Than Originally Thought | true | http://conservativerevival.com/latest-news/chuck-schumers-diversity-lottery-may-be-a-bigger-problem-than-originally-thought/ | 0 |
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<p>On March 13, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) announced that it would be paying $15.3 billion for computer vision specialist Mobileye (NYSE: MBLY). The purpose of this transaction, per Intel, is to merge Mobileye's computer vision technology with its own computing and connectivity technologies to become a "leading end-to-end [autonomous driving] technology provider from the vehicle to the cloud."</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>To sell investors on this deal, Intel talked up how the total addressable market for self-driving car systems and services could be on the order of $70 billion. Considering that Intel's Internet of Things Group (IoTG), which consists of its current Autonomous Driving Group (ADG), hasn't yet crossed the $3 billion annual revenue mark, the potential long-term upside for Intel if self-driving cars get going could be large.</p>
<p>Image source: Mobileye.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I don't really like this deal. Although it was expensive ($15.3 billion for a company that only generated $358 million in revenue in 2016 is steep, even if the growth prospects for the business look good), the high price isn't the only thing that makes me unhappy with it.</p>
<p>It's the fact that this buy is symptomatic of what appears to be a bigger problem for Intel: It's losing its focus.</p>
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<p>To be clear: Intel is an extremely well-funded company and has room to spend lavishly while still maintaining robust profits. If managed properly, Intel should be able to invest in both in the businesses that pay the bills today as well as in the businesses that could potentially drive huge growth tomorrow.</p>
<p>The problem is this: Intel's execution in its core businesses is slipping. Intel routinely sees delays of critical products to its core Client Computing Group (CCG) and Data Center Group (DCG) businesses, weakening its competitive positioning and <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/13/how-intel-corporations-execution-issues-have-helpe.aspx?source=iaasitlnk0000003&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">providing openings to new competitors Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, Intel's crown jewel and historically a critical enabler of its competitive advantages over the competition -- its Technology and Manufacturing Group (TMG) -- has also struggled to execute for years now; critical manufacturing technologies that are used to build virtually all its processor products almost always see delays now (impacting <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/14/samsung-might-deal-crushing-blow-to-intel-corporat.aspx?source=iaasitlnk0000003&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">competitiveness Opens a New Window.</a>/product schedules), and even when they are finally forced to see the light of day, there seem to be extended <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/01/report-intel-corporation-facing-10-nanometer-probl.aspx?source=iaasitlnk0000003&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">yield challenges Opens a New Window.</a> -- negatively impacting the company's profitability and/or its ability to apply its newest technologies to key product segments.</p>
<p>Intel has some serious issues that it needs to work out in its core businesses -- namely, it has to improve its product execution in PC and data center processors and platforms while at the same time substantially improving its execution in chip manufacturing technology.</p>
<p>I am a firm believer of getting the basics right and building from there. It's important for Intel to be a well-oiled machine in the core businesses that today generate value for stockholders, supporting the current share price. And getting the basics right will make it much easier for Intel to successfully attack new markets by leveraging its core technologies and competencies.</p>
<p>If the fundamentals are shaky, however, Intel might find itself losing ground in its core markets while not getting as much traction in new markets (despite spending a lot of money chasing them) as it could otherwise with its core competencies intact.</p>
<p>In blowing $15.3 billion on Mobileye, Intel might improve its position in self-driving cars in the future, and it may very well serve to unlock a larger portion of the $70 billion total addressable market that the company touts. However, if in several years Intel continues to stumble in its core business, then it'll have Mobileye's great computer vision technology but less-than-ideal products to go with that technology.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than IntelWhen 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=810579e0-4586-45ff-bd88-b5dc96350f63&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 Intel 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=810579e0-4586-45ff-bd88-b5dc96350f63&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 February 6, 2017</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. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. 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> | Intel Corporation Is Losing Focus | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/15/intel-corporation-is-losing-focus.html | 2017-03-17 | 0 |
<p>Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The engineer at the helm of an Amtrak train that crashed in December and killed three people in Washington, mistook a signal on the tracks at the curve where the train derailed.</p>
<p>The 55-year-old engineer and the 48-year-old conductor who were in the lead locomotive at the time of the crash were seriously injured and unable to answer questions from investigators until last week.</p>
<p />
<p>The National Transportation Safety Board said the engineer reported he felt rested and was not distracted by the presence of the conductor, who was there to become familiar with the tracks in the territory.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/mr20180125.aspx" type="external">news release</a>, the NTSB said the engineer knew there would be a curve with a 30 mph speed limit at milepost 19.8, but he didn't remember seeing milepost 18 or the 30 mph advance speed sign.</p>
<p>"The engineer said that he did see the wayside signal at milepost 19.8 (at the accident curve) but mistook it for another signal, which was north of the curve," the release said.</p>
<p>"He said that as soon as he saw the 30 mph sign at the start of the curve, he applied brakes. Seconds later, the train derailed as it entered the curve."</p>
<p>The NTSB said it was considering human performance, signals, train control, the tracks and engineering in its investigation, which is expected to last one to two years.</p>
<p>Amtrak 501 was traveling from Seattle to Portland, Ore., on Dec. 18 when <a href="" type="internal">it derailed</a> in DuPont, Wash., killing three and injuring more than 100. At least one train car crashed down onto Interstate 5 below the tracks.</p> | Engineer mistook signal prior to Amtrak crash in Washington | false | https://upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/25/Engineer-mistook-signal-prior-to-Amtrak-crash-in-Washington/4571516920756/ | 2 |
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<p>A Century Aluminum operation. Image source: Century Aluminum.</p>
<p>What: Century Aluminum Co.'s shares fell nearly 24% last month. However, they still ended the month up nearly 40% for the year. Needless to say, there's a lot of volatility in those numbers.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>So what: The big driver for Century Aluminum this year has been, as you might expect, commodity prices. After a very long downturn, most commodity prices started to pick up in mid-January. That led to a huge rally in Century's shares that lasted through late April, with the shares rising nearly 190% over the span! So it shouldn't be too surprising that the company's stock price fell in May along with a 7% pullback in the price of aluminum.</p>
<p>Century Aluminum's shares started falling the day earnings were announced on April 28; competitor Alcoa's stock was up that day. It shouldn't be much of surprise that Century Aluminum, still working to align its business with the current market environment, was hit harder by the aluminum price pullback, overall.On one hand, you could argue that the nearly 24% stock price decline in May seems out of scale compared to the far more modest aluminum drop, but there's more going on. In late April, Century reported earnings. The company lost $0.19 a share, proving that, despite higher commodity prices, it was still struggling. Backing up the loss was a material drop in the volume of aluminum sold and continued commentary about the negative impact of imports.</p>
<p>Now what: Century Aluminum continues to work through a difficult market. As management's comments make clear, though, that work is a long way from complete. For example, Century is dealing with high cost operations in addition to competitive pressure from imports. Most investors would be better off avoiding these shares for now.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/08/why-century-aluminum-co-shares-fell-355-in-may.aspx" type="external">Why Century Aluminum Co. Shares Fell 35.5% in May Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/ReubenGBrewer/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Reuben Brewer Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
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<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Century Aluminum Co. Shares Fell 35.5% in May | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/08/why-century-aluminum-co-shares-fell-355-in-may.html | 2016-06-08 | 0 |
<p>Australian philosopher and Princeton University bioethics professor Peter Singer is well known as the author of “Animal Liberation”. That book, published in 1975, made an argument for the recognition of animal rights. Now, Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton, has a new book that focuses on human beings. It’s called “The Life You Can Save”.</p>
<p>This time, Professor Singer makes an ethical argument about helping the world’s poor. In fact, he makes the point that choosing not to give aid to poor people is in itself an unethical act. To make that point, Singer asks readers to imagine themselves walking past a shallow pond in a park and noticing that a small child has just fallen in.</p>
<p>"Of course you think, “I should rescue that child. I can easily wade into that pond. It’s quite shallow and pull out the child.” And if the thought occurs to you that just this morning you’ve put on your best pair of shoes, quite an expensive pair of shoes, which will be ruined by wading into the muddy pond, you should – and I think almost everybody would -- put that thought out of their head.</p>
<p>"If you thought about it at all, you would say, “What’s a pair of shoes compared to a child’s life?” But the point I make is that in the real world in which we are living, sometimes the cost of a pair of shoes might be enough to save a child’s life, to prevent a child dying of diarrhea or to immunize a child against measles or to protect a child against malaria. These are things that can be done for relatively small amounts of money, and yet we don’t do it."</p>
<p>Singer is asking for people to really visualize these people on the other side of the world when they may feel that they’re doing an awful lot at home in volunteering and giving.</p>
<p>"It may be that charity should begin at home, but I certainly don’t think it should end at home and I don’t think it should even tail off as steeply as it does as we move further from home. Yes, it’s great to help people around the home, but the people who are really in extreme poverty generally are not near us. And for very small sums of money, you can do enormous things in developing countries.</p>
<p>"You can donate $50 to the Fred Hollows Foundation and they can perform an operation that will enable somebody who is blind to see again. You can donate $450 to the Fistula Fund, and they can repair an obstetric fistula on a girl who’s given birth too early and now has a condition which is going to totally ruin her life in some parts of Africa. Girls with this condition can’t afford to get them repaired and they become a social outcast for the rest of her life. $450 dollars could give that girl her life back.</p>
<p>"I’m asking people to give a portion of their income to the world’s poor. For most Americans, it’s a very modest portion. I’m suggesting if you’re in the bottom 90 percent of taxpayers, that is, you’re not earning more than $105,000 a year. Just start by giving one percent of what you earn. So say $500 dollars a year if you’re earning $50,000 a year to some of these organizations.</p>
<p>"You may think about increasing that, and if you get to be earning above $105,000 so you are in the top 10 percent of US taxpayers, I suggest you should be giving five percent of what you earn. And the scale increases as you earn more, so eventually it gets up to a level of giving a third of what you earn, but that’s only for people who are extremely wealthy and are earning millions of dollars a year.</p>
<p>Singer is optimistic about people getting on board.&#160; He has studied the way we behave and why we behave the way we do and the sort of passivity that’s there. In a way it’s a touchy subject, telling people what to do with their money.</p>
<p>"I’m really hopeful that there’s a possibility of changing our culture in this, and at least – you know, you can say we won’t really know until we try. So we’ve got to try."</p>
<p>Support PRI when you purchase Singer's latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400067103?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=publicradioin-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1400067103" type="external">"The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty"</a></p>
<p>PRI's "The World" is a one-hour, weekday radio news magazine offering a mix of news, features, interviews, and music from around the globe. "The World" is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">More "The World."</a></p> | An ethical argument for charity contributions | false | https://pri.org/stories/2009-03-25/ethical-argument-charity-contributions | 2009-03-25 | 3 |
<p>On the frontlines of public education, three new teachers are singing the praises of those who helped them learn the ropes. Derrick Kimbrough, a new 5th-grade teacher at Tarkington Elementary, credits a teaching coach who visits and keeps in touch regularly for helping him do a better job teaching language arts and reading.</p>
<p>At Castellanos Middle School, 7th-grade teacher Julie Voynovich says she relies on her “troubleshooter”—a retiree with 23 years of teaching experience—whenever she needs to know anything.</p>
<p>Another new teacher, Shanteau Williams at Abbott Elementary, learned from her mentor how to tailor assignments to individual students. “It’s like a light bulb has gone off,” she says.</p>
<p>For certain, many more novices can point to more experienced teachers who have made the difference between their staying and leaving. These three are participating in hands-on mentoring and induction programs that provide them with social supports with peers and instructional safety nets from experts. This year, some 300 newly hired teachers in Chicago Public Schools are gaining the benefits of these programs.</p>
<p>As good as that sounds, though, there are a couple thousand more new public school teachers who do not have access to these supports and are left on their own to flounder. Well, not entirely on their own. The district does require that new teachers take part in a program called GOLDEN, an acronym that stands for Guidance, Orientation and Leadership Development Empowering New Teachers. Despite its unwieldy full name, GOLDEN is a bare bones operation that offers new teachers a two-day orientation, pairs them with mentor teachers (who typically have classes of their own) and tracks how often they meet.</p>
<p>The problem is that no one is making sure those meetings are worthwhile. No one knows whether new teachers are picking up useful tips or insights that they can then take back to their classrooms and put to good use. And nearly everyone who knows anything about GOLDEN—inside and outside the district—knows it’s ineffective, not worth the bother or expense of an outside evaluation.</p>
<p>Even Amanda Rivera, the former principal who runs GOLDEN, concedes that at the current spending level—about $800 to $1,000 per teacher—it’s not enough “to do what we need to do.”</p>
<p>To install a more substantial induction initiative, the district would have to spend at least three times that amount; top-notch programs cost upwards of $6,000 per teacher. The additional expenses go toward in-depth training of mentor teachers and pay that allows them to do that work full time or carry a reduced teaching load. That’s how the New Teachers Center structured its induction program, which is being piloted here in 12 CPS schools and is part of a national, federally funded study.</p>
<p>Facing down a $300 million plus deficit, CEO Arne Duncan doesn’t have cash to spare, not even for worthy pursuits like providing a reliable helping hand for the newest teachers. (Already, the district is proposing to carve meaty academic programs down to the bone.)</p>
<p>Some have suggested that the district concentrate its teacher induction dollars in hard-to-staff schools, those that struggle to achieve and maintain a quality faculty. Yet CPS has so far resisted targeting GOLDEN’s $3 million annual purse, preferring instead to spread the money around as widely as possible. All schools have new teachers who need mentors, says Rivera. “It doesn’t matter where they’re at.”</p>
<p>One national expert begs to differ. Tom Carroll, president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, notes that high-turnover schools cost more on a per-teacher basis than quality induction programs do. “The cost of losing a first-year teacher is on the order of $12,500,” says Carroll, who is conducting a study on the cost of teacher turnover in five school districts, including Chicago’s.</p>
<p>There is, however, a ray of hope. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama is seeking $1.5 billion to create 20 “Innovation Districts,” where, among other school improvement initiatives, raising teacher quality would be a priority. Considering the myriad work being done to improve our schools, Chicago ought to be a shoo-in for one of these grants.</p> | Ounce of prevention for teachers worth a pound of cure at schools | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/ounce-prevention-teachers-worth-pound-cure-schools/ | 2006-04-20 | 3 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Is it time for us to simply forget about our mainstream media and get our news and analysis from the great satirists and comedians we are surrounded with. I am starting to believe it would be better for America.</p>
<p>Bill O’Reilly and Mitt Romney have been spinning Romney’s loss as the death of “Traditional America”. Firstly, this is dangerous because we are a nation whose population is well armed. If some of those well armed start to buy into this narrative they may just start acting out by trying to recover a “Traditional America” that only existed in the minds of some.</p>
<p>Jon Stewart provided some schooling to O’Reilly. After-all, O’Reilly’s folks as Irish were then the non “Traditional Americans” that would cause our demise. One would think that the media instead of hyping demographic shifts as some new event would instead relate it as what America has always been. After-all the biggest demographic shift here occurred with the methodical slaughtering and displacement of the native people. All other demographic shifts have been relatively peaceful.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/EgbertoWilliescom/181893712536" type="external">LIKE My Facebook Page</a></p>
<p /> | (VIDEO) Jon Stewart–Schools Bill O’Reilly over ‘Traditional America’ | true | http://egbertowillies.com/2012/11/16/video-jon-stewartschools-bill-oreilly-over-traditional-america/ | 2012-11-16 | 4 |
<p />
<p>By Thomas Madison</p>
<p>Many European countries, Greece for example, are living, breathing examples of welfare states on steroids, where government spending/waste has led to fiscal suicide. The next domino to fall is likely France, where over 80% of college students with marketable degrees plan to take their talents and degrees abroad due to France’s excessive taxation.</p>
<p>Unable to learn from Greece’s example, newly elected (2012) socialist French President, Francois Hollande, is punishing businesses with higher taxation, which is further crippling the French economy, as businesses find it impossible to grow and can only look forward to even more taxation.</p>
<p>France boasts of one of the most generous public welfare programs in the world, which has attracted a huge number of immigrants only too happy to dine at the public trough as long as permitted.</p>
<p><a href="https://trfdrl.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/oe.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>President Sarkozy had begun a process of reducing welfare benefits, some of which have been continued by Hollande. However, it appears to be too little too late. With government spending now at over 50%, France is on track to pass Denmark in 2014. Businesses are going bankrupt as they can no longer compete with foreign companies, due to the 50% payroll “social” tax they are required to pay, which is feeding the beast that is France’s welfare system.</p>
<p>Immigrants from Muslim countries are attracted by France’s liberal welfare program, giving France the largest Muslim population in Europe. These immigrants do not look for work, breed like rabbits (more kids equals more welfare), and encourage their children to dine at the public trough when they are grown and on their own.</p>
<p><a href="https://trfdrl.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/ci.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p><a href="https://trfdrl.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/ic.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>How long can the United States continue its own generous welfare program without collapsing its economy. America has been&#160;hemorrhaging millionaires for five years, who have taken their money to other countries. We have stood by and watched as many American businesses have moved offshore, taking their jobs and contribution to our GDP with them. Yet we still can’t seem to learn from the mistakes of others. We should be studying what is happening in Europe very closely and avoiding, at all cost, their fatal misakes. Instead we truck along on our own socialist road to ruin, blindly following the examples of European social and fiscal suicide. WAKE UP, AMERICA!!!!</p>
<p>There is a line from a poem/song I wrote in the fall of 1979 that keeps coming to mind. It’s about a trip I took cross-country. I wrote it in a hotel in Portland, Oregon:</p>
<p>“The telephone rings. ‘It’s time to wake up.’</p>
<p>Yes it is, I suppose, but wisdom is tough</p>
<p>And advice is so free.</p>
<p>In Portland.”</p> | Is there anything to learn from the fiscal suicide we are watching happen in Europe? Yes, there is!…. | true | https://powderedwigsociety.com/friscal-suicide-europe-america/ | 2013-10-22 | 0 |
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<p>Being a fan of first-person shooters and Plants vs. Zombies games, I am looking forward to <a href="http://www.popcap.com/plants-vs-zombies-garden-warfare" type="external">Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare</a>, a mashup of the two for the Xbox One and Xbox 360.</p>
<p>The wait will be a little longer than anticipated though, as Electronic Arts announced today that the game has been delayed until Feb. 25. That’s only a week longer than the original release date of Feb. 18, so the pain should be minimal.</p>
<p>Here are some details of the game from the press release:</p>
<p>… Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare features three distinct modes – two 12v12 competitive multiplayer modes called Garden &amp; Graveyards and Team Vanquish, and the four-player co-operative mode Garden Ops. In Garden &amp; Graveyards, plants must defend their garden bases from zombies attempting to turn them into spooky graveyards. Players can also square off in Team Vanquish as they try to send the other team to the compost pile.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | P vs. Z: Garden Warfare delayed | false | https://abqjournal.com/337941/p-vs-z-garden-warfare-delayed.html | 2 |
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<p>Readers who recall the 1968 Democratic National Convention may recall the police riot against protesters in the streets of Chicago; and earlier in the decade of the sixties, the tragedy of the Kennedy assassination; and later, the tragedy of the failure of the McCarthy presidential campaign; the tragedy of the King assassination; the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and the horror of the Vietnam War. But not many recall with great accuracy or impression the defeat of Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s campaign against the Republican nominee Richard Nixon. Nixon triumphed under the banner of his great lie: his secret plan for peace in Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>Nixon’s win and secret plan for peace gave us a more inhumane war (Was a humane war really possible?) with a massive bombing campaign against civilian targets in Southeast Asia, vicious actions and words against protesters that led to the deaths and injuries of many students and anti-war protesters, a campaign of law and order that was famous for the COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) government-led (FBI) program to decimate the anti-war and black power movements. It was all a monumental horror!</p>
<p>I know because I was a war resister. There were tens of thousands like me who took risks to attempt to live in an imperfect world that reflected our imperfect ideals. Many took similar risks in other movements within the counterculture. Our efforts must have been effective because the culture wars are still being fought by the far right. Most of those on the left either dropped out long, long ago or lived lives within the system that goes on with such glaring imperfections that it sometimes feels that we are not grounded in reality.</p>
<p>Those who stayed with the left are like Alan Sillitoe’s character Smith in&#160;The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner&#160;(1959).&#160;We play the game to a point to survive and are appalled by what we see. There is the pull of wanting to say no to it all and just react to the ugliness that surrounds us and literally stop in our tracks. We often ask how a part of the electorate can support a politician like Ronald Reagan, who called for bloodletting as an answer to anti-war protests. We watched with horror as Bush II, et al, broke every premise of the concept of a just war, an idea in any case that went up in flames with the massive civilian deaths that were the hallmark of World War II.</p>
<p>And later, the growth of neoliberalism that is now well over three decades old. It is the slow erosion of the rights of workers, the livelihood of families, the egregious attacks against racial and religious groups and the celebration of great wealth and the unbridled power of great wealth. The party on and off Wall Street has decimated Main Street and those who have kept their eyes wide open often wonder if their protests amounted to much of anything.</p>
<p>But still we fight and go on! It’s in the nature of a long-distance runner, both the real and political and social kinds. The horror of a Trump presidency is a very real possibility. That’s how far the two corporate political parties have regressed. Attacks on fair housing, equal schooling, good nutrition, access to medical care, and the right and responsibility to forge a better world are where the right and neoliberals have left us sometimes speechless. Simple ideals like those of&#160; FDR are decimated and it is nightmarish to think that as a nation the very real possibility of a neofascist in the presidency sickens beyond comprehension, but is indeed possible because so many of those ideals have been turned on their proverbial heads by the forces of hate and extreme wealth. They will even mortgage the future of their grandchildren and those whom they love for their short-term gain.</p>
<p>From the anti-war perspective from so long ago and the present, it was very, very disappointing to hear the complete lack of the issues of war and peace raised in Philadelphia, or the outrageous corporate profits made from war, or the unending cycle of violence that began with the U.S. support of religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It was as if nearly half of the fiscal federal budget that goes toward present and past military spending does not exist in the real world. The&#160;War Resisters League&#160;pie chart for FY 2017 shows about 44% of the federal budget going to present and past military spending. I thought that perhaps Bernie Sanders would address those issues on Monday, but with an imperfect candidate like Hillary Clinton it might have been somewhat embarrassing to bring those issues to the podium of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>But Hillary Clinton alone can’t be blamed for over thirty-five years of state violence that has erased any meaningful debate about the issues of war and peace from the national agenda and individual conscience. Bernie’s speech was as if the specter of George Orwell was in the Wells Fargo arena. If the line is not toed accepting endless wars, then there will be hell to pay, but that’s already a reality all over the globe and on the streets of the United States. Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize former reporter at the&#160;New York Times&#160;puts the reality of the total loss of electoral democracy in context in a debate on&#160;Democracy Nowwith Robert Reich, former President Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor, in “Who Should Bernie Voters Support Now? Robert Reich vs. Chris Hedges on Tackling the Neoliberal Order,” July 26, 2016). Kids in poor neighborhoods (those neighborhoods were never brought into either the 20th century or 21st century through social movements for change) still receive hideously inadequate educations, nutrition, medical care, and housing while the fat cats of the corporate “defense” and gun industry live like royalty. Guns will continue to proliferate on the streets of the U.S. and wars will continue to be endless and it will be as if late President Dwight Eisenhower never raised the issues about the danger of the growth of the military-industrial complex.</p> | The Elephant in the Living Room | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/07/28/the-elephant-in-the-living-room/ | 2016-07-28 | 4 |
<p>Flickr/&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aresauburnphotos/2678453389/"&gt;lordspudz&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href="http://www.creativecommons.org"&gt;Creative Commons&lt;/a&gt;)</p>
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<p>Cape Wind, the bitterly contested proposed offshore wind farm in Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, is approaching a critical juncture. After eight years of delays, the project will likely be approved or denied before the end of 2009. If it proceeds, the 24-square-mile, 130-turbine wind farm could generate enough electricity to power 420,000 homes—and kick-start an offshore wind industry in the United States.</p>
<p>But opposition to the project has been fierce, and Cape Wind needs all the help it can get. So where is the state’s senior senator? John Kerry is among Capitol Hill’s most ardent advocates of addressing climate change, but he has refused to weigh in on one of the most significant debates over the future of alternative energy—and one that’s occurring in his own backyard. &#160;</p>
<p>The proposed wind farm, 14 miles offshore, has been delayed for nearly a decade, thanks to a multi-million dollar opposition campaign. Some of the most prominent adversaries were the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and his family. Kennedy insisted that the project would cause environmental problems, create navigational difficulties for boats in the sound, and make the scenic area less attractive to tourists. But it’s long been suspected that he simply didn’t want rows of large, ungainly wind turbines marring the view from the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, just eight miles away. And as Kennedy was the undisputed dean of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, many of the state’s lawmakers deferred to his position on the matter.</p>
<p>Kennedy’s death coincided with the beginning of the final phase of permitting for Cape Wind. In early November, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who had previously been quiet on the issue, sent a strongly worded <a href="http://globalwarming.house.gov/mediacenter/letters?id=0040" type="external">letter</a> to the Obama administration urging the National Park Service to approve the project before the Copenhagen climate talks begin on December 7.</p>
<p>Markey’s endorsement was a major boost—and it made Kerry’s silence on the matter even more conspicuous. Now the highest-ranking political figure in the state, Kerry is also the lead player on climate issues in the Senate. He’s the <a href="" type="internal">main author</a> of the cap-and-trade bill that passed out of committee earlier this month, and he’s marshaling <a href="" type="internal">cross-party</a> support for the measure.&#160;</p>
<p>According to sources close to the project, Kerry’s reluctance to weigh in on Cape Wind stems from continued deference to the Kennedy family. But the majority of Democratic politicians in the state have now embraced the project. All four of the <a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1205687&amp;format=text" type="external">Democratic candidates</a> vying to fill Kennedy’s seat support it, as does Gov. <a href="http://www.capecodtoday.com/news259.htm" type="external">Deval Patrick</a> and the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS159638+04-May-2009+BW20090504" type="external">majority</a> of the state legislature.</p>
<p>In an email statement from Kerry to Mother Jones, he said he is not yet ready to make an announcement on Cape Wind. “I support wind technology, and I want more renewable energy powering more homes in Massachusetts, not less, and I’m talking with leaders in the state and at the federal level about this, and I’ll have more discussions in Massachusetts with my constituents before I make a final announcement,” he said.</p>
<p>But in a 2007 posting about the “controversy” on his <a href="http://www.johnkerry.com/blog/entry/the_cape_wind_conundrum" type="external">website</a>, Kerry suggested he was no fan of the proposal. “You can’t just have someone plunk something down wherever the hell they want,” Kerry wrote, questioning “whether this is the best location.”</p>
<p>The National Park Service will soon make the final decision on whether to allow Cape Wind to go ahead. With its fate hanging in the balance, support from Massachusetts’ senior lawmaker could prove critical. The big question is: Will John Kerry step up?</p>
<p>&#160; &#160;</p>
<p /> | Blowing In The Wind | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/john-kerry-cape-wind/ | 2009-12-04 | 4 |
<p>Sports Business Journal NFL writer Dan Kaplan on anthem protests and how they will affect sponsors.</p>
<p>Papa John’s Pizza, one of the NFL’s biggest corporate sponsors, on Wednesday said the league’s mishandling of player national anthem protests has had a negative impact on its sales.</p>
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<p>“The NFL has hurt us,” Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter said during an earnings call. “More importantly, by not resolving the current debacle to the players’ and owners’ satisfaction, NFL leadership has hurt Papa John’s shareholders.”</p>
<p>A longtime NFL sponsor, Papa John’s has been the league’s official pizza since 2010. The restaurant chain has partnered with several top NFL stars, including retired quarterback Peyton Manning and Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, as well as 23 of the league’s 32 teams. Papa John’s has also been a major advertiser during NFL broadcasts for several years.</p>
<p>The NFL did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment. Papa John’s did not provide specific data on how much the NFL protests have affected its business. However, company shares fell more than 8% in trading Wednesday.</p>
<p>NFL viewership is down so far this season, marking the second consecutive year that the league has seen its television audience decline. Meanwhile, the league has seen an unprecedented wave of player protests amid public clashes with President Trump, who urged the league’s owners last September to fire any player who kneels during the national anthem.</p>
<p>Papa John’s COO and President Steve Ritchie said “another year of unexpected decline in viewership of the NFL, combined with significant negative consumer sentiment of our association with the league” has hurt the company’s sales outlook.</p>
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<p>“These NFL challenges have persisted into Q4 and the negative impact to our projected results has been reflected into our updated full-year sales and earnings guidance,” Ritchie added.</p>
<p>Company executives added they have pulled some advertising related to its NFL partnership from television broadcasts due to negative customer reaction to the league.</p>
<p>“Leadership starts at the top, and this is an example of poor leadership,” Schnatter said of the NFL.</p> | Papa John's blames NFL for sales decline, rips 'poor leadership' | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/01/papa-johns-blames-nfl-for-sales-decline-rips-poor-leadership.html | 2017-11-01 | 0 |
<p>In 2008, California enacted <a href="http://www.ca-ilg.org/post/basics-sb-375" type="external">SB 375</a>, the most important state law you never heard about. It was Senate leader Darrell Steinberg’s bid for the sort of green reverence that Arnold Schwarzenegger enjoyed because of 2006’s AB 32.</p>
<p>SB 375 (Chapter 728, Statutes of 2008) directs the California Air Resources Board to set regional targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The new law establishes a “bottom up” approach to ensure that cities and counties are involved in the development of regional plans to achieve those targets.</p>
<p>SB 375 builds on the existing framework of regional planning to tie together the regional allocation of housing needs and regional transportation planning in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from motor vehicle trips.</p>
<p>San Diego County has become the first major county to file its SB 375 compliance plan. So far, there have <a href="http://www.kylinpoker.com/texas_holdem.htm" type="external">德州扑克</a> been two ongoing court fights over whether the county’s long-term infrastructure-improvement planning does enough to push the region to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, as mandated by Steinberg’s law.</p>
<p>The county had to file its plan at the same time it was formulating its long-term approach to traffic congestion. Recent improvements to Interstate 15 have paid huge dividends. This made San Diego Association of Government officials even more committed to an expansion of Interstate 5 from the Del Mar area north to Camp Pendleton. Work is supposed to begin next year. Traffic engineers concluded there was no single project that would do anything close to relieving the congestion that would be accomplished with the I-5 improvements.</p>
<p>But that upgrade is now imperiled because greens have won at the appeals court level in both of the legal fights over the adequacy of San Diego County’s long-term plans.</p>
<p>What should 57% of infrastructure $ go to?</p>
<p>So what is one of the key fights in the legal battles over the county’s plan?</p>
<p>The contention of one side that spending on mass transit should start at 38 percent of infrastructure spending and reach 57 percent from 2040-2050.</p>
<p>There is no history of mass transit being popular anywhere but in packed-in cities like Tokyo and New York. California is not Tokyo or New York.</p>
<p>So how could those insane tree-huggers propose that 57 percent of future infrastructure spending in the San Diego region go to mass transit?</p>
<p>Bulletin: That isn’t what the Sierra Club supported. It’s what the county proposed and the Sierra Club and many other environmental groups rejected as unacceptable.</p>
<p>This is crazy enough on its face. But when you think about it more deeply, it becomes absolutely ridiculous. A state law is pushing local governments to assume mass transit will be the most logical way to move people around in a spread-out state — in 2040! This is happening even though there are so&#160;many promising energy-technology initiatives in the works — and even though there have been plenty of concrete gains since 2008.</p>
<p>Cars get cleaner as freeways de-emphasized</p>
<p>I had more on this issue in a Tuesday U-T San Diego <a href="http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/dec/01/war-on-cars-equals-a-war-on-sanity-reality/" type="external">editorial</a>.</p>
<p>California is not the boroughs of New York City writ large. It is a sprawling state, and that is never going to [embrace mass transit] so long as housing is cheaper on the edges of the state’s population centers. Cars are infinitely more convenient for a typical day’s requirements — commuting to work; running errands on lunch breaks; getting kids to school, music classes, sports practice or jobs.</p>
<p>But instead of acknowledging this immense convenience factor, greens seek policies that would create mass inconvenience. The Interstate 5 experience in North County is already often bad; if the freeway upgrade is blocked, it will become routinely horrible. For people who hate cars, this amounts to a desired result.</p>
<p>They think this way even as we see rapid progress in developing far cleaner cars — and not just the Prius. As The New York Times reported Sunday, the “once-distant promise of clean, affordable hydrogen-powered cars is starting to become a reality,” with very positive implications for global warming. Pragmatic environmentalists will see this as good news. But not those who view cars and freeways the same way that most people think about bubonic plague.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/opinion/sunday/hydrogen-cars-coming-down-the-pike.html?_r=0" type="external">NYT story</a> on hydrogen-powered cars.</p>
<p /> | 57% of CA infrastructure $ on mass transit? More, more, more! | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2014/12/02/nutty-sb-375-about-to-become-ongoing-nightmare-for-ca/ | 2018-12-20 | 3 |
<p>Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), Fox News military analyst, on the North Korean nuclear threat and Sen. John McCain denouncing 'spurious nationalism.'</p>
<p>NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's foreign minister defended the country's ties with North Korea and Iran during talks on Wednesday with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson aimed at building robust relations between the two giant democracies.</p>
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<p>The Trump administration has launched a new U.S. effort to deepen military and economic ties with India as a way to balance China's assertive posture across Asia.</p>
<p>At the talks with Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, both sides pledged to strengthen anti-terrorism cooperation and Tillerson said Washington stood ready to provide India with advanced military technology.</p>
<p>"The United States supports India's emergence as a leading power and will continue to contribute to Indian capabilities to provide security throughout the region," Tillerson told a joint news conference with Swaraj.</p>
<p>But the talks also touched on India's diplomatic ties with North Korea, Swaraj said, at a time when the United States has stepped up efforts to isolate Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.</p>
<p>Swaraj said she told the top U.S. diplomat that some level of diplomatic presence was necessary to keep open channels of communication.</p>
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<p>"As far as the question of embassy goes, our embassy there is very small, but there is in fact an embassy," she said.</p>
<p>"I told Secretary Tillerson that some of their friendly countries should maintain embassies there so that some channels of communication are kept open."</p>
<p>India and North Korea maintain diplomatic offices in each other's capitals, though New Delhi recently banned trade of most goods with the country, except food and medicine. Trade was minimal, Swaraj said.</p>
<p>The focus on North Korea comes as U.S. President Donald Trump heads to China next month, where he is expected to urge President Xi Jinping to make good on his commitments to try to rein in North Korea.</p>
<p>Tillerson, who flew in from Pakistan which he called an important U.S. ally in the restive region, also held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is driving closer ties with the United States.</p>
<p>But India, a former leading light of the Non-Aligned Movement and which was on the opposite side of the United States during the Cold War, still remains wary of any alliances with major powers lest it affect its autonomy.</p>
<p>TIES TO IRAN</p>
<p>India has also maintained ties with Iran which is being targeted by the Trump administration for its alleged military support of extremist groups in the Middle East and for its ballistic missile programme.</p>
<p>India has long sourced its oil from Iran, but in recent years the two sides have been also collaborating on key infrastructure projects.</p>
<p>New Delhi is pushing hard for the development of Chabahar port on the Iranian coast as a hub for its trade links to the resource-rich countries of central Asia and Afghanistan but the Trump administration's tough stance has raised new concerns over the future of that project.</p>
<p>But Tillerson struck a conciliatory stance on India's ties with Iran, saying it wouldn't come in the way of countries doing legitimate business there.</p>
<p>"It is not our objective to harm the Iranian people nor is it our objective to interfere with legitimate business activities that are going on with other businesses, whether they be from Europe, India or agreements that are in place or promote economic development and activity to the benefit of our friends and allies," he said.</p>
<p>America's disagreements were with the Iranian regime, and in particular the Iran Revolutionary Guard, he said.</p>
<p>India is especially keen on the Chabahar port as a way to bypass long-time foe Pakistan which does not allow easy trade and transit arrangements to Afghanistan and beyond.</p>
<p>PAKISTAN</p>
<p>Tillerson said the U.S. stood should-to-shoulder with India in the fight against terrorism which New Delhi has long said is centered in militant groups operating from inside Pakistan.</p>
<p>He said militant groups were a threat to everyone in the region, including Pakistan itself.</p>
<p>"Quite frankly my view - and I expressed this to the leadership of Pakistan - is we also are concerned about the stability and security of Pakistan's government as well."</p>
<p>The United States has been urging Pakistan to act against the groups that operate in Afghanistan, India and inside Pakistan itself. "Terrorist safe havens will not be tolerated," Tillerson said.</p>
<p>Pakistan says it is doing all it can to fight the militants.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Aditi Shah; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani and Krishna N. Das; Editing by Nick Macfie and Clarence Fernandez)</p> | India defends ties with North Korea in talks with Tillerson | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/10/25/india-defends-ties-with-north-korea-in-talks-with-tillerson.html | 2017-10-25 | 0 |
<p>In times of crisis, Americans have always put politics aside and come together to do what's best for the country. But right now, it seems our leaders on the Hill need to be reminded of this vital fact as they attempt to negotiate a solution to the current debt crisis.</p>
<p>Time is running out. This week, the U.S. Government reached the $14.3 trillion debt-ceiling limit forcing the Treasury Department to begin taking a series of extraordinary steps to avoid defaulting on our loans. So while our leaders in Congress attempt to broker a compromise, our fiscal gas tank continues to run on empty.</p>
<p>Even more difficult news broke this week when the "Gang of Six," the bipartisan group of senators working to develop a solution to the debt crisis became the "Gang of Five" as Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) announced he would be stepping away from negotiations. At least for now.</p>
<p>As the spirit of bipartisanship falters, the voices of the extreme left and right are drowning out the underlying need for reason and common sense. We can't let this happen.</p>
<p>Of course the decisions will not be easy, but change never is. In the coming weeks, tough choices must be made. But we also know that real courage means placing our nation's long-term future ahead of any short-term political gain. <a href="" type="internal">Will you send a letter to your representative in Congress reminding them that now is the time to make tough choices?</a></p> | Tell Congress: Be Courageous | false | https://nolabels.org/blog/tell-congress-be-courageous/ | 2011-05-19 | 2 |
<p>The National Basketball Association and Rakuten Inc. have announced a marketing partnership that makes the Japanese online giant the exclusive online distributor in Japan of all live NBA games.</p>
<p>The partnership, Rakuten's first with a North American professional league, comes as the internet services company expands its involvement in sports.</p>
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<p>The two companies on Tuesday said Rakuten will offer the NBA's premium live game subscription service exclusively to Rakuten's members through NBA.com, the NBA app and for purchase through Rakuten TV, the company's video-on-demand service.</p>
<p>"Rakuten is one of the world's most innovative companies and an ideal partner for the NBA," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.</p>
<p>Rakuten Viber, the company's instant messaging platform, will be an official platform for the NBA, giving access to league content to more than 900 million users, Rakuten said.</p>
<p>Last month, the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors and Rakuten announced a partnership to include the Rakuten logo on all Warriors jerseys beginning in the 2017-18 NBA season.</p> | NBA, Japan's Rakuten set exclusive online distribution deal | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/10/nba-japans-rakuten-announce-exclusive-distribution-deal.html | 2017-10-10 | 0 |
<p>Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business &amp; Industrial Council Educational Foundation, looked at last week's dismal jobs report and noted something few other economists seem to mind.</p>
<p>When Mr. Tonelson breaks down the numbers, he applies a category he calls "the subsidized private sector." This includes industries such as health care, where the government foots much of the tab, and private educational services, where the government backs many of the student loans.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What he sees is that job creation is slowing even in these heavily subsidized sectors.</p>
<p>Mr. Tonelson said what he calls the subsidized private sector has been responsible for nearly 35% of the private-sector job creation since the recession officially ended in 2009, producing "a grossly distorted picture of the U.S. economy and especially its recovery record."</p>
<p>"When President [Barack] Obama uses this data to say that the private sector is 'doing fine,' that gives us an idea of how misleading this data can actually be," Mr. Tonelson said.</p>
<p>In June, the subsidized private sector grew by only 2,000 jobs, the third-lowest measure since the recession began, Mr. Tonelson said. The overall employment picture grew by 80,000 jobs, which didn't even amount to a dent in the nation's unemployment rate of 8.2%.</p>
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<p>"One of the biggest questions...is whether even today's sluggish overall job-creation performance can be sustained if job creation in the subsidized private sector remains this weak," Mr. Tonelson said.</p>
<p>Mr. Tonelson's subsidized private sector includes only industries he easily can break out of the Labor Department's jobs report. It doesn't include defense contractors or medical-device makers, where clearly the government is doing much, if not all, of the buying.</p>
<p>Local, state and federal governments are among the largest customers in many industries, making the task of counting the jobs created from a purely private sector close to impossible, especially in an epoch of wildly increased government spending. So Mr. Tonelson has identified yet another flaw in our regular flow of economic data.</p>
<p>Many economists have long criticized everything from the consumer price index to the gross domestic product for their flaws, too. Almost always, these flaws result in a better economic picture. You never hear an economist say, "wow, that GDP number really understates America's amazing growth," or, "boy, that unemployment report doesn't fully count all the wonderful new jobs we just created."</p>
<p>Mr. Tonelson said he laughed in 2009 when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others claimed to have spotted "green shoots." "The 'green shoots' have been produced by economic steroids," he said. "That's not growth. That's the creation of artificial muscle mass."</p>
<p>Now, as the recovery appears to have stalled again, we hear renewed cries for steroids. Our leaders don't seem to know of any other solution.</p>
<p>"Politicians in both major parties seem to be talking about different versions of bubble reflation, by either tax cuts or government-spending increases," Mr. Tonelson said.</p>
<p>These bubbles will be easy to blow as money keeps pouring into the U.S. from foreign investors, seeking relative safety in U.S. Treasurys. "Luckily for us, the rest of the world seems to be willing to loan us money for free, so we can keep this high-wire act going," Mr. Tonelson said.</p>
<p>Until one day, when we can't.</p>
<p>Mr. Tonelson has long argued the U.S. can stabilize its economy by getting its trade deficit under control. The reason consecutive stimulus plans haven't worked is simple: When you put more money in consumers' pockets, they use it to buy foreign goods, creating jobs somewhere else. He said he noticed, for instance, that when President Obama launched a stimulus plan of more than $800 billion, the trade deficit soon soared by another $800 billion.</p>
<p>"The bucket," Mr. Tonelson said, "has a big hole."</p>
<p>Meantime, anyone proposing to reel in the trade deficit in an age of globalization gets socked with the political baggage of protectionism. "You also have lobbying power of American importing interests, which include not only Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), but all the international companies that produce offshore for the U.S. market," Mr. Tonelson said.</p>
<p>So our destructive spending cycle continues: We get cheap money from foreign investors and use it to buy cheap, foreign consumable goods, and there's no significant economic growth to show for it.</p>
<p>"Arguably, they set us up for an even-more-destructive bubble bursting down the line," Mr. Tonelson said.</p>
<p>Though Mr. Tonelson said he winced at the bailouts and Fed's unprecedented response to a possible "Great Depression," he recognized they were needed to buy time to fix a broken economic system.</p>
<p>"It's valuable to buy time, if you use the time well," he said. "What's troubling is that we have clearly bought this time, and we can probably still buy more time, but I see no sign of us using it well."</p>
<p>(Al's Emporium, written by Dow Jones Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. Contact Al at <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a> or <a href="http://tellittoal.com" type="external">tellittoal.com Opens a New Window.</a>)</p> | A Hole in the Bucket Drains Recovery | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2012/07/11/hole-in-bucket-drains-recovery.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
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<p>DALLAS — Famed oilfield wildcatter, financier and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens is addressing health issues after a “Texas-sized fall” put him in the hospital last week.</p>
<p>In a posting to LinkedIn, the 89-year-old Pickens said he is still mentally strong but that as far as his life goes, “I clearly am in the fourth quarter.”</p>
<p>Pickens fell in the early morning hours of July 11 and was admitted to Baylor Hospital in Dallas, spokesman Jay Rosser said Friday. He was released from the hospital Monday and is in daily physical and speech therapy, while still engaged with the office of his Dallas investment firm, BP Capital, and his various business entities, Rosser said.</p>
<p>Pickens said he suffered several strokes over the Christmas holiday. He said he’s regained 90 percent of his speech through aggressive therapy and determination.</p>
<p>“Many of those who face adversity like this at 89 choose to hide it,” he wrote. “My life has always been an open book. Some chapters of my life have been great. Others not so much.”</p>
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<p>Pickens built one of the country’s biggest independent oil companies, Mesa Petroleum, before moving on to BP Capital and founding clean transportation fuels company Clean Energy.</p>
<p>He rose to national prominence in the 1980s when he led a series of takeover attempts, targeting Phillips Petroleum, Unocal and Gulf Oil, among other companies.</p>
<p>He’s also given away more than $1 billion to philanthropic causes, according to BP Capital’s website.</p>
<p>Pickens said he remains upbeat about the future.</p>
<p>“That’s the way to approach life. Be the eternal optimist who is excited to see what the next decade will bring,” he said.</p> | Legendary wildcatter Boone Pickens takes a Texas-sized fall | false | https://abqjournal.com/1036234/legendary-wildcatter-boone-pickens-takes-a-texas-sized-fall.html | 2017-07-21 | 2 |
<p>Jan. 16 (UPI) — Researchers found in study published Tuesday that genetic variations in lungs can help identify people at risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, which is often caused by cigarette smoke and pollution.</p>
<p>The study — funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health — identified people with low, but stable, lung function early in life who developed COPD.</p>
<p>For the study, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/01/09/1715564115.abstract?sid=44539315-0d47-4e1e-9855-f9ec5bbeabdb" type="external">published today</a> in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists were attempting to learn why not all smokers develop COPD, but many non-smokers do.</p>
<p>“This work raises many interesting questions for researchers. Understanding precisely why these genes influence the development of COPD may lead to entirely new and more effective ways of preventing or treating this disease,” Dr. James Kiley, director of the NHLBI Division of Lung Diseases, <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-study-offers-insights-genetic-indicators-copd-risk" type="external">said in a press release</a>. “This novel study suggests that a CT scan, which is widely available, can be used to measure airway structure and predict who is at higher risk for smoke-induced lung injury.”‘</p>
<p>An estimated 15 million people have been diagnosed with COPD, a progressive disease that makes it hard to breathe, according to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/toolstemplates/entertainmented/tips/ChronicRespiratoryDisease.html" type="external">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>. Chronic respiratory diseases are the third-leading cause of death in the United States — 155,931 in 2016 — behind heart disease and cancer, the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm" type="external">CDC reported</a>.</p>
<p>Researchers had believed that COPD developed later in life because of prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke or air pollution. But in recent studies older adults with COPD had low lung function early in life and the decline was associated with aging.</p>
<p>“In the current study, we found that central airway branches of the lungs, which are believed to form early in life, do not follow the textbook pattern in one quarter of the adult population and these non-textbook variations in airway branches are associated with higher COPD prevalence among older adults,” said Dr. Benjamin M. Smith, an assistant professor at Columbia University Medical Center. “Interestingly, one of the airway branch variants was associated with COPD among smokers and non-smokers. The other was associated with COPD, but only among smokers.”</p>
<p>Researchers say future studies will address whether family history plays a factor. The study identified a common airway branch variation that occurs within families and is associated with COPD among non-smokers. His research team is looking into whether there is a genetic basis for this variant.</p>
<p>“If proven,” Smith said, “this would represent a novel mechanism of COPD among non-smokers.”</p> | Study: Genetic indicators help determine COPD risk | false | https://newsline.com/study-genetic-indicators-help-determine-copd-risk/ | 2018-01-17 | 1 |
<p>Under a scorching sun just a short walk from Colombia's border with Venezuela, hundreds of hungry men, women and children line up for bowls of chicken and rice — the first full meal some have eaten in days.</p>
<p>An estimated 25,000 Venezuelans make the trek across the Simon Bolivar International Bridge into Colombia each day. Many come for a few hours to work or trade goods on the black market, looking for household supplies they cannot find back home.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>But increasingly, they are coming to eat in one of a half-dozen facilities offering struggling Venezuelans a free plate of food.</p>
<p>"I never thought I'd say this," said Erick Oropeza, 29, a former worker with Venezuela's Ministry of Education who recently began crossing the bridge each day. "But I'm more grateful for what Colombia has offered me in this short time than what I ever received from Venezuela my entire life."</p>
<p>As Venezuela's economy verges on collapse and its political upheaval worsens, cities like Cucuta along Colombia's porous, 1,370-mile (2,200-kilometer) border with Venezuela have become firsthand witnesses to the neighboring South American nation's escalating humanitarian crisis.</p>
<p>According to one recent survey, about 75 percent of Venezuelans lost an average of 19 pounds (8.7 kilograms) last year.</p>
<p>The Colombian government has crafted contingency plans in the event of a sudden, mass exodus, but already church groups and nonprofit organizations are stepping in, moved by images of mothers carrying starving babies and skinny men trying to make a few bucks on Cucuta's streets to bring back home.</p>
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<p>Paulina Toledo, 47, a Colombian hairstylist who recently helped feed lunch to 900 Venezuelans, said seeing how hungry they were "hurt my soul."</p>
<p>"Those of us here on the border are seeing their pain," she said.</p>
<p>People living on either side of the Colombia-Venezuela border have long had a foot in both countries: A Colombian who lives in Cucuta might cross to visit relatives in San Cristobal; a Venezuelan might make the reverse trip to work or go to school.</p>
<p>In the years when Venezuela's oil industry was booming and Colombia entangled in a half-century armed conflict, an estimated 4 million Colombians migrated to Venezuela. Many started coming back as Venezuela's economy began to implode and after President Nicolas Maduro closed the border in 2015 and expelled 20,000 Colombians overnight.</p>
<p>Oropeza said he earned about $70 a month working at the Ministry of Education and selling hamburgers on the side — twice Venezuela's minimum wage but still not enough to feed a family of four. Once a month his family receives a bundle of food provided by the government, but it only lasts a week.</p>
<p>"So the other three weeks, like most Venezuelans, we have to make magic happen," he said on a recent afternoon.</p>
<p>Desperate for money to feed his family, he left his job and traveled to the Venezuelan border town of San Antonio. He wakes up at 4 a.m. each morning to be among the first crossing the bridge into Cucuta, where he earns money selling soft drinks on the street.</p>
<p>He goes straight to the "Casa de Paso," a church-run shelter that has served 60,000 meals to Venezuelans since opening two months ago. On an average day, 2,000 Venezuelans line up for meals, getting a ticket to reserve their spot and then waiting four hours for a meal served at outdoor plastic tables.</p>
<p>Workers stir gigantic metal pots filled with chicken and rice set on the bare dirt floor. Volunteers hand out boxes of juice to tired-looking children. Adults sit quietly, savoring their bowl of food as chickens waddle between them.</p>
<p>"Every day I have to remind myself why I am here," said Oropeza, dressed in a faded striped collared shirt. "I try to repeat it to myself so that I won't, you know, so those moments of weakness don't affect you so much."</p>
<p>When he's not helping out or waiting in line at the shelter kitchen, Oropeza sells malted soft drinks for about 50 cents each. He's been able to bring money back to his family and has earned enough to buy a cellphone, which he'd lacked for two years.</p>
<p>Jose David Canas, a priest, said his church will continue to serve food "as long as God allows."</p>
<p>"Until they close the border," he said. "Until everything is eaten or until the province tells us that they no longer have lunches to give out. And then it's the end."</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>AP Writer Christine Armario contributed to this report from Bogota, Colombia</p> | Hungry Venezuelans turn to Colombia for a plate of food | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/14/hungry-venezuelans-turn-to-colombia-for-plate-food.html | 2017-08-14 | 0 |
<p>When word spread last week about the greatest cyberspace vulnerability in years, the aptly named Heartbleed vulnerability, the first question that many asked was "Did NSA know?" Because of the prior revelations about NSA activity, there is now a natural suspicion among many citizens that the NSA would be using such a weakness in the fabric of cyberspace to collect information. Bloomberg even reported that the NSA did know and had been exploiting the mistake in encryption. But actually no U.S. government agency was aware of the problem; they learned about it along with the rest of us. That is both reassuring and troubling.</p>
<p>The question remains, however, what if, in a similar case in the future, the NSA or some other government agency did learn about such a flaw in software? Should it be the NSA's decision to tell us about the problem? Should the government lean to offense, and use the vulnerability to create an exploit and collect information, or, instead, lean toward defense, alerting citizens and companies so that they can protect themselves from malicious actors who may also learn about the flaw?</p>
<p>Although for some, the answer comes easily, it is in our minds a difficult decision. The temptation to stockpile vulnerabilities for offense is easy to understand. After all, what if you could use a software glitch to destroy machines that Iran is using to make nuclear bomb material? Or perhaps we can use a mistake in coding to get inside al Qaeda's communications and learn about their next attack before it happens, perhaps in time to stop it. In those hypothetical cases, what is the U.S. Government's chief responsibility? To protect us from nuclear proliferation or terrorism? Or, to patch up software that might be running critical infrastructure such as our banks, stock markets, electric power grid, or transportation systems?</p>
<p>The President's Intelligence Review Group recommended earlier this year that the default decision, the assumption, should be to lean toward defense. (Disclosure: We were two of the group's five members.) The government, upon learning of a software vulnerability, should alert us and act quickly with the IT industry to fix the error. We reasoned that if the U.S. government learns about a software glitch, others will too, and it would be wrong to knowingly let U.S. citizens, companies and critical infrastructure be vulnerable to hackers and foreign intelligence cyber spies. Usually, it is the U.S. who has the most to lose when there is a hole in the fabric of cyberspace. We rely upon information technology systems and control networks more than any other economy or society, and the potential damage that could be done to our country from malicious hacking could be devastating.</p>
<p>We also recommended that there be the opportunity for rare exceptions to the rule. If the government learns about a vulnerability in some obscure piece of software, not widely present on U.S. critical networks but running on the systems of some real threat (such as al Qaeda or Iran's nuclear program), the president ought to be able to authorize for a limited time the use of that knowledge to collect intelligence or even to cause destruction of threatening hardware.</p>
<p>That decision, however, should not be the NSA's to make alone. Balancing the offense/defense equities should be a White House call, made after having heard from all sides of the issue. Those in the government who worry about defending critical, private sector networks (the departments of Treasury, Homeland Security, Energy, Transportation) should have the opportunity to make their case that it would be better to defend ourselves than to hoard our knowledge of a cyber problem to attack other nations' networks.</p>
<p>The reality is that there will be very few cases where a strong argument could be made for keeping a software vulnerability secret. Even then, the issue would be not whether to tell the American people about the cyberspace flaw, but how soon to tell. The president, according to a White House statement last week, has decided to accept our recommendation. The Obama administration announced that, with very rare exceptions, when the U.S. government learns of a software vulnerability, it will work with the software companies involved and with users to patch the mistake as quickly as possible. That lean toward defense is, we believe, the right answer.</p>
<p>Going further, it should be the basis for an international norm of behavior by all nations and institutions. We create a more secure and useful global Internet if other nations, including China and Russia, adopt and implement similar policies. Because they are unlikely to do so any time soon, the Obama administration should also step up its efforts to defend America's cyberspace from those who play by different rules.</p>
<p>Richard Clarke was a National Security official in the Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations. Peter Swire was a White House official under Presidents Clinton and Obama, and now is a professor at the Scheller College of Business of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Both men served last year on the five-person Intelligence Review Group for President Obama.</p> | The NSA Shouldn't Stockpile Web Glitches | true | https://thedailybeast.com/the-nsa-shouldnt-stockpile-web-glitches | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Although Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY) is one of the more popular gold mining stocks, investors certainly don't know everything about it. And since the best investors are well-informed investors, let's take a look at some things that help to provide a more complete view of the company.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Yamana may make its hay in gold production, but the company is involved in pulling more than just the yellow stuff out of the ground. It is also involved in silver and copper production. According to the company's recent earnings report, in fiscal 2016, gold accounted for 82.4% of the company's revenue. Silver and copper accounted for 6.3% and 11.3%, respectively.</p>
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<p>In the company's Q4 earnings release, management noted the company was currently in "an organic growth phase." And turning to the projects in the company's pipeline, we find Agua Rica, located in Argentina. A large-scaleporphyry copper, molybdenum, gold and silver deposit, Agua Rica has the potential to further diversify Yamana's portfolio, leaving the company less reliant on precious metals.</p>
<p>According to the company's recent 6-K, Agua Rica hasproven and probable mineral reserves of approximately 10 billion pounds of copper and 6.5 million ounces of gold; however, advancement of the project doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. Management asserts in the 6-K that it "continues to take steps to evaluate potential transactions that will surface the value in Agua Rica." Furthermore, "The Company envisages a transaction relating to Agua Rica that would involve maintaining a joint venture interest and monetizing some equity in the project for a mixture of cash and an interest in gold production."</p>
<p>As opposed to many of its peers -- like Newmont Mining, founded in 1921 -- Yamana doesn't have a very long history. In fact, the company is more or less a teenager. Peter Marrone, Yamana's chairman and CEO, founded the company in 2003.</p>
<p>Like the company itself, Peter Marrone, also has a limited history in gold mining. Before founding the company, Mr. Marrone worked asthe head of investment banking at a major Canadian investment bank. Before that, he worked as a lawyer, focusing oncorporate law, securities law, and international transactions.</p>
<p>Although Yamana Gold is headquartered in Canada, it wasn't until fairly recently that the company maintained any mining operations in the country. Partnering with Agnico Eagle Mines (NYSE: AEM), Yamana Gold acquired Canadian Malartic in 2014. Located in Quebec, Canadian Malartic, one of Canada's largest gold mines according to Yamana, is expected toaverage approximately 600,000 ounces of gold annually for the next 14 years.Each company, Agnico and Yamana, maintains 50% ownership of the mine.</p>
<p>Towards the end of 2016, Yamana Gold completed the spin-off of its subsidiary, Brio Gold, into a stand-alone public company, which is traded on the TSX. Using the proceeds from the stock offering to pay down debt, Yamana recognizes the long-term potential value of Brio Gold, but it's not adverse to saying goodbye to it either.</p>
<p>According to the company's recent 6-K filing, management "takes a long-term view of its ownership of Brio Gold; however, the Company will evaluate various monetization opportunities for its holding from time to time."</p>
<p>Like most miners, deftly managing its balance sheet is one of Yamana management's paramount concerns. In fact, it has set the aggressive, long-term target of achieving a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 1.5 or better. And the coming months may afford the company an opportunity to make headway towards achieving that goal -- the company only has $18.6 million in debt due during fiscal 2017.</p>
<p>With cash and cash equivalents of $97 million, Yamana will have no problem repaying the debt it has due this year; furthermore, it can dip a little further into its cash reserves to pay down some of the debt it has due farther down the line.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Yamana GoldWhen 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=37fcc780-e978-4f8d-976f-d539945efb77&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 Yamana Gold 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=37fcc780-e978-4f8d-976f-d539945efb77&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 February 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/scott81236/info.aspx" type="external">Scott Levine Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 7 Things You Didn't Know About Yamana Gold | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/06/7-things-didnt-know-about-yamana-gold.html | 2017-03-17 | 0 |
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<p>The public portion of the classes will be from 10-11:15 a.m. Wednesdays in the Honors Forum, which is downstairs from the Student Health Center, directly east of the Student Union Building.</p>
<p>The discussions will be hosted by instructor Steve Brewer, who is the author of 26 books. The public portion is free.</p>
<p>The schedule is: author/essayist Demetria Martinez, Jan. 28; poet Hakim Bellamy, Feb. 4; historian Don Bullis, Feb. 18; Western author Johnny D. Boggs, Feb. 25; author Suzy McKee Charnas, March 4.</p>
<p>Others are historian/novelist Virginia Scharff, March 18; comic novelist Bill Fitzhugh, March 25; poet Bruce A. Noll, April 8; author Alisa Valdes (Rodriguez), April 15; and thriller author David Morrell, April 22.</p>
<p>AUTHOR TALKS: Lynne Hinton, author of the new mystery series “Sister Eve, Private Eye” will speak at a meeting of Croak and Dagger, the Albuquerque chapter of the national Sisters in Crime, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 27. The meeting will be in a new venue, the North Domingo Baca Multigenerational Center, 7521 Carmel NE, classroom 7. Carmel is one block north of the intersection of Wyoming and Paseo del Norte. The program is free and open to the public.</p>
<p>AT BOOKWORKS: Dennis Herrick will sign his new mystery, “A Brother’s Cold Case,” at 3 today at the bookstore, 4022 Rio Grande NW. When the murder of Andy Cornell’s brother is still unsolved after two and a half years, Andy enters the hidden worlds of cartel violence, street people and Pueblo secrets to find justice.</p>
<p>At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 27, Susan Washburn will discuss “My Horse, Myself,” a collection of intimate interviews with 18 passionate and self-reliant horsewomen living in northern New Mexico.</p>
<p>At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 28, Jann Arrington-Wolcott will sign “Brujo,” about a sexual obsession that turns to terror as Lee struggles to save her family and her soul.</p>
<p>Sylvia Wilkinson will sign “Big Cactus” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 29. In it, 16-year-old Benny Foushee, deemed by his father as going nowhere fast, embarks on a trip from North Carolina across the United States with his 84-year-old Aunt Lucy and his dog Polar.</p>
<p>Rebecca Scherm will talk about and sign “Unbecoming” at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 30. It is a major new debut thriller about a daring art heist, a cat-and-mouse waiting game and a small-town girl’s mesmerizing transformation.</p>
<p /> | Noted authors to participate in UNM course | false | https://abqjournal.com/531187/unm-course.html | 2 |
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<p>As part of our effort to report on social media trends, tools, and technology, we will be periodically recognizing politicians, candidates, and political organizations who are utilizing social media in effective and creative ways.&#160;</p>
<p>Evan Vucci (@evanvucci)</p>
<p>Followers: 18k</p>
<p>Photos: 508</p>
<p>Photo Likes: 25,000+</p>
<p>“We launched #aponthetrail at the conventions because they are a colorful spectacle with an eclectic mix of personalities. It’s an interesting slice of Americana,” he said, “but there is a sameness to political coverage: The meat and potatoes of it is people on stages, microphones, confetti. Instagram allows us to complement that coverage with humor, quirkiness, details. It’s another dish on the buffet of coverage.” – Director of photography at the AP&#160;Santiago Lyon,&#160;to <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79448.html#ixzz23Ae9dsWA" type="external">the Columbia Journalism Review</a></p>
<p>Instagram, which is a free downloadable app for smartphones, allows you to take photos, apply a&#160;filter, and chronicle your experiences on your unique profile, much like Facebook. Like Twitter, you can interact with other users by “liking” or commenting in real time via your newsfeed. The app creates a more personal form of social networking, and as the general election nears, has gradually been making its way into politics.</p>
<p>Evan Vucci, like many, first began using Instagram primarily as a way to keep in contact with friends and family. While working as an Associated Press staff photographer on the campaign trail, however, he has expanded his use to include behind the scenes photos that are assuredly plentiful, yet rarely publicized.</p>
<p>“I started using it to take fun pictures that I wouldn’t normally send to the wire, and as a way to contact everybody,” Vucci <a href="http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/instagram_on_the_trail.php?page=1" type="external">said</a>. “But now you’re seeing photographers from all over using it to share their assignments.”</p>
<p>Proving that Instagram users are interested in gaining insight into the lifestyle of a photojournalist, Vucci gained 9,000 followers after his profile was featured on Instagram’s suggested list. Now, with a strong 18,000 user following, Vucci continues to post photos on his account at least twice a day. Some of his latest photos include shots of the press being <a href="http://statigr.am/p/273891636462597340_21089972" type="external">security swept</a>&#160;by Romney’s team&#160;and the <a href="http://statigr.am/p/266736482479093224_21089972" type="external">wide variety of electronics</a>&#160;needed on any given day as a photographer.</p>
<p>What was first used for social networking has now evolved into an outlet for photo journalism. It is fitting that the Associated Press, one of the oldest and largest news organizations, is making an attempt to bridge the gap between social media, politics, and news journalism. Vucci&#160;is one of the seven AP staffers to begin posting photos on the campaign trail using the hashtag #aponthetrail. Similar to the Washington Post’s <a href="" type="internal">#2012unfiltered</a>, the hashtag will be an efective way to archive the many photos posted by the photographers.</p>
<p>For those of you who don’t have the Instagram app, <a href="http://statigr.am/" type="external">Statigram</a>&#160;allows you to easily search usernames and tags without having to create an account. You can see Vucci’s entire Instagram <a href="http://statigr.am/evanvucci" type="external">repertoire</a> here.</p>
<p>Evan Vucci has made a splash in the Instagram world, documenting his life in an occupation that just so happens to be politically oriented. His popularity on the app shows that photos depicting the raw side of politics are popular, sometimes even more so than the staged images printed in magazines and newspapers. With the close of the national conventions, and all the confetti and balloons they include, journalists such as Evan Vucci make this week’s Social Spotlight for being a figure in paving the way for more truthful non-partisan news reporting.</p>
<p>AP photographers on Instagram reporting and using #aponthetrail include J. David Ake, Carolyn Kaster, Charles Dharapak, Kasie Hunt, Mary Altaffer, and Jae C. Hong.</p> | Social Spotlight: AP’s Evan Vucci | false | https://ivn.us/2012/09/10/social-spotlight-aps-evan-vucci/ | 2012-09-10 | 2 |
<p>Diplomats around the world are meeting for negotiations this week including discussion on human rights issues, state sovereignty, drones and long-delayed peace.&#160;</p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Iran’s new president in September, Syria’s opposition fighters are appealing to the US and European countries for weapons, John Kerry is in Pakistan to talk drone-related death tolls, and Israel and Palestinian authorities ease into a dialogue in Washington DC.</p>
<p>Here are some of this week’s updates on important peace talks and developments to keep an eye on:</p>
<p>PALESTINE/ISRAEL</p>
<p>Middle East peace talks <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/130729/middle-east-peace-talks-resume-washington" type="external">resumed on Monday</a>in Washington DC, opening with iftar — Muslims’ end of day meal during Ramadan — attended by officials representing both Israel and the Palestinian territories.</p>
<p>Justice Minister Tzipi livni represented Israel and Saeb Erekat, a chief negotiator, attended on behalf of Palestinian authorities.</p>
<p>Talks resumed following an Israeli promise to free 104 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli detention facilities — a move Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “tough decision for the good of the nation.”</p>
<p>Still, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/31/us-palestinians-israel-idUSBRE96U0SX20130731" type="external">Reuters reported yesterday</a>, there is a significant distance between the negotiating parties, quoting Livni as saying that the parties still “need to build confidence.”</p>
<p>Yasser Abed Rabbo, a source close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also “forecast ‘huge difficulties’” for the talks, referring to Israeli media reports of Netanyahu promising to continue building settlements. Palestinian negotiators have been clear about continued expansion being a peace talk deal breaker.</p>
<p>US Secretary of State John Kerry said the negotiators will “reconvene in August, aiming to achieve a ‘final status’ deal within nine months.”</p>
<p>PAKISTAN</p>
<p>US Secretary of State John Kerry <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/pakistan/130731/john-kerry-arrives-pakistan-talk-drone-strikes-af#1" type="external">arrived in Pakistan</a> yesterday to discuss the recently revealed death toll of American drone strikes in the country’s tribal areas and the war in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Kerry will meet with civilian and military leaders in an effort to ease tensions over deadly strikes, the records of which have over the years been kept by Pakistani officials.</p>
<p>He will also spend time with the country’s new Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who opposes the strikes, calling them a “breach of the country's sovereignty.”</p>
<p>A recently <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/rights/leaked-pakistani-document-us-drone-attacks-reveals-high-civilian" type="external">leaked Pakistani document</a> revealed that US drone strikes have killed hundreds of civilians, and not 50-60 as the US has claimed.</p>
<p>It also revealed that Pakistan officials have been aware of the civilian casualties for some time. Kerry will also address the stalled talks with the Taliban, in hopes that Pakistan will aid in brining the group to the negotiating table with the government of Afghanistan.</p>
<p>SYRIA</p>
<p>The new leaders of opposition National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (NCSROF) have reportedly been touring Europe and the US requesting aid in the form of weapons, according to <a href="http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/3601/17/No-gun-diplomacy.aspx" type="external">Cairo-based Al-Ahram</a>.</p>
<p>The weekly publication said the group is on a “shuttle mission” to “try to persuade western nations to send weapons to the armed Syrian opposition, in order that it can stand up more effectively to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and enfore a political deal to its liking.”</p>
<p>France, the US and the United Nations have instead responded with “political sympathy,” saying they will continue to aid the Syrian people, but not with weapons.</p>
<p>US Secretary of State John Kerry has reportedly ignored the call for expedited weapons aid, and otherwise described the meeting as “fruitful.”</p>
<p>The NCSROF leaders asserted the top priorities of the opposition as being to “stop the bloodbath in Syria, discontinue the destruction, protect civilians, and maintain the country’s remaining infrastructure,” adding that these goals could not be realized without the necessary weapons. The group’s attendance at the Geneva talks, Geneva II—organized and headed by the US and Russia—is also dependent upon the aid, they said.</p>
<p>“We cannot agree to [attending] Geneva II unless military parity is achieved. We need to have adequate weaponry in terms of quantity and quality,” Kamal Al-Labwani, member of the NCSROF political committee, told Al-Ahram.</p>
<p>RUSSIA/IRAN</p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet Hassan Rouhani, Iran's newly elected president for the first time in Kyrgyzstan this September, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/31/us-russia-iran-idUSBRE96U0RB20130731" type="external">Reuters reported</a>.</p>
<p>The talks, according to Iran’s Ambassador to Moscow, Seyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi, will take place during a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on September 13.</p>
<p>The last high-level talks between Iran and world powers including the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, took place in April, but failed.</p>
<p>Western diplomats, according to Reuters, say “the world powers will have to wait for a new government to be formed in Iran before they can discuss a date for a new round of talks.”</p>
<p>"Clearly, let the new Iranian government settle in well. There will be a new government formed. But we are ready for talks anyway," Sajjadi said. &#160;</p> | Talking Peace: This week in global diplomatic negotiations | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-08-01/talking-peace-week-global-diplomatic-negotiations | 2013-08-01 | 3 |
<p>Celgene Corp. shares plummeted about 18% Thursday after the pharmaceutical company cut its earnings forecast for the year and lowered its long-term sales forecast for several products.</p>
<p>Chief Executive Mark Alles said the company is updating its 2020 outlook to account for shifts in the market and recent events, which include disappointing sales of a psoriasis treatment and clinical trials of a Crohn's disease treatment that the company cut short.</p>
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<p>The company lowered 2020 targeted revenue from new hematology products, oncology products, and inflammation and immunology products. The company raised the outlook for its existing hematology portfolio. Overall, it lowered its total 2020 revenue target to a range of $19 billion to $20 billion, down from more than $21 billion.</p>
<p>The company also decreased its revenue estimate for the current year to about $13 billion, down from a previously guided range of $13 billion to $13.4 billion.</p>
<p>Company executives told investors on an earnings call that sales of Otezla, a treatment for psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis, have been weaker than expected and it is considering next steps after discontinuing development of a Crohn's disease treatment.</p>
<p>"Our 2017 forecast assumptions did not adequately anticipate the deep and persistent slowing growth of the psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis markets, especially during the entire third quarter," Mr. Alles said on the call.</p>
<p>The company said last week it ended two clinical trials for a Crohn's disease treatment and halted plans to launch a third, following a recommendation from an independent data-monitoring panel. Celgene didn't say at the time what prompted the panel's recommendation.</p>
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<p>"This pipeline failure is a major disappointment," Mr. Alles said.</p>
<p>Overall for the third quarter, Celgene reported Thursday a profit of $988 million, or $1.21 a share, compared with $171 million, or 21 cents a share, a year ago.</p>
<p>Excluding one-time items, the company earned $1.91 a share, up from $1.58 a year ago, on adjusted net income of $1.56 billion. Analysts had expected adjusted earnings per share of $1.87 on adjusted net income of $1.53 billion.</p>
<p>Write to Cara Lombardo at [email protected]</p>
<p>Shares of Celgene Corp. plummeted 18.5% on Thursday after the pharmaceutical company cut its earnings forecast for the year and lowered its long-term financial outlook.</p>
<p>This comes amid slowing market growth for a key drug and a clinical trial failure last week that undermined the company's new product development.</p>
<p>Celgene's recent setbacks have led to a stark shift in market sentiment toward the company, which had been one of the drug industry's most favored and widely held stocks. The Summit, N.J., firm has lost a third of its market value, or about $37.4 billion, since the beginning of the month.</p>
<p>Celgene remains one of the fastest-growing large drugmakers, but its recent market value decline reflects concerns that its pipeline won't deliver fast enough if its core stable of cancer drugs face increased competition in the coming years.</p>
<p>"Investors are likely to ask whether the company's good fortune has run out, with disappointments.... and negative revisions.... left and right, " Geoffrey Porges, a Leerink analyst, said in a note to clients on Thursday. Celgene executives are likely to "face tough questions from investors about the company's direction and leadership after the operational and guidance disappointments this quarter," Mr. Porges wrote.</p>
<p>The company said it now expects 2020 revenue of $19 billion to $20 billion, or 4.8% to 9.5% less than its previous forecast of greater than $21 billion. The company lowered 2020 targeted revenue from new hematology products, oncology products, and inflammation and immunology products. It also lowered its 2020 adjusted earnings per share forecast to $12.50 per share, down 3.8% from its previous target of $13.</p>
<p>And Celgene decreased its revenue estimate for the current year to about $13 billion, down from a previously range of $13 billion to $13.4 billion.</p>
<p>The revised outlook was driven in part by lower-than-expected sales of Otezla, which was launched in the U.S. in 2014 as a treatment for psoriasis, a dermatologic disease that causes dry, itchy skin. Celgene "did not adequately anticipate the deep and persistent slowing growth of the psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis markets, especially during the entire third quarter," Chief Executive Mark Alles said on a conference call with analysts on Thursday.</p>
<p>Growth in the U.S. psoriasis drug market has slowed significantly this year, the "result of increasingly restrictive" controls on patient access enacted by pharmacy-benefit managers, Terrie Curran, president inflammation and immunology at Celgene, said on a conference call with analysts on Thursday.</p>
<p>Celgene has taken an aggressive discounting strategy to increase market access in the crowded psoriasis market, which significantly reduced revenue in the quarter, the company said. U.S. prescriptions for Otezla grew 17% in third quarter compared with the prior-year quarter, but net revenue rose just 2.5% from $244 million to $250 million over the period.</p>
<p>The company said last week it ended two clinical trials for an experimental drug to treat Crohn's disease and halted plans to launch a third, following a recommendation from an independent data-monitoring panel. Celgene acquired the drug, called GED-0301, in 2014 for an upfront payment of $710 million from closely held Nogra Pharma Ltd.</p>
<p>"This pipeline failure is a major disappointment," Mr. Alles said. He later added that the "GED-0301 failure gives us pause and makes us think about on the margin, are there some risks to the portfolio that maybe we haven't captured in the more recent past."</p>
<p>Celgene's acquisition of GED-0301 was part of an aggressive business development strategy that has led the company to make a spate of deals to bolster its pipeline in recent years, including a collaboration with Juno Therapeutics Inc., that haven't yet translated into significant sales growth.</p>
<p>Celgene acquired experimental drug developer Receptos Inc. for $7.2 billion in 2015 and is counting on the top asset in that deal, an anti-inflammatory drug called ozanimod, to receive U.S. regulatory approval and validate its business development strategy.</p>
<p>Write to Joseph Walker at [email protected] and Cara Lombardo at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>October 26, 2017 12:41 ET (16:41 GMT)</p> | Celgene Shares Plummet on Bleaker Outlook for Sales of New Drugs -Update | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/26/celgene-shares-fall-as-outlook-dims.html | 2017-10-26 | 0 |
<p>In the midst of a clash between a few dozen anti-Trump protesters and police in downtown Cleveland on Friday, one protester started elbowing and shoving an officer before spitting in the officer's face. The incident was captured on video by <a href="http://fox8.com/2017/01/20/caught-on-video-anti-trump-protester-spits-in-cleveland-officers-face/" type="external">Fox News 8</a>.</p>
<p>The protesters were walking along East 9th Street at Superior Avenue; some Cleveland Division of Police bike patrol officers rode beside them. One man repeatedly elbowed and shoved one of the officers, then spit in his face. The man was arrested for assault of a police officer and aggravated disorderly conduct.</p>
<p>Video below: (Caution: strong language)</p> | WATCH: Anti-Trump Protester Spits In Police Officer's Face | true | https://dailywire.com/news/12625/watch-anti-trump-protester-spits-police-officers-hank-berrien | 2017-01-20 | 0 |
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<p>In this Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014 photo, a woman leaves the headquarters of Uber in San Francisco. Venture capitalists poured a whopping $48.3 billion into U.S. startup companies last year, investing at levels that haven’t been seen since before the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, according to a new report issued Friday, Jan. 16, 2015. The two biggest deals in 2014 were separate rounds of investment in Uber Technologies, the high-flying and controversial ride-hailing service, now valued at $41 billion. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)</p>
<p>PHOENIX — Arizona regulators have stopped issuing citations to drivers for transportation companies such as Uber and Lyft as the Legislature works to craft a new law to allow the companies to operate legally, new Weights and Measures Director Andy Tobin said.</p>
<p>Tobin ordered the ticketing stopped to let the Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey work on a proposal that allows the new and growing industry to operate legally while protecting consumers. He said he will ask the state’s lawyers to drop citations already issued.</p>
<p>Tobin said Ducey agrees that stopping the citations makes sense as a deal is worked out and is in line with his agenda of supporting new and entrepreneurial businesses while ensuring public safety and consumer protections.</p>
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<p>One of Ducey’s first acts when he became governor earlier this month was to freeze new state regulations, and he’s promised to work to ease existing regulations on business.</p>
<p>“We don’t want to be spending taxpayer dollars in court when what we’re trying to do is allow the policy-making process to work,” Tobin said Wednesday evening. “I don’t think you get your best agreements by sitting in court.”</p>
<p>The Legislature passed a bill last year that would have exempted the new app-based transportation companies from insurance regulations imposed on traditional taxi and livery companies. It was vetoed by then-Gov. Jan Brewer, who said it failed to protect consumers.</p>
<p>The companies, which call themselves “ridesharing services,” however, have continued to operate. Weights and Measures had issued nearly 100 citations by November to drivers who did not have proper commercial licenses or insurance. Many of those have been mediated or settled, but the remainder will be dropped.</p>
<p>San Francisco-based Uber’s Arizona general manager, Steve Thompson, said in a statement that company was “thrilled” with Ducey’s decision.</p>
<p>“We look forward to working with the governor and state leaders to craft smart regulations that embrace innovation, support entrepreneurship, and put consumer choice and safety first,” Thompson said.</p>
<p>Traditional taxi and livery companies oppose the current business model for the new transportation services. They argue that drivers are only covered by company insurance when they’re on the way to pick up a passenger who requests a ride using an online app or driving that passenger to their destination.</p>
<p>That leaves the public vulnerable because there are times when the driver isn’t covered by the company’s insurance, said David Leibowitz, who represents Total Transit. For instance, a driver who picks up a fare outside the app isn’t covered, he said.</p>
<p>“There are gaps in the Uber insurance even where there is a passenger in the car, and there is no Uber insurance when you’re driving around trying to position yourself,” Leibowitz said. “You find Total Transit’s insurance with no gaps — you look up an Uber driver and you see his personal insurance.”</p>
<p>Total Transit operates Discount Cab in Phoenix and has its own app. It’s 200 rideshare drivers are covered by commercial insurance.</p>
<p>Last year’s fight over the so-called Uber bill was one of the bigger issues of contention within the state Legislature. Democrats and Republicans were split within their own parties. Proponents of the bill said government should stay out of the way and let new companies like Uber innovate, while opponents said the lack of regulations pose a public safety threat.</p> | Arizona stops citing Uber, Lyft drivers as new law crafted | false | https://abqjournal.com/533335/arizona-stops-citing-uber-lyft-drivers-as-new-law-crafted.html | 2 |
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<p>CeeLo Green as his alter ego Gnarly Davidson arrives at the 59th annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)</p>
<p>CeeLo Green looked part Tin Man, part big gold statue with a strange, monsterish headpiece while Lady Gaga showed up in bitty black leather shorts and an underbreast-baring top, a pair of towering, thigh-high boots to match, for the anything-goes parade of wacky fashion at the Grammys on Sunday.</p>
<p>Green’s message, including a full tunic to the ground, was unclear, but he certainly generated a stir on the red carpet in Los Angeles. Gaga was fashionably late and cheesed for the cameras.</p>
<p>Earlier, Adele walked in long-sleeve military green and Paris Jackson looked all grown up in a skin-baring rainbow jumpsuit by Balmain as the Grammys competed with the British Academy Film Awards for celebrity fashion air.</p>
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<p>Though the London event was earlier in the day, U.S. time, the red carpet there shined big with Hollywood stars in more traditional carpet clothes. At the Grammys, things are often wackier, more casual, though many wore formal gowns.</p>
<p>Gaga, her hair pink, was her usually edgy self, a bit rocker chain at the waist. Katy Perry, her hair a tousled blond bob, wore an outfit of shaggy light pink feathers with a burnished copper sequin mock turtleneck top, all by Tom Ford.</p>
<p>Fashionably late, Rihanna showed up in a tiny, encrusted orange midriff-baring top paired with a bulbous black skirt. Beyonce, who is pregnant with twins, did not walk the carpet but performed in a queenly gold crown and fitted, embellished gown to match. Her sister, Solange, shimmered in a metallic green one-shoulder look with finlike ruffles down one side.</p>
<p>Today’s tumultuous political climate bubbled in spots. Red carpet provocateur Joy Villa flung off a white frock to reveal a gown of patriotic red, white and blue that urged “Make America Great Again” and had “Trump” in sparkly letters on the back hem.</p>
<p>Adele’s gown was custom Givenchy Haute Couture by Riccardo Tisci. It was two tones of silk satin and lace in a checkerboard design with all-over Swarovski crystals. It crossed at the chest, looking a tad like armor.</p>
<p>The 18-year-old Jackson, a Grammy presenter, stunned in the sexy one-piece jumpsuit of sparkly stripes that included shades of green, pink, orange and blue. It had an open skirt and sexy cutouts up top.</p>
<p>Carpet favorite Carrie Underwood chose fiery red with a sexy keyhole front by Elie Madi, while first-time nominee and newly engaged Kelsea Ballerini stood out in a sheer tulle look with delicate, three-dimensional ice blue flower embellishment and a train. It was by Ines Di Santo, who is known more for bridal gowns. Underwood’s sleeves distracted from her look overall, billowing below the elbow.</p>
<p>“I usually don’t do red but I was feeling it,” she said.</p>
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<p>Faith Hill also wore long-sleeve red with a keyhole effect, by Zuhair Murad. She way fudged trying to say the designer’s name.</p>
<p>Otherwise, the evening’s color palette was all over the spectrum, including a shiny bright blue trouser suit Halsey wore, jacket buttons open and nothing underneath, a dangly diamond necklace hanging down her chest.</p>
<p>“I just didn’t want to wear a dress,” said Halsey, a nominee.</p>
<p>Jennifer Lopez, her hair long and straight, brought it in a dainty lavender confection, a huge tulle flower at her neck designed by Ralph &amp; Russo.</p>
<p>Villa, a singer-songwriter, wasn’t alone in taking on the administration of President Donald Trump. A member of the band Highly Suspect wore a jacket with “IMPEACH” on the back.</p>
<p>James Corden, the evening’s host, wore a dusty rose jacket paired with a white shirt and thick black bow tie. Looking edgy in a silver-studded Balmain jacket was Nick Jonas, a presenter.</p> | Grammys fashion: CeeLo goes gold, Lada Gaga goes bitty | false | https://abqjournal.com/948601/adele-chooses-matronly-military-green-on-grammys-red-carpet.html | 2017-02-12 | 2 |
<p>CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's president on Thursday expressed his "extreme concern" to Ethiopia's visiting prime minister over the lack of progress in talks on the impact of a massive upstream dam that Egypt fears could cut into its vital share of the Nile.</p>
<p>President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has warned that Egypt's share of the Nile, which provides nearly all its freshwater, is a red line. But he has also sought to reassure Ethiopia and Sudan that Egypt has no intention of going to war.</p>
<p>El-Sissi was grim-faced during most of a news conference he jointly addressed with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn after the two held talks in Cairo.</p>
<p>El-Sissi said he appreciated Ethiopia's repeated assurances that the dam, which is about 60 percent complete, would not have a negative impact on Egypt, but he said studies must still be completed and that all sides should abide by their findings.</p>
<p>He said Ethiopia has rejected Egypt's proposal to bring in World Bank experts as neutral arbitrators on the dispute over the likely impact of the dam on Egypt's share of the Nile.</p>
<p>Desalegn, according to el-Sissi, wanted a different team of experts, but the Egyptian leader said the proposal still stands and cautioned that recruiting non-World Bank experts would take much time and debate.</p>
<p>Egypt is a mostly desert country that depends on the Nile for almost all of its water needs. Its 95 million people grow by at least a million every year, further straining its water resources and posing a perpetual challenge to its economic development.</p>
<p>"I expressed our extreme concern over the continuation of the state of stagnation besetting the tripartite technical track," which is aimed at examining the impact of the dam on Egypt and Sudan, el-Sissi said.</p>
<p>He said cooperation among the Nile basin countries must not be a "zero-sum game."</p>
<p>Relations have deteriorated between longtime allies Egypt and Sudan, with Cairo accusing Khartoum of siding with Ethiopia in the dispute over the dam and reviving a long-standing border dispute. Egypt is also alarmed by Sudan's expanding ties with Turkey and Qatar, two regional rivals.</p>
<p>Of special concern to Egypt is the speed at which a planned reservoir is filled behind the dam and the method of its annual replenishment. Egypt fears that a quick fill would drastically reduce the Nile's flow, with potentially severe effects on its agriculture and other sectors.</p>
<p>Ethiopia says the $5 billion dam is essential, noting that the vast majority of its population lacks electricity. The dam will generate over 6,400 megawatts, a massive boost to the country's current production of 4,000 Megawatts.</p>
<p>Desalegn said the dam was also needed to spare his country from drought and famine.</p>
<p>"The people of Ethiopia did not nor will ever subject Egyptians to danger," said Desalegn, who is making his first visit to Egypt as prime minister. "We will not hurt your country in any way and will work closely together to secure the life of the people of the Nile basin and take them out of the cycle of poverty."</p>
<p>CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's president on Thursday expressed his "extreme concern" to Ethiopia's visiting prime minister over the lack of progress in talks on the impact of a massive upstream dam that Egypt fears could cut into its vital share of the Nile.</p>
<p>President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has warned that Egypt's share of the Nile, which provides nearly all its freshwater, is a red line. But he has also sought to reassure Ethiopia and Sudan that Egypt has no intention of going to war.</p>
<p>El-Sissi was grim-faced during most of a news conference he jointly addressed with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn after the two held talks in Cairo.</p>
<p>El-Sissi said he appreciated Ethiopia's repeated assurances that the dam, which is about 60 percent complete, would not have a negative impact on Egypt, but he said studies must still be completed and that all sides should abide by their findings.</p>
<p>He said Ethiopia has rejected Egypt's proposal to bring in World Bank experts as neutral arbitrators on the dispute over the likely impact of the dam on Egypt's share of the Nile.</p>
<p>Desalegn, according to el-Sissi, wanted a different team of experts, but the Egyptian leader said the proposal still stands and cautioned that recruiting non-World Bank experts would take much time and debate.</p>
<p>Egypt is a mostly desert country that depends on the Nile for almost all of its water needs. Its 95 million people grow by at least a million every year, further straining its water resources and posing a perpetual challenge to its economic development.</p>
<p>"I expressed our extreme concern over the continuation of the state of stagnation besetting the tripartite technical track," which is aimed at examining the impact of the dam on Egypt and Sudan, el-Sissi said.</p>
<p>He said cooperation among the Nile basin countries must not be a "zero-sum game."</p>
<p>Relations have deteriorated between longtime allies Egypt and Sudan, with Cairo accusing Khartoum of siding with Ethiopia in the dispute over the dam and reviving a long-standing border dispute. Egypt is also alarmed by Sudan's expanding ties with Turkey and Qatar, two regional rivals.</p>
<p>Of special concern to Egypt is the speed at which a planned reservoir is filled behind the dam and the method of its annual replenishment. Egypt fears that a quick fill would drastically reduce the Nile's flow, with potentially severe effects on its agriculture and other sectors.</p>
<p>Ethiopia says the $5 billion dam is essential, noting that the vast majority of its population lacks electricity. The dam will generate over 6,400 megawatts, a massive boost to the country's current production of 4,000 Megawatts.</p>
<p>Desalegn said the dam was also needed to spare his country from drought and famine.</p>
<p>"The people of Ethiopia did not nor will ever subject Egyptians to danger," said Desalegn, who is making his first visit to Egypt as prime minister. "We will not hurt your country in any way and will work closely together to secure the life of the people of the Nile basin and take them out of the cycle of poverty."</p> | Egypt raises 'extreme concern' about Nile dam with Ethiopia | false | https://apnews.com/amp/713e67447dbe40f1935043a3689cb26c | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz) has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-convention.html" type="external">never been</a> among Donald Trump’s biggest supporters. He and the president have long traded barbs, and earlier this month, it <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/17/politics/trump-jeff-flake-arizona-primary/index.html" type="external">was</a> <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/17/white-house-squeezes-jeff-flake-240613" type="external">reported</a> that the White House was recruiting primary challengers to take on the senator. But Flake just took the feud it to a bold new level with <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/31/my-party-is-in-denial-about-donald-trump-215442" type="external">an op-ed in Politico&#160;Magazine</a>:</p>
<p>“If by 2017 the conservative bargain was to go along for the very bumpy ride because with congressional hegemony and the White House we had the numbers to achieve some long-held policy goals—even as we put at risk our institutions and our values—then it was a very real question whether any such policy victories wouldn’t be Pyrrhic ones. If this was our Faus­tian bargain, then it was not worth it. If ultimately our principles were so malleable as to no longer be principles, then what was the point of political victories in the first place?</p>
<p>“Meanwhile, the strange specter of an American president’s seeming affection for strongmen and authoritarians created such a cognitive dissonance among my generation of conservatives—who had come of age under existential threat from the Soviet Union—that it was almost impossible to believe. Even as our own government was documenting a con­certed attack against our democratic processes by an enemy foreign power, our own White House was rejecting the authority of its own intelligence agencies, disclaiming their findings as a Democratic ruse and a hoax. Conduct that would have had conservatives up in arms had it been exhibited by our political opponents now had us dumbstruck.”</p>
<p>The column was <a href="https://twitter.com/noahcrothman/status/892145175279087618" type="external">described</a> by Commentary‘s Noah Rothman as “an extinction level event.”</p>
<p>This comes the day before the release of Flake’s&#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/books/jeff-flake-conscience-of-conservative-trump.html" type="external">book</a>, Conscience of a Conservative. Read the full op-ed&#160; <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/31/my-party-is-in-denial-about-donald-trump-215442" type="external">here</a>.</p> | A GOP Senator Just Eviscerated Trump and the Republicans Who Make Excuses For Him | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/a-gop-senator-just-eviscerated-trump-and-the-republicans-who-make-excuses-for-him-1/ | 2017-07-31 | 4 |
<p>Shares of eBay Inc. fell more than 4% late Thursday after the online auction company reported second-quarter earnings and sales in line with Wall Street expectations. EBay reported a net income from continuing operations of $27 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with $437 million, or 38 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, eBay earned $493 million, or 45 cents a share, compared with 43 cents a share a year ago. Revenue reached $2.3 billion, compared with $2.2 billion in the second quarter of 2016. The company said it expects third-quarter net revenue between $2.35 billion and $2.39 billion and adjusted per-share earnings from continuing operations in the range of 46 cents to 48 cents. The analysts surveyed by FactSet expect third-quarter per-share earnings of 48 cents a share on sales of $2.32 billion. EBay also said it expects net revenue between $9.3 billion and $9.5 billion for the year, with non-GAAP per-share earnings from continuing operations in the range of $1.98 to $2.03. The same analysts forecast per-share earnings of $2 on sales of $9.4 billion for 2017.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | EBay Lower As Q2 Earnings, Sales In Line With Forecast | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/20/ebay-lower-as-q2-earnings-sales-in-line-with-forecast.html | 2017-07-21 | 0 |
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<p>FILE - In this May 23, 2012, file photo, newly elected president of CONCACAF Jeffrey Webb, right, talks to FIFA President Sepp Blatter as they arrive at the meeting of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football prior to the two-day congress of FIFA in Budapest, Hungary. Webb has been extradited to the United States following his arrest in Switzerland on racketeering and bribery charges filed by American prosecutors. The Swiss Federal Office of Justice said Thursday, July 16, 2015, the man was extradited a day earlier after 50 days of detention. U.S. authorities have said more indictments could follow, and FIFA President Sepp Blatter is a target of the widening case. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP, File)</p>
<p>FIFA sponsor Coca-Cola has told soccer's governing body to appoint an independent commission to lead the reform process required to clean up the scandal-ridden organization.</p>
<p>The soft drinks giant wrote to FIFA asking for a third-party commission, overseen by "one or more eminent, impartial leaders," to look at how the organization can regain its credibility and the trust of fans.</p>
<p>The most significant intervention yet by a FIFA sponsor was revealed in a letter to The International Trade Union Confederation, which is part of the New FIFA Now movement. Coca-Cola has sponsored FIFA since 1974 with its branding prominent at World Cups.</p>
<p>FIFA is still reeling from the indictment of 14 people in a U.S. investigation into soccer corruption, including two of world soccer's now-ousted vice presidents.</p>
<p>Four days after being re-elected, Sepp Blatter announced plans last month to quit as FIFA president. FIFA's executive committee will decide on an election date at a meeting on Monday.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Coca-Cola tells FIFA to back independent reform commission | false | https://abqjournal.com/614244/coca-cola-tells-fifa-to-back-independent-reform-commission.html | 2 |
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<p>I-25 southbound was closed at San Antonio after a crash near the San Mateo/Osuna exit Thursday morning. (NMDOT)</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The southbound lanes of Interstate 25 have been reopened at the San Antonio exit after being closed due to a crash late morning Thursday, according to the New Mexico Department of Transportation website.</p>
<p>Albuquerque police didn’t provide details of the crash but wrote on Twitter that officers and firefighters responded around 10:45 a.m. and that the interstate was closed.</p>
<p>The department didn’t follow up with a tweet or any notification that the interstate was reopened.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Southbound lanes of I-25 reopened at San Antonio after crash | false | https://abqjournal.com/951361/southbound-lanes-of-i-25-closed-at-san-antonio-exit.html | 2017-02-16 | 2 |
<p>Photo by Jordi Bernabeu Farrús | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>Pope Francis lost a historical opportunity to truly set his legacy apart from previous Popes. Alas, for him, too, political expediency trumped all else. In his visit to Burma (Myanmar) on November 27, he refrained from using the word ‘Rohingya.’</p>
<p>But what’s in a name?</p>
<p>In our frenzied attempts at understanding and articulating the plight of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma, we often, perhaps inadvertently, ignore the heart of the matter: The struggle of the Rohingya is, essentially a fight for identity.</p>
<p>Burma’s Buddhist majority and its representatives, including the powerful military and the country’s de-facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, understand this well. They use a strictly-guarded discourse in which the Rohingya are never recognized as a unique group with pressing political aspirations.</p>
<p>Thus, they refer to the Rohingya as ‘Bengali’, claiming that the Muslim minority are immigrants from Bangladesh who entered the country illegally. Nothing could be further from the truth.</p>
<p>But historical accuracy, at least for the Buddhist majority, is beside the point. By stripping the Rohingya from any name affiliation that makes them a unique collective, it becomes possible, then, to deny them their rights, to dehumanize them and, eventually, ethnically cleanse them as has been the case for years.</p>
<p>Since August, over 650,000 members of the Rohingya community have been driven out of their homeland in Burma by a joint and systematic operation involving the military, the police and various Buddhist nationalist groups. They call it “Clearance Operations.”</p>
<p>Thousands of Rohingya have been killed in this grave act of genocide, some in most abhorrent and inhumane ways imaginable.</p>
<p>The United Nations Human Rights Council Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has recently referred to the purges in Burma as a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing. There can be no other interpretation of this horrendous campaign of government-led violence.</p>
<p>But as thousands were pushed into the jungles or the open sea, the silence was deafening.</p>
<p>Only recently, US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who visited Burma last November decided to label the massive human rights violations against the Rohingya as ‘ethnic cleansing.’</p>
<p>Although his statement labeled the government-centered genocide as “abuses by some among the Burmese military,” it was still a clear departure from past failure to even address the issue altogether.</p>
<p>Still, it was a major disappointment that the Pope abstained from mentioning the Rohingya by name while in Burma. He only stated their name when he crossed the border to Dhaka. In Bangladesh, using the word ‘Rohingya’ seemed like a safe political strategy.</p>
<p>It is understood that refraining from using the word ‘Rohingya’ while in Burma was done as a “concession to the country’s Catholics”, reported the Washington Post. The logic goes: by challenging the popular narrative that cast the Rohingya as foreigners, the Pope would have ignited the ire of the Buddhists against the country’s Christian minority, itself persecuted, at least in two Burmese states.</p>
<p>If the Rohingya are to be named, it means that the core of the issue would have better chances of being directly addressed. The moment they retain their collective identity is the moment that the Rohingya become a political entity, subject to the rights and freedoms of any minority, anywhere.</p>
<p>The Pope, as bold as he has been regarding other issues, has the moral authority to challenge the permeating – yet disconcerting – narrative in Burma that has dehumanized the Rohingya for generations. In 1982, the embattled minority group was denied the status of a minority group and was stripped form its citizenship, paving the way for eventual ethnic cleansing.</p>
<p>Alas, in the end, the Pope joined the regional and international powers that insist on understanding the Rohingya crisis outside the realm of political solutions, pertaining to political rights and identity.</p>
<p>Indeed, he is not alone. ASEAN leaders meeting in Manila, Philippines mid-November made no mention of the Rohingya by name. Worse, in their 26-page final document, they mentioned the crisis in the Northern Rakhine State – the epicenter of the Rohingya genocide – in passing:</p>
<p>“We … extend appreciation for the prompt response in the delivery of relief items for Northern Vietnam flash floods and landslides … as well as the affected communities in Northern Rakhine State.”</p>
<p>That is how the Southeast Asian leaders respond to one of the worse political and humanitarian disasters in Southeast Asia in recent decades. Pitiful.</p>
<p>Standing proudly in the final photo with the rest of the leaders was Aung San Suu Kyi, who was promoted by western media for many years as a ‘democracy icon’. The ‘Lady of Burma’ who challenged the military junta and spent years under house arrest for her defiance has, in recent years, found a convenient political formula that allows her to share power with the military.</p>
<p>A political opportunist at best, Aung San Suu Kyi, too, does not call the Rohingya by their name. Worse, her government has played a major role in dehumanizing the Rohingya and, at times, blamed them for their own suffering.</p>
<p>Last September, in a last-ditch effort at salvaging her tattered reputation, she gave a 30-minute televised speech in which she explained her position using a most confused logic.</p>
<p>The best she came up with was, “We are a young and fragile country facing many problems … We cannot just concentrate on the few.” The “few”, of course, being the Rohingya.</p>
<p>When the Pope arrived in Bangladesh, a man by the name of Mohammed Ayub was awaiting him as part of a small delegation of Rohingya refugees.</p>
<p>Mohammed’s 3-year-old son was killed by the Burmese military. The father’s message to the Pope was not seeking humanitarian relief for despairing refugees, or even justice for his own child, but something else entirely.</p>
<p>“He should say the word as we are, Rohingya,” Mohammed told the Catholic Crux Now. “We have been Rohingya for generations, my father and my grandfather.”</p>
<p>In Dhaka, the Pope attempted to reclaim that missed opportunity.</p>
<p>“The presence of God today is also called Rohingya,” he said.</p> | ‘Say the Word’: What the Rohingya Struggle is Really About | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/12/06/say-the-word-what-the-rohingya-struggle-is-really-about/ | 2017-12-06 | 4 |
<p>BANGKOK, Thailand - What do you get when you add Spanish colonists and Chinese settlers to an island population that already raises swine? A stew of cultures with sublime pork skills.</p>
<p>The Philippines' national dish is lechon, a spit-roasted, suckling pig. And for good reason: it bears the influences of the nation's kaleidoscope of cultural and culinary influences. Lechon is practically mandatory at festive New Year's gatherings, where piglets are lovingly laid out so that revelers can admire their skin, darkened by soy sauce and charcoal flames.</p>
<p>Lechon is pork perfected: the smoky meat is flavored with garlic and lemongrass stuffed inside the pig, the skin is caramelized into a stiff, candied sheet. This is a special occasion food, not your everyday lunch, and Filipinos make lechon the exalted centerpiece of New Year's party feasts.</p>
<p>Sure, there are other Filipino traditions surrounding New Year's celebrations: tossing firecrackers, clanging pots to chase off malicious spirits, stuffing your wallet with cash to boost prosperity. But nothing can compete with the immaculate pleasures of lechon.</p>
<p>DIRECTIONS</p>
<p>Ingredients:</p>
<p>One suckling pig</p>
<p>Soy Sauce</p>
<p>Black Pepper</p>
<p>Salt</p>
<p>Sprite or 7-Up (Optional)</p>
<p>Lemongrass</p>
<p>Peeled bananas</p>
<p>Peeled taro</p>
<p>Garlic</p>
<p>Anise</p>
<p>Slaughter pig, remove innards, scrape off prickly hairs.&#160;Rub salt and pepper on the insides and outsides.&#160;Rub skin with soy sauce.&#160;Stuff belly with garlic, bananas, lemongrass, anise, taro.&#160;Stitch up the belly.&#160;Using bamboo stave, skewer the pig.&#160;Over a bed of burning charcoal, rotate the pig for several hours.&#160;Occasionally glaze skin with sponge soaked in Sprite or 7-Up.&#160;Remove when skin is uniformly crisp.&#160;</p> | Philippines: New Year's Eve Lechon | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-12-20/philippines-new-years-eve-lechon | 2012-12-20 | 3 |
<p><a href="http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2017/09/27/roy-moore-is-my-kind-of-republican/#axzz4u0PNgkNo" type="external">Applesauce</a> - Roy Moore is my kinda Republican!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/09/imho-bolsheviki-lost-causism-is-almost-as-unattractive-as-confederate-lost-causism.html" type="external">Grasping Reality</a> - Bolsheviki Lost Causism pretty annoying too;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.joemygod.com/2017/09/28/louisiana-federal-court-rules-cop-cant-sue-black-lives-matter-theyre-not-entity-sort/" type="external">Joe.My.God</a> - Black Lives Matter not an "entity of any sort ..."</p>
<p><a href="http://eb-misfit.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-fifty-first-state-thanks-to-trump.html" type="external">Just an Earthbound Misfit, I</a> - the 51st state, thanks to Trump;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mahablog.com/2017/09/28/when-lefties-are-their-own-worst-enemies/" type="external">The Mahablog</a> - when lefties are their own worst enemy.</p>
<p>Steve in Manhattan ( <a href="https://twitter.com/blogenfreude" type="external">@blogenfreude</a>) blogs at <a href="https://www.stinque.com/" type="external">stinque.com</a>, and submits his <a href="http://oppositelock.kinja.com/dots-1818972681" type="external">DOTS for today</a>.</p>
<p>Send tips to <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>.</p> | Mike's Blog Round Up | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2017/09/mikes-blog-round-up-9-29-17 | 2017-09-29 | 4 |
<p>In this current cycle, there is a very dangerous <a href="" type="internal">push for gun control</a> and authoritarian government powers in general.</p>
<p>The cronies on Capitol Hill seem to believe that after the federales were once again unsuccessful in stopping a terrorist from going on a <a href="" type="internal">mass shooting spree</a> (despite having interviewed Mateen, and having watched him for a long period of time), that they are entitled to legislate in more power for the federal government and its myriad agencies.</p>
<p>Though the attempt is ridiculous and stands on no principle, it is nonetheless dangerous in its desperation.</p>
<p>Rep. <a href="" type="internal">Charles Rangel</a> has now even gone so far as to say that law-abiding citizens shouldn’t even have guns at all, even as he defended the need for armed guards for Congress:</p>
<p />
<p>As the <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/06/dem-lawmaker-rangel-law-abiding-citizens-just-shouldnt-need-gun-deserve-gun-protection-video/" type="external">Daily Caller</a> reported:</p>
<p>“Law-abiding citizens just shouldn’t have to carry a gun. You’re not gonna push me in that direction,” he said, standing just five feet from a Capitol Police officer, who stood at his post by the House Speaker’s Lobby.</p>
<p>TheDC noted to Rangel he and other members of Congress are protected by armed members of the U.S. Capitol Police.</p>
<p>“Well that’s a little different. I think we deserve–I think we need to be protected down here.”Rangel laughingly insisted.</p>
<p>So in other words, it is just gun control for everybody else who can’t afford personal security guards.</p>
<p>In related episodes of irony and hypocrisy as part of Congress attempted to insist upon gun control via their sit-in stunt, it emerged that Rep. John Lewis, the face of this demand for a “no fly, no buy” list…</p>
<p>… was himself put on the terrorism watchlist by mistake.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/06/23/congressman-pushes-gun-control-for-americans-on-terror-watchlist-that-he-personally-turned-up-on-355758" type="external">BizPacReview</a> reports:</p>
<p>[Rep. John] Lewis may view the no-fly list as a good vehicle for stopping terrorists from getting weapons. But terrorists wouldn’t be the only people hindered by Collins’ proposal. In fact, if such a law had existed a decade ago, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/20/lewis.watchlist/" type="external">Lewis himself</a> would have been victimized by it.</p>
<p>Press accounts from 2004 to 2008 reveal that Lewis’ name somehow ended up on the federal no-fly list, and remained there for years despite his best efforts to get it off. In 2004, he claimed he was stopped 35 to 40 times in a single year by airport personnel who tried to keep him from flying. Presumably, if the “no fly, no gun” law had been in place then, Lewis would have had even more trouble buying a gun than he had getting on a plane.</p>
<p>[…]&#160;Sen. Ted Kennedy and singer&#160;Cat Stevens&#160;also claimed they were mistakenly placed on it. Their experiences illustrate one of the chief criticisms of the no-fly list: That it can limit individual rights while giving individuals very limited power to fight back.</p>
<p>Despite this, they are attempting to shame their opponents as if their gun control had any moral standing, and wasn’t merely a crude instrument for abusive power:</p>
<p />
<p>How can Rep. Lewis escape the fallacy of this dangerous legislation, after it hit home in the first degree and implicated him?</p>
<p>No matter how much he puts on his trademark pout face, Lewis would have lost his rights under “ <a href="" type="internal">no fly, no buy</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>The only difference is that most Americans, who lack the connections afforded to a member of Congress, are denied due process, and often unable to have their names removed from the watchlist.</p>
<p>A disgrace, and for no good reason.</p>
<p>Although the Democrat supporters of gun control are quick to blame the NRA, it is the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/until-no-fly-list-fixed-it-shouldnt-be-used-restrict-peoples-freedoms" type="external">ACLU, typically left-leaning, that has led the way</a> in opposing this&#160;thoroughly Fascist and Orwellian would-be law:</p>
<p>As we will argue to a federal district court in Oregon this Wednesday, the standards for inclusion on the No Fly List are unconstitutionally vague, and innocent people are blacklisted without a fair process to correct government error. Our lawsuit seeks a meaningful opportunity for our clients to challenge their placement on the No Fly List because it is so error-prone and the consequences for their lives have been devastating.</p>
<p>In a world of shadows and false presumption of guilt, the rights of the people are turned upside down. Homeland Security, the FBI, the TSA and all the sting operations in the world haven’t stopped a terrorist. All they can do is blame the remaining freedoms. It isn’t just about the 2nd Amendment, which some misguided fools are so apt to loathe.</p>
<p>Americans in general, should they find themselves blacklisted due to errors in spellings, similar names, vague profiles or, perhaps, revenge by some official on the inside, have little recourse.</p>
<p>Under the proposed legislation, which we should all hope fails soundly,&#160;would have to go to a federal judge to have their name removed from the “no buy” list that would bar an individual’s ability to legally purchase a firearm.</p>
<p>But it still wouldn’t remove that person from the “watchlist” … because that is secret, and no one can tell our watchers not to suspect… that is what they do. It is truly a nightmare out of Kafka’s The Trial.</p>
<p>This is not an exaggeration. California, along with a couple of other states, has now <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/us/california-will-allow-family-members-to-seek-seizure-of-guns.html" type="external">passed legislation allowing the police to confiscate</a> all firearms from an individual, before any crime has been committed, if a member of their family asserts that they are mentally ill or potentially abusive/violent.</p>
<p>After a 30 day mandatory confiscation, the person would have to convince a judge of his worthiness to reclaim the right to self-defense.</p>
<p>These are dangerous times indeed for the rights of all Americans, despite the really silly people who trying to steal them away.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/democrats-whine-about-no-gun-control-as-rep-says-citizens-just-shouldnt-need-a-gun_06232016" type="external">SHTFplan.com</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | Democrat Charles Rangel says Citizens “Just Shouldn’t Need a Gun” while Defending Armed Guards for Congress | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2016/06/24/democrat-charles-rangel-says-citizens-just-shouldnt-need-a-gun-while-defending-armed-guards-for-congress-2/ | 2016-06-24 | 0 |
<p>(Breitbart) – Saturday morning, Big Journalism ran the story of John Dickerson, a CBS News political director, who took to the online pages of Slate to suggest it was time for Obama to “destroy” and “pulverize” the Republican Party.</p>
<p>Today, Dickerson took to the online pages of Slate again, this time to insist we all misunderstood him. His new headline and subtitle say it all:</p>
<p>They Hate Me, They Really Hate Me</p>
<p>Conservatives despise my analysis of Obama’s second-term options. But it was analysis—not advice.</p>
<p>He then writes:</p>
<p>Some people thought I was giving the president my personal advice. No. My goal was to make a compelling argument based on the facts. I used words like “war” and “pulverize,” and some have responded with threats to me and my family. (“Go for his throat!” some have counseled, echoing the headline.) These words have also liberated some correspondents (USUALLY THE ONES THAT TYPE IN ALL CAPS!!!!) from reading the piece or reading it in the spirit in which it was written.</p>
<p>All the left-wing bases are pretty much covered there: Oh, poor me; I’m the misunderstood victim who’s hated and receiving death threats from the wingers.</p>
<p>I honestly believe that one of the Lefts’ primary tactics is to endlessly exhaust us with this kind of relentless tactical nonsense.</p>
<p>If Dickerson was indeed writing analysis, he did an awfully good job ofdisguising it as naked advocacy. Here are the opening paragraphs of Dickerson’s original piece. Please tell me at which point this Obama cheer-leading distinguishes itself as anything nearing objective analysis: [emphasis added]</p>
<p>Go for the Throat!</p>
<p>Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party.</p>
<p>On Monday, President Obama will preside over the grand reopening of his administration. It would be altogether fitting if he stepped to the microphone, looked down the mall, and let out a sigh: so many people expecting so much from a government that appears capable of so little. A second inaugural suggests new beginnings, but this one is being bookended by dead-end debates. Gridlock over the fiscal cliff preceded it and gridlock over the debt limit, sequester, and budget will follow. After the election, the same people are in power in all the branches of government and they don’t get along. There’s no indication that the president’s clashes with House Republicans will end soon.</p>
<p>Inaugural speeches are supposed to be huge and stirring. Presidents haul our heroes onstage, from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. George W. Bush brought the Liberty Bell. They use history to make greatness and achievements seem like something you can just take down from the shelf. Americans are not stuck in the rut of the day.</p>
<p>But this might be too much for Obama’s second inaugural address: After the last four years, how do you call the nation and its elected representatives to common action while standing on the steps of a building where collective action goes to die? That bipartisan bag of tricks has been tried and it didn’t work. People don’t believe it. Congress’ approval rating is 14 percent, the lowest in history. In a December Gallup poll, 77 percent of those asked said the way Washington works is doing “serious harm” to the country.</p>
<p>The challenge for President Obama’s speech is the challenge of his second term: how to be great when the environment stinks. Enhancing the president’s legacy requires something more than simply the clever application of predictable stratagems. Washington’s partisan rancor, the size of the problems facing government, and the limited amount of time before Obama is a lame duck all point to a single conclusion: The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat.</p>
<p>As you can see, any claim that this is analysis, and not opinion, is complete nonsense.</p>
<p>As the portions I’ve highlighted make clear, Dickerson’s entire piece was predicated on his obvious belief that Republicans are the problem, not Obama. All four of those paragraphs are loaded with criticism of the GOP, while Obama is presented as a reasonable man who tried his best to make things work only to find his noble intentions thwarted at every turn.</p>
<p>The love for Obama starts in the next paragraph, as the GOP bashing continues:</p>
<p>President Obama could, of course, resign himself to tending to the achievements of his first term. He’d make sure health care reform is implemented, nurse the economy back to health, and put the military on a new footing after two wars. But he’s more ambitious than that. He ran for president as a one-term senator with no executive experience. In his first term, he pushed for the biggest overhaul of health care possible because, as he told his aides, he wanted to make history. He may already have made it. There’s no question that he is already a president of consequence. But there’s no sign he’s content to ride out the second half of the game in the Barcalounger. He is approaching gun control, climate change, and immigration with wide and excited eyes. He’s not going for caretaker.</p>
<p>How should the president proceed then, if he wants to be bold? The Barack Obama of the first administration might have approached the task by finding some Republicans to deal with and then start agreeing to some of their demands in hope that he would win some of their votes. It’s the traditional approach. Perhaps he could add a good deal more schmoozing with lawmakers, too.</p>
<p>That’s the old way. He has abandoned that. He doesn’t think it will work and he doesn’t have the time. As Obama explained in his last press conference, he thinks the Republicans are dead set on opposing him. They cannot be unchained by schmoozing. Even if Obama were wrong about Republican intransigence, other constraints will limit the chance for cooperation. Republican lawmakers worried about primary challenges in 2014 are not going to be willing partners. He probably has at most 18 months before people start dropping the lame-duck label in close proximity to his name.</p>
<p>“Even if Obama were wrong about Republican intransigence…”</p>
<p>Whatevs.</p>
<p>A look at Dickerson’s previous Slate columns only bolsters the case that he has no business presenting himself on CBS News, or anywhere, as an unbiased political analyst.</p>
<p>But even if Dickerson’s DESTROY THEM! column is analysis, it’s ridiculously biased analysis, and biased only in favor of every premise Obama’s manufactured in his ongoing media/political war with the GOP.</p>
<p>Maybe that’s the problem… Maybe what the corrupt media now considers “objective analysis” is so comfortable in the tank with Obama, that those of us who live in the real world can no longer distinguish between the rantings of the politically bloodthirsty Left and the mainstream media’s idea of analysis.</p>
<p>Because there is no difference.</p>
<p>http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/01/22/CBS-News-Exec-Claims-Pulverize-was-Analysis</p> | CBS News Political Director: ‘Pulverize GOP’ Objective ‘Analysis’ | true | http://teaparty.org/cbs-news-political-director-pulverize-gop-objective-analysis-19053/ | 0 |
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<p>A new political radio ad running in Sacramento this week is claiming that paid signature gatherers are often identity thieves, convicted felons and forgers.</p>
<p>Usually when an ad campaign starts on radio, there is an active political campaign behind it.</p>
<p>However this week when I did a Google search for “Californians Against Identity Theft,” the group which claims responsibility for the ad, nothing popped up. And even this morning when I researched the group, again nothing appeared in the Google searches.</p>
<p>But when I did one more search just after noon today, a new&#160; <a href="http://californiansagainstidentitytheft.org/default.htm" type="external">website</a> popped up for “Californians Against Identity Theft,” claiming that ballot initiatives lead to ballot fraud, and identity theft. “Ballot fraud is any attempt to mislead voters or qualify a ballot measure in a way that skirts the rules,” the website states.&#160;“This includes misleading ballot titles, fake signatures, or people gathering signatures who aren’t allowed to do so.”</p>
<p>The radio ad features a woman telling her husband that pushy signature gatherers at the grocery story successfully convinced her to sign a petition. Her husband tells her that she should not have signed the petition because paid signature gatherers move from state to state stealing identities.&#160;“The Legislature&#160;called it an identity theft starter kit. Now we really need to watch our bank statements and credit information,” the husband says.</p>
<p>“That’s it, I’m not singing any more petitions. I guess the lesson here is not to give our name and address to anyone we don’t know,” replies the woman.</p>
<p>A brief <a href="http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/07/identity-of-new-identity-theft.html" type="external">story</a>&#160;in the Sacramento Bee today reported that a website for the group was launched today, after they published the story about the ads. “Update 11:36 a.m.: A website for the group has been launched&#160; <a href="http://californiansagainstidentitytheft.org/default.htm" type="external">at this lin</a>k.”&#160;</p>
<p>“The group does not appear to have any ties to legitimate organizations dedicated to protecting consumers from identity theft, ” reports the Bee. A representative of Common Cause&#160;said he could not think of a situation where identity theft occurred from signing an petition and added &#160;that the ad “sounded like an attempt to ‘provoke a fear’ to discourage people from signing petitions.”</p>
<p>A search of the Secretary of State’s <a href="http://californiansagainstidentitytheft.org/default.htm" type="external">website</a> did not find any ballot measures sponsored by “Californians Against Identity Theft.”</p>
<p>But there have been many attempts to end the ballot initiative process. Currently,&#160; <a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/AB_651/20112012/" type="external">Assembly Bill 651</a>(Hueso), would require any firm that uses paid signature gatherers for petition circulation, register with the Secretary of State and pay a registration fee. The bill made its way through the Assembly already, and was&#160;recently amended in the Senate twice ( <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0651-0700/ab_651_bill_20110711_amended_sen_v95.pdf" type="external">latest version</a>&#160;of the bill). The bill currently awaits a floor vote.</p>
<p>Another bill attempting to alter the initiative process was AB 6 (Saldana) from 2009, which would also have required&#160;petition firms to register with the Secretary of state and pay a&#160;fee. In the veto message of AB 6, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said,&#160;“The people of California often exercise&#160;their important role in government oversight through the&#160;initiative, referendum and recall process. I cannot support a&#160;measure that places an undue burden on reform-minded&#160;Californians.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/billtrack/analysis.html?aid=235452" type="external">SB 68</a> (Corbett) will “prohibit a person from paying another person, or being&#160;paid based on the number of signatures obtained on an&#160;initiative, referendum, or recall petition.” Democratic Sen. Ellen Corbett (San Leandro) said, “Some signature&#160;gathering firms compensate circulators based on the number of&#160;signatures they collect. Some circulators reach the deadline&#160;to qualify initiatives by illegally misinforming voters and forging names. Others have forged signatures onto their&#160;petitions by copying names they chose from a phonebook.&#160;Lastly, some have inserted carbon paper and a second petition&#160;behind the original one in order to collect signatures.”&#160; SB 68 already made it through the Legislature and awaits the governor’s signature.”</p>
<p>The radio ad should arouse plenty of suspicion. This is one bill to watch closely, as well as the suspicious ad campaign, as it is using identity theft as a cover to alter the ballot initiative process and ultimately limit voter access.</p>
<p>(Listen to the ad <a href="http://californiansagainstidentitytheft.org/RadioAd.mp3" type="external">here</a>)</p>
<p>JULY 29, 2011</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Thieving Signature Gatherers | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2011/07/29/thieving-signature-gatherers/ | 2018-07-20 | 3 |
<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. Navy says it only received a radio message from Iranian naval vessels about an ongoing Iranian exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, countering Tehran claims of a tense encounter between the two fleets.</p>
<p>Lt. Chloe Morgan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, says an American warship in the Gulf of Oman heard the message on Monday.</p>
<p>Morgan said on Tuesday that the American vessel “continued to execute its mission and did not alter operations as a result of the radio transmission.”</p>
<p>Iranian media had alleged its navy either “warned off” or fired “warning shots” at Saudi or American vessels during an ongoing two-day annual drill in the strait.</p>
<p>The U.S. Navy and Iranian forces routinely have tense encounters in the Persian Gulf.</p>
<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. Navy says it only received a radio message from Iranian naval vessels about an ongoing Iranian exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, countering Tehran claims of a tense encounter between the two fleets.</p>
<p>Lt. Chloe Morgan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, says an American warship in the Gulf of Oman heard the message on Monday.</p>
<p>Morgan said on Tuesday that the American vessel “continued to execute its mission and did not alter operations as a result of the radio transmission.”</p>
<p>Iranian media had alleged its navy either “warned off” or fired “warning shots” at Saudi or American vessels during an ongoing two-day annual drill in the strait.</p>
<p>The U.S. Navy and Iranian forces routinely have tense encounters in the Persian Gulf.</p> | US Navy says it received Iran broadcast about naval exercise | false | https://apnews.com/46dcb884fc7b4a2685fd8f568cfac155 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p>Getty Images</p>
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Andrew Kugle</a> June 12, 2017 1:00 pm</p>
<p>Rep.&#160;Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) proposed an article of impeachment on Monday.</p>
<p>Sherman <a href="https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/874298266271219712" type="external">introduced</a>the article because he believed President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice. After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html" type="external">reported</a>&#160;about Comey's memo&#160;detailing conversations he had with Trump. The memo claimed&#160;that&#160;Trump asked Comey to pledge loyalty and&#160;said&#160;he hoped Comey could "let go" of the investigation into Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.</p>
<p>Comey <a href="" type="internal">testified</a>before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week to confirm the details of the New York Times report.&#160;Comey <a href="" type="internal">refused</a>to comment on whether Trump committed obstruction of justice, and Trump <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/09/trump-james-comey-hearing-reaction-239361" type="external">denied</a>&#160;Comey's version of events and accused the former FBI director of lying.</p>
<p>Sherman's resolution is asserting&#160;that Trump interfered&#160;with the investigation into Flynn and sought to hinder the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Sherman outlined the pattern of behavior he believed would prove that&#160;Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice.</p>
<p>(1) 1) Requesting that the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation curtail the investigation of the activities of General Michael Flynn under circumstances wherein it appeared that the Director Comey might be terminated if he failed to adhere to such request.</p>
<p>(2) Making a determination to terminate the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and only thereafter requesting that the Deputy Attorney General provide him with a memorandum detailing inadequacies in the Director's performance of his duties.</p>
<p>(3) Despite offering differing rationales for the termination of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, admitted subsequently that the main reason for the termination was that the Director would not close or alter the investigation of matters related to the involvement of Russia in the 2016 campaign for President of the United States.</p> | Dem Congressman Proposes Article of Impeachment for Trump | true | http://freebeacon.com/politics/dem-congressman-proposes-article-impeachment/ | 2017-06-12 | 0 |
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<p>FILE - In this Thursday, June 25, 2015, file photo, a worker paints the ribs of the World Trade Center transportation hub, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, in New York. U.S. construction spending jumped in October, fueled by solid gains in home building and the largest increase in federal construction in nine years, according to the Commerce Department, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON - U.S. construction spending jumped in October, fueled by solid gains in home building and the largest increase in federal construction in nine years.</p>
<p>The Commerce Department said Tuesday that construction spending rose 1 percent in October from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of more than $1.1 trillion. That's the highest level since December 2007 when the Great Recession began.</p>
<p>More Americans are buying new homes or renting apartments, driving greater residential development. And federal, state and local governments, spurred partly by greater tax revenue, are building more roads and schools. Construction spending has increased 13 percent in the past 12 months.</p>
<p>The construction of single-family homes and apartments climbed 1 percent in October, also reaching their highest level since December 2007. Manufacturers boosted their construction spending by 3 percent. And federal government building soared 19.2 percent, the biggest increase since October 2006.</p>
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<p>Americans are staying in rental apartments for longer, rather than buying a home. That spurred a nearly 28 percent jump in apartment and condo construction in October from a year earlier. Nearly a third of buildings completed so far this year were apartments and condos, compared to just 27 percent before the recession began in late 2007.</p>
<p>At the same time, low mortgage rates and three years of solid job gains have boosted home sales, including purchases of new homes, which have jumped more than 15 percent year-to-date compared with last year.</p>
<p>That boosted construction spending on single-family homes 1.6 percent in October and 11.4 percent in the past year.</p>
<p>Public construction of schools, highways and other infrastructure rose 1.4 percent in October to its highest level in five years. It has risen 6.6 percent in the last 12 months.</p> | US construction spending rises to highest level in 8 years | false | https://abqjournal.com/683801/us-construction-spending-rises-to-highest-level-in-8-years.html | 2015-12-01 | 2 |
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<p>If you want help guiding your financial future, seeking out the assistance of a financial adviser may be a good idea.&#160; But finding the right financial adviser may be a challenge.&#160; There are more than 200,000 financial advisers in the U.S. and making the wrong choice could cost you thousands of dollars, if not more.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Analysts say the industry is plagued with conflicts of interest.&#160; Some financial advisers are brokers, meaning they probably work for an investment firm and may get financial incentives to sell the firm’s products.&#160; Other financial advisers may receive additional consulting fees from mutual fund companies if they sell certain funds to clients.&#160; Some advisers may also brand their own funds and charge clients additional fees. &#160;</p>
<p>“The common business practices among advisers are often to put people into actively managed mutual funds with excessive fees or to offer other kinds of financial products that are lucrative for the adviser but that are not valuable for the individual investor,” says Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago and author of “The Index Card.”</p>
<p>One way to avoid conflicts of interest is to make sure the adviser is a fiduciary or someone who is legally required to act in the best interest of the client, says Peter Mallouk of Creative Planning.&#160; Mallouk has topped Barron’s list of top independent advisers for the past three years. &#160;</p>
<p>“They have to act in the best interest of the client,”&#160; Mallouk says.&#160; “When you have a job, you want to choose the one that is best for you.&#160; You choose a partner in life, you want to choose the one that you think will be the best for you. &#160; Why do you lower the standard when you are handing everything you ever worked for to an adviser? I think everyone should be working with a fiduciary.”</p>
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<p>Mallouk says it is critical for investors to do their research and ask the right questions when choosing a financial adviser. &#160;Here are some of his tips:</p>
<p>Avoid commissions and stick to fees.&#160; Mallouk says commissions could open the door to conflicts of interest, making fees a better alternative. &#160; He says make sure to understand each fee and how the adviser is getting paid.&#160; At most, an adviser should be making 1.25 percent.&#160; He says anything above that is a deal breaker.&#160; Keep in mind, if you invest more than $1 million, the fee could drop by as much as 40 percent.</p>
<p>Make sure the adviser is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP).&#160; CFP is a credential awarded by the CFP Board and means the adviser has passed rigorous tests on all aspects of financial planning.&#160; There are lots of industry designations but Mallouk says CFP is the main standard.</p>
<p>Generally, avoid brokers if possible since many are tied to investment firms and may pose conflicts of interest, Mallouk says.&#160; He recommends visiting <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__finra.org&amp;d=CwMFaQ&amp;c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&amp;r=GRqff5l5MHpejHoKHot8Gp2SY_ZPxrunht950uhDnYCPYyIIU0YyzTG5vMXJEgC6&amp;m=kfiIgAeCeLRoANH8u8YQQWg9-FhWi0c1sBaq2b0pFVI&amp;s=VopvKjjLBJQ-3v7ceHNi51LyGbvtS8pY_seA6bqAmnc&amp;e=" type="external">finra.org Opens a New Window.</a> and using the BrokerCheck function to find background information and disclosures.</p>
<p>Find an adviser who has the experience to handle market swings. Mallow says choose an adviser with at least 10 years of professional experience who manages at least $300 million.&#160; &#160;He also recommends investors be weary of advisers who guarantee specific annual returns.</p>
<p>Some financial advisers may shy away from investors with assets below $50,000. &#160; In this case, consider getting advice from an adviser on an hourly basis.&#160; Check out <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__cfp.net&amp;d=CwMFaQ&amp;c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&amp;r=GRqff5l5MHpejHoKHot8Gp2SY_ZPxrunht950uhDnYCPYyIIU0YyzTG5vMXJEgC6&amp;m=kfiIgAeCeLRoANH8u8YQQWg9-FhWi0c1sBaq2b0pFVI&amp;s=nwlzjYKCSc7hs9-fS7jPWDHtnR2qIP2wk1rWbBDRQYY&amp;e=" type="external">cfp.net Opens a New Window.</a> and <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__garrettplanningnetwork.com&amp;d=CwMFaQ&amp;c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&amp;r=GRqff5l5MHpejHoKHot8Gp2SY_ZPxrunht950uhDnYCPYyIIU0YyzTG5vMXJEgC6&amp;m=kfiIgAeCeLRoANH8u8YQQWg9-FhWi0c1sBaq2b0pFVI&amp;s=_1mUIZA1sfZA6LWKfKSz8q9RW6Piehs0CF-eOjhW77g&amp;e=" type="external">garrettplanningnetwork.com Opens a New Window.</a> to find advisers in your area who charge by the hour.</p>
<p>In a move to protect investors, the Labor Department has drafted new rules that require advisers to be fiduciaries when giving retirement advice.&#160; They will have to disclose conflicts of interest when recommending products and act in the best interest of their clients when providing advice on individual retirement accounts. The rules, however, do not apply to taxable accounts and the new rules will not go into effect until April of 2017.</p>
<p>Once the rules are implemented, Pollack says individual investors may have to pay more up front whereas fees were likely hidden in the past.&#160; “It will be disruptive for people but I think in the long run, it’s a good thing.&#160; We need this industry, it needs to exist with a business model and regulatory framework that protects the ordinary investor and right now the competitive equilibrium in the industry doesn’t do that adequately,” he says.</p> | Is Your Financial Advisor Conflict Free? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/04/07/is-your-financial-advisor-conflict-free.html | 2016-04-08 | 0 |
<p>Video posted online last week appears to show a Dutch woman’s webcam being remotely controlled by hackers.</p>
<p>Rilana Hamer, who recently purchased the internet-connected device to monitor and speak with her dog from work, posted footage to Facebook Saturday showing the hacker’s speaking through and moving the device.</p>
<p />
<p>“For a moment, I thought I was going crazy,” Hamer said, according to a translation of her social media post. “I come home and do my daily things. Shopping and cleaning these up, singing through your house… until you hear something mess in the living room.”</p>
<p>Upon entering the living room, Hamer says she then noticed the webcam moving, initially assuming the device was updating itself before a voice suddenly emerged.</p>
<p>“All of a sudden, I hear a rumble… I’m going crazy?! No…” Hamer said. “I walked there, the camera turned my way, and I heard, ‘Bonjour madame.'”</p>
<p>Hamer says the camera followed her left and right and continue talking to her in French.</p>
<p>“I ran to the camera, pulled the plug and threw it in a box… I was full of fear and thought I was going crazy,” the woman added. “I’m being watched, but for how long? What did that person see from me? My house, my personal effects…”</p>
<p>“In 1 minutes, it was hit…” Hamer noted.</p>
<p>The unknown hacker’s final comments to the woman included numerous profanities and lewd remarks.</p>
<p>“We pulled the plug and put the camera back in the box… Crying, upset…” Hamer said. “My privacy, my house, my personal stuff and myself… I’m scared… terrified.”</p>
<p>Although it’s unclear how the hackers compromised the camera, internet-connected devices often use the same username and password across models and fail to receive security updates.</p>
<p>Got a tip? Contact Mikael securely: <a href="https://keybase.io/mikaelthalen" type="external">keybase.io/mikaelthalen</a>;</p> | Watch: Hackers Speak to Woman Over Compromised Webcam | true | https://infowars.com/watch-hackers-speak-to-woman-over-compromised-webcam/ | 2017-10-06 | 0 |
<p>Most Republicans doubt Darwin. Republicans are far more likely to doubt the theory of evolution than Democrats, a new Gallup Poll revealed. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans say they doubt humans evolved from lower life forms over millions of years; only 40 percent of Democrats hold the view. In a separate Gallup poll this May, respondents were asked to choose between three hypotheses about human origin and development. Just 14 percent believed God had no part in the process, while 43 percent believed God created man in present form. A full 38 percent took a centrist view, affirming that man evolved but God guided the process. The poll also found a correlation between church attendance and belief in evolution. Those who seldom or never attend church are three times more likely to be evolutionists than those who attend church weekly. (RNS)</p>
<p>Bishop urges three-minute Sabbath in transit. An Anglican bishop has asked thousands of British rail commuters to spend a few minutes each day doing precisely nothing. To help them keep track of the three minutes of stress-beating silence he was urging upon them, Stephen Cottrell handed out miniature egg timers—which he called the “gift of time”—to travelers as they rushed by him at the train station. “By learning to sit still, slow down, by discerning when to shut up and when to speak out, you learn to travel through life differently,” Cottrell said. The cleric took his cue from a recent study by Britain's University of Hertfordshire that found the walking speeds in 32 cities around the world had increased by 10 percent over the past decade. (RNS)</p>
<p>Ministry seeks to make fishers of men. Ed Trainer takes men and boys out fishing on the waters of British Columbia, Alaska and beyond to teach them about God. His group, International Fishing Ministries, rose up out of Trainer's passion for fishing, his frustration with traditional worship and statistics suggesting women populate most church pews. “Church is too boring for men,” Trainer said. “Church is set up like a country club for women. For me, after five minutes of a sermon, I'm off in my mind fishing on some stream somewhere. … We decided to go out into God's creation, pointing men to a Christian experience through fishing.” Trainer figures about 10 to 15 percent of the men who go fishing with him make a lasting faith commitment to Jesus Christ. (RNS)</p>
<p>Twins provide unique perspective on cell debate. When President Bush vetoed a bill June 20 that would have provided federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, Mike and Nicole Bell of Traverse City, Mich., rejoiced. The Bells have two children, 17-month-old twins Michael and Paige, born via a relatively new method called embryo adoption. Michael and Paige once were so-called leftover embryos, stored frozen in a lab—the same type of embryos many scientists want to use for research. The Bells adopted Michael and Paige as embryos through the National Embryo Donation Center (embryodonation.org), a Knoxville, Tenn.-based organization that works to promote both embryo donation and adoption. The nonprofit center stores embryos donated from couples who have undergone In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and then matches those same embryos with infertile couples. (BP)</p> | FAITH DIGEST | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/faithdigest-75/ | 3 |
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<p>A gas well on the Payne lease, operated by Vantage Energy, burns during a thunderstorm after severe weather and lightning moved across North Texas, Thursday, May 7, 2015, in Denton, Texas. (David Minton/The Denton Record-Chronicle via AP)</p>
<p>DENTON, Texas - A natural gas well fire in North Texas has been put out as authorities try to determine whether lightning sparked the blaze.</p>
<p>Denton city spokeswoman Lindsey Baker says firefighters extinguished the blaze early Friday. Nobody was hurt.</p>
<p>Baker says authorities received word of the well fire shortly before 10 p.m. CDT Thursday. Storms were in the area at the time.</p>
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<p>She says eyewitness reports indicate a lightning strike may have started the fire, which burned more than four hours before being put out.</p>
<p>Fire department officials monitored air quality at the site.</p> | No injuries in natural gas well fire in Denton, blaze out | false | https://abqjournal.com/581433/no-injuries-in-natural-gas-well-fire-in-denton-blaze-out.html | 2 |
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<p>NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market is ending lower after Visa and Amazon posted disappointing results.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 123 points, 0.7 percent, to close at 16,960 Friday. The Standard &amp; Poor's 500 index fell nine points, or 0.5 percent, to end at 1,978. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 22 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,449.</p>
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<p>Amazon's stock slumped $34.60, or 9.6 percent, to $324.01 after the online retail giant posted a wider loss than analysts had forecast. The stock slid the most in the S&amp;P 500 index.</p>
<p>The Dow was dragged down by Visa, which fell $7.97, or 3.6 percent, to $214.77. The credit card processing giant reported an 11 percent rise in quarterly profit but cut its full-year forecast on concerns about overseas growth.</p> | Earnings Results Weigh on Wall Street | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/07/25/earnings-results-weigh-on-wall-street.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>I saw this sign as I was entering Nablus last week, again on my way to Ramallah, and again near Bethlehem.&#160; The phrase is printed in Hebrew, presumably by Israeli settlers, on huge signs throughout the West Bank.&#160; Israeli racism rarely shocks me anymore, but its blatant display still makes me stop and catch my breath as I translate it into other contexts.&#160; Imagine driving through the middle of a predominantly black neighborhood in a US city or town and seeing a enormous sign that says, “The war is with the Blacks.”</p>
<p>I think about security.&#160; Israel’s abuse of the word has rendered the concept almost meaningless in the region, but the importance of security on individual and communal levels cannot be underestimated. However, most discussions I see in the media about security ignore the Palestinian people’s right to security.&#160; “The war is with the Arabs” is a new sign, as far as I know, but for years in the West Bank I have seen stars of David scrawled on Palestinian shops and homes, and signs like “Death to Arabs” and “Kahane was right” (Kahane was an extremist political leader who promoted ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people; this sign is essentially equivalent to “Hitler was right” in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood).</p>
<p>But signs are not only created; they are also destroyed.&#160; Since 1948, Palestinian people inside Israel have experienced erasure and denial of their identities that is perhaps stronger than that of any other group of Palestinian people.&#160; I visited a friend in Lyd last week who lives on Giborai Yisrael (“Heroes of Israel”) Street.&#160; Driving around the Palestinian neighborhoods in Lyd, we passed roads bearing the names of Herzl, Jabotinsky, and other Zionist leaders.&#160; None of the old Arabic street names remain.&#160; Even large cities with considerable Palestinian populations are now seeing Arabic names officially erased from signs.&#160; In Arabic script, “Yaffa” will become “Yafo,” “Nasra” will become “Natzeret,” and “Al Quds” will become “Yerushalayim.”</p>
<p>Lack of security goes beyond denial of identity and history as visually expressed through signs.&#160; A Palestinian friend with Israeli citizenship told me he has heard a rumor that a huge piece of land in Jordan is being cleared and built up for the eventual arrival of the Palestinian population of Israel after they are transferred from their homes.&#160; “It may be conspiracy theory,” he said, “but I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“I’d like to think that Israel couldn’t get away with that,” I responded.</p>
<p>“Of course they can,” another friend from Lyd said, “and if the conditions are right, they will.”</p>
<p>Imagine living day to day thinking you might be expelled from your country in the near future.&#160; Or in Gaza, wondering if you will be killed tomorrow, or if you will ever be able to come in and out of your country at will.&#160; Or in the West Bank, if your son will be arrested, or if you will be able to get through the checkpoint in the morning to get to work.&#160; Or in Jerusalem, if your residency will be stripped or your house destroyed.</p>
<p>Imagine little correlation between choice and consequence, an arbitrary relationship between cause and effect.&#160; If you are just as likely to get shot and killed sipping tea in your doorway, or sitting in your fourth grade classroom, or participating in a demonstration, or joining the armed resistance, is it any surprise that some choose each?</p>
<p>A friend of mine from the West Bank once told me that she never feels safe, so safety is not a consideration for her in making decisions. As much as I may try, I cannot truly imagine this lack of control.</p>
<p>I met a woman in Jerusalem who was displaced from her home by settlers, physically removed from her house by dozens of Israeli soldiers in the middle of the night.&#160; Twice a refugee (1948 and 2008), Um Kamel currently lives in a tent near her house that has been destroyed and re-pitched six times in the past six months.&#160; This is perhaps the height of insecurity, yet Um Kamel stays strong and determined.&#160; Many in Palestine would call it sumoud, or steadfastness.</p>
<p>This kind of strength is seen remarkably often in Palestine, and indicates a deeper security that comes in part from faith.&#160; Faith in God, sometimes, but also faith in each other, in the justice of one’s cause, in the tide of history that has shown that no single occupation in Palestine lasts forever.&#160; This, of course, is also Israel’s deepest fear.&#160; That no matter how many walls they build, how many people they imprison, how many homes they destroy, how many signs they erase, and how many people they expel, true security will remain elusive, and eventually, Zionism will fail.&#160; As many older Palestinian people have said to me, with security, “We have lived through many occupations. This too shall pass.”</p>
<p>HANNAH MERMELSTEIN is co-founder of Birthright Unplugged and Students Boycott Apartheid.&#160; She lives in Brooklyn, NY and works with the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel and the Palestine Education Project. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | "The War is With the Arabs" | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/07/24/quot-the-war-is-with-the-arabs-quot/ | 2009-07-24 | 4 |
<p>Adobe Systems Inc. shares rose in late trading Thursday after the software company reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and sales. The maker of software like Photoshop and Illustrator reported profit of $398.5 million, or 80 cents a share, on revenue of $1.68 billion for its fiscal first quarter. After adjustments for stock-based compensation and other factors, the company claimed profit of 94 cents a share. Analysts polled by FactSet on average expected Adobe to report adjusted earnings of 87 cents a share, on par with Adobe's guidance, on sales of $1.65 billion. Adobe stock, which hit record intraday and closing prices in Thursday's regular trading session, rose more than 3% in after-hours action following the report's release.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Adobe Shares Rise As Earnings Beat Expectations | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/16/adobe-shares-rise-as-earnings-beat-expectations.html | 2017-03-17 | 0 |
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<p>In a study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers called for cheetahs’ conservation status to be raised to “endangered,” to reflect their low numbers and stave off further declines.</p>
<p>“Given the secretive nature of this elusive cat, it has been difficult to gather hard information on the species, leading to its plight being overlooked,’ lead author Sarah Durant, a researcher at the Zoological Society of London and the Wildlife Conservation Society, said in a statement. “Our findings show that the large space requirements for the cheetah, coupled with the complex range of threats faced by the species in the wild, mean that it is likely to be much more vulnerable to extinction than was previously thought.”</p>
<p>Cheetahs, the fastest animals on land, require home ranges that can span thousands of miles. Their habitat once extended across Africa all the way to southwestern Asia. But it has been fragmented by humans, and the population is divided as a result. This splintered existence makes survival even more difficult for animals; without genetic diversity from breeding with unrelated animals, each fragile group becomes even more vulnerable to disease, food shortages and environmental change.</p>
<p>Of the 7,100 cheetahs estimated by the study, there is one relatively healthy group of about 4,000 living across six countries in southern Africa. Then there are about 1,000 in the Serengeti, plus clusters as big as 200 and as small as 10 scattered across a few dozen pockets of protected habitat. The species has been all but wiped out in Asia – just 50 still live in Iran.</p>
<p>More than 75 percent of the cheetah’s range is not part of a protected area, and that makes it difficult to ensure their safety – or even figure out how many of the creatures are still alive. Though governments are required to keep track of cheetahs within national parks, there is little data on the number of animals outside them. But the animals’ extensive ranges mean they’re constantly roving past the reach of protections afforded them on public lands. Beyond these borders, cheetahs risk run-ins with humans: They may be slain to protect livestock, struck by cars, or hunted for sale on the black market, where a cub might fetch as much as $10,000, according to the BBC.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The study authors say it’s time for a “paradigm shift” in thinking about cheetah conservation. National parks can provide only so much protection – and try explaining the concept of borders to a cat. Instead of focusing on protected areas, “we must think bigger, conserving across the mosaic of protected and unprotected landscapes that these far-ranging cats inhabit,” said Kim Young-Overton, director of the cheetah program at the conservation group Panthera.</p>
<p>The effort to count the population in Zimbabwe, which consists of no more than 170 animals, offers an example of this kind of “big thinking.” A group called Conservation Project Zimbabwe sought cheetah photographs and reports of sightings from tourists and safari guides and interviewed thousands of village leaders and ranchers to arrive at that number – which represents a decline of almost 90 percent since the start of the millennium.</p>
<p>Working across this “mosaic” landscape will enable researchers to get a firmer idea of where cheetah populations really stand. A model developed by Durant and her colleagues to simulate the effects of the current rate of decline – about 10 percent per year in unprotected populations – suggested that the world could lose half of its remaining cheetahs in 15 years. And that’s a conservative estimate; it doesn’t take into account the effects of habitat fragmentation.</p>
<p>“It’s a timely paper,” Yeneneh Teka, who used to work at the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority and is now at the U.S. State Department, told the Atlantic. “It should help to alert policymakers that the cheetah population is declining and measures have to be in place to save those outside protected areas.”</p> | Cheetahs are racing toward extinction | false | https://abqjournal.com/917761/cheetahs-are-racing-toward-extinction.html | 2 |
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<p>Capital’s most severe crisis in seventy years ought to be a moment of significant opportunity for the left. But as the right mobilizes disgruntled Americans via its vast radio, television, web, and print empires, the one mass medium available to the left—Pacifica Radio—is driving out its best and brightest. A network that has the potential to reach a quarter of the US public is opting for irrelevant and unlistenable programming at a time when competent and genuinely radical journalism is urgently needed, and justifying its warped choice with the Thatcherite mantra: there is no alternative.</p>
<p>In two previous dispatches to CounterPunch <a href="" type="internal">here</a> and <a href="" type="internal">here</a> &#160;I described the pathological state of Pacifica’s byzantine governance structure – a national board containing 122 members, baroque bylaws, and vastly expensive and corrupt local board elections. The chief result has been the ascendancy of&#160;a kind of Tea Party of the left, featuring ex-Scientologists, miracle cure hucksters, and conspiracists who believe that Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!, Pacifica’s premier program, is taking CIA money to suppress “the truth about 9/11”. Add to that an austerity plan to stick it to the workers, right out of the Thatcher/Sarkozy playbook, and you have Pacifica Radio in 2010.</p>
<p>Under cover of budget cuts, the Mad Hats who control the Pacifica National Board are seeking to dispense with those who oppose their conspiracy-driven agenda—or simply strive for well-produced, quality radio. The axe has fallen first on WBAI’s acclaimed ‘Behind the News’, an island of lucid analysis in the mass media swamp, hosted by the economic journalist Doug Henwood, author of Wall Street and publisher of Left Business Observer. In the midst of a gathering emergency, the brains trust at WBAI decided that Henwood’s program, which provides some of the best economic analysis anywhere, should be cut to twice a month. Henwood tendered his resignation, blasting the swerve &#160;towards “chem-trails and footpads and 9/11 nuttery”. A day later the vitamin supplements mogul Gary Null, notorious for his claim that HIV does not cause AIDS, announced that he would be returning to the airwaves of WBAI on November 15th. (ACT UP wrote to Pacifica that “returning Gary Null to the air for financial reasons would be unethical profiteering, because he gives out information that can cause people to become infected with HIV or fail to treat the infection properly.”)</p>
<p>The Mad Hats are now focusing on the flagship station of the Pacifica network, KPFA in the San Francisco Bay Area, which thus far has been mainly free of such conspiracism and snake oil. Three members of the Pacifica National Board have drawn up a list of their staff enemies to be fired, which includes the majority of the workers at some of the most successful programs, in terms of listenership and fundraising, on KPFA’s air: the Morning Show, the noon program of radical ideas Against the Grain, and the Evening News. Against the Grain host Sasha Lilley’s fate was apparently sealed when she interviewed me about my CounterPunch article on why the Pacifica board system had cost more than $2.4 million dollars since 2002 and why it needed to be replaced. Those at the top of Pacifica were incensed and demanded her firing.</p>
<p>Laying off these workers would not only violate KPFA’s contract with the Communications Workers of America. It would seriously compromise the solvency of what has been the most financially successful station in the network. KPFA has historically subsidized the other four Pacifica stations, and has financed and executed some of the most groundbreaking reportage, from the McCarthy era to the Free Speech Movement to the Iran-Contra investigations to, recently, the latter-day Winter Soldier hearings.</p>
<p>At KPFA, the union and local management have come up with an alternative menu of cuts, so that the station can balance its budget while preserving the ability to produce high quality programming. The cuts focus on KPFA’s parent organization Pacifica itself, whose bureaucracy has become an enormous financial drain on the five stations. In spite of the tough economic times, KPFA raises enough money to pay for itself—it just doesn’t raise enough money to pay for Pacifica as well. Pacifica is demanding the station hand over $800,000 of KPFA listeners’ money in the coming fiscal year and has flatly refused to make any of the recommended cuts. The Pacifica National Board refuses to reduce the number of its famously expensive—and dysfunctional, as a search of YouTube can attest—quarterly board meetings. KPFA’s union has asked Pacifica’s executive director, Arlene Engelhardt, to disclose her own salary (which should be a matter of public record) but she has refused. Austerity is just for the workers, after all.</p>
<p>In the place of programs of journalistic integrity and serious intellectual inquiry, KPFA listeners only have to look to WBAI to imagine what the sound of their radio station will soon be: programs about the Illuminati, microchips used for mind-control, and neo-populist goldbuggery. And all because “there is no alternative” but to cut experienced journalists and union jobs.</p>
<p>If I’ve invoked Lewis Carroll more than Lewis Hill (the syndicalist founder and guiding spirit of Pacifica) in this dispatch – it’s because there is truly a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party feel about some of the current proceedings. But it is at the same time terribly serious, and not simply for the station workers whose livelihoods are threatened. Let’s remind ourselves of what is at stake. The network has the signal power to reach one fourth of the population of the United States – that’s an extraordinary earprint. Don’t believe those who glibly assert that terrestrial radio is old school and a dying medium. The money men don’t believe it – that’s why the WBAI license, in the wake of the great privatizing grab of Clinton’s 1996 Telecommunications Act, was being appraised at a staggering $250 million. And the same goes for KPFA, which pumps out more than 50,000 watts over Northern California.</p>
<p>Make no mistake, Pacifica remains a vital space for dissenting and antinomian voices in the United States. If this network is lost, it is inconceivable that the Left could ever get such a chance again. It was, after all, only an accident that the conscientious objectors and poets who instigated the network were given a license to broadcast at all. Following the catastrophe of a global war, the founding Pacificans in 1946 recognized that the hand letter-press and the Gestetner duplicating machine were not adequate to the task of communicating beyond the confines of a small coterie of war resisters, anarcho-pacifists and bohemians in Berkeley and San Francisco. They dreamed of what Dwight Macdonald called “big effects”. They hoped to broadcast, for example, to the communities around the naval base of Oakland and the dockyards of Richmond, using&#160;AM radio. The state refused them access to the powerful and dominant medium of AM, but they were granted an FM license, mainly because frequency modulation was a novel technology then in its infancy. Virtually nobody had a receiver in those pioneering post-war years; Lewis Hill even gave away sets to the first subscribers. Few foresaw how extraordinarily valuable public access to the FM spectrum would eventually become. This precious resource, held in trust by the foundation, is not only being squandered, but is now mortally endangered.</p>
<p>To those who would say there is no alternative to cuts or to the dominance of the mainstream media, I would answer, yes, there is indeed an alternative. Radio must be put first over a delusional, power-hungry bureaucracy and a governance system run amok. Crackpot electoralism has allowed the will of ten of thousands of listeners and subscribers to be thwarted by candidates whose mandate rests upon as few as two hundred votes. A plurality of 2 per cent! How did this absurd situation come to pass? Abstractly committed to democracy but too bored to vote in a relentless train of mind-numbing elections, thousands of dedicated supporters of Pacifica will wake up this month to find their favorite programs inexplicably decimated, while their putative representatives, parading the mantle of “community”, continue to spend millions of dollars of listener pledges on yet more board meetings and ballotry.</p>
<p>The only hope for the long term health of Pacifica is to scrap as soon as possible the fatally flawed governance structure and start over. This means collecting approximately 800 signatures of current subscribers, that is, one percent of the membership, to begin the process of revising the bylaws. A national “Salvage Pacifica” campaign must be initiated as the immediate priority. So once again I invite concerned readers and the silent majority of actual listeners to contact <a href="http://us.mc541.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>, and the business of reconstitution can begin.</p>
<p>“The crisis”, Antonio Gramsci wrote from Mussolini’s prisons, “consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” We’ve seen the morbid symptoms on display. It’s time to move ahead to rescue—and revitalize—this invaluable resource for the left.</p>
<p>Iain Boal is a social historian of science and technics, and co-author of Retort’s Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (Verso). He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p /> | Crisis at Pacifica | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/11/04/crisis-at-pacifica/ | 2010-11-04 | 4 |
<p>It’s been nearly 18 months since the disastrous nuclear meltdown at Fukushima.&#160; There have been many reports on the huge amounts of radioactivity escaping into the air and water, unusually high levels in air, water, and soil – along with atypically high levels of toxic chemicals in food – that actually “passed” government inspection and wasn’t banned like some other food.</p>
<p>Conspicuously absent are reports on effects of radiation exposure on the health of the Japanese people.&#160; Have any health officials publicly announced post-March 2011 numbers on fetal deaths, infant deaths, premature births, birth defects, cancer, or other health conditions?&#160; The answer so far is an emphatic “no.”</p>
<p>The prolonged silence doesn’t mean data doesn’t exist.&#160; Japanese health officials have been busy with their usual duties of collecting and posting statistics on the Internet for public inspection.&#160; It’s just that they aren’t calling the public’s attention to these numbers.&#160; Thus, it is the public who must find the information and figure out what it means.&#160; After locating web sites, translating from Japanese, adding data for each of 12 months, and making some calculations, mortality trends in Japan after Fukushima are emerging.</p>
<p>The Japanese government health ministry has posted monthly estimated deaths for the 12 months before and after Fukushima, for the entire nation of Japan.&#160; These are preliminary figures, but they have historically been very good estimates of final numbers.&#160; A further look is in order.</p>
<p>Total deaths increased 4.8%, compared to the normal 1.5% annual rise.&#160; Since about 1.2 million Japanese people die each year, this computes to an excess of 57,900 deaths.&#160; The rise in deaths from accidents is given as 19,200, close to estimates of those killed directly by the earthquake and tsunami.&#160; But this still leaves an excess of 38,700 Japanese deaths, with no obvious cause.</p>
<p>The reports provide mortality numbers for 12 common causes, making up about 80% of all deaths in Japan, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, and pneumonia.&#160; Each increased in the past year, with the exception of homicide and suicide.&#160; The category “other,” which is a collection of all other causes, rose 5.9%.&#160;&#160; The sharpest increases occurred immediately after the meltdowns, in March-June 2011 (vs. the same period 2010), a finding consistent with that found in preliminary mortality in the U.S. in a December 2011 article I co-authored with Dr. Janette Sherman in the International Journal of Health Services.</p>
<p>Nobody should yet race to conclusions that 38,700 Japanese died from Fukushima exposure in the first year after the disaster.&#160; Several activities must occur.&#160; The final death statistics must first be posted, which will occur sometime next year.&#160; Counts of deaths and diseases among infants who are most susceptible to radiation exposure must be made public.&#160; Numbers for each area of Japan must be made public – radiation exposure from Fukushima would likely result in the highest rises in mortality in areas closest to the damaged plant.&#160; Numbers of deaths must be converted into rates, to account for any change in population.</p>
<p>Other potential factors accounting for increased mortality must be considered.&#160; For example, were there any fatal epidemics post-March 2011?&#160; Was access to medical services reduced in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami?&#160; Changes in morbidity and mortality rates often have more than one contributing cause.</p>
<p>The final element needed before conclusions are made is patience; vital statistics must continue to be tracked, and compared with radiation exposures to the Japanese people.&#160; One year after the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, which joins Fukushima as the two worst nuclear disasters in history, no examinations of deaths among nearby Soviet citizens had been done.&#160; In fact, data was suppressed, and the standard line from the Soviet government – and for years after – was that 31 emergency workers who died putting out the fire at the stricken reactor were the only casualties.</p>
<p>Fast forward 20-plus years, with the publication of a 2009 book by the New York Academy of Sciences.&#160; A team of Russian researchers, led by Dr. Alexey Yablokov, published results of 5,000 reports and articles on Chernobyl – many in Russian languages never before made public.&#160; Yahlokov’s team concluded that near Chernobyl, increases in diseases and deaths were observed for nearly every human organ system.&#160; They estimated that 985,000 persons died as a result of Chernobyl exposures by 2004 – and that many more were to follow.</p>
<p>There is no question that even if Fukushima studies proceed and are conducted in an objective manner, it will take years before the true extent of casualties are known.&#160; However, an early estimate of 38,700 additional unexplained deaths in Japan in just one year must be taken seriously, and underline the need for Fukushima health studies to be made a top priority, in Japan and in other affected nations.</p>
<p>Joseph J. Mangano, MPH MBA, is Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project in New York. &#160;</p>
<p>Notes.</p>
<p>Monthly mortality statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, are available at&#160; <a href="" type="internal">http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/new-info/jul_2012.html</a>.&#160; Death statistics are in the July 26, 2012 publication “Monthly Vital Statistics Report (preliminary data) February 2012” and then select the same report for the prior 11 months.</p>
<p>COMING IN SEPTEMBER</p>
<p>A Special Memorial Issue of CounterPunch</p>
<p>Featuring recollections of Alexander Cockburn from Jeffrey St. Clair, Peter Linebaugh, Paul Craig Roberts, Noam Chomsky, Perry Anderson, Becky Grant, Dennis Kucinich, Michael Neumann, Susannah Hecht, P. Sainath, Ben Tripp, Alison Weir, James Ridgeway, JoAnn Wypijewski, John Strausbaugh, Pierre Sprey, Conn Hallinan, James Wolcott, Laura Flanders, Ken Silverstein, Tariq Ali and many others …</p>
<p><a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/Annual_Subscriptions.html" type="external">Subscribe to CounterPunch Today to Reserve Your Copy</a></p> | Fukushima’s Nuclear Casualties | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/08/15/fukushimas-nuclear-casualties/ | 2012-08-15 | 4 |
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<p>Everybody knows the stereotype: when a man experiences stress on the job, his supervisor tells him to take a vacation. A woman is told to see a doctor. Crow’s feet on a man are often considered a sign of dignity or “aging with grace.” But on a woman they are an invitation to plastic surgery.</p>
<p>It’s almost as if the word “woman” is a medical diagnosis: being a woman is a disease just waiting to be treated. Women are the cash cows of medicine, since they generate hundreds of billions of dollars for the medical system. Some of the biggest medical scandals have been perpetrated on women: they have been given DES (diethylstilbestrol) and thalidomide and have endured assaults such as the Dalkon Shield, Toxic Shock Syndrome, and, most recently, breast implants.</p>
<p>Consider the hysterectomy, the second most frequently performed surgery in the United States, at double the rates of England and other European countries. Between 1985 and 1987, 11 percent of the two million hysterectomies performed were to remove life-threatening cancer; the rest were to treat conditions that might have been corrected by other means. By age sixty, about one out of three women in this country will have had a hysterectomy.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s no coincidence that hysterectomy rates are higher in communities with more doctors and hospitals–places like the wealthy suburbs of big cities. It’s a fact that private insurance pays more for the procedure than Medicaid, so doctors may be less likely to recommend a hysterectomy to a poor, uninsured woman. And interestingly, the hysterectomy rate in the South is almost double that of any other region in the country.</p>
<p>The rate of another frequent surgical procedure performed on women, cesarean sections, has risen to 23.5 percent in 1990 from 5.5 percent in 1970. Yet both the infant mortality rate and the number of women dying in childbirth held constant during that period. While a doctor may tell an expectant mother that either she or her baby is at high risk, many doctors are performing more C-sections because they fear being sued for negligence, want to speed the delivery, or have a financial incentive. Doctors charge an average of $7,826 for a C- section, or two-thirds more than for a vaginal birth.</p>
<p>Psychiatrists and psychologists also reap financial gains from women, who make up the majority of their patients. Additionally, the majority of tranquilizers are prescribed to treat women.</p>
<p>Along with all that, doctors are becoming glorified beauticians and are doing it in the name of science. And subspecialties are being created merely to direct the dollar flow, rather than to meet a medical need. Sports gynecology, for example, is a subspecialty that came into existence only after women started to jog.</p>
<p>American medicine continues to be dominated by men. Male doctors outnumber female doctors by five to one; the latest figures show 26,000 male gynecologists vs. 7,500 females. Sadly, even the great influx of women into doctoring, the more highly educated women in nursing, and the feminist awakenings of the last twenty years have had little effect on the trend. Women–and men–must demand accountability from the medical profession.</p>
<p /> | MotherJones MJ93: Woman: the disease | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/1993/05/motherjones-mj93-woman-disease/ | 2018-05-01 | 4 |
<p>“The economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba persists. The blockade endangers the Cuban people. There’s no Cuban family that doesn’t suffer the effects of the blockade … The blockade is the principle cause of our economic problems, the principal obstacle to our development.”</p>
<p>These were Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez’ opening words at a press conference in Havana September 9, as he launched into yet one more presentation of the report on the U.S. anti-Cuban blockade that Cuba sends every year to the United Nations General Assembly. On October 26 the Assembly will be voting for the 25th consecutive year on a resolution introduced by Cuba calling for its end.</p>
<p>Cuba provides the report to General Assembly member states so they can see the blockade through Cuban eyes. And they’ve responded: for 24 years nations have overwhelming backed Cuba’s resolution, almost unanimously in recent years with 191 nations in favor in 2015 and two against – the United States and Israel. The 39 – page report for 2016 is <a href="" type="internal">may be read in English</a>.</p>
<p>Wide dissemination of the report serves to inform peoples of the world about the U. S. policy. This communication covers important points in the foreign minister’s presentation at the news conference. The object is to expand awareness of adverse effects of the blockade.</p>
<p>Rodríguez recalled first that,</p>
<p>“President Obama said the blockade wasn’t working … and they had to lift it; he said it hadn’t worked [to achieve] the historical objectives of the United States … He didn’t say it was illegal, a violation of international law … a violation of Cubans’ human rights; he didn’t say it’s immoral and violates all ethics, nor did he say that it’s cruel and endangers human beings.”</p>
<p>“…Between April, 2015 and March 2016, the direct economic damages caused by the blockade went up another $4.68 billion … Damages accumulated over almost six decades have reached at least $753.67 billion, expressed as the monetary value of gold.</p>
<p>“The damages include income that our people never saw, that our country never saw through goods and services never exported … particularly from the bio-pharmacology industry.” There are “losses through geographical disruption of our commerce – long distances, the need for large inventories, the unpredictability of when goods arrive, and extra freight, insurance, and distribution costs.</p>
<p>“… A third direct effect of the blockade is monetary and financial. Confronted with the ban on using the dollar in international transactions, Cuba has to use other currencies. All these operations are costly; for example, they depend a lot on relative value of the currencies … Last year the dollar appreciated in value, increasing its value over the year relative to other currencies by an average of 3.58 percent.”</p>
<p>Rodríguez denounced</p>
<p>“the U. S. prohibition on Cuban banks opening accounts in U. S. Banks” and also the “intimidating effect of $14 billion in fines – a world record – during the Obama presidency, basically against European and Asian Banks [handling dollars in Cuba’s transactions with the outside world].”</p>
<p>“… There’s no sector in Cuba that doesn’t suffer consequences from the blockade: in the service economy – health care and education; in the economy in general, and in people’s lives – feeding themselves, prices, salaries, social security.”</p>
<p>Rodríguez mentioned “the impossibility of gaining access both to products, technologies, and equipment with U.S. patents and access to indispensable, high-technology surgical devices … There’s still a ban on acquiring products or medicines directed at assuring improved treatments and above all assuring fewer adverse effects of treatments.”</p>
<p>The foreign minister pointed out that “the extraterritorial application of the blockade persists, in violation of the sovereignty of other nations, of all nations on the planet.” He surveyed U.S. laws on the blockade. For example, the U.S “Trading with the Enemy Act …now is applied only to Cuba. It’s a law that originated in 1917. We have to ask ourselves, ‘Is it possible the United States considers us an enemy?’ Does that make sense?”</p>
<p>He also cited the “Torricelli Law (1992)… that ended … our trade with subsidiaries of U. S. companies located in other states, and registered under their laws. That’s a gross invasion against the sovereignty of those nations. [And] the Helms – Burton Law (1996) is the sum and substance of everything. It probably has an element of a Gordian knot needing to be cut.”</p>
<p>Expanding on his reflections, the minister first noted U.S. desires to change Cuba, and he then suggested that “to change Cuba is the business of Cubans. But also we have accepted that challenge [of changing things] because it fits with the interests of our people, of our development.” As regards the blockade, “the heart of a newborn, the verve of a young girl, quality of life for an older person: there’s no price put on any of that. And now, today, everything is subjected to the hard, cruel effects of the blockade.”</p>
<p>All of this, he concluded, “is reality, is the truth; they are facts. We have to judge things through facts, through data, not through declarations or speeches.”</p>
<p>He turned to Pastors for Peace in New York: “I remember the awful scenes of Pastors for Peace, of Lucius Walker. Our people will never forget him under fierce repression so that obsolete personal computers would be given up and not be brought across the border.”&#160;&#160; Pastors for Peace is today, right now, under threat from actions directed at impeding the recognized humanitarian work of that religious organization.”</p>
<p>The author translated.</p> | Cuban Report Goes to United Nations, Foreign Minister Condemns US Blockade | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/09/15/cuban-report-goes-to-united-nations-foreign-minister-condemns-us-blockade/ | 2016-09-15 | 4 |
<p>Shares of&#160;Johnson Outdoors Inc.&#160;(NASDAQ: JOUT) were climbing last month after the recreation specialist posted another strong earnings report. The stock gained 10% in the two days following its Aug. 4 third-quarter report and finished August up 26%, according to data from <a href="https://marketintelligence.spglobal.com/" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>As the chart below shows, the stock gained steadily over the first half of the month on momentum from the earnings report.</p>
<p>Revenue increased 11% to $155.3 million, beating estimates of $149 million, on the strength of new products in Fishing and other warm-weather recreation segments.</p>
<p>Fishing, which makes up the majority of the company's sales and also has the highest profit margins, grew 18% in the quarter to $104 million, and Diving sales climbed 17% thanks to new innovations.</p>
<p>Further down the income statement, operating income nearly doubled to $24.7 million as the company erased a loss last year in Diving and saw margins improve in all categories. Earnings per share more than doubled to $1.65 from $0.68, with the help of a lower tax rate, crushing estimates at $1.09. With an earnings beat of that size, it wasn't surprising to see the stock soar following the report.</p>
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<p>CEO Helen Johnson-Leipold called the quarter's results "outstanding" and credited the company's "continued focus and investment on delivering market-winning innovation."</p>
<p>Johnson Outdoors did not issue guidance, but the maker of products including canoes and camping equipment looks poised to finish out the year on a strong note as the stock is now up 60% this year after <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/05/why-johnson-outdoors-inc-stock-surged-today.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=e57959cc-93e9-11e7-8dd1-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">two consecutive Opens a New Window.</a> blowout earnings report. With discretionary spending on recreation growing thanks to a strong economy and its impressive track record of innovation, Johnson Outdoors should continue to outperform the market.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Johnson OutdoorsWhen 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=96b5d4da-ad39-4f01-a3ff-c223bfc13319&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=e57959cc-93e9-11e7-8dd1-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Johnson Outdoors 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 September 5, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFHobo/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=e57959cc-93e9-11e7-8dd1-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Jeremy Bowman Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=e57959cc-93e9-11e7-8dd1-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Johnson Outdoors Inc. Stock Surged 26% | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/07/why-johnson-outdoors-inc-stock-surged-26.html | 2017-09-07 | 0 |
<p>Aug. 13 (UPI) — Nearly 50 people are believed to be dead in India after a monsoon caused a landslide that buried two busloads of passengers in Himachal Pradesh state, officials said Sunday.</p>
<p>“Forty-six bodies have been recovered, and of these 23 have been identified,” one official said, according to the <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/at-least-46-dead-in-himachal-landslide-rescue-operations-to-resume-tomorrow/articleshow/60048727.cms" type="external">Times of India</a>.</p>
<p>Efforts to remove passengers from the debris and find survivors were hindered by heavy rains and threats of more landslides. Some vehicles and houses were also washed away.</p>
<p>Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/himachal-pradesh-landslide-mandi-national-highway-many-dead-injured-ndrf-rescue-operation-on-manali-4795047/" type="external">visited the site</a> and said the government will pay for medical treatment of those injured.</p>
<p>Indian Prime Minister <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Narendra_Modi/" type="external">Narendra Modi</a> took to Twitter to offer his condolences.</p>
<p>“Pained by the loss of lives due to landslide related accidents in [Himachal Pradesh]’s Mandi district,” <a href="https://twitter.com/PMOIndia/status/896628526580776960" type="external">he wrote</a>. “I pray for the quick recovery of those injured in Mandi district.”</p>
<p>Although monsoons are common in India, a recent study by the <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2017/indian-monsoons-strengthened-past-15-years-0724" type="external">Massachusetts Institute of Technology</a> found that they have strengthened in the country over the past 15 years, resulting in a reversal of a “50-year drying period during which the monsoon season brought relatively little rain to northern and central India.”</p>
<p>Last year, nearly <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/over-1-600-killed-due-to-extreme-weather-patterns-in-2016/story-ZXToWjowatrEYk81af2V4H.html" type="external">500 people</a> in India died due to flooding and thunderstorms.</p> | Nearly 50 dead after landslide buries 2 buses in India | false | https://newsline.com/nearly-50-dead-after-landslide-buries-2-buses-in-india/ | 2017-08-14 | 1 |
<p>Via Mark Thoma, I <a href="http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/04/monetary-policy-more-or-less-.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+%28Economist%27s+View%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader" type="external">learn</a> that Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Narayana Kocherlakota doesn't think that the Fed should stick to its current policy of keeping interest rates low till 2014:</p>
<p>I would say that it would be appropriate to change the Fed's current forward guidance to the public about the future course of interest rates. Currently, the FOMC statement reads that the Committee believes that conditions will warrant extraordinarily low interest rates through late 2014. My own belief is that we will need to initiate our somewhat lengthy exit strategy sometime in the next six to nine months or so, and that conditions will warrant raising rates sometime in 2013 or, possibly, late 2012.</p>
<p>Kocherlakota is <a href="http://www.frumforum.com/fed-hawks-turn-on-the-unemployed" type="external">not</a> one of my favorite Federal Reserve board members. My own opinion is that tighter money now would be a terrible idea and would harm the economic recovery.</p>
<p>But lets think about what sort of bind this puts Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in. One of the most important aspects of Federal Reserve policy is its ability to be credible. When the Fed says it will do something, the policy is more likely to work if markets believe the Fed will follow through. Currently, the Fed has <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20120125a.htm" type="external">committed</a> to keeping interest rates near 0% till late 2014.</p>
<p>So when the one of the bank Presidents (who is not currently a voting member but will be again in 2014) expresses concern that this policy should be reversed, then there is a new level of doubt: how credibly can we take Federal Reserve statements when they come attached with a date?</p>
<p>Bernanke is in the unenviable position of trying to run an organization where ideally, he wants consensus. This consensus is unfortunately hard to achieve so even statements that simply continue current policies still get <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-04/fed-s-lacker-says-markets-saw-odds-of-new-easing-as-too-high-1-.html" type="external">dissenting votes</a> and public criticisms of the policy.</p>
<p>When even maintaining the current policy is tenuous, what hope is there that the Fed will be able to take stronger measures to support the economic recovery?</p> | This is Why the Federal Reserve Can't Save the Economy | true | https://thedailybeast.com/this-is-why-the-federal-reserve-cant-save-the-economy | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>First Benghazi, then San Bernadino, and now… that’s right….the Orlando shooting. the common denominator? Hillary and her State Department. Yes all three were being investigated and could have been stopped had a certain Presidential Candidate NOT ordered evidence destroyed.&#160;Clinton’s State Dept. shut down the investigation, because she said it&#160;“unfairly singled out Muslims.”</p>
<p>A now retired DHS agent by the name Philip Haney had been running a special investigation into a worldwide Islamist movement originating from Pakistan known as Tablighi Jamaat. Agent Haney can be credited for discovering the link between many mosques and terrorists known to reside in the U.S. that have ties to many terror organizations including but not limited to Al Qaida and Hama.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t you know that when Haney’s investigations was just getting good Hillary and her then State Dept. decided to squash it claiming it was “unfairly targeting Muslims.” It has been discovered that many of the most important documents that Haney had prepared were not surprisingly DELETED in 2012. So, even way back in 2012 these attacks were predicted and backed up with proof.</p>
<p>Just imagine all of the horror that could have been entirely avoided had Hillary not ONCE AGAIN committed&#160; crime of epic proportions.</p>
<p>They must have forgotten to use the M.I.B. flash stick however because Haney knew the&#160; second he heard the name of the mosque was familiar, and he pulled his personal files. He rather quickly determined that the&#160;shooters&#160;mosque, the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, was in fact one of the ones that he had found to be&#160;part of the network uncovered five years ago.</p>
<p><a href="http://conservativetribune.com/hillarys-state-dept-orlando-attack/?utm_source=Facebook&amp;utm_medium=ConservativeTribune&amp;utm_content=2016-06-13&amp;utm_campaign=manualpost" type="external">“This case struck me as very similar to the San Bernardino shooting case,” Haney said. “I suspected that they were both part of a national and international network of organizations.”</a></p>
<p>The feds are now at a disadvantage to Haney whom is able to piece together this new attack rather quickly and efficiently, making him an asset to the investigation. Let’s hope that Hillary doesn’t decide to delete anything else.</p>
<p>(Featured image from Infowars)</p>
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<p /> | BREAKING: Hillary BLOCKED Investigation Into Orlando Killer’s Mosque For 1 Infuriating Reason | true | http://fury.news/2016/06/hillary-commits-replay-benghazi-american-soil/ | 2016-06-13 | 0 |
<p>As many of our staff writers have reported over the past week, a motive for the massacre in Las Vegas is still missing. It’s rather rare that it takes so long to find a motive for such attacks, and both investigators and the public at large have been utterly baffled for the past seven days as to why he started firing on the concert last Sunday.</p>
<p>However, investigators may have some breakthrough information on why this happened. Despite the fact that Paddock passed all background checks he subjected himself to, something may have been there under the surface that for years went undiagnosed, until one day the severity of the illness reached the breaking point.</p>
<p>Pieces of the puzzle are falling into place (finally), and investigators now believe that Paddock may have had a severe mental illness that went undiagnosed for years. After interviewing hundreds of people connected to Paddock, it appears to be something that should be taken as a serious possibility.</p>
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<p>According to ABC News, who obtained their report from anonymous law enforcement officials, FBI profilers and behavioral scientists have been studying him vigorously over time, and it is beginning to appear quite possible that he was very ill.</p>
<p>The picture that is emerging of Steven Paddock, who has been identified as the gunman in Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas, is of a man that some law enforcement officials increasingly believe had severe mental illness that was likely undiagnosed, sources tell ABC News.</p>
<p>The portrait, gleaned from interviews with hundreds of people interviewed over the past week, is that while Paddock might have been financially successful, he had real difficulty interacting with people. He is described as standoff-ish, disconnected, a man who had difficulty establishing and maintaining meaningful relationships.</p>
<p>Breaking news updates and daily headlines from a news source you can trust.</p>
<p>The focus of the investigation is now turning to last October, when Paddock began stockpiling long guns. Since last October, he purchased 33 guns, mostly rifles.</p>
<p>However, the sources revealed that there were other changes in his behavior as well, and those changes could be a key piece of evidence in revealing whether or not he did have an undiagnosed mental illness.</p>
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<p>Sources say there’s evidence that his gambling wagers began increasing in scale in that time frame too.</p>
<p>Paddock, they say, was recently on his computer looking at a lot of different hotel venues — some apparently just to research, some of which he actually traveled to.</p>
<p>According to multiple law enforcement officials, police still have found no definitive evidence to prove Paddock had an accomplice, and have not nailed down a definitive motive.</p>
<p>Just like the attack at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012, a motive may not ever be found unfortunately. Adam Lanza did have a severe case of mental disorders, but that fact did not provide a motivation for killing his mother, and then the 26 at the school.</p>
<p>There has been a rise in mass shootings in recent decades, though the overall violent crime rate has plummeted in that same time frame. As David Kopel wrote for <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323723104578185271857424036?mg=prod/accounts-wsj" type="external">The Wall Street Journal</a> back in 2012 after the Sandy Hook massacre, there is a simultaneous rise in mass shootings and a deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill since the 1960s.</p>
<p>A 2000 New York Times study of 100 rampage murderers found that 47 were mentally ill. In the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry Law (2008), Jason C. Matejkowski and his co-authors reported that 16% of state prisoners who had perpetrated murders were mentally ill.</p>
<p>In the mid-1960s, many of the killings would have been prevented because the severely mentally ill would have been confined and cared for in a state institution. But today, while government at most every level has bloated over the past half-century, mental-health treatment has been decimated. According to a study released in July by the Treatment Advocacy Center, the number of state hospital beds in America per capita has plummeted to 1850 levels, or 14.1 beds per 100,000 people.</p>
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<p>Clearly there is something going on with the mental health system in this country. Those with a mental illness need to have treatment, and some do need to be institutionalized in order to properly treat them. But over the years, especially after revelations about terrible conditions in many mental health institutions, lots of them were shut down.</p>
<p>The corresponding effect was more mentally ill people out and about in society. That has to be addressed, though addressing the issue with a people-oriented solution, rather than an inanimate-object-focused solution is not something that some will be willing to do, sadly.</p>
<p>What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</p> | Police Reveal That Stephen Paddock May Have Had Severe Undiagnosed Mental Illness | true | http://thefederalistpapers.org/us/police-reveal-possible-mental-illness | 0 |
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<p>India announced a week ago that it was withdrawing 500 and 1,000 rupee notes as legal tender to fight corruption and tax evasion. However, people are allowed a onetime swap of 4,000 rupees ($59) at any bank in exchange for smaller notes to meet immediate needs. Overwhelmed banks have been unable to ensure that people don’t line up more than once, since IDs such as drivers’ licenses and passports are not linked to bank or tax accounts.</p>
<p>Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said there have been reports of “unscrupulous people” who have organized groups of innocent people and sent them from bank to bank to swap old notes.</p>
<p>India also uses indelible ink to mark the fingers of voters after they cast their ballots in elections.</p>
<p>Larger amounts of demonetized bills can be deposited in saving accounts before the end of the year. However, people depositing big amounts are likely to find tax officials looking into their finances. There are also limits to the amount that can be withdrawn from accounts and ATMs.</p>
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<p>Hundreds of millions of Indians do not have bank accounts and use only cash. Many small businesses accept only cash.</p>
<p>Banks have been swamped throughout the week as people have thronged to exchange currency notes or withdraw their weekly limit of 2,500 ($37) from ATMs. The government says it’s trying to rush the printing of new 500 and 2,000 rupee bank notes but hasn’t been able to keep up with demand. Banks and ATMs run out of cash well before the end of work hours, leaving millions of people stranded without money.</p>
<p>The government says the demonetizing of big currency notes is expected to bring billions of dollars into the economy and tax base, long hobbled by corruption and money laundering.</p>
<p>Businesses routinely use cash to avoid paying taxes. Raids on corrupt politicians and businesses regularly uncover large stashes of money.</p> | India struggles as millions throng banks to swap currency | false | https://abqjournal.com/889331/india-struggles-as-millions-throng-banks-to-swap-currency.html | 2016-11-15 | 2 |
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<p>After President-elect Donald Trump attacked the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on Monday as “out of control,” several lawmakers responded by praising the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons acquisition. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, aware of the tens of thousands of jobs the aircraft generates in 45 states, will be leery of any plans by Trump to cut the program.</p>
<p>An early morning tweet from Trump targeting the F-35 doesn’t explain exactly how he’ll save billions of dollars in military purchases while also honoring a campaign vow to rebuild the armed forces. Once Trump is in office, he can propose deep cuts to the F-35 or even elect to cancel the program altogether. But Congress, not the president, controls the government’s purse strings and makes the final decisions about the budget.</p>
<p>Built by defense giant Lockheed Martin, the F-35 has a nearly $400 billion price tag. Despite the huge cost, the program has strong bipartisan support in Congress, where lawmakers view the aircraft as essential to U.S. national security.</p>
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<p>Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, released a video extolling the F-35’s “superior capabilities.” More than 70 of the aircraft are to be stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Hatch’s home state.</p>
<p>Lockheed Martin’s stock tumbled after Trump’s tweet, wiping out nearly $2 billion of the company’s market value. The company’s shares fell $6.42, or 2.5 percent, to close at $253.11 Monday. The F-35 program made up 20 percent of Lockheed’s total 2015 revenue of $46.1 billion. U.S. government orders made up 78 percent of its revenue last year.</p>
<p>“Whoever has this airplane will have the most advanced air force in the world. That’s why we’re building the F-35. That’s why it’s important to not only the U.S., our partners and our partners like the Israeli Air force to have this airplane,” said Jeff Babione, general manager of the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin, at a base in Israel.</p>
<p>Israel and several other U.S. allies are also buying the F-35, expanding the program’s international footprint. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Israel on Monday as the Jewish state received the first two next-generation F-35 fighter jets that will help preserve the country’s military edge in the volatile Mideast.</p>
<p>The F-35, which uses stealth technology to avoid radar detection, is being built in different configurations for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. The Navy’s version, for example, is designed to take off and land on an aircraft carrier.</p>
<p>Current plans call for the United States to buy nearly 2,500 F-35s. Close to $13 billion will be needed annually between 2016 and 2038 to hit that procurement number, according to the Government Accountability Office.</p>
<p>While the F-35 had massive budget overruns early on, the cost has stabilized and even dropped a bit following tough negotiations between the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin, according to Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.</p>
<p>“Trump is unlikely to squeeze more blood out of this rock,” Harrison said.</p>
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<p>Lockheed said that it has worked to lower the price of the F-35 by 60 percent and expected the aircraft to cost $85 million each in 2019 and 2020. But the company’s estimate appears to omit the price of the engine and the cost of development. When those elements are added in, the cost per F-35 in current-year dollars is closer to $138 million, according to Harrison.</p>
<p>Companies from 45 states are involved in the F-35’s production, with Texas, Georgia, California, Arizona and Florida playing the leading roles in testing and manufacturing the jet fighter. The company is teamed with more than 1,250 domestic suppliers to produce thousands of components ranging from highly sophisticated radar sensors to parts of the aircraft’s fuselage, according to Lockheed Martin.</p>
<p>Overall, the F-35 program is responsible for more than 146,000 U.S. jobs, the company said.</p>
<p>The Lockheed Martin plant where the F-35 is being built is located in Texas Republican Rep. Kay Granger’s district. She’s vice chair of the defense appropriations subcommittee. In a statement Monday, Granger hailed the F-35 delivery to Israel, calling the aircraft “what we need to keep our two countries safe in these dangerous times.”</p>
<p>Rep. Mac Thornberry, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, represents the district next to Granger’s. Thornberry’s committee has supported buying more F-35s than the Obama administration had asked for in its budget request. The F-35 will replace an aging inventory of U.S. aircraft that many lawmakers believe are becoming increasingly unsafe to fly.</p>
<p>Claude Chafin, a committee spokesman, said Thornberry “shares the president-elect’s determination to have the Pentagon get weapons in the hands of our troops faster, while being better stewards of the taxpayer dollar.”</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Follow Richard Lardner on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/rplardner" type="external">http://twitter.com/rplardner</a></p> | For Congress, defense contracts are like baseball, apple pie | false | https://abqjournal.com/907622/for-congress-defense-contracts-are-like-baseball-apple-pie.html | 2016-12-13 | 2 |
<p>HELENA, Mont. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday evening's drawing of the Montana Lottery's "Montana Cash" game were:</p>
<p>14-26-27-28-29</p>
<p>(fourteen, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $400,000</p>
<p>HELENA, Mont. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday evening's drawing of the Montana Lottery's "Montana Cash" game were:</p>
<p>14-26-27-28-29</p>
<p>(fourteen, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $400,000</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Montana Cash' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/30033a8fd8854e6bac597f8ed81cbaa0 | 2018-01-21 | 2 |
<p>In these post-election days it seems every news anchor, TV guest, and show host is devastated that Crooked Hillary was finally sent back to the private sector for good. Liberals are rioting, claiming PTSD, and lashing out at anyone that voted for The Donald.</p>
<p>Case in point, the video below in which somehow Conan O'Brien thought that in these deeply divided days it would be a great idea to stereotype half of the population as dumb angry "rednecks" and then kill them. Yes, kill them.</p>
<p />
<p>Conan tells his co-host that Tuesday's election is still sinking in for many with some people being shocked and disappointed. "But not everybody is upset," O'Brien continues, adding, "There's a good half the country that's feeling good about it and in fact we have a couple Trump supporters in our audience."</p>
<p>Cut to an angry white man wearing a Trump hat and his wife who tell Conan, "What does happy mean? We've been angry at the system for so long it's all we know. Our anger has been the one thing we had in common. We even finish each other's sentences, check it out, FU-- YOU!"</p>
<p>"I guess a lot of Trump supporters were united in their anger, huh," says Conan.</p>
<p>"Yeah, and these new feelings are freaking us out," the man replies, adding, "When I woke up Wednesday morning I didn't even feel like posting death threats on Twitter."</p>
<p>After explaining to Conan that they don't have violent urges anymore and miss the anger that has now been replaced by happiness, the host tells an assistant to give them the gas. That's right, the punchline of the already painfully unfunny skit is to kill the Trump voters by gassing the to death.</p>
<p />
<p>This, Conan. This is why there is a Donald Trump presidency.</p>
<p>Exit thought from the <a href="https://nypost.com/2016/11/11/assassination-threats-against-trump-flood-twitter-after-election-shocker/" type="external">NYPost</a> on how peaceful liberals are handling defeat:</p>
<p /> | Video: CONAN Pretends to Kill 'Redneck' Trump Voters by Gassing Them | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10739/video-conan-pretends-kill-redneck-trump-voters-chase-stephens | 2016-11-12 | 0 |
<p>&#160; <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amazon_Manaus_forest.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>Amazon rainforest: Phil P Harris via Wikimedia Commons.</p>
<p>A new <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11118.html" type="external">paper</a> in the prestigious science journal Nature assesses one of the big questions in ecology today: How do species extinctions rack up compared to other global change issues like global warming, ozone holes, acid rain, and nutrient pollution ( <a href="" type="internal">overfertilization</a>)?</p>
<p>The answer: Just as nasty. In fact species loss is likely to rank among the top five drivers of global change.</p>
<p>“Some people have assumed that biodiversity effects are relatively minor compared to other environmental stressors,” says lead author <a href="http://fire.biol.wwu.edu/hooper/index.html" type="external">David Hooper of Western Washington University</a>. “Our new results show that future loss of species has the potential to reduce plant production just as much as global warming and pollution.”</p>
<p>Studies in the past 20 years have demonstrated that more biologically diverse ecosystems are more productive. So there’s growing concern that the very high rates of modern extinctions from habitat loss, overharvesting, pollution, biological invasions, human overpopulation, and other human-caused environmental changes will diminish nature’s ability to provide goods and services important to all life (ours too)… like food, clean water, and a stable climate.&#160;</p>
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<p><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MEAConservationStrategies.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>Schematic illustrating the relationship between biodiversity, ecosystem services, human well-being, and poverty, and where we can improve our strategies: <a href="http://www.maweb.org/en/index.aspx" type="external">Millennium Ecosystem Assessment</a> via Wikimedia Commons&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>The team performed a meta-analysis of published data from 192 earlier studies to assess the effects of extinctions on&#160;productivity and decomposition:</p>
<p>The stats:</p>
<p>From the <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11118.html" type="external">paper</a>:</p>
<p>[O]ur analyses clearly show that the ecosystem consequences of local species loss are as quantitatively significant as the direct effects of several global change stressors that have mobilized major international concern and remediation efforts.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The video is the best short describing the importance of biodiversity that I’ve seen.</p>
<p>The paper:</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Scientists: Extinctions Just as Damaging as Climate Change | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/extinctions-gnarly-global-warming/ | 2012-05-02 | 4 |
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<p>In many parts of the world, the constant fear of extremist attacks has led to tighter security measures at hotels and resorts, but that is less so in the United States, where hotels are reluctant to intrude on the privacy of guests.</p>
<p>Security experts say the shooting attack that left at least 59 people dead in Las Vegas could lead to more cameras and more training for hotel staff.</p>
<p>More aggressive measures such as metal detectors or X-ray screening of guests and luggage — standard for airline travel — are less likely to gain footing in the U.S. because of cost and privacy concerns.</p>
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<p>Although they are private property, hotels are notably public spaces in most of the world. In many places, luxury hotels have entrances from shopping malls, and their lobbies serve as a refuge from noisy, chaotic streets.</p>
<p>Hotel operators in other countries are increasingly deploying armed guards, vehicle barricades, X-ray machines and other measures to reduce the risk of attack.</p>
<p>The King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where President Donald Trump and other foreign leaders have stayed, reportedly uses infrared cameras carried by balloons and robots in sewers to search for bombs. Windows on higher floors can withstand gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, and the air conditioning system is designed to block attacks using poison gas.</p>
<p>The Resorts World Manila casino in the Philippines said it hired a security contractor, Blackpanda, and established new security protocols after a man with a gambling addiction carried out an arson attack in June that left 37 dead, the latest major incident in Asia.</p>
<p>Even before the attack, visitors to Resorts World — like many other hotels, office buildings and shopping malls in Manila — were required to pass through metal detectors and have their bags X-rayed. Somehow the attacker got past hotel security with an ammunition vest and assault rifle.</p>
<p>That was a trifling arsenal compared with the 23 guns and prodigious ammunition stockpile that 64-year-old Stephen Paddock hoarded in his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel casino overlooking the Las Vegas Strip and a packed country music festival.</p>
<p>Attention is certain to focus on how Paddock was able to carefully prepare and stage his deadly attack on Sunday night.</p>
<p>“My guess is we will see more security cameras at many hotels and more monitoring of people who bring many large packages to a hotel room,” said Bjorn Hanson, a professor of hospitality and tourism at New York University. “But I don’t think one event will lead to more intrusive measures” in the U.S. such as metal detectors or X-raying guests’ bags.</p>
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<p>Hanson also believes that hotels, perhaps pressured by their insurance carriers, will increase training of staff to spot suspicious behavior or materials left in rooms. There is a model for that in training to help staff spot human trafficking, he said.</p>
<p>Jeffrey Price, a security expert at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said employees who clean rooms should report it to a supervisor if they see weapons, but that screening guests’ bags would be difficult in a place like Las Vegas, where people having a lot of luggage is not all that unusual.</p>
<p>“It would be a logistical nightmare to screen everybody going into and out of the hotel room, not to mention costing billions of dollars,” Price said. “That also gets into all sorts of privacy-rights issues.”</p>
<p>Hanson and Price said people who attend major public events should take their own precautions including knowing where the exits are, having an escape route in mind and a place to meet with companions if they get separated.</p>
<p>The American Hotel and Lodging Association said that hotels in Las Vegas were working closely with local law enforcement after the shooting.</p>
<p>“Hotels have safety and security procedures in place that are regularly reviewed, tested and updated as are their emergency response procedures,” the group’s president, Katherine Lugar, said in a statement. “As we better understand the facts in the coming days, we will continue to work with law enforcement to evaluate these measures.”</p>
<p>Hotels already employ security measures such as asking guests to show their room key in the lobby, and limiting access to some floors to those who have a keycard. But because the U.S. hasn’t had the same experience — in frequency or ferocity — of hotel attacks in countries where security is tougher, that could make stringent measures seem less worthy when applied against a cost-benefit ratio.</p>
<p>Other regions can’t afford or aren’t willing to take the risk. For instance, Africa saw two attacks on hotels within months of each other in 2015 — 38 died in Tunisia and 18 in Mali.</p>
<p>Tunisia depends on tourism and seen arrivals plummet since a spate of attacks. Since 2015, hotels have beefed up police presence and brought in metal detectors.</p>
<p>At the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital of Bamako, there is now a scanner for bags, and vehicles are blocked from driving in front of the building.</p>
<p>In some cases, extra security steps were not enough.</p>
<p>In 2009, attackers in Indonesia smuggled explosives past security guards and metal detectors and set off a blast at the Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta that killed eight. Six years earlier, a car bomb at the Jakarta Marriott killed 12.</p>
<p>In India in 2008, extremists targeted two luxury hotels, a train station and restaurant in a 60-hour siege in Mumbai that left more than 160 dead.</p>
<p>Hotel chains operating in India including Accor, Hyatt and Marriott now use handheld trace detectors and X-ray scanners to check for explosives and contraband. The upscale Lemon Tree Hotel at New Delhi’s airport brought in a facial recognition system to keep track of visitors.</p>
<p>Indonesia and India have strengthened hotel security since then, said Mario Hardy, CEO of the Pacific Asia Travel Association. Vehicles are checked, many hotels scan luggage with X-rays, and there are more security cameras.</p>
<p>“As consumers we may sometime see those as nuisance, but I think events such as these remind us all the importance of security measures,” he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Kelvin Chan reported from Hong Kong; David Koenig reported from Dallas.</p> | Terror risks make tight security routine for world’s hotels | false | https://abqjournal.com/1072682/for-many-hotels-terror-risks-make-tight-security-routine.html | 2017-10-03 | 2 |
<p>WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s decision upholding the health care law is not only a huge victory for President Obama but also a moment of leadership for Chief Justice John Roberts. The court’s mixed verdict could create problems, notably in its weakening of the law’s Medicaid provisions in the name of states’ rights. While the impact of this part of the ruling is not fully clear yet, the court may have effectively denied health care coverage to a large number of poorer Americans.</p>
<p>But the headline victory for the law was of enormous importance to Obama. Had the court knocked down the Affordable Care Act, all the spin in the world could not have undone the damage that would have been inflicted on the president and his political standing. Thanks to this ruling, the broad structure of the largest domestic achievement of the Obama legacy remains intact. It gives him bragging rights in the campaign, and in history. And for those who support universal coverage, the fact that the law remains on the books offers an opportunity to build on it in the future.</p>
<p>And Obama was wise to use his address to the nation on the court’s decision to restart the effort to explain what the Affordable Care Act actually does and the benefits it offers to Americans who already have health insurance, those who are worried about losing it, and those who would like to get it but cannot now afford it. By putting the health care law at the center of the news, the court case gave the president and other supporters a second chance to do what they should have done more effectively in the first place. It was a nice touch for Obama to try to turn the law’s low rating in the polls to his benefit. “It should be pretty clear by now,” he said, “that I didn’t do this because it was good politics.” He was also smart to speak briefly, and to avoid triumphalism.</p>
<p>But if it was Obama’s day, the day also belonged to Roberts. Ever since he took the helm at the court, Roberts’ critics — and I have certainly been a vociferous one — have seen him as failing to live up to the implicit promises he offered during his confirmation hearings to a brand of judicial moderation.</p>
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<p>This decision is not as clean and clear as it should have been. But by spearheading a plurality opinion that at least recognizes the power of Congress to legislate on an important social and economic problem, Roberts avoided the far shoals of conservative ideology. He sought to avoid a direct confrontation with the executive and legislative branches.</p>
<p>Roberts’ rulings on Citizens United and a variety of labor and regulatory issues fed fears that he would happily take on the role as the leader of a right-wing judicial revolution — and there is still reason to worry that this is exactly what he’ll do on many other issues, notably affirmative action. But on health care, Roberts chose to blunt these attacks. He cast himself as a jurist sensitive to the obligation of the courts to at least some deference to the government’s elected branches on matters of social policy. He took what might have been a center-left decision upholding the entire law and nudged it to the center or center-right. What he did not do — and this is to his credit — was join the right end of the court that wanted to gut the act.</p>
<p>Still, it is disturbing that the court, including Roberts, appears to have weakened the law’s provisions that sought to use Medicaid to push states to help to insure many more Americans. Medicaid is a federal law giving the states a great deal of federal money. There is no entitlement to this money. It seemed reasonable for the federal government to use a federally created program to push for the national goal of providing health insurance for all Americans. Before liberals heap praise on Roberts and conservatives declare him a sellout, both sides need to come to terms with the meaning of this part of the ruling.</p>
<p>Overall, it was a good day for President Obama and for Chief Justice Roberts. And with the court so closely divided, it also underscored the importance of the judicial appointments that the president elected (or re-elected) this November will make. We are, it turns out, still one vote away from total conservative dominance on judicial questions. And this is why the health care law survived.</p>
<p>E.J. Dionne’s e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.</p>
<p>© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | Supreme Court Health Care Ruling a Win for Obama -- and Roberts | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/supreme-court-health-care-ruling-a-win-for-obama-and-roberts/ | 2012-06-29 | 4 |
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<p>National Instruments (NASDAQ: NATI) prides itself on serving the engineering and scientific community, helping professionals in those fields solve some of the biggest problems. NI's technology solutions help scientists and engineers be more productive, helping to allow clients to innovate more quickly.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Coming into Thursday's fourth-quarter financial report, National Instruments investors were looking to see continued modest growth in revenue creating a bigger boost to its bottom line, but what NI delivered was better-than-expected adjusted profits despite a top-line decline. Let's look more closely at how National Instruments did and what it sees in its future.</p>
<p>Image source: National Instruments.</p>
<p>National Instruments' fourth-quarter results were mixed in investors' eyes. Revenue fell 2%, to $328.5 million, which was much weaker than the 2% growth that most of those following the stock were expecting to see. However, net income rose 5%, to $33.8 million, and after accounting for extraordinary items, adjusted earnings of $0.34 per share were better than the consensus forecast among investors for $0.31 per share.</p>
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<p>Looking more closely at NI's results, several factors weighed on the company's overall results. The strong dollar played a key role in holding back National Instruments' sales growth, as the report indicated a 2 percentage point decline in order growth because of foreign currency issues. In addition, NI relies heavily on a single customer for a large portion of its business, and orders from that customer plunged by 78%, to just $2 million during the quarter.</p>
<p>However, NI also had some positives to report. Excluding its largest customer, total order growth was up 2%, with particular strength among its larger customers. Orders for more than $100,000 or more were up 8% compared to last year's period, while mid-sized orders of $20,000 and $100,000 were up 4%. Only small orders under $20,000 showed declines, falling 2% from the year-ago period.</p>
<p>As we've seen in past quarters, National Instruments showed some differences in performance between its two main segments. Product sales fell 2%, although a 5% drop in cost of sales for that segment did a lot to offset the impact on gross segment profit. By contrast, software maintenance revenue was up 1% from the year-ago period, and a rise in cost of sales there only partially ate into gross profit gains.</p>
<p>From a geographical perspective, NI got its best performance close to home. Revenue in the Americas was up 2%, outpacing 1% growth in the Asia-Pacific region. The company's business in Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa sank 7%, but currency impacts were responsible for all of the deterioration in the region's top-line results.</p>
<p>New CEO Alex Davern was laser-focused on the future. "As I start in my new role as CEO," Davern said, "I am committed to our vision and to strengthening our relationships with our customers." Interim CFO John Roiko noted that, "while we were disappointed that we missed the midpoint of our revenue guidance in Q4, we did deliver 3% core revenue growth, maintained our strong gross margins, and kept our non-GAAP operating expenses and EPS flat year over year."</p>
<p>NI has high hopes for the coming year. In Davern's words, "Looking to 2017, my top priorities will be growing revenue, leveraging our investments in our platform and people, and improving our operating margins."</p>
<p>For the most part, National Instruments' guidance for the first quarter of 2017 was consistent with what investors were looking to see. The company said that it anticipates sales for the first quarter of between $285 million and $315 million, producing adjusted earnings of $0.11 to $0.25 per share. Both figures are close to the consensus estimates among investors.</p>
<p>NI stock was volatile in response to the news, moving on both sides of unchanged in after-market trading following the announcement. In order to reassure shareholders, National Instruments will need to do a better job of making the most of opportunities with its largest customer and cultivating new relationships with other potential and existing clients. If the new CEO and his team can succeed in that mission, then NI's fundamental growth could improve going forward.</p>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx" type="external">Dan Caplinger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends National Instruments. 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> | National Instruments Reports Sluggish Sales on Forex Pressure | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/26/national-instruments-reports-sluggish-sales-on-forex-pressure.html | 2017-01-26 | 0 |
<p>Can you imagine going back to your car and finding a parking ticket?</p>
<p>And during Christmas season too.</p>
<p>You’ve just come from a spending spree for gifts and treats and then this happens, the worst.</p>
<p>So, in line with the festive season, one police force from Texas thought of a nice way to solve this inconvenience, they decided to&#160;swap traffic offenses for a charitable drive.</p>
<p>Instead of handing out parking tickets, Godley Police Department <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/police-come-up-truly-heartwarming-9464436" type="external">issues</a> notes asking vehicle owners to bring gifts into the station to be given to children who are in need.</p>
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<p>The police force is in a small town near Dallas-Fort Worth Texas, and says that it’s replacing minor traffic violations with the request. So far, officers have collected dozens of toys for less fortunate kids.</p>
<p>The idea came from the city’s new Police Chief, Jason Jordan, who, after taking over in March, decided that he wants to make this toy drive a &#160;long standing tradition.</p>
<p>“We’ve probably handed out a couple hundred.”</p>
<p>Lovely!</p>
<p>Image via <a href="https://pixabay.com/en/squad-car-police-lights-city-urban-1209719/" type="external">Pixabay</a>.</p> | Parking Tickets Are Swapped For Something Heartwarming In Texas | true | http://offthemainpage.com/2016/12/18/parking-tickets-are-swapped-for-something-heartwarming-in-texas/ | 2016-12-18 | 4 |
<p>The chief executive for PBS is sounding the alarm about public broadcasting’s future if federal funding is axed as called for by President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>“PBS will not go away, but a number of our stations will,” CEO Paula Kerger said Saturday. “There is no Plan B for that.”</p>
<p>PBS’ share of the roughly $450 million in federal funds allocated for public TV and radio goes largely to support public TV stations nationwide, a number of which rely on it for up to 50 percent of their budgets and can’t survive without it, Kerger told a TV critics’ meeting.</p>
<p>Many of those stations are in rural and underserved areas, she said, with residents who either don’t have access to cable or satellite or can’t afford it and who rely on over-the-air broadcasting.</p>
<p>Kerger, who addressed the issue at a TV critics’ meeting, said observers have speculated, hopefully, that because PBS has survived previous funding threats, ” ‘you’ll be OK, right?’ “</p>
<p>But she’s forced to assume that anything can happen in what has been “an extraordinary year on so many levels,” Kerger said. “We need to be quite vigilant as Congress debates our funding that we don’t assume people remember the impacts we have on communities.”</p>
<p>There’s an irony that this potential existential crisis for some public TV stations comes as the 50th anniversary of the Public Broadcasting Act approaches in November, Kerger said. The 1967 act created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides grants to about 1,500 locally owned-and-operated public TV and radio stations nationwide.</p>
<p>She’s taking the threat seriously and that others in public media, which includes National Public Radio, are linking arms “to try to make an effective case” for federal funding, Kerger said. But other voices need to be heard as Congress weighs Trump’s proposed spending plan that would trigger a move toward elimination of all federal support, she said.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, “what legislators most care about is impact on their own communities,” Kerger said, encouraging people nationwide who care about public broadcasting to let their representatives know.</p>
<p>Trump’s 2018 budget proposal isn’t the first to try to cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But it is the first to also propose gutting money for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.</p>
<p>The three agencies combined receive about $740 million annually in tax dollars. That’s a sliver of the current $4 trillion federal budget, But the federal funding for the agencies carries outsized importance in political symbolism and, both supporters and detractors say, economic impact because of the private dollars it attracts.</p>
<p>Asked about critics who consider PBS a fount of liberalism that doesn’t warrant public funds, Kerger replied that surveys conducted by Democratic and Republican pollsters for PBS found an overwhelming level of support among people of all political stripes for its continued federal funding.</p>
<p>The cost works out to about $1.35 per citizen per year for programming that can’t be found elsewhere on TV, Kerger said, including educational shows for children and documentaries such as Ken Burns’ upcoming documentary series on the Vietnam War. Other support is provided by private and corporate donors</p>
<p>The White House budget plan, which emphasizes military and other security-related spending and slashes many domestic programs, is the first step in a lengthy budget process that ultimately requires Congressional approval.</p> | PBS CEO Warns That Federal Cuts Will Sink Some Stations | false | https://newsline.com/pbs-ceo-warns-that-federal-cuts-will-sink-some-stations/ | 2017-07-30 | 1 |
<p>Paper - Harvard Business School</p>
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<p>Venture capital investment is a significant factor in explaining the entrepreneurial and innovative successes of the U.S. over the past three decades. VC investment in most European regions, however, has been much slower to develop. This paper identifies the institutional factors and government policies that have inhibited this funding historically, discusses recent advances made in several European regions to attract domestic and foreign investors, and documents current investment levels. Specific attention is devoted to labor market regulations and how government choices between employment protection regulations and unemployment insurance benefits affect VC investment levels and entrepreneurship.</p>
<p /> | Labor Market Regulation and European Venture Capital Investment | false | http://belfercenter.org/publication/labor-market-regulation-and-european-venture-capital-investment | 2006-08-31 | 2 |
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<p>DEMING - The Border Patrol says seven people were taken into custody sin southern New Mexico following a chase of a pickup seen stopping along Interstate 10 in Deming to pick up people who emerged from the desert.</p>
<p>The Border Patrol said agents saw the vehicle make several U-turns on I-10 before and after it picked up the people on Monday.</p>
<p>The agents followed the vehicle when it got off I-10 in Deming and alerted other law enforcement agencies when the vehicle accelerated when the agents tried to pull it over.</p>
<p>The truck was disabled when a tire struck a curb.</p>
<p>The Border Patrol said the driver and six passengers who said they had illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border were taken into custody.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Border Patrol: 7 in custody after chase in Deming area | false | https://abqjournal.com/570256/border-patrol-7-in-custody-after-chase-in-deming-area.html | 2 |
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<p>Everybody here at Mother Jones is very pleased to announce that David Corn, long-time Washington Editor for The Nation, best-selling author, <a href="http://www.davidcorn.com/" type="external">blogger</a>, and <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34753,00.html" type="external">TV commentator</a> has agreed to take the reins of our greatly expanded Washington bureau.</p>
<p>You can read our old school, fully committeed, awesome press release after the jump. (Quick, somebody “leak” it to <a href="http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45" type="external">Romenesko</a>.) But the gist is: David will head up a team of seven reporters and all this firepower in D.C. represents a fundamental change in the way we do business. Better, stronger, faster than before.</p>
<p>Look out D.C.! Oh, and we’ve also hired Debra Dickerson (author of The End of Blackness) as an on-line columnist and Nick Aster (who built <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/" type="external">Treehugger</a> and a lot of the <a href="http://gawker.com/advertising/" type="external">Gawker blogs</a>) to head up our web team. Read more after the jump.</p>
<p>Mother Jones Hires David Corn as D.C. Bureau Chief Appointment completes a major expansion for San Francisco-based news organization</p>
<p>Mother Jones has hired veteran D.C. journalist David Corn to head its recently expanded Washington bureau, which will now have a staff of seven reporters and editors. The longtime Washington editor of The Nation, Corn has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s, The New Republic, Slate, Salon, and many other publications.</p>
<p>“I welcome the chance to work with a team of reporters whose mission is to investigate Washington,” says Corn. “And the timing couldn’t be better. Conventional media outfits are cutting back, opinion frequently drowns out reporting, and the blogosphere is too often loaded with rants. There’s a real appetite for the kind of facts-based journalism Mother Jones is known for. This squad of D.C.-based reporters will turbocharge the magazine’s investigative capabilities and help MotherJones.com become even more of a daily go-to source for vital news and analysis.”</p>
<p>Corn’s hiring comes at a time of rapid expansion by Mother Jones, the San Francisco-based nonprofit news organization. While many other media companies have recently cut Washington staff and closed bureaus, Mother Jones has bucked that trend as part of a transition from a magazine-centered enterprise to a multi-platform news organization.</p>
<p>“We have long admired David’s political insights, his reporting skills, his quick wit, and writerly flair,” said Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, coeditors of Mother Jones. “Again and again, David has been ahead of the pack on the big stories, and as both a well-connected reporter and an early adapter to new media, he has the perfect combination of experience and talents to lead our D.C. bureau.”</p>
<p>“The appointment of David Corn rounds out a fundamental shift in how Mother Jones operates,” said president and publisher Jay Harris. “With a resourceful group of staff reporters in Washington and San Francisco, we intend for Mother Jones‘ brand of independent reporting to break important stories both online and in print. The news world today is 24/7, and so are we.”</p>
<p>A Fox News Channel contributor, Corn was a regular panelist on the weekly television show Eye on Washington and has appeared on ABC News’ This Week with George Stephanopoulos, PBS’s Newshour, The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, On the Record With Greta Van Susteren, Crossfire, The Capital Gang, Fox News Sunday, Washington Week in Review, The McLaughlin Group, Hardball, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and many other shows. In the radio world, he is a regular on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show and To the Point and has contributed commentary to NPR, BBC Radio, and CBC Radio.</p>
<p>Corn is the coauthor, with Michael Isikoff, of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown, 2006), as well as The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, both best-sellers.</p>
<p>Corn will head a staff of Washington reporters that also includes James Ridgeway, Laura Rozen, Dan Schulman, Stephanie Mencimer, Bruce Falconer, and Jonathan Stein.</p>
<p>Last month, as another part of its reorganization, Mother Jones announced the appointment of Nick Aster, who built&#160;Treehugger.com who also built many of the Gawker sites, as media architect and general manager of motherjones.com.</p>
<p>Mother Jones also recently signed up Debra Dickerson, author of The End of Blackness and An American Story, as a blogger and online columnist.</p>
<p>Founded in 1976, Mother Jones magazine has a circulation of 230,000 and has won four National Magazine Awards, including a 2001 award for General Excellence. In 2007 the magazine was a National Magazine Award finalist for General Excellence and Interactive Feature and motherjones.com won two Webby awards for its political coverage.</p>
<p /> | David Corn To Become Mother Jones’ Washington Bureau Chief | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/david-corn-become-mother-jones-washington-bureau-chief/ | 2007-10-01 | 4 |
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<p>Joan Rivers is really out causing controversy this week… She just labeled Barack Obama as America’s first gay president.</p>
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<p>Her comments came after she recently officiated an impromptu wedding for Joe Aiello and his partner Jed Ryan at a signing for her new book “Diary of a Mad Diva” at an NYC Barnes &amp; Noble. When a reporter on the street asked about the possibility of the country having its first gay president, Rivers replied:</p>
<p>“We already have it with Obama, so let’s just calm down.”</p>
<p>And what did she say about First Lady Michelle Obama:</p>
<p>“You know Michelle is a tranny.”</p>
<p>The reporter asked for clarification, so Rivers repeated her insanity:</p>
<p>“A transgender. We all know.”</p> | Joan Rivers Says Something So Crazy about Michelle Obama that you Won’t Believe Your Ears! | true | http://thepoliticalinsider.com/joan-rivers-says-something-crazy/ | 2014-07-07 | 0 |
<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon's drawing of the Illinois Lottery's "LuckyDay Lotto Midday" game were:</p>
<p>04-09-10-34-43</p>
<p>(four, nine, ten, thirty-four, forty-three)</p>
<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon's drawing of the Illinois Lottery's "LuckyDay Lotto Midday" game were:</p>
<p>04-09-10-34-43</p>
<p>(four, nine, ten, thirty-four, forty-three)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'LuckyDay Lotto Midday' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/b26b848c8c4c48099cb9dc03b42e48e5 | 2018-01-09 | 2 |
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<p>The study was prepared by David Taussig &amp; Associates, a California-based consulting firm, which was retained by the Village of Los Lunas. The document is dated December 2016, more than a month after Facebook broke ground on the data center.</p>
<p>A spokesman for the state’s economic development department said last month the department had not yet prepared its own economic impact study.</p>
<p>The report states that the goal of the study was to “determine whether the project is expected to generate enough revenues for the Village to fully offset expenditures for Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) assistance as well as services provided on its behalf by the Village. Note, however, that the study does not address the cost of water rights or additional Village infrastructure needed to service the project.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>To incentivize the social media giant to choose New Mexico for its new data center, Facebook was offered $10 million in state Local Economic Development Act funding in addition to a gross-receipts tax reimbursement from Los Lunas of up to $1.6 million annually and $30 billion in industrial revenue bonds. Facebook is responsible for repaying the bonds, which provide a property tax break for the company.</p>
<p>Among the previously undisclosed information in the report:</p>
<p>— Total economic output over 10 years, which include both the temporary impacts of the construction project and the more permanent impact of the data center, is projected to reach $1.88 billion if “indirect and induced” impacts are also included. That number reflects the creation of 5,660 jobs countywide and the addition of $234.77 million in wages.</p>
<p>–Assuming the maximum six buildings are constructed, the projected is expected to generate a net of $2.17 million per year in revenue for New Mexico’s general fund, $21.71 million over 10 years</p>
<p>–Los Lunas is expected to net nearly $28 million in gross receipts tax revenues related to the construction project over a decade-long period, a figure that accounts for the amount forgiven in the incentive package. Total gross receipts tax revenues are projected to total $83.41 million over the same period.</p>
<p>–The project will require “significant new infrastructure . . . ultimately owned by the Village and maintained by the Village’s general fund” and “financed through public or private funds,” including water main extensions, additional fire hydrants and sewer improvement.</p>
<p>As reported previously, PNM is also building a high-voltage electrical line and several solar facilities for the data center.</p>
<p>In its executive summary, the report states the net impact of the project will likely be a positive one: “Although the project is expected to require a considerable amount of public infrastructure, the project is also expected to generate significant new revenues for the Village of Los Lunas.”</p>
<p>A spokesperson for Facebook declined to comment on the report.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/336316344/Facebook-Data-Center-FEIS-Report#from_embed" type="external">Facebook Data Center FEIS Report</a> by <a href="https://www.scribd.com/user/344427810/Marie-C-Baca#from_embed" type="external">Marie C. Baca</a> on Scribd</p>
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<p /> | Village projects $2B impact from Facebook project | false | https://abqjournal.com/924906/village-projects-2b-impact-from-facebook-project.html | 2 |
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<p>NEW YORK — Polarizing right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos was by turns apologetic for comments he made about sexual relationships between boys and men and adamant he had been the subject of “a cynical media witch hunt” on Tuesday as he spoke after resigning as an editor at Breitbart News.</p>
<p>Yiannopoulos opened his remarks to reporters by saying two men, including a priest, had touched him inappropriately when he was between the ages of 13 and 16.</p>
<p>“My experiences as a victim led me to believe I could say anything I wanted to on this subject, no matter how outrageous,” he said. “But I understand that my usual blend of British sarcasm, provocation and gallows humor might have come across as flippancy, a lack of care for other victims or, worse, advocacy. I am horrified by that impression.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The British writer said he was resigning from Breitbart, which helped make him a star, because it would be “wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting.”</p>
<p>The apology followed days of criticism from fellow conservatives after the release of video clips in which Yiannopoulos appeared to defend sexual relationships between men and boys as young as 13.</p>
<p>In one of them, Yiannopoulos, who is gay, said relationships between boys and men could “help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable sort of rock, where they can’t speak to their parents.”</p>
<p>On Monday, he was disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference after video of his remarks was promoted through social media.</p>
<p>Publisher Simon &amp; Schuster announced it would cancel the publication of his upcoming book, “Dangerous.” Yiannopoulos said the book had already received interest from other publishers and would still come out this year. He pledged to donate 10 percent of the proceeds to child sex abuse charities.</p>
<p>But he also said the flare-up over remarks made a year ago “is a cynical media witch hunt from people who do not care about children. They care about destroying me and my career and, by extension, my allies.”</p>
<p>Yiannopoulos has long been known for provocative comments about women and Muslims and made his support for Republican Donald Trump clear in the last presidential election cycle. He was the technology editor at Breitbart News, whose former executive chairman, Steve Bannon, is now a senior adviser to Trump, who became president last month.</p>
<p>Before this controversy, Yiannopoulos was perhaps best known for getting banned from Twitter for helping to lead an online harassment campaign against comedian and “Ghostbusters” actress Leslie Jones.</p>
<p>Early in February, he was scheduled to give a talk at the University of California, Berkeley, but the speech was cancelled after violent protests.</p>
<p>Yiannopoulos has appeared, until now, to revel in those controversies and has portrayed himself as a champion of free speech. Tuesday’s apology, he said, was the first he’d ever made.</p>
<p>Still, the video clips, he insisted, had been edited to remove important context. He characterized media reporting on the tapes as unfair and inaccurate.</p> | Milo Yiannopoulos apologizes for remarks, quits Breitbart | false | https://abqjournal.com/954408/milo-yiannopoulos-resigns-as-editor-of-breitbart-tech.html | 2017-02-21 | 2 |
<p>Two of Syria’s major opposition groups, the Syrian National Council and the National Coordination Committee, overcame fracturing to sign an agreement Friday to set up an egalitarian democracy that will draft a new constitution and operate without foreign military aid, in the event ongoing protests succeed in ousting President Bashar al-Assad. –ARK</p>
<p>The Guardian:</p>
<p>Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the SNC, and Haytham Manna of the NCB, signed the agreement in Cairo on Friday night, according to officials from both parties. The draft agreement states both groups reject any foreign military intervention in Syria, a move previously advocated by the SNC and opposed by the NCB, and calls for the protection of civilians by all legitimate means under international laws.</p>
<p>It also states that as soon as Assad’s regime falls a “transitional period” would begin by preserving all state institutions and then drafting a new constitution that guarantees a “civilian pluralist parliamentary democratic system”. A new parliament and president would then be elected.</p>
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<p>The draft also states that all Syrian citizens are equal and the country’s Kurdish minority is a “fundamental and historic” part of Syria’s national structure. It also calls for “liberating Syrian territory”, an apparent reference to the Golan Heights occupied by Israel since 1967.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/31/syria-opposition-plan-democratic-future" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Syrian Opposition Groups Draft Post-Assad Plan | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/syrian-opposition-groups-draft-post-assad-plan/ | 2012-01-01 | 4 |
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<p>U.S. schools need to place more emphasis on creativity in order to best prepare their students for today's work environment, new research finds.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The study by <a href="http://www.adobe.com/" type="external">Adobe Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;revealed that 78 percent of today's employees think creativity is an important trait for their job, while 85 percent believe creative thinking is critical for problem-solving in their career.</p>
<p>Based on research, there is a growing belief that creativity is not just a personality trait. Nearly 70 percent of the professionals surveyed believe <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2471-creativity-innovation-learned.html" type="external">creativity is a skill that can be learned Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Knowing the value of the ability to come up with innovative ideas in the workplace, more than 70 percent of workers said creative thinking should be taught in school as a class like math or <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/1966-stem-job-opportunities.html" type="external">science Opens a New Window.</a>, with 82 percent wishing they had more exposure to the skill as students.</p>
<p>"Around the world, educators are already fostering creative thinking with their students," said Jon Perera, vice president of education, Adobe. "What this study is telling us is that we need to empower and accelerate this shift. Creativity is a critical competency that should be taught within all disciplines. This will drive the global economy and the career success of the next generation."</p>
<p>Many employees had no idea how much their job would depend on their being able to think outside the box. The study discovered that while nearly 80 percent of today's workforce considers creative thinking an important aspect of their job, just 57 percent of those same employees thought creativity would be important to their career while they were in <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2525-college-graduates-job-tips.html" type="external">college Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Developing creative thinkers would do much more than just boost the careers of future generations, the study found. Nearly 90 percent of employees believe creativity is required for economic growth, and is valuable to society as a whole.</p>
<p>The study, "Creativity and Education: Why it Matters," was based on interviews with 1,000 full-time salaried workers ages 25 and older with at least a four-year college degree.</p>
<p>Follow Chad Brooks on Twitter @ <a href="http://www.twitter.com/cbrooks76" type="external">cbrooks76 Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;or BusinessNewsDaily @BNDarticles. We're also on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/BusinessNewsDaily" type="external">Facebook Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;&amp; <a href="https://plus.google.com/113390396142026041164/posts" type="external">Google+ Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Workers Want More Emphasis on Creativity | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/11/08/workers-want-more-emphasis-on-creativity.html | 2016-03-23 | 0 |
<p>By Pepe Escobar, TomDispatchThis piece first appeared at TomDispatch. Read Tom Engelhardt’s introduction <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175845/tomgram%3A_pepe_escobar%2C_who%27s_pivoting_where_in_eurasia/" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>HONG KONG — A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass — at the expense of the United States.</p>
<p>And no wonder Washington is anxious.&#160; That alliance is already a done deal in a variety of ways: through the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa); at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asian counterweight to NATO; inside <a href="http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_02_26/BRICS-is-priority-for-Russian-foreign-policy-and-way-to-shape-multipolar-world-Russias-diplomat-5870/" type="external">the G20</a>; and via the 120-member-nation <a href="http://www.nam.gov.za" type="external">Non-Aligned Movement</a> (NAM). Trade and commerce are just part of the future bargain.&#160; Synergies in the development of new military technologies beckon as well. After Russia’s Star Wars-style, ultra-sophisticated <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/russia-fight-space-invaders-other-threats-advanced-star-wars-s-500-missile-defense-system-1401975" type="external">S-500</a> air defense anti-missile system comes online in 2018, Beijing is sure to want a version of it. Meanwhile, Russia is about to <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/how-china-plans-to-use-the-su-35/" type="external">sell</a> dozens of state-of-the-art Sukhoi Su-35 jet fighters to the Chinese as Beijing and Moscow move to seal an aviation-industrial partnership.</p>
<p>This week should provide the first real fireworks in the celebration of a new Eurasian century-in-the-making when Russian President Vladimir Putin drops in on Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.&#160; You remember “ <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175050/pepe_escobar_welcome_to_pipelineistan" type="external">Pipelineistan</a>,” all those crucial oil and gas pipelines crisscrossing Eurasia that make up the true circulatory system for the life of the region.&#160; Now, it looks like the ultimate Pipelineistan deal, worth $1 trillion and 10 years in the making, will be inked as well.&#160; In it, the giant, state-controlled Russian energy giant Gazprom <a href="http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140512/189761463/Moscow-Beijing-Close-to-Gas-Deal--Russian-Official.html" type="external">will agree</a> to supply the giant state-controlled China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) with 3.75 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas a day for no less than 30 years, starting in 2018. That’s the equivalent of a quarter of Russia’s massive gas exports to all of Europe. China’s current daily gas demand is around 16 billion cubic feet a day, and imports account for 31.6% of total consumption.</p>
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<p>Gazprom may still collect the bulk of its profits from Europe, but Asia could turn out to be its Everest. The company will use this mega-deal to <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/video/russias-east-asian-pivot" type="external">boost investment</a> in Eastern Siberia and the whole region will be reconfigured as a privileged gas hub for Japan and South Korea as well. If you want to know why no key country in Asia has been willing to “ <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-250314.html" type="external">isolate</a>” Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian crisis — and in defiance of the Obama administration — look no further than Pipelineistan.</p>
<p>Exit the Petrodollar, Enter the Gas-o-Yuan</p>
<p>And then, talking about anxiety in Washington, there’s the fate of the petrodollar to consider, or rather the “thermonuclear” possibility that Moscow and Beijing will agree on payment for the Gazprom-CNPC deal not in petrodollars but in Chinese yuan. One can hardly imagine a more tectonic shift, with Pipelineistan intersecting with a growing Sino-Russian political-economic-energy partnership. Along with it goes the future possibility of a push, led again by China and Russia, toward a new international reserve currency — actually a basket of currencies — that would supersede the dollar (at least in the optimistic dreams of BRICS members).</p>
<p>Right after the potentially game-changing Sino-Russian summit comes a BRICS summit in Brazil in July. That’s when a $100 billion <a href="http://thebricspost.com/brics-finance-ministers-meet-in-washington-2/#.U2x77l5fFcU" type="external">BRICS development bank</a>, announced in 2012, will officially be born as a potential alternative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as a source of project financing for the developing world.</p>
<p>More BRICS cooperation meant to bypass the dollar is reflected in the “ <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-10/gazprom-prepares-symbolic-bond-issue-chinese-yuan" type="external">Gas-o-yuan</a>,” as in natural gas bought and paid for in Chinese currency. Gazprom is even considering marketing bonds in yuan as part of the financial planning for its expansion. Yuan-backed bonds are already trading in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and most recently <a href="http://www.dw.de/frankfurt-issues-first-bond-backed-by-chinese-currency/a-17605819" type="external">Frankfurt</a>.</p>
<p>Nothing could be more sensible for the new Pipelineistan deal than to have it settled in yuan. Beijing would pay Gazprom in that currency (convertible into rubles); Gazprom would accumulate the yuan; and Russia would then buy myriad made-in-China goods and services in yuan convertible into rubles.</p>
<p>It’s common knowledge that banks in Hong Kong, from Standard Chartered to HSBC — as well as others closely linked to China via trade deals — have been diversifying into the yuan, which implies that it could become one of the de facto global reserve currencies even before it’s fully convertible. (Beijing is unofficially working for a fully convertible yuan by 2018.)</p>
<p>The Russia-China gas deal is inextricably tied up with the energy relationship between the European Union (EU) and Russia. After all, the bulk of Russia’s gross domestic product comes from oil and gas sales, as does much of its leverage in the Ukraine crisis. In turn, Germany depends on Russia for a hefty 30% of its natural gas supplies. Yet Washington’s geopolitical imperatives — spiced up with Polish hysteria — have meant pushing Brussels to find ways to “punish” Moscow in the future energy sphere (while not imperiling present day energy relationships).</p>
<p>There’s a consistent rumble in Brussels these days about the possible <a href="http://rt.com/op-edge/157308-ukrainian-crisis-imf-loans/" type="external">cancellation</a> of the projected 16 billion euro South Stream pipeline, whose construction is to start in June.&#160; On completion, it would pump yet more Russian natural gas to Europe — in this case, underneath the Black Sea (bypassing Ukraine) to Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Italy, and Austria.</p>
<p>Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have already made it clear that they are firmly opposed to any cancellation. &#160;And cancellation is probably not in the cards.&#160; After all, the only obvious alternative is Caspian Sea gas from Azerbaijan, and that isn’t likely to happen unless the EU can suddenly muster the will and funds for a crash schedule to construct the fabled Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, conceived during the Clinton years expressly to bypass Russia and Iran.</p>
<p>In any case, Azerbaijan doesn’t have enough capacity to supply the levels of natural gas needed, and other actors like Kazakhstan, plagued with infrastructure problems, or unreliable Turkmenistan, which prefers to sell its gas to China, are already largely out of the picture. And don’t forget that South Stream, coupled with subsidiary energy projects, will create a lot of jobs and investment in many of the most economically devastated EU nations.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, such EU threats, however unrealistic, only serve to accelerate Russia’s increasing symbiosis with Asian markets. For Beijing especially, it’s a win-win situation. After all, between energy supplied across seas policed and controlled by the U.S. Navy and steady, stable land routes out of Siberia, it’s no contest.</p>
<p>Pick Your Own Silk Road</p>
<p>Of course, the U.S. dollar remains the top global reserve currency, involving 33% of global foreign exchange holdings at the end of 2013, according to the IMF. It was, however, at 55% in 2000. Nobody knows the percentage in yuan (and Beijing isn’t talking), but the IMF notes that reserves in “other currencies” in emerging markets have been up 400% since 2003.</p>
<p>The Fed is <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-federal-reserve-is-monetizing-a-staggering-amount-of-u-s-government-debt" type="external">arguably monetizing</a> 70% of the U.S. government debt in an attempt to keep interest rates from heading skywards. Pentagon adviser Jim Rickards, as well as every Hong Kong-based banker, tends to believe that the Fed is bust (though they won’t say it on the record). No one can even imagine the extent of the possible future deluge the U.S. dollar might experience amid a $1.4 trillion Mount Ararat of financial derivatives.&#160; Don’t think that this is the death knell of Western capitalism, however, just the faltering of that reigning economic faith, neoliberalism, still the official ideology of the United States, the overwhelming majority of the European Union, and parts of Asia and South America.</p>
<p>As far as what might be called the “authoritarian neoliberalism” of the Middle Kingdom, what’s not to like at the moment? China has proven that there is a result-oriented alternative to the Western “democratic” capitalist model for nations aiming to be successful. It’s building not one, but myriad <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABsojbvC18g" type="external">new Silk Roads</a>, massive webs of high-speed railways, highways, pipelines, ports, and fiber optic networks across huge parts of Eurasia. These include a Southeast Asian road, a Central Asian road, an Indian Ocean “maritime highway” and even a high-speed rail line through Iran and Turkey reaching all the way to Germany.</p>
<p>In April, when President Xi Jinping visited the city of Duisburg on the Rhine River, with the largest inland harbor in the world and right in the heartland of Germany’s Ruhr steel industry, he made an audacious proposal: a new “economic Silk Road” should be built between China and Europe, on the basis of the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe railway, which already runs from China to Kazakhstan, then through Russia, Belarus, Poland, and finally Germany. That’s 15 days by train, 20 less than for cargo ships sailing from China’s eastern seaboard. Now that would represent the ultimate geopolitical earthquake in terms of integrating economic growth across Eurasia.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that, if no bubbles burst, China is about to become — and remain — the number one global economic power, a position it enjoyed for 18 of the past 20 centuries. But don’t tell London <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c355e0e6-d1d1-11e3-8ff4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz30brl0nA8" type="external">hagiographers</a>; they still believe that U.S. hegemony will last, well, forever.</p>
<p>Take Me to Cold War 2.0</p>
<p>Despite recent serious financial struggles, the BRICS countries have been consciously working to become a counterforce to the original and — having <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/24/politics/obama-europe-trip/" type="external">tossed Russia out</a> in March — once again Group of 7, or G7. They are eager to create a new global architecture to replace the one first imposed in the wake of World War II, and they see themselves as a potential challenge to the exceptionalist and unipolar world that Washington imagines for our future (with itself as the global robocop and NATO as its robo-police force). Historian and imperialist cheerleader Ian Morris, in his book War! What is it Good For?, defines the U.S. as the ultimate “globocop” and “the last best hope of Earth.” If that globocop “wearies of its role,” he writes, “there is no plan B.”&#160; &#160;&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Well, there is a plan BRICS — or so the BRICS nations would like to think, at least. And when the BRICS do act in this spirit on the global stage, they quickly conjure up a curious mix of fear, hysteria, and pugnaciousness in the Washington establishment. Take Christopher Hill as an example. The former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and U.S. ambassador to Iraq is now an advisor with the Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting firm deeply connected to the White House and the State Department. When Russia was down and out, Hill used to dream of a hegemonic American “new world order.”&#160; Now that the ungrateful Russians have <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/christopher-r--hill-calls-on-the-west-to-prepare-for-a-long-struggle-with-a-revanchist-russia" type="external">spurned</a> what “the West has been offering” — that is, “special status with NATO, a privileged relationship with the European Union, and partnership in international diplomatic endeavors” — they are, in his view, busy trying to revive the Soviet empire. Translation: if you’re not our vassals, you’re against us.&#160; Welcome to Cold War 2.0.&#160; &#160;</p>
<p>The Pentagon has its own version of this directed not so much at Russia as at China, which, its think tank on future warfare claims, is <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/26/china-waging-three-warfares-against-united-states-in-asia-pentagon-says/" type="external">already at war</a> with Washington in a number of ways. So if it’s not apocalypse now, it’s Armageddon tomorrow. And it goes without saying that whatever’s going wrong, as the Obama administration very publicly “pivots” to Asia and the American media <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/world/europe/in-cold-war-echo-obama-strategy-writes-off-putin.html" type="external">fills with talk</a> about a revival of Cold War-era “containment policy” in the Pacific, it’s all China’s fault.</p>
<p>Embedded in the mad dash toward Cold War 2.0 are some ludicrous facts-on-the-ground: the U.S. government, with $17.5 trillion in national debt and counting, is contemplating a financial showdown with Russia, the largest global energy producer and a major nuclear power, just as it’s also promoting an economically unsustainable military encirclement of its largest creditor, China.</p>
<p>Russia runs a sizeable trade surplus. Humongous Chinese banks will have no trouble <a href="http://www.dibtimes.com/russian-companies-strengthen-financial-ties-china-western-sanctions-over-ukraine-crisis-1580210" type="external">helping Russian banks</a> out if Western funds dry up. In terms of inter-BRICS cooperation, few projects beat a $30 billion oil pipeline in the planning stages that <a href="http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/30-billion-oil-pipeline-built-russia-india-northwest-china/" type="external">will stretch</a> from Russia to India via Northwest China. Chinese companies are already eagerly discussing the possibility of taking part in the creation of a <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/china-to-help-russia-build-transport-corridor-to-crimea/5380484" type="external">transport corridor</a> from Russia into Crimea, as well as an airport, shipyard, and liquid natural gas terminal there. And there’s another “thermonuclear” gambit in the making: the birth of a natural gas equivalent to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that would include Russia, Iran, and <a href="http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_05_07/Russian-led-gas-OPEC-may-emerge-soon-4451/" type="external">reportedly</a> disgruntled U.S. ally Qatar.</p>
<p>The (unstated) BRICS long-term plan involves the creation of an alternative economic system featuring a basket of gold-backed currencies that would bypass the present America-centric global financial system. (No wonder Russia and China are amassing as much gold as they can.) The euro — a sound currency backed by large liquid bond markets and huge gold reserves — would be welcomed in as well.</p>
<p>It’s no secret in Hong Kong that the Bank of China has been using a parallel SWIFT network to conduct every kind of trade with Tehran, which is under a heavy U.S. sanctions regime. With Washington wielding Visa and Mastercard as <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/article/putin-calls-for-creation-of-banking-payment-system-20140327-00598#ixzz2xQIi0AgY" type="external">weapon</a>s in a growing Cold War-style economic campaign against Russia, Moscow is about to implement an alternative payment and credit card system not controlled by Western finance. An even easier route would be to adopt the Chinese <a href="http://rt.com/op-edge/russia-china-payment-systems-640/" type="external">Union Pay system</a>, whose operations have already overtaken American Express in global volume. &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>I’m Just Pivoting With Myself</p>
<p>No amount of Obama administration “pivoting” to Asia to contain China (and threaten it with <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/178694/how-us-energy-boom-harming-foreign-policy" type="external">U.S. Navy control</a> of the energy sea lanes to that country) is likely to push Beijing far from its Deng Xiaoping-inspired, self-described “ <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-09/06/c_131102329.htm" type="external">peaceful development</a>” strategy meant to turn it into a global powerhouse of trade.&#160; Nor are the forward deployment of U.S. or NATO troops in Eastern Europe or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/world/europe/in-cold-war-echo-obama-strategy-writes-off-putin.html?_r=2" type="external">other</a> such <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-290414.html" type="external">Cold-War-ish acts</a> likely to deter Moscow from a careful balancing act: ensuring that Russia’s sphere of influence in Ukraine remains strong without compromising trade and commercial, as well as political, ties with the European Union — above all, with strategic partner Germany. This is Moscow’s Holy Grail; a <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vladivostok-putin-envisions-a-russia-eu-free-trade-zone-a-731109.html" type="external">free-trade zone</a> from Lisbon to Vladivostok, which (not by accident) is mirrored in China’s dream of a new Silk Road to Germany.</p>
<p>Increasingly wary of Washington, Berlin for its part abhors the notion of Europe being caught in the grips of a Cold War 2.0. German leaders have more important fish to fry, including trying to stabilize a wobbly EU while warding off an economic collapse in southern and central Europe and the advance of ever more extreme rightwing parties.</p>
<p>On the other side of the Atlantic, President Obama and his top officials show every sign of becoming entangled in their own pivoting — to Iran, to China, to Russia’s eastern borderlands, and ( <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/nick_turse_blowback_central" type="external">under the radar</a>) to Africa. The irony of all these military-first maneuvers is that they are actually helping Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing build up their own strategic depth in Eurasia and elsewhere, as reflected in Syria, or crucially in ever more <a href="http://rt.com/business/155404-russia-iran-energy-deal/" type="external">energy deals</a>. They are also <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/china-calls-iran-a-strategic-partner/" type="external">helping cement</a> the growing strategic partnership between China and Iran. The unrelenting Ministry of Truth narrative out of Washington about all these developments now carefully ignores the fact that, without Moscow, the “West” would never have sat down to discuss a final nuclear deal with Iran or gotten a chemical disarmament agreement out of Damascus.</p>
<p>When the disputes between China and its neighbors in the South China Sea and between that country and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyou islands meet the Ukraine crisis, the inevitable conclusion will be that both Russia and China consider their borderlands and sea lanes private property and aren’t going to take challenges quietly — be it via NATO expansion, U.S. military encirclement, or missile shields. Neither Beijing nor Moscow is bent on the usual form of imperialist expansion, despite the version of events now being fed to Western publics.&#160; Their “red lines” remain essentially defensive in nature, no matter the bluster sometimes involved in securing them.</p>
<p>Whatever Washington may want or fear or try to prevent, the facts on the ground suggest that, in the years ahead, Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran will only grow closer, slowly but surely creating a new geopolitical axis in Eurasia. Meanwhile, a discombobulated America seems to be aiding and abetting the deconstruction of its own unipolar world order, while offering the BRICS a genuine window of opportunity to try to change the rules of the game.&#160;</p>
<p>Russia and China in Pivot Mode</p>
<p>In Washington’s think-tank land, the conviction that the Obama administration should be focused on replaying the Cold War via a new version of containment policy to “limit the development of Russia as a hegemonic power” has taken hold. The recipe: weaponize the neighbors from the Baltic states to Azerbaijan to “contain” Russia. Cold War 2.0 is on because, from the point of view of Washington’s elites, the first one never really left town.</p>
<p>Yet as much as the U.S. may fight the emergence of a multipolar, multi-powered world, economic facts on the ground regularly point to such developments.&#160; The question remains: Will the decline of the hegemon be slow and reasonably dignified, or will the whole world be dragged down with it in what has been called “the Samson option”?</p>
<p>While we watch the spectacle unfold, with no end game in sight, keep in mind that a new force is growing in Eurasia, with the Sino-Russian strategic alliance threatening to dominate its heartland along with great stretches of its inner rim. Now, that’s a nightmare of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History%20" type="external">Mackinderesque</a> proportions from Washington’s point of view.&#160; Think, for instance, of how Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser who became a mentor on global politics to President Obama, would see it.</p>
<p>In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski argued that “the struggle for global primacy [would] continue to be played” on the Eurasian “chessboard,” of which “Ukraine was a geopolitical pivot.” “If Moscow regains control over Ukraine,” he wrote at the time, Russia would “automatically regain the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”</p>
<p>That remains most of the rationale behind the American imperial containment policy — from Russia’s European “near abroad” to the South China Sea. Still, with no endgame in sight, keep your eye on Russia pivoting to Asia, China pivoting across the world, and the BRICS hard at work trying to bring about the new Eurasian Century.</p>
<p>Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT, and a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175715/tomgram%3A_pepe_escobar,_the_tao_of_containing_china/" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>. With a chapter on Iran, he is a contributing editor to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1848726260/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Global Obama: Crossroads of Leadership in the 21st&#160;Century</a>. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pepe.escobar.77377?ref=tn_tnmn" type="external">Follow him</a> on Facebook.</p>
<p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America’s Wars — The Untold Story</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 2014 Pepe Escobar</p> | The Birth of a Eurasian Century | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-birth-of-a-eurasian-century/ | 2014-05-19 | 4 |
<p>By Shinichi Saoshiro</p>
<p>TOKYO (Reuters) – The euro slipped on Monday after German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a fourth term in a weekend election, but faced leading a much less stable coalition in a fractured parliament as support for the far-right party surged.</p>
<p>“The market reacted by selling the euro on the possibility of Merkel running into difficulties in forging a coalition. The euro, however, was already losing support from the European Central Bank’s monetary policy theme and appeared to be on its way lower,” said Daisuke Karakama, chief market economist at Mizuho Bank in Tokyo.</p>
<p>“The election outcome in Germany showed the country was no longer a special presence in Europe amid growing support for populism and the far right.”</p>
<p>The euro was down 0.2 percent at $1.1934 , putting more distance between a 2-1/2-year high of $1.2092 reached on Sept. 8, when a European Central Bank policy meeting left currency bulls optimistic the ECB would begin tapering its big stimulus program.</p>
<p>The New Zealand dollar suffered a similar setback, falling as New Zealand’s ruling National Party won the largest number votes in Saturday’s election but without a ruling majority and now faces a round of coalition building that could last days or weeks.</p>
<p>The New Zealand dollar, the world 11th most-traded currency, was down 0.7 percent at $0.7288 .</p>
<p>MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan () was 0.2 percent higher.</p>
<p>Japan’s Nikkei () rose 0.6 percent, Australian shares () climbed 0.4 percent and South Korea’s KOSPI () was flat.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 () and Nasdaq () closed slightly higher on Friday as worries about the Graham-Cassidy proposal to reform U.S. health insurance eased and investors shrugged off concerns about North Korea. ()</p>
<p>The pound was on the defensive after British Prime Minister Theresa May failed to give any concrete details for how Britain might retain preferential access to Europe’s single market after Brexit.</p>
<p>Sterling was little changed at $1.3506 after losing 0.6 percent on Friday.</p>
<p>Its peers’ troubles lifted the dollar, with its index against a basket of six major currencies up 0.1 percent at 92.274 ().</p>
<p>The greenback was up 0.4 percent at 112.455 yen , reversing losses suffered on Friday when the exchange of insults between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea heated up, sapping broader risk appetite.</p>
<p>Oil prices extended their gains after surging on Friday, when OPEC and other oil producers said they were clearing a glut that has weighed on crude prices and may wait until January before deciding whether to extend their output curbs beyond the first quarter of 2018. [O/R]</p>
<p>Brent crude futures () was up 0.05 percent at $56.88 a barrel, not far from a 6-1/2-month high of $56.91 set on Friday.</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> | Euro and kiwi slip on political news, Asia shares track Wall Street | false | https://newsline.com/euro-and-kiwi-slip-on-political-news-asia-shares-track-wall-street/ | 2017-09-24 | 1 |
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<p>CLOVIS (AP) — Authorities say a Clovis man has been convicted in a child solicitation case.</p>
<p>Prosecutors announced Wednesday that a jury in Clovis found 41-year-old Richard Schaublin guilty of soliciting a child by using an electronic device for the purposes of engaging in a sexual act.</p>
<p>Sentencing for Schaublin will be set for next week and prosecutors say he faces three years in prison.</p>
<p>Authorities said the charges stemmed from a 2011 undercover operation by the Curry County Sheriff’s Office.</p>
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<p>They said Schaublin began an online relationship with what he believed to be a 15-year-old girl.</p>
<p>Authorities say he arranged to meet the teen with plans to take her to his home for a sexual encounter.</p>
<p>Sheriff’s deputies arrested Schaublin at the pre-arranged meeting place on Oct. 6, 2011.</p> | Clovis man convicted of child solicitation | false | https://abqjournal.com/189859/clovis-man-convicted-of-child-solicitation.html | 2 |
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<p>A vehicle has hit pedestrians in the Finsbury Park area of north&#160;London&#160;and several people are injured, police said Monday, adding that one person had been arrested.</p>
<p>"Police were called just after 0020 hours (2320 GMT) 18 June to reports of a vehicle in collision with pedestrians," police said in a statement.</p>
<p>"There are a number of casualties being worked on at the scene. There has been one person arrested," the statement said.</p>
<p>The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an umbrella body, said on Twitter: "We have been informed that a van has run over worshippers as they left&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FinsburyPark?src=hash" type="external">#FinsburyPark</a>&#160;Mosque. Our prayers are with the victims.</p>
<p>Harun Khan, the head of the MCB, tweeted that the van had "intentionally" run over people leaving night prayers held during the holy month of Ramadan.</p>
<p>The mosque is near Seven Sisters Road, where the accident happened, and was once a notorious hub for radical Islamists but has entirely changed under new management.</p> | Another vehicle attack rocks London, this time targeting a mosque | false | https://pri.org/stories/2017-06-18/another-vehicle-attack-rocks-london-time-targeting-mosque | 2017-06-18 | 3 |
<p>Market researcher IDC is out with its latest estimates&#160;for the wearables market in the third quarter, and the overall market posted 7% growth in worldwide unit volumes. There were a total of 26.3 million units shipped in the third quarter, up from 24.5 million a year ago. The wearables market continues its ongoing shift away from basic wearables and toward smart wearables (IDC's distinction depends on whether or not the device can run third-party apps).</p>
<p>Xiaomi and Fitbit (NYSE: FIT) tied for first, while Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) was No. 3. Huawei, which previously did not rank within the top five vendors, saw unit shipments soar to 1.6 million, good enough for No. 4. Here are the top five vendors, according to IDC.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"The differing trajectories for both smart and basic wearables underscore the ongoing evolution for the wearables market," IDC's Ramon Llamas said in the release. "Basic wearables -- with devices coming from Fitbit, Xiaomi, and Huawei -- helped establish the wearables market. But as tastes and demands have changed toward multi-purpose devices -- like smartwatches from Apple, Fossil, and Samsung -- vendors find themselves at a crossroads to adjust accordingly to capture growth opportunity and mindshare."</p>
<p>Xiaomi introduced&#160;smart shoes earlier&#160;this year as it diversifies its wearables portfolio beyond wrist-based devices. These would qualify as basic wearables, as the primary function is fitness tracking, with sensors integrated directly into the shoe (and they don't run third-party apps). Like most of its products, Xiaomi's shipments are concentrated within China.</p>
<p>Fitbit launched its <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/09/20/lukewarm-ionic-reviews-knock-fitbit-down-a-notch.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=b6e2e19c-d5f6-11e7-8d23-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Ionic smartwatch Opens a New Window.</a> at the tail end of the quarter, which qualifies as a smart wearable since it runs a small number of third-party apps. Volumes of Fitbit's basic fitness trackers continue to decline, so the pressure is on for Ionic to revive unit growth, particularly over the holiday shopping season. The fourth quarter will be the first full quarter of the $300 Ionic's availability.</p>
<p>Apple enjoyed solid unit growth of 52% to 2.7 million Apple Watches during the quarter, according to IDC's estimates. That would be in line with Apple CEO Tim Cook's vague statement on the earnings call that Watch had "unit growth of over 50%," but also quite a bit less than the <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/14/canalys-apple-inc-sold-39-million-apple-watches-la.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=b6e2e19c-d5f6-11e7-8d23-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">3.9 million Watches Opens a New Window.</a> that Canalys recently estimated that Apple shipped in the third quarter. The Mac maker says its wearables business is now the size of a Fortune 400 company, implying at least $6.7 billion in revenue in fiscal 2017 (although it's worth noting that Apple's definition of wearables includes wireless headphones, which do not technically fit IDC's definition of wearables).</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFNewCow/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=b6e2e19c-d5f6-11e7-8d23-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Evan Niu, CFA Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple and Fitbit. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool recommends FOSL. 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=b6e2e19c-d5f6-11e7-8d23-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | IDC: Apple, Inc. Sold 2.7 Million Watches in Q3 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/12/01/idc-apple-inc-sold-2-7-million-watches-in-q3.html | 2017-12-01 | 0 |
<p>Self-care includes developing and maintaining good physical, spiritual and mental health, a uniquely challenging but crucial discipline for a pastor. While these three areas of wellness are intertwined and inseparable, in my own life and the experience of many of my colleagues, I recognize that more attention has been given to physical and spiritual health, and mental health is often neglected, causing a diminishment to all three.</p>
<p>Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Every human being experiences highs and lows in mental health. Although some forms of mental illness are genetic, other expressions of mental illness may be related to circumstances or body chemistry, and may be preemptively avoided or proactively addressed by practicing good mental hygiene.</p>
<p>A common, but naïve misconception is that pastors, or persons with strong religious faith, are exempt from mental distress. The Apostle Paul is noted for his courageous ministry but he confessed, “Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches” (II Corinthians 11:28 NIV).</p>
<p>In his book, Surviving the Stained-Glass Jungle, veteran pastor Dr. Bill Self contends that, “Self-care is not destructive self-indulgence, but rather it is being a steward of some rather special gifts— the human body and soul, along with the capacity to bring joy to others as well as to experience it.” Those in every vocation experience varying levels of stress, distress, and duress. However, because the pastoral task requires remarkable investment in the lives of others, a pastor who neglects mental hygiene can gradually slip into a state of melancholy or emotional chaos, and then compound the dilemma by ignoring the symptoms for fear of stigmatizing his or her ministry.</p>
<p>As a pastor I can identify at least five areas that commonly place stress on a pastor’s mental and emotional health: • Unrealistic expectations- These expectations can be real or perceived, and they can be generated by vocal congregants or be self-imposed by a minister with a “messiah complex.” Most congregations have ambivalent expectations that fluctuate between market-driven goals (e.g., attendance, budgets, awards) and mission-driven goals (e.g., participation, stewardship, life transformation). The wider the gap between these two categories, the more intense the stress on the minister.</p>
<p>• Perpetual preparation- The task of perpetual preparation can be a mentally exhausting chore. Many professional public speakers have 4-5 niche speeches that they give over and over to different groups. Professors and teachers have lectures and lesson plans that are updated and revised from semester to semester but they usually follow a core curriculum. A preaching pastor is unique in that he or she is generally expected to prepare and deliver 40-50 different Sunday sermons per year to virtually the same group of people, in addition to devotionals, Bible studies, and speeches for community events.</p>
<p>• Diverse emotional encounters- A minister deals with grief, grace, and everything in between on a daily basis. Perhaps more than any other vocation, a pastor regularly moves in and out of situations with polarizing and intense emotions such as death and birth, divorce and marriage, perversion and conversion, and conflict and resolution. If a pastor is not careful, the residual emotions from these encounters will linger and intermingle creating either emotional apathy or spiritual neuropathy.</p>
<p>• Problem people- Not to be confused with people with problems, problem people are unusually high maintenance individuals who consume an exorbitant amount of a pastor’s time with an unnecessary complaint or unconstructive criticism. Marshall Shelley refers to these “well-intentioned dragons” as “sincere, well-meaning saints, but they leave ulcers, strained relationships, and hard feelings in their wake.”</p>
<p>• Confidentiality cache- Because the pastoral role is not only prophetic but also priestly, a pastor is entrusted with a lot of confidential information that is locked away into a pastor’s mental storage. The volume of this information can become a heavy emotional weight if it remains in a pastor’s mental inbox and is not appropriately archived.</p>
<p>In light of these and other areas of pastoral stress, to preserve good health and promote longevity in ministry, how can a pastor practice good mental and emotional hygiene? Each pastor has to identify and adopt hygienic habits that fit his or her context and personality. Here are some practices I am finding to be helpful in my own pastoral routine:</p>
<p>• Establish and maintain a consistent prayer and devotional life.</p>
<p>• Maintain friendship with a trustworthy conversation partner, perhaps even another pastor, outside of your church.</p>
<p>• Convene a small accountability group, establish a confidentiality covenant with them, and meet with them monthly.</p>
<p>• Read regularly in multiple genres including biography, history, and fiction.</p>
<p>• Pay attention to diet, especially limiting intake of sugar, caffeine, and other foods that can trigger emotional swings.</p>
<p>• Develop a regimen of moderate physical exercise.</p>
<p>• Follow a consistent routine for sleep and rest.</p>
<p>• Periodically disconnect from the work of the church, especially from mental labor (problem solving, conflict management), cellphone calls, and social media.</p>
<p>• Have an annual physical examination, as well as eye examination and dermatology screening.</p>
<p>• Participate in a peer network of pastors who convene with a covenant of confidentiality, and who vent and vision together. Be alert to seasons when your mental distress leads to dysfunction, manifested by ongoing and overwhelming symptoms of depression, chronic anxiety, paranoia, and/or insomnia. Immediately enlist the care of a medical professional. To procrastinate getting care prolongs the process of recovery.</p>
<p>Life in the stained-glass jungle has unique rewards and challenges. Self-care is absolutely essential. Bill Self reminds us that, “It takes courage to take care of yourself. One of the hallmarks of a professional is the ability to keep healthy— physically, emotionally, and spiritually. You must take responsibility for yourself and not expect others to take the initiative to care for you.”</p>
<p>Practicing good self-care can empower a pastor to be mentally sharp, emotionally balanced, and spiritually perceptive in all seasons.</p> | Healthy self-care is essential for a pastor | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/healthy-self-care-is-essential-for-a-pastor/ | 3 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — One dead, one critically injured in overnight incident.</p>
<p>Albuquerque police have blocked off a wide area around 11th and Marquette NW this morning as they follow a trail of blood from the scene of an overnight stabbing.</p>
<p>An unidentified male was found dead at the scene when police responded to a report around 2:30 a.m. of a stabbing in the 300 block of 11th NW. A woman in her late 20s, also unidentified, was taken to University of New Mexico Hospital where she remains in critical condition, said APD spokeswoman Officer Trish Hoffman.</p>
<p>"There was obviously some sort of altercation," said Hoffman, who said police found a blood trail that extended northward almost to Interstate 40.</p>
<p>Whether the blood belonged to a third person who may be a suspect in the stabbing or to one of the victims who doubled back to the scene is unknown at this time, said Hoffman.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 7:05am — Stabbing Suspect Sought | false | https://abqjournal.com/21762/705am-stabbing-suspect-sought.html | 2 |
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<p>Maine ended the fiscal year with better-than-expected revenues of more than $39 million, Republican Gov. Paul LePage's administration said Wednesday.</p>
<p>The extra revenue plus unspent state funds produced a net year-end surplus of nearly $62 million when the fiscal year ended June 30, said Richard Rosen, acting commissioner for the Department of Administrative and Financial Services. More than $12 million of that will be carried over into the new fiscal year that began this month, he said.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Rosen said that the individual income tax and corporate income tax brought in more money than forecasters had anticipated. But sales tax collections came in slightly under what was budgeted, he said.</p>
<p>More than $49 million of the surplus was transferred to a variety of reserves, including the rainy day fund, which received $8.5 million and now holds $68.3 million.</p>
<p>That means the state ended the year more than $93 million in total reserves, Rosen said.</p>
<p>LePage applauded his administration's practice of fiscal responsibility for helping the state end the year in the black, saying that he's focused on the "next generation, not the next election."</p>
<p>But Rep. Peggy Rotundo, a Democrat from Lewiston and co-chair of the Appropriations Committee, said that LePage is taking credit for a budget that he vetoed. Rotundo said she's also concerned that the dipping sales tax figures indicate that Maine families are still struggling in the poor economy.</p> | Maine says it ended fiscal year with $39 million more in revenue than expected | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/07/30/maine-says-it-ended-fiscal-year-with-3-million-more-in-revenue-than-expected.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>John Murray/johnmurrayphotography.com</p>
<p />
<p>Recall frenzy is sweeping through Wisconsin, with nine state legislators, Democrats and Republicans, targeted by activists and the state political parties in the aftermath of the <a href="" type="internal">uprising over Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union “budget repair” bill</a>. So far, efforts to recall GOPers are easily outpacing recall campaigns targeting Democrats, and so perhaps it comes as little surprise that Republicans were recently accused of using dirty tricks to boost their efforts.</p>
<p>As the <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/121008009.html" type="external">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported</a>, in the petition to recall Sen. Bob Wirch, one of the 14 Democratic senators who <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/02/17/133847336/wis-democratic-lawmakers-flee-to-prevent-vote" type="external">fled the state</a> in February to block a vote on Walker’s bill, the signature and address of “Bill Pocan” appear. Here’s the problem: Bill Pocan, who happens to be the father of Democratic state Assembly member Mark Pocan, died twenty years ago.</p>
<p>The chairman of the campaign to recall Wirch, Dan Hunt, told the Journal Sentinel that the signature looks to be a forgery. Hunt, however, blamed the forged signature on Wisconsin Democrats, who he said were seeking to derail his efforts.</p>
<p>Democrats immediately waved off Hunt’s accusation. The head of the State Senate Democratic Committee said Hunt had “been caught red-handed” and “need look no further than his own organization” for someone to blame for the controversy. Mike Tate, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in a statement that “the Republican forgery of dead names on recall petitions represents a new low for Wisconsin. It is voter fraud at its most abhorrent and it must be investigated and explained.”</p>
<p>Right now, Democrats <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/wisconsin-dems-have-the-momentum-heading-into-final-recall-battle/2011/03/03/AFvVWL7E_blog.html" type="external">have filed petitions</a> to recall six Republicans in the legislature, while Republicans have filed three. What’s even more impressive is that Democrats have far surpassed the number of signatures needed to trigger a recall election, even in traditionally Republican districts, which suggests that the ire of Wisconsin citizens could lead to a handful of sitting legislators getting the axe in the coming months. Meanwhile, the fate of Walker’s “repair” bill, which would slash collective bargaining rights for most public-sector unions, remains in legal limbo, its fate uncertain.</p>
<p /> | Did Wisconsin GOPers Forge a Dead Man’s Signature in Recall Effort? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/did-wisconsin-gopers-forge-dead-mans-signature-recall-effort/ | 2011-05-02 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Posters of the missing Ayotzinapa students in front of the Mexican Embassy in Nicaragua in 2014. (Jorge Mejía Peralta / <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mejiaperalta/15603264182" type="external">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>)</p>
<p>At least 60 clandestine graves and over 129 bodies have been found in the search for 43 missing college students in the Mexican state of Guerrero over the last 10 months.</p>
<p>None of the remains belong to the 43 trainee teachers from Ayotzinapa, according to the report released by Mexico’s attorney general’s office.</p>
<p />
<p>From The Guardian via The Associated Press:</p>
<p>Prosecutors say the students were turned over to a drug gang that killed them and incinerated their bodies in a case that has put attention on the huge number of people who have gone missing in Guerrero and other Mexican states where drug violence is widespread.</p>
<p>The number of bodies and graves found from October to May could possibly be higher than in its report, the attorney general’s office said, because its response to a freedom of information request from the Associated Press covers only those instances in which its mass grave specialists got involved.</p>
<p>Federal authorities began turning up unmarked graves after beginning an investigation into the disappearance of the 43 young men following the confrontation between students and police that resulted in six confirmed deaths in Iguala, a municipality of 120,000 people 200 km (160 miles) south of Mexico City.</p>
<p>Read more <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/27/mexico-search-missing-students-129-bodies" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>For background on the missing students, <a href="" type="internal">read</a> our exclusive excerpt from “A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the ‘Mexican Drug War’ ” by Carmen Boullosa and Mike Wallace (OR Books, 2015).</p>
<p>–Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Roisin Davis</a></p> | Search for Missing Students in Mexico Finds Corpses of at Least 129 Other People | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/search-for-missing-students-in-mexico-finds-corpses-of-at-least-129-other-people/ | 2015-07-27 | 4 |
<p>This story was originally covered by PRI's The World. For more, listen to the audio above.</p>
<p>It was a thinner and more subdued Ai Weiwei who came home Wednesday night, and had uncharacteristically little to say to a crowd of waiting journalists.</p>
<p>“I’m out, he said. “I’m happy. I cannot give any interviews. Sorry.”</p>
<p>Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said Thursday that Ai Weiwei is out on bail, meaning he can’t leave the area where he lives, and has other restrictions. Lei said Ai Weiwei has been investigated for economic crimes, that he evaded taxes, and destroyed relevant documents. He said Ai Weiwei was being allowed out on bail because he’d admitted to his crimes, promised to pay the back tax, showed a good attitude and had a chronic health condition.</p>
<p>Hong Lei declined to answer a question about whether Ai Weiwei’s bail conditions allow him to create and exhibit art, or keep up what had been his near-constant Twitter-feed.</p>
<p>Joshua Rosenzweig is with the DuiHua Foundation, which works for the release of political prisoners in China. He says the economic charges against Ai Weiwei seemed an afterthought:</p>
<p>“It seems they detained him first, and came up with justifications later,” Rosenzweig said. “Which has led a lot of people to think the tax charge was not the reason they detained him in the first place. It was to take him out of the picture, to make this vocal critic of China silent for a period of time.”</p>
<p>He’s not the only one being silenced. Amnesty International says more than 130 Chinese civil rights activists have been detained this year, in the wake of government concern that the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East and North Africa might give Chinese ideas.</p>
<p>“Ai Weiwei’s release on bail can be seen as a tokenistic gesture to deflect mounting international criticism,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific deputy director. “And it’s really vital that the international outcry focus on those other people who remain in secret detention in China today.”</p>
<p>One other prominent dissident who’s due to get out this weekend is AIDS activist Hu Jia who got three years in prison for co-writing an open letter critical of the Chinese government, in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Joshua Rosenzweig of the Dui Hua Foundation says Hu Jia, like Ai Weiwei, will not be a free man even once he’s released.</p>
<p>“Hu Jia, as part of his sentence, like many political prisoners, was given deprivation of rights for one year, which would mean he can’t vote, he can’t run for office, he can’t publish anything,” Rosenzweig said. “Those are some of the conditions. And he’ll have to check in with police at regular intervals.”</p>
<p>He may also be under effective house arrest, as he and his wife were even before this prison sentence. His wife, Zeng Jinyan, was briefly detained last weekend. When I reached her by phone Thursday, she said she couldn’t give an interview to journalists and wasn’t sure what would happen Sunday, when Hu Jia is scheduled to be released.</p>
<p>“I hope it’ll go smoothly,” Hu Jia said. “But I don’t know.”</p>
<p>News of most of these detentions is kept from the Chinese public. But Law School Vice President He Bing at the Chinese University of Politics and Law commented on all the drummed-up Red fervor ahead of the Communist Party’s 90th anniversary next week.</p>
<p>“This is an absurd era,” he said. “It encourages you to sing revolutionary songs, but discourages revolution. It encourages you to go see the movie about the founding of the Party, but discourages you from setting up a party.”</p>
<p>The crowd’s reaction suggests many in the audience found it absurd, too. A video of He Bing’s comments made the rounds online for a day. Then it was removed, by most websites – for having inappropriate content.</p>
<p>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
<p>PRI's "The World" is a one-hour, weekday radio news magazine offering a mix of news, features, interviews, and music from around the globe. "The World" is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.&#160; <a href="the-world.html" type="external">More about The World</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Ai Weiwei out of prison, stuck in Beijing | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-06-24/ai-weiwei-out-prison-stuck-beijing | 2011-06-24 | 3 |
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