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<p>“Our holding in this case should in no way be interpreted as foreclosing the possibility that a different primary system adopted by the Legislature – an open primary, for example – could also be constitutional,” Chavez wrote. That’s precisely what the state Legislature should do during the current long session.</p>
<p>Under current law, only those registered as Republicans or Democrats can vote in primary elections in New Mexico.</p>
<p>Recent polling indicates that about 20 percent of New Mexico’s registered voters decline to state a party preference, effectively eliminating them from the early stages of electing public officials. Not surprisingly – given the nation’s deep political polarization – those numbers are growing, especially among younger voters.</p>
<p>It is simply unfair, to prevent nearly a quarter of a million New Mexicans from voting in the primaries. Doing so discourages major-party candidates from broadening their appeal to the entire electorate, limits competition for elective offices, leads to low voter turnout, and forces many voters to cast ballots for the lesser-of-evils instead of a candidate they truly believe would do a good job in office.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Journal has long supported a modified open primary system that would require independent voters to pick one or the other major political party in a primary, allowing them to join the great exercise in democracy while discouraging the potential for a party-jumping free-for-all.</p>
<p>At least two bills aimed at opening the primaries to DTS’s – those who Declined to State major party affiliation – have already been filed. Although there is plenty on lawmakers’ plates, lawmakers have ample time to move the issue of open primaries forward.</p>
<p>This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.</p>
<p /> | Editorial: ’17 legislative session ideal time to open primaries | false | https://abqjournal.com/948738/17-legislative-session-ideal-time-to-open-primaries.html | 2 |
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<p>By Meleiza Figueroa and Alan Minsky</p>
<p>In “Tales of the Grim Sleeper,” <a href="http://nickbroomfield.com/Tales-of-the-Grim-Sleeper-1" type="external">Nick Broomfield</a>‘s harrowing new documentary, we learn a sad and startling fact: that Los Angeles police officers once regularly used the term “NHI” — for “no human involved” — to describe the murders of prostitutes and drug addicts in poor black communities.</p>
<p>The film, which chronicles the long and tragic saga of the Grim Sleeper serial killer’s 25-year reign of terror in a South Los Angeles neighborhood, is a damning testament to the widespread, almost casual eradication of black lives by law enforcement — in its word and deeds.</p>
<p>Right now, the United States is grappling with the issue of police violence against black people, as protesters around the country declare that “black lives matter.” Broomfield’s film focuses on a parallel pathology: that “black-on-black” crime is not only tolerated but is implicitly sanctioned by the state, as illustrated by events shown in the documentary. To fully grasp the sense of alienation and hostility that black communities have toward the police, this aspect has to be understood. Millions of black people intimately understand that police departments in the U.S. are not there to protect them or their communities. That their lived experiences are continually denounced and ignored by law enforcement, government officials, the media and many of their fellow citizens speaks to how deep this pathological denial runs through American society.</p>
<p />
<p>Perhaps this is no mere oversight. At the core of the modern liberal state, the bedrock of American “democracy,” is the assumed equality of the nation’s citizens: “All men are created equal.” While the civil rights movement has struggled, and in several ways prevailed, against inequality for black Americans in the political sphere, it has been a much more monumental challenge to show how these inequalities operate on the level of everyday life in black communities. For all the media coverage of police violence in Ferguson, North Charleston, New York City, and elsewhere, most people who reside outside of impoverished black communities have no sense of what it’s like to live in a place where the law disregards, and is even hostile to, the needs of its residents. As such, “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” is an essential film for this historical moment, as it shows powerfully how the facts on the ground resolutely expose the lie of “liberty and justice for all.” It does this by showing a driver’s side view of the “other America” that black people experience.</p>
<p>The film begins with the 2010 arrest of Lonnie Franklin, a South Los Angeles resident whose DNA was linked to multiple <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Sleeper" type="external">Grim Sleeper</a> murders going back to 1985. He is currently awaiting trial for 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, and at least 10 additional murder cases are pending against him. While the actual count of his alleged victims is unknown, police found photos of at least 180 women in his home, and some fear that the final number could reach well over 100.</p>
<p>Most of the victims were black women who were criminalized as addicts and walked the streets as prostitutes, victims also of the crack epidemic that swept through black communities in L.A. beginning in the 1980s.</p>
<p>Franklin was a well-known and relatively respected fixture in his neighborhood, and Broomfield sets out to understand not only Franklin’s life, circumstances and possible motives, but also the grave errors and inconsistencies in the LAPD’s investigation of the Grim Sleeper murders that allowed a prolific serial killer to go free for over two decades. Even when the LAPD had recognized that a serial killer was targeting women in Franklin’s neighborhood (by the time the third victim was found), the community was not informed of the potential danger lurking in their midst. Crucial pieces of information — such as eyewitness reports, police sketches, a recording of a 911 call presumed to have been made by the killer and a description of Franklin’s vehicle (a very distinctive orange Pinto) — were withheld from the public for more than 20 years.</p>
<p>Several of the film’s interviewees — including members of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, an organization that formed to demand accountability from law enforcement and city officials and to inform the community about the Grim Sleeper when residents realized that a killer was in their midst — questioned how and why the LAPD could have exhibited such shocking negligence in the face of the mounting deaths. As the film progresses, it becomes distressingly clear that the victims’ social status as poor black women was a key factor in how they, and their community, were treated by the LAPD. As Nana Gyamfi, an attorney and coalition member featured in the film, pointed out: “Imagine if they had treated Victim No. 3 as if she were a student at UCLA, with blonde hair and blue eyes. How many other people might still be living? That is for me the real tragedy … the lack of concern allowed so many more people to be murdered.”</p>
<p>The social circumstances under which these black women’s lives, and the safety of their community, were so utterly disregarded by law enforcement speaks powerfully to the “perfect storm” of race, gender and class that lies at the heart of this story. Even though police did not have a direct hand in their murders, the silent deaths of these black women must be included in the national conversation about police brutality and racism in this post-Ferguson moment. It is especially important given that the deaths that gave rise to the “Black Lives Matter” movement were largely the result of police killings of young black men like Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Far less attention has been paid to the black women and girls who have also been victims of police violence, including Rekia Boyd, Aiyana Jones, Sheneque Proctor (portrayed in the media as “the female Eric Garner”) and far too many others.Radical activists and academics use the term “intersectionality” to describe how multiple articulations of social status — such as race, gender and class — shape how particular oppressions operate for certain groups of people. While the racism endemic to a white supremacist society and system of law enforcement casts black men as dangerous “thugs” and “demons,” the sexism that is also intrinsic to such a system works to render black women practically invisible. While misogyny provided the impetus for Franklin’s alleged crimes, the victims’ social invisibility as poor black women ignored and criminalized by the system allowed the atrocities to continue unimpeded.</p>
<p>Poverty and homelessness also emerge as defining characteristics of a world in which the Grim Sleeper’s victims died out of sight and out of mind of the justice system that was supposed to protect them. As Broomfield tells his audience: “This is not just a story about Lonnie, but about a people in one of the world’s most prosperous cities that have been left behind.” Indeed, like many poor black districts in the nation’s major urban centers, the racial dynamics of South L.A., and the community’s relationship to the police, cannot be understood outside the context of the titanic political and economic shifts of the past 40 years. In that time, the structural changes that have affected the U.S. economy as a whole have also changed the roles that black lives and black labor have played in American society.</p>
<p>Ironically, black lives mattered (to a point) in the days of chattel slavery, insofar as enslaved black people were the “valuable” property of masters and provided the free agricultural labor on which the development of the American economy depended. In the 20th century, and especially during and after World War II, black folks flocked to the nation’s cities to fill the need for jobs in the industrial and public sectors. It can be argued that their essential contributions to the postwar economy encouraged them as they organized and fought for desegregation and the right for political participation during the civil rights movement’s peak years.</p>
<p>Since the 1970s, however, these high-quality living-wage jobs have largely evaporated as industries fled the U.S. and the public sector began to be eroded by budget cuts and privatization. Nearly a third of black youths aged 20 to 25 in the U.S. are now unemployed; for black teens, the rate climbs to nearly half, or 49 percent (about twice the average for white youths of similar age). On top of that, the massive influx of crack into U.S. cities beginning in the 1980s, the criminalization of poverty, the rise of mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline, and the subprime housing crisis have disproportionately impacted communities of color, and black communities in particular. These economic and social dynamics, writ large, have produced a mass of unemployed “surplus” labor that remains in the decaying urban cores of the nation’s major metropolitan areas, surviving by whatever means are available to them (for example, by dealing stolen cars, as Franklin did, or through prostitution, like many of his alleged victims).</p>
<p>In these hard economic times, black communities find themselves in a situation in which a neoliberal state and its institutions would prefer to wash their hands of any responsibility to the descendants of those who were enslaved to build this country. As an effectively “disposable” population, poor and working-class black people went from being perceived as a “necessary evil” to being seen as an intractable problem, a thorn in the side of America’s triumphant self-image; a population to be contained and disappeared rather than citizens that deserve to be protected and served. In this context, mass incarceration, state neglect and police violence work in concert to rob millions of black lives of basic dignity, protection and even the right to exist.</p>
<p>Although Franklin has yet to stand trial for the victims’ deaths, the film portrays him as the Grim Sleeper from its opening scenes. However, it becomes clear that there are other mysteries surrounding these murders that are far from solved. From beginning to end, questions remain: How could all of greater Los Angeles, and the impacted communities themselves, be largely unaware that a serial killer was murdering young women over more than two decades? (The assumption is that if the communities had been alerted, many of those women would still be alive.) And how could the law enforcement and media apparatuses not be concerned with performing their basic civic duties?</p>
<p>In subtle ways, and at a few key moments, a shocking possibility is insinuated: that Lonnie Franklin, the accused serial killer, had allies within law enforcement that allowed him to remain free, even though he was arrested and convicted well over a dozen times for other crimes, including several felonies. We are left with a vague sense that Franklin had some kind of relationship with the LAPD that enabled him to quietly “clean up the streets” for two decades — a sense that the film does not confirm, as Franklin still awaits trial four years after having been arrested (a fact which adds to the uncanny mystery). By the end of the film, this central dimension of the story remains unresolved but leaves the viewer with a haunting distrust of law enforcement — analogous to the inescapable anxiety experienced every day by members of the black community.The film also leaves us with a broader social mystery: of how, in what is arguably the cultural and communications capital of the world, a community can experience such violence and remain so invisible. Generally, serial killers are hot copy for media outlets, but when their victims are among those considered the detritus of society, even the sensational nature of the crimes cannot shed light on the grave threats faced by poor black women in these communities. The film’s exposure of the LAPD’s egregious negligence in the Grim Sleeper case easily casts them as co-villains in these crimes. But it also begs the question of how we may all be complicit, when the term “crack whore” has become a common cultural signifier for someone undeserving of basic regard or respect, whose life and humanity can simply be written off.</p>
<p>Perhaps Broomfield’s greatest success is his commitment to recognizing the humanity of the film’s invisible subjects, and placing this humanity at the forefront of the central narrative. For much of the film, we ride with Broomfield and his main interlocutor, Pam, a recovering crack addict and Franklin’s former girlfriend, as they drive the streets of Los Angeles to track down key associates, witnesses and surviving victims — many of whom were homeless, sex workers or crack addicts, and many of whom police investigators never attempted to contact. That the filmmakers did a better investigative job over the course of several months than an LAPD task force assigned to the murders did in 25 years speaks volumes about the intractable challenge of seeking and securing justice for a community that law enforcement never had any intention of providing.</p>
<p>As the film proceeds, we increasingly see through Pam’s eyes; and through the film’s evocative interviews and encounters with Franklin’s friends, family members, acquaintances and alleged victims, we come to care for this invisible community. Thus, we fully grasp the cruelty of a society that refuses to acknowledge that their lives matter. But Margaret Prescod — founder of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Against Serial Murders — notes that the story of these crimes must also be viewed “in the context … of a community that has survived against all odds.”</p>
<p>“Tales of the Grim Sleeper” succeeds — where other progressive media stories often do not — in showing us that even in the face of the incredible injustices inflicted on black women in this community, this is not simply a story of their victimization, but also of their struggle to be recognized as human beings and citizens. It is telling that decades before “Black Lives Matter,” the main slogan of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders was “Every Life is of Value: Black Women’s Lives Count.” And as one of the Grim Sleeper’s survivors insisted in the film, with tearful and indignant affirmation: “Yes, I was out there [on the streets]. But that doesn’t mean I’m nothing. It doesn’t mean I’m nothing.”</p>
<p>In a political moment when millions of people in the United States are inspired to address the deep-seated racism that corrupts our judicial system, “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” is a stunning testimony to a reality experienced by so many people but denied by the dominant society and its institutions — and to just how much needs to be rectified for every person in this country to be valued equally.</p>
<p>“Tales of the Grim Sleeper” debuts Monday, April 27, on HBO.</p>
<p>Meleiza Figueroa is a doctoral candidate in geography at the University of California, Berkeley, and an Oakland-based activist. Alan Minsky is the program director of KPFK Radio in Los Angeles.</p>
<p /> | Where Black Lives Don’t Matter: Serial Murder and Silence in South L.A. | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/where-black-lives-dont-matter-serial-murder-and-silence-in-south-l-a/ | 2015-04-27 | 4 |
<p>Shares of copper miner Nevsun Resources (NYSEMKT: NSU) are up 10% as of 12:30 p.m. EDT today after the company posted earnings. Even though it fell short of estimates, the company also announced the results of a preliminary economic assessment of a potential mine.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Let's get the earnings stuff out of the way first. The company posted a net loss of $0.01 per share on $71 million in revenue. Wall Street was expecting flat results for the quarter.</p>
<p>Now, for the real meat driving today's rally. The company announced the results of a preliminary economic study for its Timok Upper Zone project in Serbia. The mine, if fully developed, would produce 2.1 billion pounds of copper over a 15-year lifespan. Management estimates that the facility has a net present value of $1.5 billion and could generate a 50% internal return rate. Considering that the company's current production is only 4 million pounds per quarter, it would represent a sizable boost to the company.</p>
<p>Before getting carried away by today's announcement, let's keep this in perspective. Nevsun Resources is a company that only generates a few million dollars a year in operating income, and it wants to build a mine that will have initial capital costs in excess of $600 million.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of October 9, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDirtyBird/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=57a22414-bb38-11e7-8323-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Tyler Crowe 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=57a22414-bb38-11e7-8323-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Nevsun Resources Misses Earnings Estimates, Shares Surge Anyways | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/28/nevsun-resources-misses-earnings-estimates-shares-surge-anyways.html | 2017-10-28 | 0 |
<p>CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Some West Virginia lawmakers say they’ll introduce legislation intended to better protect children from sex abuse following a task force report indicating one in 10 are victims before they turn 18.</p>
<p>The group’s recommendations include training all public school personnel to recognize and respond to suspected abuse and clarifying the state’s mandatory reporting laws.</p>
<p>Others are strengthening screening for child-service professionals, coordinating various resources and strengthening schools’ capacity to provide prevention education in grades K-12.</p>
<p>House Education Committee Chairman Paul Espinosa and Senate Education Committee Chairman Kenny Mann say they’re working to draft related legislation and get it enacted this year.</p>
<p>They co-chair the task force established in 2015.</p>
<p>CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Some West Virginia lawmakers say they’ll introduce legislation intended to better protect children from sex abuse following a task force report indicating one in 10 are victims before they turn 18.</p>
<p>The group’s recommendations include training all public school personnel to recognize and respond to suspected abuse and clarifying the state’s mandatory reporting laws.</p>
<p>Others are strengthening screening for child-service professionals, coordinating various resources and strengthening schools’ capacity to provide prevention education in grades K-12.</p>
<p>House Education Committee Chairman Paul Espinosa and Senate Education Committee Chairman Kenny Mann say they’re working to draft related legislation and get it enacted this year.</p>
<p>They co-chair the task force established in 2015.</p> | West Virginia lawmakers addressing child sex abuse | false | https://apnews.com/e2226fb53548407d86e048f977801153 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>Every time there is some news about the economy not doing too well, or some kind of underhanded business dealings exposed, or corporate corruption that will cost the average citizen (while maintaining the status quo of the business elite), I start to expect some kind of a concurrent announcement from political authorities about how we need to attack some foreign country. There is a strong correlation between the two. After all, one of the best fixer-upper for a downwardly mobile economy is to spend more on big-ticket items. At one time, that used to be highway construction and restoration. This still happens; but smaller strips take longer days, unless the area falls within the residential periphery of someone influential. Far more attractive now is to wage war. I do not have to explain that either of these, more so the latter, keeps a whole lot of people employed while pumping money into industries that require massive capital; people who earn will obviously spend more than those who don’t, and businesses that have projects will thrive better than those that don’t. In effect, this forms the perfect economic cycle. If anyone needs a clue as to where governmental spending priorities lie, all they have to ask are questions about the size of the labor involved and, more importantly, the cost of the items/materials used. Inimitable is the turnaround time for the production line.</p>
<p>Sometimes the political announcement will skip its place and come before the economic news. This is courtesy of the close-knit relationship and tie between the corporate quarters and the political elite, and more importantly, of a new world environment where the powerful seek retribution as the weak terrorize, an environment where there is conveniently a permanent threat that requires a permanent response. We have also come to a point where corporate greed has surpassed all records (and the past record was pretty impressive as it was) and runs directly and closely behind the political blasphemy; and we have come to a point where there is little distinction between the voices of the lay illiterate person and the powerful legislators.</p>
<p>Some will say that America is finally united in an opiated state, and we are enjoying it, while at the same time being absolutely fearful of the unknown. Words of anger and hate, songs of anger and hate, messages of anger and hate keep us united in a way that peace and calm could not, even though the logical mind would agree that a calm resolve is far more effective than an angry resolve. There are sporadic interventions upon this unity by momentary lapses of opiation created by everyday life–crime, election campaigning, and the like. The America that I have come to love is indeed the “kinder, gentler” version, whether it ever came into practice or not, and never the “kick butt” attitude of the high school dropout teenager who loiters around in street corners looking for scapegoats to explain his own unemployment. Greatness is evident in a smile, even under extenuating circumstances, more than in a raised brow. The smile not only covers the pain, it helps ease it, and provides the owner of the smile with a more sensible way of dealing with insensible matters.</p>
<p>There came upon us a moment when ignorance stopped being blissful; it became downright heavenly. None were exempt, nor spared, from this ubiquitous effect. Not the rich, nor the poor; the powerful or the powerless, the old or the young, the educated or the illiterate.</p>
<p>However, there is trouble in paradise, and more so when, over time, people who were not asking questions are doing so, and also when it became time to prepare for winning elections. Close to September 11 (which by now has become the only demarcation of human periods–forget BC, AD, Cambrian, Cretaceous and the like–it is the pre 9/11 or post 9/11), the hysteria, the heightened emotions, was massive. Even if for a moment, all who possessed any sense or logic were caught up in the horrifying events, and there was national, dare I say global, unity. That soon gave way to newer and additional horrifying feelings for those who would be stereotyped, and to anger for those who would do the stereotyping. Anger belies logic, and fear sometimes carries the face of the guilty. And so it was–the New World Order began. Previously, long-term feelings of horror and anger were kind of limited only to those who were affected directly by militaristic events.</p>
<p>In the New World Order, conditions are not static, nor were they ever expected to be. Some governments have renamed Offense as Defense; Defense retains its dictionarial meaning, and therefore, logically, any action taken is for the sake of defense, a noble cause in itself. The only offensive party is the enemy, and political murder, even where children are victims, has become legitimate to the point where those of us who claim some sense of sanity remain silent observers. Such is the power of political propaganda–it makes us hate strangers who we were unaware of even until recently; even eliminate them. Even as politicians continue to vehemently pursue the justification of their actions to improve the economy and maintain the economic hegemony (more so for the sake of votes than for the economic benefits), a rift became apparent–that which has started to divide the politicians from the people, the Republicans from the Democrats, the Europeans from the Americans, and the curious from the opiated. Never have we seen stranger bedfellows, never were we so apprehensive, never so pained. For, in the midst of everything, each one of us, in the privacy of our own minds, know that a plethora of wrongdoing is happening in a variety of quarters unbounded by nation, religion or ethnicity. As many of us struggle silently solving each wrong in our own ways in our own minds and in private quarters, and as we defend our public thoughts openly backed by no more than our own cultural identities of every dimension, all we know is that “what is” will not do. And we seek a pre 9/11 world, one which at that time seemed so replete with unsolvable problems, but now far more attractive than what we have.</p>
<p>Not all of the readers of this piece will agree wholeheartedly with me, some will not understand fully; but that is OK–I do not agree wholeheartedly with everything, nor do I understand everything fully. All of us, however, have an opinion. Let us agree to disagree, but not kill our children for the sins adults commit. God bless America! And Curse the rest of the godless world, except those who are “with us” even if they themselves be godless? Nay! God bless the World and its entire People, each single one of them! For we are all His children.</p>
<p>Dr. Ansar Ahmed is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Baldwin-Wallace College.</p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Am I with You, George? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2002/07/23/am-i-with-you-george/ | 2002-07-23 | 4 |
<p>DADU MOUNTAIN, Taiwan — In a control room dug into a mountain overlooking the Taiwan Strait, three soldiers from the 951st Anti-Air Artillery Brigade track the intruding airplane on their computer screens. A standing soldier barks procedures at them; the "Sky Bow" surface-to-air missiles are readied.</p>
<p>Then, in unison, the soldiers chant: "Three ... two ... one ... fire."</p>
<p>It was a drill, of course, for the benefit of visiting media. Had this been a real invasion, a Chinese fighter jet would have just been blown to Kingdom Come.</p>
<p>Here, on the coast facing westward to China, the 611th Battalion, Third Company, is part of Taiwan's first line of defense. China wants self-ruled Taiwan back, by force if necessary. These soldiers are here to make sure that doesn't happen.</p>
<p>Their job is getting tougher, though. In recent years, a newly wealthy China has gone on a military shopping spree, buying state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets, destroyers and other lethal goodies, and building more of their own. Taiwan hasn't kept up. The result: the military balance is rapidly tipping in China's favor.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/china.html" type="external">Pentagon</a>, China has 490 combat jets within close range of Taiwan, with hundreds more available. Taiwan has 390, but its fleet is aging. Meanwhile, China now has more than 1,000 short-range missiles aimed at Taiwan, up from about 200 eight years ago.</p>
<p>That makes the 951st Brigade's mission increasingly thankless. Without air superiority over the Strait to keep Chinese planes at bay, this defensive point at Dadu Mountain would likely be quickly overrun; the base bombed to smithereens.</p>
<p>To keep up with China, Taiwan has asked the U.S. for more than 60 advanced F-16 fighters. "We need them [the F-16s], because air supremacy is the last qualitative edge that Taiwan still enjoys, and that edge is tipping," said security expert and former defense official Chong-Pin Lin. "All our other qualitative edges are gone."</p>
<p>For nearly three years, though, Washington has ignored Taiwan's request. And it's still sitting on separate requests for submarines and Black Hawk helicopters. Mark Stokes, a former Pentagon official in charge of arms sales to Taiwan, calls Washington's silent treatment on the formal request for F-16s a "process foul."</p>
<p>Washington is bound by domestic law — the Taiwan Relations Act&#160;—&#160; to make available to the island sufficient weaponry for its self-defense.</p>
<p>The hold-up is political. China pitches a fit every time America sells weapons to its island ally. Arms sales are "politically symbolic," says Chu Shulong, a Beijing-based expert on China-U.S. relations. From China's perspective, "it means the U.S. is interfering in China's internal affairs. It means the U.S. is going to support and protect Taiwan — and that is encouragement for some in Taiwan to pursue independence."</p>
<p>Chu warned that if the U.S. sold Taiwan the F-16s, China could retaliate by cutting off military contacts with the U.S., buying less U.S. Treasuries or halting cooperation with the U.S. on non-proliferation issues, such as North Korea's nuclear program. He said on this and other issues, "China now needs the U.S. less than the U.S. needs China&#160;— this is a big shift."</p>
<p>Taiwan's F-16s request is one of the hot potatoes Barack Obama will inherit when he takes office Jan. 20. How he handles the issue will be a litmus test for his administration's support for this democratic island-nation. More broadly, it will be a sign of his commitment to democracy in Asia and beyond.</p>
<p>Positive developments in the Taiwan Strait may make his job easier. Relations between Taiwan and China have warmed rapidly since the moderate Ma Ying-jeou took office in Taipei last May. Now there's even talk of exchanges between the Taiwanese and Chinese militaries and perhaps, even, a peace deal. That makes war extremely unlikely.</p>
<p>Still, Ma and others here want Taiwan to maintain a strong military. They believe Taiwan should enter negotiations with Beijing from a position of strength. Many Taiwanese agree.</p>
<p>One is Wu Di-jin, 55. I caught up with him at his car repair shop in Taipei, which he runs with his son, Chen-ming, 32. The elder Wu says cross-strait relations may have improved, but it be some time before Taiwan can let down its guard.</p>
<p>On the table next him is an airplane model — an American F-105 "Thunderchief" bomber. Chen-ming made it. He later fetches from a back room an F-16 model he built last year. An airplane enthusiast, he says even the type of F-16s Taiwan has requested aren't ideal&#160;— the technology is too old.</p>
<p>Still, he and his father agree: Taiwan needs the fighters. "Taiwan must be prepared," says the elder Wu, watching over a grandchild in a crib. "It's very important for the U.S. to help us. It would be best for the U.S. to sell us the planes."</p>
<p>For Taiwan, F-16s and other U.S. weapons are an insurance policy in case relations with China go sour. Time will tell if Obama is selling.</p> | Fighter planes and fighting words | false | https://pri.org/stories/2009-01-16/fighter-planes-and-fighting-words | 2009-01-16 | 3 |
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<p>The team without size and experience getting ready for arguably its toughest game of the season had two very familiar faces at practice on Thursday.</p>
<p>University of New Mexico senior forwards Sam Logwood, the Lobos’ 6-foot-8 leading scorer and rebounder who a week ago asked for a leave from the team for unspecified reasons, and 6-foot-9 Connor MacDougall, who hasn’t played a game this season while rehabbing from an Oct. 27 ankle sprain and bone bruise, were not only at the team’s practice Thursday, but both were full participants.</p>
<p>But, as promising as that may sound for the 3-9 Lobos prepping for Saturday’s home game against No. 23 Arizona, the reality is neither has been given the full green light to play.</p>
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<p>“I think when Sam left, it was a mutual decision between the two of us,” Lobos head coach Paul Weir said on Thursday, seven days after he announced at a press conference that Logwood and he had decided the senior would take a “personal leave” from the team.</p>
<p>“I think at the point at which Sam returns, it will be a mutual decision between the two of us and that is not official by any means.”</p>
<p>In that press conference, Weir said Logwood was going through some things and that his “frustrations with different things in life and in basketball had just kind of reached a point where our conversations had started to progress about what’s really best for Sam.”</p>
<p>Multiple team sources with direct contact to Logwood told the Journal the senior was not happy, though they did not specify what that meant, and he agreed that leaving the team, for however long it lasted, was best.</p>
<p>Logwood did not practice for and missed Saturday’s rivalry loss to New Mexico State and, on Monday, posted on his Instagram page a picture of himself with the message, “They wanna see me fold And I will never sell my soul. #imback”</p>
<p>Weir again emphasized on Thursday that Logwood is not yet back on the team, by the coach’s definition, even though he has practiced twice.</p>
<p>In a Twitter exchange during Thursday’s practice, a Journal reporter told a follower Logwood left the team because he “was unhappy. Didn’t want to be on team anymore. Has changed his mind.”</p>
<p>After practice — when UNM denied the Journal’s request to interview Logwood — he took to Twitter and wrote “False” in response to the Journal’s tweet. That was later followed by senior Joe Furstinger tweeting “Fake news… get better sources.”</p>
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<p>The Journal asked both on Twitter what part of the exchange is inaccurate and requested to interview both for their sides of the story. There was no UNM response as of late Thursday.</p>
<p>Asked earlier in the day if the team wanted Logwood back, Weir said, “I think really, right now, that’s between me and Sam. Each player has their own journey in life and with our team. And right now, when Sam made the decision to take some time, it was something I was fully supportive of. And whenever or if ever Sam rejoins our team officially, it will be that same decision.”</p>
<p>As for MacDougall, he said he was cleared just this week to resume full practice. (He had been cleared in recent weeks to resume partial workouts.) He said it’s been difficult to watch his teammates play while he’s been injured and hopes to play Saturday, though that is not a certainty.</p>
<p>“This week, I was told by Corey (DeBarbrie, the team’s athletic trainer) that I could give it a go and see how I feel, and if anything started to hurt or was telling me no, then just pull out,” said MacDougall. “But I haven’t had that feeling, so I’ve just been trying to go as hard as I can.”</p>
<p>He later added, “It’s come a long way. I feel pretty good out there.”</p>
<p>MacDougall said he initially thought the injury would heal quicker but then, after researching it, realized that wouldn’t be the case. As a senior, he needed to make sure he was fully healed before playing his first game because once he did, he couldn’t apply for a medical redshirt.</p>
<p>He said he thinks the team is coming together and, “I think we’ll be stronger for conference.”</p>
<p>Weir said when MacDougall is ready, he must play regular minutes. The team needs size anyway, and 6-10 freshman Vladimir Pinchuk has been sick and missed practice this week.</p> | Men’s basketball: Lobo seniors not yet certain to play vs. Arizona | false | https://abqjournal.com/1107047/mens-basketball-lobo-seniors-not-yet-certain-to-play-vs-arizona.html | 2017-12-14 | 2 |
<p>Imago/ZUMAPRESS.com</p>
<p />
<p>The scandal has it all: A <a href="http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2557/news/2011/05/30/2510147/fifa-whistleblower-chuck-blazer-proud-to-have-exposed" type="external">whistleblower</a>, <a href="http://www.nesn.com/2011/05/40000-photograph-email-suggesting-vote-buying-add-to-growing-tsunami-of-fifa-mohamed-bin-hammam-corr.html" type="external">allegations of bribery and vote-buying</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://dailynewsen.com/newsimages/Fifa-Corruption-Sponsors-Raise-The-Alarm-Over-Bribes-As-Cash-Envelope-Used-As-Evidence.jpg&amp;imgrefurl=http://dailynewsen.com/world/unitedstatesofamericanews/newsid-7655-fears-as-floods-move-south.html&amp;h=316&amp;w=468&amp;sz=48&amp;tbnid=H7p73ndM0izABM:&amp;tbnh=86&amp;tbnw=128&amp;prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfifa%2Bpicture%2Bcash%2Benvelope%2Bpicture%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&amp;zoom=1&amp;q=fifa+picture+cash+envelope+picture&amp;hl=en&amp;usg=__JTKzuHKD5pkMa6QEdWHehA-kEe0=&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=evDkTYvdD6LeiAL6zpH2CQ&amp;ved=0CCMQ9QEwAA" type="external">pictures of envelopes</a> stuffed with cash, and the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/may/29/fifa-crisis" type="external">suspension</a> of two respected officials. It’s a scandal that has rocked the international community, with transparency advocates and international organizations demanding the presidential election itself be postponed until investigators get to the bottom of the corruption.</p>
<p>I’m talking, of course, about the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/may/29/fifa-crisis" type="external">snowballing debacle at FIFA</a>, the global organization that governs the planet’s most popular sport, soccer. On Tuesday, the anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI) demanded that FIFA delay its June 1 presidential election so that the organization can get the bottom of the vote-buying controversy. Among other things, Transparency International is demanding that FIFA implement new rules to combat corruption, appoint an ombudsman, and review its ethics code.</p>
<p>“Free and fair elections cannot take place when there is a suspicion that voters may have been swayed,” a TI official said in a statement. “Two major figures in football politics have been suspended recently for alleged vote-buying. FIFA delegates know that they must clean house if their vote is to have legitimacy.”</p>
<p>FIFA’s crisis began when the US’s only representative to the organization, Chuck Blazer, accused two FIFA colleagues of offering cash bribes to as many as 25 delegates to secure their support in the vote on which nations would host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments, the game’s biggest competition. (Russia won the 2018 rights, and Qatar the 2022 rights.) The two officials accused of allegedly bribing delegates no less than Jack Warner, the head of soccer in North and Central America, and Mohammed Bin Hammam, the head of soccer in Asia. Notably, Bin Hammam was the only challenger to incumbent Sepp Blatter in tomorrow’s presidential election, but Bin Hammam’s decision to drop out leaves Blatter the only candidate. Qatar has also been accused of buying the rights to host the 2022 World Cup, which Qatari officials reject.</p>
<p>Blatter, the 75-year-old Swiss who’s running for his fourth term as FIFA president, has been pulled into the scandal as well, accused of turning a blind eye to the alleged bribery. (He denies the charge.)</p>
<p>TI isn’t the only group to demand a delay in the FIFA election. England’s Football Association <a href="http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/924799/english-fa-asks-fifa-to-postpone-election?cc=5901" type="external">has joined TI</a> in calling for a postponement of the election, demanding that an independent official step in and make recommendations on how to increase the transparency and integrity of FIFA’s internal workings. “This has been a very damaging time for the reputation of FIFA and therefore the whole of football,” the FA said in a statement.</p>
<p /> | Bribery! Corruption! The Scandal That Could Bring Down a Presidency | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/bribery-corruption-scandal-could-bring-down-presidency/ | 2011-05-31 | 4 |
<p>3D rendering of the flag of Texas on satin texture.ronniechua/Getty/mrtom-uk/Getty</p>
<p>Texas lawmakers have gone&#160;into overtime with a 30-day special session that largely came about because of a power struggle in the leadership over&#160;the issue of whether transgender people should be able to use the bathroom that best aligns with their gender. The state Senate has already passed a <a href="http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=851&amp;Bill=SB3" type="external">measure</a>&#160;to do just that, but the proposal and others like it are likely to stall in the House. &#160;</p>
<p>The battle lines were drawn after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick forced&#160;the special session in order to&#160;severely limit&#160;the rights of transgender people in the state (as well as reform property taxes). Governor Greg Abbott backed him up and called lawmakers back to the statehouse, but&#160;House Speaker Joe Straus&#160;has been pushing back. Standing&#160;with&#160;transgender advocates and&#160;business leaders who argue the legislation will lead to backlash and hurt the state’s economy, he has opposed the bill and short-circuited its advancement.&#160;</p>
<p>When two senators were&#160;apparently sent by Patrick to discuss the anti-transgender proposals leading up to the special session, Straus was having none of it. “I’m disgusted by all this,” he said, as reported by the&#160; <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/10/americas-future-is-texas" type="external">New Yorker</a>. “Tell the lieutenant governor I don’t want the suicide of a single Texan on my hands.” (A spokesperson for Patrick disputes that he sent the senators.)</p>
<p>When the session got underway last week, hundreds of people appeared at the statehouse&#160;to testify on&#160;Republican&#160;state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst’s <a href="http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/851/billtext/pdf/SB00003I.pdf#navpanes=0" type="external">bill</a>, which would force transgender people to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their birth certificates in government buildings and public schools. The proposed legislation&#160;would also prohibit transgender students from participating in athletic activities with other students of their gender. Most who showed up were vehemently opposed to the measure.</p>
<p>Throughout the emotional&#160; <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/07/21/watch-hundreds-texas-testify-bathroom-bill/" type="external">ten-hour</a> hearing, transgender advocates and their families begged lawmakers to consider the consequences the legislation would have on the mental health and physical safety of transgender Texans. Many testified the legislation would force them or their loved ones&#160;to break the law or out themselves in public spaces, which, they explained, would put them at great&#160;risk&#160;given the&#160;high rates of <a href="http://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS%20Full%20Report%20-%20FINAL%201.6.17.pdf" type="external">violence</a> against transgender people.&#160;</p>
<p>Some of the most&#160;powerful&#160;testimony came from a young transgender person. “You guys have heard a lot of statistics about the 40 percent of transgender students who attempt suicide,” they testified before the State Affairs committee. “I have also been in that situation, and that is something that only my very closest friend knows, not even my parents.” The young person wished “that&#160;I could say that I was really happy I made it through that, but at times it’s really hard to be happy when you live in a world that tells you ‘You don’t exist and your life matters less than the lives of other people around you.’”</p>
<p>After the hearing,&#160;the committee voted to move the&#160;measure forward for the full Senate&#160;where, early Wednesday morning, it passed&#160;in a 21-10 vote. But in&#160;the House, Speaker Straus is expected to stonewall the legislation.&#160;</p>
<p>Straus, a Republican from the San Antonio area,&#160;has opposed Patrick’s efforts for nearly as long as they’ve existed. Initially he&#160;declined to openly challenge Patrick.&#160;“This isn’t the most urgent concern of mine,” Straus <a href="http://www.mystatesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/joe-straus-transgender-bathroom-bill-isn-the-most-urgent-concern/RUQN5LrEnGFoaq5EvoVUYN/" type="external">said</a>&#160;at a Texas Tribune event shortly after November’s election,&#160;but in January, he <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/01/18/straus-tab-speech/" type="external">asked</a> business leaders to “speak up” if they had&#160;concerns about what the impact of the legislation might be on them. &#160;</p>
<p>When lawmakers began their session in January, it marked the beginning of five months of political gamesmanship during which the legislation toggled between being advanced&#160;and&#160;blocked.&#160; <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-legislature/2017/03/14/bathroom-bill-gets-first-thumbs-texas-senate" type="external">In March</a>,&#160;the Senate, with the lieutenant governor at the helm, passed the&#160;anti-transgender legislation, but Patrick&#160;knew it faced an uphill battle in the House.&#160;“I think the Speaker is out of touch with the voters,” Patrick <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/03/15/patrick-straus-out-touch-voters-bathroom-bill/" type="external">complained</a>&#160;the following day during an interview with a Dallas radio station. “This is an issue that people, supporters, constituents, voters want.”&#160;</p>
<p>In May, before the Texas legislature ended its regular session, Patrick <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/17/dan-patrick-threatens-force-special-session-if-key-bills-dont-move/" type="external">threatened</a> to force a special session if bathroom legislation wasn’t passed. Only then did Straus allow a bathroom measure to advance—but it wasn’t quite what the lieutenant governor had in mind.&#160;</p>
<p>The House bill would&#160;have&#160;required school districts to provide a private alternative to students who don’t want to use the bathroom or locker room of their sex assigned at birth. The bill was <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/26/texas-house-declines-negotiate-senate-its-proposed-bathroom-compromise/" type="external">vague, seemingly</a> leaving the door open for&#160;schools to permit transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice. Straus refused to take the legislation any further. “If the Senate wants to pass a ‘bathroom bill,’ it can concur with the bill we passed earlier week,” Straus <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/26/texas-house-declines-negotiate-senate-its-proposed-bathroom-compromise/" type="external">said</a> during a press conference in May. “The House has compromised enough on this issue.” During another press conference that same day,&#160;Patrick said the speaker’s compromise was no compromise at all. “Joe Straus is the one causing the special session,” the lieutenant governor said. “I’m just allowing it to happen.”</p>
<p>The lieutenant governor doesn’t have the power to call a session, but he ultimately decides whether a bill makes it to the Senate floor. Patrick&#160;held hostage&#160;legislation&#160;unrelated to the bathroom bill&#160;that&#160;was&#160;required to&#160;keep a&#160;handful of&#160;state agencies <a href="https://www.sunset.texas.gov/about-us/frequently-asked-questions" type="external">open</a>,&#160;including the&#160;Texas Medical Board. Without that bill’s passage,&#160;a special session to consider it&#160;was all but inevitable; Patrick, though, still had to ensure debate&#160;over the bathroom bill would be on the agenda—something that can only be set by the governor.&#160;</p>
<p>The Republican governor&#160;hasn’t taken the guns-blazing approach Patrick has toward transgender rights. In fact, for most of the year’s legislative&#160;session, he&#160;wouldn’t say whether he supported the discriminatory measures being considered, despite national attention to the issue.&#160;He only&#160;broke his silence and said he supported the measures&#160;in&#160; <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-legislature/2017/04/18/long-silence-gov-greg-abbott-expresses-support-bathroom-bill" type="external">April</a>, after months of debate.</p>
<p />
<p>When the governor announced he was calling lawmakers into overtime, Abbott explained it was “because of their inability or refusal to pass a simple law that would prevent the medical profession from shutting down.” Even so, the governor&#160;put the bathroom bill on his list of 20 agenda items, giving Patrick another shot. “If I’m going to ask tax payers to foot the bill for a special session,” Abbott said, “I intend to make it count.”&#160;</p>
<p>The move left Straus anything but pleased. In remarks during a Texas Association of School Boards’ conference, he joked&#160;about a young boy excited about “a room full of horse manure.”</p>
<p>“The boy said, ‘With all this manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere,'” Straus <a href="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas-take/texas-take-podcast/article/Listen-House-Speaker-compares-special-session-11223902.php" type="external">said</a>. “So I’m going to take the optimistic approach to the special session and keep looking for that pony.”</p>
<p>The House Speaker isn’t being “helpful or professional,” Patrick retorted.&#160;“I don’t want this to be a battle between us. But I’m not going to let anyone take on Greg Abbott when he’s trying to do the will of the people and say it’s a bunch of horse manure.”</p>
<p>Despite pressure from Texas’ two most powerful elected leaders, Straus isn’t backing down.&#160;Overseeing the House, he&#160;has a significant amount of power—perhaps enough to keep the Senate&#160;bathroom bills from progressing&#160;in his chamber.&#160;The House Speaker chooses which committee reviews a bill and appoints the members of each committee. Even if anti-transgender legislation makes it through the first committee,&#160;the legislation would proceed to&#160;another committee Straus appoints&#160;that controls the agenda on the House floor.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Patrick doesn’t have the same leverage in the special session because he can’t&#160;hold the existence of&#160;a vital state agency hostage. The governor made keeping the Texas Medical Board and other state agencies open the first item on the agenda and said nothing else could&#160;move forward until that passed. In response, the lieutenant governor&#160; <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/07/18/senate-moves-fast-track-sunset-bills/" type="external">fast-tracked</a>&#160;the legislation, and it passed both houses without delay.</p>
<p>Until the special session ends,&#160;pressure will remain&#160;on Straus and his peers. The <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/07/20/national-episcopal-church-urges-defeat-texas-bathroom-bill/" type="external">Episcopal Church</a>, &#160;other&#160; <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/07/20/national-episcopal-church-urges-defeat-texas-bathroom-bill/" type="external">religious groups,</a>&#160;and <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/local/article/San-Antonio-business-leaders-blast-Texas-bathroom-11303785.php" type="external">business leaders</a> are writing to Straus,&#160;urging&#160;him to stay the course.&#160;Some advocates are taking a markedly different approach.&#160;Earlier this month,&#160;one transgender woman,&#160;Ashley Smith,&#160;attended an Abbott campaign event&#160;and took a picture with the governor.&#160;She&#160;then posted it online&#160;and&#160;called him her “bathroom buddy,” noting Texas’ top elected official couldn’t tell she was a transgender woman. Her Instagram post went viral.&#160;</p>
<p /> | All These Grown Men In Texas Are Obsessed With Bathrooms for Some Reason | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/all-these-grown-men-in-texas-are-obsessed-with-bathrooms-for-some-reason/ | 2017-07-28 | 4 |
<p>Chris Hayes talked last night about about how Roger Ailes was also accused of predatory sexual behavior, and Harvey Weinstein was fired from his own company.</p>
<p>"And then there's the president of the United States -- almost exactly one year ago the famous Access Hollywood tape was released which we don't need to play because everyone remembers that tape, but what is not always remembered is what happened right after that tape was released," he said.</p>
<p>"Woman after woman came forward, a dozen all, accusing Donald Trump of inappropriate behavior and sexual assault. The New York Times spoke with an accuser who said Donald Trump groped her during a flight in the early 1980s.</p>
<p>"The thing we seem to have collectively forgotten is the way the presidential candidate who denied all the accusations, and attacked the women who accused him.</p>
<p>He asked Jess McIntosh, who served on the Clinton campaign, for her response.</p>
<p>"I remember that week on the campaign. That was, I think, the hardest week psychologically on the campaign," she said.</p>
<p>"And it was funny because you would watch SNL that night and they would cut to us partying and popping champagne. There was a lot of women in that office and listening to the cheers as that man suggested that these women were too unattractive to assault. There was no political upside to that.</p>
<p>"The fact that -- we didn't even know he was going to win at this point, but the fact that somebody had come that far with that kind of backing, making that kind of statement already showed that we were much farther gone as a country than I had previously realized."</p> | Chris Hayes Reminds Us What Happened When Trump Bragged About Sexual Assault | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2017/10/chris-hayes-reminds-us-what-happened-when | 2017-10-11 | 4 |
<p>Analysis &amp; Opinions - Christian Science Monitor</p>
<p />
<p>Most Americans fear that China will soon surpass the US in global power and economic clout. But this widespread view is wrong, based on sloppy analysis and outdated conceptions of national power. People who believe that China is overtaking the US make at least one of three mistakes.</p>
<p /> | Don't Worry, America: China is Rising But Not Catching Up | false | http://belfercenter.org/publication/dont-worry-america-china-rising-not-catching | 2011-12-14 | 2 |
<p />
<p>No SLI connector on the GTX 1060. Image credit: PurePC via VideoCardz.com.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Graphics specialist NVIDIA is expected to launch its next generation mid-range desktop graphics processor, known as the GeForce GTX 1060, later this month. Over the last week or so, there have been quite a few <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/04/nvidia-corporations-gtx-1060-details-leak.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">leaks Opens a New Window.</a> about the 1060, revealing many of its details.</p>
<p>Interestingly, graphics card focused website VideoCardz.com, has another tidbit about the 1060 that's worth taking a closer look at.</p>
<p>Apparently, website PurePC leaked some images of NVIDIA's own GeForce GTX 1060 card design (likely to be marketed as the GTX 1060 Founders Edition). VideoCardz observed that the images of the 1060 show a lack of what is known as an SLI connector.</p>
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<p>SLI, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is NVIDIA's technology to allow a user to add multiple graphics cards to a system in order to boost performance beyond what a single card can deliver. Multiple cards are physically connected to each other using what NVIDIA is called an SLI Bridge.</p>
<p>Without a physical connector on the 1060, multiple 1060 cards cannot be connected by an SLI bridge.</p>
<p>If the GeForce GTX 1060 is priced at around $299 as rumors suggest, and if the leaks are correct in that it offers performance equivalent to a GeForce GTX 980, then it's not hard to see the business case for not including SLI on the 1060.</p>
<p>When the company announced its flagship GeForce GTX 1080, it said that the performance of this card was faster than two GeForce GTX 980s in SLI. So, NVIDIA's argument is likely to be along the lines of, "if you want the performance of two GeForce GTX 1060s in SLI, just buy a GeForce GTX 1080."</p>
<p>NVIDIA's gross profit margin percentage on the sale of a single GeForce GTX 1080, rather than two GeForce GTX 1060s, is almost certainly higher. Not only is a single 1080 card almost certainly cheaper to manufacture than dual 1060s, but NVIDIA's Founders Edition 1080 sells for $699 -- about $100 more than what two 1060s are rumored to sell for.</p>
<p>Although it's easy to see why NVIDIA would prefer to sell customers one 1080 over two 1060s, there's also a good technical rationale for trying to push customers to get a single 1080 over dual 1060s.</p>
<p>NVIDIA recently <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/21/nvidia-corporation-effectively-kills-off-3-way-and.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">killed off Opens a New Window.</a> support for three-way and four-way SLI, which the company claimed was due to the fact that "it is becoming increasingly difficult for these SLI modes to provide beneficial performance scaling for end users."</p>
<p>Indeed, even two-way SLI is a challenge to extract performance from. In TechPowerUp's review of the GeForce GTX 1080 in two-way SLI, the site reported a performance increase of 52% at 4K resolution over a single GeForce GTX 1080 across its test suite. Stripping out games that don't scale with SLI yielded an average of 71% uplift over a single 1080 at 4K.</p>
<p>When SLI works, it's nice, but when games can't utilize multiple GPUs, the extra money spent on additional graphics cards goes to waste and could have been better spent buying a faster, single graphics processor.</p>
<p>In other words: NVIDIA likely sees SLI as only making sense when one needs performance that a single high-end graphics card simply cannot deliver.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/07/nvidia-corporations-geforce-gtx-1060-reportedly-wo.aspx" type="external">NVIDIA Corporation's GeForce GTX 1060 Reportedly Won't Support SLI Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/aeassa/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Ashraf Eassa Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | NVIDIA Corporation's GeForce GTX 1060 Reportedly Won't Support SLI | true | http://foxbusiness.com/investing/2016/07/07/nvidia-corporation-geforce-gtx-1060-reportedly-wont-support-sli.html | 2016-07-07 | 0 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/publiccitizen/3489190650/"&gt;Public Citizen&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p />
<p>UPDATE July 8, 2011 5 p.m.:</p>
<p>After fighting for four years to reach the inside of a courtroom, Jamie Leigh Jones has lost her rape and sexual harassment lawsuit against military contractor KBR. After a day and a half of deliberations, a federal jury in Houston answered “no” to the question of whether Jones was raped by former firefighter Charles Bortz while working in Iraq in 2005. It also found that KBR did not engage in fraud in inducing Jones to sign her employment contract to go overseas.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The allegations were explosive when they first hit in 2007:&#160;A 20-year-old woman named Jamie Leigh Jones alleged that four days after going to work in Iraq for contracting giant KBR in July 2005, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/jamie-leigh-jones-claims-iraq-rape-employer-held/story?id=13884264" type="external">she was drugged and gang-raped</a> by fellow contractors. She accused the company, then a subsidiary of Halliburton, of imprisoning her in a shipping container after she reported the rape, and suggested KBR had tampered with some of the medical evidence that had been collected at an Army hospital. The harrowing story has made international headlines. It’s been the subject of congressional hearings and has inspired legislation. Jones even plays a starring role in the <a href="http://hotcoffeethemovie.com/" type="external">new documentary Hot Coffee</a>, about efforts to limit access to the justice system.</p>
<p>Jones’ charges fell on fertile ground, compounding KBR’s reputation as a corporate scofflaw—all the more so when it came out that the firm’s contract had <a href="" type="internal">included a mandatory arbitration clause</a> intended to block employees from suing it. Jones spent years fighting for a jury trial, and now, six years after the alleged attack, she is finally getting her day in court in a civil suit that accuses KBR of knowingly sending her into a hostile workplace. The verdict could come as early as Thursday. And—in a twist that’s likely to shock her numerous supporters—there’s a good chance she will lose.</p>
<p>Jones’ trial, which started on June 13, is highlighting significant holes and discrepancies in her story. Not only has the federal trial judge already thrown out large portions of her case, evidence introduced in the trial raises the question of whether Jones has exaggerated and embellished key aspects of her story.</p>
<p>None of this means that Jones was not raped in Iraq. But the evidence does undermine her credibility and could create serious doubts in jurors’ minds.</p>
<p>“Oftentimes the truth is in between,” says Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. “The truth may be that this wasn’t rape as we come to understand it in the law, but it wasn’t something that was appropriate. It doesn’t mean that something didn’t happen.” However, if Jones hasn’t been entirely truthful and the jury rules against her, it could be a major setback for sexual assault victims, particularly women serving in war zones. “The problem with cases like this is, if it turns out that she’s making it up, it really does a disservice to the many women who really are raped who have trouble coming forward,” Levenson says.</p>
<p>When Jones first went public with her allegations, they sparked an immediate public outcry. Her charges seemed to confirm the worst about the war in Iraq—whose key promoter, Dick Cheney, was a former Halliburton CEO. She was invited on a host of news shows to tell her story. Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3989078&amp;page=1" type="external">called for an investigation.</a> Jones <a href="http://www.jamiesfoundation.org/" type="external">started a foundation</a> to bring to light abuses against female contractors working in conflict zones. She also became a <a href="http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xchg/justice/hs.xsl/2961.htm" type="external">poster child</a> for the push to limit workers’ rights to sue their employers. Thanks to the fine print in her employment contract, Jones was required to take her case against KBR to a private arbitrator hired by KBR, rather than to a civil court and jury.</p>
<p>After 15 months of arbitration, Jones went to federal court to argue that the arbitration clause in her contract should not apply to cases of sexual assault. Her fight caught the attention of newly elected Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), among other lawmakers. Franken parlayed Jones’ case into his <a href="http://franken.senate.gov/?p=issue&amp;id=211" type="external">first major legislative coup</a>, a bill barring the military from contracting with companies that require employees to arbitrate sexual harassment or assault claims.</p>
<p>In 2009, the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="" type="internal">allowed her case to move forward</a>. KBR then asked the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court’s decision and send Jones back to arbitration. It claimed that Jones was a relentless self-promoter who has “sensationalize[d] her allegations against the KBR Defendants in the media, before the courts, and before Congress.” KBR also suggested that much of Jones’ story was fabricated. The company said in a footnote, “Many, if not all, of her allegations against the KBR Defendants are demonstrably false. The KBR Defendants intend to vigorously contest Jones’s allegations and show that her claims against the KBR Defendants are factually and legally untenable.” (KBR eventually withdrew the petition because of the Franken amendment.)</p>
<p>The media ( <a href="" type="internal">me included</a>) largely wrote this off as a sign that KBR was headed to the gutter to disparage a rape victim. But now that the case has gone to trial, it’s clear that KBR wasn’t just trying to scare Jones into settling. The court filings portray a very different version of the story. Here are some of the most sensational claims Jones has made, contrasted with the evidence that has emerged at trial:</p>
<p>Roofies: Jones claims that she was dosed with the date rape drug Rohypnol, which she believed was slipped into her drink by one of the KBR firefighters she was partying with in the Green Zone. In one of her congressional appearances, Jones said a contractor handed her a mixed drink and that “I took two sips from the drink, and don’t remember anything after that.” She <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/jamie-leigh-jones-claims-iraq-rape-employer-held/story?id=13884264&amp;page=2" type="external">testified before Congress in 2009</a> that “[w]hen I awoke in my room the next morning, I was naked, I was sore, I was bruised, and I was bleeding. I was groggy and confused and didn’t know why.”</p>
<p>The Evidence: After reporting the alleged attack to a KBR co-worker, who drove Jones to the Army hospital at Camp Hope, she was examined by Dr. Jodi Schultz. Schultz took urine and blood samples, which tested negative for Rohypnol or any other date-rape drug. Jones’ legal team has challenged the lab work, arguing that it was never done properly, and also hired an expert to testify that just because the lab tests didn’t turn up the drugs doesn’t mean they weren’t there. But KBR has offered an alternate explanation for her memory loss: Jones was drunk.</p>
<p>The company hired experts to comb through Jones’ statements in investigative reports, psychological exams, media appearances, medical records, as well as depositions from witnesses in the trial, to ferret out inconsistencies. One of those experts, Dr. Thomas Kosten, a psychiatry professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, observes in his report that Jones acknowledged having up to five alcoholic beverages over three hours on the night in question. Noting that Jones weighed 120 pounds at the time, he concludes that booze could have caused her amnesia.</p>
<p>Gang rape: Jones claimed in her lawsuit as well as in congressional testimony that she was the “subject of a brutal sexual attack by several attackers.”</p>
<p>The Evidence: There is no eyewitness testimony or other physical evidence in the case supporting the allegation that Jones was attacked by multiple people. A lab analysis of the rape kit shows DNA from a single man, firefighter Charles Boartz, the only person Jones has identified in her lawsuit as one of the assailants. (Boatz is no saint; since returning from Iraq, he has had run-ins with the law related to domestic violence.) Several witnesses have testified to seeing Bortz and Jones drinking, flirting, and heading to her barracks together the night of the alleged attack, and Bortz has testified that the sex was consensual. That testimony, along with the physical evidence, has reduced the case from a black-and-white national scandal to the gray area of a he-said she-said case of potential acquaintance rape. Todd Kelly, Jones’ lawyer, told Mother Jones that while he and Jones believe she was raped by multiple assailants, that issue will not be presented to the jury. “Although it is clear that she was raped by at least one person, we don’t have the evidence to prove she was gang raped,” he says.</p>
<p>The shipping container: Jones has claimed that after reporting the alleged rape to her employers, KBR employees locked her in a shipping container, refused to let her call her family, and denied her food and water for at least 24 hours. She has said that she convinced one of the “gurkhas” guarding the door with machine guns to let her call her father, who in turn contacted Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and got her sprung from “prison.”</p>
<p>The Evidence: KBR claims Jones was never imprisoned, and that she encountered no obstacles calling her family after seeking medical treatment. KBR also says that its employees, including security staff, don’t carry guns. A 2006 investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) backs up KBR’s story that the company placed Jones in a secure location before getting her home to Texas.</p>
<p>This set of disputed facts, however, will not really be hashed out by the jury. The judge threw out Jones’ charges that the supposed imprisonment constituted “retaliation” by KBR for reporting the rape, because Jones never mentioned this accusation in her original legal filings with the EEOC. (Federal law requires a plaintiff to exhaust administrative remedies with the EEOC before pursuing a sexual harassment claim in federal court.) The false-imprisonment allegation didn’t surface until two years after Jones’ original rape complaint, when Jones hired a new lawyer.</p>
<p>Disfigured breasts: Jones’ civil lawsuit alleges that during the gang rape she was so severely beaten that her breast implants ruptured and her pectoral muscles were torn, requiring extensive reconstructive surgery.</p>
<p>The Evidence: The Army’s Dr. Schultz testified in her deposition that Jones didn’t report any problems with her chest during the exam, and Schultz did not observe any implant leakage or rupture. Franklin Rose, a Houston plastic surgeon who reviewed the records from Jones’ original breast implant surgery for KBR, found no evidence that the implants had ruptured. Witness lists submitted by the defendants indicate that Jones’ surgeon was expected to testify that in September 2005 he told Jones that she did not have torn pectoral muscles or ruptured implants. Kelly, Jones’ lawyer, takes responsibility for creating some confusion over anatomy. He says Jones suffered from a torn pectoral capsule, which held the implant, and that witnesses in the trial have indeed testified that she had such an injury and that it was caused by trauma.</p>
<p>“Torn up down there”: Jones claims that on the morning after her attack, she woke up with no memory of the event but “found her body naked, severely bruised, with lacerations to her vagina and anus, blood running down her leg, her breast implants were ruptured, and her pectoral muscles torn,” according to her complaint filed in US District Court in Houston. Jones says Schultz “confirmed that I had been penetrated both vaginally and anally.”</p>
<p>Evidence: According to expert reports in the court files, Dr. Schultz found some fissuring, redness, and irritation in the pertinent areas. Schultz also reported finding four small bruises on Jones, but she said in her deposition that Jones “had no medical findings that needed hospital treatment.” She also noted that while “Jamie had physical findings, I can’t tell you if they were consistent with rape.”</p>
<p>KBR has introduced evidence in court that shortly before deploying to Iraq, Jones underwent medical treatments that would have made her skin vulnerable to trauma for several months and could have led to “fissuring” during sex.</p>
<p>All of these issues, and more, have created obstacles to Jones winning a favorable verdict. In a civil trial, the burden of proof is lower than in a criminal case—but, even so, it’s not enough for Jones to prove that she was raped to prevail. She also has to prove that KBR was responsible for her injuries, and that she has measurable damages.</p>
<p>Jones has maintained that the attack in Iraq has rendered her agoraphobic, afraid to leave the house alone, unable to work, and unable to sleep. She has filed disability claims to this effect. As a result of these claims and her lawsuit, Jones has undergone extensive psychological evaluations. That paper trail contains several land mines.</p>
<p>Some of the conflicts are fairly obvious. At the same time Jones was telling therapists and psychiatrists that she was virtually disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder and could not work, leave the house, drive, or have meaningful relationships with men, she has completed three college degrees, including an MBA; gotten married; had two babies; worked as a teacher and now as a part-time college professor; testified repeatedly before Congress; gone on TV; appeared in a documentary; and started a foundation to support women working as contractors overseas. It’s not the résumé of someone as paralyzed by trauma as Jones has claimed to various therapists and psychologists.</p>
<p>One of the other issues the jury will have to consider is whether Jones’ current symptoms predate the alleged rape. In psychological exams ordered by KBR’s insurance company, Jones repeatedly denied any history of mental health problems. According to news coverage of the trial, Jones also denied such a history in the KBR medical questionnaire she filled out before she went to Iraq.</p>
<p>But medical records produced in discovery show that in the year or so before she deployed overseas, Jones was treated with Effexor, an anti-depressant; Ambien, a sleeping pill; Lamictal, a drug prescribed for seizures and bipolar disorder; Vicodin, a painkiller; and Zoloft, an anti-anxiety drug. KBR lawyer Joanne Vorpahl questioned Jones about this omission on the witness stand. Jones replied that she had taken the drugs “a long time before” she deployed to Iraq, and that she thought the condition was resolved so that “I did not need to disclose it.” Vorpahl shot back that Jones had disclosed medical issues dating back to kindergarten.</p>
<p>Jones’ medical records are full of information that could cause jurors to question her credibility. Perhaps most significantly, about two months before Jones went to Iraq, according to court records, she told her doctor that she might have had sex with someone; she’d had several drinks, passed out, and couldn’t remember what had transpired.</p>
<p>While on the witness stand, Jones was also confronted with doctors’ reports from a hospital admission when she was 17, just a couple of years before she signed on to go to Iraq. She had complained of a fever and multiple neurological symptoms, including difficulty walking, but after a battery of tests, the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her. Medical records indicate that doctors thought Jones’ symptoms might be a psychosomatic response to stress at home. That’s because, according to the medical records, some of her symptoms disappeared when no one was looking. A nurse reported that she saw Jones walk to the bathroom, only to stumble and grab the wall once she saw the nurse, for instance.</p>
<p>The evidence in her medical records indicates that Jones has alleged rape before. The records, according to KBR experts who reviewed them, show that in 2002, she and her mother told a doctor that a boyfriend had raped her. Later, just a few months before going to Iraq, she told a doctor that her 40-year-old manager at KBR in Houston had sexually assaulted her. She asked about getting a rape kit but was told that too much time had passed to collect evidence. In her civil suit, Jones accused the KBR&#160;manager of sexually harassing her, a charge KBR planned to counter with evidence suggesting that Jones was having a consensual relationship with him. In any case, the judge dismissed all of Jones’ sexual harassment claims related to her employment in Houston, so these allegations were never presented to the jury.</p>
<p>Kelly, Jones’ lawyer, concedes that his client has some issues in her past. “Jamie never claimed to be a perfectly clean slate when she walked in the door,” he says. But her history, he says, is irrelevant. “The fact that they’ve brought in everything they can of Jamie’s past is frankly disgusting. I think the jury will probably see through it.”</p>
<p>One thing Jones has working in her favor is that her story seems so incredible, her pursuit of justice so sincere, that it’s almost unimaginable that she would make it up. After all, why would anyone put themselves through that kind of torture? But KBR and Bortz also have a ready answer to that question. It’s The Jamie Leigh Story: How my Rape in Iraq and Cover-up Made Me a Crusader for Justice, the working title of her book.</p>
<p>For years, Jones has been in discussions with book agents, screenwriters, and production companies. In 2008, Paul Pompian, a film producer with dozens of docudrama credits to his name, <a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117982913?refCatId=13" type="external">bought the rights to her story.</a> He says that his company is working on film version of Jones’ story and that a book is also in the works. “Frankly, we’re waiting for the outcome of the trial,” he told me. “We’re hoping for a verdict that will give us a third act. Hopefully it will be an outcome that’s good for us and the movie and especially for Jamie Leigh.” Both the screenwriter and Jones’ coauthor were expected to be in Houston watching part of the trial, according to Pompian.</p>
<p>When KBR’s lawyers first learned of the book deal, they went to court seeking access to the manuscript and other documents. Jones fought the disclosure, arguing that it would diminish the work’s financial value. Jones’ lawyers filed a motion with the court declaring that the manuscript was a work of fiction.</p>
<p /> | Why Jamie Leigh Jones Lost Her KBR Rape Case | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/07/kbr-could-win-jamie-leigh-jones-rape-trial/ | 2011-07-07 | 4 |
<p>(Adds more codes)</p>
<p>By Christopher Spink</p>
<p>LONDON, Jan 18 (IFR) - The senior non-executive director of Melrose, which has this week made a £7.4bn hostile approach for FTSE 100 engineer GKN, has been appointed a deputy chairman of the UK Takeover Panel, the body which polices takeover approaches.</p>
<p>Justin Dowley, who was vice chairman of EMEA investment banking at Nomura, will replace David Challen, chairman of the EMEA governance committee at Citigroup, the Takeover Panel said on Thursday. Dowley will take up his role on May 1.</p>
<p>Dowley has sat on many boards involved in takeover situations, including insurer Novae and Wyevale Garden Centres, and has previously been head of investment banking at Merrill Lynch Europe. He was also chairman of investment manager ICG for six years until July 2016. (Reporting by Christopher Spink; Editing by Steve Slater)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Martin Sorrell, who built WPP into the world’s biggest advertising agency through 33 years of dealmaking, quit on Saturday after an allegation of personal misconduct.</p> FILE PHOTO: Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive Officer of WPP, attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 23, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
<p>The departure of the CEO who built a two-man outfit into one of Britain’s biggest companies with 200,000 staff in 112 countries leaves WPP without a boss at a pivotal time for the industry and when the group is under great strain.</p>
<p>WPP stunned the market last week when it said it had appointed lawyers to investigate alleged misconduct by Sorrell. He denied the allegations but in a letter to WPP staff published late on Saturday he said the “current disruption” was “putting too much unnecessary pressure on the business”.</p>
<p>He said he had decided that “in your interest, in the interest of our clients, in the interest of all shareowners, both big and small, and in the interest of all our other stakeholders, it is best for me to step aside”.</p>
<p>Chairman Roberto Quarta will become executive chairman until a new chief executive is found, while Mark Read, a WPP digital executive, and Andrew Scott, chief operating officer, Europe, have been appointed as joint chief operating officers.</p>
<p>Read, who previously sat on WPP’s main board, is well regarded in the industry while Scott was involved in its acquisition strategy and was not involved with clients.</p>
<p>The company will consider internal and external candidates for the top job in a process that could take several months.</p>
<p>“Obviously I am sad to leave WPP after 33 years,” Sorrell said in a statement. “It has been a passion, focus and source of energy for so long. However, I believe it is in the best interests of the business if I step down now.”</p>
<p>WPP said the investigation, which regarded financial impropriety, had concluded. It made no further comment but repeated a previous statement that the allegation did not involve amounts that were material to the company.</p>
<p>A source close to Sorrell said he had been unhappy with how the investigation was handled, leaving him uncertain whether he could work with the board again.</p>
<p>Analysts have speculated that the sprawling group, which was being restructured after a year of lower spending from some clients, could now sell off some assets if led by different management.</p> PASSION AND FOCUS
<p>The longest-serving CEO on the FTSE 100 blue chip index, Sorrell built WPP into one of Britain’s biggest companies by three decades of relentless dealmaking. He is one of the most high profile, and best paid, executives in the country.</p>
<p>In his time the group expanded to own top creative agencies including J. Walter Thompson and Young &amp; Rubicam, as well as media planners and buyers, market-research firms and public relations groups such as Finsbury.</p>
<p>Present in 112 countries, WPP serves clients including Ford, Unilever, P&amp;G and a string of major corporations around the world.</p>
<p>It largely outperformed its peers Omnicom, Publicis and IPG in the years that followed the financial crisis as the group pitched aggressively for new work. But it has been hit in the last 18 months by a downturn in spending from consumer goods groups Unilever and P&amp;G, and the loss of some big accounts.</p>
<p>The migration of advertising online and the encroachment into market research of consultancies such as Accenture have compounded the pressures. Its shares are down around 30 percent this year.</p>
<p>The company said Sorrell would be available to assist with the transition, and the man synonymous with the British marketing group told the staff they would come through this difficult time.</p>
<p>“As a founder, I can say that WPP is not just a matter of life or death, it was, is and will be more important than that,” Sorrell said. “Good fortune and Godspeed to all of you. Now back to the future.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Alistair Bell and Daniel Wallis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BERLIN (Reuters) - The head of Germany’s public sector union said he was upbeat about reaching a compromise with employers in a third round of wage talks due to begin on Sunday, after a week of strikes by more than 150,000 union members.</p> FILE PHOTO: Members of German public sector workers union Verdi stage a strike at the airport in demand for higher wages in Frankfurt, Germany April 10, 2018. Signs read "Today a warning strike" and "We are worth it". REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
<p>Verdi leader Frank Bsirske told German newspaper Handelsblatt the two sides had been far apart in the previous two rounds of wage talks, but he was more optimistic going into the third round.</p>
<p>“Given the signals that I’m now getting, it should be possible to achieve a sustainable compromise,” Bsirske told Handelsblatt.</p>
<p>Verdi, with 2.3 million members, and the dbb assocation of civil servants, which represents 344,000 public servants, have been pressing for a pay raise of 6 percent for their next 12-month contract, or least 200 euros more a month.</p>
<p>Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the federal government’s top negotiator, on Saturday said he would press for “reasonable results” in the next round of pay talks, but dismissed the union pay rise demand as “too high for one year.”</p>
<p>Ulrich Silberbach, head of the dbb and the lead negotiator for the labour side, said the unions were ready to negotiate, but it was up to Seehofer to present a counter-offer. “After the long negotiations on forming a government, we can’t afford to also have long wage conflicts,” he said in a statement.</p>
<p>Verdi’s Bsirske said surging German tax revenues meant the pay deal should definitely be higher than one struck two years ago, when workers got an initial 2.4 percent increase, followed by a 2.35 percent increase.</p>
<p>“Last time we had a 2 before the comma. That will definitely not be enough,” he told Handelsblatt.</p>
<p>Wage talks are due to resume around midday in Potsdam, near Berlin, after a week of walkout across the country that left thousands of passengers stranded at airports, and hit hospitals, childcare centres and waste depots.</p>
<p>In the industrial sector, 3.9 million workers agreed on a pay and flexible working hours deal in February that amounted to a roughly 4 percent rise per year for 2018 and 2019. Inflation edged up to 1.5 percent in March.</p>
<p>Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is in solid shape, with buoyant tax revenues and a record budget surplus. Falling unemployment, inflation-busting pay rises and low borrowing costs are fuelling a consumer-led upswing.</p>
<p>Reporting by Andrea Shalal. Editing by Jane Merriman</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Two multi-billion dollar takeovers of semiconductor makers are being stalled by Chinese regulatory reviews amid rising U.S.-China trade tensions, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.</p> FILE PHOTO: A sign on the Qualcomm campus is seen in San Diego, California, U.S. November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
<p>Qualcomm Inc’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">QCOM.O</a>) proposed $44 billion purchase of Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors NV ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=NXPI.O" type="external">NXPI.O</a>) could be at risk due to the delayed review. China is the only country that has not yet signed off on the deal, or on Toshiba Corp’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=6502.T" type="external">6502.T</a>) planned $19 billion sale of its chip unit to a Bain Capital consortium, according to the newspaper.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>Qualcomm’s merger agreement with NXP was extended for a second time in January, giving the two until to April 25, although the parties could decide to extend the deadline.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=QCOM.O" type="external">Qualcomm Inc</a> 55.73 QCOM.O Nasdaq +0.53 (+0.96%) QCOM.O NXPI.O 6502.T
<p>China’s Vice President, Wang Qishan, last month assured Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf that the review would not be affected by politics, the newspaper said.</p>
<p>Qualcomm and Toshiba did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>In a move to force China to lower its $375 billion trade surplus with the U.S., the Trump administration this month unveiled tariffs representing about $50 billion on Chinese technology, transport and medical products, drawing an immediate threat of retaliatory action from Beijing.</p>
<p>At the same time, China pledged to further open the country’s economy and lower import tariffs on certain products, moves it said were unrelated to the trade spat.</p>
<p>Reporting by Gary McWilliams; editing by Diane Craft</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>CARACAS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Maduro has decreed extra powers to his oil czar Manuel Quevedo to try and halt sliding crude output in crisis-hit Venezuela, which has sunk to its lowest level since the 1950s.</p> FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro gestures during a TV show with National Constituent Assembly member Diosdado Cabello in Caracas, Venezuela April 11, 2018. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS
<p>Struggling with a deep economic recession, failed socialist policies, debt default, and U.S. financial sanctions, Venezuela’s crude production slipped to 1.586 million barrels per day in February, according to OPEC.</p>
<p>Maduro’s decree, seen by Reuters, gives Quevedo, a major general, powers to “create, annul or modify” deals involving state energy company PDVSA and its subsidiaries. The oil minister is also head of PDVSA.</p>
<p>It was not immediately clear what that might mean for PDVSA’s joint ventures. But Quevedo met late on Friday with some foreign partners including representatives of Total ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TOTF.PA" type="external">TOTF.PA</a>), Statoil ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=STL.OL" type="external">STL.OL</a>), Chevron ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">CVX.N</a>), Rosneft ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ROSN.MM" type="external">ROSN.MM</a>) and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).</p> FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's Oil Minister and President of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA Manuel Quevedo attends the event launching the new Venezuelan cryptocurrency "Petro" in Caracas, Venezuela February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello
<p>In a statement, PDVSA said the new measure would enable a reorganization of operations and minimization of bureaucracy.</p>
<p>“We are going to work with PDVSA to implement the measures and increase production,” Rosneft representative Pavel Kamenets was quoted as saying in the PDVSA statement.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TOTF.PA" type="external">Total SA</a> 48.6 TOTF.PA Paris Stock Exchange -0.29 (-0.60%) TOTF.PA STL.OL CVX.N ROSN.MM
<p>The decree creates a “special regime” in the sector until Dec. 31, with the possibility of a year’s extension. “The Oil Minister will be able to ... establish norms and special contract procedures for products, assets and services,” it said.</p>
<p>One clause ordered all specialized personnel, on national or international assignments, to return to original workplaces.</p>
<p>Socialist leader Maduro has promised a vast anti-corruption purge to cleanse the oil industry of “mafias”.</p>
<p>At least 70 executives have been detained in recent months, panicking PDVSA workers, depriving the industry of much of its top brass and stalling decision-making in the company overseeing the world’s biggest crude reserves, insiders have said.</p>
<p>The opposition dismisses the probe as a power struggle within government, noting that the industry has been under tight control of the Socialist Party since early in former president Hugo Chavez’s 14-year rule.</p>
<p>Reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by David Gregorio</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | RPT-MOVES-Melrose director to be deputy chair of Takeover Panel Martin Sorrell quits as head of world's biggest ad group WPP Union chief upbeat on prospects for deal in German wage talks China slows review of chip company mergers amid trade tensions: WSJ Venezuela empowers oil minister Quevedo to reform energy sector | false | https://reuters.com/article/idUSL8N1PD2QK | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
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<p>With shares of energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) yielding just 2.25%, it may be a good idea to look elsewhere. Here's why NRG Yield (NYSE: NYLD),Caesarstone (NASDAQ: CSTE), andAutoZone (NYSE: AZO)are better bets.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFlushDraw/info.aspx" type="external">Travis Hoium Opens a New Window.</a> (NRG Yield): Kinder Morgan is supposed to be a cash-flow machine for investors, acting as a toll collector on thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines. At the end of the day, the company should be judged by its cash flow and dividend -- which is no longer a great value at a 2.2% dividend yield. And it's why I think NRG Yieldis a much better stock for dividend investors in the future.</p>
<p>NRG Yield owns primarily renewable energy assets, like wind and solar power plants, that have long-term contracts to sell energy to utilities. Sixty-seven percent of the company's assets are wind or solar and they have an average of 17 years of life on their power-purchase agreements.</p>
<p>The cash generation from the sale of electricity is then used to pay investors in the form of a dividend. Yieldcos are really that simple. And the yield for NRG Yield today is 5.7%, which is high enough to be an attractive yield for investors and low enough that the company can buy projects with new debt and equity, and have those projects be accretive to the dividend long term.</p>
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<p>If it's dividends you're looking for in energy, NRG Yield is better than Kinder Morgan, hands down.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Tim Green Opens a New Window.</a> (Caesarstone): The energy infrastructure business is pretty far removed from my circle of competence, so Kinder Morgan isn't really on my radar. One company that I do like is Caesarstone, a manufacturer of engineered quartz used in countertops and other indoor surfaces. Shares of Caesarstone are down more than 50% from their multi-year high, creating a solid value in an otherwise expensive market.</p>
<p>The U.S. is Caesarstone's most important market, but U.S. sales have been declining in recent quarters. During the fourth quarter, revenue from the U.S. dropped 2.8%, even as smaller growth markets like Canada and Australia posted impressive growth. The good news is that this weakness appears to be temporary. The company is working through some issues at its U.S. manufacturing facility,which opened in 2015, and it has made changes to its sales organization.</p>
<p>Image source: Caesarstone.</p>
<p>Caesarstone expects the U.S. to be one of its strongest regions in 2017, driving revenue growth for the company. The long-term growth potential is substantial, with engineered quartz accounting for less than 10% of countertop sales in the U.Scompared to nearly 40% in Australia and nearly 20% in Canada. Caesarstone produced $2.15 in earnings per share (EPS) last year, putting the stock price at about 16 times earnings. For a small company with plenty of room to grow, Caesarstone looks like a solid deal to me.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Miller Opens a New Window.</a>(AutoZone): One company higher than Kinder Morgan on my list of potential investments is AutoZone, a premier seller of aftermarket automotive parts, tools and accessories to do-it-yourself (DIY) consumers. It's higher on my list for the following reasons: It's trading at a cheap valuation, it's performed consistently over the long haul, and it has room for growth.</p>
<p>First, let's take a look at its performance over the long haul.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/AZO" type="external">AZO</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>AutoZone generated net sales of $10.6 billion during 2016 with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $2.4 billion, and it's net sales have historically been solid with a 10-year compound annual growth rate of 6%. But what's even more reassuring for investors is that, on the chart above, you'll notice there wasn't much of a hiccup during the great recession. That's because during the massive slowdown, more consumers opted to fix small vehicle issues themselves, supporting AutoZone's sales growth.</p>
<p>That's one perk of owning AutoZone, but here's another: As the company focuses on a new segment, do-it-for-me consumers, it has plenty of room to grow its top line in the years ahead. Historically, AutoZone hasn't participated in this segment much, preferring to stick to do-it-yourself customers. That's changing, and it's estimated to be a $67 billion industry, of which AutoZone only has a 2.9% market share. AutoZone plans on adding service bays to more of its stores to take advantage of this market, and it remains a strong catalyst for its business.</p>
<p>Lastly, per Morningstar.com forward estimates, AutoZone is trading at a forward price-to-earnings of only 14. That's cheap for a consistent company that performs well during recessions and has room for growth.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Kinder MorganWhen 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=4cf9c4c8-d31c-4c32-8131-cd23b62c8aef&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 Kinder Morgan 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=4cf9c4c8-d31c-4c32-8131-cd23b62c8aef&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/TMFTwoCoins/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Miller</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Timothy Green</a> owns shares of Caesarstone. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFlushDraw/info.aspx" type="external">Travis Hoium</a> owns shares of Kinder Morgan. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Kinder Morgan. The Motley Fool recommends AutoZone and Caesarstone. 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> | 3 Stocks We Like More Than Kinder Morgan Inc. | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/18/3-stocks-like-more-than-kinder-morgan-inc.html | 2017-02-18 | 0 |
<p>Mitch McConnell has many virtues as a legislator. Unfortunately, brokering deals advantageous to Republicans is not one of them.</p>
<p>McConnell’s defenders will say that his most recent deal was the best any Republican could do under the circumstances. Perhaps. But this defense ignores the fact that it was McConnell’s prior deal — the one creating the “fiscal cliff” — that established these adverse circumstances.</p>
<p>Let’s step back and consider the impact of McConnell’s deals on the valiant effort of House Republicans in 2011 to use the debt-ceiling to attack the debt. So far, the results are as follows: (1) the debt ceiling was raised, (2) the debt continued to soar, (3) the latest McConnell-brokered deal will increase, rather than decrease, the debt, and (4) taxes are about to go up.</p>
<p>There are extenuating circumstances, to be sure — most notably the 2012 election. But they are insufficient to explain how the Democrats have thus far been able to turn the debt-ceiling battle of 2011 so decisively to their advantage.</p>
<p>It’s a tribute to McConnell’s skill that John Boehner seems to be taking most of the heat over the latest deal. The Speaker deserves some heat, but mostly because he managed to sideline himself thereby enabling McConnell to take center stage.</p> | Can the Republican party survive any more McConnell-brokered deals? | true | http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/01/can-the-republican-party-survive-any-more-mcconnell-brokered-deals.php | 2013-01-02 | 0 |
<p>Screenshot from &lt;i&gt;Sirius&lt;/i&gt; trailer</p>
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<p>When 35-year-old Amardeep Kaleka recently declared his intention to run for the Democratic nomination to challenge Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in 2014, most news <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/10/14/paul-ryan-sikh-temple-kaleka-congress/2981395/" type="external">coverage</a> focused on one facet of his story: His father was one of the murder victims of the 2012 <a href="" type="internal">massacre</a> at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. That murder convinced Kaleka to run as a Democrat and advocate for enhanced gun control.</p>
<p>But during a recent <a href="http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/jack_craver/amardeep-kaleka-wages-an-unconventional-campaign-for-congress/article_f731a0f8-4013-11e3-8013-0019bb2963f4.html" type="external">interview</a> with the Madison Capital Times, Kaleka, who is not the only Democrat looking to run against Ryan, revealed another side of his biography: conspiracy documentary filmmaker. Kaleka directed the 2013 film Sirius, a documentary that purports to uncover evidence of extraterrestrial life on Earth and suggests that the September 11 terrorist attacks were a “false flag” operation. Kaleka is also listed as editor and director of photography and shares credit for the documentary’s “story idea.” The film has slightly better production values than your typical conspiracy diatribe, but it hinges on some far-out concepts.</p>
<p>Kaleka founded Neverending Light, the studio that produced Sirius. He couldn’t be reached for comment in time for publication, but he told the&#160;Capital Times, “I don’t think that any knowledgeable human would say that extraterrestrials don’t exist.”</p>
<p>Here’s a short trailer for the movie:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The film, which is posted below, is based on Hidden Truth: Forbidden Knowledge, a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Truth-Forbidden-Steven-Greer/dp/0967323827/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1383173662&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=hidden+truth+forbidden+knowledge" type="external">book</a> by Steven Greer, an osteopath who now <a href="http://www.disclosureproject.org/" type="external">leads</a> searches for evidence of extraterrestrial life on Earth. Greer mixes a bit of made-up science with a strong vein of spirituality in explaining why aliens have visited our planet. “When we started detonating thermonuclear weapons, atomic weapons, and developing these sort of destructive technologies the civilizations that have been watching this planet for millennia said, ‘Oh my God, these people are going way off the reservation. They are now an existential threat to themselves, but also to other planets potentially,'” Greer says in the film.</p>
<p>Sirius includes a number of confusing scenes during which Greer and his companions, including Kaleka, are filmed stargazing, claiming to spot alien aircraft. “It’s got a path,” Kaleka says in one such scene , as he looks at the sky. “It’s got like a movement. And then it’s gone.” On-screen text describes the congressional candidate as a “UFO Witness.”</p>
<p>The movie also features a dose of 9/11 <a href="" type="internal">trutherism</a>. “The question, on some people’s minds, is whether or not this disaster was exploited, or worse, engineered,” the narrator says midway through the movie. He asserts that 9/11 was a false flag operation mounted by the government a few months after a major conference of alien watchers in order to distract the public and suppress the truth, and he likens the 9/11 attacks to the <a href="http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/" type="external">Gulf of Tonkin</a> incident during the Vietnam War. The movie goes on to suggest that the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tony-sobrado/the-bilderberg-group-cons_b_1591214.html" type="external">Bilderbergers</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_(conspiracy_theory)" type="external">Rockefellers</a> were behind a series of global conspiracies.</p>
<p>Kaleka’s documentary highlights a six-inch-long body that an amateur archeologist <a href="http://www.openminds.tv/background-of-ufo-documentary-humanoid-alien-revealed-964/" type="external">discovered</a> in a ghost town in the Atacama Desert in Chile in 2003. One of the film’s experts refers to it as an EBE—that is, an extraterrestrial biological entity. Sirius shows footage of the supposed alien being dissected; its lingering cranial material autopsied for DNA. The organism appears otherworldly, yet the truth is far more mundane: <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2013/05/bizarre-6-inch-skeleton-shown-be-human" type="external">According</a> to Science magazine, an immunologist from Stanford University determined that the skeleton is from our planet, and probably a mummified stillborn fetus.</p>
<p>Kaleka’s film is not an examination of those who believe in extraterrestrials. It’s a sympathetic vehicle to promote their views to a wider audience. Ufologist Greer anchors the film by pacing a stage and giving a lecture, as if he’s channeling Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. Near the end of the movie, Greer states that there have been over 4,000 cases of extraterrestrial vehicles landing on Earth.</p>
<p>If aliens definitely are among us, why don’t most people know about it? According to Kaleka’s film, it’s all the military industrial complex’s fault. “The problem is not proving that UFOs exist, it’s when you begin to expose the energy and propulsion systems of how they’re getting here,” Greer says. “You’re talking about unveiling a new science that would replace oil, gas, coal, nuclear power, public utilities. This is the $600 trillion dollar problem.” If the public knew about alien visitors, Greer contends, a whole new world of technologies would become available, including “inertial shielding” and gravity manipulation. But the “petro-fascists” (as he calls them) controlling the government hide alien discoveries to maintain their oil oligarchy. “These sciences have been out there for decades; they have been ruthlessly kept secret because of the power of a centralized petro-dollar,” Greer maintains.</p>
<p>Kaleka’s film fits into that sweet spot where the fringes of left-wing and right-wing ideology overlap. At one point, the narrator ominously states that the US government doesn’t actually manage the Federal Reserve Bank. Instead, viewers are told, the Fed is “owned by a private banking cartel.” To back up this claim, the film cuts to a scene of Ron Paul berating Fed chairman Ben Bernanke at a congressional hearing.</p>
<p>Sirius hints that several extraterrestrial researchers have contracted diseases, apparently because the government is trying to stymie damning ET revelations. “I don’t take anything for granted, frankly,” Greer says, “so each time that I do a presentation or lead a group. I think, ‘This may be the last time.'”</p>
<p>The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/movies/sirius-a-documentary-directed-by-amardeep-kaleka.html?_r=0" type="external">reviewed</a> the film in May. “It perhaps exceeds the earthly purview of a humble film critic to evaluate claims of extraterrestrial life, but it’s definitely unwise to bury the audience in suggestive statements and footage without dwelling long enough on any one thing to persuade,” reviewer Nicolas Rapold wrote. “Though the would-be mini-alien yields some suspense, Mr. Kaleka’s film feels a bit like wandering into a hotel convention hall full of true believers who have been chatting for hours.”</p>
<p>Kaleka won’t necessarily face Ryan in the general election. Rob Zerban, Ryan’s 2012 opponent, <a href="http://fox6now.com/2013/10/26/democrat-rob-zerban-announces-run-for-congress/" type="external">announced</a> last week that he will run again.</p>
<p>Here’s the full movie:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p /> | Paul Ryan’s Democratic Opponent Is Alien Conspiracy Theorist, 9/11 Truther | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/amardeep-kaleka-paul-ryan-aliens-911/ | 2013-10-31 | 4 |
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<p>Delta Air Lines Inc on Monday cut its operating margin forecast for the current quarter, citing higher costs, and said it expected passenger unit revenue, a closely watched revenue metric, to be at the lower end of its forecast.</p>
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<p>The No. 2 U.S. airline by passenger traffic Delta said its margins will likely contract this year as the pace of revenue improvement lags cost increases.</p>
<p>"Market fuel prices are tracking up about 55 percent for the quarter, which is expected to be the greatest year-on-year increase in 2017," the company said in an investor presentation.</p>
<p>Delta Air now expects operating margins to increase about 10-11 percent, less than 11-13 percent rise it had previously forecast.</p>
<p>The airline now expects passenger unit revenue, which compares sales to flight capacity, to be about flat in the first quarter ending March. (http://bit.ly/2msPAf6)</p>
<p>It had earlier expected passenger unit revenue to be between flat and up 2 percent.</p>
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<p>The company's shares were down 1.3 percent at $49.50 in premarket trading.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Savio D'Souza)</p> | Delta Air cuts Q1 operating margin forecast, citing higher costs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/03/06/delta-air-cuts-q1-operating-margin-forecast-citing-higher-costs.html | 2017-03-17 | 0 |
<p>An arm of the European Union says there's enough scientific evidence to move forward with a review of Sweden's request to declare the American lobster an invasive species.</p>
<p>The preliminary opinion by the European Union's Scientific Forum on Invasive Alien Species announced Tuesday sets in motion a broader review that will also take into account information from U.S. and Canadian authorities. It'll consider economic impact and other means of protecting native lobsters.</p>
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<p>Lobstermen in the U.S, and Canada had hoped to stop the proposal. Together, they export $200 million worth of lobster to European markets each year.</p>
<p>Sweden set the wheels in motion when it announced it had found 32 American lobsters in the country's waters earlier this year and that they pose a threat to native crustaceans.</p> | European proposal to ban American lobsters to move forward | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/06/european-proposal-to-ban-american-lobsters-to-move-forward.html | 2016-09-06 | 0 |
<p>OWLS HEAD, Maine — Next rainy day, if you feel like depressing yourself, read George Packer's "The Unwinding," a 400-page look into the "inner history of the new America."</p>
<p>If you prefer the old America, here's why you should read it anyway: the book shows the breakdown of the middle class, almost an American invention in the 20th century, as industries collapsed, safety nets filled with holes, and politics turned into a no-compromise, winner-take-all game in which the electorate became the permanent loser.</p>
<p>But if you only have a few minutes to absorb the message, read the front-page article in this past Sunday's New York Times entitled, " <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/us/politics/for-freshmen-in-the-house-seats-of-plenty.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0" type="external">For Freshmen in the House, Seats of Plenty</a>."</p>
<p>Packer's book is ultimately sad, but it has its moments of glory, as can-do Americans struggle against the collapse of the US social compact: "Alone on a landscape without solid structures, Americans have to improvise their own destinies, plot their own stories of success and salvation."</p>
<p>The Times article is more than sad: it details the corruption that unlimited amounts of money have brought to the US political system. We hear all the time that money and lobbyists are running Washington, but we don't really appreciate the depth of how much has changed, in a relatively short period of history, until we read actual figures: in 2009, lobbyists earned $3.47 billion lobbying the federal government.</p>
<p>Congressmen are increasingly second-rate individuals, but that doesn't mean they're dumb: they know how to cash in. In 1974, 3 percent of retiring members of Congress became lobbyists. Today, it's 50 percent for senators and 42 percent for their colleagues in the House. And the pace is accelerating: over the last 12 years, corporate America — and much of that, Wall Street — has tripled its spending on lobbying.</p>
<p>What's particularly disturbing about the Times article is how it details the way freshmen congressmen buy in — willingly, but with instruction from their elders — to the system of legal corruption: "After the elections in November, Democratic Party leaders gave a PowerPoint presentation urging their freshman members to spend as much as four hours a day making fund-raising calls while in Washington," which "adds up to more time than these first-term lawmakers were advised to spend on Congressional business," the article notes.</p>
<p>This, of course, is why a seat on the Financial Services Committee is so sought after; that's where the money is. Andy Barr, a Republican freshman, has raised nearly as much money so far this year from PACs run by the financial industry as has House Speaker John Boehner from all his supporters. And all along it has been thought that getting a seat on the Financial Services Committee was desirable as a way to help control the industry that delivered the financial collapse five years ago.</p>
<p>It's corruption, pure and simple, regardless of the take on it peddled by Chief Justice John Roberts' Supreme Court. The Times article notes that last month, Barr "introduced legislation to eliminate a new federal rule intended to prevent banks from issuing mortgages to customers who could not afford to repay the debt."</p>
<p>Not to be outdone, Ann Wagner, also a Republican freshman with a seat on that same House committee, "sponsored a bill that would block or delay Labor Department rules intended to prevent life insurance agents and other brokers from selling financial products they know may not be in the client's best interest."</p>
<p>Needless to say, the selling of votes for cash is not limited to Republicans: all seven freshmen Democrats on the committee joined with Republicans — over the objection of the Obama administration — "to support measures advocated by Wall Street banks that would roll back some of the strictest provisions" of the Dodd-Frank regulations, a law passed in 2010 to prevent another global collapse.</p>
<p>Nor is it just re-election being sold to the highest bidder; once today's freshmen congressmen leave the House they can move on to a million-dollar-a-year job lobbying for Wall Street with their former colleagues.</p>
<p>Americans seem to know instinctively how corrupt their congressmen are; it's not just Washington gridlock that keeps Congress's approval ratings fluctuating in the low teens.</p>
<p>The underlying problem is that it's a self-perpetuating system, as shown by the vast increase in recent decades in both money and lobbyists spending it. Term limits might have some positive effect on fund-raising. Direct legislation — a law limiting the amounts that anyone, challenger or incumbent, could spend on an election — would obviously be beneficial.</p>
<p>But with the cash deck so stacked in favor of incumbents, except for a few retiring members, what congress member would support, much less introduce, legislation that would hamper his or her re-election efforts? Or, heaven forbid, shut off the revolving door that guarantees a continuing Washington future — and a nice rich one — when he or she tires of politics?</p>
<p>But if money is destroying our legislative branch, money being dumped into presidential campaigns also is contributing to our despondency over the state of electoral politics.</p>
<p>During the 2012 presidential elections, upwards of $2 billion was spent by the two campaigns, and, according to the Huffington Post, the top 150 consulting companies grossed more than $465 million. Politics is big business, and not just for the politicians.</p>
<p>So, are we surprised at what now appears to be the likely outcome in 2016, that Hillary Clinton is almost certain to be the Democratic candidate? After all, she, with husband Bill's help, can raise the money. She can do quite nicely padding her own pockets these days, reportedly getting $200,000 for a speech.</p>
<p>Considering that Republican voters will consist even more exclusively of aging white males than it did in Romney's defeat, she'll win the 2016 election. Going back to 1988, and projecting forward to 2024, this will mean the country will have been run for 28 of 36 years by two families, Bushes and Clintons.</p>
<p>This is a consequence of what has been wrought by that most important tool of modern American democracy — money.</p>
<p>Mac Deford is retired after a career as a Foreign Service officer, an international banker, and a museum director. He lives at Owls Head, Maine and still travels frequently to the Middle East. &#160;</p> | A most important tool of modern American democracy: Money | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-08-25/most-important-tool-modern-american-democracy-money | 2013-08-25 | 3 |
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<p>The Los Angeles Dodgers and Angels, San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle all remain in contention.</p>
<p>Several teams said Sunday they were told they had been eliminated, and the seven remaining were confirmed Monday to The Associated Press by a pair of people familiar with the choices. They spoke on condition of anonymity because not all teams had announced whether they were in or out.</p>
<p>Ohtani is limited to a minor league contract because of restrictions imposed by the MLB collective bargaining agreement. The Rangers have the largest signing bonus amount remaining among the teams he is considering at $3,535,000, followed by the Mariners ($1,557,500) and Angels ($1,315,000). The Cubs, Dodgers and Giants are restricted to $300,000 maximums in the signing period through June 15 as penalties for exceeding their bonus pools in 2015-16 and the Padres are limited to $300,000 for going over in 2016-17.</p>
<p>“I started getting a feel that wasn’t good a few days ago,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told reporters at a holiday event Sunday night in Stamford, Connecticut. “I can’t change that that we’re a big market and I can’t change we’re in the East.”</p>
<p>Ohtani was put up for bid Friday by the Pacific League’s Nippon Ham Fighters for the maximum $20 million posting fee. The 23-year-old has until 11:59 p.m. EST on Dec. 22 to agree to a contract with an MLB team.</p>
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<p>AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball</p> | AP source: Ohtani cuts to 5 West Coast teams, Cubs, Rangers | false | https://abqjournal.com/1101733/ap-source-ohtani-cuts-to-5-west-coast-teams-cubs-rangers.html | 2017-12-04 | 2 |
<p>As we approach the Monday holiday, we’re hearinga Pentagon lawyer suggest that Martin Luther King would <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/14/pentagon-official-mlk-support-wars-iraq-afghanistan_n_809031.html" type="external">support the war in Afghanistan</a>. That makes it an ideal time torecall a 1995 column by FAIR founder Jeff Cohen and longtime associate Norman Solomon (Media Beat, 1/4/95). The full column appearsbelow, and is <a href="" type="internal">archived here</a>.</p>
<p>by <a href="index.php?page=10&amp;author_id=84" type="external">Jeff Cohen</a> and <a href="index.php?page=10&amp;author_id=167" type="external">Norman Solomon</a></p>
<p>It’s become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King’s birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about “the slain civil rights leader.”</p>
<p>The remarkable thing about this annual review of King’s life is that several years–his last years–are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.</p>
<p>What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).</p>
<p>An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn’t take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.</p>
<p>Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they’re not shown today on TV.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>It’s because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King, Jr., stood for during his final years. In the early 1960s, when King focused his challenge on legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media were his allies. Network TV and national publications graphically showed the police dogs and bullwhips and cattle prods used against Southern blacks who sought the right to vote or to eat at a public lunch counter.</p>
<p>But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation’s fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without “human rights”–including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.</p>
<p>Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for “radical changes in the structure of our society” to redistribute wealth and power.</p>
<p>“True compassion,” King declared, “is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”</p>
<p>By 1967, King had also become the country’s most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm" type="external">“Beyond Vietnam”</a> speech delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967–a year to the day before he was murdered–King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”</p>
<p>From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was “on the wrong side of a world revolution.” King questioned “our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America,” and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions “of the shirtless and barefoot people” in the Third World, instead of supporting them.</p>
<p>In foreign policy, King also offered an economic critique, complaining about “capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries.”</p>
<p>You haven’t heard the “Beyond Vietnam” speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967–and loudly denounced it. Life magazine called it “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post patronized that “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”</p>
<p>In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People’s Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would descend on Washington–engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be–until Congress enacted a poor people’s bill of rights. Reader’s Digest warned of an “insurrection.”</p>
<p>King’s economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America’s cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its “hostility to the poor”–appropriating “military funds with alacrity and generosity,” but providing “poverty funds with miserliness.”</p>
<p>How familiar that sounds today, more than a quarter-century after King’s efforts on behalf of the poor people’s mobilization were cut short by an assassin’s bullet.</p>
<p>As 1995 gets underway, in this nation of immense wealth, the White House and Congress continue to accept the perpetuation of poverty. And so do most mass media. Perhaps it’s no surprise that they tell us little about the last years of Martin Luther King’s life.</p> | The Martin Luther King You Still Don’t See on TV | true | http://fair.org/blog/2011/01/14/the-martin-luther-king-you-still-dont-see-on-tv/ | 2011-01-14 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Gannett.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Monday wasn't a very exciting day on Wall Street, and most major stock market benchmarks were down only slightly from Friday's levels. Investors seemed content to wait for the latest news from the Federal Reserve's Open Market committee, which will give the latest indication on the direction of U.S. interest rates later this week. In the meantime, a decline in oil prices and mild losses in the bond market set a negative tone for stocks. Nevertheless, some individual companies posted good news that lifted their share prices, and among the winners in today's session were Gannett , Changyou.com , and Time Warner Cable .</p>
<p>Gannett rose more than 6% after making an unsolicited proposal to buy fellow newspaper giant Tribune Publishing in a deal that would be worth $815 million. Tribune shareholders would receive $12.25 per share in cash, and Gannett would also agree to assume certain Tribune debt in the amount of about $390 million. The deal offers Tribune investors a quick 63% profit compared to where its shares closed on Friday, but Gannett believes that acquiring Tribune would nevertheless "deliver substantial strategic and financial benefits for the combined company." With the potential to grow Gannett's USA Today Network to include an even larger swath of local markets and create new platform opportunities, a combination could provide financial stability and a greater chance of outlasting the downward trend that has hurt newspaper giants over the past 20 years.</p>
<p>Changyou.com climbed 5% in the wake of its first-quarter earnings report. The online game developer and operator said that revenue fell 38% to $130 million, with online gaming revenue plunging 45%. Adjusted net income fell by about a third, and declines in monthly active accounts for both PC and mobile games boded poorly for the company. Yet Changyou said that its results were in line with its guidance, and investors seemed satisfied even though the company's guidance for the second quarter included further sequential revenue declines and weak income figures. Given that the stock trades at a level that takes into account large expected contraction in its bottom line, anything short of a cataclysmic failure could give Changyou.com stock substantial upside.</p>
<p>Finally, Time Warner Cable finished the day up 4%. The company finally received antitrust approval from the U.S. Department of Justice for its planned acquisition by Charter Communications, representing one more obstacle that the two companies have managed to overcome. Charter still needs to get the signoff of the Federal Communications Commission, but FCC Chair Tom Wheeler has recommended the deal's approval with conditions. In addition, the state of California also will have an opportunity to weigh in with any concerns it might have. In the end, most people following the ongoing merger discussions believe that the deal will pass with conditions to ensure the combined entity will allow competitors like streaming-video services to use broadband connections to deliver competing content without interference from Charter or its new subsidiaries.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/25/why-gannett-changyoucom-and-time-warner-cable-jump.aspx" type="external">Why Gannett, Changyou.com, and Time Warner Cable Jumped Today Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Dan Caplinger Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Gannett, Changyou.com, and Time Warner Cable Jumped Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/25/why-gannett-changyoucom-and-time-warner-cable-jumped-today.html | 2016-04-25 | 0 |
<p>Rivals Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. (Mic Smith / AP)</p>
<p>This post originally ran on <a href="http://robertreich.org/post/144976019235" type="external">Robert Reich’s website</a>.</p>
<p>With the Democratic primaries grinding to a bitter end, I have suggestions for both Clinton and Sanders supporters that neither will like.</p>
<p>First, my advice to Clinton supporters: Don’t try to drum Bernie Sanders out of the race before Hillary Clinton officially gets the nomination (if she in fact does get it). &#160;</p>
<p />
<p>Some of you say Bernie should bow out because he has no chance of getting the nomination, and his continuing candidacy is harming Hillary Clinton’s chances.</p>
<p>It’s true that Bernie’s chances are slim, but it’s inaccurate to say he has no chance. If you consider only pledged delegates, who have been selected in caucuses and primaries, he’s not all that far behind Hillary Clinton. And the upcoming primary in California – the nation’s most populous state – could possibly alter Sanders’s and Clinton’s relative tallies.</p>
<p>My calculation doesn’t include so-called “superdelegates” – Democratic office holders and other insiders who haven’t been selected through primaries and caucuses. But in this year of anti-establishment fury, it would be unwise for Hillary Clinton to relay on superdelegates to get her over the finish line.</p>
<p>Sanders should stay in the race also because he has attracted a large number of young people and independents. Their passion, excitement, and enthusiasm are critically important to Hillary Clinton’s success, if she’s the nominee, as well the success of other Democrats this year, and, more fundamentally, to the future of American politics.</p>
<p>Finally and not the least, Sanders has been telling a basic truth about the American political economic system – that growing inequality of income and wealth has led inexorably to the increasing political power of those at the top, including big corporations and Wall Street banks. And that political power has stacked the deck in their favor, leading to still wider inequality.</p>
<p>Nothing important can be accomplished – reversing climate change, creating true equal opportunity, overcoming racism, rebuilding the middle class, having a sane and sensible foreign policy – until we reclaim our democracy from the moneyed interests. The longer Bernie Sanders is on stage to deliver this message, the better.</p>
<p>Next, my advice for Sanders supporters: Be prepared to work hard for Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination.</p>
<p>Some of you say that refusing to fight for or even vote for Hillary will show the Democratic political establishment why it must change its ways.</p>
<p>But the “Democratic political establishment” is nothing but a bunch of people, many of them big donors and fundraisers occupying comfortable and privileged positions, who won’t even be aware that you’ve decided to sit it out – unless Hillary loses to Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Which brings me to those of you who say there’s no real difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.</p>
<p>That’s just plain wrong. Trump has revealed himself to be a narcissistic, xenophobic, hatemonger who, if elected, would legitimize bigotry, appoint Supreme Court justices with terrible values, and have direct access to the button that could set off a nuclear war.</p>
<p>Hillary may not possess Bernie Sanders’s indignation about the rigging of our economy and democracy, or be willing to go as far in remedying it, but she’s shown herself a capable and responsible leader. &#160;</p>
<p>Some of you agree a Trump presidency would be a disaster but claim it would galvanize a forceful progressive movement in response.</p>
<p>That’s unlikely. Rarely if ever in history has a sharp swing to the right moved the political pendulum further back in the opposite direction. Instead, it tends to move the “center” rightward, as did Ronald Reagan’s presidency.</p>
<p>Besides, Trump could do huge and unalterable damage to America and the world in the meantime.</p>
<p>Finally, some of you say even if Hillary is better than Trump, you’re tired of choosing the “lesser of two evils,” and you’re going to vote your conscience by either writing Bernie’s name in, or voting for the Green Party candidate, or not voting at all.</p>
<p>I can’t criticize anyone for voting their conscience, of course. But your conscience should know that a decision not to vote for Hillary, should she become the Democratic nominee, is a de facto decision to help Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Both of my morsels of advice may be hard to swallow. Many Hillary supporters don’t want Bernie to keep campaigning, and many Bernie supporters don’t want to root for Hillary if she gets the nomination.</p>
<p>But swallow it you must – not just for the good of the Democratic Party, but for the good of the nation.</p> | Suggestions for Both Clinton and Sanders Supporters That Neither Will Like | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/suggestions-for-both-clinton-and-sanders-supporters-that-neither-will-like/ | 2016-05-29 | 4 |
<p>I've come across something so shocking and gross, that it made me feel physically ill.</p>
<p>CONTENT WARNING:</p>
<p />
<p>In 2002, our Prime Minister's <a href="" type="internal">wife</a> starred in a fake infomercial about tablets that can flavour menstrual blood. I wish I was joking. I'm not.</p>
<p>The video is in French, so it's subtitled. And it's in the absolute poorest of taste. If you're someone with a weak stomach, this isn't for you. Actually, I don't think this is for anybody. I can't imagine who this would be for. It's just that awful.</p>
<p>What we've just seen wasn't a childish prank. Or a drunken gaffe. It's a thoughtfully produced lengthy piece of work from Sophie Gregoire as a professional. She chose to do this. She wasn't forced. She chose to do something this utterly gross and weird.</p>
<p>If you're like me, you're sick of hearing how conservatives are unfunny, boorish, and lowbrow. Sophie Gregoire's video could not have been more unfunny and lowbrow.</p>
<p>It's ok, though, she's a Liberal. They have their <a href="" type="internal">own set</a> of <a href="" type="internal">rules</a> to play by.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">JOIN TheRebel.media</a> for more fearless news and commentary you won't find anywhere else.</p>
<p>Justin Trudeau campaigned against government money for childcare --Now taxpayers are paying for his two nannies, even though he's rich. <a href="" type="internal">SIGN THE PETITION at PayForYourOwnNanny.com</a></p>
<p>"Don't blame me: I voted Conservative"The t-shirt that says it all -- <a href="https://tinyurl.com/votedconservative" type="external">ONLY from TheRebel.media store!</a></p> | WATCH: Sophie Trudeau starred in a fake infomercial that will make you SICK | true | http://therebel.media/watch_sophie_gregoire_s_participation_in_fake_infomercial | 2016-01-25 | 0 |
<p>For the past few weeks London has been host to a controversy of theatrical proportions. No, I’m not talking about Prince Harry’s dubious credentials in the world of academia. Far from the pusillanimous prince’s paparazzi pursued boarding school, the National Theatre is running its production of David Hare’s latest play, Stuff Happens. The title is taken from Donald Rumsfeld’s racist comments in response to looting after the invasion of Iraq, and the play itself is a chronicle of the Bush administration’s run-up to war.</p>
<p>The play has been part of a small wave of anti-war drama to hit London. The past year has seen the production of Justin Butcher’s The Madness of George Dubya, Pugilist Specialist (about US soldiers assassinating an oddly familiar mustachioed Middle Eastern leader), and Tim Robbins’ Embedded, which lampoons the US media’s one-sided coverage of the war and occupation.</p>
<p>Stuff Happens is staged in an unorthodox fashion, with most actors remaining on the round stage for the duration of the three hour play. All the players are there; Bush, Cheney, Condi, Powell, Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, Jack Straw; and so are the lies. It gives a great behind-the-scenes look behind the fraudulent case for an illegitimate war. With most dialogue taken from actual documented meetings, it’s created a frenzy in the British media, and has prompted a response from the White House accusing the play of being “not entirely accurate.” Brave words from an administration that was willing to weave a veritable sweater factory of lies to justify the attack on sovereign nation. Hare definitely makes no bones about his opinion of Bush and the war. But instead of hitting us over the head with his beliefs, he does one of the best things a playwright can do: he tells us a story, gives us the cold facts, and lets us decide.</p>
<p>In so doing, he delivers an air-tight case against the war. Hare’s effective mixture of actual accounts and creative license is almost irrefutable. The only flaw in this play is, unfortunately, quite glaring. After delivering an impressive case against Bush and against war, Hare barely touches what it is that we can do to stop this occupation. Also, with an exclusive focus on what was happening behind closed doors, there is little or no talk of the opposition to the war from ordinary people. Indeed, the “anti-war’ side is represented by Colin Powell, who was instrumental in the cover-up of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. And apart from a passing mention of the February 15th protests, we hear nothing of the massive potential that a strong anti-war movement would have. This may not have been Hare’s intention, and he’s free to write about what he wants. But a year and a half into this occupation, with the global anti-war movement holding its breath until the end of the elections in the US, to not bring this up is irresponsible.</p>
<p>Almost none of London’s theatre columnists have addressed this. This isn’t so curious, though, when one considers the make-up of most play audiences. The sad fact is that theatre is no longer a universal form of entertainment, and as time as passed, it has become viewed as more of a privileged, upper-middle class venue; a luxury. And Stuff Happens is a perfect play for, as Guardian columnist Rod Liddle puts it, “metropolitan, left-of-center, middle-class monkeys.” To this audience, Stuff Happens simply confirms their belief in thinking Blair’s a liar and Bush is a moron, and gives them something interesting to talk about on their way back to Chelsea. But as for the “dumb mugs” who “let this war happen” (according to Liddle), “they’re on the other side of the river queuing up for We Will Rock You (the new musical about the rock band Queen). The mugs were probably against the war but aren’t, in the end, that bothered by it.”</p>
<p>Is this true? Do ordinary working class people care about the war? Would they care about a play like this? With Stuff Happens hitting state-side on October 24th (a staged reading is being given at Hartford Stage in Connecticut), we must ask: are the American people- “dumb mugs” or “middle-class monkeys”- ready for a play like this? And if so, why do we not see theatre like this in the US?</p>
<p>The answer to the first question has to undoubtedly be “yes.” Well over half of all Americans think the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea, and a growing number believe that the troops should be pulled out as soon as possible. Liddle is right when he says that plays like this are better suited for the “chattering class,” but he’s outright wrong when he says that the “mugs”- the working class men and women who are the ones being sent to die in Iraq in the first place- don’t care. I can’t think of anyone who cares more. When one looks at the amazing success that Farenheit 9/11, it’s not a big stretch to see people lining up and down Broadway to see this play, hoping to get some kind of idea about what they can do to stop their friends and family from dying needlessly.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Broadway’s corporate backers wouldn’t touch a script like this with a ten foot pole. Next season, the biggest mainstream theatre scene in the country is going with a truckload full of revivals; West Side Story, Sweet Charity, La Cage Aux Folles and a host of other theatrical staples are the choices for next year. They’re guaranteed to rake in a lot of cash. They’re also safe, unassuming, and completely without relevance to most people’s lives. They raise no questions, and push no envelopes.</p>
<p>It’s clear that American theatre has buckled under the pressure quicker than a rookie dancing girl in a Fosse musical. But isn’t the function of theatre, and indeed, art, to question society when it takes a wrong turn? Isn’t this especially true when so many ordinary people are already starting to question? Shouldn’t art reflect the real world, and in so doing, attempt to change it?</p>
<p>In the 1930s, that was the case. Alongside the huge strike wave to unionize America’s workplaces, there was a theatre that was inspired by that struggle, and in turn helped to inspire the struggle itself. Plays like Bertolt Brecht’s The Mother, Marc Blitzstein’s Cradle Will Rock, and Clifford Odets’ Waiting For Lefty. These were dramas that didn’t just depict what was wrong with society, but pointed a way forward for ordinary workers involved in struggle. Many left having joined unions, the Communist Party or other revolutionary socialist groups. “Art,” Brecht said during this period, “is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” The same “mugs” that people like Liddle hold so little faith in were the vanguard of a new society, and drama played a role in spurring on that movement.</p>
<p>The same lesson can be learned thirty years later. Stuff Happens would not even be produced today if not for the Theatres Act, which abolished censorship in British theatre. The year that act was passed? 1968. The same year of the Tet Offensive that turned the tide of the Vietnam War. The same year the Catholic minority in Ireland armed themselves The same year as the Prague Spring and when workers took center stage in Paris. When students demonstrated in Poland, Mexico City, the United States, and Britain too. This struggle threatened the order of life that was built on war, racism, inequality and censorship. To say the Theatres Act had nothing to do with the amazing power being wielded by oppressed people in Britain is simply to rewrite history. In the States too, radical theatre had become a staple for the left, with plays not just from Brecht and other classics, but new plays by the likes of Myrna Lamb and Amiri Baraka.</p>
<p>The point is that we can have a vibrant theatre that actually is relevant to ordinary people’s lives. We can have plays like Stuff Happens in the US. But the struggle to make theatre relevant only comes when we make ourselves relevant. It comes when our anti-war movement stops one more bomb from dropping on Fallujah. It comes when we demand that the troops come home. When Blacks, Arabs and Latinos are able to walk down their street without being harassed by the cops. It comes when workers across the country say to the bosses “you need us more than we need you.” Theatre, just like everything else in this world, belongs to us, and if we want it out of the hands of the charlatans who are trying to shove Miss Saigon down our throats, then we need to take the whole package back.</p>
<p>Stuff Happens is a step toward that. I hope it does make it to the States. And when the smoke clears, I hope there’s a movement big enough to trample this war and this system to the ground.</p>
<p>ALEXANDER BILLET is an actor, writer and socialist currently living in London. Back home he is a member of the International Socialist Organization.</p>
<p>He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Are The States Ready for Stuff Happens? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/10/30/are-the-states-ready-for-stuff-happens/ | 2004-10-30 | 4 |
<p>LGBT activists decided to stage an unusual protest in front of the Texas governor’s mansion where Governor Greg Abbott resides in order to show him how upset they are about the Texas bathroom bill. That bill, <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-legislature/2017/02/02/dan-patricks-bathroom-bill-trouble-none-teeth?_ga=1.42037089.592981662.1470763671" type="external">Senate Bill 6</a>, would permit private businesses to enforce their own bathroom policies but require public schools, state and local government buildings to have people use the facility that corresponds to their biological sex.</p>
<p>The protest, called the “Queer Dance Freakout,” looked like this:</p>
<p>It might have behooved the protesters to know this:</p>
<p>The event’s Facebook page read:</p>
<p>Everything is freakier in Tex@$$. Come move your body outside the governor's mansion to show we are not going to take the transphobic and homophobic laws Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick and their adminstration have got in the pipeline.</p>
<p>We say NO to anti-transgender bathroom bills. We say NO to marriage equality limitations. We say NO to old men saying what we can and cannot do.</p>
<p>We say YES to shaking our asses. We say YES to the freedoms of the body. We say YES to sweating in the streets while we ride the beat.</p>
<p>We celebrate a queer identity that is INTERSECTIONAL AND TRANS INCLUSIVE</p>
<p>Move over, Fred Astaire.</p> | Transgender Advocates Protest In Texas With 'Queer Dance Freakout' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/13814/transgender-advocates-protest-texas-queer-dance-hank-berrien | 2017-02-23 | 0 |
<p>VF Corp. , an apparel company whose brands include The North Face, Wrangler and Lee, said Friday it had first-quarter net income of $260.27 million, or 61 cents per share, down from $288.70 million, or 67 cents per share, for the same period last year. The FactSet consensus was 58 cents per share. Revenue for the quarter was $2.84 billion, flat with last year and just above the FactSet consensus of $2.82 billion. Inventories were up 9% compared with last year. About half of that was related to cold-weather product that has been positioned to fill second-half 2016 demand. The company reaffirmed its full-year revenue outlook, with estimates of a mid-single-digit percentage rate increase. VF Corp. shares are unchanged in premarket trading, but down 14.4% for the past year. The S&amp;P 500 is down 1.5% for the last 12 months.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | VF Corp. Profits Fall, Reaffirms Full-year Outlook | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/29/vf-corp-profits-fall-reaffirms-full-year-outlook.html | 2016-04-29 | 0 |
<p>Dec. 5 (UPI) — A pair of wild boars caused chaos at a school in Japan when they ran amok through the facility and charged at students and teachers.</p>
<p>Video filmed by witnesses Monday at Higashiyama Middle School and High School in Kyoto shows a boar <a href="http://news3lv.com/news/videos/video-wild-boars-charge-into-kyoto-school" type="external">repeatedly ramming a glass door</a> in apparent attempt to get inside.</p>
<p>The footage shows a boar running up some stairs inside the school a short time later as the filmer flees.</p>
<p>The animals were eventually shot with tranquilizers and captured.</p>
<p>Kyoto residents have reported numerous boar encounters in recent weeks, <a href="https://japantoday.com/category/national/wild-boar-runs-rampant-inside-kyoto-hotel" type="external">including an incident</a> in May involving a boar that smashed its way into a hotel.</p> | Wild boars cause chaos after breaking into Japanese school | false | https://newsline.com/wild-boars-cause-chaos-after-breaking-into-japanese-school/ | 2017-12-05 | 1 |
<p>The dollar edged slightly higher Tuesday, supported by strong U.S. data.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal Dollar Index, which measures the U.S. currency against a basket of 16 others, was recently up 0.2% at 86.57.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Consumers are more confident than they have been since the early 2000s, data from the Conference Board showed Tuesday. Its index of U.S. consumer confidence increased to 129.5 in November from 126.2 in October, which was already the highest level in 17 years.</p>
<p>Separately, the S&amp;P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index rose 6.2% in the 12 months ended in September, up from a 5.9% annual increase in August.</p>
<p>Investors have been keeping a close eye on U.S. data, as they try to determine how aggressively the Federal Reserve will be able to raise rates next year. Higher rates make the dollar more attractive to yield-seeking investors.</p>
<p>"The dollar stands to benefit from any improvement in the data that confirms the view that the economy is accelerating into the year-end," said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange, in a note to investors.</p>
<p>The U.S. currency, as measured by the WSJ Dollar Index, is down around 7% this year.</p>
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<p>Write to Ira Iosebashvili at [email protected]</p>
<p>The dollar edged slightly higher Tuesday, supported by strong U.S. data.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal Dollar Index, which measures the U.S. currency against a basket of 16 others, was recently up 0.3% at 86.66.</p>
<p>Consumers are more confident than they have been since the early 2000s, data from the Conference Board showed Tuesday. Its index of U.S. consumer confidence increased to 129.5 in November from 126.2 in October, which was already the highest level in 17 years.</p>
<p>Separately, the S&amp;P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index rose 6.2% in the 12 months ended in September, up from a 5.9% annual increase in August.</p>
<p>Investors have been keeping a close eye on U.S. data, as they try to determine how aggressively the Federal Reserve will be able to raise rates next year. Higher rates make the dollar more attractive to yield-seeking investors.</p>
<p>"The dollar stands to benefit from any improvement in the data that confirms the view that the economy is accelerating into the year-end," said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange, in a note to investors.</p>
<p>The U.S. currency, as measured by the WSJ Dollar Index, is down around 7% this year.</p>
<p>Write to Ira Iosebashvili at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 28, 2017 18:06 ET (23:06 GMT)</p> | Dollar Strengthens on Latest U.S. Data | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/28/dollar-strengthens-on-latest-u-s-data.html | 2017-11-28 | 0 |
<p>By Tom Miles</p>
<p>GENEVA (Reuters) – Diplomats are searching for ways to prevent the global trade dispute resolution system from freezing up, after the Trump administration blocked appointments to the body that acts as the supreme court for global trade.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump has vetoed the appointment of judges to fill vacancies on the seven-member Apellate Body of the World Trade Organization, which provides final decisions in arguments between countries over trade.</p>
<p>“Members are already having a conversation about what to do with this situation,” WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo told reporters. “They are floating ideas, they are discussing. We have to see how that evolves.”</p>
<p>The WTO normally has seven judges and needs three to sign off on every appeal ruling. But two have left and another goes in December, leaving only four – just one above the minimum – to deal with a growing backlog of trade disputes.</p>
<p>Azevedo said he did not think the situation was a threat to the WTO’s survival but it was already having an impact, and the longer it went on the more acutely it would be felt.</p>
<p>In a confidential note sent to all WTO members on Monday, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, the Appellate Body said departing judges would continue working after they left on appeals filed before their terms ended. The United States has objected to that practice in the past.</p>
<p>Appointments to the Appellate Body are meant to be unanimously agreed by all 164 members, like all decisions at the WTO. The fine print says the WTO can switch to majority voting if necessary, but diplomats are reluctant to do that for fear of unraveling a system that relies on consensus as a bulwark to protectionism.</p>
<p>Azevedo said the Trump administration had made clear it had misgivings about the way the world trade system has functioned, although it had not linked any specific demands for reform with the decision to halt appointments to the appeals panel.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has not publicly explained why it is blocking the appointment of judges to the trade panel. The U.S. mission to the WTO in Geneva declined to comment.</p>
<p>EMERGENCY</p>
<p>Several trade experts said the move seemed to fit Trump’s ideology of favoring bilateral trade deals over the multi-lateral system embodied by the WTO.</p>
<p>Pieter Jan Kuijper, professor of law at the University of Amsterdam, said Trump’s trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, preferred the pre-WTO practice of negotiating the outcome of trade disputes rather than being bound by WTO rulings.</p>
<p>Although Trump regularly says Washington has been hurt by trade disputes, WTO experts mainly say the United States has actually been a big winner at the WTO. But negotiating the outcome of trade disputes rather than leaving them to judges might tip the balance further in Washington’s favor.</p>
<p>Kuijper compared Trump’s stance to that of Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe killing off the court of the Southern African Development Community by blocking new judges when the court became too troublesome.</p>
<p>“That example doesn’t make one optimistic,” he said. “We are in a true emergency where we should take into account that the end of the Appellate Body may come, either by design or by accident.”</p>
<p>At a panel discussion on Monday for trade officials and diplomats, Kuijper and other trade experts discussed possible ways to avert a crisis if more vacancies come open.</p>
<p>One solution would be to switch to majority voting for appointing judges. Another would be for the judges to change their own working procedures, refusing to take any more appeals until there are more judges.</p>
<p>Nicolas Lockhart, a trade lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP, suggested the WTO could use its arbitration process more to resolve disputes and rely less on appeals.</p>
<p>All three approaches have drawbacks, including the risk of further alienating the United States.</p>
<p>“A process that could lead to a situation where the United States leaves the WTO in a huff is actually a situation where everyone loses, and the last thing we should be aiming for,” said Alice Tipping, a former New Zealand trade diplomat now at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.</p> | Diplomats search for way to save trade system after U.S. vetoes judges | false | https://newsline.com/diplomats-search-for-way-to-save-trade-system-after-u-s-vetoes-judges/ | 2017-11-27 | 1 |
<p>(I can’t believe it. This woman hates me and I hate her — on sight. And I need this job.)</p>
<p>(Why does personnel keep sending me these losers… If I ever get a six-three 220 pound orderly I’ll fall over dead. I want linebackers not place kickers — or cheerleaders.)</p>
<p>(She’s got pig farmer written all over her — from the cold blue eyes and fat face to the disappearing features.)</p>
<p>(Something’s not right about him. He’s dressed nicely… but why is he wearing sneakers to a job interview?)</p>
<p>(She just looked at my&#160; Chuck’s — the shoes of the animal rights movement. I wonder if she noticed the canvas belt…)&#160;</p>
<p>(A canvas belt? There’s no way he was ever in the service. How many more of these apps will I have to go through?)</p>
<p>(She’s definitely wrung the necks of chickens. She reeks of murder. Somewhere, she’s slaughtered the innocent.)</p>
<p>(I wonder if he’s got some Jew in him? He looks like he reads a lot.)</p>
<p>(In karate they teach us so many different ways to kill people. I bet I’ll think of every one of them before this interview is over.)</p>
<p>(He’s polite but… he’s enraging me. Am I transferring something from Jimmy… or from someone else?)</p>
<p>(People murder their bosses but does anyone kill them before they get hired? “Hey, my first job lasted a lifetime — too bad I spent it in Lucasville…”)</p>
<p>(I know where I’ve seen those big brown eyes. He looks like that deer that Jimmy&#160;shot last winter. It’s almost lunchtime. Lord, I want some pork.)</p>
<p>(Her son, “Jimmy,” works here too… Christ on a stick, how bad does this git…)</p>
<p>(Wouldn’t it be awful, every time I went to Jimmy’s and saw his deer head, to be reminded of this guy?)</p>
<p>(No blonde bombshell is ever going to fuck me and no one like this is ever going to hire me. Two different worlds. The only thing that’s come out of all this job-hunting is that I’ve memorized my social security number. When will this end… I’ve got to get out of here and find a job I really want.)</p>
<p>(He’s skinny.&#160; He doesn’t look like he could protect himself, much less the patients and nurses. He’d have his work cut out for him with the group on the unit now. Probably wouldn’t make it past the drug test, anyway.)</p>
<p>(What’s she droning on about… piss test… Jesus, who cares… you’re talkin’ to someone who won’t take an aspirin…)</p>
<p>(Where have I hated him before?)</p>
<p>(If I got hired, I wonder if I could get her fired for something? That might be worth it. Could anybody possibly like her?)</p>
<p>(I think I’d like to torture him.)</p>
<p>(No, there’s no way&#160; that I have to work at a place where I’m hated right from the start. There’s no future in that. I’m not that desperate. I swear to God, this is what I’ve been in training for, I’m tired of doing katas with a roomful of nine-year-olds — I’m going to leap over that desk&#160; and do # 3 Eye Gouge right here right now — )</p>
<p>“We would like to offer you a job.”</p>
<p>“Great — I’ll take it.”</p>
<p>“Welcome aboard.”</p>
<p>Randy Shields can be reached at&#160; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p> | (Job) Interview With a Vegan | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/05/18/job-interview-with-a-vegan/ | 2012-05-18 | 4 |
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<p>MANILA, Philippines — More than 50 of the 158 inmates who escaped in the biggest jailbreak ever in the Philippines have been caught or killed, officials said Friday, with a manhunt underway for the others.</p>
<p>Of the prisoners who escaped after suspected heavily armed Muslim rebels stormed a jail in the country’s south, 43 have been recaptured and eight were killed.</p>
<p>Two others are being treated in hospital for injuries, said Maria Joyce Birrey, the Cotabato provincial police spokeswoman. As well, a jail guard died in the attack on the jail and a village official who allegedly drew a gun when encountered by police was killed.</p>
<p>The breakout from the jail in Kidapawan took place before dawn Wednesday when more than 100 gunmen attacked the facility. Kidapawan city is about 930 kilometers (580 miles) southeast of the capital, Manila, in a restive region when Muslim rebels have been active for generations.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Acting Provincial Jail Warden Superintedent Peter John Bongngat Jr. earlier said the attackers were thought to have included members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and guerrillas who broke away from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Muslim separatist group in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines that has signed a peace deal with the government.</p>
<p>The two groups have denied involvement.</p>
<p>The jail held 1,511 inmates, including rebels facing murder charges for a series of bombings in the province, officials said. It was the third attack on the provincial jail facility since 2007.</p> | 53 of 158 inmates accounted for after Philippine jailbreak | false | https://abqjournal.com/921326/34-of-158-inmates-recaptured-after-jailbreak-in-philippines.html | 2017-01-05 | 2 |
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<p>Kody Dayish with his award for best emerging director at the Red Nation Film Festival in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Kody Dayish is a storyteller.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />And he’s beginning to get some national attention for his work in film.</p>
<p>In fact, at the Red Nation Film Festival in November in Los Angeles, Dayish picked up an award for best emerging director for his short film “The Beginning” and the trailer for “The Red Hogan.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I wasn’t expecting that,” he says. “It was only our fourth film festival. Just to be selected, I was already excited. The best part of it all, there was Leonardo DiCaprio in the audience. It was special.”</p>
<p>Dayish is based in Farmington, and when working on projects, he makes an effort to tell Native American stories and use Native American actors.</p>
<p>“We were pretty strict on who we hired and cast,” he says of “The Beginning.” “I was motivated to make an official, all-Navajo production.”</p>
<p>Dayish has had his share of being in front of the camera.</p>
<p>But it wasn’t until he was in an accident a year ago that his calling as a screenwriter emerged.</p>
<p>He had a broken neck, and the accident left him in a halo vest for six months.</p>
<p>“After the accident, I was also stuck in a wheelchair,” he says. “That’s the time I took the scripts and wrote them. That’s what motivated me. I wanted to make a difference with the films I make. It takes a lot of work.”</p>
<p>Dayish works with his siblings Kolette and Kolin.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The trio started working together in 2010.</p>
<p>Dayish is now working on the feature film “The Red Hogan” and says it’s based on Navajo stories.</p>
<p>“We’re aiming for Sundance with this film,” he says. “We’ve worked so hard on the film, and I think we have a chance to get it somewhere.”</p>
<p>Production has taken place on the Navajo Nation, including Shiprock.</p>
<p>Dayish and his siblings worked together on this film.</p>
<p>“We built our equipment from scratch,” he says. “My sister built everything, because she’s a welder. That’s the cool thing about our production.”</p>
<p>Making the transition from actor to director has been quite a learning experience for Dayish.</p>
<p>“It’s a big transition,” he says. “I feel like I don’t deserve this spot because I haven’t been working at it that long. But I think with our films, we’re going to change people’s perspectives.”</p>
<p>SEND ME YOUR TIPS: If you know of a movie filming in the state, or are curious about one, email <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>. Follow me on Twitter @agomezART.</p>
<p /> | INDIGENOUS ART: Screenwriter, director tells Native stories with Native actors | false | https://abqjournal.com/945777/indigenous-art.html | 2 |
|
<p>PITTSFORD, N.Y. (AP) — The Buffalo Bills suspended offensive line coach Aaron Kromer without pay for the first six games of the regular season for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy.</p>
<p>Bills President Russ Brandon announced the suspension Sunday night. The disciplinary action comes two days after prosecutors in Florida dropped a battery charge for causing bodily harm against Kromer for allegedly confronting two boys for using his beach chairs, pushing one to the ground and punching him in the face last month.</p>
<p>An arrest report released by the Walton County Sheriff's Office said Kromer threatened to kill one of the boy's families if he reported the incident.</p>
<p>"We worked in conjunction with the NFL on this matter, and we are highly supportive of the NFL personal conduct policy that holds all NFL and club employees to a higher standard," Brandon said in a statement released by the team.</p>
<p>The Bills placed Kromer on paid leave July 14, two days after he was arrested. Kromer, however, will rejoin the team at training camp.</p>
<p>The Bills did not reveal when Kromer was scheduled to arrive at camp in suburban Rochester, where the team completed its third day of practice on Sunday.</p>
<p>The Bills are scheduled to practice Monday night, before getting a day off on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Kromer's suspension will begin Sept. 7, in the week leading up to the Bills' regular-season opener against Indianapolis. The suspension will run through Buffalo's game against Cincinnati on Oct. 18.</p>
<p>Assistant offensive line coach Kurt Anderson assumed Kromer's duties while he was on paid leave. And Anderson is expected to take over once again during Kromer's suspension.</p>
<p>Kromer was hired in January as part of a new staff assembled by Rex Ryan, who took over after Doug Marrone stepped down abruptly on Dec. 31. Kromer had previously served as the Chicago Bears' offensive coordinator.</p>
<p>The offensive line is in flux after it was one of Buffalo's weak spots during a 9-7 finish last season. The Bills are introducing a run-first attack under Ryan and new offensive coordinator Greg Roman.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Ryan said there remains a competition at right guard and right tackle. He listed left guard Richie Incognito, center Eric Wood and left tackle Cordy Glenn as players he regards to have earned starting jobs.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP NFL websites: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>PITTSFORD, N.Y. (AP) — The Buffalo Bills suspended offensive line coach Aaron Kromer without pay for the first six games of the regular season for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy.</p>
<p>Bills President Russ Brandon announced the suspension Sunday night. The disciplinary action comes two days after prosecutors in Florida dropped a battery charge for causing bodily harm against Kromer for allegedly confronting two boys for using his beach chairs, pushing one to the ground and punching him in the face last month.</p>
<p>An arrest report released by the Walton County Sheriff's Office said Kromer threatened to kill one of the boy's families if he reported the incident.</p>
<p>"We worked in conjunction with the NFL on this matter, and we are highly supportive of the NFL personal conduct policy that holds all NFL and club employees to a higher standard," Brandon said in a statement released by the team.</p>
<p>The Bills placed Kromer on paid leave July 14, two days after he was arrested. Kromer, however, will rejoin the team at training camp.</p>
<p>The Bills did not reveal when Kromer was scheduled to arrive at camp in suburban Rochester, where the team completed its third day of practice on Sunday.</p>
<p>The Bills are scheduled to practice Monday night, before getting a day off on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Kromer's suspension will begin Sept. 7, in the week leading up to the Bills' regular-season opener against Indianapolis. The suspension will run through Buffalo's game against Cincinnati on Oct. 18.</p>
<p>Assistant offensive line coach Kurt Anderson assumed Kromer's duties while he was on paid leave. And Anderson is expected to take over once again during Kromer's suspension.</p>
<p>Kromer was hired in January as part of a new staff assembled by Rex Ryan, who took over after Doug Marrone stepped down abruptly on Dec. 31. Kromer had previously served as the Chicago Bears' offensive coordinator.</p>
<p>The offensive line is in flux after it was one of Buffalo's weak spots during a 9-7 finish last season. The Bills are introducing a run-first attack under Ryan and new offensive coordinator Greg Roman.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Ryan said there remains a competition at right guard and right tackle. He listed left guard Richie Incognito, center Eric Wood and left tackle Cordy Glenn as players he regards to have earned starting jobs.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP NFL websites: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p> | Bills suspend offensive line coach Kromer for first 6 games | false | https://apnews.com/amp/7834907b85a443e8a4e4a9a4becd2ea8 | 2015-08-03 | 2 |
<p>Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Chief Executive Scott Thompson should have read the column I wrote in February 2009 headlined "Of all the indignities, don't get Minkowed."</p>
<p>The column went like this:</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"Getting Minkowed begins when you learn that a guy named Barry Minkow has just shorted your stock, betting that information he has just uncovered can make it go down. Then you learn that Minkow has discovered those lies that you put on your resume.</p>
<p>"Now, your board has to face investors who are asking, 'Gee, if there's a lie on the resume, are there lies on the books, too?' Your immediate removal is the only good answer to this question. You've just been Minkowed."</p>
<p>Thompson is getting Minkowed by a powerful shareholder who wants him out for claiming a degree in computer science he does not have. Even Warren Buffett has joined in the Minkowing. "If you cannot trust the people you're working with, you have a problem," the Oracle of Omaha said, taking questions from reporters at his annual hoedown.</p>
<p>At least Thompson is getting Minkowed by respectable investors instead of by the master.</p>
<p>Minkow first went to prison for the carpet-cleaning company he built in the 1980s as a teenager, ZZZZ Best Co., which he'd grown into a publicly traded Ponzi scheme using Mob money. He is back in the pokey on fresher securities violations. But between federal convictions, he had a great run as a self-appointed fraud investigator, turning up falsehoods on executive bios.</p>
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<p>I wrote a handful of columns on Minkow's efforts. His hit list included Patrick Avery, former president and chief operating officer of Denver's Intrepid Potash Inc. (NYSE:IPI); Vahid Manian, former senior vice president of global manufacturing operations for Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ:BRCM); and former MGM Mirage (NYSE:MGM) Chief Executive J. Terrence Lanni, a powerful figure in the gambling industry.</p>
<p>Not everyone added "former" to their titles after being Minkowed. In April 2009, for instance, Minkow discovered that Clarence Gooden, chief commercial officer at Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX Corp. (NYSE:CSX), didn't have the bachelor of arts degree he claimed in his corporate biography. When I brought this to the attention of the company, it did not fire him. It subjected him to an internal sanction, which it declined to fully describe. Then it put out an official statement: "It is unacceptable for any employee -- no matter how valued or successful they are -- to provide, or fail to correct, inaccurate information."</p>
<p>When I wrote these stories, it was beside the point that they came to light thanks to a known criminal, who was shorting stocks as he went. What was more important was whether Minkow's claims were true.</p>
<p>Often, a misstated academic credential in an official corporate bio is at odds with a company's stated code of ethics or in violation of securities laws. Besides, if executives can simply lie about degrees, what's the point of anybody going to college? Just make one up like the boss did.</p>
<p>Yahoo's board has confirmed the misstatement in Thompson's bio and has said it is looking into how it occurred. Meantime, Thompson remains the target of activist hedge fund Third Point LLC, run by Dan Loeb. The firm, which owns about 6% of the Internet company, has been agitating for seats on Yahoo's board -- and then, well, well, well, look what we have here.</p>
<p>On Monday, Third Point made a legal demand for internal documents regarding Thompson's hiring in January. Third Point previously sent Yahoo's board a deadline of noon Monday to terminate Thompson, a former executive of eBay Inc's (NASDAQ:EBAY) PayPal unit. Third Point has now extended that deadline by five days.</p>
<p>The battle proves once again that a misstated resume is a hidden vulnerability waiting to be exploited by anyone looking to pick a fight. Why would smart executives leave themselves open like this? Did they really think they could publish an exaggerated resume for potentially millions of investors and fool them all?</p>
<p>This kind of corporate arrogance is what made Minkow's exploits so comical. I enjoyed turning him into a verb during his years between prison sentences. He was a known liar rooting out lies. Here's how I ended the column:</p>
<p>"'We look for skin of the truth stuffed with a lie," Minkow said.</p>
<p>"So executives with fake degrees, beware. You may soon be Minkowed."</p>
<p>Think how much trouble Thompson could be saving himself right now if he'd only taken the time to read this.</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> | Yahoo CEO Didn't Have to Get 'Minkowed' | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/05/09/yahoo-ceo-didnt-have-to-get-minkowed.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Yesterday I <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2008/02/7121_cia_director_sa.html" type="external">wrote</a> about the minor firestorm that reignited over waterboarding in recent days, thanks to CIA director Michael Hayden’s Tuesday testimony that his agency waterboarded three al Qaeda members in 2002 and 2003. The White House authorized that particular disclosure; I wonder if they authorized this? Speaking to the House Intelligence Committee yesterday, Hayden said the people who performed the torture were <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E6DC1639F933A05751C1A9619C8B63&amp;scp=1&amp;sq=tapes+by+c.i.a+lived+and+died&amp;st=nyt" type="external">not necessarily trained CIA operatives</a>, but instead unspecified outside contractors:</p>
<p />
<p>REP. SCHAKOWSKY (D-IL): Are contractors involved in CIA detention interrogation programs?</p>
<p>GEN. HAYDEN: Absolutely.</p>
<p>REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Were contractors involved in the waterboarding of al Qaeda detainees?</p>
<p>GEN. HAYDEN: I’m not sure of the specifics. I’ll give you a tentative answer: I believe so.</p>
<p>This new wrinkle might explain the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/washington/08intel.html?ref=middleeast" type="external">apparent confusion</a> among the relevant government agencies over whether or not waterboarding is legal. (By today’s tally, White House says yes, Hayden says no, and Mukasey remains noncommittal.) After all, what’s illegal for the government <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2007/10/5681_the_long_arm_of.html" type="external">isn’t necessarily illegal for contractors</a>. We already contract out <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2007/09/5555_outsourcing_the.html" type="external">a good deal of the war</a>, so why not add torture to the mix and save ourselves the legal headache? Maybe this was what White House spokesman Tony Fratto <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-torture7feb07,1,1443308.story?ctrack=2&amp;cset=true" type="external">meant</a> when he said that we might still use waterboarding “under certain circumstances.” Then again, maybe it’s simply <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2182348/" type="external">anybody’s guess</a>.</p>
<p>—Casey Miner</p>
<p /> | Waterboarding: Not So Illegal After All? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/02/waterboarding-not-so-illegal-after-all/ | 2008-02-09 | 4 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>For those who still say it’s a myth that cops are given quotas for how many tickets they have to write, maybe you’ve never been to Waldo, Florida. The National Motorists Association listed Waldo as the&#160; <a href="http://www.motorists.org/press/speedtrap-ranking-aug2012/" type="external">third worst speed trap</a>&#160;for a town of 50,000 people or less in 2012, and it’s so bad, billboards like the one above are taken out to warn drivers before they get there.</p>
<p>But earlier this week, five police officers came forward to testify before the Waldo City Council that they are mandated to write a certain number of tickets each shift or face punishment — even though such a quota stands in direct violation of state law. Waldo, by the way, only has seven police officers to begin with.</p>
<p>The&#160; <a href="http://www.gainesville.com/article/20140826/ARTICLES/140829639?Title=Waldo-police-say-they-had-illegal-traffic-ticket-quotas" type="external">Gainesville Sun</a>&#160;reported:</p>
<p>Before a packed room, Officer Brandon Roberts told commissioners they were required by Chief Mike Szabo to write 12 speeding citations per 12-hour shift or face punishment. Roberts explained his claims with the help of an electronic presentation and printed emails as evidence.</p>
<p>“We’re doing this with a heavy heart,” Roberts said. “We would never want to go against our fellow officers but we have no faith in our chain of command.”</p>
<p>It was also noted that apparently half of the city’s $1 million budget comes from something officially listed as “ <a href="" type="internal">police revenue</a>”.</p>
<p>The officers also accused Chief Szabo of enforcing “questionable” traffic stops and abandoning his post and disabling equipment so none of the department staff could find him.</p>
<p>Szabo has since been suspended pending an investigation. Sadly, Waldo Police Cpl. Kenneth Smith, who was named interim chief following Szabo’s suspension,&#160; <a href="http://www.gainesville.com/article/20140828/ARTICLES/140829551" type="external">has also been suspended</a>&#160;as well.</p>
<p>At least it’s nice to see a few <a href="" type="internal">honest cops</a> for a change…</p>
<p>Melissa Melton is a writer, researcher, and analyst for&#160; <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/" type="external">The Daily Sheeple</a>&#160;and a co-creator of&#160; <a href="http://truthstreammedia.com/" type="external">Truthstream Media</a>&#160;with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded&#160; <a href="http://www.nutritionalanarchy.com/" type="external">Nutritional Anarchy</a>&#160;with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!</p>
<p />
<p /> | Cops to City Council: ‘We Were Given an Illegal Traffic Ticket Quota’ | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2014/08/31/cops-city-council-given-illegal-traffic-ticket-quota/ | 2014-08-31 | 0 |
<p>Saudi Arabia has bought tens of billions of dollars in US weapons over the past decade. But last month, the White House held one controversial weapon back.</p>
<p>The State Department, which brokers deals between US arms makers and foreign buyers, quietly put a hold on deliveries of a hi-tech cluster bomb, the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon.&#160;“It’s the first concrete step the United States has taken to demonstrate its unease with the Saudi bombing campaign that human rights activists say has killed and injured hundreds of Yemeni civilians, many of them children,” wrote John Hudson <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/27/exclusive-white-house-blocks-transfer-of-cluster-bombs-to-saudi-arabia/" type="external">&#160;in Foreign Policy</a>.</p>
<p>Hudson believes it was not supposed to be public information.&#160;"This all started with the congressional tip that I got from a source of mine, and I was later able to confirm that with the Obama administration," he says.&#160;"They cited reports that cluster bombs were being used in civilian areas, which is prohibited by US law."</p>
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<p><a href="/sections/conflict-justice" type="external">Conflict &amp; Justice</a></p>
<p>July 17, 2015</p>
<p>In <a href="/sections/conflict-justice" type="external">Conflict &amp; Justice</a> <a href="/sections/conflict" type="external">Conflict</a>.</p>
<p>Tagged: <a href="/country/saudi-arabia" type="external">Saudi Arabia</a> <a href="/country/united-arab-emirates" type="external">United Arab Emirates</a> <a href="/country/uae" type="external">UAE</a> <a href="/country/yemen" type="external">Yemen</a> <a href="/region/arab-middle-east" type="external">Arab Middle East</a>.</p>
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<p>The CBU-105, which <a href="" type="internal">we examine in depth elsewhere on PRI.org</a>, is a sophisticated air-to-ground weapon. When a fighter jet drops one over a target, the bomb releases 40 guided submunitions, each one capable of finding and destroying an armored truck or a tank. The Saudi-led coalition has used this weapon in its campaign to push back&#160;rebels who seized control over much of Yemen.</p>
<p>In the spring of 2015, a couple of months into the war,&#160;Yemenis were&#160;circulating reports of cluster bombs found in places where there were no military vehicles — civilian areas — and humanitarian organizations were taking note.</p>
<p>The dangers posed to non-combatants are well-established. People continue to be&#160; <a href="http://peteralanlloyd.com/back-part-2/child-dies-in-deadly-show-and-tell-of-vietnam-war-ordnance/" type="external">injured by&#160;cluster submunitions</a> left behind in&#160;conflicts as far back as&#160;the&#160;Vietnam War.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/06/yemen-saudis-using-us-cluster-munitions" type="external">Human Rights Watch</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/yemen-children-among-civilians-killed-and-maimed-in-cluster-bomb-minefields/" type="external">Amnesty International</a> sent staffers to Yemen to&#160;document possible war crimes.&#160;Both organizations&#160;verified&#160;reports of&#160;unexploded cluster bombs, including remnants of&#160;CBU-105s.&#160;The weapons'&#160;multiple safeguards, according to <a href="http://www.textronsystems.com/sites/default/files/resource-files/TS_WSS_Sensor_Fused_Weapons_SFW.pdf" type="external">Textron company literature</a>,&#160;minimize post-airstrike hazards to non-combatants.</p>
<p>More than 3,000 people have died so far in the Yemen war, but no deaths have&#160;been attributed to the CBU-105. However, that does not mean the bomb is performing as advertised.</p>
<p>"Though we have not documented any deaths," says Belkis Wille of Human Rights Watch, "there have been civilians wounded by the CBUs, and we believe that we have only documented a fragment of the incidents that have taken place in the country, so there could well have been deaths."</p>
<p>"Human Rights Watch ...&#160;has investigated at least five attacks in Yemen involving CBU-105s,"&#160;Hudson wrote in his article. "In December, the group documented an attack on the Yemeni port of Hodaida that injured a woman and two children in their homes ... And two other civilians were wounded in a CBU-105 attack near Al-Amar village, according to local residents and medical staff interviewed by Human Rights Watch."</p>
<p>The CBU-105s&#160;were&#160;not only injuring&#160;civilians. They were&#160;failing to meet a&#160;reliability standard, set by the United States, that had been&#160;a condition for transferring them&#160;to Saudi Arabia. Too many of the bombs'&#160;unexploded submunitions were being found on the ground in Yemen.</p>
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<p>“Under US&#160;law and policy, the United States may only transfer cluster munitions that meet our stringent requirements for unexploded ordnance rates, which may not exceed 1 percent,” notes a State Department&#160;official. “In addition,” he adds, “recipients of such transfers must commit that munitions will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.”</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has&#160;repeatedly <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">&#160;</a> <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">denied</a> <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">&#160;</a> <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">using</a> <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">&#160;</a> <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">cluster</a> <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">&#160;</a> <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">munitions</a> <a href="http://attariqnews.net/news/13031/" type="external">&#160;in civilian areas</a>. And so far, it has not responded directly to&#160;Hudson's report. "Saudi Arabia hasn't been releasing a bevy of statements about it, but it has said it's going to conduct an investigation into civilian casualties, and the United States touts this as an important aspect of their engagement with Saudi&#160;Arabia."</p>
<p>Human rights organizations have praised&#160;the White House for holding back a weapon that, though not banned by the United States, is illegal in more than 100 other countries.</p>
<p>“The US putting a pause on transferring horrible cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia is a step in the right direction,” says Paul Kawika Martin of the grassroots organization Peace Action. “The US&#160;should permanently stop transferring or using civilian-killing cluster munitions,” he adds, “and sign <a href="http://www.clusterconvention.org/" type="external">The Convention on Cluster Munitions</a>.”</p>
<p>Wille of Human Rights Watch adds, "We think this is a very important step, not only for this conflict,&#160;but broadly for getting clusters universally banned."</p>
<p>People inside Yemen have discussed the White House move on&#160;social media, and agree that&#160;it's an important step. But some say they&#160;are less concerned with eliminating one kind of bomb&#160;than with stopping the war altogether.&#160;</p>
<p>Hudson says it is not surprising that the Obama administration would single out the CBU-105.&#160;"This was probably the most glaring and maybe the most embarrassing use of weapons," he says. "Cluster bombs are very controversial ... and my guess — and it's a pretty well-informed guess because administration officials specifically cited [the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty]&#160;reports — is that it became too much of a diplomatic and political embarrassment for the administration to support and sustain."</p>
<p>"Without cluster bombs, the&#160;Saudi coalition is still going to be able to execute this war perfectly fine," Hudson adds. "They have a large arsenal. They have a number of weapons at their disposal."</p>
<p>And just last week, following the White House block on deliveries of Textron's cluster bomb, the Department of Defense&#160;awarded another US company, Boeing,&#160;a&#160;contract to produce over&#160; <a href="http://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/785080/source/GovDelivery" type="external">$3.2&#160;billion worth of&#160;GPS&#160;guidance kits</a> to turn conventional bombs into "smart bombs."&#160;A Pentagon&#160;source confirms that some of these&#160;will be headed for Saudi Arabia.&#160;</p>
<p>While preparing this article we contacted representatives of the US Air Force, which expedited the&#160;sale of the CBU-105s&#160;and Textron Systems, which manufactures them. Neither would comment on how many CBU-105s are affected by the White House hold, who&#160;owns any&#160;undelivered weapons, or what will become of them.&#160;</p> | When the White House said 'No' to the Saudis | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-06-06/when-white-house-said-no-saudis | 2016-06-06 | 3 |
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<p>The younger you are, the more likely you are to support gay marriage. But what if there’s another dimension to this generational shift—the sushi gap? Raw data from a new <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/02/more-on-the-food-issues-that-divide-america-.html" type="external">survey of Americans’ food preferences</a> shows that age-based unwillingness to put delicious uncooked fish in your mouth correlates nearly perfectly with <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/2013/02/07/gay-marriage-key-data-points-from-pew-research/" type="external">existing data</a> about who disapproves of marriage equality.</p>
<p /> | Chart: Generational Attitudes on Sushi and Gay Marriage Correlate Almost Perfectly | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/chart-generational-attitudes-sushi-gay-marriage/ | 2013-02-27 | 4 |
<p>By Tim Radford, Climate News NetworkThis piece first appeared at <a href="http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2013/08/signs-of-forests-adapting-to-growing-co2-levels/" type="external">Climate News Network</a>.</p>
<p>LONDON — Trees may be getting more efficient in the way they manage water. They could be exploiting the higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, growing foliage from a lower uptake of groundwater. If so, then the carbon dioxide fertilisation effect – predicted by theorists and observed in laboratory experiments – could be real.</p>
<p>This is a provisional finding, because it is pretty difficult to measure the precise economy of a whole forest or an open wilderness.</p>
<p>But Trevor Keenan – of Macquarie University in Australia and at present at Harvard University in the US – and colleagues report in Nature that they used an indirect measure, called the eddy-covariance technique, to monitor the way managed forests handle two important gases: carbon dioxide and water vapour.</p>
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<p>Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were once 280 parts per million; they are now 400 ppm and still rising. For more than 20 years, rigs have towered above the world’s forests recording eddy co-variance, measuring carbon uptake and water-use over areas of a square kilometre.</p>
<p>Keenan and his fellow-researchers looked at the data from 21 temperate and boreal forests in the northern hemisphere and found a remarkably consistent trend: as the years rolled by, and carbon dioxide levels rose, forests used water more efficiently, and this was true for all 21 sites.</p>
<p>This so-called fertilisation effect has been independently confirmed in arid zones, again by indirect research, through the work of an Australian team studying satellite data, and also seems consistent with a finding reported in Nature Climate Change that tropical forest trees are now producing more flowers, even though the observed temperature rises in the tropics have so far only been modest.</p>
<p>The implication of the most recent research from the boreal and temperate forests is that plants could be partially closing their stomata to keep their carbon levels at a constant level. This finding, like much in science, raises as many questions as it answers. How plants “know” what to do in such circumstances, and how they do it, is still a mystery:</p>
<p>Plants exploit atmospheric carbon dioxide so it should be no surprise that a better supply leads to more efficient growth. But more carbon dioxide also means higher temperatures, more evaporation, more precipitation and more cloud cover, so it has been difficult to observe the impact.</p>
<p>Whether this will turn out in the long run to be a positive feedback that could, to some slight extent, slow global warming is uncertain.</p>
<p>Plants are also sensitive to extreme heat and drought, two other unwelcome companions of climate change due to human emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, so it is too soon to suggest that forests will emerge as the winners.</p>
<p>Other scientists still have to confirm the effect, and measure its scale more accurately.</p>
<p>But the latest research does suggest trees are responding to change. “Our analysis suggests that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is having a direct and unexpectedly strong influence on ecosystem processes and biosphere-atmosphere interactions in temperate and boreal forests,” says one of the authors, Dave Hollinger of the US Forest Service.</p>
<p /> | Signs of Forests Adapting to Growing CO2 Levels | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/signs-of-forests-adapting-to-growing-co2-levels/ | 2013-08-10 | 4 |
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<p>Michael Swickard / Tuning in</p>
<p>It was 45 years ago that man first orbited the moon. The moon was landed upon six times, with the last time four years later. Sadly, America walked away from the moon and ceded it to the Chinese who this month landed and sent a rover to stir up the moon dust.</p>
<p>Perhaps that is the way it should be with great nations — they can only be great as long as the people feel the challenge to be great. Then they must join the rest of the nations in the world that are just trying to get from paycheck to paycheck and not lose their minds with their teenagers.</p>
<p>Average nations do not reach for the stars.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As we start 2014, it reminds me of when Japan was rising and China was drifting down into a lesser nation. It took a long time for China to repose into a third world but now, it might be on the rise again.</p>
<p>In 607 A.D., a Japanese leader, Prince Shotoku, sent a delegation to China led by diplomat Ono no Imoko. He had the dubious honor of carrying this message: Greetings from the Leader of the Land of the Rising Sun to the Leader of the Land of the Setting Sun.</p>
<p>That made China mad. How mad? The aforementioned Japanese diplomat returned home to Japan all cut up in a box. In fact, the insulting message resonated several times in history when China wanted to stomp Japan. Twice they were caught crossing the sea in a typhoon, which is not the textbook way of invading.</p>
<p>And then Japan, full of itself leading up to WWII, devastated China, killing 30 million Chinese. Now it would seem China is the Land of the Rising Sun and Japan, which does not understand free markets, is the Land of the Setting Sun. China going up, Japan going down.</p>
<p>There are Greece, Spain, France and other European nations plummeting into the financial abyss of spending more than they have for generations. That brings us to America. Should we also be known as the Land of the Setting Sun?</p>
<p>Tony Blair said the measure of a nation is how many people want in and how many want out. Some Americans are leaving our nation to escape our confiscatory tax policy. Their problem is to find a government not fouling its own nest.</p>
<p>Here in America, our space program has mostly been dismantled. The space station was put up as a fueling area for craft reaching to the moon and planets. But America now hitches rides to the Space Station on Russian craft. Russian President Vladimir Putin this week said he is going to revitalize the Russian space program.</p>
<p>What is the American plan? No plan. We are waiting for the 2014 elections to make any meaningful change in our society, but then it will be into the 2016 presidential elections and so we cannot make any kind of real change and then in 2017 … sorry, the 2018 elections are coming and we cannot make changes. And so on.</p>
<p>I have to admit the fall of our great nation was on my watch and I feel it every day because the America I inherited as a young man was so very different from the America now. That was a “Can do” America that could go to the moon and return safely. Today we have trouble going to the store and returning safely.</p>
<p>We cannot be a great nation while asking for government handouts. The people cannot lead America to greatness when they are sitting on their butts with their free phones and subsidies. America cannot be great in the unemployment line.</p>
<p>Government makes wealth in a small fraction of our population while destroying the greatness in our citizens. It is 2014 and the clock is ticking. Citizens make the sun rise while government makes the sun set.</p>
<p>(Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show “News New Mexico” 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: [email protected])</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Citizens make sun rise; government makes it set | false | https://abqjournal.com/329406/citizens-make-sun-rise-government-makes-it-set.html | 2 |
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<p>If you’re one of the skeptics that <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2007/11/6012_ron_paul_its_re.html" type="external">Ron Paul supporters are for reals</a>, you probably won’t believe that they’re about to launch a Ron Paul blimp. Oh, but they are. There’s a <a href="http://www.dailypaul.com/node/9219" type="external">posting</a> on Daily Paul, and YouTube videos ( <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6I5zYu541Q" type="external">one</a> set to Electric Light Orchestra), and a <a href="http://ronpaulblimp.com/" type="external">website</a>, which has generated nearly $500K in pledges so far—not to mention spoof videos ( <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBizHvp7K4g" type="external">one</a> set to Journey).</p>
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<p>Get ready to see the blimp at the Super Bowl, and to accept once and for all that Ron Paulites are an incredibly devoted bunch who may be capable of doing pretty much any <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2007/11/6072_money_bomb_ron.html" type="external">wild thing</a> they put their mind to.</p>
<p /> | Get Ready for the Ron Paul Blimp (Blimp? Blimp!) | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/11/get-ready-ron-paul-blimp-blimp-blimp/ | 2007-11-29 | 4 |
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<p>On Tuesday, the space agency announced it has picked Boeing and SpaceX to transport astronauts to the International Space Station in the next few years.</p>
<p>NASA Administrator Charles Bolden named the winners of the competition at Kennedy Space Center, next door to where the launches should occur in a few years.</p>
<p>The deal will end NASA’s expensive reliance on Russia to ferry astronauts to the space station. NASA has set a goal of 2017 for the first launch under the program.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Boeing, the veteran of the competitors, would assemble its crew capsules at Kennedy. The new California-based SpaceX is already delivering supplies to the space station; its crew capsule is a version of its cargo carrier.</p>
<p>NASA will pay the companies $6.8 billion — $4.2 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX.</p>
<p>The third major contender, Sierra Nevada Corp., was developing a mini-shuttle in Colorado.</p>
<p>U.S. astronauts have been riding Russian rockets ever since NASA’s space shuttles retired in 2011. The latest price tag is $71 million per seat; NASA has at least four of its own astronauts flying up on a Russian Soyuz, to the space station, every year.</p>
<p>The commercial crew program follows the successful cargo delivery effort underway for the past two years, also under NASA contract. The objective, for years, has been for NASA to hand space station flights to private companies and focus on getting astronauts into true outer space, with destinations such as asteroids and Mars. NASA is prepping its first-ever Orion space exploration capsule for a test flight in December.</p>
<p>Billionaire Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — SpaceX for short — became the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and retrieve it in 2010. The SpaceX Dragon capsule made its first space station trip, with astronaut supplies, in 2012.</p>
<p>The Dragon cargo carrier has been enhanced to carry as many as seven astronauts. It’s known as Dragon v2 — version two.</p>
<p>While SpaceX is proud of its cargo deliveries, “the company was not founded to bring T-shirts and food and water up to space, it was founded to bring people into space,” program manager Garrett Reisman, a former space station astronaut, told an industry conference late last month.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, which also makes unmanned space station shipments, did not vie for crew-carrying privileges.</p>
<p>Boeing’s entry was also a capsule, called CST-100. The letters stand for Crew Space Transportation, and the number refers to 100 kilometers or 62 miles, the official start of space.</p>
<p>Sierra Nevada had the most novel entry, a winged, lifting body vehicle strongly reminiscent of NASA’s space shuttle. Its name: Dream Chaser.</p>
<p>Both the CST-100 and Dream Chaser called for flying atop an Atlas V rocket. The manned SpaceX capsule would use the company’s own Falcon 9 rocket. Cape Canaveral will be the sole launch site.</p>
<p>NASA paid each of these three major contenders hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to spur development.</p>
<p>Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company in Washington state received NASA funding in the early rounds of competition, then said it would continue working on its own, unfunded by the government. The company had given sparse details about its progress and intent.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Boeing, SpaceX joint winners in NASA crew transport contract | false | https://abqjournal.com/463112/boeing-spacex-joint-winner-nasa-crew-transport-contract.html | 2014-09-16 | 2 |
<p>A Boston constable was killed in a shootout late Wednesday after he shot and injured two police officers responding to a domestic incident at his home.</p>
<p>Police Commissioner William Evans identified 33-year-old Kirk Figueroa as the deceased gunman, in a press conference Thursday.</p>
<p>He said officers Richard Cintolo and Matt Morris were injured and both in stable but critical condition.</p>
<p>“We talk about officers running into danger — we’ve seen it on marathon day, we’ve seen it today,” Evans said. “I’d like to commend my officers for the courage and bravery they displayed last night, I’m really proud of their efforts."</p>
<p>Officer Cintolo is a 27 year veteran of the East Boston police station and officer Morris is a 12 year veteran of the department.</p>
<p>NECN: <a href="http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/necn-Investigates-I-Just-Heard-My-Roommate-Die-Eyewitness-Describes-East-Boston-Shootout-With-Police-396996201.html" type="external">'I Just Heard My Roommate Die': Eyewitness Describes East Boston Shootout with Police</a></p>
<p>Evans confirmed that Figueroa was a Boston Constable and said the Boston Police had conducted background investigations into the suspect before issuing his license, but were prohibited from investigating him on a federal level. He also stressed that the suspect did not have a license to carry a weapon.</p>
<p>"Constable is very much like a mailman, he goes and delivers civil process. He had no right in Massachusetts to possess the gun in hand," Evans said.</p>
<p>Police were responding to a call just before 11 p.m. ET of a possible domestic disturbance between two male roommates in the city's East Boston neighborhood. One of the roommates was described as being armed. Upon arrival, officers were met at the door by a victim who claimed his roommate had pulled a large knife on him, Commissioner Evans told reporters.</p>
<p>Figueroa then produced what officials describe as a "tactical shot gun" and began firing on police, wounding the two cops, Evans said. Fellow officers began applying first aid, while other officers ran into the apartment.</p>
<p>"Officers continued to exchange gunfire and the suspect in question was neutralized and the threat discontinued," Evans said.</p>
<p>Officer Morris was hit in one of his main arteries in his leg and officers applied a tourniquet before he was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, Evans said. Officer Cintolo was also injured. Commissioner Evans could not confirm if either of the cops were wearing tactical vests.</p>
<p>Figueroa's roommate was not injured in the standoff. A third roommate, who is a New England Cable News (NECN) employee, was also safely evacuated. He <a href="http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/necn-Investigates-I-Just-Heard-My-Roommate-Die-Eyewitness-Describes-East-Boston-Shootout-With-Police-396996201.html" type="external">told NECN</a> that he had been sleeping in his room when he woke up to his roommates arguing downstairs.</p>
<p>"Maybe 10 minutes later, I heard knocking on the front door. I opened my room door and police busted down the front door, guns drawn, saying, 'Hands up! Who are you? What are you doing here?'" he told NECN.</p>
<p>Minutes later he said, shooting started.</p>
<p>"It wasn't until later that I really noticed, I just heard my roommate die. To hear the screams, it's chilling," he said.</p>
<p>NECN: <a href="http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/What-We-Know-About-the-East-Boston-Police-Shooting-Suspect-396906551.html" type="external">What We Know About the East Boston Police Shooting Suspect</a></p>
<p>Police tweeted earlier for residents to "shelter in place" and that a search for a possible second suspect was underway, but said around 30 minutes later that the order was lifted and just one suspect was located.</p>
<p>In addition, nine officers were treated at Tufts Medical Center for minor injuries sustained during the gun battle and for stress. They were released Thursday.</p>
<p>Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said his office would conduct an investigation into the shooting because of the use of deadly force on the suspect.</p>
<p>"It's going to take some time because the two individuals that probably know most about this event are behind us at Mass General fighting for their lives," Conley told reporters.</p> | Police Confirm Kirk Figueroa, a Boston Constable, Shot 2 Cops | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/suspect-armed-rifle-killed-after-shooting-2-boston-police-officers-n665516 | 2016-10-14 | 3 |
<p>Senator Barack Obama is clearly benefiting from voter anxiety associated with turmoil in worldwide financial markets. Confronted with daily reminders that the economy has slowed down considerably, many voters are instinctively moving toward the candidate whom they and the media associate with “change.”</p>
<p>Ironically, though, Senator Obama really does not represent change on economic matters — or at least not a change toward something that hasn’t already been tried before, and that might have a chance of improving our economy. Indeed, Senator Obama’s economic ideas and outlook — large expansions of federal entitlements and explicit efforts to redistribute income — look little different from the failed liberal policies of the 1960s.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of President Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964, Congress embarked on a period of unprecedented governmental activism. A flurry of new laws expanded welfare benefits, created two health-care entitlement programs, thrust the federal government into education financing and policy — and much, much more. To pay for these initiatives, Congress increased federal taxes substantially, including payroll taxes. Between 1965 and 1969, federal taxes increased from 17.0 to 19.7 percent of GDP.</p>
<p>Senator Obama’s economic plan is remarkably similar to those Johnson-era efforts in terms of its goals, even if the legislative tactics are somewhat different. Senator Obama promises to expand welfare benefits to many more households, although he would do so mainly with a series of expensive, refundable tax credits. He has proposed an unprecedented increase in federal spending on K-12 education programs. And his health-care plan would offer publicly funded insurance to nearly 50 million more people — at a time when the federal budget is already groaning under the weight of existing health-care entitlements.</p>
<p>Senator Obama would pay for this expansion of government with a massive tax increase. He is promising to raise the top marginal income-tax rate to nearly 40 percent. He wants to increase payroll taxes on high-income earners as well to pay for an unreformed Social Security program that will have fewer workers paying the benefits of growing numbers of baby-boomer retirees. And, according to an <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411749_updated_candidates.pdf" type="external">analysis</a> from the independent Tax Policy Center, his plan depends on somehow finding nearly $1 trillion in revenue over ten years from as-yet-unspecified sources.</p>
<p>Americans are not averse to paying for government programs that genuinely help people. Indeed, many Americans would have concluded that 60s government activism was worth the cost — if it had actually worked to bring about prosperity and equality. But no reasonable observer could conclude that it did — and frequently enough, it made matters worse.</p>
<p>Instead of ending poverty, the Great Society ushered in an era of deepening welfare dependency and inner-city cultural decline. Well-intentioned support for single mothers and their children enabled an epidemic of fatherless families, with disastrous results. Family breakdown accelerated, and out-of-wedlock births soared. Moreover — with taxes and spending rising, the national economy fell into a decade-long period of sluggish economic growth, with high inflation and high unemployment. American businesses became less competitive. Confidence in our future fell.</p>
<p>Were Senator Obama’s program to be adopted, expect unintended consequences. Alex Brill and Alan Viand of the American Enterprise Institute have <a href="http://www.american.com/archive/2008/august-08-08/the-folly-of-obama2019s-tax-plan" type="external">shown</a> that his lavish new refundable tax credits would have the perverse effect of increasing the tax rate faced by many low-wage workers looking for better-paying jobs. The more these households earn, the less they would get from Senator Obama’s program of government-engineered financial assistance.</p>
<p>Similarly, Senator Obama’s plan for improving education would backfire. Increasing federal spending for K-12 education would simply allow state and local governments to cut back on their own funding commitments. The net financial gain to schools would be minimal at best. Moreover, with more federal funds comes muddled political accountability: No matter how much money is provided, it won’t stop local school administrators from claiming that their problems are due to insufficient federal support.</p>
<p>In addition, Senator Obama’s health-care plan would stifle job creation. Employers would be required to “pay or play,” meaning they would either have to offer government-approved insurance, or pay a new payroll tax. Such a mandate would make it more expensive for firms to hire low-wage workers. Unemployment would rise.</p>
<p>Moreover, many businesses that sponsor insurance for their workers today would stop doing so when faced with Obama’s expensive insurance mandates. Millions of workers and their dependents currently in private insurance would therefore end up in a government-run plan, with price controls and other regulatory red-tape. In time, increased government dominance in the health sector would undermine quality and stifle investments in those new drugs and devices which might provide breakthrough improvements in patients’ health.</p>
<p>And of course, Senator Obama’s marginal income-tax rate increases would reduce incentives for work and entrepreneurial activity at a time when our global competitors are moving in the opposite direction.</p>
<p>It took the presidency of Ronald Reagan to get things back on track after the decade-long malaise of the 1970s. Reagan understood that broad-based prosperity comes not from the government trying to engineer economic results but from the accumulated efforts of millions of individuals striving to improve their standards of living with hard work. Given the right incentives — and it’s the government’s job to get the incentives right in tax and spending policy — businesses and households will find ways to improve productivity and bring valuable innovations to the marketplace.</p>
<p>Even President Reagan came up short when it came to reforming the welfare state. That did not occur until Republicans took over Congress. Voters going to the polls in November would do well to recall the debate over the 1996 welfare-reform law. At the time, proponents argued that ending the entitlement to cash welfare benefits was crucial to breaking the culture of dependency so prevalent in urban America. They pushed successfully to replace the entitlement structure with a fixed block grant that states could use to provide temporary cash assistance and support services for those families trying to stay in the workforce.</p>
<p>Opponents of the law argued strenuously that it would produce a calamity, with millions of households getting pushed into poverty — with children starving in the streets, according to the most hyperbolic Democratic rhetoric.</p>
<p>What happened? Welfare caseloads fell by more than half almost overnight, from 4.6 million in 1996 to just over 2 million in 2002. And the Congressional Budget Office <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/81xx/doc8113/05-16-Low-Income.pdf" type="external">found</a> that the lowest-income households experienced a 35-percent jump in their real incomes between 1991 and 2005, as rising wage income more than offset the reduction in cash welfare benefits. The 1996 welfare reform law is almost surely the most successful social-policy change in a generation.</p>
<p>It is instructive that Barack Obama, then a state senator in Illinois, strongly <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/obama-shifts-on.html" type="external">opposed n&gt;</a> welfare reform — and criticized President Bill Clinton for signing it — before claiming to have changed his mind about it during the presidential campaign.</p>
<p>The present moment cries out for an aggressive economic-reform agenda. Federal tax law has become a jumbled mess of excessive social engineering. Entitlement spending is set to rise dramatically over the next two decades as baby boomers head into retirement. Government agencies operate today much like they did in 1980, even though businesses have been transformed by the information-technology revolution.</p>
<p>What is not needed, however, is to revert to the policies of an era during which activist government undermined incentives for work with ill-advised promises of expanded entitlement benefits. That may constitute change, but history shows that it would offer little hope.</p>
<p>— James C. Capretta is a Fellow at the <a href="" type="internal">Ethics and Public Policy Center</a>, a health policy and research consultant, and the author of the health care policy blog “ <a href="http://www.thenewatlantis.com/blog/diagnosis" type="external">Diagnosis</a>.”</p> | Great Society Redux? | false | https://eppc.org/publications/great-society-redux/ | 1 |
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<p>SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Female hockey players from the rival Koreas were paired up with each other Thursday to form their first-ever Olympic squad during next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Games, as their countries press ahead with rare reconciliation steps following a period of nuclear tensions.</p>
<p>A dozen North Korean hockey players wearing white-and-red winter parkas crossed the heavily fortified border into South Korea earlier Thursday, as about 30-40 conservative activists shouted anti-Pyongyang slogans at a nearby border area.</p>
<p>The North Koreans traveled on to a national athletes’ village in southern South Korea, where they were welcomed by their South Korean teammates and Canadian coach Sarah Murray, who presented them flower bouquets in an outdoor welcoming ceremony.</p>
<p>“I sincerely welcome your arrival,” Lee Jae-kun, head of the athletes’ village, told the North Koreans after they got off a bus.</p>
<p>Pak Chol Ho, a North Korean coach who arrived with the 12 athletes and two support staff, told reporters that he’s happy to team up with South Koreans. “I’m very pleased with the fact that North and South are united as one to participate in (the Olympics). I expect we’ll see good results if we unite our efforts ... though we don’t have much time,” he said.</p>
<p>The Korean players later shouted “We are one!” and took a group photo. North and South Korean players plan to practice separately for several days as Murray needs time to learn about the North Koreans.</p>
<p>The players were sharing the same locker room and the lockers of the North Korean players were deliberately placed between those of their South Korean teammates so that they could become close quickly, according to Yonhap news agency.</p>
<p>The Koreas fielded a single team to major sports events only twice, both in 1991. One event was the world table tennis championships and the other soccer’s World Youth Championship. But this is the first time they’ve assembled a single team for the Olympics.</p>
<p>The Koreas explored how to cooperate in the Olympics after the North’s leader Kim Jong Un abruptly said in his New Year’s address that he was willing to send an Olympic delegation. As part of the rapprochement deals, the Koreas also agreed for their athletes to march together under a single flag during the Feb. 9 opening ceremony. Some experts say North Korea may want to use improved ties with the South as a way to weaken U.S.-led international sanctions.</p>
<p>The International Olympic Committee has allowed 22 North Korean athletes, including the 12 hockey players, to compete in Pyeongchang in exceptional entries given to the North, which initially had none for the games. The 10 others will compete in figure skating, short track speed skating, Alpine skiing and cross-country skiing. They will come to South Korea on Feb. 1.</p>
<p>The joint hockey team deal has triggered a backlash in South Korea, with a survey showing about 70 percent of respondents opposing the idea because it would deprive South Korean players of playing time. The IOC-brokered agreement requires at least three North Korean players to suit up for each game, meaning that three from South Korea’s original roster cannot play in those games.</p>
<p>Murray has said that the North Koreans’ hard-hitting style would make them suited to be her fourth line, a group of players who are typically asked to provide strong physical play in short bursts while giving their teammates with greater scoring responsibilities a chance to rest.</p>
<p>Murray, who examined the North Koreans first hand during an event in Gangneung last year, has identified five players as memorable, but among them, only forwards Jong Su Hyon and Kim Hyang Mi made the trip for the Olympics.</p>
<p>The unified Korean team will open their group action against Switzerland on Feb. 10. It will then face Sweden on Feb. 12 and Japan on Feb. 14. What draws attention is its Japan match, as many in both Koreas still harbor bitter resentment against Japan’s 35-year colonial rule that ended in 1945, three years before two different governments were formally established on the Korean Peninsula.</p>
<p>Conservatives in Seoul have held a series of small-scale rallies in recent days. On Monday, activists burned Kim’s photo and a North Korean flag as the head of the North’s popular girl band passed by them during a visit to the capital. North Korea responded Tuesday by warning similar actions could disrupt ongoing reconciliation efforts.</p>
<p>South Korean officials hope an Olympic-inspired mood of detente would serve as a stepping stone to the resumption of diplomatic talks that could slow down North Korea’s nuclear advancement. North Korea, however, has insisted it won’t discuss its nuclear program during its ongoing talks with South Korea, and some experts warn that tensions could flare again after the Olympics.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press journalists Lee Jin-man in Paju, South Korea and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul contributed to this report.</p>
<p>SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Female hockey players from the rival Koreas were paired up with each other Thursday to form their first-ever Olympic squad during next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Games, as their countries press ahead with rare reconciliation steps following a period of nuclear tensions.</p>
<p>A dozen North Korean hockey players wearing white-and-red winter parkas crossed the heavily fortified border into South Korea earlier Thursday, as about 30-40 conservative activists shouted anti-Pyongyang slogans at a nearby border area.</p>
<p>The North Koreans traveled on to a national athletes’ village in southern South Korea, where they were welcomed by their South Korean teammates and Canadian coach Sarah Murray, who presented them flower bouquets in an outdoor welcoming ceremony.</p>
<p>“I sincerely welcome your arrival,” Lee Jae-kun, head of the athletes’ village, told the North Koreans after they got off a bus.</p>
<p>Pak Chol Ho, a North Korean coach who arrived with the 12 athletes and two support staff, told reporters that he’s happy to team up with South Koreans. “I’m very pleased with the fact that North and South are united as one to participate in (the Olympics). I expect we’ll see good results if we unite our efforts ... though we don’t have much time,” he said.</p>
<p>The Korean players later shouted “We are one!” and took a group photo. North and South Korean players plan to practice separately for several days as Murray needs time to learn about the North Koreans.</p>
<p>The players were sharing the same locker room and the lockers of the North Korean players were deliberately placed between those of their South Korean teammates so that they could become close quickly, according to Yonhap news agency.</p>
<p>The Koreas fielded a single team to major sports events only twice, both in 1991. One event was the world table tennis championships and the other soccer’s World Youth Championship. But this is the first time they’ve assembled a single team for the Olympics.</p>
<p>The Koreas explored how to cooperate in the Olympics after the North’s leader Kim Jong Un abruptly said in his New Year’s address that he was willing to send an Olympic delegation. As part of the rapprochement deals, the Koreas also agreed for their athletes to march together under a single flag during the Feb. 9 opening ceremony. Some experts say North Korea may want to use improved ties with the South as a way to weaken U.S.-led international sanctions.</p>
<p>The International Olympic Committee has allowed 22 North Korean athletes, including the 12 hockey players, to compete in Pyeongchang in exceptional entries given to the North, which initially had none for the games. The 10 others will compete in figure skating, short track speed skating, Alpine skiing and cross-country skiing. They will come to South Korea on Feb. 1.</p>
<p>The joint hockey team deal has triggered a backlash in South Korea, with a survey showing about 70 percent of respondents opposing the idea because it would deprive South Korean players of playing time. The IOC-brokered agreement requires at least three North Korean players to suit up for each game, meaning that three from South Korea’s original roster cannot play in those games.</p>
<p>Murray has said that the North Koreans’ hard-hitting style would make them suited to be her fourth line, a group of players who are typically asked to provide strong physical play in short bursts while giving their teammates with greater scoring responsibilities a chance to rest.</p>
<p>Murray, who examined the North Koreans first hand during an event in Gangneung last year, has identified five players as memorable, but among them, only forwards Jong Su Hyon and Kim Hyang Mi made the trip for the Olympics.</p>
<p>The unified Korean team will open their group action against Switzerland on Feb. 10. It will then face Sweden on Feb. 12 and Japan on Feb. 14. What draws attention is its Japan match, as many in both Koreas still harbor bitter resentment against Japan’s 35-year colonial rule that ended in 1945, three years before two different governments were formally established on the Korean Peninsula.</p>
<p>Conservatives in Seoul have held a series of small-scale rallies in recent days. On Monday, activists burned Kim’s photo and a North Korean flag as the head of the North’s popular girl band passed by them during a visit to the capital. North Korea responded Tuesday by warning similar actions could disrupt ongoing reconciliation efforts.</p>
<p>South Korean officials hope an Olympic-inspired mood of detente would serve as a stepping stone to the resumption of diplomatic talks that could slow down North Korea’s nuclear advancement. North Korea, however, has insisted it won’t discuss its nuclear program during its ongoing talks with South Korea, and some experts warn that tensions could flare again after the Olympics.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press journalists Lee Jin-man in Paju, South Korea and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul contributed to this report.</p> | North, South Korea hockey players team up for Olympics | false | https://apnews.com/97da5a4a29ad42ceb9ad51b0aa9f6ff8 | 2018-01-25 | 2 |
<p>The Times of India Group and Idea Cellular have signed a deal for customized content delivery to cell phone users, including news headlines through short messaging services (SMS), multimedia messaging services (MMS), and interactive voice response (IVR). Options are pre-programmed into the cellphone SIM cards. Value-added services currently contribute 3 percent of Idea's net revenues, expected to go up to 10 percent shortly. Sixty to 70 percent of traffic for the <a href="http://www.indiatimes.com" type="external">Indiatimes</a>&#160;portal comes from Indians living abroad, but the publisher also sees mobile news delivery as a booming market. SMS information (including a dating service) is already delivered by the publisher to subscribers who dial 8888; about 30 percent of these messages were for accessing news headlines, and the service handles about 35 million messages every month. In the next two years, 80 percent of cellular handsets in India are expected to be MMS-enabled. India has 14 million cell phone users.</p> | Customized Cell Phone Content | false | https://poynter.org/news/customized-cell-phone-content | 2003-06-30 | 2 |
<p />
<p>As a year-end deadline looms, Republicans in the U.S House of Representatives pushed ahead on Thursday with their own "fiscal cliff" plan in a move that muddles negotiations with the White House to avoid steep tax hikes and spending cuts.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Republican-led House is aiming to vote on Thursday evening on Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B" to raise taxes only on annual incomes over $1 million, which is aimed at putting pressure on President Barack Obama to offer more concessions.</p>
<p>"While the White House slow-walks us all to the edge of the fiscal cliff, Republicans are once again taking action to protect American families, our economy, and our national security," Boehner's office said.</p>
<p>But Obama has vowed to veto the plan, and a senior Democratic aide said the top Democrat in the Senate, Harry Reid, is likely to ignore it instead of taking it as a base to work out a wider compromise.</p>
<p>"What we are doing today is wasting time, pretending and making political points but not moving the ball forward to get to a compromise," senior Democratic House member Steny Hoyer of Maryland told MSNBC.</p>
<p>Republicans complain that Obama has not done enough to promise spending cuts to rein in the deficit and hope Plan B will force him to offer more. The two sides are also still at odds on taxes. The White House wants taxes to rise on household incomes above $400,000 a year, a concession from Obama's opening proposal for a $250,000 income threshold, while Boehner's plan aims at income over $1 million.</p>
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<p>The clock is ticking toward a deadline at the end of the year. Harsh tax hikes and spending cuts will kick in if talks fall apart, likely pushing the U.S. economy into recession.</p>
<p>U.S. stocks opened little changed on Thursday amid uncertainty over the fiscal talks. The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 4.17 points, or 0.03 percent.</p>
<p>It was still unclear if Boehner - often mistrusted by Tea Party members and other fiscal conservatives in his own caucus - could win backing from conservative Republicans for his Plan B.</p>
<p>Boehner and his leadership team are likely to spend the day rounding up support, with votes possible around 7:45 p.m. ET (0045 Friday GMT), according to one Republican aide.</p>
<p>But the aide would not say whether Boehner had lined up enough Republican votes to ensure passage of the bills, which are expected to get few, if any, Democratic votes.</p>
<p>"We feel momentum is on our side," the aide said.</p>
<p>In an eleventh hour effort to avoid a potential defeat at the hands of some of his party members over the tax hike, Boehner added separate legislation with spending cuts in an effort to lure more conservatives that the tax hike was worth a risky vote.</p>
<p>Those spending cuts aim to scrap the approximately $55 billion in defense program cuts scheduled to begin in January and shift the reductions to other domestic programs.</p>
<p>Those include less spending for social safety net benefits like food stamps and Medicaid healthcare for the poor. It also targets some funding for Obama's signature healthcare reform law.</p>
<p>A Boehner defeat would be an embarrassment, which could either force him to offer concessions to Obama, or embolden conservative Republicans to try to take a harder line against the White House.</p> | House to Vote on 'Plan B' as Deadline Looms | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2012/12/20/house-to-vote-on-plan-b-as-deadline-looms.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p>PITTSBURGH (AP) — The sight can send a tremor through an entire organization: the franchise quarterback writhing on the ground, a season full of promise suddenly clouded by doubt.</p>
<p>It happened in Arizona in 2014 when Carson Palmer tore his ACL and team that looked like a Super Bowl contender limped into the playoffs before making a hasty exit. It’s happening in Dallas this fall, which hasn’t won since Tony Romo’s collarbone broke in Week 2.</p>
<p>Not so much in Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>It’s not that the Steelers don’t value Ben Roethlisberger. He is the unquestioned cornerstone of his team, one who will be paid handsomely through the rest of the decade to add a seventh Lombardi Trophy (or more) to an already crowded display.</p>
<p>In a big picture sense, Roethlisberger is irreplaceable. Yet in a game by game sense, Pittsburgh has proven it can get by without him. The Steelers are a respectable 10-9 since 2004 when Roethlisberger is out. That includes a 2-2 mark this year heading into a game Sunday against Cleveland (2-7), when Landry Jones will fill in if Roethlisberger’s sprained left foot doesn’t time to heal in time. Roethlisberger practiced in a limited capacity on Thursday but his status remains uncertain.</p>
<p>Being a tick above .500 without any player isn’t exactly spectacular, but it’s OK thanks in large part to a mentality preached incessantly by head coach Mike Tomlin that the goal remains the same no matter who’s in uniform.</p>
<p>“The standard is the standard,” said center Cody Wallace, repeating perhaps Tomlin’s favorite mantra. “We hear it all the time and it’s kind of a joke but guys buy into it. Other teams they lose their quarterback and they’re like ‘We’re screwed these next couple weeks’ and here we’re just like, ‘OK, Landry’s the guy, let’s just roll with it.’”</p>
<p>Wallace would know. He’s spent the entire season filling in for All-Pro Maurkice Pouncey, who tore up his left ankle in an exhibition and is unlikely to play this season.</p>
<p>Yet the Steelers have been humming right along, rising to fifth in the league in rushing and remaining in the thick of the wild-card chase even with star running back Le’Veon Bell and starting left tackle Kelvin Beachum joining Pouncey on injured reserve.</p>
<p>In their place are 32-year-old DeAngelo Williams and Alejandro Villanueva, a former Army Ranger and converted defensive lineman who now protects the quarterback’s blind side.</p>
<p>They might not have the talent of the players they’re filling in for, but Tomlin and his coaching staff refuse to live in their fears (another favorite Tomlinism). When Jones ran on to replace Roethlisberger late in the fourth quarter last week against Oakland, offensive coordinator Todd Haley took risks. Jones threw four times on his first possession and twice more on his second, including a dart Antonio Brown turned into a 57-sprint that set up the winning field goal.</p>
<p>Tomlin wants it that way. When one of his starters goes down, he makes it a point to call out the replacement and tell him in no uncertain terms that exactly nothing has changed.</p>
<p>“There are no gray areas,” linebacker Arthur Moats said. “If you set the bar different for different players, that’s when you’re not going to have people performing at a high level because they’re going to think it’s acceptable.”</p>
<p>By sending that message in front of the entire team, it explicitly makes the other 52 players heavily invested in your replacement.</p>
<p>“He’s very straightforward,” Wallace said. “He’s going to tell everybody so everybody else holds you accountable too. He’s not holding private meetings off to the side to try and motivate you.”</p>
<p>Tomlin figures it isn’t necessary. And to offer a bit of translation of “Tomlinese,” by “standard” he isn’t talking about statistics.</p>
<p>The Steelers adjust their offensive goals every week depending on the opponent. They don’t expect Jones to go out against the Browns and impersonate Roethlisberger in any aspect other than one: that when the clock hits zero Pittsburgh will have more points than the guys on the other sideline.</p>
<p>Asked this week what he’d like to see from Jones and Tomlin offered a typically blunt “I want to see him win.” Sorry, style points are for the College Football Playoff committee, not the NFL.</p>
<p>“When you make it that black and white, it makes no bones about what’s expected, to allow him to have a crystal-clear focus about what it is he needs to do,” Tomlin said.</p>
<p>It worked for Charlie Batch, who went 6-3 in nine starts subbing in for Roethlisberger. It worked for Dennis Dixon, who was 2-0 in 2010. It worked for Michael Vick, who summoned enough magic in the fourth quarter against San Diego on Oct. 12 to play a vital part of a late rally.</p>
<p>The Steelers remain confident it will work for Jones and Williams and Wallace and whoever else might find himself suddenly thrust into the mix. You don’t go 11 seasons (and counting) without a losing record by blanching at the first bout of adversity. Or the 10th for that matter.</p>
<p>Wallace, perhaps more than anyone, understands he can’t do what Pouncey can do. That shouldn’t make a difference on Sunday.</p>
<p>“I get it, the guy’s an All-Pro,” he said. “There’s going to be a little bit of a drop-off but that doesn’t mean I can’t play winning football.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
<p>PITTSBURGH (AP) — The sight can send a tremor through an entire organization: the franchise quarterback writhing on the ground, a season full of promise suddenly clouded by doubt.</p>
<p>It happened in Arizona in 2014 when Carson Palmer tore his ACL and team that looked like a Super Bowl contender limped into the playoffs before making a hasty exit. It’s happening in Dallas this fall, which hasn’t won since Tony Romo’s collarbone broke in Week 2.</p>
<p>Not so much in Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>It’s not that the Steelers don’t value Ben Roethlisberger. He is the unquestioned cornerstone of his team, one who will be paid handsomely through the rest of the decade to add a seventh Lombardi Trophy (or more) to an already crowded display.</p>
<p>In a big picture sense, Roethlisberger is irreplaceable. Yet in a game by game sense, Pittsburgh has proven it can get by without him. The Steelers are a respectable 10-9 since 2004 when Roethlisberger is out. That includes a 2-2 mark this year heading into a game Sunday against Cleveland (2-7), when Landry Jones will fill in if Roethlisberger’s sprained left foot doesn’t time to heal in time. Roethlisberger practiced in a limited capacity on Thursday but his status remains uncertain.</p>
<p>Being a tick above .500 without any player isn’t exactly spectacular, but it’s OK thanks in large part to a mentality preached incessantly by head coach Mike Tomlin that the goal remains the same no matter who’s in uniform.</p>
<p>“The standard is the standard,” said center Cody Wallace, repeating perhaps Tomlin’s favorite mantra. “We hear it all the time and it’s kind of a joke but guys buy into it. Other teams they lose their quarterback and they’re like ‘We’re screwed these next couple weeks’ and here we’re just like, ‘OK, Landry’s the guy, let’s just roll with it.’”</p>
<p>Wallace would know. He’s spent the entire season filling in for All-Pro Maurkice Pouncey, who tore up his left ankle in an exhibition and is unlikely to play this season.</p>
<p>Yet the Steelers have been humming right along, rising to fifth in the league in rushing and remaining in the thick of the wild-card chase even with star running back Le’Veon Bell and starting left tackle Kelvin Beachum joining Pouncey on injured reserve.</p>
<p>In their place are 32-year-old DeAngelo Williams and Alejandro Villanueva, a former Army Ranger and converted defensive lineman who now protects the quarterback’s blind side.</p>
<p>They might not have the talent of the players they’re filling in for, but Tomlin and his coaching staff refuse to live in their fears (another favorite Tomlinism). When Jones ran on to replace Roethlisberger late in the fourth quarter last week against Oakland, offensive coordinator Todd Haley took risks. Jones threw four times on his first possession and twice more on his second, including a dart Antonio Brown turned into a 57-sprint that set up the winning field goal.</p>
<p>Tomlin wants it that way. When one of his starters goes down, he makes it a point to call out the replacement and tell him in no uncertain terms that exactly nothing has changed.</p>
<p>“There are no gray areas,” linebacker Arthur Moats said. “If you set the bar different for different players, that’s when you’re not going to have people performing at a high level because they’re going to think it’s acceptable.”</p>
<p>By sending that message in front of the entire team, it explicitly makes the other 52 players heavily invested in your replacement.</p>
<p>“He’s very straightforward,” Wallace said. “He’s going to tell everybody so everybody else holds you accountable too. He’s not holding private meetings off to the side to try and motivate you.”</p>
<p>Tomlin figures it isn’t necessary. And to offer a bit of translation of “Tomlinese,” by “standard” he isn’t talking about statistics.</p>
<p>The Steelers adjust their offensive goals every week depending on the opponent. They don’t expect Jones to go out against the Browns and impersonate Roethlisberger in any aspect other than one: that when the clock hits zero Pittsburgh will have more points than the guys on the other sideline.</p>
<p>Asked this week what he’d like to see from Jones and Tomlin offered a typically blunt “I want to see him win.” Sorry, style points are for the College Football Playoff committee, not the NFL.</p>
<p>“When you make it that black and white, it makes no bones about what’s expected, to allow him to have a crystal-clear focus about what it is he needs to do,” Tomlin said.</p>
<p>It worked for Charlie Batch, who went 6-3 in nine starts subbing in for Roethlisberger. It worked for Dennis Dixon, who was 2-0 in 2010. It worked for Michael Vick, who summoned enough magic in the fourth quarter against San Diego on Oct. 12 to play a vital part of a late rally.</p>
<p>The Steelers remain confident it will work for Jones and Williams and Wallace and whoever else might find himself suddenly thrust into the mix. You don’t go 11 seasons (and counting) without a losing record by blanching at the first bout of adversity. Or the 10th for that matter.</p>
<p>Wallace, perhaps more than anyone, understands he can’t do what Pouncey can do. That shouldn’t make a difference on Sunday.</p>
<p>“I get it, the guy’s an All-Pro,” he said. “There’s going to be a little bit of a drop-off but that doesn’t mean I can’t play winning football.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p> | Steelers have found a way to survive without Roethlisberger | false | https://apnews.com/697cde95548f45118858c914a7757e3a | 2015-11-12 | 2 |
<p />
<p />
<p>Sometimes reality is far scarier than the worst horror films. For one poor Romanian teen her life became a tortured hell when she was kidnapped at age 19. She was chained to a metal pole in a basement for a decade at the hands of 52-year-old Aloisio Francesco Rosario Giordano.</p>
<p />
<p>Credit: Carabinieri Di Gizzeria</p>
<p>Police rescued the 29-year-old Romanian woman from a basement under a shed in Gizzeria, Italy where she was raped and tortured without running water or electricity for ten years. Giordano impregnated her and she bore two children while chained to the basement pole. She was forced to use a plastic bucket under a wooden chair as a toilet.</p>
<p />
<p>Credit: Carabinieri Di Gizzeria</p>
<p>The two children born of the girl and her capture are a boy, now age 9, and a girl, age 3. Both children were forced to watch their father unleash his sick abuse on their mother who was found with wounds on her breasts and crotch. Giordano forced the boy to join in on the torture or be beaten himself.</p>
<p />
<p>Credit: Carabinieri Di Gizzeria</p>
<p>Giordano sometimes cut the woman so deep he would be forced to sew up the wounds with fishing wire. The woman was discovered by accident after police pulled Giordano over for a routine traffic stop and found a malnourished and filthy boy asleep in the backseat. Officers sensed something amiss and demanded to see the child's and mother.</p>
<p>When officers visited the man's home they discovered the disheveled woman and second child and the conditions they were kept in. The woman had no contact with the outside world for the last ten years. Giordano was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault and mistreatment.</p>
<p>The charges come 22 years after an unnervingly similar case where Giordano kidnapped a 23-year-old woman named Maria Rosa who was also held in similar conditions and impregnated by the animal twice.</p>
<p>Rosa lost her first baby when Giordano kicked her in the stomach and the second child he aborted with a scalpel and a spoon. Eventually, Maria Rosa escaped Giordano's house of horror and told the authorities of the abuse she suffered at his hands.</p>
<p>On Twitter:</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ErvinProduction" type="external">@ErvinProduction</a></p>
<p>Tips? Info? Send me a message!</p>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5021422/italy-fritzl-man-kidnapped-woman-ten-years-aloisio-giordano-gizzeria/" type="external">thesun.co.uk/news/5021422/italy-fritzl-man-kidnapped-woman-ten-years-aloisio-giordano-gizzeria</a></p> | Italian Man Forced Young Son To Join In Sexual Torture Of Mother In Captivity For A Decade | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/12940-Italian-Man-Forced-Young-Son-To-Join-In-Sexual-Torture-Of-Mother-In-Captivity-For-A-Decade | 2017-11-29 | 0 |
<p>FALLS CHURCH (ABP) — Baptists in the United States and elsewhere in the world are responding with aid and prayers for their counterparts in the embattled former Soviet republic of Georgia.</p>
<p>The conflict between it and Russia has cost hundreds of lives and displaced thousands of people on both sides.</p>
<p>“We pray that the conflict is peacefully resolved and opposing sides reconciled,” said Malkhaz Songulashvili, the archbishop of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia, in a statement posted on the organization's website. “We mourn about the death of soldiers, children, men, women, elderly from both sides who lose their lives even as I write this statement. We deplore injustice, aggression and the conflict resolution at the cost of civilian lives.”</p>
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<p>Photo courtesy CBF of Georgia</p>
<p>CBF of Georgia coordinator Frank Broome (left) introduces Malkhaz Songulashvili, the archbishop of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia, at the CBF of Georgia fall convocation in 2006. The dialogue was part of a Georgia-Georgia partnership, which now includes relief assistance after recent violence in the country.</p>
<p>Songulashivli called on Georgia's Western allies to come to the aid of the tiny republic, wedged between Russia's southern border, the Black Sea, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. “We call on the international community, religious leaders and all the people of goodwill for their support of the long-suffering people of Georgia,” he said.</p>
<p>Georgian and Russian leaders each contend that the other side provoked the conflict.</p>
<p>Russian troops responded with an overwhelming show of force to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's attempt to assert control over South Ossetia. The province is regarded by international law as officially part of Georgia, but many of its residents consider themselves Russians and hold Russian citizenship.</p>
<p>President Bush called on Russian leaders Aug. 13 to obey the terms of the cease-fire and withdraw from undisputed Georgian territory. He also said that U.S. military planes and warships would begin bringing humanitarian aid into Georgia.</p>
<p>Baptist World Aid, the humanitarian arm of the Baptist World Alliance, has provided an initial $10,000 grant to Georgian Baptists for relief work. “We condemn this wanton taking of human life, and mourn the death and suffering of all the peoples of this region,” said BWAid Director Paul Montacute, in a press statement. “Baptists of the world pledge their support for all in need with their prayers, expressions of concern and their giving.”</p>
<p>European Baptist Federation General Secretary Tony Peck said, “We are very concerned about the whole situation and urge a peaceful resolution of the conflict.” He called on all European Baptists to pray for peace in the Caucasus region.</p>
<p>International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches USA has also designated a $7,500 emergency grant for Georgian Baptists to use to relieve the suffering, according to the American Baptist News Service. Reid Trulson, executive director of International Ministries, and Charles Jones, the agency's area director for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, have both been in contact with Georgian Baptist leaders. Trulson said, “We are deeply concerned about the destruction taking place in Georgia and are praying fervently for the people of Georgia as well as for those who are causing this chaos.”</p>
<p>Merab Gprindashvili, another Georgian Baptist leader, noted in an e-mail to Trulson that he had become a refugee himself even as he was trying to help others. Gprindashvili reported: “There are a lot of destroyed houses and many dead and wounded people in the villages. We do not know yet what has happened with our brothers and sisters. There are 35 baptized members living in the hottest spots in the conflict zone, and about 100 members in the neighborhood of Gori. Before the war broke out, we had started raising money [for a massive new “cathedral” church in Tblisi]. Of course, we have changed our mind and this collection will be used for the refugees. There are many things to be done.”</p>
<p>Gprindashvili said refugees from several areas are coming to the Beteli Center, a new Georgian Baptist benevolent institution in Tblisi. “We will be more than happy if you can contribute something for the benefit of the refugees,” he said.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has given $5,000 for relief in Georgia, and the CBF of the American state of Georgia, which has a partnership with the country, has sent $2,000 in relief funds.</p>
<p>The Fellowship contributed to relief efforts through Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance, which has also given funds to aid Georgian Baptists.</p>
<p>“All of us feel …devastated,” wrote Songulashvili. “A humanitarian disaster is inevitable. Something has to be done.”</p>
<p>Songulashvili said the most urgent needs are for shelter, food and water, though the need for medical assistance and counseling are also significant. With a cold winter looming, blankets, clothes and fuel for heat will also be needed.</p>
<p>In the United States, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Georgia has had a partnership with the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia since 2006. The partnership has included prayer, dialogue and exchange to promote cultural understanding, and the CBF of Georgia's support of several ministries including a care center for the elderly, an orphanage, a theological school and an organization that supports and ordains women to ministry.</p>
<p>“We need to pray that the war will cease and that the troops will return to Russia. We need to pray that the oil and natural gas lines will be restored in time for the winter. We need to pray for the wounded and the families of those who have died. We need to pray that sufficient aid from governmental and non-governmental sources will arrive in time,” said Frank Broome, coordinator of CBF of Georgia.</p>
<p>First Baptist Church in Columbia, Mo., also has connections to the country. For 12 years, the church has been connected with Georgia's Peace Cathedral, the country's first Baptist church. In response to the conflict, First Baptist hosted an Aug. 19 ecumenical and interfaith prayer service that attracted individuals from throughout Columbia, which has a sister city relationship with a city in Georgia.</p>
<p>While prayers for peace and safety continue to be important, the need for physical assistance can't be overlooked, according to John Baker, pastor of First Baptist in Columbia.</p>
<p>“There are 120,000 internally displaced persons [in Georgia],” said Baker, who has traveled to Georgia eight times. “The people need everything. The homes that they had, have been burned and destroyed. It's going to be a longstanding relief effort. This is going to take years for this country and these people to return to a sense of normality.”</p> | Americans act as Georgian Baptists call for aid | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/americansactasgeorgianbaptistscallforaid/ | 3 |
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<p><a href="http://pienews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/crisis.jpg" type="external" />This photo, taken this month, shows a Border Patrol holding cell filled with migrant unaccompanied minors in Texas. (Photo: Center for Immigration Studies) Share Polls show that American Latinos are split over the more-than 100,000 illegal immigrants flooding a deteriorating American border. Lopsided majorities say they want tighter border [?]</p>
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<p><a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/03/hispanics-split-over-obamas-border-meltdown/" type="external">Click here to view original web page at dailycaller.com</a></p>
<p /> | Hispanics Split Over Obama's Border Meltdown | true | http://politicalillusionsexposed.com/hispanics-split-over-obamas-border-meltdown/ | 0 |
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<p>YouTube is <a href="http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/jon-stewart-just-had-youtube.html" type="external">permanently deleting the accounts</a> of contributors who are posting clips from Comedy Central. Whether this is a direct result of Google’s ownership is anyone’s guess.</p>
<p>AMERICAblog:</p>
<p>I got notice this morning that Comedy Central had YouTube remove a video we put up of a segment the “Daily Show” had done on the Mark Foley scandal. In a strictly legal sense, I get the concern. In a business sense, and a PR sense, it’s obnoxious and counterproductive. In any case, I went to log in to my YouTube account to delete any other Comedy Central videos I had, and what do you know, I get a notice that my account has been permanently closed.</p>
<p><a href="http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/jon-stewart-just-had-youtube.html" type="external">Link</a></p>
<p /> | Thus Passeth YouTube... | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/thus-passeth-youtube/ | 2006-11-24 | 4 |
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<p>PNM’s plan to retire two of their four units at SJGS by the end of 2017 is a win-win situation for San Juan County, the Navajo Nation and New Mexico as a whole.</p>
<p>From an environmental standpoint, the plan worked out with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and New Mexico Environment Department will effectively reduce regional haze in the Four Corners area.</p>
<p>Environmental improvement projects to be taken by PNM at San Juan Generating Station will allow New Mexico and San Juan County to have one of the best controlled and environmentally friendly coal-fired power plants in the country by continuing to significantly reduce emissions.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The plan will also allow for the continued operation of the San Juan Mine, which is the sole source supplier of coal to the power plant.</p>
<p>For over 40 years, both the mine and power plant have played a critical role in the local economy. In 2013, San Juan Mine spent approximately $381 million on equipment, services, materials and supplies, of which 78 percent was spent locally. During the same calendar year, San Juan Mine employed approximately 450 vendors and contractor organizations.</p>
<p>PNM’s plan allows the facilities to continue supporting workforce employees beyond 2017. The combined operations currently support approximately 850 full-time high skilled jobs representing an annual payroll of approximately $88 million.</p>
<p>Every one of these direct jobs supports an estimated five indirect jobs in the region. The shutdown of all four of San Juan Generating Station units along with San Juan Coal Mine could do away with over 5,000 San Juan County and Navajo Nation jobs.</p>
<p>However, if the plan is approved, more jobs in the form of construction will be created over the next several years when PNM enacts controls at SJGS.</p>
<p>Additionally, PNM has committed $1 million to the Navajo Nation towards education and training for workers who will be displaced by the closure of the two units at San Juan Generating Station. PNM has also committed funds to Four Corners Economic Development for the same purpose.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, not everyone supports this proposal; some would like to see all four units shut down, which would be significantly detrimental to the economy of San Juan County. Not to mention all of the non-profit and community organizations who have come to rely on the generosity of SJGS and San Juan Coal Mine.</p>
<p>PNM and BHP Billiton have been reliable community partners in the Four Corners area for many years. A tremendous number of people and organizations are positively affected by the presence of the mine and SJGS in the community.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>For instance, every year BHP Billiton New Mexico Coal, which operates the San Juan Mine and Navajo Mine, and its employees invest more than $1.5 million in community based programs. One example is the recently completed San Juan United Way and Navajo United Way campaigns, in which employees along with matched donations from New Mexico Coal totaled over $1.1 million for these organizations.</p>
<p>This is the highest amount ever contributed and the third time since the inception of the United Way campaign that contributions reached over $1 million dollars from New Mexico Coal. This funding constitutes one-third of the entire annual budget of the San Juan United Way.</p>
<p>Where would many of the non-profit organizations in the Four Corners region be without these businesses and their employees?</p>
<p>Finally, and most importantly, this proposal is the most cost effective plan for consumers.</p>
<p>Due to San Juan Generating Station and San Juan Coal Mine operations, New Mexicans benefit from affordable and reliable electricity. This plan provides consumers and business with the least expensive option for the commission to consider.</p>
<p>We strongly urge individual PRC commissioners to take these factors into consideration and approve PNM’s abandonment plan for SJGS. Thank you for your careful consideration of this critical matter.</p>
<p>Also signed by Sen. John Pinto, D-Gallup; Rep. Sharon Clahchischilliage, R-Kirtland; Sen. William Sharer, R-Farmington; Rep. D. Wanda Johnson, D-Church Rock; Sen. Steven Neville, R-Aztec; Rep. James Strickler, R-Farmington; Rep. Roger Madalena, D-Jemez Pueblo; Rep. Paul Bandy, R-Aztec; and Rep. Patty Lundstrom, D-Gallup.</p>
<p /> | PNM’s plan for San Juan plant a winner | false | https://abqjournal.com/541633/pnms-plan-for-san-juan-plant-a-winner.html | 2 |
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<p>We take this role very seriously, as well as our role to provide support as guardians over our natural resources – i.e.. land, water, air – and to be an educational resource.</p>
<p>Consumers are making choices every day whether to go to a store to purchase their food or to a local farmers’ markets or growers stands, and we as consumers deserve the opportunity to have access to education about the food that we are choosing to consume.</p>
<p>During the 2013 legislative session, an amendment to Senate Bill 18 was proposed. This amendment to the New Mexico Food Act, would require the labeling of genetically engineered food and livestock feed. It did not pass for several reasons.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In discussions around this issue I noticed key points in regards to this initiative that were missing in news articles written about the issue, and in conversations that were going on in our communities. There were questions and answers being left out that are critically important in order for consumers to be able to have well-rounded conversations about this topic.</p>
<p>I thought I’d take the opportunity to bring them up:</p>
<p>1. What are the unintended consequences of adding another labeling requirement to food that is produced in New Mexico or is imported in from outside our state?</p>
<p>2. How much will this new regulation cost food producers?</p>
<p>3. How much more will we as consumers have to pay out of pocket to cover these extra costs?</p>
<p>4. As a consumer, is there a better way to gain an understanding of the importance of biotechnology in agriculture and our world’s food system?</p>
<p>5. What has the current dialogue accomplished so far? Has it created fear about agriculture and the food we put on our tables? Or has it provided a vehicle for complete transparency of how science has helped farmers and ranchers of New Mexico provide the food to our community that is vital to our health and wellbeing?</p>
<p>We are supporting those who are working to provide factual information to all of us so that everyone can make informed decisions. We applaud the organic and non-GMO food producers for ensuring that their produce and products are specifically labeled as “organic” or “non-GMO.” We also applaud the food producers that work with agribio products to provide the scientific proof necessary to understand their impact on our land and in our bodies.</p>
<p>Each group has a place in our food system and each provide options for all of us.</p>
<p>It is our goal to create opportunity for conversation that supports food production and food producers, one that is not lopsided, but where all stakeholders know that their voice has value.</p>
<p>If we are to be able to provide and sustain food production to meet the growing demands not only here in New Mexico, but on a global scale we will need every stakeholder at the table of conversation.</p>
<p>For more opportunity to be a part of this conversation we encourage you to visit <a href="http://www.nmfoodfeedsfamilies.com" type="external">www.nmfoodfeedsfamilies.com</a></p> | More debate needed on food labeling | false | https://abqjournal.com/181807/more-debate-needed-on-food-labeling.html | 2013-03-24 | 2 |
<p>Yosemite National Park's Vernal Falls, where three hikers died in July. &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/72213316@N00/4690253856/sizes/m/in/photostream/" target="_blank"&gt;Alaskan Dude&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>Earlier this summer, a few friends and I went on a backpacking trip in Yosemite National Park. We had been told that the waterfalls were especially spectacular this year, on account of the spring melt of an unusually large snowpack. We were unprepared for just how impressive the rushing water would be. On our first day, we came to a bridge over the formidable Wapama Falls. White water poured over the railings, making the floor slick and dousing us as we scampered across. About a week after we got home, two hikers had <a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-07-02/bay-area/29729351_1_yosemite-national-park-physician-assistant-bridge" type="external">died</a> crossing the same bridge.</p>
<p>That was just the beginning of a very deadly summer in Yosemite. So far this season, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/us/06yosemite.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">18 people</a> have died in the park, way up from the 12 or so who die in a typical year. Thinking about the tragedies got me wondering: Could climate change be playing a role in making outdoor recreation more dangerous? And if it’s not now, then might it in the future?</p>
<p>The scientists I talked to agreed that there’s not enough evidence to lay the blame for this year’s high Yosemite death toll squarely on climate change. “Eighteen is an unusually high number, but things do tend to happen in waves,” says Theo Spencer, a senior advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Climate Center. “So it would be very hard to claim a causal relationship between climate change and this.”</p>
<p>But he also believes that down the line, the connection between rising temperatures and hazardous conditions will become clearer. Scientists and National Park Service officials agree that climate change has already been altering our national parks. A 2006 <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/land/parks/gw/execsum.asp" type="external">report</a> by the NRDC and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization (RMCO) found in western US wilderness areas, higher temperatures were linked to a range of potentially dangerous conditions in parks, from heat waves to insect infestations to increased storms and flooding. This year, the two organizations <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/greatlakesparksinperil.asp" type="external">documented</a> the effects of rising temperatures in parks around the Great Lakes: severe weather, decreased ice, and wildlife changes. Virginia’s Colonial National Historical Park has experienced record sea-level rise. “They’ve had to move their facilities higher and higher,” Spencer says. “They had to move their lighthouse twice.”</p>
<p>Climate-change-related dangers also tend to draw a certain kind of swaggering, outdoor adventurer, whose antics only create further challenges for park officials. (You know the type: carries his lunch to the office in technical gear; carabiners galore; always bragging about the first whitewater descent he bagged; etc.) “People are attracted to extreme weather events,” says RMCO president Stephen Saunders. “When there is a hurricane that makes big surf, that’s very tempting to some people.”</p>
<p>Bob Krumenaker is the superintendent of Wisconsin’s <a href="http://www.nps.gov/apis/index.htm" type="external">Apostle Islands National Lakeshore</a>on Lake Superior. He believes that longer, milder summers could give visitors the impression that the lake, famous for its frigid waters, is safer than it actually is. “It almost creates a potential for disaster,” Krumenaker says. “People don’t typically come out to Lake Superior without proper equipment and skills, but we’re already seeing slight changes in the nature of our visitors. People are coming up with less experience.”</p>
<p>All of which creates a giant headache for the already cash-strapped National Park Service. “If we’re going to have more extreme weather and storms, larger snowpacks and more extreme droughts, all of that is going to take a toll on the trail, the facilities, the built environment,” says Fran Hunt, director of the Sierra Club’s <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/crp/campaigns/habitats.aspx" type="external">Campaign for Resilient Habitats</a>. All that work will not make things easier for the Park Service, which, according to a <a href="http://www.npca.org/cpr/" type="external">report</a> that the Center for Park Research released in June, already has a maintenance backlog of $11 billion.</p>
<p>In addition to cleaning up the mess that extreme weather leaves behind, the Park Service will also have to ramp up communication with visitors. The agency has already launched a <a href="http://www.nps.gov/climatechange/" type="external">campaign</a> to educate people about how the landscape might change in the coming years. Parks will also have to deploy more rangers to prevent reckless behavior, another potentially costly endeavor.&#160;“Every time we put staff out where we didn’t have staff before, that costs money,” Krumenaker says.</p>
<p>Frustratingly, even if parks do invest more in visitor safety education, there’s no guarantee that outdoor adventurers will heed rangers’ warnings. Krumenaker recounted to me how just this summer, park rangers at Apostle Islands warned a kayaker about big waves on the lake, but the kayaker decided to go ahead anyway. He capsized died of hypothermia just a few hours later.</p>
<p>In the wake of the Yosemite deaths, the park has posted a series of more drastic-sounding signs, reports the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904009304576530724021284688.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond" type="external">Wall Street Journal</a>. One reads: “If you lose your footing, powerful currents will carry you over the falls. There’s no second chance.”</p>
<p /> | Will Climate Change Make National Parks More Dangerous? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/yosemite-deaths-climate-change/ | 2011-09-19 | 4 |
<p>SPEARFISH, S.D. (AP) — Monday marks the 75th anniversary of a startling weather event that put a western South Dakota city in the record books: In just two minutes, the temperature in Spearfish jumped from negative 4 degrees (-20 Celsius) to 45 degrees (7 Celsius) on Jan. 22, 1943.</p>
<p>The temperature then increased to 54 degrees (12 Celsius), only to fall back down that morning to negative 4 degrees (-20 Celsius), the <a href="http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/degrees-in-minutes-spearfish-library-celebrates-record-breaking-weather-day/article_05e7b793-8ad4-5517-9a10-5a27546a328a.html?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=email&amp;utm_campaign=user-share" type="external">Rapid City Journal reported</a> .</p>
<p>The weather cracked plate glass windows and instantly frosted car windows, forcing drivers to pull over.</p>
<p>Meteorologist Susan Sanders said a combination of especially cold air from the north and east ran into warm air from the west.</p>
<p>“Warmer air came in and pushed (cold air) away,” said Sanders. “When the winds let up, the warmer air retreated and the cold air came back.”</p>
<p>Sanders said the air masses sloshed back and forth several times that remarkable morning 75 years ago.</p>
<p>The extreme temperature swings received national attention, including from “Ripley’s Believe it or Not.”</p>
<p>“There were newspaper stories from all over the country,” Sanders said.</p>
<p>She said there wasn’t much light-hearted news during the time, with World War II ongoing.</p>
<p>“It was something unusual that caught people’s attention,” Sanders said.</p>
<p>SPEARFISH, S.D. (AP) — Monday marks the 75th anniversary of a startling weather event that put a western South Dakota city in the record books: In just two minutes, the temperature in Spearfish jumped from negative 4 degrees (-20 Celsius) to 45 degrees (7 Celsius) on Jan. 22, 1943.</p>
<p>The temperature then increased to 54 degrees (12 Celsius), only to fall back down that morning to negative 4 degrees (-20 Celsius), the <a href="http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/degrees-in-minutes-spearfish-library-celebrates-record-breaking-weather-day/article_05e7b793-8ad4-5517-9a10-5a27546a328a.html?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=email&amp;utm_campaign=user-share" type="external">Rapid City Journal reported</a> .</p>
<p>The weather cracked plate glass windows and instantly frosted car windows, forcing drivers to pull over.</p>
<p>Meteorologist Susan Sanders said a combination of especially cold air from the north and east ran into warm air from the west.</p>
<p>“Warmer air came in and pushed (cold air) away,” said Sanders. “When the winds let up, the warmer air retreated and the cold air came back.”</p>
<p>Sanders said the air masses sloshed back and forth several times that remarkable morning 75 years ago.</p>
<p>The extreme temperature swings received national attention, including from “Ripley’s Believe it or Not.”</p>
<p>“There were newspaper stories from all over the country,” Sanders said.</p>
<p>She said there wasn’t much light-hearted news during the time, with World War II ongoing.</p>
<p>“It was something unusual that caught people’s attention,” Sanders said.</p> | 75 years since massive temperature swing in Spearfish | false | https://apnews.com/5b2567816ef14929a79b0f250c253cb5 | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
<p>Beijing said Tuesday it is willing to talk with the US about cyber security issues, though it did not mention specific areas for discussion.&#160;</p>
<p>The official announcement came a day after the White house called on Beijing to take " <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/us-calls-for-serious-action-by-china-to-stop-cyber-theft/2013/03/11/16b31a7e-8a7f-11e2-a88e-461ffa2e34e4_story.html" type="external">serious steps</a>" to curb cyber theft, as both countries have accused each other of hacking into foreign corporate and government websites, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/12/us-usa-china-cybersecurity-idUSBRE92A0XO20130312" type="external">according to Reuters</a>.</p>
<p>"China is willing, on the basis of the principles of mutual respect and mutual trust, to have constructive dialogue and cooperation on this issue with the international community including the US to maintain the security, openness and peace of the Internet," <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/12/us-usa-china-cybersecurity-idUSBRE92A0XO20130312" type="external">said China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chuying</a>.</p>
<p>On Monday, US National Security Advisor <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/world/asia/us-demands-that-china-end-hacking-and-set-cyber-rules.html?ref=global-home" type="external">Tom Donilon said</a> China must be open to dialogue with the US and agree to “acceptable norms of behavior in cyberspace.”</p>
<p>“Increasingly, US businesses are speaking out about their serious concerns about sophisticated, targeted theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies through cyber intrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale,” Donilon said in a speech to the Asia Society in New York.</p>
<p>Last month a US security firm released a detailed <a href="http://intelreport.mandiant.com/Mandiant_APT1_Report.pdf" type="external">60-page study</a> that linked China's army to cyber attacks against the US.&#160;</p>
<p>"Our research and observations indicate that the Communist Party of China is tasking the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to commit systematic cyber espionage and data theft against organizations around the world," the report said.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://web1.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/130219/chinas-army-linked-cyber-attacks-against-us" type="external">China's army linked to cyber attacks against US</a></p>
<p>Beijing claims two of its military websites suffered more than 140,000 cyber attacks a month last year, two-thirds of the invasions emanating from the US, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/12/us-usa-china-cybersecurity-idUSBRE92A0XO20130312" type="external">according to Reuters</a>. &#160;</p>
<p>At Tuesday's daily news briefing, Chuying repeated China's claim that it too is a victim of cyber theft and espionage. &#160;</p>
<p>"Internet security is a global issue. In fact, China is a marginalized group in this regard, and one of the biggest victims of hacking attacks," she said.</p> | China offers to talk with US about cyber security | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-03-12/china-offers-talk-us-about-cyber-security | 2013-03-12 | 3 |
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<p>With the $26,000-a-year pay cut, Bruin will report to acting director Paul Caster, who was hired last month to fill a newly created deputy director job. Caster will report for the time being to the city's Chief Operating Officer Michael Riordan.</p>
<p>The job shuffle came amid a controversy over Bruin's leadership and department practices involving the adoption of potentially dangerous dogs, among other issues.</p>
<p>Caster, who will earn $85,000 annually, has previously served along with his wife, Tammy Olson, as volunteer coordinator for the Animal Welfare Department. He couldn't be reached for comment Monday.</p>
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<p>He also is the founder and a board member of Stray Hearts and Animal Rescue Inc., and has served on the board of directors for Fur and Feather Animal Assistance Rescue in Pie Town, and the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in Ramah.</p>
<p>The city announced Oct. 1 that Bruin volunteered to step down from the director's job, which paid about $109,000 a year, according to the city's website. She had served as director since December 2009.</p>
<p>The city decided to create a deputy director position and hire four new animal behavior experts after investigations by the city's Office of Inspector General and a private investigative firm hired by the city administration. Both inquiries found problems in Animal Welfare practices regarding the adoption of "problematic dogs."</p>
<p>Caster, according to a r'sum?, retired in September after a 14-year career with the U.S. Air Force Office of Aerospace Studies, where he most recently worked as a senior analyst and a research analyst.</p>
<p>Prior to that, Caster spent about 20 years with the U.S. Army, where he worked at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, serving as deputy director from 1991 to 1993, among various jobs.</p>
<p>Mayoral spokeswoman Rhiannon Schroeder told the Journal on Monday that Caster was the only person interviewed for the new job.</p>
<p>"At the time we hired him, he had recently had an interview with both HR (Human Resources) and Planning for executive positions. Both directors highly recommended him for Animal Welfare," Schroeder said.</p>
<p>Both Caster's and Bruin's salaries will be funded through the department's approved budget, she said.</p>
<p>Schroeder told the Journal that Caster acting in place of Bruin "is an actual savings." There was no "senior animal program manager" position at the department, so Bruin's position was "modified" from a vacant animal program manager position, she added.</p>
<p>Monday was Caster's first day as acting director.</p>
<p>"We will begin the process of finding the permanent director soon and likely look at multiple opportunities to fill this position," Schroeder said.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Ex-Animal Welfare director gets new job, pay cut | false | https://abqjournal.com/669757/new-job-for-exdirector.html | 2015-11-03 | 2 |
<p>International Olympic Committee President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Rogge" type="external">Jacques Rogge</a> is standing firm. There will no be a minute of silence to mark the 40th anniversary of the killing of 11 Israeli nationals at the Munich Olympics, he said Saturday.</p>
<p>"We feel that the opening ceremony is an atmosphere that is not fit to remember such a tragic incident," Rogge said of the proposed commemoration of the 1972 attack by Palestinian gunmen, <a href="http://sports.ndtv.com/olympics-2012/news/item/193947-rogge-again-rules-out-minute-silence-for-israelis" type="external">the Associated Press reported</a>.</p>
<p>In 1972, members of the Black September Palestinian terror group killed 11 Israeli nationals during the Munich Olympics. Five of the terrorists and one German policeman were also killed</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com.pk/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CJEBEBYwAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.olympic.org%2F&amp;ei=-QkMUP21A9KzhAel1cjqCQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNFXK2C08S8SEwDVXC02ER-I4f-2vQ" type="external">The IOC</a> has come under pressure from politicians in countries including the United States, Germany, and Israel who have have asked the Olympic Committee to reconsider incorporating a minute of silence into the opening ceremony.</p>
<p>President Barack Obama also supports the campaign for a minute's silence, White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Yahoo News in an email Friday.&#160;</p>
<p>Rogge said the IOC will honor them at a reception in London during the games on Aug. 6. IOC officials will also attend a ceremony in Germany on the anniversary of the attack on Sept. 5 at the military airfield of Furstenfeldbruck where most of the Israelis died.</p>
<p>"We are going to pay a homage to the athletes, of course, as we always have done in the past and will do in the future," said Rogge. Rogge himself competed in yachting at the 1972 Olympics, <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/london-olympics-2012/news/Rogge-stands-firm-over-Israeli-memorial/articleshow/15085502.cms" type="external">the AFP reported.&#160;</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | IOC President rejects calls for a minute of silence for victims of 1972 Munich massacre | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-22/ioc-president-rejects-calls-minute-silence-victims-1972-munich-massacre | 2012-07-22 | 3 |
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<p>FILE – In this Oct. 16, 2014, file photo, a healthcare worker dons protective gear before entering an Ebola treatment center in Freetown, Sierra Leone. In a letter published online Wednesday, Dec. 24. 2014, by the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors report that the Ebola death rate seems to have fallen even though there are no specific medicines or vaccines to fight the virus. (AP Photo/Michael Duff, File)</p>
<p>One year into the world’s worst Ebola outbreak, doctors are reporting an encouraging sign: About 70 percent of patients in a hard-hit area of Sierra Leone now survive.</p>
<p>The Ebola death rate has fallen even though there are no specific medicines or vaccines to fight the virus. The outbreak began last December in the West African country of Guinea, but it wasn’t recognized until last spring. There have been nearly 20,000 cases and more than 7,500 deaths, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organization estimates.</p>
<p>In a letter published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Kathryn Jacobsen of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and other doctors tell of 581 patients taken to an Ebola treatment center that opened near Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, in late September.</p>
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<p>They were given antibiotics, malaria medicines, ibuprofen for pain and fever, intravenous nutrients, anti-nausea medicine and other supportive care. About 31 percent died, including 38 people who were dead when they arrived. Among those admitted more recently, since Nov. 5, mortality was less than 24 percent.</p>
<p>That is much lower than the 74 percent death rate other doctors reported for 106 patients who were treated in the eastern Sierra Leone town of Kenema, in May and June, when some health workers were on strike and response to the outbreak was in crisis mode.</p>
<p>The new results are cause for “cautious optimism” that access to care may be improving survival, said one author of the earlier report, Tulane University’s Dr. Daniel Bausch. But they are not from a clinical trial or experiment, so the value of any specific treatment is not known, he said.</p>
<p>In some previous Ebola outbreaks, survival has improved as time goes on and cases are detected and treated sooner. The pace of this outbreak also has slowed, and there have been far fewer cases than health officials had predicted. In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave a worst-case scenario estimate of as many as 1.4 million cases by mid-January without more help in the region. Last month, the agency said that projection won’t happen.</p>
<p>The CDC’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, just returned from his second trip to Ebola-stricken countries, and said “there’s been a world of difference” since his first visit several months ago.</p>
<p>“There’s been real momentum and real progress,” although there is still a long way to go to ending the outbreak, he said on a telephone briefing Monday. “The challenge is not to let up.”</p>
<p>In an editorial, the medical journal said the same.</p>
<p>“It is painfully clear that the world’s initial handling of this dangerous outbreak was far from optimal, but we now appear to be making progress in the battle,” the editors write.</p>
<p>But they say big medical centers in the U.S. “have sat largely on the sidelines” and need to make it easier for their staffs to help fight Ebola in Africa.</p>
<p>There are no specific drugs or vaccines to fight Ebola, but some experimental ones are being readied for testing. Doctors also recently started using the blood of Ebola survivors to treat new cases in Africa.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>Marilynn Marchione can be followed at <a href="http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP" type="external">http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP</a></p> | Report: Ebola survival improving in Sierra Leone | false | https://abqjournal.com/517023/report-ebola-survival-improving-in-sierra-leone.html | 2 |
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<p>Bluefield College has been ranked among the Top 50 “Best Comprehensive Undergraduate Colleges in the South” in U.S.News &amp; World Report's celebrated issue “America's Best Colleges: 2007.”</p>
<p>The number 49 ranking for Bluefield College marks the fourth consecutive year the school has earned the Top 50 status and the third year in a row that Bluefield College has been the highest ranked college among local higher education institutions.</p>
<p>Three hundred-twenty comprehensive undergraduate colleges in four regions of the United States are evaluated annually by U.S. News for its well-known publication of “America's Best Colleges.” This year, Bluefield College was ranked among the leading tier (Top 50) in the Southern region. The Southern region encompasses 12 states, including Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.</p>
<p>BC's number 49 (Top 50) ranking placed the institution with or above all other comprehensive undergraduate colleges in southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, including Concord University (ranked also at 49), Bluefield State College (ranked in the Top 51-75), and Mountain State University (ranked in the Top 76-100). Bluefield College also landed ahead of other like competitors in the South, including Alice Lloyd (KY) College, Fairmont (WV) State College, Ohio Valley (WV) College, Shepherd (WV) University, Tennessee Wesleyan College, Virginia Intermont College, West Virginia State University, and West Virginia Tech.</p>
<p>In the U.S. News rankings this fall, Bluefield College was particularly recognized for its small class sizes and personal attention to students as evidenced best in its “proportion of classes with less than 20 students.” In fact, BC was listed second among all comprehensive undergraduate colleges in the South in terms of small class sizes. Eighty-six percent of Bluefield College's classes have fewer than 20 students. Only Mid-Continent (Ky.) University at 87 percent scored higher than BC in this category. Similarly, the college earned the best score possible (0%) in the category for “percentage of classes with 50 or more students.”</p>
<p>Special to the Herald</p> | Bluefield College ranked among top 50 colleges in the South | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/bluefieldcollegerankedamongtop50collegesinthesouth/ | 3 |
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<p>The 92-year-old former president went into the ICU on Wednesday and underwent a procedure “to protect and clear his airway that required sedation,” family spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement.</p>
<p>Bush was stable and resting comfortably at Houston Methodist Hospital, McGrath said.</p>
<p>The 41st president was placed in the ICU to address “an acute respiratory problem stemming from pneumonia,” McGrath said. He later told The Associated Press that doctors were happy with how the procedure went. Bush was first admitted to the hospital Saturday for shortness of breath.</p>
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<p>“I don’t think there’s a whole lot of money to be gained betting against George Bush,” McGrath said. “We’re just kind of in a wait-and-see mode.”</p>
<p>McGrath said Barbara Bush, who is 91, had not been feeling well for a couple of weeks and decided “to take it out of committee and have the experts check it out.” He described the move as precautionary.</p>
<p>Physicians initially believed the former president would be released later this week following several days of treatment, but his stay has been extended, McGrath said. There is no timetable for his release.</p>
<p>Doctors want to see how the former first lady responds to treatment before allowing her to return home, he said.</p>
<p>The Bushes, who were married Jan. 6, 1945, have had the longest marriage of any presidential couple in American history. At the time of their wedding, he was a young naval aviator. She had been a student at Smith College.</p>
<p>After World War II, the pair moved to the Texas oil patch to seek their fortune and raise a family. It was there that George Bush began his political career, representing Houston for two terms in Congress in the late 1960s and early 1970s.</p>
<p>Bush, who served as president from 1989 to 1993, has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility. He was hospitalized in 2015 in Maine after falling at his summer home and breaking a bone in his neck. He was also hospitalized in Houston the previous December for about a week for shortness of breath. He spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues.</p>
<p>Despite his loss of mobility, Bush celebrated his 90th birthday by making a tandem parachute jump in Kennebunkport, Maine. Last summer, Bush led a group of 40 wounded warriors on a fishing trip at the helm of his speedboat, three days after his 92nd birthday celebration.</p>
<p>Bush’s office announced earlier this month that the couple would not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration because of the former president’s age and health.</p>
<p>“My doctor says if I sit outside in January, it likely will put me six feet under. Same for Barbara. So I guess we’re stuck in Texas,” Bush wrote in a letter to Trump.</p>
<p>His son George W. Bush, the 43rd president, still expects to attend the inauguration and does not plan to travel to Houston, spokesman Freddy Ford said.</p>
<p>George Herbert Walker Bush, born June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, also served as a congressman, CIA director and Ronald Reagan’s vice president.</p>
<p>George W. Bush was elected president in 2000 and served two terms. Another son, Jeb, served as Florida governor and made an unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination in 2016. Only one other U.S. president, John Adams, had a son who also became president.</p> | Former President George H.W. Bush and wife hospitalized | false | https://abqjournal.com/930920/former-president-george-h-w-bush-and-wife-hospitalized.html | 2017-01-18 | 2 |
<p>As they prepared to approve CPS’ $6 billion budget on Wednesday, board members asked district officials hard questions, many of which they didn’t yet have answers to.&#160;</p>
<p>In order to balance the budget, CPS officials had to close a projected $712 million deficit. They did so by proposing a budget rescinding 4 percent raises promised to unionized workers, including teachers, and saying that they were going to make deep programmatic and administrative cuts.&#160;</p>
<p>The budget was unanimously approved, even though negotiations over the raises are still ongoing and some of the programmatic and administrative cuts will be determined over the next month and a half.</p>
<p>Under the new budget, 75 percent of the district’s expenditures will be in school budgets; 3 percent will be in Central Office, and 1 percent will be in network offices, Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley said. The remaining 21 percent are in citywide services such as food service, transportation, and teachers that work at multiple schools.</p>
<p>Even with the budget cuts, the district still has a $241.1 million deficit that will be covered by its reserves.&#160;</p>
<p>“We felt that cutting expenses another $240 million to avoid tapping into our reserves would have been draconian,” Cawley said.</p>
<p>Board member Penny Pritzker asked for more details on how district officials prioritize capital projects. Cawley responded that it will depend on the results of the district’s portfolio study. On Wednesday, the board hired Oliver Sicat to be its first Chief Portfolio Officer. Sicat has been the principal at Noble Street Charter School’s UIC College Prep campus for five years and is a former math teacher. He has his masters’ degree in education from Harvard University.</p>
<p>He will be charged with figuring out how to make sure that each neighborhood has good schools and not too many empty seats. The district also has the Parthenon Group studying the distribution of school seats around the district in a “portfolio analysis” research project.</p>
<p>Cawley said the district has a shocking number of under-utilized schools. <a href="" type="internal">A report done last year</a>showed that 156 CPS elementary school or 38 percent of all district-run elementary schools are half full.&#160;</p>
<p>But key to answering the question of which schools to close and which schools to invest in is answering the question of what kind of school district CPS will be.&#160;</p>
<p>“If the goal is to have children walk three blocks to school you invest differently than if 20 to 30 percent are getting on the bus to go to a magnet or charter school,” he said.&#160;</p>
<p>Board member Henry Bienen asked for a breakdown of where the district’s charter and contract school money went. Because of new charter schools and increased enrollment in some of them, some 5,000 more students are attending them and the amount allocated to them increased this year to $426.9 million, from $361.1 million last year, Cawley said.</p>
<p>“We don’t have that detail,” Cawley responded. “We pay the charters a per-pupil amount and they are free to spend that however they want… some of them share their financial performance with us.”</p>
<p>However, Cawley said, CPS does need to get tough on under-performing charter and contract schools.&#160;</p>
<p>“We are delayed with that return on investment in many charters and disappointed with it in others,” he said. “We need to turn that disappointment into action.”</p>
<p>Another big question looming over the budget is what will happen with the teacher’s pay raises. By not paying the 4 percent raises to unionized workers, officials have said the district will save $100 million, $80 million of which would have gone to teachers.</p>
<p>CTU officials said on Monday that CPS negotiators told them they couldn’t afford a raise at all. Then, on Tuesday’s “Chicago Tonight” television program, Brizard offered elementary school teachers a 2 percent raise if they would agree to lengthen the school day by 90 minutes and the school year by two weeks.</p>
<p>Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis questioned why the raise was brought up after talks with the district had broken down, and on television instead of at the bargaining table.</p>
<p>“That would have been something I could have brought to our membership,” she said. On Tuesday evening, <a href="/notebook/index.php/entry/1238/Teachers_put_off_vote_on_terminating_union_contract_with_CPS" type="external">the House of Delegates met</a>. “It would have been nice if they had given it to us during the negotiations… for some reason they decided to do it on Channel 11.”</p>
<p>She said she believes the district will move to a longer school day eventually, next school year, and “I’m hoping we can use that time to plan for it appropriately.”</p>
<p>However, she said, she is not getting a positive reaction from teachers over the offer for this year.</p>
<p>“They are not happy,” Lewis said. “They’re doing the math and they are coming up with $3 an hour (for the extra time). That’s what they’ll be making.”</p>
<p>Many supporters of a longer school day, wearing stickers that said “90 More Minutes,” rallied before the meeting and showed up to signal their support for the district’s efforts.</p>
<p>Rev. Marrion Johnson, Sr., the pastor at Come Alive Ministry of Faith on East 73rd Street, said a short school day is partly to blame for the district’s 300 failing schools.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>“We need to have 90 minutes more, longer school days, and it needs to begin now,” he said. “(It will give students) the opportunity to become contributing members of our society, rather than menaces to our society.”</p>
<p>In a budget presentation, schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard outlined his goal of creating a “leaner, more agile central office” and noted that despite this year’s cuts, the system is facing a potential fiscal disaster down the road.</p>
<p>“We have some pretty scary numbers coming our way in a few years,” he said, including projected deficits of $362.5 million in fiscal year 2013 and $861.7 million in fiscal year 2014, even without giving employees any raises.&#160;</p>
<p>Board president David Vitale said part of the problem stemmed from the state failing to contribute to the Chicago Teacher Pension Fund, which it customarily had done because Chicago taxpayers contribute to the teacher pension fund that covers the rest of the state.&#160;</p>
<p>Even as the number of teachers employed by the districts has decreased, salary costs are going up, including a $35 million increase for teacher step and lane increases, and a $25 million increase in health care costs. The district has lost more than 2,000 teaching positions since fiscal year 2007, but total costs have gone from $1.9 billion to more than $2 billion.</p>
<p>“As our number of teachers declines, the expense of investing in teachers has gone up, year after year,” said Cawley. So are the costs of paying for the district’s capital projects debt.</p>
<p>“I am tired and embarrassed of responding to questions about how we will close that gap with, ‘I don’t know,’” Cawley said. “We have got to develop a plan… we cannot save our way to success here.”</p>
<p>As for this year’s cuts, many haven’t been figured out yet. The district is relying on a forensic audit of Central Office. Preliminary results indicate that the chief education office will slash $50 million, including money spent with “vendors that we’re not really sure what we’re getting for it.”</p>
<p>Cawley says the district will report back the audit’s findings at the September board meeting.&#160;</p>
<p>“This organization has become blunt, inefficient, overcomplicated, and is allocating too much money into areas that are not delivering value for our students,” he said.&#160;</p>
<p>The budget for network offices has also been cut nearly in half, from $74.6 million last year to $42.6 million this year.</p>
<p>Violence prevention programs are losing about a quarter of their funding this year, or $9.1 million, and Cawley said CPS will try to work with other city agencies to “get some synergy” and see if they could take over any of the work. Ultimately, he said, the $31.7 million that CPS is still planning to spend is money that isn’t going toward educating students.</p>
<p>He also noted that <a href="/notebook/index.php#1241" type="external">some special education expenses “can be trimmed back</a>, without having any impact on students, where we are not getting a return on our investment.”&#160;</p>
<p>But, he said, the district has increased expenditures on all classroom-related categories, except for a $5 million cut to textbooks and supplies. “The schools are where the money is,” he said. Magnet, early-childhood education, turnaround, and special education funding are up.</p> | CPS board passes budget, questions remain | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/cps-board-passes-budget-questions-remain/ | 2011-08-24 | 3 |
<p />
<p />
<p>PEW Research conducted a recent poll studying religious and political views of central and eastern-European countries came out on Wednesday. The main point being hatred for the innocent Jews, who never did anything to anybody, but are nonetheless hated for absolutely no reason whatsoever.</p>
<p />
<p>A report from Breitbart <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/05/12/survey-many-eastern-european-countries-reject-jews-as-citizens/" type="external">breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/05/12/survey-many-eastern-european-countries-reject-jews-as-citizens</a> said that the survey, was conducted by the PEW from June 2015 to July 2016 through face-to-face interviews in 17 languages with more than 25,000 adults ages 18 and older.&#160;The survey spans an area running eastward from the Czech Republic and Poland to Russia, Georgia, and Armenia, and southward from the Baltic States to the Balkans and Greece.</p>
<p />
<p>Among those surveyed were residents of 18 countries, finding&#160;less than 50 percent of respondents indicated they would accept having Jewish family members.</p>
<p />
<p>There were variations in Anti-Jewish sentiments across different countries, with&#160;some nationalities more predisposed&#160;than others to open hostility to members of the Jewish faith. A third of Armenians polled in the study said Jews should not be citizens, significantly higher than the median anti-Jewish sentiment measured in other countries.</p>
<p />
<p>Nations with large Jewish populations prior to the Holocaust registered higher levels of anti-Jewish sentiment, including Lithuania (23 %), Romania (22 %), the Czech Republic (19 percent) and Poland (18 %).</p>
<p />
<p>Based on the fact that the countries with the most experience with Jews are also the ones least likely to like them is all because of ignorance and nothing else.&#160; Implying that it might have to do something with, say, creating communism and then killing tens of millions of people across these countries is just pure hatred. A small number of people in the Czech Republic believe faggotry is wrong than in many western European countries.</p>
<p />
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.dailystormer.com/shock-survey-finds-that-the-more-you-know-about-kikes-the-more-prejudiced-you-are-towards-them/" type="external">dailystormer.com/shock-survey-finds-that-the-more-you-know-about-kikes-the-more-prejudiced-you-are-towards-them</a></p> | Survey Finds The More You Know About Jews, The More Prejudiced You Are Towards Them | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/2876-Survey-Finds-The-More-You-Know-About-Jews-The-More-Prejudiced-You-Are-Towards-Them | 2017-05-13 | 0 |
<p>CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday evening's drawing of the West Virginia Lottery's "Cash 25" game were:</p>
<p>03-04-07-17-18-22</p>
<p>(three, four, seven, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-two)</p>
<p>CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday evening's drawing of the West Virginia Lottery's "Cash 25" game were:</p>
<p>03-04-07-17-18-22</p>
<p>(three, four, seven, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-two)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Cash 25' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/6d87fd6e9adc4caf8cc492ed5645eb80 | 2018-01-20 | 2 |
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<p>A recent study by Longwoods International, a national research firm that specializes in measuring the effectiveness of tourism advertising campaigns, shows the effort launched in April brought back $3.6 million in state and local taxes. It also produced 264,000 additional trips and generated $35.1 million in additional visitor spending.</p>
<p>And for every dollar spent on advertising, visitors spent $30 in New Mexico, the report says.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“The results of this research demonstrate that our new campaign has been effective in motivating people to visit our state,” Jacobson said in releasing the study on Wednesday. “Our investment is paying off — every visit results in jobs, tax revenue and a stronger economy for New Mexico.”</p>
<p>She emphasized that the study used very conservative metrics, counting only trips that people said they planned after seeing the ads.</p>
<p>The state has launched advertising campaigns in the past, but it has never hired a professional firm to quantify their effectiveness, Jacobson said.</p>
<p>Development of the New Mexico True branding and advertising campaign was a nearly singular focus of Jacobson’s from the time she took over the agency in early 2011 until it was launched in April. The idea was to create a brand that would help the state more effectively compete with neighboring tourism destinations like Colorado and Arizona.</p>
<p>Sharon Schultz, CEO of the Tourism Association of New Mexico, called the returns “significant,” and credited the campaign with helping attract more airlines and flights to Albuquerque and Santa Fe.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, United announced it would join Great Lakes Airlines in adding flights between Denver and Santa Fe. Last month, Jet Blue announced it would launch nonstop service between Albuquerque and New York, giving the city once-a-day non-stops to and from JFK airport.</p>
<p>The state also has earned top rankings in several key travel publications recently.</p>
<p>Jacobson said she will use the study to support her request that lawmakers double her department’s annual advertising budget, from $2.5 million to $5 million and expand its reach beyond the regional drive market and to cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and possibly New York.</p> | N.M. Ad Campaign Gives 3-to-1 Return | false | https://abqjournal.com/154630/n-m-ad-campaign-gives-3-to-1-return.html | 2 |
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<p>This year's MoneyRates.com Best States to Retire list includes some traditional warm-weather havens, such as Hawaii, California and Florida. But you may be surprised to see a few off-the-beaten-path locales in the top 10 too. For instance, have you considered South Dakota for your retirement?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>While MoneyRates.com recognizes that much of what marks a good place for retirement is subjective -- family and friends, cultural attractions, natural beauty -- there are plenty of objective, quantifiable factors to examine too. Knowing how a state performs in certain measures is important before you choose it for your retirement, and that's precisely what these rankings are about.</p>
<p>What matters to retirees</p>
<p>Here are the factors MoneyRates.com used to determine its third-annual lists of best and worst states to retire:</p>
<p>Best states for retirement in 2012</p>
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<p>Based on equally weighted rankings of those factors, the following is a list of the top 10 states for retirement. As a bonus, there are 11 states listed, due to a tie for 10th place.</p>
<p>1. Hawaii</p>
<p>Seniors in Hawaii live longer past the age of 65 than in any other state in the nation. This might have something to do with the pleasant climate, which ranked second in our calculation of consistently moderate temperatures. One warning, though: Make sure you have a <a href="http://www.money-rates.com/realpeople/achieving-a-retirement-comeback.htm?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-148070210" type="external">well-funded retirement plan Opens a New Window.</a>, because Hawaii also has the highest cost of living in the U.S.</p>
<p>2. Idaho</p>
<p>This may be one of the surprises on the list, but Idaho combines a low crime rate with a good economy. There must be something to it -- only two states boast faster-growing senior populations than Idaho.</p>
<p>3. Utah</p>
<p>Like Idaho, this is not the place to go if you want a tropical climate, but Utah was one of the top states overall for economic factors. It is also similar to Idaho in that it has a fast-growing senior population.</p>
<p>4. Arizona</p>
<p>This warm-weather state has long attracted retirees, and people seem to thrive there -- life expectancy for 65-year-olds is third-highest in the nation. Be careful about the neighborhood you choose, though, because crime in the state is on the high side.</p>
<p>5. Virginia</p>
<p>Looking for something east of the Mississippi River? Virginia is one of two possibilities on this list. This state scored very well for its low crime rate, and reasonably well on every other criterion except life expectancy.</p>
<p>6. Colorado</p>
<p>While this might be a bit of a cold-weather state for some, Colorado's other attractions for seniors more than offset that. Only three states have seen faster growth in their senior populations, which is helped by the fact that seniors in Colorado tend to live for a long time.</p>
<p>7. (tie) Florida</p>
<p>Perhaps the state best-known for attracting retirees, Florida ranks first for climate and second for life expectancy among seniors. Still, this is another state where it matters very much where you live. The overall crime rate is among the highest in the nation.</p>
<p>7. (tie) New Mexico</p>
<p>This southwestern state has been attracting seniors at a rapid rate, but as with Florida, you'll want to pick your location with care. New Mexico's overall crime rate is one of the 10 worst in the nation.</p>
<p>9. South Dakota</p>
<p>The cold climate in this state probably explains why it hasn't traditionally attracted seniors in large numbers, but those seniors that do live there have one of the highest average life expectancies in the nation. The crime rate is also one of the lowest in the U.S.</p>
<p>10. (tie) California</p>
<p>Its economic woes are well-known, and worth considering, but California's climate goes a long way toward explaining why it has been attractive to seniors. Life expectancies are also among the best in the nation.</p>
<p>10. (tie) Texas</p>
<p>Warm weather and a solid economy have helped make Texas attractive to seniors. However, it's a big state that's not without its trouble spots: The overall crime rate is another one of the nation's 10 worst.</p>
<p>Perhaps the greatest strength of the above list is its variety: East Coast, West Coast, North, and South are all represented. So whatever regional connections and preferences you have, this list should give you at least one retirement possibility to consider.</p>
<p>For more on how other states placed, please see our list of <a href="http://www.money-rates.com/research-center/worst-states-for-retirement/2012.htm?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-148070210" type="external">10 Worst Places to Retire Opens a New Window.</a> and the full <a href="http://www.money-rates.com/research-center/best-states-for-retirement/2012-complete-list.htm?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-148070210" type="external">50-state rankings Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The original article can be found at Money-Rates.com: <a href="http://www.money-rates.com/research-center/best-states-for-retirement/2012.htm?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-148070210" type="external">10 Best States to Retire 2012 Opens a New Window.</a></p> | Ten Best States to Retire 2012 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/10/25/10-best-states-to-retire-2012.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) Carson Wentz threw a touchdown pass a few plays after suffering an injury that could ruin a special season for the Philadelphia Eagles, and then stuck around to greet teammates and celebrate a division-clinching victory with them.</p>
<p>It's always team-first for No. 11.</p>
<p>Two sources familiar with the injury told The Associated Press that doctors believe Wentz tore his left anterior cruciate ligament in a 43-35 comeback win over the Rams on Sunday and will miss the rest of the season and playoffs.</p>
<p>Wentz, a favorite in the NFL MVP race, will have an MRI on Monday to confirm the severity of the injury. Both people spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.</p>
<p>After the game, Wentz's left knee was wrapped in a brace. He was driven in a cart up the tunnel at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and then hobbled to one of the team buses.</p>
<p>"I don't know anything until we evaluate him (Monday)," Eagles coach Doug Pederson said.</p>
<p>Wentz wrote on Twitter: "NFC East Champs! So proud of the resiliency of this team. Such a special group of men. And I greatly appreciate all the prayers! I know my God is a powerful one with a perfect plan. Time to just lean in to him and trust whatever the circumstances! #Proverbs3:5-6"</p>
<p>Wentz was hurt late in the third quarter at Los Angeles. Backup Nick Foles rallied the Eagles (11-2) to a win that secured the NFC East title and put them in first place in the conference with three games remaining.</p>
<p>"Everyone is really excited about the win but you have your starting quarterback go down, it's emotional," Foles said. "It's emotional for me. I work with him every day so I'm dealing with that."</p>
<p>The Eagles have overcome several key injuries and now have to move forward without their most indispensable player. Nine-time Pro Bowl left tackle Jason Peters, return specialist/running back Darren Sproles, star linebacker Jordan Hicks and special-teams captain Chris Maragos already went down for the season.</p>
<p>But they're not the franchise quarterback.</p>
<p>"It (stinks) more so for Carson as a person and a friend and a teammate and what he puts into the game and his preparation," safety Malcolm Jenkins said. "But as a team we have all our goals in front of us."</p>
<p>Wentz is the latest NFL star to go down in a season in which several high-profile players have been sidelined. Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and safety Kam Chancellor, Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt and quarterback Deshaun Watson, Giants receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Brandon Marshall, Chiefs safety Eric Berry, Browns tackle Joe Thomas and Vikings running back Dalvin Cook and quarterback Sam Bradford each sustained season-ending injuries.</p>
<p>After starting all 16 games as a rookie, Wentz made a giant leap this year. He passed for 3,296 yards, 33 TDs and only seven interceptions.</p>
<p>Wentz again was spectacular against the Rams before he got hurt after getting hit hard as he scrambled into the end zone on a play that was called back because of holding. He stayed in the game and threw a 3-yard TD pass to Alshon Jeffery on fourth down four plays later, setting the franchise record for most TD passes in a season.</p>
<p>"It shows how tough he is," Pederson said.</p>
<p>Foles replaced Wentz the next drive after the Rams took a 35-31 lead. He led the Eagles to a pair of field goals on consecutive drives. Second-year pro Nate Sudfeld is Philadelphia's No. 3 quarterback.</p>
<p>Wentz arrived in Philadelphia as the No. 2 pick in the 2016 draft out of North Dakota State. On Sunday, he outperformed Rams quarterback Jared Goff, the No. 1 pick in that draft.</p>
<p>Despite the injury, Wentz celebrated the victory over the Rams (9-4) with teammates.</p>
<p>"He's one of the leaders on the team. He was there congratulating and celebrating with everyone," Foles said.</p>
<p>Foles, a third-round pick by former Eagles coach Andy Reid in 2012, is in his second stint in Philadelphia. He replaced an injured Michael Vick in 2013 and led the Eagles to an NFC East title during Chip Kelly's first season as coach. Foles tied an NFL record with seven TD passes in a game at Oakland in November 2013 and finished that season with 27 TDs and only two picks. The Eagles lost at home to New Orleans in the playoffs. Foles went to the Pro Bowl and was the offensive MVP.</p>
<p>But Kelly traded Foles to St. Louis for Sam Bradford after the 2014 season. Foles spent a year with the Rams, a season with the Chiefs and returned to Philadelphia as a free agent this season.</p>
<p>"I'm absolutely ready to go — need be," Foles said. "I prepare every day."</p> | Sources: Wentz injury feared to be ACL tear | false | http://valleynewslive.com/content/sports/Wentz-leaves-Eagles-win-with-injury-463268303.html | 2018-10-07 | 1 |
<p>Having only just escaped death a few weeks ago, I am now trying to focus on my healing process. I am attempting to follow my doctors’ orders, manage my pain, build up my strength and think positive, healing thoughts. Therefore, I am trying to ignore politics. This was not too difficult in the hospital, where nobody talks about politics except to laugh about Rush Limbaugh’s latest drug problems.</p>
<p>But now that I’m home, talking to clients and writing a new book at the computer, I can’t resist surfing the web, and finding, to my predictable horror, that the world, or at least the Middle Eastern part of the world, is indeed blowing up like a 12-truck collision, or going to “shit” as our American president has so eloquently stated on the global stage.</p>
<p>With dozens of Iraqis getting killed each day, often by men in police uniforms, central Iraq is obviously boiling alive in a Sunni-Shia civil war. Of course, no one wants to declare this war, since that is a certain way to get oneself killed. Then again, going to work, getting groceries or just sitting in one’s house huddled under one’s bed are also almost-certain ways to get oneself killed in this once fairly peaceful country that BushCo went and *liberated* into Hell.</p>
<p>Then there’s the “shit” between Israel and Lebanon, Israel bombing and slaughtering Lebanese innocents on a level that rivals the American bombing of Baghdad, as Hezbollah lobs Katyusha rockets into Northern Israel, killing civilians and wreaking havoc. In the past, an American president could come in and broker some kind of peace. It would be grudging and temporary, but at least it would save a few lives, humble the militants, and give the locals some breathing space. But the current American president is way too busy wriggling his middle finger up his ass, occasionally removing it to smell the situation which he then pronounces to be “shit.” Since he is doing as little as possible about this, as well as the other “shit” in Iraq, not to mention the toxic “shit,” ie., waste, that is choking our environment, one can only assume our Commander-in-Chief is a coprophiliac (another fetish he has in common with der fuehrer).</p>
<p>How is a pain-riddled convalescent like me supposed to think positive, healing thoughts in a brutal, leaderless world like this? Being an agnostic, I’m not much for praying. And now that I’m home, I don’t even have my morphine to comfort me. So I just take my Vicodin, give occasional blowjobs, and hug the cuddly stuffed bonobo that my H got me in the USC gift shop. I look into his worried plastic eyes, and I hope for healing. If my body could achieve this miraculous recovery, maybe the world can too.</p>
<p>P.S. Multiple thanks, a big kiss and a bigger orgasm to everyone who has sent me “get well” emails, cards, toys, goody baskets, Speakeasy donations, and yes, even prayers. Though recent studies have shown that prayers don’t help and may even hinder the convalescence of the sick, it’s the thought that counts, and I appreciate your positive, healing thoughts.</p>
<p>© July 19, 2006, DR. SUSAN BLOCK. For reprint rights, please email <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.&#160; DR. SUSAN BLOCK is a sex educator, cable TV hostand author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Commit Bloggamy with her at <a href="http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/" type="external">http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/</a> Send comments to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Bush’s Fecal World | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/07/22/bush-s-fecal-world/ | 2006-07-22 | 4 |
<p>Several dozen Syrian extremists linked to both al-Nusra Front and ISIS, who committed “numerous massacres” of civilians and captives, have sought asylum in Germany, Der Spiegel reports.</p>
<p>Some 60 members of a Syrian militant group called Liwa Owais al-Korani or the Owais al-Korani Brigade arrived to Germany as refugees, Der Spiegel <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/terroristen-fahnder-jagen-60-islamistische-kaempfer-in-deutschland-a-1165656.html" type="external">reports</a>, citing sources within the German security services.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/401353-merkel-eu-border-control/" type="external" /></p>
<p>The Owais al-Korani Brigade initially fought on the side of the Free Syrian Army but then switched sides and joined al-Nusra Front (now self-styled Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) – Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, the weekly says, adding that the group also fought alongside Islamic State(IS, former ISIS/ISIL) in the Raqqa province for months.</p>
<p>The group’s fighters were involved in “numerous massacres of captured civilians and Syrian soldiers,” the report says, adding that at least 300 people died at the hands of the militants.</p>
<p>One of the Owais al-Korani Brigade former commanders identified as Abdul Dschawad al-K., who came to Germany in October 2014 and was granted asylum, took part in the mass execution of civilians and prisoners of war.</p>
<p>During the massacre that happened near the Syrian town of Tabka in March 2013, the Owais al-Korani Brigade militants killed 36 policemen, administrative workers and militia fighters who supported Syrian President Bashar Assad. Some of the massacre victims were beheaded.</p>
<p>The German state security service, the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (BfV), established a special task force to deal with the group members who came to Germany, according to the Spiegel report. So far, the investigators have successfully identified 25 former Owais al-Korani Brigade fighters who sought asylum in Germany.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/395316-germany-extremism-radicalization-report/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Some of the group’s members have already been charged with war crimes and will stand trial in late September. Abdul Dschawad al-K, who is also among those charged, not only took part in massacres in Syria but also reportedly planned to carry out a terrorist attack in the German city of Dusseldorf in the name of Islamic State.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the security services believe that more than 30 former Owais al-Korani Brigade fighters who entered Germany remain unidentified as the investigators have so far failed to track them down.</p>
<p>The German security services came on the trail of the group by chance after one of its members admitted to being a former Owais al-Korani Brigade fighter during his asylum interview, Spiegel reports. In a separate incident in 2014, other members of the group were recognized by the relatives of their victims, who also came to Germany as refugees.</p>
<p>Over the past few years Europe has witnessed the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, which reached its peak in 2015.</p>
<p>Germany has been the most popular destination for new arrivals, and the country has allowed in more than 1 million asylum seekers since 2015, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel introduced her so-called ‘open-door’ policy for those fleeing war and persecution in Middle Eastern and African countries.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/392277-germany-children-fingerprinting-messengers/" type="external" /></p>
<p>The mass influx of refugees had a major impact on Germany’s security situation. The head of the Bavarian department of the BfV, Manfred Hauser, <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/355587-refugees-isis-sleepers-germany/" type="external">warned</a> in August 2016 that “hit squads” linked to Islamic State might have infiltrated Germany disguised as refugees. He added that his agency was looking into “hundreds” of such cases.</p>
<p>Around the same time, Germany fell victim to a series of terrorist attacks carried out by refugees and claimed by Islamic State. In July 2016, a rejected asylum seeker blew himself up outside a wine bar near a music festival in the German town of Ansbach. The explosion injured 15 people.</p>
<p>The same month, a 17-year-old Afghan refugee attacked passengers on a train in Wuerzburg, shouting, “Allahu Akbar” and wounding five people. The attacker was shot dead by police, who later found a homemade Islamic State flag in his room.</p>
<p>The most notorious attack, however, happened in December 2016 when a Tunisian asylum seeker, who had pledged his allegiance to Islamic State, plowed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people.</p>
<p>In 2016 alone, jihadists carried out five attacks while security services thwarted another seven, <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/395316-germany-extremism-radicalization-report/" type="external">according</a> to the BfV.</p>
<p>Since that time, the German security services have repeatedly <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/379875-germany-terrorist-attacks-possible/" type="external">warned</a> against the high level of a terrorist threat in the Federal Republic, with the head of the BfV, Hans-Georg Maassen, saying that Germany “must expect further attacks by individuals or terror groups” which “may occur any time.”</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/391981-germany-syrian-brothers-nusra/" type="external" /></p>
<p>A BfV <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/395316-germany-extremism-radicalization-report/" type="external">report</a> published this summer put the number of Islamists who remained in Germany at 24,400, including around 10,000 Salafists, an ultra-conservative movement within Sunni Islam, followers of which have been prone to terrorism. It also once again warned that new potential terrorists could be “possibly entering Europe under cover as part of the migration movement” as well as those returning from war zones in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p>In April 2017, a <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/385719-germany-refugees-afghanistan-taliban/" type="external">report</a> by Der Spiegel said that thousands of Afghan refugees who came to Germany admitted during interviews with representatives of the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) that they either had contacts with some radical Islamist groups in Afghanistan or had directly fought for the extremists.</p>
<p>The weekly also said at that time that the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office had already opened criminal cases against 70 Afghan refugees after verifying their statements and six asylum seekers had been arrested.</p> | Dozens of Al-Nusra, ISIS-affiliated jihadists entered Germany posing as refugees – report | false | https://newsline.com/dozens-of-al-nusra-isis-affiliated-jihadists-entered-germany-posing-as-refugees-report/ | 2017-09-03 | 1 |
<p>Screen shot of Tameka Harris from <a href="https://gma.yahoo.com/tameka-tiny-harris-gets-surgical-eye-color-change-143039147--abc-news-celebrities.html" type="external">“Good Morning America.”</a></p>
<p>Last week actress Renée Zellweger caused a stir when she posed for cameras with her <a href="http://www.people.com/article/renee-zellweger-speaks-out-different-look" type="external">new, different look</a>. This week, singer and reality-TV star Tameka “Tiny” Harris <a href="http://madamenoire.com/482431/tameka-tiny-harris-permanently-changes-eye-color-ice-gray/" type="external">appeared on Instagram</a> with a new, permanent ice-gray eye color. To some, these events might seem like they are pulled from the technologically dystopian TV series <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_%28TV_series%29" type="external">“Black Mirror,”</a>in which people get permanent memory and IQ implants and bring dead loved ones back to life through social media. To others, these events may seem like all-too-real attempts at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Clearly-Invisible-Marcia-Alesan-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B00IGDXOHY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1414446013&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=clearly+invisible" type="external">“passing”</a> — being accepted, or representing oneself successfully as a member of a different group than the one(s) to which society says a person belongs.</p>
<p>To me, Zellweger’s and Harris’ updated images are invitations to a future that may await us all. I call it Passing 2.0, an era of “identity reassignment” bound only by the limits of imagination, money and technology. An era in which questions of well-being as they relate to age, gender, race, occupation and class can be treated with ambivalence — if they are treated at all.</p>
<p>In this future some of us will grow accustomed to the sights and sounds of diversity and the ideal that law and culture treat every person equally. Meanwhile, others will grow increasingly uncomfortable and experience discontent with the identities we’ve been assigned at birth and/or the stereotypical roles associated with those identities.</p>
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<p>Zellweger and Harris may be among the latter group. As such, they are teaching us a couple of lessons about how identity looks and feels in our techno-driven world.</p>
<p>Lesson 1: Privacy. Basically, these women’s new appearances reveal that identity is on its way to becoming an editable “profile” that can be considered private property worth protecting when you pay for it. Yet, because Zellweger and Harris have both found difficulty in settling on “appropriate” angles for justifying their changes, we learn that women find it hard to protect themselves with a veneer of privacy, especially when they choose to occupy spaces in which they “naturally belong.”</p>
<p>Lesson 2: Assimilation. While many critics might argue that these two women are only attempting to assimilate identity categories based in white supremacy and patriarchy, they actually represent the profound failures of an assimilationist project. What’s more, Zellweger and Harris teach us that when assimilation fails, appropriation — through the dramatic step of cosmetic procedures, in their cases — takes its place. The fact that these elective procedures are available to the likes of celebrities also raises the question of whether age, race and gender — equal parts biology, sociology and, now, consumer choice — can ever be transcended.</p>
<p>In the end, Zellweger’s and Harris’ updated looks present us with an opportunity to think more about some dilemmas of identification and representation in our present moment from a future-oriented perspective. What makes the matter all the more interesting is the outrage the women face as they re-enter the public sphere. No matter what anyone thinks about their new looks, Zellweger and Harris are early adopters, modeling for all of us how identities and experiences are filtered through and determined by technologies of race, class, gender and health. And for that reason they invite a closer look.</p> | Wearable Technology or Identity Reassignment?: Renee Zellweger's and Tameka Harris' Transformations | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/wearable-technology-or-identity-reassignment-renee-zellwegers-and-tameka-harris-transformations/ | 2014-11-01 | 4 |
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<p>Brenda Valenzuela, left, and her sister, Magaly Luna, discuss President Obama’s executive action on immigration on Thursday. Valenzuela was 6 months old when her parents packed her and Luna into a car and drove from the family home in Chihuahua, Mexico, to the United States 25 years ago. (Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>LAS CRUCES – Thousands of New Mexico families of mixed immigration status saw their fortunes change with the president’s decision to defer deportation for some parents and their children.</p>
<p>“To me, it’s a dream come true,” said Cesar, a New Mexico State University graduate student who was brought to the state illegally from Ciudad Juárez as an 8-year-old when his family decided to abandon the violent border city.</p>
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<p>Cesar, who used only his first name due to his family’s mixed status, said he believes his parents will qualify for deportation relief because he has two U.S. citizen siblings.</p>
<p>For Magaly Luna, President Obama’s action means her husband may be safe from deportation because they have a 7-month-old daughter.</p>
<p>For Rubi, who crossed the border into Columbus, N.M., 13 years ago with her 3-year-old daughter, it provides hope that one day she and/or her daughter will be legal residents.</p>
<p>Although the so-called executive action on immigration doesn’t provide legal residency for immigrants living in the country without permission, it offers temporary relief from deportation for parents of U.S. citizens who have been in the country at least five years. It also broadens a deferred action program offered to children who were brought to the U.S. illegally.</p>
<p>Nationwide, nearly 5 million people may be newly eligible for protection from deportation.</p>
<p>An estimated 69,000 unauthorized immigrants live in New Mexico, according to statistics released this week by the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute. Of those 15 and older, some 38 percent, or 23,000 people, reside with at least one U.S. citizen child under 18 and may be eligible for deportation relief if they have also lived in the U.S. at least five years.</p>
<p>Nearly 80 percent of unauthorized immigrants in New Mexico have lived in the U.S. longer than five years, according to the institute.</p>
<p>“We have folks that were once living in the shadows who can now come out,” said Sarah Nolan, director of the Las Cruces faith-based organization Comunidades en Acción y Fe, or CAFé. “Folks are excited. A lot of them are young Hispanic families, multigenerational families.”</p>
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<p>There remains fierce opposition to the program by congressional Republicans – who will control both the House and Senate come January – and presidential elections in 2016 mean President Barack Obama’s executive action may not last.</p>
<p>“I don’t think anybody wants to round people up and deport them, but we want to deal with it in a fair, equitable way, and of course, that is a big debate,” said Chris Biad, chairman of the Doña Ana County Republican Party. “We want to be fair to the people who have spent time and money” following the rules.</p>
<p>New Mexicans in the country without permission represent about 3 percent of the state’s total population – less than in other border states – and the number has been declining in recent years, down 22 percent from 2009, according to Pew Research Center.</p>
<p>Using a different methodology than the MPI, Pew Research estimates there are 70,000 immigrants in the state illegally and 40 percent are newly eligible for deportation relief.</p>
<p>“We’re in the process of trying to figure out how we can help as many people as possible,” said Eva Eitzen, attorney with Albuquerque’s New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, which is launching an education initiative around the president’s executive action called “Listo Nuevo México,” or “Ready New Mexico.”</p>
<p>To qualify for the latest round of relief, qualified applicants must pass criminal and national security background checks and pay their “fair share” of taxes, according to the White House. In return, they will be granted three-year work permits.</p>
<p>Brenda Valenzuela was 6 months old when her parents packed her and her sister, Magaly Luna, into a car and drove from the family home in Chihuahua, Mexico, north to the United States, telling border officers they were going on vacation.</p>
<p>That was 25 years ago. They never went back.</p>
<p>For years, the sisters watched as their parents struggled to learn English and to find work cleaning houses and yards – a far cry from the path their father was on to become a lawyer and their mother a secretary while in Mexico.</p>
<p>Luna struggled with the lack of opportunities herself, saying she always hoped to have a career. But since she entered the country illegally, she was ineligible for scholarships, grants or loans to pay for college at the time.</p>
<p>Plus there was the overshadowing fear of deportation.</p>
<p>All that changed with a 2012 presidential directive – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA – allowing immigrants who arrived in the country under the age of 16 to receive a temporary permit allowing them to work, study and travel around the United States without fear of deportation.</p>
<p>“We feel more secure now. We’re not as afraid of being deported,” Valenzuela said. “Especially since I’m a mom, that used to be a big fear for me. I don’t even know anything about where I’m from. I don’t speak the same Spanish as they do. I’m not from here, but I’m not from over there, either.”</p>
<p>After listening to President Obama outline his executive action, the sisters said they now see a future where other members of their community would be afforded the same protection against deportation.</p>
<p>“We hope (eventually) to get permanent residency. We can’t lose that hope,” Luna said.</p>
<p>Luna and her husband, who does not have documentation, have a 7-month-old daughter, and she hopes the executive action would allow him to remain in the country as a parent to a child born in the United States. But she does worry that many others without children would not get the same privileges.</p>
<p>Another unauthorized immigrant, Rubi,, crossed the border into Columbus, N.M., 13 years ago with her 3-year-old daughter. Since she entered the country as an adult, she does not qualify for the president’s DACA program, but following Obama’s speech, she has more hope than ever that she one day will become a legal resident.</p>
<p>“There are other people just like me, people living in the shadows,” Rubi said through translator Armando Garza. “I went to school, I got a GED (certificate). This gives me the possibility of continuing to learn and to work legally, but I cannot do that right now. I also hope my daughter doesn’t have to work at McDonald’s. I want something better for her, to go to college, graduate, maybe become a nurse, an engineer or a doctor.”</p>
<p>In addition to fostering new hopes for herself and her daughter, the recent focus on immigration reform has eased some of the fear she lives under daily.</p>
<p>Although Rubi said she does have some worries that Obama’s action could fall prey to political opposition, she thinks the movement toward reform is already underway.</p>
<p>“This brings a huge responsibility,” Rubi said. “We’ve been fighting for this for so long, we need to protect it. Obey the law. Do the right thing and be responsible citizens.”</p>
<p />
<p /> | New hope for NM immigrants | false | https://abqjournal.com/500113/new-hope-for-nm-immigrants.html | 2 |
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<p><a href="http://pienews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/reporter-robbed-665x385.jpg" type="external" />Reporting on crime in Oakland, CA is a full time job, and&#160;KTVU's Heather Holmes may deserve some hazard pay.&#160; During a live report on&#160;on a woman who was robbed and beaten, Holmes became a victim of a robbery, herself.&#160; The San Francisco Chronicle reports Holmes' purse was stolen right [?]</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/tv-reporter-robbed-during-live-report-robbery" type="external">Click here to view original web page at www.truthrevolt.org</a></p>
<p /> | TV Reporter Robbed During Live Report On Robbery | true | http://politicalillusionsexposed.com/tv-reporter-robbed-during-live-report-on-robbery/ | 0 |
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<p>CAIRO, Egypt — Egyptian leaders met with a senior official from the International Monetary Fund to resume talks about a $4.8 billion loan agreement that was postponed last month.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/05/us-imf-egypt-idUSBRE9040A920130105" type="external">Reuters reported</a> that the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia director, Masood Ahmed, was visiting Cairo to discuss "possible IMF support for Egypt," according to a statement released on Saturday in Washington.</p>
<p>GlobalPost's Senior Correspondent in Egypt Erin Cunningham said the IMF visit to Cairo comes at a crucial time for the country's embattled president, Mohamed Morsi.</p>
<p>"The recent political turmoil over the constitution has only exacerbated the country’s economic crisis, sparking a loss of confidence in Morsi’s government. It was also accompanied by a sharp decline in the Egyptian pound in the last week (it is trading at record lows against the dollar)," Cunningham said.</p>
<p>"Morsi and his government – which have so far failed to articulate a sound plan to hoist the country out of its economic downturn that has seen its foreign reserves tumble and unemployment skyrocket — will need to reassure both IMF officials and the Egyptian population that they are capable of navigating the crisis. Otherwise, they run the risk of alienating either key international donors or voters — or both."</p>
<p>The Egyptian government announced a cabinet reshuffle ahead of the IMF visit, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100357716" type="external">according to CNBC</a>. Al-Mursi Al-Sayed Hegazy was appointed as a finance minister and said he was "completely read to complete discussions" with the IMF.</p>
<p>The IMF's Ahmed will be meeting with President Mohamed Morsi, Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, some ministers and the Egyptian central bank governor, according to state-run newspaper Akhbar Al-Youm, Reuters reported.</p>
<p>Egypt is facing a rising budget deficit, falling foreign exchange reserves and a sliding currency, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iHADiHHyLS5n-rZ2Wd86yp-gP4gQ?docId=CNG.42858dba2bce68eb9b840bb0dd66fc89.3a1" type="external">noted Agence France Presse</a>.</p>
<p>Morsi said last month that the government must "accelerate efforts to revive the economy and growth, attract investment, strengthen exports, promote tourism, create new jobs and improve public services."</p>
<p>AFP said that while the IMF package is expected to allow other international funding and support, it is also expected to come with austerity measures.</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/121230/egypt-begins-auctioning-foreign-currency" type="external">Egypt begins auctioning foreign currency</a></p> | Egypt: IMF aide to discuss $4.8 billion loan request | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-01-07/egypt-imf-aide-discuss-48-billion-loan-request | 2013-01-07 | 3 |
<p>The mother of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands has died more than 36 years after her son led the infamous 1980s campaign at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>Bobby Sands died on May 5, 1981, at the age of 27, following a 66-day hunger strike. His death came less than a month after he was elected as an MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone – the first electoral victory for militant Irish republicanism.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/47785" type="external">Sinn Féin</a> President Gerry Adams led tributes to Rosaleen Sands, describing her as a strong, inspirational woman “who, like all families of the hunger strikers, bore immense pain but stood by her son Bobby during the darkest of times.”</p>
<p>“In many ways she epitomised what all the mothers of the hunger strikers endured and her sacrifice will never be forgotten,” he added.</p>
<p>Sands, who was in her early 90s, was praised for the courage and restraint she showed in her son’s death.</p>
<p>”I appeal to the people to remain calm and have no fighting, and cause no death or destruction,” she said. ‘‘My son is dying. But he has offered his death to improve conditions, not to cause death outside.”</p>
<p>RIP Rosaleen Sands – the pain she endured as a mother is unimaginable</p>
<p>“Lord thou art hard on mothersWe suffer in their coming and their goingAnd tho I grudge them not, I weary, wearyOf the long sorrow – And yet I have my joyMy sons were faithful, and they fought.”- PH Pearse <a href="https://t.co/uq9f5jdcCV" type="external">pic.twitter.com/uq9f5jdcCV</a></p>
<p>— Joe Dwyer (@JoeEDwyer) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeEDwyer/status/951787231064350720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">January 12, 2018</a></p>
<p>I’m so sorry to hear of the death of Rosaleen Sands, Bobby’s mother. Her courage, strength and dignity was an inspiration to me as a child in the 80’s, may she rest in peace. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.</p>
<p>— Michelle Gildernew (@gildernewm) <a href="https://twitter.com/gildernewm/status/951789544453689345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">January 12, 2018</a></p>
<p>Bobby Sands’ father died in 2014 at the age of 91. Sands was the first of 10 republicans to die on hunger strike at the Maze Prison. The 1981 hunger strike <a href="http://www.longkesh.info/the-five-demands/" type="external">centered</a>&#160;on five demands regarding prisoner rights including the right not to wear a prison uniform and the right to organise educational and recreational pursuits.</p>
<p>The Chairman of the National H-Block/Armagh Committee, blamed the British government for the H-Blocks protests, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/bobby-sands-died-35-years-ago-today-how-the-irish-times-covered-the-news-1.2636487" type="external">saying</a> at the time that he hoped the death of Sands would lead to action before other prisoners died.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/uk/408194-dup-torture-sinn-fein/" type="external">READ MORE: ‘Hooded Men’ torture case ‘could harm Northern Ireland power-sharing deal’</a></p>
<p>The British press presented the strike as a publicity stunt as opposed to a political protest and dubbed the starving men as “H-block terrorists,” echoing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s stance that &#160;“a crime is a crime, is a crime.”</p>
<p>The hunger strike movement – a culmination of a five-year protest by the Republican prisoners, was followed by a new surge of Provisional IRA recruitment and activity.</p> | Mother of iconic IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands dies | false | https://newsline.com/mother-of-iconic-ira-hunger-striker-bobby-sands-dies/ | 2018-01-12 | 1 |
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<p>CAIRO – In an echo of the Cold War, Egypt gave the red carpet welcome Thursday to senior Russian officials aiming to expand Moscow’s influence through military and economic cooperation with a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.</p>
<p>The flirtation underscores how U.S.-Egyptian relations have soured lately over the Obama administration’s criticism of the July 3 military coup. And although Egyptian officials say the one-time Soviet client is not turning away from the United States, the military-backed government is clearly signaling it has options.</p>
<p>Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy sought to downplay speculation of a major foreign policy shift, describing the visit by Russian’s foreign and defense ministers as an “activation” of existing ties and speaking positively of cooperation between the two countries “in multiple fields.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Egypt courting Russian cooperation | false | https://abqjournal.com/301188/egypt-courting-russian-cooperation.html | 2013-11-15 | 2 |
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<p>Dear CounterPunchers: We&#160;are holding a short Spring fund drive, which we have never had to do before, because the price of running the site is growing fast. With our increased readership (which is a good thing!) our bandwidth and web costs have gone up substantially in the past few years. So, if you can spare a few extra dollars this month, we’d greatly appreciate the support.</p>
<p><a href="https://store.counterpunch.org/" type="external">Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today!</a></p> | CounterPunch Mayday Fund Drive | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/05/01/counterpunch-mayday-fund-drive/ | 2017-05-01 | 4 |
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<p>There was no rape, insisted Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias, who was dispatched to Haiti to investigate the 2013 case. He may not have been the best choice for that job — Dias had been accused of atrocities in his own country’s vicious civil war.</p>
<p>Dias didn’t talk to the accuser, he told The Associated Press, nor did he interview medical staff who examined her. But he did clear his soldier, who remained in the Sri Lankan military.</p>
<p>It wasn’t the first time that Sri Lankan soldiers were accused of sexual abuse: In 2007, a group of Haitian children identified 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers in a child sex ring that went on for three years, the AP reported in April.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In that case, the Sri Lankan military repatriated 114 of the peacekeepers, but none was ever jailed.</p>
<p>In fact, Sri Lanka has never prosecuted a single soldier for sexual assault or sexual misconduct while serving in a peacekeeping mission abroad, the AP found.</p>
<p>The alleged abuses committed by its troops abroad stem from a culture of impunity that arose during Sri Lanka’s civil war and has seeped into its peacekeeping missions. The government has consistently refused calls for independent investigations into its generation-long civil war, marked by widespread reports of rape camps, torture, mass killings and other alleged war crimes by its troops.</p>
<p>The U.N. has deployed thousands of peacekeepers from Sri Lanka despite these unresolved allegations of war crimes at home. This is a pattern repeated around the world: Strapped for troops, the U.N. draws recruits from many countries with poor human rights records for its peacekeeping program, budgeted at nearly $8 billion this year.</p>
<p>Asked about the AP’s investigation on Friday and the U.N.’s acceptance of Dias as an investigator, a spokesman said the U.N. was working with the Sri Lankan government on enhanced screening for prospective peacekeepers.</p>
<p>In future deployments, Sri Lanka will provide U.N. officials with military records and personal information dating back to 2005 for all soldiers it plans to send on missions so they can be screened by the U.N., said Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for U.N. secretary general Antonio Guterres.</p>
<p>Sri Lankan officials will have “to certify in writing that (they’re) not aware of any allegations against any unit member having been involved in the commission of any acts that amount to violations of international human rights law or international humanitarian law,” he said.</p>
<p>Sri Lanka must also establish its own screening process for the soldiers and “pre-deployment training by U.N. standards and specifications including conduct of discipline on human rights and on sexual exploitation and abuse,” Haq said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>An AP investigation last month found that in the last 12 years up to March, an estimated 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse or exploitation have been leveled at U.N. peacekeepers and personnel. That tally could change as U.N. officials update their records and reconcile data from old files.</p>
<p>Congolese troops also have been accused of war crimes during their own longstanding war. As peacekeepers in Central African Republic, at least 17 have been accused of sexual abuse and exploitation. The situation in Congo, meanwhile, is so complex the country is hosting a U.N. peacekeeping mission to manage its own violent conflict while also sending personnel on peacekeeping missions to other countries.</p>
<p>Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan understands the predicament. When fighting gripped Rwanda, he struggled to find peacekeepers to help stem what would later become a mass slaughter that killed an estimated 800,000 people.</p>
<p>“Sometimes the U.N. needs troops,” Annan told the AP earlier this month. “And they are so desperate that they accept troops that they will normally not accept if they had the choice.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>RAPE CAMPS</p>
<p>In the case of the Haiti sex ring, nine children told U.N. investigators of being lured into having sex in exchange for food and then being passed from soldier to soldier. One girl said she didn’t even have breasts when she first had sex with a peacekeeper at age 12. Over the course of three years, another child said he had sex with more than 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers, averaging about four a day.</p>
<p>The allegations of sexual abuse by Sri Lankan peacekeepers echo those of the country’s generation-long civil war against the ethnic Tamil rebel group, known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which was fighting for an independent homeland in the island nation’s north and east. Eight years after the war ended, people are increasingly coming forward to give horrific accounts of camps where they say they were tortured and gang-raped.</p>
<p>One Tamil woman said in testimony shared with the AP that she was kidnapped by masked men in plain clothes and taken blindfolded and gagged to what she thought was an army camp.</p>
<p>“He removed all my clothes and forced me down on a mattress on the floor and tied both of my hands and legs apart with a nylon rope to iron bars on both sides of the mattress,” she said. She was held for about two months, and repeatedly raped.</p>
<p>She described another of her tormentors, who was brought into the room she shared with four other girls. “He was asked to take his pick,” she told the International Truth and Justice Project, which issued a 57-page report in March documenting the alleged torture or rape of 43 people, some as recently as December. “He looked around and chose me. And took me to another room and raped me.”</p>
<p>She identified him from a series of photographs of soldiers. The AP found that the man, an officer, went on to become a U.N. peacekeeper.</p>
<p>The woman asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. The Sri Lankan army and the government declined to comment on the report.</p>
<p>Sri Lanka has routinely denied that its forces have been involved in widespread torture or abuse. In interviews with the AP, Sri Lankan officials pointed to their new peacekeeping role in Mali as evidence that their military is beyond reproach.</p>
<p>“If Sri Lanka is being invited to do this job, then that means all those issues have been dealt with in a way that everybody’s comfortable with,” Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva said.</p>
<p>That’s not exactly how the U.N. sees it.</p>
<p>Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the U.N. had few offers when it went looking for peacekeepers to protect convoys in Mali, one of the most dangerous U.N. missions in the world.</p>
<p>“The only ones who offered soldiers were the Sri Lankans,” he said.</p>
<p>Countries with better trained troops and human rights records have been reluctant to offer personnel for peacekeeping since 1993, when 18 American troops were killed in Somalia. The deaths were considered to be a key reason why the U.N. struggled to find help ahead of the Rwanda genocide in 1994.</p>
<p>Robert O. Blake, who was the U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka from 2006 to 2009, was one of many officials who pressed the Sri Lankan government for more transparency about the war crimes allegations.</p>
<p>“As a peacekeeper, you are there to keep the peace,” Blake said in an interview last month. “If they themselves are guilty of atrocities, clearly they are not suitable candidates for peacekeeping operations.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>WHAT CHILD SEX RING?</p>
<p>The mustachioed general Dias gently batted at mosquitoes swirling in the damp heat of his mother’s garden as he described the barrage of allegations against Sri Lanka’s soldiers as unfair. The fact that few soldiers are ever prosecuted, he said, shows that few have done any wrong.</p>
<p>“We can’t talk about an allegation. If there are facts, then let’s talk about it,” he said in the interview with the AP. “If a soldier has raped a woman, he should be court martialed, no doubt about it. But where is the evidence? Allegations are just allegations.”</p>
<p>Dias led an army division whose troops were accused of attacking civilians and bombing a church, a hospital and other humanitarian outposts in 2009, during the fierce last months of Sri Lanka’s civil war. He flatly denied the allegations, telling the AP that his 57th Division only targeted areas where rebels were firing on the troops.</p>
<p>Yet, evidence presented against Dias by two human rights groups in Europe led authorities to threaten a criminal investigation in 2011 while Dias was serving as a deputy ambassador to Germany, Switzerland and the Vatican. He was soon recalled to Sri Lanka, and two years later was sent to investigate the alleged rape by a Sri Lankan peacekeeper in 2013.</p>
<p>“A suspected war criminal is the wrong person to conduct an investigation into alleged crimes committed by a peacekeeper,” said Andreas Schuller with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, a Berlin-based group that helped launch the complaint.</p>
<p>In 2015, the Sri Lankan government promoted Dias to army chief of staff — the country’s second-highest military post. He retired a few months later and now runs a private security business.</p>
<p>Dias was not involved in the Haiti child sex ring investigation in 2007, when U.N. and Sri Lankan officials interviewed nine child victims who identified photos of at least 134 soldiers as their abusers. But Dias disputed both the U.N. investigative report’s findings, as well as his own government’s.</p>
<p>Instead, he suggested that “an outside party” linked to the Tamil rebels was likely conspiring to damage Sri Lanka’s reputation.</p>
<p>“None of the cases was, to my knowledge, serious at all. And none of the soldiers was ever prosecuted,” Dias said. “We didn’t find any person guilty on those accusations, right?”</p>
<p>Yet following the report, Sri Lanka repatriated 114 of the troops. “I don’t think that was a good decision,” Dias said.</p>
<p>After months of stalling, Sri Lanka finally acknowledged in a statement to the AP that its military had acted against just 18 soldiers implicated in the sex ring, and said that the U.N. considered the matter closed.</p>
<p>The statement did not acknowledge that the U.N. investigation had implicated at least 134 men. It also contradicted another government statement four months earlier: that the army had dismissed one soldier, forced an officer to retire and imposed unspecified disciplinary action or punishments on 21 others “based on the gravity of the offenses committed,” according to an affidavit submitted to the U.N. Convention against Torture, a body that regularly monitors human rights conditions.</p>
<p>The U.N., which corroborated the findings against the peacekeepers, says it does not know what happened to the children abused in the sex ring.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>A LEGAL BLACK HOLE</p>
<p>U.N. sexual abuse in Haiti and elsewhere has threatened to shrink financial contributions for peacekeeping, particularly from the United States, which provides nearly 30 percent of the budget.</p>
<p>After the AP published its investigation into the Haiti child sex ring last month, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley warned the U.N. Security Council that “countries that refuse to hold their soldiers accountable must recognize that this either stops or their troops will go home and their financial compensation will end.”</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that the U.N. lacks legal jurisdiction over its peacekeeping force, which now has more than 110,000 personnel, and instead relies on member states to prosecute crimes by their own troops.</p>
<p>That means that justice for victims is often elusive, while the U.N. and troop-contributing nations can dodge blame when things go wrong.</p>
<p>Philip Cunliffe, a lecturer at the University of Kent and editor-in-chief of the International Peacekeeping journal, called the situation “a product of mutual convenience.”</p>
<p>“Both sides are in a position where they can blame each other, which means that there’s no accountability ultimately,” Cunliffe said during an interview in the verdant commercial capital of Colombo.</p>
<p>Last year, the U.N. announced it would not be accepting any more Burundian police to the mission in the Central African Republic because of allegations of serious human rights violations in their homeland, and that the military deployment was under review.</p>
<p>Now, for the first time, the U.N. is undertaking expanded screening for individual Sri Lankan recruits, a process previously seen only on a much smaller scale for recruits from Burundi and Congo.</p>
<p>When plans for a peacekeeping deployment to Mali were announced last year, both the U.N. and Sri Lanka suggested that nearly 1,000 Sri Lankan soldiers be included. That number has since been whittled to 200, Sri Lankan Brigadier Jayantha Gunaratne told the AP.</p>
<p>The military said the sharp reduction was driven by a lack of necessary equipment. But a number of the troops also hadn’t passed the vetting, said Atul Khare, who heads the U.N. department that oversees the conduct and discipline unit. The enhanced vetting now looks at whether Sri Lankans recruits were attached to any battalions or contingents linked with alleged war crimes.</p>
<p>Khare declined to say how many had been refused.</p>
<p>“I would not want to comment on those who have been rejected, but yes — we have a strong policy of screening,” Khare said. “Does it mean that we succeed in the screening 100 percent of the time? No.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>“WE ARE SHOCKED”</p>
<p>In a jungle clearing about a two-hour drive from Colombo, a loudspeaker played the sounds of whooshing helicopter blades as dozens of peacekeeping recruits fanned out for a practice run, loading cargo into a small white sedan standing in for the chopper.</p>
<p>Instructors at the training camp, a two-hour drive from Colombo, said they have taken steps to address the risk of sexual abuse and exploitation since the child sex ring scandal in Haiti.</p>
<p>“That was a black mark for our U.N. deployment,” said Lt. Col. Tiral de Silva, the camp’s chief instructor.</p>
<p>But even de Silva said he was unaware of what actually had happened. “My understanding was it was the misbehavior of a few individuals.”</p>
<p>Tamil lawyer K.S. Ratnavale, who recently argued for a rare conviction of three soldiers for gang rape, said prosecuting members of Sri Lanka’s popular military is often impossible due to victim intimidation, a lack witnesses and poor evidence collection.</p>
<p>“We are shocked that the United Nations is encouraging these undisciplined and ruthless soldiers and deploying them in their peacekeeping force,” Ratnavale said.</p>
<p>The U.N. recently lauded Sri Lanka for its “best practices” after the country agreed last year, under pressure from the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, to a onetime payment of $45,243 for a girl fathered by a Sri Lankan commander stationed in Haiti.</p>
<p>Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi, who signed the payment order last summer, told the AP he knew little about the paternity payment, or whether there had been any other such claims on Sri Lankan peacekeepers.</p>
<p>He said, “I think in general we don’t have a bad record of our peacekeepers.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Daigle reported from Sri Lanka and Dodds from London, Geneva and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer and Bradley Klapper at the United Nations, Verena Dobnik in New York and Krista Larson in Congo contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Have a tip you want to share with the AP? Contact the authors securely at <a href="http://www.ap.org/tips" type="external">http://www.ap.org/tips</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Katy Daigle at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/katydaigle" type="external">www.twitter.com/katydaigle</a> and Paisley Dodds at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/paisleydodds" type="external">www.twitter.com/paisleydodds</a> .</p> | UN Peacekeepers: How a Haiti child sex ring was whitewashed | false | https://abqjournal.com/1009352/un-peacekeepers-how-a-haiti-child-sex-ring-was-whitewashed.html | 2017-05-26 | 2 |
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<p>Martinez said that the case will be turned over to a grand jury within the next ten days, and that the grand jury will decide whether to charge Villalobos with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter.</p>
<p>If the grand jury decides not to indict Villalobos the case will stay in the children's court.</p>
<p>On Feb. 18, Villalobos took Valencia County sheriff's deputies to a weedy field near his home, where the lifeless body of Madrid was found beneath a discarded mattress.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Villalobos made his first appearance at a detention hearing in District Court in Los Lunas last Friday and prosecutors had 10 days from then to decide if Villalobos, 15, would be tried as an adult.</p>
<p>At that hearing, Villalobos' attorney, Cindy Mercer, said she did not believe the teen understood either the charges against him or his rights due to his "low mental functioning."</p>
<p>The teen's mother, Loretta Villalobos, told the Journal that "my son is mentally retarded."</p> | Teen accused in boy's death to be tried as adult | false | https://abqjournal.com/360764/15-year-old-accused-killing-friend-to-be-tried-as-adult.html | 2 |
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<p>By Amy Butler</p>
<p>The expression “like sitting ducks” seems apropos for those of us on the East Coast last week. We knew for several days that a huge storm was headed our way, and so we waited, glued to news reports and watching the scenes outside our windows.</p>
<p>Occasional weather emergencies are a fact of life, but experts told us this is a storm like no other, so everyone seemed to take preparation more seriously than usual.</p>
<p>Because of this, the storm was the topic of most conversations. Everywhere you turned folks were offering advice about how to get ready. Batteries, water, sandbags, candles, ice, canned food — the list of necessary items goes on.</p>
<p>Not to be left behind, I finally gave in and looked around the house, taking stock. Three flashlights, a bunch of candles, a few bottles of water — it looked to me like we had most of what we needed.</p>
<p>I still felt unprepared, though, because I hadn’t made the obligatory trip to the store. Everybody else was doing it. I could only surmise that if I headed to the store along with everyone else in the greater metropolitan area, I would find that I’d overlooked something I would certainly need to survive the storm.</p>
<p>And so, I dutifully made my way to the grocery store. As expected, the parking lot was full and it was a high-stakes battle for the next available cart. Inside, people were rushing to fill carts with all kinds of things. I decided to join the crowd and walk the aisles to find all the elusive things I was surely missing and would desperately need.</p>
<p>I dodged carts and studied empty shelves, puzzled. Why, for example, the entire sugar shelf on the baking aisle was empty, I could not imagine, but I suddenly had a desperate, sinking feeling that I, too, might very well be out of sugar. How would we survive without it?</p>
<p>Fighting my way up and down the aisles and feeling the heightened anxiety of everyone in the store, I added a few things to the cart here and there: a couple cans of soup, another gallon of water, some bananas. I stood in line at the checkout counter then made my way through the teeming parking lot back to the car.</p>
<p>On the way home, I started thinking some more about the upcoming storm and my trip to the store to get what we needed. I realized my rush to acquire more things had come out of some misguided peer pressure, a kind of communal anxiety. I was fairly sure we had everything we needed and more to survive Hurricane Sandy one way or another, even if we did run out of bananas before it was all over.</p>
<p>Shelter, the company of loved ones, food, the prayers of friends surrounding us, there were so many things we already had, more than enough to survive, more than so many people all over the world.</p>
<p>Turns out there’s nothing like an impending emergency to give me what I really needed after all: a healthy dose of perspective and the sure knowledge that there is very little in my life that is wanting.</p>
<p>I wondered: How much time do I spend fighting my way down the aisles of my life, wondering what’s missing? And how much freer would it be to walk confidently, assured that I really do have everything that I could possibly need — and more?</p>
<p>These, I think, are good questions to ponder by candlelight.</p> | Confessions of a sitting duck | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/confessions-of-a-sitting-duck/ | 3 |
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<p>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — JT Gibson hit a 3-pointer in the second overtime to give Omaha the lead and the Mavericks hit 6 of 6 free throws in the final 29 seconds to hold off Denver 86-80 on Thursday night.</p>
<p>Omaha led 63-59 on a KJ Robinson jumper with 2:54 left in regulation, but the Mavericks went scoreless from there and Joe Rosga hit four free throws in the final 40 seconds to send the game to overtime. Ade Murkey's jumper gave Denver a 69-64 lead with 2:27 left in the first overtime, but Matt Pile hit a free throw and Zach Jackson sank back-to-back jumpers to knot the score at 71 with 23 seconds left. Pemberton buried a 3-pointer with four seconds left to give Denver the lead, but Norl answered with a 3 with one tick remaining on the clock to send it to a second extra period.</p>
<p>Murkey's layup with 2:35 left in the second overtime gave the Pioneers a 78-77 lead, but Gibson connected from long range and Robinson, Norl and Ayo Akinwole all hit two free throws in the closing seconds to seal the win.</p>
<p>Jackson paced Omaha (7-14, 2-3 Summit League) with 26 points and eight rebounds. Gibson and Norl both scored 15 and Pile added 10 points and seven boards for the Mavericks.</p>
<p>Pemberton had 20 points for the Pioneers (7-12, 1-4), while Murkey and Rosga scored 18 apiece.</p>
<p>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — JT Gibson hit a 3-pointer in the second overtime to give Omaha the lead and the Mavericks hit 6 of 6 free throws in the final 29 seconds to hold off Denver 86-80 on Thursday night.</p>
<p>Omaha led 63-59 on a KJ Robinson jumper with 2:54 left in regulation, but the Mavericks went scoreless from there and Joe Rosga hit four free throws in the final 40 seconds to send the game to overtime. Ade Murkey's jumper gave Denver a 69-64 lead with 2:27 left in the first overtime, but Matt Pile hit a free throw and Zach Jackson sank back-to-back jumpers to knot the score at 71 with 23 seconds left. Pemberton buried a 3-pointer with four seconds left to give Denver the lead, but Norl answered with a 3 with one tick remaining on the clock to send it to a second extra period.</p>
<p>Murkey's layup with 2:35 left in the second overtime gave the Pioneers a 78-77 lead, but Gibson connected from long range and Robinson, Norl and Ayo Akinwole all hit two free throws in the closing seconds to seal the win.</p>
<p>Jackson paced Omaha (7-14, 2-3 Summit League) with 26 points and eight rebounds. Gibson and Norl both scored 15 and Pile added 10 points and seven boards for the Mavericks.</p>
<p>Pemberton had 20 points for the Pioneers (7-12, 1-4), while Murkey and Rosga scored 18 apiece.</p> | Omaha outlasts Denver 86-80 in double overtime | false | https://apnews.com/amp/f04cdc6bd9064ea99b373eb99c07ce1d | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p />
<p>New evidence appears to show how hackers earlier this year stole more than 50,000 emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, an audacious electronic attack blamed on Russia's government and one that has resulted in embarrassing political disclosures about Democrats in the final weeks before the U.S. presidential election.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The hackers sent John Podesta an official-looking email on Saturday, March 19, that appeared to come from Google. It warned that someone in Ukraine had obtained Podesta's personal Gmail password and tried unsuccessfully to log in, and it directed him to a website where he should "change your password immediately."</p>
<p>Podesta's chief of staff, Sara Latham, forwarded the email to the operations help desk of Clinton's campaign, where staffer Charles Delavan in Brooklyn, New York, wrote back 25 minutes later: "This is a legitimate email. John needs to change his password immediately."</p>
<p>But the email was not authentic.</p>
<p>The link to the website where Podesta was encouraged to change his Gmail password actually directed him instead to a computer in the Netherlands with a web address associated with Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand located in the South Pacific. The hackers carefully disguised the link using a service that shortens lengthy online addresses. But even for anyone checking more diligently, the address — "google.com-securitysettingpage" — was crafted to appear genuine.</p>
<p>In the email, the hackers even provided an internet address of the purported Ukrainian hacker that actually traced to a mobile communications provider in Ukraine. It was also notable that the hackers struck Podesta on a weekend morning, when organizations typically have fewer resources to investigate and respond to reports of such problems. Delavan, the campaign help-desk staffer, did not respond immediately to The Associated Press' questions about his actions that day.</p>
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<p>It is not immediately clear how Podesta responded to the threat, but five months later hackers successfully downloaded tens of thousands of emails from Podesta's accounts that have now been posted online. The Clinton campaign declined to discuss the incident. Podesta has previously confirmed his emails were hacked and said the FBI was investigating.</p>
<p>The suspicious email was among more than 1,400 messages published by WikiLeaks on Friday that had been hacked from Podesta's account.</p>
<p>It was not known whether the hackers deliberately left behind the evidence of their attempted break-in for WikiLeaks to reveal, but the tools they were using seven months ago still indicate they were personally targeting Podesta: Late Friday, the computer in the Netherlands that had been used in the hacking attempt featured a copy of Podesta's biographical page from Wikipedia.</p>
<p>The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department have formally accused Russian state-sponsored hackers for the recent string of cyberattacks intended to influence the presidential election.</p>
<p>The help-desk staffer, Delevan, emailed to Podesta's chief of staff a separate, authentic link to reset Podesta's Gmail password and encouraged Podesta to turn on two-factor authentication. That feature protects an account by requiring a second code that is separately sent to a cell phone or alternate email address before a user can log in. "It is absolutely imperative that this is done ASAP," Delevan said.</p>
<p>Tod Beardsley, a security research manager at the Boston-based cybersecurity firm Rapid7, said the fact that an IT person deemed the suspicious email to be legitimate "pretty much guarantees the user who is not an IT person is going to click on it."</p>
<p>Other emails previously released by WikiLeaks have included messages containing the password for Podesta's iPhone and iPad accounts.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Tami Abdollah on Twitter at https://twitter.com/latams and Michael Biesecker at https://twitter.com/mbieseck.</p> | Hackers apparently fooled Clinton official with bogus email | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/10/29/hackers-apparently-fooled-clinton-official-with-bogus-email.html | 2016-10-31 | 0 |
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<p>La Cueva at Manzano, 3:30 p.m.</p>
<p>Highland vs. Sandia, 6:30 p.m. at APS Soccer Complex</p>
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<p>Girls</p>
<p>Manzano vs. La Cueva, 4:30 p.m. at APS Soccer Complex</p>
<p>Sandia at Highland, 6:30 p.m.</p>
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<p>Girls and boys teams, 8 a.m. at Ladera Golf Course</p>
<p>West Mesa and Atrisco Heritage</p> | Preps: Tuesday, Oct. 12 schedule | false | https://abqjournal.com/658937/preps-tuesday-oct-12-schedule.html | 2 |
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<p>Philadelphia Inquirer Privately held Rodale -- publisher of Runner's World, Men's Health and other mags -- made more than $20 million in profit in 2002, after losses in 1999 and 2000. "But the changes made to get back into the black were severe -- and have left scars," writes Don Steinberg. Former Men's Health editor Mike Lafavore tells him: "The culture has changed a great deal. I couldn't begin to tell you how wonderful and old-fashioned the little time warp was that we lived in." But CEO Steve Murphy insists: "These are the good old days for Rodale right now."</p> | Has Rodale been saved or ruined? (Writer's answer: neither) | false | https://poynter.org/news/has-rodale-been-saved-or-ruined-writers-answer-neither | 2003-03-31 | 2 |
<p>A naked man and woman were having sex in their car while driving with their baby in the back seat when they crashed Wednesday night near La Grande, according to the Washington State Patrol.</p>
<p>Our affiliate <a href="http://valleycentral.com/news/nation-world/naked-couple-accused-of-driving-drunk-having-sex-crashes-with-baby-in-back-seat" type="external">KOMO</a> on Thursday reported that the crash happened around 6 p.m. local time in the 48400 block of Mountain Highway.</p>
<p>Troopers said the man was driving when he missed a curve, went off the road and crashed into a tree.</p>
<p>Witnesses told troopers both the man and woman were naked when they got out of the car. Troopers said they were also both impaired.</p>
<p>The woman wasn't wearing a seatbelt. She was taken to the hospital with several broken bones. The 3-month-old child in the back seat was not injured.</p>
<p>The man was arrested and booked into Pierce County Jail on suspicion of driving under the influence, vehicular assault and child endangerment.</p>
<p>Troopers said the man has three prior DUI convictions.</p> | A couple was accused of driving drunk while having sex | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/11/23/nation/crime-washington-couple-accused-of-driving-drunk-while-having-sex-crashes-with-baby-in-back-seat | 2017-11-23 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) might want you to believe it hasn't lost a major vendor, but the statement it put out reportedly refuting the claim actually seems to confirm it. At the very least, it doesn't deny that toymaker JAKKS Pacific (NASDAQ: JAKK) has stopped shipping toys to its Kmart stores, and considering all the other circumstantial evidence pointing to the veracity of the claim, Sears looks as if it's in deep trouble this Christmas.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>During the quarterly earnings conference call with analysts, JAKKS Pacific Chairman and CEO Stephen Berman said the toymaker had made the difficult decision to suspend shipments to a major U.S. customer, which it identified only as "one of the largest U.S. retailers." It was The Wall Street Journal that indicated it was Sears' Kmart chain that suffered the blow.</p>
<p>Sears rushed out a statement on the company's blog supposedly refuting the claim. In a post titled "Just the Facts -- Vendor Relationships," CFO Jason Hollar called the report "speculation and (a) rush to report the negative." He essentially outlined three things to assuage concern:</p>
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<p>What's notable in the post is what the CFO didn't say: At no time did he mention that JAKKS had not suspended shipments to the retailer. That seems to be a major omission.</p>
<p>Sears has been trying to calm the jitters of suppliers for a few years now. In the fall of 2014, Chairman and CEO Eddie Lampert had to use his ESL Investments hedge fund to <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/09/16/with-coffers-running-dry-is-sears-holding-corp-doo.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">stave off Opens a New Window.</a> the sort of bankruptcy talk that plagued rival J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) when it was rumored one of its lenders was <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/10/22/the-latest-falling-shoe-at-jc-penney.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">no longer financing Opens a New Window.</a> its deliveries. Lampert ended up lending Sears $400 million via a short-term loan secured by liens on 25 pieces of properties, a move that temporarily smoothed over any worries vendors might have had.</p>
<p>But last year, the retailer resorted to an <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/24/sears-holdings-risk-rises-as-vendors-get-nervous.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">accelerated payment schedule Opens a New Window.</a> with vendors, paying them in as few as 15 days, compared with the industry standard of 30 days or 60 days, as a means of compensating them for the additional risk associated with shipping to the troubled retailer.</p>
<p>And just this past August, it appeared Lampert was once again <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/01/eddie-lampert-has-to-step-in-and-save-sears-holdin.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">engineering a scheme Opens a New Window.</a> to forestall suppliers from bolting ahead of the holidays. ESL Investments once again extended credit to the company in the amount of $300 million that was to be secured by a junior lien against the retailer's inventory, receivables, and other working capital. Of course, this was in addition to other stopgap measures Sears has had to deploy to keep the doors open over the years, as sales fall quarter after quarter and losses widen.</p>
<p>No longer the top of the heap as it once was, if Kmart has really lost JAKKS Pacific as a supplier as it seems, Sears may see other vendors get nervous and also sever ties. Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Now it appears Lampert was unable to keep all the balls he was juggling up in the air and JAKKS Pacific has bailed, despite the retailer's supposed assurances to the contrary.</p>
<p>Although the Journal quotes Sears as saying it intends to keep working with toymaker through 2017 -- again, important qualifiers are used, as "intending" to do something and doing it are two different things -- it goes on to point out just how far Kmart's star has fallen. Once upon a time, Kmart was one of the top toy retailers in the U.S., but those glory days are gone as Wal-Mart, Target, and even Amazon.comhave far outstripped it.</p>
<p>And Kmart's footprint is dwindling, too. While many retailers are reducing the number of stores they have open, earlier this summer Kmart employees feared their jobs were at risk after the stores began pulling all of their inventory out of the backrooms and putting it on the shelves. While that was seen as something a retailer preparing for a liquidation would do, Kmart insisted it just meant it was ensuring that customers had a positive in-store experience: They could find the merchandise they were looking for, and employees would be on the sale floor helping customers, not in the storerooms with stock.</p>
<p>Still, shortly thereafter, Kmart announced it was closing dozens of stores because they weren't profitable, on top of dozens more it had previously announced were being targeted for closure.</p>
<p>Now, even though it has somewhat said otherwise, Kmart may well be losing a major store vendor. That can only make other suppliers nervous, and there could be an exodus of more of them in the near future. Coming as it does just before the Christmas season gets under way, Kmart and Sears may not have any good tidings to report.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2667&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFCop/info.aspx" type="external">Rich Duprey Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Has Sears Holdings Really Confirmed Kmart Lost a Major Toy Vendor? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/03/has-sears-holdings-really-confirmed-kmart-lost-major-toy-vendor.html | 2016-11-03 | 0 |
<p>Sept. 30 (UPI) — Florida Attorney General <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Pam_Bondi/" type="external">Pam Bondi</a> is seeking to block <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/O.J._Simpson/" type="external">O.J. Simpson</a>‘s potential relocation to Florida following his impending release from prison in Nevada.</p>
<p>Bondi <a href="http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/KMAN-ARNSTV/%24file/Simpson-Sept+29.pdf" type="external">wrote a letter</a> to Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Julie L. Jones on Friday, requesting the department notify Nevada that the Florida objects to granting Simpson permission to relocate to the state.</p>
<p>“There is no justification under these circumstances for asking the taxpayers of Florida to foot the bill for hosting Mr. Simpson’s parole, especially in light of the added dangers that his relocation would pose to our citizens,” Bondi wrote.</p>
<p>In the letter, Bondi cited a history of arrests and “destructive behavior,” including his alleged role in the killing of <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Nicole_Brown_Simpson/" type="external">Nicole Brown Simpson</a> and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ronald_Goldman/" type="external">Ronald Goldman</a> in 1994, instances of breaking and entering and “road rage” in Florida and the Las Vegas kidnapping and armed robbery conviction for which he served nine years of a 33-year sentence.</p>
<p>“The specter of his residing comfort in Florida should not be an option,” Bondi wrote. “Our state should not become a country club for this convicted criminal.”</p>
<p>As early as Sunday, Simpson will be driven to the High Desert Prison where {link:he is expected to be released into a gated residence with unspecified friends in a wealthy Las Vegas suburb.</p>
<p>Longtime friend <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/30/asia/bali-evacuees-go-home/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Most+Recent%29" type="external">Tom Scotto told</a> CNN that Simpson is “not going to hide” upon his eventual release from prison.</p>
<p>“He’s going to focus on kids, friends, his family and golf,” Scotto said. “Maybe not the first day or second, but he is going to go out.”</p>
<p>Simpson hopes to return to Florida, as his two youngest children Sydney and Justin live in the Tampa Bay area.</p>
<p>During his parole Simpson won’t be permitted to consume alcohol in excess or associate with ex-convicts.</p> | Florida AG Bondi objects to possible O.J. Simpson Florida move | false | https://newsline.com/florida-ag-bondi-objects-to-possible-o-j-simpson-florida-move/ | 2017-09-30 | 1 |
<p>TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Prosecutors are seeking a maximum 11-year sentence for a neo-Nazi group leader who stockpiled explosive material in the Florida apartment where a friend killed their two roommates, calling him an unrepentant ideologue who poses a serious danger once he gets out.</p>
<p>The sentencing of Brandon Russell, 22, is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday in federal court in Tampa.</p>
<p>Devon Arthurs, Russell's friend, awaits trial in state court on charges of murdering their two roommates, Andrew Oneschuk, 18, and Jeremy Himmelman, 22, both of Massachusetts.</p>
<p>Russell wasn't charged in the May 2017 killings, which exposed the four roommates' membership in Atomwaffen Division, an obscure neo-Nazi group co-founded by Arthurs and Russell that formed on the internet. Atomwaffen is German for "atomic weapon."</p>
<p>Inside Russell's bedroom, authorities said, they found several firearms, ammunition and a framed picture of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on Russell's bedroom dresser. Investigators also found a North Korean flag, multiple copies of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and other neo-Nazi and white supremacist propaganda in the apartment.</p>
<p>"Russell had a place of prominence for the picture of his idol, Timothy McVeigh, someone who turned his ideology into violent action," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Josephine Thomas. "A photographic journey through Russell's apartment_the backdrop of the murder scene_is a chilling confirmation of Russell's intent to follow in the footsteps of his hero."</p>
<p>Russell set up a "mini-lab" in the garage, where investigators found explosive material stored in a cooler, near homemade detonator components and several pounds of ammonium nitrate, according to Thomas.</p>
<p>"Russell showed not an ounce of concern for his own life, his roommates' lives, or his (neighbors') lives," Thomas wrote.</p>
<p>Russell was wearing his Florida National Guard uniform and crying when police found him standing outside the Tampa apartment. Arthurs told police that Russell didn't know anything about the shooting.</p>
<p>Arthurs allegedly told investigators he killed his roommates for teasing him about his recent conversion to Islam. But he also told detectives he did it to thwart a terrorist attack by Atomwaffen. He claimed Russell, who would eventually plead guilty to illegally storing volatile explosive material and possessing an "unregistered destructive device," had materials in the house "to kill civilians and target locations like power lines, nuclear reactors, and synagogues," prosecutors said.</p>
<p>Relatives of the two slain friends have rejected those neo-Nazi labels and dismissed Arthurs' claims as the self-serving rantings of a sociopath.</p>
<p>But prosecutors say Russell — even after his arrest — has never disputed he was Atomwaffen's leader.</p>
<p>"The evidence of Russell's violent ideology and his conduct while incarcerated shows that he has tightly held beliefs that he will continue to promote," Thomas wrote.</p>
<p>In a court filing Sunday, prosecutors said Russell drew a diagram of how to make an explosive in a letter he apparently intended to be delivered to another "Atomwaffen Division" member outside jail. The FBI obtained copies in August of other letters in which Russell drew plans for an "Airborne Leaflet Dropping Device" showing Nazi propaganda falling from the sky, prosecutors said.</p>
<p>"In one letter, Russell attached a blurb about a 16-year-old Nazi who in 1962 told a judge, "I don't care HOW long you put me in jail, your Honor, ... as soon as I get out, I will go right back to fight for my White Race and my America!'"</p>
<p>Prosecutors also noted that since Russell's arrest, others who have committed crimes have cited an allegiance to his group and its ideology.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say sentencing guidelines calling for 24 months to 30 months in prison don't reflect the seriousness of Russell's actions, or the danger he still poses.</p>
<p>But Russell's attorney, Ian Goldstein, is asking for a more lenient sentence. He says his client has accepted responsibility for his crimes and is "dedicated to emerging from this situation a stronger person."</p>
<p>"As a 22-year-old former college student and member of the armed forces, the defendant has seen the future he once hoped for evaporate before his eyes," Goldstein wrote in a Jan. 2 filing. "He has accepted responsibility for his offenses, and looks forward to serving his sentence and attempting to move forward with a productive and law abiding life."</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Kunzelman reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press reporter Jason Dearen in Gainesville contributed to this report.</p>
<p>TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Prosecutors are seeking a maximum 11-year sentence for a neo-Nazi group leader who stockpiled explosive material in the Florida apartment where a friend killed their two roommates, calling him an unrepentant ideologue who poses a serious danger once he gets out.</p>
<p>The sentencing of Brandon Russell, 22, is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday in federal court in Tampa.</p>
<p>Devon Arthurs, Russell's friend, awaits trial in state court on charges of murdering their two roommates, Andrew Oneschuk, 18, and Jeremy Himmelman, 22, both of Massachusetts.</p>
<p>Russell wasn't charged in the May 2017 killings, which exposed the four roommates' membership in Atomwaffen Division, an obscure neo-Nazi group co-founded by Arthurs and Russell that formed on the internet. Atomwaffen is German for "atomic weapon."</p>
<p>Inside Russell's bedroom, authorities said, they found several firearms, ammunition and a framed picture of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on Russell's bedroom dresser. Investigators also found a North Korean flag, multiple copies of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and other neo-Nazi and white supremacist propaganda in the apartment.</p>
<p>"Russell had a place of prominence for the picture of his idol, Timothy McVeigh, someone who turned his ideology into violent action," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Josephine Thomas. "A photographic journey through Russell's apartment_the backdrop of the murder scene_is a chilling confirmation of Russell's intent to follow in the footsteps of his hero."</p>
<p>Russell set up a "mini-lab" in the garage, where investigators found explosive material stored in a cooler, near homemade detonator components and several pounds of ammonium nitrate, according to Thomas.</p>
<p>"Russell showed not an ounce of concern for his own life, his roommates' lives, or his (neighbors') lives," Thomas wrote.</p>
<p>Russell was wearing his Florida National Guard uniform and crying when police found him standing outside the Tampa apartment. Arthurs told police that Russell didn't know anything about the shooting.</p>
<p>Arthurs allegedly told investigators he killed his roommates for teasing him about his recent conversion to Islam. But he also told detectives he did it to thwart a terrorist attack by Atomwaffen. He claimed Russell, who would eventually plead guilty to illegally storing volatile explosive material and possessing an "unregistered destructive device," had materials in the house "to kill civilians and target locations like power lines, nuclear reactors, and synagogues," prosecutors said.</p>
<p>Relatives of the two slain friends have rejected those neo-Nazi labels and dismissed Arthurs' claims as the self-serving rantings of a sociopath.</p>
<p>But prosecutors say Russell — even after his arrest — has never disputed he was Atomwaffen's leader.</p>
<p>"The evidence of Russell's violent ideology and his conduct while incarcerated shows that he has tightly held beliefs that he will continue to promote," Thomas wrote.</p>
<p>In a court filing Sunday, prosecutors said Russell drew a diagram of how to make an explosive in a letter he apparently intended to be delivered to another "Atomwaffen Division" member outside jail. The FBI obtained copies in August of other letters in which Russell drew plans for an "Airborne Leaflet Dropping Device" showing Nazi propaganda falling from the sky, prosecutors said.</p>
<p>"In one letter, Russell attached a blurb about a 16-year-old Nazi who in 1962 told a judge, "I don't care HOW long you put me in jail, your Honor, ... as soon as I get out, I will go right back to fight for my White Race and my America!'"</p>
<p>Prosecutors also noted that since Russell's arrest, others who have committed crimes have cited an allegiance to his group and its ideology.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say sentencing guidelines calling for 24 months to 30 months in prison don't reflect the seriousness of Russell's actions, or the danger he still poses.</p>
<p>But Russell's attorney, Ian Goldstein, is asking for a more lenient sentence. He says his client has accepted responsibility for his crimes and is "dedicated to emerging from this situation a stronger person."</p>
<p>"As a 22-year-old former college student and member of the armed forces, the defendant has seen the future he once hoped for evaporate before his eyes," Goldstein wrote in a Jan. 2 filing. "He has accepted responsibility for his offenses, and looks forward to serving his sentence and attempting to move forward with a productive and law abiding life."</p>
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<p>Kunzelman reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press reporter Jason Dearen in Gainesville contributed to this report.</p> | Neo-Nazi group leader scheduled for federal court sentencing | false | https://apnews.com/amp/f0acedb5b68545a9a119fb35b2d2b968 | 2018-01-09 | 2 |
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<p>The story starts with Twigger eating oysters on the half shell in a restaurant.</p>
<p>“I bit into something hard, spit it out and realized it was a tiny pearl,” he said in a phone interview.</p>
<p>Twigger keeps the pearl in his wallet as something of a good luck charm.</p>
<p>The pearl got him thinking in a musical context.</p>
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<p>“There have been quite a few traditional sea songs. We talked about maybe doing a show with them. Then we started talking about doing an album,” he said.</p>
<p>The CD came first.</p>
<p>The American-based Celtic-rock band released the album of sea shanties last summer, and it immediately went to the top of the Billboard World Music chart, Twigger said.</p>
<p>And it skyrocketed even without the album or its songs being sold on iTunes or Amazon. The CD is only available on the band’s website and at its concerts.</p>
<p>Cuts include “Cape Cod Girls,” which is about the loved ones men leave behind, and the pirate song “My Son John.”</p>
<p>The only relatively new song on the album is one that Twigger himself wrote. It’s titled “Watery Grave.”</p>
<p>The song never made it on any of Gaelic Storm’s previous albums.</p>
<p>“It’s about a shipping disaster on the coast of Cornwall (England) in 1981. A ship slammed into the rocks. It had a crew of seven. They sent a lifeboat. The people who went out on the lifeboat perished as well,” Twigger said.</p>
<p>He said the band recorded the album at a friend’s boathouse on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.</p>
<p>Gaelic Storm went from the recording sessions to touring. As a result, it has only rehearsed a handful of songs from the album.</p>
<p>The band’s audience on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at the KiMo Theatre may hear a few of them, but not “Watery Grave,” Twigger said.</p>
<p /> | Songs of the sea: It all started with a pearl | false | https://abqjournal.com/300862/albuquerque-celtic-rock-2.html | 2013-11-15 | 2 |
<p>Not content to solve the crimes being perpetrated in the here and now, New York City prosecutors announced that they will begin seeking indictments against DNA sequences found at crime scenes. Then, using tens of thousands of DNA samples taken from convicted felons, police will try to match the DNA of the convicts with DNA evidence taken from victims or crime scenes.</p>
<p>The stautute of limitations–the time within which felony prosecutions must be brought–is 10 years in New York. By seeking grand jury indictments against DNA, the statute of limitations will be “tolled,” or stopped.</p>
<p>At this moment in history, people tend to think of DNA evidence as infallible. Like the fingerprints of yesterday, which current scientific evidence is proving to be less than the unassailable proof jurors have been led to believe it is, there is DNA evidence and there is DNA evidence. The “proof” that is DNA depends on the quality of the sample and the expertise–and honesty–of the scientists performing the analysis. Last year we learned of at least two state forensic examiners who testified falsely about DNA analyses (saying there was a match when they knew there was none) or who conducted and interpreted DNA analyses without the requisite degree of skill and training. Innocent people were convicted based on their flawed testimony. Some may have been executed.</p>
<p>But there is a bigger problem with this plan. There is a reason for statutes of limitations. The longer a case goes without being heard, the less likely victims and witnesses will have an accurate recall of alleged crimes. Memories will also have faded for the accused and their burden of producing evidence to disprove their guilt (I hope none of my readers persist in believing in the presumption of innocence) will be insurmountable. How well do you remember what you did on any day or night 10 years ago? Actually, the case could be brought to trial 20, 30, 40 years from now under the prosecutor’s plans.</p>
<p>Lawrence S. Goldman, the past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said that with the passage of time, it becomes harder and harder to defend against criminal cases. “It is extremely difficult to defend a crime after many years,” he said. “I would rather the city spend its efforts on people who are sitting in prison and make sure the DNA matches,” he said.</p>
<p>Why is it that it is so hard to get a DNA test for a man on death row and so easy to get an indictment of a DNA sample? Because the American system of criminal injustice is far more interested in convicting someone– guilty or not–than in sparing the life of one person wrongfully convicted.</p>
<p>The criminal system is already a disgrace in its politically correct promotion of victim’s “rights” at the expense of defendants’ Constitutional guarantees and fairness. The Supreme Court has said repeatedly that it does not care that innocent people may be convicted. But that does not mean that states need to follow that despicable principle.</p>
<p>Some day, some state could do the right thing. It is not likely to be New York.</p>
<p>ELAINE CASSEL practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime’s dismantling of the Constitution at <a href="" type="internal">Civil Liberties Watch</a>. She can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Indicting DNA | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/08/11/indicting-dna/ | 2003-08-11 | 4 |
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<p>A Sears Outlet is set to open this spring on the city's West Side, the company said in a news release.</p>
<p>The 25,081-square-foot store is going into a onetime Valley Furniture Warehouse building at 9227 Coors NW. The store is slated to open May 1.</p>
<p>The in-store and online inventory runs the gamut. The array includes appliances, mattresses, tools, lawn and garden equipment, and even apparel.</p>
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<p>The condition of the merchandise also varies. The products are "new, one-of-a-kind, out-of-carton, discontinued, used, reconditioned, overstocked, and scratched and dented," according the release.</p>
<p>The store is part of Illinois-based Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores, Inc., which was spun off from Sears Holdings Inc. in 2012.</p>
<p>As of 2013, Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores, its dealers and franchisees operated more than 1,200 stores across the U.S., Puerto Rico and Bermuda.</p> | Sears Outlet set to open on Coors NW | false | https://abqjournal.com/346324/sears-outlet-set-to-open-on-coors-nw.html | 2 |
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<p>Under Armour (NYSE: UA) (NYSE: UAA)&#160;-- the No. 3 athletic apparel and footwear brand --&#160;has been in a funk lately with growth slowing and a challenging U.S. retail environment. It even announced <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/01/under-armour-takes-a-step-backwards-3-things-inves.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5ed88d70-c5ad-11e7-af65-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">negative quarterly revenue growth Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;for the first time as a public company a few weeks ago.</p>
<p>It would appear that founder and CEO Kevin Plank's move to hire industry veteran Patrik Frisk as President and chief operating officer in July couldn't have come at a better time. But who is Frisk? And what are his plans to help this founder-led business get back on track?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Frisk's responsibilities are clear: lead the "company's go-to-market strategy and the successful execution of its long-term growth plan." Along with that challenge, Frisk will also have to manage key marketing, supply chain, product, and revenue responsibilities.</p>
<p>There are three key reasons Plank has chosen Frisk to be entrusted with these tasks:</p>
<p>Extensive industry leadership experience: Frisk has spent 30 years in the apparel, footwear, and retail industry with well-known brands like Timberland, Aldo Group, The North Face, and W.L. Gore. This is far from the first leadership position where he's been responsible for go-to-market strategies, products, and more.</p>
<p>Significant international apparel experience: When Frisk finished his tenure at VF Corp, the global apparel, footwear, and accessory company had grown to $12 billion in revenue. For his last three years at VF, he was the Coalition President of Outdoor Americas, in charge of the global performance of five key outdoor brands under the VF umbrella. Frisk has worked in seven European countries, Australia, and the U.S.</p>
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<p>Experience with utilizing customer data: As CEO at Aldo Group, Frisk saw the implementation of a suite of Salesforce.com products that provided a "360 degree view" of the customer. This initiative allowed the company to get to know its customers better, making the brand more relevant to its high-end customers. This experience will be instrumental for Under Armour to capitalize on its recently implemented SAP system that provides a " <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/12/kevin-plank-says-under-armour-is-focused-on-delive.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5ed88d70-c5ad-11e7-af65-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">single view of the customer Opens a New Window.</a>."</p>
<p>Just over four months into his role, Frisk already has a clear sense of how he will help grow Under Armour into a $10 billion global brand.</p>
<p>In the company's most recent earnings call, Frisk laid out what he called "initial observations" and "context around our strengths and opportunities."</p>
<p>The first focus is great product. Frisk reiterated Plank's view that the company is a performance brand, but stated that in recent years, the company has been "inconsistent with this promise." Frisk went on to say this "inconsistency stops now." He emphasized that the company would "double-down" on innovation and create deeper connections with the customer.</p>
<p>Second, the company will utilize customer data to drive product. It's not surprising given his experience that he believes consumer insights are "crucial to a successful GTM [go-to-market] strategy." Frisk has kicked off a consumer segmentation study of 20,000 people from around the world, which he said will be combined with data from the company's connected fitness apps to more "clearly define our global consumer target."</p>
<p>And lastly, Frisk spent most of his time on the call explaining the "operate" leg of his plan. This is where Frisk feels he could have the largest impact.</p>
<p>Basically, he wants to improve and tighten operations to be more responsive and to deliver the products that customers want. The company has gotten to where it is now through sheer "will". Frisk summarized his comments with a reassuring takeaway: "Based on my 30 years in this industry, I'm resolute and optimistic about the opportunity for Under Armour."</p>
<p>Frisk brings industry experience, a fresh perspective, a global view, and a solid plan. While the industry seems to face more competition and headwinds than ever before, his focus on "simultaneously reengineering our foundation, sharpening the organization, and learning what it means to operate as a big company" is exactly the thing that Under Armour needs right now.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Under Armour (A Shares)When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=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=be1acb4a-6c54-44e9-bd2b-a25f77f0b57d&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5ed88d70-c5ad-11e7-af65-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Under Armour (A Shares) wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=be1acb4a-6c54-44e9-bd2b-a25f77f0b57d&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5ed88d70-c5ad-11e7-af65-0050569d4be0&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 November 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBwithbike/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5ed88d70-c5ad-11e7-af65-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Brian Withers Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Under Armour (A Shares) and Under Armour (C Shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Under Armour (A Shares) and Under Armour (C Shares). The Motley Fool recommends Salesforce.com. 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=5ed88d70-c5ad-11e7-af65-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Can Kevin Plank's Hired Gun Help Get Under Armour Back on Track? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/16/can-kevin-planks-hired-gun-help-get-under-armour-back-on-track.html | 2017-11-16 | 0 |
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<p>There might be no prouder cop these days than Sgt. Edward J. Burns, the retired New York Police Department’s media liaison. Besides dedicating 27 years of his life to public service – much of it as the TV face representing the NYPD – Burns has much to brag about.</p>
<p>A lovely wife named Molly and three beautiful children. His daughter, Mary, was celebrating her 28th wedding anniversary the day Burns and I last spoke. And, oh yeah, his two sons are famous.</p>
<p>The sons didn’t go into law enforcement but each has dedicated parts of his careers to cops in another way, telling captivating stories about the job to which their old man dedicated his life.</p>
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<p>“I just tell people the boys are writers and leave it at that,” Burns told me. “I try not to brag. That’s not really a good thing. …” And as his voice trails off you can hear the justifiable and modest pride in his voice.</p>
<p>The oldest Burns son is Ed, 46, a multi-talented bona fide movie star. He started out writing, directing and starring in films like “The Brothers McMullen,” “She’s the One” and “Sidewalks of New York.” He played opposite Tom Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan.”</p>
<p>Brother Brian is just 13 months younger.</p>
<p>“They were Irish twins, as we call them,” their father told me. And their former production company of the same name produced, among other things, “The Fighting Fitzgeralds,” which starred Brian Dennehy as a retired New York firefighter.</p>
<p>Brian also wrote for the hit HBO series “Entourage.” His latest screenplay, “Daddy’s Home” starring Will Farrell and Donny Walberg goes into production this month.</p>
<p>As I talked with Burns Sr., it was easy to see that, after all his sons’ accomplishments, nothing has made him more proud than what “the boys” are doing right now. They have turned their storytelling ability to a subject they know first-hand – what it’s like to be part of a police officer’s family.</p>
<p>Brian is currently a writer for the hit CBS series “Blue Bloods,” which features a family of New York cops. Tom Selleck’s portrayal of the widowed NYPD commissioner helps audiences get inside the minds of officers as they make tough decisions. It helps the public get past today’s headline-making stories about police brutality and truly understand the daily life of a cop. The real-deal stuff, not the stilted scripts of older TV shows.</p>
<p>Big brother Ed is now writing, directing and starring in a new police drama for TNT called “Public Morals,” which takes a look back at vice squad cops working in the 1960s.</p>
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<p>As their dad put it, “You know, prostitution, gambling, drugs and so forth … all the stuff the Public Morals Division used to deal with.”</p>
<p>Since that’s the era in which Ed Sr. began wearing the uniform, he is a consultant on the show.</p>
<p>“I make sure the procedures and language are right for the time,” he said.</p>
<p>The upcoming TNT series is described as portraying the real life of police officers as they grapple with the fine line between morality and criminality. Ed Jr. stars as an officer determined to raise his sons to have integrity as he faces a daily dose of ugliness on the street.</p>
<p>Burns Sr. is much too modest to brag about it, but I’m thinking that’s exactly what he tried to do with his boys and daughter Mary.</p>
<p>Oh, and one more tidbit about the Burns brothers that makes their dad’s chest puff out just a little more? Ed is married to supermodel Christy Turlington. Brian married Christy’s equally beautiful sister, Kelly. The Burns now have nine gorgeous grandchildren.</p>
<p>Wait. Maybe someone should write a TV series about the Burns clan.</p>
<p>Think of it: An Irish cop who rose in the ranks of the nation’s largest police force, produced three accomplished children and picked up two gorgeous daughter-in-laws. Sprinkle in nine rambunctious kids and I can’t think of a better cast!</p>
<p><a href="" type="external">DianeDimond.com</a>; email to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p /> | It’s a famous family affair for a very proud father | false | https://abqjournal.com/493393/its-a-famous-family-affair-for-a-very-proud-father.html | 2 |
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<p>The euro zone is on track for its second recession in three years, China's once booming manufacturing sector is contracting at a faster pace than previously reported, and the United States is widely seen as struggling to keep up its pace of growth.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Business surveys released on Thursday painted a global picture of economic malaise from Beijing to Berlin.</p>
<p>The euro zone economy will shrink around 0.5 percent in the current quarter as the economic rot is even spreading through Germany, the region's largest and strongest economy, Markit's Purchasing Mangers' Index (PMI) suggested.</p>
<p>It came on the heels of the HSBC Flash China manufacturing PMI falling to 47.8 for August, its lowest level since November and well down from July's final figure of 49.3.</p>
<p>Growth in the United States manufacturing sector is also expected to have slowed in August. U.S. data due at 1258 GMT.</p>
<p>"The indicators taken as a whole indicate a material slowdown in the pace of the world economy," said economist Philip Shaw at Investec.</p>
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<p>The euro zone composite PMI, which measures manufacturing and services together, was actually slightly better than a month earlier, nudging up to 46.6 and just pipping forecasts for it to hold steady at July's 46.5. But was still its seventh month in a row below 50, the dividing line between contraction and growth.</p>
<p>"August's flash euro zone PMI does nothing to challenge the notion that the single currency area is now firmly in recession," said Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics.</p>
<p>More worryingly, the downturn in smaller euro zone economies is clearly taking root in the core. The flash composite PMI for Germany fell to a three-year low, a fourth straight month of contraction.</p>
<p>German economic growth slowed to 0.3 percent in the second quarter on a sharp drop in investment, adding to evidence that it can no longer be relied on to pull the euro zone out of a deep slump, data showed earlier on Thursday.</p>
<p>"Another reminder that a chronic lack of economic growth in the euro zone will continue to impede efforts to bring the debt crisis to an end," Loynes said.</p>
<p>The euro zone economy shrank by 0.2 percent in the three months to June, according to official data. Economists polled by Reuters last week predicted a similar outcome for the current quarter, with no growth until the start of next year.</p> | China, Euro Manufacturing Sectors Shrink in August | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2012/08/23/china-euro-manufacturing-sectors-shrink-in-august.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p>BAE Systems moved to patch up damaged relations with its investors on Thursday, promising imminent meetings to discuss its strategy after the failure of its attempted merger with EADS, shareholders told Reuters on Thursday.</p>
<p>Investors are keen to hear management make its case and explain how Europe's biggest defence contractor plans to keep growing when governments are cutting back on their military spending.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"We want to sit down with the company to talk through exactly why they wanted to do this deal, and now that it won't be going ahead, what are the plans," said one of BAE's top 20 shareholders.</p>
<p>"They implied this was a strategic necessity, and now they say this setback is fine and that they can carry on as normal. Well, which is it?"</p>
<p>Investors contacted by Reuters after the proposed deal fell through said BAE's management has said it will meet them, possibly within days, to outline its plans.</p>
<p>Earlier this week fund manager Invesco, BAE's biggest shareholder with more than 13 percent of the company, fired a broadside at the company in an attempt to sink the merger, citing concerns over state interference, poor terms and lack of strategic rationale.</p>
<p>But now the deal is off the table many of the investors said they remained supportive of BAE's managers but still expect to see a robust plan for the company's future, and will not settle for pledges to find an alternative suitor, perhaps in the United States as a solution to its immediate challenges.</p>
<p>"They need to be clear now. The last thing you want to hear is they're just going to wait for a better suitor to come over the hill. You want them to be actively managing the business and getting on with the day-to-day business of winning more international contracts," said another leading shareholder.</p>
<p>A number of investors said management were owed a modest amount of credit for engaging EADS in what they saw as an ambitious attempt to fulfill obligations to investors and explore all possible ways of generating value for shareholders.</p>
<p>One major shareholder said he had supported the principle of the merger with the owner of Airbus as an effective way to meet BAE's challenge of diversifying away from its current dependence on the weakening defence sector.</p>
<p>The failure of the deal is therefore an ominous sign for the company, he noted.</p>
<p>"BAE are left in a tricky position ... Consolidation would seem sensible in the face of such difficulties, but as we have seen, this is not going to be easy to achieve," he said.</p>
<p>None of the investors contacted by Reuters demanded an immediate management overhaul following the deal's collapse but indicated that Chief Executive Ian King and Chairman Dick Olver face a tough few weeks in trying to restore their credibility and avoid a vote of no confidence at the next shareholder meeting.</p>
<p>"Until you sit down with the company, you cannot make those kinds of judgments on whether the chairman should stay or go ... So we'll hold fire, talk to the company and then decide how we feel about it," the first investor said.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | BAE to Meet With Investors on 'Plan B' | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/10/11/bae-to-meet-with-investors-on-plan-b.html | 2016-01-26 | 0 |
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<p>House of Cards is one of Netflix's flagship original shows. Image source: Netflix.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us."</p>
<p>That 2013 quote from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has really resonated over the years and underscored Netflix's strategic trajectory, particularly as it relates to Time Warner's premium cable channel. Each rival service had something the other one wanted. HBO is known for high-quality, premium original content like Game of Thrones, among many other titles. Netflix's over-the-top model offered a simpler distribution method that appealed to cable-cutters and cable-nevers.</p>
<p>Netflix just achieved an important milestone in its quest.</p>
<p>Morgan Stanley has just put out a research note (via <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-has-better-programming-than-hbo-2016-4" type="external">Business Insider Opens a New Window.</a>) that shows a meaningful shift in how consumers perceive the quality of various streaming video services. The survey (n = 2,501) asks respondents to indicate which non-cable service has the best original content. HBO can now qualify as over-the-top thanks to its new HBO Now service. For the first time ever, Netflix took the top spot.</p>
<p>Who has the best original content?</p>
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<p>Data source: Morgan Stanley.</p>
<p>Notably, HBO took a pretty big hit in 2016 regarding its quality perception, losing over 13 percentage points compared to 2015. Morgan Stanley's data also suggested that these heavy investments in original content are paying off, with nearly half of respondents saying they signed up for original content.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Netflix has pared back its catalog of licensed content over the past couple of years, in part to allocate that money toward investing in original content. In other words, Netflix is making a very concerted effort to prioritize quality over quantity, since newer original content earns higher reviews than older licensed content.</p>
<p>Party like it's 2016This is going to be a huge year for Netflix. Not only did the company announce a massive global expansion earlier this year, but Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos had already made it quite clear that the company would be doubling its number of original series.</p>
<p>The whole cycle feeds on itself. As Netflix attracts subscribers with original content, that increases the company's ability to invest in higher production values and a broader portfolio of shows. Here's Sarandos on a conference call in January:</p>
<p>It's going to be a good year for both subscribers and investors.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/12/an-important-milestone-in-netflixs-quest-to-become.aspx" type="external">An Important Milestone in Netflix's Quest to Become HBO Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFNewCow/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Evan Niu, CFA Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Netflix. The Motley Fool recommends Time Warner. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | An Important Milestone in Netflix's Quest to Become HBO | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/12/important-milestone-in-netflix-quest-to-become-hbo.html | 2016-04-12 | 0 |
<p>Fifty years ago Neville Chamberlain emerged from his airplane, gestured with his umbrella, and announced to his anxious countrymen that the abject surrender he had just signed in Munich would assure them what the Prayer Book pleads for, "peace in our time." The major effect of his act was to give both umbrellas and peace a bad name for generations to come. Within a year, the world was at war while the Munich agreement went down in history as proof positive of the futility of concessions and the virtues of uncompromising strength. Its "lesson" has since been invoked to justify causes as diverse as the American intervention in Vietnam, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and opposition to arms control agreements. Nor would it surprise me if, behind the Kremlin's secretive walls, Soviet strategists invoked that lesson to oppose a withdrawal from Afghanistan, Poland, or Hungary, gravely warning of "another Munich."</p>
<p>Yet is the lesson of Munich really so simple, that appeasement is bad and uncompromising strength good? Unquestionably, the Munich agreement was one of the pivotal tragedies of our time. By surrendering Czechoslovakia to Hitler, the Western democracies brought on precisely what they feared. Their surrender broke the back of German opposition to Hitler. It destroyed the one genuinely free, democratic state east of the Rhine and helped discredit democracy in that part of the world. It did not him Hitler's fury toward the east, only armed him with state-of-the-art weaponry for a war that effectively eliminated both France and the British Empire as world powers and drew Soviet might into the very heart of Europe.</p>
<p /> | Looking Back at Munich | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/looking-back-at-munich | 2018-10-07 | 4 |
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<p>A description of the photos was among new details released Friday during the arraignment of Miranda Rabago, 27, charged with child abuse resulting in the death last November of her 18-month-old son.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say Rabago was his only caretaker when Ares suffered his fatal injuries. She pleaded not guilty in Santa Fe District Court on Friday; if found guilty, she faces up to 21 years in prison and $20,000 in fines.</p>
<p>Chief Deputy District Attorney Susan Stinson said in court that Ares had a skull fracture and chronic brain bleeding as well as six other fractures, including to his tibia, fibia and clavicle. The boy also had bruising on the cartilage in both his ears. Stinson said the Office of the Medical Investigator autopsy report, which is crucial evidence, has not been released.</p>
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<p>But Stinson also said that Rabago, who is pregnant, doesn’t face a life sentence because there’s no evidence that the death was intentional.</p>
<p>Stinson described photos the state has from Rabago’s cellphone that show the writing on Ares’ body and others in which he appears to be asleep or unconscious on the floor.</p>
<p>Ares was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center on Nov. 22 for being unresponsive, and doctors called police because of the nature of his injuries. Rabago told officers that Ares fell out of his crib while she was sleeping in another room at their apartment near Cerrillos Road and Zafarano Drive and had no idea how he got the injuries, according to initial police reports.</p>
<p>On Friday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer imposed a $50,000 signature bond and allowed Rabago to remain on 24-hour lockdown at a friend’s house in Santa Fe. Rabago also is not allowed to have contact with minors, including neighborhood children.</p>
<p>Stinson said in court that she “doesn’t have a position” to ask Marlowe Sommer to deny Rabago a bond to keep her in jail. A new state constitutional amendment passed in November allows judges to not set bond for defendants deemed too dangerous to be in public, but Marlowe Sommer said before setting Rabago’s conditions of release that the state has to prove a suspect poses a danger.</p>
<p>“We’re all somewhat uncomfortable on how to approach the new mandate,” Marlowe Sommer said. The judge also found that Rabago is not a flight risk.</p>
<p>Rabago was arrested and released Dec. 14 on the same conditions Marlowe Sommer imposed Friday. She was arrested again Dec. 19 after she was indicted, and she was returned to jail, where she remained until Friday.</p>
<p>Rabago’s two other children now live in Colorado with her parents, Stinson said. Rabago filed for divorce from the children’s father a week before her first arrest and asked for sole custody of the children. She checked a box on the petition that says she is the “fit and proper person” to care for the children.</p>
<p>According to police reports, Ares Baroz was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center around 6:45 p.m. on Nov. 21 after Rabago said he was unresponsive. Doctors called police and told them the infant had a skull fracture on the back of his head and had “black brain” from prior shaking. He also had a broken right clavicle from a previous incident.</p>
<p>Ares was taken to University of New Mexico Hospital, where doctors there determined that Ares was in the lowest percentile range for his height and weight and that he was malnourished and under-cared-for.</p>
<p>Detectives searching Rabago’s apartment found blood on a pillow and a sippy cup full of rotten milk in Ares’ crib. There was a glass pipe with marijuana residue on it next to the crib and another on the floor next to a mattress in the living room.</p>
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<p /> | Mother arraigned in death of toddler; pics show child with ‘thug life’ on stomach | false | https://abqjournal.com/927766/mother-arraigned-in-november-death-of-18monthold-boy.html | 2017-01-14 | 2 |
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