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<p>ABQ.FM CEO Dick Govatski clicks through programming available to listeners with the ABQ.FM app. In the background is the station software projected on screen, and below it boxes containing 18 different Internet radio stations. Photo: Kevin Robinson-Avila [email protected] Tue Mar 17 16:14:17 -0600 2015 1426630451 FILENAME: 189137.jpg</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — With the Internet emerging as the new frontier for radio, Albuquerque’s newly-launched ABQ.FM Internet station is jumping in head first to offer Duke City listeners locally programmed news, sports and musical genres of every kind.</p>
<p>ABQ.FM, which longtime Albuquerque entrepreneur Dick Govatski launched in February, allows users to download a free app on Android and Apple devices to gain immediate access to 18 radio stations that offer music&#160; of every era. It also includes locally generated news, sports and talk radio from Albuquerque terrestrial stations that are joining ABQ.FM’s click-ready, anytime-anywhere format.</p>
<p>“Its an Internet-based radio station with comprehensive programming and choices for the local Albuquerque market,” Govatski said. “We’ve already got 18 different stations up and running with servers that allow up to 60,000 different listeners to be tuned into each one simultaneously.”</p>
<p>Two local stations — KIVA “Rock of Talk” radio owned by Eddy Aragon and New Mexico public radio KANW — have joined ABQ.FM. The station is now reaching out to Albuquerque’s nearly five dozen others, Govatski said.</p>
<p>“We’re creating a way to listen to a huge variety of music and news on-the-go and in one place that appeals to all ages and genders,” Govatski said. “We’re inviting all other locally-owned stations now to come into the ABQ.FM app for it to all be available on one dashboard.”</p>
<p>The company expects to earn revenue from advertising, although it has yet to begin selling air time and earning income. It also will eventually allow listeners to buy any song they listen to on the ABQ.FM music stations. And, it expects to host new, specially-programmed local stations paid for by sponsors.</p>
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<p>“Say the city of Albuquerque wants to have its own radio station with music, information and news for local listeners,” Govatski said. “We can create the station and get it up and running in perhaps one week, with them supplying the content.”</p>
<p>For local stations like Aragon’s, it allows local branding through digital Internet radio with local advertising opportunities that are not available today through Internet radio conglomerates like I Heart Radio or TuneIn, Aragon said.</p>
<p>“This allows me to monetize my radio content through a local digital platform,” Aragon said. “Until now, I’ve had no local ability to brand myself on Internet radio.”</p>
<p>Govatski is a long-time technology entrepreneur who heads Net Medical Xpress Solutions, a publicly traded company in Albuquerque that provides telemedicine services for hospitals and clinics nationwide. Govatski tapped Net Medical programmers and contract developers from the Silicon Valley to create the ABQ.FM platform and app.</p>
<p>Govatski was a disk jockey for radio stations in Detroit, Kansas City and Indianapolis in the 50s and 60s who has since built up his own digital collection of 35,000 songs from a broad range of genres and eras. He used that collection to create content for ABQ.FM stations.</p> | Company launches on-line, local radio network | false | https://abqjournal.com/556891/company-launches-on-line-local-radio-network.html | 2015-03-17 | 2 |
<p>Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis says its net profit rose 10 percent in the second quarter, helped by gains from divestments.</p>
<p>Novartis said Tuesday that net earnings rose to $1.98 billion in the April-June period from $1.81 billion a year earlier.</p>
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<p>Net sales, however, were down 2 percent, slipping to $12.24 billion from $12.47 billion. While sales grew in terms of volume, Novartis said that revenue took a hit from generic competition and pricing.</p>
<p>The Basel-based company reaffirmed its full-year outlook for net sales is broadly in line with last year's and core operating income also remaining steady or declining by a "low single-digit" percentage.</p>
<p>For the year's first half, net profit was off 5 percent at $3.64 billion and sales slipped 1 percent to $23.78 billion.</p> | Novartis net profit grows 10 percent in Q2, but sales dip | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/18/novartis-net-profit-grows-10-percent-in-q2-but-sales-dip.html | 2017-07-18 | 0 |
<p>On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed immigration actions to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.</p>
<p>He said “we’ve been talking about this right from the beginning.”</p>
<p>Trump signed the two orders during a ceremony at the Department of Homeland Security after honoring the department’s newly confirmed secretary, retired General John Kelly.</p>
<p>As reported by <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/trump-sign-border-wall/2017/01/25/id/770380/" type="external">Newsmax</a>, the executive orders will jumpstart construction of a U.S. -Mexico border wall, one of his signature campaign promises, and strip funding for so-called sanctuary cities, which don’t arrest or detain immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.</p>
<p>During an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Trump said he expected construction of the wall to begin within months. U.S. taxpayers are expected to pay for the upfront costs, through Trump continues to assert Mexico will reimburse the money through unspecified means.</p>
<p>Trump said:</p>
<p>There will be a payment, it will be in form, perhaps a complicated form.</p>
<p>He continued to say that negotiations with Mexico will begin soon. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has insisted his country will not pay for a wall.</p>
<p>Trump is said to be still weighing the details of plans to curb the number of refugees coming to the U.S. The current proposal includes at least a four-month halt on all refugee admissions, as well as a temporary ban on people coming from Muslim-majority countries.</p> | Trump Signs Orders For Border Walls | true | http://shark-tank.com/2017/01/26/trump-signs-orders-border-walls/ | 0 |
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<p>Eric Massa (D-Tickleland) is gone from Congress. Yet scandal-struck Republican Sens. John Ensign and David Vitter remain ensconced. Even though the New York Times last week <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11inquire.html" type="external">disclosed</a> new information that Ensign might have violated ethics laws by helping Doug Hampton—the husband of Ensign’s former lover—land lobbying work and by passing $96,000 to the Hamptons, Ensign is still hanging on to his job. But Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34392.html" type="external">reports</a> that he is a lonely soul in the Senate:</p>
<p>The Nevada Republican admitted in June that he’d had an affair with an aide. But rather than putting the problem behind him, the admission was just the first in a long series of damaging revelations that have left other senators wary of working too closely with him—a significant problem in a clubby body in which success depends on building relationships with other members.</p>
<p>“Like Vitter, Ensign doesn’t get invited to a lot of press conferences because no one wants their boss in a photo op with them,” said one top GOP aide, referring to Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter, who was identified in 2007 as a client of an alleged prostitution ring.</p>
<p>“He’s been so isolated for so long that I almost forget he’s still here,” said another senior Senate Republican aide.</p>
<p>That’s to be expected. Ensign is damaged goods, and he may just be holding on to the job until 2012, when he’s up for reelection. A tainted last hurrah while you’re under investigation is better than no hurrah while you’re under investigation.</p>
<p>But one curious aspect of the Ensign endgame is what Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, a fellow Nevadan, is saying about Ensign: nothing.</p>
<p>Ensign has a nonaggression pact with his home-state colleague, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Reid declined to comment when asked about the Republican’s effectiveness amid scandal.</p>
<p>“That is an issue that is now handled by the Ethics Committee and whatever is going on with the Justice Department,” Reid told POLITICO. “It’s something — I need to let them do it, and I don’t need to offer my opinion.”</p>
<p>Reid might be abiding an age-old rule of politics: when an opponent is self-immolating, don’t get in the way. Or perhaps he is being a gentleman. Reid, though, has plenty of trouble in Nevada, where he faces a tough fight for reelection this year. And maybe he figures it’s best not to poke at another under-fire Nevadan while he’s trying to save his own job. In any event, it does put the Democrats at a disadvantage. Ensign should be a top target for the Dems. After all, his scandal involves sex, money, and lobbying. (It doesn’t get more Washington than that!) This is great ammo for the Ds to use against the Rs. Yet, there hasn’t been much of a Democratic offensive. That could be because of the clubbiness of the Senate, where scandal-snared senators are often left to wither on their own, instead of being used as political piñatas. But in this case, Reid and other senators should be a bit less polite—not only to serve political needs, but also to serve the public interest and protect the integrity of the Senate.</p>
<p /> | How Politics Works: The Ensign Edition | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/how-politics-works-ensign-edition/ | 2010-03-15 | 4 |
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<p>Saving for retirement is a challenge many workers face, but without an amply funded nest egg, you risk running out of money as a senior. Let's explore your options for saving for retirement so that you can get started as soon as possible.</p>
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<p>IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.</p>
<p>While you're allowed to contribute to both an IRA (individual retirement account) and 401(k) at the same time, many savers tend to choose one or the other. If you have access to a 401(k) plan through your employer, signing up can be advantageous for many reasons. First, the annual contribution limits for a 401(k) plan are higher than those of most IRA varieties. Currently, employees under 50 can contribute up to $18,000 a year to a 401(k) but only $5,500 per year to a traditional or Roth IRA. Those 50 and older are allowed an additional $6,000 401(k) catch-up contribution and a $1,000 IRA catch-up, for a total of $24,000 and $6,500, respectively. Note that all 401(k) contributions go in tax-free, but withdrawals in retirement are taxed as income.</p>
<p>Additionally, since many employers offer matching incentives for the plans they sponsor, participating in a 401(k) could help you save even more. (If you work for a public school or tax-exempt organization, you'll probably be offered a 403(b) plan, which is similar to the 401(k) in most regards.) With an IRA, all of the money going into your account will typically come from you, not an employer.</p>
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<p>Not all <a href="http://www.fool.com/retirement/ira/index.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">IRAs Opens a New Window.</a>, however, are created equal. The two most common types -- the traditional and Roth -- have a number of key differences. With a traditional IRA, your contributions are typically tax-free, but withdrawals are taxable in retirement. Roth IRAs work the opposite way: You don't get an immediate tax break for contributing, but withdrawals are not taxed later on. However, there are <a href="http://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/11/05/ira-income-limits-for-2016-and-2017.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">income limits Opens a New Window.</a> for contributing to a Roth, and if you earn too much, you won't be eligible.</p>
<p>While large companies frequently offer 401(k)s, these plans can be costly and cumbersome for smaller businesses to administer. The SIMPLE (savings incentive match plan for employees) IRA is a more cost-effective option for businesses with up to 100 employees. If your company offers a <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/what-is-a-simple-ira.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">SIMPLE IRA Opens a New Window.</a>, you'll be allowed to contribute up to $12,500 a year if you're under 50. If you're 50 or older, you're allowed a $3,000 catch-up for a total of $15,500 per year.</p>
<p>Furthermore, employers are required to match contributions to a SIMPLE IRA, either by contributing a fixed rate of 2% of every employee's compensation (regardless of participation in the plan), or by matching employee contributions up to a maximum of 3% of compensation. If you're self-employed, you're allowed to open a SIMPLE IRA and contribute as both employer and employee.</p>
<p>Another option available to small businesses and self-employed workers is the SEP (simplified employee pension) IRA. Like SIMPLE IRAs, <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/what-is-a-sep-ira.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">SEP IRAs Opens a New Window.</a> are easy and cost-effective to set up and maintain. SEP IRAs, however, come with a much higher annual contribution limit. This year, employers can contribute up to 25% of employees' salaries up to $54,000. (Note that if you're self-employed, that 25% threshold applies to net earnings from your business.)</p>
<p>If you own a small business, a SEP IRA might allow you to sock away a sizable chunk of money tax-free. But remember that as an employer, you're required to make the same contribution percentage-wise to your employees' accounts as you do to your own.</p>
<p>Navigating the different retirement plans out there can be tricky, but here are some key points to consider when making your decision:</p>
<p>The following chart will help you compare your options to see which type of plan might work best for you:</p>
<p>TABLE BY AUTHOR.</p>
<p>No matter which type of retirement plan you choose, the key is to start contributing as early as possible to give your money a chance to grow. As an example, contributing $300 every month for 35 years will give you an ending balance of over $400,000 if your investments generate a relatively conservative average annual 6% return. Given that many people are living longer these days, the more you're able to save along the way, the greater your chances of being able to fund the comfortable retirement you deserve.</p>
<p>The $15,834 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $15,834 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Your 2017 Guide to Retirement Planning | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/22/your-2017-guide-to-retirement-planning.html | 2017-01-22 | 0 |
<p>I wrote <a href="" type="internal">this column</a> for the new Newsweek on the Scotus decision last week to hear the McCutcheon case, which gives them a chance to invalidate Buckley v. Valeo contribution limits. For some reason pieces written for Newsweek don't always land on this blog, so for those of you who still visit me the old-fashioned way I wanted to make sure you saw it.</p>
<p>Money grafs:</p>
<p>Why do [contribution] limits exist? Here we go back 37 years to Buckley v. Valeo, the seminal Supreme Court decision in this area. Even if you follow this stuff only casually, you probably know that candidates and parties can spend as much as they want; that "spending is speech," as it's sometimes said in the trade. That was from Buckley. But Buckley also upheld limits on how much any single individual could contribute to a candidate on the grounds that excessive contributions from one person could lead to "corruption or its appearance."</p>
<p>So the court that flung the doors wide open to corporate spending in Citizens United is now going to have a go at these individual limits. We have in essence three possible outcomes.</p>
<p>Outcome No. 1 is that the court upholds them. This seems pretty unlikely. If there were 5 votes to undo 100 years' worth of precedent in Citizens United, there are probably 5 votes to tinker with contribution limits, too.</p>
<p>So the two remaining options involve overturning them. The less dramatic of these would involve a ruling simply on the narrow question of these aggregate limits. On one level, it's not a crazy argument McCutcheon has. That is to say, under current law he's allowed to give $2,500 to 18 different candidates. If he can give that to 28, or even 208, well, it's still only $2,500 per candidate, and it's not as if he's going to own someone for $2,500. However, as campaign-finance expert Fred Wertheimer recently calculated on his blog, eliminating the aggregate limits would permit one person to write a $2.43 million check to a national party to be divvied up among candidates. That's a lot of candy from one sugar daddy.</p>
<p>Worse, the court could stick a dagger right in the heart of the Buckley framework and undo all contribution limits. Considering how far out of his way John Roberts went to get to the Citizens United decision (scheduling a second hearing of the case), it hardly seems crazy to think the court wants to go all the way.</p>
<p>It's pretty grim business. And conservatives, if you're all for this, I hope that if the day comes that George Soros and Peter Lewis and Herb Sandler decide to put $50 million each behind a Democratic presidential candidate, you'll just salute and say it's their God-given right to do so.</p>
<p>I am on the road tomorrow, Tuesday, giving a talk up at the Shorenstein Center amongst old friends. The column I am polishing off now will be posted Tuesday morning, but that will probably be all for the day. If you live near Cambridge and can spare the time, come to my lunch!</p> | The Supremes: The Campaign-Finance West Is About to Get Wilder | true | https://thedailybeast.com/the-supremes-the-campaign-finance-west-is-about-to-get-wilder | 2018-10-05 | 4 |
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<p>If you want to go to your happy place, you need more than cash. A winter coat helps — and a sense of community.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>A new report shows Norway is the happiest country on Earth, Americans are getting sadder, and it takes more than just money to be happy.</p>
<p>Norway vaulted to the top slot in the World Happiness Report despite the plummeting price of oil, a key part of its economy. Income in the United States has gone up over the past decade, but happiness is declining.</p>
<p>The United States was 14th in the latest ranking, down from No. 13 last year, and over the years Americans steadily have been rating themselves less happy.</p>
<p>"It's the human things that matter. If the riches make it harder to have frequent and trustworthy relationship between people, is it worth it?" asked John Helliwell, the lead author of the report and an economist at the University of British Columbia in Canada (ranked No. 7). "The material can stand in the way of the human."</p>
<p>Studying happiness may seem frivolous, but serious academics have long been calling for more testing about people's emotional well-being, especially in the United States. In 2013, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report recommending that federal statistics and surveys, which normally deal with income, spending, health and housing, include a few extra questions on happiness because it would lead to better policy that affects people's lives.</p>
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<p>Norway moved from No. 4 to the top spot in the report's rankings, which combine economic, health and polling data compiled by economists that are averaged over three years from 2014 to 2016. Norway edged past previous champ Denmark, which fell to second. Iceland, Switzerland and Finland round out the top 5.</p>
<p>"Good for them. I don't think Denmark has a monopoly on happiness," said Meik Wiking, chief executive officer of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, who wasn't part of the global scientific study that came out with the rankings.</p>
<p>"What works in the Nordic countries is a sense of community and understanding in the common good," Wiking said.</p>
<p>Still, you have to have some money to be happy, which is why most of the bottom countries are in desperate poverty. But at a certain point extra money doesn't buy extra happiness, Helliwell and others said.</p>
<p>Central African Republic fell to last on the happiness list, and is joined at the bottom by Burundi, Tanzania, Syria and Rwanda.</p>
<p>The report ranks 155 countries. The economists have been ranking countries since 2012, but the data used goes back farther so the economists can judge trends.</p>
<p>The rankings are based on gross domestic product per person, healthy life expectancy with four factors from global surveys. In those surveys, people give scores from 1 to 10 on how much social support they feel they have if something goes wrong, their freedom to make their own life choices, their sense of how corrupt their society is and how generous they are.</p>
<p>While most countries were either getting happier or at least treading water, America's happiness score dropped 5 percent over the past decade. Venezuela and the Central African Republic slipped the most over the past decade. Nicaragua and Latvia increased the most.</p>
<p>Study co-author and economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University said in a phone interview from Oslo that the sense of community, so strong in Norway, is deteriorating in the United States.</p>
<p>"We're becoming more and more mean spirited. And our government is becoming more and more corrupt. And inequality is rising," Sachs said, citing research and analysis he conducted on America's declining happiness for the report. "It's a long-term trend and conditions are getting worse."</p>
<p>University of Maryland's Carol Graham, who wasn't a study author but did review some chapters, said the report mimics what she sees in the American rural areas, where her research shows poor whites have a deeper lack of hope, which she connects to rises in addictions to painkillers and suicide among that group.</p>
<p>"There is deep misery in the heartland," Graham, author of the book "The Pursuit of Happiness," wrote in an email.</p>
<p>Happiness — and doing what you love — is more important than politicians think, said study author Helliwell. He rated his personal happiness a 9 on a 1-to- 10 scale.</p> | Who's Happy, Who's Not: Norway Tops List, U.S. Falls | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/03/20/whos-happy-whos-not-norway-tops-list-u-s-falls.html | 2017-03-20 | 0 |
<p>Meet Mangetsu-man, Tokyo's real-life superhero.</p>
<p>Mangetsu-man, which translates as <a href="http://www.japantoday.com/category/picture-of-the-day/view/cleaning-up-the-streets-2?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=news_on_twitter" type="external">Mr Full Moon</a>, is on a one-man crusade to clean up the streets of the Japanese capital.&#160;But his enemy is grime rather than crime. And in a city voted as having the <a href="http://www.multivu.com/mnr/70425525-tokyo-tops-tripadvisor-world-city-survey-amongst-global-travelers" type="external">cleanest streets</a> in the world, he needs all the super powers he can muster to make things cleaner than they already are.</p>
<p>[UNIK] Mangetsu Man,sosok superhero yg menjaga kebersihan Tokyo. Ia membekali diri dg senjata sapu &amp; cikrak <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MSOW?src=hash" type="external">#MSOW</a> <a href="http://t.co/xSKpl5Swnw" type="external">pic.twitter.com/xSKpl5Swnw</a></p>
<p>— CDBS 94.5FM BALI (@CDBSFMBALI) <a href="https://twitter.com/CDBSFMBALI/status/505505080615792640" type="external">August 29, 2014</a></p>
<p>Armed with a broom and dustpan, Mangetsu-man has been patroling the streets of Tokyo since last year in a tireless search for rubbish. But his mission is much larger than just picking up cigarette butts.&#160;Mangetsu-man hopes that by cleaning the streets he can also "clean up all the negativity in the world." Quite a goal.</p>
<p>Like any self-respecting superhero, Mangetsu-man goes to great lengths to keep his true identity secret. He even uses a voice dictation app to conceal his voice.</p>
<p>Dressed in a yellow “full moon” head, purple bodysuit, and what appear to be oversized grey UGG boots with matching gloves, Mangetsu-man has attracted lots of attention, which is saying something in a city like Tokyo, where dressing up in outlandish costumes is common.</p>
<p>みんな　おはよう！満月マンは今朝５ｃｈの羽鳥さん司会のモーニングバードという番組で８時４５分～９時の間に５分間くらい出るみたいなので見てね。どんな風にまとめてくれるのかドキドキ(*_*) <a href="http://t.co/53kwkNxuuO" type="external">pic.twitter.com/53kwkNxuuO</a></p>
<p>— 満月マン＠まじキャラ (@mangetsu_man) <a href="https://twitter.com/mangetsu_man/status/501462007292231680" type="external">August 18, 2014</a></p>
<p>His good deeds have inspired a small army of volunteers.</p>
<p>And cleaning products.</p>
<p>That's chicken next to an airfreshner, if you are wondering. Don't ask questions. So far Mangetsu-man has concentrated most of his cleaning powers on the iconic <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/slideshows/nation-world/mangetsu-man-meet-the-japanese-man-fighting-garbage/mangetsu-mans-first-appearance/slideshow/40913764.cms" type="external">Nihonbashi bridge</a>, which was Japan’s most famous bridge until an ugly expressway was built over it just before the 1964 Olympic Games.</p>
<p>Now he and other locals are <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/03/08/editorials/let-nihonbashi-bridge-rise-again/#.VAjXfUtZalI" type="external">petitioning the government</a> to remove the expressway and restore the bridge’s iconic status before Tokyo hosts the 2020 Olympic Games.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/mangetsu_man" type="external">@mangetsu_man</a> 長時間お掃除していた満月マンさんに、頭が下がります。チロルチョコもありがとうございました(*´▽`*) <a href="http://t.co/SJDoAGZsyM" type="external">pic.twitter.com/SJDoAGZsyM</a></p>
<p>— つみん (@tsuminnn) <a href="https://twitter.com/tsuminnn/status/447668572945268736" type="external">March 23, 2014</a></p>
<p>This will be Mangetsu-man's biggest challenge yet, and it could be his greatest triumph.</p> | Japan's real-life superhero, Mangetsu-man, is literally cleaning up the streets of Tokyo | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-09-08/japans-real-life-superhero-mangetsu-man-literally-cleaning-streets-tokyo | 2014-09-08 | 3 |
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<p>The raucous sandhill cranes streaming up the Rio Grande at dusk, University of New Mexico professor Chris Witt explained, are cheaters. In the competition for mates, they evolved a voice designed to fool.</p>
<p>When it comes to migrating long distances, small cranes have an advantage. But when picking a mate, cranes (males and females both) prefer a big partner, the better to defend the nest.</p>
<p>The result, fleshed out in new research by Witt and former UNM student Matt Jones, is buried in the breasts of the big birds Witt watched flying up the Rio Grande one recent fall afternoon. The birds’ trachea curls inside their breasts like the twists and turns of a tuba.</p>
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<p>Like a tuba, the extra tubing helps the resulting voice boom. At a crane’s best, you can hear it a mile away. Which was obvious as dark settled over the bosque and wave after wave of the winter migrants flew up the Rio Grande one recent evening.</p>
<p>University of New Mexico biologist Chris Witt has helped explain the booming voices of the Rio Grande valley’s sandhill cranes. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>“They have that to sound bigger than they really are,” Witt explained.</p>
<p>Witt had set up the tripod of his spotting scope on a muddy riverbank in Bernalillo County’s South Valley, awaiting the cranes’ evening arrival. Off in the distance, in a sheltered stretch of shallow water, he counted the first of the big birds settling in for the evening – 19 in all, three of them juveniles.</p>
<p>The spot, adjacent to the new Valle de Oro National Wildlife refuge, has become one of the best crane-spotting sites in the Albuquerque metro area, and Witt’s evening of work did not disappoint. By the time daylight was gone, Witt tallied an estimated 800 cranes flying past or stopping for a nighttime roost in the relative safety of the river.</p>
<p>As they flew by, they announced their presence with the characteristic honking that has become the serenade of winter on New Mexico’s middle Rio Grande, and Witt offered a play-by-play of his rising count. That one was a lesser sandhill crane, smaller than the others with a peg-like beak. Those others the larger greaters, and listen to that high-pitched whistle heard amid the deep honking coming from the Y-shaped formation, the distinctive cry of a juvenile keeping up with mom and dad.</p>
<p>The lesser and greater sandhill cranes are technically members of the same species, but the difference is crucial. Here in central New Mexico, they tend to flock together, and it takes an experienced bird watcher like Witt to tell the difference.</p>
<p>“They mix together in flocks, but they do not mate together,” Witt said of the two distinct sub-species.</p>
<p>The greater sandhill cranes found here generally nest in the northern Rockies and winter here. The lesser, which is a smaller bird, tends to nest farther north, near the arctic circle, and often only passes through central New Mexico, wintering to the south.</p>
<p>Sandhill cranes roost in the Rio Grande on winter nights in Albuquerque. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>That is just what the evolutionary pressures on the species would predict, Witt explained. “When they migrate a long distance, the body gets smaller, which makes a lot of sense in terms of energetics,” Witt said as he stood watching a flock of cranes picking through mud for their dinner.</p>
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<p>This doesn’t happen in one fell swoop. Tiny advantages for smaller birds on a long migration build up over time in the cranes’ evolutionary family tree. “They just have a little bit higher survival rate,” Witt said.</p>
<p>But when they are hunting for a mate, the lesser cranes are still looking for a big partner to help defend the spring nesting site. “You have to sound big to get a mate,” Witt said.</p>
<p>Biologist W.T. Fitch was the first to tie this phenomenon to the twisting, tuba-like trachea found in some migrating birds. The big voice, Fitch wrote in a 1999 paper, allowed “size exaggeration” – tricking a potential mate into thinking the bird was bigger than it really was.</p>
<p>To test the idea here, Witt and Jones – a former UNM student from Cedar Crest now in graduate school at the University of Montana – found 61 cooperative hunters to donate to science the carcasses of birds they shot. The hunters kept the delicious breast meat, and Jones and Witt meticulously measured the birds’ innards.</p>
<p>Their analysis confirmed Fitch’s hypothesis – the longer-migrating lesser sandhill cranes had an unusually long trachea, presumably to exaggerate the sound of their voices.</p>
<p>“It’s just about getting that tube longer,” Witt said.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Booming voice helps sandhill cranes attract mates | false | https://abqjournal.com/512242/booming-voice-helps-cranes-attract-mates.html | 2 |
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<a href="" type="internal">the final state to declare an official winner in the 8 November presidential election.</a> Trump won Michigan’s 16 electoral votes by
<a href="" type="internal">10,704 votes.</a> Goldsmith ordered the state to&#160;“assemble necessary staff” to complete the recount by the federal deadline on 13 December. President-elect Donald Trump filed a federal lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Appeals on Friday, seeking to delay the recount. Goldsmith ruled that delaying the recount, according to a two-business-day waiting period, possibly violates citizens’ voting rights. Stein argued that a delay violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the Constitution. Michigan
<a href="http://www.michigan.gov/documents/ag/2016.12.01_Schuette_Brief_on_Recount_544177_7.pdf" type="external">Attorney General</a> Bill Schuette filed
<a href="http://www.michigan.gov/ag/" type="external">an emergency motion</a>with the Michigan Supreme Court to stop the recount: Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is also seeking recounts in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Stein withdrew her recount request in Pennsylvania on Saturday, before reinstating it on Monday. Stein dropped her lawsuit in Pennsylvania, citing the court’s $1 million bond requirement. On Monday, Stein
<a href="http://www.jill2016.com/stein_recount_campaign_escalates_efforts_in_pennsylvania_to_file_in_federal_court_monday_seeking_statewide_recount" type="external">said</a> she plans to file a federal lawsuit to force a statewide recount in Pennsylvania: Stein&#160;cited a Lawfare
<a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/we-need-auditthevote%E2%80%94and-it-has-nothing-do-who-becomes-president" type="external">blog post,&#160;</a>which cites a&#160;
<a href="https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba#.jir0biuey" type="external">Medium post</a> by cybersecurity expert J. Alex Halderman, as evidence for why a recount needs to occur. Halderman argued that a cyberattack&#160;could have compromised voting data, though he said it’s impossible to know until the paper ballots and voting machines are examined. Stein said she is
<a href="http://www.jill2016.com/recount_graphic_splash?splash=1" type="external">less focused</a> on changing the outcome of the presidential election and more concerned “about protecting our democracy and ensuring that ‘We the People’ can have confidence in reported results.” Trump called Stein’s recount efforts a “scam to raise money!” Share on
<a href="" type="internal">Facebook</a>
<a href="" type="internal">Twitter</a>
<a href="" type="internal">Email</a> | Judge: Michigan to Start Recount | false | http://thewhim.com/judge-michigan-start-recount/ | 2016-12-05 | 2 |
<p>(Reuters) – Nearly 40 states have joined a probe of Equifax’s handling of a massive data breach that exposed valuable information on up to 143 million Americans, according to the Illinois attorney general’s office, which is leading the probe.</p>
<p>Eileen Boyce, a spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, declined to identify the other states.</p>
<p>Connecticut and Pennsylvania are part of the probe, the Connecticut state attorney general has said previously. Iowa is also part of the probe, according to state spokesman Geoff Greenwood.</p>
<p>Equifax’s shares have fallen more than 30 percent amid revelations of investigations into the data breach and the company’s decision to delay disclosing it.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Nearly 40 states probe Equifax's handling of massive data breach | false | https://newsline.com/nearly-40-states-probe-equifax039s-handling-of-massive-data-breach/ | 2017-09-13 | 1 |
<p>Donald Trump’s greatest supporters during the election cycle continually assured conservatives that he would govern as a consistent super-duper conservative; his greatest critics complained that he would be at best an ad hoc policymaker with strong Democratic big government leanings.</p>
<p>Someone had to be wrong.</p>
<p>Here’s Trump speaking to Time magazine in his interview as person of the year:</p>
<p>1. His FDR-esque Definition of American Greatness. If you ask most conservatives why America is great, they will talk about the Constitution, about God-given rights and liberties protected by a limited government, about a moral and religious people seeking freedom to build their families. Here’s Trump on greatness: being big. “As somebody who loves this country — it’s a very large country but it’s also an even more powerful country than the numbers. Because if you look at China and India and you have others with more people, but when you look at what we do in this country, it’s the most incredible place on Earth. Most incredible place ever.” We build big things, presumably, and we have lots of stuff, and we have factories for the “forgotten men and women…great people, these are people that built this country, and they’ve been forgotten.” He also said he represented “the workers of the world.”</p>
<p>Here is FDR in April 1932: “These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power, for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”</p>
<p>2. Backing Democrat-Style Stimulus. Here’s Trump on the economy: “well, sometimes you have to prime the pump. So sometimes in order to get the jobs going and the country going, because look, we’re at 1% growth.” This is Paul Krugman’s plan. This is Barack Obama’s plan. This is the stuff Republicans laughed out of Congress for years. Now Trump is pushing stimulus boondoggles Republicans spent years labeling soft-core socialism.</p>
<p>3. Economic Fascism. Here’s Trump on strongarming American companies: “I want to get a list of companies that have announced they’re leaving. I can call them myself five minutes apiece, they won’t be leaving. Okay.” Here’s Trump on strongarming drug companies that produce the pharmaceuticals you use: “I’m going to bring down drug prices. I don’t like what’s happened with drug prices.” Here’s Trump on strongarming Apple, “I said to Tim Cook, it’s my ambition to get Apple to build a great plant, your biggest and your best, even if it’s only a foot by a foot bigger than some place in China.”</p>
<p>4. Softening on Immigration. Trump talked about building the wall, of course. But then he added, “I want Dreamers for our children also. We’re going to work something out.” DREAMers are, of course, minors brought to the United States by illegal immigrant parents. They are the crux of Obama’s illegal executive amnesty. Now Trump’s all for them. Ann Coulter hardest hit.</p>
<p>5. Loving Up Obama. Here’s Trump on the man whose birth certificate he spent years questioning: “He really cares about the country, I have to say…I really liked him. I think he liked me. I think he was surprised also. There was good chemistry…We talked about some of the potential appointments that I would make. I wanted to get his opinion. And he gave me some opinions on some people that were very interesting to me, and that meant something to me…he wants what’s good for our country. So I did talk to him about certain people that I’m thinking about. Got his ideas.” Funny, I remember when Trump was saying that Obama co-founded ISIS.</p>
<p>6. Pushing Putin. This isn’t a surprise, but Trump’s still hard at work doing press for the Russian dictator. He said, “I don’t believe they interfered…Why not get along with Russia. And they can help us fight ISIS, which is both costly in lives and costly in money. And they’re effective and smart.”</p>
<p>Now, mixed in with all of that was some right-wing European populism about border control and some generalized rah-rah populism about aspiring to wealth in America. But overall, these are the comments not of some serious conservative, but of a big government blue dog Democrat.</p> | 6 Ways Trump Makes Being A Democrat Great Again in Time ‘Person Of The Year’ Interview | true | https://dailywire.com/news/11419/6-ways-trump-makes-being-democrat-great-again-time-ben-shapiro | 2016-12-07 | 0 |
<p>The American Legislative Exchange Council — which has spent the last few years <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/165077/koch-brothers-alec-and-savage-assault-democracy" type="external">trying to subvert democracy</a> — meets this week in Washington, D.C., to trot out its legislative agenda for next year. Note that this is the Koch brothers-backed group that creates “model legislation” for right-wing led states to adopt that undercuts some of the basic elements of broadly supported public programs, such as public schools.</p>
<p>The Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12318/ALECs-extreme-legislative-agenda-for-2014" type="external">has the lengthy breakdown</a>, but a few special items stand out. From its curated list:</p>
<p>* Another bill to undermine unions, masquerading as “employee choice,” called the “Public Employee Choice Act” (PDF, p. 6), is effectively “right to work” for public employees, and undermines collective bargaining by allowing workers to freeload off the benefits of union negotiations without paying the costs of union representation. The bill appears to be based on an Oregon 2014 ballot initiative, Initiative 9. It is similar to so-called “right to work,” only for public employees, and its euphemistic use of the word “choice” has been appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court. The “Public Employee Choice Act Committee” has so far taken in over $52,000 and spent over $36,000 as of November 25, according to campaign finance records filed with the Oregon Secretary of State, which doesn’t track the money spent and raised on dark money “issue ads.</p>
<p>* Further efforts to eliminate occupational licensing for any profession, which help ensure that people who want to call themselves doctors, long-haul truckers, accountants, or barbers meet basic standards of training and expertise to guarantee that consumers are safe and get what they pay for. This extreme bill, called the “Private Certification Act” (PDF, p. 11), swims against the current of what most people want, which are to be treated by professionals who meet standards for competence or safety that have been established by law through the democratic process.</p>
<p />
<p>Call that last one the Rand Paul Act, for the libertarian senator who created <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/06/15/rand-paul-opthamology-certification-scandal-why-it-matters.html" type="external">his own licensing board</a> to keep his ophthalmology certification live.</p>
<p>The general push of the ALEC “model legislation” is toward privatization of government services, reduction in regulatory oversight and limiting consumers’ access to courts to redress grievances. And to let loose the dogs of capitalism on the environment.</p>
<p>* A new attack on clean energy policies, attempting to slow the growth of the clean energy industry by weakening net metering policies (which reduce energy bills of consumers who install solar panels, for example), called the “Updating Net Metering Policies Resolution” (PDF, p. 11). Brian McCormick, Vice President for Political and External Affairs of the Edison Electric Institute — a member of ALEC — helped Arizona Public Service — another ALEC member — draft the resolution, as the Energy &amp; Policy Institute’s Gabe Elsner reported in the Huffington Post.</p>
<p>* The EEA task force will also gauge “interest for [a] future natural gas, hydraulic fracturing, and pipeline symposium.” But ALEC members’ “interest” in these extractive and environmentally destructive activities is no secret. Last October, as CMD discovered, outgoing ALEC National Chair John Piscopo, a state Representative from Connecticut, went on an ALEC-organized, all-expenses-paid trip to the Alberta tar sands with eight other ALEC legislators. Keystone XL pipeline company TransCanada and oil interests like the American Fuel &amp; Petrochemical Manufacturers sponsored the trip. CMD filed a complaint in Nebraska against Sen. Jim Smith, who never disclosed that he received expensive chartered flights in Canada. Rep. Piscopo also didn’t disclose the value of flights, hotel rooms, and meals that he received on the trip, although Connecticut law is not as strict as Nebraska law about such influence peddling.</p>
<p>So we know where the legislative assaults are coming from, and what they’re targeting. Defending against them will be the trick.</p>
<p>—Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Scott Martelle</a>.</p> | To the Barricades! ALEC Posts Issues for 2014 Legislative Wars | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/to-the-barricades-alec-posts-issues-for-2014-legislative-wars/ | 2013-12-03 | 4 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — The Latest on the tensions between the United States and Russia over hacking attacks in the U.S. elections (all times EST):</p>
<p>3:10 p.m.</p>
<p>An official says a chef is among the Russians being expelled from the U.S.</p>
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<p>Sergey Petrov is San Francisco consul general. He says the chef is among four diplomats being expelled from San Francisco, meaning this New Year’s Eve, “we’ll have to cook ourselves.”</p>
<p>Petrov says 31 of the Russian diplomats expelled from the U.S. are from the embassy in Washington.</p>
<p>Petrov identified only the chef, without disclosing his name. He says seven family members of the diplomats will also be leaving, including three children. He says they “have to leave within hours, and it’s just not human, frankly.”</p>
<p>Asked how the diplomats regarded the expulsion, he says: “They are bitter because they have to leave before their term expired.”</p>
<p>The Obama administration ordered the diplomats to leave as part of sanctions in retaliation for alleged cyber meddling in the U.S. election.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>2:48 p.m.</p>
<p>President-elect Donald Trump is praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for holding off on retaliation for new sanctions imposed by the Obama administration for its alleged interference in the U.S. election.</p>
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<p>Trump on Twitter praises Putin’s “Great move on delay.”</p>
<p>He adds, “I always knew he was very smart!”</p>
<p>Putin on Friday condemned a new round of U.S. sanctions against Russia. But he said Moscow would not retaliate by expelling American diplomats.</p>
<p>Trump has been slow to criticize Putin and has questioned U.S. intelligence linking Russia to campaign hacks.</p>
<p>Trump is planning to meet next week with U.S. intelligence officials, but he says it’s time for the country to move on.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>12:30 a.m.</p>
<p>The spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry says some of the diplomats ordered expelled by the United States have been in their posts only about two months.</p>
<p>Maria Zakharova was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Friday that their short tenure suggests they could not have been involved in cyberattacks on the U.S. election process.</p>
<p>She said: “It is unclear how they could technically be involved in the sabotage of the American elections, which the special services are talking about, stating spring 2016 as the date.”</p>
<p>The White House ordered sanctions on Russia Thursday over alleged election meddling and declared 35 diplomats persona non grata. The White House said the expulsions were in response to harassment of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Russia over the last two years.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7:45 a.m.</p>
<p>President Vladimir Putin has condemned a new round of U.S. sanctions against Russia but says Moscow will not retaliate by expelling American diplomats.</p>
<p>U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday imposed sanctions on Russian officials and intelligence services in retaliation for Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election by hacking American political sites and email accounts. 35 Russian diplomats were ordered to leave the U.S. in 72 hours and two facilities closed.</p>
<p>Putin, in a statement on the Kremlin’s website Friday, refers to the new sanctions as a “provocation aimed to further undermine Russian-American relations.”</p>
<p>But he says Russia would not be expelling American diplomats in retaliation, as the Russian foreign ministry earlier suggested.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>5:30 a.m.</p>
<p>Russia’s foreign minister has suggested expelling 35 U.S. diplomats in response to a new round of U.S. sanctions against Moscow.</p>
<p>U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday imposed sanctions on Russian officials and intelligence services in retaliation alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, as American political sites and email accounts were hacked. Thirty-five Russian diplomats were ordered to leave the U.S. in 72 hours and two facilities closed.</p>
<p>Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised remarks on Friday that the foreign ministry and other agencies have suggested that President Vladimir Putin order expulsion of 31 employees of the U.S. embassy in Moscow and 4 diplomats from the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg. Another suggestion is to bar U.S. diplomats from using their summer retreat on the outskirts of Moscow and a warehouse in the south of Moscow.</p>
<p>The Kremlin spokesman said late Thursday that it would be up to Putin to draft retaliatory measures.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>4:1 5 a.m.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has called a new round of U.S. sanctions against his country “anti-Russian death throes.”</p>
<p>U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday imposed sanctions on Russian officials and intelligence services in retaliation for Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election by hacking American political sites and email accounts. The Kremlin said late on Thursday that it was considering retaliatory steps.</p>
<p>When he was president in 2008-2012 Medvedev focused on improving U.S.-Russia ties in what became known as the “reset” policy. He voiced disappointment with the new round of sanctions on Friday.</p>
<p>“It is sad that the Obama administration that began its life by restoring ties ends it with anti-Russian death throes. RIP,” Medvedev said on Twitter.</p>
<p>Medvedev visited the United States in 2010 and sent his first tweet during a visit to Twitter’s headquarters in the Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>3:09 a.m.</p>
<p>The United States is unleashing a string of sanctions and other punitive measures against Russia amid allegations it engaged in cyber-meddling in the U.S. presidential campaign, putting pressure on President-elect Donald Trump not to let Moscow off the hook after he takes office.</p>
<p>Russia’s government threatened retaliation and continued to deny U.S. accusations that it hacked and stole emails to try to help Trump win. Trump said the U.S. should move on, but in a sign he was no longer totally brushing off the allegations, he planned to meet with U.S. intelligence leaders next week to learn more.</p>
<p>A month after an election the U.S. says Russia tried to sway for Trump, President Barack Obama on Thursday sanctioned the GRU and FSB, leading Russian intelligence agencies the U.S. said were involved. In an elaborately coordinated response by at least five federal agencies, the Obama administration also sought to expose Russia’s cyber tactics with a detailed technical report and hinted it might still launch a covert counterattack.</p> | Consulate’s chef among expelled Russians | false | https://abqjournal.com/918338/the-latest-turkeys-foreign-minister-urges-calm.html | 2016-12-30 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Antonio Martinez is being charged with aggravated battery on a household member, false imprisonment and child abuse.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Martinez allegedly used his fists to beat his girlfriend of five years and their son after a night of drinking, according to the criminal complaint.</p>
<p>The victim allegedly told investigating officers that she was sleeping when Martinez’s attack began. According to her statement to police, the woman said her 3-year-old son ran to a neighboring apartment for help.</p>
<p>The criminal complain alleges that the neighbor and another man, a passer-by, helped her leave the apartment.</p>
<p>Martinez then allegedly barricaded himself inside, refusing orders from police to come out.</p>
<p>Martinez is being held at the Eddy County Detention Center, according to court records. A preliminary court date has not yet been scheduled.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2017 the Carlsbad Current-Argus (Carlsbad, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit the Carlsbad Current-Argus (Carlsbad, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.currentargus.com" type="external">www.currentargus.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.</p>
<p>_____</p> | Carlsbad man arrested for abusing girlfriend, children | false | https://abqjournal.com/939267/brief-man-arrested-for-abusing-girlfriend-children.html | 2 |
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<p>FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2015, file photo, the HealthCare.gov website, where people can buy health insurance, is displayed on a laptop screen in Washington. The math is harsh: The federal penalty for having no health insurance is set to jump to $695, and the Obama administration is being urged to highlight that cold fact to help drive its new pitch for health law sign-ups. That means the 2016 sign-up season starting Nov. 1 could see penalties become a bigger focus to motivate millions of people who have remained eligible for coverage, but uninsured. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON - The math is harsh: The federal penalty for having no health insurance is set to jump to $695, and the Obama administration is being urged to highlight that cold fact to help drive its new pitch for health law sign-ups.</p>
<p>That means the 2016 sign-up season starting Nov. 1 could see penalties become a bigger focus to motivate millions of people who have remained eligible for coverage, but uninsured. They're said to be more skeptical about the value of health insurance.</p>
<p>Until now, health overhaul supporters have stressed the benefits of getting covered: taxpayer subsidies that pay roughly 70 percent of the monthly premium, financial protection against sudden illness or an accident, and access to regular preventive and follow-up medical care.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But in 2016, the penalty for being uninsured will rise to the greater of either - $695 or 2.5 percent of taxable income - for someone who goes without coverage for a full 12 months. This year the comparable numbers are $325 or 2 percent of income. While the increase isn't good news, it does create a marketing opportunity.</p>
<p>The numbers are pretty clear. With subsidized customers now putting in an average of about $100 a month of their own money, a consumer would be able to get six months or more of coverage for $695, instead of owing that amount to the IRS as a tax penalty. Backers of the law are urging the administration to hammer that home.</p>
<p>"Given that the penalty is larger, it does make sense to bring it up more frequently," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a liberal advocacy group. "It's an increasing factor in people's decisions about whether or not to get enrolled."</p>
<p>"More and more, people are mentioning the sticks as well as the carrots," said Katherine Hempstead, director of health insurance coverage for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that has helped facilitate the insurance expansion under Obama's law.</p>
<p>Hempstead says the message about penalties resonates with uninsured people, who are generally cash-strapped low- and middle-income workers.</p>
<p>A lot of people cite it as the main reason for signing up, she said. "It's the law and they don't want to pay the penalty."</p>
<p>Administration officials are looking for a balance.</p>
<p>"We need to be make sure that we are very clear and explicit about that $695 penalty so people understand the choice they are making," said spokeswoman Lori Lodes. But she said the main emphasis will stay on the benefits of having health insurance and how the law's subsidies can dramatically lower the cost of monthly premiums.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The requirement that individuals get health insurance or face fines remains the most unpopular part of President Barack Obama's health care law, a prime target of Republican repeal efforts. It started at $95 or 1 percent of income in 2014. The fact that it's up to $695 may take consumers by surprise.</p>
<p>But many experts consider the mandate essential to Obama's overall approach, as does the insurance industry. The law forbids insurers from turning away people with health problems, and the coverage requirement forces healthy people into the insurance pool, helping to keep premiums in check. After 2016, the fines will rise with inflation.</p>
<p>This year was the first time the IRS collected the penalties, deducting them from taxpayers' refunds for the 2014 tax year in most cases. Some 7.5 million households paid penalties totaling $1.5 billion, an average of $200 apiece, according to preliminary IRS data. Separately, another 12 million households claimed exemptions from the mandate because of financial hardships or other reasons.</p>
<p>Although Obama's law is five years old and has survived two Supreme Court challenges, administration officials say the upcoming open enrollment season won't be easy. It may be a struggle to just keep about the same number of people covered.</p>
<p>The administration has set a goal of 10 million customers enrolled and paying their premiums by the end of 2016 on HealthCare.gov and state insurance markets. That's roughly the number covered now, and well below what congressional budget analysts had estimated for 2016. The administration expects most will be returning customers, but 3 million to 4 million will be people who are currently uninsured. There's a lot of turnover in the market.</p>
<p>Among the difficulties for next year: Premiums are expected to go up more than they did this year, even if taxpayer subsidies cushion the cost. The most eager customers have already signed up. And many of those remaining appear to be stretching tight household budgets, with other financial priorities, like car repairs or putting money in savings accounts.</p>
<p>Sign-up season starts Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 31. As a result of the law, the share of people in the United States lacking health insurance is at a historic low of about 9 percent, and the White House wants to keep that trend growing during Obama's last full year in office.</p> | Bigger bite for health law penalty on uninsured | false | https://abqjournal.com/662025/bigger-bite-for-health-law-penalty-on-uninsured.html | 2 |
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<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">CJ Ciaramella</a> May 29, 2012 12:46 pm</p>
<p>GOP investigators have stepped up their probe into possible political favoritism by the Department of the Interior (DOI) toward several solar companies that received fast-tracked leases on federal lands, as well as billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees.</p>
<p>House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) sent a letter Tuesday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, pressing the agency to release communications from Department of Energy and DOI officials regarding the leases.</p>
<p>"More than six months ago Senator Jeff Sessions, the Ranking Member on the Senate Committee on the Budget, requested specific information regarding DOI's possible preferential treatment of certain renewable or alternative energy projects—all of which received taxpayer-funded loan guarantees," the letter reads. "Despite repeated attempts to have this request fulfilled, DOI has not produced an adequate response. This is unacceptable."</p>
<p>The letter requests that DOI hand over the communications by no later than June 12. "If you fail to comply with this request, we will have no choice but to consider the use of compulsory process," the letter warns.</p>
<p>The participation of House Oversight adds a measure of clout to Session's probe. The committee is the chief investigative arm of the House of Representatives and has been delving extensively into the Department of Energy's loan program.</p>
<p>A senior Oversight aide told the Free Beacon that Issa decided to get involved after DOI continued to stonewall Senator Sessions' requests.</p>
<p>Sessions originally requested documentation and communications related to the lease program in a November 2011 letter to Salazar. After a follow up letter from Sessions, DOI responded by sending public documents already available on its website.</p>
<p>At issue are a series of lease approvals for several renewable energy projects in California and Nevada.</p>
<p>DOI issued a secretarial order in 2009 to fast track the siting of renewable energy projects on public lands managed by the agency. The effort was part of the Obama administration's larger green energy initiative.</p>
<p>Seven solar companies received fast-tracked lease approvals in a no-bid process. Those seven companies also all received loan guarantees worth billions from the Department of Energy under its renewable energy loan program, as well as renewable energy grants from the Treasury Department.</p>
<p>As previously reported by the Free Beacon, there were <a href="" type="internal">extensive political ties</a> among the solar companies, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), the Department of Energy, DOI, and the Commerce Department.</p>
<p>The Oversight Committee <a href="" type="internal">recently obtained</a> e-mails from one of the solar companies, BrightSource Energy, which committee Republicans say show a direct link between the loan recipient and the White House.</p>
<p>Commerce Secretary John Bryson was chairman of BrightSource at the time.</p>
<p>The leases also <a href="" type="internal">raise questions</a> over the agency's adherence to environmental regulations. They were approved much faster than traditional oil and gas projects.</p>
<p>The disparity between conventional energy leases and the appearance of political favoritism led Republicans to begin probing the fast-track program.</p>
<p>A Department of Interior spokesperson was not available for comment.</p> | Fast-Tracked Cronyism | true | http://freebeacon.com/fast-tracked-cronyism/ | 2012-05-29 | 0 |
<p>The Latest on the Spain-Catalonia political crisis (all times local):</p>
<p>8:40 p.m.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>European Council President Donald Tusk is ruling out any European Union role in the dispute between Spain and Catalonia as Madrid weighs whether to reclaim some powers from the regional government amid an independence dispute.</p>
<p>Tusk told reporters Thursday on the sidelines of an EU summit that "there is no room, no space for any kind of mediation, or international initiatives or action."</p>
<p>Tusk said "there is no hiding that the situation in Spain is concerning." But he added that the Catalonia crisis was not on the summit agenda in Brussels. Spain is insisting that it not be discussed.</p>
<p>The Catalan government has sought EU mediation to help ease tensions, but Madrid considers Catalonia's independence moves illegal and refuses outside intervention.</p>
<p>___</p>
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<p>7:50 p.m.</p>
<p>The head of the European Parliament has warned that if Catalonia declares its independence from Spain, "nobody in the European Union" would recognize it as a sovereign state.</p>
<p>Antonio Tajani also said he has no intention of meeting with Catalonia's leader, Carles Puigdemont, or mediating in the crisis in Spain over a push in Catalonia for independence. Tajani is calling the secessionist dispute an "an internal Spanish matter."</p>
<p>Speaking Thursday at an EU summit in Brussels, Tajani responded to a question about why he hasn't yet met with Puigdemont by saying he considers only the Spanish government as a "legitimate" representative in the matter.</p>
<p>He said that Catalonia's government "has violated the rules of the Spanish constitution and has also violated the rules of Catalan autonomy."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7:15 p.m.</p>
<p>A few dozen protesters are braving downpours in Barcelona to protest the arrest of two Catalan pro-independence activists who are being investigated as part of a sedition probe.</p>
<p>The protesters are outside the Barcelona offices of the Spanish central government, holding umbrellas and chanting slogans Thursday in favor of Catalan independence.</p>
<p>Jesus Rubia, a 55 year-old civil servant from Barcelona, says he's there "to defend civil rights in Europe, even if Europe is not listening."</p>
<p>A National Court judge this week ordered the preventive jailing of Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, the leaders of secessionist groups the Catalan National Assembly and Omnium Cultural.</p>
<p>They allegedly orchestrated protests last month that hindered a judicial probe into preparations for an Oct. 1 Catalan independence vote that was ruled unconstitutional.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7 p.m.</p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia believes a standoff over Catalonia's independence has been spawned by Western double standards in treating secessionist movements.</p>
<p>Speaking Thursday at a forum for foreign policy experts in Sochi, Putin said the crisis should be solved on the basis of the Spanish law. At the same time, he criticized Washington's European allies for quickly supporting Kosovo's 2008 independence bid from Serbia. He said Kosovo has "provoked similar processes in other regions of Europe."</p>
<p>Russia has long pointed at Kosovo to counter Western condemnation of Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.</p>
<p>Putin added that attempts to divide secessionists into "fighters for freedom and democracy" and "separatists" pose a "serious danger for stable development of Europe.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>3:40 p.m.</p>
<p>Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel is playing down a rift with Spanish counterpart Mariano Rajoy over Michel's appeal to stop the violence in Catalonia during its contested independence vote.</p>
<p>Michel said Thursday that senior councilors and ambassadors from both countries have been in close contact in recent days, amid fallout over his tweet fired off during the police crackdown on Catalan voters.</p>
<p>He said no formal meeting is planned with Rajoy but an informal chat could not be ruled out.</p>
<p>But Michel said he takes responsibility for his tweet: "I condemn all forms of violence and appeal for dialogue."</p>
<p>He said the tweet had been misinterpreted during the Catalan crisis.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>3:25 p.m.</p>
<p>French President Emmanuel Macron wants this week's European Union summit to show solidarity with Spain as Catalonia threatens to secede.</p>
<p>Macron said Thursday in Brussels that the summit will "be marked by a message of unity around member states amid the crises they could face, unity around Spain."</p>
<p>Macron, scheduled to meet with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on the sidelines of the summit, has been among the few leaders to clearly support Rajoy in his standoff with Catalan separatists.</p>
<p>Many others, including EU officials, have insisted that the tensions are an internal Spanish affair.</p>
<p>Spain's government on Thursday rejected a threat by Catalonia's leader to declare independence unless talks are held, and moved toward taking back the region's semi-autonomous powers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>3:10 p.m.</p>
<p>The spat between Spain and Catalonia over the region's independence isn't on the official agenda of a European Union summit in Brussels, but the pressing issue is still drawing comment.</p>
<p>Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, arriving at the summit Thursday, says Spanish law must be obeyed — a nod to the Spanish government's insistence that Catalonia's attempt to secede is illegal.</p>
<p>At the same time, Bettel said he would like to see a negotiated settlement to the deadlock between the authorities in Madrid and Barcelona.</p>
<p>He says, "there is a constitution that must be respected." He adds: "I hope they are going to find a solution, political, diplomatic and they talk together. No other solution would be good."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>2:10 p.m.</p>
<p>Spain's political parties are responding to the government's push to take over some or all of Catalonia's autonomous powers in response to a threat by the region's leader to declare independence.</p>
<p>The Socialist opposition backs Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's moves but wants the measures to be limited in scope and time, according to PSOE's organizational secretary Jose Luis Abalos.</p>
<p>The pro-business Ciudadanos (Citizens) party wants a swift triggering of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which would allow Madrid to suspend Catalonia's regional government. It also wants an immediate election in Catalonia.</p>
<p>Ciudadanos, leads the opposition in Catalonia, second to the ruling pro-independence coalition.</p>
<p>The far-left CUP Catalan party, a key ally to the separatists' minority government, said it remains committed "to proclaim the Catalan Republic as soon as possible."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>12:15 p.m.</p>
<p>Civil society groups in Catalonia are calling for new protests over the jailing of their pro-independence leaders by Spanish authorities.</p>
<p>Spain's National Court ordered the leaders of Assemblea Nacional Catalana and Omnium Cultural, the grassroots organizations behind the separatist bid, to be held for allegedly orchestrating protests in mid-September that hindered a judicial investigation into preparations for the banned Oct. 1 referendum.</p>
<p>The group said that the first gathering will be later Thursday at the gates of the central government's office in Barcelona, but a bigger march is planned in Catalonia's regional capital for Saturday afternoon.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>10:20 a.m.</p>
<p>Spain's government says the prime minister will hold a special Cabinet meeting on Saturday to trigger the process to take some or full control of Catalonia's semi-autonomous powers.</p>
<p>The government was responding to a letter from Catalan president Carles Puigdemont who threatened to explicitly declare independence from Spain if no talks are offered.</p>
<p>Puigdemont said in the letter that if Spain's government continues to "impede dialogue and continues its repression," Catalonia's parliament will proceed to hold a vote on declaring independence from Spain.</p>
<p>Spain replied that the government would hold the special Cabinet meeting and "approve the measures that will be sent to the Senate to protect the general interest of all Spaniards."</p>
<p>The measure falls under Article 155 of Spain's 1978 Constitution, but has never been used in the four decades since democracy was restored at the end of Gen. Francisco Franco's dictatorship.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>9:50 a.m.</p>
<p>Catalonia's leader has threatened to explicitly declare independence from Spain if no talks are offered and central authorities follow through on a threat to take control of the region's semi-autonomous powers.</p>
<p>Carles Puigdemont's warning came in a letter to Spain's leader minutes before the expiration of a deadline to back down on the independence bid.</p>
<p>Puigdemont said in the letter that if Spain's government continues to "impede dialogue and continues its repression," Catalonia's parliament will proceed to hold a vote on declaring independence from Spain.</p>
<p>Puigdemont, in an address to the regional parliament last week, declared independence but then immediately suspended it and challenged Spain to hold negotiations.</p>
<p>A Spanish government official said the letter didn't answer the call for Puigdemont to clarify whether Puigdemont had already declared independence. The official said on customary condition of anonymity that the government plans to trigger Article 155 of the Constitution.</p>
<p>--By Aritz Parra.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>8:50 a.m.</p>
<p>Catalonia's separatist leader is facing an imminent deadline to withdraw a bid to secede from Spain.</p>
<p>But an official from Carles Puigdemont's party says that he has no intention of doing that and he plans to make a full declaration of independence in the next few days if Spain's government resorts to taking over control of Catalonia's semi-autonomous powers.</p>
<p>PDECat party coordinator Marta Pascal outlined Puigdemont's plans after a meeting late Wednesday.</p>
<p>Spain has threatened to take direct control of the autonomous region if Puigdemont fails to meet the 0800 GMT (4 a.m. EDT) Thursday cutoff.</p>
<p>Spain's government says it would be willing to hold off on doing that if the Catalan government were to call a snap regional election. But a Catalan official has ruled that out.</p> | The Latest: EU chief: No role for EU in Catalonia dispute | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/19/latest-catalonia-threatens-to-declare-independence.html | 2017-10-19 | 0 |
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<p>NEW YORK — The stock market is finishing lower, snapping a four-day winning streak, as U.S. companies report mixed quarterly results.</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index fell 11 points, or 0.6 percent, to close at 2,051 Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 141 points, or 0.8 percent, to 17,672. The Nasdaq bucked the trend, rising seven points, or 0.2 percent, to 4,757.</p>
<p>Shares of tissue and diaper maker Kimberly-Clark dropped after the company’s earnings fell short of expectations. UPS slid after it cut its earnings outlook.</p>
<p>The yield on the 10-year Treasury slid to 1.80 percent from 1.87 percent late Thursday.</p>
<p>U.S. stock indexes ended the previous day with big gains after Europe’s central bank unveiled a program to revitalize that region’s economy</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Stocks fall, snapping 4-day winning streak; UPS slumps | false | https://abqjournal.com/530696/us-stocks-slip-in-early-trading.html | 2015-01-23 | 2 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — Are mortgage rates going up? How about car loans? Credit cards?</p>
<p>How about those nearly invisible rates on bank CDs — any chance of getting a few dollars more?</p>
<p>With the Federal Reserve having raised its benchmark interest rate Wednesday and signaled the likelihood of additional rate hikes later this year, consumers and businesses will feel it — if not immediately, then over time.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Fed’s thinking is that the economy is a lot stronger now than it was in the first few years after the Great Recession ended in 2009, when ultra-low rates were needed to sustain growth. With the job market in particular looking robust, the economy is seen as sturdy enough to handle modestly higher loan rates in the coming months and perhaps years.</p>
<p>“We are in a rising interest rate environment,” noted Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit.</p>
<p>Here are some question and answers on what this could mean for consumers, businesses, investors and the economy:</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Q. I’m thinking about buying a house. Are mortgage rates going to march steadily higher?</p>
<p>A. Hard to say. Mortgage rates don’t usually rise in tandem with the Fed’s increases. Sometimes they even move in the opposite direction. Long-term mortgages tend to track the rate on the 10-year Treasury, which, in turn, is influenced by a variety of factors. These include investors’ expectations for future inflation and global demand for U.S. Treasurys.</p>
<p>When inflation is expected to stay low, investors are drawn to Treasurys even if the interest they pay is low, because high returns aren’t needed to offset high inflation. When global markets are in turmoil, nervous investors from around the world often pour money into Treasurys because they’re regarded as ultra-safe. All that buying pressure keeps a lid on Treasury rates.</p>
<p>Last year, for example, when investors worried about weakness in China and about the U.K.’s exit from the European Union, they piled into Treasurys, lowering their yields and reducing mortgage rates.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Since the presidential election, though, the 10-year yield has risen in anticipation that tax cuts, deregulation and increased spending on infrastructure will accelerate the economy and fan inflation. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has surged to 4.2 percent from last year’s 3.65 percent average.</p>
<p>After the Fed’s announcement Wednesday of its rate hike, the yield on the 10-year Treasury actually tumbled — from 2.60 percent to 2.49 percent. That decline suggested that investors were pleased that the Fed said it planned to act only gradually and not to accelerate its previous forecast of three rate hikes for 2017.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Q. So does that mean home-loan rates won’t rise much anytime soon?</p>
<p>A. Not necessarily. Inflation is nearing the Fed’s 2 percent target. The global economy is improving, which means that fewer international investors are buying Treasurys as a safe haven. And with two more Fed rate hikes expected later this year, the rate on the 10-year note could rise over time — and so, by extension, would mortgage rates.</p>
<p>It’s just hard to say when.</p>
<p>Behravesh forecasts that the average 30-year mortgage rate will reach 4.5 percent to 4.75 percent by year’s end, up sharply from last year. But for perspective, keep in mind: Before the 2008 financial crisis, mortgage rates never fell below 5 percent.</p>
<p>“Rates are still incredibly low,” Behravesh said.</p>
<p>Even if the Fed raises its benchmark short-term rate twice more this year, as it forecast on Wednesday that it would, its key rate would remain below 1.5 percent.</p>
<p>“That’s still in the basement,” Behravesh said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Q. What about other kinds of loans?</p>
<p>A. For users of credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other variable-interest debt, rates will rise by roughly the same amount as the Fed hike within 60 days, said Greg McBride, Bankrate.com’s chief financial analyst. That’s because those rates are based in part on banks’ prime rate, which moves in tandem with the Fed.</p>
<p>“It’s a great time to be shopping around if you have good credit and (can) lock in zero-percent introductory and balance-transfer offers,” McBride said.</p>
<p>Those who don’t qualify for such low-rate credit card offers may be stuck paying higher interest on their balances because the rates on their cards will rise as the prime rate does.</p>
<p>The Fed’s rate hikes won’t necessarily raise auto loan rates. Car loans tend to be more sensitive to competition, which can slow the rate of increases, McBride noted.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Q. At long last, will I now earn a better-than-measly return on my CDs and money market accounts?</p>
<p>A. Probably, though it will take time.</p>
<p>Savings, certificates of deposit and money market accounts don’t typically track the Fed’s changes. Instead, banks tend to capitalize on a higher-rate environment to try to thicken their profits. They do so by imposing higher rates on borrowers, without necessarily offering any juicer rates to savers.</p>
<p>The exception: Banks with high-yield savings accounts. These accounts are known for aggressively competing for depositors, McBride said. The only catch is that they typically require significant deposits.</p>
<p>“You’ll see rates for both savings and auto loans trending higher, but it’s not going to be a one-for-one correlation with the Fed,” McBride said. “Don’t expect your savings to improve by a quarter point or that all car loans will immediately be a quarter-point higher.”</p>
<p>Ryan Sweet, director of Real Time Economics at Moody’s Analytics, noted:</p>
<p>“Interest rates on savings accounts are still extremely low, but they’re no longer essentially zero, so that may help boost confidence among retirees living on savings accounts.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Q. What’s in store for stock investors?</p>
<p>A. Wall Street hasn’t been spooked by the prospect of Fed rate hikes. Stock indexes rose sharply Wednesday after the Fed’s announcement.</p>
<p>“The market has really come to view the rate hikes as actually a positive, not a negative,” said Jeff Kravetz, regional investment strategist at U.S. Bank.</p>
<p>That’s because investors now regard the central bank’s rate increases as evidence that the economy is strong enough to handle them.</p>
<p>Ultra-low rates helped underpin the bull market in stocks, which just marked its eighth year. But even if the Fed hikes three times this year, rates would still be low by historical standards.</p>
<p>Kravetz is telling his clients that the market for U.S. stocks remains favorable, though he cautions that the a pullback is possible, given how much the market has risen since President Donald Trump’s November election.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Q. Why is the Fed raising rates? Is it trying to slam the brakes on economic growth?</p>
<p>A. No. The rate hikes are intended to withdraw the stimulus provided by ultra-low borrowing costs, which remained in place for seven years beginning in December 2008, when the Fed cut its short-term rate to near zero. The Fed acted in the midst of the Great Recession to spur borrowing, spending and investing.</p>
<p>The Fed’s first two hikes — in December 2015 and a year later — appear to have had no negative effect on the economy. But that could change as rates march higher.</p>
<p>Still, Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said policymakers intend to prevent the economy from growing so fast as to boost inflation. If successful, the Fed’s hikes could actually sustain growth by preventing inflation from rising out of control and forcing the central bank to have to raise rates too fast. Doing so would risk triggering a recession.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Q. Isn’t Trump trying to speed up growth?</p>
<p>A. Yes. And that goal could pit the White House against the Fed in coming years. Trump has promised to lift growth to as high as 4 percent annually, more than twice the current pace. He also pledges to create 25 million jobs over a decade. Yet the Fed already considers the current unemployment rate — at 4.7 percent — to be at a healthy level. Any significant declines from there could spur inflation, according to the Fed’s thinking, and require faster rate increases.</p>
<p>More rate hikes, in turn, could thwart Trump’s plans — something he is unlikely to accept passively.</p>
<p>Under one scenario, the economy could grow faster without forcing accelerated rate hikes. If the economy became more productive, the Fed wouldn’t have to raise rates more quickly. Greater productivity — more output for each hour worked — would mean that the economy had become more efficient and could expand without igniting price increases.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Veiga reported from Los Angeles.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Animated explainer: <a href="http://bit.ly/2nlGO0K" type="external">http://bit.ly/2nlGO0K</a></p> | How Fed hike will affect mortgages, car loans, credit cards | false | https://abqjournal.com/969381/will-mortgage-rates-rise-what-to-know-about-fed-rate-hike.html | 2017-03-15 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>The New York-based company said Monday that it will buy the specialty metal products company in an all-stock deal. Alcoa said the aerospace and defense industries accounted for 80 percent of Pittsburgh-based RTI’s revenues last year.</p>
<p>Alcoa has been shifting from its traditional role of mining and smelting aluminum to becoming a more diversified maker of lightweight metal and alloy products for aerospace, autos and other industries. It has benefited from demand for aluminum and other lightweight materials used to make planes more fuel-efficient.</p>
<p>Last week, Alcoa said it completed its acquisition of the German titanium and aluminum structural castings company Tital. That company’s titanium castings are used in aircraft engines and frames. It also completed in the fourth quarter the purchase of Firth Rixson, which makes alloy parts for jet engines.</p>
<p>For its latest deal, Alcoa plans to trade slightly more than 2.8 Alcoa shares for each RTI share. That equals a value of $41 per RTI share and represents a premium of 50 percent to RTI’s Friday closing price of $27.28.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The $1.5 billion deal value includes $330 million in RTI cash and up to $517 million in the company’s convertible notes.</p>
<p>Alcoa also said Friday that it will review 14 percent of its global smelting capacity and 16 percent of its refining capacity for possible curtailment or divestiture. The company has curtailed, closed or sold 31 percent of its smelting capacity since 2007.</p>
<p>Shares of RTI International Markets Inc. jumped 42 percent, or $11.41, to $38,69 in premarket trading about 20 minutes before the market open on Monday. Alcoa shares fell 55 cents, or 3.8 percent, to $13.93.</p> | Alcoa to buy RTI Intl in $1.5B deal, expand aerospace push | false | https://abqjournal.com/552066/alcoa-to-buy-rti-intl-in-1-5b-deal-expand-aerospace-push.html | 2015-03-09 | 2 |
<p>If they pass the GOP healthcare bill, Republicans in Congress will have to tell Americans that “they have to start worrying again” about paying for care, former Vice President Joe Biden wrote in a column for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/07/17/joe-biden-as-a-nation-we-decided-that-health-care-is-for-all-republicans-want-to-roll-that-back/?utm_term=.5d733965fd36" type="external">The Washington Post.&#160;</a></p>
<p>When Obamacare passed, “it meant we had finally decided, as a nation, that healthcare is a right for all and not a privilege for the few,” Biden continued, slamming the Republican bill that is being debated in the Senate, saying that it “eviscerates” Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid and removes the Obamacare rule that requires care for maternity, mental health, and substance abuse.</p>
<p>“They want to drag us back to a time — not all that long ago — when Americans could be denied basic healthcare because they were unable to afford it,” Biden wrote.</p>
<p>He said that a healthcare system should not be built around emergency room visits because “that’s not a sustainable model, and we’re better than that.”</p>
<p>The former vice president noted that the original Senate bill contained $2 billion to cover mental health and substance abuse, which he called a “drop in the bucket.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell increased that number to $45 billion, but Biden said he is “missing the point.”</p>
<p>The Senate bill cannot be fixed before it gets to a vote, Biden said, and “by denying that all Americans have a right to healthcare, it’s fundamentally flawed.”</p>
<p>Last month, Biden also criticized the Senate health bill in a series of tweets:</p>
<p>The Senate health bill isn’t about healthcare at all—it’s a wealth transfer: slashes care to fund tax cuts for the wealthy &amp; corporations.</p>
<p>— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/878378606464036865" type="external">June 23, 2017</a></p>
<p>Slashing Medicaid hurts kids, the elderly, people with disabilities and those struggling with addiction. All for tax breaks for the wealthy.</p>
<p>— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/878378777549471744" type="external">June 23, 2017</a></p>
<p>Slashing Medicaid hurts kids, the elderly, people with disabilities and those struggling with addiction. All for tax breaks for the wealthy.</p>
<p>— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/878378777549471744" type="external">June 23, 2017</a></p> | Biden: GOP Health Bill Will Make Americans 'Start Worrying Again' | false | https://newsline.com/biden-gop-health-bill-will-make-americans-start-worrying-again/ | 2017-07-17 | 1 |
<p>The Congress <a href="http://news.com.com/Drone+aircraft+may+prowl+U.S.+skies/2100-11746_3-6055658.html" type="external">hears from police agencies</a> that envision using unmanned military drones for surveillance - in one troubling example, high above American cities.</p>
<p>News.com:</p>
<p>Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists.</p>
<p>Now UAVs may be landing in the United States.</p>
<p />
<p>A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.com.com/Drone+aircraft+may+prowl+U.S.+skies/2100-11746_3-6055658.html" type="external">Link</a></p> | Drone Aircraft May Prowl U.S. Skies | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/drone-aircraft-may-prowl-u-s-skies/ | 2006-04-04 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Investigators looking into the disappearance of customer funds during the implosion of <a href="" type="internal">MF Global</a> last month are coming to the conclusion that the money is likely gone for good, sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell the FOX Business Network.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What they don’t know is just how much money is missing.</p>
<p>That is likely to change as early as Friday, when bankruptcy trustee James Giddens provides an updated tally on the missing money, one of the focal points of civil and criminal investigations into the firm’s bankruptcy and a likely topic of conversation when the first of three Congressional hearings takes place this week.</p>
<p>The House Agriculture Committee on Thursday is scheduled to hear testimony from several witnesses, including MF Global’s former chief executive, <a href="" type="internal">Jon Corzine</a>, regarding the brokerage’s demise. It was Corzine who changed MF Global’s business model from a plain-vanilla brokerage firm of commodities to a risk-taking outfit not unlike a hedge fund that ultimately led to its sudden downfall last month.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Read: Five questions lawmakers should grill Corzine on during testimony</a></p>
<p>Amid the firm’s implosion, as much as $1.2 billion of customer money remains missing; if executives of the firm purposely co-mingled customer cash with those used to run MF Global’s operations, that could lead to criminal fraud charges.</p>
<p>As of Monday, staffers for the House Agriculture Committee said Corzine’s attorneys had given no indication of whether Corzine will answer questions from the committee or remain silent by exercising his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Tamara Hinton, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Committee, refused to comment on whether Corzine’s attorneys have given any further indication to the committee about his testimony, and a spokesman for Corzine declined comment.</p>
<p>One source close to Corzine said he has yet to make up his mind on the matter.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Giddens, the bankruptcy trustee for the brokerage firm, is preparing to meet a request from judge Martin Glenn, who is overseeing the case, on disclosing an update on the amount of money still missing. While the bankruptcy hearing won’t contain the same drama as Thursday’s Congressional hearing, for customers of MF Global its importance looms large.</p>
<p>Giddens has said as much as $1.2 billion is missing from customer accounts; other estimates are closer to $600 million still missing. So far, customers are expecting to recover about 65% of their funds.</p>
<p>One thing seems to be certain: Investigators and banks that have had extensive dealings with MF Global believe whatever money is missing is probably gone forever and won’t be able to be returned to investors when the investigation is complete, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. That’s because even if customer funds are located, if they were used &#160;to pay off legitimate claims of creditors those creditors are legally entitled to the money. (An MF Global spokesperson had no immediate comment.)</p>
<p>As a result, so-called claw-back provisions that cover ill-gotten gains, such as the customer money Bernie Madoff paid to his investors during his Ponzi scheme, do not apply.</p>
<p>In addition to the House Agriculture committee, the Senate Agriculture committee and the House Financial Services subcommittee on investigations will hold hearings next week on MF Global’s demise. Just today, the Senate Agriculture committee voted to subpoena Corzine to testify; the House investigations subcommittee is expected to do the same on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The action in Washington comes as a slew of securities regulators -- including the <a href="" type="internal">Commodity Futures Trading Commission</a> as well as the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York -- have launched investigations into MF Global's demise, focusing on whether executives made false statement about the firm’s financial health prior to its bankruptcy, as well as the circumstances behind the missing money.</p>
<p>MF Global, which long specialized as a broker of commodities for individuals and institutions, changed its business model with the 2010 appointment of Corzine, the former Governor of NJ, a U.S. Senator, and CEO of <a href="" type="internal">Goldman Sachs</a> (NYSE:GS). Corzine, a major financial backer of <a href="" type="internal">President Obama</a>, vowed to transform MF Global into a mini-Goldman by placing bets in various markets around the world in an effort to ramp up profits.</p>
<p>But when news of his bets on troubled European sovereign debt was disclosed, investors began pulling money out of the firm and lenders yanked lines of credit, culminating in MF Global’s Nov. 1 bankruptcy filing.</p>
<p>But the bigger problem for Corzine and MF Global wasn’t the risk taking but how the firm managed its risk; investigators believe during the firm’s tumultuous final days that executives improperly co-mingled customer money with money used to run MF Global’s operations.</p>
<p>By law, customer money is supposed to remain separate, and according to people with direct knowledge of the investigation that money is probably gone for good, raising the stakes for Corzine as the investigations swirl.</p>
<p>It’s unclear how much detail about the missing money Corzine can, or will, provide during Thursday’s hearing, though people close to him are betting that in the end he will testify, but keep his testimony to the bare minimum.</p>
<p>“It’s just too embarrassing for a former U.S. Senator and someone close to the president to take the Fifth,” said one person who knows Corzine.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | EXCLUSIVE: Kiss the MF Global Money Goodbye, Sources Say | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/12/06/exclusive-kiss-mf-global-money-goodbye-sources-say.html | 2016-01-29 | 0 |
<p>Journal Article - Nonproliferation Review</p>
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<p>South Africa had active nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs during the 1970s and 1980s. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapon program prior to its 1991 accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Similarly, it terminated its chemical weapons program prior to its 1995 ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Only the dismantlement of Pretoria's nuclear weapons program was subjected to international verification—albeit&#160;ex post facto—following a 1993 decision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference to verify the correctness and completeness of South Africa's declarations under its NPT safeguards agreement. During the 1980s, South Africa also developed and purportedly used biological weapons, violating its obligations under the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, which it had ratified in 1975. This article draws lessons from the verification of the dismantlement of these programs and makes recommendations for future verification work to confirm the elimination of weapons of mass destruction capabilities.</p>
<p /> | Lessons learned from dismantlement of South Africa's biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs | false | http://belfercenter.org/publication/lessons-learned-dismantlement-south-africas-biological-chemical-and-nuclear-weapons | 2016-09-08 | 2 |
<p>If 74-year-old Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders manages to somehow win the presidency, he'll have one thing in common with Ronald Reagan: He was once a movie star. Or at least, he once played a bit part in a terrible low-budget movie.</p>
<p>While the nation is now quite familiar with Sanders' political career, most people don't realize that the Vermont senator has made some guest star appearances in a few films. One of those cameos is in the 1999 low-budget comedy <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120488/" type="external">My X-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception</a> starring Debbie Gibson, Dom DeLuise, and Bernie Sanders as "Rabbi Manny Shevitz."</p>
<p>In his cameo, Rabbi Sanders gives a toast that turns into a rambling complaint about the state of modern baseball. It's, well, you've just got to watch it...</p>
<p>Here's Sanders' bio from his official <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0761471/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t17" type="external">IMDB page</a>:</p>
<p>Bernie Sanders was born on September 8, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, USA as Bernard Sanders. He is an actor, known for Orwell Rolls in His Grave (2003), Koch Brothers Exposed (2012) and First in the South Democratic Candidates Forum on MSNBC (2015). He has been married to Jane O'Meara Driscoll since May 28, 1988. They have four children. He was previously married to Deborah Shiling.</p> | Here's That Time Bernie Sanders Played A Rabbi In A Low-Budget Film... | true | https://dailywire.com/news/3112/watch-bernie-sanders-short-lived-acting-career-james-barrett | 2016-02-03 | 0 |
<p>As Leon Panetta — you might know him from his most recent appearance as head of the CIA — took another step in his transition to the role of defense secretary, he had to deal with some pointed questions about America’s role in Afghanistan. Also: Were Newt Gingrich’s presidential aspirations cut short by the mass exodus of his campaign team? And of course, this week’s “Left, Right &amp; Center” panel, featuring Tony Blankley, Matt Miller, E.J. Dionne and Chrystia Freeland, discussed the PR disaster that Rep. Anthony Weiner wrought. Listen and learn. –KA</p>
<p>KCRW:</p>
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<p /> | 'Left, Right & Center': Afghanistan, 'Newtiny' and the Weiner Effect | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/left-right-center-afghanistan-newtiny-and-the-weiner-effect/ | 2011-06-11 | 4 |
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<p>But the Denver Democrat told her colleagues: “The voice of this state will be heard. You will hear from your constituents.”</p>
<p>Thousands of those constituents have put Proposition 106, which would create a nearly-identical law, before Colorado voters this election.</p>
<p>It would require that a mentally competent patient have a six-month prognosis and get two doctors to sign off on three requests for life-ending medication. It requires doctors to discuss alternatives with the patient. It calls for safe storage, tracking and disposal of lethal drugs, recognizing that a patient can change his or her mind.</p>
<p>It also requires the patient to take the drugs himself and have doctors report annually to the state about each case in which life-ending drugs are prescribed.</p>
<p>“This is patient-centered decision-making and a right Coloradans deserve to have,” Court said. She urged proponents to seek a statutory law rather than a constitutional amendment on the ballot so lawmakers could make any necessary adjustments.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Oregon, Washington, Vermont and California have passed medically-assisted-suicide laws. Montana’s state Supreme Court has ruled that doctors could use a patient’s request for life-ending medication as a defense against any criminal charges linked to the death. Polls suggest a majority of Coloradans support a similar law.</p>
<p>Guidelines for tracking lethal drug storage, use and disposal were added after lawmakers questioned the state’s ability to monitor those drugs, said Roland Halpern of Compassion and Choices. In Oregon, an estimated one-third of patients who requested life-ending drugs after that state’s law went into effect in 1997 never used them, he said.</p>
<p>Opponents argue that the proposal would facilitate doctor-assisted suicide, especially after mistaken terminal diagnoses. They insist that existing hospice and palliative care for the dying is sufficient. They worry about the influence family — wittingly or unwittingly — can have on patients’ decision-making, and the consequences for disabled patients suffering depression, among other issues.</p>
<p>Supporters have raised more than $5 million, most it from the Compassion and Choices Action Network. Opponents raised more than $2.3 million with contributions from Catholic archdioceses in Denver, St. Louis and Arlington, Virginia, as well as the Washington State Catholic Conference.</p>
<p>Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila wrote parishioners about his own mother outliving a near-term prognosis for cancer to argue that 106 will allow “people in situations like my mother’s to kill themselves based off of guesses made by doctors that are often wrong.”</p> | Colorado considers medically assisted suicide measure | false | https://abqjournal.com/873961/colorado-considers-medically-assisted-suicide-measure.html | 2016-10-24 | 2 |
<p>Bush aides are demanding credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. They have a point—harsh interrogations do yield intelligence—but they’re blind to the moral costs, says Tara McKelvey. Plus, full coverage of <a href="" type="internal">Osama bin Laden's death</a>.</p>
<p>Torture works, says <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2010/02/28/what-the-torture-prof-teaches.html" type="external">John Yoo</a>, a former Justice Department official, and he is right. He is taking some of the credit for the killing of <a href="" type="internal">Osama bin Laden</a>, since information that led to his demise was apparently culled from harsh interrogations conducted on terrorists, a result of “tough decisions taken by the Bush administration,” wrote <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266271/bin-laden-no-more-nro-symposium?page=6" type="external">Yoo in National Review</a>.</p>
<p>The events that led to the raid on bin Laden’s Pakistani compound are still being examined, and it is not clear to what extent the harsh interrogations played a role. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/politics/04torture.html" type="external">National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, for example, told The New York Times</a> that if officials had had reliable information from the harsh interrogations, “we would have taken Osama bin Laden in 2003.”</p>
<p>Yet on a broader scale, Americans have been able to find out important things about terrorists and despots because military officers and CIA operatives knocked people around during interrogations. As one military analyst told me, U.S. officials figured out where Saddam Hussein was hiding near Tikrit in 2003 because soldiers and interrogators pulled people out of their houses in neighboring towns and beat them bloody; eventually, they revealed information about his whereabouts. In other words, harsh methods pay off.</p>
<p>But if you have met the people who were subjected to enhanced interrogations during the Bush era, as I did while researching my book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004JZWSSO/thedaibea-20/" type="external">Monstering</a>, you might see things differently. One evening in December 2004, I sat in a hotel room in Amman, Jordan, and spoke with an Iraqi lawyer, a former diplomat who had attended the U.N. General Assembly in New York in December 2001. His 3-year-old daughter crawled around the hotel room as his wife, an engineer who told me that George Orwell’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452284236/thedaibea-20/" type="external">1984</a> was one of her favorite books, plied their daughter with chocolate from the minibar.</p>
<p>Americans have been able to find out important things about terrorists because military officers and CIA operatives knocked people around during interrogations.</p>
<p>Sitting in the hotel room, the lawyer lifted up his pants leg and showed me a red hole where electrodes had been placed in his knee during an interrogation in a U.S.-run detention facility. I told him not all Americans are like the ones he met. “We’re not a nation of torturers,” I said. Later, I wondered, how did this happen?</p>
<p>If there is a smoking gun, it was in the hands of <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2010/11/10/members-of-the-george-w-bush-white-house-where-are-they-now.html" type="external">John Yoo</a>. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, and he was the person behind a Justice Department memo that said interrogators could do what they wanted so long as the intensity of pain was less than that which the prisoners would feel if they suffered from organ failure or another life-threatening injury. These guidelines created the conditions that allowed for almost any sort of physical abuse.</p>
<p>Yoo, along with <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2009/03/09/cheneys-cheney-unemployed.html" type="external">David Addington</a>, a Duke Law School graduate who was an aide to Dick Cheney, and Timothy Flanigan, a University of Virginia law school graduate who served as a deputy White House counsel—all of whom had studied at the nation’s premier law schools—got together in meetings in Washington to discuss the possibility of using harsh techniques on al Qaeda operatives and other high-level terrorists.</p>
<p>Shortly after returning from one of my trips to the Middle East, I called Flanigan and told him that the techniques he had been discussing with Yoo and other government lawyers had been used on men, women, and children in Iraq. Flanigan and I talked for a long time, and he explained that those techniques were intended only for high-level al Qaeda suspects. I know that Flanigan and Yoo thought they were doing the right thing and that they wanted to protect America from a future attack. Yoo and his colleagues believed they were on the side of the angels, and this week Yoo seems to feel he was vindicated by the death of bin Laden.</p>
<p>But the fact is that Yoo and his colleagues came up with the legal definitions that allowed for harsh techniques and cleared the way for all sorts of abuse, much of which was inflicted on innocent people, and culminated in the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004. The Abu Ghraib photographs have provided al Qaeda commanders and other terrorists with an effective, and durable, recruiting tool.</p>
<p>In his memoir, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/%200307590615/thedaibea-20/" type="external">Decision Points</a>, George W. Bush said he had personally approved of the enhanced interrogation methods that were used on prisoners. He also wrote about how CIA officers had said they wanted to make sure that he thought they could go ahead and waterboard a prisoner. “Damn right,” he recalled telling them. Few who have honestly examined the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods and have spoken with military and CIA interrogators would deny that these techniques yield intelligence. But human-rights advocates say that misses the point; for them, the question is not, “Does torture work?” but rather, “Is this the kind of nation we want to become?”</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>Tara McKelvey, a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review, is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786717769/thedaibea-20/" type="external">Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War</a> (Basic Books).</p> | Osama bin Laden's Death Exposes the Price of Torture | true | https://thedailybeast.com/osama-bin-ladens-death-exposes-the-price-of-torture | 2018-10-06 | 4 |
<p>When I was giving birth to our first child, one of the nurses asked my husband how he was doing, since he was just standing there, having nothing to do but watch me struggle through labor. My husband, who would have much preferred to be anywhere else but there, said (quoting John Milton), “They also serve who only stand and wait.”</p>
<p>This is an attitude that I found difficult to share at the time. And across the years, I've gotten no better at it. Along with most Americans, I hate to wait, despite all the practice I get. As a mother, I wait, often unhappily, for my children to finish their homework, find their shoes or grab one more item before leaving the house. As a shopper, I routinely discover that the express lane is a mere delusion.</p>
<p>During this time of year, none of us enjoys waiting in the long lines at the check-out counter or the inevitable traffic jams around the Christmas shopping hot-spots. After all, fast foods, high-speed Internet and quick transportation have made us accustomed to immediate gratification. Waiting seems a waste of time.</p>
<p>And yet, we are willing to wait in extraordinary ways for the things we really want. Some folks camped outside Best Buy for three days to buy Playstation 3. In one instance in Destin, Fla., a kid who was the first person in line was offered $3,000 for his spot. He took the offer. When my husband and I were talking about the craziness of what people were willing to do for this game, our 6-year-old son blurted out, “It can do everything.” The implication (from someone who can barely endure an hour of worship): You'd be crazy not to wait for it!</p>
<p>In the Christian year, Advent is the time we practice waiting. Similar to the folks gathered outside Best Buy, our waiting is not simply wasted time. It has a purpose: we are waiting for the Messiah. It might seem crazy to set aside a period of time for this. For one thing, don't Christians believe the Messiah has already come? Why wait? Someone who had a Playstation 3 in hand wouldn't bother to set up a tent outside the big-box store.</p>
<p>Yes, the Messiah has come. God has become flesh. And yet Advent reminds us that God's coming among us, as one of us, is not simply an event relegated to the past. Rather, it belongs to both the present and the future. In Luke's Gospel, we read, “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” The kingdom of God is now, even though we await its full consummation.</p>
<p>This can all still seem rather crazy. Purchasing a Playstation seems much more real. After all, you put down your money, and voilá, it's in your hands. Waiting for God's kingdom, by contrast, can seem much more illusive. Most of us haven't cast out any demons lately.</p>
<p>Also, waiting doesn't seem like we're really doing much. If God's kingdom involves feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty (Matthew 25), then, quite frankly, waiting seems beside the point. Better to be about doing than simply waiting.</p>
<p>And yet, Advent reminds us that these two cannot be separated. We wait because we see that we cannot make Christ come to us. Christ comes as pure gift, not just to us as individuals but to his whole body, the church, so that we might participate in God's life for the world. We don't have to elbow our way into line or pay someone for his or her spot. We are not in competition. Rather in the body of Christ we wait together because we see that we need not only Christ but each other, just as the eye needs the foot (1 Corinthians 12).</p>
<p>Advent is a different kind of waiting—not empty, not acquisitive, but filled with hope, because we wait for a future already achieved in Christ but not yet in us. God's promise is that in his time it will be.</p>
<p>Beth Newman is professor of theology and ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond.</p> | ANOTHER VIEW: Waiting with a purpose | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/anotherviewwaitingwithapurpose/ | 3 |
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<p>Actress Angelina Jolie will collaborate with the former boss of British luxury brand Asprey to launch a new jewelry line, Women's Wear Daily reported Monday.</p>
<p>The line will not be available to the general public but will be sold to an exclusive network of clients. All profits will be donated to the actress' charity, the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Her collaborator is Robert Procop, who now runs Robert Procop Exceptional Jewels after a spell as Asprey CEO.</p>
<p>"Angelina has very classic style," he told the fashion magazine.</p>
<p>"These are pieces she wears herself," Procop added, referencing the black stone and rose gold necklace she wore to the premiere of "Salt" in Berlin.</p>
<p>Jolie, 35, also wore pieces designed by Procop in her upcoming film "The Tourist" with Johnny Depp.</p>
<p>Read more: <a href="http://www.wwd.com/markets-news/jolie-collaborating-on-jewelry-line-3396207?src=rss/recentstories/20101206&amp;browsets=575745735504" type="external">http://www.wwd.com/markets-news/jolie-collaborating-on-jewelry-line-3396207'src=rss/recentstories/20101206&amp;browsets=575745735504 Opens a New Window.</a></p> | Angelina Jolie to Design Luxury Jewelry Line With Fmr. Asprey Boss: Report | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2010/12/09/angelina-jolie-design-luxury-jewelry-line-fmr-asprey-boss-report.html | 2016-03-17 | 0 |
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<p>SunPower's Oasis Power Plant will make its way to Mexico in a big way. Image source: SunPower.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>All eyes in the solar industry have been on the U.S. market for the past few years, largely because of the market's massive growth rate. SolarCity has been able to double installations nearly every year of its existence while SunPower and First Solar have built a dominant position in the utility scale market.</p>
<p>And south of the border, there could be another solar boom taking place. CFE, Mexico's only utility, just did its first clean energy auction and 74% of the bids were won by solar developers, with the other 26% going to wind. In total, 4 million MWh of solar electricity will be purchased each year as a result of this auction alone, enough to power the entire state of Mississippi for a month.</p>
<p>The big winners in Mexico The biggest winner of the auction was Enel Green Power, a subsidiary of the Italian energy company. The company won a contract for 2,250 GWh of electricity per year, or about 992 MW of solar developments.</p>
<p>Three publicly traded companies in the U.S. won substantial bids as well:</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>For some perspective, solar projects can sell for around $2 to $6 per watt, depending on the characteristics of power generation, where they're located, who the customer is, and even what kind of rate you can get for debt. So, the impact on the companies winning projects is very large. Even if we assume that projects will be sold for just $2 per watt, SunPower is looking at $1 billion in potential revenue, JinkoSolar could generate $482 million, and Canadian Solar could make $124 million from these projects. And I think that's on the low end for each company.</p>
<p>Showing the falling cost of solar Amazingly, these projects are being built without subsidies and the average bid for energy was $50.7 per MWh, or 5.07 cents per kWh. That's less than half of the 12.66 cents per kWh that U.S. residents paid for electricity in January.</p>
<p>The fact that solar energy was also being bid against wind, hydro, geothermal, and even combined-cycle-natural gas without subsidies shows how far the industry has come.</p>
<p>First Solar was notably absent from the Mexico bid winners. Image source: First Solar.</p>
<p>Where are the other big players? It was notable that First Solar and SolarCity weren't big players in this auction, but there are viable reasons why. SolarCity's foray into Mexico is currently focused on the commercial and industrial segment, which is large rooftop installations rather than utility scale projects.</p>
<p>First Solar would have been a logical aggressive bidder, but it may be seeing opportunities elsewhere. India, the U.S., the Middle East, and Africa have been a big focus for the company of late. There was also a quick turnaround, with projects due to be completed early in 2018.</p>
<p>Mexico is worth paying attention to Greentech Media, which has put out estimates on Mexico's potential growth along with the <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/research/report/latin-america-pv-playbook" type="external">rest of Latin America Opens a New Window.</a>, was even surprised at the amount of solar that's now in the pipeline. At the end of 2015, it said there were 246 MW of solar in Mexico and they expected installations to be 382 MW in 2016 and 677 MW in 2017. But they've now bumped that forecast up to 646 MW this year and 1,513 MW in 2017.</p>
<p>That's a market worth keeping an eye on, especially with so many U.S. companies trying to gain exposure there. The solar industry got a little brighter in the past few weeks and Mexico is a big reason why.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/16/mexico-is-betting-big-on-a-solar-future.aspx" type="external">Mexico Is Betting Big on a Solar Future Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFlushDraw/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Travis Hoium Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of First Solar and SunPower. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends SolarCity. 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> | Mexico Is Betting Big on a Solar Future | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/16/mexico-is-betting-big-on-solar-future.html | 2016-04-18 | 0 |
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<p>Trump and Jinping are finally meeting at the luxurious Mar-a-Largo, or "The Southern White House" as Trump refers to the iconic property. At the top of the list of topics will have to be trade and North Korea.</p>
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<p>China has been ramming it to the United States for years, since probably Kennedy was in office, if not even further back than that. It is time for our President to put his foot down and make it far more expensive for Chinese goods to hit our shore. It is time for our President to make a stand and give American workers the ability to be competitive again.</p>
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<p>Who cares what Jinping has to say about it, his country has had the upper hand for years, and he is getting all bent out of shape at the suggestion someone is going to level the playing field. Of course this will hurt the Chinese market, but we have been hurting the American market for years, and it is time for this to stop. On to the other hot button topic of the day, North Korea. With the ever looming insanity that rules that country, what is there to be done.</p>
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<p>China is going to be a bunch of pansies because they are so close, but if the North Koreans really have developed nuclear technology, we should be just as concerned. Trump and Jinping need to make a united front against the terrorist insanity that runs North Korea and shut it down now. China will back down though, due to their own biased interests in that region of the world. China is not our friend, as much as they would want it to see that way.</p>
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<p>At least when Trump talked with the Japanese prime minister, he said, all options were on the table when it came to dealing with North Korea, including military action. That is the kind of strength we need right now. Japan may even support the United States if it came to a military action against North Korea, China would not, and would sit back and see what happens. Jong-un sits on his little throne in Pyongyang and makes his little threats against the world and expects everyone to fall back in fear at the slightest threat of what his response may be.</p>
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<p>He has the worst case of little man syndrome that I have ever seen. He thinks these threats should push back the world. He will soon release he is dealing with the greatest country in the world, the United States. We no longer have the biased and agenda based Obama regime in control. President Trump is not going to tolerate his aggression and may finally show this tiny country what happens when you truly anger the sleeping giant in the west.</p> | Day 1 Trump and Xi: An Opinion | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/2133-Day-1-Trump-and-Xi-An-Opinion | 2017-04-07 | 0 |
<p>LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) - Bryson Robinson hit seven 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 31 points, scoring nine straight points for New Orleans in overtime, and the Privateers outlasted McNeese 82-75 on Saturday.</p>
<p>Kalob Ledoux scored four quick points 40 seconds into the extra period and McNeese led 73-70. Robinson nailed a 3-pointer to pull the Privateers (7-8, 4-0 Southland Conference) even. Jarren Greenwood made two free throws to put the Cowboys (5-9, 2-2) up two, but Robinson grabbed an offensive rebound and scored and added four free throws for a 79-75 New Orleans lead. McNeese missed its last six shots of the game.</p>
<p>Robinson added a career-best eight rebounds as New Orleans controlled the boards 45-35. Travin Thibodeaux tallied 14 points, nine rebounds and five assists for New Orleans, which hit 9 of 16 from 3-point range. Michael Zeno scored 12 with five rebounds.</p>
<p>Greenwood led McNeese with 22 points, James Harvey scored 17 and Ledoux added 14 points and seven rebounds. Harvey's layup with 24 seconds left in regulation sent the game to overtime tied at 69.</p>
<p>LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) - Bryson Robinson hit seven 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 31 points, scoring nine straight points for New Orleans in overtime, and the Privateers outlasted McNeese 82-75 on Saturday.</p>
<p>Kalob Ledoux scored four quick points 40 seconds into the extra period and McNeese led 73-70. Robinson nailed a 3-pointer to pull the Privateers (7-8, 4-0 Southland Conference) even. Jarren Greenwood made two free throws to put the Cowboys (5-9, 2-2) up two, but Robinson grabbed an offensive rebound and scored and added four free throws for a 79-75 New Orleans lead. McNeese missed its last six shots of the game.</p>
<p>Robinson added a career-best eight rebounds as New Orleans controlled the boards 45-35. Travin Thibodeaux tallied 14 points, nine rebounds and five assists for New Orleans, which hit 9 of 16 from 3-point range. Michael Zeno scored 12 with five rebounds.</p>
<p>Greenwood led McNeese with 22 points, James Harvey scored 17 and Ledoux added 14 points and seven rebounds. Harvey's layup with 24 seconds left in regulation sent the game to overtime tied at 69.</p> | Robinson sparks New Orleans to 82-75 OT win over McNeese | false | https://apnews.com/amp/52bc76e5e8894e758768bbe8f153f643 | 2018-01-07 | 2 |
<p>Liberals are seemingly hell-bent on tearing down the Second Amendment, from <a href="" type="internal">President Obama pushing executive action on gun-control through tears</a>, to restaurants like <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/16/open-carry-guns-restaurants-companies_n_7802468.html" type="external">Sonic, Panera Bread, and Chipotle</a> forbidding law-abiding citizens from carrying in their stores. But Brooks' Place restaurant in Cypress, Texas, just gave a giant <a href="" type="internal">Greg Abbott-inspired</a> "screw you" to the anti-gun-nuts by offering discounts to all their customers who openly carry their gun. We knew we could count on Texas!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kens5.com/story/news/local/2016/01/01/cypress-restaurant-offers-open-carry-discount/78190276/" type="external">Per</a> Kens 5 News:</p>
<p>“If you haven’t tried it, how do you know you don’t like it?” said owner Trent Brooks.</p>
<p>For once, Brooks isn’t talking about his BBQ.</p>
<p>“I’m a business owner. I have a family. You know, I have a home to protect,” Brooks said.</p>
<p>That’s why the licensed gun owner strapped on his sidearm.</p>
<p>The 25-percent discount became effective on January 1.</p>
<p>There is little doubt that this preferential treatment toward law-abiding gun owners who frequent the privately owned restaurant will have liberals up in arms, but we get the feeling owner Trent Brooks couldn’t care less.</p>
<p>Likely reaction from liberals everywhere:</p>
<p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/mad-reaction-D0c34tjq6tJQY" type="external">via GIPHY</a></p>
<p><a href="http://bearingarms.com/restaurant-offers-discount-open-carriers-continue-refuse-shoot/?utm_source=gpfbp&amp;utm_medium=fbpage&amp;utm_campaign=gpupdate" type="external">H/T</a> Bearing Arms</p>
<p>Image (AP): "President Barack Obama wipes away tears from his eyes as he recalled the 20 first-graders killed in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, while speaking in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, about steps his administration is taking to reduce gun violence. Also on stage are stakeholders, and individuals whose lives have been impacted by the gun violence."</p> | What This Texas Restaurant is Doing for Their Open Carry Customers Will Make Liberal Heads Explode | true | https://dailywire.com/news/2383/what-texas-restaurant-doing-their-open-carry-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2016-01-06 | 0 |
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<p>Saudi Arabia has issued an ultimatum to Pakistan to categorically choose between Saudi Arabia and Qatar over their major diplomatic dispute. Pakistan is standing its ground, however, and refuses to take sides.</p>
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<p>Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met n Jedda on Monday where Saudi's leader issued the ultimatum. Salman directly asked Sharif: "Are you with us or with Qatar?"</p>
<p />
<p>Saudi Arabia decided earlier this month to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, brought by Qatar's unwillingness to sever relations with Saudi's regional rival, Iran. Riyadh imposed a total blockade that sparked a humanitarian crisis in Qatar. Turkey stepped in to back Qatar. Saudi has issued an ultimatum to allies and neighbors to cut ties with Qatar, too. Shortly after the visit of President Donald Trump in Saudi last month, Saudi Arabia was joined by Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates in cutting ties with Qatar over accusations that Doha was sponsoring terrorism in the region. Pakistan, for its part, mostly kept quiet amidst Saudi's efforts to isolate Qatar.</p>
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<p>Pakistan is a U.S. ally, however, it is frequently being accused of funding terrorism. It is also involved in disputes with neighbors Afghanistan and India, which both accuse it of offering support to hardline Sunni Muslim militant groups such as the Taliban and Lashkar- e- Taiba. The U.S. has in the past also turned against Pakistan after Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden had been discovered to have been hiding in Abbottabad. It would take several years after that for the U.S. and Pakistan to resume military cooperation. Just last year, former President Barack Obama proposed more than a $1billion in civilian and military aid for Pakistan. President Trump is currently considering major cuts to such aid.</p>
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<p>Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Trump has asked about the U.S. level of support and funding to Pakistan. Trump's emerging foreign policy may have also urged Islamabad to agree to exert its influence on Qatar and to resolve the crisis among the Arab Gulf states.</p>
<p />
<p>Source:</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/saudi-arabia-pakistan-choice-us-qatar-626915" type="external">newsweek.com/saudi-arabia-pakistan-choice-us-qatar-626915</a></p> | Saudi Arabia Issues Ultimatum to Pakistan: '?re You With Us or Qatar?' | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/3857-Saudi-Arabia-Issues-Ultimatum-to-Pakistan-re-You-With-Us-or-Qatar | 2017-06-17 | 0 |
<p>In the first two weeks after the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the last eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.</p>
<p>Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama’s appearance on CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” last Sunday witnessed the president-elect’s unorthodox verbal tic, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.</p>
<p>But Mr. Obama’s decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.</p>
<p>According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it “alienating” to have a president who speaks English as if it were his first language.</p>
<p />
<p>“Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement,” says Mr. Logsdon. “If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist.”</p>
<p>The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, “OK, subject, predicate, subject, predicate — we get it, stop showing off.”</p>
<p>The president-elect’s stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.</p>
<p>“Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can’t really do there, I think needing to do that isn’t tapping into what Americans are needing also,” she said.</p>
<p>Award-winning humorist, television personality and film actor Andy Borowitz is author of the book “The Republican Playbook.”</p>
<p>© 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.</p> | Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/obamas-use-of-complete-sentences-stirs-controversy/ | 2008-11-24 | 4 |
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<p>Image source: Tesla Motors.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The auto industry has seen some exciting times lately, and Tesla Motors and Volkswagen have largely been on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to investor sentiment. Tesla has revolutionized the electric vehicle industry, and its luxury offerings have made it a credible new force among automaker rivals with much longer histories. Volkswagen, meanwhile, has been embroiled in controversy concerning allegations that it deliberately sought to evade emissions-testing standards for its diesel vehicles. Both stocks have performed poorly, and some investors wonder if now might be a good time to see Tesla or Volkswagen as a value play. Let's take a look at how Tesla Motors and Volkswagen compare on some key metrics to see which deserves your attention right now.</p>
<p>Both Tesla and VW have lost considerable ground over the past year. Tesla is down 21% since the end of June 2015, but Volkswagen has taken an even bigger hit, falling more than 40% over the same period.</p>
<p>When it comes to conventional valuation metrics, Volkswagen and Tesla are difficult to compare because they're in such different stages of their corporate existence. As an upstart, Tesla hasn't yet reached consistent profitability, spending huge amounts of money on research and development and building out its production capacity. Volkswagen, on the other hand, has historically been profitable, but the charges that it has taken to pay for potential legal liability from the diesel emissions scandal have wiped out its bottom line over the past year.</p>
<p>Image source: Volkswagen.</p>
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<p>On a forward basis, the difference in investor perception is even clearer. Tesla trades at a forward earnings multiple of more than 60, reflecting the fast growth investors expect along with the continued emphasis on building up business at the expense of short-term profitability. Meanwhile, investors in Volkswagen are more hopeful that the German car company will rebound from its woes, and their projections imply a multiple to forward earnings of just 7. Volkswagen clearly fits the traditional value mold more closely, although as we'll see below, there's a lot of uncertainty about whether it can actually deliver on an expected turnaround.</p>
<p>The fundamental difference between Volkswagen and Tesla also shows up in how the companies are handling their capital. Tesla has never paid dividends, and it hasn't made any other efforts to return capital to shareholders in its short history. Indeed, the company continues to raise capital through stock offerings, pulling in more than $850 million from such moves in 2015.</p>
<p>By contrast, Volkswagen has traditionally paid a sizable dividend to investors. However, the legal crisis it faces led Volkswagen to reduce its planned distribution dramatically. For the year, Volkswagen said it would distribute just 0.11 euros per share as its dividend, which represents a dividend yield of just 0.1%. That represents almost a complete elimination of the payout compared to the previous year's distribution of4.8 euros per share, which at the time represented a yield of 2% to 2.5% even with the stock being much higher. At least for now, neither Tesla nor Volkswagen looks attractive on a dividend basis.</p>
<p>Both Tesla and VW have the potential to grow, but both face challenges. For VW, the obstacles to growth are much clearer. The company did settle with the U.S. government, committing more than $15 billion to create a settlement fund for vehicle owners, contribute to clean-air projects in various states, build out zero-emissions infrastructure, and settle claims by various state and local governments. However, even that huge agreement doesn't eliminate Volkswagen's potential liability entirely. It only covers vehicles that have a specific 2.0-liter engine, leaving other models open to further litigation.The U.S. Department of Justice could also still decide to seek civil or criminal penalties.</p>
<p>Volkswagen will now also have to deal with skepticism about its ability to innovate, along withthe slowing economy in Europe, which could take a further hit from the U.K.'s Brexit vote. Both will make growth difficult for the German carmaker in the near term.</p>
<p>For Tesla, meanwhile, demand for its new vehicle lines has been strong. Yet the upstart is going through the growing pains of building out its manufacturing capacity, especially as it seeks to ramp up production volumes on its Model X SUV line. The company is working to improve quality to avoid product flaws, but the physical constraints on growth are still substantial.</p>
<p>Moreover, as Tesla shifts its attention toward the Model 3 mass-market vehicle, further challenges await. Tesla has set an ambitious schedule to get the Model 3's design and engineering completed and the production details for its body and battery systems ironed out. Combine that with the company's offer to buy out residential solar specialist SolarCity, and it's easy to see why shareholders aren't entirely certain whether Tesla can make good on its huge potential.</p>
<p>Overall, the biggest question in comparing Tesla and Volkswagen is whether the German automaker can regain the confidence of customers worldwide. That's a tall order, and even at low valuations, Volkswagen stock is currently a risky proposition. Even though Tesla has uncertainties of its own, its growth prospects have huge promise. As a result, Tesla gets my vote as being a better buy right now, despite the operational and corporate risks the electric-vehicle specialist has to manage in order to succeed.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/01/better-buy-tesla-motors-inc-vs-volkswagen.aspx" type="external">Better Buy: Tesla Motors, Inc. vs. Volkswagen</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGalagan/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Dan Caplinger</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends SolarCity and Tesla Motors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p> | Better Buy: Tesla Motors, Inc. vs. Volkswagen | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/07/01/better-buy-tesla-motors-inc-vs-volkswagen.html | 2016-07-01 | 0 |
<p>The big news in the newspaper industry this week is the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations report, which shows significant declines in print circulation at U.S. newspapers -- a 1.9-percent drop in daily circulation, and a 2.5 percent decline on Sunday. Major metro papers -- except for those growing a national audience -- are among the hardest hit. This represents the largest circulation losses in more than a decade, and indicates an acceleration of a 20-year downward trend. ( <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/business/media/03paper.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">Here's the New York Times' report</a>.)The conventional wisdom is that this is bad news for the industry. Well, since I'm an online guy and long ago left my print-journalism roots, I look at this as a positive thing. You see, I've been in the online-news field for over a decade, and I've seen this sector of journalism long under-funded in relation to its strategic importance to the future of media.With Philip Meyer's <a href="" type="internal">apocalyptic vision</a> of the newspaper industry's decline perhaps coming true, maybe these numbers will force some boardroom decision-making that puts more money into interactive/advanced media. That can be a good thing in the long run, even if the next few years turn out to be difficult for the industry to endure.Now, yes, we can point to players in the newspaper industry who are doing fantastic interactive-media work and devote significant resources to the online side. But let's face it, the Googles and Yahoo!s of the world run circles around newspapers when it comes to technological innovation. Perhaps a little industry hardship will end up shifting priorities such that the newspaper industry attempts to play some serious catch-up.</p> | The Good News Behind Bad Circulation Numbers | false | https://poynter.org/news/good-news-behind-bad-circulation-numbers | 2005-05-03 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Shares of <a href="" type="internal">Nike</a> (NYSE:NKE) tumbled nearly 9% Friday morning after the company disclosed weaker-than-expected quarterly results amid tighter margins.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Nike, which is the world’s largest athletic shoe and clothing maker, said late Thursday it earned $523 million, or $1.08 a share, last quarter, compared with a profit of $497 million, or $1.01 a share, a year earlier. Analysts had called for EPS of $1.12.</p>
<p>Sales increased 7.3% to $5.08 billion, trailing consensus calls from analysts for $5.18 billion.</p>
<p>Gross margins tightened to 45.8% from 46.9% amid higher product and freight costs.</p>
<p>“Our solid third-quarter results demonstrate the power of the NIKE, Inc. portfolio,” CEO <a href="" type="internal">Mark Parker</a> said in a statement. “Our unique ability to create deep connections with consumers, led by an impressive pipeline of innovative product and exciting retail experiences, continues to strengthen our brands and accelerate growth.”</p>
<p>Nike said its future orders through July climbed 11% to $7.9 billion. Excluding currency, they would have risen 9%.</p>
<p>Shareholders punished Nike for the disappointing results, sending its stock diving 9.06% to $77.67 Friday morning. The selloff erased Nike’s 2011 gains and left it up just 14% from a year ago.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Wall Street</a> analysts also reacted negatively as <a href="" type="internal">Goldman Sachs</a> removed its “buy” rating on Nike and downgraded it to “neutral.” Goldman also removed the stock from its Americas Buy List.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Nike 3Q Miss Sends Stock Reeling | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/03/18/nike-3q-miss-sends-stock-reeling.html | 2016-01-28 | 0 |
<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Ron Rivera said the Carolina Panthers wanted to get more creative on defense.</p>
<p>The fifth-year coach believes Shaq Thompson gives them that ability.</p>
<p>The Panthers selected the versatile outside linebacker from Washington with the No. 25 overall pick in the NFL draft, bolstering a defense that has finished in the top 10 in the league in each of the last three seasons under coordinator Sean McDermott.</p>
<p>General manager Dave Gettleman called Thompson a “top shelf kid” with all of the qualities the Panthers were looking for heading into the draft including speed and playmaking ability.</p>
<p>“He’s going to allow us to put three very fast linebackers on the field,” Gettleman said.</p>
<p>Rivera said that with Thompson playing alongside Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis, the Panthers will be able to keep three linebackers on the field more often, thus preventing offenses from dictating what defense Carolina must play. Last year, the Panthers were forced to sub out their third linebacker, A.J. Klein, for an extra defensive back to give them more speed on the field on passing downs.</p>
<p>The coach believes Thompson will help when defending teams that use two tight end sets. Rivera mentioned the two-time defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks, which acquired Jimmy Graham in the offseason, as a prime example.</p>
<p>The 6-foot, 228-pound Thompson was the winner of the Paul Hornung Award, given to the nation’s most versatile player.</p>
<p>He scored six touchdowns in 2014 — four on defense and two as a running back. He even started at tailback against Colorado last year and ran for 174 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries and caught two passes for 41 yards.</p>
<p>Thompson had 3.5 sacks, 15 tackles for loss and five fumble recoveries in 40 games at Washington.</p>
<p>He feels like he can become one of the best linebackers in the NFL playing alongside Kuechly, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2013, and Davis. Thompson said he’s looking forward to picking their brains.</p>
<p>“They are two of the best linebackers in the game,” Thompson said.</p>
<p>Thompson, known for his athletic ability, said the Panthers have talked to him about playing the weak side linebacker position.</p>
<p>He was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 18th round of the 2012 MLB Draft, but wound up playing football. He said playing minor league baseball for one season was a great experience and helped him “learn how to become a professional.”</p>
<p>“He’s a heck of a fit for us,” Gettleman said. “There isn’t anything he can’t do for us. ... He’s a tough kid. He will (hit you). He prevents touchdowns and scores touchdowns. Call me crazy, I kind of like that.”</p>
<p>Ironically, Thompson could wind up being the long-term replacement for the man who announced Carolina’s selection in Chicago — Davis, this year’s Walter Payton Man of the Year.</p>
<p>Thompson said the Panthers have talked to him about playing weak side linebacker — the same position Davis played last season, but said those discussions were only preliminary. Rivera said nothing will be given to Thompson and he’ll have to come in and earn a starting spot, even though he’s a first-round pick.</p>
<p>“He’s a unique football player, a lot like Thomas Davis,” Rivera said.</p>
<p>Rivera said the Panthers plan to use Thompson in a variety of ways.</p>
<p>“He fits a lot of the needs, and some of the things we wanted to do.” Rivera said.</p>
<p>The Panthers are hoping to follow their recent string of success in the first round.</p>
<p>Over the past four seasons, the Panthers have selected wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin, defensive tackle Star Lotulelei, linebacker Luke Kuechly and quarterback Cam Newton in round one. Davis was also a former first-round draft pick.</p>
<p>Thompson will be able to participate in the team’s rookie minicamp next weekend, but will miss some time in OTAs because Washington works on the quarter system.</p>
<p>The Panthers had been in the market for an offensive lineman, but six had gone off the board before their pick.</p>
<p>Gettleman said the Panthers were deciding between Thompson and offensive tackle D.J. Humphries at No. 25. When the Cardinals took Humphries one pick ahead of them, the Panthers settled in on Thompson and wasted no time submitting the pick.</p>
<p>The Panthers have nine picks overall in the draft, including two compensatory selections in the fifth round.</p>
<p>The GM said the team has no plans to trade its second or third round picks on Friday night.</p>
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<p>Online:</p>
<p>AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Ron Rivera said the Carolina Panthers wanted to get more creative on defense.</p>
<p>The fifth-year coach believes Shaq Thompson gives them that ability.</p>
<p>The Panthers selected the versatile outside linebacker from Washington with the No. 25 overall pick in the NFL draft, bolstering a defense that has finished in the top 10 in the league in each of the last three seasons under coordinator Sean McDermott.</p>
<p>General manager Dave Gettleman called Thompson a “top shelf kid” with all of the qualities the Panthers were looking for heading into the draft including speed and playmaking ability.</p>
<p>“He’s going to allow us to put three very fast linebackers on the field,” Gettleman said.</p>
<p>Rivera said that with Thompson playing alongside Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis, the Panthers will be able to keep three linebackers on the field more often, thus preventing offenses from dictating what defense Carolina must play. Last year, the Panthers were forced to sub out their third linebacker, A.J. Klein, for an extra defensive back to give them more speed on the field on passing downs.</p>
<p>The coach believes Thompson will help when defending teams that use two tight end sets. Rivera mentioned the two-time defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks, which acquired Jimmy Graham in the offseason, as a prime example.</p>
<p>The 6-foot, 228-pound Thompson was the winner of the Paul Hornung Award, given to the nation’s most versatile player.</p>
<p>He scored six touchdowns in 2014 — four on defense and two as a running back. He even started at tailback against Colorado last year and ran for 174 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries and caught two passes for 41 yards.</p>
<p>Thompson had 3.5 sacks, 15 tackles for loss and five fumble recoveries in 40 games at Washington.</p>
<p>He feels like he can become one of the best linebackers in the NFL playing alongside Kuechly, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2013, and Davis. Thompson said he’s looking forward to picking their brains.</p>
<p>“They are two of the best linebackers in the game,” Thompson said.</p>
<p>Thompson, known for his athletic ability, said the Panthers have talked to him about playing the weak side linebacker position.</p>
<p>He was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 18th round of the 2012 MLB Draft, but wound up playing football. He said playing minor league baseball for one season was a great experience and helped him “learn how to become a professional.”</p>
<p>“He’s a heck of a fit for us,” Gettleman said. “There isn’t anything he can’t do for us. ... He’s a tough kid. He will (hit you). He prevents touchdowns and scores touchdowns. Call me crazy, I kind of like that.”</p>
<p>Ironically, Thompson could wind up being the long-term replacement for the man who announced Carolina’s selection in Chicago — Davis, this year’s Walter Payton Man of the Year.</p>
<p>Thompson said the Panthers have talked to him about playing weak side linebacker — the same position Davis played last season, but said those discussions were only preliminary. Rivera said nothing will be given to Thompson and he’ll have to come in and earn a starting spot, even though he’s a first-round pick.</p>
<p>“He’s a unique football player, a lot like Thomas Davis,” Rivera said.</p>
<p>Rivera said the Panthers plan to use Thompson in a variety of ways.</p>
<p>“He fits a lot of the needs, and some of the things we wanted to do.” Rivera said.</p>
<p>The Panthers are hoping to follow their recent string of success in the first round.</p>
<p>Over the past four seasons, the Panthers have selected wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin, defensive tackle Star Lotulelei, linebacker Luke Kuechly and quarterback Cam Newton in round one. Davis was also a former first-round draft pick.</p>
<p>Thompson will be able to participate in the team’s rookie minicamp next weekend, but will miss some time in OTAs because Washington works on the quarter system.</p>
<p>The Panthers had been in the market for an offensive lineman, but six had gone off the board before their pick.</p>
<p>Gettleman said the Panthers were deciding between Thompson and offensive tackle D.J. Humphries at No. 25. When the Cardinals took Humphries one pick ahead of them, the Panthers settled in on Thompson and wasted no time submitting the pick.</p>
<p>The Panthers have nine picks overall in the draft, including two compensatory selections in the fifth round.</p>
<p>The GM said the team has no plans to trade its second or third round picks on Friday night.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online:</p>
<p>AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p> | Panthers select Washington LB Thompson with 1st round pick | false | https://apnews.com/fdd4e2c0c27e4e13a595a1b41b8f7918 | 2015-05-01 | 2 |
<p>Relief workers for International agencies sit with me in Dhaka (Bangladesh). They are talking about the difficulties faced by the Rohingya people who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh over the past several months. Over 650,000 people from the Rohingya community came into Bangladesh since August 25 of last year. This is a torrent of desperate people, a community threatened with extinction for the past seven decades. The refugee camps near Cox’s Bazaar are overcrowded and dangerously unhygienic. Already there is an outbreak of diphtheria, with indications of severe health challenges to come. According to the World Health Organisation, half of the refugees are malnourished and anaemic, while a quarter of the children suffer from acute malnutrition. A logistical worker for a relief agency tells me that in his three decades in this work he has never seen anything like this.</p>
<p>Matters are worse in Thailand, where an unknown number of Rohingya refugees have been sold into slavery (estimates suggest that 500,000 slaves work in various industries in Thailand). Many of those sold into slavery work on fishing boats, particularly in the prawn fishing industry. It is said that the price of the enslaved person now is a mere 5% of what it was in the 19th century. Indeed, the slavery does not begin when the refugees leave Myanmar. UN officials report that in the encampments where the Rohingya have gathered in Sittwe, the port city capital of Rakhine state inside Myanmar, ‘people smugglers are very active in the camps.’</p>
<p>Stunningly, it is now said that a quarter of the Rohingya people have been ejected from Myanmar, with large numbers internally displaced in what amount to concentration camps. Marixie Mercado of UNICEF visited some of these camps, even the ones that are hard to reach such as Pautaw township. ‘The first thing you notice when you reach the camps is the stomach-churning stench,’ Mercado recalls. ‘Parts of the camps are literally cesspools. Shelters teeter on stilts above garbage and excrement. Children walk barefoot through the muck. One camp manager reported four deaths among children ages 3 to 10 within the first 18 days of December.’ There are about 60,000 children in these camps, totally isolated and with ‘high levels of toxic fear,’ said Mercado.</p>
<p>On September 19 of last year, Myanmar’s civilian leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi broke her silence about the atrocities against the Rohingya people. But her speech was filled with evasions of all kinds. She did not say the name&#160;Rohingya, afraid that its utterance would somehow give legitimacy to this community’s claim to being part of Myanmar’s social fabric. She said, oddly, that her government did not know exactly what was going on in Myanmar, that she would need to ‘find out why this is happening.’</p>
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<p>But what is happening has been clear to Myanmar’s military and its civilian authorities for seven decades. There has been a careful campaign to ensure that the Rohingya, who live in northern Rakhine (previously Arakan) State, are firstly denied citizenship and then denied the ability to make a living. Massacres have been punctual, with the intensity having escalated since the 2012 pogrom. Aung San Suu Kyi would perhaps be best informed of the character of the violence if she visited the village of Yan Thei, where on October 23, 2012, the police and the Rakhine extremists colluded to destroy the village. In the melee, the extremists and the police took the lives of 28 children, 13 under the age of five, most of them hacked to death.</p>
<p>It is not enough to blame the extremist Buddhist monks and the Rakhine militants for this violence. The Myanmar state has been complicit in this violence from its inception. It has, for reasons of bigotry and religion, targeted the one minority group (the Rohingyas) that had not armed itself to fight for its right as a minority group (unlike the Karen and Shan peoples). The military and the civilian elite, including Aung San Suu Kyi, have used the defencelessness of the Rohingya as a way to define their nationalism. They have recently used the West’s War on Terror rhetoric to target this Muslim community.</p>
<p>The party of Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has closely collaborated with the extremist groups from Rakhine State since the 1980s. While the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi positioned themselves internationally as beacons of democracy and human rights, the party and its leader developed close ties with the extremist Rakhine political factions (Arakan League for Democracy, then the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party and the Arakan National Party). Aung San Suu Kyi has relied on people such as Aye The Aung and Aye Maung, both extreme Rakhine nationalists. These are men who deny the existence of the Rohingya, calling them Bengalis and demanding their expulsion to Bangladesh.</p>
<p>A UN report from 2010 shows that the poverty rate across Myanmar is at least 26%, with poverty most acute in rural areas (84% of the poor live in the Burmese countryside). Rakhine State, where the Rohingya live, is one of the poorest parts of Myanmar, with every second child suffering from acute malnutrition. The poverty rate in Rakhine State is a startling 78%. Both the Rohingya and the Rakhine peoples—the latter being used by the State as cannon fodder against the former—survive with meagre resources.</p>
<p>Rather than address this problem, the military and the civilian leaders have made it a habit of pointing their fingers at the extremely poor Rohingyas. It is as if these landless agricultural workers and small farmers are the cause of poverty in Myanmar and not its victims.</p>
<p>For the past two decades, the government in Myanmar has used the war on terror rhetoric adopted from the West to define the Rohingya. They are painted as Muslim extremists, although what truly defines them is their defenceless poverty. It was helpful to the generals of Myanmar and Aung San Suu Kyi that a Rohingya extremist born in Karachi (Pakistan) and raised in Mecca (Saudi Arabia)—Ata Ullah—formed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and began armed operations against the state and the Rakhine population. This group has almost no roots in the Rohingya population. But it is a convenient foil for Myanmar’s state and for its Buddhist extremists. They point to it as evidence of al-Qaeda and use it to continue the ethnic cleaning operations ongoing in Rakhine State.</p>
<p>The wave of refugees waits for May to July, when the Andaman Sea is relatively calm. It is then that they will try to get to Bangladesh and Thailand. More people will leave Myanmar this year. ‘We fear we will be wiped out’, said Tun Khin, speaking for his Rohingya community.</p>
<p>I am sitting with the Bangladeshi photographer and writer Shahidul Alam in central Dhaka. He has given me the Drik calendar for 2018 (it is called&#160;When Buddha Looks Away). It has pictures by Alam of the Rohingya community from the camps in Bangladesh. The text with the pictures bristle. Alam writes, ‘If the world indeed has a conscience then the time is now to demonstrate that we, as a people, cannot, will not, stand by while one of the greatest injustices of modern times continues to take place on our watch. Even if we fail to make ourselves accountable, our children and our children’s children will ask us how we could have let it happen and we will never have an answer. It is a question that will haunt us all our lives.’</p>
<p>It is already haunting the Rohingya people. And the aid workers.</p> | Rohingya Who Fled Myanmar Facing Crisis in Asia | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/theres-massive-humanitarian-crisis-unfolding-asia-plight-rohingya/ | 2018-01-17 | 4 |
<p>Facing an even bigger mountain of packages this holiday season, FedEx and UPS are hiring more workers to avoid the delays that frustrated shoppers and gift-recipients a year ago.</p>
<p>Last December, the delivery giants were caught off-guard by bad weather and a surge in last-minute online shopping. An estimated 2 million packages were late at Christmas.</p>
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<p>On Wednesday, FedEx Corp. said it expects deliveries between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve to rise 8.8 percent over last year, to 290 million shipments. Volume is expected to surge on each of the first three Mondays in December, with FedEx predicting a peak of 22.6 million shipments on Monday, Dec. 15.</p>
<p>The delivery companies and Internet retailers are benefiting from a strengthening economy and optimism about consumer spending. At the same time, they're dealing with consumers who increasingly enjoy the ease of shopping on computers and mobile devices but expect the goods to show up almost as quickly as if they had shopped at a store. That expectation is often fed by online retailers, who hold out the promise of free delivery until right before Christmas.</p>
<p>About 1.3 million express packages handled by UPS and 618,000 carried by FedEx failed to get delivered on time last Christmas Eve, according to ShipMatrix Inc., which makes software for shipment tracking. The firm's president, Satish Jindel, said UPS and FedEx were at fault only 30 percent of the time.</p>
<p>In most cases, retailers promised guaranteed express delivery but tried to save money and didn't pay the delivery companies for that speedier service, Jindel said.</p>
<p>The merchants face tough competition for consumers who base purchases first on price, and second on free shipping, and the faster the better.</p>
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<p>"Every single year the percentage of retailers offering free shipping goes up," said Vicki Cantrell, senior vice president at the National Retail Federation. "The consumer expects it. The retailer may or may not be able to afford it."</p>
<p>Target Corp. has started offering free holiday shipping for any item on its website, a first for the retailer as it tries to compete better against online rivals such as Amazon.com Inc. The timing of the offer was stunning — weeks before the unofficial kickoff of holiday shopping.</p>
<p>Cantrell said Target, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other retailers are getting better at the shipping game. They will ship items from stores instead of a central warehouse if that is faster, or tell online customers when the product they want can be picked up at a store near their home. Those strategies could relieve pressure on the delivery companies and satisfy the shopper more quickly.</p>
<p>The retail federation's online division, Shop.org, predicts that online sales in November and December will rise 8 to 11 percent over last year. To meet that demand, online retailers such as Amazon and the delivery companies are hiring more.</p>
<p>FedEx plans to hire 50,000 seasonal workers, up from 40,000 last year. United Parcel Service Inc. says it will add up to 95,000 people, up from 85,000. Last year, both companies wound up scrambling to hire more seasonal employees than they had planned, which increased costs and cut into profits.</p>
<p>FedEx also expects to invest $1.2 billion in its ground-shipping network in its current fiscal year, with most of that going to increase capacity and automation. The company said that the improvements have sped up ground delivery by a day or more in more than two-thirds of the U.S.</p>
<p>UPS has also invested to boost shipping capacity during the holidays, said the company's chief commercial officer, Alan Gershenhorn. He said that UPS had improved it forecasting and package tracking. UPS has not issued a holiday forecast.</p>
<p>Shares of FedEx fell $1.41 to $158.47; UPS shares fell $1.69 to $99.06.</p> | After rocky season last year, FedEx and UPS look to improve their performance during holidays | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/10/22/after-rocky-season-last-year-fedex-and-ups-look-to-improve-their-performance.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
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<p>Interrupting America’s shopping frenzy on the sacred capitalist holiday of Black Friday, protesters flooded malls and Walmarts from Ferguson to Los Angeles, bringing news of racism and labor exploitation.</p>
<p>Two separate movements were at work Friday. First, a group called Our Walmart has been organizing annual protests in an effort to unionize the workforce of the nation’s largest retailer. Many Walmart employees subsist off of government-funded social programs and donations. Our Walmart wants to raise workers’ wages and hours.</p>
<p>Second, activists are still demanding action in the wake of the St. Louis County grand jury’s decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/28/protesters-black-friday-police-violence-poor-wages" type="external">The Guardian</a> reports on the scene at an upscale mall in St. Louis:</p>
<p>On Friday afternoon a crowd of around 300 mostly young protesters, white and black, gathered inside the city’s big, upscale Galleria mall.</p>
<p>Two black female Macy’s employees burst from the department store and joined the marchers, shouting “Fuck it, shut this shit down” and prompting wild cheers from protesters, who echoed their cries.</p>
<p>One activist, a social worker from Baltimore, told The Guardian why the timing is important: “Superficial, stress-fuelled shopping stops people from focusing on the real issues.”</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Peter Z. Scheer</a></p> | Protesters Bring Reality to Black Friday Shopping Sprees | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/protesters-bring-reality-to-black-friday-shopping-sprees/ | 2014-11-29 | 4 |
<p>‘A Pentatonix Christmas’ is well executed but has more novelty than lasting appeal. (Photo courtesy RCA)</p>
<p>Kacey Musgraves&#160;“A Very Kacey Christmas”</p>
<p>With “A Very Kasey Christman,” country singer/songwriter Kasey Musgraves delivers her first holiday album, a collection with a real sense of warmth and nostalgia, and a tinge of heartbreak.</p>
<p>Musgraves keeps the arrangements simple and old school — the album sounds like something that one might find in the parents box of old holiday records. The charming retro vibe and Musgraves’ engaging vocals, along with smart song choices (mostly familiar covers, with a few originals).</p>
<p>It has appeal even if you’re not a big country fan.&#160; (CG)</p>
<p>Jane Lynch “A Swingin’ Little Christmas Time”</p>
<p>Retro seems to be the thing this year. “Glee” actress Jane Lynch has released “A Swingin’ Little Christmas Time,” and as the title suggests, the album’s predominant vibe is big band, with touches of jazz.</p>
<p>The lyrics and harmonies are ultra tight. Lynch proves herself to be quite an adept vocalist, and while there is a vein of humor and joy running through the album, there are also moments of solemn beauty, like Lynch’s exquisite take on “Coventry Carol.” (CG)</p>
<p>Loretta Lynn “White Christmas Blue”</p>
<p>Still sounding great at 84, country legend Loretta Lynn has released her first holiday album in 50 years with “White Christmas Blue.”</p>
<p>While light on the arrangements — a simple country backdrop that doesn’t get in the way of Lynn’s vocals — it’s a fun collection with familiar classics and a few newly written pieces (like the title song) that are simply charming. “White Christmas Blue” is nostalgic and evocative of yesteryear. (CG)</p>
<p>She &amp; Him “Christmas Party”</p>
<p>Five years after the the duo She &amp; Him released their popular “A Very She &amp; Him Christmas,” the duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward are back with a followed, the aptly named “Christmas Party.”</p>
<p>She &amp; Him retain their lovely low-key festive indie-pop vibe as they run through a dozen familiar chestnuts and lesser-known songs. Particular highlights include the obscure “Christmas Memories,” performed by Frank Sinatra, and a buoyant acoustic take on the Darlene Love standard “Marshmallow World.” The album opens and closes with two favorites: a lovely take on Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” and slow and swaying rendition of the Chipmunks’ “Christmas Don’t Be Late.” (CG)</p>
<p>Amy Grant “Tennessee Christmas”</p>
<p>It would be easy to mistake Amy Grant’s new album “Tennessee Christmas” for just another of the seemingly endless stream of compilation rereleases that have been regurgitated on the artist in recent years since the title cut was a hit on her first Christmas album in 1983. This, however, is her fourth official holiday release not counting a holiday-themed greatest hits collection and even a Hallmark exclusive release back when those were still a thing.</p>
<p>“Tennessee Christmas” includes a mix of classics and originals that, though much simpler than any Christmas project Grant (who brings her <a href="http://www.ticketoffices.com/Amy-Grant-and-Michael-W.-Smith/135/2108063" type="external">Christmas tour with Michael W. Smith</a> to Baltimore Sunday night) ever recorded — she made it entirely in her home studio over the summer — still works. The most refreshing surprise is that the veteran gospel singer, who’s always had a pensive side, doesn’t shy away from that here. Heard alone, new songs like “Melancholy Christmas,” “December” and “Another Merry Christmas” sound like real downers but in the context of the record, they work surprisingly well as refreshing contrasts to the more upbeat material. Even “Joy to the World” here sounds more like a Vince Guaraldi track than the fast and bombastic carol we usually think of.</p>
<p>There’s one real standout in the originals — the bubbly and catchy “Christmas For You and Me,” which, given the right traction opportunity, could be come a seasonal standard. Bah humbug to LifeWay, a Baptist retail chain, that decided not to sell the album because it wasn’t religious enough. Get it at <a href="http://www.target.com/p/amy-grant-tennessee-christmas-target-exclusive/-/A-51612819" type="external">Target</a> instead — their version has two bonus cuts. (Joey DiGuglielmo)</p>
<p>Pentatonix “A Pentatonix Christmas”</p>
<p>A cappella vocal group Pentatonix, who first gained attention for winning the third season on NBC’s “The Sing-Off,” are pretty amazing. You can’t listen to their new album “A Pentatonix Christmas” and not be confounded that everything you hear was created with vocal cords.</p>
<p>But while it’s all executed exceedingly well — the pitch is as stable as a steel bridge throughout and the arrangements are truly clever — this has more novelty than long-term appeal.</p>
<p>“O Come All Ye Faithful” bounces along to a mid-tempo Carribean rhythm. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” starts off rather promisingly but eventually picks up its tempo to such an alarming degree the ears feel practically bludgeoned by the end.</p>
<p>More effective (and listenable) are subtler cuts like “Coventry Carol” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” (Joey DiGuglielmo)</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">A Pentatonix Christmas</a> <a href="" type="internal">A Very Kacey Christmas</a> <a href="" type="internal">Amy Grant</a> <a href="" type="internal">Christmas Party</a> <a href="" type="internal">Jane Lynch</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kacey Musgraves</a> <a href="" type="internal">Loretta Lynn</a> <a href="" type="internal">Michael W. Smith</a> <a href="" type="internal">Pentatonix</a> <a href="" type="internal">She &amp; Him</a> <a href="" type="internal">Tennessee Christmas</a> <a href="" type="internal">White Christmas Blue</a></p> | New holiday albums of 2016 | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/12/15/new-holiday-albums-2016/ | 3 |
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<p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co said that demand for its high-fee, high-rewards Sapphire Reserve credit card is "strong, but tapering" and that the cost of opening new card accounts could hurt fourth-quarter revenue by as much $200 million.</p>
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<p>JPMorgan made the disclosures in a quarterly filing on Tuesday after the stock market close.</p>
<p>The Reserve card, which carries a $450 annual fee but offers more than $1,300 in credits and give-backs on new accounts, has been surprisingly popular and escalated competition between card issuers for customers.</p>
<p>(Reporting by David Henry in New York)</p> | JPMorgan says demand for Reserve card 'strong, but tapering' | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/01/jpmorgan-says-demand-for-reserve-card-strong-but-tapering.html | 2016-11-01 | 0 |
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<p>J.P. Morgan Chase &amp; Co. Chief Executive James Dimon will receive $27 million in total compensation for 2015, up $7 million from the prior year, according to a securities filing.</p>
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<p>The chairman and chief executive's pay package includes $20.5 million in restricted stock and $5 million in cash, along with his base salary of $1.5 million, according to the filing. The total compensation is up from his 2014 pay package of $20 million though includes less cash and more in restricted stock.</p>
<p>This follows a year in which J.P. Morgan garnered record annual profits and regulatory settlements began to slow down and decrease in size from years prior.</p>
<p>Mr. Dimon's pay is closely watched, in part because J.P. Morgan is the nation's biggest bank by assets. He also took a high-profile pay cut for 2012, a year where J.P. Morgan suffered a roughly $6 billion trading loss from its "London whale" scandal.</p>
<p>Write to Emily Glazer at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p> | Jamie Dimon Gets a $7 Million Pay Bump | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/01/21/jamie-dimon-gets-7-million-pay-bump.html | 2016-07-06 | 0 |
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<p>AUSTIN, Texas — The last America saw of Don Draper, he was meditating on a Pacific hillside, imagining one of the most iconic ads in television history.</p>
<p>What’s left of the flawed protagonist of “Mad Men” has now gone to Texas.</p>
<p>Show creator Matthew Weiner and production company Lionsgate have donated the “Mad Men” archive — including scripts, drafts, notes, props, costumes, digital video and reams of research materials that went into creating the show’s richly detailed presentation of the American 1960s — to the University of Texas’ Harry Ransom Center humanities library.</p>
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<p>Weiner, who also wrote and directed many episodes, said he donated the archive to the Ransom Center because he couldn’t stand the thought of the material being dispersed at auction or lost forever.</p>
<p>“There is a record here of mid-century America that digs so deep,” Weiner said. “It would have been sad to let that go.”</p>
<p>The donation was scheduled to be announced Thursday.</p>
<p>Weiner chose the Ransom Center as the resting place for a show about Madison Avenue advertising professionals almost by chance. He was in Austin to attend a film festival when a visit to the Ransom Center’s “Gone With the Wind” exhibit inspired him to donate the “Mad Men” archive for preservation and research.</p>
<p>The “Mad Men” collection from its 2007-2015 run starring Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss includes a selection of costumes and props. They include Draper’s terms of re-employment letter (meticulously typed in a size of font typical of the time), Betty Draper’s medical file, advertising poster boards, rolodexes full of phone numbers, and even a fictitious “Star Trek” episode that one of the show’s characters had hoped to get produced.</p>
<p>Boxes of research materials show how deeply show writers dug to preserve an authentic feel, even before the first episode was aired. “Look books” of period fashion and style were laid out for each character, home and office design, with details from the average kitchen toaster to re-creating a checkbook or men’s suits. Magazines of the times were scoured to research the news and language of the era, such as when the word “groovy” would first be used</p>
<p>“We would take things from the Sears catalog, not just the cover of Vogue,” Weiner said.</p>
<p>Kevin Beggs, Lionsgate television group chairman, said “Mad Men” is more than a great show. “It is part of American television history, a ground-breaking classic worthy of the scholarly research the Ransom Center supports.”</p>
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<p>If the collection holds any secrets about the characters or stories, Weiner said they reside in the rough drafts, rewrites, screen tests and Weiner’s own notes that show how episodes or seasons evolved before they aired.</p>
<p>“It often didn’t start the way it came out. You will get to see the origin of everything, from what a character was supposed to be like, to how a story was originally supposed to work. It’s all there,” Weiner said.</p>
<p>Weiner’s personal notes also reveal production battles, such as his yearslong efforts to be allowed to use Beatles music in the show, or archive news footage of CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite covering the 1969 moon landing.</p>
<p>“My argument was, my show is fake until I get a Beatles song in there,” Weiner said.</p>
<p>Steve Wilson, the Ransom Center’s film curator, said it will take about a year to catalog the entire collection. Some pieces will be put on display and the collection will be available to researchers and the university’s radio, television and film students.</p>
<p>Weiner wants the students and researchers to see all the work behind the show, including the burps and missteps that went into crafting the final product.</p>
<p>“Artists have traditionally hidden the long road of mistakes,” Weiner said. “When you see a finished work, it can be intimidating. Showing all the brush strokes hopefully is very encouraging to people.”</p>
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<p>This story has been corrected to show that the Lionsgate chairman’s name is Kevin Beggs, not Biggs.</p>
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<p>Follow Jim Vertuno on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/JimVertuno" type="external">www.twitter.com/JimVertuno</a></p> | Don Draper and ‘Mad Men’ archive land at University of Texas | false | https://abqjournal.com/926199/don-draper-and-mad-men-archive-land-at-university-of-texas.html | 2017-01-12 | 2 |
<p>Bill Oxford/iStock</p>
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<p>On Friday, a Wisconsin district court struck down a decades-old state law that criminalizes pregnant women with histories of drug use by labeling them as child abusers and letting juvenile courts appoint guardians and lawyers to represent the interests of their fetuses.</p>
<p>The law, called the Unborn Child Protection Act, was passed in 1997 and made the state responsible for protecting fetuses at all stages of pregnancy. Known as the “cocaine mom” law, it gave juvenile courts jurisdiction over the “expectant mother”—no matter what her age—and allowed the courts to force pregnant women into drug treatment if she had any history of drug use, and into jail if she refused treatment.</p>
<p>Public health groups opposed the law at the time, arguing it would scare women away from prenatal care. “A criminal justice approach to maternal and child health is not the best alternative,” said Milwaukee’s Health Department at the time. “Readily available drug and alcohol treatment for expectant mothers would be preferable to threatening mothers with incarceration and loss of paternal [sic] rights.”</p>
<p>Tamara Loertscher, whose <a href="http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/Loertscher%20SJ%20Opinion.pdf" type="external">case</a> was decided on Friday, was incarcerated and held in solitary confinement while pregnant as a result of the law. In 2014, Loertscher, 29, sought care at a hospital in Wisconsin after finding out she was pregnant. At the hospital, she told medical staff that she had a history of methamphetamine and marijuana use, but that she’d stopped using when she realized she was going to have a baby.</p>
<p>That’s when the courts and child services got involved. Loertscher was subject to several juvenile court hearings, and when she refused to participate in an in-treatment drug program, she was jailed for contempt of court. A lawyer was appointed by the state to represent Loertscher’s 14- week fetus, but Loertscher herself was not given legal counsel. She spent almost three weeks incarcerated in a Taylor County jail, including several days in solitary confinement. During this time, Loertscher received no prenatal care, nor treatment for a thyroid condition.</p>
<p>Eventually, Loertscher agreed to comply with the state’s recommended treatment and weekly drug testing. But nonetheless, the county department of human services concluded that she had committed child maltreatment because of her previous drug use (it eventually withdrew the finding). All of her drug tests were negative, and in 2015, Loertscher delivered a healthy baby boy.</p>
<p>That year, Loertscher <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/pregnant-woman-challenging-wisconsin-protective-custody-law-b99411705z1-287395241.html" type="external">sued</a> Wisconsin and Taylor County in federal court for violating her civil rights. And on Friday, a Wisconsin federal court <a href="http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/Loertscher%20SJ%20Opinion.pdf" type="external">ruled</a> that the law is too vague and thus unconstitutional, but the court denied her request for damages as part of the ruling on Friday.</p>
<p>The law “purported to protect ‘unborn children,'” <a href="http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/" type="external">says</a> Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which represented Loertscher in her case against the state, “but in fact subverted maternal and child health and deprived adult women who became pregnant of fundamental constitutional rights.”</p>
<p>Loertscher <a href="https://vimeo.com/202241357" type="external">was not</a> the only woman arrested under the Wisconsin law. According to Paltrow, Wisconsin state documents show that since 2006, child protective services looked into more than 3400 cases of “unborn child abuse” and nearly 470 women were found to have committed such abuse.</p>
<p /> | A Judge Struck Down the “Cocaine Mom” Law That Put Pregnant Women in Jail | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/tamara-loertscher-unborn-child-protection-wisconsin-pregnant-jail/ | 2017-05-01 | 4 |
<p>Smith Electric Vehicles manufactures electric delivery trucks and <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/cars/smith-electric-vehicles-readies-itself-ipo.html" type="external">hopes to go public soon.</a> Customers include Coca-Cola, Frito Lay, Fedex, and more. EVs makes excellent fleet vehicles in cities. The cost of ownership is less than traditional vehicles and they can be recharged at night when rates are lower. Plus, of course, there are no emissions.</p> | Smith Electric Vehicles readies for IPO | false | https://ivn.us/2012/09/17/smith-electric-vehicles-readies-for-ipo/ | 2012-09-17 | 2 |
<p>SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. (SEAS) on Tuesday reported third-quarter net income of $65.7 million.</p>
<p>On a per-share basis, the Orlando, Florida-based company said it had profit of 77 cents.</p>
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<p>The results fell short of Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.06 per share.</p>
<p>The theme park operator posted revenue of $485.3 million in the period, exceeding Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $482.7 million.</p>
<p>SeaWorld shares have fallen 28 percent since the beginning of the year. The stock has declined 22 percent in the last 12 months.</p>
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<p>This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SEAS at https://www.zacks.com/ap/SEAS</p>
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<p>Keywords: SeaWorld, Earnings Report</p> | SeaWorld misses 3Q profit forecasts | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/08/seaworld-misses-3q-profit-forecasts.html | 2016-11-08 | 0 |
<p>Drug maker Pfizer Inc. on Tuesday posted second-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street's targets. Net earnings were $2.01 billion, or 33 cents a share, compared with $2.63 billion, or 42 cents a share, a year ago. Pfizer's revenue rose to $13.15 billion from $11.85 billion in the year-earlier period. Adjusted earnings came in at 64 cents a share. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected adjusted earnings of 62 cents a share, on revenue of $13.01 billion. Pfizer reaffirmed its 2016 view for revenue of $51 billion to $53 billion, and its adjusted-earnings forecast of $2.38 to $2.48 a share.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Pfizer Earnings, Sales Above Expectations | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/02/pfizer-earnings-sales-above-expectations.html | 2016-08-02 | 0 |
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<p>CLEVELAND — What the King wants, the King gets.</p>
<p>So thanks to LeBron James, ice cream will be on the dessert menu for Cleveland’s big night.</p>
<p>James and his Cavaliers teammates are to receive their championship rings Tuesday night and raise a title banner in Quicken Loans Arena at about the same time the Indians throw the first pitch in Game 1 of the World Series next door at Progressive Field.</p>
<p>James was asked last week if there was anything that could make this better. He said: “I don’t know, having an ice cream truck outside both arenas at the same time as well — icing on the cake.”</p>
<p>On Monday, Blue Bunny Ice Cream granted King James’ wish. It announced it will have a truck outside the arena to hand out free ice cream to fans.</p>
<p>Last week, the NBA said the Cavs’ home opener against the New York Knicks will start 30 minutes earlier to make it easier for fans who want to enjoy both events.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | 2 scoops: Free ice cream to sweeten Cleveland’s big night | false | https://abqjournal.com/873849/2-scoops-free-ice-cream-to-sweeten-clevelands-big-night.html | 2016-10-24 | 2 |
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<p>ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A Michigan steakhouse got more sizzle than it bargained for out of a college football promotion.</p>
<p>Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Ann Arbor announced on its Facebook page Friday that for the remainder of the season, customers would receive a percentage off their total food bill equal to the final winning point differential in the latest University of Michigan football game.</p>
<p>Then came Michigan’s 78-0 drubbing of Rutgers on Saturday, its largest margin of victory since an 85-0 win in 1939 over the University of Chicago. But the Facebook posting capped the discount at 50 percent and said the offer does not include alcohol.</p>
<p>The restaurant posted on its website Sunday that it was “fully committed with reservations” through Thursday, when the offer expires.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | High-steak game: 78-point win means big restaurant discount | false | https://abqjournal.com/864205/high-steak-game-78-point-win-means-big-restaurant-discount.html | 2 |
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<p>Internet search giant Google plans to set up its first overseas research and development center in Bangalore. A senior official of Google is likely to arrive here next month to complete the procedures for recruiting about 100 employees, initially. Google's principal scientist, Krishna Bharat, who developed <a href="http://news.google.com" type="external">Google News</a>, is a graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai; he is likely to shift to Bangalore from California, along with a couple of senior engineers, to head the operations here.</p> | Google Setting Up in India | false | https://poynter.org/news/google-setting-india | 2003-12-15 | 2 |
<p>NEW YORK GIANTS AT DALLAS COWBOYS</p>
<p>KICKOFF: Sunday, 8:30 p.m. ET, AT&amp;T Stadium. TV: NBC, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Al_Michaels/" type="external">Al Michaels</a>, Cris Collinsworth, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Michele-Tafoya/" type="external">Michele Tafoya</a>.</p>
<p>SERIES HISTORY: 110th regular-season meeting. Cowboys lead series, 62-45-2. The Giants and Cowboys have opened the season against each other in four of the last five years. This will be the third consecutive opener for the teams in Dallas. The Giants are 21-28-1 in Sunday night games, including 10-16-1 in road games.</p>
<p>GAMEDATE: 9/10/17</p>
<p>KEYS TO THE GAME: Dallas RB <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ezekiel-Elliott/" type="external">Ezekiel Elliott</a>, fighting a six-game suspension, will play in the opener. And the Cowboys will hope to do better this year against a Giants run defense that last year allowed 88.6 yards per game and held Elliott, the league’s top rusher, to 157 yards in two games.</p>
<p>The Giants’ offensive line is hoping to gain some momentum against a Dallas defensive front that will be missing defensive linemen Damontre Moore, Randy Gregory and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/David_Irving/" type="external">David Irving</a> as a result of league-imposed suspensions.</p>
<p>The Giants, who are looking to uncork their running game, didn’t have much success running behind the starting offensive line in preseason, but there is hope that the additional practice reps will have running backs <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Paul-Perkins/" type="external">Paul Perkins</a>, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Shane-Vereen/" type="external">Shane Vereen</a>, Orleans Darkwa and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Wayne-Gallman/" type="external">Wayne Gallman</a> a lot more comfortable with their timing in hitting the hole.</p>
<p>In the passing game, there appears to be optimism that receiver <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Odell-Beckham/" type="external">Odell Beckham</a> Jr., who has been nursing an ankle sprain, will be ready to go.</p>
<p>Even if Beckham doesn’t play, Giants quarterback <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Eli_Manning/" type="external">Eli Manning</a> has plenty of weapons to use against the Dallas defense. New York added wide receiver <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Brandon_Marshall/" type="external">Brandon Marshall</a> and drafted tight end <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Evan-Engram/" type="external">Evan Engram</a>, boosting an offense that averaged 330 yards per game last season.</p>
<p>MATCHUPS TO WATCH:</p>
<p>–Giants WR Odell Beckham and WR Brandon Marshall vs. Cowboys CB <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Nolan-Carroll/" type="external">Nolan Carroll</a> and CB <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Anthony_Brown/" type="external">Anthony Brown</a>. Orlando Scandrick is the Cowboys’ best cornerback, but he will be in slot on passing downs, leaving the shaky Carroll and the largely unproven Brown on the outside trying to check Beckham and Marshall. This is a decided mismatch for the Giants, especially with the Cowboys’ suspect pass rush.</p>
<p>–Cowboys TE <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Jason_Witten/" type="external">Jason Witten</a> vs. Giants MLB B.J. Goodson. With Keenan Robinson, the Giants’ best cover linebacker, still in the concussion protocol, Goodson has had to take on coverage responsibilities in the nickel. Safety <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Landon-Collins/" type="external">Landon Collins</a> said Goodson has made a lot of progress in coverage, adding it’s just a matter of matching the speed of the defense. If Goodson isn’t fully up to speed by Sunday night, chances are Collins will be there to help cover Witten, historically a major thorn in the Giants’ side.</p>
<p>GIANTS NOTABLE ROOKIE: Tight end Evan Engram. The first-round draft pick can play multiple positions. Engram, who finished the preseason six receptions for 75 yards, lined up in-line, in the slot, split wide, in the backfield and in motion, giving coach <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ben-McAdoo/" type="external">Ben McAdoo</a> options to create mismatches. In his final two seasons at Ole Miss, Engram caught 10 of 17 deep balls thrown to him for 337 yards and three touchdowns — a skill the Giants need over the middle.</p>
<p>COWBOYS NOTABLE ROOKIE: Defensive end <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Taco-Charlton/" type="external">Taco Charlton</a>. Charlton was the team’s top pick for a reason. They needed help at defensive end and he was the best person on the board to fill the need. He will not make a <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Myles-Garrett/" type="external">Myles Garrett</a>-like impact, which is why he wasn’t picked at the top of the board. But he will play a lot. If he is not the team’s rookie of the year, something will have gone really, really wrong.</p>
<p>FAST FACTS: Giants QB Eli Manning passed for 4,027 yards in 2016, his franchise-record sixth 4,000-yard season. He ranks eighth in NFL history with 48,214 yards and seventh with 320 TD passes. … Giants RB Paul Perkins had 618 scrimmage yards (456 rushing) as a rookie in 2016. … Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr. ranked third in the NFL in receptions (101) and yards (1,367) last season. He has 288 catches, tied for most by an NFL player in his first three seasons. … WR Brandon Marshall makes his debut with the Giants. He ranks third among active players in receptions (941) and second in receiving yards (12,061). … Dallas QB <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Dak-Prescott/" type="external">Dak Prescott</a> set NFL rookie records for QB wins (13), interception percentage (0.9) and rating (104.9). … Dallas TE Jason Witten caught 69 passes, his 13th consecutive season with 60. His 1,089 career receptions are second all-time among TEs. … Dallas LB Sean Lee had a career-high 145 tackles in 2016, tied for third in the NFL. He has 273 tackles since 2015, second most in the NFL.</p>
<p>PREDICTION: The presence of Elliott and the injury to Beckham seem to shift the tide in the Cowboys’ favor at home.</p>
<p>OUR PICK: Cowboys, 17-14.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Chris-Cluff/" type="external">Chris Cluff</a></p> | New York Giants vs Dallas Cowboys: Prediction, preview, pick to win | false | https://newsline.com/new-york-giants-vs-dallas-cowboys-prediction-preview-pick-to-win/ | 2017-09-08 | 1 |
<p>Swipe right and behold: the satellite photo shows St. Elijah’s, the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq and a real world testament to the Middle East as the birthplace of Christianity. The monastery was first built by the Sixth Century Assyrian Christian monk, St. Elijah.</p>
<p>In its later incarnation, the holy site endured as a place of worship for 1,400 years.&#160;</p>
<p>Now swipe left. And it’s gone.</p>
<p>A pile of rubble now sits where the monastery’s ancient buildings once stood, seen clearly in a <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/iraqs-oldest-christian-monastery-reduced-to-field-of-rubble-1453287029" type="external">satellite picture released this week by the Associated Press</a>.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>“Physically ill,” is how Michael Peppard says he felt when he looked at the images of the destruction of St. Elijah’s.&#160;</p>
<p>“The tragedy that has been taking place among civilians in Syria and Iraq is paralleled now by what we’re seeing with the destruction of cultural heritage,” says Peppard, an associate professor in the department of theology at Fordham University.&#160;</p>
<p>The monastery of St. Elijah’s is just one of more than 100 historic sites pillaged and razed by ISIS, which controls large parts of Iraq and Syria. ISIS extremists have destroyed churches, temples, shrines, tombs, anything that doesn’t fit the group’s radical version of Islam.&#160;</p>
<p>Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO, called the destruction of St. Elijah’s, “ <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/unesco_director_general_expresses_concerns_after_the_destruction_of_the_monastery_of_deir_mar_elia_st_elijahs_in_mosul_iraq/#.VqJeOlMrK8q" type="external">yet another violent attack against the Iraqi people</a>, which confirms the crimes against humanity suffered by the Christian population, and the extent of the cultural cleansing underway in Iraq.” &#160;</p>
<p>“Such deliberate destruction is a war crime and it must not stay unpunished. It also reminds us how terrified by history the extremists are, because understanding the past undermines the pretexts they use to justify these crimes and exposes them as expressions of pure hatred and ignorance. Despite their relentless crimes, extremists will never be able to erase history,” Bokova said.&#160;</p>
<p>But the ideological extremism of ISIS doesn’t mean the group is above making a profit on the past.&#160;</p>
<p>“On the one hand, they’re destroying monumental items, things like St. Elijah’s monastery&#160;...&#160;buildings and statues,” Peppard says. “Anything that is portable, that has been discovered, for example, through a systematized looting operation, is being monetized and used as a currency and sold abroad.”&#160;</p>
<p>The sale of antiquities has become an important source of revenue for ISIS, he says. &#160;</p>
<p>There could be one tiny shred of good news here. If ISIS continues to facilitate the excavation and sale of artifacts, that means some antiquities could potentially make their way into the hands of experts who could learn from them and preserve them for future generations.&#160;</p>
<p>But Peppard says, “There’s also a sense in which this feeds a continued black market ... and cycle of corruption. So, most people who study antiquities and do archeology would say, ‘Absolutely not. We don’t want these things happening.’”</p>
<p>It’s also worth mentioning, Peppard adds, that these artifacts are important to the national identity of people where they're being looted from.&#160;</p>
<p>“When [antiquities] get sent out of the country, most of them are never coming back. Most of them are going to private collectors and they will not see the light of day, either by scholars or by folks in Syria and Iraq.”&#160;</p>
<p>Since the start of the civil war in Syria, new efforts to track stolen antiquities have been launched. One of them started last summer, when the <a href="http://asorblog.org/2014/09/10/6-things-you-need-to-know-about-asors-syrian-heritage-initiative/" type="external">American Schools of Oriental Research joined with the US State Department</a> to “document, monitor, and report on cultural heritage damage in Syria.”&#160;</p>
<p>The multi-lingual <a href="http://apsa2011.com/apsanew/" type="external">Association for the Protection of Syrian Archeology</a> is doing similar work.&#160;&#160; &#160;Historical sites in Syria and Iraq still hold plenty of secrets. The city of Dura-Europos in eastern Syria on the Euphrates River, for example, is the setting for Peppard’s new book, “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Worlds-Oldest-Church-Dura-Europos/dp/0300213999" type="external">The World’s Oldest Church</a>.”&#160;</p>
<p>“We find there a really shocking amount of cultural pluralism, in language, in ethnicity, in religion,” he says. Peppard says the earliest known Christian building dating back to the third century was located very near one of the oldest known synagogues, and they both sat close to various temples devoted to deities from Persia, Greece, and Rome.&#160;</p>
<p>“So, we have an awful lot of religious diversity in a walled city that’s roughly the size of, I don’t know, New Haven, Connecticut.”&#160;</p>
<p>That was the case with many other Syrian cities in ancient times, Peppard says, which contradicts an often-repeated notion floated by President Barack Obama during his recent State of the Union speech. Obama mentioned conflicts in the Middle East that “date back millennia” as one reason for instability. &#160;</p>
<p>That’s misleading and overly simplistic, Peppard suggests.&#160;</p>
<p>“Even when Christianity engaged with Islam in the eighth and ninth centuries, there was still a very robust religious pluralism in Syria and in Iraq, where you had Arabic-speaking Christians, Syriac-speaking Christians, engaging with their Muslim counterparts of their day.”&#160;</p> | ISIS wants to erase the Middle East’s Christian history — and make a few bucks along the way | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-01-22/isis-wants-erase-middle-east-s-christian-history-and-make-few-bucks-along-way | 2016-01-22 | 3 |
<p>KH says there is plenty of evidence against the two suspects: Haroon was the State Minister for the Interior in Sudan with special responsibilities at the Darfur Security Desk and in that role he funded and mobilized the Janjuweed militias and he's charged with inciting the militias as well. He addressed a gathering of Janjuweed militia in 2003 saying that the children of the largest ethnic tribe in Darfur had become rebels and they should be booty for the Janjuweed to rape and pillage and plunder. The other suspect was more directly involved in the violence. He became a leader of the Janjuweed militias and the evidence indicates he had participated in at least one mass killing. (So in the past year what has happened to these two?) The latter was in custody briefly and he was released by the government of Sudan which said there was not sufficient evidence to convict him. (Why have they not be turned over to international courts?) The government of Sudan denies jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and also denies the severity of the Darfur conflict. (What about Haroon?) He has never be detained or charged or investigated. On the contrary, he's been promoted and he's now the Acting Minister of Humanitarian Affairs. (So he should be protecting the people who he's been accused of murdering?) it's another cruel way of the Sudanese government thumbing its nose at the international community. (How are they allowed to have this war crimes suspect still in office?) Actually there was no real public condemnation. The EU is largely silent on this issue. (Have all the pressures on the Sudanese government all been for naught?) I think so, we're trying to get this UN peacekeeping force deployed which was first called in 2006. that force is only at a third of its full force.</p> | Sudanese war crime suspects still free | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-02-27/sudanese-war-crime-suspects-still-free | 2008-02-27 | 3 |
<p>The Independent</p>
<p>Odd, isn’t it? There never has been a civil war in Iraq. I have never heard a single word of animosity between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq.</p>
<p>Al-Qa’ida has never uttered a threat against Shias – even though al-Qa’ida is a Sunni-only organisation. Yet for weeks, the American occupation authorities have been warning us about civil war, have even produced a letter said to have been written by an al-Qa’ida operative, advocating a Sunni-Shia conflict. Normally sane journalists have enthusiastically taken up this theme. Civil war.</p>
<p>Somehow I don’t believe it. No, I don’t believe the Americans were behind yesterday’s carnage despite the screams of accusation by the Iraqi survivors yesterday. But I do worry about the Iraqi exile groups who think that their own actions might produce what the Americans want: a fear of civil war so intense that Iraqis will go along with any plan the United States produces for Mesopotamia.</p>
<p>I think of the French OAS in Algeria in 1962, setting off bombs among France’s Muslim Algerian community. I recall the desperate efforts of the French authorities to set Algerian Muslim against Algerian Muslim which led to half a million dead souls.</p>
<p>And I’m afraid I also think of Ireland and the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in 1974, which, as the years go by, appear to have an ever closer link, via Protestant "loyalist" paramilitaries, to elements of British military security.</p>
<p>But the bombs in Karbala and Baghdad were clearly co-ordinated. The same brain worked behind them. Was it a Sunni brain? When the occupation authorities’ spokesman suggested yesterday that it was the work of al-Qa’ida, he must have known what he was saying: that al-Qa’ida is a Sunni movement, that the victims were Shias.</p>
<p>It’s not that I believe al-Qa’ida incapable of such a bloodbath. But I ask myself why the Americans are rubbing this Sunni-Shia thing so hard. Let’s turn the glass round the other way. If a violent Sunni movement wished to evict the Americans from Iraq – and there is indeed a resistance movement fighting very cruelly to do just that – why would it want to turn the Shia population of Iraq, 60 per cent of Iraqis, against them? The last thing such a resistance would want is to have the majority of Iraqis against it.</p>
<p>So what about al-Qa’ida? Repeatedly, the Americans have told us that the suicide bombers were "foreigners". And so they may be. But can we have some identities, nationalities? The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has talked of the hundreds of "foreign" fighters crossing Saudi Arabia’s "porous" borders.</p>
<p>The US press have dutifully repeated this. The Iraqi police keep announcing that they have found the bombers’ passports, so can we have the numbers?</p>
<p>We are entering a dark and sinister period of Iraqi history. But an occupation authority which should regard civil war as the last prospect it ever wants to contemplate, keeps shouting "civil war" in our ears and I worry about that. Especially when the bombs make it real.</p>
<p>ROBERT FISK is a reporter for The Independent and author of <a href="" type="internal">Pity the Nation</a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s hot new book, <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Bookshop.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>.</p>
<p /> | All This Talk of Civil War, Now This | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/03/02/all-this-talk-of-civil-war-now-this/ | 2004-03-02 | 4 |
<p>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Missouri Lottery's "Pick 4 Evening" game were:</p>
<p>1-4-4-0</p>
<p>(one, four, four, zero)</p>
<p>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening's drawing of the Missouri Lottery's "Pick 4 Evening" game were:</p>
<p>1-4-4-0</p>
<p>(one, four, four, zero)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Pick 4 Evening' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/452ff5814f754829be6754b3ca969439 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p>As stated in the complaint, Ms. Stergalas was approached by a Muslim student who told her Mr. Fadlallah hit him, and he asked for her advice.She told the student to report it to authorities.As a result, the harassment of Ms. Stergalas, directed by Mr. Fadlallah, escalated.</p>
<p>Included among the harassment described in the complaint, Mr. Fadlallah deliberately scheduled two separate classes during the same period of the day in opposite ends of the school building, making it physically impossible to comply with the schedule.This was done to both complainants, Mr. Purcell and Ms. Stergalas. As further alleged in the complaint, Mr. Fadlallah and Ms. Stergalas were deliberately assigned the worst students, in terms of discipline and academics, in a measure to drive them out of Fordson High School. And, as stated in the complaint, students were encouraged to cause problems and fabricate false, negative reports against Mr. Purcell and Ms. Stergalas.</p>
<p>As also stated in the complaint, Mr. Purcell has Type I diabetes, and among Mr. Fadlallah's means of harassment was to schedule Mr. Purcell's classes at the times when doctors specifically noted Mr. Purcell needed to have his lunch break to take his required shots and medication and eat his required food, lest he go into shock. As also stated in the complaint, Mr. Fadlallah forbade Mr. Purcell from required shots and eat his required food during parent teacher conferences.</p>
<p>The lawsuit claims violations of both the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions and statutes, including the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Michigan's Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, the Michigan Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, and the Michigan Whistleblowers' Protection Act. Both Mr. Purcell and Ms. Stergalas are seeking injunctive and declaratory relief, damages, and other relief.</p>
<p>As previously noted, the Law Offices of Debbie Schlussel is a private law firm, which in addition to performing other legal work, defends and promotes Western values, including freedom of speech and religion for Christians and Jews. Debbie Schlussel also defends non-Muslims and moderates against unjust criminal allegations designed to silence them. Among the matters in which attorney Debbie Schlussel has successfully prevailed, are:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.debbieschlussel.com/8724/who-is-haitham-masri-schlussel-defeats-another-muslim-free-speech-enemy-in-court/" type="external">Haitham Masri et al v. Ron Wolf</a>, in which a Shi'ite Muslim doctor and open supporter of HAMAS and Hezbollah sued an indigent Jewish man, Ron Wolf, in an attempt to silence Mr. Wolf from talking about Mr. Masri's unethical medical practices and the extremist Shi'ite mosque to which he belongs. Schlussel represented Mr. Wolf pro bono and prevailed in getting the lawsuit dropped, as it was little more than an attempt by a wealthy Muslim to squelch the First Amendment speech rights of an indigent Jewish man. Schlussel also exposed Dr. Masri's fraudulent divorce, which was a transparent Islamic attempt to fraudulently convey property to avoid collection of judgments against him in American courts. Mr. Masri's daughter, Lena Masri, is a lawyer for a militant Islamic "civil rights" group.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.debbieschlussel.com/4268/who-is-ali-taleb-how-a-hezbollah-terrorist-wanted-in-lebanon-tried-to-frame-my-counterterrorist-client-in-court-and-lost-no-thanks-to-ice/" type="external">People/State of Michigan v. "Haidar"</a> [real name redacted for security reasons], in which Schlussel successfully defended "Haidar," a moderate Shi'ite Muslim was framed for a violent crime because he voiced his support for Israel and opposition to Hezbollah and married a Jewish woman. Schlussel represented Haidar pro bono. He was an informant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Haidar's primary accuser, Ali Taleb, is a wanted terrorist in Lebanon and an agent of Hezbollah, who lies in the Detroit area. After a two-day trial in which the judge severely limited the exculpatory evidence Schlussel wished to present in her client's defense, the jury returned with two unanimous "NOT GUILTY" verdicts for Haidar, after less than 25 minutes of deliberations.</p> | ¶ Schlussel Files Federal Suit Against Muslim Principal, Dearborn Public Schools Over Discrimination Against Christians | true | http://nowtheendbegins.com/writers/debbieSCHLUSSEL/schlussel-files-federal-suit-against-muslim-principal-dearborn.htm | 0 |
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<p>Arkansas Rep. Tom Cotton mischaracterizes the Affordable Care Act’s impact on student loans, and a teachers union stretches Cotton’s voting record on the issue.</p>
<p>Cotton says the ACA “nationalized the student loan industry” and implied students can’t get private loans from their local banks anymore. Not exactly. Plenty of banks offer private education loans, and the federal student loan program always has been a government program.</p>
<p>Before the ACA, about half of federal student loans originated with private lenders while being guaranteed by the government. Now, the government is both the lender and the guarantor. The move saves $61 billion over 10 years, <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/amendreconprop.pdf" type="external">according to the Congressional Budget Office</a>.</p>
<p>An ad from the National Education Association Advocacy Fund attacks Cotton on this topic, saying that he “voted to end low-interest student loans.” He didn’t. The vote in question was on a Republican budget that called for ending federal subsidies for need-based <a href="http://www.staffordloan.com/stafford-loan-info/" type="external">Stafford loans</a>. The subsidies cover the cost of interest payments while students are in school. The Republican budget didn’t call for ending the loan program, which includes unsubsidized Stafford loans at the same interest rate.</p>
<p>Nationalizing a Federal Program</p>
<p>At the <a href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?322068-1/arkansas-senate-debate" type="external">Oct. 14 Arkansas Senate debate with Sen. Mark Pryor</a>, Cotton mischaracterized the changes made to the federal student loan program by the <a href="http://documents.nytimes.com/health-care-reconciliation-bill#p=1" type="external">reconciliation bill</a>, which was part of the Affordable Care Act. He claimed the health care law “nationalized the student loan industry,” and made it so that students couldn’t have a mix of federal and private loans, as he did when he was a college student. He said the law “took that choice away from you so the bank where you have a checking account can’t help initiate a loan for you.”</p>
<p>Let’s start with the claim that the ACA “nationalized the student loan industry.” The federal government <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/finaid/prof/resources/data/fslpdata97-01/edlite-intro.html" type="external">got into the student loan business with the passage of the Higher Education Act in 1965</a>. The loan provisions of the law were designed to, <a href="http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40122.pdf" type="external">according to a Congressional Research Service report</a>, “enhance access to postsecondary education for students from low- and middle-income families by providing them access to low-interest student loans.”</p>
<p>First came the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, in which loans originated with the private sector but were backed (guaranteed against default or in cases of death) by the federal government and offered at rates lower than the banks would normally give. In 1993, a direct loan program was created by separate legislation “with the goals of streamlining the student loan delivery system and achieving cost savings,” says CRS. That program, where the government directly lends the money, was supposed to gradually replace the FFEL program, but that plan was later nullified by subsequent legislation.</p>
<p>Colleges and universities chose which program they’d like to use, and students would get information on applying for a loan — specifically a Stafford loan for students or a PLUS loan for parents of dependent students — through college financial aid offices. From students’ perspective, for the most part, they “didn’t even recognize there were these two different programs working in tandem,” <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/experts/akerse" type="external">Beth Akers</a>, a fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy, told us. The difference was who sent a check to the school, and who sent students a bill once they graduated. Even then, loans originating with the government could be serviced by private banks, meaning the bills still came from the banks.</p>
<p>In 2010, the year the Affordable Care Act was enacted, <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/03-25-studentloans.pdf" type="external">CBO estimated</a> that 55 percent of federal student loans originated with banks (what are called “guaranteed loans”), with the rest originating with the government as “direct loans.”</p>
<p>The share of bank-originated federal loans had been declining — it&#160;was 81 percent in 2008. The reasons were the financial crisis, which increased private lenders’ costs and led the Department of Education to buy new loans that had originated with private lenders. Uncertainty about the&#160;banks’ participation&#160;caused more schools to switch to the direct loan program. CBO estimated this decline would continue, with the guaranteed, or bank-originated, loans making up 40 percent of new federal loans in 2013.</p>
<p>But the ACA changed the program, making all new federal student loans direct loans. Specifically, the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr3221#overview" type="external">Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act,</a> which passed the House by a vote of 253 to 171 in September 2009, was rolled into the reconciliation bill, which Democrats used to pass the health care law without risk of a filibuster. Under the student aid provisions, the government would cut out the middle-man — the private lenders, such as <a href="https://www.salliemae.com/" type="external">Sallie Mae</a> — and all new loans would be direct ones from the government. CBO estimated the move would <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/amendreconprop.pdf" type="external">save taxpayers $61 billion</a> over 10 years. <a href="http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/blog/student-aid-and-fiscal-responsibility-act" type="external">More than half of that amount</a> would go to the Pell Grant program for low-income students.</p>
<p>CBO’s report on the loan programs said that the FFEL program (in which banks originated the federal loans) was “significantly more costly for the federal budget.” Why? Mainly because payments to the lenders were set, by legislation, at a higher average amount than the cost of the direct loans, with the additional payment covering “the higher marketing and funding costs of the guaranteed loan program and the higher level of services that it offers to schools and students.” In other words, it’s cheaper for the government to lend the money directly instead of paying banks to do so.</p>
<p>The government still contracts with private banks to <a href="https://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/understand/servicers" type="external">service student loans</a> — meaning students may still send their payments to private banks — but banks no longer originate the loans. Cotton may oppose that change, but it’s misleading to say the ACA “nationalized” a student loan program that was a federal program in the first place.</p>
<p>As for students not being able to choose to get a private loan at “the bank where you have a checking account,” as Cotton said, that’s not accurate, either. Private banks offer student education loans, just as they did before the ACA.</p>
<p>And even under the pre-ACA federal program, students weren’t the ones who could choose whether their Stafford loans originated with a bank or the government — that choice was up to colleges and universities. A student couldn’t get a federal loan through his local bank unless the bank was part of the federal program and worked with the college or university in question. Akers says the banks, in the past, couldn’t discriminate against the student, but they could say they’d only lend to those attending certain institutions.</p>
<p>PNC Bank provides <a href="http://www.pnconcampus.com/learningcenter/planningforcollege/whatisfinancialaid/altloansorfedplus.html" type="external">a chart</a> on the differences between federal and private student loans. Students can borrow larger amounts privately, but need to have a credit check and likely a co-signer (neither are required for Stafford loans). The fixed interest rate is lower for the federal loan as well, though a variable-rate loan could dip below the Stafford’s current 4.66 percent fixed rate.</p>
<p>With subsidized Stafford loans, available based on income, the government covers the interest on the loan while a student is still in school and during any hardship deferment periods.</p>
<p>Cotton Wants to ‘End’ Low-Interest Loans?</p>
<p>The National Education Association Advocacy Fund <a href="http://www.nea.org/home/60649.htm" type="external">launched an ad on Oct. 14</a> featuring Arkansas teacher Ashley Pledger saying, “Tom Cotton got federal student loans to help pay for his Harvard education, but now Cotton wants to end those same student aid programs. Tom Cotton would deprive Arkansas students the opportunities that helped him.”</p>
<p>On screen are the words, “Tom Cotton voted to end low-interest student loans.”</p>
<p>&lt;iframe style="width: 500px; height:300px;" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen src="https://video.factcheck.org/play/6b7dd7f2cac"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;</p>
<p>But the&#160; <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll086.xml" type="external">March 2013 vote cited</a> — in favor of the <a href="http://rsc.woodall.house.gov/uploadedfiles/back_to_basics-rsc_fy2014_budget.pdf" type="external">Republican Study Committee budget</a> resolution — wouldn’t have ended low-interest student loans. Instead, it called for ending subsidized Stafford loans, which are available to undergraduates to cover interest payments while they are in school. The proposal didn’t call for eliminating all Stafford loans (a little more than half are unsubsidized, says CBO) or PLUS loans the government provides for parents of undergraduate dependents. The RSC budget failed.</p>
<p>Cotton has said he had Stafford loans and private loans to help pay for his Harvard education. We don’t know whether Cotton received subsidized or unsubsidized Stafford loans. But either way, his vote wasn’t to “end low-interest student loans,” as all types of Stafford loans have the same interest rate.</p>
<p>In July last year, Cotton also voted against the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h426" type="external">Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013</a>, a measure that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/31/us-usa-studentloans-rates-idUSBRE96U1G220130731" type="external">reversed a doubling of student loan interest rates</a> and changed the rate-setting system from one legislated by Congress to one tied to the market and capped. He was one of only six Republican House members to vote against the bill, which passed the House on a 392-31 vote and the Senate on an 81-18 vote.</p>
<p>The NEA ad doesn’t cite that vote, which could certainly be called a vote against lowering student loan interest rates. But it still wouldn’t be a vote to “end low-interest student loans,” nor would it be a vote to “end those same student aid programs” that benefited Cotton.</p>
<p>At the time of the vote on interest rates, Cotton <a href="http://cotton.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/cotton-statement-on-student-loan-vote" type="external">said</a> he favored “ending the federal-government monopoly on the student-lending business” and having “hometown banks work with students and families to finance higher education.”</p>
<p>Cotton, Aug. 1, 2013: A better path is to repeal Obamacare, which nationalized the student-loan business, and let Arkansas’s hometown banks work with students and families to finance higher education, just as they do with homes, farms, businesses, and other loans. I’m committed to bringing affordable higher education to every Arkansan and ending the federal-government monopoly on the student-lending business.</p>
<p>It’s unclear exactly what Cotton proposes for the federal student loan program. But if the Affordable Care Act were repealed, then the student loan program could go back to the days before the ACA, when about half of federal student loans originated with private banks and the other half with the federal government. However, that wouldn’t end the “federal-government monopoly” on student loans. The federal student loan program already had provided the vast majority of student education lending.</p>
<p>CBO’s 2010 report on the program said there wasn’t good data on the size of the private student loan market, but that one estimate showed the dollar value of such lending was about one-quarter the size of the federal lending program in 2007-2008. For fiscal year 2007, the federal loan program included $64.4 billion in lending for 14.3 million new loans. (For fiscal 2014, the Department of Education estimates new lending under the federal loan program would total $112.1 billion for 21.9 million loans.)</p>
<p>At the Oct. 14 debate, Cotton said, “I don’t want to eliminate the student loan program,” but that he wanted local banks to compete. He didn’t elaborate. We asked Cotton’s campaign for clarification and details on what Cotton supported in terms of the federal student loan program. We have not yet received a response.</p>
<p>The Brookings Institution’s Akers laid out for us the general arguments for and against having private banks originate the federal loans or having the government do so: Having the private sector involved could lead to efficiencies that come with competition for government grants or students’ business, but could be less stable, as happened during the 2008 financial crises. With the direct federal loans, that competition is eliminated but the stability, and potentially cost savings, is gained.</p>
<p>How best to structure and operate the federal student loan program would make for an interesting policy debate, but as often happens in political campaigns, voters in Arkansas are left instead with exaggerations and misrepresentations of the facts.</p>
<p>— Lori Robertson</p> | Student Loan Stretching | false | https://factcheck.org/2014/10/student-loan-stretching/ | 2014-10-20 | 2 |
<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Delivering his final State of the State address as his fellow Republicans look to maintain their hold on Georgia government, Gov. Nathan Deal hailed an economic boom during which he invested in education, overhauled the criminal justice system and helped attract a legion of new businesses.</p>
<p>In this election year, Democrats are certain to offer voters a different interpretation of the last two terms as they try to reclaim the governor’s office after a 16-year absence, while building on recent special election victories to dent the GOP’s legislative majorities.</p>
<p>Deal declared Georgia “not just strong” but “exceptional” as he spoke to the General Assembly during a joint session Thursday, and her urged lawmakers not to change course. The 75-year-old governor choked up multiple times during his 45 minutes at the House rostrum, thanking voters for their “kindness ... support ... and your prayers” and praising his wife, Sandra Deal, as she looked on from the gallery.</p>
<p>In his last state operating budget Deal proposes a $50 billion spending plan, with $26 billion coming from state coffers and the rest from federal sources. State revenues have increased over the last year, but Deal isn’t seeking sharp deviations in the state’s fiscal course.</p>
<p>He highlighted smaller, targeted spending proposals to illustrate his priorities: $22.9 million for a fledgling state commission on children’s mental health, and $1 million more for recruiting high school students into post-graduate technical training.</p>
<p>Most of Deal’s signature legislative accomplishments are behind him. Elected in 2010, he is barred by law from seeking a third consecutive term.</p>
<p>The governor touted his three economic development chiefs and cited a litany of statistics: 675,000 new private sector jobs in seven years; unemployment down from 10.4 percent to the current 4.3; and thousands of business relocations and expansions. He singled out the film industry, which has boomed as multiple Georgia administration’s, including Deal’s, offered some of the most generous subsidies of any state.</p>
<p>Deal cited a 10-year transportation spending plan that has yielded new projects across the state — though lawmakers concede they still face familiar debates over what to prioritize: traditional roads and bridges or mass transit, including rail in metro Atlanta.</p>
<p>He hailed an ever-expanding “accountability court” system that steers certain nonviolent offenders away from prison. He also noted an overhaul of the popular HOPE college scholarships that he says allows the grants to continue, with new investments in technical college aid. Should lawmakers adopt something close to his proposed budget, he said, total education spending during his tenure will have increased $3.6 billion.</p>
<p>Deal took office on the heels of the 2008 investment market collapse and subsequent national recession that sent employment figures and public revenues plummeting. The resulting austere state budgets became the baselines that allowed Deal and many other governors elected in 2010 to preside over consistent economic growth and rising tax collections.</p>
<p>The last regular session of Deal’s two terms comes after a recently enacted federal tax overhaul and changes in the health care marketplace that could increase pressure on the Medicaid insurance program for the poor, disabled and many children. Deal is among the Republican governors who declined to expand Medicaid eligibility as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.</p>
<p>Amid the uncertainty, some Georgia lawmakers also want to push for state tax cuts.</p>
<p>Deal did not mention the possibility of tax cuts, nor did he delve into Medicaid, health care or any concerns over how federal tax policy will affect Georgians. He also sidestepped any mention of the Trump administration’s recent announcement that it will allow offshore drilling, against the wishes of many coastal states. A Deal spokesman this week said the governor “has some concerns about opening up Georgia’s pristine coast” and would “communicate those concerns” to the state’s Washington delegation.</p>
<p>Republicans and from Democrats gave Deal a warm welcome in the House chamber. But the opposition already is pushing back his policies. Two former Democratic lawmakers, Stacey Abrams of Atlanta and Stacey Evans of Cobb County, are vying for the Democratic nomination, arguing that Deal and the Republican-run legislature haven’t invested enough in the state’s working and middle class. Both Democrats call for boosting education spending and expanding Medicaid. Both women say Medicaid expansion would essentially pay for itself with a healthier workforce and stronger rural and small-town hospitals.</p>
<p>House Minority Leader Bob Tramell, D-Luthersville, also has pegged Medicaid expansion as Democrats’ top legislative priority, though the GOP’s advantages in both the House and Senate make that goal essentially impossible to achieve.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Barrow on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP" type="external" /> <a href="https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP" type="external">https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP</a> .</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Delivering his final State of the State address as his fellow Republicans look to maintain their hold on Georgia government, Gov. Nathan Deal hailed an economic boom during which he invested in education, overhauled the criminal justice system and helped attract a legion of new businesses.</p>
<p>In this election year, Democrats are certain to offer voters a different interpretation of the last two terms as they try to reclaim the governor’s office after a 16-year absence, while building on recent special election victories to dent the GOP’s legislative majorities.</p>
<p>Deal declared Georgia “not just strong” but “exceptional” as he spoke to the General Assembly during a joint session Thursday, and her urged lawmakers not to change course. The 75-year-old governor choked up multiple times during his 45 minutes at the House rostrum, thanking voters for their “kindness ... support ... and your prayers” and praising his wife, Sandra Deal, as she looked on from the gallery.</p>
<p>In his last state operating budget Deal proposes a $50 billion spending plan, with $26 billion coming from state coffers and the rest from federal sources. State revenues have increased over the last year, but Deal isn’t seeking sharp deviations in the state’s fiscal course.</p>
<p>He highlighted smaller, targeted spending proposals to illustrate his priorities: $22.9 million for a fledgling state commission on children’s mental health, and $1 million more for recruiting high school students into post-graduate technical training.</p>
<p>Most of Deal’s signature legislative accomplishments are behind him. Elected in 2010, he is barred by law from seeking a third consecutive term.</p>
<p>The governor touted his three economic development chiefs and cited a litany of statistics: 675,000 new private sector jobs in seven years; unemployment down from 10.4 percent to the current 4.3; and thousands of business relocations and expansions. He singled out the film industry, which has boomed as multiple Georgia administration’s, including Deal’s, offered some of the most generous subsidies of any state.</p>
<p>Deal cited a 10-year transportation spending plan that has yielded new projects across the state — though lawmakers concede they still face familiar debates over what to prioritize: traditional roads and bridges or mass transit, including rail in metro Atlanta.</p>
<p>He hailed an ever-expanding “accountability court” system that steers certain nonviolent offenders away from prison. He also noted an overhaul of the popular HOPE college scholarships that he says allows the grants to continue, with new investments in technical college aid. Should lawmakers adopt something close to his proposed budget, he said, total education spending during his tenure will have increased $3.6 billion.</p>
<p>Deal took office on the heels of the 2008 investment market collapse and subsequent national recession that sent employment figures and public revenues plummeting. The resulting austere state budgets became the baselines that allowed Deal and many other governors elected in 2010 to preside over consistent economic growth and rising tax collections.</p>
<p>The last regular session of Deal’s two terms comes after a recently enacted federal tax overhaul and changes in the health care marketplace that could increase pressure on the Medicaid insurance program for the poor, disabled and many children. Deal is among the Republican governors who declined to expand Medicaid eligibility as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.</p>
<p>Amid the uncertainty, some Georgia lawmakers also want to push for state tax cuts.</p>
<p>Deal did not mention the possibility of tax cuts, nor did he delve into Medicaid, health care or any concerns over how federal tax policy will affect Georgians. He also sidestepped any mention of the Trump administration’s recent announcement that it will allow offshore drilling, against the wishes of many coastal states. A Deal spokesman this week said the governor “has some concerns about opening up Georgia’s pristine coast” and would “communicate those concerns” to the state’s Washington delegation.</p>
<p>Republicans and from Democrats gave Deal a warm welcome in the House chamber. But the opposition already is pushing back his policies. Two former Democratic lawmakers, Stacey Abrams of Atlanta and Stacey Evans of Cobb County, are vying for the Democratic nomination, arguing that Deal and the Republican-run legislature haven’t invested enough in the state’s working and middle class. Both Democrats call for boosting education spending and expanding Medicaid. Both women say Medicaid expansion would essentially pay for itself with a healthier workforce and stronger rural and small-town hospitals.</p>
<p>House Minority Leader Bob Tramell, D-Luthersville, also has pegged Medicaid expansion as Democrats’ top legislative priority, though the GOP’s advantages in both the House and Senate make that goal essentially impossible to achieve.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Barrow on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP" type="external" /> <a href="https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP" type="external">https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP</a> .</p> | Deal: Georgia ‘exceptional’ after 7 years of his leadership | false | https://apnews.com/33711c1f11f040b38d7df2fa4060099e | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>National Nurses United Co-President Jean Ross discusses why nurses are backing Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination.</p>
<p>Bernie Sanders says the purpose of health care is not for drug and insurance companies to profit, but to provide quality cost-effective care to all. That is why nurses want him to be the Democratic presidential nominee and why they are pushing for a single-payer system.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“We are going to fight like hell,” said National Nurses United Co-President Jean Ross to the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney.</p>
<p>“We have found that if we campaigned across the country that it isn’t just us nurses who believe it’s&#160;the only system that’s going to work for people in this country, but at least the last figure I heard was 58% of people regardless of&#160;party delineation believe the same thing,” she said.</p>
<p>So what can Sanders do to get a single-payer system onto the Democratic platform? Ross says “good progressives like the nurse group” will be key.</p>
<p>“From our perspective nurses are excellent educators. We will keep talking for years and years about why it’s the best system – Medicare for all and beyond that we will be protesting and teaching other people that protesting is a very American thing and how they need to do it too,” she said.</p>
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<p>And Ross means business when it comes to protesting.</p>
<p>“If you look at the things we have in this country that are near and dear to our hearts, the only thing that’s ever worked in this country and in others is to, as we say, ‘take it to the streets,’ ” she said.</p> | Nurses Plan To 'Fight Like Hell' for Single-Payer Health Care | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/06/02/nurses-plan-to-fight-like-hell-for-single-payer-health-care.html | 2017-01-09 | 0 |
<p>On Sunday morning, Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson (FL) went on MNSBC's AM Joy to enjoy a little bit more of the spotlight from the Gold Star widow controversy she helped stir up and once again accuse retired General John Kelly of lying and making racially charged statements about her. In response, President Trump did what he does best: picked up his cell phone and took out "wacky" Wilson in 140 characters or less.</p>
<p>In her interview on Sunday morning, Wilson described Gen. Kelly as a "puppet of the president" and accused him of having "basically just lied on me."</p>
<p>"I have been in politics a long time, and most things don't bother me, you know, it just rolls off my back," <a href="" type="internal">said</a> the Democrat, wearing yet another one of her bizarre hats. "I have been lied on before, but the character assassination that he went through to call me out of my name — an 'empty barrel' — and all the work that I've done in this community ... Not only does he owe me an apology, but he owes an apology to the American people, because when he lied on me, he lied to them."</p>
<p>Trump responded to Wilson's statements by issuing one of his trademark tweets, complete with a newly minted nickname for the Democrat.</p>
<p>"Wacky Congresswoman Wilson is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican Party, a disaster for Dems," he wrote. "You watch her in action &amp; vote R!"</p>
<p>Wilson's two major accusations against Kelly are largely baseless. Her claim that the phrase he used to describe her — an "empty barrel" — is " <a href="" type="internal">racist</a>" is unfounded. The term, which Kelly has used in the past, simply means a person who clamors loudly but is empty of substance. The phrase has <a href="https://www.inquisitr.com/4567809/empty-barrel-a-racist-term-according-to-dictionary-definitions-meaning-says-frederica-wilson/" type="external">no racial connotations</a>:</p>
<p>Whoever came up with the “empty barrel” terminology, it is meant to be an insult, meaning the person is loud without much content. However, there were no readily findable definitions that deemed “empty barrel” as a racist term. Wilson denied being in Congress when funding for the building at the center of the “empty barrel” comment was appropriated. It wasn’t the first time that Kelly had used the “empty barrel” term, according to Fox News. Kelly got the “empty barrels” term from his mother.</p>
<p>The supposed "lie" Kelly leveled against her comes from his comment that she used the construction of a building named in the honor of two fallen FBI agents to glorify herself, saying, she "stood up there in all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building."</p>
<p>Wilson is declaring Kelly a "liar" over a technicality; she did not help obtain funding for the building, but she did overtly use her role in getting the project completed for self-aggrandizement, as you can <a href="" type="internal">read here</a>.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">WATCH: Congresswoman Wilson LAUGHS Over Gold Star Widow Controversy: 'I'm A Rock Star Now!'</a></p> | Trump Trolls Rep. Frederica Wilson In True Trump Fashion | true | https://dailywire.com/news/22600/trump-trolls-rep-frederica-wilson-true-trump-james-barrett | 2017-10-23 | 0 |
<p>A dozen Americans were rescued by helicopter after being <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/12-americans-rescued-senegalese-island-164944704.html" type="external">stranded&#160;overnight in their swimwear</a> on an island off the Senegalese capital,&#160;Dakar.</p>
<p>Rough seas left the 12 men and women stranded overnight after the&#160;wooden fishing boat that brought them to Ile de la Madeleine was&#160;unable to make the 2.5-mile crossing back to the mainland.</p>
<p>The skipper of a second fishing boat who made a rescue attempt was&#160;knocked unconscious when his boat capsized in the surging waves.</p>
<p>After spending the night in just their swimming gear and towels on the&#160;uninhabited rocky speck of an island renowned as the world's smallest&#160;national park and a candidate for UNESCO listing as a World Heritage&#160;Site, the group was picked up by a Senegal Air Force chopper.</p>
<p>The stranded reportedly&#160;included four women and a group from the United States Embassy.</p> | Americans rescued from Senegal island | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-08-30/americans-rescued-senegal-island | 2011-08-30 | 3 |
<p>United Parcel Service Inc.'s stock ran up 2.9% in premarket trade Tuesday, after the package-delivery giant reported a fourth-quarter profit that beat expectations, although revenue came in a bit shy. Earnings rose to $1.33 billion, or $1.48 a share, from $453 million, or 49 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.57, above the FactSet consensus of $1.42. Revenue rose to $16.05 billion from $15.9 billion, below the FactSet consensus of $16.2 billion, with domestic package revenue rising slightly above expectations and international package revenue falling more than forecast. For 2016, the company expects EPS in the range of $5.70 to $5.90, compared with the FactSet consensus of $5.72. "Our business generated strong results in 2015," said Chief Financial Officer Richard Peretz. "While we face uncertain macro-economic conditions, we are continuing to invest for profitable growth." The stock had lost 10% over the past three months through Monday, while the S&amp;P 500 has slipped 7.8%.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | UPS's Stock Jumps After Profit Beats Expectations | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/02/02/ups-stock-jumps-after-profit-beats-expectations.html | 2016-02-02 | 0 |
<p>Q: When is the first real debate between John McCain and Barack Obama? I’m really looking forward to it.</p>
<p>A: Not until Sept. 26, as things stand. But McCain wants more debates starting sooner and Obama has said he’s open to the idea. So far the two haven’t agreed on any dates, though.</p>
<p>FULL&#160;QUESTION</p>
<p>When is the first real debate between John McCain and Barack Obama? I’m really looking forward to it.</p>
<p>FULL&#160;ANSWER</p>
<p />
<p>In addition, on June 4 McCain <a href="http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/PressReleases/4d0ed5e7-c9f9-43d9-99c9-b28274567e48.htm" type="external">called for</a> 10 additional debates in the form of freewheeling, joint "town hall meetings" to be held once a week starting June 11 or 12. Obama said on June 10 that his aides were in negotiations with the McCain camp and that "what we’ve said is we are happy to do more than the three typical presidential debates in the fall," with additional debates in what he called "a mix of formats." But after more than a month, there’s no sign of an agreement.</p>
<p>We asked both the McCain and Obama campaigns what is happening. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said his side had offered a total of five debates, two in addition to the three commission-sanctioned events. He said the McCain side rejected that idea. "Given what we have in the weeks down the road, we’ll see what the schedule dictates," Vietor said. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said he could offer "no comment on debates," but added, "We are still hoping Obama [will] agree to appear at some town hall meetings with Sen. McCain."</p>
<p>As things stand, then, the three Obama-McCain debates are scheduled as follows:</p>
<p>In addition, the commission has scheduled a debate between the Democratic and Republican vice presidential candidates for Thursday, Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.</p>
<p>–Brooks Jackson</p>
<p>Sources</p>
<p>" <a href="http://www.debates.org/pages/news_111907.html" type="external">Commission on Presidential Debates Announces Sites, Dates, Formats and Candidate Selection Criteria for 2008 General Election</a>," news release. Commission on Presidential Debates, 19 Nov 2007.</p> | Presidential Debate Dates | false | https://factcheck.org/2008/07/presidential-debate-dates/ | 2008-07-20 | 2 |
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<p>The dean of the University of New Mexico’s libraries, who was hired last year at a salary of $195,000, has created a new director-level position that he would like his wife to step into.</p>
<p>CLEMENT: Hired last year at salary of $195,000</p>
<p>On Thursday, Dean Rick Clement and Provost Chaouki Abdallah confirmed that UNM’s letter offering Clement the deanship contained a “spousal accommodation” that would allow the university to hire his wife, Susanne – provided she was deemed well qualified in the university hiring process.</p>
<p>“I’ll be honest,” Clement said. “I avoided doing that, because there’s always the implication of favoritism.”</p>
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<p>But the process for hiring his wife would be “no different from conducting a national search,” he said.</p>
<p>If she is considered by the university, Clement said, he would be “totally cut out of the selection process.”</p>
<p>Clement said he didn’t know what the director’s salary will be, but that it might be based on the average assistant or associate professor’s pay, which according to a university spokeswoman are $70,261 and $57,788, respectively.</p>
<p>On top of that, $10,000 would be added as the director’s stipend, an administrative supplement. If hired, Susanne Clement would report to the provost’s office because of the obvious conflict of interest, her husband said.</p>
<p>“You have to recognize that, the conflict of interest, and deal with it,” he said. “It’s an awkward situation.”</p>
<p>Clement said he has the full support of the provost – not in a plan to hire his wife, but to give her “the opportunity to be considered.” Should she be deemed qualified for the position, the search committee would have to consider her, he said. But if the committee rejects her nomination, the university would then launch a national search.</p>
<p>ABDALLAH: Hiring process would be the same</p>
<p>“I support the hiring of Susanne Clement if it is determined that she is well qualified for the position and the (libraries) faculty support her hiring,” Abdallah said.</p>
<p>New Position</p>
<p>One of the changes Clement made to the hiring plan for the College of University Libraries &amp; Learning Sciences after taking the job in July was to elevate the description of a vacant collections librarian position to “director of collections.”</p>
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<p>The vacant position most recently was filled by Steven Harris, whose title when he left UNM two years ago did not include “director,” but for most of his time at UNM his title was director of collections. He did not receive a stipend for the added responsibility.</p>
<p>When the couple moved here from Utah, Clement said, they had no idea the employment situation in New Mexico was as depressed as it is. His wife applied for some 15 librarian jobs, he said. Nothing materialized.</p>
<p>In hiring family members, UNM is guided in the process by the Office of Faculty Affairs and Services and the Office of Equal Opportunity, Abdallah said. OFAS reports to the provost, but OEO doesn’t.</p>
<p>“The process for hiring a spouse as a faculty member is the same as for hiring any other faculty member,” he said. “The person must be well qualified for the position. The faculty interview him or her, and the faculty vote on whether the position should be offered.”</p>
<p>If the search committee finds Susanne Clement qualified, it can ask the faculty to vote whether it wants the college to hire her. She would then negotiate salary with the provost’s office.</p>
<p>Clement outlined his effort to hire his wife to the libraries staff this week. “I am exercising an option in my offer letter to ask for spousal accommodation for my wife Susanne …,” he wrote.</p>
<p>“There is no doubt she is qualified for consideration for our Director of Collections position and I am asking that she be reviewed by the search committee before we go ahead with a full search as per the policies in this area. I am doing so with the support and guidance of Provost Abdallah. Of course I will declare a conflict of interest and have no part in this process, which could easily take several weeks or more.”</p>
<p>He noted that his wife was head of Collection Development at the University of Kansas for five years. She was also a tenured associate professor at Utah State University during the couple’s six years there and head of cataloging at the USU libraries.</p>
<p>“We’re not trying to pull anything underhanded,” Clement said. “Everything is above board here.”</p>
<p />
<p /> | Dean of libraries wants UNM to hire his wife | false | https://abqjournal.com/547145/dean-wants-unm-to-hire-his-wife.html | 2 |
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<p><a href="http://pienews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Obamacare1.jpg" type="external" />Just 12 percent of Americans say that the Affordable Care Act has been a success, according to a new CNN pol l . At the same time, the percentage of newly enrolled Americans who had previously been uninsured did not increase, according to a McKinsey &amp; Co. report. &#160; [?]</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/Obamacare-healthcare-McKinsey-survey/2014/05/12/id/570732/?promo_code=EB8D-1&amp;utm_source=National_Review&amp;utm_medium=nmwidget&amp;utm_campaign=widgetphase1" type="external">Click here to view original web page at www.newsmax.com</a></p>
<p /> | CNN Poll: 12% of Americans Say Obamacare is a Success | true | http://politicalillusionsexposed.com/obamacares-aim-of-enrolling-previously-uninsured-a-failure/ | 0 |
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<p>DALLAS (AP) — Thousands of Texans have saluted the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with parades, music and speeches honoring the slain civil rights leader.</p>
<p>MLK Day Parades were being held Monday in numerous Texas cities, including Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio. An MLK march, rally and cultural festival was scheduled on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin.</p>
<p>The Children's Museum of Houston's 22nd annual MLK Day Celebration on Monday featured artwork, recitations and spiritual songs. A Gospel Night community choir program was planned in Lubbock.</p>
<p>Some communities honored King, who was assassinated 50 years ago, with public service and church programs. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley urged volunteers to do projects for "a more beloved community."</p>
<p>An MLK unity barbecue was held Sunday in Tyler.</p>
<p>DALLAS (AP) — Thousands of Texans have saluted the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with parades, music and speeches honoring the slain civil rights leader.</p>
<p>MLK Day Parades were being held Monday in numerous Texas cities, including Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio. An MLK march, rally and cultural festival was scheduled on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin.</p>
<p>The Children's Museum of Houston's 22nd annual MLK Day Celebration on Monday featured artwork, recitations and spiritual songs. A Gospel Night community choir program was planned in Lubbock.</p>
<p>Some communities honored King, who was assassinated 50 years ago, with public service and church programs. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley urged volunteers to do projects for "a more beloved community."</p>
<p>An MLK unity barbecue was held Sunday in Tyler.</p> | Texans salute MLK with peace marches, music, speeches | false | https://apnews.com/amp/7cb71c6e278a4adebf2075dd4a1dad54 | 2018-01-15 | 2 |
<p>President Barack Obama insisted Friday he was prepared to make ``tough choices'' for a sweeping deficit-reduction deal to avert a U.S. default, despite Democrats warning him not to make too many concessions.</p>
<p>With the deadline to raise the U.S. debt ceiling just 11 days away, the Democratic president appealed for compromise by both parties as he and the top Republican in Congress, House Speaker John Boehner, pursued a plan for up to $3 trillion in spending cuts.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>``I'm willing to sign a plan that includes tough choices I would not normally make, and there are a lot of Democrats and Republicans in Congress who I believe are willing to do the same thing,'' Obama said at a town hall-style meeting at the University of Maryland.</p>
<p>While an agreement did not appear imminent, Obama faced increasingly vocal complaints from his own Democrats on a deal-in-the-making that could mean painful curbs in popular health and retirement programs but no immediate increase in taxes.</p>
<p>``I've never seen frustration higher,'' Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said after a week of chaotic efforts to sort through conflicting options and stave off a devastating default on the nation's financial obligations.</p>
<p>Negotiations between Republicans and the White House toward a deal to raise the $14.3 trillion limit on America's borrowing are at a critical phase. The world's biggest economy will run out of money to pay its bills without a deal by Aug. 2, the administration says.</p>
<p>Obama maintained it would be impossible to achieve the kind of ``historic'' deficit-reduction deal he is seeking without including revenue increases through such measures as reforming the tax code and ending tax breaks for wealthier Americans.</p>
<p>But congressional sources have said the deal now being crafted with Boehner might leave tax reform and other major revenue-boosting steps for later.</p>
<p>CREDIT RATING AT RISK</p>
<p>Republicans and many Democrats are refusing to raise the debt limit unless it is accompanied by steep spending cuts to tackle rising budget deficits. An unprecedented national default could push the United States back into recession and trigger global financial chaos.</p>
<p>Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Fed President William Dudley to talk about the implications for the U.S. economy if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling. They remained confident Congress would act in time, they said in a joint statement.</p>
<p>The hope in Washington is that a wide-ranging, 10-year package of deficit cuts being worked out will be enough to save America's triple-A credit rating.</p>
<p>``We have never defaulted on our debt and we're not about to do it now,'' Obama said. But he warned lawmakers that if they failed to act on the debt limit ``every American will suffer.''</p>
<p>Casting himself as a centrist compromiser, Obama is trying to appeal to moderate independent voters he needs to win re-election in 2012. Polls show they are concerned not only about stubbornly high unemployment but ballooning deficits.</p>
<p>Still the sides remain far apart, with Boehner saying a deal is not close and tough negotiations lie ahead. `` It is going to be a hot weekend here in Washington D.C.,'' he said.</p>
<p>With Congress out of session on Saturday and Sunday, any action was expected to continue behind the scenes.</p>
<p>Boehner told fellow Republicans that the House will need to pass debt-ceiling legislation by Wednesday to give the Senate enough time to pass it by the August deadline, according to an aide. There are doubts, however, that such a time frame can be achieved.</p>
<p>Obama and Boehner took discussions on a so-called ``grand bargain'' behind closed doors this week. Talks have whipsawed and stalled over raising tax revenue, which Democrats insist must be a part of any spending cut deal while Republicans reject tax increases.</p>
<p>FURIOUS DEMOCRATS</p>
<p>Senior Democrats in Congress, who have been kept out of the White House talks, were furious that Obama might concede to a deal with no new tax revenue, but with spending cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, ``safety net'' programs for the poor and elderly long championed by their party.</p>
<p>Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid warned Obama to ``be careful'' what he agrees to with Boehner, who is under pressure himself from Tea Party movement conservatives in his party.</p>
<p>As the clock ticked down, the Democratic-controlled Senate rejected a Republican measure to drastically cut and cap spending and create an amendment to the U.S. Constitution requiring a balanced budget.</p>
<p>The vote was largely symbolic but it gave fiscal conservatives a forum to argue for deep cuts and could give Boehner political cover to push forward on a deal with Obama.</p>
<p>In another sign the Obama-Boehner track was seen as the path forward, Reid said the Senate would put off considering a fallback plan put forth by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and wait to see what emerged from the talks.</p>
<p>More details emerged about the roughly $3 trillion deal under consideration. Broad cuts in discretionary spending, including defense, would be spelled out over 10 years, whereas tax reform and changes to entitlement programs would be felt in 2013 or later because it takes time for Congress to write the new laws.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Obama Vows 'Hard Choices' on Debt | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/07/22/obama-vows-hard-choices-on-debt.html | 2016-01-28 | 0 |
<p>Facing opposition from key Senate Democrats, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker again appealed to the Legislature to support key elements of his proposed overhaul of the struggling Boston-area transit system, warning that "marginal changes" would do little to improve it.</p>
<p>In a letter to House and Senate members released by the administration Friday, Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito urged lawmakers to embrace his call for a financial control board to oversee the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for the next three to five years, and other reforms including an exemption for the T from the restraints of the state's anti-privatization law.</p>
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<p>Baker filed his plan last month following recommendations from a task force that found a "pervasive organizational failure" of the agency. The governor asked for the review after massive breakdowns on the transit system during a winter of record-setting snow.</p>
<p>"This past winter, the MBTA failed a stress test. But the problems that contributed to its collapse were not new, and were not caused by the winter weather," Baker wrote in the letter to legislators.</p>
<p>"Taken alone, marginal changes to the oversight of the current MBTA organization will produce little or no meaningful improvement for the riders and employees of the MBTA, and will all but ensure that the MBTA continues to struggle to meet its basic mission of providing reliable public transit service for the people of Massachusetts," he added.</p>
<p>The remarks echoed testimony Baker gave Monday to the Legislature's Transportation Committee at a public hearing on his bill.</p>
<p>The Senate is scheduled to take up a state budget proposal next week that includes Baker's call to replace the current seven-member state transportation board with an 11-member board chaired by the governor's transportation secretary. But Senate leaders balked at creating a separate control board, with key Democrats including Sen. Thomas McGee, chairman of the Transportation Committee, arguing that it would add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and that Baker already has the tools required to address the T's problems.</p>
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<p>At least one Democratic senator, William Brownsberger of Belmont, has announced he would back the control board and an exemption for the T from the law.</p>
<p>Baker has declined to speculate on whether he would consider signing legislation that did not include the changes.</p> | In letter to lawmakers, Baker warns 'marginal' changes won't do much to improve transit agency | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/05/15/in-letter-to-lawmakers-baker-warns-marginal-changes-wont-do-much-to-improve.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>Obama once famously said: “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” The year was 2010 and he was addressing what he perceived as greed on Wall Street.</p>
<p>Now that he’s entering the lucrative post-presidency portion of his career, he’s set to become an incredibly wealthy man. Both he and the former First Lady have reached a book deal worth tens of millions.</p>
<p>Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/obamas-book-deal-penguin-random-house-235519" type="external">reports</a>:</p>
<p>Barack and Michelle Obama reach book deal</p>
<p>Publisher Penguin Random House announced Tuesday it will publish books by former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.</p>
<p />
<p>The company has acquired worldwide publishing rights for two books, one from each of the Obamas. Terms of the agreement were not released, but the Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the auction for the rights to the books reached more than $60 million, citing people with knowledge of the sales process.</p>
<p>“With their words and their leadership, they changed the world, and every day, with the books we publish at Penguin Random House, we strive to do the same,” Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement.</p>
<p><a href="http://nypost.com/2017/02/28/obamas-book-deal-bidding-war-hits-60m/" type="external">The New York Post</a> offers some perspective on the size of the deal:</p>
<p>The former president and first lady are writing separate books, but selling them together, according to the Financial Times.</p>
<p>Penguin Random House did not reveal any titles, publishing dates or other details about the works also were not immediately available.</p>
<p>By contrast, publishers only plunked down $15 million for Bill Clinton’s 2004 autobiography “My Life” and $10 million for George W. Bush’s memoir “Decision Points,” according to past reports.</p>
<p>At least four publishing firms — including HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon &amp; Schuster — are vying for the rights, sources told the paper.</p>
<p>Penguin Random House has already published three other books by Barack Obama, including “Dreams from My Father,” which earned $6.8 million in royalties after it was released in 1995, The Hill reported.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to hear what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren think of this development.</p>
<p>Featured image via <a href="https://youtu.be/ODVxuN6m6E8" type="external">YouTube</a>.</p> | Obamas Make Book Deal Worth Over $60 Million | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/03/obamas-make-book-deal-worth-over-60-million/ | 2017-03-01 | 0 |
<p>On July 25, hard disk drive manufacturer Seagate Technology&#160;(NASDAQ: STX) reported its fourth-quarter earnings. Unfortunately, the results were well below expectations, and shares plummeted in response.</p>
<p>As my Foolish colleague Evan Niu explained in his <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/25/why-seagate-technology-stock-plunged-today.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=88076b48-7167-11e7-be36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">excellent write-up Opens a New Window.</a> explaining the drop, Seagate's revenue came in at $2.4 billion for the quarter, missing <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/25/1-analyst-upgraded-seagate-stock-then-earnings-hap.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=88076b48-7167-11e7-be36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">expectations Opens a New Window.</a> of $2.56 billion, and earnings per share was $0.65, missing consensus of $0.98.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Additionally, the company announced a leadership transition. Dr. Dave Mosley, previously president and COO of the company, will take over from Steve Luczo as CEO beginning on Oct. 1, 2017, and Luczo will become executive chairman.</p>
<p>Seagate management also hosted a conference call to discuss the results. Here are three items from the call that I found particularly interesting.</p>
<p>Luczo said that the company "saw strength in the quarter from [its] largest nearline U.S.-based [cloud service provider] customers and relative seasonal demand in the compute and branded markets."</p>
<p>Seagate defines "nearline applications" as "those which require high capacity and energy efficient storage solutions."</p>
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<p>"We expect such applications, which include storage for cloud computing, content delivery and backup services, will continue to grow and drive demand for solutions designed with these attributes," the company said in its most recent form 10-K filing.</p>
<p>Additionally, the company defines "compute" applications in its 10-K as "solutions designed for desktop and mobile compute applications ranging from traditional laptops, tablets and convertible systems."</p>
<p>Continuing with this quarter's results, Luczo said that the previous factors were offset by "weakness in [Seagate's] enterprise storage customers, including traditional OEM nearline and mission critical demand, China [cloud service provider] nearline demand, and [Seagate's] own Cloud Storage systems business."</p>
<p>"In addition," Luczo added, "there was weakness in the surveillance and [network attached storage] markets due to some intra-quarter channel inventory management."</p>
<p>Luczo said that the company's revenue results, driven by the above dynamics, "were approximately 5% below plan."</p>
<p>The executive indicated that "approximately half" of the revenue miss came from the company's cloud storage systems business and the other half came from enterprise hard disk drive "weakness and channel inventory management."</p>
<p>Luczo then explained that "some of these factors" -- he cited the China cloud service provider and network attached storage (NAS) issues as examples -- "are temporal and supply chain related."</p>
<p>In other words, they don't appear to be issues with the underlying markets; it's an issue with Seagate's execution.</p>
<p>However, Luczo also conceded that "some of the OEM revenue declines are more structural."</p>
<p>"We continue to ramp our 10TB nearline product and shipped approximately 300,000 units in the June quarter," Seagate CFO Dave Morton said.</p>
<p>He added that Seagate's "sales for this capacity point have almost doubled over the last two quarters," and that the company is planning to ship a million 10 TB drives in the current quarter.</p>
<p>"In addition, our 12TB product shipped for revenue in the June quarter with excellent feedback," Morton said. "And we are confident that our qualification process is competitive."</p>
<p>All told, Morton says that the company expects to capture "approximately 50% of the exabyte share within the 10 TB and 12 TB market by the end of the calendar year."</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Seagate TechnologyWhen 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=830cb252-3f44-4545-ac8c-af7eb6998f5d&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=88076b48-7167-11e7-be36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Seagate Technology 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=830cb252-3f44-4545-ac8c-af7eb6998f5d&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=88076b48-7167-11e7-be36-0050569d4be0&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 July 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/aeassa/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=88076b48-7167-11e7-be36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Ashraf Eassa Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=88076b48-7167-11e7-be36-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Things Seagate Technology PLC Management Wants You to Know | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/25/3-things-seagate-technology-plc-management-wants-to-know.html | 2017-07-25 | 0 |
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<p>After several nerve wracking days of waiting and evacuations, the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby has exploded. According to the Harris County Emergency Operations Center, not one but two explosions were reported along with black smoke billowing from the chemical plant. Arkema was notified of the explosions by the Harris County Emergency Operations Center at 2 a.m. early Thursday morning.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Credit: Godofredo A. Vasquez</p>
<p />
<p>At least one person has been injured, the sheriff's deputy was taken to the hospital after inhaling fumes coming from the plant. Nine other deputies also sought medical attention as a precaution. Th county fire marshal's office is reporting that they are unsure of whether all the residents in the area followed the 1.5-mile radius evacuation order. Rachel Moreno, a spokeswoman for the county fire marshal's office, said they have been told a woman may still be within the 1.5 radius area that is within any potential blast zone. The authorities in Crosby have been preparing for the explosion of the plant every since floodwaters took out the power generators needed to keep volatile chemicals in the plant cool.</p>
<p />
<p>The CEO of Arkema, Rich Rowe, warned on Wednesday at a press conference that the peroxides would explode if they were to get too warm. Rowe told the press, "There is no way to prevent an explosion or fire." The Arkema chemical plant was on a list of higher risk facilities in the Houston-area and was a concern from the beginning due to the volume and nature of the chemicals stored at the plant.</p>
<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 />
<p>Source: <a href="http://m.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/BREAKING-Reports-of-explosion-at-flooded-Crosby-12163386.php" type="external">m.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/BREAKING-Reports-of-explosion-at-flooded-Crosby-12163386.php</a></p> | Arkema Chemical Plant In Crosby Finally Explodes After Flooding | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/7348-Arkema-Chemical-Plant-In-Crosby-Finally-Explodes-After-Flooding | 2017-08-31 | 0 |
<p>For the Democrats, Muslims are always the victims, no matter what, no matter how many people jihadis kill for Allah. Their knee-jerk reaction after every jihad attack is to blame the victim, as Jackie Speier does here: it’s all the fault of the kuffar, you see, because Muslims feel “isolated.” Never mind that Britain has bent over backwards to appease Muslim groups and make Muslims feel welcome. Each new jihad attack is evidence that they’ve failed and that more accommodation is needed — until there is no more accommodation possible and sharia is fully implemented.</p>
<p />
<p>“Speier: Muslim Youths Could Become So Isolated That Violence Becomes ‘Only Avenue of Making a Statement About Their Religion,’” by Cameron Cawthorne, <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/speier-muslim-youths-isolated-violence-only-avenue-making-statement-religion/" type="external">Washington Free Beacon</a>, May 24, 2017:</p>
<p>Rep. Jackie Speier (D., Calif.) said Tuesday on MSNBC that Muslim youths could become so isolated that violence becomes the “only avenue of making a statement about their religion.”</p>
<p>Speier’s comment came after host Stephanie Ruhle asked her about the terrorist attack Monday night&#160;following&#160;an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England that killed 22 people and wounded over 50 others, including many children.</p>
<p>“ISIS has now claimed responsibility,” Ruhle said. “Is there any evidence you’ve heard to back that up?”</p>
<p>Speier said there was no evidence at the time to link suspected suicide bomber&#160;Salman Abedi to the Islamic State. She then discussed how many of the recent terror attacks have been lone-wolf acts of violence that ISIS likes to take credit for.</p>
<p>“The real issue is whether or not Muslim youth around the United States and around the world feel there’s a pathway forward for them, or do they become so isolated that this is their only avenue of making a statement about&#160;their religion,” Speier said.</p>
<p>Since Speier’s interview on Tuesday morning, British authorities have confirmed that Abedi was part of a terrorist network, not a lone-wolf attacker, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/manchester-concert-explosion/manchester-arena-suicide-bombing-suspect-likely-didn-t-act-alone-n763921" type="external">according</a> to NBC News….</p>
<p>Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of <a href="http://pamelageller.com/2017/05/speier-muslims-isolated.html/" type="external">PamelaGeller.com</a> and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA): Muslim Youths Could Become So Isolated That Violence Becomes ‘Only Avenue of Making a Statement About Their Religion’ | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/05/28/rep-jackie-speier-d-ca-muslim-youths-could-become-so-isolated-that-violence-becomes-only-avenue-of-making-a-statement-about-their-religion/ | 2017-05-28 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://pienews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/NATOTruck.jpg" type="external" />Taliban attack NATO supplies in Afghan east, destroy dozens of trucks Taliban attack NATO supplies in Afghan east, destroy dozens of trucks ShowBiz Minute: Bullock, Lopez, Tomlinson Iraq requests US military intervention Spain welcomes new king KABUL (Reuters) - Four Taliban militants struck a NATO post in the eastern [?]</p>
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<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-attack-nato-supplies-afghan-east-destroy-dozens-074146369.html" type="external">Click here to view original web page at news.yahoo.com</a></p>
<p /> | Taliban attacks NATO supplies in Afghan | true | http://politicalillusionsexposed.com/taliban-attack-nato-supplies-in-afghan-east-destroy-dozens-of-trucks/ | 0 |
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<p>A U.S. service member salutes her fallen comrades during a memorial ceremony for six Airmen killed in a suicide attack, at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015. The deadliest attack in Afghanistan since 2013 killed six U.S. troops on Monday, including a family man from Long Island, New York; a South Texan; a New York City police detective; a Georgia high school and college athlete; an expectant father from Philadelphia; and a major from suburban Minneapolis with ties to the military's LGBT community. They were killed when their patrol was attacked by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle near Bagram Air Base, the Defense Department said. (Tech. Sgt. Robert Cloys/U.S. Air Force via AP)</p>
<p>KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan military has rushed reinforcements to a southern district threatened for days with takeover by the Taliban, the country's defense minister said Wednesday as he appealed for stepped-up NATO assistance and military support.</p>
<p>In a besieged army base in the embattled district of Sangin, an Afghan soldier described a dire situation, saying a handful of Afghan troops inside were fighting to the last, trying to keep the Taliban out.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, at an air base outside of Kabul, U.S. troops saluted fallen comrades during a memorial ceremony Wednesday for six American soldiers killed in a Taliban attack this week.</p>
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<p>The six died when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden motorcycle into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol near the Bagram Air Field on Monday. Two U.S. troops and an Afghan were also wounded in that attack - the deadliest day for American troops in Afghanistan since May 2013.</p>
<p>As fighting in the Sangin district of southern Helmand province continued Wednesday, Afghan army and police arrived to help security forces pinned down for days in the besieged area, said the minister, Masoom Stanekzai.</p>
<p>Speaking to reporters in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Stanekzai said that the country's overstretched security forces need the international military coalition's help, especially air support, which would help reduce casualties.</p>
<p>Sangin is an important poppy-growing district in Helmand, which borders Pakistan and sits on transport routes for drugs, arms and other lucrative contraband.</p>
<p>The Taliban, whose intensified war against Afghan forces has not slowed down with the colder season, have been besieging it for days and have nearly completely run over the district.</p>
<p>"The Helmand battle is not easy because the province has a long border, is a core of opium production, and our enemies are well-equipped and deeply involved in the smuggling of drugs," he said. "These factors complicate the battle for Sangin."</p>
<p>By mid-afternoon Wednesday, the Taliban spokesman for southern Afghanistan, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, tweeted that "Sangin district has completely collapsed to the Taliban" and that insurgents have captured Afghan soldiers and ammunition.</p>
<p>The insurgents are prone to exaggerating its battlefield successes, and Kabul officials denied that Sangin had fallen.</p>
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<p>However, Helmand's deputy governor Mohammad Jan Rasulyar said all lines of communication with Sangin had been cut and there was no immediate information available on the situation there.</p>
<p>"We already said that our forces are weak and need backup but because we have no communication with our forces, we don't know whether the Taliban have captured Sangin or not," Rasulyar added.</p>
<p>An Afghan army soldier, Yaseen Zamarai, reached by The Associated Press over the phone inside the besieged base in Sangin said the Taliban were outside the building and had been pushed back after entering once earlier in the day.</p>
<p>"We need help, we can't hold them for much longer," Zamarai said, his voice cracking. "It's not that we are afraid of death, but we didn't think that our brothers would leave us like this."</p>
<p>Britain has sent a small contingent of soldiers to Helmand as advisers under the new NATO mandate to train the Afghan forces. The return of British troops is poignant, as they suffered more than 100 of their 456 fatalities during Britain's 13-year Afghanistan combat mission in Sangin.</p>
<p>Afghanistan's security forces have been taking on the Taliban alone, following the end of the international combat mission last year. The U.S. and NATO have around 13,000 troops in the country, most of them operating under the training mandate.</p>
<p>Districts across Helmand have been threatened by the Taliban in recent months. The fight for Sangin has been particularly ferocious, with officials saying that only the army base was still in government hands until Tuesday.</p>
<p>Supply lines were cut, preventing ammunition and food from reaching government forces, and roads around the district center mined, officials have said.</p>
<p>Stanekzai said that with the arrival of new troops to the area, the battle would be reinvigorated and "this should help cut the number of casualties, and provide much-needed logistical support."</p>
<p>The Taliban have fought hard across the country this year, stretching Afghan forces as they have taken hold of some districts, if only for a few hours or, in the case of the northern city of Kunduz, three days that sent waves of concern through Afghans who had believed the insurgency was not strong enough to take major urban centers.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Amir Shah in Kabul, contributed to this story.</p> | Afghan troops rushed to area under Taliban attack | false | https://abqjournal.com/695710/afghan-troops-rushed-to-area-under-taliban-attack.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Warren Buffett, who pitched newspapers as a teenage delivery boy, may be entering the final stretch of his "Woodstock for Capitalists," after cutting back his involvement in the event and opening it up for an online audience.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>This weekend's gathering of Berkshire Hathaway Inc shareholders in Omaha, Nebraska for the company's annual meeting likely won't be the last.</p>
<p>But its evolution mirrors the evolution in Buffett's own leadership, focused more on the roughly 90 energy, insurance, manufacturing, railroad, retail and other companies in his empire, even as he delegates more to people who work under him.</p>
<p>This month, for example, Berkshire's General Re unit said its next chief will report not to Buffett, as the departing Tad Montross does, but to Ajit Jain, a top Buffett lieutenant.</p>
<p>Buffett, 85, is the oldest chief executive of a Fortune 500 company, and has given no public sign he's close to done.</p>
<p>In 2015, the world's third-richest person celebrated perhaps his final milestone anniversary at Berkshire, as more than 40,000 people descended on Omaha and overwhelmed its downtown CenturyLink Center to honor his 50 years at the helm.</p>
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<p>This year's gala again features a cookout and five-kilometer run, and centers on Saturday's five-hour question-and-answer session with Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 92.</p>
<p>Buffett "gives Omaha a heck of a lot of free visibility that a lot of cities would pay dearly for," said Ernie Goss, a professor at Creighton University there who studies the region's economy.</p>
<p>Still, there's a catch. "We all have friends who are waiters or waitresses or bartenders, and Berkshire Hathaway investors are not the biggest tippers," he said. "There is a message there: if he's frugal, we're going to be frugal."</p>
<p>ENERGY</p>
<p>Berkshire's weekend attracts more visitors to Omaha than any event other than the College World Series of baseball.</p>
<p>Hotel rates and airfares still soar. But this year, dozens of motels have rooms available, for those willing to travel several miles to downtown.</p>
<p>That's likely because the meeting will be live-streamed for the first time, potentially reaching tens of millions, on Yahoo Finance. The stream will also be in Mandarin, to meet demand from China and perhaps help Buffett find new investments.</p>
<p>Alex Ryzhikov, a partner at Ewing Morris &amp; Co Investment Partners in Toronto, said he drove 20 hours in a camper to Omaha last year and was first in line to enter the meeting at 12:30 a.m., six hours before doors opened.</p>
<p>He's not going this year, citing other commitments, but will watch online.</p>
<p>"If you want to just get the content, you're probably going to be okay watching online," he said. "To get the energy and excitement of being there, you make the trip."</p>
<p>For Buffett, the weekend remains active.</p>
<p>At 7 a.m. on Saturday, he'll again roam an exhibit hall filled with Berkshire companies hawking everything from boxer shorts to $78,900 mobile homes, trailed by a herd of camera- and iPhone-toting media who bump into each other a lot.</p>
<p>CHANGE</p>
<p>But he has cut back.</p>
<p>He no longer typically drops by Berkshire-owned Borsheim's Jewelry's Friday shareholder reception, which consumes an entire shopping mall and outdoor tent. (Buffett did preside there two years ago over a marriage proposal. She said yes.)</p>
<p>Starting in 2012, citing time constraints, he and Munger ended their news-lite Sunday press conferences, where Buffett would demur multiple times when foreign journalists asked "Where do you see investment opportunities in [name of country]?"</p>
<p>And this year, the webcast spells the end of Buffett's one-on-one media interviews.</p>
<p>"We no longer can accommodate the increasing number of requests," one of Buffett's assistants wrote. "In addition, the webcast of the annual meeting will let more people worldwide hear what Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger have to say."</p>
<p>Buffett has also simplified his day job.</p>
<p>In 2006 and 2011, Buffett gave up his seats on the boards of Coca-Cola Co and Washington Post Co. Two lieutenants, Gregory Abel and Tracy Britt Cool, now sit on the board of Kraft Heinz Co, a major Berkshire investment.</p>
<p>Then in 2011 and 2012, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler came aboard to help Buffett invest Berkshire's money.</p>
<p>And now General Re, Buffett's third largest acquisition, will be cared for by Jain.</p>
<p>Goss said when Buffett does depart, some of the "Midwestern sensibility" that investors equate with him, Berkshire and Omaha will go with him.</p>
<p>"All of a sudden Omaha will be less identified with Berkshire Hathaway, and it will be a change," he said.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Meredith Mazzilli)</p> | Buffett's Shareholder Gala Enters Home Stretch | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/29/buffetts-shareholder-gala-enters-home-stretch.html | 2016-04-29 | 0 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>I’m a bit depressed. CNN is showing another bunch of Iraqis who seem to be cheering the arrival of the invading troops in their neighborhood. Of course, this bastion of the free press did not show the dead and wounded that came before the occupiers’ entrance. Nor have they shown the destruction the US troops are leaving in their wake. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not depressed because the regime of Saddam Hussein is apparently collapsing. Neither am I depressed that this most murderous phase of the illegal war on the Iraqi people seems to be over. After all, this should slow down the killing. After thousands of deaths and maimings, the Iraqi people may finally be able to sleep without the fear of explosives raining down on them</p>
<p>Are the Iraqis actually cheering the arrival of the invaders? Or are they just cheering what they hope is the end of the effect of war, Saddam, and the sanctions in their neighborhood? What about the looting and score-settling that is going on? How long will the invaders (now occupiers) allow this? What will they replace it with? If one looks at the most obvious model for the US occupation-Israel in the Palestinian Territories-those Iraqis better grab stuff while they can. In addition, they should keep their faces away from the camera lenses unless they want the new police forces to come looking for them after the films are confiscated and reviewed by the occupying authorities. After all, if the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is the US model (and most indications are that this is the case), then the Iraqi people have a future that doesn’t include a lot of democracy or freedom. Indeed, if that is the case, Iraq’s people will continue to see bloodshed, repression, and hopelessness. Unless, of course, they happen to be part of the new regime composed of white collar criminals, Shi’a clerics, Kurdish warlords, and others currently on the good side of Washington, DC.</p>
<p>It’s too bad the Iraqis won’t get the democracy Messrs. Bush and Blair have been promising them. They certainly have shed enough blood for it. The way I see it, the average Iraqi will be lucky if s/he even gets enough food to feed their family in the months and years ahead, much less a vote in who will run the country. One should look at media reports (other than CNN or MSNBC) on the current situation in Afghanistan to see why I say this. As for the profits from the oil under their sands, good luck. History tells us repeatedly that the only time the common people reap any those profits is when that oil is nationalized and the proceeds from its sales distributed by the local regime as in Nasser’s Egypt, Saddam’s Iraq, Assad’s Syria, or the sheikdoms of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Notably, none of these regimes are what one would call democratic.</p>
<p>But, say those who support the war and occupation, that’s going to change. The US troops will leave and Iraqis will finally get their democratic government that will serve as an example for the rest of the Arab world. Democracy will flourish throughout the Middle East and the will of the people will be represented. A simple response to this muddleheaded thinking is: read your history. In those texts you will discover that invasions do not bring democracy, corporations do not share their profits, and occupying armies do not usually leave on their own volition. If you read even closer, you will discover that oil companies are not interested in helping out the common people in Iraq or anywhere else in the world. If they were, why would they have encouraged the British occupation of Iraq in the 1920s and the CIA coup in Iraq in 1953? Or the first Gulf War or the overthrow of Saddam? Further reading of your history text will lead to another discovery: the United States army has invaded tens of countries in the name of democracy and not one of those invasions resulted in a democratic government. What in God’s name would lead you to think that this invasion and occupation of Iraq will be different?</p>
<p>I could go on and on but I won’t. However, here’s a couple more thoughts specifically related to Iraq and the current administration in Washington: why would the US government want democracy in Iraq? After all, if there were true democracy in that country, it is very likely that the legislature would consist mostly of Shi’a Iraqis whose allegiance to their religion is greater than any feelings they may have for the infidels in D.C.. In addition, if history is truly a guide to the future, then it would only make sense that the popular sentiment of Iraq would certainly include a desire to get the occupiers out of their country immediately. I find it difficult to believe that the US would go along with such a desire, even if it was voted on. Not that popular sentiment matters to this administration anyhow-didn’t Bush’s opponent in the 2000 election actually get 500,000 more votes than him?</p>
<p>Anyhow, back to my feeling depressed. I’m depressed because of the lessons our children may be learning from Bush and Rumsfeld’s power-drunk drive-by. What depresses me is that all the wrong lessons have been taught. Might does make right. Lying and deceit are the best ways to get what one wants. Greed is rewarded. Murder is okay. As a parent and some time youth worker, I am wondering why I bother trying to teach young people that there is value in values such as honesty, cooperation, truth, and compassion. After all, Mr. Bush and his media machine are telling them that the opposite is true. Since he stole the election in 2002, there has been one victory after another for the liar and thief in the White House. This isn’t an accident. If you have bigger guns and sticks, you can usually win the battle. Only time will tell if they have won anything more than that. In Iraq or anywhere else.</p>
<p>RON JACOBS is author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859841678/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground</a>.</p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Bush and Rummy’s Drunken Drive-by | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/04/10/bush-and-rummy-s-drunken-drive-by/ | 2003-04-10 | 4 |
<p>General Electric Co. lifted the veil slightly on a part of its accounting that analysts have said was too opaque, spotlighting how changes in one group of its assets help to lift profits.</p>
<p>The company provided new details about its so-called contract assets in its latest quarterly report filed late Monday. These are assets based on revenues GE books on long-term contracts before it has the cash in hand, for things such as servicing power plants and building complex equipment like gas-power systems. That portfolio has risen 18% this year to $29.8 billion.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The catch is that the level of those assets relies in part on estimates and assumptions made by GE about how much profit it ultimately will reap from those contracts. Analysts have complained they have little insight into the portfolio and the way it contributes to GE's current profits.</p>
<p>The assets are "kind of a black box," said John Inch, a Deutsche Bank analyst who has been critical of GE over the quality of its earnings and disclosure.</p>
<p>This time around, GE said how much the increase in the portfolio boosted earnings, by $649 million in the third quarter and $1.93 billion for the first nine months of 2017, on a pretax basis. That is equal to 44% and 51% of pretax earnings from continuing operations for each period, respectively.</p>
<p>GE laid out the numbers in a new disclosure in its regular footnote on the assets.</p>
<p>Previously, GE had reported the earnings benefit from its contract assets on an annual basis. In 2016, that was a $2.2 billion contribution, or about 24% of pretax earnings from continuing operations for the year.</p>
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<p>So what drove the increase in value of the contract assets? GE said in the latest quarterly report that it was largely due to a $1.93 billion cumulative catch-up adjustment from higher forecast revenue and lower forecast costs on its long-term service agreements.</p>
<p>GE also said the assets related to those service agreements had increased by an additional $676 million because of "the timing of revenue recognized for work performed relative to billings and collections."</p>
<p>On GE's long-term equipment contracts, the contract assets increased by $1.33 billion because of revenue-timing issues, the company said.</p>
<p>GE's new disclosures are in line with new rules that will take effect in January on how companies book revenue. These rules will require companies to disclose more about changes in their contract assets.</p>
<p>In addition to the contract assets, analysts and investors have expressed concerns recently about other aspects of GE's accounting, such as the company's use of multiple customized earnings measures and its ability to turn earnings into cash flow.</p>
<p>The concerns have risen since Oct. 20, when GE badly missed Wall Street estimates for its third-quarter earnings and slashed earnings expectations for the year. The stock has declined in seven consecutive trading sessions, dropping more than 14% to GE's lowest levels in nearly five years.</p>
<p>GE has said it is looking at making its financial reporting cleaner and simpler. The company plans to provide more details Nov. 13 on that and other retrenchment steps it is planning.</p>
<p>GE is looking to sell more than $20 billion in assets and cut billions of dollars in costs. Chief Executive John Flannery has said he is reviewing whether the company can afford to keep paying its current 24-cent quarterly dividend.</p>
<p>Write to Michael Rapoport at [email protected]</p>
<p>General Electric Co. lifted the veil slightly on a part of its accounting that analysts have said was too opaque, spotlighting how changes in one group of its assets help to lift profits.</p>
<p>The company provided new details about its so-called contract assets in its latest quarterly report filed late Monday. These are assets based on revenues GE books on long-term contracts before it has the cash in hand, for things such as servicing power plants and building complex equipment like gas-power systems. That portfolio has risen 18% this year to $29.8 billion.</p>
<p>The catch is that the level of those assets relies in part on estimates and assumptions made by GE about how much profit it ultimately will reap from those contracts. Analysts have complained they have little insight into the portfolio and the way it contributes to GE's current profits.</p>
<p>The assets are "kind of a black box," said John Inch, a Deutsche Bank analyst who has been critical of GE over the quality of its earnings and disclosure.</p>
<p>This time around, GE said how much the increase in the portfolio boosted earnings, by $649 million in the third quarter and $1.93 billion for the first nine months of 2017, on a pretax basis. That is equal to 44% and 51% of pretax earnings from continuing operations for each period, respectively.</p>
<p>GE laid out the numbers in a new disclosure in its regular footnote on the assets.</p>
<p>Previously, GE had reported the earnings benefit from its contract assets on an annual basis. In 2016, that was a $2.2 billion contribution, or about 24% of pretax earnings from continuing operations for the year.</p>
<p>So what drove the increase in value of the contract assets? GE said in the latest quarterly report that it was largely due to a $1.93 billion cumulative catch-up adjustment from higher forecast revenue and lower forecast costs on its long-term service agreements.</p>
<p>GE also said the assets related to those service agreements had increased by an additional $676 million because of "the timing of revenue recognized for work performed relative to billings and collections."</p>
<p>On GE's long-term equipment contracts, the contract assets increased by $1.33 billion because of revenue-timing issues, the company said.</p>
<p>GE's new disclosures are in line with new rules that will take effect in January on how companies book revenue. These rules will require companies to disclose more about changes in their contract assets.</p>
<p>In addition to the contract assets, analysts and investors have expressed concerns recently about other aspects of GE's accounting, such as the company's use of multiple customized earnings measures and its ability to turn earnings into cash flow.</p>
<p>The concerns have risen since Oct. 20, when GE badly missed Wall Street estimates for its third-quarter earnings and slashed earnings expectations for the year. The stock has declined in seven consecutive trading sessions, dropping more than 14% to GE's lowest levels in nearly five years.</p>
<p>GE has said it is looking at making its financial reporting cleaner and simpler. The company plans to provide more details Nov. 13 on that and other retrenchment steps it is planning.</p>
<p>GE is looking to sell more than $20 billion in assets and cut billions of dollars in costs. Chief Executive John Flannery has said he is reviewing whether the company can afford to keep paying its current 24-cent quarterly dividend.</p>
<p>Write to Michael Rapoport at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 01, 2017 11:46 ET (15:46 GMT)</p> | GE Shows How 'Black Box' Assets Boost Profits | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/01/ge-shows-how-black-box-assets-boost-profits0.html | 2017-11-01 | 0 |
<p>Just a couple days away, kids!</p>
<p>Have you gone back and watched the first season again? We have. And we know the show begins a year after the final moments of Season One, in 1984.</p>
<p>It's time to figure out what's going on with Will and why he's puking up slugs.</p>
<p>To figure out where Eleven has been.</p>
<p>To figure out what that GIANT MULTI-ARMED MONSTER IS! (Although we're already pretty sure it's the Thessalhydra from the last game of D&amp;D the boys played at the end of season one.)</p>
<p>We've totally been loving all the poster art for the new season.</p>
<p>Check out this slideshow of all the iconic 80's poster these were modeled after right <a href="" type="internal">HERE</a>.</p>
<p>And, it's pretty cool the new season will be available on Friday 10/27, the start of Halloween weekend.</p>
<p>This fearless reporter is going to live blog all nine episodes in a row starting the second the episodes are posted (3am Eastern time). Definitely check that VERY SPOILER-Y post right here on Circa.com.</p>
<p>In the video up top, we take a look at some of the more regular things some of the actors have been up to... they've been pretty busy. Especially after that win at the Screen Actor's Guild Awards for Best Ensemble!</p>
<p>And, finally, we leave you with on a serious note. It's being weighing on our hearts quite a bit. Here's hoping there's going to be #JusticeForBarb.</p>
<p /> | Excited for the 'Stranger Things 2' premiere? Yeah, us, too. | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/10/25/hollywood/excited-for-the-stranger-things-2-premiere-yeah-us-too | 2017-10-25 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Part of what makes Costco (NASDAQ: COST) such a strong investment is that its membership model is well protected from e-commerce threats. Customer traffic at its warehouses improved at a market-thumping 4% annual pace for the past six years, even as online sales soaked up a growing share of the overall retailing pie.In other words, Costco has demonstrated that, in some important ways, it isAmazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) proof.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>That success hasn't bought shareholders stellar returns, though. Costco's stock has barely kept pace with the market over the last one-year and five-year time frames while Amazon's has significantly outperformed.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN" type="external">AMZN</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Which one is the better buy for investors right now? Both are dominant leaders with the right focus on prioritizing customers over short-term profits. For my money, though, Costco is a better deal given its cheaper valuation and more predictable stream of earnings.</p>
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<p>Costco's awesome retailing growth pace (of <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/25/1-number-that-shows-why-costco-wholesale-corporati.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">6% or better comparable-store sales Opens a New Window.</a> in each of the last five years) is ending. In fact, the retailer's comps were just 4% over the full fiscal year that ended in August. That number is likely to continue dropping, too, since the broader grocery industry, wracked by deflation, is going through its worst growth patch since 2009.</p>
<p>Amazon, in contrast, has the wind firmly at its back. Sales spiked by 31% last quarter, and operating cash, a key financial metric for CEO Jeff Bezos and his team, has jumped by 42% in the last year.</p>
<p>Earnings are an even bigger story for shareholders lately. Amazon is not only profitable again, but its bottom-line margin is set to pass Costco's for the first time since late 2011.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/profit_margin_ttm" type="external">AMZN Profit Margin (TTM)</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a>.</p>
<p>Judged solely by their latest operating trends, Amazon is the better bet right now.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a Costco investment provides the type of steady, predictable growth that's rare in the retailing world and even harder to find in the tech circles where Amazon is competing. Since most of Costco's earnings are produced <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/10/why-membership-fees-are-so-important-to-costco-who.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">through membership fees Opens a New Window.</a> rather than product sales, shareholders can count on the company growing returns even in tough selling environments like this. Profits should actually speed up given that a membership-fee hike is likely either this year or next.</p>
<p>Costco annual earnings. Data source: Financial filings.</p>
<p>Amazon's profit pace is much harder to predict -- it generated a loss in two of the last five fiscal years. A large portion of future earnings will come from its cloud-based AWS business services, too. And while that's an attractive growth industry, it requires tons of capital investment in a competitive environment marked by falling prices. Lately, revenue has been rising at a fast-enough pace to outweigh those negatives, but that trend could quickly shift.</p>
<p>Mr. Market is offering investors Amazon stock at 73 times the $10.40 per share of earnings it's expected to produce next year. Costco, meanwhile can be had for 25 times its projected $6 per share of profit. A similarly large gap holds when you compare the stocks on a price-to-sales basis. Amazon is valued at three times trailing revenue compared to 0.6 times for Costco.</p>
<p>Amazon clearly deserves a premium given that its sales and profits are growing at a much faster pace. The e-commerce giant is also poised to pass Costco in overall revenue, net income, and net profit margin, which are impressive achievements.</p>
<p>Investors have to pay up for the broad optimism around this business, though. In contrast, worries over a temporary sales-growth slowdown have kept Costco's stock more reasonably priced -- and that lowers the risk of buying into shares just as inflated expectations come back down to normal.</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/TMFSigma/info.aspx" type="external">Demitrios Kalogeropoulos Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com and Costco Wholesale. 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> | Better Buy: Costco Wholesale Corporation vs. Amazon | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/15/better-buy-costco-wholesale-corporation-vs-amazon.html | 2016-09-15 | 0 |
<p>Hillary Clinton speaks during a Planned Parenthood Action Fund membership event in Washington in June 2016. Alex Brandon/AP</p>
<p>The Democrats will not withhold financial support from candidates who oppose abortion, according to&#160;Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chair&#160;Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM).</p>
<p>“There is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates,” said Luján in an interview with <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/344196-dem-campaign-chief-vows-no-litmus-test-on-abortion?amp" type="external">The Hill</a>.&#160;“As we look at candidates across the country, you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America.”</p>
<p>Women’s rights groups such as NARAL, All* Above All, and Emily’s List have voiced their frustration with the party’s unwillingness to fully embrace reproductive rights as a bottom-line issue.</p>
<p>“It’s short-sighted and dangerous to pave the path to victory in 2018 at the expense of women,” said Destiny Lopez, co-director at <a href="http://allaboveall.org/" type="external">All* Above All Action Fund</a>, in a press release. “Let’s not forget that the widely-lauded Democratic platform in 2016 clearly opposed not just restrictions on legal abortion—it also opposed the Hyde Amendment, which bans abortion coverage.”</p>
<p>Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, took to Twitter to express her frustration with&#160;Luján’s comments.</p>
<p />
<p>In the final presidential debate in October, Hillary Clinton made history when she voiced her support for abortion rights onstage.&#160;“I will defend&#160;Roe v. Wade,” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/10/hillary-clintons-powerful-defense-of-abortion-rights/504866/" type="external">&#160;Clinton said</a>. “And I will defend women’s rights to make their own healthcare decisions,”</p>
<p>Her statement was outside the norm for Democratic candidates,&#160;for whom abortion has often been a difficult issue. Some have been reluctant to express wholehearted support for abortion rights; others have felt excluded because of their anti-abortion convictions.&#160;Last spring, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and DNC deputy chair Keith Ellison campaigned in Omaha,&#160;Nebraska, for anti-abortion Democratic mayoral candidate Heath Mello. Mello ultimately lost to the Republican incumbent who is also anti-abortion, and&#160;Sanders was met with a barrage of criticism for his support.&#160;</p>
<p>“We have got to appreciate where people come from and do our best to fight for the pro-choice agenda,” <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/04/20/524962482/sanders-defends-campaigning-for-anti-abortion-rights-democrat" type="external">Sanders told</a>NPR&#160;in April. “But I think you just can’t exclude people who disagree with us on one issue.”&#160;</p>
<p>Other Democratic party leaders, including&#160;House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and&#160;Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)&#160;have also said the Democratic party should not draw a hard line when it comes to abortion. In June, DNC chair Tom Perez&#160;met&#160;with Democrats for Life of America&#160; <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/democrats-pro-life-pro-choice-dnc-chair-tom-perez/531981/" type="external">who demanded</a> that abortion not be a “litmus test” of the party. The 2016 Democratic&#160; <a href="https://www.democrats.org/party-platform" type="external">platform stated</a> that the party believed “unequivocally” that “every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.”</p>
<p>At a time when the Democratic party is searching for a coherent identity and program after its resounding defeat in 2016, the debate over <a href="" type="internal">whether the party openly supports abortion rights</a> will likely continue to heat up as the 2018 races loom.</p>
<p>“Throwing weight behind anti-choice candidates is bad politics that will lead to worse policy,” Mitchell Stille, who oversees campaigns for NARAL Pro-Choice America, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/344196-dem-campaign-chief-vows-no-litmus-test-on-abortion?amp" type="external">told The Hill.</a> “The idea that jettisoning this issue wins elections for Democrats is folly contradicted by all available data.”</p> | People Are Really Mad at the DCCC for Saying It Will Continue to Fund Pro-Life Candidates | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/people-are-really-mad-at-the-dccc-for-saying-it-will-continue-to-fund-pro-life-candidates/ | 2017-07-31 | 4 |
<p>When eight Obamacare regulations go into effect tomorrow, <a href="//aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2012/womensPreventiveServicesACA/ib.shtml" type="external">47 million women</a> will benefit from the guaranteed coverage of preventive services — including <a href="//thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/10/422863/contraception-accommodation-insurers-will-be-required-to-offer-contraception-coverage-free-of-charge/" type="external">contraception</a> coverage — without co-pays. The new rules will require most insurance plans to begin including the services at no additional cost at the next renewal date that falls on or after August 1, according to a news release from the Department of Health and Human Services.</p>
<p>The Center for American Progress graphic breaks down what will be covered and <a href="//www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/07/infographic_women_obamacare.html" type="external">how women will benefit</a>:</p>
<p />
<p>But even as millions of women will benefit from even more provisions of the Affordable Care Act, nine states are <a href="//www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/07/state_contraception.html" type="external">attacking the contraception coverage requirement</a> because of the claim that the provision violates religious liberty. Even though President Obama announced an “ <a href="//thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/10/422863/contraception-accommodation-insurers-will-be-required-to-offer-contraception-coverage-free-of-charge/" type="external">accommodation</a>” for religious institutions so that the employer does not have to pay for the birth control coverage, states have <a href="//www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/07/state_contraception.html" type="external">considered legislation or ballot measures</a> to either reject the federal regulation or undermine contraceptive coverage in state law. And ongoing challenges against the contraception regulation continue in federal courts.</p> | 8 Ways Women Will Benefit Under Obamacare Starting Tomorrow | true | http://alternet.org/hot-news-views/8-ways-women-will-benefit-under-obamacare-starting-tomorrow | 4 |
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<p>WICHITA, Kan. — Former Dallas Cowboys running back Joseph Randle has been found guilty of aggravated battery, aggravated burglary, criminal threat and marijuana possession after striking three people with his car as he left a house party in Kansas.</p>
<p>KAKE-TV reports ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2oukZMr" type="external">http://bit.ly/2oukZMr</a> ) that the jury couldn’t reach a verdict Friday on two charges of aggravated battery and a count of criminal damage to property. A mistrial was declared on those counts. Judge Kevin O’Conner put those back on the May 1 docket.</p>
<p>Randle is accused of kicking in the door at a home in Wichita in 2016, then hitting three people with his car as he fled what he called a hostile situation.</p>
<p>He’s also charged with running from police officers trying to serve him with a warrant following the attack.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Ex-Dallas Cowboy found guilty of battery at Kansas party | false | https://abqjournal.com/991407/ex-dallas-cowboy-found-guilty-of-battery-at-kansas-party.html | 2 |
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<p>This July, the global biotechnology industry held its largest gathering in Southern California and the keynote speaker was Hillary Rodham Clinton. She voiced passionate support for the continued introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture and Earth’s ecology. Standing in favor of United States government financial subsidies to the industry, she says she is <a href="http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/hillary-clinton-states-stand-on-biotech-and-climate-change/81250038/" type="external">intent on keeping companies from leaving the U.S.</a> She voiced eagerness for an “intensive discussion” around “how the federal government could help biotechs with insurance against [financial] risk.”</p>
<p>Globally, the biotech industry expanded 11 percent in 2013 while revenue reached <a href="http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/global/global-biotechnology.html" type="external">$262 billion</a>. The presumptive candidate for the President of the U.S. in 2016, Clinton recognized the “ <a href="http://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2014/06/25/hillary-clinton-cheers-biotechers-backs-gmos-and-federal-help/" type="external">Frankensteinish</a>” images conveyed by those opposing GMOs, but she did not argue against their many ominous warnings. She suggested instead that negative attitudes toward GMO agriculture could be negated with the promotion of a more positive spin.</p>
<p>The thousands in attendance at BIO International Convention at the San Diego Convention Center heard Clinton’s impression that “‘drought resistant’ sounds like something you’d want” instead of “genetically modified.” She announced her support for GMO products with proven track records, such as the drought-resistant genetically modified seeds she pressed for when she was the U.S. Secretary of State.</p>
<p>At least 26 nations have banned GMOs from their agricultural land and / or from being sold in their markets. Critics of GMOs state that genetic engineering disturbs an organism’s (food plant’s) genetic sequence, possibly creating human toxins, changing the nutritional value of the food or producing allergens. They also admonish the introduction of pollens from GMO plants into the global ecology. The release of such pollens into the atmosphere <a href="http://guardianlv.com/2014/07/hillary-rodham-clinton-supports-gmos/" type="external">inevitably crossbreeds with non-GMO plants</a>, permanently changing the more pristine genetic codes of non-GMO plants.</p>
<p>GMO critics also affirm that GMOs can kill other organisms. One famous example is corn modified to manufacture its own pesticide, the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt). This change has been identified as the agent responsible for the destruction of the larvae of monarch butterflies. The point for them is it that similar impacts on other plant and animal species also cannot be known in advance.</p>
<p>Finally, GMO protesters point to the widespread use of the technology as the knockout punch in the long and painful worldwide decline of small farms and farmers. Because GMO plants are protected by patents, they say power is now even more concentrated with the few corporations having ownership of such intellectual property. An addiction is thus dictated upon farmers as the specialized seeds and chemicals necessary must be purchased with each growing cycle. Some have pointed to the staggering number of suicides amongst Indian farmers (270,000 between 1995 and 2012) as sourced in an inescapable abyss of debt created by the requirement to cover the cost of annually inflated GMO seeds and chemicals.</p>
<p>No matter the debate, the food industry is taking the perceptions against GMOs seriously. General Mills, for example,&#160;advertises that its products are <a href="" type="internal">free of GMO organisms</a>.</p>
<p>Clinton’s speaking fees average $200,000. After her California speech, the standing room only crowd heard the state’s governor, Jerry Brown, declare his desire to have California be felt as friendly to the GMO biotech industry. Not to worry, he said, “I’m holding the line (on taxes and regulations).”</p>
<p /> | Hillary Clinton Advocates for GMOs | false | http://natmonitor.com/2014/12/21/hillary-clinton-advocates-for-gmos/ | 2014-12-21 | 3 |
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<p />
<p>The Bush administration has spent a lot of money in Iraq since White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was fired in 2002 for daring to predict the war might cost as much as $200 billion. An estimate issued last August by the Congressional Budget Office <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/01/analysis_says_war_could_cost_1_trillion/" type="external">suggested</a> the war will have cost at least $1 trillion before it’s over. A September report ( <a href="http://jec.senate.gov/Documents/Reports/11.13.07IraqEconomicCostsReport.pdf" type="external">PDF</a>) by the Democratic staff of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee pegged the cost at $1.3 trillion. Now a new book by a Harvard professor and a Nobel Prize winner in economics claims the true cost could be more than twice that—as high as $3 trillion dollars. If you wanted to pay that off with a single wad of $1,000 bills, your billfold would have to be <a href="http://www.atgpress.com/kifap/kifap0020.htm" type="external">almost 240 miles wide</a>.</p>
<p>In The Three Trillion Dollar War, Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard’s Linda Bilmes claim to have laid out the “true cost of the Iraq conflict.” Instead of simply including appropriations costs and the estimated costs for the future care of soldiers, as most estimates do, Stiglitz and Bilmes take many other factors into account. They include the costs of paying the interest on the money we’ve borrowed to finance the war; the increased costs of recruiting and retaining soldiers given the fact there is a war on; the macroeconomic costs, like part of the increase in the cost of oil and the lost economic productivity from spending the money overseas instead of reinvesting it at home; and the cost to the economy of the loss of the dead and the seriously wounded and their caretakers, using a metric called a “Valued Statistical Life.”</p>
<p>All this sounds very complicated, and it is. Some will certainly question Bilmes and Stiglitz’s calculations. But arguing over the exact cost of the war won’t change the fact that defense spending is very high in historical terms. In constant 2008 dollars, this year’s military budget is the highest since World War II. And the U.S. military is spending millions of dollars a day in Iraq.</p>
<p>Even so, the financial cost is just one factor that Americans have to consider in deciding whether the war was, and is, worth fighting. The cost in lives and the geopolitical and strategic costs are also serious considerations. The cost in lives is, in some ways, easier to quantify and understand than the cost in dollars. And Americans who read the newspaper (or MotherJones.com) see the geopolitical costs of the war every day. So even if the difference between “an unimaginable amount of money” and “a twice as unimaginable amount of money” seems abstract or silly to you, Bilmes has a point. Speaking at the National Press Club Wednesday, she said: “The bottom line on all of this is if the public is trying to make a decision about whether the benefit of staying in Iraq is worth the money they ought to have an accurate price of what it is costing…. If this war costs significantly more than the administration says it does, then we have a responsibility to say, ‘Well actually, this is the cost.”</p>
<p /> | The Three Trillion Dollar War | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/02/three-trillion-dollar-war/ | 2008-02-13 | 4 |
<p>Caracas.</p>
<p>Hugo havez had motivated his supporters to do a great job of organizing up to the vote, then got everyone up at 3 AM to get out to vote in the referendum. The lines were long and slow, with many waiting upt to 10 hours. Poll closing was extended from 6 pm to 8pm then to midnight, and the last people voted at about 2:30 or 3 AM. The last closings were mostly in the poorer regions, which have always had more voters per voting table than the middle class neighborhoods. This was not changed for this vote, unfortunately. The opposition complained that the automated fingerprint machines, included to avoid electoral fraud, delayed the process, so at about midday, the fingerprint part was ordered to be performed after one voted. At quarter to 4AM, the head of the electoral commission (CNE) announced, in a very brief statement, that Chavez won 58%, versus 42% to remove him, in the 94% tabulated of the electronically delivered voting machines ballots. Just before this, the two opposition rectors of the CNE pointed out a number of problems with the tally to be announced, such as that they and the opposition had not had been present at the tabulation.</p>
<p>After the preliminary totals were announced, the thousands outside the presidential palace erupted into cheering, fireworks, etc. Soon Chavez, in Peron style, came out on the balcony and addressed them, first singing the national anthem along with them, and then a solo second song demanded by the crowd. CNN Espanol carried his whole ~1 hour speech, live. As it ended, as if someone yelled “send in the clowns”, CNN switched to the opposition meeting, where almost all the Democratic Coordinator leaders were piled onto a stage. One of them then proclaimed that a monstrous fraud had been perpetrated, and that you could read the real results on the faces of those in the voting lines.</p>
<p>Their data said that they’d won, 59 to 41%, or 20 points difference, he pointed out. He said that tomorrow they’d present the data. Even though they had very long faces, and some seemed to be trying not to be conspicuous, there they all were, as if they were being forced to fulfill the conditions of their contract. Perhaps this was needed to confuse things with a first report, even if later it proved ridiculous, and to allow some tendentious analysts to question the results, as was done with the 1984 Sandinista 70% electoral victory. Also, as the opposition had become fervent believers in their own fantasies, they were dumbstruck, and looked pitiful.</p>
<p>In an immediate interview with the opposition spokesman, Henry Ramos Allup, the head of the traditional party, the Adecos, the CNN anchor’s tone was very skeptical. It didn’t help that the guy speaks poorly, and had to follow the master’s (Chavez) oratory.</p>
<p>Today the opposition leaders are all saying they won’t accept this, the greatest fraud in Venezuelan history, lying down. Principal electoral observers OAS president Gaviria and Jimmy Carter, at 1:30 pm, said that they’d received no detailed results of fraud, that it looked clean to them, and that the results announced by the CNE were consistent with their own straw tallies. They even mentioned that the numbers they had from SUMATE, the Nat. Endowment for Democracy funded opposition group, were 55 to 45% in favor of Chavez. Gaviria suggested that the opposition count again.</p>
<p>A demonstration by a few hundred of the opposition blocked the major highway through the middle of Caracas, but, wonder of wonders, only one of the generally fervently anti-Chavez private TV stations, the most radical, Globovision, had live coverage. In fact, the TV’s were been showing movies and cooking shows, and had not even been mentioning yesterday’s vote. They didn’t play up the claims of fraud, and didn’t even have their regular daily Chavez bashing interview programs. Very strange.</p>
<p>One hypothesis: The opposition are mainly a bunch of has-been and wanna-be incompetent bozos, the same kleptocratic pols who kept 80% of the richest country in latin america in poverty. Everyone knows that, and even most of the people against Chavez have nothing good to say about them. They only looked good when the media transformed the anti-Chavez campaign into a glorious struggle for freedom and democracy with sophisticated US campaign techniques. They’ve never had a program nor any ideas except anti-Chavez rhetoric and the implied notion that they will give the country back to the better element, while placating the poor. It seems that the spinmeisters (the calvary, or the marines, if you will) didn’t arrive in time for their campaign, which really never got off the ground. The failure of the media now to follow the pathetic opposition claims of fraud, although they always have made their lies into truth before, is also striking. As implied by Forrero in the NYT, could it be possible that the powerful northern interests decided that Chavez was preferable to instability that would increase oil prices?</p>
<p>Did Chavez cut a deal to allow more multinational oil companies access to the hydrocarbon resources, and to increase oil production? Will the oil prices stay high, and will Chavez, with two years respite until the next presidential election, continue the dizzying pace of the social programs and infrastructure spending? Can the programs be converted into sustainable institutions? Can the government efficiency and competence be improved? Will the demoralized opposition, who always insisted they were the majority, be able to wake up to the reality in the country, will they be able to work together on the development and social programs they insisted they wouldn’t eliminate, or will they look for new ways to try to block progress? Will Kerry again complain that Bush didn’t support the Venezuelan opposition enough, and then blame him for losing Venezuela? Will the US president (whoever it may be) prefer short term oil price stability in the next few months and wait until after the election to renew attempts to oust Chavez?</p>
<p>In the Chavez bashing NYT op-ed piece by Bernard Aronson on Saturday, he listed a number of the programs he said were need for real economic development in Latin America: microcredits for small industry to allow it to pass from the informal to the more formal sector, help for medium businesses, etc. The list was remarkably similar to the programs that Chavez has already been instituting in Venezuela. Aronson also had a number of factual errors.</p>
<p>For instance, he said (and it was also stated in the WP editorial of 2 wks ago), that Carter and the OAS convinced or forced Chavez to allow the referendum. Actually Chavez had been offering the referendum, which he put into the constitution, as a remedy for the opposition complaints, and it was the opposition who had to be convinced by Carter and OAS president Gaviria in the negotiations of May 2003 to go the route of the referendum that THEY HAD REJECTED in favor of more violent actions to force Chavez out by unconstitutional means..</p>
<p>The truth about the opposition is that everything they’ve tried has backfired, losing them support, and consolidating support for Chavez, both in and outside the country. Their comical declaration of victory will lose them further support.</p>
<p>The referendum, however, forced Chavez to get moving rapidly on social programs. Elections for mayors and governors next month, and presidential elections in 2006 will likely make sure that they continue. The Chavez government’s work to develop the country has still only just begun. There is now a greater responsibility for US citizens to see that their government does not impede their difficult task.</p>
<p>ALAN CISCO is an America living and working in Caracas.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Discreet Charm of the Venezuelan Opposition | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/08/19/the-discreet-charm-of-the-venezuelan-opposition/ | 2004-08-19 | 4 |
<p><a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/170121322" type="external">Savushkin/Getty</a></p>
<p>The opioid epidemic, which each year claims more lives than the entirety of American deaths in the Vietnam War, is also a growing financial burden.</p>
<p>According to a new <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/The%20Underestimated%20Cost%20of%20the%20Opioid%20Crisis.pdf" type="external">report</a> from the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the epidemic cost the nation $504 billion in 2015—about 2.8 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. And that figure has likely increased substantially, as 2016 brought a 21 percent <a href="" type="internal">increase</a> in overdose deaths.</p>
<p>The estimate is more than six times higher than previous estimates, largely because it includes the cost of lost productivity of those who died of overdoses—a standard practice for evaluating public health problems as federal agencies determine which issues to prioritize. It also&#160;used more recent overdose figures and accounted for both prescription and illicit drug use. Last year, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers pegged the cost of prescription drug abuse in 2013 at&#160; <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27623005" type="external">$78.5 billion.</a></p>
<p>“A better understanding of the economic causes contributing to the crisis is crucial for evaluating the success of various interventions to combat it,” read the report, noting that the council plans to research the cost of proposed and actual solutions to the epidemic.</p>
<p>President Trump has repeatedly acknowledged the need to address the epidemic, which, he said Monday, is “ravaging so many American families and communities.” The president <a href="" type="internal">declared</a> a public health state of emergency last month, but stopped short of allocating new funding to address the epidemic. Meanwhile, repealing Obamacare would cut insurance coverage for an estimated <a href="" type="internal">2.8 million</a> Americans suffering from addiction disorders.&#160;</p> | The Opioid Epidemic Is Devastating. It’s Also Really Expensive. | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/the-opioid-epidemic-is-devastating-its-also-really-expensive/ | 2017-11-20 | 4 |
<p>A couple of weeks ago, X Factor viewers saw what might have been the most incredible elimination episode in the now-extensive history of TV talent competitions. Facing elimination, Astro—the show's 15-year-old Brooklyn rapper—initially refused to perform in the sing-off that would determine who goes home, not wanting to honor the fools in the audience who had failed to see the brilliance of his work. Across the stage, Stacy Francis, the show’s <a href="http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2011/11/x-factor-stacy-francis-rips-simon-cowell-astro-after-getting-the-hook.html" type="external">controversy-ridden</a> 42-year-old superdiva, glared daggers of hate at the judges, whose harsh commentary had put her in this position. She would, ultimately, after receiving the boot, lambaste her judge-mentor Nicole Scherzinger for the poor guidance that had destroyed her chances, voicing the opinion that had she been guided by someone else she would still be singing.</p>
<p>"It was a car-crash moment," X Factor auteur Simon Cowell said about Astro’s defiance in a conversation after last week's show. "But I kind of like that. When it was happening, I was annoyed that Astro was going to blow his chance because of a stupid thing, but then I watched it back and thought, ‘Well, that's how a 15-year-old from a tough background would react to getting that kind of rejection for the first time.' It was kind of brilliant."</p>
<p>The moment was rude, inappropriate, harsh—and thrilling drama, miles away from the all-smiles “I’m just so grateful for the opportunity” automaton demeanor that dominates other competitions.</p>
<p>The X Factor is not for everybody. American Idol is for everybody, and still, despite the assault from Simon Cowell and Mark Burnett’s The Voice, holds the ratings crown to prove it, with numbers from last season approximately double what either of the upstarts pulls in. The vast, aging middle apparently still prefers its singers humble, its judges supportive and verklempt, its stories tearjerking, and its singing styles 20 to 30 years behind today’s charts. It’s a formula with a thoroughly proven track record. It is the champion of today and yesterday, and one whose uplifting message speaks well for its fans. However, it is a format that has often felt like a throwback to the golden age of variety TV rather than staying relevant to the culture of today.</p>
<p>"Network TV was in real danger of going into a death spiral and not having young audiences," Cowell said of the pre–X Factor landscape. "This show depends on having a young audience own it."</p>
<p>For years, critics have complained about the stodginess of Idol, mocking its Whitney Houston–centric, schmaltzy, tearjerky style, but thus far few of the pundit class have taken notice that their prayers have been answered. With X Factor, Cowell has done the seemingly impossible. A decade after American Idol debuted and went on to make talent competitions TV’s most overworked genre, Cowell has created a new one that feels not only fresh but relevant. It is not just a pageant living in a parallel world apart from the contemporary convolutions of music and entertainment, but a vital organism that could actually, as Idol once did, lead the culture in new directions. And compared with the pious tone of other shows, X Factor is edgy, irreverent, and a whole lot of fun.</p>
<p>Among the major differences between X Factor and the rest of the field:</p>
<p>Singers</p>
<p>Of the 10 singers and three groups who made it to the X Factor finals, only four (Astro, Chris Rene, Marcus Canty, and Melanie Amaro) would have been eligible for American Idol. The rest are either groups, which are not part of the Idol mix, or too young or too old to be eligible for the singing-contest titan. Of the four who are eligible, the three males performed in rap and hip-hop styles that have never been granted a place on the Idol main stage. Of all the X Factor contestants, only chanteuse Melanie Amaro, a 19-year-old mistress of the giant-note ballad, might have made an Idol contender. What Idol would have missed is striking: from Taylor Swift–inspired pixie girl Drew Ryniewicz to the hip-hop team styles of the Stereo Hoggs to the soulful hard-rock crooning of Josh Krajcik.</p>
<p>Further, taking one look at a group portrait of the X Factor finalists and comparing it with any recent Idol season shows you at one glance the difference between the two shows. To put it plainly, one is heavily dominated by Anglo faces and the other looks far more like the mix of people who dominate the current music charts. In particular, for the past four years, Idol has been dominated by a dynasty of cute white boys who seem to have a lock on the crown. No nonwhite singer has made it to the Idol finale in four years. No African-American male has made it farther than fourth place in eight years.</p>
<p>Whoever the X Factor’s champion turns out to be, he won’t be a cute young white male, since none are left in the competition. In fact, not one made it into X Factor’s Top 13. While critics have complained that Idol has begun to sound like a late-‘80s nostalgia tour, an episode of The X Factor, which will typically feature everything from hip-hop to tween confessionals, sounds utterly of the moment. It takes only a baby step of the imagination to see one of the contestants commanding the pop charts, compared with the giant leap of faith required to believe in the prospects for the pageant bots.</p>
<p>And amazingly, the contestants on X Factor behave like actual human beings. They talk back. They act selfish. They get angry. Just like real people. And very unlike the highly coached, gratitude-infused Idol stars.</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>"I want the public to see how they are," Cowell said. "I've hated the contestants I've seen in the past who are nice on camera but then vile to the crew when the cameras are off. But many singers are divas and do have huge egos and can be very difficult. That's the reality of the music world, and I wanted audiences to see that."</p>
<p>If you want your singers grateful, bland, and forever inoffensive, this is not the show for you.</p>
<p>Judges</p>
<p>This past season, American Idol made the decision to break with its Cowell-driven past and go all-in on supportive and nurturing. The result was a show as rich in drama as a scoreless sixth-grade soccer game where everybody wins.</p>
<p>On X Factor, it is not only that the judges are nastier to each other than competition judges have ever been (they are). But more, they have something to say beyond “That was beautiful.” In Simon Cowell and L.A. Reid in particular, you have two judges who have very strong opinions and are incredibly articulate in expressing them. With Reid, the show has a judge with an unimpeachable record of producing hits, which has made him the first judge who can truly hold his own against Cowell. Their quarrels have been vicious and delightful, but, again, not only because they are mean, but because they are passionately debating what makes a pop singer work, which is, after all, supposedly the question mark at the very core of these shows.</p>
<p>Further, the recasting of the judges as mentors to the contestants makes it possible for them to direct their harshest barbs at each other's guidance rather than at the hapless singers themselves. A redirection that allows the show to be paradoxically more vicious and more humane.</p>
<p>Production</p>
<p>Slicker, faster-paced than Idol and other talent shows, X Factor’s tone is darker than the competition; it hits heavy on the high stakes and drama, lighter on the sob stories and feel-good moments. It feels like a modern television entertainment program. The stage, for instance, might well be the largest wall of pure video screens ever constructed for television. "I wanted a show that felt like the numbers you see on awards shows or for big events," Cowell said, telling of how he pushed in its original U.K. version for ever-bigger budgets to turn the show into a true spectacle. "Every year I pushed ITV for more money."</p>
<p>The result is a weekly display of some breathtaking visual effects surrounding the singers, whose numbers, complete with costumes and backup dancers, create an effect that feels like a big-budget arena concert from top to bottom.</p>
<p>Rules</p>
<p>If there is one thing Idol has proved, it is that too much democracy is not necessarily a good thing. Particularly in the hands of tweenage girls. We know how that has worked out on Idol of late. X Factor has managed to preserve most of the genre’s democratic institutions while putting a brake on unquestioned mob rule. Each week, the audience still votes for the bottom two, but the judges then step in and decide which of the lowest vote getters should go home. Consequently, some of the very best acts are spared the will of the masses for a bit, as was the case when the brilliant Stereo Hoggs were granted an extra lease on life.</p>
<p>The Future</p>
<p>X Factor's debut season may not have knocked Idol off its ratings pedestal, but with it averaging 11 million viewers a week, the numbers are solid. Led by X Factor, the Fox network won its first November sweeps with the critical 18- to 49-year-old demographic.</p>
<p>It may be attracting a smaller crowd, but it’s the audience that is looking ahead. Like the Soviet Union in Ninotchka, Simon Cowell’s X Factor audience has <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv9KJC7eYSg" type="external">fewer but better Russians</a>.</p> | Why ‘X Factor’ Trounces ‘American Idol’ | true | https://thedailybeast.com/why-x-factor-trounces-american-idol | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>Protesters rallied against a union campaign to save Illinois' notorious Tamms prison.Courtesty Tamms Year Ten</p>
<p />
<p>On January 4, the Tamms Correctional Center, a supermax prison in southern Illinois, officially closed its doors. Tamms, where some men had been kept in solitary confinement for more than a decade, was <a href="http://www.bnd.com/2012/08/21/2292279/trapped-in-tamms-supermax-prison.html" type="external">notorious</a> for its brutal treatment of prisoners with mental illness—and for driving sane prisoners to madness and suicide.</p>
<p>The closure, by order of Gov. Pat Quinn, was <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/tamms-supermax-prison-its-inhumane-and-ridiculously-expensive-solitary" type="external">celebrated</a> by human rights and prison reform groups, and by the local activists who had <a href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14302/supermax_showdown" type="external">fought for years</a> to do away with what they saw as a torture chamber in their backyard. But it might have been accomplished sooner were it not for a competing progressive faction: Big Labor.</p>
<p>The major force holding up Tamms’ closure was the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which, according to its website, represents 85,000 corrections employees nationally. The union challenged Quinn’s order through its legislative allies, stalled it via the courts, and mounted a public campaign to keep Tamms open. It was perhaps the most visible and contentious example of a phenomenon seen, in one form or another, around the country: otherwise progressive labor unions furthering America’s addiction to mass incarceration. In terms of prisoners rights in general, and solitary confinement in particular, unions are&#160;seen as&#160;a major obstacle to more-humane conditions.</p>
<p>With its more than 1.6 million total members, AFSCME has played an important role over the decades in securing basic rights for all sorts of government employees. The Memphis march that ended in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in support of an AFSCME strike. More recently, the union helped put (and keep) President Obama in office. It also is a key backer of health care reform and, during a period of labor decline, remains the biggest organizing union in the AFL-CIO.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/11468665-452/torture-is-a-crime-never-a-career.html" type="external">Chicago Sun-Times</a> op-ed, scholar-activist Stephen F. Eisenman of the pro-closure group <a href="http://www.yearten.org/" type="external">Tamms Year Ten</a> pointed out that the union wasn’t always so reactionary. In the ’60s and ’70s, Eisenman wrote, “AFSCME’s leadership understood that workers’ rights and human rights were inseparable.” Then-union president Jerry Wurf, he added, tempered his zeal for organizing with compassion.</p>
<p>When the big psychiatric hospitals, such as New York’s Creedmoor, were being decertified, he did not argue to keep them all open. Instead, he fought to ensure that de-institutionalized mental health patients received adequate community and home care. Because he knew these hospitals were hellholes, he was willing to sacrifice some union jobs for the good of people with mental illnesses. But Wurf lost that battle. The national recession of the 1970s intervened, and a generation of patients were turned out in the streets without proper support. These are precisely the people who now fill our nation’s jails and prisons.</p>
<p>Today, in contrast, AFSCME fights to keep these prisons open even when no jobs appear to be at stake <a href="#correction" type="external">*</a>. All of Tamms’ union employees were guaranteed placement in other facilities, and no positions were lost due to the closure. But the union argued that conditions at Tamms—widely denounced as cruel, inhumane, and ineffective—were necessary for safety and security, and that the prison was needed to keep jobs in southern Illinois. Tamms Year Ten countered with <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/05/tamms-super-max-closure-r_n_1404041.html" type="external">protests</a> where prisoners’ relatives hoisted signs bearing slogans like “Torture Is a Crime—Not a Career” and “My Son Is Not a Paycheck.”</p>
<p>AFSCME&#160;is just one of four large national unions—among them Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the Teamsters—representing prison workers. And corrections officers in a number of states and even some local jail systems have their own powerful unions.</p>
<p>With public-sector unions of all stripes under attack, there is an inclination to protect members at all costs. In some areas, this has led correctional-workers unions to join with prison reformers. They share concerns about overcrowding and understaffing, for example. In the case of Brown v. Plata, wherein the US Supreme Court ordered California to reduce overcrowding in its prisons, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) described “an overcrowded, inadequately staffed system that cannot deliver adequate medical care in spite of the best efforts of prison employees.” As one corrections officer explained at trial, there are “way too many inmates in that small of a space to do the job.”</p>
<p>Naturally, prison reformers and unions both oppose privatization. The unions have largely kept private prison companies at bay in big states such as California and New York, and recently even managed to keep them out of Florida. “Privatizing prisons for profit is immoral,” says AFGE’s Dale Deshotel, who wrangles prison-union locals on behalf of the national union. “If you break the law then state or government should handle that function.” Private prisons, he continues, are “a moneymaking project. In private prisons there is no programming for rehabilitation, for education.” Adds SEIU spokeswoman Kawana Lloyd: “The for-profit companies reduce safety, bring down standards, and have corrupt relationships with politicians.”</p>
<p>Yet whether prisons are public or private, preserving jobs generally means locking away as many people as possible for as long as possible—contrary to the goal of reducing mass incarceration. California’s prison guards union, for example, was one of the primary sponsors of the proposition that brought about Three Strikes in the 1990s. In the aughts, the union opposed parole reform and vigorously campaigned to defeat politicians it regarded as soft on crime. It has also supported the death penalty, despite the <a href="" type="internal">staggering cost</a> to state taxpayers.</p>
<p>All of this fueled the CCPOA’s rapid expansion: Membership more than sextupled between 1982 and 2011 (from roughly 5,000 to 31,000 members) and its annual budget ballooned from roughly $500,000 in the early ’80s to more than <a href="http://www.policynook.com/index/2012/9/25/california-prison-guard-union-the-toughest-beast-in-the-stat.html" type="external">$23 million today</a>. The earlier number was provided by Joshua Page, a University of Minnesota professor and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Toughest-Beat-Punishment-California/dp/0195384059" type="external">The Toughest Beat</a>. Page, who has <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-4580.2012.00399.x/abstract?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+on+23+February+from+10%3A00-12%3A00+BST+%2805%3A00-07%3A00+EDT%29+for+essential+maintenance" type="external">written extensively</a> about the state prison guards’ union, says the CCPOA seems to be softening some of its positions of late, but it remains a potent political force in California, which has America’s largest prison population. (The $23 million figure is a conservative calculation from the policy group <a href="http://www.cacs.org/" type="external">California Common Sense</a>; the CCPOA would not provide a current budget figure.)</p>
<p>As strapped states and localities look to their corrections budgets for savings, unions have fought proposed facility closures and the establishment of programs that would divert offenders into treatment and other lockup alternatives. They have frequently opposed reforms that could affect their members’ autonomy, including oversight programs designed to curb abuses by prison employees.</p>
<p>Several unions have attempted to counter the growing tide of reformers who condemn <a href="" type="internal">long-term solitary confinement</a> as not only torturous but also counterproductive to prison safety. In fact, states that have <a href="http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/12-6-19EppsTestimony.pdf" type="external">dramatically reduced their use</a> of isolated confinement have seen prison violence drop. Yet in Illinois, AFSCME continues to claim that closing the Tamms has put its members’ lives in danger. And in New York City, the powerful Correction Officers Benevolent Association pushed hard for the construction of nearly 1,000 new solitary-confinement cells on Rikers Island, blaming a rise in prison violence on a supposed shortage of isolation beds.</p>
<p>In Maine, state corrections commissioner Joseph Ponte, who has gained a reputation for cutting back on the use of solitary at Maine State Prison, recently fired the union-backed, old-school warden Patricia Barnhart and replaced her with a reformer, Roy Bouffard. “I’m definitely going to soften” the prison, Bouffard <a href="http://portland.thephoenix.com/news/150601-why-the-prison-warden-got-fired/" type="external">told the Portland Phoenix</a>.</p>
<p>Officially, most of the national unions say they have little interest in solitary confinement. “We have not taken a position nationally,” says Chris Fleming, a DC spokesman for AFSCME. Neither has the SEIU or the Teamsters, according to their spokespeople.</p>
<p>Deshotel, the spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 24,000 federal prison employees, had more to say about it. “In many cases I wish we had the space for solitary confinement,” he told us in a phone interview. “Some of them deserve to be alone. They are very dangerous. In fact, in some of our prisons we’ve got to keep them separated because of the possibility they would hurt one another or create problems for us. I do know people should be treated with dignity. However, a person in prison for violent acts and cannot control himself or herself, there are times they need to be isolated.”</p>
<p>He continued: “It does have an effect on a human being. We are not built that way, created that way, to live in isolation. However in a prison setting where an individual refuses to program or cooperate, if we had the opportunity, we would use it much more. But we are so overcrowded that our hands are tied. We struggle to find the empty space to isolate some of these people, people who can’t function we cannot tolerate. And we will not tolerate it. That’s different from putting someone in a room for no real reason.”</p>
<p>In local fights over solitary, labor unions have landed squarely in favor of maintaining, if not expanding, its use. And in Illinois, AFSCME has yet to give up its PR campaign against the closure of Tamms <a href="#correction" type="external">*</a>. The union recently <a href="http://www.afscme31.org/news/prison-violence-spikes-after-closures" type="external">sought to link the closing</a> to assaults on corrections officers at other state prisons—even though none of the assailants had come from Tamms.</p>
<p>Read <a href="http://www.afscme.org/blog/mother-jones-hit-job-on-unions-with-friends-like-these" type="external">a response to this article</a> from AFSCME’s Council 31.</p>
<p>*Correction: Due to errors introduced during the editing process, an earlier version of this story stated that, with no jobs at stake, AFSCME was apparently fighting Tamms’ closure to prevent its members from having to relocate. The union has <a href="http://www.afscme31.org/news/prison-violence-spikes-after-closures" type="external">cited relocation as a concern</a>, but the safety of its members was the primary issue. The story also mistakenly said that Tamms would reopen as a federal supermax; it was <a href="" type="internal">Thomson Correctional Center</a>, another state prison, that was acquired by the feds.</p>
<p /> | Big Labor’s Lock ‘Em Up Mentality | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/biggest-obstacle-prison-reform-labor-unions/ | 2013-02-22 | 4 |
<p>Stocks have been very mixed with large cap stocks like Wal-Mart ( <a href="" type="internal">WMT</a>), Procter &amp; Gamble ( <a href="" type="internal">PG</a>) and Coca Cola ( <a href="" type="internal">KO</a>) coming off highs. Oil prices are still rising and this also concerns us for the long-term health of the markets.</p>
<p>The ever-volatile, September-to-October period is here and any talk of an attack on Syria seems to roil markets as well. We are waiting to see what happens if an attack becomes a reality.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The stock market seems to be in some sort of correction while some stocks like Facebook ( <a href="" type="internal">FB</a>), Yelp ( <a href="" type="internal">YELP</a>), LinkedIn ( <a href="" type="internal">LNKD</a>) and Tesla (( <a href="" type="internal">TSLA</a>)) continue to hit all time highs.</p>
<p>Being that the potential attack Syria is being discussed by world leaders, we do not have much to write other than we are waiting to see what unfolds.</p>
<p>The investments discussed are held in client accounts as of August 31, 2013. These investments may or may not be currently held in client accounts. The reader should not assume that any investments identified were or will be profitable or that any investment recommendations or investment decisions we make in the future will be profitable.</p>
<p>The post <a href="http://investing.covestor.com/2013/09/awaiting-more-clarity-on-syria-before-big-portfolio-moves" type="external">Awaiting more clarity on Syria before big portfolio moves Opens a New Window.</a> appeared first on <a href="http://investing.covestor.com" type="external">Smarter Investing Opens a New Window.</a>Covestor Ltd. is a registered investment advisor. Covestor licenses investment strategies from its Model Managers to establish investment models. The commentary here is provided as general and impersonal information and should not be construed as recommendations or advice. Information from Model Managers and third-party sources deemed to be reliable but not guaranteed. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Transaction histories for Covestor models available upon request. Additional important disclosures available at http://site.covestor.com/help/disclosures.</p> | Awaiting more clarity on Syria before big portfolio moves | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2013/09/12/awaiting-more-clarity-on-syria-before-big-portfolio-moves.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
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<p>An analysis by The Associated Press found that 602 unaccompanied minors from mostly Central American countries have been placed with a parent or sponsor in the state.</p>
<p>The Border Patrol apprehended well over 100,000 youths traveling without a parent between October 2013 and February 2016.</p>
<p>The arrivals gained attention in the summer of 2014 as the Border Patrol in Texas, where many of the youths arrived, ran out of resources to process them, sending some to Arizona for a temporary stay.</p>
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<p>The scene in Oracle, Arizona, just north of Tucson, was tense in the July 2014 as the government announced that a number of youths who had arrived in United States on their own would be placed at an Arizona school temporarily.</p>
<p>Protesters rallied with signs and clashed with counter-protesters, at times getting into physical altercations. The protesters forcibly stopped a school bus full of local children from the YMCA after mistaking it for a bus carrying the immigrants.</p>
<p>Former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce, known as the architect of the strict immigration law SB1070, was one of the protesters in Oracle. He says the government didn't do enough to stop the influx of migrant children.</p>
<p>"This administration is in the business of breaking the law and they have become the coyotes of brining in illegal children and adults," Pearce said, adding that he didn't believe the youths actually came on their own but were accompanied by adults or smugglers.</p>
<p>Many of the immigrants who have arrived in the past few years say they are fleeing gang violence and extreme poverty in places like El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Pearce says he feels for them, but that entering the country illegally is not the solution.</p>
<p>He says the cost to keep a child enrolled in school in Arizona is too high.</p>
<p>"There's a huge cost and Americans pay the price," Pearce said</p>
<p>From October 2013 through February 2016, government has released nearly 104,000 of the 132,000 apprehended minors to sponsors or relatives while their immigration cases play out in court.</p>
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<p>Most of the youths were released to Texas, California, Florida, New York and Maryland. The number of unaccompanied minors released in Arizona accounts for about half of a percent of those released nationwide.</p>
<p>Released minors also account for .05 percent of public school students in Arizona.</p>
<p>Cyndi Tercero, the dropout prevention coordinator for Phoenix Union High School District, says the district made it a point to let all of its 16 schools know that they were required to facilitate enrollment even if a student was lacking typically necessary documentation such as prior school records. The district has 27,000 students and is one of the largest high school districts in the country.</p>
<p>"We worked really hard to make sure our staff was not creating barriers," Tercero said.</p>
<p>Tercero said schools only know about a student's immigration status if a parent or guardian volunteers the information. The district otherwise doesn't track that.</p>
<p>Tercero said enrolling many of the unaccompanied minors who have been arriving in the past few years has posed challenges as many of them don't have birth certificates or prior school records.</p>
<p>Schools have struggled with figuring out which grades to place some immigrant youths in.</p>
<p>"It's been a little bit of trial and error," she said.</p> | Tiny fraction of migrant youths are in Arizona | false | https://abqjournal.com/766691/tiny-fraction-of-migrant-youths-are-in-arizona.html | 2 |
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<p>CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin on Monday proposed tighter regulations for chemical storage facilities after a spill contaminated the water supply for 300,000 people.</p>
<p>Tomblin, the Democratic governor, urged passage of a chemical storage regulatory program. The bill aims to address shortcomings that allowed 7,500 gallons of coal-cleaning chemicals to seep into the Elk River on Jan. 9. Freedom Industries, which owned the plant that leaked the chemicals, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday.</p>
<p>Freedom Industries’ safety flaws, including a last-resort containment wall filled with cracks, went largely undetected because, as a facility that neither manufactured chemicals, produced emissions or stored chemicals underground, it was not subject to environmental regulations, state Department of Environmental Protection officials have said. The chemical that spilled also wasn’t deemed hazardous enough for additional regulation.</p>
<p>The material flowed 1.5 miles downstream and made it into West Virginia American Water Co.’s water supply.</p>
<p>Below-ground tanks storing chemicals face environmental regulations, but ones above the surface fall into a regulatory loophole, officials have said.</p>
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<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Spill prompts bill to tighten rules on chemical storage | false | https://abqjournal.com/340252/spill-prompts-bill-to-tighten-rules-on-chemical-storage.html | 2 |
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<p>BONN, Germany — German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a veteran of global efforts to curb climate change, disappointed environmental campaigners Wednesday by refusing to lay down a deadline for ending her country’s use of coal.</p>
<p>Green groups and developing countries had called on Merkel to use global climate talks in Bonn, Germany, this week to set a date for her country to phase out coal-fired power plants — as she has previously done with nuclear energy.</p>
<p>Merkel, who is sometimes referred to as the “climate chancellor” for her long-standing efforts to combat global warming, acknowledged that Germany’s practice of burning coal to generate electricity is one reason it’s not on track to cut its carbon emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.</p>
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<p>“Now, at the end of 2017, we know that we’re still missing a big chunk,” Merkel said.</p>
<p>Speaking to leaders and ministers from around the world, Merkel said there will be “hard discussions” on the issue in her upcoming talks with the Green party and the pro-business Free Democrats on forming a new government.</p>
<p>Germany generates about 40 percent of its electricity from coal, including the light brown variety called lignite that’s considered to be among the most heavily polluting fossil fuels.</p>
<p>“Coal, especially lignite, must contribute a significant part to achieving these goals,” Merkel said. “But what exactly that will be is something we will discuss very precisely in the coming days.”</p>
<p>Speaking immediately after her, French President Emmanuel Macron said his country was committed to ending the use of coal by 2021. The task is made a lot easier for France by the fact that the country hardly has any coal-fired plants and still gets most of its electricity from nuclear power.</p>
<p>Several other countries, including Britain, Canada and Italy have also announced they will stop using coal in the coming years.</p>
<p>Macron, who has styled himself as a climate champion since being elected earlier this year, said Europe should fill the gap in funding for the U.N.’s scientific expert panel on climate change left by the U.S. decision to hold back its contribution.</p>
<p>The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has said it will cut funding for the panel, known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which provides key guidance on global warming to governments around the world.</p>
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<p>The talks in Bonn have largely centered on hammering out the precise rules for implementing the Paris climate accord. The 2015 agreement was seen as a political landmark because countries set a firm target for countries to try to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).</p>
<p>Experts say achieving that goal has been made harder by Trump’s rejection of the Paris accord and threat to withdraw in 2020 unless it is renegotiated.</p>
<p>Merkel commended an alliance of U.S. states, cities and businesses calling itself “America’s Pledge” that has committed to keep working on reducing emissions even without Washington’s support.</p>
<p>She also sought to assure poor countries that a $100 billion fund intended to help them respond to climate change will be filled despite Trump’s threat to withhold U.S. federal contributions.</p>
<p>Still, her refusal to commit on coal drew criticism from campaigners in Bonn.</p>
<p>“Angela Merkel has missed her chance to show her leadership qualities on climate change,” said Mohamed Adow of the charity Christian Aid. “A U.N. climate summit on home soil was the perfect place to bury coal and set the date that Germany would phase out the dirtiest fossil fuel.”</p>
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<p>Follow Frank Jordans on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter</a></p> | Germany’s Merkel dodges coal deadline at climate talks | false | https://abqjournal.com/1092997/merkel-to-address-climate-talks-amid-calls-for-coal-exit.html | 2017-11-15 | 2 |
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Washington Free Beacon Staff</a>August 26, 2014 1:00 pm</p>
<p>Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was recently visited by America’s oldest living veteran, Lucy Coffey.</p>
<p>Coffey at 108-years old is a true American hero having earned two bronze stars.</p>
<p>Biden welcomed Coffey to the White House&#160;by shamelessly flirting, yelling, and telling awkward jokes to her.</p>
<p>Once again, Biden showcased&#160;why he’s considered the <a href="" type="internal">frontrunner</a> for the 2016 Democratic nomination.</p>
<p>(h/t <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-joe-biden-flirt-with-a-108-year-old-veteran-2014-8" type="external">BI</a>)</p> | Joe Biden Creeps on 108-Year-Old Veteran | true | http://freebeacon.com/politics/joe-biden-creeps-on-108-year-old-veteran/ | 2014-08-26 | 0 |
<p>The BBC <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38183906" type="external">reports</a>:</p>
<p>Yahya Jammeh, The Gambia’s authoritarian president of 22 years, has suffered a surprise defeat in the country’s presidential elections. He will be replaced by property developer Adama Barrow, who won more than 45% of the vote. After his win, Mr Barrow hailed a “new Gambia”. Mr Jammeh, who came to power in a coup in 1994, has not yet spoken publicly.</p>
<p>The West African state has not had a smooth transfer of power since independence from Britain in 1965. Electoral commission chief Alieu Momar Njie appealed for calm as the country entered uncharted waters.</p>
<p>“I am very, very, very happy. I’m excited that we won this election and from now hope starts,” Mr Barrow told the BBC’s Umaru Fofana, adding that he was disappointed not to have won by a larger margin.</p>
<p>Mr Barrow told the BBC that President Jammeh had accepted his defeat and congratulated him. President Jammeh also instructed his successor to arrange a time to meet and organise the transition process. Mr Jammeh, a devout Muslim, had once said he would rule for “one billion years” if “Allah willed it”.</p>
<p>Human rights groups have accused Mr Jammeh, who has in the past claimed he can cure AIDS and infertility, of repression and abuses of the media, the opposition and gay people. In 2014, he called homosexuals “vermin” and said the government would deal with them as it would malaria-carrying mosquitoes.</p>
<p>In November 2014, Jammeh made homosexuality punishable by <a href="" type="internal">life in prison</a>. The following month the US <a href="" type="internal">dropped Gambia</a> from an African free trade agreement in part over Jammeh’s anti-LGBT crackdown. Several months later Jammeh issued a <a href="" type="internal">public promise</a> to “slit the throats” of all homosexuals, prompting a <a href="" type="internal">denouncement</a> from UN national security advisor Susan Rice. It’s unknown if life for Gambia’s LGBT community will improve under the new president.</p> | GAMBIA: Dictator Who Vowed To “Slit The Throats” Of All Homosexuals Is Defeated In Democratic Election | true | http://joemygod.com/2016/12/03/gambia-dictator-who-vowed-to-slit-the-throats-of-all-homosexuals-defeated-in-democratic-election/ | 2016-12-03 | 4 |
<p>GX_GR110</p>
<p>Springfield, IL Tue, Aug 01, 2017 USDA-IL Dept of Ag Market News</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Chicago Terminal Grain Report</p>
<p>To Arrive Truck and Rail Bids for Grain Delivered to Chicago. The</p>
<p>following quotations represent Bids ($/ bu) from Terminal Elevators,</p>
<p>Processors, Mills, and Merchandisers after 1:30 p.m. today.</p>
<p>Grain Bids Delivery Change Basis Change</p>
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<p>SRW Wheat 4.3125-4.5125 30 Days DN 25.25-DN 8.25 -30U to -10U DN 12-UP 5</p>
<p>Soybeans 9.3975-9.4375 Spot DN 22.75-DN 30.75 -32X to -28X No Comp</p>
<p>Soybeans 9.3975-9.4375 15-30 Days DN 22.75-DN 30.75 -32X to -28X No Comp</p>
<p>Terminal Elevator Bids</p>
<p>Corn 3.2750-3.4250 Spot DN 8.25 -35U to -20U UNCH</p>
<p>Corn 3.2750-3.4250 15-30 Days DN 8.25 -35U to -20U UNCH</p>
<p>Processor Bids</p>
<p>Corn 3.4750-3.5250 Spot DN 8.25 -15U to -10U UNCH</p>
<p>Corn 3.4750-3.5250 15-30 Days DN 8.25 -15U to -10U UNCH</p>
<p>Changes are cents per bushel. Spot = up to 15 days</p>
<p>Soybeans = US 1 Yellow; Corn = US 2 Yellow</p>
<p>Chicago Board of Trade month symbols: F January, G February, H March, J</p>
<p>April,</p>
<p>K May, M June, N July, Q August, U September, V October, X November, Z</p>
<p>December</p>
<p>-------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
<p>--------</p>
<p>Monthly Prices for: July 2017</p>
<p>SRW Wheat 4.9603</p>
<p>Processor Corn (Spot) 3.6953</p>
<p>Terminal Corn (Spot) 3.5448</p>
<p>Soybeans (Spot) 9.6775</p>
<p>Source: USDA-IL Dept of Ag Market News Service, Springfield, IL</p>
<p>David Humphreys 217-782-4925 [email protected]</p>
<p>In state only toll free 888-458-4787</p>
<p>www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/gx_gr110.txt</p>
<p>www.ams.usda.gov/LPSMarketNewsPage</p>
<p>1435C dh</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 01, 2017 15:55 ET (19:55 GMT)</p> | USDA Chicago Terminal Grain - Aug 1 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/01/usda-chicago-terminal-grain-aug-1.html | 2017-08-01 | 0 |
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