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<p>PITTSBORO, N.C. (ABP) — From Ontario, Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta and dozens of towns and cities between people pulled into the dusty pasture in rural central North Carolina to see if four days chasing the wild goose in community with others could crack barriers and deepen their spiritual lives.</p>
<p>The Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. It is also the adopted name of a young organization and of the first event it sponsored June 23-26 that drew some 1,500 to Shakori Hills near Pittsboro, N.C. The Wild Goose Festival is fashioned after the Green Belt festivals in England that have drawn crowds for 37 years.</p>
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<p>Far from being a Woodstock with Christian music, the Wild Goose Festival drew an eclectic crowd of various faiths, primarily Christian, who ranged in age from toddlers to totterers. While they were diverse, their common accouterments were sandals, water bottles, hats and personal collapsible chairs.</p>
<p>&#160;“We wanted to create a gathering to promote justice, spirituality and art, with the hope to nurture a community of people who want to live out a more just and creative life,” said Mike Morrell, publicity director for Wild Goose.</p>
<p>Stages and tents dotted the 72-acre art festival and concert venue, shading big name authors and musicians. Special interest venders ringed staging areas, knowing they found a receptive crowd.</p>
<p>Social justice and the arrest of various evils such as torture, war, bad water and gender discrimination found articulate voice from volunteers who engaged anyone who would catch their eye.</p>
<p>Engaging people was easy. Beneath the shade of every tree and tent spontaneous conversations ignited with a simple look or comment about the words of the latest speaker or the song of the latest singer.</p>
<p>Families tossed a softball during breaks and mingled easily among friends they’d yet to meet. In one tent folks hoisted mugs and praise in the manner of Martin Luther during a “beer and hymns” hour.</p>
<p>The four-day international lineup would be a draw wherever they might gather. Just a sampling: Tony and Bart Campolo, Michael Hardin, Phyllis Tickle, Steve Lawson, Tom Prasada, Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren, Lynn Hybels, Margot Starbuck, Jim Wallis, Abdullah Antepli, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Shane Claiborne, Ed Dobson, Tom Sine, Paul Knitter, Frank Schaeffer and Nancy Hastings Sehested.</p>
<p>Musicians such as Jennifer Knapp, The Psalters, Derek Webb and Billy Jonas kept thoughtful, fun and worshipful music strains seeping through the oaks and riding the breezes almost constantly from several venues.</p>
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<p>Contributors were names familiar to those who just read a newspaper or watch the evening news and many more familiar to more narrowly defined niches in the well-read crowd. All waived their appearance fees.</p>
<p>To a friendly audience, Brian McLaren explained how he’s dealt with criticism of his work. He said he’s just glad it came when he was mature enough to handle it.</p>
<p>“The Christian environment is such an unsafe place that people fear to speak their mind,” he said. “It shouldn’t be such a cruel and terrifying place.”</p>
<p>He’s realized that often his critics don’t even understand what he’s saying and criticism comes from “people paid to be guard dogs. When a stranger is at the gate, they’re to bark.”</p>
<p>Jim Wallis spoke of the “idolatry of politics” and Frank Schaeffer of the calamity of wealth concentration in the hands of a few. In the United States, he said, just one 10th of 1 percent of persons control 25 percent of the wealth.</p>
<p>Wallis said the problem with current politics is that it offers no solutions. Big problems have easy solutions, he said. To fix global poverty, “invest in women and girls.” To fix domestic poverty, “fix the scandal of education.” To fix the deficit “treat the budget as a moral document.”</p>
<p>Organizers would say there was neither “performer” nor “audience.” Everyone was either a “contributor” or a “participant,” according to Garreth Higgins, a native of Northern Ireland who is executive director of Wild Goose.</p>
<p>The Wild Goose board was formed just two years ago, although the idea has been percolating much longer. Higgins, who lives in Durham, N.C., was hired in March 2010. Wild Goose is chartered in Kansas City, basically because that’s where board chair Mike King lives. He and Morrell are members of an Alliance of Baptists and United Church of Christ church start known as Trinity’s Place.</p>
<p>“The Spirit of God flows, and we just stepped into the flow,” Higgins said.</p>
<p>The outdoor venue, rather than a conference center or hotel, provides a reminder not to “take ourselves too seriously,” he said. Everyone is “sweating together,” sharing food and portable toilets. Many camped in tents on the grounds for three nights.</p>
<p>The lone commonality among participants is likely their universal search for a spiritual reality more creative and gripping than what they’ve found in a local congregation.</p>
<p>“Religious institutions historically have been bad in modeling creativity,” Higgins said, while acknowledging exceptions such as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and ancient sculpture and cathedrals. “Too much about the way religion is done is imposing rules.</p>
<p>“I want this space to tap into the source of inexhaustible love, which is God,” Higgins said. “I want people to go through the next year full of love and inspiration – to love ourselves better and others more.”</p>
<p>Morrell said one goal of Wild Goose is to “create a reconciling space by way of Jesus.”</p>
<p>“Our goal is not to convince anyone of anything,” he said. “But if we all have dignity the world will be a better place.”</p>
<p>Norman Jameson is reporting and coordinating special projects for ABP on an interim basis and is a contributing writer for the Religious Herald.</p> | Progressive Christians flock to Wild Goose festival | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/progressivechristiansflocktowildgoosefestival/ | 3 |
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<p>The massive Epsilon data breach should serve as a warning and wake-up call to small business owners.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>While mom-and-pops may not have the clientele of the Targets (NYSE:TGT) and Wal-Marts (NYSE:WMT) of the world, they are just as susceptible to having their information stolen. With smaller staffs and less resources, recovering from a security breach can be time consuming and expensive for small business owners.</p>
<p>Eduard Goodman, chief privacy officer at <a href="http://www.idt911.com" type="external">Identity Theft 911 Opens a New Window.</a>, said unlike major corporations, small business owners often do not realize they are at risk for a major breach. He also said many owners are unprepared with the proper protocols to handle the aftermath.</p>
<p>"Small business owners don't have an IT infrastructure, it's usually a glorified home network," Goodman said. "They also don't have someone dedicated full time to looking at the risk, and making sure the proper patches are in place. Using cheaper, off-the-shelf solutions are just not as robust in a business setting."</p>
<p>Small business owners are often focused on more tangible risks, like disasters or robberies, Goodman said, overlooking the risk that can be right in their building. The first way to protect your business is by establishing some guidelines as to who can access what information, he said.</p>
<p>"In a small business, people wear multiple hats. But it may not be reasonable to have your receptionist access all of the major data, like accounting, payroll, client or patient information," he said. "Small businesses worry about acts of God, or their building burning down, but they don't think about acts of hacker or a bad move by an employee."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The cost of a data breach for a small company can be $200 and up, per lost record, on the higher end of the price spectrum, according to Goodman. Oftentimes, small businesses need to send a letter to every person whose information was compromised, which includes having a lawyer look at it first, which can cost between $500 and $1,000. Send the letter out can cost between $1 and $2 per letter. If customers’ <a href="" type="internal">Social Security</a> numbers are exposed, the cost is even higher:&#160; credit monitoring has to be offered, which&#160; can cost between $50,000 and $100,000 per person, but typically between 5% and 40% actually take the bait, he said.</p>
<p>And even after all of that, your reputation may still never be repaired.</p>
<p>So much time goes into establishing a loyal clientele, Goodman said, and that trust can be broken within seconds.</p>
<p>Small business owners can mitigate this risk upfront, before getting into hot water with hackers.&#160; Here are Goodman's tips for protecting your business:</p>
<p>No. 1: Steer clear of WiFi. "It's not inherently secure," according to Goodman. "If large corporations can't secure them properly, small businesses can't use it." If you do choose to use WiFi, make sure your using the most up-to-date security protections, and don't access company files from WiFi hotspots, they may not be protected.</p>
<p>No. 2: Keep your software updated. This goes for antivirus, malware and spyware, Goodman said. While keeping everything up to date may be an added cost, it's worth it. "The new versions are better secured from a network connection," he said.</p>
<p>No. 3: Only take the information you need. If you run a local deli, for example, there is no need to ask customers for their Social Security number, Goodman said. That just puts your business at greater risk and is an extra burden on your&#160;own security as an owner.</p>
<p>No. 4: Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt. If you need sensitive information from your customers, make sure you are encrypting the data. This may sound high tech, which is why many small business owners shy away from doing it, but Goodman says it can easily be done by choosing the "password encrypt" option on programs like Excel and <a href="" type="internal">Microsoft</a> Word. "This is so important because it stops other people from accessing your information. It can keep you, and these people, from experiencing fraud."</p> | Why Small Businesses are an Easy Target for Hackers | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/04/18/small-businesses-easy-target-hackers.html | 2016-03-23 | 0 |
<p>I don’t want to ruin your day or anything, but here’s something terrifying you’ve probably never thought about: scientists&#160;barely know anything about the long-term effects of tampons on our health. Did&#160;you know that?&#160;I didn’t know that! You’re putting a foreign object inside yourself that was&#160;only&#160;sort of&#160;studied for safety&#160;risks, and I’m sorry to have told you that, because now you’ll have to join me in what will surely become a period paranoia.</p>
<p>Tampons approved by the FDA have only been tested by the manufacturers who hope to sell them and thus have motive to be less than thorough in their assessment. No independent tests from third-party&#160;researchers&#160;are required for tampons to make it onto drugstore shelves and into the hands of millions of women. Other feminine products like wipes and <a href="" type="internal">douches</a>&#160;have been approved without any testing at all. New York Representative Carolyn Maloney hopes to change that&#160;with the&#160; <a href="http://maloney.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/maloney-bill-would-study-health-effects-and-safety-of-feminine-hygiene" type="external">Robin Danielson Feminine Hygiene Product Safety Act</a> (named after a woman who died from TSS in 1998), which would require the National Institutes of Health to conduct independent research on whether the additives&#160;in tampons are dangerous over years of use. Maloney is reintroducing the bill after first&#160;bringing before congress&#160;in 1997. It’s been shot down a whopping nine times since then, because apparently all those dudes in Congress, not having ladyparts&#160;and what have you, just aren’t too concerned about the health of the other fifty percent of the population.</p>
<p>The FDA has shared that there are small (sometimes barely detectable) amounts of dioxins in tampons, and that the amount is so minuscule that it doesn’t pose a risk to health — keep in mind, this data is coming from the tampon manufacturers themselves, who are pretty interested in making you want to buy&#160;said tampons. The companies are&#160;required by the FDA to continue to monitor dioxin levels.&#160;So, even if these dioxins aren’t harmful after&#160;using just one tampon,&#160;is there any need to worry about the fact that we’re exposed to these&#160;chemicals repeatedly throughout our lives, every single time we use a tampon? And what about other additives found in tampons? We just don’t know! Maloney wrote in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/20/tampon-safety-research-legislation" type="external">a recent op-ed</a> that women were mostly excluded from medical research until the 1980s, even when it came to studying diseases that largely impact women, like breast cancer. Women and minorities weren’t required to be represented in clinical studies until as recently as 1993, so the void of just how much we don’t know about female health runs pretty deep.</p>
<p>Bummer that we can’t just opt out of getting our periods&#160;so we wouldn’t have a dire need for tampons or pads until we’re sure the products are safe! Alas, we need those suckers every single month, and for all we know, we could be slowly poisoning ourselves. This is pretty scary stuff, and while the odds may seem&#160;low that tampons could turn out to be&#160;extremely dangerous, it seems like a pretty precarious gamble to take, doesn’t it? Considering&#160;what a hefty&#160;percentage of the world population uses them, and the fact that these very same people are giving birth to the world’s children, who could in turn&#160;also be impacted by whatever chemicals harmed their mothers’ bodies, I’m unclear on why wouldn’t we want to do the research to find out&#160;for&#160;sure&#160;that no&#160;risk is posed. Come on, Congress! Do womankind&#160;a solid.</p>
<p>[ <a href="http://www.glamour.com/inspired/blogs/the-conversation/2015/04/tampon-safety-bill" type="external">Glamour</a>]</p>
<p>[ <a href="http://maloney.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/maloney-bill-would-study-health-effects-and-safety-of-feminine-hygiene" type="external">US House of Representatives</a>]</p>
<p>[Image via <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-230430403/stock-photo-some-tampons-menstruatio-n.html?src=y5qCdLTa8JYe1HKW5E_G2A-1-53" type="external">Shutterstock</a>]</p> | Tampons Could Be Killing Us Softly At This Very Moment | true | http://thefrisky.com/2015-04-23/tampons-could-be-killing-us-softly-at-this-very-moment/?utm_source%3Dsc-fb%26utm_medium%3Dref%26utm_campaign%3Dtampons | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>Nearly two decades before George W. Bush appointed Henry Kissinger to lead the 9/11 commission — a post from which he <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/kissinger.resigns/" type="external">resigned</a> following complaints about his conflicts of interest — the former secretary of state chaired another group investigating important national security issues: <a href="https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=zivXhyJuWqkC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=Report+of+the+National+Bipartisan+Commission+on+Central+America&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjk7-S4_fHTAhVE0FQKHUa1DqIQ6AEIJTAA" type="external">The National Bipartisan Commission on Central America</a>.</p>
<p>Formed in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan, the twelve-member gang issued its report in early 1984 on the “profound crisis” gripping the neighboring region, where right-wing governments and paramilitaries were waging war on leftist movements, indigenous people, and anyone else in their way.</p>
<p>Kissinger certainly possessed the qualifications to spearhead this operation, which Foreign Affairs <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1984-03-01/report-presidents-national-bipartisan-commission-central-america" type="external">described</a> as “attempt[ing] to create a bipartisan consensus for what is basically current Administration policy toward Central America — only more so.”</p>
<p>Never one to pass up a good war with the old red menace, Kissinger presumably welcomed the opportunity since the dirty war in Argentina — which he had personally <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/01/new-memo-kissinger-gave-green-light-argentina-dirty-war" type="external">green-lit</a> — had just concluded, leaving tens of thousands of victims in its wake.</p>
<p>In their lengthy report, the commission members professed a moral obligation to help Central America wrest itself from its dire circumstances. But they based their recommendations on something besides altruism. While the commissioners acknowledged that, in many cases, legitimate and homegrown grievances — colonial and more recent forms of oppression, widespread denial of basic rights, and extreme socioeconomic disparity — fueled popular support for leftist insurgencies, the real threat came from outside: the Soviet-Cuban axis was “seek[ing] expansion of influence through exploitation of misery.”</p>
<p>The report paints the “hostile powers” and “aggressive external forces” infiltrating the hemisphere as an existential danger. “Outside forces have intervened to exacerbate the area’s troubles.” “Cuba and the Soviet Union are investing heavily in efforts to expand their footholds.” “The intrusion of aggressive outside powers .&#160;.&#160;. is a serious threat to the United States.” “The crisis is on our doorstep.”</p>
<p>Never mind that neither Cuba nor the Soviet Union <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1985-03-05/news/mn-12633_1_harbor-mining" type="external">mined Nicaragua’s harbors</a> — the United States did that in 1983, following the Sandinista revolution — or that Cuba is already located not only within the hemisphere in question but also within Latin America. Anyway, the Soviets probably put it there.</p>
<p>Predictably, the report reveals Kissinger’s commitment to Washington’s golden rule: the United States is exempt from the category of foreign meddler, even when we meddle in foreign places. It’s our world, after all.</p>
<p>The report delivers snippets of history so haphazardly that readers cannot connect the dots. Its authors present every piece of evidence to bolster the claim that THE COMMUNISTS ARE COMING.</p>
<p>For example, on page twenty-five, the authors note, “In the early years, the major Cuban effort to export the revolution to Central America occurred in Guatemala. There, [Fidel] Castro gave support to an armed insurgency that began in 1960.” But this rebellion erupted six years after a certain key moment, which the commissioners happened to mention just four pages earlier: “In Guatemala, after the United States helped bring about the fall of the [Jacobo] Arbenz government in 1954, politics became more divisive, violent and polarized than in the neighboring states.”</p>
<p>The authors refrain from explicitly linking these two events, however, essentially absolving the United States of its role in destabilizing the nation and presenting Cuba as the primary cause of the preceding two decades of violence, during which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/19/world/us-military-aid-for-guatemala-continuing-despite-official-curbs.html" type="external">US-backed</a> Guatemalan forces committed acts of <a href="http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/migrate/uploads/mos_en.pdf" type="external">genocide</a>, murdering or disappearing <a href="http://cja.org/where-we-work/guatemala/" type="external">more than two hundred thousand</a> people.</p>
<p>In circumstances like these, Kissinger’s special approach to history comes in handy. As historian Greg Grandin documents in his book <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627794497" type="external">Kissinger’s Shadow</a>, “[f]or Kissinger, the past was nothing but a series of meaningless incidents.”</p>
<p>If the past is meaningless, then we needn’t reflect on how US actions propelled Central America into its current crisis before intensifying our presence in the region. “[T]he people of Central America are sorely beset and urgently need our help,” and the fact that, “[o]f all US private investment in the developing world, 62 percent is in Latin America and the Caribbean” certainly has nothing to do with our renewed intervention.</p>
<p>The report acknowledges the infamous machinations of the United Fruit Company, corporate sponsor of the 1954 Guatemalan coup, but announces that, “[w]hatever the mistakes of the past, private U.S. investment in the region now plays a vital and constructive role.” With plunder thus converted into charity, the commission then unleashes a barrage of prescriptions for increased privatization and economic policies that “encourage private enterprise [and] . . . create favorable investment climates.” It calls for the establishment of a “privately-owned venture capital company for Central America,” chaired by someone “from the United States[,] with an Executive Secretary” from the region itself.</p>
<p>How, then, to forge this economic wonderland? At the end of the barrel of a gun, of course.</p>
<p>Among the more blatantly nefarious recommendations by the Kissinger Commission were those entailing an immediate increase in military assistance to El Salvador’s government — even as the report admits that said government was “aid[ing] and abet[ting] violence against its own people.”</p>
<p>If history means nothing to the commission, logic perhaps means even less. Consider the twists and turns in its argument for sending aid to the Salvadoran regime. The commissioners admit that “many of the excesses” committed by right-wing regimes in El Salvador and elsewhere “would be present even if there were no guerrilla war supported by outside forces,” acknowledging that much of the “violence has in fact nothing to do with insurgency at all,” being instead “designed to terrorize opponents, fight democracy, protect entrenched interests, and restore reactionary regimes.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, they argue that “the security situation must be improved dramatically” — that is, the insurgents must be defeated — if political, economic, and social “reforms are to be effective.” In other words, the left-wing rebels are preventing the folks commanding death squads and authorizing torture from implementing cheery democratic reforms. Therefore, the Salvadoran government should receive assistance tout suite, because reductions in aid “make more difficult the pursuit of an enlightened counter-insurgency effort.”</p>
<p>As Arthur Schlesinger Jr wrote in a 1984 New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/26/specials/schlesinger-kissinger.html" type="external">op-ed</a>, the commission’s idea that providing aid to the Salvadoran regime would encourage reforms failed to account for the fact that “regimes requiring military shields against their own people are under siege precisely because they don’t give a damn about poverty and exploitation.”</p>
<p>Of course the Kissinger Commission — itself a microcosm of the United States’ political establishment — doesn’t give a damn about economic inequality or abusive working conditions either. The report repeatedly denounces wide socioeconomic gaps and the “callous proposition that some groups will be ‘have-nots’ forever,” but that doesn’t change the fact that the economic system to which the United States pledges allegiance eternally condemns a majority of the world’s population to crippling poverty.</p>
<p>To be fair, the report did recommend making military assistance to El Salvador conditional on the regime’s effort to reign in death squads. On this point, however, not all commissioners agreed. In the final section, “Notes by individual Commissioners,” Kissinger and two colleagues felt it necessary “to record [their] strong view that neither the Congress nor the Executive Branch interpret conditionality in a manner that leads to a Marxist-Leninist victory in El Salvador.”</p>
<p>The report also advised increasing military assistance to Honduras — launchpad for the US-funded contra war on the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua and home to the <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-negroponte2-story.html" type="external">CIA-trained</a> death squad Battalion 316 — as well as to Guatemala, “under suitable conditions.” In the latter, <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1517&amp;context=yjil" type="external">indiscriminate slaughter</a> apparently qualified as “suitable.” As for the former, a Council on Hemispheric Affairs <a href="http://www.coha.org/washington-looks-to-cement-its-military-presence-in-central-america-by-emphasizing-its-ties-to-honduras/" type="external">report</a> describes the contra period thusly:</p>
<p>The alleged “communist threat” posed by the Sandinistas eventually cost 30,000 lives and caused economic ruin in both Nicaragua and Honduras, in what soon became a U.S.-induced civil war.</p>
<p>A 1998 Atlantic <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/12/dirty-hands/377364/" type="external">article</a> came accompanied by this summary: “The success of US policy in El Salvador — preventing a guerrilla victory — was based on 40,000 political murders.” A Central American crisis indeed.</p>
<p>Kissinger buffs can detect the chairman’s hand at work throughout the report, but this explanation of the United States’ alleged stakes in the conflict clearly displays his signature style: “[O]ur credibility worldwide is engaged. The triumph of hostile forces in what the Soviets call the ‘strategic rear’ of the United States would be read as a sign of US impotence.”</p>
<p>This rationale aligns with Kissinger’s pursuit of “power for power’s sake,” as Grandin puts it in <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627794497" type="external">Kissinger’s Shadow</a>. His approach to foreign policy sees war as necessary to “show that action is possible” and to thereby maintain American power; power, in turn, “create[s] American purpose.” Given how well the whole purpose-power arrangement worked in Vietnam and other locations on the receiving end of Kissinger-sanctioned escapades, impotence might have simplified matters.</p>
<p>Kissinger’s leading role in a host of punitive military and economic forays has made him a lightning rod for criticism, but the often-singular vilification of this former statesman can distract from the American political structure’s thoroughly putrid nature.</p>
<p>In the introductory letter to President Reagan that precedes the commission’s findings, Kissinger marvels that “[t]welve [commission] members, of both political parties and of widely disparate views . . . reached a degree of consensus at the end that I think few of us expected at the beginning.” Indeed, the report reflects few substantial disagreements aside from quibbles over how much the United States should worry about Salvadoran death squad activity.</p>
<p>While Kissinger and company may have professed surprise at this bipartisan harmony, there’s nothing shocking about their shared commitment to making the planet safe for capital. In its ongoing display of virility, the United States has continued to inflict bipartisan intervention on Central America, albeit in a slightly less obviously bloody fashion. <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html" type="external">Honduras 2009</a> comes to mind, when a Hillary Clinton–assisted coup d’état ushered in an era of right-wing repression and impunity, not to mention a skyrocketing homicide rate.</p>
<p>And it’s a safe bet that, long after Kissinger is gone, we’ll still be waging a worldwide war on impotence — deploying military might to preserve economic interests. After all, the past is present.</p> | Power for Capital’s Sake | true | https://jacobinmag.com/2017/05/henry-kissinger-commission-war-central-america-death-squads-imperialism | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
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<p>Mark DeMoss, the chair of Liberty’s executive committee, spoke to The Post in March to tactfully do just that. Criticizing Trump’s “politics of personal insult,” DeMoss said: “It’s not Christ-like behavior that Liberty has spent 40 years promoting with its students.”</p>
<p>But such criticism of Trump did not sit well with President Falwell. After making these statements, DeMoss was asked to resign from the executive committee, and he opted to leave both that post and the school’s board of trustees, abruptly ending his decades-long career of service to Liberty University.</p>
<p>In part because our leaders were not allowed to publicly criticize Trump’s words and actions, many of us, as students, felt the need to speak out. We want the world to know that Liberty University is a great place to go to school and that many in the student body find Trump’s character and values objectionable.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Last week, we began circulating a statement titled “Liberty United Against Trump” expressing our opposition to President Falwell’s endorsement and disassociating ourselves from Trump. In the days since, more than 2,000 Liberty students and faculty have signed the statement.</p>
<p>We deeply disagree with President Falwell’s enthusiastic support for a man such as Trump, but we understand that he is not alone among evangelical Christian leaders. Many of them believe that Christianity is under attack in the United States and that our nation’s moral fiber is weakening by the day. Additionally, many believe that a Hillary Clinton presidency would result in a liberal Supreme Court that could take away religious liberties.</p>
<p>Perhaps these things are true. Like many people, we who are writing believe Clinton has proved herself untrustworthy with political power. We do not trust her judgment in choosing Supreme Court justices, and we understand why so many Christians are afraid. The future is uncertain.</p>
<p>Yet we feel that too many in the church have been bitten by election-year hysteria. Since the birth of Christ, Christians have withstood far more serious trials and tribulations than we face today. First-century Christians faced coliseums filled with lions; today, American Christians face the possibility of a liberal Supreme Court. The Christian message of salvation through faith in Christ has prevailed despite actual threats, from actual tyrants, and it will continue to thrive no matter who is elected president in 2016.</p>
<p>This knowledge is encouraging, considering the main options on the ballot. If Clinton has proved to be dishonest, Trump has given dishonesty new meaning. Evangelical conservatives who vote for Trump to get a favorable Supreme Court must realize that doing so requires trusting the words of the most unabashedly untruthful presidential candidate in modern history. Trump has changed his position on nearly every issue of importance at least once, sometimes mid-speech. There is little reason to believe that he is worried about the same issues we are. It makes more sense to believe thatTrump is happy many Christians are worried because it allows him to do what all demagogues do: offer strength in a time of fear.</p>
<p>Trump is the antithesis of our values; there is no reason to revisit his vices here. Most non-Christians recognize Trump as amoral and self- centered. If we ignore this fact and buy in to his promise of strength, what will it tell the world about how seriously we Christians esteem our values?</p>
<p>Thankfully, there are other options in 2016. Elections are not about choosing the perfect candidate, but about choosing the best candidate on the ballot. We ought to take a close look at all the options and vote for the candidate who best embodies our values. This person may have little chance of winning or not be a traditional option, but such a vote would not be wasted. A wasted vote is one that contradicts one’s conscience.</p>
<p>If we allow fear to make us choose a candidate who embodies what we oppose, we allow fear to win the day. Fear should never decide elections; as Christians, we believe that values should. We encourage everyone to take their conscience with them into the voting booth. Vote for your values, not against your fears.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Dustin Wahl, Paige Cutler and Alexander Forbes are students at Liberty University.</p>
<p>values-trump-comment</p> | Vote for Christian values, not for Trump | false | https://abqjournal.com/875289/vote-for-christian-values-not-for-trump.html | 2 |
|
<p>Jan. 11, 2010 By KATY GRIMES</p>
<p>In what appeared to be the first good news of the new year, the Assembly Committee on Jobs and Economic Development voted unanimously to ease the permitting process for start-up and expanding businesses in the state.</p>
<p>Not so fast… this bill only applies to businesses contracting with the state.</p>
<p>AB978 proposes to streamline the application process by providing an online master application for small- and medium-sized businesses doing business with the state, making it easier for them to navigate the process of securing the necessary permits and licenses.</p>
<p>Nothing was addressed in this hearing about non-state, private sector businesses and the existing multi-layered permitting process.</p>
<p>The bill’s author, Assemblyman V. Manuel Perez, D-Indio, described the one-stop permitting bill as “important economic recovery and efficiency” for the struggling business community in the state.</p>
<p>The bill would require the State Chief Information Officer to develop a master business licensing and permitting application, in collaboration with other relevant agencies, with the goal of ending the frustrating, multiple layers of permitting and licensing currently experienced by start-up businesses in California.</p>
<p>During discussion of the bill, Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, was concerned how the state would pay for the streamlined permitting. “The state would have to find creative ways to pay for it initially,” Beall commented. He concluded by saying that the process of streamlining might initially cost the state, but the “process will eventually save the state money for business.” It was not clear how the bill would cost the state more money.</p>
<p>In support of the bill, Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, R-Stockton, reminded the committee, “The voters are saying ‘make things simpler.’ ”</p>
<p>The bill’s author Perez concluded the discussion with , “The goal is to make the state of California a business-friendly state.”</p>
<p>There was no opposition by committee members to the bill.</p>
<p>AB978, Internet-based one-stop permitting, may be a ray of hope to California businesses in this tough economy, but only if they contract with the state government. Private sector businesses in California apparently will still face permitting challenges… not sure how that is “business-friendly.”</p> | Business-friendly bill or not? | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2010/01/08/business-friendly-bill-or-not/ | 2018-01-20 | 3 |
<p><a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/New_England_Patriots/" type="external">New England Patriots</a> running backs <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Rex-Burkhead/" type="external">Rex Burkhead</a> and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Mike-Gillislee/" type="external">Mike Gillislee</a> are expected to sit out Saturday’s AFC divisional round playoff game against the visiting <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Tennessee-Titans/" type="external">Tennessee Titans</a>, multiple outlets reported.</p>
<p>Burkhead and Gillislee are both listed as questionable with knee injuries.</p>
<p>Fellow running back <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/James_White/" type="external">James White</a>, however, is expected to play, ESPN’s <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Adam-Schefter/" type="external">Adam Schefter</a> reported. Last year’s Super Bowl hero has missed the past two games with an ankle injury and is officially listed as questionable to play versus Tennessee.</p>
<p>White, 25, reeled in 56 receptions for 429 yards and three touchdowns to go along with his 171 rushing yards this season.</p>
<p>Burkhead injured his knee in a 27-24 win over the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Pittsburgh_Steelers/" type="external">Pittsburgh Steelers</a> on Dec. 17. The 27-year-old, who practiced in limited fashion on Thursday, has rushed for 264 yards and five touchdowns this season.</p>
<p>Gillislee, who has rushed for 383 yards and five touchdowns, also was a limited participant in practice on Thursday. The 27-year-old was injured in a 37-16 win over the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Buffalo-Bills/" type="external">Buffalo Bills</a> on Dec. 24.</p> | Reports: Patriots RB Rex Burkhead, Mike Gillislee out vs. Titans | false | https://newsline.com/reports-patriots-rb-rex-burkhead-mike-gillislee-out-vs-titans/ | 2018-01-13 | 1 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/11187734326/"&gt;The US Army&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175782/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p>
<p>I’m a voracious reader of American fiction and I’ve noticed something odd in recent years. This country has been eternally “at war” and you just wouldn’t know that—a small amount of veteran’s fiction aside—from the novels that are generally published. For at least a decade, Americans have been living in the shadow of war and yet, except in pop fiction of the Tom Clancy variety (where, in the end, we always win), there’s remarkably little evidence of it.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />As for myself—I’m a novelist—I find that no matter what I chose to write about, I can’t seem to avoid that shadow. My first novel was about Vietnam vets coming home and my second is permeated with a shadowy sense of what the Iraq and Afghan wars have done to us. And yet I’ve never been to, or near, a war, and nothing about it attracts me. So why is it always lurking there? Recently, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about just why that might be and I may finally have a very partial answer, very modestly encapsulated in one rather un-American word: class.</p>
<p>I come from—to use an old-fashioned phrase—a working class immigrant family. The middle child of four siblings, not counting the foster children my mother cared for, I grew up in the post-World War II years in the basement of a building in the South Bronx in New York City. In my neighborhood, war—or at least the military—was the norm. Young men (boys, really) generally didn’t make it through life without serving in some military capacity. Soldiers and veterans were ubiquitous. Except to us, to me, none of them were “soldiers” or “veterans.” They were just Ernie, Charlie, Danny, Tommy, Jamal, Vito, Frank. In our neck of the urban woods—multi-ethnic, diverse, low-income—it was the way things were and you never thought to question that, in just about every apartment on every floor, there was a young man who had been in, would go into, or was at that moment in the military and, given the conflicts of that era, had often been to war as well.</p>
<p>Many of the boys I knew joined the Marines before they could be drafted for some of the same reasons men and women volunteer now. (Remember that there was still a draft army then, not the all-volunteer force of 2013.) However clichéd they may sound today, they reflected a reality I knew well. Then as now, the military held out the promise of a potentially meaningful future instead of the often depressing adult futures that surrounded us as we grew up.</p>
<p>Then as now, however, too many of those boys returned home with little or nothing to show for the turmoil they endured. And then as now, they often returned filled with an inner chaos, a lost-ness from which many searched in vain for relief.</p>
<p>When I was seven, the Korean War began. I was 18 when our first armed advisers arrived in Vietnam. After that disaster finally ended, a lull ensued, broken by a series of “skirmishes” from Grenada to Panama to Somalia to Bosnia, followed by the First Gulf War, and then, of course, the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.</p>
<p>I dated, worked with, or was related to men who participated in some of these wars and conflicts. One of my earliest memories, in fact—I must have been three—is of my anxious 19-year-old sister waiting for her soldier-fiancé to make his way home from World War II. Demobilized, he finally arrived with no outward signs that war had taken a toll on him. Like so many of those “greatest generation” vets, though, he wouldn’t or couldn’t talk about his experiences, and remained hard to reach about most things for years afterwards. His army hat was my first military souvenir.</p>
<p>When I was eight or nine, my brother was drafted into the Korean War and I can still remember my constant worries about his well-being. I wrote my childish letters to him nearly every day. He had been assigned to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, given a pair of lace-up boots, and told he’d be training as a paratrooper. He could never get past the anxiety that assignment bestowed on him. Discharged, many pounds thinner and with a bad case of mononucleosis, he came home with a need to have guns around, guns he kept close at hand for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>My first “serious” boyfriend was a sailor on the USS. Warrington. I was 15. Not surprisingly, he was away more than home. He mustered out with an addiction to alcohol.</p>
<p>I was 18 when my second boyfriend was drafted. John F. Kennedy was president and the Vietnam War was, then, just a blip on the American horizon. He didn’t serve overseas, but afterwards he, too, couldn’t figure out what to do with the rest of his life. And so it went.</p>
<p>Today, I no longer live in the South Bronx where, I have no doubt, women as well as men volunteer for the military with similar mindsets to those of my youth, and unfortunately return home with problems similar to those suffered by generations of soldiers before them. Suffice it to say that veterans of whatever war returned having experienced the sharp edge of death and nothing that followed in civilian life could or would be as intense.</p>
<p>Rejecting War</p>
<p>It’s in the nature of militaries to train their soldiers to hate, maim, and kill the enemy, but in the midst of the Vietnam War—I had, by then, made it out of my neighborhood and my world—something challenged this trained-to-kill belief system and it began to break down in a way previously unknown in our history. With that mindset suddenly in ruins, many young men refused to fight, while others who had gone to war, ones from neighborhoods like mine, came home feeling like murderers.</p>
<p>In those years, thinking of those boys and many others, I joined the student antiwar movement, though I was often the only one in any group not regularly on campus. (Working class women worked at paying jobs!) As I learned more about that war, my anger grew at the way my country was devastating a land and a people who had done nothing to us. The loss of American and Vietnamese lives, the terrible wounds, all of it felt like both a waste and a tragedy. From 1964 on, ending that war sooner rather than later became my 24/7 job (when, that is, I wasn’t at my paying job).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609805046/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />During those years, two events remain vivid in my memory. I was part of a group that opened an antiwar storefront coffee shop near Fort Dix in New Jersey, a camp where thousands of recruits received basic training before being shipped out to Vietnam. We served up coffee, cake, music, posters, magazines, and antiwar conversation to any soldiers who came in during their off-hours—and come in they did. I met young men from as far away as Nebraska and Iowa, as close by as Queens and Brooklyn. I have no idea if any of them ever refused to deploy to Vietnam as some soldiers did in those years. However, that coffee house gave me an education in just how vulnerable, scared, excited, unprepared, and uninformed they were about what they would be facing and, above all, about the country they were invading.</p>
<p>Our storefront hours ran from 5 pm to whenever. On the inevitable night bus back to the Port Authority terminal, I would be unable to shake my sadness. Night after night, on that ride home I remember thinking: if only I had the power to do something more to save their lives, for I knew that some of them would come back in body bags and others would return wounded physically or emotionally in ways that I remembered well. And for what? That was why talking with them has remained in my memory as both a burden and a blessing.</p>
<p>The second event that stays with me occurred in May 1971 in Washington, DC A large group of Vietnam veterans, men who had been in the thick of it and seen it all, decided they needed to do something that would bring national attention to the goal of ending the war. The method they chose was to act out their repudiation of their previous participation in it. Snaking past the Capitol, an extremely long line of men in uniform threw purple hearts and medals of every sort into a trash bin. Most then made a brief statement about why they hated the war and could no longer bear to keep those medals. I was there and I’ll never forget their faces. One soldier, resisting the visible urge to cry, simply walked off without saying a word, only to collapse on a fellow soldier’s shoulder. Many of us watched, sobbing.</p>
<p>Breathing War</p>
<p>In those years, I penned political articles, but never fiction. Reality overwhelmed me. Only after that war ended did I begin to write my world, the one that was—always—shadowed by war, in fiction.</p>
<p>Why doesn’t war appear more often in American novels? Novelist Dorothy Allison once wrote, “Literature is the lie that tells the truth.” Yet in a society where war is ever-present, that truth manages to go missing in much of fiction. These days, the novels I come across have many reference points, cultural or political, to mark their stories, but war is generally not among them.</p>
<p>My suspicion: it has something to do with class. If war is all around us and yet, for so many non-working-class Americans, increasingly not part of our everyday lives, if war is the thing that other people do elsewhere in our name and we reflect our world in our fiction, then that thing is somehow not us.</p>
<p>My own urge is to weave war into our world, the way Nadine Gordimer, the South African writer, once wove apartheid into her novels—without, that is, speechifying or pontificating or even pointing to it. When American fiction ignores the fact of war and its effects remain hidden, without even brief mentions as simple markers of time and place, it also accepts peace as the background for the stories we tell. And that is, in its own way, the lie that denial tells.</p>
<p>That war shadows me is a difficult truth, and for that I have my old neighborhood to thank. If war is the background to my novels about everyday life, it’s because it’s been in the air I breathed, which naturally means my characters breathe it, too.</p>
<p>Beverly Gologorsky is the author the just-published novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609805046/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Stop Here</a> (“ <a href="http://www.full-stop.net/2013/12/03/reviews/scott-beauchamp/stop-here-beverly-gologorsky/" type="external">a literary Hopper painting</a>,” Seven Stories Press). Her first novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1583228845/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">The Things We Do to Make it Home</a>, was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Book. In the Vietnam years, she was an editor of two political journals, Viet-Report and Leviathan and her contribution to feminism is noted in Feminists Who Changed America.To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&amp;id=1e41682ade" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a> or <a href="http://tomdispatch.tumblr.com/" type="external">Tumblr</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Ann Jones’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463710/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return From America’s Wars—The Untold Story</a>.</p> | Why Have American Writers Ignored the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? One Word: Class | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/economic-status-class-affects-awareness-war-military-us/ | 2013-12-11 | 4 |
<p>A group of millionaires is <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/06/08/137057970/patriotic-millionaires-ask-obama-congress-to-raise-their-taxes?ft=1&amp;f=1001" type="external">calling</a> on Washington to raise taxes on the wealthy for the good of the economy (“Rich people are not the cause of a robust economy, they’re the result of a robust economy”) and their fellow Americans (“We shouldn’t be wallowing in our riches while everybody else is suffering”).</p>
<p>Learn more at the group’s <a href="http://patrioticmillionaires.org/" type="external">website</a> or from the interview below. — PZS</p>
<p>NPR:</p>
<p>A group of wealthy Americans that calls itself the Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength has sent a letter to President Obama and Congress asking them to raise their taxes and the taxes of the 370,000 other Americans who earn more than $1 million a year.</p>
<p />
<p>In a video the group released Tuesday, members say they “shouldn’t be wallowing in … riches while everybody else is suffering.” They say the tax cuts President Bush signed into law 10 years ago were a mistake that needs to be fixed.</p>
<p>“My country — our country — means more than my money,” members say in the video.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/06/08/137057970/patriotic-millionaires-ask-obama-congress-to-raise-their-taxes?ft=1&amp;f=1001" type="external">Read more</a></p>
<p /> | 'Patriotic Millionaires' Want Higher Taxes | true | http://truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/patriotic_millionaires_want_higher_taxes_20110608/ | 2011-06-09 | 4 |
<p>(Reuters) - Lindsey Vonn cruised to her 79th career World Cup victory in the Cortina downhill on Saturday, finishing ahead of Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather and fellow American Jackie Wiles.</p> Skiing - Alpine Skiing World Cup - Women's Downhill - Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy - January 20, 2018. Lindsey Vonn celebrates on the podium. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>Vonn stepped up her preparations for next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang with a flawless effort to finish 0.92 seconds ahead of Weirather and 0.98 seconds in front of Wiles for her 40th downhill victory.</p>
<p>The 33-year-old, who is the most successful World Cup women’s skier of all time, also inched closer to Swedish men’s great Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86 World Cup victories.</p>
<p>On Friday, Vonn was second on the podium behind Sofia Goggia after an error but it was the Italian — victorious in the last two downhill events — who lost control during her run on Saturday and did not finish.</p>
<p>Wiles, meanwhile, made an acrobatic recovery to record her second career podium, while Austrian Ramona Siebenhofer finished fourth with her best time of the season.</p>
<p>Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Shares in U.S. exporters of everything from planes to tractors fell on Wednesday after China retaliated against the Trump administration’s tariff plans by proposing duties on key U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, beef and chemicals.</p> The Boeing building is seen next to Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson
<p>China was hitting back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods with similar tariffs on U.S. goods even as Trump said the country is “not in a trade war with China.”</p>
<p>Industrial stocks appeared to be the hardest hit. Shares in U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co were last down 3.3 percent making it the biggest drag on the Dow though it was not immediately clear how much the tariffs would affect Boeing’s newer products. The United States exported $15 billion of aircraft to China in 2016, ranking it equally with agricultural products like soybeans, according U.S. trade data.</p>
<p>Agricultural machinery maker Deere &amp; Co was down 4.0 percent and DowDuPont Inc was down1.3 percent.</p>
<p>“Everybody knew they were going to retaliate. The question was how strong of a retaliation. Today’s move clearly shows that they mean business,” said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments in New York.</p>
<p>Investors in the S&amp;P 500’s technology sector .SPLRCT were also rattled since it has the biggest revenue exposure to China out of the benchmark’s 11 major sectors. Chipmakers such as Nvidia Corp, with a 3.0 percent drop, and Intel Corp, with a 2.1 percent decline, were among the biggest percentage losers in that sector.</p>
<p>“These are some of the companies most exposed to potential tariffs. They would affect their business directly, immediately.” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer of Commonwealth Financial Network in Waltham, Massachusetts.</p>
<p>Shares of Caterpillar, also a big exporter to China, fell 2.4 percent. Chemical provider Chemours Co pared premarket losses but was still down 0.4 percent in the regular session.</p>
<p>Soybean exporter Archer Daniels Midland Co and another agribusiness Bunge Ltd reversed their premarket losses and were last up slightly.</p>
<p>With the three major U.S. indexes well off their January records after taking a massive tumble on Feb. 9, at least some investors were hoping that U.S. stocks will bounce back if earnings growth meets strong Wall Street forecasts in the first-quarter reporting season, which starts this month.</p>
<p>“Obviously we need kind of a quiet period on these headlines and we need to focus on what is ultimately important and that is earnings. So I am hopeful over the next couple of weeks that earnings will be that shiny object that everyone can focus on,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Wealth in Chicago.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by April Joyner, Charles Mikolajczak and Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Taenaz Shakir in Bengaluru; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and David Gregorio</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China hit back quickly on Wednesday against U.S. plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, retaliating with a list of similar duties on key American imports including soybeans, planes, cars, beef and chemicals in a move that sent global markets reeling.</p>
<p>Beijing moved with exceptional speed after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled tariff plans targeting China, acting less than 11 hours later as the trade dispute between the world’s two economic superpowers sharply escalated.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump, who has long charged that his predecessors served the United States badly in trade matters, rejected the notion that the tit-for-tat moves amounted to a trade war.</p>
<p>“We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S.,” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter early on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The latest developments sent shivers through global stock markets and commodities. [MKTS/GLOB]</p>
<p>Shares in U.S. exporters of everything from food to planes were hammered with a list of duties on key U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, beef and chemicals.</p>
<p>By mid-morning in New York, shares in U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co were down 3.3 percent while agricultural machinery maker Deere &amp; Co had slipped 3.9 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.91 percent while the S&amp;P 500 fell 0.59 percent. The U.S. dollar also fell.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-stocks/shares-of-u-s-exporters-fall-as-china-retaliates-on-tariffs-idUSKCN1HB1WL" type="external">Shares of U.S. exporters fall as China retaliates on tariffs</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-kudlow/kudlow-says-u-s-trade-actions-intended-to-uphold-laws-and-customs-of-free-trade-idUSKCN1HB25J" type="external">Kudlow says U.S. trade actions intended to uphold laws and customs of free trade</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-instant-view/china-retaliates-slaps-duties-on-u-s-soybeans-planes-markets-skid-idUSKCN1HB1ZS" type="external">China retaliates, slaps duties on U.S. soybeans, planes; markets skid</a>
<p>While Washington targeted products that benefit from Chinese industrial policy, including its “Made in China 2025” initiative to replace advanced technology imports with domestic products in strategic industries such as advanced IT and robotics, Beijing’s appeared aimed at inflicting political damage.</p>
<p>For example, the U.S. farm belt strongly backed Trump in the 2016 U.S. election.</p>
<p>Because the actions will not be carried out immediately, there may be room for maneuver. Publication of Washington’s list starts a period of public comment and consultation expected to last around two months. The effective date of China’s moves depends on when the U.S. action takes effect.</p>
<p>U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview with CNBC that it would not be surprising if the U.S. and China trade actions led to negotiations, although he would not speculate on when this might happen.</p>
<p>Investors were wondering, nonetheless, how far one of the worst trade disputes in many years could escalate.</p>
<p>“The assumption was China would not respond too aggressively and avoid escalating tensions. China’s response is a surprise for some people,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, noting that neither side had yet called for enforcement of the tariffs.</p>
<p>“It’s more of a game of brinkmanship, making it clear what the cost would be, in the hopes that both sides can come to agreement and none of these tariffs will come into force,” said Evans-Pritchard.</p>
<p>U.S.-made goods that appear to face added tariffs in China based, on an analysis of Beijing’s list, include Tesla Inc electric cars, Ford Motor Co’s Lincoln auto models, Gulfstream jets made by General Dynamics Corp and Brown-Forman Corp’s Jack Daniel’s whiskey.</p>
<p>Unlike Washington’s list, which was filled with many obscure industrial items, China’s list strikes at signature U.S. exports, including soybeans, frozen beef, cotton and other key agricultural commodities produced in states from Iowa to Texas that voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>Information technology products, from cellphones to personal computers, largely escaped the latest salvo of U.S.-China trade measures despite accounting for a significant portion of bilateral trade.</p>
<p>China ran a $375 billion goods trade surplus with the United States in 2017. Trump has demanded that the China cut the trade gap by $100 billion.</p> ‘WEAKEN OUR WILL’
<p>Beijing’s action extended to tobacco and whiskey, both produced in states including Kentucky, home of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, like Trump a Republican.</p>
<p>“China is also trying to weaken our will by targeting certain segments of our economy,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview with National Public Radio.</p>
<p>“But let’s remember: we buy five times more goods than they buy from us. They have a lot more to lose in any escalation in this matter.”</p>
<p>Beijing’s list of 25 percent additional tariffs on U.S. goods covers 106 items with a trade value matching the $50 billion targeted on Washington’s list, China’s commerce and finance ministries said.</p>
<p>“This is a real game changer and moves the trade dispute away from symbolism to measures which would really hurt U.S agricultural exports,” said Commerzbank commodities analyst Carsten Fritsch.</p>
<p>China’s tariff list covers aircraft that would likely include older models such as Boeing Co’s workhorse 737 narrowbody jet, but not newer models like the 737 MAX or its larger planes.</p> FILE PHOTO: A worker takes a sample from an incoming truckload of soybeans at Peterson Farms Seed facility in Fargo, North Dakota, U.S., December 6, 2017. REUTERS/Dan Koeck/File Photo RAPID RESPONSE
<p>Hours earlier, the U.S. government unveiled a detailed breakdown of some 1,300 Chinese industrial, transport and medical goods that could be subject to 25 percent duties, ranging from light-emitting diodes to machine parts.</p>
<p>The U.S. move, broadly flagged last month, is aimed at forcing Beijing to address what Washington says is deeply entrenched theft of U.S. intellectual property and forced technology transfer from U.S. companies to Chinese competitors, charges Chinese officials deny.</p>
<p>Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had shown sincerity in wanting to resolve the dispute through negotiations.</p>
<p>“But the best opportunities for resolving the issues through dialogue and negotiations have been repeatedly missed by the U.S. side,” he told a regular briefing on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The tariff list from the office of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer followed China’s imposition of tariffs on $3 billion worth of U.S. fruits, nuts, pork and wine to protest U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs imposed last month by Trump.</p>
<p>Many consumer electronics products such as cellphones made by Apple Inc and laptops made by Dell were excluded from the U.S. list, as were footwear and clothing, drawing a sigh of relief from retailers who had worried about higher costs for American consumers.</p>
<p>Many U.S. business groups support Trump’s efforts to stop the theft of U.S. intellectual property but have questioned whether tariffs are the right approach. They warn that disruptions to supply chains that rely on Chinese components will ultimately raise costs for consumers.</p> Slideshow (6 Images)
<p>The USTR has scheduled a May 15 public hearing on the tariffs.</p>
<p>(For a graphic on 'U.S. imports from China' click <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2FMsz1Q" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2FMsz1Q</a>)</p>
<p>(For a graphic on 'U.S. trade in goods with China' click <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2GcOZIH" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2GcOZIH</a>)</p>
<p>Reporting by David Lawder, Jason Lange, Ginger Gibson, Steve Holland, Makini Brice, Susan Heavey, David Chance and Will Dunham in WASHINGTON; Michael Martina, Cheng Fang, Ryan Woo, Ben Blanchard, Tony Munroe, Cate Cadell, Philip Wen, Dominique Patton and Josephine Mason in BEIJING and Engen Tham in SHANGHAI; Additional reporting Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Stella Qiu in Beijing, Tom Miles in Geneva and Michael Hogan in Hamburg; Editing by Kim Coghill, Alex Richardson and Frances Kerry</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday raised the stakes in a growing trade showdown with China, targeting 25 percent tariffs on some 1,300 industrial technology, transport and medical products to try to force changes in Beijing’s intellectual property practices.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a joint news conference with Latvia's President Raimonds Vejonis, Estonia's President Kersti Kaljulaid and Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
<p>The U.S. tariff unveiling, representing about $50 billion of estimated 2018 imports and aimed at dealing a setback to China’s efforts to upgrade its manufacturing base, drew an immediate condemnation from Beijing, along with a threat of retaliatory action.</p>
<p>China’s Ministry of Commerce said it “will soon take measure of equal intensity and scale against U.S. goods.”</p>
<p>“We have the confidence and ability to respond to any protectionist measures by the United States,” the ministry said in a statement quoted by the official Xinhua news agency.</p>
<p>The ministry did not reveal any specific countermeasures, but economists widely view imports of U.S. soybeans, aircraft and machinery as prime targets for trade retaliation.</p>
<p>The tariff list from the U.S. Trade Representative’s office followed China’s imposition of tariffs on $3 billion worth of U.S. fruits, nuts, pork and wine to protest new U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs imposed last month by U.S. President Donald Trump.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-tradebody/chinese-trade-body-says-u-s-investigation-has-no-factual-basis-idUSKCN1HB0DC" type="external">Chinese trade body says U.S. investigation has 'no factual basis'</a>
<a href="/article/us-usa-trade-china-ambassaor/china-diplomat-says-latest-u-s-tariffs-a-further-step-in-wrong-direction-media-idUSKCN1HB0BX" type="external">China diplomat says latest U.S. tariffs a further step in wrong direction: media</a>
<a href="/article/us-china-trade-antidumping-chemicals/china-raises-anti-dumping-tariffs-on-ethylene-glycol-diethylene-glycol-commerce-ministry-idUSKCN1HB09T" type="external">China raises anti-dumping tariffs on ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol: commerce ministry</a>
<p>The standoff between the world’s two largest economies has sparked market fears that they could spiral into a trade war that could crush global growth.</p>
<p>Asian share markets were mixed amid trade tension concerns, with Japan's Nikkei 225 <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">.N225</a> off 0.1 percent but Shanghai's main index <a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SSEC" type="external">.SSEC</a> poised to open 0.3 percent higher.</p> MANY CONSUMER ELECTRONICS EXCLUDED
<p>The USTR list ranged from chemicals to light-emitting diodes to machine parts, but U.S. industry groups warned it would still hit supply chains that rely on Chinese components and would ultimately raise costs for consumers.</p>
<p>Many consumer electronics products such as cellphones made by Apple Inc. ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AAPL.O" type="external">AAPL.O</a>) and laptops made by Dell were excluded, as were footwear and clothing, drawing a sigh of relief from retailers who had feared higher costs for American consumers.</p>
<p>But the USTR did include some key consumer products from China, including flat-panel television sets and motor vehicles, both electric and gasoline-powered with engines of 3 liters or less.</p>
<p>A Reuters analysis that compared listed products with 2017 Census Bureau import data showed $3.9 billion in flat-panel television imports, and $1.4 billion in vehicle imports from China.</p>
<p>Among vehicles likely to be hit with tariffs is General Motors Co’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GM.N" type="external">GM.N</a>) Buick Envision sport-utility vehicle, which is assembled in China and sold in the United States. Volvo, owned by China’s Geely Motors, also exports Chinese-built vehicles to the United States.</p>
<p>More than 200 products on the list saw no U.S. imports last year, including large aircraft and communication satellites, while some categories were highly unlikely to ever be imported, such as artillery weapons.</p>
<p>Publication of the tariff lists starts a public comment and consultation period expected to last around two months, after which USTR said it would issue a “final determination” on the product list. It has scheduled a May 15 public hearing on the tariffs.</p>
<p>China ran a $375 billion goods trade surplus with the United States in 2017, a figure that Trump has demanded be cut by $100 billion.</p> ALGORITHM SHIELDS U.S. CONSUMERS
<p>USTR developed the tariff targets using a computer algorithm designed to choose products that would inflict maximum pain on Chinese exporters, but limit the damage to U.S. consumers.</p>
<p>A USTR official said the product list got an initial scrub by removing products identified as likely to cause disruptions to the U.S. economy and those that needed to be excluded for legal reasons.</p>
<p>“The remaining products were ranked according to the likely impact on U.S. consumers, based on available trade data involving alternative country sources for each product,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.</p>
<p>USTR said the China tariffs announced on Tuesday were proposed “in response to China’s policies that coerce American companies into transferring their technology and intellectual property to domestic Chinese enterprises.”</p>
<a href="/finance/markets/index?symbol=.N225" type="external">Nikkei Inc</a> 21319.55 .N225 Nikkei Index +27.26 (+0.13%) .N225 .SSEC AAPL.O GM.N
<p>The agency added that such policies “bolster China’s stated intention of seizing economic leadership in advanced technology as set forth in its industrial plans.”</p>
<p>China has denied that its laws require technology transfers and has threatened to retaliate against any U.S. tariffs with trade sanctions of its own, with potential targets such as U.S. soybeans, aircraft or heavy equipment.</p> 2025 PROGRAM TARGETED
<p>A USTR official said the tariff list targeted products that benefit from China’s industrial policies, including the “Made in China 2025” program, which aims to replace advanced technology imports with domestic products and build a dominant position in future industries.</p>
<p>The state-led 2025 program targets 10 strategic industries: advanced information technology, robotics, aircraft, new energy vehicles, pharmaceuticals, electric power equipment, advanced materials, agricultural machinery, shipbuilding and marine engineering and advanced rail equipment.</p>
<p>Many products in those segments appear on the list, including antibiotics and industrial robots and aircraft parts.</p>
<p>U.S. business groups reacted cautiously, saying they agreed with Trump’s efforts to stop the theft of U.S. intellectual property, but questioning whether tariffs were the right approach.</p>
<p>“Tariffs are one proposed response, but they are likely to create new challenges in the form of significant added costs for manufacturers and American consumers,” National Association of Manufacturers President Jay Timmons said in a statement.</p>
<p>U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said in a letter to Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that he was glad to see “bold” action against China.</p>
<p>“These necessary actions constitute an important break with the appeasement of previous administrations, and provide an opportunity to chart a new course for America’s relationship with this strategic competitor,” Rubio wrote.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Lawder; Additional reporting by Jason Lange, Ginger Gibson, Steve Holland and David Chance in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MISSION, Texas (Reuters) - On Tuesday, the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to deploy military to help patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, Edwin Valdez and four other Central American migrants were walking through dense brush at a south Texas wildlife reserve, hoping to escape notice.</p> A border patrol agent apprehends immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 2, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
<p>The men had illegally crossed into the United States that morning, guided by a smuggler who had since abandoned them. Now they were lost and uncertain how to proceed.</p>
<p>In vehicles nearby, U.S. Border Patrol agents had been alerted to migrants moving through the area, and after detecting movement in the bushes, they swooped in to arrest the men.</p>
<p>It was business as usual in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the busiest crossing points for migrants trying to enter the United States illegally.</p>
<p>In just a few hours that morning, 61 migrants, including Valdez, were rounded up in the area. Ten, including four from China, were caught with the help of a tracking dog in a sugar cane field. Two Hondurans were taken into custody at a public park.</p>
<p>Several of those caught said they were unfazed by tough talk from Trump, who has made headlines around the world with tweets railing about border security and threatening to end the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) unless Mexico does more to “stop the big drug and people flows.”</p>
<p>Trump’s renewed frustration about border security, rekindled over the weekend by news of a “caravan” of Central American migrants moving through Mexico toward the U.S. border, reflects the broader frustration of his administration.</p>
<p>In the months after Trump took office, the number of migrants caught along the U.S.-Mexico border fell dramatically, hitting a low of about 15,700 in April, from more than 42,400 in January 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows.</p> A border patrol agent uses night vision goggles to look for immigrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, U.S., April 2, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
<p>But arrests have crept back up since, and in the first months of 2018 have reached levels at, or near, those seen during the last year of his predecessor, President Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Rising arrests of families and unaccompanied minors along the border are a particular concern.</p>
<p>In March, their numbers surpassed the previous three years and “rivaled fiscal year 2014, when we had a crisis,” Manuel Padilla, chief of the border patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, said in an interview with Reuters.</p>
<p>He said about families with children, who are more difficult to deport quickly, form about 49 percent of the current apprehensions in his region. He said they often walk up to the first U.S. officials they find to ask for help.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter how many agents are out there,” when it comes to families, he said, “because this population is turning themselves in.”</p> REVOLVING DOOR
<p>Valdez, 20, who worked as an electrician’s assistant in his home country of El Salvador, said he previously tried to cross the border illegally in 2016.</p>
<p>But he was picked up by border patrol officers after wandering lost and dehydrated in the desert for four days. After six months in detention, he was deported last year, but decided to travel north again after gangs threatened him at his job.</p>
<p>While crossing has become more and more difficult in recent years, Valdez said, need is a powerful spur.</p>
<p>“Necessity forces people to leave their countries so they can bring a better life to their families,” he said. “That’s why people are willing to suffer through all this.”</p> Slideshow (16 Images)
<p>After his arrest on Monday, Valdez put his personal belongings in a plastic bag, removed his shoelaces and was searched by the agents who arrested him. Then he and his companions&#160;were taken to a processing facility.</p>
<p>People who have been previously deported can often be quickly sent home.</p>
<p>Immigrants traveling with small children when caught often spend only a few days in custody, however, because of a shortage of detention facilities suitable for families and court settlements that preclude prolonged detention of minors.</p>
<p>In the Rio Grande Valley, parents are often released with electronic ankle monitors and ordered to appear with their children in court on a specific date for deportation proceedings. Trump has railed against the practice, which he calls “catch and release.”</p>
<p>For migrants like Jose Romero, 27, who made the harrowing days-long trip through Mexico with his 8-year-old daughter in the back of a dark cargo truck, threats from the president are little deterrent.</p>
<p>In his mountain home in Honduras, Romero made just $4 a day as a farm laborer, not enough to feed his family of five, he said. After his arrest and subsequent release to wait court proceedings, he said he doubted if migrants can be deterred.</p>
<p>“They will keep coming,” he said, because of violence and poverty south of the border. “The people are afraid.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Sue Horton and Clarence Fernandez</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Record-chasing Vonn cruises to Cortina downhill victory Shares of U.S. exporters fall as China retaliates on tariffs China retaliates, slaps duties on U.S. soybeans, planes; markets skid U.S. escalates China trade showdown with tariffs on $50 billion in imports Migrants at U.S.-Mexico border say Trump's tough talk won't deter them | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-alpine-skiing-women/record-chasing-vonn-cruises-to-cortina-downhill-victory-idUSKBN1F90PT | 2018-01-20 | 2 |
<p><a href="http://www.jammiewf.com/2012/sandra-flukes-appearance-is-no-fluke/" type="external">JWF</a> has some background on the Georgetown Law student who is challenging Georgetown’s contraception policy.&#160; She went to the law school knowing the university’s policy, and per JWF, intending to challenge it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Rush walked into this one without seeing the set up, and now the student gets the obligatory <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73549.html" type="external">call from the President</a>:</p>
<p>President Barack Obama called Sandra Fluke on Friday to express his concerns&#160; to the law student who was called a “slut” by Rush Limbaugh.</p>
<p>“He encouraged me and supported me and thanked me for speaking out about the&#160; concerns of American women,” the third-year Georgetown University law student&#160; said on “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” “And what was really personal for me was he&#160; said to tell my parents they should be proud. And that meant a lot because Rush&#160; Limbaugh had questioned whether or not my family would be proud of me. I&#160; appreciated that very much.”</p>
<p><a href="http://michellemalkin.com/2012/03/02/sandra-fluke-is-not-a-slut-shes-a-femme-agogue-tool/" type="external">Michelle Malkin</a> is right that it was wrong to refer to Fluke as a “slut” even jokingly and even if taken back, because she’s&#160;really just&#160;a product of our entitlement society.</p>
<p>I wonder if Obama mentioned that Georgetown is acting “ <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Obama_Cambridge_police_acted_stupidly.html" type="external">stupidly</a>“?</p>
<p>Update:&#160; <a href="http://ology.com/politics/and-then-they-came-rush-limbaugh/03022012" type="external">And Then They Came For Rush Limbaugh</a></p>
<p>And, never let it be said the President doesn’t have his <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/jimmiebjr/status/175684693512028160" type="external">priorities straight</a>:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/#!/ProfBainbridge/status/175694289207173121" type="external">Prof. Bainbridge</a>:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Last update of night unless there is BREAKING contraception news:</p>
<p /> | How long until Obama says Georgetown is acting “stupidly”? | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/03/how-long-until-obama-says-georgetown-is-acting-stupidly/ | 2012-03-02 | 0 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>AIR FORCE</p>
<p>The season opener against Colgate will, if nothing else, give Air Force a dress rehearsal against the type of quarterback it will see plenty of this year.</p>
<p>Gavin McCarney threw for 2,372 yards and 15 touchdowns and ran for 1,406 and 23 scores as he led Colgate to a Patriot League championship last season and a berth in the FCS playoffs.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“He’s their team,” Air Force linebacker Joey Nichol said. “We’re very much ganged up on him. When we have to decide to take the running back or take him, we take him.”</p>
<p>McCarney figures to provide a preview of things to come, as Air Force will face a pair of quarterbacks this year in Utah State’s Chuckie Keeton and Nevada’s Cody Fajardo who threw for at least 2,700 yards and ran for 600 yards. There’s also looming dual threats at Boise State, Navy and Wyoming, if not Army, Notre Dame and New Mexico as well.</p>
<p>“For at least five games we’re going to play guys who move well, throw well and have some experience,” Falcons coach Troy Calhoun said.</p>
<p>Next game: vs. Colgate, 1 p.m. MT Saturday (Root Sports)</p>
<p>Notable: DL Robert Green (torn meniscus) will miss at least two months but was the only player expected to miss any game action as the result of a preseason injury. … QB Kale Pearson, a junior, has earned the starting position over sophomore Jaleel Awini.</p>
<p>— Brent Briggeman, The Gazette (Colorado Springs)</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>BOISE STATE</p>
<p>Boise State’s season opener has a familiar feel.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Broncos are ranked No. 19 as they head to Seattle to face an unranked but dangerous Washington team.</p>
<p>They also were No. 19 in the BCS Standings going into the MAACO Bowl Las Vegas in December, when the Broncos beat the Huskies 28-26.</p>
<p>The differences this time: the site — noisy, remodeled Husky Stadium — and the starting lineups. Boise State returns 10 starters; Washington returns 20.</p>
<p>“I think it’s tougher (this year),” Boise State coach Chris Petersen said. “It starts with most of their guys being back, playing not in a neutral environment. Those two things right then and there make it tough. And the fact that whether we won or lost, most of our guys are gone. We’d be talking to air if we were trying to motivate one way or another. All their guys are back.”</p>
<p>The Broncos should be electric on offense after last year’s sluggish showing but have many question marks on defense, where both cornerbacks and all three linebackers are gone.</p>
<p>Senior quarterback Joe Southwick has seven experienced receivers at his disposal, including two tight ends, and is backed by talented sophomore tailback Jay Ajayi (6.7 yards per carry last year).</p>
<p>“We feel comfortable with what we have,” Southwick said. “It’s nice having a nice spring, a good summer and a good camp, but now it’s kind of change-your-mentality mode. In a couple of days, we’re doing this for real. I’m excited to see everyone go out there and cut it loose. We just have to focus and execute.”</p>
<p>Next game: at Washington, 8:05 p.m. MT Saturday (Fox Sports 1)</p>
<p>Notable: Junior Dan Goodale, who missed the potential game-winning field goal against TCU two years ago and lost the field-goal job, regained the starting spot in fall camp. He also was awarded a scholarship. … Junior college transfer Tutulupeatau Mataele, who was projected to start at defensive tackle going into fall camp, is not enrolled in school and won’t be with the Broncos this season because of an academic issue tied to his previous school.</p>
<p>— Chadd Cripe, Idaho Statesman</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>COLORADO STATE</p>
<p>Colorado State coach Jim McElwain wouldn’t name his starting quarterback earlier this week, leaving open the possibility that true freshman Nick Stevens could get the nod over two players who started games last season — junior Garrett Grayson and sophomore Conner Smith.</p>
<p>McElwain said he won’t choose the starter until after Thursday’s practice and that he might not tell the players themselves until they’re on the field Sunday warming up for the game.</p>
<p>“Every time we put Nick in, the freshman kid, it’s like you go to film and say, ‘Whoa, that’s how you play the position,’ ” McElwain said Monday.</p>
<p>McElwain said the young quarterback, who went 27-1 as a starter at Vista Murrieta High School in Murietta, Calif., has shown he has the physical ability, mental understanding and leadership ability to run Colorado State’s offense. The 6-foot-3, 190-pounder threw for 2,316 yards and 24 touchdowns as a high school senior while running for another 661 yards and 11 touchdowns on 126 carries.</p>
<p>Smith, a 6-5, 220-pounder from Richmond, Texas, had a strong final week of fall camp, McElwain said, to put himself back in the race after seemingly falling out of it in the first two weeks.</p>
<p>The Rams went 3-1 with Smith as the starting quarterback late last season after Grayson and then-senior M.J. McPeek went down with injuries. He completed 80 of 126 passes for 1,022 yards and six touchdowns, with six interceptions.</p>
<p>Grayson, a 6-2, 220-pounder from Vancouver, Wash., started the first five games last fall before breaking his left collarbone while scrambling for a short gain in a loss at Air Force. He completed 78 of 138 passes for 946 yards and seven touchdowns, with three interceptions in the six games he played.</p>
<p>Next game: vs. Colorado (Denver), 4 p.m. MT Sunday (CBS Sports Network)</p>
<p>Notable: Stevens was one of three true freshmen listed on the Rams’ first depth chart of the season. Rashard Higgins (6-2, 180) was listed as the starter at one of the wide receiver spots and Tyree Simmons (5-11, 170) was listed as the No. 1 kick returner.</p>
<p>— Kelly Lyell, Fort Collins Coloradoan</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>NEW MEXICO</p>
<p>New Mexico has been competing in football since 1892, the University Texas-San Antonio just since 2011.</p>
<p>Yet, when New Mexico coach Bob Davie looks at the 2013 Roadrunners roster, he sees a more mature team than his own. The Lobos host the Roadrunners on Saturday.</p>
<p>“I think they have six players on offense that it’s their third year starting,” Davie said after Monday’s practice. “I think they have five players on defense that it’s their third year starting.That’s where we hope to be in a year or two.</p>
<p>“They are very well-coached. They’re not going to give you anything. They know what to expect out of all of their players. That’s the advantage they have, but it really doesn’t make any difference. We’re going to go play. We’re just trying to catch up from an experience standpoint, and the only way to catch up is to go play games.”</p>
<p>Because of attrition in previous recruiting classes, Davie’s second New Mexico team is relatively light on juniors and seniors and heavy on freshmen and sophomores.</p>
<p>“Hopefully,” Davie said, “you can look at our roster a year or two from now and you’ll see (players with) 22 games, 18 starts, or 20 games, 20 starts. That’s what we’re building for.”</p>
<p>Next game: vs. Texas San Antonio, 6 p.m. MT Saturday</p>
<p>Notable: Sophomore offensive tackle Johnny Vizcaino (concussion symptoms) is doubtful for UTSA. Redshirt freshman tight end Christian Rebhun was lost for the season with a knee injury suffered during camp.… UTSA Athletic Director Lynn Hickey was the women’s basketball coach at Texas A&amp;M while Davie was an assistant there. Davie said Hickey sought his advice during the process of establishing a football program. “We had a lot of discussions when that job first started,” Davie said. “… I’ve followed that program pretty closely.”</p>
<p>— Rick Wright, Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>UTAH STATE</p>
<p>Before last season, Utah State was used to getting shoved around by in-state rival Utah.</p>
<p>The Utes had won 12 straight games in the lopsided rivalry headed into last year’s showdown in Logan. The Aggies shocked them with a 27-20 victory in overtime.</p>
<p>With a new head coach and starting in a new, tougher conference, now Utah State must prove it can repeat the feat.</p>
<p>“This game is going to be kind of a tone-setter for the rest of our season,” quarterback Chuckie Keeton said. “I know it’s only the first game, but every single game has its own weight, so this one is a huge one.”</p>
<p>First-year coach Matt Wells will have to do what no Aggie coach has done since John L. Smith in 1997: Beat Utah in Salt Lake City. The Utes are burning from last year’s loss, which coach Kyle Whittingham said had a “hangover effect” on him early in the season, and fans are expected to participate in a “Stripe the Stadium” promotion for the season opener Thursday night.</p>
<p>But beyond the hostile environment, Wells is looking closely at Utah’s retooled offense under coordinator Dennis Erickson. The Utes are shifting to an up-tempo offense and boast a number of solid receiving weapons. They’ll be looking to contain Kenneth Scott, who tore up Utah State’s defense for 82 yards and a pair of scores.</p>
<p>“I see Dres [Anderson] and Kenneth, and that may be the best two-man combo of wideouts we’ll see all year,” Wells said. “One’s got length and can go. The other one’s quick and fast and elusive.”</p>
<p>Notable: Out of camp, the only player with an extended injury is Bryce Walker, a reserve offensive lineman. … Kicker Nick Diaz is listed on the Aggies’ depth chart as even with Jake Thompson and Josh Thompson, but Wells confirmed Diaz is the starting field goal and extra point guy this season. … A true freshman who might play a role on special teams is Kennedy Williams, the younger brother of 2012 All-WAC running back and current NFL player Kerwynn Williams. He could see time as a kick returner.</p>
<p>Next game: at Utah, 6 p.m. MT Thursday (Fox Sports 1)</p>
<p>— Kyle Goon, The Salt Lake Tribune</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>WYOMING</p>
<p>The Cowboys face a big test defensively in their opener Saturday at No. 18 Nebraska.</p>
<p>Wyoming allowed 33.4 points, 232.3 rushing yards and 470.3 total yards per game and opponents converted 51 percent of their third-down conversions in 2012. The Cowboys finished 4-8.</p>
<p>Nebraska returns most of its offensive starters from a team that averaged nearly 35 points a game. Senior quarterback Taylor Martinez threw for 2,871 yards and 23 touchdowns last season, and ran for 1,097 yards.</p>
<p>“It has a chance to be the best offense in the Big Ten, and maybe one of the top offenses in the country,” fifth-year Wyoming coach Dave Christensen said. “They are explosive. They have a lot of variety in what they can do. They give you different looks and disguise things. They are really difficult to defend because they have great players.”</p>
<p>Wyoming switched from a 4-3 base defense last season to a 3-4, but it will continue to show multiple formations.</p>
<p>“I think we made some improvements but the big test, as it always is, is when you play a game and see what they do on Saturdays,” Christensen said. “We are more athletic defensively, and we play with great</p>
<p>energy. But the key will be how we do in a game, and how we leverage the football and tackle.”</p>
<p>Christensen is calling the offensive plays this season and returns seven offensive starters including junior quarterback Brett Smith. As a true freshman in 2011, Smith was 17 of 33 for 166 yards with two touchdowns and an interception in a 38-14 loss to Nebraska in Laramie.</p>
<p>“It was one of the funnest games I have played in,” Smith said of that game.</p>
<p>Smith has not thrown an interception in 174 consecutive passes dating to Oct. 1 of last season.</p>
<p>That is tied for the longest streak in the nation with Central Florida’s Blake Bortles.</p>
<p>Next game: at No. 18 Nebraska, 6 p.m. MT Saturday (Big Ten Network)</p>
<p>Notable: Wyoming is 0-6 against Nebraska, and has lost all 12 games in the Christensen era against ranked teams. … This is the second consecutive season the Cowboys have opened the season on the road against a ranked opponent. Last year they lost at then-No. 15 Texas 37-17. … Wyoming is 1-15 against teams from the Big Ten. The lone win was at Wisconsin, 21-12, on Sept. 27, 1986. … True freshman Tanner Gentry will start at one of the four wide receiver spots.</p>
<p>— Robert Gagliardi, Wyoming Tribune Eagle</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>FRESNO STATE</p>
<p>Fresno State won a share of the Mountain West last year without really beating anybody of note, continuing a poor run in non-conference and bowl games against FBS opponents.</p>
<p>Over the past four seasons, the Bulldogs are 4-13 in those games and the wins are over Colorado last season (a 1-11 team), Cincinnati (a 4-8 team) and Illinois (a 7-6 team) in 2010 and Illinois (a 3-9 team) again in 2009. They came close last season, making a run at Oregon in the second half and losing to Tulsa 27-26 and to Boise State 20-10. But presented opportunity, they didn’t finish.</p>
<p>The teams Fresno State beat last season went a combined 40-71. Only two of those opponents were better than .500 when beaten by the Bulldogs and they had gotten there by beating up on the same conference opponents that Fresno State had along the way.</p>
<p>San Diego State went on to go 9-4 and share the Mountain West title, but when blitzed by the Bulldogs were 2-2 with wins over an Army team that would finish the season 2-10 and North Dakota, a Championship Subdivision team that finished its season 5-6.</p>
<p>Nevada was 6-3 when Fresno State went to Reno, but also was on a two-game losing streak and en route to dropping five of its last six games including a bowl loss to Arizona. Air Force was 6-5 when it went into Bulldog Stadium and about to end the season on a 1-4 slide.</p>
<p>That obviously will have to change if Fresno State is to fulfill what it believes could be a special season, starting Thursday against Rutgers.</p>
<p>But the Bulldogs said there is a different feel around the program now.</p>
<p>“Some of the teams that we were on that didn’t do so well early in my career, I can see a big difference,” quarterback Derek Carr said. “I can see a huge difference. It’s night and day. Not only how we get along as a team, just the respect we have for all the staff, the respect we have for the coaches, the respect we have for the trainers. That’s the stuff that matters to me and to success.</p>
<p>‘’Last year, it was new to us so we were kind of nervous, like, ‘Does this stuff even work? Are these guys just crazy? What’s going on?’ We didn’t know. But we bought in. We had faith in them. We had hope that it would work. We went in full-go. Now that we’ve done it for a year, it’s nice to go into a system two years in a row – this will be my first time being able to play in a system two years in a row as a starter. You get a sense of comfort, not in a bad way, but you just know things more and you can add more stuff. That goes for the whole team. The team is so excited.</p>
<p>‘’You know, we bought in last year and we saw where it got us and we’re hungry. We don’t see it as people are targeting us. Every team we play, we’re trying to go get them. That’s our mentality and we have more of a confidence, I’d say. Not in an arrogant kind of way, just more confident that we can go out and really do this thing.’’</p>
<p>Said DeRuyter: “I think we have a pretty hard edge on our team right now. There’s a lot of investment and any time you have guys that have made that large of an investment it hurts a little bit more when you lose. You fight a little stronger. When you don’t invest much, it’s easy to lose, and our guys are fully invested so I like where we’re at.”</p>
<p>Next game: vs. Rutgers, 8:30 p.m. MT Thursday (ESPNU)</p>
<p>Notable: Fresno State is coming off a MW conference title-winning season and is having a ‘’White Out’’ promotion against Rutgers, but the game is not close to a sellout. They are expecting in the mid-30,000s. The building holds 41,031. … The Bulldogs had two JC cornerbacks fail to gain admission to school this fall. But they have been pretty much saved by Curtis Riley, who they recruited late out of Fullerton College. He signed his grant in aid the day before fall camp started and even though he had no idea what Fresno State was running when camp opened was running with the No. 1 defense a week into camp. Riley will start against Rutgers. He didn’t play last season at Fullerton. He started his career at Mars Hill College in North Carolina, took a year off and ended up at Fullerton. Fresno State receivers coach Ron Antoine saw him in practice there and they basically scouted him off practice tape.</p>
<p>— Robert Kuwada, The Fresno Bee</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>HAWAII</p>
<p>A retro theme is expected when Hawaii opens against USC on Thursday at Aloha Stadium. After 13 years as the “Warriors,” UH resurrected the “Rainbow Warriors” nickname. Also returning (after a one-year break) are 7 a.m. practices and an emphasis on the passing game.</p>
<p>Last year, Norm Chow’s first as head coach, Hawaii relied on a ball-control attack to milk the clock and ease the burden on the defense. The pro-set offense involved a tight end and fullback, positions that were absent during the 13 seasons of the run-and-shoot offense.</p>
<p>Chow vowed to pass more this season, a decision based on injuries and personnel. Will Gregory, last season’s top rusher, was expelled because of a dormitory violation. Joey Iosefa, projected as the No. 1 tailback, will need another two weeks to recover from a fractured foot. Three freshmen — Faga Wily, Steven Lakalaka and Diocemy Saint Juste – are expected to rotate at tailback. Although Billy Ray Stutzmann missed training camp because of a concussion suffered in a single-car accident, the Rainbow Warriors are deep at receiver. UH added five receivers who are 6-2 and taller, led by junior college transfer Vasquez Haynes and freshmen Marcus Kemp and Keith Kirkwood.</p>
<p>Quarterback Taylor Graham, who redshirted last year after transferring from Ohio State, will make his first start since his senior season at Wheaton (Ill.) North High in 2009.</p>
<p>Next game: vs. No. 24 USC, 9 p.m. MT Thursday (CBS Sports Network)</p>
<p>Notable: Twenty-nine players are expected to make their UH debut against USC. Of the 110 players on the active roster, only 37 remain from Greg McMackin’s last UH season in 2011.</p>
<p>— Stephen Tsai, Honolulu Star-Advertiser</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>NEVADA</p>
<p>Nevada has long been known for its staunch offensive line — the Union, as the Wolf Pack like to call it. But it remains to be seen if this season’s front can live up to the high standards of its predecessors, which in the last eight years or so regularly paved the way for rushing numbers that were among the nation’s best.</p>
<p>First-year coach Brian Polian was still trying to find a right tackle late last week. He and offensive line coach Ron Hudson settled on junior Kyle Roberts, who edged out junior college transfer Braxton Isaac. The 6-foot-6, 305-pound Roberts, from Reed High in nearby Sparks, Nev., played in nine games last season but will be making his first start when Nevada visits UCLA on Saturday night.</p>
<p>Next to Roberts at right guard will be Fred Lavulo (6-2, 305), a senior who transferred from Cerritos College in 2012. Lavulo, who turns 28 next month, was a defensive tackle until about two weeks ago. The Wolf Pack are fairly deep on the defensive front, but endured a great deal of attrition on the offensive line. Nevada lost six linemen since the start of spring ball, including three who were expected to compete for playing time.</p>
<p>The left side of the line, anchored by 2012 All-MW honorable mention Joel Bitonio at tackle, should be solid. Sophomore Connor Talbott, who earned his first start in the New Mexico Bowl last season, starts at left guard. And Matt Galas returns as the starting center.</p>
<p>Next game: at No. 21 UCLA, 8 p.m. MT (Pac-12 Networks)</p>
<p>Notable: Polian said WR Nigel Westbrooks, likely a third-team receiver, has been reinstated to the team after having been suspended indefinitely following a “summer incident.” Polian said Westbrooks is suspended for the UCLA game for a violation of team rules. TEs Stephen Jeffers (foot) and Randy Horton (knee) have been ruled out for the UCLA game. The status of starting DE Lenny Jones (knee) likely will be determined as the week progresses.</p>
<p>— Dan Hinxman, Reno Gazette-Journal</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>SAN DIEGO STATE</p>
<p>Even though the Aztecs’ Aug. 31 opener comes again a non-FBS team, it will be a good test for San Diego State’s inexperienced new cornerbacks.</p>
<p>The Aztecs will not announce the starting cornerback rotation till later this week, but they’ve confirmed that they will be using four cornerbacks this season instead of sticking with two starters on every play like they did last year.</p>
<p>Junior J.J. Whittaker and sophomore walk-on Pierre Romain are the likely starters. Whittaker has had the misfortune of being injured three years in a row and Romain has seen cleanup duty at cornerback in one game during his college career.</p>
<p>So the Aztecs will be fielding green cornerbacks against a spread offense that finished 2012 ranked No. 7 in the FCS in total offense.</p>
<p>“It’s always a concern every time you’ve got green corners and you’re facing teams that want to throw the ball,” Aztecs cornerbacks coach Tony White said. “Spread teams want to throw it all over the place, and as with every team, they want to exploit your weaknesses.</p>
<p>“So it don’t matter if we’re playing a spread, a pro style, a triple option (offense). If they believe your corners are weak, they’re going to attack. So we just have to be ready.”</p>
<p>Next game: vs. Eastern Illinois, 6 p.m. MT Saturday (MW Digital Network)</p>
<p>Notable: The Aztecs came out of camp very healthy, with all the starters ready to go. The only player lost for the season is third-string LB Scott Graves, who ruptured a bicep tendon and had to have surgery.</p>
<p>— Stefanie Loh, U-T San Diego</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>SAN JOSE STATE</p>
<p>The Ron Caragher era begins Thursday for San Jose State against a Sacramento State team that the players have no choice but to take seriously.</p>
<p>The Hornets, a Football Championship Subdivision team, have beaten Pac-12 teams in each of the last two years. They beat Colorado last season and Oregon State in 2011.</p>
<p>“We know they’re a good team,” Caragher said. “Having seen them beat some Pac-12 teams, that’s instant credibility. You show (the players) the scoreboard and really don’t have to say much more.”</p>
<p>The Spartans haven’t won their season opener since 2008, a 17-13 win over another FCS foe in UC Davis. Their past three season openers have come on the road against Top 25 teams. This is the first all-time meeting between Sacramento State and the Spartans, despite being separated by about a 2-hour drive.</p>
<p>SJSU brings a seven-game winning streak into the season and is looking to win its eighth straight for the first time since 1987.</p>
<p>Quarterback David Fales, who broke every significant single-season school passing record last year, begins his second year with the Spartans 3,355 yards and 26 touchdowns away from breaking the school’s career records in those categories.</p>
<p>Next game: vs. Sacramento State, 8 p.m. MT Thursday (MW Digital Network)</p>
<p>Notable: Senior LB Vince Buhagiar, a first-team All-WAC choice last year, is likely out for the season with a shoulder injury. He has a redshirt year available so he should return in 2014.</p>
<p>— Jimmy Durkin, San Jose Mercury News</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>UNLV</p>
<p>UNLV takes a 22-game road losing streak into Thursday’s season-opening game at Minnesota.</p>
<p>It is the second-longest skid in school history. The Rebels lost 26 in a row from 1994 to 1998.</p>
<p>They have not won on the road under fourth-year coach Bobby Hauck, who is 0-20 away from Las Vegas.</p>
<p>“We need to flip that switch at some point in time,” Hauck said. “Whether it’s this Thursday night or not, we get to go see. I like the preparation we’ve put in. I think Minnesota’s a good football team. It’ll be a major accomplishment if we’re able to go in there and beat them.”</p>
<p>The Rebels nearly did last season when they took Minnesota to three overtimes before losing 30-27.</p>
<p>“I think we’re better,” Hauck said. “I think they’re better, too. They went to a bowl game last year, and we didn’t. They’re moving forward, progressing like their staff would like them, too.”</p>
<p>Next game: at Minnesota, 5 p.m. MT Thursday (Big Ten Network)</p>
<p>Notable: Freshman wide receiver Kendal Keys, who signed with Boise State in February before obtaining his release, still has not been cleared by the NCAA and is not expected to play.</p>
<p>— Mark Anderson, Las Vegas Review-Journal</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Mountain West Football Notebook | false | https://abqjournal.com/254117/mountain-west-football-notebook.html | 2013-08-27 | 2 |
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ These Georgia lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>5 Card Cash</p>
<p>KC-AS-7C-10D-3H</p>
<p>(KC, AS, 7C, 10D, 3H)</p>
<p>All or Nothing Day</p>
<p>05-06-07-09-10-11-14-16-18-19-23-24</p>
<p>(five, six, seven, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>All or Nothing Evening</p>
<p>01-03-04-06-07-08-11-12-14-20-21-24</p>
<p>(one, three, four, six, seven, eight, eleven, twelve, fourteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-four)</p>
<p>All or Nothing Morning</p>
<p>03-08-11-12-14-15-17-19-20-22-23-24</p>
<p>(three, eight, eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>All or Nothing Night</p>
<p>02-03-05-06-09-10-11-12-14-21-23-24</p>
<p>(two, three, five, six, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>Cash 3 Evening</p>
<p>4-1-5</p>
<p>(four, one, five)</p>
<p>Cash 3 Midday</p>
<p>5-0-5</p>
<p>(five, zero, five)</p>
<p>Cash 3 Night</p>
<p>8-8-7</p>
<p>(eight, eight, seven)</p>
<p>Cash 4 Evening</p>
<p>0-3-2-2</p>
<p>(zero, three, two, two)</p>
<p>Cash 4 Midday</p>
<p>8-1-7-0</p>
<p>(eight, one, seven, zero)</p>
<p>Cash 4 Night</p>
<p>0-8-0-1</p>
<p>(zero, eight, zero, one)</p>
<p>Fantasy 5</p>
<p>07-12-29-30-35</p>
<p>(seven, twelve, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-five)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $150,000</p>
<p>Georgia FIVE Evening</p>
<p>0-9-9-6-8</p>
<p>(zero, nine, nine, six, eight)</p>
<p>Georgia FIVE Midday</p>
<p>3-8-1-0-2</p>
<p>(three, eight, one, zero, two)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>28-30-39-59-70, Mega Ball: 10, Megaplier: 3</p>
<p>(twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-nine, fifty-nine, seventy; Mega Ball: ten; Megaplier: three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $450 million</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p>
<p>ATLANTA (AP) _ These Georgia lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>5 Card Cash</p>
<p>KC-AS-7C-10D-3H</p>
<p>(KC, AS, 7C, 10D, 3H)</p>
<p>All or Nothing Day</p>
<p>05-06-07-09-10-11-14-16-18-19-23-24</p>
<p>(five, six, seven, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>All or Nothing Evening</p>
<p>01-03-04-06-07-08-11-12-14-20-21-24</p>
<p>(one, three, four, six, seven, eight, eleven, twelve, fourteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-four)</p>
<p>All or Nothing Morning</p>
<p>03-08-11-12-14-15-17-19-20-22-23-24</p>
<p>(three, eight, eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>All or Nothing Night</p>
<p>02-03-05-06-09-10-11-12-14-21-23-24</p>
<p>(two, three, five, six, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-four)</p>
<p>Cash 3 Evening</p>
<p>4-1-5</p>
<p>(four, one, five)</p>
<p>Cash 3 Midday</p>
<p>5-0-5</p>
<p>(five, zero, five)</p>
<p>Cash 3 Night</p>
<p>8-8-7</p>
<p>(eight, eight, seven)</p>
<p>Cash 4 Evening</p>
<p>0-3-2-2</p>
<p>(zero, three, two, two)</p>
<p>Cash 4 Midday</p>
<p>8-1-7-0</p>
<p>(eight, one, seven, zero)</p>
<p>Cash 4 Night</p>
<p>0-8-0-1</p>
<p>(zero, eight, zero, one)</p>
<p>Fantasy 5</p>
<p>07-12-29-30-35</p>
<p>(seven, twelve, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-five)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $150,000</p>
<p>Georgia FIVE Evening</p>
<p>0-9-9-6-8</p>
<p>(zero, nine, nine, six, eight)</p>
<p>Georgia FIVE Midday</p>
<p>3-8-1-0-2</p>
<p>(three, eight, one, zero, two)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>28-30-39-59-70, Mega Ball: 10, Megaplier: 3</p>
<p>(twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-nine, fifty-nine, seventy; Mega Ball: ten; Megaplier: three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $450 million</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p> | GA Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/amp/6b268681fcec417a87265670e7ac8acb | 2018-01-06 | 2 |
<p>Hunter Harrison, a Tennessee-born railwayman, is the CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway. Shortly after <a href="" type="internal">Rachel Notley and her NDP destroyers</a> were elected, Harrison generously volunteered to pay a carbon tax. He called it part of his duty as a good corporate citizen.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Last night on my show,</a>I looked at what's happened since CP's been taxed (and taxed and taxed) by his new NDP friends...</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">WATCH the rest of my show</a> when you become a Premium Member of TheRebel.media. It's fast and easy to join — just <a href="" type="internal">CLICK HERE and get instant, exclusive access</a> to news, analysis and interviews the mainstream media won't show you.</p>
<p>PLUS you get to watch premium shows hosted by Faith Goldy, Gavin McInnes, Lauren Southern and Tiffany Gabbay (with more programs in the works)! <a href="" type="internal">SIGN UP today!</a></p> | CP’s CEO got the tax hikes he wanted — and 2000 of his workers got laid off | true | http://therebel.media/cp_s_ceo_tax_hikes_2000_of_his_workers_got_laid_off | 2016-08-05 | 0 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/weinerfacts"&gt;Weiner Facts&lt;/a&gt;</p>
<p />
<p>In a sign of just how much class the guy has, talk show host Glenn Beck has lashed out against Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) by making fun of his name, in a campaign that drips with veiled anti-Semitism. Tuesday, the Jewish congressman <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37413.html" type="external">had the gall to release an investigation</a> into one of Beck’s biggest sponsors, Goldline International. The report claimed that the company has violated federal law by using misleading and deceptive practices to sell unwitting consumers overpriced gold coins. Weiner has asked both the FTC and the SEC to investigate. Since then, Beck has been on <a href="http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/05/19/glenn-beck-and-rep-weiner-a-fight-for-the-gold/" type="external">something of a rampage</a>. Beck has accused Weiner of engaging in McCarthyism and conspiring with the Obama administration to shut him down. And on Wednesday during his radio show, Beck asked his listeners to send in doctored photos of the congressman showing him with “his nose as a wiener.” He said he welcomed any “Weiner facts” or photos of the congressman “in front of the wienermobile in front of his house, with his wiener dog, with his little wiener children.” (Media Matters has the clip <a href="http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005190027" type="external">here</a>.) Submissions could be sent to a new website Beck just set up, www.weinerfacts.com, which seems to have crashed almost immediately after he called for the photos.</p>
<p>Goldline is one of the few companies that still sponsor Beck’s shows after most of the <a href="" type="internal">mainstream advertisers fled</a> in the wake of his suggestion last year that President Obama was a racist, and Beck seems intent on protecting his sponsor regardless of how many of his listeners say they were ripped off by the company. But as a <a href="" type="internal">Mother Jones investigation</a> also shows, Goldline has generated a host of complaints to the FTC about its business practices that indicate it was only a matter of time before the company ended up going the way of many of Beck’s other sponsors: in trouble with the government.</p>
<p>Just last week, in fact, the Texas attorney general announced that he was charging TaxMasters, another Beck sponsor, with multiple violations of the Texas consumer protection and debt collection statutes. From the AG’s <a href="http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=3328" type="external">press release</a>:</p>
<p>In the midst of a national economic downturn, TaxMasters used a nationwide marketing campaign to offer services for distressed taxpayers who needed help dealing with the IRS,” Attorney General Abbott said. “A state investigation and nearly 1,000 customer complaints indicate that the defendants routinely misled customers about the nature of their tax resolution service agreements – and worse, attempted to enforce those improper agreements through unlawful debt collection tactics. The state’s enforcement action seeks to prohibit the defendants from continuing to violate the law and seeks restitution for the financially struggling taxpayers who were harmed by the defendants’ unlawful conduct….</p>
<p>TaxMasters’ advertisements encourage taxpayers to call its toll-free number for a “free consultation” with a “tax consultant.” Court documents filed by the state indicate that callers are not connected to an employee qualified to give tax advice, but rather with a TaxMasters salesperson who recommends a “solution” for between $1,500 and $9,000 or more.</p>
<p>According to court documents, many callers were offered an installment plan so that they could pay the defendants’ fee over a specified period of time. However, callers who asked to see written terms and conditions prior to making a payment were informed that a credit card or bank account number is necessary to generate a written TaxMasters service contract. As a result, TaxMasters customers were unaware – and the defendants’ personnel did not have a practice of disclosing – multiple aspects of the TaxMasters service agreement that were harmful to taxpayers.</p>
<p>At this point, you have to really wonder: Which of Beck’s advertisers aren‘t running some kind of scam?</p>
<p /> | Beck Wants “Weiner Nose” Photos of NY Congressman | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/beck-asks-listeners-weiner-nose-photos-ny-congressman/ | 2010-05-19 | 4 |
<p>If you were like me, for a split second — literally — you had a feeling you saw a same-sex couple kissing during Academy Award winning director&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Danny Boyle</a>‘s <a href="" type="internal">London 2012 Olympics</a> opening ceremony tribute to all things Great Britain. And, now we can prove that, yes, there indeed was a lesbian kiss — and it was broadcast around the world.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/five_ring_circus/2012/07/28/lesbian_kiss_opening_ceremony_why_danny_boyle_featured_a_scene_from_the_british_soap_brookside_.html" type="external">Slate</a> writes:</p>
<p>This scene lasted just half a second, but according to a few overheated news reports, since the ceremonies were aired around the world, this was the first same-sex kiss shown in some Middle Eastern nations. And despite some claims that NBC didn’t show the kiss,&#160; <a href="http://youtu.be/jW5c-4mJglw" type="external">this armchair detective proved that it did indeed air</a>. It’s just that it flashed by so quickly, you could blink and miss it.</p>
<p>What made this girl-on-girl action significant enough to include in the Olympics opening ceremony? It was the first lesbian kiss that appeared on British television before the 9 p.m. “ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watershed_%28television%29#United_Kingdom" type="external">watershed</a>,” meaning that it was considered suitable for all viewers.</p>
<p>And, to their credit, one of the few things NBC did right was to not censor it.</p>
<p>Think about this for a moment: millions of people in nations where being gay can be met with state-sanctioned death,&#160;for literally a split-scond, saw something they probably never saw before.</p>
<p>It’s a start.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">a lesbian kiss</a>, <a href="" type="internal">ceremony</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Danny Boyle</a>, <a href="" type="internal">human interest</a>, <a href="" type="internal">kiss</a>, <a href="" type="internal">kiss show</a>, <a href="" type="internal">kissing</a>, <a href="" type="internal">lesbian</a>, <a href="" type="internal">lesbians kissing</a>, <a href="" type="internal">london 2012 olympics</a>, <a href="" type="internal">olympics opening ceremony</a>, <a href="" type="internal">sex kiss</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Summer Olympics</a>, <a href="" type="internal">the kiss</a></p>
<p>Friends:</p>
<p>We invite you to <a href="http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001whLQo73KzGhEjdskYG07rHNy_XoDDkSBBO4INZHx6oD9kfp2yeeQAJeMQUu9oTviZa0VEl5k0rNiLifxlZsOFScMz8rVGmIaN-FFOO3GTKc%3D" type="external">sign up for our new mailing list</a>, and&#160; <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TheNewCivilRightsMovement&amp;amp;loc=en_US" type="external">subscribe to The New Civil Rights Movement via email</a> or <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/thenewcivilrightsmovement" type="external">RSS</a>.</p>
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<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>He collapsed onto a muddy spit of land cradling his wife in his lap — a limp figure so exhausted and so hungry she could no longer walk or even raise her wrists.</p>
<p>The couple had no food, no money, no idea what to do next. Their two traumatized children huddled close beside them, unsure what to make of the country they had arrived in just hours earlier, in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>Rafiq said their third child, an 8-month-old boy, had been left behind. Buddhist mobs in Myanmar burned the child to death, he said, after setting their village ablaze while security forces stood idly by — part of a systematic purge of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from Buddhist-majority Myanmar that the United Nations has condemned as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Five weeks after the mass exodus began on Aug. 25, the U.N. says the total number of arrivals in Bangladesh has now topped 501,000.</p>
<p>And still, they keep coming.</p>
<p>“We don’t ever want to go back,” a stunned Rafiq said, describing his family’s ordeal as Bangladeshi volunteers stuffed a small wad of cash into his hand and gave their children biscuits. Another man offered a bottle of water, and Rafiq poured some into his wife’s mouth as she lay in his arms, staring blankly at the sky.</p>
<p>“This is not our home. It is not our country,” Rafiq said. “But at least, we feel safe here.”</p>
<p>Not all those who have fled over the last few desperate weeks have survived. The International Organization for Migration said more than 60 refugees were confirmed dead or missing and presumed dead after one vessel capsized on rough seas in the area Thursday.</p>
<p>The crisis began when a Rohingya insurgent group launched attacks with rifles and machetes on a series of security posts in Myanmar on Aug. 25, prompting the military to launch a brutal round of “clearance operations” in response. Those fleeing have described indiscriminate attacks by security forces and Buddhist mobs, including monks, as well as killings and rapes.</p>
<p>While the international community has condemned the violence and called on Myanmar to protect the Rohingya, Sufi Ullah, a police officer in Teknaf, said nothing has changed.</p>
<p>“We’re seeing them come across whenever they get the chance,” Ullah said. “They’re hiding themselves in the forests and hills (inside Myanmar) in the daytime. And when they get the chance, they run. The Myanmar army is putting pressure on them. These people are afraid.”</p>
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<p>Ullah said several thousand new refugees arrived by boat in Bangladesh on Friday, and authorities were not expecting the flow to let up any time soon.</p>
<p>On Friday, dramatic scenes played out over and over as hordes of Rohingya who had crossed into Bangladesh overnight tried to make their way further inland. They trudged out of boats and through mud that in some places was knee deep. Men carried babies and old women on their backs. Everyone was exhausted.</p>
<p>Sonabanu Chemmon was among those too weak to walk. Her son-in-law had carried her to one of Bangladeshi’s inland creeks, near Shah Porir Dip. But he then abandoned her along with several of her adult daughters.</p>
<p>Asked why, Chemmon covered her eyes as tears fell down her cheeks.</p>
<p>“He said he had carried me far enough, that he couldn’t carry me anymore,” she said. “He told me, ‘you can make it from here. I have to look after my own children.'”</p>
<p>Chemmon was finally helped by several Bangladeshis who are among a small army of local citizenry collecting donations, food and clothing, and handing it out to desperate new arrivals.</p>
<p>“Some of these people haven’t eaten or slept in days. They’re so weak, they can’t even walk,” said Mohamed Ismail, a Bangladeshi volunteer who traveled here from the city of Chittagong.</p>
<p>“I’ve never seen anything like it. They have nothing. It’s painful to watch,” he said, turning away, overcome with emotion. “Bangladesh is not rich, but we have to help.”</p>
<p>Karim Elguindi, who heads the U.N. World Food Program office in Cox’s Bazar, described the scene Friday as “distressing.”</p>
<p>“There’s more and more people coming and there’s not enough space in the existing camps” to accommodate them, said Elguindi, who was touring the area after hearing a new influx was underway. “I don’t know how many Rohingya are left in Myanmar … but there’s more on the way.”</p>
<p>Elguindi said many of the refugees had been traveling for five days or more, and many were not carrying food during the journey. “These people are very vulnerable, very hungry … they need shelter, they need water.”</p>
<p>Myanmar’s government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, does not allow independent media free access to northern Rakhine state, from where the Rohingya are fleeing. While fires are no longer visible from the Bangladeshi border, some refugees told The Associated Press that their homes had been burned as recently as two days ago.</p>
<p>Rafiq said he and his wife, Noor Khatum, fled their home in the Maungdaw village in Khai Dar Para in the first week of September, after police and soldiers moved in and Buddhist mobs, including monks, set fire to homes there in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>Rafiq managed to get his 5-year-old daughter out, while his wife carried their 2-year-old son. But their house, made of wood and sticks, burned quickly, collapsing on their baby boy before they could save him.</p>
<p>After fleeing, they took shelter with relatives in another village, but several days later that village, too, was torched by Buddhist mobs. Rafiq and his family then hid with others in an abandoned house near the border for two weeks, but had no money to pay boatmen to take them across the Naf River to Bangladesh.</p>
<p>So for two days, Rafiq helped other families escape, carrying them and their goods in exchange for amounts of cash. On Friday at 3 a.m., his own family finally made it out.</p>
<p>Now, in Bangladesh, a far more uncertain chapter of their lives has begun.</p>
<p>“We don’t know where we will go,” Rafiq said forlornly, as a long line of families trudged single file toward the town of Teknaf, where authorities were assessing the new arrivals and trucking them to camps further north. “We have nothing. We don’t know what we will do.”</p> | Myanmar refugee exodus tops 500,000 as more Rohingya flee | false | https://abqjournal.com/1070914/myanmar-refugee-exodus-tops-500000-as-more-rohingya-flee.html | 2017-09-29 | 2 |
<p>Watching and reading the Western mainstream media coverage of the war in Gaza as well as the Palestinian question is frequently a source of never-ending frustration.&#160; One must continuously suppress one’s outrage at the deceptive and convoluted framing of what is essentially the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom and independence, but which has become transmogrified into an inherent and almost genetic Arab / Muslim irrational hatred and violence towards Jews / Israel.</p>
<p>In the mainstream, Zionist-inspired narrative, Israel’s “right to exist” precedes and supersedes all else and, in fact, does so uniquely in the world of nations, since under international law, no other nation has or demands such a right.&#160; For Israel to have this right entails the obliteration (and not even acknowledgement) of a similar parallel right of the displaced population, the Palestinians, to also exist.&#160; Therefore, any war that Israel starts – or in most Western media narratives, does not start — it is ipso facto defensive and justified.&#160; Any questioning of this frame of reference is liable to be branded “anti-semitic”, thus conflating (and importantly from a propagandistic point of view, confusing) the actions of a state, which is first and foremost a political actor, with the belief system and religion of an entire group of people.</p>
<p>One of the many consequences of this superimposed narrative is to render the Palestinians almost un-human — untermenschen if you will.&#160; I use the term “human” here in its full sense as embodied in the spirit and law of the United Nations Charter and Resolutions as well as the Declaration of the Rights of Man.&#160; Very briefly, the former guarantees the rights of a national people to independence and guarantees them the right to resist occupation.&#160; The second additionally guarantees political, cultural, and economic rights to all human beings.&#160; And yet, today we find the Palestinians as the last still colonized people who are deprived of any right to resist the colonizing and occupying power.</p>
<p>Acknowledging, and even demanding a guarantee, for Israel’s “right to exist” necessarily demolishes and abrogates Palestinians as a people and as human beings.&#160; Thus we constantly hear the re-iteration of Orwellian phrases like “arms smuggling” through underground tunnels into the Gaza Strip – when in reality it is the Palestinians’ right and duty to resist occupation; or that “Hamas seeks Israel’s destruction” without the concomitant Israel seeks Hamas’ destruction; or the classification of Hamas as a terrorist organization, without mention of the extensive social and charitable work that they do or, more significantly, the fact that they were democratically elected.&#160; We, the readers of mainstream Western media, further face oxymoronic classifications of buildings, infrastructure, schools, and hospitals being designated “terrorist strongholds”&#160; and of any male over the age of ten being lumped in with “Hamas terrorists”.</p>
<p>The stripping away of Palestinians’ basic human rights has even deprived them of the right to choose their own representatives.&#160; Therefore, ever since the Oslo Accords, puppet masters in Israel, the US and to a lesser extent, Europe and “moderate” Arab states have designated the Palestinian Authority and its (now ex-) president, Mahmoud Abbas as “leaders” of the Palestinian people and the only interlocutors in any “negotiation”.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, these “leaders” seem to be for life, like all other Arab dictators.&#160; This, despite the fact that Mahmoud Abbas’ presidential term has officially ended on January 9th, 2009.&#160; Even after the horrific Israeli attack on the Palestinians in Gaza, during which time Abbas sided with the attackers and thereby lost all credibility and legitimacy among the majority of Palestinians, he is still invited to “speak” for them in Arab Summits and in various “talks”.&#160; If it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be laughable.</p>
<p>Another dimension of treating the Palestinians as subhuman is that the atrocities that they suffer at the hand of the Israelis, not just in war, but also in their very cultural, social, political, and economic existence, when acknowledged at all, are presented as some sort of humanitarian crisis.&#160; A charity case that has no human rights dimension.</p>
<p>From the very beginning others have tried to speak for them, thereby denying them their own voices.&#160; So when Palestinians staged an uprising in the late 1930s against Jewish immigration that was aided and abetted by the British Mandate, Arab governments told them to quiet down and that they would extract their freedom and independence from the British colonizers for them.&#160; Instead, Arab leaders emerged with the completely inadequate White Paper in which the British government promised to reduce immigration, but which did not grant the Palestinians a promise of their own independence and statehood.&#160; Afterwards, they were also treated as a non-people, this time by the Zionists who falsely claimed the “land without a people for a people without a land.”&#160; And even when denial of their physical existence was no longer possible, they were simply referred to as “refugees” and not as political actors with legitimate inherent rights.</p>
<p>From Israel’s perspective, the forcible removal and ethnic cleansing in their newly created state was thus morally justified because those being removed were ostensibly non-existent.&#160; They were at best a humanitarian crisis, and not a human rights / political actor issue.&#160; Thus, the 400,000 Palestinians that were forcibly displaced by Israeli terrorist armed militias like the Haganah, Irgun and Lehi as well as by psychological warfare, in the wake of the United Nations Partition resolution in November of 1947 – and flagrantly before the establishment of the state of Israel, were designated mere “refugees” and responsibilities of Arab governments.&#160; As more recent historiographers have proven, the un-peopled land narrative adopted by the Zionists, was used to hide the forced and often violent expulsion of the original inhabitants.&#160; With the declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel in May 1948 and the Arab-Israeli war that followed, an &#160;additional 370,000 Palestinians were removed or displaced under the organized execution of Plan Dalet .&#160; They too were deemed not Israel’s responsibility, since it and only it, had the right to exist.&#160; Even after the armistice talks of the war in 1948, Israel still forcibly removed the inhabitants of the village of al-Majdal.&#160; Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion declared essentially a policy of non-compromise.&#160; “Expel them [the villagers of Lydda and Ramleh, July 1948]!” he ordered his officers.</p>
<p>Palestinians as a people did not exist, and as “refugees”, they were the Arabs’ problem.&#160; Under this rubric, Israel legalized the widespread confiscation of Palestinian land when it opined /declared those lands “abandoned properties” whose owners were “absent”, thus wiping out and Judaizing 400 Palestinian villages.&#160; Similarly, shops, homes and even bank accounts were declared “abandoned” and were expropriated.&#160; They even created a “Transfer Committee” in 1948 to supervise the destruction of Palestinian villages. &#160;And yet the Orwellian Zionist narrative of an un-peopled land persevered for several decades in Israel and in the Western mainstream.</p>
<p>Forced expulsions are how Gaza became essentially a giant refugee camp.&#160; Some 80% of its current inhabitants are descendants of those originally displaced Palestinians from the pre-1948 territory.</p>
<p>And so it continues to the present day.&#160; Israel and her backers still deny the Palestinians their own voice and their own political identity.&#160; With impunity and excessive and rabid force, Israel attacks the un-people of Gaza, now conveniently designated as “terrorists”.&#160; The attack on Palestinians, becomes an attack on Hamas.&#160; Buildings (even UNRWA schools), children, water pipes, workshops, similarly become Hamas strongholds, fighters, weapons labs or bases….</p>
<p>This narrative of un-peopleness has&#160; evolved over time:&#160; from non-existent, to generic Arab squatting on “Jewish” land, to refugee, to low-paid wage laborers, to terrorists, (to even “cockroaches” according to Ariel Sharon).&#160; Eventually, it reached the Oslo “Peace Process” and the designation of certain individuals (who are of course willing to concede anything and everything) as potentially worthy of “talking” to (ostensibly, with).&#160; These were people like the Israeli approved-, Egyptian and Jordanian trained- and equipped- &#160;native police force (Dahlan and his thugs) and the Palestinian Authority. &#160;Any Palestinians who disagree or demand their rights, even if they are the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, are automatically outside the pale and once again consigned to join the new outcasts in this period of world history.&#160; They are part of the “Axis of Evil”, a jumbled all-inclusive collection of boogey men of Hamas-Hezbullah-Iranian-backed-terrorist-Muslim-jihadists.</p>
<p>They are anything but a people with their own nationalist aspirations and an undefeated desire for freedom and equality with all other humans on this earth.</p>
<p>Continuing the tradition of Great Britain when Lord Balfour declared that they will not consult the “wishes of the present inhabitants” and that Zionism, “be it right or wrong” is more important than the “desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land,” the state of Israel today continues to deny the Palestinians’ basic human rights to have any rights.&#160; And the Palestinian Authority is colluding with this denial of the nationalist expression of the Palestinian people’s right and their will to resist forced “solutions”.&#160; But the people of Gaza have spoken, have persevered, and have withstood this latest vicious attack.&#160; Their continued resistance is an inspiration for all those who resist oppression.&#160; And more importantly, their persistence is a reaffirmation that peoplehood / humanity and all its inherent basic rights, are from within, and are not qualities to be granted and bestowed by those in power.</p>
<p>DINA JADALLAH-TASCHLER is an outraged Arab-American of Palestinian and Egyptian descent, a political science graduate, and an artist.</p> | The Struggle of an Un-People | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/01/23/the-struggle-of-an-un-people/ | 2009-01-23 | 4 |
<p>Chinese officials are upset with their portrayal as being corrupt. And, they point out, the US is just as corrupt, if not worse.&#160;What evidence do they have, you might ask? Why House of Cards, of course.&#160;</p>
<p>The hit Netflix TV series depicts the rise of Francis Underwood from a behind-the-scenes powerbroker in the US House of Representatives to (spoiler alert) president of the United States. And he does it through dealmaking, death and destroying reputations.</p>
<p>So does the Chinese official making this claim think House of Cards is how politics are really done in the US.&#160; <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/06/17/how-corrupt-is-the-u-s-just-watch-house-of-cards-china-party-arm-says/" type="external">The Wall Street Journal breaks down</a> the story.</p>
<p>(Editor's note: The Global Scan can be delivered straight to your inbox every weekday. Just&#160; <a href="" type="internal">register and sign up&#160;</a>today.)</p>
<p>Russian officials are looking into the death of a top anti-corruption official who was being investigated for abusing the power of his office. Everyone seems to agree that he fell to his death from a six-story window while being interrogated.</p>
<p>But the circumstances surrounding that fall are a bit confused. His lawyer says he dove out a window after the questioner and lawyer left the room. Officials say he knocked over two guards while being taken to the restroom and then dove out a window. And a human rights organizer suggests he was thrown out the window.&#160; <a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/former-anti-corruption-cop-jumps-to-death-during-interrogation/501992.html" type="external">The Moscow Times tries</a> to get to the bottom of the situation, as Russia opens an investigation.</p>
<p>New York City public schools are closed for Christmas and Yom Kippur, to allow the religiously observant to practice their holidays. Muslim parents, a diverse group of immigrants and native-born, have long sought to have some of their holidays declared official, so they and their children would not have to choose between religion and school.</p>
<p>From our <a href="" type="internal">Global Nation</a> desk, <a href="" type="internal">PRI's The World reports</a>that&#160;New York City's new mayor wants to close school doors during Eid, two of the most important Muslim holy days of the year.&#160;</p>
<p>Uruguay's soccer team brought 86 pounds of dulce de leche, or carmel spread, with it when it headed to Brazil for this year's World Cup. Brazilian officials, perhaps seeking to ensure an advantage for the home team, would have nothing of it.</p>
<p>Under the flimsy-sounding justification of a "lack of&#160;sanitary documentation," Brazilian border authorities confiscated the confection, depriving the soccer players of their snack. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27889343" type="external">The BBC reports</a>that some fans&#160;are blaming Uruguay's surprising 3-1 loss to Costa Rica on the team's lack of dulce de leche.&#160;</p>
<p>Ukraine's chocolate is well-known in eastern Europe and the country's new president even ran a chocolate company. Ukraine had been a major supplier of chocolate to Russia until the crisis there created a political deep-freeze between the two countries. And Kazakhstan is seizing the opportunity to become Russia's new supplier.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Global Voices Online</a>&#160;reports that, for&#160;Kazakhs, chocolate isn't just business, it's a source of national pride. No matter that the country's main producer was recently bought by a largely South Korean investor.</p>
<p>Australian cattle farmers are looking toward the sky and they don't like what they see. With forecasters predicting a 70 percent chance of El Nino taking hold this summer and fall, cattle farmers in Australia are worried at the weather causing their costs to rise. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/el-nino-threat-to-beef-farmers-20140617-3abiq.html" type="external">According to the Sydney Morning Herald</a>, cattle prices have plunged to a 16-year low in anticipation of the pressures El Nino would put on feed prices for cattle.</p> | Chinese officials use 'House of Cards' as an example of US political corruption | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-06-17/chinese-officials-use-house-cards-example-us-political-corruption | 2014-06-17 | 3 |
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<p>Mary Ann Gonzales, left, with her daughter Antoinette Knight, holds a plate of carne adovada at Mary &amp; Tito’s Cafe.(Journal File)</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When the life of Mary Ann Gonzales, the owner of the 50-year-old Mary &amp; Tito’s Cafe, was celebrated Monday, the restaurant closed for the day so the staff of 11 cooks and servers could go to the funeral, at which they were asked to sit up front.</p>
<p>“The first few pews are for you,” Gonzales’ daughter told them. “You do not sit in the back. You were her family.”</p>
<p>Gonzales, who died last week at the age of 92, spent nearly half her life spreading love through the dining room of a neighborhood New Mexican restaurant decorated with family photos that prides itself as being for locals, not tourists.</p>
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<p>She liked to hang out on a stool at the four-person counter, while her late husband, Tito, and later his team of cooks, handled things in the kitchen, according to family and customers.</p>
<p>Diners remembered her as someone devoted to making them feel special every time they came in.</p>
<p>“She always grabbed your hand and rubbed it,” recalled Norman Harty, who sat at the counter happily eating the huevos rancheros he orders each of the five times he dines there weekly. “You could just feel her spirit … there’s a spirit of niceness.”</p>
<p>“She used to always tell my sister and I, ‘You’re so beautiful. Take good care of yourself,’ ” added Jennifer Guthrie, 24, who visited the 20-table diner-style restaurant on Fourth near Menaul on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Recalled Guthrie’s father, who’d joined her for a lunchtime meal: “She was always so cute. She’d come around and talk and say hi. She didn’t always remember names, but she knew you.”</p>
<p>Whenever anyone paid with a credit card, he said, Gonzales called over another staffer to do the transaction, because she was not interested in computers, calculators or technology, preferring to handle things on paper – sometimes using a magnifying glass to compensate for having poor eyesight due to a detached retina.</p>
<p>“She would always ask staff, ‘How’s the baby?’ She wanted to know how everyone was,” recalled one of her three daughters, Antoinette Knight, 50, who now runs the restaurant with the help of family and kitchen staff, most of whom have been there for two or three decades.</p>
<p>Originally from Santa Fe, Gonzales worked as a court reporter with the Metropolitan District Court when she and her husband relocated to Albuquerque.</p>
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<p>When he retired, he thought he’d stay home, but boredom forced him to find something to do. A cooking enthusiast, he decided to open a restaurant. The first one was a four-table diner also on Fourth Street, which Mary Ann Gonzales said she was willing to co-run with him, provided she could be out mingling with the diners rather than making enchiladas and burritos.</p>
<p>When they moved to the larger space down the street, she would set up at the counter with a Journal and a few ledgers and would do payroll and make orders, stopping to check on customers, talking with them about current events she loved to keep up on, and making sure they enjoyed their food.</p>
<p>Fifteen years ago, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, but because she was so mentally sharp, her children decided to convince her doctor to not tell her. So when he prescribed her a medication for the disease, he agreed to say it was for her high blood pressure, which she believed up until she died, Knight said.</p>
<p>In 2010, Mary &amp; Tito’s carne adovada won the America’s Classics Award from the James Beard Foundation. The award is for restaurants that have “timeless appeal and are beloved in their regions for quality food that reflects the character of their community,” according to the foundation’s website. James Beard awards are the highest honor for food and beverage professionals working in North America, and the awards are presented each spring at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.</p>
<p>Two of her three daughters took the trip to the Big Apple with Gonzales. A baseball fan who loved the Dodgers and sometimes wore a Padres cap, Gonzales packed other adventures into the trip: She went to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, saw the Broadway play “Wicked,” and rode the subway. She was close to 90 years old at the time.</p>
<p>In the last six months, she began to decline, with lapses in memory, her relatives said, but she wanted to be on her favorite stool nonetheless, so her daughter or grandson would pick her up and bring her.</p>
<p>On the Wednesday before she died, she was adamant about coming in. “Take me to the restaurant! I want to go,” her daughter recalled her demanding, at once tearing up and chuckling at the memory.</p>
<p>That was the last day she worked. Come Friday, Sept. 13, she was not into it. “Nope! I’m not going!” she said when offered a ride.</p>
<p>The next day, she slipped into a coma, and she died on Sept. 17.</p>
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<p /> | Family, customers remember Mary of Mary & Tito’s Cafe | false | https://abqjournal.com/269416/family-customers-remember-mary-of-mary-amp-titos-cafe.html | 2013-09-26 | 2 |
<p>After a brief reprieve from a bad summer, the California Public Employees Retirement System&#160;has been handed another massive setback.</p>
<p>In a provisional but uncompromising ruling, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein held <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2014/10/01/6752346/calpers-bankruptcy-stockton.html" type="external">&#160;bankrutpcy law does not permit CalPERS to protect its workers’ pensions</a> even when municipal coffers run dry.</p>
<p>Typically in federal bankruptcy proceedings, the judge has almost total discretion to dispose of assets and restructure contracts. But CalPERS,&#160; <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-02/pensions-arent-sacred-a-judge-tells-calpers" type="external">reported</a>&#160;Bloomberg Businessweek, “has long argued successfully that California law provides extra protection for public pensions when a city struggles financially, allowing Calpers to use special liens to force cities to pay up.”</p>
<p>Such&#160;liens have been one of CalPERS’ most powerful weapons in the face of potential bankruptcies.&#160; <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/a-calpers-comeuppance-1412636241" type="external">According</a> to The Wall Street Journal, the particular lien CalPERS demanded from Stockton has reached an eye-popping amount. In the event Stockton defaults on&#160;its pension contract with its public workers, CalPERS said, the fund will see&#160;a $1.6 billion “termination fee.”</p>
<p>Klein, reported&#160;Bloomberg Businessweek, called&#160;the unique law a “golden handcuff” that “is simply invalid in [the] face of the U.S. Constitution.” But his ruling was verbal, not written, and its practical impact will hinge on whether Stockton&#160;proposes — and the judge&#160;accepts at the end of the month — a restructuring plan that does not slash public pensions.</p>
<p>On the other hand, even Klein’s incomplete decision made for&#160;a landmark ruling in California, with important implications nationwide. As the Sacramento Bee <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/2014/10/01/6752346/calpers-bankruptcy-stockton.html" type="external">observed</a>, Wall Street analysts hailed the ruling, which rebuffed CalPERS claims that Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy proceeding should not have been considered a precedent because Michigan lacks the Golden State’s additional pro-pension legislation. Moody’s&#160;Investors Service, reported the Bee, called Klein’s holding&#160;“a positive sign for investors that pension obligations will not be given preferential treatment over debt” in a city’s financial restructuring.</p>
<p>The financial and investment industry has watched Stockton’s case carefully. What happens there could not only affect future&#160;city bankruptcies in California, but influence the scope of legal remedies against public employee unions across the country. Where&#160;pension funds have been&#160;protected, the pressure on creditors, taxpayers and shareholders has increased substantially.</p>
<p>As the Journal detailed, Stockton’s bankruptcy took&#160;a painful toll on virtually every other major financial player in town. “The city last year raised its sales tax by 0.75% to cover rising labor costs and hire more police,” the paper wrote. “Creditors are taking big haircuts. Assured Guaranty, which insures about $121 million in pension obligation bonds, will recover about 50%. Franklin Templeton Investments has been offered a penny on the dollar for $35 million in bonds for public works.”</p>
<p>At the same time as CalPERS has struggled&#160;to advance its claims in court, its public image has taken another slam&#160;on an unrelated matter. After being hit with over $10,000 in fines for years of filing and disclosure violations,&#160;CalPERS board member Priya Mathur recently incurred the wrath of the California Fair Political Practices Commission.</p>
<p>That body is poised to slap Mathur with another $4,000 in fines, quadruple the originally agreed-to amount. CalPERS had already&#160; <a href="" type="internal">stripped</a> Mathur of her chair on the health committee and&#160;suspended&#160;her travel privileges. But, as the Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-calpers-ethics-20141007-story.html" type="external">reported</a>, members of the agencies making up the CalPERS system voted last week to return Mathur to a fourth four-year term in office.</p>
<p>What’s more, in August an irate Gov. Jerry Brown ordered state Controller John Chiang’s office to investigate what his administration could do to “protect the integrity” of a law meant to prevent&#160;pension spiking.</p>
<p>In September, Chiang <a href="" type="internal">revealed</a>&#160;California lacks the resources to oversee and crack down the spiking, which&#160;involves deliberately boosting work that counts toward union members’ retirement packages. The practice increases costs to CalPERS and reduces its fiscal solvency.</p> | Judge: CalPERS not protected in Stockton bankruptcy | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2014/10/08/judge-calpers-not-protected-in-stockton-bankruptcy/ | 2018-10-20 | 3 |
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<p>Probable starters: Isotopes RHP Jeff Bennett (8-6, 3.95) vs. RedHawks LHP Rudy Owens (8-5, 4.52)</p>
<p>Radio: 610 AM</p>
<p>Tuesday: The Isotopes and Oklahoma City played a late game.</p>
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<p>Monday: The RedHawks held the visiting Isotopes to six hits and shut them out 3-0 at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.</p>
<p>This and that: Monday’s loss gave the Isotopes a 59-77 mark, assuring them the worst record in the 12-year history of the franchise. The low point was a 67-77 in 2004 when the team was affiliated with the Florida Marlins. … Isotope OF Joc Pederson was named Pacific Coast League Rookie of the Year on Tuesday. Baseball America’s top overall LA prospect, Pederson leads the league in homers (32), on-base percentage (.432) and runs (99). On Monday, he was named to the All-PCL team after becoming the PCL’s first 30-30 (homers and steals) player since 1934.</p>
<p>Next home game: Thursday vs. Las Vegas, 6:35 p.m.</p>
<p>REDHAWKS 3, ISOTOPES 0</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE OKLAHOMA CITY</p>
<p>ab r h bi ab r h bi</p>
<p>TRobinson CF 2 0 0 0 Villar SS 3 0 1 0</p>
<p>Baxter RF 4 0 0 0 Aplin CF 4 0 0 0</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Federowicz C 4 0 1 0 Torreyes 3B 4 1 1 0</p>
<p>CRobinson 1B 4 0 0 0 Tucker DH 2 1 1 0</p>
<p>Romak 3B 4 0 0 0 Sosa PR-DH 0 1 0 0</p>
<p>Guerrero LF 3 0 0 0 Duffy 1B 4 0 2 0</p>
<p>Monell DH 3 0 2 0 Santana RF 0 0 0 2</p>
<p>Ibarra 2B 3 0 3 0 Hoes LF 4 0 0 0</p>
<p>Triunfel SS 3 0 0 0 Perez C 3 0 1 1</p>
<p>Mier 2B 2 0 0 0</p>
<p>Totals 30 0 6 0 Totals 26 3 6 3</p>
<p>Albuquerque 000 000 000 – 0</p>
<p>Oklahoma City 010 000 02x – 3E – Magill (3). DP – Oklahoma City 2. LOB – Albuquerque 5, Oklahoma City 9. 2B – Federowicz (25), Ibarra, W (11), Duffy (10). S – Villar. SF – Santana, Perez. IP H R ER BB SO</p>
<p>Albuquerque</p>
<p>Magill (L, 7-6) 5 2/3 2 1 1 5 2</p>
<p>Billings 2 1/3 4 2 2 2 2</p>
<p>Oklahoma City</p>
<p>Wjchski (W, 4-4) 7 1/3 6 0 0 1 4</p>
<p>Bass (H, 4) 1/3 0 0 0 1 1</p>
<p>Shirley (H, 3) 1/3 0 0 0 0 0</p>
<p>De Leon (S, 2) 1 0 0 0 0 2WP – Magill. T – 2:33. A – 4,231.</p> | ‘Topes today | false | https://abqjournal.com/452559/topes-today-294.html | 2 |
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<p>Nearly 7 years after Bernie Madoff was given a 150-year prison sentence, thousands of individual investors, pension funds, corporations and universities who lost big in the fraud king's $50 billion Ponzi scheme are still reeling from the losses. Madoff's client list included many familiar names who took significant financial hits. While not all amounts have been disclosed, here are 11 of the biggest celebrities who got conned.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | 11 Celebrities Who Got Scammed by Bernie Madoff and Lost Millions | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/02/02/11-celebrities-who-got-scammed-by-bernie-madoff-and-lost-millions.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>A former Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) manager has been charged by federal prosecutors with destroying evidence related to the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Anthony Badalamenti, 61, of Katy, Texas, was charged by the U.S. Justice Department with directing two other Halliburton employees to delete computer files that showed how BP (NYSE:BP) constructed the Deepwater Horizon oil well that exploded in April 2010, killing 11 workers and spewing millions of barrels of oil into the gulf.</p>
<p>Efforts to forensically recover the files during ensuing civil litigation and the federal criminal investigation by the DOJ's Deepwater Horizon Task Force were unsuccessful, prosecutors said.</p>
<p>Badalamenti was charged in a bill of information, which often means the defendant is cooperating in the investigation and plans to plead guilty.</p>
<p>The charge, revealed Thursday, came the same day a federal judge in New Orleans accepted Halliburton’s guilty plea to destroying evidence. Halliburton was fined $200,000 and was placed on three years of probation.</p>
<p>“Halliburton destroyed evidence during the investigation of the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, and now both the company and the Halliburton manager who ordered the destruction are being held to account,” acting assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Criminal Division said in a statement.</p>
<p>Halliburton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p>Five people have now been charged criminally in the spill, including four BP employees.</p>
<p>BP pleaded guilty to criminal charges in January and agreed to pay a record $4 billion penalty.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Halliburton Worker Destroyed Spill Evidence: Feds | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/09/20/halliburton-worker-destroyed-spill-evidence-feds.html | 2016-01-29 | 0 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Susana Martinez has courted the gun crowd during her two years as governor.</p>
<p>Remember Martinez’s speech at the Republican National Convention in August when she talked about how, as a teenage security guard, she watched over a church bingo parking lot?</p>
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<p>“I carried a Smith &amp; Wesson .357 Magnum,” the governor said in one of her red-meat lines, delivered with dramatic pause to much applause.</p>
<p>And let’s not forget that video last year that showed Martinez with handgun in hand at a shooting range, requalifying for her concealed carry permit.</p>
<p>The governor linked to the video on her Facebook page and Twitter account and cheerfully tweeted, “Chuck (that’s Martinez’s ex-cop husband) will never admit it, but I’m the better shot.”</p>
<p>By the way, Martinez first got her concealed carry permit in 2009, the year she announced her run for governor. A concealed carry permit has become like an American Express card for politicians; they don’t campaign without it.</p>
<p>But Martinez hasn’t been all style when it comes to guns.</p>
<p>She has supported allowing those who have concealed carry permits to bring their loaded handguns into state parks.</p>
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<p>A law to allow concealed carry in parks died in the Legislature this year, but Martinez’s Parks Division is using its rule-making authority to permit concealed carry. The rule becomes effective New Year’s Day.</p>
<p>Martinez in March signed a repeal of a law that permitted New Mexico residents to buy firearms in contiguous states and residents of contiguous states to purchase firearms in New Mexico.</p>
<p>The National Rifle Association and others supported the repeal because some firearms dealers interpreted the law as prohibiting New Mexico residents from buying firearms in noncontiguous states.</p>
<p>Martinez also has opposed a state law that would close the so-called gun show loophole, which allows private sales of firearms to take place without buyer background checks. Private sales account for about half of all gun transactions.</p>
<p>Not long after taking office in January 2011, Martinez agreed to serve as the Republican vice chairwoman for the Governors Sportsmen’s Caucus, which is financed in part by the NRA and the firearms industry.</p>
<p>The Governors Sportsmen’s Caucus is a group of about 20 governors from both parties who support policies and regulations that promote and protect hunting and fishing and advance “sound” wildlife management.</p>
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<p>Martinez last year appointed a state game commissioner – Farmington businessman Robert Espinoza Sr. – who, as the head of an obscure sportsmen’s group, has promoted coyote-killing contests as a way “to have some fun as well as a chance to win some great prizes.”</p>
<p>Of course, Martinez isn’t the first elected official to recognize there is potential political gain in catering to gun enthusiasts. Her predecessor, Bill Richardson, also made clear to voters than he supported gun rights.</p>
<p>After the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Martinez said last week, “We have a long way to go as a society in recognizing and battling mental health issues.”</p>
<p>She also said she would pursue legislation “to make clear that the state must accurately and promptly provide information on people who have been found mentally ill by a court or who have been involuntarily committed to an institution.”</p>
<p>That remark by the governor was puzzling because the Administrative Office of the Courts in 2011 began providing the names of people declared mentally ill or institutionalized to the national background check system for firearm purchases.</p>
<p>The AOC started reporting the names because the state Department of Public Safety, both under Martinez and Richardson, had refused to do so. The department said it didn’t have legal authority to report the names.</p>
<p>The Department of Public Safety remains the primary state agency reporting to the national background check system, providing names of felons, fugitives and others prohibited from possessing firearms.</p>
<p>A Martinez spokesman says the governor wants to put in law which agencies are responsible for providing the mental health records to the background check system, preventing any disruption to reporting that could result from changes in administration or at the AOC.</p>
<p>But best I can tell, Martinez really hasn’t proposed anything new to try to reduce gun violence in the wake of the Newtown shootings. That’s not a surprise, given her record.</p>
<p>UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Thom Cole at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a> or 505-992-6280 in Santa Fe. Go to <a href="" type="internal">www.ABQjournal.com</a>/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor. — This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | The Governor’s Record on Guns Is Long | false | https://abqjournal.com/155776/the-governors-record-on-guns-is-long.html | 2012-12-26 | 2 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/freebird_71/4713942427/sizes/m/in/photostream/"&gt;Freebird_71&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>In August 2011, the US Fish and Wildlife Service confiscated hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of wood from guitar giant Gibson’s Tennessee locations, the second raid in two years. The incident&#160; <a href="" type="internal">blew up</a> into a big brouhaha over federal regulations and enforcement: Gibson&#160;claimed no wrong-doing in regard to wood from both Madagascar and India, and the company and its right-wing allies flipped out, painting the incident as Big Government <a href="http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Contests/2011/Fight-For-Your-Right-To-Rock.aspx" type="external">coming to take away</a> “your right to rock.” Now, nearly a year later, the government and Gibson have reached a settlement.</p>
<p>Under <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/August/12-enrd-976.html" type="external">the settlement</a>, Gibson agreed to pay a $300,000 fine for the ebony from Madagascar that was taken in the first raid. The company also agreed to make a $50,000 donation to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to promote conservation work and forfeited the seized illegal wood, which was valued at $261,844.</p>
<p>The company also acknowledged its violations. Sort of. In a statement, CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said that the company “felt compelled to settle as the costs of proving our case at trial would have cost millions of dollars and taken a very long time to resolve.” The agreement allows Gibson to keep the rosewood and ebony from India that was taken in the second raid and continue importing from India. Juszkiewicz also didn’t drop his claims that his company was “inappropriately targeted” in the raids and that the matter “could have been addressed with a simple contact” from a “caring human being representing the government.” Gibson published all the settlement documents on <a href="http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/Gibson-Comments-on-Department-of-Justice-Settlemen.aspx" type="external">on its website</a>.</p>
<p>In exchange, the Department of Justice dropped its criminal investigation into Gibson. In its release, the DOJ notes that Madagascar is a country that has a major problem with illegal logging, and that its ebony is particularly threatened, which prompted the government to ban the export of unfinished ebony products in 2006. Importing those products would be considered illegal both under Malagasy law and under the Lacey Act, the 2008 US law that requires US importers to follow applicable domestic laws in purchasing wood products. In announcing the agreement, the DOJ released some additional information about the case, none of which makes Gibson look very good:</p>
<p>Gibson purchased “fingerboard blanks,” consisting of sawn boards of Madagascar ebony, for use in manufacturing guitars. The Madagascar ebony fingerboard blanks were ordered from a supplier who obtained them from an exporter in Madagascar. Gibson’s supplier continued to receive Madagascar ebony fingerboard blanks from its Madagascar exporter after the 2006 ban. The Madagascar exporter did not have authority to export ebony fingerboard blanks after the law issued in Madagascar in 2006.</p>
<p>In 2008, an employee of Gibson participated in a trip to Madagascar, sponsored by a non-profit organization. Participants on the trip, including the Gibson employee, were told that a law passed in 2006 in Madagascar banned the harvest of ebony and the export of any ebony products that were not in finished form. They were further told by trip organizers that instrument parts, such as fingerboard blanks, would be considered unfinished and therefore illegal to export under the 2006 law. Participants also visited the facility of the exporter in Madagascar, from which Gibson’s supplier sourced its Madagascar ebony, and were informed that the wood at the facility was under seizure at that time and could not be moved.</p>
<p>After the Gibson employee returned from Madagascar with this information, he conveyed the information to superiors and others at Gibson. The information received by the Gibson employee during the June 2008 trip, and sent to company management by the employee and others following the June 2008 trip, was not further investigated or acted upon prior to Gibson continuing to place orders with its supplier. Gibson received four shipments of Madagascar ebony fingerboard blanks from its supplier between October 2008 and September 2009.</p>
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<p /> | Gibson Guitars and Feds Settle in Illegal Wood Case | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/gibson-and-feds-settle-illegal-wood-case/ | 2012-08-07 | 4 |
<p>Tragedy often brings out the worst in the media. The horrific events that took place last night in Las Vegas have been no exception. Bodies are still unidentified, motives still unknown, and the media has <a href="" type="internal">predictably been quick to pounce on the gun control narrative</a>.</p>
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<p>There is something particularly vile about certain mindsets under such circumstances, and with liberalism being a mental disorder,’ even worse thoughts sometimes slip out from weak minds.</p>
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<p>Take&#160;Hayley Geftman-Gold, a legal executive working at CBS, for example.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2017/10/02/media-criticism-cbs-legal-exec-no-sympathy-because-country-music-fans-often-are-republican/" type="external">Daily Caller</a> report revealed the inner thoughts of Geftman-Gold – mostly because she posted them on social media for the world to see – and it isn’t pretty.</p>
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<p>The&#160;Vice President and Senior Counsel of Strategic Transactions at CBS Corporation writes that she has no sympathy for the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting “because country music fans often are Republican gun toters.”</p>
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<p>No, she really did say that.</p>
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<p>Geftman-Gold made her comments during an online conversation with photographer Erin Fagan Silber, presumably in a discussion about gun control.</p>
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<p>Geftman-Gold’s LinkedIn profile lists her most recent position at CBS Corporation, as well as a lengthy stint with MTV and Viacom.</p>
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<p>Geftman-Gold also happens to be a big fan of former Democrat candidate for President, Hillary Clinton. So much so, that she held a block party for Hillary on election night in 2016.</p>
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<p>The block party was held at the intersection of President and Clinton Streets, where many fans laughed and joked about their candidate’s inevitable win.</p>
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<p>“Looks like the street signs in Brooklyn are rigged,” one supporter joked in a since-deleted tweet.</p>
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<p>A Facebook event posting read,&#160;“Come celebrate the election of our first female POTUS!”</p>
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<p>By the end of the night, the event organizer lamented “I’m curled up in a fetal position at home.”</p>
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<p>Now, Geftman-Gold is actively cheering the possibility that many of the victims in Las Vegas may have been Republicans. That’s how blinded she is by Clinton’s loss it would seem.</p>
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<p>What a sick, sick individual.</p>
<p>Are you surprised how people on the left are reacting to the Las Vegas shooting? Share your thoughts below!</p>
<p /> | CBS Legal Exec: No Sympathy For Vegas Victims Because ‘Country Music Fans Often Republicans’ | true | http://thepoliticalinsider.com/cbs-executive-vegas-shooting/ | 2017-10-02 | 0 |
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<p>Time Warner Cable recently managed to add cable subscribers for the first time in nine years. Yet the video entertainment delivery business, which accounts for just over half of TWC's revenue, was still a drag on operating performance: Sales fell by 1% even as rising programming costs pushed profits lower.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What has kept the cable giant on a solid overall growth pace, though, was impressive growth in its best business segment: high-speed data, which makes up roughly 35% of sales.</p>
<p>About the segment Time Warner delivers Internet access to customers at speeds ranging from 2 to 300 megabits per second. It also carries a "light" option that caps users at different data download levels (like 5 gigabytes in a given month). In these markets, it competes with other cable giants, with DSL carriers, and in some cases with advanced fiber-optic networks from the likes of Alphabetand its Google Fiber.</p>
<p>HSD = high-speed data. TWC booked its best HSD growth in years last quarter, adding 281,000 customers.</p>
<p>In the last few years, TWC's data business has become its fastest-growing, most profitable segment. Sales rose by 9% in 2015 after spiking by 10% the prior year. The company now serves 13 million high-speed customers, for a 9% jump over the prior year. In contrast, the cable business managed the tiniest of increases last year and its customer base is down to 10.8 million from a peak of 13 million in 2008.</p>
<p>Why it's growing As the demands for data speeds increase (thanks to ever-rising demand for video content), Time Warner is finding it easier to collect more revenue by upgrading its service and pushing add-ons like equipment rentals. In fact, those two trends produced an uptick TWC's overall average monthly revenue to $128 last quarter, despite declines in the cable side of the business. For Internet alone, most users now pay close to $50 per month, up from $44 per month two years ago.</p>
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<p>These positive developments help take most of the sting off of those pesky video defections. As more TV fans opt out of cable packages and instead sign up for Internet-based content from companies like Netflix, TWC can protect the customer relationship, at least on the high-speed data side.</p>
<p>While the cable business has to deal with the <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/24/what-time-warner-cable-inc-has-to-say-about-rising.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">spiking cost of programming Opens a New Window.</a> (content expenses rose 10% last year), high-speed data's key costs come in the form of ramped-up capital spending to support higher download speeds. TWC shelled out $946 million in capex last quarter, 9% more than in the prior-year period. Investors can expect those infrastructure costs to keep marching higher as the cable giant rolls out its Maxx digital service to additional major markets this year.</p>
<p>Bright outlook Due to its proposed merger with Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable hasn't provided investors with specific operating targets for any of its business segments. However, it's clear that high-speed data will be a leading division over the next few years.</p>
<p>TWC added 1 million Internet customers to its rolls over the last 12 months, which helped push overall customer relationships up by over 600,000. "That's not just our best ever," CEO Rob Marcus said in a recent conference call with investors. "It's nearly 3 times the previous record."</p>
<p>Besides improving growth trends, here's an even more encouraging data point for this business: Fewer than half of TWC's high-speed data customers subscribe to its ultra-fast tiers, those delivering speeds in excess of 50 megabits per second. That gives the company a huge base of existing users to upgrade over the coming years, even as it works to snag customers from rival cable and DSL giants.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/16/time-warner-cable-incs-best-business-segment.aspx" type="external">Time Warner Cable Inc.'s Best Business Segment Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p>Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSigma/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Demitrios Kalogeropoulos Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of NFLX. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends GOOG, GOOGL,and NFLX. 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> | Time Warner Cable Inc.'s Best Business Segment | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/03/16/time-warner-cable-inc-best-business-segment.html | 2016-03-16 | 0 |
<p>Aug. 21 (UPI) — The monsters of Mordor take center stage in the latest trailer for developer Monolith Productions’ next installment in its Lord of the Rings video game series, Middle-earth: Shadow of War.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BHMrU319D0&amp;oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_BHMrU319D0&amp;has_verified=1" type="external">The clip</a>, released Sunday, features main hero Talion calling upon various dragons and an ice troll in order to take on the wild beasts that roam Middle-earth.</p>
<p>Talion is also seen being confronted by the fiery Balrog, the towering monster featured in film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.</p>
<p>“The enemy isn’t your only threat in #ShadowOfWar. How will you test against the savage wild of Middle-earth?” reads the synopsis.</p>
<p>Alongside the trailer, Microsoft also announced that a Shadow of War Xbox One S <a href="https://www.gamespot.com/articles/shadow-of-war-xbox-one-s-bundle-revealed-alongside/1100-6452680/" type="external">console bundle</a> would be released alongside the game on Oct. 10.</p>
<p>Shadow of War was initially slated to release on Aug. 22 before it was <a href="https://www.upi.com/Middle-earth-Shadow-of-War-game-delayed-until-October/8521496336060/" type="external">delayed</a>.</p>
<p>“As with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Monolith is committed to delivering the highest quality experience. In order to do this, we have made the difficult decision to move our launch date to ensure that Middle-earth: Shadow of War will deliver on that promise,” the developer said in a statement.</p> | 'Middle-earth: Shadow of War' new game trailer features dragons, Balrog | false | https://newsline.com/middle-earth-shadow-of-war-new-game-trailer-features-dragons-balrog/ | 2017-08-21 | 1 |
<p>your email</p>
<p>your name</p>
<p>recipient(s) email (comma separated)</p>
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<p>message</p>
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<p>San Antonio Food Bank workers Sergio Baiz (right) and Ed Rivas (left) prepare to cook mashed potatoes that will be served to low-income students. Under the House of Representatives' new budget, food assistance will be cut by $20.5 billion over 10 years. &#160; (U.S. Department of Agriculture / <a href="" type="external">Flickr</a> / Creative Commons).</p>
<p>A time-honored tactic of conservative lawmakers is to <a href="http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=50&amp;articleID=641" type="external">“starve the beast”</a>by defunding government programs. In the case of food stamps—the quintessential whipping boy for budget hawks—they’re going a step further by trying to starve actual people.</p>
<p>The House of Representatives and Senate have proposed the United States “tighten our belts” by&#160; <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=3965" type="external">slashing billions of dollars from poor people’s food budgets</a>. The main mechanism for shrinking the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding is the <a href="http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/207371901.html?refer=y" type="external">removal of “categorical eligibility.”</a> Basically, most states have used this policy to streamline enrollment: Families are made eligible for food stamps based on their receipt of other benefits, such as housing or childcare subsidies. That often means broadening eligibility for working-poor families or those with overall household income or savings that exceeds regular, stricter thresholds for qualifying for food stamps.</p>
<p>Now the House and Senate farm bill proposals, particularly the House plan, seek to “save” billions more by cutting categorical eligibility. Under the House farm bill budget, which cuts $20.5 billion in SNAP over 10 years, benefits would be eliminated for “nearly 2 million low-income people, mostly working families with children and senior citizens,”&#160; <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=3965" type="external">according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)</a>. (The Senate bill also cuts SNAP but only by about <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/301083-senate-rejects-farm-bill-amendments-aimed-at-changing-cuts-to-food-stamps" type="external">$4 billion</a> over 10 years). In addition, the cuts would&#160; <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=3965" type="external">devastate poor students</a>, because SNAP eligibility has enabled 210,000 low-income children to qualify for free school meals. That means more hunger pangs for kids in the cafeteria, and an emptier refrigerator waiting for them at home. Meanwhile, their working-poor parents may find themselves buying cheaper, less nutritious food to stretch budgets, or turning to the local food pantry, or&#160; <a href="http://www.childrenshealthwatch.org/upload/resource/snapvaccine_report_feb12.jpg.pdf" type="external">facing cruel trade-offs</a>&#160;like delaying rent payments to pay for groceries or leaving a health problem untreated.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=34" type="external">Stacy Dean</a>, vice president for food assistance policy with the CBPP, the House proposal would end up cutting food stamps for people who hold minimal assets--poor families who have held onto a car to get to work, for example, or with savings just above $2,000. So at a time when <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/04/23/a-rise-in-wealth-for-the-wealthydeclines-for-the-lower-93/" type="external">wealth has declined for 93 percent of households</a>, poor families who have built up a modest nest egg may be rewarded with the indignity of hunger. The typical food stamp family doesn’t fit the stereotype of the shiftless poor or “welfare queens,” Dean explained via email:</p>
<p>A typical working family that qualifies for SNAP benefits due to categorical eligibility is a mother with two young children who has monthly earnings just above the program’s monthly gross income limit ($2,069 for a family of three in 2013). On average, the families above that limit who qualify for SNAP as a result of categorical eligibility have combined child care and rent costs that exceed half of their wages. The approximately $100 per month in SNAP benefits they receive covers about one-fourth to one-fifth of their monthly food budget.</p>
<p>In addition to bumping people out of categorical eligibility, the House proposal would&#160; <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=3744" type="external">hit the so called “heat and eat” policy</a> — a mechanism used by some states to coordinate heating assistance payments with food stamps. As a result, according to the CBPP, “about 850,000 low-income households, which include about 1.7 million individuals, would lose an average of $90 a month in SNAP benefits.”</p>
<p>All these cuts are absurdly out of sync with economic realities of the working poor. (They’re also heaped on top of a current cut to food stamps due to the expiration of a temporary boost from the federal stimulus package.)&#160; <a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5118/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=10884" type="external">Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) estimates</a>that over one-sixth of the population faces hardship in securing an adequate food supply--with <a href="http://frac.org/reports-and-resources/hunger-and-poverty/disparities-in-food-insecurity/" type="external">appalling rates</a> of food insecurity among black and Latino households. And among those who can afford to keep their pantries stocked, many are still&#160; <a href="http://frac.org/reports-and-resources/food-hardship-access-to-fruits-and-vegetables/" type="external">too poor to afford healthy, fresh food</a>. Food stamps just dent that gap in food security, with monthly payments <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/34snapmonthly.htm" type="external">averaging</a> a luxurious $280 per household.</p>
<p>For all the <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/21/186607/kansas-sen-pat-roberts-we-must.html" type="external">eagerness in Congress</a> to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/174094/house-gop-plans-even-deeper-food-stamp-cuts#" type="external">shrink food stamps</a>, the program’s problem is not that it helps too many, but that it reaches too few, as Monica Potts <a href="http://prospect.org/article/food-stamps-get-licked-cuts" type="external">has reported</a>. About one in four people who qualify f <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/25/news/economy/food-stamps-ads/index.htm?iid=HP_LN" type="external">or some reason do not receive benefits</a>, according to federal estimates, perhaps due to stigma or bureaucratic barriers in the application process. Many immigrant families are also excluded due to their legal status.</p>
<p>Far from supplementing welfare “dependency,” SNAP actually supports work. According to the CBPP, “Among SNAP households with at least one working-age, non-disabled adult, more than half work while receiving SNAP—and more than 80 percent work in the year prior to or the year after receiving SNAP.” FRAC <a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5118/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=9402" type="external">reports</a>&#160;that overall, “SNAP typically boosts low-wage workers’ income by 10 percent or more,” which in turn helps stimulate the economy overall.</p>
<p>Between 2000 and 2011, <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=3894" type="external">the number of income-earning households on food stamps has more than tripled</a>, topping six million. On the one hand this is a disturbing sign that working-class families are unable to find living wage jobs. But this reality highlights the critical role of SNAP in protecting people from sinking further into poverty.</p>
<p>So that’s the theme of this year’s budget debate: that millions of people can’t afford to eat is not a cause for alarm for politicians so much as a burdensome line item. And erasing public benefits make it easier to make the poor invisible in the public mind. After all, food stamps symbolize not only the failure of “free markets” but the power of social policy to reduce endemic human suffering. For millions of Americans, that monthly food allowance is an unsavory reminder of the consequences of social disinvestment: no matter how hard you work, at the end of the day, you’ll still be hungry.</p> | A Budget That Tightens Belts by Emptying Stomachs | true | http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15033/a_budget_that_tightens_belts_by_emptying_stomachs/ | 2013-05-22 | 4 |
<p>Poland's prime minister has met with Chinese parliamentary leader Zhang Dejiang to discuss developing ties, including business and trade.</p>
<p>Poland, a central European nation, wants to play a key role in China's drive to increase business with Europe. The Polish government is seeking new partners and investments for the economy as it develops quickly.</p>
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<p>Beata Szydlo and Zhang Dejiang, who is the head of the Permanent Committee of China's parliament, held talks Thursday.</p>
<p>Zhang is in Poland until Sunday and will also meet with President Andrzej Duda and Polish parliamentary leaders.</p>
<p>He is also to visit the southern Renaissance city of Krakow and the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz.</p> | Poland, China discuss economic cooperation | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/13/poland-china-discuss-economic-cooperation.html | 2017-07-13 | 0 |
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<p>There’s a point when a simple lapse in judgment becomes a pattern of bad judgment. And for a perfect example of that, one need look no further than Bernalillo County Commissioner Michael Wiener.</p>
<p>His latest was posing for photos with scantily clad young women in a red-light district in the Philippines. Perhaps last month’s photo-op, now out there in the blogosphere, is as innocuous as Wiener portrays it — he had gone to the Philippines to visit his daughter and used the four-hour airline layover to check out the sights with his unnamed “girlfriend/fiancee.” When a photographer approached him and asked him to pose with the young women for a group picture, he agreed, even provided his e-mail address so he could get a copy to remember the happy outing.</p>
<p>Or maybe it’s as the professional photographer, who was documenting efforts to fight the sex trade in the area, portrays it — a middle-aged American man in “the second-largest sex tourist destination in the world” in a part of town where “everyone is essentially for sale” asked a stranger to take his photo with several girls in short-shorts and midriffs, then told a lewd joke.</p>
<p>Wiener’s variety of prior ethical lapses could affect which version you believe. In 2008 he panhandled 22 county employees via their county government emails for $100 donations to help retire his campaign debt because “It costs money to run a campaign.” He forwarded an e-mail joke about African Americans, sex and prison showers to other county officials six months after an African American man was beaten into a coma by fellow inmates at the county jail, which he helps oversee. He repeats ad nauseum what he terms “jokes” about a woman being attacked by a gang of men in Central Park, as well as jokes about his last name and that of fellow Commissioner Wayne Johnson. He continues to defend his inappropriate references to LAPD beating victim Rodney King and about how Hispanics stereotypically look. And he claims that when he said “looking good” he was referring to new paint in a commission office and not the young staffer bent over a box of files.</p>
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<p>Before deciding if the photos continue his pattern of troubling behavior, remember this is a 57-year-old former state senator and Albuquerque city councilor who helps oversee a multimillion-dollar budget funded by property taxes, a career public official who should know the importance of perception.</p>
<p>It’s not a frat boy counting on everything that happens in Vegas — or the outskirts of Manila — staying there. At least it shouldn’t be.</p>
<p>Bernalillo County taxpayers deserve better. Michael Wiener ought to make the right choice for once and step down.</p>
<p>This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.</p> | Editorial: Wiener Should Take High Road For Once | false | https://abqjournal.com/102656/wiener-should-take-high-road-for-once.html | 2012-04-28 | 2 |
<p>The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to join a federal lawsuit against California’s sanctuary laws, specifically Senate Bill 54, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed last year. Bill 54 prohibits state and local police from notifying federal officials when undocumented immigrants in their custody who may be subject to deportation are to be released. Despite serving as home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants, Orange County has a decades-long reputation as a conservative GOP base and a history of anti-immigrant policies.</p>
<p>The Trump administration, which has taken its case to federal court, hopes to invalidate the law on the grounds that it obstructs federal immigration policy and violates the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which prioritizes federal law over state law. The case is still pending.</p>
<p>The case is not the administration’s first crackdown on jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration laws. Only days after his inauguration, Trump issued an executive order seeking to withhold federal funds from cities that did not fully cooperate with federal immigration agents. That order was struck down by a judge in November.</p>
<p>President Trump tweeted Wednesday: “My Administration stands in solidarity with the brave citizens in Orange County defending their rights against California’s illegal and unconstitutional Sanctuary policies. California’s Sanctuary laws … release known dangerous criminals into communities across the State. All citizens have the right to be protected by Federal law and strong borders.”</p>
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<p>California state Sen. Kevin de León, who wrote SB 54, released a statement aimed at cities that wish to oppose sanctuary laws. It reads: “Pushing a racist and anti-immigrant agenda devoid of facts or supporting legal analysis is a pretty sad use of taxpayer resources, especially when it could result in crippling legal costs for cities that rush to join this dead-end effort.”</p>
<p>Roberto Herrera, a coordinator for Resilience O.C., a Santa Ana-based immigrant advocacy group, says the county’s decision reflects a larger “fear of this progressive wave suddenly taking over Orange County.” He adds: “The political conservative elite are scapegoating and creating false archetypes of undocumented immigrants in Orange County. They are using this fear to push their own campaigns forward.”</p>
<p>Indeed, Orange County has a history of anti-immigrant legislation and connection to such laws. The 1994 statewide ballot measure Proposition 187, also known as the Save Our State initiative, had roots in the county. The proposition, approved by California voters, sought to deny public schooling, health care and other services to undocumented immigrants (the measure was struck down by courts).</p>
<p>The Los Angeles Times writes:</p>
<p>… Costa Mesa passed anti-day laborer ordinances and became the epicenter of the anti-illegal immigration movement during the mid-2000s.</p>
<p>Since then, however, much of the county’s anti-illegal immigration fervor has eased after many of its cities experienced an influx of Latino and Asian immigrants.</p>
<p>But the anti-sanctuary momentum gaining ground in Orange County shows that it remains a place with a very conservative core.</p>
<p>Truthdig columnist Bill Blum says that Orange County’s rebellion against the California sanctuary movement is “a subset of the new, progressive form of federalism that is spreading across the country in response to the reactionary policies of the Trump administration on immigration and environmental regulation. Left without federal safeguards to relay on, liberal states are trying on their own to save what’s left of the social safety net, and protect their most vulnerable residents from the administration’s nativist agenda.”</p>
<p>He has also said: “What we’re seeing now with Orange County is a conservative enclave staging its own mini-uprising against the new progressive federalism of the state as a whole. Where this all ends, legally and politically, remains very much in doubt.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Orange County Will Go Against California’s Sanctuary State Laws | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/orange-county-will-go-against-californias-sanctuary-state-laws/ | 2018-03-28 | 4 |
<p>Time Time reporter Viveca Novak says she told Robert D. Luskin, Karl Rove's lawyer, in early 2004 that Rove had leaked information to Matthew Cooper about Valerie Plame. "I hadn't intended to tip Luskin off to anything," she writes. "I was supposed to be the information gatherer." Novak didn't initially tell her bosses that she may have tipped off Rove's lawyer or that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was interested in the details of her conversation with Luskin. Now she's on a leave of absence while Time contemplates her future at the magazine. (Related <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121100400_pf.html" type="external">WP</a>, <a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001658491" type="external">E&amp;P</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/politics/12leak.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">NYT</a> pieces.)</p> | Time's Novak: What I told CIA leak prosecutor Fitzgerald | false | https://poynter.org/news/times-novak-what-i-told-cia-leak-prosecutor-fitzgerald | 2005-12-12 | 2 |
<p>A spring nor'easter packing high winds and heavy snow walloped the East Coast on Monday, closing some schools and cutting power to at least 75,000 in Pennsylvania and upstate New York.</p>
<p>Most of the snow was falling across upstate New York, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, where the National Weather Service predicted rates of more than an inch per hour through midday Monday, <a href="http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11350754-spring-noreaster-cuts-power-to-75000-hits-town-with-10-inches-of-snow?lite" type="external">MSNBC reported</a>.</p>
<p>Up to a foot of snow&#160;was expected in the higher elevations of central and western Pennsylvania, as well as New York state, south of Buffalo. A winter storm warning was issued for parts of northeastern Ohio, where 3 to 7 inches of snow was forecast, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/april-noreaster-dumps-rain-snow-east-coast-064129380.html" type="external">The Associated Press reported</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, flood watches were in effect in parts of eastern New York and northern Maine, <a href="http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/discussions/nfdscc3.html" type="external">according to the National Weather Service</a>.</p>
<p>The heavy, wet snow was weighing down trees, which snapped and cut power lines.</p>
<p>An estimated 25,000 power outages were reported in New York state by noon EST, with another 50,000 outages in Pennsylvania, MSNBC reported.</p>
<p>A number of schools in western Pennsylvania were closed Monday ahead of the storm, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57418756/surprise-spring-storm-pounds-northeast/" type="external">CBS News reported</a>.</p>
<p>Major League Baseball postponed games in Boston, New York and Washington due to heavy rain and snow. And the scheduled arrival of the space shuttle Enterprise in New York City was pushed back until at least Wednesday, <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/04/23/Noreaster-delays-shuttles-flight-to-NYC/UPI-25691335164400/" type="external">according to UPI</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the disruptions, the storm brought welcome moisture to parts of the Northeast.</p>
<p>"We're down 7 or 8 inches," weather service forecaster Charlie Foley told the AP. "This won't completely wipe out the deficit but it will certainly help."</p>
<p>Visit msnbc.com for <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com" type="external">breaking news</a>, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032507" type="external">world news</a>, and <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032072" type="external">news about the economy</a></p> | April Nor'easter dumps rain, snow on East Coast (VIDEO) | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-04-23/april-noreaster-dumps-rain-snow-east-coast-video | 2012-04-23 | 3 |
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<p>Where were the red flags?</p>
<p>One would think government bureaucrats getting ready to award a lucrative contract to a mental health provider would have snapped to the idea that more vetting might be needed because the provider was under investigation by another state agency.</p>
<p>That would make sense, but this is New Mexico, after all.</p>
<p>Instead, last summer the Department of Health awarded contracts to Roswell-based New Mexico Psychiatric Services. And the DOH did so even though some DOH employees — no one wants to say who — supposedly knew the state Attorney General’s Office was investigating Medicaid fraud allegations for billings for Human Services Department clients. HSD payments to New Mexico Psychiatric Services have been suspended pending the inquiry’s outcome.</p>
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<p>Under the DOH contracts, the company can bill up to $623,900 to provide on-call or temporary services to state-run health facilities, including the Sequoyah Adolescent Treatment Center in Albuquerque, a 36-bed facility center for violent and mentally ill youths. A former supervisor there has filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging the Department of Health fired her for reporting alleged “public malfeasance” regarding the health and safety of staff and residents.</p>
<p>Despite the issues with the AG’s office, the DOH charged ahead with the contracts. It should have a strong explanation for doing so.</p>
<p>The department has yet to offer one.</p>
<p>This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.</p> | Editorial: DOH Missed Red Flags On Service Contracts | false | https://abqjournal.com/160621/doh-missed-red-flags-on-service-contracts.html | 2013-01-16 | 2 |
<p>The New York Times refers to the prospect of rising e-book sales as the “digital apocalypse.”</p>
<p>The New York Times ( <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/business/media/the-plot-twist-e-book-sales-slip-and-print-is-far-from-dead.html?_r=0" type="external">9/22/15</a>) reports slowing e-book sales as the “digital apocalypse” that didn’t happen. “Five years ago, the book world was seized by collective panic over the uncertain future of print,” reporter Alexandra Alter writes.&#160; “Publishers and authors feared that cheaper e-books would cannibalize their business.”</p>
<p>But the metaphorical cannibal apocalypse has failed to materialize, as “digital sales have instead slowed sharply.” What’s the explanation for the “surprising resilience of print”?&#160; Consumer preference, is the main story the Times tells: “Young readers who are digital natives still prefer reading on paper” and “e-reading devices fell out of fashion.” Thank goodness for people’s undeniable love of good old-fashioned real books, is the underlying tone.</p>
<p>Then, three-quarters of the way through the lengthy piece, the real economics of the publishing industry appear:</p>
<p>Higher e-book prices may also be driving readers back to paper.</p>
<p>As publishers renegotiated new terms with Amazon in the past year and demanded the ability to set their own e-book prices, many have started charging more. With little difference in price between a $13 e-book and a paperback, some consumers may be opting for the print version.</p>
<p>On Amazon, the paperback editions of some popular titles, like The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, are several dollars cheaper than their digital counterparts. Paperback sales rose by 8.4 percent in the first five months of this year, the Association of American Publishers reported.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal‘s graphic documenting high prices of e-books–and declining sales.</p>
<p>Well, yeah–when you raise prices of things, people tend to buy less of them. The Wall Street Journal ( <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/e-book-sales-weaken-amid-higher-prices-1441307826" type="external">9/3/15</a>) had an article on this earlier this month, headlined “E-Book Sales Fall After New Amazon Contracts: Prices Rise, but Revenue Takes a Hit.” The Journal‘s Jeffrey Trachtenberg reported:</p>
<p>Three big publishers that signed new pacts with Amazon— Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group, News Corp ’s HarperCollins Publishers and CBS Corp.’s Simon &amp; Schuster—reported declining e-book revenue in their latest reporting periods.</p>
<p>“There’s no question that publishers’ net receipts have gone down,” a publishing executive tells the paper. Why would publishers want to make less money selling fewer books? The story explains the politics behind this apparent defiance of economics:</p>
<p>Publishers said the current pricing model involves some sacrifice but they felt it was worth it to keep Amazon in check. What’s more, they have noticed a bump in sales of physical books that is possibly related to the higher price of digital books.</p>
<p>The <a href="" type="internal">main difference</a>, from the publishers’ point of view, between print books and e-books is that it’s very difficult to self-publish a print book: It’s difficult for an author to distribute physical books to thousands of real-world bookstores. In a world where books are mostly delivered electronically, it’s hard to imagine that publishers will play much of a role.</p>
<p>That’s why Markus Dohle, CEO of Penguin Random House, can tell the Times, “Even 50 to 100 years from now, print will be a big chunk of our business.” He’s not predicting consumer preferences a century from now; he’s telling how he hopes to shape consumer choices by&#160; pricing products not to sell when his industry doesn’t want to sell them.</p> | Digital Apocalypse Not: NYT Celebrates Publishers Deciding They Don’t Want to Sell E-Books | true | http://fair.org/home/digital-apocalypse-not-nyt-celebrates-publishers-deciding-they-dont-want-to-sell-e-books/ | 2015-09-24 | 4 |
<p>Aldi, the no-frills German grocer that's expanding in the U.S., says it will offer grocery delivery for the first time in three American cities by the end of the month.</p>
<p>The company says it has a partnership with Instacart to deliver groceries to customers in Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles. Shoppers will be able to order goods on Instacart's website or app, and Instacart workers will pull the items off the shelf and deliver them. Customers can schedule delivery for that day.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Instacart charges a delivery fee, and the company says some items may cost more than they do in Aldi stores.</p>
<p>Aldi says it may expand delivery to more cities. The chain, which has about 1,700 U.S. stores, plans to have 2,500 locations by 2022.</p> | Aldi to offer grocery delivery service in 3 US cities | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/13/aldi-to-offer-grocery-delivery-service-in-3-us-cities.html | 2017-08-13 | 0 |
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<p>Jose Kahn lives in a tony suburb of San Diego, California. The toxic mess his company created sits 20 miles south, in a squalid industrial park outside of Tijuana, Mexico. But when it comes to making Kahn clean up the site, the businessman might as well live on Mars.</p>
<p>For 12 years, Kahn owned and ran Metales y Derivados, a lead smelter that imported used car batteries from the United States for recycling. Under Mexican law, Kahn’s maquiladora was required to repatriate its hazardous wastes to the United States. Instead, Metales stockpiled 6,000 metric tons of lead, arsenic, and other toxics, and abandoned them when Mexican authorities shut down the plant in 1994. Since then, activists say, inadequate containment and heavy rains have let some waste seep into the neighboring colonia of Chilpancingo.</p>
<p>Metales has now become an important test case for the environmental protections promised under the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA’s environmental arm — the Commission on Environmental Cooperation — agreed to review the case in October, marking its first-ever investigation of toxic waste on the border. Although Metales’ operation largely predates NAFTA, the CEC’s ruling will set a precedent for the thousands of maquiladoras operating under the agreement. Yet even if the CEC finds fault with Kahn or with the Mexican authorities, few expect a quick resolution. The commission has no authority to enforce a cleanup — it can only publicize its findings.</p>
<p>“We are doing a robust factual inquiry into the Metales case,” says Greg Block, program director at the Montreal-based CEC. But he admits that “one of the open questions about the whole NAFTA process is whether well-prepared factual records will lead to improvements or not.” Cesar Luna, project director with the Environmental Health Coalition in San Diego, decries the weakness of the commission: “It was a fundamental flaw in NAFTA that the CEC doesn’t have any enforcement authority. It’s been a total disappointment.”</p>
<p>Environmentalists and sources within the EPA suspect Metales is not an isolated case. The agency concedes it doesn’t know how much hazardous material is shipped south to the more than 2,000 maquiladoras that dot the border. But Mexican authorities estimate that less than one-third of the waste is returned to the United States, as required under NAFTA. Like Metales, many maquilas are thought to be stockpiling their waste, but illegal dump sites have turned up on both sides of the border. The situation is so dire that some environmental groups have dubbed the border a “2,000-mile-long Love Canal.”</p>
<p>Full remediation of the Metales site could run as high as $10 million, and Mexicans have tried fruitlessly to get Kahn to front the bill. Although Mexican warrants were issued for Kahn’s arrest in 1994, he continues to live — protected by the border — in San Diego’s luxurious Point Loma neighborhood. There have been no extradition efforts to date.</p>
<p>In a statement sent to Mother Jones, Kahn defended Metales, calling it a “state-of-the-art recycling facility” and adding that he is “trying to secure financing” for a cleanup. Local environmentalists are skeptical, and losing patience. “We need to bring Jose Kahn to justice,” says Luna, “so that corporations will understand that they can’t act like this in the future. Otherwise, this will happen again and again.”</p>
<p /> | Toxic Trade Imbalance | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2001/01/toxic-trade-imbalance/ | 2018-01-01 | 4 |
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<p>FREDONIA, Ariz. (AP) — A married couple was killed and a teenage boy injured when lightning struck near a scenic overlook in northern Arizona, authorities said Wednesday.</p>
<p>Coconino County sheriff’s officials said the names of the couple were being withheld until relatives could be notified. The man and woman lived outside the United States, but their hometowns and ages weren’t immediately available.</p>
<p>Authorities said at least one of the victims may have been directly hit by a lightning bolt that struck about 3 p.m. Tuesday in the area of the LeFevre Scenic Outlook on state Route 89A, some 8 miles north of Jacobs Lake.</p>
<p>Sheriff’s officials released a photo of the scene that showed a broken rock on the wall of the overlook. They said it’s believed the couple was standing on the rock seat beneath the wall when the lightning bolt struck.</p>
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<p>The man and woman were in a group of people at the overlook and they were pronounced dead at the scene, sheriff’s spokesman Gerry Blair said.</p>
<p>The bodies were taken to the county medical examiner’s office for autopsies, according to Blair.</p>
<p>He said the teenage boy was “either 13 or 14” and not related to the victims, although his name and hometown weren’t immediately clear.</p>
<p>Blair said the boy was treated at the scene for non-life threatening injuries.</p> | Lightning kills couple at Ariz. overlook | false | https://abqjournal.com/225447/lightning-kills-couple-at-ariz-overlook.html | 2013-07-25 | 2 |
<p>Photo by Jessica Testa/Buzzfeed</p>
<p>Policy Mic&#160;rounded up the <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/35453/10-most-racist-tweets-about-boston-marathon-bombing" type="external">10 most racist tweets</a> about the Boston Marathon bombing.</p>
<p>Carlos Arredondo was a <a href="http://univisionnews.tumblr.com/post/48132587586/carlos-arredondo-grieving-dad-turned-hero-in-boston" type="external">hero</a> of yesterday’s tragedy. He also happens to have moved to the U.S. without authorization.</p>
<p>Pope Francis <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pope-nuns-20130416,0,7134312.story" type="external">reaffirms</a> that those radical feminist nuns need to get in line.</p>
<p><a href="http://jezebel.com/everyday-sexism-project-empowers-women-receives-hate-m-473565206" type="external">Surprise!</a> The Everyday Sexism Project gets a lot of hate mail.</p>
<p>CFC: “ <a href="http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2013/04/15/not-that-kind-of-dr/" type="external">Not That Kind of Dr.</a>”</p>
<p>Check out this week’s <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/173792/dispatches-us-student-movement-april-15#" type="external">report</a> on the U.S. student movement from The Nation.</p>
<p>Diversity in YA <a href="http://diversityinya.tumblr.com/post/48122738864/happy-book-birthday-to-todays-diya-new" type="external">celebrates</a> new book releases.</p>
<p>Dr. Z on some uses of black male trans <a href="http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/04/dr-z-uses-of-black-trans-male-anger.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter" type="external">anger</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.racialicious.com/2013/04/16/wanted-writers-to-talk-race-and-parenting-race-and-young-people/" type="external">Want to join</a> the Love Isn’t Enough team?</p>
<p>Rookie <a href="http://rookiemag.com/2013/04/molly-ringwald-interview/?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter" type="external">interviews</a> Molly Ringwald.</p>
<p>Tufts’ health plan <a href="http://www.tuftsdaily.com/news/health-plan-expands-to-include-gender-reassignment-surgery-1.2823681" type="external">will now cover</a> gender reassignment surgery.</p>
<p>Women in ND are going to seek out abortions <a href="http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/04/nd-lawmaker-will-talk-women-out-of-abortions.html" type="external">whether they’re legal or not</a>: A “heartbeat” ban will just make the procedures less safe.</p> | Daily Feminist Cheat Sheet | true | http://feministing.com/2013/04/16/daily-feminist-cheat-sheet-66/ | 4 |
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<p>BEIJING (AP) — The deadly explosion and sinking of an Iranian oil tanker in the East China Sea was without precedent and created enormous difficulties for rescue and recovery efforts, a Chinese official said Friday.</p>
<p>The sinking of the Sanchi after a Jan. 6 high seas collision with a grain freighter was one of the worst maritime disasters in recent years, with all 32 sailors on board believed lost.</p>
<p>It was also a first for a tanker carrying natural gas condensate, Zhi Guanglu (Jer Gwong-LOO), head of the transport ministry’s emergency response department, told reporters.</p>
<p>“There was no precedent for this accident,” Zhi said. “We are still facing enormous difficulties and many challenges.”</p>
<p>Only three bodies of the crew of 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis were recovered. All 21 crew members of the freighter were reported safe and the cause of the collision and ensuing fire is under investigation.</p>
<p>Cleanup efforts continue, with ships and planes monitoring oil leaking from the sunken vessel. China’s State Oceanic Administration said it detected an oil slick in the area that appeared to contain heavy bunker oil from the Sanchi’s fuel tanks that could pose a serious threat to the marine environment.</p>
<p>Zhi said attempts to rescue crew members were hampered by a multitude of factors, beginning with the remote location of the collision.</p>
<p>That necessitated a 20-hour round-trip to refuel and refill the firefighting boat’s tanks with fire retardant foam, Zhi said. The massive fire aboard the Sanchi required constant dousing with foam that far exceeded the capacity of the ship’s storage tanks, he said.</p>
<p>The fire and toxic fumes released also forced rescue vessels to keep their distance and it was only after several days when the fire was beginning to die down that rescuers were able to board the ship using a crane and remove two bodies. Even then, the heat of the fire prevented them from entering the crew quarters.</p>
<p>High winds and waves up to 4 meters (13 feet) high further increased the difficulty, Zhi said.</p>
<p>“In the process of the rescue, our ships and sailors were constantly in danger,” he said.</p>
<p>The transport ministry earlier announced plans to send a robot submarine, possibly followed by divers, to explore and plug holes in the ship. No timeline was given for the mission.</p>
<p>Depending on conditions, divers might also be able to pump oil from the 85,000-ton vessel’s fuel tanks before they leak further and contaminate the seabed.</p>
<p>Authorities say the Sanchi is lying under 115 meters (377 feet) of water in the East China Sea, about 530 kilometers (330 miles) southeast of Shanghai.</p>
<p>While constituting a threat, the Sanchi disaster probably won’t create oiled beaches such as those caused by the uncontrolled blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, according to David Pettit, a senior attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Resources Defense Council.</p>
<p>“We can expect damage to marine life in the East China Sea from the condensate that remained in the sinking ship, but we don’t know at this point how much,” Pettit said in an email.</p>
<p>“Shipping hydrocarbons is inherently dangerous and this accident reinforces how important it is for shipping companies and coastal nations to have up-to-date oil spill recovery plans,” he wrote.</p>
<p>BEIJING (AP) — The deadly explosion and sinking of an Iranian oil tanker in the East China Sea was without precedent and created enormous difficulties for rescue and recovery efforts, a Chinese official said Friday.</p>
<p>The sinking of the Sanchi after a Jan. 6 high seas collision with a grain freighter was one of the worst maritime disasters in recent years, with all 32 sailors on board believed lost.</p>
<p>It was also a first for a tanker carrying natural gas condensate, Zhi Guanglu (Jer Gwong-LOO), head of the transport ministry’s emergency response department, told reporters.</p>
<p>“There was no precedent for this accident,” Zhi said. “We are still facing enormous difficulties and many challenges.”</p>
<p>Only three bodies of the crew of 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis were recovered. All 21 crew members of the freighter were reported safe and the cause of the collision and ensuing fire is under investigation.</p>
<p>Cleanup efforts continue, with ships and planes monitoring oil leaking from the sunken vessel. China’s State Oceanic Administration said it detected an oil slick in the area that appeared to contain heavy bunker oil from the Sanchi’s fuel tanks that could pose a serious threat to the marine environment.</p>
<p>Zhi said attempts to rescue crew members were hampered by a multitude of factors, beginning with the remote location of the collision.</p>
<p>That necessitated a 20-hour round-trip to refuel and refill the firefighting boat’s tanks with fire retardant foam, Zhi said. The massive fire aboard the Sanchi required constant dousing with foam that far exceeded the capacity of the ship’s storage tanks, he said.</p>
<p>The fire and toxic fumes released also forced rescue vessels to keep their distance and it was only after several days when the fire was beginning to die down that rescuers were able to board the ship using a crane and remove two bodies. Even then, the heat of the fire prevented them from entering the crew quarters.</p>
<p>High winds and waves up to 4 meters (13 feet) high further increased the difficulty, Zhi said.</p>
<p>“In the process of the rescue, our ships and sailors were constantly in danger,” he said.</p>
<p>The transport ministry earlier announced plans to send a robot submarine, possibly followed by divers, to explore and plug holes in the ship. No timeline was given for the mission.</p>
<p>Depending on conditions, divers might also be able to pump oil from the 85,000-ton vessel’s fuel tanks before they leak further and contaminate the seabed.</p>
<p>Authorities say the Sanchi is lying under 115 meters (377 feet) of water in the East China Sea, about 530 kilometers (330 miles) southeast of Shanghai.</p>
<p>While constituting a threat, the Sanchi disaster probably won’t create oiled beaches such as those caused by the uncontrolled blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, according to David Pettit, a senior attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Resources Defense Council.</p>
<p>“We can expect damage to marine life in the East China Sea from the condensate that remained in the sinking ship, but we don’t know at this point how much,” Pettit said in an email.</p>
<p>“Shipping hydrocarbons is inherently dangerous and this accident reinforces how important it is for shipping companies and coastal nations to have up-to-date oil spill recovery plans,” he wrote.</p> | China calls deadly tanker collision ‘unprecedented’ | false | https://apnews.com/7d2ca9f73a7a484db7eafbb08b478025 | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p>Banks, lenders and other financial companies rose after another day of mixed results. Morgan Stanley shares rose after the second largest Wall Street investment bank scored a point against its arch-rival Goldman Sachs. Morgan Stanley reported a first-quarter profit of $1.93 billion, topping the average analyst target, buoying shares and closing the long-standing gap between it and Goldman's market capitalization. U.S. Bancorp said profit and revenue increased in the first quarter, but executives warned that demand for some loans was sluggish. The world's largest money manager by assets, BlackRock, posted increases in first-quarter revenue and assets under management, which rose 14% from a year earlier to $5.42 trillion.</p>
<p>-Rob Curran, [email protected]</p>
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<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>April 19, 2017 16:54 ET (20:54 GMT)</p> | Financials Up After Mixed Results -- Financials Roundup | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/19/financials-up-after-mixed-results-financials-roundup.html | 2017-04-19 | 0 |
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<p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. (NYSE:JPM) led the nation in total U.S. deposits for the first time in the third quarter, according to CEO Jamie Dimon.</p>
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<p>The largest U.S. bank by assets topped estimates on both the top and bottom lines. The company earned $1.76 per share on revenue of $26.2 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected earnings of $1.65 per share on revenue of $25.23 billion.</p>
<p>“In Consumer &amp; Community Banking, card sales and merchant processing volumes were once again up double digits, while loans and deposits continued to grow strongly,” Dimon said in the company’s quarterly earnings <a href="https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/investor-relations/document/ddfd37f6-679a-4f24-81e0-d7ca6f9b34a1.pdf" type="external">press release Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>“We continued to lead our peers in Investment Banking fees, and Treasury Services and Securities Services each generated over $1 billion in revenue,” he added.</p> | JPMorgan leads banks in total US deposits: Jamie Dimon on 3Q earnings | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/10/12/jpmorgans-profit-rises-bond-trading-slumps.html | 2017-10-12 | 0 |
<p>Univision anchor Jorge Ramos told a Latino audience at a Univision Music Awards show on Thursday that the US is “our country, not theirs.”</p>
<p>“There are many people who do not want us to be here, and who want to create a wall in order to separate us,” Ramos said at the Premios Lo Nuestro awards. “But you know what? This is also our country. Let me repeat this: OUR country, not theirs. It is our country. And we are not going to leave.”</p>
<p>If you wanted to read about the “ <a href="http://www.univision.com/especiales/premio-lo-nuestro/heres-jorge-ramos-bold-statement-at-premio-lo-nuestro-award-show" type="external">bold statement</a>” on Univision’s website for English consumption, you’d find it’s not there as they deceptively edited the quote from “our country, not theirs” to “our country, not just theirs.”</p>
<p>The latter is less likely to tip off Americans that <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=55722" type="external">he and Univision owner billionaire Haim Saban appear to be trying to lead a Latino insurrection</a>.</p>
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<p>From <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/latino/jorge-bonilla/2017/02/24/jorge-ramos-our-country-not-theirs" type="external">NewsBusters</a>:</p>
<p>Further ramping up his open opposition to President Trump’s immigration law enforcement policies, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos has let loose with an outrageous tirade that could best be described as equal parts nationalistic identity politics, racially-driven demagoguery, and yet another instance of the irresponsible conflation of legal and illegal immigration.</p>
<p>Here’s how the Univision/Fusion anchor kicked off his participation in the 2017 edition of the network’s annual entertainment awards show, Premios Lo Nuestro (“Our Awards”):</p>
<p>JORGE RAMOS, SENIOR NEWS ANCHOR, UNIVISION: I am an immigrant, just like many of you. I am a proud Latino immigrant here in the United States. My name is Jorge Ramos, and I work at Univision and at the Fusion network. And you know exactly what is going on here in the United States. There are many people who do not want us to be here, and who want to create a wall in order to separate us. But you know what? This is also our country. Let me repeat this: OUR country, not theirs. It is our country. And we are not going to leave. We are nearly 60 million Latinos in the United States. And thanks to US, the United States eats, grows and, as we’ve seen today, sings and dances. So when they attack us, we already know what we are going to do. We are not going to sit down. We will not shut up. And we will not leave. That is what we are going to do.</p>
<p>Premios Lo Nuestro is usually just a nice bit of entertainment for fans of the many different genres of Latin music…not unlike the Billboards or the CMAs. However, as we saw during last year’s pre-election <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/latino/jorge-bonilla/2016/10/15/preview-univisions-rise-one-gotv-concert-rally" type="external">RiseUp concert and GOTV rally</a>, Univision is increasingly mixing politics and entertainment – and that’s how we end up with Ramos as a presenter at a music awards show.</p>
<p>Ramos’ speech is amazingly strident, with an “us against them” tone that one would not expect from someone who incessantly promotes diversity from the other side of his mouth.</p>
<p>Ramos’ statement sounds like an outright declaration of war. He is ordering foreign nationals who are here illegally to fight deportation and refuse to leave, while simultaneously saying this is “our country, not theirs.”</p>
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<p>Two weeks ago it was reported in the Wall Street Journal that influential Mexicans are calling for their citizens here illegally to jam our courts.</p>
<p>As the WSJ <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tom-blumer/2017/02/15/barely-news-mexicos-and-mexicans-plans-jam-us-immigration-courts" type="external">reported</a>:</p>
<p>Mexicans Vow to Fight Trump by Jamming U.S. Courts Group says it will urge compatriots targeted for extradition to fight in court; government allocates funds</p>
<p>Influential Mexicans are pushing an aggressive and perhaps risky strategy to fight a likely increase in deportations of their undocumented compatriots in the U.S.: jam U.S. immigration courts in hopes of causing the already overburdened system to break down.</p>
<p>The proposal calls for ad campaigns advising migrants in the U.S. to take their cases to court and fight deportation if detained. “The backlog in the immigration system is tremendous,” said former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda. The idea is to double or triple the backlog, “until [U.S. President Donald] Trump desists in this stupid idea,” he added.</p>
<p>Mr. Castañeda is part of a group of Mexican officials, legislators, governors and public figures planning to meet with migrant groups Saturday in Phoenix to lay out plans to confront the Trump administration’s deportation policy.</p>
<p>Mexico’s government hasn’t endorsed the strategy or the group’s Phoenix mission. But it recently allocated some $50 million to assist undocumented migrants facing deportation, and President Enrique Peña Nieto has instructed the country’s 50 consulates in the U.S. to defend migrants.</p>
<p>Castañeda also <a href="http://www.infowars.com/ex-official-calls-on-mexico-to-unleash-drug-cartels-to-punish-trump/" type="external">threatened to unleash drug cartels into America to punish Donald Trump</a>.</p>
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<p>Last year in October, Jorge Ramos celebrated whites becoming a minority in America and said it was “ <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=55722" type="external">beautiful</a>.”</p>
<p>Ramos told RT’s Larry King that a “Latino revolution” means “the future of the United States is California, it is Texas, it is New Mexico. Those are three states in which already, right now, more than 50% of the population is composed by minorities.”</p>
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<p>“So, in other words,” Ramos said, “the future of this country will be composed solely by minorities.”</p>
<p>“It is a beautiful American experiment, in which everyone is embracing, not only immigrants, but minorities. The white supremacists, the racist groups, the Ku Klux Klan, the alt-right, they hate that, and they’re fighting really hard right now to prevent that,” he said.</p>
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<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=56332" type="external">Information Liberation</a></p>
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<p /> | Jorge Ramos: The U.S. Is ‘Our Country, Not Theirs’ | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/02/27/jorge-ramos-the-u-s-is-our-country-not-theirs/ | 2017-02-27 | 0 |
<p>Two California insurers are partnering for an ambitious project to establish one of the nation's largest health information exchanges, an effort they hope will reduce duplication and improve patient outcomes.</p>
<p>The not-for-profit Blue Shield of California and Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of private insurance giant WellPoint, announced Tuesday they are starting the California Integrated Data Exchange. The medical-sharing portal will contain information for 9 million plan members.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It is designed to share patient medical records electronically among providers. That will give doctors and hospital staff quick access to see existing conditions and medications.</p>
<p>The insurers said the information exchange, known as Cal INDEX, would start at the end of the year and adhere to patient privacy laws.</p>
<p>A consumer advocate says greater input is needed from insurance plan members.</p> | Anthem, Blue Shield start California medical information portal to reduce waste, improve care | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/08/05/anthem-blue-shield-start-california-medical-information-portal-to-reduce-waste.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>Dairy is a major force in the economic development of many New Mexico communities.</p>
<p>But those numbers were cold comfort three years ago, during the depths of the Great 2009 Recession, when a crushing cost-price squeeze caused by soaring feed costs and plunging milk prices created financial hardships for many New Mexico dairy farmers.</p>
<p>In economic terms, we were victims of a negative cash flow. Month after month, we lost money on every gallon of milk we produced. Some months the milk did not pay for the feed the cows consumed, much less all other operating costs.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>For those of us who survived, it will take years to regain our lost equity. Nationwide, dairy farmers saw their net worth drop by $20 billion between 2007 and 2009.</p>
<p>To ensure consumers a dependable supply of milk, a federal safety net is in place – in theory – to protect dairy farmers against catastrophes beyond their control. But it simply does not work anymore. Dairy farmers remain on a roller coaster of ups and downs in milk prices that leaves us barely profitable one year, and with losses the next.</p>
<p>In the midst of the 2009 recession, the leaders in the dairy industry began to chart a path to provide a cost-effective safety net that would benefit both farmers and consumers by addressing the volatility in the milk industry.</p>
<p>The result was legislation called the Dairy Security Act, introduced last fall by the senior Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, and Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho.</p>
<p>The bipartisan bill needs to be part of the farm bill the House and Senate are starting to write this month. Put simply, it offers the best hope in a generation for improving federal dairy policies.</p>
<p>The key is to reorient government dairy programs from an emphasis on price, to a focus on maintaining an adequate margin: that critical difference between the price farmers receive for their milk, and the cost of producing it. In the environment of escalating and volatile feed and fuel costs, a system that focuses only on milk price is totally inadequate.</p>
<p>The Peterson-Simpson bill starts by scrapping the current dairy safety net made up of price supports and direct payments. No longer will the government buy and store dairy products to bolster prices or make payments to farmers when they really aren’t needed.</p>
<p>Instead, the Dairy Security Act establishes an insurance program that will protect farmers when margins shrink to dangerous levels. To prevent steep price declines or prolonged low-margin situations caused by high production costs, a standby program will encourage a temporary reduction in milk production.</p>
<p>Best of all, these programs would be voluntary. Dairy farmers will have a choice of forgoing any federal help, or accepting a basic safety net that includes reducing milk output when needed to balance supply and demand.</p>
<p>The Peterson-Simpson bill will moderate the wild price swings that have plagued both dairy farmers and consumers in recent years. It saves taxpayers at least $100 million over five years, and it’s the only comprehensive reform proposal on the table as Congress sits down to write a new multiyear farm bill.</p>
<p>Dairy farming remains a big driver of New Mexico’s economy. In order to remain a viable industry providing food and jobs in our communities, we need a safety net that works and keeps pace with the challenges facing our industry.</p>
<p>The Peterson-Simpson bill does that. It has the support of the New Mexico dairy industry, and it deserves support from the New Mexico congressional delegation.</p>
<p>Wayne Palla is a dairy farmer and cattle rancher in Clovis. He serves on the boards of both Dairy Farmers of America and the National Milk Producers Federation.</p> | Bill a Safety Net for Dairy Farmers | false | https://abqjournal.com/97342/bill-a-safety-net-for-dairy-farmers.html | 2012-03-30 | 2 |
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<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
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<p>Investing is, at its heart, all about balancing risk and reward, and this is something many investors struggle with on a regular basis. And while too much risk can destroy a portfolio in short order, too little risk can leave you falling short of your long-term investing goals. Sometimes, a little more risk can mean a lot more opportunity for profit.</p>
<p>With that in mind, some of our top contributors picked three companies that offer a compelling opportunity, even if they are higher on the risk scale. Looking to add some upside to your portfolio at the cost of a little more risk? Keep reading for three stock ideas whose risk levels are matched only by their potential for big returns.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFVelvetHammer/info.aspx" type="external">Jason Hall Opens a New Window.</a>: Over the past year, internet bankBofI Holding, Inc(NASDAQ: BOFI) has been hounded by accusations that its results are the product of a number of misdeeds, from dealing with criminals to monkeying with appraisal values -- and a whole litany of things in between. These accusations started with a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed last year by a former employee who has tried to claim whistleblower status, and they now include a class action securities fraud lawsuit. Throughout this saga, short sellers have piled into BofI stock, and the share price has suffered.</p>
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<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/BOFI" type="external">BOFI</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>However, over the past year, essentially nothing that BofI has been accused of has been proven true, and regulators have taken no action beyond the regular audits and oversight that any bank typically experiences during the course of a year. Furthermore, BofI has made two acquisitions, both of which required regulatory approval, and it also commissioned an independent investigation into the claims made against it. Both acquisitions went through just fine, and the independent investigation found no merit in the claims made by the former employee.</p>
<p>There has also been some relatively good news on the legal front. In both of the lawsuits filed against BofI, the courts granted BofI's motion to dismiss some of the claims against the company, its board of directors, and several executives, though others motions were denied. Furthermore, the former employee who "blew the whistle" presented his findings to regulators and was denied whistleblower status months ago, calling into question his claims.</p>
<p>Despite all of the (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that BofI is probably not the crooked bank it has been portrayed to be, its short interest has remained stubbornly high, and that shouldn't be ignored, because investors are betting a lot of money that something is rotten in the state of BofI.</p>
<p>Still, if the shorts are wrong, and BofI really is the high-quality, fast-growing bank that its financials and historical results suggest it is, then this could be one of the best risk-reward investments out there right now.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFEBCapital/info.aspx" type="external">Todd Campbell Opens a New Window.</a>: Risk-tolerant investors might want to join medical device giant Medtronic plc (NYSE: MDT) in cozying up to Mazor Robotics Ltd.(NASDAQ: MZOR).Medtronic signed on to market Mazor Robotics' robotic spine surgery system globally in May, and as part of that deal, it acquired a roughly 10% ownership stake in Mazor Robotics for about $30 million.</p>
<p>In Q1, Mazor Robotics reported $6.4 million in sales, up 42% year over year, and in Q2, sales were up 6.2% year over year to $8.28 million. Mazor Robotics received orders for five Renaissance systems in Q1, and in Q2 it received 11 orders -- the second-highest quarterly total in the company's history.</p>
<p>Medtronic is in the process of training hundreds of salespeople, and if those salespeople can successfully generate system sales, then it should lead to a spike in sales of high-margin consumables that are used in spine procedures. If so, then Mazor Robotics could on the brink of finally turning a profit. Last quarter, it lost $4.1 million.</p>
<p>There's no guarantee Medtronic's marketing plan will be successful, but I'm betting that adding "hundreds" of Medtronic sales people to the 17 who currently pitch the product for Mazor Robotics will pay off.If I'm right, then buying Mazor Robotics when its market cap is only $540 million could be a smart move.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTypeoh/info.aspx" type="external">Brian Feroldi Opens a New Window.</a>:One stock likely to appeal to risk-loving investors is Novocure (NASDAQ: NVCR). This company's claim to fame is creating theOptune system, which is a medical device that's worn on the skin and emits low-intensity, alternative electric fields. Those fields have been clinically shown to disrupt cell division in cancerous solid tumors, providing patients with a non-invasive alternative to chemotherapy.</p>
<p>Currently, the Optune system has been FDA approved to treat recurrent and newly diagnosed glioblastoma -- a type of brain cancer -- but the company believes the Optune system holds promise as a treatment for other cancers like lung, ovarian, pancreatic, breast, and more.</p>
<p>Image source: Novocure.</p>
<p>Because the company is a pioneer in this new and exciting field, it has had a hard time convincing insurers to cover the system, but that looks like it'sslowly changing. Last quarter, the company said that 10 million more patients can access the system, bringing its total up to 116 million nationwide.</p>
<p>Healthcare providers look like they're warming up to the Optunesystem, too. Prescription volume grew by 54% last quarter, allowing the company's revenue to grow by a huge 174%. That number should scream higher in the years ahead as the company gets the word out and expands coverage.</p>
<p>Of course, Novocure is still bleeding capital, and its expenses are likely to rise substantially in the years ahead as it drives for continued fast growth. Still, this company's long-term potential looks massive if the Optune system can win label expansion claims. That makes Novocure a high-risk, high-reward stock that's likely to appeal toinvestors who prefer to swing for the fences.</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=2518&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/TMFTypeoh/info.aspx" type="external">Brian Feroldi</a> owns shares of BofI Holding and Mazor Robotics. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/elihpaudio/info.aspx" type="external">Jason Hall Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of BofI Holding. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/elihpaudio/info.aspx" type="external">Jason Hall</a> has the following options: long January 2017 $22.5 calls on BofI Holding. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/EBCapitalMarkets/info.aspx" type="external">Todd Campbell Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends BofI Holding. The Motley Fool owns shares of Medtronic. 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>.</p>
<p>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> | Best Stocks for High-Risk Investors | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/03/best-stocks-for-high-risk-investors.html | 2016-10-03 | 0 |
<p>During today's press briefing when Sean Spicer was asked about the travel ban just implemented, the press secretary claimed multiple times, "it's not a travel ban," and when confronted by Trump's own words that call it a ban, he blamed the media and said, "[Trump] is using the words that the media is using."</p>
<p>Even for Sean Spicer, this is a weak excuse.</p>
<p>Earlier today, the Trump administration <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/01/31/homeland-security-secretary-john-kelly-we-knew-executive-order-was-coming.html" type="external">began their cleanup attempt</a>over the disastrous roll out Friday of Trump's executive order regarding immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.</p>
<p>Sean Spicer became hot when MSNBC's Kristen Welker offered evidence that it wasn't the media that called it a "ban", but Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Welker said, "Sean, you're saying this was not a ban. This was president's Trump tweet "if the ban were announced with a one-week notice the bad would rush into our country during that week, so he says it's ban."</p>
<p>Spicer replied, "He's using the words that the media is using. But at the end of the day..."</p>
<p>Welker replied, "Those were his words."</p>
<p>Spicer tried to explain that it can't be a ban if they are letting people into the country, but Welker didn't back down and said, "The president himself called it a ban."</p>
<p>Spicer, "I understand that."</p>
<p>Welker continued, "Is he confused or are you confused?"</p>
<p>Spicer replied, "I'm not... the words being used to describe it derive from what the media is calling this. He's been clear it is extreme vetting..."</p>
<p>Every pundit and Trump surrogate called it a "travel ban" up until today's press conferences.</p>
<p>Trump's words during his entire campaign told us he wanted to install a Muslim ban and Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that's exactly what Trump wanted. Rudy bragged that he found a "legal" way to do just that, meaning he banned Muslims from the US while pretending it isn't an unconstitutional religious test.</p>
<p>But everyone knows it's a religious test and a ban on Muslims. That's why the courts have been so quick to put stays in place to stop the Executive Order from being enforced.</p>
<p>But as his incompetence requires, Spicer focussed on the word "ban" as a media creation.</p>
<p>Maybe Spicer could have spent some time on the word "Muslim," since that's what's being "banned," and everyone knows it.</p>
<p>Pathetic.</p> | Sean Spicer Blames Media For Trump Calling It A 'Ban' | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2017/01/sean-spicer-gets-angry-and-blames-media | 2017-01-31 | 4 |
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<p>One of two survivors of the July 17 plane crash near Sierra Blanca Regional Airport in Ruidoso that killed five people was released from the hospital Sunday, the <a href="http://www.ruidosonews.com/ruidoso-breaking_news/ci_15404402" type="external">Ruidoso News</a> reported.</p>
<p>Kristopher Richey, 12, is staying with an aunt in the Houston area, but his 16-year-old brother, Alex, remains hospitalized but is reportedly doing better after undergoing several surgeries, the News said.</p>
<p>The boys’ parents, Lowell and Keri Richey, died in the crash, as did the pilot, Rodney Duree, his wife DeLaine and their son Lake, the paper reported.</p>
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<p>Both families were from Granbury, Texas, and the group had been en route to Albuquerque with the ashes of Lowell Richey’s mother for a memorial service, according to the News.</p>
<p>The plane went down about three-quarters of a mile east of the runway at Sierra Blanca Regional, the News said.</p>
<p>5:15pm 6/17/10 — At Least 5 Dead, 2 Hurt in Southern N.M. Plane Crash: Twin-engine plane was landing at airport near Ruidoso when it apparently overshot runway and then crashed.</p>
<p>THE ASSOCIATED PRESS</p>
<p>At least five people were killed and two others injured Thursday when a twin-engine airplane apparently overshot a runway while landing and crashed at a regional airport in south-central New Mexico, authorities said.</p>
<p>The survivors, who appeared to be teenagers, were airlifted to a hospital in El Paso, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford.</p>
<p>The six-seat Cessna 310 was registered to an owner in Granbury, Texas. The tail number shows the airplane belongs to Rod Aviation.</p>
<p>John Frank, executive director of the Cessna Pilots Association, said the Cessna 310 has room for six people and includes a luggage compartment toward the rear. He said the only way seven passengers could fit into the aircraft would be if one or more were under the age of two — what pilots consider “an infant in arms.”</p>
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<p>“This will all come out as things get sorted out as to who was on board and the ages and all of that, but the aircraft has a maximum of six seats,” Frank said.</p>
<p>According to federal records, the plane was built in 1980 and had turbocharged engines.</p>
<p>Lunsford said FAA officials were trying to determine the plane’s route before the 10 a.m. MDT crash at Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, just outside of the mountain community of Ruidoso. No flight plan was filed for Thursday, he said, but the pilot received a weather briefing Wednesday for flight conditions between Cleburne, Texas, and Ruidoso.</p>
<p>“We do not know whether he completed the flight on Wednesday or waited until today to depart,” Lunsford said. “There was no contact with air traffic controllers.”</p>
<p>Cleburne city spokesman Charlie Hodges said the aircraft had stopped Thursday morning in the Texas community, located about 25 miles south of Fort Worth.</p>
<p>The plane, piloted by two men, landed at 8:08 a.m. CDT in Cleburne, where two women and three children boarded with their luggage. The plane’s passengers appear to be related, Lunsford said.</p>
<p>“We’re working with the originating airport right now to get a better idea of how many passengers were onboard. … There’s a substantial amount of damage so we can’t clearly see who’s inside,” State police Lt. Eric Garcia said. He declined to say where the flight originated.</p>
<p>Authorities at the scene said it was too early to tell what might have caused the crash. Investigators with the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were en route to the airport.</p>
<p>The crash sparked a fire that burned about an acre of forest near the end of the runway. Firefighters were able to get the flames under control.</p>
<p>Five people died Aug. 5, 2007, when a medical airplane crashed into a hillside near Ruidoso while transporting an ill toddler to Albuquerque. Investigators concluded the pilot became disoriented shortly after taking off from the Ruidoso airport.</p>
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<p>Thursday, 17 June 2010 14:55</p>
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<p>At least five people were killed and two others injured Thursday when a twin-engine airplane apparently overshot a runway while landing and crashed at a regional airport in south-central New Mexico, authorities said.</p>
<p>The survivors, who appeared to be teenagers, were airlifted to a hospital in El Paso, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said.</p>
<p>Lunsford said FAA officials were trying to determine the plane’s route before the 10 a.m. MDT crash at Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, just outside of the mountain community of Ruidoso. No flight plan was filed for Thursday, he said, but the pilot received a weather briefing Wednesday for flight conditions between Cleburne, Texas, and Ruidoso.</p>
<p>“We do not know whether he completed the flight on Wednesday or waited until today to depart,” Lunsford said. “There was no contact with air traffic controllers.”</p>
<p>Lunsford said the Cessna 310 was registered to an owner in Granbury, Texas. The tail number shows the airplane belongs to Rod Aviation.</p>
<p>Cleburne city spokesman Charlie Hodges said the aircraft had stopped Thursday morning in the Texas community, located about 25 miles south of Fort Worth.</p>
<p>The plane landed at 8:08 a.m. CDT in Cleburne, where two women and three children boarded. The aircraft departed two minutes later, but Hodges said he didn’t know where it was going.</p>
<p>State Police Lt. Eric Garcia confirmed five people were killed in the crash and two others were pulled from the wreckage. Their conditions were not immediately known.</p>
<p>“We’re working with the originating airport right now to get a better idea of how many passengers were onboard. … There’s a substantial amount of damage so we can’t clearly see who’s inside,” Garcia said. He declined to say where the flight originated.</p>
<p>The plane’s passengers appear to be related, Lunsford said.</p>
<p>Authorities at the scene said it’s too early to tell what may have caused the crash. Investigators with the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were en route to the airport.</p>
<p>The crash sparked a fire that burned about an acre of forest near the end of the runway. Firefighters were able to get the flames under control.</p>
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<p>Thursday, 17 June 2010 13:25</p>
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<p>At least five people were killed and two others were injured when a twin-engine plane overshot a runway while landing and crashed Thursday at a regional airport in south-central New Mexico, federal and local authorities said.</p>
<p>Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said he did not have any information about the flight plan for the Cessna 310, but he confirmed it was registered to an owner in Granbury, Texas. The tail number shows the airplane belongs to Rod Aviation.</p>
<p>“The aircraft was apparently landing when it crashed just off the end of the runway,” Lunsford said.</p>
<p>State Police Lt. Eric Garcia confirmed five people were killed in the crash at Sierra Blanca Regional Airport just outside of the mountain community of Ruidoso, and two others were pulled from the wreckage and taken to a hospital. Their conditions were not immediately known.</p>
<p>“We’re working with the originating airport right now to get a better idea of how many passengers were on board. … There’s a substantial amount of damage so we can’t clearly see who’s inside,” Garcia said.</p>
<p>He declined to say where the flight originated.</p>
<p>The plane’s passengers appear to be related, and the two survivors are teenagers, Lunsford said.</p>
<p>Authorities at the scene said it’s too early to tell what may have caused the crash. Investigators with the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were en route to the airport.</p>
<p>The crash sparked a fire that burned about an acre of forest near the end of the runway. Firefighters were able to get the flames under control.</p>
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<p>Thursday, 17 June 2010 12:35</p>
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<p>Five people were killed and two others were injured when a twin-engine plane crashed Thursday morning at a regional airport in south-central New Mexico, federal and local authorities said.</p>
<p>Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said he did not have any information about the flight plan for the Cessna 310, but he confirmed it was registered to an owner in Granbury, Texas. The tail number shows the airplane belongs to Rod Aviation.</p>
<p>“The aircraft was apparently landing when it crashed just off the end of the runway,” Lunsford said.</p>
<p>State Police and Lincoln County emergency management officials confirmed five people were killed and two others were injured in the crash at Sierra Blanca Regional Airport just outside of the mountain community of Ruidoso.</p>
<p>County emergency manager Travis Atwell said two people were pulled from the wreckage and taken to a hospital. Their conditions were not immediately known.</p>
<p>The plane’s passengers appear to be related, and the two survivors are teenagers, Lunsford said.</p>
<p>Authorities at the scene said it’s too early to tell what may have caused the crash. Investigators with the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were en route to the airport.</p>
<p>The crash sparked a fire that burned about an acre of forest near the end of the runway. Atwell said firefighters were able to get the flames under control.</p>
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<p>Thursday, 17 June 2010 11:55</p>
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<p>Authorities say a twin-engine plane that crashed Thursday morning at a regional airport in south-central New Mexico, killing five people onboard, was registered to an owner in Granbury, Texas.</p>
<p>Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said he did not have any information about the flight plan for the Cessna 310.</p>
<p>The tail number shows the airplane is registered to Rod Aviation in Granbury.</p>
<p>State Police and Lincoln County emergency management officials said five people were killed and two others were injured after the plane apparently overshot the runway at the Sierra Blanca Regional Airport near Ruidoso.</p>
<p>County emergency manager Travis Atwell said two people were pulled from the wreckage and taken to an area hospital.</p>
<p>Atwell said it’s too early to tell what may have caused the accident.</p>
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<p>Thursday, 17 June 2010 11:21</p>
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<p>State Police and Lincoln County emergency management officials say five people are dead and two others are injured after a plane crashed Thursday morning at the Ruidoso airport in south-central New Mexico.</p>
<p>State Police Lt. Eric Garcia says it’s believed there were seven passengers aboard the airplane and authorities are working to transport survivors for medical care.</p>
<p>Garcia had no other details.</p>
<p>Lincoln County emergency manager Travis Atwell confirmed that two people were pulled from the wreckage and were being transported to an area hospital. He said it appears the plane overshot the runway but that it’s too early to tell what may have caused the accident.</p>
<p>Firefighters are working to extinguish a small forest fire that was sparked when the plane crashed.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Updated at 5:40am — Ruidoso Plane Crash Survivor Out of Hospital | false | https://abqjournal.com/13564/updated-at-540am-ruidoso-plane-crash-survivor-out-of-hospital.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>SpaceX launched the Air Force’s super-secret space shuttle on Thursday, a technology tester capable of spending years in orbit.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The unmanned Falcon rocket blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, as schools and businesses boarded up for Hurricane Irma.</p>
<p>It’s the fifth flight for one of these crewless minishuttles, known as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle.</p>
<p>The two Air Force space planes have already logged a combined 5 ½ years in orbit. But officials won’t say what the spacecraft are doing up there. The last mission lasted almost two years and ended with a May touchdown at the runway formerly used by NASA’s space shuttles. The first one launched in 2010.</p>
<p>As has become customary, SpaceX landed its leftover booster back at Cape Canaveral for eventual reuse.</p>
<p>This was the first time SpaceX has provided a lift for the experimental minishuttle. The previous missions relied on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rockets. Air Force officials said they want to use a variety of rockets for the X-37B program, to launch quickly if warranted.</p>
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<p>The Boeing-built minishuttle is 29 feet long, with a 14-foot wingspan. By comparison, NASA’s retired space shuttles were 122 feet long, with a 78-foot wingspan.</p>
<p>SpaceX stopped providing details about the X-37B’s climb to orbit, a few minutes after liftoff at the Air Force’s request. The booster’s return to SpaceX’s landing zone at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, however, was broadcast live.</p>
<p>“The Falcon has safely landed,” a SpaceX launch controller announced. Cheers erupted at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.</p>
<p>It was SpaceX’s 16th successful return of a first-stage booster. Booster rockets are normally discarded at sea.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online:</p>
<p>SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/</p>
<p>Air Force: http://www.patrick.af.mil/</p> | SpaceX launches Air Force's super-secret minishuttle | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/07/spacex-launches-air-forces-super-secret-minishuttle.html | 2017-09-07 | 0 |
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<p>Instead, they found themselves in the role of having to raise him.</p>
<p>"He's been with us since he was a baby," said Connie Compton, 64. "His mother, my daughter, had some substance abuse problems and the father was not around."</p>
<p>The mother and baby lived with the grandparents for a while, but eventually the mother's continued drug abuse made that living arrangement difficult. The mom left and the baby remained. He's now 16.</p>
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<p>"I wasn't about to let someone else raise my grandchild," Compton said.</p>
<p>Thousands of grandparents across New Mexico find themselves having to raise their grandchildren because the parents are unwilling or unable to do it themselves.</p>
<p>As a result, grandparents can become financially stressed, alienated from their now independent friends, and adopting a lifestyle that revolves around their grandchild's school, after-school activities, weekend soccer games, family-oriented vacations and visits to pediatricians, dentists and orthodontists - essentially reliving their first child-rearing experiences.</p>
<p>On Friday, about 200 grandparents attended the "Parenting the Second Time Around" conference at the Barelas Senior Center. There, they learned about local programs that can provide them with support, resources and assistance. Among the main sponsors of the conference were Methodist Children's Home Family Outreach, AARP and the city of Albuquerque.</p>
<p>The Comptons are among the nearly 6,600 grandparents in Bernalillo County who are raising grandchildren, according to 2010 statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. Statewide, there are more than 71,200 children under age 18 living in households headed by grandparents or other relatives.</p>
<p>That represents nearly 14 percent of the total number of children living in New Mexico. About a quarter of the grandparents live in poverty.</p>
<p>Among those leading workshops was Larry Kronen, senior staff attorney for Pegasus Legal Services for Children, who addressed issues such as legal authority, power of attorney, guardianship, adoption and public benefits for children living in kinship care.</p>
<p>Substance abuse is by far the most frequent circumstance that prevents parents from caring for their children, though other common causes include parental death, incarceration, chronic unemployment, and physical and mental illnesses, said Kronen.</p>
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<p>However, it has become increasingly important for grandparents to have documentation from the parents, the courts or the Children, Youth and Families Department clearly spelling out their role, he said. Such documentation is necessary for enrolling a grandchild in school, accessing medical services, applying for financial aid and protecting the grandparents from legal repercussions from those who might question their authority - often the child's parent.</p>
<p>For some families, a short-term power of attorney with limited legal authority works fine; for others, a long-term legal guardianship with more sweeping authority "can give the grandparents the tools to not only protect themselves, but also protect the child," Kronen said.</p>
<p>Things worked out well for Connie Compton and her family. "I took my daughter to court early on and got legal guardianship, so there was never any question about authority," she said.</p>
<p>Today, her daughter, who lives in another state, is drug-free and employed, and Compton and her husband, as well as their grandson, have a good relationship with her.</p>
<p>"It was tough love, but my daughter now says she's grateful to me - of course, it took a long time."</p>
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<p /> | Parents raising grandkids on the rise | false | https://abqjournal.com/646642/parents-raising-grandkids-on-the-rise.html | 2 |
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<p>In a day dubbed the “Friday of Martyrs,” Islamists in groups of hundreds chanted against the military and held up posters of deposed leader Mohammed Morsi on side streets and outside neighborhood mosques. At least one person was killed in clashes in the Delta city of Tanta, but there was no major fighting.</p>
<p>Thousands marched through the streets of Cairo’s Nasr City district, some chanting: “We are willing to sacrifice our lives” and “We promise the martyrs that we will end military rule,” in reference to the several hundred people that died in clashes with Egypt’s military during raids on street camps this month.</p>
<p>But large rallies taking over main streets and squares failed to materialize as armored vehicles and soldiers were deployed outside mosques and other strategic areas.</p>
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<p>The military also closed off main streets and some flyovers, and barricaded Tahrir Square and other plazas in a show of force aimed at preventing the pro-Morsi camp from gathering en masse.</p>
<p>Armored vehicles surrounded the presidential palace and blocked the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque, where Morsi supporters had held a sit-in for weeks that was violently dispersed on Aug. 14, resulting in the deaths of hundreds.</p>
<p>Those who did rally avoided major thoroughfares and squares that had been swamped by Morsi supporters in the weeks since he was toppled in a military coup on July 3.</p>
<p>The low turnout signaled the Muslim Brotherhood was having difficulty putting on a large show of dissent after an exceptionally violent week and the arrests of nearly all of the group’s senior leaders, including its spiritual guide Mohammed Badie.</p>
<p>Another 80 Brotherhood members, including senior leaders and spokesmen, were taken into custody on Thursday, ahead of the planned rallies.</p>
<p>Authorities also have imposed a strictly enforced dusk to dawn curfew over the past week in Cairo and other provinces, emptying streets by nightfall.</p>
<p>It was difficult for the media to even find a Brotherhood official for comment.</p>
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<p /> | Pro-Morsi rallies in Egypt see low turnout | false | https://abqjournal.com/252370/promorsi-rallies-in-egypt-see-low-turnout.html | 2013-08-24 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Using the singer and 2020 presidential hopeful’s progressive rap lyrics as the basis for a potential political platform, writer Osman Faruqi argues that “Kanye West would be the best president in U.S. history (seriously).”</p>
<p>From The Guardian:</p>
<p>If the lead actor in [the] 1954 classic Cattle Queen of Montana can go on to become commander-in-chief, and The Terminator can be elected to run the eighth largest economy in the world, is it really that hard to imagine successful producer, musician and entrepreneur Kanye West living it up in the Oval Office?</p>
<p />
<p>West’s announcement that he would be running for American presidency in 2020 has been met with such immediate ridicule you might be confused into thinking that presidential elections are something Americans take seriously. In reality, United States citizens have a propensity for electing slightly mad individuals. … The good news is there are plenty of reasons to get behind a West 2020 campaign.</p>
<p>While his biggest singles are his more mainstream pop and dance hits like Gold Digger and Stronger, he has a long and continued history as an artist unafraid to tackle social issues. He doesn’t constrain his political perspectives to his music either, famously stating on national television in 2005 that then US president George W Bush “doesn’t care about black people”. (Bush later highlighted that moment as “the worst in his presidency”.)</p>
<p>By delving into some of West’s more potent, politically charged lyrics, one may be able to understand what is driving his foray into politics and what his agenda might become.</p>
<p>Read more <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/03/why-kanye-west-would-be-the-best-president-in-us-history-seriously" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>—Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Natasha Hakimi Zapata</a></p> | The Case for Backing President Kanye West in 2020 | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-case-for-backing-president-kanye-west-in-2020/ | 2015-09-03 | 4 |
<p>Alvin Greene | &lt;a href="http://www.scdp.org/candidates/federal/"&gt;SCDP.org&lt;/a&gt;.</p>
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<p>The <a href="" type="internal">bizarre tale of Alvin Greene</a> took another unexpected turn when news broke that the country’s most implausible US&#160;Senate candidate also has a pending <a href="" type="internal">felony charge</a>. Now the alleged victim’s family is determined to bring down the candidacy of the unemployed army vet who <a href="" type="internal">stunned</a> South Carolina on Tuesday with his Democratic primary win.</p>
<p>Last November, Greene was arrested on charges of “disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity” to an 18-year-old college student at the University of South Carolina, after which he suggested they go up to her dorm room, <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7044859.html" type="external">according</a> to court records. Camille McCoy had been working in a computer lab in a restricted part of campus when Greene approached her and showed her Internet pornography, according to the student’s mother, Susan McCoy. Camille <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7044859.html" type="external">recounted</a> what happened afterward to the AP: “It was very disgusting. He said, ‘Let’s go to your room now.’ It was kind of scary. He’s a pretty big boy. He could’ve overpowered me.”</p>
<p>Susan McCoy claims that Greene had already been told once by USC authorities that he was not allowed on parts of campus. “He had no business being there,” she told Mother Jones. The incident was <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010_Elections/alvin-greene-surprise-win-south-carolina-primary-felony/story?id=10867602" type="external">captured</a> on a campus video surveillance camera, and Greene was subsequently arrested, though he has yet to enter a plea or be indicted. A conviction could lead up to 5 years in prison.</p>
<p>So far, Greene has refused to drop out of the campaign, despite requests from the head of the state Democratic Party that he step aside in light of the charges. “The Democratic Party has chosen their nominee, and we have to stand behind their choice,” Greene <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7044859.html" type="external">told</a> the AP on Wednesday. “The people have spoken. We need to be pro-South Carolina, not anti-Greene.” Greene did not respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones.</p>
<p>Like most South Carolina officials, neither the alleged victim nor her mother had realized that Greene was even running for office until the AP had contacted Camille for comment. Susan McCoy remains convinced that Greene “should be put in jail,” claiming the incident “greatly traumatized” her daughter. Shortly after finding out about the news, the victim’s mother had visited the South Carolina Democratic Party headquarters and spoke with Vic Rawl, the former state legislator who lost to Greene in Tuesday’s primary. She also contacted the office of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), whose seat Greene is challenging.</p>
<p>Susan McCoy is now making a public push to underscore allegations against Greene, not only to attack his campaign but also to change the laws concerning felons running for national political office. The U.S. Constitution allows a convicted felon to become a member of Congress, though the House or Senate can vote to expel a member deemed unfit to serve. “People like this should not even be allowed to run for office,” said McCoy. “That’s why we’re concerned—why we’re willing to come forward…there should be an amendment to the Constitution.”</p>
<p>In the meantime, Susan McCoy says, she doesn’t plan to let up in her crusade against Greene while he’s still running for office: “I’ll be his worst nightmare.”</p>
<p>Update: Greene still refuses to comment on the accusations. But the bizarre circumstances surrounding his campaign have prompted some officials to accuse him of being a plant–and others to <a href="" type="internal">question his mental health</a>.</p>
<p /> | Mother Vows Revenge on Alvin Greene for Showing Porn to Her Daughter | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/alvin-greene-felony-charge-camille-mccoy/ | 2010-06-10 | 4 |
<p>Both Barack and Michelle Obama have expressed moral outrage and personal disgust over Donald Trump's lewd and misogynistic comments caught in the now infamous "Access Hollywood" tape. In fact, the First Lady went so far as to describe Trump's "grab them by the p****y" line as something that she " <a href="" type="internal">can't stop thinking about</a>" and that "has shaken me to my core in a way I could not have predicted."</p>
<p>Anyone paying any attention to the Obama administration, and the Democrats in general, know faux outrage and hypocritical moral preening when we see it, but the Obamas are particularly guilty in this case.</p>
<p>The Daily Wire has called out the left for their laughable double-standard regarding Trump's morality <a href="" type="internal">a number of times</a>, but <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/10/michelle_obamas_promotion_of_misogyny_and_date_rape.html" type="external">William A. Levinson</a> at the American Thinker did us all the favor of providing a particularly devastating highlight reel of the First Couple's egregiously hypocritical condemnation of Trump.</p>
<p>As Levinson notes, both of the Obamas have openly endorsed various overtly misogynistic and crude performers and celebrities by inviting them to events to promote their agenda. One particularly star-filled affair came in April, when the Obamas invited a bunch of <a href="http://time.com/4296265/dj-khaled-obama-white-house-criminal-justice-reform/" type="external">artists</a> to the White House to push the president's "My Brother's Keeper" initiative. The Obamas openly praised the performers for their many contributions to society. Here's <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/10/michelle_obamas_promotion_of_misogyny_and_date_rape.html" type="external">Levinson's summary</a> of some of the "contributions" of the artists officially endorsed by the First Couple:</p>
<p>- <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/18/rappers-ankle-monitor-goes-off-at-the-white-house/" type="external">Rick Ross's</a>, "U.O.N.E.O." glorifies <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/05/entertainment/la-et-ms-rick-ross-apologizes-for-lyric-interpreted-as-rape-20130404" type="external">date rape</a> with the lyrics, "Put molly all in her champagne/ She ain't even know it / I took her home and I enjoyed that/ She ain't even know it." While Ross denies that this was his intended meaning, " <a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/mdma-ecstasymolly" type="external">molly</a>" is slang for Ecstasy, a <a href="http://www.novabucks.org/daterapedrugs_ecstasy/" type="external">well-known</a> date rape drug, and the context of "molly" in his lyrics shows clearly that a man put it into a woman's drink without her knowledge or consent so he could have sex with her. Ross' " <a href="https://genius.com/Rick-ross-same-hoes-lyrics" type="external">Same Hoes</a>" is meanwhile not about agricultural implements as shown by its lyrics, which consist primarily of the F word, a variant of the N word, and "hoes."</p>
<p>- <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/common/go.html" type="external">Common</a>, whose "Go!" includes, "And a ooh baby she liked it raw and like rain when she came it poured" along with a variant of the N word and even more sexually explicit lyrics.</p>
<p>- <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/hugo/99problems.html" type="external">Jay Z</a>, who proclaims, "I've got 99 problems and a b***h ain't one."</p>
<p>-Michelle Obama called out Trump's remarks with the words, "What message are our little girls hearing about who they should look like, how they should act?" Nicki Minaj, another rapper whom she and her husband brought to the White House, answers that question in " <a href="https://www.directlyrics.com/david-guetta-hey-mama-lyrics.html" type="external">Hey Mama</a>," "Make sure mama crawls on her knees keep him pleased rub him down be a lady and a freak" and also "Yes I do the cooking/ Yes I do the cleaning/ Yes I keep the nana real sweet for your eating/ Yes you be the (boss) yes I be respecting." It doesn't take a feminist to dismiss these words as belonging in a fundamentalist "Islamic" country, assuming that they ever belonged anywhere at all.</p>
<p>- <a href="http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/michelle-obamas-astounding-hypocrisy-misogyny/" type="external">Lifezette.com</a> adds, "And of course, who could forget about the Obamas' cozy relationship with Jay Z and Beyoncé, who have been guests of the president and first lady on multiple occasions?" Jay Z joined <a href="http://lyrics.kushik.com/beyonce-and-jay-z-drunk-in-love" type="external">Beyoncé</a> in "Drunk in Love". The lyrics include, "Slid the panties right to the side/ Ain`t got the time to take drawers off" and "We sex again in the morning, your breasteses [sic] is my breakfast."</p>
<p>-Beyoncé's " <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beyonceknowles/yoncpartition.html" type="external">Partition</a>" includes far cruder and more explicit language, whose sole redeeming virtue is to remind everybody that Hillary's husband actually did what Donald Trump talked about. "He popped all my buttons and he ripped my blouse/He monica-lewinski'd all on my gown," to which she adds, "Hand prints and good grips all on my ass." Beyoncé is certainly <a href="https://www.directlyrics.com/beyonce-no-angel-lyrics.html" type="external">No Angel</a> as shown by this line: "First, both of my legs go back on your head/ And whatever you want, yeah baby I'll bet it comes true."</p>
<p>In case you missed it, <a href="" type="internal">Rush Limbaugh</a> also took some time during one of his episodes to dismantle Michelle's fake outrage over Trump's lewd comments. "You know the people that have been to the White House?" he asked. "How about some of the rappers that talk about their bitches and their hos have performed such lyrics in the White House? But she doesn't know men who talk and sing about sexual assault. It's all over hip-hop lyrics and has been for a while! So is assault on the police a feature of some hip-hop lyrics, and it's been performed at the White House. But she doesn't know men who talk that way. She doesn't know decent guys who talk that way. No. She's only invited them to the White House to perform and then bestowed great honors on them."</p>
<p>Limbaugh went on to detail some of the ways that misogyny has been conveniently ignored or even actively promoted by the administration. One particularly unseemly moment the talk show host referenced was the time when then-Senator Barack Obama starred in his own lewd tape. Here's candidate Obama <a href="" type="internal">flaunting his erection to female reporters</a>:</p>
<p>Here is the quote from Michelle that gained so much attention (which, by the way, was quickly followed up by a <a href="" type="internal">warning from the White House</a> to Trump not to hit back against the First Lady):</p>
<p>"The fact is that in this election we have a candidate who over the course of his lifetime and this campaign has said things about women that are so shocking and so demeaning, I simply will not repeat any of them here today … Last week we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexually assaulting women...I cannot stop thinking about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn't have predicted…Enough is enough, this has got to stop right now…This wasn't just locker room banter, this was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior…This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This isn't about politics; it’s about basic human decency."</p> | A Closer Look at the Hypocrisy of the Obamas' Moral Outrage Over Trump | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10262/closer-look-hypocrisy-obamas-moral-outrage-over-james-barrett | 2016-10-27 | 0 |
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<p>OKLAHOMA CITY — Kevin Durant apparently has no hard feelings toward Oklahoma City, despite the backlash he received after leaving the Thunder for the Golden State Warriors in the NBA offseason.</p>
<p>Durant’s foundation has donated $57,000 toward an effort to build a new school for the city’s homeless children.</p>
<p>Positive Tomorrows president Susan Agel says in a statement that Durant “has been instrumental” in helping the school’s growth.</p>
<p>Durant spent eight seasons in Oklahoma City before leaving has a free agent in June. The move sparked anger among some fans who showed their outrage by burning his Thunder jersey.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Kevin Durant charity donates $57K to homeless kids in OKC | false | https://abqjournal.com/908510/kevin-durant-charity-donates-57k-to-homeless-kids-in-okc.html | 2016-12-14 | 2 |
<p>BY: <a href="" type="internal">Paul Crookston</a> October 15, 2017 12:31 pm</p>
<p>House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) continues to face criticism from within the Democratic Party, and Sunday she gave herself a little bit of self-promotion.</p>
<p>Rep. Linda Sanchez (D., Calif.) has&#160;been a vocal <a href="" type="internal">critic</a> of Pelosi and last week said it is "time to pass the torch" in Democratic Party leadership. Pelosi told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that she has promoted "a great array of talent" in the party and said she still accomplishes a lot in the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>"I think I’m a great legislator, I know the budget," Pelosi said. "Self-promotion is a terrible thing but clearly somebody has to do it."</p>
<p>She justified her presence in leadership by saying that she was helping to save the Affordable Care Act and to put women at "the leadership table."</p>
<p>"I think we do have a great array of talent, and I have promoted it all along the way," she said, naming Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.).</p>
<p>She said she is secure in her leadership at this point and rebuffed Stephanopoulos' questioning about whether she&#160;will step down.</p>
<p>"It’s up to the caucus to select its next leadership," Pelosi said. "I enjoy the support of my caucus."</p>
<p>Pelosi has recently had to <a href="" type="internal">fight off</a> dissatisfied elements of the left, including progressives who want her to make way for new leadership. She has also been <a href="" type="internal">protested</a> by immigration advocates who want Democrats to protect all classes of illegal immigrants.</p> | Pelosi to Dem Critics: ‘Self-Promotion Is a Terrible Thing, but Clearly Somebody Has to Do It’ | true | http://freebeacon.com/politics/pelosi-dem-critics-self-promotion-terrible-thing-clearly-somebody/ | 2017-10-15 | 0 |
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<p>Just a little more salt poured into Davis’ open wound. I like it!</p>
<p>State Senator-elect&#160; <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/11/04/Tea-Party-Takes-Wendy-Davis-Senate-Seat-Konni-Burton-Wins" type="external">Konni Burton</a>&#160;(R-Colleyville) will step forward as Senate District 10’s next representative in a pair of custom made black leather boots with a “Stand for Life” logo in purple lettering on the front. During Davis’ filibuster,&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23stand4life&amp;src=typd" type="external">#stand4life</a>&#160;became a nationally trending hashtag, and it remains a popular slogan among pro-life activists to use on social media.</p>
<p>Breitbart Texas&#160;has been exclusively provided with photos of the boots that Burton will wear on Tuesday. According to Burton, the boots are by&#160; <a href="http://www.texascustomboots.com/" type="external">Texas Custom Boots</a>, and&#160; <a href="http://vicimediagroup.com/" type="external">Vici Media</a>&#160;designed the logo.</p>
<p>Burton was well known in her district as a&#160;tea party leader and strong fiscal conservative, and her electoral victory received&#160; <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2014/11/11/rush-limbaugh-texas-had-a-war-on-liberals-with-konni-burton-s-election-to-wendy-davis-seat/" type="external">national media attention</a>, as conservative activists cheered the message sent by replacing&#160;Davis with not just a Republican, but one who was an outspoken advocate for life and was endorsed by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas).</p>
<p>Read more: <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/01/13/konni-burton-takes-wendy-davis-seat-in-pro-life-boots/" type="external">Breitbart</a></p> | THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR WALKING: Konni Burton Takes Wendy Davis’ Seat in Pro-Life Boots | true | http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/boots-made-walking-konni-burton-takes-wendy-davis-seat-pro-life-boots/ | 0 |
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<p>Two years ago, the Langton family was forced to flee after a 2,000-acre fire in eastern Washington state nearly gutted their home. Unharmed, they looked for greener pastures. They chose a quiet, rural community outside of Oso.</p>
<p>But that calm was shattered Saturday when a mile-long landslide pulverized homes and sent trees, mud and debris everywhere, killing at least 16 people with the death toll only expected to rise.</p>
<p>Now, Kris and LoAnna Langton and their four young children can walk away again from a major disaster — shaken but having survived.</p>
<p>“I’m just so grateful we’re alive,” LoAnna Langton told NBC News on Thursday.</p>
<p>Langton’s kids and three of their friends were playing in the yard when the slide struck. From a distance, she could see the trees and debris bulldozing down the hillside.</p>
<p>“It looked like dominos coming at us,” she said.</p>
<p>She gathered the children, including her 3-month-old son, along with her mother and her great aunt, and raced back inside. Her husband wasn't home at the time.</p>
<p>“I thought I was taking all the kids to the back bedroom for all of us to die,” Langton said. “I wanted us to be together.”</p>
<p>But, miraculously, the slide stopped at the border of the rental home’s property. Flooding from the slide damaged the structure but everyone inside was unharmed.</p>
<p>Langton went outside and heard screaming. She frantically called 911 when she found a neighbor with an injured arm. Another person helped Langton clear her driveway so that she could gather her family, pile them in their Suburban and head for safer ground.</p>
<p>She then called her husband. Kris Langton, 31, who said he wasn’t sure what his wife was saying, but he drove home to make sure his family was OK.</p>
<p>When he arrived to the neighborhood, he found an apocalyptic scene. The air was putrid. His body immediately became covered in thick mud.</p>
<p>“Every house you get to smells like gas and propane and dead animal,” he said.</p>
<p>After realizing his family was safe, Kris Langton slogged through the muck to help as many people as he could. He helped rescue four others, including a 6-month-old baby, trapped by debris.</p>
<p>What kept him going, he said, was thinking about his children.</p>
<p>“I want to lead by example. ... No one’s going to do anything if you’re all sitting on the sidelines,” Langton said.</p>
<p>The family is currently living in their landlord's basement. They're still looking for a permanent home, but they take comfort in knowing they still have each other.</p>
<p>“I feel that God has plans for our family,” LoAnna Langton said.</p>
<p>— Erik Ortiz</p> | Family Who Once Escaped Fire is ‘Grateful’ After Surviving Mudslide | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/deadly-mudslide/family-who-once-escaped-fire-grateful-after-surviving-mudslide-n64116 | 2014-03-27 | 3 |
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<p>The last few days we and the world have been trying to digest the Obama Cairo Speech. Here’s my two and a half cents.</p>
<p>I think it’s been so hard for people to make out what happened because he did so many things they’d never in their lives seen before. Primarily, I think, it was the sight of the most powerful politician in the world conducting his nation’s business with the premise that pure reason is his best argument. That an appeal to the ability of people involved in tribal, small-bore obsessions to step back and see the large picture for long enough to actually change their behavior. At other times this can be foolhardy statecraft. The bet here is that the world has had enough of the old way and will give a new approach 5 good minutes. By crafting the speech as well as he did, he put the ray of light and heat on the world of Islamic, Iranian, and Israeli resentment and reminded them that their worlds are interconnected. This would only be possible, perhaps, right now and with this president, a man who understands all these worlds, appearing on the barren landscape of the last 9 years. This could change the game. For Netanyahu, he no longer has a US cover for inertia. His government could fall if he deals, so he may calculate falling for a cause may be worth it. Besides, who wants Avigdor Leiberman in your face all the time anyway? For Ahmadinejad, who faces a tough election, Obama removed the polarity, and therefore, perhaps, the oxygen for hate. He may have to go now too. And bin Ladin perhaps, compared to Obama, starts to seem less real. In any case, his show is old and may not get the viewers he used to. I want to blog about the war in Afghanistan, the use of mercenaries, and the murderous (and counterproductive) remote control bombs. It’s time to nail Obama on that and other things. But for now, there must be an acknowledgement of this miracle. A president from the age of reason, telling truth to a candid world, in its own language. I really can’t recall a president doing that. (JFK comes close but would never mention that we have been about overthrowing governments. Well natch.)</p>
<p>In this moment I have to say, as a citizen of Planet Earth, I am very, very proud of him.</p>
<p /> | Brodner’s Cartoon du Jour: Nobody Expects… The Enlightenment | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/brodners-cartoon-du-jour-nobody-expects-enlightenment/ | 2009-06-09 | 4 |
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<p>FOOTBALL: Rio Rancho (6A), St. Pius (5A)</p>
<p>BOYS SOCCER: La Cueva (6A), Albuquerque Academy (5A)</p>
<p>GIRLS SOCCER: Cibola (6A), Albuquerque Academy (5A), Sandia Prep (4A)</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>VOLLEYBALL: St. Pius (5A), Sandia Prep (4A)</p>
<p>BOYS CROSS COUNTRY: Albuquerque Academy (5A)</p>
<p>GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY: Rio Rancho (6A), Albuquerque Academy (5A)</p>
<p>WRESTLING: Cleveland (6A), Belen (5A)</p>
<p>BOYS SWIMMING/DIVING: Albuquerque Academy (5A-6A)</p>
<p>GIRLS SWIMMING/DIVING: Albuquerque Academy (5A-6A), Hope Christian (1A-4A)</p>
<p>BOYS BASKETBALL: Volcano Vista (6A), Hope Christian (4A)</p>
<p>GIRLS BASKETBALL: Sandia (6A)</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>SPIRIT: Valley (6A dance), Valencia (5A cheer), Hope Christian (4A dance)</p>
<p>BASEBALL: La Cueva (6A)</p>
<p>SOFTBALL: La Cueva (6A)</p>
<p>BOYS GOLF: Cleveland (6A), Hope Christian (1A-4A)</p>
<p>GIRLS GOLF: La Cueva (6A)</p>
<p>BOYS TENNIS: La Cueva (6A), Albuquerque Academy (5A)</p>
<p>GIRLS TENNIS: Eldorado (6A)</p>
<p>BOYS TRACK &amp; FIELD: Cleveland (6A), Albuquerque Academy (5A)</p>
<p>GIRLS TRACK &amp; FIELD: Cleveland (6A), Hope Christian (4A)</p>
<p>Total (35): Albuquerque Academy (8), La Cueva (5), Hope Christian (5), Cleveland (4), Rio Rancho (2), St. Pius (2), Sandia Prep (2), Valley (1), Valencia (1), Cibola (1), Volcano Vista (1), Sandia (1), Belen (1), Eldorado (1)</p>
<p>Individual</p>
<p>BOYS CROSS COUNTRY: Jordan Lesansee, Albuquerque Academy (5A)</p>
<p>GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY: Amanda Mayoral, Cleveland (6A); Carly Wall, Albuquerque Academy (5A); Aubri Wrye, East Mountain (4A)</p>
<p>WRESTLING: (Class 6A)—Marcus Santillanes, Volcano Vista (106); Mark Gonzales, Sandia (113); Mikey Mascareñas, Cleveland (120); Noah Mirabal, Cleveland (126); Ryan Rochford, Rio Rancho (152); Orion Gutierrez, Rio Rancho (160); Richard Govea, Volcano Vista (170); Loden Cain, Cibola (182); Josh Woisin, La Cueva (195); Daimon Altamirano, Cleveland (HVWT).&#160; (Class 5A)—Frankie Baca, Del Norte (106); Chris Robinson, Belen (145); Jeramie Flores, Belen (160); Lano Luna, Belen (170); Rowdy Robinson, Belen (182); Estevan Chavez, Belen (HVWT).</p>
<p>BOYS SWIMMING/DIVING: (Individual)—Lee Moffett, Sandia (200 yard freestyle, 500 freestyle); Joshua Harlan, Cibola (200 IM, 100 backstroke); Isaac Newman, Eldorado (1M diving); Ben Waterman, Eldorado (100 butterfly); Joe Cecco, Sandia (100 freestyle); Pierce Holler, Albuquerque High (100 breaststroke).&#160; (Relays)—Eldorado, 200 medley (Brandon Harden, Tyler Thibodeau, Ben Waterman, Aidan Mohns); Sandia, 200 freestyle (Max Hawton, Joseph Jaramillo, Lee Moffett, Joe Cecco); Sandia, 400 freestyle (Max Hawton, Joseph Jaramillo, Lee Moffett, Joe Cecco).</p>
<p>GIRLS SWIMMING/DIVING: (Individual)—Chrysten Pacheco, La Cueva (200 yard freestyle); Lauren Burckel, Eldorado (200 IM, 100 breaststroke); Natalie Jones, La Cueva (50 freestyle); Lillie Guo, Albuquerque Academy (1M diving); Zofia Niemczak, Volcano Vista (100 butterfly); Sara Vianco, Albuquerque Academy (100 freestyle); Madison Gordley, Hope Christian (500 freestyle); Fiona Trotz-Chavez, Sandia (100 backstroke).&#160;&#160; (Relays)—La Cueva, 200 medley (Taylor Krupiak, Anita Sumali, Chrysten Pacheco, Natalie Jones); Albuquerque Academy, 200 freestyle (Shaelyn Carmody, Kaci Jarry, Allison Bernier, Sara Vianco); La Cueva, 400 freestyle (Hannah Grenemyer, Emma Long, Chrysten Pacheco, Natalie Jones).</p>
<p>BOYS GOLF: Ben Wells, Volcano Vista (6A); Chesten Browning, Los Lunas (5A)</p>
<p>GIRLS GOLF: Jacque Galloway, Cleveland (6A); Ashlee Garrett, St. Pius (5A)</p>
<p>BOYS TENNIS: (Singles)—Michael Mounho, Eldorado (6A); Malachi Coleman, Albuquerque Academy (5A); Neil Katzman, Bosque School (1A-4A). (Doubles)—Kyler Kunzler/Tyler Paddor, La Cueva (6A); Hunter Hootman/Coleton Hootman, Albuquerque Academy (5A).</p>
<p>GIRLS TENNIS: (Singles)—Carmen Corley, Eldorado (6A). (Doubles)—Ivana Corley/Taylor Jones, Eldorado (6A).</p>
<p>BOYS TRACK &amp; FIELD: INDIVIDUAL—(Class 6A): Jordan Byrd, Manzano (100, 200); Abram Schaap, Volcano Vista (400); Daniel Johnson, Cleveland (110HH); Veto Virgin, Cleveland (300IH); Harrison Smith III, Eldorado (800); Jericho Cleveland, Volcano Vista (1,600, 3,200); Grayson Hertrich, Eldorado (discus); Miles Brinson, Cibola (triple jump).&#160; (Class 5A): O’maury Samuels, Los Lunas (100); Aric Kedge, Albuquerque Academy (800); George Kennedy, St. Pius (400); Devon Sparkman, Valencia (200); Jordan Lesansee, Albuquerque Academy (1,600., 3,200); Jackson Morris, Albuquerque Academy (shot put, discus, javelin); Lucas Jepsen, Albuquerque Academy (triple jump).&#160; (Class 4A): Isiah Padilla, East Mountain (1,600); Marvin Encinias, Moriarty (long jump); Aaron Murphy, Moriarty (pole vault).&#160; (Class 3A): Keiran Freeman, Cottonwood Classical Prep (long jump).&#160;&#160; RELAYS—(Class 6A): Volcano Vista, 4×100 (Blaine Grant, Abram Schaap, Rafael Osoria, David Cormier); Manzano, 4×200 (Jordan Byrd, Ryan Moore, Andrew Erickson, Isaac Cole); Cleveland, Medley (Isaac Torres, Jesse Gonzales, Matt Lombano, David Apodaca); Cleveland, 4×400 (Dylon Sandoval, Veto Virgin, Isaac Torres, Matt Lombano).&#160; (Class 5A): Los Lunas, 4×100 (Michael Montoya, Chris Lafave, Andrue Garcia, O’maury Samuels); Los Lunas, 4×200 (Michael Montoya, Chris Lafave, Andrue Garcia, O’maury Samuels).&#160; (Class 4A): East Mountain, Medley (Wyatt Armstrong, Ben Humphries, Noah Gildersleeve, Isiah Padilla).</p>
<p>GIRLS TRACK &amp; FIELD: INDIVIDUAL—(Class 6A): Aphiniti Crupper, Cleveland (100, 200); Sarah Mackin, Cleveland (100HH, 300IH); Lauren Green, Volcano Vista (400); Amanda Mayoral, Cleveland (3,200); Alisa Meraz-Fishbein, Albuquerque High (800); Juanita Johnson, Cibola (1,600); Kaylee Caldwell, Cleveland (long jump); Liz Davis, Cleveland (triple jump); Lexie Keller, La Cueva (high jump); Caitlin Sweet, La Cueva (pole vault).&#160; (Class 5A): Haley Rizek, St. Pius (100HH, 300IH); Jacque Piñon, St. Pius (1,600, 3,200); Malakah Martinez, Del Norte (400); Grace Alley, Albuquerque Academy (800); Arianna Martinez, St. Pius (high jump).&#160; (Class 4A): Morgan Crotta, Sandia Prep (pole vault); Skyler Gee, Sandia Prep (800); Tobi Erinle, Hope Christian (triple jump).&#160; (Class 3A):&#160;&#160; (Class 1A): Emma Cook, Evangel Christian (400).&#160;&#160;&#160; RELAYS—(Class 6A): Volcano Vista, 4×100 (Trevlyn Monk, Lauren Green, Jayln Mitchell, Kjia Smith); Cleveland, 4×200 (Abbi Rael, Liz Davis, Aphiniti Crupper, Caitlin Barnard); Cleveland, Medley (Jenna Mendez, Liz Davis, Caitlin Barnard, Amanda Mayoral; Cleveland, 4×400 (Savannah Vasquez, Abbi Rael, Hannah Kiess, Sarah Mackin).&#160; (Class 5A): Del Norte, 4×100 (Sarah Smyth, Royale Hayes, Ashton Reyes, Malakah Martinez); Albuquerque Academy, Medley (Maddie Morris, Krystal Brown, Isabel Gallegos, Grace Alley); Del Norte, 4×400 (Savannah Romero, Ashton Reyes, Sarah Smyth, Malakah Martinez).&#160; (Class 4A): Sandia Prep, Medley (Sevilla Duran, Maria Merritt, Skyler Gee, Mari Yepa).</p> | Preps 2016-17: A list of metro-area state champions | false | https://abqjournal.com/1006426/preps-2016-17-a-list-of-metro-area-state-champions.html | 2 |
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<p>The tunes played between segments on The World for October 1, 2014 include:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Left-Foot-Dance-Of-Yi/dp/B00GXQELNM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412186933&amp;sr=8-1-fkmr0&amp;keywords=Left+hand+dance+of+the+yi" type="external" />&#160;&#160;&#160; SONG:Drinking Song&#160;&#160;&#160; ARTIST: Shanren&#160;&#160;&#160; CD TITLE: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Left-Foot-Dance-Of-Yi/dp/B00GXQELNM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412186933&amp;sr=8-1-fkmr0&amp;keywords=Left+hand+dance+of+the+yi" type="external">Left Foot Dance of the Yi</a>&#160;&#160;&#160; CD LABEL: Riverboat Records&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Esperanto-Slang-Captain-Planet/dp/B00MXBQN3C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412187053&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=Esperanto+Slang" type="external" />&#160;&#160;&#160; SONG: Cicada&#160;&#160;&#160; ARTIST: Captain Planet&#160;&#160;&#160; CD TITLE: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Esperanto-Slang-Captain-Planet/dp/B00MXBQN3C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412187053&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=Esperanto+Slang" type="external">Esperanto Slang</a>&#160;&#160;&#160; CD LABEL: Bastard Jazz&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bedstuyle-Brooklyn-Shanti/dp/B00LQTI448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412187190&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Bedstuyle" type="external" />&#160;&#160;&#160; SONG: A Great Day&#160;&#160;&#160; ARTIST: Brooklyn Shanti&#160;&#160;&#160; CD TITLE: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bedstuyle-Brooklyn-Shanti/dp/B00LQTI448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412187190&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Bedstuyle" type="external">Bedstuyle</a>&#160;&#160;&#160; CD LABEL: Someplace Called Brooklyn&#160;</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-25-Various-artists/dp/B00N0449AU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412187306&amp;sr=8-4&amp;keywords=Real+World+25" type="external" />&#160;&#160;&#160; SONG: Kipenda Roho&#160;&#160;&#160; ARTIST: Remmy Ongala &amp; Orchestre Super Matimila&#160;&#160;&#160; CD TITLE: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-25-Various-artists/dp/B00N0449AU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412193218&amp;sr=8-4&amp;keywords=Real+world+25" type="external">Real World 25</a>&#160;&#160;&#160; CD LABEL: Real World&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Women-Singers-Torrid-Regions/dp/3036914048/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412187478&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Hot+Women+R+Crumb" type="external" />&#160;&#160;&#160; SONG: Blues Negres&#160;&#160;&#160; ARTIST: Cleoma Falcon&#160;&#160;&#160; CD TITLE:&#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Women-Singers-Torrid-Regions/dp/3036914048/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412187478&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Hot+Women+R+Crumb" type="external">Hot Women: Women Singers from the Torrid Regions, compiled by R. Crumb</a>&#160;&#160;&#160; CD LABEL: Kein &amp; Aber Records</p> | Music heard on the air for October 1, 2014 | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-10-01/music-heard-air-october-1-2014 | 2014-10-01 | 3 |
<p>Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick recently filed a grievance against the National Football League, accusing all teams of colluding to deny him a place on a team because he kneeled during the national anthem. As was true with Michael Sam, the openly gay player and activist who claimed after he was drafted and released that owners didn't want him, Kaepernick isn't playing because he's not worth signing. Period.</p>
<p>So what is it that keeps Kaepernick in the media spotlight? They like him. Multimillionaire celebrities who wear Che Guevara T-shirts and socks that depict the police as racist pigs are celebrated by reporters. They feel your pain about racist America.</p>
<p>But what if you're an athlete with passionate beliefs about Jesus Christ? That, folks, is a bridge too far. Jesus Christ is a name that should probably be avoided in mixed company.</p>
<p>They made it almost toxic with Tim Tebow. Liberal radio host Bill Press told him to "STFU," or "shut the f--- up," about his "Lord and savior." He called Tebow a "disgrace." Undeniably, he was voicing the opinion of many journalists -- but not all.</p>
<p>Usually, reporters are just uncomfortable with the subject. Take a new ESPN profile of The Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins and his remarkable decision to pass up a long-term contract for a year-by-year "franchise tag." In Kevin Van Valkenburg's article, faith didn't bubble up until paragraph 17. Cousins said he told Redskins President Bruce Allen, "I prayed about it and said, 'Lord, what do you want to do?'"</p>
<p>Faith is central to Cousins. In a speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Cousins explained: "I just didn't feel a peace about signing a long-term contract. I think the Lord communicates with us in many ways, and one of those ways is through his peace. And I just didn't feel at peace. And in addition, I do believe that the Lord, at least in my life, he likes to use one-year contracts, not long-term contracts, if you will."</p>
<p>Cousins' ascent to a starting job in pro football is a dramatic story. ESPN also noted that when he couldn't get a spot on a college football team, his pastor father asked him, "Are you going to try and control your future, or are you ready to surrender your future to the Lord and let him do as he pleases?"</p>
<p>ESPN can't really handle the spin on this ball. The website GetReligion, which often notices clumsy reporting on religion, pointed out that this long article never included the words "church" or "Christian."</p>
<p>Superstar Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, who won the first World Series game for the team, has also spurred this awkwardness. An August story ran in the Los Angeles Times about his marriage to his wife, Ellen Kershaw. The writer wrote that their wedding was soon followed by a trip to Zambia to work with orphans. Why? "It was always on her heart," he said. "It wasn't on my radar and I knew when I married her that it was going to involve me, so we went over there the first time three weeks after we got married. And it does. It changes you."</p>
<p>"It was on her heart" is Christian lingo. The Kershaws then co-authored a book with Ann Higginbottom titled "Arise: Live Out Your Faith and Dreams on Whatever Field You Find Yourself." They wrote, "The battle to maintain a Christ-centered identity is the most worthy fight we will face." But you wouldn't know that from the newspaper account, which just avoided the entire religion angle.</p>
<p>In the last year, journalists have lamented a lack of role models for youth, and rightly so. Why not then spotlight the athletes whose Christianity is their inspiration? There are many stories out there waiting to be told.</p>
<p>L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.</p>
<p>COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM</p> | BOZELL & GRAHAM: Kaepernick and Christian Athletes | true | https://dailywire.com/news/22870/bozell-graham-kaepernick-and-christian-athletes-l-brent-bozell-iii | 2017-10-28 | 0 |
<p>CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Paul Rudd, the versatile and forever young actor and screenwriter who stars in "Ant-Man" was named 2018 Man of the Year by Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals on Thursday.</p>
<p>Rudd, 48, will get his pudding pot during a roast at Harvard on Feb. 2.</p>
<p>"He has starred in indies, mainstream films, acclaimed and often heartfelt comedies, and now he currently plays one of Marvel's biggest (and smallest) superheroes," the oldest collegiate theatrical organization in the nation announced.</p>
<p>He also apparently holds the secret to the fountain of youth.</p>
<p>"The entire company is in awe of his many accomplishments in film and television," Hasty Pudding President Amira Weeks said in a statement. "Specifically, in his ability to have not aged since 1995. Oh, and we hear he's a pretty funny guy, too."</p>
<p>Rudd co-wrote and starred in 2015's "Ant-Man" and its sequel due out this year, "Ant-Man and the Wasp."</p>
<p>He also plays the lead in "The Catcher Was a Spy," the real-life story of Ivy Leaguer and major league ballplayer Moe Berg, a spy with the forerunner of the CIA during World War II, premiering later this month at the Sundance Film Festival.</p>
<p>Previous film credits include "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," ''This is 40" and "Knocked Up."</p>
<p>Hasty Pudding gives out the awards annually to people "who have made lasting and impressive contributions to the world of entertainment."</p>
<p>Last year's man of the year was Ryan Reynolds. Previous winners dating to 1967 include James Stewart, Sylvester Stallone and Samuel L. Jackson.</p>
<p>Mila Kunis was named 2018 Woman of the Year last week.</p>
<p>CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Paul Rudd, the versatile and forever young actor and screenwriter who stars in "Ant-Man" was named 2018 Man of the Year by Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals on Thursday.</p>
<p>Rudd, 48, will get his pudding pot during a roast at Harvard on Feb. 2.</p>
<p>"He has starred in indies, mainstream films, acclaimed and often heartfelt comedies, and now he currently plays one of Marvel's biggest (and smallest) superheroes," the oldest collegiate theatrical organization in the nation announced.</p>
<p>He also apparently holds the secret to the fountain of youth.</p>
<p>"The entire company is in awe of his many accomplishments in film and television," Hasty Pudding President Amira Weeks said in a statement. "Specifically, in his ability to have not aged since 1995. Oh, and we hear he's a pretty funny guy, too."</p>
<p>Rudd co-wrote and starred in 2015's "Ant-Man" and its sequel due out this year, "Ant-Man and the Wasp."</p>
<p>He also plays the lead in "The Catcher Was a Spy," the real-life story of Ivy Leaguer and major league ballplayer Moe Berg, a spy with the forerunner of the CIA during World War II, premiering later this month at the Sundance Film Festival.</p>
<p>Previous film credits include "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," ''This is 40" and "Knocked Up."</p>
<p>Hasty Pudding gives out the awards annually to people "who have made lasting and impressive contributions to the world of entertainment."</p>
<p>Last year's man of the year was Ryan Reynolds. Previous winners dating to 1967 include James Stewart, Sylvester Stallone and Samuel L. Jackson.</p>
<p>Mila Kunis was named 2018 Woman of the Year last week.</p> | Forever young Paul Rudd named Hasty Pudding Man of the Year | false | https://apnews.com/amp/bb9fc50d9b0e4c39b1457fa1e2a9ad4f | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>Aren't you tired of men taking all the road building, concrete laying, roof tarring, soil excavating, sewage cleaning, and electrical piping jobs? Those evil jerks are rightly lambasted by the feminist movement who says those guys just walk around all day exerting their male privilege and taking those jobs from strong-backed females who spend their days bench pressing college deans until they break one and have to find another. Nothing sadder than seeing a lady with ham-hock shoulders forced to work as a secretary because Bill Y. Chromosome showed up for the tree clearing job and was given it based on nothing but his DNA, muscle density, and the ability to lose a finger on the morning shift and be back by noon to finish a double.</p>
<p>Luckily there's American Enterprises Institute Scholar <a href="https://www.aei.org/scholar/christina-hoff-sommers/" type="external">Christina Hoff Sommers</a> to cut through the bull and shed some light on the facts for all those raging feminists living in a man-hating dark room:</p>
<p>Whenever perturbed gender warriors draw up lists of male advantages, they always mention men’s freedom from fear of being attacked. It’s true that women are much more likely to be victims of rape and sexual assault. But men are much more likely to be victims of violent crime as a whole: Consider Campus crime--men may need safe spaces more than women--according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics: Men are twice as likely to be victims of a violent crime on campus.</p>
<p>Look at the overall Murder: Of 12,253 murder victims in 2013, 78 percent were men. Even on the Internet, men face as much or more bullying than women. According to Pew Research, More women than men are sexually harassed (7% women and 4% men), but men are the primary targets of threats (10% men compared to 6% of women).</p>
<p>Let's continue: Here are more facts that challenge the male privilege mantra: Suicide: 77.9% were male, 22.1% female .</p>
<p>Incarceration: 93.3% of federal inmates are male and even when men and women commit the same crime and have similar criminal histories, men receive 63 percent longer prison sentences on average.</p>
<p>Homelessness: it’s estimated that more than 60% of homeless individuals are male. Combat: 85 percent of active duty soldiers are men.</p>
<p>Though there are many women serving in the armed services, fewer than 8 percent profess a desire to engage in combat. If you visit a veteran’s hospital or rehabilitation center, male privilege is not the first idea that comes to mind. And now for the mother of all gender gaps—life expectancy : Women’s average life expectancy is nearly 5 years longer than men. In sum: men must be the only oppressor class in history who are less educated, more victimized, and shorter lived than those they oppress—and who have claimed society’s gritty, dangerous jobs their exclusive preserve."</p>
<p>The problem is Sommers is a unicorn in a world of idiot safe-spacer women chanting they are feminists who want equality with men but just end up <a href="http://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/all-men-are-pigs-women-are-equal-to-men-feminist-meme.jpg" type="external">looking nuts</a>.</p>
<p>Philosopher and father avenger, I. Montoya, with a final thought for the angry fem-activists:</p>
<p />
<p>"You have emotionally killed all fathers, prepare to die in single-hood." -Dr. Montoya</p> | Do Men Need to Check Their Privilege? Feminist Scholar Says No. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/1310/do-men-need-check-their-privilege-feminist-scholar-chase-stephens | 2015-11-23 | 0 |
<p>Oil futures remained steady in midday Asia trading with Wednesday's settlement levels, holding on to overnight gains even as the dollar has continued to rise.</p>
<p>--November Nymex light, sweet crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange was recently up 4 cents at $50.73 a barrel in the Globex trading session while ICE Brent fell 8 cents to $56.21. Both on Wednesday set fresh multi-month closing highs.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>--On tap Friday is a meeting involving the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC members regarding their ongoing production-cap agreement. The prospect of another extension or deeper reductions would add to already-bullish sentiment in some quarters that this year's output maximums are starting to help cut global inventories.</p>
<p>Write to Biman Mukherji at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 21, 2017 00:33 ET (04:33 GMT)</p> | Oil Futures Maintain Overnight Gains Ahead of OPEC Meeting | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/21/oil-futures-maintain-overnight-gains-ahead-opec-meeting.html | 2017-09-21 | 0 |
<p>As the <a href="http://global.christianpost.com/news/iran-report-cites-youcef-nadarkhanis-faith-while-denying-execution-order--70501/" type="external">Christian Post reports</a>, Iranian State-run media is once again engaging in lies to divert attention from their human rights abuses against Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani.</p>
<p>One report in particular, released by Iran's state-funded network Press TV, denies the issuing of an execution order. It also references Nadarkhani's Christianity, which Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, deems a "slip" on behalf of the Iranian news network. . . .</p>
<p>According to Sekulow, Iran repeatedly uses this method of backtracking to validate its charges and calm the international community, which has been paying close attention to the pastor's case.</p>
<p>However, as shown by Press TV's Friday report, Iran has tried to change Nadarkhani's charges to be nonreligious, so as to avoid criticism for human rights violations.</p>
<p>In Friday's report, however, Press TV mentions Nadarkhani's Christian affiliation, revealing: "[Nadarkhani] made headlines in the Western media which claimed he has been sentenced to death for apostasy."</p>
<p>"Nevertheless, he has not even named the church where it is claimed he has received a degree authorizing him to perform religious duties and ceremonies in Christianity," the report added.</p>
<p>"That quick diction made it clear that this really is an issue about Christianity," Sekulow, analyzing Press TV's report, told CP. . . .</p>
<p>"We knew that our goal of last week was like it was in September, which was 'get [Iran's] attention, hopefully stall them.' This is a sign of that," Sekulow said.</p>
<p>The ACLJ has obtained the original Iranian supreme court verdict convicting Pastor Youcef to death by hanging for his Christian faith in <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/youcef-nadarkhani-iranian-supreme-court-verdict-farsi.pdf" type="external">Farsi</a> and translated into <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/youcef-nadarkhani-iranian-supreme-court-verdict-english-translation.pdf" type="external">English</a>,&#160; <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/youcef-nadarkhani-iranian-supreme-court-verdict-portuguese-translation.pdf" type="external">Portuguese</a>&#160;and <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/youcef-nadarkhani-iranian-supreme-court-verdict-russian-translation.pdf" type="external">Russian</a>. Iran has once again been caught in its lies.</p>
<p>You can read the entire article <a href="http://global.christianpost.com/news/iran-report-cites-youcef-nadarkhanis-faith-while-denying-execution-order--70501/" type="external">here</a>.</p> | Iranian State-run Media Acknowledges Youcef’s “Christianity” | true | http://aclj.org/iran/iranian-state-run-media-acknowledges-youcef-christianity | 2012-03-02 | 0 |
<p>Hazel Ingram’s fondest memories are sitting on her grandmother’s lap listening to stories that spoke of strength and freedom from a woman who, as a slave, was once not considered free under the United States Constitution.</p>
<p>In a few weeks, Ingram, 93, will cast one of the 29 Electoral College votes in New York that will determine the next American president. Ingram was chosen by the <a href="http://workingfamilies.org/about-us/" type="external">Working Families Party</a> to cast one of the votes.</p>
<p>Under the U.S. Constitution, the president must be chosen by an Electoral College of 538 members, needing only 270 to win.</p>
<p>“My only sister always said I would be one of those great politicians. Maybe this is what happens. I never dreamed that I was going to be here,” she told NBC News.</p>
<p>As the oldest of five siblings, Ingram remembers harvesting vegetables, peanuts and cotton and cleaning around the farm in Georgia as a duty to her family, work she described as "a good life of living."</p>
<p>But when it came to her civic duty, Ingram never imagined that decades later she would have a role in the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>She was born in 1923, three years after the ratification of the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote. Back then, during an era of racial segregation and widespread disenfranchisement of blacks — especially in the South, conversations surrounding politics and voting registration were seen as taboo.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until she moved to New York in her early 20s that the phrase “registering to vote” come up.</p>
<p>Still, even north of the Mason Dixon line, she faced hardships.</p>
<p>Moving to the "Big Apple", Ingram said "it wasn't too easy." She recalls making purses, working for a shoe factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and making soldiers’ field jackets during the war to make ends meet.</p>
<p>After working an eight hour day at her first job, Ingram made ends meet at a second job by cleaning office buildings.</p>
<p>"I never [understood] really why I liked [cleaning] so well but I do and I'm going to still keep hanging in there with it and continue as long as I can," Ingram said.</p>
<p>She has working for over 60 years at a Manhattan cleaning company. Ingram is the oldest active worker in the <a href="http://www.seiu32bj.org/" type="external">32BJ S.E.I.U</a>, "the largest union of property service workers in the U.S," with over 155,000 members, according to the union.</p>
<p>Her other passion is voting rights.</p>
<p>After adjusting to her new life, family friends living in the city provided the push Ingram needed to register to vote.</p>
<p>"I loved it! I was ready and when they said let's go and register to vote, I was right there. Been voting ever since and never missed not one year."</p>
<p>Since then she has knocked on doors for such campaigns as John F. Kennedy and Shirley Chisolm's political bids, to Barack Obama's historic bid to become the first African-American president. She describes Obama's election as "the greatest thing that could happen to America."</p>
<p>“Hazel’s energy and determination to fight for the rights of working families has been an inspiration to our members for decades, not just in New York, but in other regions where we are active,” said Hector Figueroa, president of SEIU 32BJ . "When members see an African American woman like her, whose grandmother was a slave, spend hours canvassing, week after week, they say, ‘if she can do it, so can I’.”</p>
<p>Now she said she is ready to see the country elect the first woman president — Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>“U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and First Lady. If anyone should be experienced enough, it should be Clinton,” Ingram said.</p>
<p>On GOP presidential candidate, Donald Trump, Ingram said,” Trump! I don’t even think about Trump.”</p>
<p>And just as her grandmother inspired her, Ingram is an inspiration to her great grandson Nasir Ellis, a recent graduate from The New School in New York.</p>
<p>Ellis said he remembers can being bundled up during the winter as a child and holding his great –grandmother’s hand while going door to door during political campaign rallies.</p>
<p>“My great grandmother helped me to understand the political process and the nuances of what it means in terms of voting at very young age because she was one of the only people who I am able to have conversations with,” said Ellis, who plans to be a poll election worker this election.</p>
<p>“Now that I am older and our political views are somewhat going different directions, we still discuss the same foundation of wanting to provide equal rights for all people," he said. "She is a legend.”</p>
<p>Ingram still works 40 hours a week and has no intention of slowing down. She credits her health to fresh vegetables, cornbread and pork chops just like the “good ole days” at the farm.</p>
<p>"All of my family is trying to follow their grandmother’s footsteps, but they can't catch up with me."</p> | Hazel Ingram, Granddaughter of Slave, to Cast Electoral College Vote | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hazel-ingram-granddaughter-slave-cast-electoral-college-vote-n665826 | 2016-10-16 | 3 |
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<p>They unanimously approved $500,000 this week for housing and other services to help inmates leaving jail and $625,000 for programs aimed at filling gaps in the local mental health system, as identified by a task force.</p>
<p>Councilors Isaac Benton and Brad Winter sponsored the proposal.</p>
<p>Benton said he hopes the money will help “close the revolving door” of people who move in and out of jail while struggling with mental illness and homelessness.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Winter said the funding will help carry out priorities outlined by a task force of local officials and experts who examined what kinds of behavioral health services are already available and which are lacking.</p>
<p>“I think it could really change the way behavioral health is treated in New Mexico,” Winter said. “I don’t think that committee could have done better work.”</p>
<p>Bernalillo County commissioners passed a similar measure in June. They approved $1.1 million to hire social service agencies to provide 75 beds in the community for homeless people leaving the jail system.</p>
<p>The Winter-Benton resolution directs the city to work with the county on that effort.</p>
<p>The county’s Code of Conduct Review Board has dismissed a complaint against County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver.</p>
<p>The complaint focused on a news release Toulouse Oliver had issued announcing that her office had successfully mailed ballots to overseas voters, such as military personnel, despite litigation that held up some of the work.</p>
<p>The news release included some criticism of Secretary of State Dianna Duran. The ethics complaint called it an improper campaign ad and accused Toulouse Oliver of using government resources for political gain.</p>
<p>Duran and Toulouse Oliver were both running for secretary of state at the time.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Duran, meanwhile, had issued her own news releases critical of the county.</p>
<p>In any case, Toulouse Oliver argued that the complaint against her was frivolous, and that her news release was accurate and necessary as a response to Duran’s news releases.</p>
<p>The board dismissed the complaint Tuesday.</p>
<p>The Twinkle Light Parade will be back in Nob Hill again this year. It starts at 5:15 p.m. Dec. 6, a Saturday.</p>
<p>Some city councilors have questioned the location. They said they liked the idea of switching the parade between Downtown and Nob Hill every other year.</p>
<p>Betty Rivera, the city’s director of cultural services, said the parade is in Nob Hill this year because of construction on the Fourth Street mall Downtown. But she said the parade draws more people in Nob Hill.</p>
<p>Dan McKay can be reached at <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p /> | Metro Beat: $1.1M approved for mentally ill, homeless | false | https://abqjournal.com/500155/11m-approved-for-mentally-ill-homeless.html | 2 |
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<p>A mob of rioters calling for refugees to be kicked out, and a lone voice in the crowd pleading for empathy and compassion.</p>
<p>Sounds like something you might see today, right? But it’s actually from a 400-year-old play. And the dialogue was written by none other than William Shakespeare.</p>
<p>“You’ll put down strangers, Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,&#160;And lead the majesty of law in lyam&#160;To slip him like a hound.&#160;Alas, alas! Say now the King&#160;As he is clement if th’offender mourn,&#160;Should so much come too short of your great trespass&#160;As but to banish you: whither would you go?&#160;What country, by the nature of your error,&#160;Should give you harbour?&#160;Go you to France or Flanders,&#160;To any German province, Spain or Portugal,&#160;Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England:&#160;Why, you must needs be strangers.”</p>
<p>The British Library is releasing 300 manuscripts, books, maps, paintings, illustrations, pamphlets, ballads, playbills and photos relating to Shakespeare.</p>
<p>One highlight of the collection is this scene from The Book of Sir Thomas More,&#160;in which the title character attempts to quell a mob of people calling for French and Italian refugees to be banished from England.</p>
<p>It's written in Shakespeare’s original handwriting.</p>
<p>Can you find the&#160;quote above?</p>
<p />
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/shakespeares-handwriting-in-the-book-of-sir-thomas-more" type="external">The British Library</a></p>
<p>The Book of Sir Thomas More was originally written by Anthony Munday between 1596 and 1601, and is about the life of Henry VIII’s chancellor, Sir Thomas More.</p>
<p>However, plays at the time were put through a censor, and The Book of&#160;Sir Thomas More was deemed too controversial,&#160;because it includes scenes of civil unrest and shows More as a subversive martyr.</p>
<p>Later, Shakespeare was commissioned to write the scene above.</p>
<p>In it, More asks:&#160;How would the rioters feel if they were banished from their homeland? If they found themselves in the position of being an alien in a strange and hostile place? In the scene, More asks the mob to overcome their "mountainish inhumanity."</p>
<p>It’s impossible to read the scene and not imagine similar crowds around the world today.&#160;</p>
<p>And that’s no accident,&#160;says Anna Lobbenberg, the project manager of the&#160; <a href="http://www.bl.uk/shakespeare" type="external">Discovering Literature</a>&#160;website, the new house for&#160; <a href="http://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/collection-items" type="external">this collection</a>.</p>
<p>“It was very deliberate,” she says.&#160;“We’re really trying to find material that young students of Shakespeare’s works will be able to relate to the present day.”</p>
<p>So while this scene deals with the issue of refugees, other examples&#160;grapple with subjects of gender, sexuality, mental health and ethnicity.</p>
<p>The play was never performed professionally until 1971, when Sir Ian McKellen's played the part of Sir Thomas More. If you're more the listening type, you can hear&#160;the full monologue here:</p>
<p />
<p /> | Read a scene from Shakespeare calling on the English to accept refugees | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-03-16/read-scene-shakespeare-calling-english-accept-refugees | 2016-03-16 | 3 |
<p>Mandinkas were the fiercest warriors of Africa. After a Caribbean slave revolt in the 1800s, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the leading intellectual of the Southern gentry, invoked the specter of Mandingo slaughtering white masters as justification for their enslavement. Black male sexual prowess was also a big part of the myth. The often used colloquialism, “once you go black you never go back”–is the myth of the big black, well-endowed buck, Mandingo.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, the myth became the movie “Mandingo” in which one-time heavyweight champ Ken Norton played a noble slave who burns down the white man’s plantation and escapes to freedom with the blond Southern belle in his arms. My mother took us kids to see the “controversial” movie when it was shown at the local drive-in theatre. And at the top of her stack of romance novels was a cover showing a muscular, caramel-colored black man caressing a buxom, blond lass, her ample white breast barely covered by the straps of her torn hoop dress, her long blond ringlets cascading over her shoulder with the title “Mandingo” emblazoned across the cover.</p>
<p>The Mandingo stereotype entraps black males to this day as evidenced by the pop culture embrace of the pimp, gangsta rappers along with a host of psycho-sexual-social illusions. The myth fuels denial over homosexuality and feeds rampant homophobia in the black community. As black gay and bisexual men practice a dangerous sexual secrecy, the AIDS crisis in the black community worsens. As a friend told me, “One of the worst thing to be is a gay black man in the south. The preacher wants you to lead the choir, and maybe even give him a blowjob every now and again, while condemning, denying or damning your very existence from the pulpit.”</p>
<p>As for white women, during slavery a white woman marrying or consensually having a child by a black man usually found herself in legally sanctioned bondage. “Defilement” or being “spoiled” during the Jim Crow era most often meant banishment–or stripped of being “white” for one’s “nigger-loving” ways. White men used “protecting white womanhood,” the first plank in the Klan platform, as a pretext for controlling white women, but in some respects it trapped the men in a psychotic effort to prove their own sexual dominance.</p>
<p>In Thurmond’s youth and political prime, lynching and the fear of it was the primary weapon to discourage black men from looking the “wrong way” at white women let alone having sexual relations. And lynching was accepted at all levels of white society as a means of controlling race mixing. Even in the late seventies, my first organizing job, with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference back when Ralph Abernathy was the head, was over the death of a black man, Mickey McClendon, murdered for dating a white woman. McClendon, from Chester, South Carolina, was shot, tied behind a pick-up truck, set on fire and dragged down a road, much the way James Byrd Jr. was in Jasper, Texas, in 1998. Today, whether it’s Kobe Bryant in Colorado or high school football star Marcus Dixon in Georgia, whenever a black man is accused of the rape of a white woman, black Americans view the alleged crime in the context of history.</p>
<p>Sex is the prevailing theme of Thurmond’s life. While he was alive and after death, the local press gleefully retold the story of a young Strom “sneaking out his upstairs bedroom for a romantic tryst with unnamed women.” Thurmond’s “virility,” his marrying a twenty-two-year-old, Nancy Moore, at age sixty-six, having four children even as an old man and his “secret” black child were all a testimony to Southern white male power.</p>
<p>Thurmond’s initiation in the “customs and traditions” of segregation, sex and white supremacy began with his political mentor Benjamin Ryan Tillman. “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, a virulent white supremacist, also from Edgefield, Thurmond’s home county, constitutionally (and otherwise) reinstituted white rule after Reconstruction. Pitchfork” Ben was proud to have driven blacks demanding rights out of the state at gunpoint. He and his Sweetwater Sabre Club members wore white shirts stained in red to represent the blood of black men. When Tillman came to power as Governor in 1890, blacks were the majority in the state. Today, blacks represent a third of the population. The decrease is directly due to Tillman’s political legacy. Tillman’s assault on black rights was immediate. He quickly revised the state constitution to ensure legal segregation of the races, stripping blacks of all political and economic power. As a U.S. Senator, Tillman declared, “We of the South have never recognized the right of the Negro to govern white men, and we never will.”</p>
<p>Thurmond’s father, J. William, himself a state legislator, once served as Tillman’s campaign manager. Tillman later rewarded J. William by naming him U.S. Attorney (a job currently held by Strom’s son–Strom Jr.) in a new South Carolina district even though Thurmond had killed a man in an argument over Tillman’s politics. Tillman was a frequent visitor to the Thurmond home, a “symbolic part of the family,” according to Cohodas, and a godfather of sorts to the Thurmond children. But to blacks, “Pitchfork” Ben was the prime purveyor of Negrophobia. And wrapped around Tillmanism was the ideal of the “pure, defenseless southern white woman.” “There is only one crime that warrants lynching, ” he said, “and governor as I am, I would lead a mob to lynch the Negro who ravishes a white woman.” During Tillman’s first term there had been five lynchings, in his second term there were thirteen.</p>
<p>Still, black South Carolinians were initially optimistic about Thurmond, who began his career as a Democrat. As a South Carolina state senator in 1938, despite the Tillman influence, he publicly opposed lynching and declared that the Ku Klux Klan stood for “the most abominable type of lawlessness.” Thurmond called himself a “progressive” and upon election to governor in 1946 he declared, “We need a progressive outlook, a progressive program, a progressive leadership.” He spoke of improving black schools, revising the Tillman Constitution of 1895 and abolishing the Tillman” poll tax that was used to keep blacks from voting. He supported “equal right for women in every respect,” saying, “women should serve on boards, commissions, and other positions of importance in the state government.” He also called for “equal pay for equal work for women.”</p>
<p>At his inaugural Thurmond said, “more attention should be given to Negro education. The low standing of South Carolina educationally is due primarily to the high illiteracy and lack of education among our Negroes. If we provide better educational facilities for them, not only will much be accomplished in human values, but we shall raise our per capita income as well as the educational standing of the state.” But Thurmond was not calling for an end to segregation, he was hoping for a new and improved “separate but equal.” It would take the federal courts to strike down “separate but equal” and to force desegregation, or “integration”, as the Thurmond forces would define it.</p>
<p>Thurmond stood squarely with Tillman on race mixing–he was against it and let stand the constitutional prohibition against it. It took 103 years before South Carolina finally voted to remove a ban on interracial marriage from its state constitution. Although it was not actively enforced, Tillman added the clause to the state’s constitution in 1895 prohibiting “marriage of a white person with a Negro or mulatto or a person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood.” Up until 1997, state legislators refused to allow voters to decide whether to remove the ban. A constitutional amendment, passed in 1998, finally deleted the line.</p>
<p>Still, at the start of his career blacks gave Thurmond high marks for his handling of the Willie Earle lynching, which stamped his administration as “liberal without being radical” by whites outside the south. On February 16, 1947, a young black man from Pickens County was arrested and charged with the murder of Thomas Brown, a white Greenville taxicab driver. The next day a mob broke into the Pickens County jail, took Earle, shot him, stabbed him and then beat him to death on the outskirts of town. The FBI and state officials investigated the crime at the behest of Thurmond, who also called for the prosecution of those accused of lynching. But after a highly public trial the jury acquitted the accused men.</p>
<p>However, when President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces and announced his broad civil rights program in 1948, Thurmond could not tolerate the challenge thus posed to the “customs and traditions” that defined his deepest beliefs. Thurmond ran for President that year as the “Dixiecrat” States Rights candidate, admonishing the faithful that holding power boiled down to one thing–race and he would make sure that only white men held it. As Northern Democrats pushed for civil rights, Thurmond and his fellow Southern Democratic governors cried “states’ rights” just as their ancestors did to justify African enslavement. As author Kari Frederickson wrote, Thurmond and other Dixiecrat governors appealed to racist, “conservative white men suffering from a self-diagnosed case of political impotency.”</p>
<p>Thurmond as Tillman’s political heir was the icon of the new “anti-miscegenation” movement. In his acceptance speech at the Birmingham meeting announcing his presidential bid he speechified, “All the bayonets in the Army cannot force the ‘Negarah’ into our home, our schools, our churches and our places of recreation.”</p>
<p>Candidate Thurmond’s platform stood for segregation and against race mixing. When the votes were counted Thurmond had 1.1 million votes, won 4 states and garnered 38 electoral votes. 1.1 million Americans voted in favor of segregation–it was not enough to defeat Truman, but the Democratic Party was never the same.</p>
<p>Eventually Thurmond was elected to the Senate as a write-in candidate in 1954, a post he would retain for a half century, until his retirement in January 2003. Throughout his congressional career, he opposed almost every major civil rights initiative. In 1956, he authored the infamous Southern Manifesto–a document signed by 19 of the 22 southern senators that urged the south to defy–as they put it–the Supreme Court’s “clear abuse of judicial power” in outlawing segregation in public schools. In 1957, he executed the longest filibuster in history while trying to halt the first Civil Rights Act proposed in the Senate and backed by Eisenhower.</p>
<p>Lyndon Johnson’s success in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the last straw for Thurmond. He left the Democratic Party and signed on with Republican Barry Goldwater. Upon leaving, Thurmond declared, “The party of our fathers is dead.”</p>
<p>Thurmond’s departure signaled a major shift in American politics. It was the birth of South Carolinian Lee Atwater, Jesse Helms, Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott’s Republican Party. The Thurmond defection prompted the GOP appeal to white Southern conservatives and foreshadowed Richard Nixon’s race-inspired “southern strategy.” This framework exists today. Race supremacy is the ideological glue that keeps white men in the south in the Republican Party. Today they are called the “Bubba vote” and NASCAR dads, but the appeal is build on Tillmanism, the Dixiecrat Movement, the Southern Manifesto. It’s almost always couched in the language of “states rights,” but race and social control is the subtext.</p>
<p>Race politics explains Ronald Reagan beginning his 1980 campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the place where civil rights workers’ Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney and Andrew Goodman were murdered. His declaration then, “I believe in states rights,” sent the same message as George W. Bush’s 2000 sojourn to the fundamentalist college Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school’s founder has often been linked to the Klan and for years provided a Biblical sanction for racism. The school refused to admit blacks until 1971 and banned interracial dating until 2000.</p>
<p>In the 70s, as the country’s racial attitudes changed Thurmond did as the self-serving do to stay in office–he changed–at least cosmetically. With blacks representing a third of the voters in South Carolina he hired the first black man ever employed by a southern senator and actively re-courted the black vote. Thomas Moss, a Korean War veteran and organizer with the meat packers union (in the “right to work state”) in Orangeburg, SC, headed the Voter Education Project, a program that encouraged blacks to register to vote. Working with Moss, Thurmond began championing grants to black colleges, businesses, and municipalities. He voted in favor of extending the Voting Rights Act–a law that guaranteed the federal government’s right to enforce a citizen’s right to vote. He also voted in favor of the Fair Housing Act and the Martin Luther King federal holiday. His reward, during his 1978 re-election bid, 10 of South Carolina’s 11 black mayors endorsed him.</p>
<p>Back in 1996, I was organizing a national conference on the epidemic of church fires in the South. As it just so happened, South Carolina led the nation in the number of church fires and the National Council of Churches was sponsoring the conference being held in the state. An old friend and NAACP member Joann Watson of Detroit made the trip down south. And as fate would have it, Joann and I were talking in the lobby of the Downtown Holiday Inn when who should stroll in–Strom in the flesh, looking kind of dazed but still moving, his aide not a step away. Joann immediately threw her two arms up in the air and cried like Moses appealing to Pharaoh in a strong but not loud voice, “Senator, let my people go!” Strom, leaning just a little, stopped, stuck his hand out to Joann and said in a clear twangy voice, “Go where? I love everybody. Everybody’s my friend!”</p>
<p>Thurmond was the epitome of the classic pork belly politician. Graduate from high school and you’d probably get a letter from Thurmond. If a parent had trouble reaching a kid in the military, call Thurmond’s office. Need help with the V.A.–call ole Strom. The “rural myth” is that Strom shook the hand of almost every South Carolinian. His apologists want us to remember that Thurmond.</p>
<p>When black State Senator Kay Patterson of Columbia agreed to eulogize Thurmond it was front-page news all across, the state. Patterson said, “Strom’s experience is “on the road to Damascus. I have supported him since he left his segregationist ways and became a real American citizen and tried to be the senator for all the people of the state.” Patterson attitude mirrored African Americans optimistic hope for Thurmond when he began his career.</p>
<p>But a new generation was reminded of Thurmond’s legacy and iconic status at his 100th birthday party. Mississippi Senator Trent Lott praised Thurmond’s 1948 campaign saying; “I want to say this about my state. When Strom ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of him. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.” Although Lott fell on his sword and apologized all over himself, his signal was unmistakable. Had it not been for blacks getting rights and race mixing, the world of white men with total power would be intact.</p>
<p>In the end, regardless of whatever changes Thurmond made later in life, his legacy can be described in two words–“Segregation Forever.” Or maybe, “Segregation and Hypocrisy Forever!” Even if Essie Mae Washington-Williams’ name is chiseled along side the names of his other children onto the Strom Thurmond statue that stands facing the Confederate Women’s Monument on the Statehouse grounds, his contradictions and hypocrisy will still be etched in stone. But maybe, in a way, the day they chisel that name will be the day white South Carolina finally begin to confront its own contradictions?</p>
<p>KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY is a CounterPunch contributer and civil rights organizer in Columbia, South Carolina. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Legacy of Strom Thurmond | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/03/08/the-legacy-of-strom-thurmond/ | 2004-03-08 | 4 |
<p>(Photo courtesy NBC Media Village)</p>
<p>Caitlyn Jenner would have to use the men’s bathroom facilities in North Carolina, according to state Gov. Pat McCrory.</p>
<p><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nc-gov-pat-mccrory-relegates-caitlyn-jenner-mens/story?id=42748496" type="external">ABC News</a>reports Jenner’s name was brought up during a debate on Tuesday between McCrory and Democratic nominee Attorney General Roy Cooper by debate moderator Chuck Todd who asked which restroom Jenner would be allowed to use.</p>
<p>The question was in reference to North Carolina’s HB2 law.</p>
<p>“In the private sector in North Carolina, she can go wherever the private sector wants her to. If she’s going to a shower facility at [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] after running around the track, she’s going to use the men’s shower,” McGory responded.</p>
<p>Cooper answered by saying local governments should have the authority on that decision. The law has cost the state business with many musicians canceling scheduled concerts. The NBA also moved its All-Star game from the state in protest of the discriminatory law.</p>
<p>“We need a good jobs governor, not an HB2 governor,” Cooper said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">ABC News</a> <a href="" type="internal">Caitlyn Jenner</a> <a href="" type="internal">Pat McCrory</a> <a href="" type="internal">Roy Cooper</a></p> | N.C. Gov says Caitlyn Jenner would have to use men’s shower | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/10/13/n-c-gov-says-caitlyn-jenner-use-mens-shower/ | 3 |
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<p><a href="http://wp.me/p3bwni-itC" type="external">21st Century Wire</a> says…</p>
<p>Are they unveiling the eastern branch of the coming EU Army?</p>
<p>This latest NATO ‘exercise’ is named after Lithuania’s Mechanized &amp; Motorized Infantry Brigades (MIB).</p>
<p>NATO is still claiming that “it’s not about Russia,” but it is…</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> Lithuanian MIB force (Image Source: Lithuanian Military) <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/345527-nato-massive-drill-lithuania/" type="external" /> <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/345527-nato-massive-drill-lithuania/" type="external">RT</a></p>
<p>The first active phase of the drill brings together soldiers from hosting Lithuania, the US National Guard and Poland. Soldiers from Germany, Denmark, France and Luxembourg are to join them for the second phase on June 12. Several dozen French troops are taking part in a Latvian drill for the first time.</p>
<p>The US deployed Stryker armored vehicles, A-10 Warthog fighter jets and B-52 strategic bombers to Lithuania as part of the exercise. Germany sent Boxer armored fighting vehicles and PzH 2000 howitzers, while Denmark provided Leopard tanks.</p>
<p>Iron Wolf 2016 is the largest military exercise in Lithuania in several years. It is part of NATO’s larger operation called Saber Strike, which focuses on the three Baltic States and involves some 10,000 troops this year. The transportation of foreign troops through the country is called Dragoon Ride II and started last Wednesday…</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/345527-nato-massive-drill-lithuania/" type="external">Continue this story at RT</a></p>
<p>READ MORE EU ARMY NEWS AT: <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire EU Army Files</a></p> | IRON WOLF: 5,000 take part in NATO drill in Lithuania | true | http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/06/06/iron-wolf-5000-take-part-in-nato-drill-in-lithuania/ | 2016-06-06 | 4 |
<p>The Independent</p>
<p>FALLUJAH.</p>
<p>After six days of intense combat against the Fallujah insurgents, US warplanes, tanks and mortars have left a shattered landscape of gutted buildings, crushed cars and charred bodies.</p>
<p>A drive through the city revealed a picture of utter destruction, with concrete houses flattened, mosques in ruins, telegraph poles down, power and phone lines hanging slack and rubble and human remains littering the empty streets. The north-west Jolan district, once an insurgent stronghold, looked like a ghost town, the only sound the rumbling of tank tracks.</p>
<p>US Marines pointed their assault rifles down abandoned streets, past Fallujah’s simple amusement park, now deserted. Four bloated and burnt bodies lay on the main street, not far from US tanks and soldiers. The stench of the remains hung heavy in the air, mixing with the dust.</p>
<p>Another body lay stretched out on the next block, its head blown off, perhaps in one of the countless explosions which rent the city day and night for nearly a week. Some bodies were so mutilated it was impossible to tell if they were civilians or militants, male or female.</p>
<p>Fallujah, regarded as a place with an independent streak where citizens even defied the former leader Saddam Hussein at times, seemed lifeless. The minarets of the city’s dozens of mosques stood silent, no longer broadcasting the call to holy war that so often echoed across the rooftops, inspiring fighters to join the insurgency.</p>
<p>Restaurant signs were covered in soot. Pavements were crushed by 70-ton Abrams tanks, and rows of crumbling buildings stood on both sides of deserted streets. Upmarket homes with garages looked as if they had been abandoned for years. Cars lay crushed in the middle of streets. Two Iraqis in one street desperately trying to salvage some of their smashed belongings were the only signs of life.</p>
<p>As US soldiers walked through neighbourhoods, their allies in the Iraqi forces casually moved along dusty streets past wires hanging down from gutted buildings. They carried boxes of bottled water to the rooftops of the upmarket villas they now occupy. The soldiers sat on the roofs staring at the ruins.</p>
<p>As a small convoy of Humvees moved back to position on the edge of the Jolan district, a rocket landed in the sand about 100ft away, a reminder that militants were still out there somewhere, even if the city that harboured them has fallen. The few civilians left in Fallujah talked of a city left in ruins not just by the six days of the ground assault, but the weeks of bombing that preceded the attack.</p>
<p>Residents have long been without electricity or water, abandoning their homes and congregating in the centre of the city as the US forces advanced from all sides. They had cowered in buildings as the battle unfolded past the windows.</p>
<p>The reaction of US troops to attacks, say residents, have been out of all proportion; shots by snipers have been answered by rounds from Abrams tanks, devastating buildings and, it is claimed, injuring and killing civilians. This is firmly denied by the American military.</p>
<p>About 200,000 refugees fled the fighting, and there have been outbreaks of typhoid and other diseases.</p>
<p>People leaving the city described rotting corpses being piled up and thousands still trapped inside their homes, many of them wounded and without access to food, water or medical aid. US commanders insist civilian casualties in Fallujah have been low, but the Pentagon famously claims it does not keep figures.</p>
<p>Escaping residents described incidents in which non-combatants, including women and children, were killed by shrapnel or hit by bombs. In one case last week, a nine-year-old boy was hit in the stomach by shrapnel. Unable to reach a hospital, he died hours later from blood loss. His father had to bury his body in their garden.</p>
<p>Those trapped inside the city say they are reaching a point of desperation. “Our situation is very hard,” said Abu Mustafa, contacted by telephone in the central Hay al-Dubat neighbourhood. “We don’t have food or water,” he told Reuters. “My seven children all have severe diarrhoea. One of my sons was wounded by shrapnel last night and he’s bleeding, but I can’t do anything to help him.”</p>
<p>Aamir Haidar Yusouf, a 39-year-old trader, sent his family out of Fallujah, but stayed behind to look after his home, not just during the fighting, but the looting which will follow. “The Americans have been firing at buildings if they see even small movements,” he said.</p>
<p>As the fighting died down yesterday he said: “They are also destroying cars, because they think every car has a bomb in it. People have moved from the edges of the city into the centre, and they are staying on the ground floors of buildings. There will be nothing left of Fallujah by the time they finish. They have already destroyed so many homes with their bombings from the air, and now we are having this from tanks and big guns.”</p>
<p>There was no sign of the guerrillas who scribbled graffiti along the walls of the park, encouraging Fallujah’s 300,000 residents to join a holy war against US-led troops. “Long live the mujahedin,” read the graffiti.</p>
<p>Mohammed Younis, a former policeman, said: “The Americans and [Iyad] Allawi [Iraq’s interim Prime Minister] have been saying that Fallujah is full of foreign fighters. That is not true; they left a long time ago. You will find them in other places, in Baghdad. We have been saying to Allawi and the Americans that they are not here, but they do not believe us.”</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Fallujah in Ruins | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/11/15/fallujah-in-ruins/ | 2004-11-15 | 4 |
<p>Sunayana Dumala, the widow of a Indian man killed in a triple shooting in Kansas that the FBI is investigating as a hate crime, penned an emotional tribute to her late husband and asked: “Do we belong here?”</p>
<p />
<p>Dumala described Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who died in the hospital after the triple shooting last Wednesday, as “a source of inspiration” and “a support system not just to me but to any and all he got to know.”</p>
<p>“I lost my husband — my soul mate — my friend and my confidante,” she wrote in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sunayana.dumala/posts/1254788961284812" type="external">Facebook post</a> Tuesday. “It is still unbelievable that he is not here.”</p>
<p>She described their relationship and plans to have children, and wrote that Kuchibhotla “was always worried about immigration and its laws.”</p>
<p>“There were days when he used to talk about how it’s been quite a few years since we applied for our permanent residency card, and he didn’t know how much longer we have to wait for it,” Dumala wrote. “Whenever there was an incident involving someone dying, both of us got worried.”</p>
<p>Among others, Dumala thanked law enforcement officials, employees of Garmin (where Kuchibhotla worked), and her own employer, as well as Ian Grillot. Grillot, another victim of the shooting, was shot in the hand and chest while intervening.</p>
<p>“What is the government going to do to stop hate crime? Lastly, to answer the question that is in every immigrant’s mind, DO WE BELONG HERE?” Dumala wrote. “Is this the same country we dreamed of and is it still secure to raise our families and children here?”</p>
<p>The FBI on Tuesday <a href="" type="internal">opened a hate crime investigation</a> into the shooting, which witnesses described as racially motivated.</p>
<p>Adam Purinton, a 51-year-old resident of Olathe, was <a href="" type="internal">arrested</a> Thursday and <a href="http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/olathe-bar-shooting-suspect-to-make-first-court-appearance-monday" type="external">charged</a> with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree attempted murder. He <a href="" type="internal">made</a> his first court appearance on Monday.</p>
<p>Purinton <a href="" type="internal">allegedly</a> shouted “get out of my country” before opening fire.</p>
<p>“He said that he shot and killed two Iranian people,” a bartender at a different location later <a href="http://fox4kc.com/2017/02/27/listen-bartender-calls-911-after-suspected-olathe-shooter-enters-clinton-mo-restaurant/" type="external">told</a> a 911 dispatcher.</p>
<p>Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, another victim, were immigrants from India.</p>
<p>During a news conference on Friday, Dumala <a href="" type="internal">said</a> that she needs “an answer from the government” about how it plans to stop such violence.</p>
<p>After <a href="" type="internal">nearly a week</a> of silence, Trump personally <a href="" type="internal">addressed</a> the shooting during his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.</p>
<p>“Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms,” he said.</p> | Widow Of Kansas Shooting Victim: ‘Do We Belong Here?’ | true | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sunayana-dumala-olathe-kansas-shooting-do-we-belong-here | 4 |
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<p>TELLURIDE, Colo. — FBI agents and police searched a high school campus for weapons and explosives in the scenic Rocky Mountains resort of Telluride on Monday after a tip about alleged plans for a “Columbine-style” attack shut down the school.</p>
<p>Officials said one student was taken into custody and a handgun and a rifle at his home also were seized. The boy was taken into custody Sunday, was questioned and remained in custody Monday but had not been placed under arrest, said Susan Lilly, a spokeswoman for a multiagency task force conducting the investigation.</p>
<p>No weapons were found on the campus of Telluride High School and officials said it would reopen Tuesday with extra security as a precaution.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The investigation into the social media threats — reported to school officials on Sunday — was continuing, Lilly said.</p>
<p>The threats rattled Telluride, a former mining town turned resort destination that is surrounded by mountains and attracts celebrities to its ski slopes and its annual Telluride Film Festival.</p>
<p>The male student taken into custody is a juvenile who is suspected of posting on Snapchat a threat to detonate explosives on the campus of the school, which has about 255 students, Lilly said. His name and age were being withheld and he had not been formally charged by late Monday, she said.</p>
<p>Lilly did not provide additional details about the guns seized at the homes and no other details about the search were disclosed.</p>
<p>Authorities were trying to determine the author of an earlier Snapchat post that threatened a shooting at the school and specifically referred to the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in suburban Denver, Lilly said. Thirteen people were killed at Columbine, and the two student gunmen took their own lives.</p>
<p>The Columbine massacre, in Littleton, has led to dozens of copycat plots or incidents nationwide. It also led to more aggressive prevention efforts and police responses to active-shooter situations at schools.</p>
<p>“We take every threat seriously and run down all leads to ensure safety of students and staff,” school superintendent Mike Gass said in a message to parents.</p>
<p>Investigators have spoken with an additional six students as part of their probe and planned to speak with three more, Lilly said. None of them were considered suspects as of late Monday, she said.</p>
<p>FBI agents were involved because the case potentially involved explosives or firearms, Lilly said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to show that one student was taken into custody but has not been arrested.</p> | Colorado ski town school searched for weapons after threat | false | https://abqjournal.com/1098380/1-in-custody-as-columbine-style-threat-probed-in-telluride.html | 2017-11-27 | 2 |
<p>Jan 23 (Reuters) - Kinder Morgan Inc:</p>
<p>* KINDER MORGAN SAYS UTOPIA PIPELINE HAS BEEN PLACED INTO SERVICE, &amp; PRODUCT DELIVERY OF ETHANE FROM HARRISON COUNTY TO WINDSOR HAS COMMENCED OPERATION Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Americans galvanized by last month’s Florida school massacre rallied in cities across the country on Saturday to demand tighter gun laws.</p>
<p>Carrying signs with slogans such as “If they choose guns over our kids, vote them out,” protesters in Washington jammed Pennsylvania Avenue as students from the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 people were shot to death called on lawmakers and President Donald Trump to confront the issue.</p>
<p>The massive March For Our Lives rallies, some led by student survivors from Parkland, aim to break legislative gridlock that has long stymied efforts to increase restrictions on firearms sales in a nation where mass shootings like the one on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have become frighteningly common.</p>
<p>“Politicians: either represent the people or get out. Stand with us or beware, the voters are coming,” Cameron Kasky, a 17-year-old junior at the high school, told the crowd.</p>
<p>Another Parkland survivor, David Hogg, said it was a new day. “You can hear the people in power shaking,” he said to loud applause.</p>
<p>“We’re going to make sure the best people get in our elections to run not as politicians, but as Americans. Because this - this - is not cutting it,” he said, pointing at the white-domed Capitol. “We can and we will change the world!”</p>
<p>Youthful marchers filled streets in cities nationwide including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego and St. Louis.</p>
<p>More than 800 demonstrations were scheduled in the United States and abroad, according to coordinators, with events as far afield as London, Mauritius and Stockholm.</p>
<p>Underlining sharp differences among the American public over the issue, counter-demonstrators and supporters of gun rights were also in evidence in many cities.</p>
<p>“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” said Connor Humphrey, 16, of San Luis Obispo, California, who was visiting Washington with his family for spring break.</p>
<p>Humphrey, wearing a red “Make America Great Again” sweatshirt, said he owns guns for target shooting and hunting and uses them responsibly. His school had a lockdown exercise last week.</p>
<p>“I think teachers should have guns,” he said, echoing a proposal made by Trump after the Parkland killings.</p>
<p>Organizers of the anti-gun rallies want Congress, many of whose members are up for re-election in November, to ban the sale of assault weapons like the one used in the Florida rampage and to tighten background checks for gun buyers.</p>
<p>On the other side of the debate, gun rights advocates cite constitutional guarantees of the right to bear arms.</p>
<p>“All they’re doing is asking the government to take their liberty away from them without due process,” Brandon Howard, a 42-year-old Trump supporter, said of the protesters in the capital. He had a sign saying: “Keep your hands off my guns.”</p> Protesters hold photos of victims of school shootings during a "March For Our Lives" demonstration demanding gun control in New York City, U.S. March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
<p>In New York, a handful of counter-demonstrators waved placards with messages such as “Keep America Armed” and “Re-elect Trump 2020.”</p> ‘THIS IS THE NORM FOR US’
<p>Among those marching nearby next to Central Park was pop star Paul McCartney, who said he had a personal stake in the gun control debate.</p>
<p>“One of my best friends was shot not far from here,” he told CNN, referring to Beatles bandmate John Lennon, who was gunned down near the park in 1980.</p>
<p>Taking aim at the National Rifle Association gun lobby, teenagers chanted, “Hey, hey, NRA, how many kids have you killed today?”</p> Slideshow (30 Images)
<p>So overcome with emotion was one of the Parkland students who was shot and survived, Samantha Fuentes, that she vomited on stage during her speech.</p>
<p>“I just threw up on international television and it feels great,” she said to loud cheers afterward.</p>
<p>The young U.S. organizers have won kudos and cash from dozens of celebrities, with singers Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande, as well as “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, among those performing in Washington.</p>
<p>Actor George Clooney and his human rights attorney wife, Amal, donated $500,000 and said they would be at the Washington rally.</p>
<p>Democrats and nonpartisan groups hope to register at least 25,000 first-time voters at the rallies, potentially a boost for Democrats, who generally favor stricter gun controls.</p>
<p>On Friday, Trump signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill that includes modest improvements to background checks for gun sales and grants to help schools prevent gun violence.</p>
<p>White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said the administration applauded “the many courageous young Americans” exercising their free-speech rights on Saturday.</p>
<p>“Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the president’s,” said Walters, noting that on Friday the Justice Department proposed rule changes that would effectively ban “bump stock” devices that let semi-automatic weapons fire like a machine gun.</p>
<p>Former President Barack Obama said on Twitter that he and his wife Michelle were inspired by all the young people who made the marches happen.</p>
<p>“Keep at it. You’re leading us forward. Nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change,” Obama said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ian Simpson, Lacey Johnson, Katanga Johnson and Lauren Young in Washington, Alice Popovici in New York, Phoenix Tso in Los Angeles, Zachary Fagenson in Parkland, Robert Chiarito in Chicago, and Jim Oliphant in West Palm Beach; Editing by Daniel Wallis and James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels began pulling out of several towns in their former enclave of eastern Ghouta on Saturday, surrendering them to the government and leaving the besieged city of Douma as their last bastion there.</p> Syrian army soldiers fire tracer bullets into the air to celebrate their victory outside Harasta in eastern Ghouta, in Damascus, Syria March 23, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
<p>It comes after a month-long assault that devastated the already battered eastern Ghouta, an area of farmland and towns that was one of the first centers of the uprising in 2011 and the last major rebel stronghold near the capital Damascus.</p>
<p>Ten buses carrying fighters along with their families and other civilians started to leave the enclave after dark, the vanguard of a convoy heading into exile in northwestern Syria.</p>
<p>It follows the departure of thousands of others on Friday from the town of Harasta in a similar deal for insurgents to depart with light weapons in return for giving up their territory.</p>
<p>The buses queued at a crossing point before moving into the enclave along a road on the former front lines that had been cleared of barricades, debris and unexploded ordnance.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-ghouta-civilians/russia-says-over-105000-civilians-have-left-syrias-eastern-ghouta-ria-idUSKBN1H00BQ" type="external">Russia says over 105,000 civilians have left Syria's Eastern Ghouta: RIA</a>
<p>Some captives held by the insurgents were released and state television showed them leaving in a minibus.</p>
<p>The army was advancing into towns the rebels had retreated from in preparation for their exit, state television said. It broadcast pictures of the massive trenches and other fortifications the rebels were leaving behind.</p>
<p>It means only Douma is left of the opposition’s eastern Ghouta enclave which a month ago the United Nations said was home to 400,000 people.</p>
<p>The army offensive to capture it, heralded by one of the heaviest bombardments in the seven-year conflict with warplanes, helicopters and artillery, has killed more than 1,600 people, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor.</p>
<p>Residents and rights groups have accused the government of using weapons that kill indiscriminately - inaccurate barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, chlorine gas and incendiary material that sets raging fires.</p>
<p>Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his close ally Russia, which has helped his air campaign, have denied using all those weapons and say their offensive was needed to end the rule of Islamist militants over civilians.</p> Buses are seen entering into rebels Harasta area in eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria March 23, 2018. REUTERS/ Omar Sanadiki EVACUATION
<p>About 7,000 people - fighters along with family members and other civilians who do not wish to come back under Assad’s rule - were to leave the towns of Zamalka, Arbin, Ein Terma and Jobar starting on Saturday, rebels and state media said.</p>
<p>They will go to Idlib province in the northwest - the destination for many such “evacuations” after sieges and ground offensives forced numerous rebel enclaves to surrender in the past two years.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>It will not mean an end to their experience of war. Syrian military and Russian air raids on Idlib have increased in the past week, killing dozens of people.</p>
<p>Idlib is also unsettled by fighting between the rebel groups. On Saturday, an explosion at a headquarters for al Qaeda’s former affiliate killed at least seven people and injured 25 others.</p>
<p>The Britain-based Observatory said there were also negotiations with the Jaish al-Islam rebel group that controls Douma to release prisoners.</p>
<p>Russia will guarantee that civilians who remain in the areas recaptured by Assad will not be prosecuted, rebels said on Friday. However, rights groups have said some men were forcibly conscripted after fleeing the fighting.</p>
<p>Wael Alwan, spokesman for the Failaq al-Rahman group that was dominant in Zamalka, Arbin, Ein Terma and Jobar, was quoted by al-Hadath television on Saturday as saying he did not trust Russia’s guarantees.</p>
<p>A Russian military webcam at the al-Wafideen crossing point near Douma showed small groups of civilians continuing to flee the danger of further bombardment into government territory, carrying children and sacks of belongings.</p>
<p>Russia’s military said more than 105,000 people had left eastern Ghouta, including over 700 on Saturday.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands have fled their homes in the past week as the bombardment of Douma intensified and refugees from other parts of Ghouta found the basement bomb shelters too full to take them.</p>
<p>Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Dale Hudson</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) - France will pay a national tribute to a security officer who died from gunshot wounds after voluntarily taking the place of a female hostage during a supermarket siege by an Islamist militant, President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.</p>
<p>Arnaud Beltrame, 44, a gendarme who once served in Iraq, had been raced to hospital fighting for his life after being shot by the gunman during the siege at the Super U store in the southwestern town of Trebes near the Pyrenees mountains.</p>
<p>His actions were described as heroic by politicians across the political spectrum.</p>
<p>“He fell as a hero, giving up his life to halt the murderous outfit of a jihadist terrorist,” Macron said in a statement shortly before dawn on Saturday.</p>
<p>Macron said France would organize a national tribute in Beltrame’s honor, the president’s office announced after he met with members of the government and officials involved in the attack investigation. It gave no further details.</p>
<p>The attacker was identified by authorities as Redouane Lakdim, a 25-year-old Moroccan-born French national from the city of Carcassonne, not far from Trebes, the tranquil town of about 5,000 people where he struck on Friday.</p>
<p>Lakdim was known to authorities for drug-dealing and other petty crimes, but had also been under surveillance by security services in 2016-2017 for links to the radical Salafist movement, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said on Friday.</p>
<p>The attacker’s rampage began when he shot the occupant of a car he stole and fired on a group of police joggers, wounding one. He then headed to a supermarket where he killed two people, an employee and a client, bringing Friday’s toll to three dead and 16 injured, according to a government readout.</p>
<p>Beltrame’s death took the number killed to four.</p>
<p>He was part of a team of gendarmes who were among the first to arrive at the supermarket scene. Most of the people in the shop escaped after hiding in a cold storage room and then fleeing through an emergency exit.</p>
<p>He offered to trade places with a hostage the attacker was still holding, whereafter he took her place and left his mobile phone on a table, line open. When shots rang out, elite police stormed the building to kill the assailant. Police sources said Beltrame was shot three times.</p>
<p>Politicians from the left and right called Beltrame a “hero” on Twitter, including opposition leader Laurent Wauquiez, far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen and Olivier Faure, set to become the next Socialist party head.</p>
<p>#ArnaudBeltrame was a trending topic on the social network where people expressed their respect and gratitude for the officer, and thoughts for his wife. Several cities, the National Assembly and police stations lowered their flags in his honor.</p>
<p>The Grand Mosque of Paris, the largest in the country, said the Muslim community joined in mourning for a man who had “fallen heroically under the bullets of the terrorist Redouane Lakdim in the exercise of his mission”.</p> Flowers and messages in tribute to victim are seen in front of the Gendarmerie of Carcassonne, the day after a hostage situation in Trebes, France March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May hailed Beltrame’s courage and sacrifice on Twitter, saying they would never be forgotten.</p> ARRESTS AND SEARCHES
<p>The Islamic State militant group on Friday claimed responsibility for the attack.</p>
<p>Several hundred investigators devoted to the inquiry were still checking the claim on Saturday and looking into possible complicity the “terrorist” could have benefited from to carry out his attacks, the president’s office said.</p>
<p>Police arrested two people as part of the investigation - on Friday a woman connected to Lakdim, and overnight a 17-year-old male said to be one of his friends, judicial sources said.</p> Slideshow (6 Images)
<p>Searches at the attacker’s home showed notes referring to Islamic State that appeared to be a will, as well as a phone and a computer, judicial sources said.</p>
<p>Investigators also found three improvised explosive devices, a 7.65-millimetre handgun and a hunting knife in the supermarket, a source said.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump condemned “the violent actions of the attacker and anyone who would provide him support”.</p>
<p>“We are with you @EmmanuelMacron!” he added on Twitter.</p>
<p>More than 240 people have been killed in France in attacks since 2015 by assailants who either pledged allegiance to Islamic State or were inspired by the ultra-hardline group.</p>
<p>France is part of a group of countries whose warplanes have been bombing Islamic State strongholds in Iraq and Syria, where in recent months IS has lost much of a self-proclaimed “caliphate” of territory it seized in 2014.</p>
<p>One multiple attack by Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris in November 2015 while another killed close to 90 when a man ran a truck into partying crowds in the Riviera seaside city of Nice in July 2016.</p>
<p>Beltrame was a qualified parachutist who served in Iraq in 2005. He also worked as part of the elite Republican Guard that protects the presidential Elysee Place offices and residence in Paris, Macron said.</p>
<p>Friday’s assault was the first deadly Islamist attack in France since October 2017, when a man stabbed two young women to death in the port city of Marseille before soldiers killed him.</p>
<p>Several attacks over the past year or more have targeted police and soldiers deployed in big numbers to protect civilians and patrol sensitive spots such as airports and train stations.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Emmanuel Jarry; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Helen Popper and Dale Hudson</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement hooked up with conservative parties on Saturday to elect the speakers of both houses of parliament, but there was no sign yet they might extend this pact and form a government.</p> The new elected Senate president Forza Italia party's Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati speaks during the second session day since the March 4 national election in Rome, Italy March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
<p>The March 4 national election ended in a hung parliament, with the 5-Star becoming the largest party and a rightist alliance, including ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party and the anti-migrant League, emerging as the biggest bloc.</p>
<p>After days of behind-the-scenes talks, the two factions joined forces to elect 5-Star heavyweight Roberto Fico president of the lower house and Forza Italia veteran Elisabetta Casellati president of the Senate - both highly prestigious posts.</p>
<p>The conservative alliance came close to collapse on Friday after the League sided with 5-Star to reject Forza Italia’s first choice for the Senate position, but hasty overnight negotiations patched up the row, at least for now.</p>
<p>“I am very happy, moved and proud that parliament has started to work and that the centre-right has held together,” League leader Matteo Salvini said after Saturday’s twin votes.</p>
<p>The election of the speakers opens the way for formal government consultations, which will be led by President Sergio Mattarella and are expected to start early next month.</p>
<p>Later on Saturday Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni officially handed in his resignation and that of his government to Mattarella, as normally happens in Italy when a newly-elected parliament appoints its speakers.</p>
<p>Gentiloni, however, will remain in place to take care of day-to-day operations until a new government is formed, the secretary of the president said in an emailed statement.</p> The new elected Senate president Forza Italia party's Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati speaks during the second session day since the March 4 national election in Rome, Italy March 24, 2018. REUTERS/Remo Casilli FLEXIBILITY
<p>The 5-Star and the right have enough seats in parliament to govern Italy, but there are many impediments to such a deal in terms of policy mismatches and personality clashes.</p>
<p>“Here we have seen that there are (parliamentary) forces which carry considerable weight. But for us, government is something different,” said Giorgia Meloni, head of the far-right Brothers of Italy party which is in the conservative alliance.</p>
<p>“For us, 5-Star absolutely does not represent any sort of guarantee, just like the Democratic Party,” she added, referring to the centre-left PD which lost power in the March 4 election.</p> Slideshow (7 Images)
<p>Nonetheless, Saturday’s ballots showed that the 5-Star is evolving. It used to excoriate such parliamentary deal-making as old-style politics, so by agreeing to a deal in both houses it suggested it might prove more flexible in future.</p>
<p>The election of the speakers also represented a blow to Berlusconi, who dominated Italy’s centre-right for almost 25 years but must now play second fiddle to Salvini after the League overtook his Forza Italia party in the March 4 vote.</p>
<p>He accused Salvini of betrayal on Friday after the League sided with the 5-Star over the speaker nominations. On Saturday Berlusconi altered his tone, saying he still trusted Salvini and promised to work for the good of Italy, the euro zone’s third largest economy.</p>
<p>Post-election opinion polls have shown support for Forza Italia collapse further in favor of the League, which has promised a fierce clampdown on illegal immigration and a hefty reduction in both business and personal taxes.</p>
<p>Backing for the 5-Star has also climbed further over the past three weeks, with the movement promising to introduce a generous “Citizen’s Wage” to help the poor and jobless.</p>
<p>Both the League and 5-Star have voiced fierce hostility to EU budget rules and markets are likely to be spooked by any sign they might form a coalition. However, their divergent economic platforms represent a serious hurdle to alliance deals.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Francesca Landini; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Andrew Bolton</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Kinder Morgan Begins Operation Of The Utopia Pipeline System Huge rallies led by students demand tighter U.S. gun controls As Syrian rebels quit Ghouta, Douma stands alone France mourns 'hero' officer who took place of hostage in attack Italian parties reach deal on parliamentary speakers | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-kinder-morgan-begins-operation-of/brief-kinder-morgan-begins-operation-of-the-utopia-pipeline-system-idUSFWN1PI16G | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p>Christopher Occhicone/ZUMA; Ryan McBride/ZUMA</p>
<p />
<p>So far, the Republican presidential contest has been like a Quentin Tarantino film in which the main characters end up in a circular firing squad or a multisided Mexican standoff and don’t know whom to target—or from which direction an attack might come. Donald Trump has rotated the target of his volleys, and the other Republican contenders have often seemed puzzled whether to go after the front-runner or focus on a candidate who is a more direct competitor for a certain slice of the GOP electorate.</p>
<p>Trump, at different times, has needled Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz. Bush, at one point, attempted—feebly— to take a poke at Trump. Bush and Marco Rubio have tangled with each other. Cruz and Rubio have done the same. On Saturday night, in the most consequential clash of the campaign, Chris Christie unloaded on Rubio during the New Hampshire debate, forcing the one-term senator to commit a blunder that may have derailed his campaign permanently. Trump, Cruz, Kasich, and Bush—especially Bush—no doubt appreciated this greatly, though the harsh assault did not help Christie, who on Wednesday <a href="" type="internal">appeared set to suspend his campaign</a>. As the non-Trump field has shifted, the one-on-ones have changed. And with the New Hampshire results, it seems inevitable that a coming matchup will pit Kasich against Bush.</p>
<p>This could be an odd battle. Kasich placed second in New Hampshire, Bush came in fourth, and both are governors (Bush is an ex-) who emphasize their policy chops and claim they want to stay positive. (Bush has referred to immigration to the United States as an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/04/06/jeb-bush-many-illegal-immigrants-come-out-of-an-act-of-love/" type="external">“act of love,”</a> and Kasich, as part of his campaign pitch, has <a href="" type="internal">called</a> on people to slow down and listen more to each other.) Both are from and pals of the GOP establishment. Both tout their executive experience and claim to have reasonable demeanors. Both seek to win the fancy of moderate, suburban Republicans. Each probably cannot survive long in the race without knocking the other out—sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>On Wednesday morning—that didn’t take long!—a Bush campaign operative told me that the Jeb crew was prepping to rip Kasich apart. There would be two lines of public attack at first: Kasich, as Ohio governor, has expanded Medicaid under Obamacare; and Kasich, when he was a member of Congress, sought to close military bases and decrease some military spending. “None of this will play well in conservative South Carolina,” the Bush operative said, with a smile, referring to the next primary state. (That state counts a high number of retired military veterans among its residents.) And the Bush camp’s message to funders and insiders is going to be this: Kasich does not have the money or the organization to compete in the weeks ahead when the race expands to more states holding elections at the same time, so don’t waste your bucks and time on him.</p>
<p>This operative was repeating the talking points that the campaign had quickly devised in the aftermath of New Hampshire to disseminate to top aides and surrogates. Politico <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/new-hampshire-primary-2016-live-updates/2016/02/bush-plans-scorched-earth-attack-on-kasich-rubio-219058" type="external">obtained</a> a copy, and here’s an excerpt: “Governor Kasich has little to no chance in South Carolina, and does not have a national organization that can compete. Kasich has consistently supported gutting the military and has no viable path in the Palmetto State.”</p>
<p>The Bush goal: to smash Kasich in South Carolina and preserve Jeb’s long and painful-to-watch slog as an establishment-friendly alternative to Trump and Cruz.</p>
<p>When I asked a Kasich strategist—a well-known establishment GOPer—about the Bush plan to demolish Kasich, he scoffed: “They came in fourth, and they’re calling on Kasich to get out of the race so Jeb can have a clean shot. Now that’s ridiculous.” He downplayed the significance of South Carolina and noted that the Kasich folks assume that four or five candidates will still be standing after the Palmetto State. He meant Trump, who has drawn great crowds there; Cruz, who is well positioned to round up evangelical voters in South Carolina; Kasich; Bush; and perhaps Rubio, if he can salvage his campaign. Kasich and his advisers hope the South Carolina primary will be dominated by a Trump-Cruz confrontation—the more sparks the better—and not a Bush-Kasich showdown. Their immediate aim is to slide past South Carolina and head to the early March contests, when Kasich might have better shots in several states, including Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, Minnesota, Virginia, and Michigan. His home state primary in Ohio is March 15.</p>
<p>But does Kasich have the cash and organization to compete on all these fronts? “People are taking our calls now,” the Kasich strategist says. He says there is no way Kasich will lead in the delegate count come mid-March. But the campaign wants to demonstrate that Kasich will be a long-run candidate. Can this happen without getting into vicious combat with Bush? “Well,” the Kasich strategist remarks, “he will try to stay positive.” That doesn’t appear to be the Bush plan. And it’s awfully hard to avoid a fight when the other fellow is dead set on it.</p>
<p>South Carolina has a history of below-the-belt politics, and the Bush family has been part of that. (See the 2000 GOP primary campaign, when the George W. Bush camp slimed John McCain to defeat.) The Bush clan knows how to get dirty in South Carolina. Regardless of what happens with Trump and Cruz, a Bush-Kasich brawl could well be the main event.</p>
<p /> | Coming Soon: The Bush-Kasich Death Match | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/coming-soon-bush-kasich-death-match/ | 2016-02-10 | 4 |
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May is known principally as the leader chosen to carry the United Kingdom through the Brexit process. But in her short time as Prime Minister, she has proven to be much more than that. She is inarguably the strongest and most clarion voice for freedom and Western values in Europe - and worldwide is arguably second only to Benjamin Netanyahu.</p>
<p>Prime Minister May's foreign policy is worthy of review.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>EUROPE</p>
<p>In her first PM questions performance as Prime Minister, Theresa May <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-07-18/debates/16071818000001/UKSNuclearDeterrent" type="external">announced</a>, "Our national interest is clear. Britain’s nuclear deterrent is an insurance policy we simply cannot do without. We cannot compromise on our national security."</p>
<p>And she left no question as to why Britain's nuclear deterrent must be modernized with the Trident II nuclear submarine:</p>
<p>One Leftist, a Scottish National Party parliamentarian, tried to test her metal by asking "is she personally prepared to authorize a nuclear strike that could kill 100,000 innocent men, women and children?"</p>
<p>The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May): "Yes. The whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to use it"</p>
<p>Russia took <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3690519/Iron-Lady-Reincarnated-Putin-s-Russia-greets-calls-Thatcher-Mark-II.html" type="external">notice</a>, with the Russian Defense Ministry publishing an article titled "Iron Lady: Reincarnation".</p>
<p>Many of her opponents in the Labour party agreed with her. One of them, Toby Perkins of Chesterfield, detailed a series of visits to NATO countries he and "two previous shadow Secretaries of State for Defense" had taken. "We met representatives from Estonia, Latvia, Poland and several other NATO allies," he said. "For those countries, the Russian threat is not a dinner table conversation, but a matter of chilling daily reality. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) was told how desperate they were for Britain to retain the nuclear deterrent and send a powerful signal to President Putin."</p>
<p>Her commitment to NATO is absolute. In fact, her Defense Minister, Michael Fallon has <a href="http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense-news/2016/07/21/uk-defense-minister-nato-absolute-commitment-required/87408470/" type="external">said</a> so in those exact words. "Article 5 is an absolute commitment. It doesn’t come with conditions or caveats. It is an absolute commitment that we help each other if any one member of NATO is attacked." The UK is <a href="http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/565982/world-war-3-vladimir-putin-russian-nuclear-war-theresa-may-poland-troops-kaliningrad" type="external">deploying</a> troops to Poland and Estonia to back up it's warning, and has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/02/may-trump-truth-putin-russian-aggression" type="external">reportedly</a> "authorised the transfer to Estonia of high-precision long-range missiles to be deployed alongside drones, tanks and RAF jets."</p>
<p>The UK is even extending military training for Ukrainian troops. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ukraine-russia-uk-training-government-troops-programme-extended-michael-fallon-rebels-war-a7482366.html" type="external">Says</a> the Defense Minister: "Extending British training of Ukrainian Armed Forces sends a clear message that we support Ukraine and remain firmly committed to its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, in the face of a more belligerent Russia."</p>
<p>This is important, because, as Andrew Parker, director-general of MI5, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/02/may-trump-truth-putin-russian-aggression" type="external">said</a>, Russia "is using its whole range of state organs and powers to push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways – involving propaganda, espionage, subversion and cyber-attacks. Russia is at work across Europe and in the UK today."</p>
<p>There is a creeping gain in Kremlin-supporting and Kremlin-supported extremist parties. In 2015, Russia held a <a href="http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/03/21/russia-hosting-europes-neo-nazis-nationalists-and-anti-semites-putin-supporters-all/" type="external">conference</a> of Neo-Nazis and anti-Semites from European parties who openly support Putin - many of whom get <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/russian-resurgence-how-the-kremlin-is-making-its-presence-felt-across-europe" type="external">overt and covert support</a> from Russia in return:</p>
<p>But Theresa May has <a href="http://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2016/12/mays-speech-to-the-conservative-friends-of-israel-full-text.html" type="external">announced</a> that she intends to take the fight directly to anti-Semitism:</p>
<p>"Let me be clear: it is unacceptable that there is anti-Semitism in this country. It is even worse that incidents are reportedly on the rise. And it is disgusting that these twisted views are being found in British politics.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>"In response to the work of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Britain will be adopting a formal definition of anti-Semitism. Just last week, we were at the forefront to try to ensure that the definition was adopted across the continent too, at the summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.The result was 56 countries in favour. One country opposed it: Russia. But, as I said, we will adopt it here in the UK.</p>
<p>"That means there will be one definition of anti-Semitism – in essence, language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews – and anyone guilty of that will be called out on it."</p>
<p>Her strong stand in Europe should hopefully serve as a guiding light for her fellow European leaders.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>HARKENING BACK TO GREATNESS</p>
<p>In 1941, when he was warned that he could not trust Stalin, the blindly pro-Russian president, Franklin D. Roosevelt replied: "I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man…I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace." In 1942, Roosevelt told British Prime Minister Winston Churchill "I think I can personally handle Stalin better than your Foreign Office or my State Department. Stalin hates the guts of all your people. He thinks he likes me better."</p>
<p>Churchill saw things differently. "We were under no illusions about the Russian attitude," he wrote in his memoirs. He was observing Stalin's actions carefully. The war began after Stalin and Hitler made a deal to divide up Poland between themselves, and Stalin promised not to interfere with Hitler as he attacked Westward. As the Nazis conquered Western Europe and began their bombing of Britain, Stalin and Molotov "sent their dutiful congratulations on every German victory. They poured a heavy flow of food and essential raw materials into the Reich. Their Fifth Column Communists did what they could to disturb our factories. Their radio diffused its abuse and slanders against us." Churchill also knew that Stalin would even fabricate "threats" to the Soviet Union in order to justify aggression:</p>
<p>"On June 14, the day Paris fell, Moscow had sent an ultimatum to Lithuania accusing her and the other Baltic States of military conspiracy against the USSR, and demanded radical changes of government and military concessions. ... On August 3/6, the pretense of pro-Soviet friendly and democratic Governments was swept away, and the Kremlin annexed the Baltic States to the Soviet."</p>
<p>After the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, Stalin reversed course and formed an alliance with the United States and Great Britain. Churchill knew that he had to work with Stalin and make concessions, but he knew that Stalin could not be trusted and whatever power or territory Stalin gained would someday be used to threaten the western democracies. Therefor - for the sake of the future of freedom - Churchill was determined to make a few concessions as possible and not to make needless concessions.</p>
<p>The great test of this was the Warsaw uprising. In 1944, the anti-Nazi Polish resistance rose up to battle against their fascist occupiers, and they were promised support from the approaching Soviet army. But these Polish underground fighters were for Polish independence and were not Communists, so Stalin halted his army outside Warsaw and denied them any support. Churchill wanted to airlift supplies to the freedom fighters in Warsaw, an action that would require American assistance. Stalin was reliant on the United States for his survival, and would have had to accept an independent Poland had the resistance seized and maintained control of Warsaw. But Roosevelt, entranced by his "friendship" with Stalin, would not do it. Roosevelt did not want to upset all the imaginary progress he was making toward getting Stalin to "work with me for a world of democracy and peace." This delusion needlessly condemned the people of Poland to live another 45 years under totalitarian rule, threatening the west by both proximity and greater manpower.</p>
<p>This is the reason why Churchill advised General Eisenhower: "I deem it highly important that we should shake hands with the Russians as far east as possible." He wanted the West to have the power advantage in Post-War Europe - he knew that the insatiable expansionism of totalitarian ideologies could only be deterred by strength. It's a shame we didn't listen to him - as the "Iron Curtain" and 45 years of Cold War proved him right.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>BEYOND EUROPE</p>
<p>On December 12th, Theresa May <a href="http://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2016/12/mays-speech-to-the-conservative-friends-of-israel-full-text.html" type="external">addressed</a> the Conservative Friends of Israel and made what has to be the strongest endorsement of Israel a British leader could make:</p>
<p>"[The Balfour Declaration] is one of the most important letters in history. It demonstrates Britain’s vital role in creating a homeland for the Jewish people. And it is an anniversary we will be marking with pride. Born of that letter, and the efforts of so many people, is a remarkable country. ... we have, in Israel, a thriving democracy, a beacon of tolerance, an engine of enterprise and an example to the rest of the world for overcoming adversity and defying disadvantages."</p>
<p>She also took another step that is desperately needed, but which many world leaders overlook: "Let me be clear: no British taxpayers’ money will be used to make payments to terrorists or their families."</p>
<p>May, like the rest of Europe, believes that "the construction of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is illegal" and an impediment to peace. She is <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/12/israels-right-to-build-homes-is-settled-under-international-law" type="external">wrong</a>. But, unlike the rest of Europe, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/29/theresa-may-rebukes-us-attack-israel/" type="external">she</a> does not "believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex," and criticized John Kerry's attack on Netanyahu's government, stating "we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally."</p>
<p>Beyond support for Israel, May is also committed to fighting Islamic extremism.</p>
<p>"Britain has in total 1,500 military personnel in the region and 7 warships, more than any other Western nation apart from the US.," Foreign Minister Boris Johnson <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-speech-britain-is-back-east-of-suez" type="external">said</a> in a speech in Bahrain. "Together with our allies in the Gulf, we are fighting together to defeat Daesh [ISIS] in Iraq and Syria, and we are winning. The RAF is the second biggest contributors to the airborne strike missions after the Americans."</p>
<p>(That might seem like a small commitment, but considering that the UK has to worry about the Russians' constant threats to nuke and invade NATO - I'm not complaining.)</p>
<p>Foreign Minister Johnson used the occasion to declare: "Britain is back East of Suez."</p>
<p>Prime Minister May also <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prime-ministers-speech-to-the-gulf-co-operation-council-2016" type="external">says</a> that she feels that it is important to "continue to confront state actors whose influence fuels instability in the region." And by that, she meant that she is "clear-eyed about the threat that Iran poses to the Gulf and the wider Middle East."</p>
<p>It's unfortunate that she still falls for the "Iran Deal" delusion. But she has acknowledged that Britain and her Gulf allies "must also work together to push back against Iran’s aggressive regional actions, whether in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria or in the Gulf itself."</p>
<p>(Russia not only endorses the "Iran Deal," but actively <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/01/levin-bolton-sound-the-alarm-on-the-rights-new-coziness-with-russia" type="external">supports</a> Iran's nuclear program, has <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2010/08/17/fueling-bushehr-did-russia-light-iran%E2%80%99s-nuclear-fuse/" type="external">built</a> in Iran a reactor - to be run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - capable of producing weapons grade plutonium, and has <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/iran-deploys-anti-aircraft-missiles-to-nuclear-facility/a-19510160" type="external">deployed</a>anti-aircraft missiles to protect Iran's nuclear sites from the United States and Israel. In November 2015, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-says-hezbollah-hamas-not-terror-groups/" type="external">said</a> of Iran's terrorist surrogates Hamas and Hezbollah "We maintain contacts and relations with them because we do not consider them a terrorist organization." Putin's office released a <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53585" type="external">statement</a> on December 24th that "Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani" where they discussed their cooperation "towards full victory over international terrorism" by their bombing of hospitals and executions in Aleppo, where there was no ISIS, but there was a 7 year old girl with a twitter account who Assad publicly <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/10/06/Im-not-a-terrorist-7-year-old-tweets-at-Syrias-Assad/7051475783795/" type="external">said</a> that he considers to be a terrorist. Russia is working with the #1 state sponsor of terror in order to achieve "full victory over international terrorism." That's the Orwellianism the pro-Putin fanatics have to overlook in order to maintain that he is a friend against terrorism. <a href="https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/679773187983413248" type="external">Appropriately</a>, Orwell's 1984 was the #6 bestseller in Russia in 2015.)</p>
<p>Outside the Middle East, Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-southchinasea-fighters-idUSKBN13R00D" type="external">reported</a> that "British fighter planes visiting Japan will fly over the South China Sea and Britain will sail aircraft carriers in the Pacific once they are operational in 2020, given concerns about freedom of navigation there, Britain's ambassador to the United States said."</p>
<p>Additionally, at a parliamentary meeting on November 16, 2016, Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con) asked the Prime Minister: "Today the BBC World Service announced its biggest expansion since the 1940s, including 11 new services in different languages, bringing the total number of languages covered around the world to 40. Does the Prime Minister agree that this is an excellent example of soft power and a lifeline to many people around the world?"</p>
<p>The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May): "I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The service that the BBC provides through its World Service and the independent journalism that that brings to millions of people around the world is very important, including by bringing that to people in places where free speech is often limited. It is important to support the BBC World Service, which is why we are investing £289 million over the next four years so that it can provide accurate and independent news to some of the most remote parts of the world."</p>
<p>Services like the BBC are often overlooked when foreign policy issues are discussed, but - as the Prime Minister said - it is a lifeline for people who live in societies that would otherwise be closed to the outside world. For example, Anne Frank's family would listen to the BBC while hiding from the Nazis because, as Anne wrote in her Diary, "the radio, with its wondrous voice, helps us not to lose heart and to keep telling ourselves, ‘Cheer up, keep your spirits high, things are bound to get better!’" Similarly, Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes in Infidel that when she was a child "at five o'clockevery day, my mother would secretly put on the radio, very quietly. All the adults would creep over to my grandmother's bed to listen to the BBC Somali Service" - and act they knew was a risk, and they would post people outside the house to watch for Communist police patrols.</p>
<p>---------</p>
<p>"The will and moral courage of free men and women"</p>
<p>These are extraordinary commitments for such a small Island, but the people of the United Kingdom have proven themselves able to accomplish greatness time and time again.</p>
<p>On December 10, 2014, Senator Ted Cruz gave a <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/02/the-power-of-friendship-embracing-allies-to-revitalize-american-leadership" type="external">speech</a> at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation on "The Power of Friendship: Embracing Allies to Revitalize American Leadership." He focused particularly on the ties that bond the United States and the UK.</p>
<p>"Perhaps our strongest bond is a shared commitment to the democratic principles that have survived from antiquity," he said, "a tradition that in Britain emerged in the shade of a large tree when King John sealed the Magna Carta on June 15, 1215, a momentous acknowledgment that even a monarch can be subject to the rule of law. When we honor the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta next year, we’ll be celebrating the bedrock of the free systems of both the U.K. and the United States."</p>
<p>He highlighted "another great milestone for liberty" that "occurred in 1689 when King William and Queen Mary signed the Bill of Rights that established the fundamentally republican principles of Great Britain, including the need for Parliament to consent to the suspension or execution of laws, the right to free speech, and the protection against cruel and unusual punishment."</p>
<p>"This remarkable achievement in turn inspired the audacious inhabitants of the British colonies in the New World to demand these same freedoms, and when they were denied, they took matters into their own hands. With the benefit of hindsight, it could be argued that this was an act befitting the descendants of men and women who had pledged to respect but not to idolize their sovereign.</p>
<p>"The United States quickly proved itself a unique ally to Great Britain, and the so-called Special Relationship was born. Our friendship is so profound today that the very notion that we were once sworn enemies seems so strange as to be laughable. We have weathered some of our darkest hours together, fighting in the 20th century through the trenches of two world wars as well as side by side winning the Cold War."</p>
<p>The United States and the United Kingdom have time and time again faced down the enemies of freedom. In his inaugural address, Ronald Reagan explained that "Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors."</p>
<p>Through her actions - like the actions of her predecessors Winston Churchill and Margret Thatcher - Prime Minister Theresa May proves that the same will and moral courage exist in the men and women of her country.</p> | Theresa May: Champion of Freedom | true | https://dailywire.com/news/12292/theresa-may-champion-freedom-spyridon-mitsotakis | 2017-01-12 | 0 |
<p>Disclaimer:Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.</p>
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<p />
<p>Seriously, the fakest of fake media needs to get it together!</p>
<p>Once again, the mainstream media is doing everything they can to humiliate themselves. The culprit of the latest incident, Scott Pelley, just showed the world how naive and silly the leftists are.</p>
<p>In CBS's long running 60 minutes, the host was doing a segment on fake news with the aim of exposing the right-wing movement. Of course it doesn't work. The segment began with a propenageda introduction by Pelley, in which he called right-winger Mike Cernovich a "con artist". I am not joking here, the host accused someone as a "con artist" even before letting the interview subject speak. That's how the mainstream media conduct business these days and that's how low they are willing to crawl down to to make so-called "news".</p>
<p>Luckily, Mike Cernovich is no dummy. He knew before walking in the interview room that whatever comes out of his mouth will be heavily edited and biased and so he published a part of the interview online by himself, so everyone can be a judge in how his performance rank.</p>
<p>Despite giving an unfair start, Mike Cernovich did a marvelous job in handling the interview, dodging all the giant bullets and makes the extremely unprofessional Scott pelley looks like a sad clown. Scott Pelley had done everything he can to show his favourism to the Hailay Clinton campaign and when being asked why he trusts the Hailley camiagn so much, the hostile host was left speechless. When clever audiences watch the interview and the release side by side, they can examine how well Mr. Cernovich has done in compare to how idiotic the interviewer sounds. Sadly, the mainstream media never take the power of the truth seriously. It is just another example showing how stupid the mainstream media is. An another win for the conservative movement.</p>
<p>Mr. Pelley, let me give you a journalism 101 lesson: Don't interview people with legitimate background and knowledge on the topic and then call them "Con Artist". And for the sack of our country, consider quitting your job and go back to school.</p>
<p />
<p>Source : <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/03/27/fake-news-cbs-scott-pelley-loses-a-fight-rigged-in-his-favor/" type="external">breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/03/27/fake-news-cbs-scott-pelley-loses-a-fight-rigged-in-his-favor</a></p> | Mike Cernovich Leaves 60 Minutes Host Scott Pelley at a Loss for Words | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/2008-Mike-Cernovich-Leaves-60-Minutes-Host-Scott-Pelley-at-a-Loss-for-Words | 2017-03-28 | 0 |
<p>1) Trump builds on the theory of&#160;terrorism as a battle between Good and Evil. That’s the single most useless&#160;theory to explain conflicts and violence. He obviously has no intellectuals&#160;around to help him.</p>
<p>2)&#160;Trump blames Iran for all terrorism and the wars in both the wars in Syria and&#160;Yemen. He wants the world to isolate Iran. Iran’s people – thanks to&#160;vibrant political debate and over 70% going to the polls –&#160;overwhelmingly voted&#160;for moderates and an open attitude to the West. Trump should be grateful…</p>
<p>3) Trump doesn’t mention Saudi Arabia&#160;– why does he go there in/as the first place? – as the far largest funder of&#160;terrorism and behind the 9/11 attack on his own country. He conveniently&#160;doesn’t mention&#160;democrcy, freedom of speech, women’s and other human rights –&#160;neither the war on Yemen.</p>
<p>4)&#160;Trump thereby opens the way for and legitimates future Arab-NATO war on Iran&#160;and Syria. NATO Turkey as go-between and as a ‘guarantor’ of de-escalation&#160;zones in the latter will likely be helpful.</p>
<p>5) Nobody bothers to relate all this&#160;to the&#160;fact&#160;that the Gulf States already spend&#160;roughly 10 times more than Iran and Syria on their military. Add Israel…</p>
<p>6) Arab NATO?? What?? Yes, just read&#160;this two-part PressInfo about this – untold – aspect of his visit.</p>
<p>7) Denmark’s embassy in the United Arab Emirates, UAE, coordinates the&#160;relations between the Arab NATO and NATO in Brussels. Why Denmark? Hasn’t this&#160;rogque state done enough harm for its size already&#160;in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya&#160;and Syria?</p>
<p>8) Trump now proceeds to Israel that&#160;want to get Syria’s president killed and destroy Iran. If not its official&#160;view, Netanyahu should fire the minister who said that.</p>
<p>9)&#160;Trumps presents no vision for the Middle East, only and concretely more weapons&#160;– weapons worth US$ 110-300 billion paid as bribe by Saudi Arabia – weapons&#160;with which you anyhow can’t fight terrorism.</p>
<p>10) Sunni fundamentalists, Saudi&#160;Arabia, other Gulf States, ISIS and other terror organisations plus Israel will&#160;all be happy with his speech.</p>
<p>Yes, indeed, historic it was.</p>
<p>For all the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>Expect more wars in the Middle East and&#160;more suffering of the Syrian people, further isolation of and possible attack&#160;on Iran.</p>
<p>But&#160;also&#160;– such is dialectics –&#160;the gradual dissolution and end of the US Empire thanks to its pervasive&#160;militaristic, self-destructive impulses.</p>
<p>And find some little comfort in that&#160;kakistocracies&#160;tend to last shorter than other forms&#160;of governments.</p> | Trump in Riyadh: an Arab NATO Against Syria and Iran | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/05/23/trump-in-riyadh-an-arab-nato-against-syria-and-iran/ | 2017-05-23 | 4 |
<p>Previously:</p>
<p><a href="/video/2011/12/06/hannity-poor-in-america-is-not-poor-like-around/184720" type="external">Hannity: "Poor In America Is Not Poor Like Around The Rest Of The World"</a></p>
<p><a href="/video/2012/02/01/sean-hannity-says-he-would-never-want-to-be-dep/184373" type="external">Sean Hannity Says He "Would Never Want To Be Dependent On Food Stamps," Unlike Those With An "Entitlement Mindset"</a></p>
<p><a href="/research/2011/09/14/right-wing-media-use-poverty-increase-to-renew/181629" type="external">Right-Wing Media Use Poverty Increase To Renew Charge That Poor Don't Have It So Bad</a></p> | Hannity: "This Idea That Americans Are Going To Bed Hungry" Is Not True -- "You Can Survive Off" Rice And Beans | true | http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201204230014 | 2012-04-23 | 4 |
<p>John Seiler: Only in California would the <a href="" type="internal" />Legislature hold up the appointment of Bo “10” Derek to…let me check, I was distracted…the state <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2010/08/bo-derek-appointment-put-on-hold-by-state-senate.html" type="external">Horse Racing Board</a>.</p>
<p>Except for putting Bo on it, there’s no reason for this board to exist. In one of his few correct actions, Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed Bo the Board, for which he should be commended. If she’s not confirmed, or when she leaves, the Board ought to be abolished posthaste.</p>
<p>What qualifications does she have? I saw here at some Republican function I was covering a couple of years ago. She has all the qualifications necessary. She’s also <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Derek" type="external">a horse enthusiast</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, Bo should replace Meg as the GOP nominee for governor. Slogan in her race against Jerry Brown: “10 vs. 0.”</p> | Confirm Bo Derek | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2010/08/25/confirm-bo-derek/ | 2018-08-20 | 3 |
<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) - A Nevada woman who was twice convicted of a 2001 killing and sexual mutilation that she insisted happened when she was more than 150 miles away was freed Wednesday from a Las Vegas jail - five days after her exoneration and release from prison.</p>
<p>Kirstin Blaise Lobato was 18 when she was first arrested and is 35 now. She was released from the Clark County Detention Center hours after a judge credited her with time already served and waived a one-year misdemeanor sentence in a prisoner sexual contact case.</p>
<p>"I feel overwhelmed. I feel excited. I feel grateful," Lobato said after hugging a longtime supporter and friend, Michelle Ravell, and greeting several attorneys who worked on her case.</p>
<p>"I'm just so happy and I'm ready to go," Lobato said, heading to Ravell's car outside the jail.</p>
<p>Ravell called Lobato's release "a dream come true and the end of a very long fight, all in one."</p>
<p>Joye Taylor, a former inmate who befriended Lobato in prison and greeted her upon her release, said she expected the woman who goes by the name Blaise will appreciate doing "stuff we take for granted."</p>
<p>"She hasn't been able to do whatever she wants for all these years," Taylor said.</p>
<p>Ravell helped Lobato's case gain a large Facebook following and online backing that caught the attention of the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal advocacy organization.</p>
<p>It enlisted experts whose testimony about the absence of blowfly larvae on the slain man's body when it was found near a trash bin in summer heat narrowed his time of death to a period when witnesses said Lobato was in her hometown of Panaca.</p>
<p>"We are extremely grateful this day has come," said Vanessa Potkin, an Innocence Project lawyer who said Lobato is the 200th person to win exoneration with the New York-based organization.</p>
<p>Lobato was 19 when she was convicted in 2002 of murdering Duran Bailey. His badly beaten body was found in July 2001 near a Las Vegas trash bin with a slashed neck, cracked skull and missing genitals.</p>
<p>No physical evidence or witnesses connected Lobato to the killing, and she maintained she never met Bailey. But jurors were told that Lobato confessed in jail that she killed a man during a three-day methamphetamine binge after he tried to rape her.</p>
<p>Ravell pointed Wednesday to Bailey's severe injuries and Lobato's relatively small size as a teenager, and said she felt Las Vegas police focused quickly on Lobato while ignoring the possibility that Bailey was killed in retaliation for sexually attacking another woman.</p>
<p>The Nevada Supreme Court in 2004 threw out the 2002 verdict and Lobato's prison sentence because her lawyers weren't able to cross-examine the prosecution witness who said Lobato made the jailhouse confession.</p>
<p>Lobato was tried again in 2006, convicted of manslaughter, mutilation and weapon charges, and sentenced to 13 to 45 years in prison - a sentence that would have made her eligible for parole in August.</p>
<p>The Innocence Project and attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld in Las Vegas took up Lobato's case after the state Supreme Court in late 2016 ordered the evidence hearing that lasted a week in October.</p>
<p>The state high court faulted Lobato's trial lawyers for failing to hire an expert witness such as the insect expert to pinpoint Bailey's time of death. Justices also cited what they termed "strong alibi evidence" from people who testified they saw Lobato in Panaca about the same time Bailey was killed.</p>
<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) - A Nevada woman who was twice convicted of a 2001 killing and sexual mutilation that she insisted happened when she was more than 150 miles away was freed Wednesday from a Las Vegas jail - five days after her exoneration and release from prison.</p>
<p>Kirstin Blaise Lobato was 18 when she was first arrested and is 35 now. She was released from the Clark County Detention Center hours after a judge credited her with time already served and waived a one-year misdemeanor sentence in a prisoner sexual contact case.</p>
<p>"I feel overwhelmed. I feel excited. I feel grateful," Lobato said after hugging a longtime supporter and friend, Michelle Ravell, and greeting several attorneys who worked on her case.</p>
<p>"I'm just so happy and I'm ready to go," Lobato said, heading to Ravell's car outside the jail.</p>
<p>Ravell called Lobato's release "a dream come true and the end of a very long fight, all in one."</p>
<p>Joye Taylor, a former inmate who befriended Lobato in prison and greeted her upon her release, said she expected the woman who goes by the name Blaise will appreciate doing "stuff we take for granted."</p>
<p>"She hasn't been able to do whatever she wants for all these years," Taylor said.</p>
<p>Ravell helped Lobato's case gain a large Facebook following and online backing that caught the attention of the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal advocacy organization.</p>
<p>It enlisted experts whose testimony about the absence of blowfly larvae on the slain man's body when it was found near a trash bin in summer heat narrowed his time of death to a period when witnesses said Lobato was in her hometown of Panaca.</p>
<p>"We are extremely grateful this day has come," said Vanessa Potkin, an Innocence Project lawyer who said Lobato is the 200th person to win exoneration with the New York-based organization.</p>
<p>Lobato was 19 when she was convicted in 2002 of murdering Duran Bailey. His badly beaten body was found in July 2001 near a Las Vegas trash bin with a slashed neck, cracked skull and missing genitals.</p>
<p>No physical evidence or witnesses connected Lobato to the killing, and she maintained she never met Bailey. But jurors were told that Lobato confessed in jail that she killed a man during a three-day methamphetamine binge after he tried to rape her.</p>
<p>Ravell pointed Wednesday to Bailey's severe injuries and Lobato's relatively small size as a teenager, and said she felt Las Vegas police focused quickly on Lobato while ignoring the possibility that Bailey was killed in retaliation for sexually attacking another woman.</p>
<p>The Nevada Supreme Court in 2004 threw out the 2002 verdict and Lobato's prison sentence because her lawyers weren't able to cross-examine the prosecution witness who said Lobato made the jailhouse confession.</p>
<p>Lobato was tried again in 2006, convicted of manslaughter, mutilation and weapon charges, and sentenced to 13 to 45 years in prison - a sentence that would have made her eligible for parole in August.</p>
<p>The Innocence Project and attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld in Las Vegas took up Lobato's case after the state Supreme Court in late 2016 ordered the evidence hearing that lasted a week in October.</p>
<p>The state high court faulted Lobato's trial lawyers for failing to hire an expert witness such as the insect expert to pinpoint Bailey's time of death. Justices also cited what they termed "strong alibi evidence" from people who testified they saw Lobato in Panaca about the same time Bailey was killed.</p> | Nevada woman cleared in 2001 slaying goes free in Las Vegas | false | https://apnews.com/amp/127f5afb4ce945a991875e70516885ad | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />I was not at all surprised to learn that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/changeorg-corporate-gop-campaigns-internal-documents_n_1987985.html" type="external">Change.org is done pretending to be progressive</a> (I also wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being bad for business). One thing’s always been clear to me: they’re in it for the money, not the politics. That’s why they got involved in progressive petition gathering in the first place. Because petition gathering in politics is pretty much a racket anyway.</p>
<p>Elected officials don’t care about petitions. They don’t care about mass form emails. They care about hand written letters and phone calls, and they care about office visits more (though I’m overstating the case on those methods, too. They really care about money). Progressive organizations know this.</p>
<p>When I worked in DC I sat in multiple meetings with representatives from multiple lefty orgs where we talked about collecting petitions that would never be delivered. Because we knew they wouldn’t make a difference. Petitions are a list building tool. That’s what everyone calls them in the nonprofits that send you emails asking you to sign petitions to your electeds. Petitions are used to built lists of people to contact to ask for money. The lobbyists do the political work. While there are real ways to get an organization’s base to engage with politicians, they’re much more difficult than petition gathering. Most orgs don’t bother.</p>
<p>There’s this attitude I encountered all the time in DC, that the real political work happens through lobbying, and any work with the base is about list building. This has a lot to do with where the walls are in nonprofit offices, it’s not some malicious project. But it’s a paradigm that seriously needs to change. I’m really hoping the news about Change.org gives us a chance to reflect more broadly on how we engage in politics, and demand better avenues for making the political impact we want, not just building lists so organizations and businesses can make money.</p>
<p>That’s why Change.org got into the progressive petition gathering game. It’s a way to make money. Now, the site obviously isn’t just political petitions. Consumer advocacy via the internet really does work, and Change.org has had some success there. Though the public shaming via social media and the press tends to be the most effective part of those campaigns, too. It’s also more effective when folks contact these decision makers directly, as signing a petition is considered pretty easy. It’s the public shaming that goes along with petitions that matters the most.</p>
<p>There are real, effective ways to make change via the internets. Petition gathering is probably the least effective. But it is the easiest way to make money. It’s all about list building, which is super quantifiable, and names have value (this is the point where I start wondering about all those lists of progressives Change.org has built).</p>
<p>I’m actually a little relieved&#160;Change.org&#160;has decided to stop pretending they’re progressive, because it’s an opportunity for us to look at the ways we’re trying to make change. I hope as folks stop using Change.org we can have a conversation about what’s actually effective. Because I’m tired of seeing organizations contact their base to do… nothing. Mobilizing a base takes work, but I think it’s pretty clear from the number of folks signing petitions that we want to have an impact, we want to make change.</p> | On Change.org and progressive petition gathering | true | http://feministing.com/2012/10/23/on-change-org-and-progressive-petitions-gathering/ | 4 |
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<p>In his blog covering&#160;trade journalism, Paul Conley <a href="http://paulconley.blogspot.com/2005/06/why-not-take-advantage-of-onlines.html" type="external">touches on the topic</a> of user comments on media websites (a topic I <a href="" type="internal">addressed yesterday</a>).I liked this quote from Conley: "The days in which a B2B publisher can claim to be the voice of an industry are rapidly disappearing. The industries we cover have found their own voices. They no longer need a magazine in order to converse. That's what citizen journalism is all about -- journalism's consumers speaking to journalism's producers. The best that we can do now is to facilitate conversation."Indeed, B2B news websites perhaps even more urgently than general news sites need to tap the power of journalist-reader interaction. Not to do so sets them on the road to irrelevance as industry conversations are facilitated online without them.</p> | Too Many B2B Media Lack the Will to Interact | false | https://poynter.org/news/too-many-b2b-media-lack-will-interact | 2005-06-07 | 2 |
<p>Breaking news from ABC: a senior State Department official, apparently trying to get bad news out in anticipation of a Congressional hearing tomorrow, has started to come clean on the Benghazi consulate attack. He admitted to ABC that there never was a protest at the consulate, as the Obama administration has always claimed. Rather, the first warning those inside the consulate had that something was wrong was an explosion. They looked out and saw a large number of armed men approaching. It was a terrorist attack, pure and simple, well-planned and well-executed. It had nothing to do with a YouTube video. One thing authorities apparently still don’t know is what happened to Ambassador Stevens. That is what they are saying, anyway. Here is the report:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Note that the administration’s lies are being exposed only because the Republicans control the House and Darrell Issa is willing to take endless heat from Democrats in order to carry out an investigation. I am not aware of a single Democrat in Washington who has pressed the administration to tell the truth about what happened in Benghazi.</p>
<p>UPDATE: This American Crossroads video predates the latest revelations, but still provides an effective summary of the Obama administration’s deceit with respect to what happened in Libya:</p>
<p />
<p /> | There Never Was a Protest In Benghazi | true | http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/10/there-never-was-a-protest-in-benghazi.php | 2012-10-09 | 0 |
<p>Last week, two American cities took a mostly unprecedented step: they declared that the situation facing their homeless populations constitutes a state of emergency. The Los Angeles city council <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-funding-proposals-los-angeles-20150921-story.html" type="external">declared</a> a homeless state of emergency on September 22; the next day, the mayor of Portland, Oregon <a href="https://www.portlandoregon.gov/mayor/article/437622" type="external">asked</a> his city council to vote on whether they should do the same.</p>
<p>With thousands homeless across the country, advocates are greeting the emergencies as a good sign.</p>
<p>“I think the declarations are right,” said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. “Declaring that homelessness is an emergency is calling a crisis by its rightful name… I think it’s totally appropriate and very important to recognize it as such, and in fact it’s long overdue.”</p>
<p>It hearkens back, in fact, to the way the country first dealt with mass homelessness, which <a href="" type="internal">only became</a> the crisis it is today in the 1980s. Congress passed the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act in 1987, which called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to distribute emergency food and shelter. “That was a time when homelessness really was viewed more as an emergency,” Foscarinis said.</p>
<p>Now two West Coast cities have adopted the language of emergency once more.</p>
<p>The Los Angeles city council declared a homeless state of emergency at the same time that it introduced a motion to spend $100 million in one-time funding for services. Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) has <a href="http://www.lamayor.org/homelessness-strategy-first-steps" type="external">also called for</a> an additional $13 million in short-term funding, $10 million of which will go to housing subsidies for veterans and those who are not chronically homeless, and for the city to spend $100 million annually. He also called for shelters to stay open 24 hours a day during the rainy season, for winter shelter availability to be extended by two months, and for an increase in access to storage, bathrooms, showers, laundry, and other services.</p>
<p>In Los Angeles, a few factors have collided to sharply decrease the amount of housing available. The city is experiencing a huge real estate boom, but with it rents are increasing sharply. Rent on an average two-bedroom apartment is <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/news/california-rent-increases-are-double-the-national-rate-5510171" type="external">5 percent higher</a> than a year ago. At the same time, one of the few sources of money the city used to build affordable housing, state redevelopment agencies, were eliminated by the governor in 2011, drying up nearly all funds for creating new units.</p>
<p>There is also less shelter available than in some cities, such as New York, where there is a legal right to shelter. And the shelters that do exist are often run by religious groups. “There’s a lot of chronically homeless people who would prefer to try to fend for themselves than come into some of the shelters that exist here,” explained Jerry Jones, director of public policy at the Inner City Law Center, an organization focused on homelessness in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>These factors have combined to create a big increase in the number of homeless people living on the streets and in encampments. There were <a href="http://www.lahsa.org/homelesscount_results" type="external">about 17,700 people</a> going unsheltered in the city at the last count, up from less than 15,000 in 2013. The crisis is acute enough that Garcetti had to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mayor-backs-off-pledge-20150831-story.html" type="external">back out</a> of a pledge to end veteran homelessness by the end of this year, pushing the deadline into 2016.</p>
<p>“For decades, there’s been this willingness to abide people living in absolute destitution,” Jones said of the city. But “people are reacting with a new sense of urgency about the crisis because there are so many more homeless people out there.”</p>
<p>The state of emergency might be the first step in turning the situation around, but it will depend on the details. “This could be a game-changer,” he said. “One hundred million can do a lot of good and makes a big difference when you’re spending it than when you’re not.” Still, he is waiting to see where the money actually goes. “It makes a big difference how the money is targeted, what it’s spent on… You can spend a lot of money on short-term emergency half-measures that don’t really solve the problem.”</p>
<p>The state of emergency will look slightly different in Portland if it is indeed passed by the city council. So far there hasn’t been talk of extra funding; instead it <a href="https://www.portlandoregon.gov/mayor/article/437622" type="external">would allow</a> the city to waive zoning codes and land-use restrictions to more quickly create new shelter space or affordable housing, as well as to convert buildings the city already owns into shelters.</p>
<p>But the city is facing many of the same challenges as Los Angeles. It’s seeing an influx of residents while the vacancy rate remains at a low <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/article/portlands-poorest-households-find-few-options-for-affordable-housing/" type="external">3 percent</a>. That has been pushing rents up at a <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2015/03/portlands_rents_rose_at_nation.html" type="external">20 percent rate</a> over the last five years, the sixth-highest rate in the country.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the city doesn’t have <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2015/03/thirty_years_on_activists_say.html" type="external">rent control</a> or <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/07/inclusionary_zoning_bill_dies.html" type="external">inclusionary zoning</a> laws that would require developers to build affordable housing alongside other development. “We have no way to control the prices of our rents,” said Brandi Tuck, executive director of Portland Homeless Family Solutions. These are “tools in our toolbox that are missing.”</p>
<p>The result has been <a href="https://www.portlandoregon.gov/phb/article/532833" type="external">3,800 homeless people</a>, 1,887 of whom don’t have shelter. While the numbers haven’t increased significantly since the last count in 2013, as Mayor Charlie Hales (D) noted in announcing the state of emergency, “And yet we had spent millions of dollars and countless staff time.” Even without a huge increase in the raw numbers, Tuck says her organization has experienced a big increase in need. She’s been with the organization for ten years, yet said, “We have more calls than we have ever had…. There’s just a tremendous demand.”</p>
<p>While Tuck thinks declaring a state of emergency is helpful, she also wants to see it followed up with more long-term action, such as building affordable housing units, changing policies to tamp down on rent increases, and investing funding more along the lines of what Los Angeles is preparing to spend. “I think the mayor needs to capitalize and put a lot of pressure on the state, city, and county to make policy changes right now,” she said.</p>
<p>Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, agrees that simply getting the homeless into shelters won’t end the emergency in any city. “The answer is to have shelter that can get people into housing,” she said.</p>
<p>What no one wants to see is a crack down on the homeless population, which has been the immediate response to a swell in homeless populations in cities across the country. A recent report found that California cities have <a href="http://www.homelesslivesmatterberkeley.org/pdf/CA_New_Vagrancy_Laws.pdf" type="external">enacted 500 laws</a> aimed at criminalizing things like standing or sleeping in public or begging and panhandling. While that’s a much higher rate than cities in other states, there has been <a href="" type="internal">an uptick</a> in nearly every kind of anti-homeless ordinance across the country over the last five years. That kind of response can be <a href="" type="internal">costly</a> and won’t get at the root causes of homeless emergencies like those in Los Angeles and Portland.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there is <a href="" type="internal">wide consensus</a> as to what does reduce homelessness: getting people into housing. That’s why declaring a state of emergency could prove so useful. “A lot of the problem with homelessness is creating the political will to address it,” Foscarinis pointed out. “It’s not something that we don’t know the solution to. It’s just creating the will to actually do something, to put those solutions into place and to fund them.”</p>
<p>And it’s possible this will become a more common tool cities use in their fight against homelessness. “I think all cities should feel this urgency,” she said. “Homelessness is a crisis nationally.”</p> | The Situation Facing Los Angeles And Portland Homeless Populations Is An Emergency | true | http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/09/30/3706858/homeless-emergencies-los-angeles-portland/ | 2015-09-30 | 4 |
<p>Published time: 21 Jul, 2017 20:04Edited time: 21 Jul, 2017 20:23</p>
<p>Three Israelis have been killed and one wounded in a stabbing attack at the Israeli settlement of Halamish in the West Bank late Friday, rescue services report.</p>
<p>While initial reports indicated that the attack left two people dead and one injured, the wounded person subsequently succumbed to his injuries, AP reports citing Israel’s rescue service.</p>
<p>The attacker, identified as a Palestinian, was shot and subsequently lost consciousness, according to a Channel 2 report.</p>
<p>Initial report: stabbing attack in Halamish, north west of Ramallah.</p>
<p>— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) <a href="https://twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson/status/888478044922331136" type="external">July 21, 2017</a></p>
<p>BREAKING: Israel’s rescue service: Palestinian stabbed 2 Israelis to death, wounded a third inside a West Bank settlement.</p>
<p>— The Associated Press (@AP) <a href="https://twitter.com/AP/status/888487766761275393" type="external">July 21, 2017</a></p> | Three Israelis killed in stabbing attack at West Bank settlement – local officials | false | https://newsline.com/three-israelis-killed-in-stabbing-attack-at-west-bank-settlement-local-officials/ | 2017-07-21 | 1 |
<p>REYHANLI, Turkey — On a balmy spring day, Ghazwan Mahmoud sits on the balcony of a house-cum-aid center on the edge of Reyhanli, a dusty Turkish border town, looking toward the hills that hide Syria’s unfolding tragedy.</p>
<p>Beyond the peaks lie hundreds of newly erected camps housing many of the region’s 120,000 displaced Syrians. Thirty miles farther east in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, whose eastern districts have been pummeled by air strikes and barrel bombs for two years, over half a million internally displaced persons (IDPs) are holding on. Few are as cognizant of the scale of suffering across northern Syria as Mahmoud, who himself used to live in a town in the Latakia province.</p>
<p>With cigarette in hand, Mahmoud, a coordinator with the aid group Watan Syria, is in the midst of coordinating the movement of baby kits and food into northern Syria: diapers, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudocrem" type="external">Sudocrem</a>, powdered milk and blankets. He says today there are 40 IDP camps a few miles over the border in his particular area when a year ago, there were just five. Other aid workers operating along this border say as many as 200 camps along the Turkish-Syrian border have sprung up over the past three years. <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/140225/sunday-car-bomb-devastated-the-syrian-town-atmeh-what-it-lo" type="external">Some have been bombed</a>. “The siege areas are our biggest concern,” said Mahmoud.</p>
<p>The figures relaying the results of Syria’s war are shocking: Aid agencies estimate 6.5 million Syrians are internally displaced, many of whom have fled the violence in the south for the border regions with Turkey. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Service, a Syrian family flees home every 60 seconds.</p>
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<p>Syrian refugees arrive in Turkey at the Cilvegozu crossing gate of Reyhanli. (Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Mahmoud’s group is just one of the many organizations that have set up shop on the Turkish border, transforming the local economy and serving as an aid hotspot as well as entry point for aid groups into rebel-held Syria. For access to everyday medicine in particular, the IDPs rely on these aid groups. The Syrian government carried out at least 150 attacks on 124 health care points in the three years to March, <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/meanwhile-syria/day-1154-map-shows-the-attacks-medical-workers-syria" type="external">according to Physicians for Human Rights</a>, a New York-headquartered non-governmental organization. The growing influence of jihadist groups across northern Syria and bombing campaigns by Syrian government forces add to the desperation. Data released in June by the European Commission found that <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-14-177_en.htm" type="external">over 200,000 Syrians</a>&#160;have died due to a lack of health care.</p>
<p>Doctors Without Borders runs its Syrian operation from the Turkish border. In addition, a clinic in Reyhanli run by Syrian doctors is helping to treat up to 12,000 Syrian out-patients per month. Kotaiba Dogham, an administrative coordinator at the Orient Clinic, said patients come from across the border in Syria for medicine to treat chronic illnesses every day.</p>
<p>“All services are free for Syrians: CT scans, x-rays, medicine. Facial plastic surgery is a huge demand from patients right now,” he said — the conflict has left its mark on many of these refugees. Across the street, the Orient Clinic is soon to open a psychological ward next to a school that began classes for Syrian children 11 months ago. The recent closure of all other Syrian-run clinics in Reyhanli for not having licenses has put the Orient Clinic under serious pressure, he added.</p>
<p>Syrians push a cart with their belongings in Reyhanli, Turkey, after crossing the Reyhanli border crossing. (Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>The ballooning of the displaced persons population has created a pressing need for what might be thought of as meta-aid: large-scale measurement and planning beyond the aid groups’ here-and-now relief, to coordinate assistance as the scale of the problem increases. Lars Bromley of the UN mapping program UNOSAT provides satellite imagery analysis to relief organizations and is currently analyzing 65 square miles of northern Idlib province. Bromley has charted the growth of IDP camps in a roughly 30-square-mile area between February and May.</p>
<p>“The growth in IDP encampments in this area includes an increase in 23 separate camps to 34 in that time period, though that’s not quite useful as the camps can be small and scattered and the real growth is in the larger camps,” he said.</p>
<p>“Perhaps the best measure is in the number of distinct IDP structures … there was a 62 percent increase in the number of these IDP structures. Note this includes both individual ‘tent’ shelters, which are the vast majority, and what we call ‘administrative’ structures which would include larger tents such as kitchens, medical facilities.”</p>
<p>An empty Turkish border post sits by the barbed wire border fence with Syria in Reyhanli. (Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>Turkey’s support for the Syrian opposition and its 560-mile border with Syria has made Reyhanli and the eastern border regions ground zero for the movement of fighters into northern Syria. In recent months this has opened Turkey up to international criticism, for the possibility that it is facilitating jihadist movement on the border. The porous border has also <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/05/31/could-aid-syrians-prolonging-war/ue0PJAyjozIT5xEyTqCwgO/story.html" type="external">raised the question</a> of whether aid groups may unintentionally be fueling the conflict, their supplies and medical care indirectly relieving pressure on rebel groups, and thus supporting the opposition.</p>
<p>Ghazwan Mahmoud of Watan Syria says aid workers have been approached by fighters inside Syria but maintains there’s a strict policy against collaborating with combatants of sort.</p>
<p>In any event, the prospect of withdrawing assistance doesn’t bear contemplating. Ferhad Jafer, a security officer for an aid organization run by a religious order supporting 17,000 families inside Syria every month, says he sees the crisis worsening over the coming months.</p>
<p>“Inside Syria there are no safe areas. Assad jets can reach anywhere they want and bomb it,” he said, adding that towns and cities in eastern Syria including Raqqa, a provincial capital of 250,000 people, are off limits to western aid groups as they are now occupied by militant jihadi groups.</p>
<p>With government forces emboldened by a series of recent victories over rebel fighters across southern and western Syria, and an encroaching menace in the shape of jihadi fighters emerging from the east, the future is glim for the country’s displaced millions.</p>
<p>“Syria has become like Somalia. We are not thinking of going on with life,” said Mahmoud. “In the end, we just all want to go back home.”</p> | These Turkish border towns are now aid industries focused on Syria | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-07-16/these-turkish-border-towns-are-now-aid-industries-focused-syria | 2014-07-16 | 3 |
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<p>Scientists are trying to map the Cannabis genome to increase understanding of the versatile plant’s many mutations and hopefully improve medical and recreational, usage.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>This is the marijuana version of the hugely influential <a href="http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/hgp?show=all" type="external">Human Genome Project Opens a New Window.</a> that identified the blueprint for humans and opened the doors to personalized medicine.</p>
<p>Phylos Bioscience is working on mapping the Cannabis genome; it is part of the Portland, Ore.-based company’s ambitious <a href="http://phylosbioscience.com/the-cannabis-evolution-project/" type="external">Cannabis Evolution Project Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The company wouldn’t disclose funding information except that to say it’s backed mostly by angel investors from the “traditional” biotech world.</p>
<p>Mowgli Holmes, co-founder and chief scientific officer at the privately-held firm did share details on the program, and the company’s progress, in an exclusive interview with Robert Gray for Fox Business…</p>
<p>FBN: What is the importance of mapping the Cannabis genome?</p>
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<p>Holmes: “Mapping” a genome is kind of a vague idea to most people. The point is to figure out the sequence of the whole thing, read all the pieces, and get them all in order … the Cannabis genome is a nightmare compared to most of them. No two plants are alike. It’s very similar to humans in that way, actually.</p>
<p>FBN: Why did you need to do that?</p>
<p>Holmes: Really we just need it as a point of reference. It makes it way easier to do rapid sequencing on thousands of samples if you have a good reference genome to compare to.</p>
<p>We’re going to make it so people know what they’re getting (when they buy marijuana). This is a very big deal for recreational users, but it’s a much bigger deal for medical users. I think eventually work like ours will lead to new medicinal varieties, but that’s a ways out.</p>
<p>FBN: How are you getting samples when there are so many restrictions on Cannabis?&#160;</p>
<p>Holmes: We have our DNA extraction equipment set up in lots of local Cannabis testing labs that do state-mandated safety testing. They collect samples that come through and take the DNA for us. We have collectors all over the world donating samples.</p>
<p>FBN: Why is mapping a Cannabis genome so important for medical usage?</p>
<p>Holmes: Most Cannabis these days is close to 20% THC, with almost none of the other important medicinal compounds. The strain we're sequencing the entire genome of -- Canna-Tonic -- is about 8 percent THC and about 8 percent CBD—CBD is the most important medicinal component of the plant that we know about right now. It’s also known to decrease the anxiety that THC can cause. I really think plants like this are going to be important in the future, partly because they help with inflammation, pain, epilepsy, and probably a couple other things. But also because normal people can smoke them without going insane. My mom has been smoking this stuff. Your mom could probably smoke it.</p>
<p>FBN: How does Phylos make money?</p>
<p>Holmes: We sell genetic testing, just like <a href="https://www.23andme.com" type="external">23andMe Opens a New Window.</a>. So we work with local testing labs we’re partnered with, and they offer our services to growers, dispensaries, etc. We have a plant sex test that we’re already selling and we’re about to release a set of microbiology tests that are done using genetic analysis. Once we’ve done the evolution study, we’ll be able to tell people exactly what strain they have. You’d be surprised how much of a demand there is for that. People are obsessed with the different varieties, but no one ever really knows what they actually have.</p>
<p>FBN: Are you trying to keep marijuana “open sourced” and out of the hands of corporations who may seek to patent modified Cannabis?</p>
<p>Holmes: Actually we are. We’re giving all of our data to a group called the Open Cannabis Project that’s run by Cannabis activists, social justice activists, plant scientists, and even plant patent lawyers. The goal is to document the fact that everything that exists now is in the public domain. If they do that, then it becomes impossible for big companies to come in, rename existing varieties, and try to patent them.</p>
<p>FBN: How big can the Cannabis crop grow?</p>
<p>Holmes: I think by 2020 it will be the third largest agricultural industry in the US, behind corn and soybeans.</p>
<p>FBN: Any plans for an exit strategy, an IPO or selling the company to a bigger one?</p>
<p>Holmes: We don't want to grow into a company like Monsanto. And we don't want to sell out to a company like Monsanto either. What we want is to keep doing this work for as long as we can. There's a whole new breed of American farmer out there, and we need to make sure we have their backs.</p> | Medical Marijuana: Evolution Revolution? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2015/06/10/medical-marijuana-evolution-revolution.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>By Michael HudsonThis piece first appeared at Michael Hudson’s <a href="http://michael-hudson.com/2014/01/n-is-for-neo-serfdom-o-is-for-offshore-banking/" type="external">website</a>. See the rest of the Insider’s Economic Dictionary <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.Neoclassical economics:</p>
<p>The school that arose in the last quarter of the 19th century, stripping away the classical concept of economic rent as unearned income. By the late 20th century the term “neoclassical” had come to connote a deductive body of free-trade theory using circular reasoning by tautology, excluding discussion of property, debt and the financial sector’s role in general, taking the existing institutional environment for granted. (See Marginalism and Parallel Universe, and contrast with Structural Problem and Systems Analysis.)</p>
<p>Neoconservatives: Ideologues who oppose government authority and taxation of wealth, except where governments are controlled by the financial and property sectors. Neoconservatives view democratic governments that impose progressive income taxes to finance public infrastructure and other economic welfare as being as reprehensible as the pre-democratic regimes criticized by Adam Smith and other early liberals protesting against governments controlled by autocratic monarchs spending tax revenue largely on the wars and colonial ventures. Neoconservatives in fact tend to support wars to enforce the Washington Consensus throughout the world.</p>
<p>Neoliberalism: The philosophy that public ownership and regulation is inherently less efficient than management by financial operators. The policy conclusion is that the public domain and government enterprises should be privatized and the sales proceeds used to roll back taxes on the highest wealth and income brackets. Unlike the liberalism of Adam Smith and subsequent free-trade economists, neoliberalism endorses an intrusive role of government to protect property and financial fortunes without regard to long-term tendency for the exponential growth of debt to exceed and indeed undercut the economy’s ability to pay. (See Internal Contradiction, Junk Science, Neoconservatives and Social Market.)</p>
<p />
<p>Neo-serfdom: The removal of choice from peoples’ lives as interest and rent charges reduce their discretionary income. This expanding rentier overhead is not part of the mode of production, but rather the mode of finance, wealth and economic power. (See Serfdom.)</p>
<p>Nobel Economics Prize: In 1972 the Swedish Bank endowed the Nobel Prize for Economic Science and awarded it to the neoclassical economist Paul Samuelson. The term “economic science” is misleading. In contrast to the natural sciences, it is not evaluated in terms of how realistic its assumptions are, but merely how logically consistent they are, much as one might criticize a work of literature or science fiction. Given mainly to free-market economists of the Chicago School, the award has helped legitimize anti-government economic ideology. (See Learned Ignorance.)</p>
<p>Offshore banking centers: An innovation by the oil industry creating “flags of convenience” to avoid North American and European taxes. The first such tax havens were established in countries such as Liberia or Panama, which used U.S. dollars rather than currencies of their own. The typical ploy was to assign transfer prices for oil at levels that enabled the head office to take its worldwide profits wherever tax rates were lowest. An oil-tanker affiliate registered in one of these havens would buy crude oil cheaply from its parent company’s branch in an oil-producing country, and then sell it to refineries in Europe or North America at a price so high as to leave no profit to be declared.</p>
<p>By the 1960s such havens were proliferating throughout the Caribbean and the South Pacific. The United States set out to improve its balance of payments by replacing Switzerland as the major tax and money-laundering haven for financial and commercial flight capital, as well as for criminals of all stripes, including heads of state and other government officials in client oligarchies.</p>
<p>Oligarchy: Rule by the few, usually the rich, and hence an economically polarized society. The term recently has been applied to the Russia’s “free market” kleptocrats who obtained Russia’s raw-materials resources and other assets under Pres. Yeltsin in 1996 through insider trading. The term has been extended to Latin America and other economies that polarize as wealth concentrates in the financial class at the top of the pyramid. (See Client Oligarchy.)</p>
<p>Optimum: In economic model-building, a position from which one cannot move to improve his or her situation. Most people think of “optimum” as representing an ideal situation. But an Abu Ghraib inmate suspended by his hands over a box with electrodes that will shock him if he moves is said to be in an optimum position, in the sense that any move would only make things worse. An optimum position thus may mean merely the least bad of a basically dysfunctional set of choices. Optimization models rarely recognize policies “outside the box” to create a better set of choices on a society-wide level. In most economies, for instance, freedom of choice for the poor is limited to paying for necessities, often going into debt in the process (see Neo-serfdom). This optimization choice by the poor helps keep them perpetually available for service at the cheapest and most “optimum” rate for employers dependent on minimum-wage labor.</p>
<p>“Other peoples’ money”: A euphemism for bank credit created electronically (formerly “paper credit”).</p>
<p>Over-depreciation: Over-depreciation is a tax credit based on the pretense that buildings lose their value despite the landlord’s outlays on maintenance and repairs, and despite the inflation of property prices. Buildings are allowed to be depreciated over and over again for tax purposes each time they are sold, based on a false analogy with industrial machinery. Landlords (but not homeowners) are permitted to recapture that portion of their original outlay representing buildings or other capital improvements as if their value is being used up in production or becoming obsolete. The depreciation rate is set so high as to offset all the rental income that otherwise would be reported (and taxed) as profit. This accounting ploy enables real-estate investors to take their rental income in a tax-exempt manner.</p>
<p>In principle, over-depreciation is supposed to be reported upon sale as retroactive income earned. But in practice it often is reported as a capital gain, which is taxed at a lower rate than is earned income.</p>
<p>Overhead: That part of national income which is not necessary for the production and consumption processes as such. This category includes economic rent, interest and watered costs, as well as government waste (variously defined).</p>
<p>“Ownership society”: The term coined by the Bush administration for government policies aimed at increasing the power of property relative to wage and salary income. The idea is to expand credit exponentially to inflate prices for stocks, bonds and real estate, requiring a rising number of years for income earners to pay for homes and for retirement income. Corporate profits are increased by shifting away from defined benefit pensions to “defined contribution” plans at which the risk is shifted onto employees.</p>
<p>The political intent is to make employees feel that even though their paychecks are being squeezed, they will gain as stockholders and home owners. The hope is that people will overlook the disproportionate share of assets owned by the top 3% and 10% of the population. (“Sorry you lost your job. We hope you made a killing on your home, so that you can refinance your mortgage or take out an equity loan to keep up your consumption spending.”)</p>
<p>Instead of an ownership society, we are evolving into a society of mortgage debtors, corporate debtors and government debtors. And as far as the supposed savings (“financial ownership”) are concerned, John C. Bogle has observed that instead of the economy being dominated by individual investors , it is being financialized into “an intermediation society dominated by professional money managers and corporations.” This trend “has not been accompanied by the development of an ethical, regulatory and legal environment … The ownership society is over. The agency (or intermediation) society is not working as it should.”</p>
<p>Michael Hudson is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and president of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET).</p>
<p /> | N Is for Neo-Serfdom, O for Offshore Banking | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/n-is-for-neo-serfdom-o-for-offshore-banking/ | 2014-01-25 | 4 |
<p>October was a&#160;meh&#160;month for most U.S. airlines, especially the "Big 4," which control 84% of domestic air travel. Their share prices generally finished the month within 4 percentage points of where they began -- although <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/19/profit-plunges-again-at-floundering-united-contine.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">a disappointing earnings report Opens a New Window.</a> by&#160;United Continental Holdings (NYSE: UAL)&#160;turned what had been a very good month into a modest loss.</p>
<p>But some of the smaller carriers did see big shifts in their fortunes during October. Alaska Air Group&#160;(NYSE: ALK),&#160;Hawaiian Holdings&#160;(NASDAQ: HA), and&#160;Spirit Airlines&#160;(NASDAQ: SAVE) all saw double-digit changes in their stock prices over the course of the month. Let's look at who the big winner was and who the big losers were, and why.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Seattle-based Alaska Air Group owns and operates jets under the Alaska Air and Horizon lines, and also recently purchased Virgin Atlantic to become the fifth-largest U.S. airline. It was also the industry's biggest loser in October, with a share price that dropped 13.4% for the month. Pretty much that entire drop occurred on the day the company reported third-quarter earnings.</p>
<p>Actual earnings of $2.24 per share weren't all that bad, coming in just a penny below analysts' consensus estimate of $2.25 per share. Revenue, unfortunately, missed expectations by about $50 million.&#160;CEO Brad Tilden put it succinctly on the earnings call: "We're actually good at managing revenues, but we have been a little bit focused on the merger."</p>
<p>Yes, it's that Virgin Atlantic merger that has investors concerned. Ever since it closed in late 2016, Alaska Air's operating margins -- which had climbed above 24% -- have been on the decline, and now sit below 18%. That's still among the best in the industry (compare it to poor United Continental's dismal 10.1%), but it's not exactly what investors signed on for.</p>
<p>Some of Tilden's other comments on the call about problems with canceled flights at Horizon and "a lot of anxiety around here ... a lot of tough conversations" around the merger further spooked investors. If Alaska Air's stock is to have any hope of recovery, the company is going to have to successfully digest Virgin Atlantic... and the sooner, the better.</p>
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<p>From one extreme to the other, we head from Alaska to Hawaii. Hawaiian Holdings, which owns and operates leisure carrier Hawaiian Air, also reported earnings in October. Those earnings, though, were much better than Alaska Air's. Revenue increased, both on an absolute basis (up 7.1%) and per available seat mile (up 5.8%). The company's adjusted pre-tax margins remained strong at 22.8%. The company <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/18/hawaiian-holdings-inc-joining-airline-dividend-clu.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">even instituted a quarterly dividend Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>In spite of all that, the stock tanked after the company's earnings announcement, to finish the month down 10.8%.</p>
<p>The big reason: <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/29/hawaiian-holdings-stock-craters-again-southwest.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">competition Opens a New Window.</a>. Since Aloha Airlines went out of business in 2008, Hawaiian Air has had very little in the way of competitive threats, but that's about to change.&#160;Southwest Airlines has&#160;announced it's opening West Coast-to-Hawaii routes, and&#160;United Continental is also planning to increase service to Hawaii on 11 routes this December, claiming it will offer more flights to Hawaii than Hawaiian Air.</p>
<p>This could cause huge headaches for Hawaiian, but not necessarily. The company will still have a dominant share of interisland travel and <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/23/strong-earnings-at-hawaiian-airlines-can-the-good.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">other competitive advantages Opens a New Window.</a> over its larger rivals. Still, Hawaiian will have to work to maintain its market share, so investors are right to be wary.</p>
<p>While Alaska Air and Hawaiian Holdings got pummeled in October, discount carrier Spirit Airlines' stock soared 11% for the month. Like the others, it was the company's <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/31/tough-quarter-spirit-airlines-low-cost-advantage.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Q3 earnings report Opens a New Window.</a> that caused the big change.</p>
<p>Spirit's situation, though, is almost the polar opposite of Hawaiian's. While Hawaiian reported decent earnings and got pummeled for what investors expect to happen down the road, Spirit reported pretty dreadful numbers, but was rewarded by the stock market anyway based on expectations.</p>
<p>The hurricane season had an outsize impact on Spirit's third quarter. The company had to cancel about 1,650 flights, which lost it about $40 million in revenue during the quarter. That led to a 24.1% year-over-year drop in net income and a 24.2% year-over-year drop in earnings per share. But while that was bad, it <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/26/why-spirit-airlines-stock-just-jumped-14.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">wasn't quite as bad Opens a New Window.</a> as the market was predicting, which caused the share price to jump. Investors were also likely cheered by projected price stabilization, continuing declines in nonfuel costs, and an increase in per-passenger non-ticket revenue.</p>
<p>If Spirit Airlines can keep lowering its costs while holding fares steady -- and if Mother Nature cooperates -- the budget carrier may be able to turn itself around.</p>
<p>Airlines can be rough investments: It's an industry with a lot of competition, little brand loyalty, and many pricing pressures. All three of these airline stocks have lost money for their investors over the past year. They're also in precarious spots right now.&#160;If&#160;Alaskan can successfully digest Virgin Atlantic, and&#160;if&#160;Hawaiian can leverage its competitive advantages and&#160;if&#160;Spirit can make the most of its discount fare model, all three of these companies could be winners over the long term.</p>
<p>But, as October showed, sometimes there's no way to know which way things will go in a tough industry.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Alaska Air GroupWhen 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=bb2d91d4-8cd5-42f5-8250-20c9b66a235a&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Alaska Air Group wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFTruth2Power/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">John Bromels Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Spirit Airlines. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=769a27f8-c318-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 1 Airline That Soared in October -- and 2 That Didn't | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/07/1-airline-that-soared-in-october-and-2-that-didnt.html | 2017-11-07 | 0 |
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<p>Shares of cloud storage provider Box (NYSE: BOX) rallied 35% over the past 12 months, but the stock hovers just 18% above its IPO price of $14. That's because after hitting $23 on its first trading day in Jan. 2015, Box plunged below $10 last February before gradually recovering to the mid-teens.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Despite that lackluster performance, Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White recently reiterated his "Buy" rating on the stock and his price target of $26 -- whichrepresents a near-60% rally from its current price. White claims that Box looks cheap with an EV/Sales ratio of 3.3 based on its calendar 2018 (fiscal 2019) expectations. Is that "low" valuation enough to justify buying Box, or should investors ignore this overlooked cloud stock?</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Box provides cloud storage and associated services to over 71,000 businesses, including the majority of the Fortune 500 companies. Its major customers include industrial behemoth General Electric andpharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. That market presence is impressive, since the cloud storage market is filled with bigger players like Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN),Microsoft(NASDAQ: MSFT), and Alphabet(NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG)'sGoogle.</p>
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<p>Despite those challenges, Box has posted double-digit sales growth ever since its IPO. Its revenue rose32% to $398.6 million in fiscal 2017, and it expects another 25%-26% growth this year. Much of that growth comes from the addition of new customers, the introduction of add-on cloud services (like security and analytics) which boost its revenue per customer, and integration partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Salesforce, and IBM. Deferred revenue, a key indicator of forward demand, rose 30% to $242 million at the end of fiscal 2017.</p>
<p>Like many high-growth tech companies, Box's robust revenue growth doesn't trickle down to any profits. However, its non-GAAP loss narrowed from $1.16 per share in 2016 to $0.56. During that period, its GAAP loss narrowed from $1.67 to $1.19. That GAAP loss was heavily weighed down by stock-based compensation expenses, which gobbled up 20% of Box's revenues during the year.</p>
<p>Wall Street expects Box to report non-GAAP losses this year and next year -- although those losses are expected to continue narrowing. Box faces a dilemma which many cloud SaaS (software as a service) companies face -- competition keeps price expectations low, but the cost of securing new customers and developing new services remains high. We can clearly see that impact in its operating margins:</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a></p>
<p>The ongoing cloud storage pricing warbetween Amazon, Microsoft, and Google limits Box's ability to raise prices. However, all three companies can afford to use cloud storage services as a loss leader to expand their ecosystems. Box has neither the scale nor ecosystem to follow suit -- so it could eventually lose customers to those tech giants' bundling strategies.</p>
<p>Box finished 2017 with a negative free cash flow (FCF) of $24.8 million. That marked a big improvement from its negative FCF of $116.3 million in 2016, and Box achieved its first quarter of positive free cash flow ($10.2 million) during the fourth quarter. However, Box isn't expected to achieve a full-year positive FCF anytime soon, and a negative FCF could prevent Box from scaling up to widen its moat against bigger challengers.</p>
<p>Drexel Hamilton's bullish view on Box is based on the notion that an EV/Sales ratio of 3.3 is cheap for a company with its growth figures. For example, two other high-growth cloud service stocks with <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/23/better-cloud-growth-stock-twilio-inc-vs-veeva-syst.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">comparable sales growth Opens a New Window.</a> -- Twilio and Veeva-- have respective EV/Sales ratios of 4.6 and 8.2 based on next year's projected revenues. It's also lower than the current industry average of 4.8 for application software makers.</p>
<p>Assuming that Box is "fairly valued" with an EV/Sales ratio between Twilio and Veeva's, it's certainly possible that Box could rise to White's price target of $26. However, what bothers me about that estimate is that it's based on a long-range forecast, and a lot can change in the cloud storage industry within two years. If Amazon, Microsoft, and Google continue slashing prices and piling on more features, Box could struggle to retain its top customers.</p>
<p>I think Box has solid sales growth, and its growing list of big enterprise customers indicate that it has a lot of staying power. It also did a great job at adding more services and partnerships, narrowing its losses, and achieving positive free cash flow last quarter.</p>
<p>However, claiming Box can rise 60% based on next year's sales estimates is a bit too optimistic. It's hard to tell how much storage prices will fall over the following year, and Box CEO Aaron Levie even once admitted thatcloud storage would likely be "free and infinite" in the future. Therefore, investors should temper their expectations for Box based on future developments across the cloud market.</p>
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<p>Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSunLion/info.aspx" type="external">Leo Sun Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Amazon and Twilio. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, and Veeva Systems. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric. The Motley Fool recommends Salesforce.com and Twilio. 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> | Will This Overlooked Cloud Stock Grow 60% by 2018? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/01/will-this-overlooked-cloud-stock-grow-60-by-2018.html | 2017-04-01 | 0 |
<p>NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover suffered an injury while collecting samples at ‘Telegraph Peak’. While in the process of transferring sample material between analyzing instruments on the rover the arm stopped moving.</p>
<p>According to NASA, the rover will now be immobilized for several days while engineers perform an analysis to determine what cause the problem.</p>
<p>Initial communication from Curiosity indicated that a short circuit had occurred and, as it had been programmed to, the rover aborted the activity which was underway at the time.</p>
<p>“We are running tests on the vehicle in its present configuration before we move the arm or drive. This gives us the best opportunity to determine where the short is,” said Curiosity Project Manager Jim Erickson, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California in a <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/testing-to-diagnose-power-event-in-mars-rover/" type="external">statement</a>.</p>
<p>According to the agency, a transient short circuit in some systems would have little impact on Curiosity’s day to day operations. However, in other systems it could force the team to restrict the activities of the rover.</p>
<p>The problem occurred as Curiosity was transferring rock powder collected by the drill on its arm to a laboratory instrument inside the rover. The rock power was descending into a chamber that sieves and portions the sample. This same process has been done successfully on five previous occasions in 2013 and 2014, however on a dusty world 140 million miles away a lot can go wrong with your remote control vehicle in a short time.</p>
<p>Curiosity drilled into the Telegraph Peak site on February 24. The site was selected after NASA researchers discussed the physical and chemical measurements. The site, in the Pahrump Hills region, appeared to be enriched with large amounts of silicon in proportion to aluminum and magnesium.</p>
<p>“When you graph the ratios of silica to magnesium and silica to aluminum, ‘Telegraph Peak’ is toward the end of the range we’ve seen. It’s what you would expect if there has been some acidic leaching. We want to see what minerals are present where we found this chemistry,” <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4492" type="external">said</a> Curiosity co-investigator Doug Ming, of NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston.</p>
<p>The rover has been in the <a href="http://redplanet.asu.edu/?tag=pahrump-hills" type="external">Pahrump Hills</a> region, an outcrop at the base of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolis_Mons" type="external">Mount Sharp</a>, for five months. Curiosity’s extended mission is to examine layers on the mountain which researchers believe will hold geological and chemical records of wet periods in Martian history as well as possible information on why those wet periods ended.</p>
<p>The next step in the mission was to drive away from Pahrump Hills through “Artist’s Drive”, a narrow valley in the hills and then up to a higher level in the basal layer of Mount Sharp. Those plans are now temporarily put on hold while engineers conduct diagnostic testing.</p>
<p>Any serious damage to Curiosity could be bad news for Mars exploration. The long-lived Opportunity rover does not appear to be in <a href="" type="internal">NASA’s budget</a> for 2016 and the next rover mission is not scheduled to launch <a href="http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mars2020/" type="external">until 2020</a>.</p>
<p>The loss of the Curiosity rover could mean that there is no new information coming from the ground on Mars for five years.</p>
<p /> | Curiosity Mars rover heads to disabled list with arm injury | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/03/03/curiosity-mars-rover-heads-to-disabled-list-with-arm-injury/ | 2015-03-03 | 3 |
<p>Editor’s note: In this column, Conason points out that the Connecticut senator who would lecture us on ethics drafted a bill in 2005 that made generous giveaways to pharmaceutical companies — one month after his wife went to work in the pharmaceuticals division of a major lobbying and PR firm.</p>
<p>Whenever Sen. Joseph Lieberman complains that he is the target of a “single-issue” challenge by upstart millionaire Ned Lamont, the three-term incumbent proves he doesn’t quite get what is happening to him. It is true that the Lamont campaign began as a protest against his slavish support of the war in Iraq. It is untrue that growing antiwar sentiment is the sole reason for his peril in next month’s Democratic primary.</p>
<p>That he would dismiss the disastrous occupation as merely “one issue” suggests how remote he is from his constituents — the great majority of whom now view the war as a costly strategic and moral error that should be concluded as soon as possible. He sounds equally detached from that failed policy’s awful reality when he proclaims that “the situation in Iraq is a lot better” than a year ago.</p>
<p>Connecticut’s voters are not obliged to prove their “moderation” by ratifying his bad judgment.</p>
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<p>Yet the war issue alone probably would not have threatened him, as anyone who listened carefully to his critics might learn. After 18 years in the Senate, his fervent insistence that he is a lifelong devotee of “progressive causes” and his endorsement by major liberal organizations only seem to mask his accommodation with Washington’s conservative status quo.</p>
<p>Lieberman dutifully recites his opposition to “tax cuts for the rich” and “privatizing Social Security,” and his support of “universal health insurance” and “affordable healthcare.” When he utters those phrases, unfortunately, they ring hollow to many rank-and-file Democrats.</p>
<p>Actually, the syndrome afflicting him is found among entrenched veterans of both parties, especially those who appear more concerned with connections and contributions than values or ideals.</p>
<p>Sen. Lieberman has long been known to cultivate the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, which provide jobs in his home state and contributions to his campaign fund. But he has literally been sleeping with one of their Washington representatives ever since his wife, Hadassah, joined Hill &amp; Knowlton last year. The legendary lobbying and PR firm hired her as a “senior counselor” in its “health and pharmaceuticals practice.”</p>
<p>This news marked Hadassah Lieberman’s return to consulting after more than a decade of retirement. “I have had a life-long commitment to helping people gain better health care,” she said in the press release announcing her new job. “I am excited about the opportunity to work with the talented team at Hill &amp; Knowlton to counsel a terrific stable of clients toward that same goal.”</p>
<p>It would be uplifting to imagine that Hill &amp; Knowlton — after spending the past decade as a defendant in tobacco class-action lawsuits because of its role in propaganda disputing the deadly effects of smoking — is now devoted to improving everybody’s health. More likely, the firm remains devoted to improving the profits of its clientele, which has historically included Enron, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Saudis, Kuwaitis, American International Group and Boeing.</p>
<p>When a senator’s wife works for one of the capital’s largest lobby shops, appearances tend to matter. In this case, something happened immediately that didn’t look very good.</p>
<p>Mrs. Lieberman signed up with Hill &amp; Knowlton in March 2005. The firm’s clients included GlaxoSmithKline, the British pharmaceutical giant that manufactures flu vaccines along with many other drugs. In April 2005, Sen. Lieberman introduced a bill that would award an array of new government “incentives” to companies like GSK to produce more vaccines — notably patent extensions on other products, at a cost of billions to governments and consumers.</p>
<p>That legislation provoked irritated comment by his hometown newspaper, the New Haven Register. In an editorial headlined “Lieberman Crafts Drug Company Perk,” the Register noted that his bill was even more generous to the pharmaceutical industry than a similar proposal by the Senate Republican leadership. “The government can offer incentives and guarantees for needed public health measures,” said the editorial. “But it should not write a blank check, as these bills do, to the pharmaceutical industry that has such a large cost to the public with what may be an uncertain or dubious return.”</p>
<p>No doubt Lieberman would do the bidding of the pharmaceutical lobby whether his wife was on its payroll or not, but this kind of coincidence is best avoided by a man who lectures the world about morality and ethics.</p>
<p>The senator has demanded that Ned Lamont, his challenger in next month’s Democratic primary, release his income tax returns, which must mean that he plans to do likewise. His latest financial disclosure lists Mrs. Lieberman’s compensation from Hill &amp; Knowlton only as “more than $1000.” Presumably his tax returns will show how much more — and measure his distance from the people he represents.</p>
<p /> | Joe Conason: Sen. Lieberman Literally in Bed With Drug Lobby | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/joe-conason-sen-lieberman-literally-in-bed-with-drug-lobby/ | 2006-07-13 | 4 |
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<p>What’s the penalty for the alleged gangrape of a drunk, 17-year-old girl at a party with 10 of your buddies? Bupkus, said the Santa Clara, California District Attorney’s office yesterday.</p>
<p>The alleged rape occurred March 3 at a wild, off-campus party hosted by a member of the <a href="http://www.deanza.edu/" type="external">DeAnza College</a> men’s baseball team in San Jose, California. Three partygoers, members of the school’s women’s soccer team, <a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/13370961/detail.html" type="external">said they saw</a> a young girl on a mattress on the floor, clothes around her ankles and vomit on her face, with one man on top of her and approximately 10 more looking on in a dark bedroom. Feeling “something wasn’t right,” the girls pushed their way into the room and rushed the victim the the hospital.</p>
<p>In the months since the contested rape, a grand jury has taken testimony in the case, DNA samples from some partygoers have been obtained, but an assistant district attorney <a href="http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_141154727.html" type="external">cited “insufficient evidence”</a> as the reason the DA would not prosecute. The men will not be charged with a crime, not even statutory rape. The only consequences so far have been that eight baseball players were suspended, resulting in the cancellation of three games. At least <a href="http://www.examiner.com/a-730008~Grand_jury_begins_taking_testimony_over_alleged_De_Anza_rape.html" type="external">one of the players brought in by the grand jury thinks</a> justice has been served: “From the beginning, I kind of felt like it was a witch hunt and the De Anza players were victims, and not really this girl,” pitcher Chris Knopf told the <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_5949702" type="external">San Jose Mercury News</a>.</p>
<p>One of the infamous Duke lacrosse players <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18046103/page/2/" type="external">made a similar statement</a> just last month when prosecutors dropped all charges in that case, saying that “this entire experience has opened my eyes up to a tragic world of injustice.” He was talking about himself, not the African American stripper hired for the players’ party.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, the Duke case and its rush to judgment is in the minds of those at the Santa Clara DA’s office when they say they don’t have confidence the case could be proved without a doubt. The District Attorney in the Duke case, Michael Nifong, was removed from the case and now faces <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/11/duke.lacrosse/index.html" type="external">ethics complaints</a> from the North Carolina state bar related to the year-long investigation. The Santa Clara DA office may be looking to avoid a similar debacle. But there are essential differences in the two situations: this girl was underage, and three eyewitnesses have come forward.</p>
<p>Granted, eyewitness accounts are not always what they seem, something the media often glosses over, but the Santa Clara sheriff’s office <a href="http://www.nbc11.com/news/13360194/detail.html?rss=bay&amp;psp=news" type="external">says it’s not yet done</a> investigating the case. Two of the witnesses have <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5964944" type="external">gone to the media</a> to draw attention to the case. “What we saw was rape. It was a crime,” one told <a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/13370961/detail.html" type="external">told a local television station</a>. The other said the lack of charges “makes us think that no girl is ever going to want to come forward and say they were violated as this girl was, because they’re going to think it doesn’t even matter…But it does.”</p>
<p>—Jen Phillips</p>
<p /> | DA Refuses to Prosecute Rape Case, Despite Eye Witnesses, DNA | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/05/da-refuses-prosecute-rape-case-despite-eye-witnesses-dna/ | 2007-05-23 | 4 |
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<p>Nokia reported a quarterly net loss for the third time in a row amid sluggish mobile-network sales and charges related to its recent acquisition of French rival Alcatel-Lucent, but said it will continue to broaden its product portfolio to offset a decline in the mobile infrastructure market.</p>
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<p>The Finnish telecommunications-equipment maker also said Thursday its Chief Financial Officer Timo Ihamuotila has resigned to join technology conglomerate ABB in Switzerland. He will be replaced by Kristian Pullola.</p>
<p>Nokia said net loss for the three-month period ended Sept. 30 totaled EUR125 million ($136 million), compared with a net profit of EUR152 million in the year-earlier period excluding the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition which it completed earlier this year.</p>
<p>Revenue was up sharply at EUR5.89 billion from EUR3.04 billion reported in the same period last year, reflecting the Alcatel-Lucent purchase. Nokia said it had EUR6.40 billion in combined revenue with Alcatel-Lucent in the third quarter last year.</p>
<p>Amid a slowing telecom-equipment market and fierce Asian competition, Nokia's third-quarter results point to a sector-wide trend after Swedish rival Ericsson last week reported a quarterly loss of 233 million Swedish kronor ($26.1 million).</p>
<p>In recent months, the industry has been severely hit by slower demand for network upgrades from telecom carriers, as many of them last year completed the rollout of latest-generation wireless networks. Meanwhile, Nokia and Ericsson are facing stiff competition from Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp., who have gained significant market shares by offering innovative products at competitive prices.</p>
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<p>Nokia said its mobile sales were down 15% to EUR3.32 billion, adding it foresees the mobile infrastructure market shrinking further in 2017.</p>
<p>However, analysts say Nokia is relatively well-equipped to face the market's slowdown in part thanks to the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition.</p>
<p>"Nokia holds an attractive end-to-end product portfolio, an [intellectual property rights portfolio] with long-term growth potential and is headed by an experienced management team," Handelbanken wrote in a note to clients last week.</p>
<p>While Nokia said it suffered from costs related to the Alcatel-Lucent transaction and related integration, the EUR15.6-billion deal also led to a diversification of Nokia's product portfolio to include fixed internet gear such as routers and switches.</p>
<p>Fixed network sales for the quarter were up 3% to EUR585 million, the company said.</p>
<p>Sales of Nokia Technologies, the company's intellectual property and licensing business, more than doubled to EUR353 million year-over-year, primarily due to a patent cross- license agreement with Samsung Electronics.</p>
<p>"The power of our broad portfolio was evident in the quarter," said Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri in a statement, adding the company aims to continue to broaden its customer base by offering end-to-end network solutions.</p>
<p>Write to Matthias Verbergt at [email protected]</p> | Nokia Posts Third-Quarter Loss | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/27/nokia-posts-third-quarter-loss.html | 2016-10-27 | 0 |
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