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<p>Michelle Obama has found a whole new thing to bemoan.</p>
<p>The former first lady -- who once said "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country" even though she's had everything handed to her on a silver platter -- famously lost her cool waiting for her husband to get done with work. She flew off to a Hawaiian vacation just days before he got free. The separate flights costs taxpayers more than a million dollars extra.</p>
<p>And Secret Service agents we know who worked on her protection detail said Michelle was a very unpleasant boss to work for: Demanding, overbearing, and often patronizing.</p>
<p>But things should be so much better now, right? The couple is out of the White House, out of the spotlight and she's been traveling the world with Barack, schmoozing with Oprah and A-list celebrities on 500-foot yachts in the South Pacific, hanging out with billionaires on their private islands, and cruising between their three or four or five houses they now own (they keep buying them so it's hard to keep count).</p>
<p>But no. Not for Michelle. The 1 Percenter -- who spent a lot of time deriding the 1 Percent -- has found a new thing to complain about, reports the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4579460/Michelle-Obama-reveals-Barack-wore-tux-8-years.html" type="external">Daily Mail</a>.</p>
<p>The 53-year-old Chicago native noted how she was photographed and scrutinized year in and year out for the dresses and accessories she sported for state dinners as they were highly publicized events.</p>
<p>But she said the former president easily got away with wearing the same outfit every year to state dinners.</p>
<p>'This is the unfair thing — you talk about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers — no matter what we do, he puts on that same tux,' she said.</p>
<p>'Now, people take pictures of the shoes I wear, the bracelets, the necklace — they didn't comment that for eight years he wore the same tux, same shoes.'</p>
<p>She continued, 'And he was proud of it too. He's like, 'Mmm, I'm ready. I'm ready in 10 minutes. How long did it take you?' I'm like, 'Get out of here.' '</p>
<p>Oy. Don't you just hate how long it takes to put on all your diamonds and jewels while your hair and makeup people get you ready for dinner with Bono? Such a hardship! We wonder if Michelle is still even proud of America, or if this latest hardship has washed that all away.</p> | The 1 Percent Life: Michelle Obama Finds A Whiny New Thing To Whine About | true | https://dailywire.com/news/17249/1-percent-life-michelle-obama-finds-whiny-new-joseph-curl | 2017-06-07 | 0 |
<p>Donald Trump/Facebook</p>
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<p>Donald Trump spent most of the weekend saying awful things about Megyn Kelly, after the Fox News host had the temerity to question him at last Thursday’s debate about his history of saying awful things about other women. That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise: <a href="" type="internal">Hurling insults at people who cross him</a> is basically the entire point of Donald Trump.</p>
<p>But when he’s not saying bad things about Kelly, Hillary Clinton, Rosie O’Donnell, women more generally, black people, Mexicans, President Barack Obama, various members of the press, John McCain, or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/nyregion/trumps-instinct-for-racially-charged-rhetoric-before-his-presidential-bid.html" type="external">Mohawks</a>, Trump also makes a lot of good points.</p>
<p>Here are 13 things Trump has been right about:</p>
<p>The invasion of Iraq: In 2003, he <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/07/25/3684164/case-for-donald-trump/" type="external">told</a> the Dallas Morning-News that the Iraq War had been a “disaster” that “should not have been entered into.” “To lose all of those thousands and thousands of people, on our side and their side, I mean, you have Iraqi kids, not only our soldiers, walking around with no legs, no arms, no faces,” he said. “All for no reason. It is a disgrace.”</p>
<p>Katy Perry shouldn’t have married Russell Brand:</p>
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<p>Trump was right. The marriage dissolved after 14 months; it clearly <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3095728/Katy-Perry-reveals-hasn-t-spoken-ex-husband-Russell-Brand-texted-divorce.html" type="external">wasn’t meant to be</a>.</p>
<p>Campaign finance: Although Trump bragged (falsely) about having cut checks to most of the Republican candidates with whom he shared the stage last week, he also made some smart points about the corrupting influence of campaign contributions. “I will tell you that our system is broken,” he <a href="" type="internal">said</a> during the debate. “I give to many people. I give to everybody, when they call I give, and you know what? When I need something from them, two years, three years later, I call, they are there for me.”</p>
<p>Material excess: “While I can’t honestly say I need an eighty-foot living room, I get a kick out of having one,” he wrote in his most famous book, The Art of the Deal. Both of these statements sound pretty true.</p>
<p>Harvard:</p>
<p />
<p>No one likes Harvard.</p>
<p>The merits of his cologne, which is actually called “Success” and features notes of juniper, iced red currant, frozen ginger, vetiver, and tonka bean: Granted, you can’t buy it in stores anymore because no one bought it, but Success gets 4.5 stars on Amazon.com. User “Kim” <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Trump-Success-Toilette-Spray-Fluid/dp/B007OYXCTQ" type="external">writes</a>:</p>
<p>My boyfriend LOVES this cologne. They used to sell it at Macy’s but it was discontinued and he was running low around Christmas time…when I told him it was discontinued he was sad that he would have to find another cologne now..but then I found it online here and I was so happy! And it was ALOT cheaper than I used to pay at Macy’s! ($62) and it was the big sized bottle like he wanted and it was perfect and he was so happy.</p>
<p>Dick Cheney: “He’s very, very angry and nasty,” Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv16CWJqUT4" type="external">said</a> in a 2011 review of Cheney’s book. “I didn’t like Cheney when he was a vice president. I don’t like him now. And I don’t like people that rat out everybody like he’s doing in the book. I’m sure it’ll be a bestseller, but isn’t it a shame? Here’s a guy that did a rotten job as vice president. Nobody liked him. Tremendous divisiveness. And he’s gonna be making a lot of money on the book. I won’t be reading it.”</p>
<p>Himself: “I’m a whiner,” <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/11/politics/donald-trump-refutes-third-party-run-report/" type="external">he told CNN</a> on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The Drug War: In 1990, well before the political tides had shifted in favor of pot legalization, Trump was <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-04-15/news/9001310473_1_donald-trump-drug-czars-enforcement-efforts" type="external">declaring</a> the federal government’s mass-incarceration campaign a waste. “We’re losing badly the war on drugs. You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars.”</p>
<p>RedState’s Erick Erickson, who disinvited Trump from the conservative site’s confab last weekend due to his remarks about Megyn Kelly:</p>
<p />
<p>When he’s right, <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/erick-erickson-donald-trump-sexist" type="external">he’s right</a>.</p>
<p>“Fuckface von Clownstick” is not an original insult:</p>
<p />
<p>National health care: “We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing,” he <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/make-america-great-again#.ee6ZB38Wz" type="external">wrote</a> in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve.</p>
<p>Tom Brady:</p>
<p />
<p>#FreeTommy.</p>
<p /> | 13 Things Donald Trump Was Right About | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/thirteen-things-donald-trump-was-right-about/ | 2015-08-13 | 4 |
<p>Oscar season is approaching — not when they give out the awards, but when the high profile Oscar-bait movies trickle into theaters. This year, quite of few of those movies have something strange in common: a famous actor or actress is playing a has-been version of him or herself.</p>
<p>Al Pacino plays an over-the-hill ham in The Humbling, based on the novel by Philip Roth.</p>
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<p />
<p>Juliette Binoche is a former ingénue who now has to play the role of the older woman in Clouds of Sils Maria.</p>
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<p />
<p>Julianne Moore feels threatened by up-and-comers in David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The Congress becomes surreal after Robin Wright — playing “Robin Wright” — sells a virtual version of herself to a movie studio.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Then there’s Birdman, in which Michael Keaton plays an actor whose career floundered after he quit playing a superhero.</p>
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<p>Of all these films, Birdman is generating the most buzz, perhaps because it cuts closest to home. Keaton’s career did flounder after Batman Returns, and Birdman satirizes Hollywood’s cash cow of superhero movies.</p>
<p>All the movies recall Sunset Boulevard, the original Hollywood meta-narrative in which Gloria Swanson, an aging star, played an aging star wallowing in nostalgia. "Hollywood wasn’t really accustomed to lifting its veil back then,” says Rafer Guzman, host of WNYC’s <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/series/movie-date/" type="external">Movie Date</a>&#160;podcast and film critic for <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/" type="external">The Takeaway</a>. “Personas were very tightly controlled. It was unusual I think to see someone break the fourth wall in such a self-referential, unflattering way.” What’s striking about today’s films is how willing the stars are to lampoon themselves. Pacino, apparently, fought to make The Humbling.</p>
<p>This trend seems to have flown in under the radar, perhaps because these films are largely independent, and four of the five of the directors are foreign. But Guzman says these art house films make commercial sense, because they’re aimed an aging marketplace. “Let’s call it the greying audience,” he says. “They’re out there and they are still seeing movies pretty faithfully" — unlike their kids.</p> | The Real Have-Beens of Hollywood | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-10-03/real-have-beens-hollywood | 2014-10-03 | 3 |
<p>On August 27, 2009, Dan Cincotta, a fisheries biologist with West Virginia’s Department of Natural Resources, was conducting a routine inventory of Dunkard Creek, a small river that runs through West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania. He was accompanied by a consultant and an environmental engineer from the state’s largest coal and gas company, Consol Energy, which operates a coalmine, Blacksville #2, just outside of Wana, West Virginia. Cincotta was supposed to do electro-fish surveys, whereby the fish are temporarily stunned in order to assess populations, and to take a series of conductivity readings – a basic measure of how much salt is dissolved in water.</p>
<p>When his first reading measured 20,000 micro siemens per centimeter squared (µS/cm), Cincotta thought his equipment was broken; he had never seen readings above 5,000. The Consol consultant took her own reading in the same location but farther from the riverbank. It registered 40,000 µS/cm. Still in disbelief, Cincotta says, “we wandered upstream and found [Consol’s mining] discharge. And in the discharge alone, straight out of the pipe our equipment registered over 50,000 µS/cm,” roughly the equivalent of seawater. Untreated acid mine discharges typically have conductance values of between 1,000 and 1,500 µS/cm.</p>
<p>The following day, a Friday, Cincotta sent an email to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) field office in West Virginia alerting them to the extraordinarily high conductivity levels. Then, over the weekend, the reports of dead fish began. During the next month about 22,000 fish washed ashore (some estimates say as many as 65,000 died). At least 14 species of freshwater mussels – the river’s entire population – were destroyed, wiping out nearly every aquatic species along a 35-mile stretch of Dunkard Creek. “That’s the ultimate tragedy,” says Frank Jernejcic, a fisheries biologist with the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. “Fish will come back, we can get the fish back. The mussels are a generational thing.”</p>
<p>The scene was horrific: Many of the fish were bleeding from the gills and covered in mucous; mud puppies, a kind of gilled salamander that lives underwater, had tried to escape by crawling onto nearby rocks; three-foot long muskies washed up along the riverbanks. The die-off marked one of the worst ecological disasters in the region’s history.</p>
<p>Some people blame Pennsylvania’s growing natural gas industry. Others say it was acid mine drainage. Either way, industrial pollution is pushing the state’s waters to the breaking point.</p>
<p>“Unless you have actually seen a fish kill, it’s one of the most devastating things that you can imagine,” says Verna Presley, a retired teacher who lives on the creek. “Because you don’t think of the sound of a stream until it’s dead and it’s just the eeriest silence that you can imagine. Everything right down to the insects was killed.”</p>
<p>A nearly three-month-long investigation by state and federal regulators eventually tied the kill to an invasive algae species known as golden algae (Prymnesium parvum). Yet golden algae offered only a partial explanation for the disaster. It may have been the immediate reason for the kill, but it wasn’t the underlying cause. The algae itself cannot survive in freshwater; it thrives only in marine-like environments. Somehow, a freshwater, inland ecosystem had become saline enough for the algae to grow and multiply.</p>
<p>How did this Appalachian stream become so salty? There is no single answer, no smoking gun. The contaminated water might have come from acid mine drainage discharges – outflow of wastewater from nearby coalmines, which has been occurring for decades. It might also be tied to&#160; <a href="http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/fracking/" type="external">natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale</a>, a relatively new industry in the region. Or perhaps it was a toxic cocktail of both.</p>
<p>The complexity of the disaster has allowed the company most likely responsible for destroying the stream, Consol Energy, to deny wrongdoing. “Working with renowned biologists, Consol Energy determined its operations were not the cause” of the fish kill, the company said in a 2010 press release. Still, Consol recently reached an agreement with the EPA to pay $5.5 million in civil penalties and construct a brine water treatment plant by 2013.</p>
<p>The EPA and state regulatory agencies have concluded that acid mine drainage from Consul’s coalmine led to the algae bloom. But many area residents, some local conservation officers, and the lead EPA investigator on the case have cast doubt on that assumption. They believe the stresses of coal bed methane extraction and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the Marcellus Shale also contributed to the stream’s worsening condition. They argue that acid mine drainage alone doesn’t explain the changes that occurred in the stream’s composition and that illegal dumping of wastewater and water withdrawals from Dunkard Creek must have played some part in the algae bloom.</p>
<p>The fish kill at Dunkard Creek points to a systemic threat that could jeopardize the watersheds of an entire region. As unconventional shale gas production expands throughout the Northeast (conservative estimates are that 60,000 wells will be drilled in Pennsylvania alone over the next two decades) its rivers and streams may be forced to absorb increasingly large volumes of exceptionally salty water – water ten to twenty times more saline than seawater. “Produced water,” as it is referred to by the industry, is a mix of fracking chemicals, water, and dissolved shale formation solids; it represents the largest volume byproduct of oil and gas exploration and production in the United States.</p>
<p>Pennsylvania officials, at least, seem to recognize that improper disposal of produced water would lead to an environmental and public health fiasco. State regulators recently said that municipal treatment plants would no longer be permitted to accept Marcellus Shale wastewater, a major policy reversal. What the state plans to do with the billions of gallons of wastewater created during the drilling process remains unclear.</p>
<p>Dunkard Creek snakes along the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border and eventually empties into the Monongahela River, which flows north to Pittsburgh. The creek was long considered one of the most diverse streams in the Monongahela watershed. Known for its muskellunge fishing, it also supported an unusually rich population of freshwater mussels. The area is also dotted with coalmines, many of which discharge acid drainage directly into the creek and its tributaries. Massive underground mine pools must be continuously pumped either by the companies that own them or, if they’ve been abandoned, by the state. Billions of gallons of treated wastewater are discharged into the Monongahela River basin annually.</p>
<p>In recent years, coal bed methane extraction – the absorption of natural gas from coal seams – along with natural gas hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale have placed further stresses on the river in the form of water withdrawals and wastewater disposal. In Greene County, through which Dunkard Creek runs, more than 250 natural gas wells have been drilled in just a few years. Consol, the largest producer of coal from underground mines in the United States, has described the fossil fuel-rich area as “the continental US equivalent of Prudhoe Bay.” Like Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, the region has begun to experience the impacts of large-scale industrial development and resource extraction.</p>
<p>“I fished that stream for years. Then when the Marcellus comes in this happens. Why?”</p>
<p>A month after the fish kill, state and federal officials pointed to acid mine drainage – Consol had been discharging the waste directly into Dunkard Creek for decades – as the cause of the algae bloom and fish kill. Found worldwide in estuarine waters, golden algae was first reported in the United States, in Texas, in 1985. Since then it has killed more than 12 million fish in Texas and has slowly spread to several other river basins. The algae responds to certain stressed environments by releasing a toxin that ruptures the tissue cells in the mouths and gills of fish, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to suffocate – hence the desperate attempts of the fish and mudpuppies to escape the river. Until the Dunkard Creek fish kill, however, the algae had never been detected north of the Mason-Dixon Line.</p>
<p>“When the fish kill first happened, we in the research community got a lot of calls,” says Jeanne VanBriesen, director of the Center for Water Quality at Carnegie Mellon University. “‘Who do you know who knows anything about golden algae?’ And we all said the same thing: ‘In Pennsylvania why would anyone know anything about golden algae? You have to go to Texas or Florida because it hadn’t been seen here.’” Golden algae has now been found in several waterways in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.</p>
<p>How the algae ended up in Dunkard Creek may never be known. Dr. David Hambright, a professor of zoology at the University of Oklahoma, has analyzed samples of golden algae from Dunkard Creek and is investigating the phylogenetic relationships between different strains. “It’s never going to be possible to say, okay, it was a bucket of water on the back of a drilling truck from South Texas,” he told me. “It was very likely wind borne.” Hambright isn’t surprised that the algae has been found in Dunkard Creek. “What’s surprising,” he says, “is that they would find the habitat in which they could live.” But they did. In the case of Dunkard Creek, unusually high levels of dissolved solids, nutrient-rich water, and low flows created a kind of perfect storm for the algae’s growth.</p>
<p>Early assessments of the kill pointed to fracking wastewater as the source of the river’s high levels of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) – a rough measure of salts and minerals dissolved in water. “The elevated levels of TDS and chlorides in the creek indicates oil- and gas-drilling wastewater,” West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) spokeswoman Kathy Cosco said at the time. However, water samples taken later showed that the dominant ion in Dunkard Creek around the time of the kill was sulfate, which is typical of acid mine drainage, and not chloride (although chloride levels were also abnormally high) commonly found in fracking wastewater.</p>
<p>This led the Pennsylvania and West Virginia environmental agencies to conclude that the high conductivity levels that caused the algal bloom were largely the result of acid mine drainage. “There’s no evidence at this point – nor do I think there will be – that any of the problems in Dunkard Creek were related to the oil and gas industry,” says Pennsylvania DEP Southwest Regional Director Ron Schwartz. “There were a lot of different causes for it, but that wasn’t one of them,” he says. Scott Mandirola, director of West Virginia DEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management, agrees. “The Dunkard issue is mine water,” he says. “We investigated this thing from top to bottom and everything we’ve got points to the mining discharges.”</p>
<p>But Consol denies that it is at fault and, as part of its agreement with the EPA, has not admitted liability for the kill. “We do not believe the discharge from our mining operations caused the fish kill,” says Joe Cerenzia, PR director for the company. He points out that Consol has operated the mine for 30 years without incident. “It was the algae that did [it].” The company’s rationale – that it had discharged acid mine drainage into Dunkard Creek for 30 years without any problems – raises more questions than it answers. What, then, changed the river’s composition?</p>
<p>In emails obtained by&#160;The New York Times&#160;under a Freedom of Information Act request, Lou Reynolds, the lead EPA biologist on the case, wrote: “Mine discharges from those deep mines shouldn’t differ a lot from the normal mining constituents. Something has changed in the mine pools.”</p>
<p>The difference, many local residents speculate, was wastewater from natural gas and coal bed methane extraction. The Marcellus Shale is a sedimentary rock formation that was deposited more than 350 million years ago in a shallow inland sea. These ancient rocks contain chlorides that dissolve during the process of hydraulic fracturing. Abnormally high chloride readings in Dunkard Creek could have come from improper disposal of produced water, residents say.</p>
<p>In 2005 Consol Energy formed a subsidiary, CNX Gas, which specializes in coal bed methane extraction and natural gas drilling. That same year it applied for a permit to operate the Morris Run injection well – part of the abandoned Blacksville #1 coalmine – to dispose of wastewater from coal bed methane extraction. The Morris Run borehole is on the Pennsylvania side of the river, just upstream from the Blacksville #2 mine in West Virginia. CNX’s permit required the company to secure the area with a fence and monitor the cumulative volume of water injected into the well.</p>
<p>An EPA inspection in August 2008 found that the company was violating several provisions of the permit application. Then, in the spring of 2010, one of Consol’s primary contractors, Allan’s Waste Water Service, a wastewater hauling company, was charged with multiple counts of illegally dumping toxic waste, including Marcellus Shale-produced wastewater. According to a grand jury presentment, drivers for the company testified that they dumped drilling wastewater into the Morris Run borehole and into several tributaries of Dunkard Creek. “Drivers testified that Allan’s Waste Water was responsible for receiving, transporting, and disposing of production water from gas wells owned and operated by CNX,” the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office noted. “According to the drivers, during the summer of 2007, CNX’s gas wells began to generate more production water than Allan’s Waste Water was capable of handling. As a result, [company owner] Shipman showed the drivers how to leave open the gas well valves and ordered them to discharge production water into the ground and/or into the nearby waterways,” including Dunkard Creek.</p>
<p>Before the fish kill there was a steady stream of traffic on the narrow dirt road that leads up to the borehole, local residents say. “It was 24/7 trucks going up the road to the borehole,” says Verna Presley, who lives nearby. “They even constructed areas off of the road so that one truck could pull over and another one could get past.”</p>
<p>Martin Niverth, who was Greene County Conservation Commissioner at the time, says that he received numerous phone calls from people living in the area complaining about the traffic on the road to the underground injection well. “There’s trucks coming and going. Well, that kind of volume, you know, what does that tell you? I know what it tells me. You know that you have Marcellus dumping going on down there.” Even Mandirola of the West Virginia DEP concurs: “A lot of Marcellus wastewater went down in that hole,” he says. “There is a separation between those two mines,” says Mandirola. “But there is seepage through the wall. I don’t think anybody really knows how much seepage is occurring, but the Morris Run borehole is right at the edge of that division.”</p>
<p>Presley also says that the haulers were withdrawing water from the river, presumably for use in fracking operations, which require millions of gallons of freshwater per well. “They were pumping so much out of Dunkard Creek that they just put their hoses into the water and left them there for the next truck to come and hook up and pull it out,” she says. “We literally watched the stream go down about 12 inches prior to the fish kill.”</p>
<p>USGS data from further downstream shows a steep decline in river flows during that period. “The decrease in flows at the end of August does look suspect,” Clinton Hittle, a hydrologist with the USGS, wrote in an email.</p>
<p>Niverth, whose first job was at the Blacksville #2 mine loading coal, believes that the unregulated injection of Marcellus wastewater into the Morris Run borehole, illegal dumping, and water withdrawals all contributed to the fish kill. “I fished that stream for years and years,” Niverth says, “and that’s why some of us are still very skeptical, because those mines operated for years. … Then right when the Marcellus comes in this happens. Why?”</p>
<p>Several months before the fish kill, the EPA was in the process of drafting a consent order to address Consol’s security violations at the injection well. But after the fish die-off the company decided to plug and abandon the well. It was still fined the maximum penalty of $157,000 for failing to secure the site, but the underground injection well was never officially linked to the kill.</p>
<p>Dan Cincotta, the biologist who first recorded unusually high conductivity readings on Dunkard Creek, says that salinity levels in rivers and streams in Pennsylvania and West Virginia are a growing concern. Over the last 30 years he’s sampled thousands of streams and conducted several statewide surveys. “All the streams around are much higher in conductivity than they used to be,” he says. Shale gas extraction will likely just add to the problem. Last year the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia released preliminary data from one of the few studies to look at the impact of shale gas drilling on rivers and streams. They found that TDS levels were significantly higher and biodiversity indicators reduced in streams exposed to high-density gas drilling. At the same time, billions of gallons of acid mine drainage must be disposed of annually.</p>
<p>“We’re at the assimilative capacity of the river,” says David Argent, a fisheries biologist at the&#160; <a href="http://www.calu.edu/" type="external">California University of Pennsylvania</a>&#160;who has conducted surveys on the Monongahela. “In other words, you can’t dilute any more in the Monongahela. It doesn’t matter what it is – if it’s Marcellus, if it’s mining, if it’s sewage, if it’s treated sewage, if it’s untreated sewage, we’re there. And I think it’s just a matter of what is it that’s going to tip the scale now and push us over the edge.”</p>
<p>In 2008, TDS levels on the Monongahela were twice as high as the historical maximum since record keeping began in the 1960s, including a period during which the river supported little or no aquatic life. That summer, during a period of low flows, there were reports of foul smelling drinking water and malfunctioning dishwashers in a residential neighborhood outside of Pittsburgh. The DEP issued an advisory warning suggesting that residents drink bottled water (the Monongahela is a source of drinking water for about one million people) and later determined that nine sewage treatment plants were discharging large volumes of Marcellus Shale-produced water into the river. An internal EPA memo obtained by&#160;The New York Times&#160;described the incident as “one of the largest failures in US history to supply clean drinking water to the public.”</p>
<p>One year later, the high TDS and chloride levels that led to the Dunkard Creek fish kill were detected on the Monongahela, more than 40 miles downstream, in Elizabeth, PA. “I think that was kind of the alarm cry that we needed,” Argent says. “Because I think at that point people really started to question, you know, what’s going on with the water.”</p>
<p>Adam Federman, a Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism, has written for The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, Gastronomica, Adirondack Life, and other publications.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared in <a href="http://www.earthisland.org/journal/" type="external">Earth Island Journal</a>.</p>
<p /> | Did Fracking Kill Dunkard Creek? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/12/01/did-fracking-kill-dunkard-creek/ | 2011-12-01 | 4 |
<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) — The first question for Washington State coach Mike Leach during Wednesday’s pre-Holiday Bowl news conference was about the cast on quarterback Luke Falk’s non-throwing left wrist.</p>
<p>The seventh question was about the pet raccoon Leach had when he was a kid, which he mentioned in an article he wrote for the Players’ Tribune.</p>
<p>Naturally, Leach was much more forthcoming about the raccoon, which was named Bilbo Baggins after the character in “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” than he was about his quarterback’s health.</p>
<p>“He’s doing great. You can use your imagination all you want about the cast,” Leach said about Falk, who despite whatever’s going on with his wrist is still expected to lead No. 21 WSU (9-3) against No. 18 Michigan State (9-3) on Thursday night. “He has had something on his hand all year and hence we named him ‘the Kingslayer.’ Beyond that you’re on your own.”</p>
<p>Falk and the Cougars are looking for a better Holiday Bowl than a year ago, when their normally high-powered Air Raid offense was shut down by Minnesota in a 17-12 dud.</p>
<p>Here are some things to look for in the 40th Holiday Bowl:</p>
<p>FALK</p>
<p>The Washington State senior quarterback, who threw for 3,593 yards and 30 touchdowns, was photographed Tuesday with a cast on his non-throwing left wrist. During an appearance later that day, Falk was careful to keep the wrist out of view. In last year’s Holiday Bowl, Falk was held to 264 yards — 86 below his average — on 30-of-51 passing. Falk didn’t crack 200 yards until the final minutes.</p>
<p>Leach praised Falk’s work ethic, saying the former walk-on “has had a tremendous impact on our program.”</p>
<p>THE RACCOON</p>
<p>“I don’t remember when I did that article, but, yeah, I did have a pet raccoon,” Leach said. “Yeah, I kind of would like to have a pet raccoon again, but, you know, bouncing around the country it makes it tough. Then, you know, there’s the time when they, you know, they hit kind of raccoon teenage years and it’s time for them to head off into the sunset. It was a lot of fun, and in some ways every bit as maintenance free as a dog or a cat, you know?”</p>
<p>Toward the end of Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio’s session, the moderator asked if there was one more question.</p>
<p>“Is it a raccoon question? I trapped one once,” Dantonio said.</p>
<p>TURNAROUND SEASON</p>
<p>The Spartans have gone from playing in the national championship semifinal in 2015 to 3-9 last season to 9-3 this season. So it was an emotional moment when the seniors went through their final practice this week.</p>
<p>“I think any time you take the jersey off for the last time or practice with your teammates you start to go through emotions, you’ve got to get closure,” Dantonio said. “We try to make that special for them at the end of our practice and it becomes an emotional experience for some of our guys. Those guys have had some great moments here and we’re just looking for another life moment for them.”</p>
<p>MILESTONES IN REACH</p>
<p>Dantonio is 99-45 (.688) in 11 seasons as Spartans coach. A victory in the Holiday Bowl would make him the eighth active FBS coach to own 100 wins at his current school. MSU is looking for double-digit wins for the eighth time in program history.</p>
<p>DUAL THREAT</p>
<p>MSU sophomore QB Brian Lewerke threw for 2,580 yards and 17 touchdowns against seven interceptions, and ran for 486 yards and five touchdowns.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/berniewilson" type="external">http://twitter.com/berniewilson</a></p>
<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) — The first question for Washington State coach Mike Leach during Wednesday’s pre-Holiday Bowl news conference was about the cast on quarterback Luke Falk’s non-throwing left wrist.</p>
<p>The seventh question was about the pet raccoon Leach had when he was a kid, which he mentioned in an article he wrote for the Players’ Tribune.</p>
<p>Naturally, Leach was much more forthcoming about the raccoon, which was named Bilbo Baggins after the character in “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” than he was about his quarterback’s health.</p>
<p>“He’s doing great. You can use your imagination all you want about the cast,” Leach said about Falk, who despite whatever’s going on with his wrist is still expected to lead No. 21 WSU (9-3) against No. 18 Michigan State (9-3) on Thursday night. “He has had something on his hand all year and hence we named him ‘the Kingslayer.’ Beyond that you’re on your own.”</p>
<p>Falk and the Cougars are looking for a better Holiday Bowl than a year ago, when their normally high-powered Air Raid offense was shut down by Minnesota in a 17-12 dud.</p>
<p>Here are some things to look for in the 40th Holiday Bowl:</p>
<p>FALK</p>
<p>The Washington State senior quarterback, who threw for 3,593 yards and 30 touchdowns, was photographed Tuesday with a cast on his non-throwing left wrist. During an appearance later that day, Falk was careful to keep the wrist out of view. In last year’s Holiday Bowl, Falk was held to 264 yards — 86 below his average — on 30-of-51 passing. Falk didn’t crack 200 yards until the final minutes.</p>
<p>Leach praised Falk’s work ethic, saying the former walk-on “has had a tremendous impact on our program.”</p>
<p>THE RACCOON</p>
<p>“I don’t remember when I did that article, but, yeah, I did have a pet raccoon,” Leach said. “Yeah, I kind of would like to have a pet raccoon again, but, you know, bouncing around the country it makes it tough. Then, you know, there’s the time when they, you know, they hit kind of raccoon teenage years and it’s time for them to head off into the sunset. It was a lot of fun, and in some ways every bit as maintenance free as a dog or a cat, you know?”</p>
<p>Toward the end of Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio’s session, the moderator asked if there was one more question.</p>
<p>“Is it a raccoon question? I trapped one once,” Dantonio said.</p>
<p>TURNAROUND SEASON</p>
<p>The Spartans have gone from playing in the national championship semifinal in 2015 to 3-9 last season to 9-3 this season. So it was an emotional moment when the seniors went through their final practice this week.</p>
<p>“I think any time you take the jersey off for the last time or practice with your teammates you start to go through emotions, you’ve got to get closure,” Dantonio said. “We try to make that special for them at the end of our practice and it becomes an emotional experience for some of our guys. Those guys have had some great moments here and we’re just looking for another life moment for them.”</p>
<p>MILESTONES IN REACH</p>
<p>Dantonio is 99-45 (.688) in 11 seasons as Spartans coach. A victory in the Holiday Bowl would make him the eighth active FBS coach to own 100 wins at his current school. MSU is looking for double-digit wins for the eighth time in program history.</p>
<p>DUAL THREAT</p>
<p>MSU sophomore QB Brian Lewerke threw for 2,580 yards and 17 touchdowns against seven interceptions, and ran for 486 yards and five touchdowns.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/berniewilson" type="external">http://twitter.com/berniewilson</a></p> | Leach mum on Falk’s injury going into Holiday Bowl | false | https://apnews.com/4e8c05117b574398b06d227604329386 | 2017-12-27 | 2 |
<p>Jes Grobman, speaks in front of the Justice Department in January during a protest in honor of a transgender teenager who took her life in Ohio. D.C. police on Nov. 18, 2015, arrested Grobman during a separate demonstration in Columbia Heights. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>The U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday decided against prosecuting transgender activist Jes Grobman for allegedly assaulting a police officer at the site of a trans rights demonstration in which protesters blocked evening rush hour traffic at 14th and Irving Streets, N.W.</p>
<p>The D.C. Attorney General’s Office, however, is moving forward with prosecuting Grobman for a second charge brought against her by D.C. police — failure to obey a lawful order to discontinue blocking traffic at the bustling intersection in the city’s Columbia Heights business district.</p>
<p>The decision by police to arrest Grobman, 22, during a demonstration aimed at drawing attention to the abuse of trans people by law enforcement agencies across the country drew shouts of outrage by several dozen trans activists and their supporters, who had assembled about 5:30 p.m. at the sidewalk plaza of the Columbia Heights Metro station.</p>
<p>“This arrest could have been avoided,” said trans activist Ruby Corado, who said she arrived on the scene after the arrest took place and spoke with many of the protesters who were still there.</p>
<p>“We have a good relationship with the officers in the neighborhood,” Corado said, referring to her work as founder and executive director of Casa Ruby, an LGBT community services center located a few blocks away. “In this case, the police escalated the situation. Something didn’t add up.”</p>
<p>D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier and police spokesperson Lt. Sean Conboy didn’t respond to a request by the Washington Blade for comment.</p>
<p>A police arrest affidavit filed in court by the arresting officer, Christophe Wickham, says organizers of the protest told police in advance that the group would remain on the promenade and would not be marching in the streets.</p>
<p>Wickham said in the affidavit that when the protesters stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street traffic became blocked in three directions. He said officers with the department’s Special Operations Division, which specializes in patrolling protest demonstrations, immediately began diverting traffic to surrounding streets.</p>
<p>He says in the affidavit that he singled out Grobman because she allegedly deliberately interfered with his attempt to redirect traffic that was stuck between the protesters and a route where the cars could leave the area.</p>
<p>“While assisting with traffic flow, Defendant 1, with intent, stepped in to the path of the traffic I was attempting to free up in an attempt to prohibit the movement of the trapped motorist,” the affidavit says.</p>
<p>“I then placed my hand upon Defendant 1 and advised Defendant 1 that for her safety she needed to move out of the path of vehicle and allow it to exit the area. I then began to free traffic up again around the demonstrators at which time Defendant 1 once again stepped into the path of the vehicle following the first vehicle in an attempt to block its escape,” the affidavit says.</p>
<p>Wickham says in the affidavit that he advised the defendant, who was later identified as Grobman, “multiple times” to stay clear of the moving vehicles before he placed her under arrest.</p>
<p>According to his affidavit, he charged Grobman with assaulting him when she “chest bumped me from behind in a deliberate attempt to interfere and impede” his efforts to direct cars away from the protest site.</p>
<p>“The U.S. Attorney’s Office reviewed this case and did not go forward with the charge of assault on a police officer,” Bill Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney, said in a statement to the Blade.</p>
<p>Miller said that as a policy the office doesn’t give reasons for making this type of charging decision.</p>
<p>Court records show that while the assault charge was dropped, the Office of the D.C. Attorney General decided to move ahead with prosecuting Grobman for the charge of disobeying a lawful order to discontinue blocking the street.</p>
<p>Records filed in D.C. Superior Court on Thursday show that a judge approved a plan to allow Grobman to enter a court diversion program. The program allows defendants to withhold entering a plea of guilty or not guilty and requires them to stay out of trouble for a period of time — usually six months. Upon successfully completing that period of time, the charge is dropped.</p>
<p>Records show that Grobman is scheduled to appear in court for a status hearing on the diversion designation on Nov. 25.</p>
<p>“I would just say that while she was fiercely exercising her right to freedom of speech she was prevented from doing that by being stopped and arrested,” said Grobman’s attorney, Christopher Mutimer. “And I’m proud to be here and stand up for her now,” Mutimer told the Blade on Friday.</p>
<p>Grobman’s arrest came during a week of activities associated with a Transgender Week of Action that culminated Friday night during the city’s annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, which commemorates trans people who lost their lives due to anti-trans violence.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Cathy Lanier</a> <a href="" type="internal">D.C.</a> <a href="" type="internal">Jes Grobman</a> <a href="" type="internal">Metropolitan Police Department</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sean Conboy</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a></p> | Trans activist charged with ‘disobeying’ police at D.C. protest | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2015/11/21/trans-activist-charged-with-disobeying-police-at-d-c-protest/ | 3 |
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<p>I love very much. I’m currently paying child support to my ex for my 15-year-old daughter. The boys are grown and on their own.</p>
<p>I’m a first-generation American from Latin America, and I have a question regarding holding hands with my daughter in public. I spoke with my mother about it and she told me she hugged, kissed (pecks on the cheek) and held hands with her father until the time she moved away from home. My significant other says holding hands with my daughter is not appropriate in public.</p>
<p>As a father, I want my daughter to feel she can hold my hand if she’s inclined. I will not discourage her because I love her. I understand that one day she may no longer want to do that, and I would accept her wish. Because I live in the United States, I need to know if the custom of daughters showing affection for their fathers is acceptable here in the U.S. – DIVORCED DAD IN COLUMBUS</p>
<p>DEAR DIVORCED DAD: I’m glad you asked. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with a girl holding her father’s hand or demonstrating affection by hugging or kissing him on the cheek!</p>
<p>Your new love interest may be jealous of the relationship you have with your daughter. And if that’s the case, it is a red warning flag. Explain to your girlfriend that this is how people act in the culture you come from.</p>
<p>And one more thought: You mentioned that you are recently divorced. Please take PLENTY of time before you plunge into another marriage – with her or anyone else.</p>
<p>DEAR ABBY: After 10 years and good relations with my prior hairdresser, I switched to a new beautician. The shop is an hour closer to my home and less expensive. Both stylists do a great job, and I’m always pleased.</p>
<p>On my most recent visit to my new hairdresser, she was putting color on her first client of the day. I waited patiently for a half-hour past my scheduled appointment time. When she was done with that client, she asked me if I was in a hurry. Trying to be polite, I said, “No, not really.” (I’m retired.) So she went into the back room and then outside with coffee and cigarettes in hand for a break. I was dumbfounded.</p>
<p>After waiting 15 more minutes, she finally took me. How should I handle this the next time I see her? Should I continue to see her? Should I speak up or just chalk it up that she was having a bad day? Your opinion, please. – HURRY UP AND WAIT IN WEST VIRGINIA</p>
<p>DEAR HURRY UP AND WAIT: An experienced hairdresser usually puts color on her first client and then, while the color is processing, starts her next one. Your mistake was not having told the stylist how you felt about being kept waiting for half an hour. Also, when asked if you would mind if she kept you waiting even longer, instead of being “polite” and fuming, you should have been honest. Clear the air at your next appointment.</p>
<p>Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.</p>
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<p /> | DEAR ABBY: New American wants to get U.S. social customs right | false | https://abqjournal.com/1094008/new-american-wants-to-get-us-social-customs-right.html | 2 |
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<p>President Donald Trump's administration has been contacting U.S. energy companies to ask them about their views on the U.N. global climate accord, according to two sources with knowledge of the effort, a sign Trump is reconsidering his 2016 campaign pledge to back out of the deal.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The sources, who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said many of the companies reached by the administration had said they would prefer the United States remain in the pact, but would also support reducing U.S. commitments in the deal.</p>
<p>The accord, agreed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015, would limit planetary warming in part by slashing carbon dioxide and other emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. As part of the deal, the United States committed to reducing its emissions by between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.</p>
<p>The sources did not name the companies contacted.</p>
<p>One of the sources said the companies were "publicly traded fossil fuel companies," and added the White House would consider their input in making a decision on the Paris accord shortly. The source said the White House has been leading the discussions with the fossil fuel companies and the State Department, which represents the United States in climate negotiations, had not taken part.</p>
<p>A White House official declined to comment.</p>
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<p>Trump has called climate change a hoax and vowed during his campaign for the White House to "cancel the Paris Climate Agreement" within 100 days, claiming it would be too costly for the U.S. economy.</p>
<p>Since being elected he has been mostly quiet on the issue. In a New York Times interview in November he said he would keep an open mind about the Paris deal. He and members of his family and inner circle also met with climate change advocate and former Vice President Al Gore in December.</p>
<p>Officials for Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Peabody Energy Corp and others did not immediately comment when asked about whether they had been contacted by the White House about the Paris accord.</p>
<p>But several, including Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, have expressed public support for the pact. The World Coal Association, which represents Peabody and other miners, has also said it supports the deal.</p>
<p>OIL COMPANY SUPPORT</p>
<p>Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Darren Woods recently called the pledges that came out of the Paris agreement an “effective framework” for dealing with emissions, and pointed to Exxon’s own work to cut its carbon emissions.</p>
<p>In comments on Exxon’s website, Woods wrote: “I believe, and my company believes, that climate risks warrant action and it’s going to take all of us – business, governments and consumers – to make meaningful progress.”</p>
<p>Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s former CEO and now U.S. Secretary of State, also supported remaining a part of the climate change discussion during his confirmation hearing. He said he did not see climate change as an imminent national security threat but said the U.S. would be "better served by being at that table" and remaining a party to climate change negotiations.</p>
<p>Conoco CEO Ryan Lance similarly said he favored the U.S. remaining in the Paris agreement, during CERAWeek comments last week, in part because it could create opportunities for its natural gas operations and its investments in carbon-capture and storage.</p>
<p>Benjamin Sporton, the president of the World Coal Association, had a similar stance: "With a number of well-developed carbon capture and storage projects, the United States is already a global leader in cleaner coal technology. Given the role given to low emissions coal technology in the Paris Agreement by many developing economies, there are clear benefits to remaining within the agreement."</p>
<p>J. Robinson West, former chairman of Magellan Petroleum Corp., and now a managing director at Boston Consulting Group, said President Trump’s anti-Paris accord sentiments probably reflected his dealings with the CEOs of smaller companies that operate only in the U.S.</p>
<p>"The independents are anti-climate change ... all this stuff costs them money. The global companies operate all over the world. They have to operate at one standard - the highest standard - wherever they operate,” he said.</p>
<p>Global oil companies have spent heavily on environmental initiatives in recent years. Exxon Mobil, for example, logged $4.9 billion in environmental spending in 2016, about 2.24 percent of total revenue, according to its annual report with the Securities and Exchanges Commission. ConocoPhillips spent $627 million, or 2.57 percent of revenue.</p>
<p>(By Valerie Volcovici and Timothy Gardner; Additional reporting by Ernest Scheyder and Gary McWilliams in Houston; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Chris Reese)</p> | Trump Seeks Input From U.S. Energy Companies on Paris Climate Pact | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/03/15/trump-seeks-input-from-u-s-energy-companies-on-paris-climate-pact.html | 2017-03-15 | 0 |
<p>&lt;img class="size-full wp-image-48560 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HIVCa.jpg" alt="HIV California" width="1200" height="627" srcset="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HIVCa.jpg 1200w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HIVCa-300x157.jpg 300w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HIVCa-768x401.jpg 768w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HIVCa-1024x535.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /&gt;</p>
<p>California is currently on a quest to prove to the world that they will do anything in the name of progress. Especially if it involves telling the President or the taxpayer to screw off (see <a href="" type="internal">Of Course! California Sues Trump Over Birth Control</a>&#160;and&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Moronic California Votes to Become a Sanctuary STATE</a>). Today’s display? Apparently infecting someone with HIV on purpose is no longer a big deal in the west coast. So <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-gov-brown-downgrades-from-felony-to-1507331544-htmlstory.html" type="external">says Jerry Brown</a>.</p>
<p>Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Friday that lowers from a felony to a misdemeanor the crime of knowingly exposing a sexual partner to HIV without disclosing the infection.</p>
<p>The measure also applies to those who give blood without telling the blood bank that they are HIV-positive.</p>
<p>“Today California took a major step toward treating HIV as a public health issue, instead of treating people living with HIV as criminals,” [Sen. Scott] Wiener said in a statement.</p>
<p>&lt;img class=" wp-image-46486 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/giphy.gif" alt="" width="235" height="235" /&gt;</p>
<p>This is an ultimate example that leftism&#160;is beyond comprehension. They prioritize “safety” over freedom and liberty when it comes to, say, guns. Safety is the utmost priority there. But with HIV, meh, let’s take our chances. Wouldn’t want anyone’s feelings to be hurt.</p>
<p>Look, nobody is saying those infected with HIV are inherently criminals (see <a href="" type="internal">Um, What?! Charlize Theron Claims AIDS is Caused by ‘Sexism and Racism’…</a>). But trying to infect someone with a life-altering (and sometimes life-ending) disease?&#160;Sounds rather criminal to me. We’re not talking about cold sores here.</p>
<p>But don’t just take my word for it, listen to someone who knows a thing or two about a thing or two.</p>
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<p /> | Purposefully Exposing People to HIV is No Longer a Felony in California… | true | https://louderwithcrowder.com/hiv-felony-california/ | 2017-10-07 | 0 |
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<p>If her next speaking gig is to the American Wine Society, will she change the story back to drinking Chardonnay?</p>
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<p>Stay tuned.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4644094/Hillary-claims-new-memoir-personal-yet.html" type="external">Via Daily Mail</a></p>
<p>Hillary Clinton divulged details about her third memoir, out this fall, and shared her post-election reading list to attendees at the American Library Association conference in Chicago on Tuesday.</p>
<p>‘It is the most personal book I’ve written,’ Clinton told the crowd of the yet-untitled book, which will chronicle the 2016 election and address ‘ongoing threats to our democracy.’</p>
<p>‘It will give readers an idea of what it’s really like to run for president. Especially if you’re a woman. There’s a lot to that – not just hair and makeup – but ultimately it’s about resilience, how to get back up after a loss. And I think that’s something we can all relate to,’ the former Democratic nominee said.</p>
<p>Speaking to librarians at the conference, she talked about the profound role reading played in her life especially in the aftermath of her loss to now-President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>‘Over the years, my love of reading has seen me through good times and hard times,’ she said. ‘After the election one of the things that helped me most, aside from long walks in the woods and the occasional glass of Chardonnay was, once again, going back to the familiar experience of losing myself in books.’….</p>
<p><a href="http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/26/hillary-clinton-says-chardonnay-helped-her-with-election-loss/" type="external">Hillary Clinton: Chardonnay Helped Me Cope With Election Loss</a></p> | true | http://tammybruce.com/2017/07/hillary-changes-story-she-lost-herself-in-reading-not-chardonnay-after-election-loss.html | 0 |
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<p>President Donald Trump's nominee for labor secretary said Tuesday that a housekeeper he had previously employed at his home was an undocumented worker, potentially complicating his efforts to get confirmed.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Andrew Puzder said in a statement that he and his wife employed a housekeeper for a few years and they were unaware she was not legally permitted to work in the U.S.</p>
<p>"When I learned of her status, we immediately ended her employment and offered her assistance in getting legal status," Puzder said. "We have fully paid back taxes to the IRS and the State of California."</p>
<p>Puzder, a fast food chain executive, is one of several Cabinet picks by Trump who has yet to be confirmed and this latest revelation could potentially throw his efforts off course. Democrats and their allies have already been rushing to exploit Puzder's record opposing a big increase in the minimum wage, overtime rules and more as they question how well he would advocate for American workers.</p>
<p>Puzder outsourced his fast-food company's technology department to the Philippines, a move that contradicts Trump's vow to keep American jobs in the U.S.</p>
<p>A filing with the Labor Department on Puzder's company — and a spokesman's acknowledgement that CKE continues to use the IT operation in the Philippines — provides a window into a key contradiction raised by the nomination.</p>
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<p>Trump has blasted, threatened and tried to charm American companies that have moved jobs overseas or consider it, saying he's sticking up for American workers who aren't feeling the economic recovery and form his political base.</p> | Trump's pick for labor secretary hired undocumented worker | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/07/trump-pick-for-labor-secretary-hired-undocumented-worker.html | 2017-02-08 | 0 |
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<p>(Adds statement from Shari Redstone in paragraphs 24-25)</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Viacom Inc's board of directors named Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman as executive chairman, replacing majority owner Sumner Redstone, overriding calls for an independent board chief from Redstone's daughter, who voted against Dauman.</p>
<p>Viacom announced on Thursday that the ailing 92-year-old Redstone was becoming chairman emeritus, a day after CBS Corp said Redstone, also the CBS majority owner, was stepping down as executive chairman and being replaced by CEO Leslie Moonves.</p>
<p>The boards of CBS and Viacom have been discussing Redstone stepping down for several weeks, according to two sources familiar with the situation.</p>
<p>Thursday's decision puts Viacom firmly in the hands of Dauman, a longtime associate of Sumner Redstone. His daughter, Shari, said in a statement she wanted someone who was not a member of her father's trust to run Viacom, which would have excluded Dauman.</p>
<p>Dauman and Moonves are natural rivals as leaders of the two halves of the empire that Redstone separated 10 years ago. After Redstone's eventual death, analysts expect several scenarios, such as selling the companies in pieces, leaving them as they are, or reuniting them, which could pit the executives against one another.</p>
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<p>Sumner Redstone and the rest of Viacom's board voted in favor of Dauman, and only Shari Redstone voted against him, according to a source close to the company. Viacom said Shari Redstone turned down the non-executive chairman role.</p>
<p>Shari Redstone will "continue to advocate for what she believes to be in the best interests of Viacom shareholders," she said in a statement.</p>
<p>Viacom shares initially rose sharply, but later pared gains, closing up 1.5 percent at $45.34 on Nasdaq.</p>
<p>Investor reaction was mixed.</p>
<p>SpringOwl Asset Management, a Viacom shareholder that has agitated for change, was disappointed by the move. "It raises questions about the board, corporate governance and fiduciary duties," the firm said in a statement. "The market agrees ... that someone other than Philippe Dauman should be the Chairman."</p>
<p>Michael Cuggino, president and portfolio manager at San Francisco-based Permanent Portfolio of Family Of Funds, which is the fifth largest voting shareholder in Viacom and CBS, applauded Dauman's appointment, and was willing to give him time to improve the company's performance.</p>
<p>"Viacom's issues have not gone away and they still need to be tackled, but all the noise surrounding Sumner's situation has been taken out of the equation," Cuggino said. "The answer to whether Philippe is the right guy to do this will come later."</p>
<p>Sal Muoio, whose investment firm also is a top owner of voting Viacom shares, said he is also willing to give Dauman time: "This at least is a step toward clarity. I think we need to wait and see how these operational things unfold."</p>
<p>Mario Gabelli, the largest Viacom shareholder outside the Redstone family, said on financial news channel CNBC that Dauman has six to nine months to prove himself.</p>
<p>"Philippe has to deliver," Gabelli told Reuters in an interview. "How does he jump-start the process? It's going to be tough to get into the digital world and over-the-top (Internet), given his perception of what his core competences are. It's going to be a challenge."</p>
<p>Gabelli dismissed the idea that Moonves could take over both companies: "He can't do both, I don't think."</p>
<p>Redstone hived off Viacom from CBS, expecting faster growth from the owner of MTV and Paramount than the storied television network, but in recent years CBS has outperformed Viacom. CBS shares are up more than 135 percent in the last five years, while Viacom has eked out a 3 percent gain.</p>
<p>Viacom in recent years has suffered from falling ratings at its cable networks as its audience of younger viewers migrate to online and mobile video. In April 2015, the company announced a restructuring to save $350 million annually. Dauman has taken steps to woo advertisers by using data to better target their commercials.</p>
<p>The elder Redstone has faced questions about his health and leadership abilities for some time. He underwent a mental examination last Friday by a psychiatrist hired by his former girlfriend, Manuela Herzer, who has challenged Redstone's mental competency in a lawsuit.</p>
<p>The results of the examination have not been made public. Neither CBS nor Viacom explained why Redstone stepped aside.</p>
<p>After Herzer's lawsuit, investor Gabelli called for the media company to disclose the state of Redstone's mental competence.</p>
<p>Shari Redstone, 60, has said both companies needed an "independent voice" as chair who was not involved in the family's personal matters. She supported Moonves as CBS chief.</p>
<p>Dauman serves as a Sumner Redstone trustee in the event of his death as well as his health care proxy.</p>
<p>Shari Redstone believes Herzer's lawsuit is weighing on her father's mind.</p>
<p>"Ms. Herzer's lawsuit, and the fact she is actually trying to once again insert herself into my father's life, is causing my father tremendous stress and agitation," she said in a declaration to a California court filed this week.</p>
<p>Redstone controls about 80 percent of the voting shares in Viacom and CBS Corp through a holding company.</p>
<p>In January, Viacom said it cut the compensation of its top two executives, Redstone and Dauman, as the company faced business pressures and a sharp drop in its share price.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru and Jessica Toonkel in New York; Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles and Dan Levine in San Francisco; Writing by Nick Zieminski and Bill Rigby in New York; Editing by Tiffany Wu, Bill Rigby and Jeffrey Benkoe)</p> | Viacom Names CEO Dauman as Chair as Redstone Exits; Daughter Protests | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/02/05/viacom-names-ceo-dauman-as-chair-as-redstone-exits-daughter-protests.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
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<p>The following is a statement by John Arensmeyer, CEO, <a href="http://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/" type="external">Small Business Majority Opens a New Window.</a>:</p>
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<p>Lawmakers must reach an agreement on the <a href="" type="internal">federal budget</a> today because a government shutdown will hurt the small business community and weaken our fragile economic recovery.</p>
<p>Among the most vulnerable are small businesses that contract with the federal government or receive Small Business Administration loans.</p>
<p>In 2009 alone, 21.89% of all federal contracts, totaling $96.8 billion, were awarded to small businesses. A shutdown would delay payments and freeze pending contract approvals. Furthermore, small businesses waiting for SBA-backed loans would be hung out to dry, as the approval process would come to a grinding halt. Small businesses would lose out on more than $400 million in loans each week the government is shutdown, according to SBA estimates.</p>
<p>But a shutdown wouldn’t just affect those in need of a loan or with government contracts. This scenario would drain the coffers of small employers in every sector of the economy.</p>
<p>Take the Arizona Raft Adventures &amp; Grand Canyon Discovery company. It has raft trips set up for people through the month of April, but a government shutdown would close national parks, preventing the company from taking people on its excursions into the Grand Canyon. That means their customers could lose airline fares and incur hotel cancelation fees, and the company and its employees would sit idle.</p>
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<p>America’s hardworking small business owners deserve better than to be victimized by failed budget negotiations in Washington. <a href="" type="internal">President Obama</a> and House and Senate leadership must end this stalemate so we can avoid the devastation a government shutdown would cause.</p>
<p>Small Business Majority is a national nonprofit organization focused on solving the biggest problems facing America’s 28 million small businesses. We conduct extensive opinion and economic research and work with small business owners, policy experts and elected officials nationwide to bring nonpartisan small business voices to the public policy table.</p> | Small Businesses Lose if Government Closes up Shop | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/04/08/small-businesses-lose-government-closes-shop.html | 2016-03-23 | 0 |
<p>Jan 24(Reuters) - Sichuan Jiuzhou Electronic Co Ltd :</p>
<p>* Sees FY 2017 net profit to decrease by 92.13 percent to 100 percent, or to be 0 to 15 million yuan</p>
<p>* Says FY 2016 net profit was 190.6 million yuan</p>
<p>* The reason for the forecast is sharply decreased profit in DTV industry and air traffic industry as well as internet of things industry</p>
<p>Source text in Chinese: <a href="https://goo.gl/iqejtg" type="external">goo.gl/iqejtg</a> Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With large protests for stricter gun laws planned nationwide on Saturday, the U.S. Congress is expected to approve a massive spending bill this week with grants to help schools prevent gun violence, improvements to background checks and an assurance that a key government agency can conduct related research.</p> FILE PHOTO: Washington, DC High School student Sara Durbin joins with other students walking out of classes to demand stricter gun laws outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg
<p>The provisions are Congress’ response to intensified public anger and frustration over mass shootings and follow the Feb. 14 massacre at a Florida high school in which 17 people died.</p>
<p>But the narrowly tailored action falls short of the type of comprehensive legislation gun control advocates and many Democrats say is needed to stop the shooting deaths of school children, concert-goers, church worshipers and others.</p>
<p>“We are living in a country where we have massacres on a regular basis,” Democratic Representative Jim McGovern said on Thursday.</p>
<p>McGovern called on the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives to allow lawmakers to vote on other gun measures. Many Democrats support closing a loophole that allows individuals to skirt government background checks by purchasing weapons at gun shows or over the internet, raising the minimum age to buy a weapon and banning assault-style rifles.</p>
<p>Congress is expected to approve the $1.3 trillion package this week and send it to President Donald Trump to be signed into law before a Friday deadline to fund the government.</p>
<p>The deal contains a bipartisan measure to give states additional funds to comply with the National Instant Criminal Background Check system, an FBI database that screens potential gun buyers.</p>
<p>It also includes $50 million annually in grant money for states to help schools better identify and respond to gun violence.</p>
<p>“The calls from the American people to address gun violence in our schools and communities have been deafening,” No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn said in a statement. “Fixing the background check system will help save lives.”</p>
<p>There is also language clarifying that a 1996 amendment passed by Congress, after lobbying by the National Rifle Association, prohibiting the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from using appropriated funds to “advocate or promote gun control” does not bar the agency from studying the causes of gun violence.</p>
<p>Over the past two decades, the 1996 amendment had a chilling effect on CDC research. Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told Congress last month he believed the CDC still had the authority to research gun violence.</p>
<p>“Just over a month after 17 innocent people were killed ... the American people have been screaming from the rooftops for real, bold change to fight against such tragedies. And this is just not enough,” Kris Brown, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement on the spending bill.</p>
<p>Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by James Dalgleish</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican chairman and top Democrat of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee said on Thursday they will in the coming days formally ask Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to testify, saying the company has left many questions unanswered about its data privacy practices.</p> FILE PHOTO: Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on stage during the annual Facebook F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, U.S., April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo
<p>“The latest revelations regarding Facebook’s use and security of user data raises many serious consumer protection concerns,” Committee Chairman Greg Walden and Frank Pallone, its top Democrat, said in a statement. “After committee staff received a briefing yesterday from Facebook officials, we felt that many questions were left unanswered.”</p>
<p>Zuckerberg on Thursday said in media interviews he would be willing to testify if he is the right person at the company to speak to lawmakers.</p>
<p>Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Susan Thomas</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany’s second-largest bank, Commerzbank, has suspended advertising on Facebook until further notice, after a massive leak of user data, its head of brand strategy told the Handelsblatt business daily.</p> The headquarters of the Commerzbank are pictured before the bank's annual news conference in Frankfurt, Germany, February 8, 2018. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski
<p>“We are pausing our campaign on Facebook. Brand safety and data security are very important to us,” Uwe Hellmann told the newspaper, adding the bank would await clarification before deciding how to proceed further.</p>
<p>Commerzbank follows Mozilla, which runs the Firefox web browser, in stepping back from the world’s largest social network after the personal data of millions of users ended up in the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica without their knowledge or consent.</p>
<p>A spokesman for the bank confirmed the comments by Hellmann, made in a Handelsblatt interview.</p>
<p>Reporting by Douglas Busvine and Andreas Framke; Editing by Ludwig Burger</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - A British parliamentary committee has recalled the suspended chief executive of Cambridge Analytica to face further questions over his role in the harvesting of Facebook data after finding “inconsistencies” in his previous testimony.</p> FILE PHOTO - Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytica arrives at the offices of Cambridge Analytica in central London, Britain, March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
<p>The world’s largest social media network has been rocked this week by a whistleblower who said that the London-based political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed user information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016.</p>
<p>The media select committee said they wanted to put more questions to Alexander Nix, the suspended CEO of Cambridge Analytica, after he previously told the parliamentary group he had not received Facebook data from a third party.</p>
<p>“Giving false statements to a Select Committee is a very serious matter,” Damian Collins, the chair of the committee, wrote in a letter to Nix. “We urge you to come forward and explain your comments at a Committee hearing.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Michael Holden</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Sichuan Jiuzhou Electronic sees FY 2017 net profit down 92.13 pct to 100 pct Congress poised to pass modest gun control measures in spending bill House committee to invite Facebook's Zuckerberg to testify Commerzbank suspends ads on Facebook after data leak Suspended Cambridge Analytica CEO recalled by British parliamentary committee | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-sichuan-jiuzhou-electronic-sees-fy/brief-sichuan-jiuzhou-electronic-sees-fy-2017-net-profit-down-9213-pct-to-100-pct-idUSL4N1PJ2H3 | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
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<p>(Reuters) -&#160;General Electric Co (NYSE:GE) plans to cut 4,500 jobs in Europe, the first numbers to emerge&#160;on layoffs from the U.S. industrial conglomerate since it outlined plans to restructure and shed units last month.</p>
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<p>The cuts, which are linked to businesses&#160;GE&#160;bought from France's Alstom in 2015, will affect employees in Switzerland,&#160;Germany and Britain, said French newspaper Les Echos, which first reported the news on Tuesday.</p>
<p>A labor union source confirmed the layoff numbers to Reuters on Wednesday and said an official announcement was expected as early as Thursday.</p>
<p>GE&#160;did not confirm the numbers but said it was "reviewing its operations to ensure the business is best positioned to respond to our market realities and for long-term success." The company had presented a proposal to the European body representing legacy Alstom employees, it added.</p>
<p>Last month,&#160;General Electric CEO John Flannery outlined plans to reduce the manufacturing footprint of&#160;GE's power business to respond to a sharp fall in demand for fossil fuel power equipment.&#160;GE&#160;did not specify how many jobs would be cut or where.</p>
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<p>The reported layoffs are part of&#160;GE&#160;Power's plan to integrate&#160;GE's energy connections and power businesses, seeking to save $1 billion in costs next year and another $500 million in 2019, William Blair analyst Nicholas Heymann said.</p>
<p>"Renewables will not have any reductions because the world is rapidly shifting from fossil to renewables as the cost of temporarily storing power becomes more affordable at $100/Kw for power packs," Heymann added, referring to&#160;GE's renewable energy business.</p>
<p>Due to the weakness in its power business,&#160;GE&#160;last month lowered its earnings forecast and slashed its dividend by half, expecting to save about $4 billion in cash annually.</p>
<p>GE&#160;aims to reduce overhead costs by $1 billion this year and $2 billion in 2018 as Flannery, who took the top job in August, prepares to refocus the 125-year-old conglomerate toward aviation, healthcare and power.</p>
<p>GE&#160;has already shed 25 percent of its corporate staff or some 1,500 jobs around the world.</p>
<p>Flannery's plans include hiving off at least $20 billion of assets through sales, spin-offs or other means and retaining only business that offer growth, a leading market position and a largeinstalled base.</p>
<p>GE&#160;shares have fallen about 44 percent since the start of the year. The stock is the year's worst performer on the Dow Jones Industrial Average&#160;&lt;.DJI&gt;.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Matthieu Protard in Paris and Rachit Vats in Bengaluru; Editing by Edmund Blair and Sai Sachin Ravikumar)</p> | General Electric to cut 4,500 jobs in Europe: Source | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/12/06/general-electric-to-cut-4500-jobs-in-europe-source.html | 2017-12-06 | 0 |
<p>Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Wire</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Republican and Democratic primary voters in New Jersey will choose their nominees for what former Vice President Joe Biden has called “the single most important” election of the next three years: the race to succeed Republican Chris Christie as governor.</p>
<p>Biden made his declaration late last month while campaigning for Democrat Phil Murphy, the party’s likely nominee. New Jersey, despite Christie’s best efforts, is a blue state that rejected Trump by a wide margin in the presidential election, and the Democratic primary victor will head into the fall as the front-runner. (Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno is the favorite for the Republican nomination.) Considering that national attention on the primaries has already been dwarfed by coverage of the congressional special elections in Kansas, Montana, and Georgia, as well as next Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary in Virginia, Amtrak Joe’s comments may sound like typical Biden bluster.</p>
<p>But despite the lack of fireworks so far, the race does tell us something about the direction the Democratic Party is heading: In 2017, even the bankers are trying to run as populists.</p>
<p>In the months after the November presidential&#160;election, an ascendant populist wing has pushed for the party&#160;to distance itself from its often cozy relationship with Wall Street. Trump may have stocked his administration from the break room at Goldman Sachs, but he enjoyed his greatest career success by excoriating Democrats as the party of globalist bankers. A revamped Democratic Party, in this line of thinking, would look more like the Bernie Sanders campaign, drawing its money and politics from small-dollar regular donors on a populist economic message. That’s what happened in Kansas and Montana, and to a lesser degree in Tom Perriello’s insurgent campaign for governor of Virginia.</p>
<p>Murphy is an awkward fit for that brand. Among his&#160;principal qualifications are&#160;that he was a former executive at Goldman Sachs and&#160;has given the state party and its elected leaders a lot of money ($1.15 million) over the years—which incidentally were <a href="http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/03/how_much_phil_murphy_donated_to_nj_democrats_in_recent_years.html" type="external">the same qualifications</a> of&#160;the last Democrat to be elected governor of&#160;New Jersey, Jon Corzine. (Murphy also served as ambassador to Germany from 2009 to 2013, a position that it not typically seen as a stepping stone to Trenton.)&#160;</p>
<p>But he has adopted a progressive platform that has helped insulate him from the obvious charges about his background, pushing a $15 minimum&#160;wage (nearly double what it is now), a <a href="http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2017/05/05/stile-democrat-murphy-doesnt-shy-away-talk-tax-hikes/311079001/" type="external">tax on&#160;millionaires</a>, marijuana legalization, and a state-run bank like the one proposed by Sanders. The Vermont senator never backed a candidate in the race—but his son, Levi, campaigned with Murphy.</p>
<p>It’s a delicate balance that another Democrat in the race, Jim Johnson, a former chairman of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, fought hard to disrupt. Johnson sought the mantle of Sanders-style progressivism, receiving matching public funds and attacking Murphy for his work at Goldman. In the campaign’s final stretch, he ran an ad featuring Sanders ripping into the company during last year’s presidential race. All the essential Sanders catchphrases were there: “rigged system,” “political machine,” and “dark money that poisons our politics”:</p>
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<p>But it may have been too little too late; by that point Murphy had pulled well ahead of the pack.</p>
<p>In many ways Murphy’s platform, in a state with close ties to America’s capital of high finance, represents another sign of the Sanders wing’s policy momentum. (Quick: name a prospective 2020 candidate who doesn’t support a $15 minimum wage or single-payer health care.) But for a movement rooted in animosity toward the donor class, Murphy’s checkbook ascendancy highlights the gap between where the party is and where the Left still wants it to be. A populist ex-banker, after all, is still an ex-banker.</p> | What New Jersey’s Democratic Primary Says About the Direction of the Party | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/what-new-jerseys-democratic-primary-says-about-the-direction-of-the-party/ | 2017-06-06 | 4 |
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<p>The family of five spent the night in sleeping bags at Vaughn City Hall with 120 other stranded motorists after a sheriff's deputy rescued Praylow, his wife, and children ages 6-12, in whiteout conditions and subfreezing temperatures.</p>
<p>Many roads around the state were closed or remained icy Monday evening, according to a map maintained by the New Mexico Department of Transportation. Click the map to see the latest conditions. (nmroads.com)</p>
<p>New Mexicans spent Monday digging out from a weekend snowstorm that buried a multistate region in blowing and drifting snow, shutting down most highways in eastern New Mexico. Wind gusts up to 60 mph caused snowdrifts up to 10 feet and whiteout conditions on roadways.</p>
<p>Officials reopened Interstate 40 about 11 a.m. Monday, more than a day after blizzard conditions led to closure of the interstate from Albuquerque to Amarillo, leaving thousands of trucks parked on the roadside and in business parking lots since Saturday night.</p>
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<p>The Praylows were among hundreds of families across eastern New Mexico left stranded by impassable roads and area power outages that sent many to shelters. In Moriarty, an estimated 300 stranded travelers sought shelter at the Lion's Club, the Moriarty Civic Center and the Moriarty High School annex gym.</p>
<p>The National Weather Service reported impressive snowfall totals across eastern New Mexico, including 20 inches in Vaughn, 20 inches in Roswell, 15 inches in Moriarty and 13 inches in Clines Corner.</p>
<p>In Vaughn, located at the intersection of three highways closed by the storm, first responders brought dozens of families left stranded on wind-swept roadsides.</p>
<p>"We hit a patch of ice and slid," said Praylow, a U.S. Army corporal stationed at Fort Bliss as he and family members and their three Chihuahuas waited at City Hall, where they spent both Saturday and Sunday night in a gymnasium-sized activity room.</p>
<p>The family expected a friend to arrive Monday afternoon to take them home to El Paso.</p>
<p>"We're tired," said Praylow's wife, Joslyn Praylow. "We're just ready to go home. We're ready to be in our beds."</p>
<p>Shaiann Thunderheart also spent early Sunday morning sleeping at City Hall after her car veered off U.S. 285 about 20 miles south of Vaughn late Saturday.</p>
<p>"It went completely whiteout," said Thunderheart, who had tried to follow the taillights of the car in front of her. "I couldn't see anything."</p>
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<p>A State Police officer also got stuck as he tried to rescue her, but he eventually got his car back on the road and drove Thunderheart and her boyfriend to City Hall about 2 a.m. Sunday, she said.</p>
<p>By late Monday, U.S. 285 had reopened from Vaughn to Roswell, said Matt Kennicott, spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Transportation.</p>
<p>The department was concentrating on hard-hit Chaves, Eddy and Lea counties in southeast New Mexico, where many roads remained closed Monday.</p>
<p>Roswell was hardest hit with snowdrifts up to 10 feet, Kennicott said. The department moved some heavy equipment from Santa Fe to the Roswell area to clear roads, he said.</p>
<p>"We have a heavy dozer with snowplows behind that - kind of a convoy," Kennicott said. "Our guys are working as hard as they can to get roads open."</p>
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez issued an executive order Monday to help keep up the supply of propane throughout the state. It suspends regulations on the number of hours that propane suppliers may drive in order to expedite deliveries.</p>
<p>In Albuquerque, all the main streets were clear by 10 a.m. Monday, according to Melanie Martinez, public information officer for the city's Department of Municipal Development.</p>
<p>Journal staff writer Ollie Reed and Mountain View Telegraph writer Nicole Maxwell contributed to this report.</p>
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<p /> | On the road to normal: I-40 reopens but workers still struggling to clear southeast NM highways | false | https://abqjournal.com/697589/ice-i-40-shutdown-greet-morning-commuters.html | 2 |
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<p>Possibly more than 100,000 Ukrainians marched through Kiev on Sunday to protest against President Viktor Yanukovich after he broke off an EU association agreement that would have opened up free trade and helped establish political ties between Ukraine and the EU.</p>
<p>But there's more than one thing to protest in Ukraine this weekend. Today's march comes a day after the police cracked down on mostly peaceful demonstrators who had defied a ban on protesting in the city center.&#160;</p> | Thousands protest in Kiev | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-12-01/thousands-protest-kiev | 2013-12-01 | 3 |
<p>Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., continued to interrogate government officials over their allowing big banks to increase in size and their refusal to prosecute those institutions in the wake of the financial mess they helped create. Her latest target: the Obama administration’s new Treasury secretary, Jack Lew.</p>
<p>At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, Warren got the best of Lew as she pressed him on whether the government should take action to cap the size of big banks or break them up.</p>
<p>After he skirted her initial question about limiting the size of the largest financial institutions, Warren refused to let Lew get by with the non-answers that commonly pass as acceptable responses on Capitol Hill.</p>
<p>“Let me try the question a different way. How big do the biggest banks have to get before we consider breaking them up?” she asked Lew. “They’re 30 percent bigger now than they were five years ago. Do they have to double in size? Triple in size? Quadruple in size?”</p>
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<p>Lew continued to make excuses, at which point Warren pointed out that what we’ve seen with the big banks is “one scandal after another.” She added, “It’s clear they have not changed their risk bearing practices nor have they decided that they’re suddenly going to start following the law.”</p>
<p>Warren cautioned Lew that it was important to act now because “we’re playing with the U.S. economy here, the worldwide economy.”</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Tracy Bloom</a>.</p> | Watch: Sen. Warren Grills Jack Lew on Too Big to Fail Banks | true | http://truthdig.com/avbooth/item/watch_sen_warren_grills_jack_lew_on_too_big_to_fail_banks_20130522/ | 2013-05-23 | 4 |
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<p>Goodell will go down as a figure of historical ineptitude. Of this he is blissfully unaware. Goodell seems to think anyone who takes issue with his decision to suspend Brown for only one game while pursuing Tom Brady for four games over the amount of air in a football simply lacks his intelligence and fails to discern his subtle brilliance.</p>
<p>“I understand the public’s misunderstanding of those things and how that can be difficult for them to understand, how we get to those positions,” Goodell told a BBC reporter while in London for the Giants game Sunday.</p>
<p>There you have it: The public is stupid.</p>
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<p>In fact, Goodell’s “position” at the moment is that of a contortionist whose head is stuck in his own smelly underarm. After botching and bumbling his way through the Ray Rice domestic violence case in 2014, Goodell pronounced himself an enlightened man – as opposed to a callously self-serving, implacably superficial one – and showily ushered in a tough new policy.</p>
<p>“Effective immediately violations of the Personal Conduct Policy regarding assault, battery, domestic violence or sexual assault that involve physical force will be subject to a suspension without pay of six games for a first offense,” he announced.</p>
<p>We should have known right then that he didn’t mean a word of it. Look carefully at that statement. What assault, battery, domestic violence or sexual assault doesn’t involve “physical force?” He was leaving himself a loophole. Again, he takes us for stupid.</p>
<p>Goodell’s excuse for why he didn’t act more firmly with Brown is nothing but a shell game, willful misdirection. He claims he didn’t have enough facts to know that Brown was violent. “We have asked repeatedly for those facts and . . . we weren’t able to get access to it,” he said again in London.</p>
<p>But here are the facts the NFL officials were in possession of more than a year ago. They knew Brown was arrested for assaulting his wife Molly in May 2015. They knew Brown went after her again at the January 2016 Pro Bowl, drunkenly pounding on her door until NFL security were called. They knew Molly Brown and her children had to be moved to a different room for their safety.</p>
<p>Brown confessed to the New York Giants. “He admitted to us that he’s abused his wife in the past,” team owner John Mara told WFAN on Thursday. Mara then added this stunning qualifier that explains the whole deal. “I think what’s a little unclear is the extent of that.”</p>
<p>There you have it: Goodell reduced Brown’s suspension to one game because, maybe, he only hit her a little.</p>
<p>Here is another fact: Mara is the chairman of the NFL Management Council’s Executive Committee. He works more closely with Goodell than any other owner in the league, and his political support is indispensable to the commissioner.</p>
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<p>When you line the facts up, what’s clear is just how hard Goodell had to try to remain ignorant. He continues to blame-shift, insisting that uncooperative law enforcement foiled him at every turn. But really, the league made only a token “goofus” effort to investigate Brown’s conduct, according to King County sheriff John Urquhart. The NFL could have acquired information by placing a simple forthright phone call to the sheriff’s office. While the sheriff couldn’t release an active case file, “We probably would have told them orally a little bit more about what we had,” Urquhart said. What they had was evidence that Brown was a serial abuser who attacked his wife more than 20 times, and they were willing to signal this to the NFL.</p>
<p>Boomer Esiason said on CBS’s “NFL Today,” “Who in the NFL decided to take the six-game suspension, part of the policy enacted in 2014, and reduce that six games to one game? What were the supposed mitigating circumstances? I would like to know that answer.”</p>
<p>The answer is it that it was done by Goodell, who fought for unlimited disciplinary discretion at the same time he was engaging in a theatrical anti-violence campaign that now looks utterly unsubstantial thanks to him.</p>
<p>“Right now, I am just numb to the incompetence of the NFL,” player-turned-ESPN-commentator Tedy Bruschi said Sunday. But that’s not the whole truth of the matter. The whole truth is that Goodell is as unprincipled as he is incompetent.</p>
<p>The league’s investigation amounted to tanking the case, and what they did get, they sat on. Meantime, Goodell has brought a ferocity to disciplining players on minor issues, from Brady to fining Vernon Davis $12,000 for a perfectly innocent celebratory display on the field.</p>
<p>Asked to explain his bipolar inconsistency, Goodell replied: “As a professional athlete, you’ve got certain standards that you have to meet,” he said. “You have to dress in a certain way; you have to perform in a certain way and within certain rules. And what anyone does on that field reflects on everybody. And off the field. And that’s why we all focus so much on ‘these are the standards we want to meet’ and let’s meet them.”</p>
<p>This is not mere arrogance or superficiality. It’s duplicity. Goodell gets tough with select players on minor issues to mask his weakness on larger ones. He is incapable of real management. He does not know how to arbitrate between owners or balance their interests, or truly adjudicate. He knows only how to suck up to one owner with leniency, while screwing over another in the interest of self-preservation. It’s all an exercise in cover.</p>
<p>But Goodell’s clumsy, enabler’s strategy has become obvious, and publicly embarrassing. His own personal conduct “reflects on everybody”: He has tainted the entire league as uncaring and hypocritical.</p>
<p>Commentators such as Randy Moss reported Sunday that there was significant dissatisfaction with Goodell across the league. “I think the owners are mad,” he said. Goodell’s toadying may gratify individual owners, but it has undermined their collective trust. As well as the public’s.</p>
<p>fbn-jenkins</p> | In Roger Goodell’s NFL, end-zone dances matter more than domestic violence | false | https://abqjournal.com/874121/in-roger-goodells-nfl-end-zone-dances-matter-more-than-domestic-violence.html | 2 |
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<p>In civil court, the law almost never requires a losing party to cover the winner’s legal costs, let alone its lunch tab. Arbitration is different. Here are the expenses Deborah Williams and Richard Welshans were obliged to pay after losing to Coffee Beanery.</p>
<p>Court reporter/transcription fees: $35,571.24</p>
<p>Holiday Inn conference room: $2,808.16</p>
<p>Arbitrator’s fee: $16,800</p>
<p>Arbitration association fee: $8,500</p>
<p>Past-due franchise royalties: $13,710.16</p>
<p>Cost to deliver, house, and feed opposing witnesses: $2,700.14</p>
<p>Coffee Beanery lawyers’ lunches: $504.25</p>
<p>Beanery lawyers’ commute: $926</p>
<p>Beanery’s legal/accounting fees for arbitration, and for defense against Maryland state investigation, to which the couple was not a party: $105,932.40</p>
<p>Total: $187,452.35</p>
<p /> | Franchise Fraud: Hard to Swallow | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/franchise-fraud-hard-swallow/ | 2018-03-01 | 4 |
<p>July 18 (UPI) — The Senate voted 92-7 on Tuesday to confirm Patrick Shanahan, the former vice president of Boeing, as deputy secretary of defense.</p>
<p>Senate Armed Services Committee chairman <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/John_McCain/" type="external">John McCain</a>, R-Ariz., was absent from <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/342540-senate-confirms-former-boeing-vp-as-deputy-defense-secretary" type="external">the vote</a> for medical reasons. McCain sharply criticized Shanahan for his answers on arming Ukraine against Russian-backed separatists during his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/20/trumps-pick-for-the-no-2-pentagon-job-faces-tough-questions-during-confirmation-hearing/?utm_term=.b254eb1cc81f" type="external">confirmation hearings</a>.</p>
<p>“In your questions that were submitted to you, one of the questions was providing the Ukrainians with legal, lethal defense weaponry with which to defend themselves,” McCain said.</p>
<p>“Inexplicably, you responded by saying you have to look at the issue. It’s not satisfactory, Mr. Shanahan.”</p>
<p>Shanahan responded that he supported the idea of arming Ukraine, but said that he could offer no specifics until he had studied classified reports on the issue.</p>
<p>“I, at this point, don’t have any specific recommendations. If confirmed, I will spend a significant amount of time dealing with Russia,” Shanahan said.</p>
<p>Other senators had also expressed concern over Stranahan’s ties to Boeing, a major defense contractor. Shanahan had been with Boeing since 1985 until this month.</p>
<p>Shanahan will replace Robert Work as deputy defense secretary, who has held the post since 2016.</p> | Former Boeing VP Shanahan confirmed as deputy secretary of defense | false | https://newsline.com/former-boeing-vp-shanahan-confirmed-as-deputy-secretary-of-defense/ | 2017-07-18 | 1 |
<p>SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - A homeless man has been charged with killing former 1960s soul singer Betty Jane Willis during an attempted rape.</p>
<p>Twenty-two-year-old Rosendo Xo Pec was charged Wednesday with murder with special circumstances and could face the death penalty.</p>
<p>It's unclear whether he has an attorney.</p>
<p>The 76-year-old Willis recorded the 1960s songs "Someday You'll Need My Love," "Act Naturally" and "Take My Heart."</p>
<p>She was living on the street when she was attacked shortly after 4 a.m. on New Year's Day.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say she was sleeping in a strip mall parking lot in Santa Ana when Pec began sexually assaulting her.</p>
<p>When she screamed for help, prosecutors say Pec repeatedly punched her in the head and choked her to stop her screams.</p>
<p>She died at the scene.</p>
<p>SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - A homeless man has been charged with killing former 1960s soul singer Betty Jane Willis during an attempted rape.</p>
<p>Twenty-two-year-old Rosendo Xo Pec was charged Wednesday with murder with special circumstances and could face the death penalty.</p>
<p>It's unclear whether he has an attorney.</p>
<p>The 76-year-old Willis recorded the 1960s songs "Someday You'll Need My Love," "Act Naturally" and "Take My Heart."</p>
<p>She was living on the street when she was attacked shortly after 4 a.m. on New Year's Day.</p>
<p>Prosecutors say she was sleeping in a strip mall parking lot in Santa Ana when Pec began sexually assaulting her.</p>
<p>When she screamed for help, prosecutors say Pec repeatedly punched her in the head and choked her to stop her screams.</p>
<p>She died at the scene.</p> | Homeless man charged with killing ex-60s soul singer | false | https://apnews.com/2d94d5862a004ca2a6c9779bdaf51660 | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
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<p>Twelve people including the gunman, who was reportedly armed with an AR-15, have died in Washington D.C.?s Navy Yard mass shooting today. The incident began at around 8:20 AM ET.</p>
<p>The suspect has been described as a tall black male with an assault weapon. No motive is yet known. It is possible there are other gunmen involved.</p>
<p>Workplace violence has been listed as one possibility.</p>
<p>Most recent UPDATES appear at the end of these tweets:</p>
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<p>This is a developing story - stay tuned and refresh the page as details are likely to change. We will update this story throughout the day</p>
<p>Photos from this morning:</p>
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<p>Image, top, by <a href="https://twitter.com/bikepedantic" type="external">Darren Buck</a> via 911 Buff on <a href="https://twitter.com/911BUFF/status/379594027555119104/photo/1" type="external">Twitter</a></p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">D.C. Navy yard</a>, <a href="" type="internal">images</a>, <a href="" type="internal">killed</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Photos</a>, <a href="" type="internal">shooter</a></p>
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<p>Also, please&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-New-Civil-Rights-Movement/358168880614" type="external">like us on Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/gaycivilrights" type="external">follow us on Twitter</a>!</p> | UPDATE: 12 Victims Including Gunman Dead, 4 Others Wounded In DC Navy Yard Mass Shooting - Reports | true | http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/5-4-people-dead-12-shot-by-at-least-1-gunman-in-d-c-navy-yard-say-reports-photos/news/2013/09/16/75137 | 2013-09-16 | 4 |
<p>Sweden is investigating the fate of 9000 horses that disappear each year in that country.</p>
<p>Officials are concerned that the horses have made their way into European slaughterhouses.</p>
<p>The investigation comes at the heels of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_contamination_scandal" type="external">horsemeat scare</a> that has affected food retailers across the continent.</p>
<p>The contamination scandal began several weeks ago when Irish and British supermarkets discovered traces of horse DNA in meat products on their shelves.</p>
<p>It is believed that the ground beef implicated in the scare may have been processed with the horsemeat from slaughterhouses in Romania.</p>
<p>On Friday, <a href="http://web1.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130215/urgent-horsemeat-29-out-2501-beef-products-uk-agency" type="external">AFP reported</a> that tests carried out in Britain found that out of&#160;2,501 meat products, 29 were found to contain traces of horsemeat.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160;Horsemeat scandal: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/130213/horsemeat-scandal-eu-dna-tests-beef-products-europe" type="external">EU calls for DNA tests on beef products across Europe</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.thelocal.se/46170/20130213/#.UR5XYlqQeE0" type="external">The Local</a>, Sweden's English-language daily, reported that Swedish officials became concerned after finding a gap in the number of horse deaths every year.</p>
<p>The newspaper noted that there are about&#160;360,000 horses in Sweden.</p>
<p>Horses live about 15 years on average.</p>
<p>It is estimated that around 18,000 to 23,000 horses die in Sweden every year but Swedish authorities noted that only about 14,000 of those deaths are on the books.</p>
<p>This means there's a huge gap in the number of horse deaths every year.</p>
<p>It is not yet known whether or not the horses ended up in slaughterhouses outside the country or the horses may just be living longer.</p> | Sweden's missing horses mystery stirs horsemeat worry | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-02-15/swedens-missing-horses-mystery-stirs-horsemeat-worry | 2013-02-15 | 3 |
<p>The Greek party that won Sunday's elections reached a deal to form a coalition government, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18515185" type="external">according to the BBC</a>.</p>
<p>The conservative New Democracy party and the Socialists, Pasok, struck a deal to also include the moderate Democratic Left in a coalition government, said the BBC.</p>
<p>Antonis Samaras of the New Democracy party will be sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/greek-parties-agree-form-coalition-government-16608697#.T-HdxCtYtuk" type="external">according to the Associated Press</a>, and earlier met with President Karolos Papoulias to receive the formal mandate to govern.</p>
<p>"Greece has a government," said Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos, according to the AP.</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/120619/greece-coalition-government-g20" type="external">Greece scrambles to form coalition as G20 leaders mull Europe's crisis</a></p>
<p>Syriza, the party which came in second place, will likely be a strong voice of opposition against the bailout, said the BBC.</p>
<p>Venizelos, a former finance minister involved in negotiating Greece's second debt deal, said the outgoing finance minister, George Zannias, would represent Greece at the summit meeting of European finance ministers on Thursday, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/europe/greece-poised-to-form-new-coalition.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">according to The New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/120618/morgan-stanley-greece-elections-damage-euro" type="external">Business Insider: Greek elections may damage euro</a></p>
<p>The Times reported that Vassilis Rapanos, the president of the National Bank of Greece, is expected to take on the finance portfolio in the cabinet.</p>
<p>Party leaders have said they want to renegotiate the terms of the 130 billion euro ($165 billion) bailout to encourage growth and soften austerity measures, but their European partners have said they will adjust but not re-write the document, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-greece-idUSBRE85H0HO20120620" type="external">according to Reuters</a>.</p>
<p>The coalition government will face a country in the fifth year of recession, with one in five workers unemployed and violent protests against the austerity measures, Reuters noted.</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/120524/africa-banking-poor-poverty" type="external">Banking on Africa's poor</a></p> | Greece: Coalition government to be formed | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-06-20/greece-coalition-government-be-formed | 2012-06-20 | 3 |
<p>The Revolutionary Ascetic: Evolution of a Political Type, by Bruce Mazlish. New York: Basic Books. 261 pp.</p>
<p>Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, by Herbert G. Gutman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 343 pp.</p>
<p>Recoiling from the lack of analytical focus in traditional narrative history, many historians have attempted in the last few decades to develop new angles of vision on previously neglected aspects of the past. Among these new approaches, psychohistory and the new social history assume pride of place; and Mazlish's and Gutman's works, respectively, are apt illustrations. Yet only Gutman seems to me to have succeeded in convincing the reader.</p>
<p>Mazlish's thesis is highly suggestive. Through Freudian concepts, and with major assists from the work of Max Weber, he attempts to show that most modern revolutionaries, though not necessarily all of them, had an ascetic character structure, that they were austere "puritans," denying themselves personal pleasures, and developing only minimal emotional ties, sexual and otherwise.</p>
<p>Mazlish sets out to trace the development of asceticism, first in the service of puritan religion, then of capitalist economics, and finally of revolution. This seems to me a worthwhile and important endeavor. But he has largely failed to show the concrete interplay between the activities, say, of members of Cromwell's New Model Army, of capitalist entrepreneurs, or of such revolutionaries as Robespierre and Lenin and the dynamics of their personalities. He focuses instead on the development of character traits prior to their active life careers.</p>
<p /> | Varieties of New History | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/varieties-of-new-history | 2018-10-06 | 4 |
<p>For those who believe in making war, Kabul is a notable work product. After 30 years, the results are in: a devastated city.</p>
<p>A stale witticism calls Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai “the mayor of Kabul.” Now, not even. On block after block in the Afghan capital, AK-47s are conspicuous in the hands of men on guard against a near future. Widely seen as corrupt, inept and — with massive election fraud — now illegitimate, Karzai’s government is losing its grip along with its credibility.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a war-stoking mindset is replicating itself at the highest reaches of official Washington — even while polls tell us that the pro-war spin has been losing ground. For the U.S. public, dwindling support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a tipping point. But, as you’ve probably heard, the war must go on.</p>
<p>Kabul’s streets are blowing with harsh dust, a brutal harvest of chronic war that has destroyed trees and irrigation on mountains around the city.</p>
<p>Visiting Kabul in late August, I met a lot of wonderful people, doing their best in the midst of grim and lethal realities. The city seemed thick with pessimism.</p>
<p>In comparison, the mainline political discourse about Afghanistan in the United States is blithe. A familiar duet has the news media and the White House asking the perennial question: “Can the war be won?”</p>
<p>The administration insists that the answer is yes. The press is mixed. But they’re both asking the wrong question.</p>
<p>More relevant, by far, would be to ask: Should the U.S. government keep destroying Afghanistan in order to “save” it?</p>
<p>All over Kabul, men are tensely holding AK-47s; some are pointing machineguns from flatbed trucks. But the really big guns, of course, are being wielded from Washington, where administrative war-making thrives on abstraction. Day to day, it can be easy to order the destruction of what and who remain unseen.</p>
<p>Truly, the worst enemy in Afghanistan is poverty. But the U.S. government keeps waving a white flag.</p>
<p>Does anyone in the upper reaches of the Obama administration actually grasp what it means that Afghanistan’s poverty is very close to the worst in the world?</p>
<p>The current version of the best and the brightest should ponder the kind of data that can be found in the CIA World Factbook, such as Afghanistan’s infant mortality rate — defined as “the number of deaths of infants under one year old in a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year.” The current number is 154.</p>
<p>Last year, while the U.S. government was spending nearly $100 million a day on military efforts in Afghanistan, an Oxfam report put the total amount of humanitarian aid to the country from all sources at just $7 million per day. Not much has changed since then. The supplemental funding measure that the White House pushed through Congress a few months ago devotes 90 percent of the U.S. spending in Afghanistan to military expenditures.</p>
<p>Dimes to nurture life. Dollars to destroy it.</p>
<p>I hate to think of the kind of future that the U.S. war escalation foreshadows for the very thin children I saw in Kabul, flying ragged little kites or playing with toys like an empty plastic soda bottle with a rope tied around its neck.</p>
<p>Echoing now is a speech from Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967. If we replace the word “Vietnam” with “Afghanistan,” the gist of his message is with us in the autumn of 2009:</p>
<p>“Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Afghanistan. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Afghanistan. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.”</p>
<p>NORMAN SOLOMON is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Made Love, Got War</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Men With Guns | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/09/08/men-with-guns/ | 2009-09-08 | 4 |
<p>A perfectly nice 70-year-plus elderly white man in a rural part of New England posts an alt-right-themed digital meme to his Facebook page, sporting the words: “I’m proud to be white. I bet no one passes this on because they are scared of be called a racist.” This grammatically incorrect sentence is superimposed on a Confederate flag and is reposted several times on this nice man’s feed. Elsewhere on his Facebook page is an image of President Obama with the words: “Cuts Veterans Assistance by $3 billion, Allocates $5 billion for Syrian Refugees,” and an image of a boy saluting the U.S. flag, with the caption: “Facebook had the NERVE to remove the beloved photo because non-Americans find it ‘hateful.’ “</p>
<p>Both assertions made in the graphics have been debunked as false by Snopes.com, <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-veterans-money-to-syria/" type="external">here</a> and <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/little-timmy-facebook-flag/" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>This man constantly posts similar inflammatory and easily refuted hate-filled assertions common to alt-right and ultraconservative America aimed at immigrants, women and people of color, to his Facebook page, interspersed with cute videos and photos of animals and kids doing funny things. I obsessively check his Facebook page because he is related to me through marriage, and because for all the years I have known him he has been a loving husband, father and grandfather. He is a small-business owner with working-class roots and a nice house. Gagging at the racism and sexism he has seen fit to embrace on social media and trying constantly to reconcile that with the person I know has become a favorite pastime.</p>
<p>I suspect many Americans know others within their circle of family and friends who fit the profile of my relative: perfectly nice Americans who love their families, hug their grandchildren, send their kids checks for their birthdays and even have loving relationships with nonwhite family members like me, while propagating hatred toward those perceived as “others” in their online lives.</p>
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<p>In private conversations with many friends who share my values, I’ve learned it is common to have such family members. Those of us who expose the virulence and violence of the alt-right publicly struggle privately with the prevalence of such ideology in our own families. These Americans we know and may love voted for Donald Trump in 2016. They may or may not have admitted this at the dinner table. These are the Americans whose burning resentments Trump brashly embodies and boldly expresses—with little regard for the consequences for the rest of us.</p>
<p>There is a paranoia infecting the conservative mindset that is particularly susceptible to false assertions. The Russian-originating social media accounts aimed at wreaking havoc in the November 2016 elections were treated with much more credibility by those on the right than those on the left. Researchers <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.04291" type="external">studying the phenomenon</a> found that “[a]lthough an ideologically broad swath of Twitter users was exposed to Russian Trolls in the period leading up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, it was mainly conservatives who helped amplify their message.” In fact, “Conservatives retweeted Russian trolls about 31 times more often than liberals and produced 36x more tweets,” according to the study.</p>
<p>Such false and polarizing posts on social media, together with overtly partisan Fox News anchors on cable television, now have their political views amplified even more by hundreds of local television stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner revealed in 2016 that Sinclair had “ <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-campaign-sinclair-broadcasting-jared-kushner-232764" type="external">struck a deal</a>” with the presidential campaign to “broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary.” A <a href="https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490#_ga=2.200148584.736248107.1522860241-1721195149.1522860240" type="external">recent viral mash-up of local news anchors</a> parroting a centrally written script that ironically warned of the dangers of fake news shows that Sinclair has continued to amplify the Trump agenda in numerous ways. In addition to centrally written partisan scripts, the network forces its local stations to air <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/07/how_boris_epshteyn_and_sinclair_bring_trump_propaganda_to_local_news.html" type="external">unabashedly pro-Trump commentaries</a> by a former Trump aide named Boris Epshteyn. Trump has rewarded the network by <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/981117684489379840" type="external">praising it on Twitter</a> in a move seen as essentially green-lighting the company’s impending acquisition of Tribune Media.</p>
<p>There exists a perverse relationship among the White House, the aforementioned constellation of conservative media, and Americans like my relative. All three forces work in symbiosis to affirm each other’s power, fuel a mutual paranoia and assuage fragile egos. What is lost in this unholy triangle is any semblance of reality. Trump, who is one of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/01/10/president-trump-has-made-more-than-2000-false-or-misleading-claims-over-355-days/?utm_term=.4949aad3d04f" type="external">biggest purveyors of lies</a> today, has perfected the art of deflecting attention from his own deceit by repeatedly harping on about fake news. It is no coincidence that the script Sinclair mandated its local anchors to read on the air was focused on “fake news,” and included the innocent-sounding sentence “We’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country.”</p>
<p>This perfectly echoes Trump’s own sentiments dismissing mainstream media as fake news even as he constantly disseminates fake news. Indeed, Trump’s goal appears to be to dilute the idea of “fake news” so much that it ultimately becomes meaningless and the distinction between reality and fiction becomes ever more blurred—eventually reduced to an exercise in arbitrariness, as if objective truth were simply a concoction of one’s partisan position. There is an old word for this seemingly new phenomenon: propaganda. When cast within such a frame it becomes easier to accept that we need not make sense of why our family members consume and proliferate nonsense.</p>
<p>I have spent months trying to understand why my relative responds to the wildly preposterous claims he encounters and why he reposts them. In person he does not appear to espouse such values. But online he freely insults and degrades those who look like me—never in his own words, only through the pre-digested vitriol he encounters online. I suspect that if I were to confront him with the fact that most of his Facebook posts are verifiably false he might become defensive or simply deny everything (much as Roseanne Barr, a self-described Trump voter, displayed in her stunning ignorance and vociferous denials in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/arts/television/roseanne-barr-trump.html" type="external">recent interview</a> about her popular show’s reboot).</p>
<p>There have been many attempts to explain the economic, racial and psychological motivations of Trump voters, and I have read perhaps almost all of them, hoping that I will be able to relate to, or at least understand, the anger my relative feels and why he finds it acceptable to perpetuate outrageous claims. But maybe there is no point in understanding him or the Trump voters who continue to back a dangerous demagogue. In attempting to understand or reconcile with them we risk normalizing that which is utterly not normal.</p>
<p>We need to cast as utterly “abnormal” the hateful rhetoric that Trump and his supporters harbor and express. Racist claims perpetuated in digital memes and fake news stories, anti-immigrant rhetoric that dehumanizes real people and other related pieces of right-wing propaganda cannot remain acceptable. They embody on a very personal level a danger to me, and to the vast numbers of people of color and immigrants like me. We may be related to the paranoid foot soldiers of hate, but we are on opposite sides of an existential crisis, and my right to exist in safety is not a compromise I am willing to make. None of us should be willing to make such a compromise.</p> | Why I'm Giving Up on Understanding My Racist White Relative | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/why-im-giving-up-on-understanding-my-racist-white-relative/ | 2018-04-05 | 4 |
<p>Speaking to left-wing New Republic, Dartmouth professor Mark Bray, who is sympathetic to Antifa and authored <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/565063/antifa-by-mark-bray/9781612197036/" type="external">Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook</a>, argued that the violence perpetrated by Antifa needs to be seen “in a larger political and ethical context."</p>
<p>Asked what Antifa’s critics tend to get wrong, Bray answered, “Agree or disagree with what antifascists do, but it’s important to understand their activities in a larger political and ethical context. Which is to say that the violence of fascism and the violence of anti-fascism are only identical if you ignore what fascism means.”</p>
<p>After asserting that fascism has been “de-politicized” so that miscreants are seen as individuals rather than part of a group, Bray opined that Antifa radicals should be seen as individuals rather than a movement, too, lauding their actions as “the product of serious political analysis. It’s a reaction to what they perceive to be an imminent threat.”</p>
<p>Bray argued that Antifa members see “the threat of organized fascism and white supremacy as significant ... They’d argue that the real danger is far-right racist politics. They’d also argue that both historically and presently, the police cannot be counted on consistently to stop fascists,” Bray took a swipe at police, accusing them of racism: “The FBI has documented white power infiltration into some local law enforcement. Historically the police are sometimes sympathetic to the ‘law and order’ promises of fascism. So anti-fascists don’t trust the police.”</p>
<p>The New Republic asked, “The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly classified antifa as a domestic terrorist group. What’s your response?”</p>
<p>Bray called the DHS decision “politically motivated,” pontificating:</p>
<p>Certainly some of what antifascists do is illegal. But in a context where the Trump administration is not focusing as much attention on domestic white supremacist extremist terrorism as it is on radical Islamist terrorism, and is also focused on the left rather than the right, despite the right’s documented recent legacy of killing people, this decision seems very clearly politically motivated to me.</p> | Dartmouth Antifa Apologist: Antifa's Violence Should Be Seen In 'Larger Political And Ethical Context' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/20779/dartmouth-antifa-apologist-antifas-violence-should-hank-berrien | 2017-09-07 | 0 |
<p>Highlights of this day in history: U.S. government warns of smoking risks, Amelia Earhart becomes first woman to fly solo across Pacific, Major League Baseball introduces designated hitter. (Jan. 11)</p>
<p>Highlights of this day in history: U.S. government warns of smoking risks, Amelia Earhart becomes first woman to fly solo across Pacific, Major League Baseball introduces designated hitter. (Jan. 11)</p> | Today in History for January 11th | false | https://apnews.com/amp/64ed05832635424483b19ad3825029cb | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
<p>Sept. 25 (UPI) — Nintendo is set to update its mobile Mario title for iOS and Android Super Mario Run, with a new mode, stage and playable character.</p>
<p>Announced Saturday, the update that arrives on Sept. 29 will add Daisy to the roster of playable characters, a new world featuring nine levels titled World Star and a new mode called Remix 10 which remixes existing levels for a new challenge, <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/23/16353962/super-mario-run-daisy-update" type="external">Polygon</a> reported.</p>
<p>“Remix 10 is a frenetic new mode in which you play a set of 10 super-short sections from Super Mario Run’s existing levels in quick succession. The stages are remixed with each attempt, and with rainbow-colored bonus medals strewn across these bite-sized stages, it’s a fresh challenge every time,” reads the new mode’s description.</p>
<p>The addition of Daisy brings the amount of playable characters up to seven while World Star gives the game seven worlds to play through. World Star, which includes new enemies and gameplay mechanics, can be unlocked for players who complete the first six worlds.</p>
<p>The new update will also allow players to listen to their own music while playing Super Mario Run which will then give Mario and other characters a pair of headphones to wear.</p>
<p>Nintendo teased the update on <a href="https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/911636295662804993" type="external">Twitter</a> alongside a collection of screenshots showing off the upcoming upgrades.</p>
<p>The company is also lowering the price of the title in celebration of the update, putting it on sale for $4.99 from Sept. 29 to Oct. 12.</p>
<p>Mario’s next console adventure Super Mario Odyssey, is set to arrive for the Nintendo Switch on Oct. 27.</p>
<p>Recently, Nintendo announced that Mario is no longer considered <a href="https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2017/09/05/Mario-is-no-longer-a-plumber-Nintendo-says/5301504614659/" type="external">a plumber</a>, noting in an updated profile of the character that he worked as a plumber “a long time ago.”</p> | 'Super Mario Run' to be updated with new character, stage and mode | false | https://newsline.com/super-mario-run-to-be-updated-with-new-character-stage-and-mode/ | 2017-09-25 | 1 |
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<p>Tompkins and his wife Susie claimed in a lawsuit that the 2,400-acre property was not properly transferred from LifeWay Christian Resources, publishing house for the Southern Baptist Convention, to Texas-based Glorieta 2.0, which has converted the property to a Christian youth camp.</p>
<p>Glorieta 2.0 bought the property for $1 in 2013. He says the sale required approval by the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, which didn’t happen.</p>
<p>“After 41 months in court, Tompkins Family, in consideration of all former Glorieta residents, continues to move beyond ‘procedural dismissals’ asking the United State Supreme Court to examine all documented allegations the lower courts never adjudicated,” he wrote in an email distributed to dozens of people last month.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Tompkinses were among 63 individuals, families and entities, many of them churches and universities, that owned homes on land that they were leasing at the time of the sale. Glorieta 2.0, which also does business as Glorieta Camps, settled leases with all but the Tompkinses, who plan to file a certiorari petition in the highest court in the country after the U.S. District Court in Denver and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against them.</p>
<p>Tompkins, who filed his original lawsuit pro se, said in a recent phone interview that he has until mid-April to file the petition and he plans to do it.</p>
<p>“I respect both of the lower courts that we were in; I’m a great believer in justice,” he said. “But both courts dismissed on procedural grounds, not on its merits. That gives me the right to file in the Supreme Court to hear the allegations, and this latest document from Santa Fe County certainly helps.”</p>
<p>Tompkins was referring to a cease and desist order issued by the county last week after inspectors found numerous issues related to construction and waste disposal at the site.</p>
<p>The federal appeals court affirmed a district court ruling that the Tompkinses lacked standing, that it was correct to dismiss an “implied contract” claim, and that charges of fraud were insufficient.</p>
<p>But the lawsuit also included allegations of environmental and permit violations. Tompkins says the Supreme Court can utilize that and new information as it becomes available.</p>
<p>Tompkins says he’s not just pursuing the lawsuit for his family’s benefit. He’s doing it for the other 60 homeowners who were told they had to leave the property.</p>
<p>“These people were cheated, and I’m trying to stand up for them,” he said. “I’ll continue to push that in the court and I now have a clear path to go to the United States Supreme Court.”</p>
<p /> | Glorieta suit to head to top court | false | https://abqjournal.com/961223/glorieta-suit-to-head-to-top-court.html | 2017-03-03 | 2 |
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<p>WASHINGTON — U.S. builders trimmed construction spending slightly in March, one month after building activity hit an all-time high.</p>
<p>Construction spending slipped 0.2 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted $1.218 trillion, the Commerce Department reported Monday. In February, it rose 1.8 percent to a record high of $1.22 trillion. The result in March reflected drops in nonresidential construction and in the government sector, which offset a strong increase in residential activity.</p>
<p>Even with the slight decline, March activity was the second highest on record. The figure underscores the key role construction is playing in the overall economy, especially in home building. Demand for homes has been rising amid low unemployment and rising incomes, but many buyers have been frustrated by limited inventory and rising prices.</p>
<p>Residential construction climbed 1.2 percent to the highest level since June 2007, a period dating back to the housing boom of the past decade. In the first three months of the year, home construction grew at a 13.7 percent rate, one of the few bright spots in a dismal quarter in which overall growth slipped to just 0.7 percent. That was the weakest showing in three years.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Nonresidential building fell 1.3 percent in March as spending on office buildings and the category that covers shopping centers both fell. Government activity dropped 0.9 percent with weakness in the state and local level.</p>
<p>Economists believe the economy will bounce back in the current quarter to growth of 3 percent or better, helped by continued strong gains in construction.</p>
<p>In March, spending by state and local governments on construction projects fell 1.4 percent which offset a 4.5 percent rise in the smaller federal government sector.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump has talked about spending $1 trillion over the next decade on a major infrastructure program to upgrade the nation’s aging highways, airports and bridges. But so far, he has yet to send Congress a proposal, although Democrats have said this is one area where he is likely to get Democratic support.</p> | US construction spending slipped in March | false | https://abqjournal.com/996099/us-construction-spending-slips-0-2-percent-in-march.html | 2017-05-01 | 2 |
<p>COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday evening's drawing of the South Carolina Lottery's "Palmetto Cash 5" game were:</p>
<p>15-16-23-33-34, Power-Up: 4</p>
<p>(fifteen, sixteen, twenty-three, thirty-three, thirty-four; Power, Up: four)</p>
<p>COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Friday evening's drawing of the South Carolina Lottery's "Palmetto Cash 5" game were:</p>
<p>15-16-23-33-34, Power-Up: 4</p>
<p>(fifteen, sixteen, twenty-three, thirty-three, thirty-four; Power, Up: four)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Palmetto Cash 5' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/ab53c29a83e74f3fbfcf84a327394093 | 2017-12-30 | 2 |
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<p>Pollsters, pundits, and activists have identified more than a dozen types of swing voter— that political creature known for its discerning (or is it indecisive?) approach to electoral politics. Below, a handy guide to some of these sought-after voters and how they may– or may not– tip the scales in November. — Dave Gilson</p>
<p>Office-Park DadsWho they are: Suburban married men working in the hi-tech and financial sectorsFirst spotted by: Democratic pollster Mark Penn, May 2002What will lure them to the ballot box: Fiscally conservative talk on jobs, trade, and taxesUnpredictable electoral behavior: Turned on by tax cuts, turned off by corporate scandals.</p>
<p>Security MomsWho they are: Post-9/11 soccer moms. Often mate with Office-Park Dads. First spotted by: Republican pollster David Winston, October 2001What will lure them to the ballot box: Tough talk against terror— mini-nukes not minivans. Unpredictable electoral behavior: Flocked to GOP in 2002 midterm elections, but may no longer trust Bush’s security cred.</p>
<p>Campus KidsWho they are: 10 million college students. Offspring of Office-Park Dads and Security Moms. First spotted by: Harvard University Institute on Politics, May 2003What will lure them to the ballot box: Being wooed directly, even though many take political cues from mom and dad. Unpredictable electoral behavior: Split between GOP and Dems. But less than one third voted in last election.</p>
<p>“Sex and the City” VotersWho they are: Single, mostly young, women First spotted by: Various observersWhat will lure them to the ballot box: Focusing on issues, not faux-feminist fluff. Unpredictable electoral behavior: Likely Kerry voters. But 22 million sat out 2000 and many remain unregistered.</p>
<p>NASCAR DadsWho they are:Southern and Midwestern blue-collar white men First spotted by:Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, June 2002What will lure them to the ballot box: Culturally conservative populismUnpredictable electoral behavior: Once Democratic stalwarts, now heavily pro-Bush. Can John Edwards throw them into reverse?</p>
<p>Golden GirlsWho they are: Retired white women First spotted by: Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, May 2004What will lure them to the ballot box: Pills and bills—keep those drug benefits and Social Security checks coming.Unpredictable electoral behavior: Currently split 50-50 between Bush and Kerry.</p>
<p>Wal-Mart MomsWho they are: Suburban women in low-wage jobs. Previously known as Waitress Moms. First spotted by: Stanley Greenberg and Celinda Lake, December 2003What will lure them to the ballot box: Promises of better wages and benefits— anything to ease the financial squeeze.Unpredictable electoral behavior: Went for Clinton in 2000, now up for grabs. Plus, does Wal-Mart allow employees to take time off to vote?</p>
<p>Corps VotersWho they are: 2.6 million men and women in uniform and their families First spotted by: Washington Monthly editor Benjamin Wallace-Wells, November 2003What will lure them to the ballot box: Convince them you support the military more than the other guyUnpredictable electoral behavior: Unclear whether they’ll mutiny against current commander-in-chief.</p>
<p>Freestyle EvangelicalsWho they are: 8 million politically moderate evangelical Christians First spotted by: Beliefnet.com editor in chief Stephen Waldman and political scientist John Green, early 2003What will lure them to the ballot box: Remembering that evangelicals care about issues other than family valuesUnpredictable electoral behavior: Not solidly behind fellow evangelical Bush. But Kerry has yet to reach out to them.</p>
<p>Muslims and Arab AmericansWho they are: Muslim and Arab Americans in Michigan and other swing states First spotted by: Arab American Institute/Zogby International poll, January 2004What will lure them to the ballot box: Anger over the post-9/11 civil liberties crackdown and Bush’s Middle East policyUnpredictable electoral behavior: Backed Bush in 2000, but likely to defect to Dems in 2004. One-third are undecided.</p>
<p>Punk VotersWho they are: Half a million young punk rockers with progressive leaningsFirst spotted by: Punkvoter.com founder “Fat Mike” Burkett, September 2003 What will lure them to the ballot box: The chance to head butt Bush and his “chaotic policies” Unpredictable electoral behavior: May find a vote against chaos too ironic. And yes, there are conservative punks.</p>
<p>Schwing VotersWho they are: 8 million Howard Stern fansFirst spotted by: Salon.com correspondent Eric Boehlert, March 2004What will lure them to the ballot box: The King of All Media’s crusade against Bush, the FCC, and Clear ChannelUnpredictable electoral behavior: Faced with tough drive-time choice between voting or tuning into Stern on November 2.</p>
<p /> | Wild Cards: A Field Guide to the American Swing Voter | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/wild-cards-field-guide-american-swing-voter/ | 2004-09-09 | 4 |
<p>You may have heard the big news of the day: the unemployment rate has risen to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/business/economy/07jobs.html?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss" type="external">7.6 percent</a>. That’s a product of the American economy losing 598,000 jobs in January, the worst monthly jobs loss since 1974 (I know, the workforce has grown since then). That figure means the economy has lost 1.8 million jobs in the last three months and 3.6 million jobs in the year+ since December 2007.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are insisting that there is no reason to rush on the stimulus bill. Take a gander at this video compilation from <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/06/gop-senators-no-recovery-rush/" type="external">Think Progress</a>:</p>
<p>Pass this sucker, today!</p> | Bad News for Jobs, and Sanity | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/bad-news-jobs-and-sanity/ | 2009-02-06 | 4 |
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<p>A search warrant led police to the items after Shaun Anaya, 35, was arrested on March 13 for allegedly trying to cash altered money orders at a check-cashing business on Coors NW.</p>
<p>Anaya told police the money orders were from a tenant who rents one of his homes. He said he did not know exactly who they were from because he rents out a lot of properties through his company, Mt. West Investment Group LLC, which he said he runs from his home on San Patricio SW, according to a criminal complaint filed in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court.</p>
<p>He said he had to check his records to determine who wrote the money orders.</p>
<p>Police were already working on other cases involving Anaya, who also owns Olive Tree Property Management, according to a search warrant affidavit.</p>
<p>Police obtained a search warrant for the home on San Patricio SW and found items that were stolen from one of the properties that Anaya was trying to illegally rent to an unwitting consumer, Albuquerque police spokeswoman Officer Tasia Martinez said. The property owner identified some of the items as being taken when the home was burglarized, she said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Police have released photos of the items and are asking possible victims to call Crime Stoppers at 843-STOP (7867).</p>
<p>Police were contacted by several people accusing Anaya of illegally assuming ownership of several properties that he had no legal claim over and renting out these properties. The renters were forced to vacate the properties when the fraud was discovered.</p>
<p>Anaya would enter the residences and change the locks before renting them, the affidavit states.</p>
<p>Most of the properties Anaya would take possession of were in the process of foreclosure and located in southwest and northwest Albuquerque.</p>
<p>In one case, Anaya impersonated the homeowner and signed a lease agreement for a house that was being sold, according to the affidavit. The parties were due to close on the property within a month from the time that Anaya leased the residence, the affidavit reads. — This article appeared on page 1 of the West Side Journal</p> | Man Linked To Stolen Property | false | https://abqjournal.com/97104/man-linked-to-stolen-property.html | 2012-03-29 | 2 |
<p>FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — Calvin Miller believes in stories.</p>
<p>Writer in residence and research professor at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala., Miller points to Jesus’ narrative parables as proof of the power and potential of stories to be remembered and to move their hearers. It comes as no surprise, then, that when he addressed the 2009 Pastors’ Conference, Miller, 73, challenged them to preach narrative sermons.</p>
<p>Unlike propositional preaching, which makes a point and supports it with an argument, Miller believes that narrative preaching appeals to the natural curiosity, creates interest and leaves lasting impressions on the listener’s memory.</p>
<p>He encouraged preachers to use the power of stories to impact the needs of our age. One of the greatest needs in our age, he said, is for hope. “Great sermons and great lives give people hope. More than anything else, the people who hear you preach want to have hope.”</p>
<p>Miller, who is celebrated for his creative writing and speaking, read from and quoted his own works during his remarks to the delight and benefit of the gathering of 120 pastors.</p>
<p>In addition to Miller, Pastors’ Conference president Michael Jordan also invited to speak Portsmouth, Va., pastor Mark Croston, who serves East End Baptist Church there.</p>
<p>Speaking on the topic of suffering, Croston used passages from Job as his text. In an impressive sermon, he observed that every human being knows about suffering from first-hand experience.&#160; He referred to, but did not dwell on, his own suffering when he thanked the pastors for their support given in the aftermath of his wife’s death last year after a 10-year battle with breast cancer.</p>
<p>Using Job as his example, Croston observed that in the midst of his suffering, Job got up, tore his clothing, shaved his head and fell down in worship. Croston observed that though grief and sorrows may be great, there comes a time when we must turn to the future and get up.</p>
<p>He then said though we get up it does not mean that our suffering is ended. Job expressed his grief in the expressions of his day by tearing his clothes and shaving his head. Croston challenged the pastors to express their hurt rather than try to hold it in and pretend that they are not grieving.</p>
<p>As Job fell to worship, we, too, recognize that the Lord is the source of our strength and healing.</p>
<p>During a very brief business session, pastors elected officers. Serving as president for 2010, is Ernest Reid, pastor of Olive Branch Baptist Church in Portsmouth. Matt Brown, pastor of Branch’s Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., was elected to serve as vice president, and, responding to an appeal for a volunteer, Chuck Haley, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Tappahannock, Va., agreed to serve as treasurer.</p>
<p><a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">Jim White</a> is editor of the Religious Herald.</p> | Storyteller Calvin Miller leads 2009 BGAV Pastors’ Conference | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/storytellercalvinmillerleads2009bgavpastorsconference/ | 3 |
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<p>The idea floated by "intel" agencies that Steven Paddock didn't fit the profile of a Muslim convert is absurd on its face, and further proof that the keystone clowns and their "profilers' at the FBI haven't a clue. How can they profile what they refuse to acknowledge, learn about or recognize"</p>
<p>The fact is the FBI has nothing. Over a week after the monstrous slaughter, they have nothing and yet they have dismissed ISIS claims out of hand, despite the fact ISIS does not take credit for attacks that are not theirs. Not only did they take credit, they did something they never did before - they doubled and tripled down. The Islamic State (IS) featured an infographic on the Las Vegas attack in the 100th issue of its al-Naba weekly newspaper, and indicated that the shooter, "Abu Abdul Barr al-Amriki," had converted to Islam six months ago.</p>
<p>Jihad is the only motive that makes any sense. And the fact that the FBI has&#160;nothing&#160;else points to that. That Steven Paddock left no digital trail might very well be deliberate - to show how incompetent our law enforcement agencies are. ISIS took credit for the downing of the Russian jetliner in the Sinai. Everyone in law enforcement dismissed that too. Until ISIS provided proof a couple of weeks later, that is. I suspect we may see the same thing happen here. The Vegas attack mirrors the sophisticated planning and secrecy consistent with more complex ISIS plots like Sinai explosion of Russian airliner.</p>
<p>We have been told that because Paddock was white and 64, it is unlikely that he would be a convert to Islam. Why? Islam is ideological - it's not a race or an age. It's a belief system. It's also being said that if Paddock was a convert, Homeland Security is going to have to change their whole approach to jihad terror in the Homeland. We can only hope. Because this war has nothing to do with age, race or gender - it's religious. And profiling is required. On the top of my watch list would be converts. Who would be attracted to an ideology that is the cause of hatred, misogyny, subjugation and slaughter?</p>
<p><a href="http://news.siteintelgroup.com/blog/index.php/categories/jihad/entry/426-what-isis-has-to-lose-if-it's-lying-about-las-vegas-1" type="external">What ISIS has to Lose if it's Lying about Las Vegas</a></p>
<p>He was a&#160; <a href="https://pamelageller.com/2017/10/paddock-hapy-go-lucky.html/" type="external">happy-go-lucky guy&#160;</a>who drank and gambled&#160; <a href="https://pamelageller.com/2017/10/paddock-never-drank-alcohol.html/" type="external">until he stopped</a>.</p>
<p>He made&#160; <a href="http://pamelageller.com/2017/10/las-vegas-shooter-shooter.html/" type="external">multiple trips to the Middle East.</a></p>
<p>Sophisticated planning and secrecy consistent with more complex ISIS plots like Sinai explosion of Russian airliner.</p>
<p><a href="https://pamelageller.com/2017/10/lv-shooter-fbi-garland-boston-orland.html/" type="external">As FBI investigates Vegas attack, remember its FAILED investigations of Orlando jihadi mass murderer, Boston bombers, Garland jihadis, Boston beheaders</a></p>
<p>Here are some older, white converts who have been convicted of jihad terror.</p>
<p />
<p>Muslim convert Jack Roche convicted of plotting with Al Qaeda to blow up the Israel embassy in Australia.</p>
<p />
<p>Muslim convert Valentine Vladimir Mazlovsky, ISIS solider.</p>
<p />
<p>Don Morgan, Muslim convert, ISIS supporter.</p>
<p />
<p>Daniel Patrick Boyd is an American who in July 2009 was convicted for his participation in a jihadist terrorist cell in North Carolina</p>
<p />
<p>"Only Allah can judge me": Muslim convert Richard Dart refuses to stand in dock as he is sentenced to six years in prison for terrorism offences</p>
<p>Muslim convert Sebastian Gregerson an Islamic State "soldier" convicted of plotting violent jihad was sentenced to four years in federal prison</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/vGFFPUM" type="external" /></p>
<p>And these&#160; <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/09/09/ginger-jihadis-why-redheads-are-attracted-to-radical-islam/" type="external">gingers.</a></p>
<p>Jamaal Uddin Jordan Horner</p>
<p>A member of the notorious "Muslim Patrol," which threatened to "kill the non-believers." Renounced his previous lifestyle of boozing and "seeing girls." Jailed for assault and for using threatening words and behaviour.</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/3SP2Ie6" type="external" /></p>
<p>Salahuddin al-Britani Richard Dart A middle-class white boy who became a Christian while working at a kids' camp in the US, Dart was converted to radical Islam by hate preacher Anjem Choudary and later jailed for planning terrorist activities.</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/KWFWodL" type="external" /></p>
<p>Sherafiyah Lewthwaite Samantha Lewthwaite</p>
<p>A troubled child who sought solace with Muslim neighbours, Lewthwaite has a string of terrorist ex-boyfriends (some imprisoned, some dead), including 7/7 suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay - hence her nickname, the "White Widow." Currently on the run and a member of terrorist group Al-Shabaab.</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/EibjdA2" type="external" /></p>
<p>Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad Tim Winter</p>
<p>Cambridge director of studies who once recorded a video describing homosexuality as a sinful and "inherent aberration," and gays as "ignorant people who don't know what their bodies are for."</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/Xli0hge" type="external" /></p>
<p>Brother Adam&#160;(centre) MC Chippy</p>
<p>Chippy is not known to be an extremist, but his videos are used as a recruitment tool in Bradford and elsewhere.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/lxX8AEb" type="external" /></p>
<p>Matthew Hamza&#160;(centre) Matthew Newton</p>
<p>Described by his family as a quiet lad, Newton started recruiting for the Taliban from a stall in Longsight market in Manchester. Jailed for trying to radicalise undercover police officers.&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/I64Jphi" type="external" /></p>
<p>Abu Jibreel Paul Mellor</p>
<p>Formally a Lance Corporal in the Irish Guards, Mellor turned his back on the Queen to become a self-declared "soldier of Allah."&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/0Rx93m6" type="external" /></p>
<p>Abdul-Aziz ibn Myat David Myatt</p>
<p>Myatt converted to Islam, becoming a notable apologist for suicide bombing civilians.</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/sivOx0T" type="external" /></p>
<p>Abdullah Deen</p>
<p>Former drum and bass MC, Millwall fan, cocaine dealer and self-employed perfume salesman before his conversion to radical Islam.</p>
<p>Pamela Geller's shocking new book,&#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947979000/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1506028280&amp;sr=8-1-fkmr0&amp;keywords=fatwa+haunted+in+america" type="external">"FATWA: HUNTED IN AMERICA"</a>&#160;is now available on Amazon. It's Geller's tell all, her story - and it's every story - it's what happens when you stand for freedom today.&#160; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947979000/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1506028280&amp;sr=8-1-fkmr0&amp;keywords=fatwa+haunted+in+america" type="external">Buy it. Now. Here.</a></p>
<p>Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of <a href="https://pamelageller.com/2017/10/paddock-fits-convert-profile.html/" type="external">PamelaGeller.com</a> and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.</p>
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<p /> | Contrary to FBI Hooey, Steven Paddock Fits the Profile of a Convert | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/11/contrary-to-fbi-hooey-steven-paddock-fits-the-profile-of-a-convert/ | 2017-10-11 | 0 |
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<p>Attorney General Gary King, the Democratic nominee for governor, visits with demonstrators at a nurses’ union rally outside Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe earlier this month. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>SANTA FE – Gary King wants to overhaul education policies enacted by Gov. Susana Martinez, increase New Mexico’s minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour – and has said he would feel bad paying employees less than $18 an hour – and would use money from the state’s largest permanent fund to pay for more early childhood programs.</p>
<p>“To me, this race is about how our kids are faring – it’s about the fact we have a huge amount of poverty that we’re not addressing,” King told the Journal in a recent interview.</p>
<p>“We have no job growth, essentially, so that’s no way to deal with poverty,” King said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>King, 59, is a two-term state attorney general, former state House member and the Democratic nominee for governor. He has a Ph.D. in chemistry in addition to his law degree, and he is a son of what at least used to be one of New Mexico’s most familiar political families.</p>
<p>But before he can start work on that hefty gubernatorial agenda, he’ll have to buck odds and win the Nov. 4 general election.</p>
<p>An Aug. 12-14 Journal Poll found King trailing Martinez, who is seeking re-election, by 9 percentage points, with 50 percent of likely voters surveyed saying they would vote for the Republican incumbent.</p>
<p>In his third run for the Governor’s Office, King said he does not view himself as the underdog, but acknowledged: “I’m clearly the challenger.”</p>
<p>“I have good statewide experience and I’ve won two statewide races myself,” he said, referring to his 2006 election as attorney general and his re-election in 2010.</p>
<p>King has sought support for a campaign focused on the state’s economy and schools. And he claims recent improvements in the state’s high school graduation rate were due to policies enacted before Martinez took office.</p>
<p>He vows, if elected, to make changes to a teacher evaluation system implemented by Martinez and cut state spending on standardized testing.</p>
<p>But, while King advocates proposals for the Governor’s Office, he faces criticism over his track record as attorney general.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Hurdles</p>
<p>Martinez contends that King, as governor, would only bring back the ideas of Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, who preceded her in office.</p>
<p>King also faces a sizable financial disadvantage in the race with the incumbent and lukewarm or nonexistent support from national Democratic groups.</p>
<p>King reported having $116,018 in his campaign account last month, compared with $4.3 million for Martinez. He also has made personal loans to his campaign of more than $500,000.</p>
<p>The Republican Governors Association has seized on comments made by lawyer and current state Democratic Party Chairman Sam Bregman, who described King after a legal battle several years ago – before Bregman became party chair – as the state’s “worst attorney general ever.”</p>
<p>As party chairman, however, Bregman has said King would make a “wonderful governor.”</p>
<p>The record</p>
<p>As attorney general since 2007, Gary King has overseen an office with roughly 180 employees and an $18 million annual budget.</p>
<p>Along the way, he has butted heads with fellow Democrats – including state Auditor Hector Balderas – and faced criticism over the pace of his investigations.</p>
<p>His handling of several public corruption cases has generated headlines that could generously be described as less than glowing.</p>
<p>In one case, Vincent “Smiley” Gallegos, a former legislator who headed the Region III Housing Authority, pleaded no contest in 2013 to four misdemeanors in a deal with the Attorney General’s Office. Gallegos had initially faced multiple felony charges, including fraud and embezzlement, in connection with misuse of millions of dollars in bond money for housing projects. Charges against three other defendants in the case were dismissed.</p>
<p>New Mexico Attorney General Gary King, who is running for governor, plays the soprano saxophone during the 2014 Fourth of July parade in Moriarty. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a high-profile public corruption case King’s office brought against former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron and three others fizzled after a judge dismissed charges, saying the defendants’ rights to speedy trials had been violated. A federal jury did convict two of the defendants – in a parallel case in which Vigil-Giron was not indicted – for laundering federal funds.</p>
<p>In a recent letter, the former Democratic secretary of state (now Rebecca D. Vigil) accused King of lying and using the case for his political gain.</p>
<p>“No New Mexico citizen should have to suffer under the leadership of Gary King in the future,” Vigil wrote.</p>
<p>King defended his office’s performance on such cases, saying the cases are difficult to prove and at times have “languished” in an overburdened judicial system.</p>
<p>“By and large, I think that, over the course of the eight years while I’ve been here, elected officials take their charge much more seriously because of the work that we’ve done,” King said.</p>
<p>“I think it’s fair to say that I’ve been disappointed in a couple of the results,” he added, pointing out his office has secured convictions or plea deals in several other corruption cases.</p>
<p>King also said in an interview that “powerful people” in the state Democratic Party do not think he should be governor, which he attributes to his independent streak and prosecutions of Democratic officials.</p>
<p>As a state legislator, King was a savvy parliamentarian with an independent streak who did not always toe the party line, colleagues say.</p>
<p>Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, D-Santa Fe, who served in the Legislature with King, said King was more conservative than many of his fellow Democrats but knew how to navigate the bill-crafting system.</p>
<p>“He worked well with us, he worked with Republicans and he worked with the governor,” Varela said.</p>
<p>Not a natural backslapper like his popular father, the late three-term Gov. Bruce King, Gary King seemed to keep his own counsel and was known for quiet, methodical legislating.</p>
<p>Perhaps because King is so low-key, he can be surprising. He got to the governor’s race this year after finishing in last place in the Democratic Party’s pre-primary nominating convention and then topping a five-candidate field in the June 3 primary election with 35 percent of the vote.</p>
<p>Mixed results</p>
<p>Under King’s tenure, the Attorney General’s Office secured a $19 million settlement from a drug company for its advertising practices and Chevron Corp. agreed to pay $5.2 million in a suit over leaking petroleum storage tanks.</p>
<p>The AG’s Office fought in court to keep a proposed Roswell horse slaughter plant from opening. It successfully sued lending companies that charged high interest rates to consumers.</p>
<p>The Medicaid Fraud Unit of the Attorney General’s Office has also come under criticism, ranked in recent years as one of the worst-performing units in the nation in terms of effectiveness on recovering misspent public funds.</p>
<p>State Attorney General Gary King talks with people during a nurses’ union rally outside Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe in mid-August. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>However, the unit has made a turnaround in the current federal budget year, so far recovering more money than it had in the previous three years combined.</p>
<p>King’s record on government transparency hasn’t always been clear-cut. As a legislator in 1997, he sponsored a bill imposing new penalties for violators of the state’s Open Meetings Act, but a state District Court judge ruled in 2013 that the Attorney General’s Office had violated the state’s public records law in a wrongful termination case involving a former employee.</p>
<p>King has been sued by several groups under the Inspection of Public Records Act, including the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, for declining to release a 2013 audit of 15 behavioral health care providers. The audit had prompted the state Human Services Department to cut off the providers’ Medicaid funding and turn over the findings for investigation, an action criticized by some directors of the accused nonprofits as a “hostile takeover.”</p>
<p>The attorney general has argued that releasing the audit, which the agency said found evidence of overbilling and fraud, would hurt his office’s ongoing investigation into the matter. State District Court rulings have backed his position.</p>
<p>In the recent interview, King said the system has been “very harsh” on the nonprofits, but said he has no regrets about how his office has handled the matter.</p>
<p>“I can’t say I would do anything any differently than I have,” King said, adding that he has assigned as many investigators to the cases as possible. “They are really labor-intensive cases, because they involve multiple hundreds of billings,” he said.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, King touts his office’s prosecutions of Internet crimes against children and training of Mexican prosecutors on border violence issues as among his top accomplishments as attorney general.</p>
<p>Controversies</p>
<p>As the state’s top-ranking lawyer, King has played a role in several Martinez-era controversies.</p>
<p>In 2012, he released emails from Martinez’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign to media outlets that had requested them. A federal grand jury later charged that the emails had been illegally intercepted by a former Martinez campaign manager.</p>
<p>The FBI told King to stop publicizing the emails in December 2012 and questions have emerged as to whether King knew of the FBI investigation at the time he released the emails. He has maintained he did not know that Martinez had alleged hacking of her campaign emails, though King’s comments at a July 2012 news conference suggest he was at least aware of allegations involving the possible theft of what he thought were government emails.</p>
<p>The incident prompted Martinez to accuse King of “recklessly” releasing evidence in the middle of a criminal investigation.</p>
<p>King also has faced criticism from Republican groups for advocating for higher pay for women after three female employees in the Attorney General’s Office sued him in federal court, alleging they were paid less than their male counterparts. At least two of the women agreed to a settlement, though King has denied pay inequity in the office.</p>
<p>On the issue of same-sex marriage, King said in July 2013 that he did not believe state laws allowed for gay marriage, although he also said he believed such laws would be vulnerable to challenge.</p>
<p>That stance drew criticism from some fellow Democrats, including former Santa Fe City Attorney Geno Zamora, who said at the time, “The attorney general had an opportunity to single-handedly protect the rights of all citizens and didn’t.”</p>
<p>The state Supreme Court eventually legalized gay marriage in New Mexico in December 2013, after King’s office declined to take action to stop a county clerk who had begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.</p>
<p>Former New Mexico governor and House speaker Bruce King, right, joins his newly elected son, Gary King, on the floor of the state House of Representatives in 1987. (Albuquerque Journal Photo File)</p>
<p>Early start</p>
<p>The political education of Gary King started early.</p>
<p>As a middle school-age boy, he spent countless hours in the state Capitol, watching and listening as his father, Bruce King, presided as speaker of the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>“If I could get a week off from school, I would come up and spend the whole week with him and sit with him at his desk,” King recalled in a recent interview. “If I kind of close my eyes, I can do all the (procedural) motions because they’re just in my head.”</p>
<p>King grew up on his family’s Stanley-headquartered ranch in southern Santa Fe County, which his father and uncles had built into King Brothers Ranches.</p>
<p>Although he liked politics, a young Gary King told people he wanted to be a scientist.</p>
<p>He left New Mexico to go to college in Colorado, received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1980 and then got a law degree. He was hired by Democratic Party stalwart and former U.S. ambassador to Spain Ed Romero to head his team of attorneys at Advanced Sciences Inc., a subcontractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.</p>
<p>Later, after opening his own law practice in Moriarty, King ran unsuccessfully in 1984 for the state Senate. Undeterred, he ran for a state House seat in 1986 and won. He served through 1998 and, for a time, was chairman of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.</p>
<p>At least one of his bills was vetoed by his father – a 1992 measure that dealt with regulating natural gas sales, legislative records show.</p>
<p>In addition to his gubernatorial bids, King ran unsuccessfully for the southern New Mexico-based congressional seat in 2004.</p>
<p>He plays the soprano saxophone in local parades and would likely be the first governor in state history to be both a lawyer and a scientist.</p>
<p>He also worked under then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson for the U.S. Department of Energy from 1999 to 2001, serving as an environmental policy adviser.</p>
<p>Political legacy</p>
<p>Political analysts say King’s family history is a plus, given that his father served three nonconsecutive terms as a popular governor – 1971-74, 1979-82 and 1991-94 – and his late mother, Alice King, also was a familiar and widely respected public figure, especially as a leader on children’s issues.</p>
<p>“People have fond memories of his family,” said Lonna Atkeson, a University of New Mexico political science professor. “That provides instant name recognition, which is huge in politics.”</p>
<p>Gary King told the Journal he is more politically progressive than his dad, but said the two share some core views.</p>
<p>“He was sort of a social progressive-fiscal conservative and I’m sort of that as well,” King said.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Gary King: In pursuit of his father’s legacy | false | https://abqjournal.com/451311/gary-king-in-pursuit-of-his-fathers-legacy.html | 2 |
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<p>RUSK, Texas — An East Texas man has been sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences plus consecutive prison terms totaling 450 years after he was convicted of 34 counts of child sexual abuse.</p>
<p>The Jacksonville Daily Progress ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2oqJHxR)" type="external">http://bit.ly/2oqJHxR)</a> reports a Cherokee County jury on Thursday found Kevin Ray Morris Sr. guilty of molesting, raping and threatening multiple children ranging from age 4 to 16 for more than 20 years before he was charged.</p>
<p>State District Judge R. Chris Day decided to stack the sentences and told Morris, “If I could give you more time to serve, I would.”</p>
<p>The jury also ordered Morris to pay $340,000 in fines.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Jacksonville (Texas) Daily Progress, <a href="http://jacksonvilleprogress.com" type="external">http://jacksonvilleprogress.com</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | East Texas man sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences | false | https://abqjournal.com/981271/east-texas-man-sentenced-to-11-consecutive-life-sentences.html | 2 |
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<p>China National Building Material Co.'s (3323.HK) net profit in the first half surged on higher prices for its cement products.</p>
<p>The Chinese cement producer said Friday its first-half net profit rose 711% to 885.4 million yuan ($132.9 million) from a net profit a CNY109.1 million a year ago. Revenue increased 21% to CNY53.36 billion from CNY44.10 billion during the same period. It didn't declare an interim dividend.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Write to Joanne Chiu at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 25, 2017 05:24 ET (09:24 GMT)</p> | China National Building 1st Half Net Profit Up 711% to CNY885.4 Million | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/25/china-national-building-1st-half-net-profit-up-711-to-cny885-4-million.html | 2017-08-25 | 0 |
<p>Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (Ret) is a familiar face on Fox News. He has been doing commentary on military matters and foreign affairs for more than a decade. He has always been a hard-core spokesman for ultra-conservative views and a fierce opponent of all things liberal. He once <a href="" type="internal">called President Obama</a> a “total pussy” on the air (for which he got a two week suspension).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewsCorpse/posts/2081502651864519" type="external" /></p>
<p>For a little background, Peters is so radical that he once complained that the U.S. military needed to buck up and <a href="" type="internal">produce more civilian casualties</a> in order to win the war on terror. He also advocated <a href="" type="internal">targeting the media</a> for military attacks, including in the U.S. But more recently he has assumed a strident “NeverTrump” position. He believes that Donald Trump is Putin’s puppet and even announced on Fox that he would be <a href="" type="internal">voting for Hillary Clinton</a> because he doesn’t “want Moscow’s man in the White House,” and that “Vladimir Putin has a deep hold on Trump.”</p>
<p>Bearing all of that in mind, the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomnamako/ralph-peters" type="external">letter</a> Peters released on Tuesday is all the more remarkable. In it he announced that he was severing his relationship with Fox News. And the substance and tone of the document is just plain shocking. For someone so devoted to the far-right agenda, Peters’ descriptions of Fox News must sting. And no matter how much of a war-mongering neanderthal he is, he seems to have solid grasp of how reprehensible and dangerous Fox News is. So read on in amazement (emphasis added):</p>
<p>On March 1st, I informed Fox that I would not renew my contract. The purpose of this message to all of you is twofold:</p>
<p>First, I must thank each of you for the cooperation and support you’ve shown me over the years. Those working off-camera, the bookers and producers, don’t often get the recognition you deserve, but I want you to know that I have always appreciated the challenges you face and the skill with which you master them.</p>
<p>Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.</p>
<p>In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts–who have never served our country in any capacity–dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller–all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations– I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.</p>
<p>As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin’s agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the “nothing-burger” has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true–that’s how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.</p>
<p>I do not apply the above criticisms in full to Fox Business, where numerous hosts retain a respect for facts and maintain a measure of integrity (nor is every host at Fox News a propaganda mouthpiece–some have shown courage). I have enjoyed and valued my relationship with Fox Business, and I will miss a number of hosts and staff members. You’re the grown-ups.</p>
<p>Also, I deeply respect the hard-news reporters at Fox, who continue to do their best as talented professionals in a poisoned environment. These are some of the best men and women in the business.</p>
<p>So, to all of you: Thanks, and, as our president’s favorite world leader would say, “Das vidanya.”</p>
<p>That hardly requires any elaboration. However, Fox News issued a brief and uncharacteristically weak response:</p>
<p>“Ralph Peters is entitled to his opinion despite the fact that he’s choosing to use it as a weapon in order to gain attention. We are extremely proud of our top-rated primetime hosts and all of our opinion programing,”</p>
<p>Fox didn’t even bother to refute any of Peters’ allegations regarding Fox’s devolution into a propaganda machine. Nor did they defend the assertions that Trump is a hapless asset of Vladimir Putin. They just bragged about their on-air shills (only those in primetime) and made a wholly nonsensical accusation that Peters was seeking attention. By quitting his job at a major cable TV network? Um, Okay. Let’s see if any of his former colleagues have the guts to join a long overdue and righteous exodus from Fox. Or they can stay and forever wallow in the treasonous glow of Comrade Trump’s State TV.</p> | ‘I Am Ashamed’ To Be Associated With Fox News, Says Long-Time Military Contributor | true | http://newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p%3D31032 | 4 |
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<p>There is strong evidence on the record that you – a human being citizen of the United States – engaged in criminally reckless behavior that resulted in the deaths of 29 of our fellow citizens.</p>
<p>How will your government react?</p>
<p>Criminally prosecute you.</p>
<p>And if convicted, throw you in jail for a very long time.</p>
<p>There is strong evidence that a non human being major American corporation engaged in criminally reckless behavior that resulted in the deaths of 29 of our fellow citizens.</p>
<p>How will your government react?</p>
<p>Enter into a non-prosecution agreement with the company.</p>
<p>That’s right.</p>
<p>No corporate crime prosecution for one of the worst coal mine disasters in recent times.</p>
<p>Why no criminal prosecution?</p>
<p>Because there is a double standard of justice in the United States.</p>
<p>Criminal prosecutions for you and me.</p>
<p>Deferred and non prosecution agreements for major American corporations.</p>
<p>The details of the deal were announced at a press conference in Charleston, West Virginia by the U.S. Attorney R. Booth Goodwin II.</p>
<p>Alpha Natural Resources will make payments and safety investments totaling $209 million in connection with the criminal investigation of the April 5, 2010, explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine (UBB) in Montcoal, West Virginia.</p>
<p>The explosion at the UBB mine claimed the lives of 29 coal miners and injured two others.</p>
<p>At the time of the explosion, the mine was owned by Massey Energy Company, whose operations came under Alpha’s control in a June 1, 2011, merger.</p>
<p>Alpha will spend $80 million in mine safety improvements at all of its underground mines, including those formerly owned by Massey.</p>
<p>Alpha will place $48 million in a mine health and safety research trust, to be used to fund academic and non-profit research that will advance efforts to enhance mine safety.</p>
<p>The company will pay restitution of $1.5 million to each of the families of the 29 miners who died at UBB and to the two individuals who were injured, for a total restitution payment of $46.5 million.</p>
<p>Alpha also will pay a total of up to $34.8 million in penalties owed to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), including all penalties that arise from the UBB accident investigation.</p>
<p>Alpha will cooperate in a ongoing criminal investigation of individuals responsible for the wrongdoing.</p>
<p>In exchange, Alpha will not be criminally prosecuted.</p>
<p>David Uhlmann is a Professor at the University of Michigan Law School.</p>
<p>Uhlmann prosecuted corporate crime cases when he headed the Environmental Crimes Section at the Justice Department from 2000 to 2007.</p>
<p>And this agreement with Alpha left Professor Uhlmann scratching his head.</p>
<p>“Why were there no corporate criminal charges?” Uhlmann asked. “If you cannot bring a criminal case against the company involved when there are years of violations and numerous deaths, when will criminal charges be brought? No doubt part of the problem here is that the mine safety laws are too weak, at least from the perspective of criminal enforcement, which is something that Congress needs to address. Still, the fact that the company was able to obtain a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for paying record civil penalties raises a whole host of red flags about this deal.”</p>
<p>But isn’t it a legitimate strategy to not bring criminal charges against Alpha in return for $209 million and an agreement to cooperate in an ongoing criminal investigation of the individual wrongdoers within the company?</p>
<p>“My view is you play hardball and you get both,” said Uhlmann.&#160;“You get the criminal plea. And you also get the cooperation and for that matter the restitution and the upgraded safety measures at the plant.”</p>
<p>“The Justice Department appears to have reached the conclusion that the only way they could get restitution and the upgrade in safety at the company is by a non prosecution agreement,” Uhlmann said.</p>
<p>“In cases that don’t involve criminal activity, that is perfectly appropriate.”</p>
<p>“But if there is criminal activity, they should charge the case criminally against both the corporation and any responsible individuals.”</p>
<p>You can’t throw a corporation in jail. So, what does criminal prosecution of a corporation get you that you can’t get with the kind of settlement we see in Alpha?</p>
<p>“Criminal prosecution sends an entirely different message about how we view the corporate misconduct,” Uhlmann said. “When we prosecute a case criminally, we condemn the wrongdoing in the strongest possible terms.”</p>
<p>“There is no question that corporations want to avoid criminal prosecution if at all possible. Corporations don’t want the reputational damage that comes with a criminal conviction. That is another reason why criminal prosecution is a more serious sanction than civil enforcement.”</p>
<p>“This case certainly gives pause about what is the prevailing view at the Department about the role of corporate criminal prosecution,” Uhlmann said. “This fits the pattern over the last several years of favoring deferred and non prosecution agreements over criminal prosecution. It began in the Bush administration, but it has continued in this administration.”</p>
<p>Uhlmann said that when he was at the Environmental Crimes Section, he did not go along with the shift toward deferred and non prosecution agreements.</p>
<p>“This is a terrible tragedy, one of the worst mine disasters in our country. The President has talked about it. The Attorney General has talked about it. There is no way a case of this magnitude could have been settled without senior Department officials being notified and having the opportunity to object if they had an objection.”</p>
<p>Uhlmann said that under Justice Department policy, the U.S. Attorney would have completed an “urgent matter” report to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General.</p>
<p>“This agreement certainly had their blessing if not their explicit approval.”</p>
<p>Justin Feldman, Worker Health and Safety Advocate at Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division, said that the Justice Department “should have prosecuted Alpha to hold the corporation criminally liable for the worker deaths.”</p>
<p>“Instead, it opted for a non-prosecution agreement, in which there is no admission or finding of guilt – meaning a corporation can engage in reckless activity that leads to the deaths of 29 people and still escape criminal prosecution,” Feldman said.</p> | Twenty Nine Dead and Alpha Gets a Non-Prosecution Agreement | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/12/08/twenty-nine-dead-and-alpha-gets-a-non-prosecution-agreement/ | 2011-12-08 | 4 |
<p>The Independent</p>
<p>The pictures are appalling, the words devastating. As a wounded Iraqi crawls from beneath a burning truck, an American helicopter pilot tells his commander that one of three men has survived his night air attack. “Someone wounded,” the pilot cries. Then he received the reply: “Hit him, hit the truck and him.” As the helicopter’s gun camera captures the scene on video, the pilot fires a 30mm gun at the wounded man, vaporising him in a second.</p>
<p>British and most European television stations censored the tape off the air last night on the grounds that the pictures were too terrible to show. But deliberately shooting a wounded man is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and this extraordinary film of US air crews in action over Iraq is likely to create yet another international outcry.</p>
<p>American and British personnel have been trying for weeks to persuade Western television stations to show the video of the attack. Despite the efforts of reports in Baghdad and New York, most television controllers preferred to hide the evidence from viewers. Only Canal Plus in France, ABC television in the United States and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have so far had the courage to show the shocking footage. UK military personnel in the Gulf region have confirmed that the tape is genuine.</p>
<p>The camera, mounted beside the 30mm cannon of a US Apache helicopter on patrol over central Iraq on 1 December, first picks up movement on a country road, apparently several hundred metres from an American military checkpoint. A lorry and a smaller vehicle, probably a pick-up, come into view and a man–apparently unaware of the hovering helicopter– is seen moving to a field on the left of the screen. He is carrying what seems to be a tube with a covering; it may be a rocket-propelled grenade. One of two helicopter pilots is heard to say: “Big truck over here. He’s having a little pow-wow.” The driver of the pick-up looks around, reaches into the vehicle, takes out the tube-shaped object and runs from the road into the field. He drops the object and returns to the truck. The pilot then radios: “I got a guy running, throwing a weapon.” Another pilot, or a ground controller, instructs him: “Engage…smoke him.”</p>
<p>At this point, a tractor arrives close to where the man from the lorry dropped the object in the field. One of the Iraqis approaches the tractor driver. The Apache pilot opens fire with his 30mm cannon, killing first the Iraqi in the field and then the tractor driver. The camera registers the bullets hitting the first man. All that is left is a smudge on the ground.</p>
<p>The pilot then turns his attention to the large truck, opens fire and waits to see if he has hit the last of the three men. The third man is then seen crawling, obviously badly wounded, from his cover beneath the blazing truck. The pilot reports: “Wait. Someone wounded by the truck.” An officer replies: “Hit him. Hit the truck and him.”</p>
<p>The video tape shows that the incident took four minutes, during which the two helicopter pilots–whose names are listed as Nager and Alioto–expended 300 high-velocity cannon rounds at their targets. The tape shows that the first 15 rounds missed the men. One of the pilots says: “Fuck, switching to range auto.” The tape then documents the firing of four bursts of 20 rounds each at the three men.</p>
<p>The pictures, apparently taken through thermal-imaging cameras, leave no doubt that the pilot knew his third victim was wounded and crawling along the ground–and that whoever gave him the order to hit him also knew this.</p>
<p>Coming only days after the appalling photographs of Iraqis being tortured and humiliated by US troops at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, the new pictures can only further inflame Arab opinion throughout the Middle East. It is common Israeli practice to kill wounded enemies from the air; a devastating helicopter assault by Israel on a Hizbollah training camp in Lebanon 10 years ago was accompanied by a series of attacks in which pilots sought out wounded guerrillas as they hid behind rocks in the Bekaa Valley and then fired at them.</p>
<p>The film, while it shows men acting in an apparently suspicious manner, does not prove they were handling weapons. The occupation authorities in Baghdad chose to keep the incident secret when it occurred in December. Watching the video images, it is easy to understand why.</p>
<p>ROBERT FISK is a reporter for The Independent and author of <a href="" type="internal">Pity the Nation</a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s hot new book, <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Bookshop.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Video Shows Wounded Iraqis Being Shot by US Helicopters | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/05/06/video-shows-wounded-iraqis-being-shot-by-us-helicopters/ | 2004-05-06 | 4 |
<p>OAKLAND (6-9) vs LOS ANGELES CHARGERS (8-7)</p>
<p>Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET, CBS</p>
<p>OPENING LINE — Chargers by 7</p>
<p>RECORD VS. SPREAD — Oakland 5-8-2, Los Angeles 7-6-2</p>
<p>SERIES RECORD — Raiders lead 63-51-2</p>
<p>LAST MEETING — Chargers beat Raiders 17-16, Oct. 15</p>
<p>LAST WEEK — Eagles beat Raiders 19-10; Chargers beat Jets 14-7</p>
<p>AP PRO32 RANKING — Raiders No. 22, Chargers No. 13</p>
<p>RAIDERS OFFENSE — OVERALL (19), RUSH (25), PASS (17).</p>
<p>RAIDERS DEFENSE — OVERALL (19), RUSH (13), PASS (21).</p>
<p>CHARGERS OFFENSE — OVERALL (8), RUSH (24), PASS (3).</p>
<p>CHARGERS DEFENSE — OVERALL (14), RUSH (32), PASS (3).</p>
<p>STREAKS, STATS AND NOTES — 117th meeting in rivalry dating to 1960, when Los Angeles Chargers faced Oakland Raiders twice in their AFL debut seasons. ... Chargers still can make playoffs if they beat Oakland and two other results go their way in simultaneous games. ... Raiders get first game in 23 years in LA area, which they called home from 1982-94. They won LA’s only Super Bowl title and became wildly popular during 13-season stint in Southland. Most of StubHub Center crowd is expected to be wearing Silver and Black. ... Raiders trying to split season series after losing nail-biter in Oakland in October, snapping four-game winning streak against Bolts. ... Raiders’ offense has struggled all season, scoring more than 17 points in only six games. Raiders are 6-0 in those games. ... QB David Carr ranks 15th in NFL with 3,253 yards passing and 20th with 232.4 yards per game while dealing with broken bones in his back. His inability to match production of past two seasons has doomed Oakland. ... DE Khalil Mack has 10 1-2 sacks, still playing hard late in lost season. ... Raiders defensive coordinator John Pagano spent past 15 years on Chargers’ coaching staff, including past five seasons as defensive coordinator. He replaced Ken Norton Jr. with Raiders five games ago. ... Pagano’s successor with Bolts, Gus Bradley, has immediately put together tough unit. Chargers rank third in NFL with 17.5 points allowed per game. ... Regardless of playoff fate, Chargers victory would clinch winning record after 0-4 start to relocation season. ... Chargers have won four straight at StubHub Center after 0-3 start in new temporary home. Recent crowds have been distinctively pro-Bolts, but that’s likely to change Sunday. ... Chargers coach Anthony Lynn was Raiders coach Jack Del Rio’s running backs coach in Jacksonville in 2003. ... QB Philip Rivers putting finishing touches on impressive bounce-back season. Ranks third in NFL with 4,128 yards passing. Also has 25 TD passes for 10th straight season. He will become NFL’s ninth QB to surpass 50,000 career yards with 39 against Oakland. ... Could be TE Antonio Gates’ final regular-season game, although he hasn’t said for sure. He already holds NFL record for TD catches by tight end (114) and is franchise’s career leader in catches, yards receiving and TD catches. ... RB Melvin Gordon plans to play despite ankle injury. He became Chargers’ first 1,000-yard back since 2013 last week. ... Pro Bowl WR Keenan Allen needs eight catches to set Chargers single-season record with 101 receptions, passing LaDainian Tomlinson’s 100 in 2003. ... Bolts are one of three teams with five players getting at least four sacks. Pro Bowl selection Joey Bosa (11 1-2) and Melvin Ingram (10) lead way. ... Chargers’ plus-10 turnover margin is NFL’s fifth best this season and club’s best since 2007. Fantasy Tip: Raiders RB Marshawn Lynch is going against NFL’s worst rush defense, and Beast Mode has ample motivation to finish strong. He needs 10 yards to reach 800, triggering $600,000 bonus, and is 98 yards from 10,000 for his career.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>OAKLAND (6-9) vs LOS ANGELES CHARGERS (8-7)</p>
<p>Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET, CBS</p>
<p>OPENING LINE — Chargers by 7</p>
<p>RECORD VS. SPREAD — Oakland 5-8-2, Los Angeles 7-6-2</p>
<p>SERIES RECORD — Raiders lead 63-51-2</p>
<p>LAST MEETING — Chargers beat Raiders 17-16, Oct. 15</p>
<p>LAST WEEK — Eagles beat Raiders 19-10; Chargers beat Jets 14-7</p>
<p>AP PRO32 RANKING — Raiders No. 22, Chargers No. 13</p>
<p>RAIDERS OFFENSE — OVERALL (19), RUSH (25), PASS (17).</p>
<p>RAIDERS DEFENSE — OVERALL (19), RUSH (13), PASS (21).</p>
<p>CHARGERS OFFENSE — OVERALL (8), RUSH (24), PASS (3).</p>
<p>CHARGERS DEFENSE — OVERALL (14), RUSH (32), PASS (3).</p>
<p>STREAKS, STATS AND NOTES — 117th meeting in rivalry dating to 1960, when Los Angeles Chargers faced Oakland Raiders twice in their AFL debut seasons. ... Chargers still can make playoffs if they beat Oakland and two other results go their way in simultaneous games. ... Raiders get first game in 23 years in LA area, which they called home from 1982-94. They won LA’s only Super Bowl title and became wildly popular during 13-season stint in Southland. Most of StubHub Center crowd is expected to be wearing Silver and Black. ... Raiders trying to split season series after losing nail-biter in Oakland in October, snapping four-game winning streak against Bolts. ... Raiders’ offense has struggled all season, scoring more than 17 points in only six games. Raiders are 6-0 in those games. ... QB David Carr ranks 15th in NFL with 3,253 yards passing and 20th with 232.4 yards per game while dealing with broken bones in his back. His inability to match production of past two seasons has doomed Oakland. ... DE Khalil Mack has 10 1-2 sacks, still playing hard late in lost season. ... Raiders defensive coordinator John Pagano spent past 15 years on Chargers’ coaching staff, including past five seasons as defensive coordinator. He replaced Ken Norton Jr. with Raiders five games ago. ... Pagano’s successor with Bolts, Gus Bradley, has immediately put together tough unit. Chargers rank third in NFL with 17.5 points allowed per game. ... Regardless of playoff fate, Chargers victory would clinch winning record after 0-4 start to relocation season. ... Chargers have won four straight at StubHub Center after 0-3 start in new temporary home. Recent crowds have been distinctively pro-Bolts, but that’s likely to change Sunday. ... Chargers coach Anthony Lynn was Raiders coach Jack Del Rio’s running backs coach in Jacksonville in 2003. ... QB Philip Rivers putting finishing touches on impressive bounce-back season. Ranks third in NFL with 4,128 yards passing. Also has 25 TD passes for 10th straight season. He will become NFL’s ninth QB to surpass 50,000 career yards with 39 against Oakland. ... Could be TE Antonio Gates’ final regular-season game, although he hasn’t said for sure. He already holds NFL record for TD catches by tight end (114) and is franchise’s career leader in catches, yards receiving and TD catches. ... RB Melvin Gordon plans to play despite ankle injury. He became Chargers’ first 1,000-yard back since 2013 last week. ... Pro Bowl WR Keenan Allen needs eight catches to set Chargers single-season record with 101 receptions, passing LaDainian Tomlinson’s 100 in 2003. ... Bolts are one of three teams with five players getting at least four sacks. Pro Bowl selection Joey Bosa (11 1-2) and Melvin Ingram (10) lead way. ... Chargers’ plus-10 turnover margin is NFL’s fifth best this season and club’s best since 2007. Fantasy Tip: Raiders RB Marshawn Lynch is going against NFL’s worst rush defense, and Beast Mode has ample motivation to finish strong. He needs 10 yards to reach 800, triggering $600,000 bonus, and is 98 yards from 10,000 for his career.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p> | Raiders-Chargers Capsule | false | https://apnews.com/589055ce6ed048578137b31d72acd02a | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
<p>Shares of some top insurance companies were mixed at the close of trading:</p>
<p>ACE L fell $.63 or .6 percent, to $107.88.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Aflac Inc. fell $.17 or .3 percent, to $64.02.</p>
<p>American International Group rose $.01 or percent, to $57.00.</p>
<p>MBIA rose $.01 or .1 percent, to $9.11.</p>
<p>MGIC Investments Corp. fell $.18 or 1.7 percent, to $10.60.</p>
<p>MetLife fell $.41 or .8 percent, to $50.25.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>XL Group PLC rose $.02 or .1 percent, to $37.81.</p> | Insurance companies shares mixed at the close of trading | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/08/01/insurance-companies-shares-mixed-at-close-trading.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>ANACORTES, Wash. (AP) — A rock slide has closed a road in Anacortes in northwestern Washington state.</p>
<p>Skagit County officials say Rosario Road near Cougar Gap will be closed until Tuesday after three dump truck loads of rock came down a hillside.</p>
<p>County officials tell <a href="http://kng5.tv/2CqQ6jD" type="external">KING-TV</a> that crews will remove the rocks and check the stability of the hill.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: KING-TV, <a href="http://www.king5.com/" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.king5.com/" type="external">http://www.king5.com/</a></p>
<p>ANACORTES, Wash. (AP) — A rock slide has closed a road in Anacortes in northwestern Washington state.</p>
<p>Skagit County officials say Rosario Road near Cougar Gap will be closed until Tuesday after three dump truck loads of rock came down a hillside.</p>
<p>County officials tell <a href="http://kng5.tv/2CqQ6jD" type="external">KING-TV</a> that crews will remove the rocks and check the stability of the hill.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: KING-TV, <a href="http://www.king5.com/" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.king5.com/" type="external">http://www.king5.com/</a></p> | Rock slide closes road in northwestern Washington state | false | https://apnews.com/c6f2c830f6f84660a47cc98471cf50d0 | 2017-12-30 | 2 |
<p>AUG. 23, 2010</p>
<p>It’s always entertaining watching various tax consumers fight with one another over a shrinking revenue pie, which makes the Proposition 22 campaign a spectacle. Despite the chatter from supporters about “saving local services” and stopping Sacramento from “raiding” local treasuries, this November initiative simply pits different government groups against each other to save their resources.</p>
<p>The main beneficiaries if the initiative passes: developers who receive tax subsidies to build their so-called “redevelopment” projects and bureaucrats who like to micromanage land use in their cities. This one is an easy “no” vote for any number of reasons.</p>
<p>Prop. 22, the Local Taxpayer, Public Safety and Transportation Protection Act, “prohibits the state, even during a period of severe fiscal hardship, from delaying the distribution of tax revenues for transportation, redevelopment or local government projects and services,” according to the attorney general’s ballot description. In simple English, the measure would stop the state government from diverting money from redevelopment and transportation agencies to the general fund – no matter what disastrous fiscal mess the state finds itself in.</p>
<p>Both sides are trying to depict themselves as advocates of some sacred principle such as local control, but this is nothing more than various groups fighting to preserve their budgets by throwing other budgets overboard. Keep that in mind as you sort through all the campaign mailers that will soon be coming your way. Virtually all these government groups would love to simply raise everyone’s taxes to preserve their programs and pensions – but in this case they are fighting each other rather than ganging up to fleece taxpayers.</p>
<p>Basically, transit, redevelopment and city officials are on the side of Prop. 22, and education, health care and county officials are against it. In this case, the former are making the real raid on the treasury, while the latter are trying to thwart the raid. In this case, I side with the latter, even though I can’t ever recall being on the same side as the firefighters’ and teachers’ unions.</p>
<p>The primary supporters and beneficiaries of Prop. 22 are defenders of an outmoded and failed central planning system known as “redevelopment.” Redevelopment for decades has promised to redevelop blighted cities. But, as the public has learned after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Kelo decision in 2005, cities routinely abuse eminent domain on behalf of big developers who turn to these agencies to acquire Other People’s Property for them on the cheap. Cities are eager for the sales taxes that malls, auto dealerships and big-box stores bring, so they do everything they can to lure these developers.</p>
<p>Recently, the courts have upheld the state government’s raid of these dollars – and that’s a good thing. Because central planning is a failure anywhere it’s tried, redevelopment has a spotty record in actually improving things in cities. More realistically, the agencies create ever-expanding redevelopment plans with the goal of increasing tax revenue. As a result, they siphon about 12 percent of the state’s property taxes into this mad world of corporate subsidies and property-right abuses – at the expense of traditional services such as education and firefighting.</p>
<p>These agencies should be eliminated. Yet, Prop. 22 would make redevelopment funds sacrosanct. The initiative could end up creating pressure for tax increases for this simple reason: Prop. 22 protects many unnecessary budget items, while leaving more necessary programs fighting for their share of a shrinking budget. That will result in legislators saying, “We have no choice but to call for tax increases.” Returning redevelopment’s ill-gotten gains to the general fund, by contrast, will ease budget pressure and reduce (however slightly) the push for tax hikes.</p>
<p>These sorts of measures are, of course, ballot-box budgeting at its worst. Special interests go to the electorate and lock in their pet funding sources, which then leaves even fewer pools of cash for the Legislature to manage. Granted, no one would argue that the California Legislature can be trusted with budgeting, or anything else of importance, but these initiatives – think about Prop. 98, which earmarks 40 percent of the state’s general fund budget for K-14 education – make it impossible to reform public spending.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, some Republicans are backing this League of Cities atrocity. I understand, as one Republican explained it, that many local GOP officials are tired of having the state raid their transportation funds. And I understand their argument that local – the government closest to the people – tends to be more accountable than government in Sacramento.</p>
<p>But as someone who has for years covered local government, I can guarantee that those governments can rival Sacramento for waste and abuse. Remember that redevelopment agencies are not local agencies. Legally, they are state agencies, although they are managed by local officials. If Prop. 22 passes, these agencies will get protection from state “raids” on their finances, which makes them largely unaccountable: the locals can’t control their abuses because they are state agencies, and the state can’t grab their money because they are local agencies. They apparently want it both ways.</p>
<p>I do agree that the state and locals need to fund more transportation projects, but the answer isn’t to make yet another portion of the budget off-limits to the Legislature. At some point, legislators are going to have to learn that government cannot expand endlessly, that the public-sector pit bulls need to be put on a tight leash and that they have to spend more time managing the state budget rather than promoting the latest social-engineering fads and spending schemes. That’s unlikely to happen any time soon, so it’s natural to look to the initiative process for a solution. Unfortunately, this special-interest measure will only exacerbate the mess.</p>
<p>–Steven Greenhut</p> | Prop. 22 protects corporate welfare | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2010/08/23/prop-22-protects-corporate-welfare/ | 2018-08-20 | 3 |
<p>U.S. stocks opened lower Monday, on track for a third straight drop, as escalating worries that U.K. voters might choose to leave the European Union in a referendum set for next week fueled a global selloff The S&amp;P 500 dropped 6 points, or 0.3%%, to 2,090. The Dow industrials slid 47 points, or 0.3%, to 17,815. The Nasdaq Composite shed 22 points, or 0.5%, to 4,871. In major merger news, LinkedIn Corp. shares surged after Microsoft Corp. said it would buy the social-media company in an all-cash deal. Meanwhile, Microsoft shares declined.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | U.S. Stocks Open Lower As 'Brexit' Fears Escalate | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/13/us-stocks-open-lower-as-brexit-fears-escalate.html | 2016-06-13 | 0 |
<p />
<p>It’s been a big week for the horrifically-designed friend-accumulation and lo-fi mp3 streaming web site MySpace. They grabbed the new G N’ R <a href="/riff_blog/archives/2008/11/11001_chinese_democra.html" type="external">just yesterday</a> (the song “Chinese Democracy” is up to almost a million plays), and now <a href="http://www.myspace.com/kanyewest" type="external">they’ve got the new Kanye West album</a>, 808s and Heartbreak, which isn’t out until Tuesday. Of course, they can’t help but screw things up, as Rolling Stone <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/11/21/myspace-music-kanye-west-streaming-now-g-n-r-set-record/" type="external">points out</a>, their <a href="http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&amp;friendID=9347892&amp;blogID=450735125" type="external">“fancy artwork”</a> called the album “808s and Heartbreaks.” In fact, they’re kind of accurate: the album takes stock of all sorts of troubles in Kanye’s life, from the death of his mother to failed relationships, from materialistic tendencies to a sudden regret he never had children. One heartbreak flows into another on this strange, lonely album.</p>
<p>I complain a lot about the audio quality of MySpace’s streaming tracks—the service automatically downgrades any uploaded mp3s to 96kbps, low enough to be noticeably worse than a 99-cent 128kbps file on iTunes—but Kanye, as usual, has jumped out in front of this development, for better or for worse. Much of 808s and Heartbreak sounds like it was recorded underwater, on a throwaway (and, uh, waterproof) digital recorder, so the crappy MySpace streams sound just as good as the originals. Of course, much has also been made of the album’s use of Lil Wayne’s favorite toy, the Antares Auto-Tune pitch-correction software (you thought I was going to say “bong,” didn’t you), but the most noticeable thing to me about Kanye’s vocals is how muddy they are. Add the robotic Auto-Tune to the reduced fidelity, and you get the overwhelming impression of claustrophobia, like Kanye’s being squeezed (or squeezing himself) into a tiny box. It’s an oddly perfect metaphor for the gray, lifeless world view and self-denial of the heartbroken, but it does mean 808s and Heartbreak falls squarely into “concept album” territory, and that it might not be that enjoyable to actually listen to.</p>
<p>NY Mag‘s Vulture blog <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/11/leaked_kanyes_auto-tune_album.html" type="external">checked out the album</a> when it first leaked a couple days ago, giving it faint praise: “we have to admit, it’s not (technically) the worst thing we’ve ever heard.” I wonder what was? The NME <a href="http://www.nme.com/reviews/kanye-west/10009" type="external">calls the album</a> “bold” but acknowledges that not all the tracks work, saying “Say You Will” uses “flaky hooks and backpack-rap-style beats with Frenchie-coffee-table-lektro blips and Enya-brand flute toots.” Yeeps!</p>
<p>The Huffington Post jumps into the record-review fray with <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandon-perkins/huffpost-review-kanye-wes_b_145068.html" type="external">a piece on the album</a>, making an interesting comparison between the new high-concept robo-Kanye and Garth Brooks’ “Chris Gaines” character, calling him the only other artist “at such a commercial peak to take such a drastic, ‘artistic’ risk.” They’re realistic about the music, though:</p>
<p>As for the songs themselves, putting aside tragic and Autotuned context, some work and some don’t. “Amazing” delicately plods along beautiful builds until the bottom drops out and Young Jeezy delivers the record’s one rap verse with monstrous (and yet understated) flair. “Streetlights” is a drum-heavy ballad that flirts with cheesiness, but in the end is saved by layers of vocals and a moving melody. And despite adding Lil Wayne’s supersized ego to “See You In My Nightmares” falls surprisingly flat and forgettable.</p>
<p>The LA Times <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2008/11/kanye-west-exam.html" type="external">is more generous</a>, finding common musical ground between the minimalist, spacey beats on Heartbreak and current underground electronica like M83 or Junior Boys. Even more interestingly, they explore Kanye’s use of the Auto-Tune as the foregrounding of the “fake”:</p>
<p>Because they’re so obviously “fake,” the sounds that come from primitive drum machines and manipulative software forces the listener to question what she does consider real — regarding not only the sounds she hears, but also the emotions they invoke. Puppets have historically been associated with the same questions Auto-Tune raises now. They seem to be more human than human, and if manipulated well can cause that uncanny feeling of not knowing where an object stops and humanity starts.</p>
<p>“Grace appears most purely in that human form which either has no consciousness or an infinite consciousness. That is, in the puppet or in the god,” wrote the German poet and philosopher Heinrich von Kleist in 1810. Watching the dance of a beautiful marionette, which has no sense of self, we begin to ponder our own self-awareness — the very essence of humanity. West seeks a similar effect on “808s and Heartbreak,” a heavy trip indeed.</p>
<p>Ultimately, 808s and Heartbreak is such a left-field album, only time will tell if it stands out as a classic or sticks out like a sore thumb. But you have to give Kanye credit, and not just for trying something different: he took his misery and actually made something out of it, a supremely difficult task.</p>
<p>808s and Heartbreak is out Tuesday, November 24 on Island Def Jam. Listen to the whole thing <a href="http://www.myspace.com/kanyewest" type="external">here</a>, but you have to click on “featured playlist” in their player deal and select “808s and Heartbreak.” It took me a minute to figure that out.</p>
<p /> | Stream Entire New Kanye West Album At, You Guessed It, MySpace | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/11/stream-entire-new-kanye-west-album-you-guessed-it-myspace/ | 2008-11-21 | 4 |
<p><a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/china-flood-deaths-rise-to-57-one-million-evacuated/story-e6frf7jx-1226142079030" type="external">Flooding</a> across <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14983132" type="external">China</a> has claimed 57 lives as more than a million people are evacuated from their homes.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ggy6cfgD2YpMEehLtxEvhDjXg-vg?docId=99eeac0681d94902bcbc2d8aebf1181c" type="external">Heavy record rains</a> for more than a week have swamped several provinces in northern, central and southwest China, also injuring dozens of people, Newscore reports.</p>
<p>The Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement that the rain had forced authorities to evacuate more than 1.2 million people from their homes, BBC reports.</p>
<p>Landslides and mudslides have toppled homes and blocked roads in the area, and the National Meteorological Center forecast that the torrential rains that caused them will last for another three days, AFP reports.</p>
<p>"Constant strong rainfall has caused serious flood disasters in Sichuan [southwest], Shaanxi [north] and Henan [central] - 12.3 million people were affected, 57 died and 29 are missing," it said.</p>
<p>One area of the southwestern province of Sichuan, Bazhong, was severely affected, with 13 people killed, 10 missing and 156 injured, a spokesman for the local government told the official China Daily newspaper.</p>
<p>Parts of China's longest river, the Yangtze, recorded reaching seven meters above dangerous levels and was expected to rise to the highest level since 1847, the Herald Sun reports.</p>
<p>Last year saw China's worst flooding in a decade, leaving more than 4300 people dead or missing.</p>
<p>The floods have caused nearly $3 million in damage and submerged 29,000 houses across the three provinces, according to China's Ministry of Civil Affairs. &#160;</p> | China: floods leave 57 dead | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-09-20/china-floods-leave-57-dead | 2011-09-20 | 3 |
<p>Time made Vladimir Putin its Man of the Year. Chalk it up as nostalgia for the cold war, when America was great, and a working man in a state like Michigan had two cars, a nice house, a country cabin, a health plan, a pension and a wife who stayed at home, canning fruit and batting her eyes at the postman. These days he has two lousy jobs, she has three and they have negative equity in their home, no health plan and no pension.</p>
<p>A couple of indices of how down many Americans are feeling about the future: The suicide rate among middle-aged Americans has reached its highest point in at least 25 years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported.</p>
<p>The rate rose by about 20 percent between 1999 and 2004 for U.S. residents ages 45 through 54 ­ far more than among younger adults, whose own suicide stats are also on the rise.</p>
<p>In 2004, there were 16.6 completed suicides per 100,000 people in the 45-54 cohort, the highest it’s been since the CDC started tracking such rates, around 1980. The previous high was 16.5, in 1982, a year when there was a terrible farm crisis in the Mid-West.</p>
<p>These days it’s the health care crisis. People can’t even afford to get finished off respectably by a doctor or a hospital, so they have to do it themselves.</p>
<p>The second index of desperation is a sudden spike in teen pregnancies, particularly among young black women. As R.F. Blader wrote a few days ago <a href="" type="internal">here on this site</a>, “When we believe in our opportunities, we safeguard our futures. Conversely, we behave self-destructively when we have no hope. For many teenagers in America, the options aren’t heartening. In a society where opportunities are scarce and life is getting harder, getting pregnant puts a positive spin on a vote of no-confidence.” Indeed some argue that having babies early is a very rational choice for a young black teen, since her support network of kin are still alive, and her own body not wasted by the toxins associated with low income neighborhoods.</p>
<p>In less than a week America will start trudging through the endless months of Campaign 2008. Worthy Iowans, their quadrennial season in the limelight at its apex, will cram into the caucuses and kick off the horse races. In all the torrents of rhetorical hot air thus far expended, it’s hard to find a single sentence from any politician that could give any comfort to that suicidal 50-year old or the teen with a toddler as her only solace. There are gestures to populism by the Democrat John Edwards, but I’ve not met anyone who believes that there is the slightest chance of substantive reform of health care or a reversal of soaring trends in inequality. The bad guys have a lock on the system.</p>
<p>The default option these days is fantasy ­ a trend in American politics kicked off in this epoch by Ronald Reagan. Reagan knew how to keep things simple. When Reagan died a Pentagon official told me that when Ron became president in 1981, and thus “commander in chief” the Joint Chiefs of Staffs mounted their traditional show-and-tell briefings for him, replete with simple charts and a senior general explicating them in simple terms. Reagan found these briefings way too complicated and dozed off. The Joint Chiefs then set up a secret unit, staffed by cartoonists. The balance of forces were set forth in easily accessible caricature, with Soviet missiles the size of upended Zeppelins, pulsing on their launchpads, with the miniscule US ICBMs shrivelled in their bunkers. Little cartoon bubbles would contain the points the joint chiefs wanted to hammer into Reagan’s brain, most of them to the effect that “we need more money”. Reagan really enjoyed the shows and sometimes even asked for repeats.</p>
<p>Reagan set the bar for the level of national political debate. They called him the Great Communicator and no one has moved the bar since. So who cares if his great contribution to the national fantasy “missile defense”, aka, “the strategic defense initiative” aka “Star Wars, is now scheduled to consume 19 per cent of the defense budget even though it’s well nigh universally admitted the system is useless. The system is impregnable to reform and everyone knows it. London-Paris</p>
<p>The Dialectics of Revolution, uh, Recycling</p>
<p>Three years ago some smart leftists in England put together an event called the Battle of Ideas and the mix of provocative</p>
<p>themes, well-run panels and competent speakers worked out well. I was invited to speak at a couple of sessions in the third Battle at the end of this last October and was happy to find its organizers threading a sane course past the rocks on which left-organized confabs usually founder: viz., endless mastication of the obvious; marked disinclination to address any new ideas; overblown preachments to the converted. In fact, on the surface at least, this didn’t seem like a particularly “left” affair, which probably explains why that weekend a thousand people were milling around the Royal College of Art, next to the Albert Hall.</p>
<p>Waiting for my first panel — “Digital Commons: Does Technology Add Up To A New Sphere?” My answer, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvqRztOP-H8" type="external">No</a> — , I thought back forty years to what these days would be called a signature sixties event, namely the Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation, held over two weeks in July 1967 in a magnificent railway repair shed known as the Round House, built in the 1840s in north London. There was nothing circular about those proceedings. It was full tilt forward to revolution, personal and political.</p>
<p>The Congress was convened by radical psychiatrists led by R.D. Laing and David Cooper. They believed that the violence done to what they saw as those socially victimized persons termed “schizophrenic” or “mad” had common features with America’s imperial violence, at that time being unleashed on revolutionary Vietnam. The affair featured big names and big themes: Herbert Marcuse, Paul Sweezy, Paul Goodman, Stokely Carmichael, Gregory Bateson.</p>
<p>The night before his address I cooked dinner for Mr. and Mrs. Marcuse on behalf of the New Left Review editorial committee. Marcuse was sharing lodgings with Goodman and denounced the latter’s habit of leaving the bathroom door open as he stood in his underwear, brushing his teeth, “flirting his buttocks.” Marcuse twitched his behind in parody of the licentious author of Growing Up Absurd as, slightly shocked, our group waited to continue with probing questions about the Frankfurt School. “Too much civilization, not enough Eros,” Mrs. Marcuse muttered wryly.</p>
<p>Next day Marcuse admonished the large crowd, many of whom had taken up permanent residence in the Roundhouse, “We have been too ashamed, understandably ashamed, to insist on the integral, radical features of a socialist societyif this qualitative difference today appears as Utopian, as idealistic, as metaphysical, this is precisely the form in which these radical features must appear if…socialism is indeed…the leap into the realm of freedom-a total rupture.”</p>
<p>What seemed to seize the crowds at the Battle of Ideas thirty years later were not grand visionary sweeps, like those of Marcuse-history has sidelined these for the nonce-but deflations of what one may term rhetorical, politically correct “mini-progressivism.” One panel I eagerly attended, “Recycling Is A Waste of Time,” featured a German, Thomas Deichmann, describing the insane recycling regulations now beleaguering the citizenry of Frankfurt. The case for efficient incineration, he asserted, was overwhelming. Most recycling is an utter waste of time, economically unsound and without benefit for the environment. “We should,” he counseled urbanely, “be thinking of more interesting things.”</p>
<p>Julia Hailes, “sustainability consultant” to companies such as Marks and Spencer and Shell, author of The New Green Guide, listened tautly, as did Julie Hill, author of A Zero Waste UK. Ms Hill gazed at Deichmann as though he were a lead battery in a baby’s bath. Hailes mimed, with as much enthusiasm, albeit less satirically than Marcuse forty years earlier, the pleasures of tossing foil into one kitchen bin, metal bottle top into another, plastic into a third. Recycling, she chirped, made her feel good.</p>
<p>The two didn’t carry the crowd. A man described sorting green, clear and brown glass into three bins, only to see them all dumped into the same truck. A woman seized the microphone: “I go to the dump with my kid each week, to take the rubbish there. Then he goes to school and they do their first day trip, and where do they go?” She paused for effect. “To the dump!” The crowd roared. Mind you, this wasn’t a mob of hee-haw Limbaugh-type reactionaries, deriding all collective social efforts to improve the planet. In this and other sessions, their indignation stemmed from a sense that along the road from the grand visions of ’67 to the pious sustainability mantras and globe-survivalist waffle of our own phase, the vision of human liberation expressed by Marcuse had collapsed into variants of resource management and nannyism, with irksome rules and protocols, none of which had anything to do with onslaughts on capitalist ownership and control.</p>
<p>Back in 1989 I did some interviews on environmentalism and socialism for Z magazine with the left economist James O’Connor. Jim described what he’d told a fellow in the newspaper recycling business: “If you set up a recycling project where your outfit helps to create the conditions to organize social relations of production that make sense, that have to do with fraternity, equality, liberty, and justice, etc., etc., then I’ll recycle my newspapers. Come and tell me when you have done that.</p>
<p>AC: What do you do with your old newspapers?</p>
<p>JO: Throw them in the trash. What do you do with yours?</p>
<p>AC: Throw them in the trash. Back in Ireland with my mother we leave them out for the man from St Vincent de Paul who takes them away for some charitable purpose, thereby maintaining social relations in the sorry state they are today, imploring the poor to pray for relief from heaven. And, needless to say, the poor people of my home town are very glad to have St Vincent de Paul bail them out in their hour of need.</p>
<p>Democrat Found in Republican’s Corpse</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A partially mummified hadrosaur discovered by a teenager in North Dakota may be the most complete dinosaur ever found, with intact skin that shows evidence of stripes and perhaps soft tissue, researchers said on Monday.</p>
<p>They also found a second fossil. The clawed foot belongs to a species of crocodile that may have been dining on the hadrosaur soon after it died in a riverbed.</p>
<p>“It could have crawled up the back passage of the animal, went to get the guts and ended up stuck,” said paleontologist Phil Manning.</p>
<p>So Much for Second-Hand Smoke</p>
<p>They Died in 2007: Vincent Sardi Jr., 91. Consummate host of Broadway watering hole Sardi’s. Jan. 4.</p>
<p>Footnote: The item on the Battle of Ideas first ran in the print edition of The Nation.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Options in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/12/29/options-in-america-kill-yourself-or-have-a-baby/ | 2007-12-29 | 4 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico state employees would gain access to short-term personal loans that can be repaid through their paychecks, under newly proposed legislation.</p>
<p>Democratic state Sen. Bill Tallman of Albuquerque said Monday that the bill is designed to ensure state employees can borrow modest amounts of money without resorting to high-interest loans from storefront lenders.</p>
<p>New Mexico this year is capping annual interest rates on small loans at 175 percent in an effort to combat predatory lending. Consumer advocates say that limit still is too high and are promoting new lending alternatives for individuals and households that don’t have access to traditional bank loans.</p>
<p>Tallman’s proposal would limit interest rates to 30 percent for qualified state employees, and cap repayment at 12 percent of gross salary or wages. He said the goal is to lower costs and debt burdens on state workers.</p>
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<p>“It’s a nice benefit we can give to state employees,” said Tallman, who previously worked as a city manager of several mid-sized municipalities outside New Mexico.</p>
<p>Several local government entities in New Mexico, from the City of Las Cruces to Santa Fe Public Schools, already have joined a program called TrueConnect that provides employees with short-term loans that are repaid from a portion of salary.</p>
<p>Santa Fe Public Schools offers its employees loans through TrueConnect of between $1,000 and $3,000, district spokesman Jeff Gephart said. He said the district does not make any money off the loans, while paying its own administrative expenses.</p>
<p>Tallman’s bill would direct the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration to devise a loan program. Mexico state government employs nearly 20,000 people. New</p> | Bill would offer New Mexico employees personal loans | false | https://abqjournal.com/1113650/bill-would-offer-new-mexico-employees-personal-loans.html | 2018-01-02 | 2 |
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<p>TEHRAN, Iran — Protests across Iran saw their most violent night as “armed protesters” tried to overrun military bases and police stations before security forces repelled them, killing 10 people, Iranian state television said Monday.</p>
<p>The demonstrations, the largest to strike Iran since its disputed 2009 presidential election, have seen five days of unrest across the country and a death toll of at least 13 with the slaying of a police officer announced late Monday.</p>
<p>The protests began Thursday in Mashhad over Iran’s weak economy and a jump in food prices and have expanded to several cities, with some protesters chanting against the government and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hundreds of people have been arrested.</p>
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<p>Iranian state television aired footage of a ransacked private bank, broken windows, overturned cars and a firetruck that appeared to have been set ablaze. It said 10 people were killed by security forces during clashes Sunday night.</p>
<p>“Some armed protesters tried to take over some police stations and military bases but faced serious resistance from security forces,” state TV said.</p>
<p>In a later report, state TV said killed six people were killed in the western town of Tuyserkan, 295 kilometers (185 miles) southwest of Tehran, and three in the town of Shahinshahr, 315 kilometers (195 miles) south of Tehran. It did not say where the 10th person was killed.</p>
<p>Earlier Monday, the semi-official ILNA news agency quoted Hedayatollah Khademi, a representative for the town of Izeh, as saying two people died there Sunday night. He said the cause of death wasn’t immediately known, though authorities later described one of the deaths as the result of a personal dispute.</p>
<p>Late Monday, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency said an assailant using a hunting rifle killed a policeman and wounded three other officers during a demonstration in the central city of Najafabad, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) south of Tehran. The slaying marked the first security force member to be killed in the unrest.</p>
<p>Two protesters also were killed during clashes late Saturday in Doroud, some 325 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Tehran in Lorestan province, authorities have said.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Iran blocked access to Instagram and the popular messaging app Telegram used by activists to organize.</p>
<p>President Hassan Rouhani acknowledged the public’s anger over the Islamic Republic’s flagging economy, though he and others warned that the government wouldn’t hesitate to crack down on those it considers lawbreakers.</p>
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<p>That was echoed Monday by judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, who urged authorities to confront rioters, state TV reported.</p>
<p>“I demand all prosecutors across the country to get involved and the approach should be strong,” he said.</p>
<p>Rouhani also stressed Monday that Iran “has seen many similar events and passed them easily.”</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been tweeting in support of the protesters, continued into the New Year, describing Iran as “failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration.”</p>
<p>“The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years,” he wrote. “They are hungry for food &amp; for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!”</p>
<p>While some have shared Trump’s tweets, many in Iran distrust him because he has refused to re-certify the nuclear deal and his travel bans have blocked Iranians from getting U.S. visas.</p>
<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling the protesters “brave” and “heroic,” said in a video posted to YouTube on Monday that the protesters sought freedom, justice and “the basic liberties that have been denied to them for decades.”</p>
<p>He criticized the Iranian regime’s response to the protests and also chided European governments for watching “in silence” as the protests turn violent.</p>
<p>British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson issued a statement late Monday saying “there should be meaningful debate about the legitimate and important issues the protesters are raising and we look to the Iranian authorities to permit this.”</p>
<p>“We regret the loss of life that has occurred in the protests in Iran, and call on all concerned to refrain from violence and for international obligations on human rights to be observed,” he said.</p>
<p>German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel also said in a statement that “after the confrontation of the past days it is all the more important for all sides to refrain from violent action.” Both countries were part of the 2015 nuclear deal.</p>
<p>Iran’s economy has improved since the nuclear deal, which saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the end of some international sanctions. Tehran now sells its oil on the global market and has signed deals to purchase tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Western aircraft.</p>
<p>That improvement has not reached the average Iranian, however. Unemployment remains high, and official inflation has crept up to 10 percent again. A recent increase in egg and poultry prices by as much as 40 percent, which the government has blamed on a cull over avian flu fears, appears to have been the spark for the economic protests.</p>
<p>While the protests have sparked clashes, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and its affiliates have not intervened as they have in other unauthorized demonstrations since the 2009 election.</p>
<p>It wasn’t immediately clear if the Guard would change its posture given the reported attacks on police stations and military bases. In Tehran on Monday, streets were calm, though a heavy police presence was noticeable.</p>
<p>Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri , the Guard commander and deputy chief of staff for Iran’s military, said Monday that Trump’s support of the protesters “indicates planning by the U.S. for launching a new sedition in Iran.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi reported this story in Tehran and AP writer Jon Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.</p> | Iran protests have violent night; at least 13 dead overall | false | https://abqjournal.com/1113392/iran-state-tv-12-killed-in-protests-attacks-on-security.html | 2018-01-01 | 2 |
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<p>EL PASO (AP) — Demolition crews on April 13 plan to bring down two towering smokestacks from the now-closed ASARCO copper smelter in West Texas.</p>
<p>About 50 people attended a public meeting Tuesday night in El Paso to hear from contractors and environmental officials.</p>
<p>Critics have raised public health and other pollution concerns with demolishing the 825-foot and 612-foot smokestacks at the site that closed in 1999.</p>
<p>Preservation efforts failed. The demolition is part of a $52 million remediation toward site redevelopment.</p>
<p>Mike Casbon of Brandenburg Industrial Service Co. says water mists will be used to help control the dust. He says material has also been removed from inside the stacks.</p>
<p>Officials say metal from the stacks will be recycled. The concrete will be used as fill at the site.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | El Paso’s landmark stacks to fall April 13 | false | https://abqjournal.com/173015/el-pasos-landmark-stacks-to-fall-april-13.html | 2013-02-27 | 2 |
<p>In January of this year, Bobbi Kristina Brown was found unresponsive in her bathroom, and her family has had wide-ranging reactions to the situation ever since, People <a href="http://www.people.com/article/bobbi-kristina-brown-inner-circle-whos-who" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>Bobbi’s father, Bobby Brown, has been a daily presence at her rehabilitation center, often not leaving her side for several hours. He is insistent that she will recover, according to several sources.</p>
<p>“Doctors have indicated that she will have a long life,” Brown’s attorney said in a statement. “However, Bobbi Kristina is presently embarking on a rehabilitation process and the quality of her life will not be known for years to come.”</p>
<p>Bobby Brown is in regular contact with other members of his family, including siblings Tina and Leolah, providing updates on his daughter’s progress.</p>
<p>The Houstons have also maintained a constant vigil by Bobbi Kristina’s bedside. Her aunt and uncle, Pat and Gary Houston, are in regular attendance, alongside New Jersey-based&#160;grandmother Cissy Houston.</p>
<p>The families sadly remain at odds. “Everyone’s on a different page,” says a Brown family relative. “No one knows what anyone else’s motivations are. It’s ugly.”</p>
<p>On Saturday, Bobby told a crowd that his daughter with Whitney Houston “is awake.” The next day, Cissy came out with&#160;her own statement, saying that her granddaughter has irreversible brain damage and remains unconscious.</p>
<p>Bobbi Kristina’s aunt issued some pointed allegations of her own: Leolah, Bobby’s sister, commented on Facebook that people may “hear from those who wish to see my niece go away forever” and said those people “lust after Bobbi Kristina’s money and seek to benefit from her tragedy.”</p>
<p>Whatever differences the Browns and Houstons may have, they remain united on two fronts: One, Bobbi Kristina’s boyfriend, Nick Gordon, remains barred from the facility where she is housed. Gordon, who&#160;recently had a stint in rehab, has not visited&#160;Bobbi Kristina in more than a month.</p>
<p>Two, the family will not give up. “We continue to pray for a miracle,” says the Brown source, “and we will continue to pray until we get one.”</p>
<p /> | Who’s watching over Bobbi Kristina Brown? Her inner circle revealed | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/04/21/whos-watching-over-bobbi-kristina-brown-her-inner-circle-revealed/ | 2015-04-21 | 3 |
<p>What do shampoo, dungarees, and pyjamas have in common? &#160;They're all words that English borrowed from India, as catalogued by a "madly unruly and idiosyncratic work" known as Hobson-Jobson -- the British Raj's answer to the Oxford English Dictionary.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-1879649" type="external">great feature from the BBC</a> points out, Hobson-Jobson is beloved by Indophiles, writers and word-nuts for its weird mix of history, etymology and culture. &#160;Better still, it's coming back in print, as&#160;Kate Teltscher, reader in English Literature at Roehampton University, is preparing the new Oxford World Classics edition.</p>
<p>"By exploring the words that are in Hobson-Jobson we start to realise how many words that we use every day, we don't even think of as particularly being of Indian origin actually are," the BBC quotes Teltscher as saying.</p>
<p>Indeed. Shampoo comes from champi -- bastardized from a word for head massage. What we call pyjamas ("night suit" in India) is the word for the baggy trousers worn with a kurta (loose shirt). But for the Brits, add tidbits like "have a dekko," used to mean the same thing, look, as it does in Hindi (though it's mispronounced in the English). Or even Hobson-Jobson itself.</p>
<p>Frequently confused for the names of the dictionary's two writers --&#160;Colonel Henry Yule and AC Burnell -- the phrase "is in fact an Anglo-Saxon version of the wailings of the Mahommedans as they beat their breasts in the procession of the Moharram - 'Ya Hasan! Ya Hosain!'"&#160;</p> | India: Where does shampoo come from? Hobson-Jobson knows. | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-12/india-where-does-shampoo-come-hobson-jobson-knows | 2012-07-12 | 3 |
<p>Rex Shutterstock via ZUMA Press</p>
<p />
<p>On Thursday morning—after he was booed at the Republican convention the night before—a defiant Sen. Ted Cruz declared that he would not grovel “like a servile puppy” to endorse Donald Trump, the man who attacked his wife and father. In a heated breakfast meeting with members of the Texas GOP delegation in Cleveland, Cruz, who was soundly denounced by Trump and his allies after refusing to endorse Trump during a convention speech, reiterated a call for Republicans to vote their “conscience.”</p>
<p>Before Cruz spoke, the mood among the Texas delegates who had gathered in the downtown Marriott was conciliatory. Trump “wasn’t even my 8th or 10th choice,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling told the room. “But you know what? He is my nominee, and I’m gonna give him 110 percent.” The powerful House Financial Services chairman added, “It’s time for all of us to put the primary in our past.” (Outside, he characterized Cruz’s speech more bluntly, <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamWollner/status/756109475791138816" type="external">telling</a> reporters that Cruz had missed a “two-foot putt.”)</p>
<p>When he addressed his home-state delegates, Cruz moved to deflect the criticism surrounding his prime-time address, which was received so poorly by the crowd at the Quicken Loans Arena that his wife had to be escorted out by security. He reminded delegates that the mob of television cameras and scribbling reporters in the back of the room were not their friends and were eager to sow discord within he conservative movement. And he promised not to say anything bad about Trump, noting that the two men had spoken three days earlier and that Trump knew well in advance that the speech would not amount to an endorsement. “They knew exactly what I was gonna say,” Cruz said, adding, “I was perfectly happy to get on a plane and go home.”</p>
<p>But when Cruz took questions from the audience, he left little doubt about his stance on Trump. Delegate after delegate stood up and posed a variation of the same question: Would Cruz get on board? Each time, Cruz pivoted to a different line of critique. He slammed Republicans who would “attack as a traitor anyone who would question our candidate.” He talked up his stand as a principled conservative with the guts to speak his mind, poking at Trump critics who “turned tail and ran and didn’t come to the convention.”</p>
<p>When a questioner asked Cruz how Trump could bring “constitutionalists on board,” Cruz pointed right back to his speech, calling it an “outline” designed to show Trump “how you win.” In Cruz’s view, bashing Hillary Clinton and talking endlessly about email servers—Cruz’s convention speech was not to be interrupted by “lock her up!” chants—would not lead to victory in November. Trump, he insisted, has to talk about “freedom.”</p>
<p>Throughout his session, Cruz was heckled by members of his own delegation. One man held up a homemade “Clinton-Cruz 2020” sign. When Cruz said he believed Republicans would indeed win in November, another shouted, “With or without you!” But Cruz used the hostile room to his advantage. Despite his earlier promise not to criticize Trump, he decried Trump supporters who at the convention have been “blindly chanting a name and yelling down dissenters.” And he asked, “What does it say when you stand up and say ‘vote your conscience’ and rabid supporters of our nominee began screaming, ‘What a horrible thing to say’?” He compared his own courageous decision to speak to a less-than-friendly room to Trump’s attitude toward critics: “Can anyone imagine our nominee standing in front of voters answering questions like this?”</p>
<p>Cruz, who had previously signed the GOP pledge to support the eventual nominee, told the Texas delegates that he could point to the exact moment when Trump crossed a line: when the called Cruz’s wife ugly in a tweet and then accused Cruz’s father of possibly being involved in the Kennedy assassination. “That pledge,” he said, “was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I’m gonna nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.'”</p>
<p>When he finished making this point, he addressed a man in the back of the room who was mocking Cruz. “I will note, sir, that you might have a similar view if someone was attacking your wife—in fact I hope you would,” Cruz said.</p>
<p>“This is politics,” the man responded. “Your wife has got to get over it. This is politics.”</p>
<p>“No,” Cruz said, “this is not politics. I will tell the truth, I will not malign, I will not attack, I will not insult, I will tell the truth. This is not a game. It is not politics. Right and wrong matters.”</p>
<p /> | Cruz Says He Won’t Grovel Before Trump Like a “Servile Puppy” | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/defiant-cruz-says-he-wont-grovel-trump-servile-puppy/ | 2016-07-21 | 4 |
<p>New White House chief of staff John Kelly quietly circulated two memos outlining a new process of screening every piece of information before allowing it to get on the desk of President Donald Trump, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/24/john-kelly-trump-control-241967" type="external">Politico reported</a>.</p>
<p>Before any memo or document hits the president’s eyes, it will first be reviewed by Kelly or White House staff secretary Rob Porter, Politico reports. And it may never get to the president’s desk, ending a veritable free-for-all that has been the norm for the first months of this administration.</p>
<p>Kelly’s memos were distributed to Cabinet members and WH staffers, Politico reported.</p>
<p>The policy is common and has been used by many preceding administrations, but it’s new to the Trump White House.</p>
<p>“If there was not this structure beforehand and if the structure has now been created and if they adhere to it, you will get better results, but there are some ‘ifs’ in my statement,” Tevi Troy, who served as a deputy assistant under George W. Bush, told Politico. “The process works if people stick to it.”</p>
<p>Kelly’s aim is to cut down on the distractions, but also produce a level playing field among competing factions within the administration, Politico reported.</p>
<p>Accompanying the restrictions on what information gets to the president are also new rules on who gets in to what meeting, also subject to the approval of Kelly, Politico reported.</p>
<p>“If you’re not on the list, you can’t get into the meeting,” an aide told Politico.</p> | Politico: Kelly's Team Will Vet Everything Before Going to Trump | false | https://newsline.com/politico-kellys-team-will-vet-everything-before-going-to-trump/ | 2017-08-24 | 1 |
<p>The Chicago Public Schools is poised to ramp up a new way for local school councils to evaluate their principals.</p>
<p>The model for the new evaluation process, now in use at 40 schools, brings LSCs and principals together at the start of the school year to set goals and provides for ongoing dialogue.</p>
<p>In contrast, the standard evaluation that most councils use is one-sided and takes place once a year in the spring.</p>
<p>“Effective evaluation cannot be a one-shot deal at the end [of a school year],” says Carlos Azcoitia, deputy chief education officer and an early supporter of the new model, called EXCEL for Evaluation Expertise for Councils and Educational Leaders.</p>
<p>EXCEL grew out of a collaboration involving CPS, Leadership for Quality Education (LQE) and the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. It integrates corporate models of employee evaluation with CPS research on creating supportive learning environments. Human resource consultants Exxceed Inc. provided technical assistance.</p>
<p>“If you don’t give [principals] a quality evaluation, they don’t know how to do better,” says John Ayers, LQE’s executive director. “People aren’t afraid of evaluations if they’re fair and developmental.”</p>
<p>Most of those who use EXCEL say the process is easier to use and more flexible than the CPS version.</p>
<p>Since it adopted EXCEL two years ago, the LSC at Galileo has a better understanding of what the principal is supposed to do, and the principal “feels much more comfortable” with the evaluation process, says LSC chair Claudia Mazola.</p>
<p>Ray Elementary Principal Cydney Fields says EXCEL helps her to focus on the priorities set by the LSC. “It minimizes the frustration,” Fields says. “There are so many things to do in the course of a day; [EXCEL] brings me back to what my goals are.”</p>
<p>A prototype of EXCEL was tested in 10 CPS schools in 1999, and the process was fine-tuned based on participants’ feedback, then expanded to 33 schools the following year.</p>
<p>Councils and principals using EXCEL are trained in the fall to do initial evaluations and set goals for the year. Principals are provided with an Internet-based program that tracks their progress and produces monthly reports for their LSCs.</p>
<p>In the spring, council members and principals are trained to fill out evaluation forms, then meet to discuss the results and set goals for the following year.</p>
<p>In all, there are six hours of on-site training and 20 hours of technical support by an EXCEL consultant, who helps LSCs set goals and timetables, trains principals to use the Internet software and helps both parties at the year-end joint feedback session.</p>
<p>However, adapting EXCEL—training and consulting time intact—systemwide would be too costly for CPS to implement, says Lisa McMahon, an EXCEL project manager for LQE.</p>
<p>To be cost effective, CPS will likely change or eliminate some features of the EXCEL process, she adds. Private foundations pick up expenses for the pilot schools. “Right now, we have the Cadillac version,” McMahon says. “It would be a very expensive process for the system to roll out.” With all the bells and whistles, EXCEL would cost $3,000 a year for each school, she estimates.</p>
<p>Access to consultants is a key element of EXCEL, says Mazola of Galileo. If CPS is going to change its principal evaluation process, “it has to adopt the consulting part,” she cautions. “That’s the part that makes it work. If you’re having a problem with a principal, it doesn’t [turn into] finger-pointing.”</p>
<p>Fields agrees. “If [training] could be more tailor-made, it can be very effective in helping people develop leadership in a positive way,” she says.</p>
<p>Azcoitia is optimistic that CPS will find a cost effective way to adapt EXCEL. “We’ll just incorporate EXCEL into the new [LSC] training,” Azcoitia says. “It’s doable.”</p>
<p>Ayers of LQE is recommending that CPS phase in the new evaluation program to give LSCs and principals time to adjust.</p>
<p>“Anytime you introduce something new, it’s going to be more work for everyone,” he says. “If we keep our eye on quality, then we’ll avoid the worst pitfalls.”</p>
<p>CPS officials are expected to make a decision later this spring.</p> | CPS to adopt new tool for principal evaluations | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/cps-adopt-new-tool-principal-evaluations/ | 2005-07-28 | 3 |
<p>Dec. 12 (UPI) — South Africa’s state-owned defense company, Denel SOC Ltd., is selling 12 surplus Cheetah fighter jets to Draken International, a U.S.-based tactical fighter training company.</p>
<p>The sales contract, announced Tuesday by Denel, includes return to service and flight acceptance tests in South Africa and aircraft delivery to the United States. The company is also pursuing post-delivery logistics support for the duration of aircraft operations.</p>
<p>Draken International will use the planes for air support, fighter pilot training and tactical exercises for air forces around the world.</p>
<p>Draken said its sale includes nine South African-designed Cheetah C jets and three dual-seat Cheetah D aircraft. The supersonic planes have operational ranges of more than 800 miles. The Cheetah fighters were designed in the 1980s and retired from service when South Africa acquired Saab’s Gripen fighter jets.</p>
<p>Denel said engine maintenance work for the aircraft will be handled by Turbomeca Africa, in which Denel has bought a controlling stake and is re-integrating into their business.</p> | Draken International to buy surplus South African fighters | false | https://newsline.com/draken-international-to-buy-surplus-south-african-fighters/ | 2017-12-12 | 1 |
<p>I'm pretty excited about the field of Republican candidates, who seem young and vigorous compared to the aging North-East Democrats in the race.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">As I've said before,</a> I'm particularly impressed with Donald Trump, even though a few months ago, I would have written him off as a reality TV star.</p>
<p>It's refreshing to hear someone as blunt, patriotic and entrepreneurial as Trump. It's certainly a nice change from <a href="" type="internal">Obama's</a> "you didn't build that" attitude towards business.Trump reminds me in many ways of <a href="" type="internal">former Toronto mayor Rob Ford,</a> who was criticized by the same class of fancy people -- even though he and Trump otherwise don't have very much in common.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">JOIN TheRebel.media</a> for more fearless news and commentary you won't find anywhere else. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/LevantShakedown" type="external">READ Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights</a> --Ezra Levant's book about the Canadian Human Rights Commissions, censorship and the Mohammed cartoons was voted "the best political book of the last 25 years."</p>
<p>You cannot just decide to ignore the law -- and yet this is what is happening in "sanctuary" cities Hamilton and Toronto. <a href="http://www.UpholdTheLaw" type="external">SIGN THE PETITION to end "sanctuary" cities for criminals.</a></p> | Forget his wealth and brashness: Here's the real reason the media hates Trump | true | http://therebel.media/forget_his_wealth_and | 2015-07-13 | 0 |
<p>Miami: School shakeup</p>
<p>Supt. Rudy Crew plans an overhaul of 39 failing schools, according to the Aug. 17 Miami Herald. The plan includes 10 more days in the academic calendar, an extra hour in the school day, smaller classes and more training for teachers. Crew will have to negotiate with labor unions to implement the plan, but if the unions resist, Crew could take advantage of state Board of Education rules that allow districts to suspend union contracts in order to improve poorly performing schools. The director of United Teachers of Dade County says teachers who want to leave the 39 schools should be allowed to do so.</p>
<p>California: Funding lawsuit</p>
<p>The state has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit charging that poor children were denied adequate textbooks, trained teachers and a safe school environment, according to the Aug. 11 Los Angeles Times. The proposed settlement, which is subject to approval by a judge, would require the state to spend $1 billion to improve 2,400 low-performing, deteriorating schools. The state will also pay nearly $139 million for new textbooks this fall.</p>
<p>Kentucky: GED program</p>
<p>A GED program for struggling students could result in schools dumping low-achieving students who might drag down test scores, according to the Aug. 12 Lexington Herald-Leader. Aimed at students who are still in school, the program requires that students take state tests and have their scores included in their school’s scores. But critics argue that requirement can be sidestepped because a student could complete the GED program, then be pushed to drop out before the end-of-year state tests are given.</p> | Elsewhere | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/elsewhere-2-2/ | 2005-07-29 | 3 |
<p>Power is General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) core strength, and its gas turbines are usually seen as its single most important product. As such, it's concerning that the power segment is the main source of the company's recent troubles. In my view, if you're considering an investment in GE's stock, then you need to know what's going on with its power segment. So here's the lowdown on GE Power.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The segment was front and center among&#160; <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/25/3-must-read-takeaways-from-general-electric-compan.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">GE's issues Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;during the third quarter, and it was the main cause of management's slashing full-year earnings guidance from an operating EPS range of $1.60-$1.70 down to $1.05-$1.10, Similarly, guidance for full-year cash flow from operating activities (CFOA) dropped from a range of $12 billion-$14 billion to just $7 billion.</p>
<p>CEO John Flannery outlined that power was one of the key drivers of the earnings guidance cut, and regarding CFOA guidance cut of $7 billion he said that "Power alone will be lower than expected by $3 billion on lower earnings and higher inventory."</p>
<p>"We are severely disappointed in the results of Power and are taking action to position the business going forward," CFO Jeff Bornstein said. A quick look at the trends in revenue and profits reveals why. Moreover, power equipment orders declined 32% in the quarter and are now down 9% on a four-quarter rolling average, while power services orders rose a miserly 1%.</p>
<p>The cracks were beginning to show as far back as <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/30/general-electric-company-disappoints-again-what-it.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">GE's fourth quarter Opens a New Window.</a> of 2016, when the company fell six turbines short of the low end of its target to ship 110-115 turbines in 2016. Furthermore, in the first quarter of 2017, GE <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/04/does-general-electric-companys.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">missed its CFOA forecast Opens a New Window.</a> by $1 billion, with the power segment being largely responsible. Fast-forward to the second quarter and GE's power-services problems <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/26/general-electric-companys-earnings-failed-on-3-cou.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">came to the surface Opens a New Window.</a> with management first alerting investors that services revenue was trending weaker than expected.</p>
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<p>There are two main issues with GE Power. First, end-market demand for turbines isn't strong, resulting in overcapacity in the industry -- something that key rival Siemens AG (NASDAQOTH: SIEGY) has been <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/08/28/what-siemens-earnings-mean-to-general-electric-com.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">very vocal Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;about in the past. &#160;Indeed, Bornstein expects market demand for heavy-duty gas turbines to drop from 46 gigawatts in&#160;2016 to 40 gigawatts this fiscal year. Throw in the likelihood of more <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/07/general-electric-companys-most-important-product-f.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">competition from Siemens Opens a New Window.</a>, and the outlook dims even further.</p>
<p>Second, according to Bornstein, "the structure of the services market has also changed," and GE Power services revenue is significantly lower than expected in 2017, with Bornstein expecting "issues to persist through the fourth quarter and 2018." This matters, because services tend to be higher margin than equipment, and because GE sells its power equipment with long-term service agreements attached, the last thing GE needs to see is a slowing growth in power services.</p>
<p>The result of these two issues was a 51% fall in power-segment profit in the third quarter, caused by a slump in GE Power margin to 7%, from 14% last year.</p>
<p>It's worth noting that GE has done a reasonable job under the circumstances. For example, the development of its market-leading H-class turbine has helped offset <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/07/general-electric-companys-most-important-product-f.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">falling sales Opens a New Window.</a> of its older technology E-class and F-class turbines, and the acquisition of Alstom's energy assets is probably the sort of thing a company should do in a weakening end market. In other words, consolidate the market and drive growth through synergy generation.</p>
<p>There's little GE can do about weak end demand, except wait for a cyclical upturn. That could take time. However, if Bornstein is right and there is a kind of structural change taking place in the power-services market, then GE's power problems could be even more far-reaching than currently disclosed.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than General ElectricWhen 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=9868fb33-1bea-4b35-a0c3-0aa36cf862a3&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and General Electric wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=9868fb33-1bea-4b35-a0c3-0aa36cf862a3&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSaintGermain/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Lee Samaha Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=800b6eaa-c4c1-11e7-9008-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | What's Wrong With General Electric Company's Core Business? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/12/whats-wrong-with-general-electric-companys-core-business.html | 2017-11-12 | 0 |
<p>Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) questions former CIA Director John Brennan.Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP</p>
<p />
<p>The Republicans still are not serious about investigating the Trump-Russia scandal. That message came through resoundingly when the House Intelligence Committee held a public hearing on Tuesday morning with former CIA chief John Brennan. (Actually, this was not officially a committee hearing. Democrats on the committee were informed earlier that this would be considered a “task force” hearing because the Republican chairman of the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, could not appear because he had recused himself from the Russia investigation.)</p>
<p>At the witness table, Brennan told a harrowing tale. As CIA director last summer, he saw what was happening with the hack-and-leak attack on the Democratic National Committee, and he reviewed top-secret intelligence and concluded that Russia was mounting this assault to disrupt the election, hurt Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump. He also at the time was aware of intelligence that showed contacts between Trump associates and Russia, and that caused him to conclude a thorough FBI investigation was warranted. He testified, “I saw interaction” that warranted concern.</p>
<p>This was a big deal. In March, then-FBI chief James Comey revealed during testimony to this committee that in July 2016 the bureau launched an investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Now the CIA head from then was stating that there was clear intelligence that justified that probe. He also revealed that in early August he was so concerned about the Russian operation he spoke to the head of Russia’s FSB, the country’s intelligence service, and warned him to knock it off. Brennan also revealed that in August and September he briefed a small number of congressional leaders and shared with them top-secret intelligence about Moscow’s effort to subvert the election in part to benefit Trump. (This means that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan knew many details about the Russian operation but didn’t challenge or correct Trump’s continued public assertions that Russia was not necessarily the culprit in the DNC hack.)</p>
<p>Yet once again Republicans did not focus on the main elements of the story. When the Republicans on the committee had the chance to question Brennan, they did not press him for more details on Russia’s information warfare against the United States. Instead, they fixated on protecting Trump.</p>
<p>The Republicans zeroed in on the issue of whether Trump and his associates colluded with any Russians involved in the attack on US democracy—to push Brennan to say he had not seen concrete evidence of such conspiring. Reps. Tom Rooney (R-Fla) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) grilled Brennan repeatedly on this point. They posed the same basic query: Did you see any evidence that Trump or his associates plotted with Russians? “I don’t do evidence. I do intelligence,” Brennan replied. Still, they kept pressing him. They were obviously hoping he would state that he had not come across any such evidence so Trump and his champions could cite Brennan as a witness for their claim no collusion occurred.</p>
<p>In the face of this questioning, Brennan repeatedly stated that the intelligence he saw regarding contacts between Trump associates and Russia was worrisome and deserved full FBI scrutiny. So the Republicans failed in their mission to provide cover for Trump—and they ended up highlighting the legitimacy of the FBI inquiry begun under Comey.</p>
<p>A similar effort fell flat. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) questioned Brennan about the intelligence community assessment released in early January that concluded the Russian clandestine operation was designed to assist Trump. He several times asked Brennan if there had been evidence contrary to this conclusion that was not included in the report. Brennan explained that the assessment was the result of a thorough interagency process that looked to develop a consensus position. Still, King seemed to suggest that the assessment might be open to question. And Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) asserted he had reviewed raw intelligence, and he insisted the information supporting the assessment that Moscow had preferred Trump was not as solid as the intelligence community maintained. Here were Republicans trying to find wiggle room for Trump.</p>
<p>Rooney took another stab at undermining the dominant narrative of the Trump-Russia scandal. He asked whether the Russians had been rooting for Clinton to fail or for Trump to win. “It was both,” Brennan replied. Rooney suggested that the Russians had gathered information damaging for Clinton’s campaign that it did not release, and he asked Brennan, what would that mean for the conclusion that Russians were trying to help Trump? It appeared as if Rooney thought this would be an a-ha! moment: If the Russians sat on anti-Clinton material, well, that must be an indicator they hadn’t’ engaged in cyber-skullduggery to help Trump. Brennan shot this down with a simple reply: Since the Russians, like many others, believed Clinton would win, they might have been holding on to that material to damage her once she became president.</p>
<p>Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) also tried to race to Trump’s rescue. Complaining that some Democrats on the committee have publicly said they have seen evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, Turner asked Brennan if it would be accurate to characterize the intelligence Brennan saw when he was CIA chief as evidence of collusion. Brennan responded that this would not be an accurate characterization. Turner smiled, as if he had just blown a hole in the Democrats’ case. Moments later, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) asked Brennan if he had seen the evidence and material shared by the FBI with the House Intelligence Committee in classified meetings. No, he had not. So Turner had proved nothing.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most absurd act of GOP distraction came when Rep. Ben Wenstrup (R-Ohio) raised an episode from 2012, when President Barack Obama was caught on a hot mic telling Dmitry Medvedev, then the president of Russia, that he would have more flexibility to negotiate with Vladimir Putin after the US presidential election. Calling this moment “pretty disturbing,” Wenstrup asked Brennan, “Would you question that interaction?” Brennan didn’t take the bait and said he had nothing to say in response. Wenstrup suggested that perhaps this should be investigated. Brennan didn’t reply.</p>
<p>Gowdy finished up his questioning by concentrating on leaks and the unmasking within top-secret reports of Americans picked up incidentally by US intelligence surveillance. This has become a favorite topic of Republicans looking to defect from the core features of the Trump-Russia scandal. And Gowdy, a bit defensively, noted he had waited until the end of the hearing to pose these questions so the claim could not be made that Republicans are “hyperfocused” on the matter. Yet compared with previous hearings, Gowdy was restrained in declaiming leaks. This time he did not suggest, as he has before, that journalists should be prosecuted for publishing stories containing classified information.</p>
<p>When the hearing ended, the Republicans departed the room quickly. A few Democratic members lingered. One complained about the slow pace of the committee’s investigation. Another pointed out that Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who’s leading the committee’s Russia investigation in Nunes’ absence, had barely participated in the hearing. Conaway had opened the hearings without any reference to the interactions between Trump associates and Russia, but he had presented a prayer that invoked Jesus. As one Democrat noted, Conaway did not ask a single question during the proceedings. “That tells you all you need to know,” this member said.</p>
<p /> | Republicans Focus on Protecting Trump at Russia Hearing | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/republicans-protect-trump-at-house-intelligence-hearing-russia/ | 2017-05-23 | 4 |
<p>Published time: 16 Sep, 2017 22:05</p>
<p>Protests have gone on for a second day in St Louis after a white, former police officer was acquitted of the fatal shooting of a black suspect in 2011. Despite the tension between demonstrators and police, no major incidents were reported.</p>
<p>Hundreds of people briefly marched through the upscale West County Mall Center mall in Des Peres Saturday, chanting “shut it down!”. Authorities were taking steps to close the mall before protesters arrived, and many shops had already metal security screens over their store fronts. Unlike Friday, however, there were no reported <a href="http://fox2now.com/2017/09/16/stockley-protesters-march-inside-west-county-mall/" type="external">incidents</a> between protesters and police.</p>
<p>“We don’t want to see property destruction or see people getting hurt,” Elad Gross, a civil rights attorney, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-missouri-crime/more-protests-break-out-in-st-louis-after-acquittal-in-police-shooting-idUSKCN1BQ161" type="external">told</a> Reuters. “But this is a protest that addresses injustices not only happening here in St Louis but around the country.”</p>
<p>On Friday, former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley was acquitted of shooting dead Anthony Lamar Smith, 24, in 2011. Smith was shot five times in his car after being chased by Stockley and his partner on suspicion of being involved in a drug deal. A gun was later found in the car.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/403569-st-louis-police-trample-woman-arrest/" type="external">READ MORE: St Louis police knock older woman to ground &amp; arrest her (PHOTO, VIDEO)</a></p>
<p>Stockley claimed he thought Smith was going to shoot him, but it was only the officer’s DNA was found on the weapon and being heard on an internal police car video saying he was going to kill Smith, which led prosecutors to claim the gun was planted.</p>
<p>Stockley waived his right to a jury trial, allowing Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson to consider the verdict instead. In his ruling, Judge Wilson wrote that he was “not convinced” of Stockley’s guilt.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/403513-st-louis-protest-police-highway-closed/" type="external">READ MORE: Tear gas &amp; arrests, mayor’s home vandalized in St. Louis after ex-cop acquitted of black man’s death</a></p>
<p>After the verdict was read out, around 600 people marched from the courthouse to center of St Louis, some waving Black Lives Matter placards. Some of the demonstrators started breaking windows and hurling bricks and bottles at police, and in the resulting chaos nine officers were injured and 23 protesters arrested.</p> | Protesters march through St. Louis mall over ex-cop acquitted of black man’s killing (VIDEO, PHOTOS) | false | https://newsline.com/protesters-march-through-st-louis-mall-over-ex-cop-acquitted-of-black-mans-killing-video-photos/ | 2017-09-16 | 1 |
<p>President Donald Trump’s decisions on foreign policy have been “strong and decisive,” according to Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.</p>
<p>“It clearly understands that there is no such thing as leading from behind when it comes to tackling the most pressing international security issues,” McCaul wrote in a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/07/28/homeland-security-chairman-mccaul-trumps-foreign-policy-is-strong-and-decisive-have-stopped-leading-from-behind-are-putting-america-first.html" type="external">Friday opinion piece on Fox News</a>.</p>
<p>McCaul said the Trump administration is in strong contrast with Barack Obama’s administration over the previous presidency’s handling of ISIS.</p>
<p>Trump avoided Obama’s strategy and “unleashed the generals to crush the enemy,” McCaul said, referring to Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis and others in the administration that have military backgrounds.</p>
<p>The president also has taken action to protect South Korea and other allies such as Saudi Arabia, as well as tightening sanctions against Iran, the Homeland Security chairman said.</p>
<p>An “America First” view is not “isolationist,” the congressman said.</p>
<p>“It is a way to unite our allies to pursue common goals that are American priorities,” he said in his piece.</p>
<p>The U.S. has taken an active leadership role, and in doing so has made the world “a much more peaceful and prosperous place,” McCaul said.</p>
<p>The Homeland Security chairman noted in the opinion piece that he does not always agree with Trump. On July 21, McCaul said that Trump’s slams of special counsel Robert Mueller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/michael-mccaul-trump-criticism-robert-mueller/2017/07/21/id/803116/" type="external">make him look “paranoid.”</a></p> | McCaul: Trump Foreign Policy Strong, Decisive | false | https://newsline.com/mccaul-trump-foreign-policy-strong-decisive/ | 2017-07-28 | 1 |
<p>A driver died in a wreck at an Ohio race track Saturday, an official with Eldora Speedway in Rossburg said.</p>
<p>Dirt Late Model racer Shane Unger, 35, was involved in a muti-car crash on a turn in the half-mile oval, and was pronounced dead after being rushed to Mercer County Community Hospital, the raceway said in a statement.</p>
<p>The crash happened during a late restart in the second heat race at the World 100, the statement said.</p>
<p>"The Unger family has conveyed their appreciation of the prayers and support expressed by the racing community and requests their privacy be respected at this time,” the statement said.</p>
<p>The track is owned by three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart, who was racing at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday night.</p>
<p>A team spokesman said after the race that Stewart had not been informed of the driver's death, the Associated Press reported.</p> | Driver Shane Unger Dies in Multi-Car Crash at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/sports/driver-shane-unger-dies-multi-car-crash-ohios-eldora-speedway-n646306 | 2016-09-11 | 3 |
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<p>An American official indicated that the Justice Department on Tuesday unsealed a July 2013 complaint against Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, also known as “Khalti” and “Halati,” because law enforcement officials no longer thought that keeping it secret would aid U.S. efforts to obtain her custody.</p>
<p>Al-Tamimi pleaded guilty in Israel in 2003 and was sentenced to 16 life terms for assisting the bomber in the Aug. 9, 2001, attack on a Sbarro restaurant, according to charging documents.</p>
<p>Among the 15 dead were a pregnant American, Judith Shoshana Greenbaum, 31, and U.S. citizen Malka Roth, 15. Four U.S. citizens were among more than 120 injured.</p>
<p>A former student working part time as a television journalist, Al-Tamimi met with and drove the bomber to the target after pledging to carry out attacks on behalf of the military wing of the Palestinian organization Hamas, according to an FBI affidavit included with the complaint.</p>
<p>Al-Tamimi served eight years before being released in October 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, and returned to Jordan, which forbids extradition of its nationals, Justice Department officials said.</p>
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<p>Al-Tamimi’s release was controversial, as was the exchange of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier. In interviews from prison, Al-Tamimi described driving the bomber and then going on Palestinian television to announce the news of the attack.</p>
<p>In 2012, then-U. S. Reps. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., Howard Berman, D-Calif., and 50 other members of Congress backed by relatives of terrorism victims and pro-Israel groups called on the Justice Department to prosecute Al-Tamimi and others.</p>
<p>In a statement announcing the case Tuesday with U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips of the District of Columbia and FBI Washington Field Office director Andrew Vale, acting U.S. assistant attorney general for national security Mary B. McCord said, “The charges unsealed today serve as a reminder that when terrorists target Americans anywhere in the world, we will never forget – and we will continue to seek to ensure that they are held accountable.”</p>
<p>Speaking on the condition of anonymity to explain the timing of the action, a U.S. official added: “We seek a court order to seal charges whenever we, in consultation with our law enforcement partners, believe that keeping the charges sealed will assist in our efforts to obtain custody of the defendant. When we and our law enforcement partners no longer believe that keeping the charges sealed will aid in those efforts, we unseal the charges.”</p>
<p>The Justice Department said it will continue working with foreign partners to gain custody of Al-Tamimi.</p> | US unseals charge against Jordanian woman in 2001 Jerusalem Sbarro bombing | false | https://abqjournal.com/969439/us-unseals-charge-against-jordanian-woman-in-2001-jerusalem-sbarro-bombing.html | 2 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — Six Flags Entertainment Corp. (SIX) on Monday reported earnings that climbed by 40 percent in its second quarter. The results matched analysts’ expectations.</p>
<p>The Grand Prairie, Texas-based company said earnings rose to $66.3 million, or 67 cents per share, from $47.4 million, or 47 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.</p>
<p>The amusement park operator said revenue increased 3.5 percent to $376.6 million from $363.7 million in the same quarter a year ago, and missed Wall Street forecasts. Analysts expected $396.6 million, according to Zacks Investment Research.</p>
<p>Six Flags shares have climbed $4.18, or 11 percent, to $41 since the beginning of the year. The stock has risen $5.15, or 14 percent, in the last 12 months.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Six Flags 2Q profit rises 40 percent | false | https://abqjournal.com/432752/six-flags-2q-profit-rises-40-percent.html | 2 |
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<p>Austria's Gregor Schlierenzauer adjusts his helmet as he prepares to jump during a training session for the men's ski jumping large hill individual event during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games on Feb. 13. The Men's Large Hill Individual Qualification round is scheduled for Feb. 14 at 12:30 p.m. ET.</p> | Men’s Ski Jumpers Focused on Large Hill | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/sochi-olympics/mens-ski-jumpers-focused-large-hill-n29771 | 2014-02-13 | 3 |
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<p>Border Patrol agents at the Santa Teresa station began a monthlong test this week. The cameras also will be tested in Florida, Michigan, Texas and Washington over the next three months.</p>
<p>In recent years, the Border Patrol has come under criticism for its use of lethal force.</p>
<p>Civil rights groups have alleged widespread impunity at CBP – the nation’s largest law enforcement agency – and have been pushing for greater accountability.</p>
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<p>A 2013 review of 67 cases involving Border Patrol’s use of deadly force found multiple areas of concern, including agents’ firing on vehicles not posing a lethal threat and shooting people throwing rocks or other objects unlikely to cause serious injury.</p>
<p>The review was commissioned by the CBP and released publicly last year; the agency revised several policies governing use of force.</p>
<p>“We’re very optimistic that body-worn cameras will give us a much greater opportunity for transparency and accountability within our organization,” said Benjamine Huffman, deputy chief of the El Paso sector, which includes New Mexico.</p>
<p>If the technology eventually gets put into use as a matter of policy, he said, “these body-worn cameras will allow the American public to look over our shoulder while we are working. We can say, ‘Don’t just take our word for it that we’re doing a good job; watch us do a good job.'”</p>
<p>CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief who has led the Border Patrol’s parent agency since March, last year called for the pilot study as part of an effort to address allegations that CBP has dragged its feet in investigating abuses by its officers and agents.</p>
<p>At least 39 people have died and dozens have been injured since January 2010 in encounters with CBP, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has been tracking use-of-force incidents for the past four years.</p>
<p>On Friday, the ACLU commended the use of body-worn cameras as one way to combat what it called “an alarming trend of excessive use of force incidents” by CBP officers and border agents.</p>
<p>“It’s been one of our No. 1 recommendations as another measure of accountability,” said Vicki Gaubeca, director of the ACLU’s Regional Center for Border Rights in Las Cruces.</p>
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<p>CBP said it will evaluate issues involved with using the cameras – including privacy, retention of records, costs and legal ramifications – once the field test phase is completed, likely in mid-2015. Before the cameras could be used widely, CBP said it will have to negotiate with the two unions representing border agents and customs inspectors.</p>
<p>Shawn Moran, spokesman for the border patrol agents’ union, said the union has concerns, but hopes to work them out at the bargaining table.</p>
<p>“The idea that one camera that will be somehow attached to a Border Patrol agent will solve the questions about use of force – I think that’s shortsighted,” Moran said.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for the union representing CBP officers could not be reached on Friday.</p>
<p>Border Patrol first began testing body-worn cameras at the agency’s training facility in Artesia. The three-month study concluded in December.</p>
<p>Border agents apprehended more than 479,000 unauthorized immigrants at the Southwest border during fiscal 2014, including more than 250,000 people from Central America and countries other than Mexico.</p>
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<p /> | Border Patrol agents field testing body-worn cameras | false | https://abqjournal.com/544335/border-patrol-to-test-body-worn-cameras.html | 2015-02-20 | 2 |
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<p>You know, Teddy Roosevelt got a lot of mileage for being nice to a bear. The ubiquitous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_bear" type="external">Teddy bear</a> was the upshot of his refusal to shoot. So you think John McCain would know better. The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/09/AR2008030902152.html?hpid=topnews" type="external">Washington Post</a> reports a great piece on McCain’s standard stump speech fare about a $3 million study of the DNA of bears in Montana. “Unbelievable,” he says. Well, what’s unbelievable is that no one on McCain’s staff has bothered to inform him of the real purpose of the study he’s spent so much energy despising since 2003. Katherine Kendall, a kick-ass biologist, and the mastermind of the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project, is actually doing John McCain and his descendants a genuine favor by tackling the life-and-death issues of <a href="/news/feature/2007/05/gone.html" type="external">biodiversity</a>. According to the WP:</p>
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<p>Kendall is one tough field biologist: She’s rafted wild rivers, forded swollen streams and hiked through remote backcountry for weeks at a time. She goes to places inhabited by all manner of large creatures with sharp teeth. She was once charged by an enraged grizzly. She stared the bear down… As a scientist with the US Geological Survey, she set out to get the first head count of grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem. She and her co-workers at the USGS have used DNA primarily as a bear-identifying tool… “There’s never been any information about the status of this population. We didn’t know what was going on—until this study,” Kendall said. This was an astonishingly ambitious research project involving 207 paid workers, hundreds of volunteers, 7.8 million acres and 2,560 bear sampling sites [including the bear rub tree seen in the video]. The project did not cost $3 million, as McCain’s ad alleges, but more than $5 million, including nearly $4.8 million in congressional appropriations. It had a strong advocate in Congress in Montana’s three-term senator, Conrad Burns, a Republican who was defeated in his reelection bid in 2006.</p>
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<p>Bottom line: <a href="http://twp.org/cms/index.cfm?group_id=1000" type="external">we need bears</a>. We need tough field biologists whose dedication often means the difference between survival and extinction for their study animals. We need to stand up to McCain when he charges blindly and stare him down. Anyone up for attending a stump speech in a bear costume?</p>
<p><a href="http://julia.whitty.googlepages.com/home" type="external">Julia Whitty</a> is Mother Jones’ environmental correspondent, <a href="http://julia.whitty.googlepages.com/juliawhittylectures" type="external">lecturer</a>, and 2008 winner of the <a href="http://www.research.amnh.org/burroughs/medal_award_list.html" type="external">John Burroughs Medal Award</a>. You can read from her new book, The Fragile Edge, and other writings, <a href="http://julia.whitty.googlepages.com/books" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p /> | Enraged John McCain Charges Bears | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/enraged-john-mccain-charges-bears/ | 2008-03-11 | 4 |
<p>LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - <a href="" type="internal">Intel</a> Corp forecast revenues well above Wall Street's targets, sending its shares higher in after hours trade.</p>
<p>International Business Machines &lt; <a href="" type="internal">IBM</a>.N&gt; results also outpaced expectations and it raised its full-year profit forecast.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Commentary:</p>
<p>IBM:</p>
<p>KIM CAUGHEY FORREST, SENIOR ANALYST, FORT PITT CAPITAL GROUP</p>
<p>"Growth in North America was very strong, probably stronger than I had anticipated and it's great the company was able to hold gross profit margins relatively high.</p>
<p>"The concern is they didn't really guide a whole lot higher than they had originally for the year, if you take into account the earnings surprise. That's a little disappointing.</p>
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<p>"I'm very interested in some sort of detailed commentary from the company in terms of what their short term signings are, that's always an indicator for the longer term growth of the company."</p>
<p>TED PARRISH, CO-PORTFOLIO MANAGER, HENSSLER EQUITY FUND</p>
<p>"These numbers shows IBM's resiliency. They beat on just about every area I had hoped. They had strong bookings still, backlogs growing. Margins are holding up across the board.</p>
<p>"It's a margins story, and an <a href="" type="internal">emerging markets</a> growth story too. Seems they're firing on all cylinders. Japan was a concern since they have so much exposure but what strikes me is they raised their guidance for the year, which gives me confidence that the Japan situation didn't affect them as much as you would think."</p>
<p>RICHARD SICHEL, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER AT PHILADELPHIA TRUST CO</p>
<p>FRED HICKEY, EDITOR, HIGH TECH STRATEGIST</p>
<p>"Everything looks to be in line, that is what is to be expected. Revenue was up more than expected. I didn't expect any problems. They don't have the component issues that others do -- like Seagate today -- that were affected by the Japanese earthquake.</p>
<p>"It was a good report but it wasn't unexpected."</p>
<p>(Reporting by Jennifer Saba and Yinka Adegoke in New York and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco)</p> | Instant View: Intel, IBM surpass Wall Street targets | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/04/19/instant-view-intel-ibm-surpass-wall-street-targets.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy Lawrence Wilkerson's last positions in government were as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff (2002-05), Associate Director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff under the directorship of Ambassador Richard N. Haass, and member of that staff responsible for East Asia and the Pacific, political-military and legislative affairs (2001-02). Before serving at the State Department, Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army. During that time, he was a member of the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College (1987 to 1989), Special Assistant to General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93), and Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia (1993-97). Wilkerson retired from active service in 1997 as a colonel, and began work as an advisor to General Powell. He has also taught national security affairs in the Honors Program at the George Washington University. He is currently working on a book about the first George W. Bush administration.</p>
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<p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to this week's edition of The Wilkerson Report with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who now joins us in the studio in Baltimore.
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<p />Thanks for joining us, Larry.
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<p />COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, FMR. CHIEF OF STAFF TO COLIN POWELL: Thanks for having me, Paul.
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<p />JAY: So I think everybody knows Larry's introduction, but just in case, Larry was chief of staff for Colin Powell for many years and now teaches at William &amp; Mary College and is regularly on The Real News and other places.
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<p />So I wanted to ask you a question about where we're at in this debate that's taking place in Washington and, I guess, in military, diplomatic circles. And we're starting to hear the debate about Iran and about Syria and whether to intervene or not. We're hearing kind of these things coming up through The New York Times and op-eds, The Washington Post. And on Syria what's being said is it's time for the U.S. to find a way to intervene. They're not quite defining what intervene means, but The Washington Post yesterday said find a way to intervene to end the war as quickly as possible. It's not clear if that means shifting the balance of power to give a lot more arms to the rebels or does it mean more than that. Then you're also starting to hear talk about Iran, that Iran really couldn't hit back very strongly if they were hit. There's--they make reference to the way--what was supposed to have been a nuclear facility in Syria a few years ago, and the Israelis hit it, and the Syrians never did much about it, and they're saying, oh, look, the Iranians after making all this noise can't afford real counterattack, 'cause it would invite an onslaught against them, so it's safe to attack Iran. It's--all sounds like pre-Iraq War. Even the people on both sides seem very similar.
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<p />WILKERSON: I think you're right. I think it does sound like a lot of what I heard in 2002 and early 2003 before we invaded Iraq. And it's the same choir singing off essentially the same sheet of music.
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<p />There are some nuances, though. Anne-Marie Slaughter, former director of policy planning for Hillary Clinton at the State Department, has put out a piece that is almost Samantha Power like, that is to say, we must, we must, or we'll have another Rwanda on our hands, we must intervene in Syria. Anne-Marie doesn't specify exactly how we should do that.
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<p />Robert Hunter, Ambassador Robert Hunter has a piece out saying we shouldn't. And I think Ambassador Hunter has the better part of the argument, because there is simply nothing the United States can do that will stop the killing in any meaningful way. Probably what we'll do is exacerbate it.
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<p />This is a civil war. This isn't Rwanda. This is a civil war. And we've got Alawites, and we've got Sunnis, and we've got the Saudis backing the Sunnis, and we've got others backing the Shia Allawite. We've got Iran, of course, heavily involved inside Syria. We've got China and Russia standing on the sidelines waiting to see what's going to happen with regard to U.S. intervention or not.
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<p />This is a very different problem from Rwanda, a much more serious problem in its military and strategic ramifications. Perhaps Rwanda shines a light on a lack of humanitarian action when one group of people is committing genocide against another group of people, but that's not what's happening here.
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<p />What's happening here is a lot of brutal death, but it's a civil war. It's a civil war with lots of elements. And so it's extremely difficult to imagine how U.S. military power, which is not the cure-all for every disease in the world, would intervene in a way that would not make the situation worse than it already is.
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<p />JAY: Daniel Pipes, who is usually allied with the neocons and speaks for or echoes a lot of what's said in the right-wing Israeli circles, right-wing Likud circles, he wrote a piece the other day that says, let them all kill each other. In fact, right now he's saying American policy should actually favor shoring up Assad 'cause he seems to be weakening, and it's in Israel's--actually, I don't think he used the word Israel; he said America's interest (excuse me, Mr.&#160;Pipes), America's interest to let them all kill each other.
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<p />WILKERSON: I think that's a fair approximation of what you might look at if you were looking at it ruthlessly, brutally as a strategist and you were saying, what would be best in order to terminate the killing swiftly and to put some kind of stability back in place. And I could understand someone saying that in that event, if that's your objective, then the best thing to do is to shore up Assad and let the stability he brought be restored and see how long it'll last.
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<p />JAY: Well, Pipes wasn't quite arguing that. Pipes was: shore up Assad until Assad looks too strong; then shore up the rebels and let them go strong.
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<p />WILKERSON: Yeah, let them all go ahead and kill each other.
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<p />JAY: In other words, let this civil war go on forever. And one can see, if one's looking at this, certainly, from right-wing Israeli interest, that's not such a bad situation, 'cause now there's such chaos and disorder and Assad's so weak, any time you want to blow something up on--a shipment on its way to Hezbollah--.
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<p />WILKERSON: Just the way the Israelis just did.
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<p />JAY: Yeah, and you get away with it.
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<p />WILKERSON: I would not want to be in Israel's position right now. I've said this before. I'll say it again. I think Israel is in as dangerous a position strategically, geopolitically as she's been since 1948. That's pretty bad. Look around Israel. Brutal civil war in Syria. Egypt, no one knows. Big question mark over what was the bastion of Israeli-Arab peace, Egypt. King of Jordan making public statements saying he might not want to be king any longer. Lebanon's government walks in and out of a revolving door, and Nasrallah of Hezbollah is gaining more and more political control. Iraq is in the hands of Iran. Nouri al-Maliki might as well be Persian. The civil war in Iraq is heating up again as the Sunnis realize Maliki's bent and our funding the Sunnis inside Iraq to reclaim their power in Baghdad. The Kurds in the north are about to declare their own independent state and tell the rest of Iraq to go to hell. This is a true mess, largely started by the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the incompetence of the occupation afterwards. This is a real mess.
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<p />And Israel is looking at the only ally it has on the face of the earth in Washington. Everyone else in the region is against it.
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<p />JAY: So it seems to me the drumbeats for intervening in Syria can't be disconnected from the drumbeats for an attack on Iran.
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<p />WILKERSON: No, it's a backdoor.
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<p />JAY: And if you go down that road, you've really got to go down that road. And are these people serious?
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<p />WILKERSON: They're serious, but they don't understand what they're serious about. Some of them do, but very few. Let's face it. None of them have ever been in war in their life. So what we're looking at here is people who are neophytes at this sort of thing, just as they were in 2003. And look what we got in 2004 and '05 and '06. What they're looking at is bombing Iran.
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<p />I agree that the Iranians would probably not do very much in retaliation. What could they do, after all? Unleash Hezbollah? Send it around the world? These can be some pretty dire things in the long run, but they're not strategically game-changing things.
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<p />So what could Iran do? Well, I'll tell you what Iran'll do. They'll make a decision to build a nuclear weapon as the bombs are dropping, and they'll build that nuclear weapon, and then the only thing the United States will be able to do is invade, occupy, $2&#160;trillion to $3&#160;trillion, ten years, and the results at the end of that decade will be just like the results in Afghanistan and Iraq today. So sign up to that, baby, if you want to be derelict in your duty again.
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<p />JAY: That bombing Iran leads to the decision that every intelligence agency so far has said Iran hasn't made, which is to build a bomb. But you start bombing, then they make the decision.
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<p />WILKERSON: Absolutely. And what Bob Menendez and John McCain and Lindsey Graham and others like them are really after is regime change. And the only way you're going to change the regime in Iran is to invade.
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<p />JAY: Now, the Obama administration does not seem to be on that page, both the appointment of Hagel and the rhetoric from President Obama. They don't seem to want to do that.
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<p />WILKERSON: They don't, and I'm glad for that. I voted for President Obama, and I began to wonder why. The Iran issue, as you just pointed out, may be the reason why. He doesn't seem to have a predeliction, even a desire, to go to war yet again in Asia and squander American blood and treasure on something that is unsolvable by American military power.
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<p />JAY: And does he stand up under this pressure? I guess we don't know the answer yet. But how much is this pressure building? As I said, we saw op-ed in The New York Times, The Washington Post. You're starting to really see these forces gathering in a way they weren't in the last two, three years.
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<p />WILKERSON: You're right. As with Guantanamo Bay, the president has helped some of those forces to gather beneath him. His use of the phrase red line, for example, with regard to chemical weapons, was an inept use of that term. I would say presidents should never use the term red line, myself.
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<p />But he also has a red line with regard to Iran. What is it? No option is off the table--repeated, repeated, repeated. That means that when you get to the point where your diplomatic track is not working--and the Republicans and others will be all over him to make sure they identify that point really well--then you've got two options. You either step down from your rhetoric and say, I didn't mean it, or you exercise the military option. So the president himself, by his own rhetoric, as has been the case with him in other instances, has trapped--has painted himself into a certain corner with regard to Iran. I can only think that he probably hopes he can get out of the second term in office before this rhetoric comes home to bite him.
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<p />JAY: And the people that want regime change, the people that are driving for, you know, real--we hear calls for military intervention in Syria from these forces, Lindsey Graham and those circles. And they've been, you know, bomb--John McCain's been bomb, bomb, bomb Iran for many years ago. What drives them? They must see themselves the kind of chaos that this is going to create. Do they want that? I mean, and how much? I've asked you this question before, but I don't know how to discuss it without asking it again. How is this also--how much of this is just about banal wars? A lot of people make a lot of money out of this kind of war.
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<p />WILKERSON: A lot of it is about that, Paul. The military-industrial-congressional complex is alive and thriving well, even in this age of sequestration.
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<p />The Greeks had a saying: old men send young men to die in war. That's John McCain. He's an old man. He's over the hill. In many respects it's the same with Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez and others like them who are constantly calling for war. You don't see their children going to these wars. You don't see anyone related to them going to these wars. I'm constantly amazed at how many times I meet congressmen and others in the leadership who want to use the military instrument, but their family is nowhere near that military instrument. Sign up again, John. Get on over there and do your thing. I think old men ought to go to war.
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<p />But it's bigger--as you intimated, it's bigger than that. Lots of people are invested in this war machine now. Lots of people have heavy investments in it. Lots of people make big, big money off this war machine.
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<p />It's not just that. It's other things too. It's American hegemony. It's we have been defied. We have been shown that our superpowerdom now exclusive to us post Cold War can be challenged, people can say they don't want to live under the kind of regime that we absolutely insist they live under. That can't happen, that can't happen, because the smallest little crack in that facade of American power would be delimiting. It would be utterly, utterly failure for the United States.
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<p />That's the way these people think. They're strange people, in my mind. They don't understand that there's a big world out there, and there are a lot of people in this world, and the way to get along in this world is not with military power, it's with economic and financial and diplomatic and political power. Military, keep it in your back pocket if you need to use it, but don't use it all the time.
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<p />We've become a state, we have become a state that lives for war. We've been at war now for over a decade, and I don't see an end to it. The authorization for the use of military force, the AUMF, James Madison would've said that is the top rung on the ladder to tyranny. That's what James Madison would have said, the father of our Constitution. We are on the top rung of the ladder to tyranny.
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<p />JAY: Thanks for joining us, Larry.
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<p />WILKERSON: Thanks for having me.
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<p />JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
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<p />End
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<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | Obama Under Pressure to Seek Regime Change in Syria and Iran | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D767%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D10175 | 2013-05-06 | 4 |
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<p>A Ruidoso woman who had pulled over on to the shoulder of U.S. 54 in southern New Mexico to stop and talk with her sister who was traveling behind her was struck by a car and killed as she walked toward her sister’s vehicle, the <a href="http://www.ruidosonews.com/ruidoso-breaking_news/ci_16322197" type="external">Ruidoso News</a> reported.</p>
<p>The newspaper said that according to State Police, Rosa Rodriguez-Bersosa, 57, reportedly walked into the path of a 1995 Cadillac driven by a Deming man Friday afternoon. She was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash that occurred about 10 miles north of the Texas-New Mexico border.</p>
<p>The driver of the Cadillac was not injured, according to the News.</p>
<p>The newspaper reported that an accident report would be sent to the 12th District Attorney’s Office, which will determine whether any charges or citations will be lodged against the driver of the Cadillac.</p>
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<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Ruidoso Woman Killed in Crash on U.S. 54 in Southern N.M. | false | https://abqjournal.com/9778/ruidoso-woman-killed-in-crash-on-u-s-54-in-southern-n-m.html | 2 |
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<p>The advance into former insurgent strongholds that had largely been calm before the Americans withdrew less than three years ago is spreading fear that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, struggling to hold onto power after indecisive elections, will be unable to stop the Islamic militants as they press closer to Baghdad.</p>
<p>Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militant group took control Tuesday of much of Mosul, sending an estimated half a million fleeing from their homes. As in Tikrit, the Sunni militants were able to move in after police and military forces melted away after relatively brief clashes.</p>
<p>The group, which has seized wide swaths of territory, aims to create an Islamic emirate spanning both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.</p>
<p>The capture of Mosul – along with the fall of Tikrit and ISIL’s earlier seizure of the western city of Fallujah – have undone hard-fought gains against insurgents in the years after the 2003 invasion by U.S.-led forces.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The White House said the security situation has deteriorated over the past 24 hours and that the United States was “deeply concerned” about ISIL’s continued aggression.</p>
<p>There were no reliable estimates of casualties or the number of insurgents involved, though several hundred gunmen were in Tikrit, and more were fighting on the outskirts, said Mizhar Fleih, the deputy head of the municipal council of nearby Samarra. An even larger number of militants likely would have been needed to secure Mosul, a much bigger city.</p>
<p /> | Islamists advance in Iraq | false | https://abqjournal.com/414278/islamists-advance-in-iraq.html | 2 |
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<p>New Mexico is among those states. Here are some things to know:</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>ENROLLMENT</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>When New Mexico first considered expanding the Medicaid program, the state Human Services Department projected more than 191,000 people would be added to the rolls by 2020. That number already has been reached. More than 216,600 people have been added to the rolls, bringing the total to nearly 800,000. That's almost double the number a decade ago. By 2020, total enrollment is projected to be approaching 900,000.</p>
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<p>DRAIN ON THE BUDGET</p>
<p>The costs have more than doubled too. A recent report issued by the Legislative Finance Committee says New Mexico can expect to spend more than $1.1 billion in general fund dollars on the program during the 2020 fiscal year. The committee has warned that the growing price tag for providing health care to low-income New Mexicans will put more pressure on the state's finances unless steps are taken to control costs.</p>
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<p>SAVINGS?</p>
<p>Officials say the point of modernizing the Medicaid system was to slow down the rate of growth in the program while avoiding cuts. By combining existing programs and Medicaid expansion allowed for as part of the federal government's health care overhaul, officials initially projected a cost savings of more than $450 million. That estimate has now been rolled back to $253 million.</p>
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<p>LOWER RATES</p>
<p>State officials say more money is being spent on direct services rather than administration under New Mexico's new Medicaid system, which is called Centennial Care. But among the recommendations outlined by the Legislative Finance Committee, is that New Mexico needs to impose more controls to ensure it negotiates rates with managed care organizations that are on the lower end of the range. For example, had lower rates been negotiated for 2014, the Human Services Department could have saved as much as $28 million in general fund dollars.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>THE FUTURE</p>
<p>The agency says it has made important progress in improving access to health care - particularly for vulnerable populations - and no eligibility changes are planned despite the rising costs. Agency Secretary Brent Earnest said the program has "undergone historic change" and it's too soon to think about changing course since the available data isn't enough to paint a complete picture about the costs or how recipients are using the system.</p> | New Mexico among states where Medicaid enrollment surges | false | https://abqjournal.com/615068/new-mexico-among-states-where-medicaid-enrollment-surges.html | 2 |
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<p>Classic man brings food, man gets fired… amirite?</p>
<p>Bringing in watermelon for your coworkers is officially banned with social justice warrior world. No one may eat watermelon or bring it for others to eat, ever, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/10/08/detroit-firefighter-fired-bringing-racially-insensitive-watermelon-work/" type="external">or you will end up losing your job:</a></p>
<p>Robert Pattison, 41, introduced himself to his fellow firefighters at Engine 55 at the corner of Joy and Southfield in Detroit by bringing a welcome gift, WJBK reported.</p>
<p>Second Battalion Chief Shawn McCarty calls this welcome gift “a tradition” for Engine 55’s firefighters.</p>
<p>“It’s not mandatory, it’s voluntary,” he said. “You come in bearing gifts. The usual gift is doughnuts, but you are allowed to bring whatever you want to bring in.”</p>
<p>Pattison, who was a probationary firefighter, decided to stand out from the crowd and bring a watermelon with a pink bow on top.</p>
<p>Some black firefighters were reportedly offended by Pattison’s gesture since 90 percent of the firefighters at Engine 55 are black.</p>
<p>“When you get your first detail at a firehouse you pretty much know what you are getting yourself into,” said Patrick Trout. “So you would have to say it was probably a bad call.”</p>
<p>McCarty said that some people at the firehouse claim it is “racially insensitive” to bring a watermelon to a firehouse.</p>
<p>Pattison argued that he did not bring in the watermelon as a joke and had no intention of offending his colleagues.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Case Closed: FBI says Sessions Did Not Have to Reveal Russia Talks</a></p>
<p>The Fire Commissioner, Eric Jones, announced in a statement that he officially removed Robert Pattison from his position within the Detroit Fire Department:</p>
<p>There is zero tolerance for discriminatory behavior inside the Detroit Fire Department. On Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017, at Engine 55, a trial firefighter (probationary employee) engaged in unsatisfactory work behavior which was deemed offensive and racially insensitive to members of the Detroit Fire Department. After a thorough investigation, it was determined that the best course of action was to terminate the employment of this probationary employee.</p> | Firefighter Brings in a Watermelon to His First Day of Work – Gets Fired | true | https://spartareport.com/2017/10/firefighter-brings-in-a-watermelon-to-his-first-day-of-work-gets-fired/ | 2017-10-10 | 0 |
<p>By Bob Allen</p>
<p>The first order of business for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship June 18 was prayer for victims in Wednesday’s deadly shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.</p>
<p>Prior to a Thursday morning business session of the 2015 CBF General Assembly in Dallas, South Carolina CBF Coordinator Jay Kieve asked those in attendance to gather in prayer for Pastor <a href="http://www.scstatehouse.gov/member.php?code=1479545277" type="external">Clementa Pinckney</a> and eight others shot dead at a Wednesday night Bible study at the predominantly African-American church.</p>
<p>“Pray for the healing of racial divisions and the end of racial violence,” Kieve suggested.</p>
<p>CBF Moderator Kasey Jones, senior pastor of National Baptist Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., closed the prayer with a plea: “Deliver us, your people, from all those things that divide and cause the cancer of violence that’s plaguing us for far too long and too often.”</p>
<p>Jones voiced hope that something redemptive can come from the tragedy. “We ask that you will redeem this situation, that it will inspire a new movement of love, collaboration and co-partnership in the things and the ways of God.”</p>
<p>She also prayed for the perpetrator. “We ask that you will touch, that you will move, that you will transform his life,” Jones said.</p>
<p>About the time of her prayer, media reported that a suspect had been taken into custody in North Carolina.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/18/us/charleston-south-carolina-shooting/index.html" type="external">According</a> to CNN, Dylann Roof, 21, of Lexington, S.C., allegedly attended the Wednesday night church service for about an hour before standing up and announcing that he was there “to shoot black people.”</p>
<p>Six females and three males were killed. Three people survived, including a woman who was told: “I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to spare you, so you can tell them what happened.”</p>
<p>Police are investigating the attack as a hate crime.</p>
<p>At the CBF General Assembly, Kieve said Christians “bear witness to a different story” than the one coming out of South Carolina. “We bear witness to … the story that love is stronger than hate, the truth that Jesus makes us sisters and brothers no matter the color of our skin.”</p>
<p>“We are praying, Lord, for the violence to end,” Jones said in her prayer, “and we’re asking, Lord, to use us as you see fit so that your peace will become real in the lives of those who need it.”</p> | CBF prays for victims in S.C. church shooting | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/cbf-prays-for-victims-in-s-c-church-shooting/ | 3 |
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<p>In March of this year, the sociologist and writer Charles Murray visited Middlebury College to deliver a lecture. Before he could even begin, <a href="" type="internal">the event was set upon by a mob of students</a> who shut it down and ultimately sent a professor to the emergency room.</p>
<p>Students who participated in the mob <a href="" type="internal">received no real punishment</a> but the incident drew national attention to the issue of free speech on college campuses.</p>
<p>Last night, Murray made his first televised appearance since then on Tucker Carlson’s show. He described the scene at Middlebury as the opposite of what higher education should be.</p>
<p />
<p>From the <a href="http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/06/27/charles-murray-interview-tucker-carlson-middlebury-college-free-speech-riots-protests" type="external">FOX News Insider</a>:</p>
<p>Charles Murray: Protests Are a ‘Repudiation of What the University is All About’</p>
<p>Libertarian sociologist Charles Murray discussed protests against his speeches on college campuses.</p>
<p>Murray wrote “The Bell Curve,” and often speaks about the “growing class divide” that has led to the rise of President Trump.</p>
<p>Murray said he was stunned that many of those protesting his speech at Middlebury College in New England proudly said they never actually read his work.</p>
<p>“Faculty members bragged about not reading my stuff,” he said. “But they still knew I was a bad guy.”…</p>
<p>He said that the Middlebury incident is not necessarily an epidemic but that it is “toxic” to the belief that universities are spaces for intellectualism.</p>
<p>“What went on inside that lecture hall was a repudiation of what the university is all about,” Murray said.</p>
<p>Watch the video below:</p>
<p />
<p>In the weeks following the protest, the Southern Poverty Law Center <a href="" type="internal">was named as one of the inspirations</a> for the mob. Yet now, even the SPLC is defending Murray’s right to speak.</p>
<p>Michael Gryboski reports at the <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/charles-murray-right-speak-campus-splc-violent-protesters-188745/" type="external">Christian Post</a>:</p>
<p>Charles Murray Has Right to Speak on Campus, Says Group Cited by Violent Protesters</p>
<p>The Southern Poverty Law Center has stated that a scholar they labeled “extremist” for purportedly advancing “racist pseudoscience” had a right to speak at a public college where he was violently protested against.</p>
<p>In March, controversial American Enterprise Institute researcher and author Charles Murray was intensely protested at Middlebury College by students who did not want him to speak on campus. The students cited SPLC as their source when claiming Murray was too extreme to be allowed to speak.</p>
<p>In written testimony submitted to the United States Senate Committee of the Judiciary on Tuesday, SPLC President Richard Cohen explained that while his organization labels Murray an “extremist” who advances racist ideology, he has a right to speak on a college campus.</p>
<p>“No matter how repugnant one may find a speaker’s views, as long as the college has a policy of allowing student groups to invite people from outside their campus to speak, they cannot pick and choose based on the views the speaker holds,” stated Cohen.</p>
<p>Murray responded to the SPLC’s false allegations of racism months ago:</p>
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<p>Featured image via <a href="https://youtu.be/zO4V0VZet7o" type="external">YouTube</a>.</p> | Charles Murray: Middlebury Mob Was “repudiation of what the university is all about” | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/06/charles-murray-middlebury-mob-was-repudiation-of-what-the-university-is-all-about/ | 2017-06-28 | 0 |
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<p>The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first told The Associated Press it was adding the bee to the endangered list before a news release was issued. That means there will be a recovery plan to encourage people to provide more habitat and reduce pesticide usage — many steps that could help other struggling bees and monarch butterflies, which pollinate a wide variety of plants, officials said.</p>
<p>“Pollinators are small but mighty parts of the natural mechanism that sustains us and our world,” said Tom Melius, the service’s Midwest regional director. “Without them, our forests, parks, meadows and shrublands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand.”</p>
<p>The decision drew praise from environmentalists but criticism from the nonprofit American Farm Bureau Federation, which acknowledged the role bees play in pollinating crops but contended the listing could lead to costly regulation of land or chemical use.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I think we can do better in the private sector, where landowners working collaboratively can come up with protection for these species without intervention and bureaucratic red tape of the federal government,” said Ryan Yates, the group’s director of congressional relations.</p>
<p>The Endangered Species Act prohibits significant modification or degradation of habitat that leads directly to death or injury of listed species. The Fish and Wildlife Service said it hadn’t yet developed a strategy for dealing with private landowners regarding the rusty patched bumblebee, which it said already has disappeared from large-scale farming areas and is found mostly in yards and gardens.</p>
<p>Officials said they would seek cooperation from landowners and local organizations on “bee-friendly practices,” including use of native flowering plants for landscaping, planting flowers and trees and avoiding use of pesticides that harm bees.</p>
<p>Notable for the rust-colored marking on its back section, the rusty patched bumblebee buzzed across the East Coast and much of the Midwest in high numbers as recently as the 1990s. Today, only scattered populations remain in 13 states — Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin — and the Canadian province of Ontario. The bee’s historic range and the number of observed colonies have plummeted by about 87 percent since the late 1990s.</p>
<p>The crash happened so quickly that few researchers took notice until the damage was largely done. They’re investigating a number of potential causes, including disease, pesticide exposure, habitat loss, climate change and the domino effect of falling populations making it harder for bees to find suitable mates.</p>
<p>The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, which petitioned the government to list the bee as endangered, previously said the population decline probably was caused by the spread of bacteria or viruses from bumblebees raised commercially to those in the wild. The group, based in Portland, Oregon, also blamed widespread use of long-lasting insecticides.</p>
<p>“Addressing the threats that the rusty patched bumble bee faces will help not only this species, but countless other native pollinators that are so critical to the functioning of natural ecosystems and agriculture,” Rich Hatfield, the society’s senior conservation biologist, said Tuesday.</p>
<p>Fish and Wildlife Service biologists agreed there probably were overlapping factors behind recent declines of bumblebees, honeybees and monarchs — raising concern for all 48 bumblebee species in North America. The agency in September placed seven species of yellow-faced bees in Hawaii, that state’s only native bees, on the endangered list. A study continues on whether to list the monarch butterfly, agency spokeswoman Georgia Parham said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Bees and other insects provide billions of dollars’ worth of pollination each year, benefiting crops such as tomatoes, cranberries and peppers. Even plants that can pollinate on their own generate bigger fruit when bumblebees do the job instead.</p>
<p>The bees also support growth of flowers and wild plants that produce fruits, seeds and nuts essential for natural food chains.</p>
<p>Listing the bee is “the best — and probably last — hope” for its survival, said Rebecca Riley, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Online:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.fws.gov/Midwest/endangered" type="external">http://www.fws.gov/Midwest/endangered</a></p> | Rusty patched bumblebee now an endangered species | false | https://abqjournal.com/924978/rusty-patched-bumblebee-now-an-endangered-species.html | 2017-01-10 | 2 |
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<p>The Daily Times is printing The Durango Herald, The Cortez Journal, The Mancos Times, Pine River Times and The Dolores Star at its production plant on North Allen Avenue.</p>
<p>Daily Times Publisher John Elchert said the partnership created 12 new jobs in the Farmington printing and packing plant.</p>
<p>“It’s a good move for everybody,” he said. “The Daily Times saved (jobs) and added some new jobs.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He said the two companies have been negotiating since the spring and completed the partnership in October.</p>
<p>Ballentine Communications closed its printing press in Cortez, Colo., said the company’s CEO, Doug Bennett. He did not say how many jobs were lost, but said most of the employees found new jobs and some received severance packages.</p>
<p>Elchert and Bennett said the partnership is beneficial for both companies.</p>
<p>“The (partnership) really helps us reduce printing costs,” Bennett said.</p>
<p>The Durango Herald is a daily paper, The Cortez Journal prints twice a week, and the remaining papers are weeklies.</p>
<p>Elchert and Bennett declined to disclose each company’s printing volume, but Elchert said printing Ballentine Communications’ papers has doubled production at the Farmington press.</p>
<p>Elchert said the additional printing also means more revenue for The Daily Times.</p>
<p>The Daily Times has invested about $400,000 in its printing press and packaging equipment to accommodate the demands of printing six newspapers a week, Elchert said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He said media outlets historically maintain good relationships, so partnering with Ballentine Communications is not unusual.</p>
<p>“We’ve always had good professional relations with other media (companies), especially within newspapers,” Elchert said.</p>
<p>Bennett said partnering with other small-market papers for printing is a business model that comes from Digital First Media, the company that owns The Daily Times.</p>
<p>“We looked at the cost savings, and we were very pleased with that model (and) that came from Digital First,” Bennett said.</p>
<p>The two companies’ partnership extends for five years and can be renewed.</p>
<p>Elchert said the partnership shows the stability of the newspaper industry in the local market.</p>
<p>“We’re here to stay,” he said. “In this size market, newspapers will be here a long, long time, and The Daily Times is very viable for a long time.”</p>
<p>Erny Zah is The Daily Times business editor. He can be reached at 505-564-4638. and [email protected]. Follow him @ernyzah on Twitter.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2014 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.daily-times.com" type="external">www.daily-times.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC</p>
<p>———-</p>
<p>Topics: t000002537,t000040350,t000002669,t000033770</p> | The Daily Times, Ballentine Communications reach agreement | false | https://abqjournal.com/500914/the-daily-times-ballentine-communications-reach-agreement.html | 2014-11-24 | 2 |
<p>The European Central Bank, as expected, left interest rates unchanged Thursday, putting the focus on ECB President Mario Draghi's news conference. The ECB Governing Council left its rate on main refinancing operations at 0%, while holding the rate on its overnight deposit facility at minus 0.4% and the rate on its marginal lending facility at 0.25%. The decision was expected after the ECB last month decided to extend its bond buying program through the end of 2017. In its statement, the ECB said it would stick to the pace and timetable for purchases laid out in December, but that the Governing Council was ready to "increase the program in terms of size and/or duration" if the outlook "becomes less favorable, or if financial conditions become inconsistent with furhter progress toward a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation." Draghi's news conference is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. Frankfurt time, or 8:30 a.m. Eastern.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | ECB Leaves Rates Unchanged; Draghi Up Next | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/19/ecb-leaves-rates-unchanged-draghi-up-next.html | 2017-01-19 | 0 |
<p>Flickr user &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gerardstolk/3041762506/"&gt;Gerard Stolk&lt;/a&gt;/ Creative Commons</p>
<p />
<p>An “antimicrobial protection”&#160;firm <a href="http://www.biocote.com/" type="external">called BioCote</a> has come out with a new study that says that English ATMs are as dirty as the average toilet. Since BioCote manufactures antimicrobial coatings, there’s an obvious conflict of interest here. But let’s put that aside for a moment. If ATMs are as “dirty”&#160;as toilets, should we worry?&#160;</p>
<p>According to BioCote <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1346026/Cash-machines-dirty-public-toilets.html" type="external">statements to the Daily Mail</a>, the company found pseudomonads and bacillus bacteria on ATMs. What they didn’t mention is that both these bacteria are very common, and are not a danger to healthy people. In a way, BioCote has shown that ATMs are just as clean as toilets.</p>
<p>That’s saying something:&#160;Neither toilets nor ATMs are as dirty as cell phones which, according to one study, have <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1298057/Mobile-phones-18-times-bacteria-toilet-handle.html" type="external">18 times</a> more germs than the flush lever on a toilet. This makes sense when you consider we humans carry around 150 species of bacteria on our hands, so the less often a thing is touched by humans, the cleaner it will be. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “sh*t-talking,” don’t it?</p>
<p /> | ATMs Are as Clean as Toilets | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/atms-clean-toilets/ | 2011-01-12 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Mazda is recalling more than 60,000 midsize cars in the U.S. and Canada because a wiring problem can knock out power-assisted steering and the passenger air bag.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The recall covers Mazda 6 sedans from 2015 and 2016. The company says in documents posted by the U.S. government that wires under the front passenger seat can rub against welding debris, causing them to short. A loss of power-assisted steering can increase the risk of a crash, although none have been reported.</p>
<p>Owners should see multiple warning lights if the problem happens.</p>
<p>Dealers will inspect the cars and install insulating tape or a protective pad to shield the wires. The recall is expected to start on Sept. 29.</p> | Mazda 6 recalled; wiring short can knock out power steering | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/22/mazda-6-recalled-wiring-short-can-knock-out-power-steering.html | 2017-09-22 | 0 |
<p>The pages of The Wall Street Journal have not been kind to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/ted-cruz-campaign-wall-street-journal-216916" type="external">Politico</a> reports that Cruz accused the Journal of being shills for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) in an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe.</p>
<p>"For the next three months, the Journal should change their header to the ‘Marco Rubio for President Newspaper,’ because their attacks — and it’s going to keep coming because Marco fights for the principles they care about," Cruz said. "There is no one, no conservatives in America who think The Wall Street Journal is the voice of conservatism."</p>
<p>Politico tried to offer a lukewarm defense of the Journal, quoting former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer as calling the Journal the "gold standard" for conservatism and Reaganomics. It's ironic that a former Bush staffer would say that, since it was the establishment-backed Bush family that sought to defeat then-GOP presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980. Politico does eventually admit that the Journal has gone after Cruz because the editorial page supported comprehensive immigration reform, President Barack Obama's trade policies and the National Security Agency's metadata program–all of which are issues on which they agree with Rubio. The editorial page has also compared Cruz to Obama and referred to Cruz leading the fight on defunding Obamacare as the "kamikaze caucus," a play on words from establishment columnist George Will's reference to conservatives that supported Reagan as <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/04/why-george-will-is-wrong-about-ted-cruz" type="external">"kamikaze conservatives."</a></p>
<p>Kimberly Strassel, who is on the Journal's editorial board, wrote a <a href="http://www.bookwormroom.com/2015/11/21/the-wall-street-journals-hatchet-job-on-ted-cruz/" type="external">piece</a> in which it was quite obvious she was fed talking points from the Rubio campaign. For instance, she parroted the absurd Rubio line that Cruz is an isolationist.</p>
<p>"If national security continues as a pressing theme, will voters put their faith in a candidate who is on record (whatever the nuance) against military spending, against intelligence capabilities, against a proactive stance in Syria?" Strassel wrote.</p>
<p>Strassel also calls Rubio "an unabashed hawk."</p>
<p>These lines of attack are false. The military spending Strassel was referring to was Cruz voting against the <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/244847-cruz-paul-push-for-indefinite-detention-ban" type="external">National Defense Authorization Act</a> that allowed the government to detain American citizens indefinitely–blatantly unconstitutional. The head of the NSA recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rubio-goes-on-attack-over-nsa-surveillance-at-gop-debate/2015/12/16/60255890-a3fc-11e5-b53d-972e2751f433_story.html" type="external">said</a> that the agency is actually doing well thanks to the USA Freedom Act that Cruz supported, and in Syria Cruz clearly <a href="https://www.tedcruz.org/news/cruz-chaos-in-syria-and-iraq-is-direct-consequence-of-administrations-failed-foreign-policy/" type="external">understands</a> the Sunni-Shia civil war and that both sides–Iran on one side and ISIS and al-Qaeda on the other–are bad and hence it's better to stay out of it. That does not make Cruz an isolationist.</p>
<p>Cruz at one point tried to woo the support of the Journal, only to get <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/393886/ted-cruz-tries-and-fails-win-over-wsj-joel-gehrke" type="external">rebuffed.</a> Radio host and constitutional scholar Mark Levin wrote on his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-levin/the-decline-of-the-wall-street-journal-editorial-page/10152403884320946" type="external">Facebook page</a> at the time:</p>
<p>What's not reported here (see link) is that Paul Gigot, the WSJ editorial page chief editor, is an amnesty radical who's thin-skinned and often sophomoric. He uses the paper's opinion pages to carry not a conservative message but the corporatist water -- bailouts, subsidies, debt increases, amnesty, etc. He has also smeared the Tea Party, attacked talk radio, etc., with unsigned editorial opinion pieces. Gigot has cost the editorial page much of the prestige it once had among many conservatives since his appointment as its chief editor. The editorials reflect his predictable role as a mouthpiece for the GOP establishment. Thus, the praise for Jeb Bush and his ilk while mocking Ted Cruz.</p>
<p>Time and again, the Journal's editorial board attacks conservatives for trying to fight against the leftist agenda. When Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Ut.) attempted to defund Obamacare, the Journal accused them of simply wanting <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/393886/ted-cruz-tries-and-fails-win-over-wsj-joel-gehrke" type="external">"fund-raising lists or getting face time on cable TV."</a> The Journal also came out against conservative efforts to defund the baby-dismembering <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/09/the-wall-street-journal-gets-it-wrong-on-planned-parenthood" type="external">Planned Parenthood</a> and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/homeland-security-shutdown-cliff-republicans-wall-street-journal-115651" type="external">Obama's illegal executive amnesty.</a> What good are the Republicans if they can't even fight against those two issues?</p>
<p>Also, Bret Stephens, who is on the Journal's editorial board, wrote a snarky column called <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/lets-elect-hillary-now-1450742854" type="external">"Let's Elect Hillary Now"</a> in which he accuses conservatives like Levin and radio host Laura Ingraham of having purity tests for Republican candidates that will guarantee a win for likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The column was light on substance, but heavy on elitism.</p>
<p>Before Cruz, the Journal channeled Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) in mocking conservatives as <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/27/wsj-tea-party-hobbits-need-to-go-back-to-middle-earth-or-something/" type="external">"Tea Party hobbits"</a> in the 2011 debt ceiling showdown for simply wanting to fight against the burdensome debt that will eventually cripple the country.</p>
<p>To really get an idea of the mindset of the Journal, one simply needs to look back to their editorial on July 3, 1984 called <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/gordon-crovitz-in-praise-of-huddled-masses-contd-1404683839" type="external">"In Praise of Huddled Masses"</a> in which they called for open borders.</p>
<p>"If Washington still wants to 'do something' about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders," the editorial read.</p>
<p>Open borders, especially given the rise of Islamic terrorism, are <a href="" type="internal">insane.</a> Yet it seems that the Journal <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/05/18/let-them-wsj-editor-argues-open-borders" type="external">has not backed away from this stance</a> given their support for comprehensive immigration reform. The reason for this is because open borders provide cheap labor for corporations, which is what the Journal really wants because they're a <a href="http://www.redstate.com/diary/setonmotley/2015/11/09/hey-wall-street-journal-open-borders-amnesty-hugest-cronyism/" type="external">corporatist newspaper.</a> That's why they hate Cruz and lash out any conservatives who seek to change the status quo in Washington.</p> | The Wall Street Journal Hates Ted Cruz. Here’s Why. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/2054/wall-street-journal-hates-ted-cruz-heres-why-aaron-bandler | 2015-12-22 | 0 |
<p>TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s privacy commissioner said on Friday that it has launched an investigation into the massive data breach at Equifax Inc (NYSE:) after receiving complaints from Canadian consumers.</p>
<p>Equifax is still working to determine the number of Canadians affected by this incident, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said in a statement.</p>
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<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Canadian privacy commissioner launches probe of Equifax breach | false | https://newsline.com/canadian-privacy-commissioner-launches-probe-of-equifax-breach/ | 2017-09-15 | 1 |
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<p>The National Museum of Natural History’s support center in Suitland, Md., contains some of the rarest and most precious objects owned by the American people: 17,000 rocks. They represent the bulk of the nation’s Antarctic meteorite collection, an assortment that includes pieces of other planets, shrapnel from the collisions that shaped the solar system, rubble older than anything on Earth and crystals possibly older than the sun.</p>
<p>Retrieved from the bottom of the world and stored for decades in inert nitrogen gas, the collection offers clues to some of the biggest mysteries of existence.</p>
<p>“Each meteorite is a piece of the bigger puzzle about how our solar system formed,” said Cari Corrigan, the Smithsonian geologist who oversees the collection. “They can tell us where we came from.”</p>
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<p>Shuffling around the lab in a white gown, hair net and blue cloth booties (you can’t do anything but shuffle in booties), Corrigan looks like a grim character in “The Andromeda Strain” – until she runs down the row of tanks and high-fives the rubber gloves sticking out of them.</p>
<p>She fits her hands in a pair of gloves, reaches inside a tank, pulls a tub off a shelf, passes it through the air lock, then yanks open the door. Sifting through the meteorites, each encased in its own protective plastic bag, Corrigan explains what they indicate about the origins of our world.</p>
<p>The oldest rocks are chondrites – meteorites that clumped together in the swirl of dust and gas that surrounded the sun as the planets began to form. Some include pale flecks called “calcium aluminum inclusions” that are thought to be the most primitive substances in the solar system – some of their crystals may predate the sun.</p>
<p>At a venerable 4.5 billion years old, chondrites are as old as our planet and substantially older than anything else on it. Tectonic activity on Earth means that most material is churned back into the interior before it gets too old – the most ancient rock known to science was formed 4 billion years ago. These space rocks offer insight into the conditions that created our planet that can’t be found anywhere else on Earth.</p>
<p>Iron meteorites come from the heavy cores of asteroids or long-vanished planets. The smallest of these have the surprising heft of a paperweight; the larger ones feel like a cannon ball.</p>
<p>“People study these to figure out what’s going on at the center of the Earth,” Corrigan said. “We are never going to get samples from the core of the Earth,” – no human drilling operation has even gotten halfway through the crust to the mantle – but these are the next best thing.</p>
<p>Corrigan specializes in the rocks that result from collisions between asteroids, planets and other bits of space junk. The melt patterns on these meteorites hint at a period called the “Late Heavy Bombardment,” 3.9 billion years ago, when a mysterious gravitational disturbance swung through the solar system and sent rocky bodies slamming into each other with cataclysmic results.</p>
<p>Rarest of all are meteorites from other, known bodies in our solar system, like the moon and Mars. “It’s like it’s own planetary mission every time we get one of those,” Corrigan said. “You can learn what the climate was like, the temperature, the history of the surface … all from one rock you can hold in your hand.”</p>
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<p>Though meteorites fall all over the planet – on cities, on deserts, on cars, on the hips of women asleep on their couches – Antarctica is far and away the best place to look for them. The flow of ice across the continent sweeps the rocks into piles. Meanwhile, the cold, dry conditions keep the rocks pristine.</p>
<p>“When the only things around you are white snow and blue ice, and then you see that black and brown rock, it’s exciting,” said Corrigan, who has spent two field seasons working on the frozen continent with the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (Ansmet). “You’re the first person ever to see a piece of another planet.”</p>
<p>Twenty years ago this August, NASA scientists announced a “startling discovery”: A Martian meteorite collected near the Antarctic coast held small structures that looked like the fossilized forms of tiny microbes. It also contained organic molecules that are almost always the result of biological processes.</p>
<p>The rock was named Allan Hills 84001 for the spot (Antarctica’s Allan Hills) and year (1984) in which it was found. Encased in a glass sphere that Corrigan stores in a hard-shell black briefcase, the small, dark rock is among the Ansmet’s most precious finds. It formed during the first few hundred thousand years of Mars’s history, was blasted off the surface during an impact 16 million years ago and fell to Earth at the end of the last ice age. It sat unnoticed in the meteorite collection for years, until scientists realized it came from Mars. Then geologist Dave McKay spotted the strange, wormlike structures buried in the rock.</p>
<p>“Today, Rock 84001 speaks to us across all those billions of years and millions of miles,” then-President Bill Clinton said at a news conference the day of NASA’s announcement. “It speaks of the possibility of life. If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered.”</p>
<p>Corrigan, then a graduate fellow at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, witnessed the tense excitement that gripped the space community. This was the kind of discovery that many scientists spend their lives dreaming about, sure to win a Nobel Prize and change the world. And, taken together, the lines of evidence defined by the researchers made a compelling case for life. But there was no unequivocal confirmation that living beings once dwelled in the rock. It ran up against the scientific truism that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Did NASA really have the extraordinary evidence required?</p>
<p>It didn’t.</p>
<p>One by one, each of the lines of evidence thought to point to life inside Allan Hills 84001 were refuted. The structures that looked like microfossils might have been introduced when the meteorite was treated in the lab or they could have been caused by chemical reactions with no life required. The organic compounds embedded in the rock could have come from the exhaust of the snowmobiles the original collectors were driving. Within a decade, scientists had more or less settled the issue: the odd forms inside the meteorite almost certainly are not Martians.</p>
<p>But they were left with a new question – one that many researchers had not previously considered: If a meteorite containing Martians did fall to Earth, would we even recognize them as such?</p>
<p>“You could argue that the whole field of astrobiology came out of this,” Corrigan said, gesturing toward the unlikely chunk of rock secured inside its glass case.</p>
<p>Partly in response to the Allan Hills debate, biologists and planetary scientists began working together to figure out how organisms could live on Mars and what they might look like. In 1999, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor began mapping the planet and found suggestions of liquid water on its surface. It was followed by Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity, rovers whose mission was to seek out signs of habitability on the Red Planet. Closer to home, biologists began to find more and more organisms living in the darkest caves, the depths of the oceans, wisps of cloud and newly formed rocks still hot from the planet’s interior.</p>
<p>There may not have been organisms in Allan Hills 84001, but they were almost everywhere else on Earth.</p>
<p>“It opened up so many new questions and lines of study we didn’t even know existed then,” Corrigan said. “You can do a study and have it not necessarily be correct in the end … but you end up changing the face of science.”</p>
<p>In November, six of Corrigan’s colleagues headed to Antarctica for their 40th season of meteorite collecting. Bundled up against the wind and brutal cold, they’ll spend weeks out on the ice, scouring the blue and white landscape for tiny bits of black. They go back year after year, retrieving rock after rock, because there’s no knowing which one will be the next to change everything.</p>
<p>Or perhaps, like Allan Hills, that rock is already sitting in the Smithsonian’s collection, locked in a tank and preserved in nitrogen, waiting for someone to reach in and grab it.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Video: Take a tour of the meteorite vaults</p>
<p>URL: <a href="http://wapo.st/2gCnFDF" type="external">http://wapo.st/2gCnFDF</a></p>
<p>Embed code:</p>
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<p>meteorites</p> | This hidden Smithsonian vault contains the oldest things in the solar system | false | https://abqjournal.com/904117/this-hidden-smithsonian-vault-contains-the-oldest-things-in-the-solar-system.html | 2016-12-07 | 2 |
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<p>&#160; &#160; Jeb Bush was haunted this week by questions about the war in Iraq. ( <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/" type="external">Gage Skidmore</a> / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" type="external">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>)</p>
<p>Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer and the other “Left, Right &amp; Center” panelists discuss presumed presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s struggle to answer whether he would have gone to war in Iraq. Also, Obama and Democrats clash over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and Hillary Clinton hasn’t taken a question from the press since April 21.</p>
<p>Scheer is joined by Josh Barro of The New York Times moderating from the center, Rich Lowry of The National Review on the right, and Megan McArdle of Bloomberg View as the special guest.</p>
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<p>Listen <a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/left-right-center/jeb-trade-hillary" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p> | 'Left, Right & Center': Jeb, Trade and Hillary | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/left-right-center-jeb-trade-and-hillary/ | 2015-05-17 | 4 |
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<p>Sandwiched in the New Yorker‘s <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_wright" type="external">profile</a> of Carlos Helu Slim, the Mexican billionaire who’s bailing out the New York Times, is this dreadful item:</p>
<p>Thomas Friedman, the Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist, lauded the efforts that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., has made to keep the newsroom intact, saying, “I just have a great deal of admiration for him.” He told me that since taking his current post, in 1995, he has never been asked by Sulzberger what he was planning to write, or how high his travel expenses would be. “To be able to say what I want to say and go where I want to go—other than a Sulzberger-owned newspaper, you tell me where that exists today.” (Of course, star reporters like Friedman live in a special universe, even at the Times.)</p>
<p>Friedman’s boasting about his ability to spend the Times money comes at a particularly awkward time: he’s just been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24pubed.html?pagewanted=2&amp;_r=1&amp;partner=rss&amp;emc=rss" type="external">criticized by the paper’s public editor</a> for accepting a $75,000 speaking fee (he returned it) and the Times Company is not exactly in the best financial shape right now. I assume the journalists at the Times-owned Boston&#160;Globe, in danger of losing their jobs because of the company’s precarious financial situation, were not particularly impressed by the size of Friedman’s expense account. One writes, in an email obtained by the <a href="http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/dontquoteme/archive/2009/05/27/could-this-week-s-new-yorker-determine-the-globe-s-fate.aspx" type="external">Boston Phoenix</a>:</p>
<p>Colleagues: The New York Times Co. wants you to slit your own throats and take money out of your pockets so Tom Friedman (and others in New York) can travel in style and at great expense—and then brag about it.</p>
<p>The Times (not the Globe) lost $74.5 million last quarter and will lose a bundle in this quarter.</p>
<p>Stand up and tell the Times the contract they’re trying to shove down your throats is an outrage.</p>
<p>Vote No on June 8.</p>
<p>Tom Friedman would be a real mensch if he cut back on his expenses and took a pay cut to help save reporting jobs.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Globe Staffer Not Amused By Size of Tom Friedman’s Expense Account | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/05/advice-for-tom-friedman/ | 2009-05-28 | 4 |
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<p>LAS CRUCES – Authorities in Las Cruces have arrested a couple accused of trying to commit a drive-by shooting with their infant son in the back seat.</p>
<p>Las Cruces police spokesman Dan Trujillo said Friday that 26-year-old Anthony J. Herrera and 29-year-old Anna Herrera are each facing a charge of attempted first-degree murder and intentional child abuse.</p>
<p>Anthony Herrera faces additional counts of firearm possession by a felon and evidence tampering.</p>
<p>Trujillo says Anna Herrera was driving the couple and their 1-year-old son Wednesday night when they saw a 19-year-old driver who Anthony Herrera had threatened to kill on several occasions.</p>
<p>The suspects allegedly began chasing the teen’s Honda before Anthony Herrera fired several times at it.</p>
<p>Neither the teen nor his passenger was hurt.</p>
<p>The couple’s son is in state custody.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Couple jailed in shooting | false | https://abqjournal.com/443226/couple-jailed-in-shooting.html | 2 |
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<p>Curious which Albuquerque public high school is set to receive the most dollars per student this year?</p>
<p>An analysis of the Albuquerque Public Schools’ 2014-15 budget shows Volcano Vista High School in the northwest part of the city is set to receive $3,327 per student – the least amount of funding per pupil among the high schools. District officials say a major reason for the difference in per-student funding has to do with demographics. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>That would be Rio Grande High School, budgeted to receive $1,048 more per student than Volcano Vista, which is scheduled to receive the least amount of funding per pupil.</p>
<p>An analysis of APS’ 2014-15 budget shows Rio Grande is slated to get $4,375 per student when you include the operating funds APS disburses along with grant dollars from federal, state and local governments. That is 31 percent more per student than Volcano Vista High School, which was budgeted $3,327 per student.</p>
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<p>A major reason for the difference in the per-student funding has to do with school demographics, APS officials said. Schools receive more money to educate poor students and special education students.</p>
<p>Another factor is the size of the school – smaller schools tend to receive more per student.</p>
<p>“Budgeting for public schools is very complicated because there are so many factors,” APS spokeswoman Johanna King said.</p>
<p>Don Moya, APS chief financial officer, acknowledged that a lot of factors go into determining which schools get what.</p>
<p>And in the end, “I think our method of allocating money to schools is good,” he said.</p>
<p>Also, budget adjustments occur throughout the year. For example, once the school year has started, the district updates its budget to reflect actual enrollment, he said.</p>
<p>“This is a plan,” Moya said of the budget. “It isn’t actually what’s spent.”</p>
<p>Joining Rio Grande among the schools budgeted the most per student were Highland at $4,361, West Mesa at $4,242 and Del Norte at $4,007. Meanwhile, La Cueva ranks second-lowest at $3,436, and Eldorado ranks third from the bottom at $3,443.</p>
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<p>Poverty factory</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />A major factor in determining what schools get more money is poverty. The schools that are budgeted the least amount of money per student have the least amount of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch.</p>
<p>La Cueva’s free and reduced rate is 16 percent, Eldorado’s is 22 percent and Volcano Vista’s is 27 percent.</p>
<p>Conversely, Rio Grande ranks second highest at 82.3 percent qualifying for free or reduced lunches, Highland ranks third with 81 percent and West Mesa is fourth at 77 percent.</p>
<p>A seeming outlier is Atrisco Heritage Academy. The school ranks No. 1 among the traditional high schools in student poverty – 84 percent of its students qualifying for free and reduced lunch – but ranks seventh in per-student spending at $3,681.</p>
<p>One reason is the size of the school. When comparing per-student school spending, people must keep in mind the economies of scale that make it less expensive to staff larger schools, Moya said.</p>
<p>Atrisco Heritage is the biggest school in the state with an enrollment of 2,336.</p>
<p>Moya said the number of administrative employees at a larger school is not that much more than that of a smaller school. As such, the district spends less on a per-student basis at large schools like Atrisco Heritage, but that doesn’t mean it’s spending less on instruction at those schools, Moya said.</p>
<p>State tax dollars</p>
<p>APS creates a budget that disburses money to each of its schools based on enrollment and student demographics, Moya said.</p>
<p>Most of the money that goes to schools comes from the state tax dollars that are funneled through New Mexico’s education funding formula, which disburses money on a per-student basis, although different students are weighted more heavily based on need.</p>
<p>For example, the formula provides more funding for a special education student than a general education student.</p>
<p>When building a school’s budget, district officials look at its enrollment and allocates enough money to meet the school’s staffing needs, said Debora Warren, executive director of budget and strategic planning.</p>
<p>“That’s basically how we start,” she said.</p>
<p>The district also provides schools with money for supplies based strictly on enrollment, Warren said.</p>
<p>The district then disburses discretionary funds – money individual schools choose how to budget – based on student demographics. For example, it provides more money to schools with higher levels of student poverty, student mobility, the number of special needs students and other factors.</p>
<p>That is part of the reason why schools don’t receive the exact same dollar amount per student, Moya said.</p>
<p>Grant money</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Schools receive varying amounts of money from the federal government, including tax dollars that go to help educate poor and special education children, as well as state and local government grants that go to fund education.</p>
<p>The amount of this type of money that makes its way to the district’s schools varies dramatically.</p>
<p>Rio Grande, for example, received $951,323 – or $625 per student – this year from these types of outside dollars, which was the most in the district.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Volcano Vista received only a total of $1,125 in those types of funds, or 52 cents per student.</p>
<p>Capital money</p>
<p>Another source of money for schools – not included in the figures above – is the School Improvement Program fund.</p>
<p>Money from the SIP fund can be used to buy computer equipment, software and other technology. It also can be used to furnish school buildings and to buy activity vehicles to transport students to extracurricular activities, among other uses, according to district budget documents.</p>
<p>Schools receive equal amounts of funding from the SIP fund, which was established to provide schools with discretionary money for capital projects unique to each school site not identified in the district’s capital master plan, according to district documents.</p>
<p>The SIP fund comes out of the district’s capital fund – which is comprised of property tax dollars raised during bond elections – that goes to pay for new construction, major remodeling projects and technology purchases. The SIP fund amounts to 1 percent of the district’s total capital budget.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
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<p /> | Counting the dollars at APS high schools | false | https://abqjournal.com/528277/a-look-at-the-funding-for-high-schools-in-aps.html | 2 |
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<p>Contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM), commonly abbreviated as TSMC, has had a good year in 2016. Its stock price is up 28% year to date, and it's expected to enjoy more than 13% revenue growth this year, as well as nearly 10% earnings-per-share growth for the year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The company made a lot of good moves this year. Here are three of its best.</p>
<p>In 2014, TSMC won all of Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) A8 chip orders, which meant that every single iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus that was shipped included a TSMC-built applications processor. Considering that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were enormous successes for Apple, this translated into a nice win for TSMC.</p>
<p>In 2015, however, TSMC didn't win the entirety of Apple's A9 chip orders. In fact, numerous reports from the press and the analyst community pointed to TSMC only winning a minority allocation of those chips.</p>
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<p>However, TSMC is believed to be the sole manufacturer of the A10 processors that power Apple's iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones. It's also believed to have won both the chip manufacturing orders, as well as the packaging orders for the A10. (This means more revenue share for TSMC.)</p>
<p>Image source: TSMC.</p>
<p>TSMC is planning to begin generating revenue from its 10-nanometer chip-manufacturing technology in the first half of 2017, but that technology is expected to be short-lived and utilized by only a handful of customers.The next "major" technology from TSMC is expected to be its 7-nanometer technology, which promises performance, power, and area improvements over its 10-nanometer technology.</p>
<p>TSMC has said that this technology "has been adopted not only by high-end mobile customers, but also by high-performance computing customers for [graphics processing units], gaming, [personal computers] and tablet[s], virtual reality, server, FPGA, automotive, and networking applications."</p>
<p>Although it'll be a while before revenue from these design wins start rolling in -- expect the first revenue during the first half of 2018 -- TSMC's commentary points to strong execution in both the technology, as well as in securing a broad range of customers. It will be interesting to see just how much revenue growth it can drive, especially in applications beyond mobile, in the years ahead.</p>
<p>Although much of the fanfare is around the latest manufacturing technologies from companies like TSMC, the reality is that a lot of the revenue and gross profit dollars that contract-chip manufacturers generate comes from older technologies.While there have been worries that less advanced chipmakers might begin to take share from TSMC in older technologies, like the 28-nanometer technology, TSMC has consistently managed to keep demand very high for such technologies.</p>
<p>"Our 28-nanometer capacity remained fully utilized and represented 24% of our wafer revenue in the third quarter," said TSMC CFO Lora Ho.</p>
<p>TSMC co-CEO C.C. Wei also said that demand for its 28-nanometer technology "has continued to be strong throughout this year and is expected to last through many years."When management was asked about potential competitive threats from tier-2 chip manufacturers for 28-nanometer business, co-CEO Mark Liu expressed confidence that the company could maintain market share in this technology generation.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/aeassa/info.aspx" type="external">Ashraf Eassa Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool 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> | Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd.s Best Moves in 2016 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/30/taiwan-semiconductor-mfg-co-ltds-best-moves-in-2016.html | 2016-12-30 | 0 |
<p>HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — No. 20 SMU wasn’t about to lose its conference tournament opener, not after being knocked out of the NCAA field because of a loss in its first game a year ago.</p>
<p>American Conference player of the year Nic Moore scored 20 points and the top-seeded Mustangs (25-6) held off East Carolina 74-68 Friday in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference. Markus Kennedy, the league’s sixth man of the year, added 15 points and six rebounds.</p>
<p>SMU lost to Houston in their opening game of the 2014 AAC and ended up as runner-ups in the NIT. This year, the Mustangs were tied with the eighth-seeded Pirates at 64 with 4 ½ minutes left.</p>
<p>But SMU closed the game on a 10-4 run, hitting eight free throws down the stretch to win their first conference tournament game in nine years.</p>
<p>“I think last year we probably would have packed it in,” said Larry Brown, the Mustangs’ Hall-of-Fame head coach. “But we’ve matured a little bit, and I think have handled adversity much better.”</p>
<p>Terry Whisnant and Antonio Robinson each had 18 points for East Carolina (14-18), which made 15 of its 35 3-point shots, but missed its last six attempts from behind the arc.</p>
<p>“We got good looks and as a coach, I think that’s what you want,” said East Carolina coach Jeff Lebo. “We knew coming in that we would have to shoot a lot of 3s to win this game.”</p>
<p>East Carolina’s first six shots Friday were all from 3-point range and they made five of them, taking an early 19-9 lead while holding SMU to 4 of 14 shooting during that span.</p>
<p>SMU responded with a 19-3 run, taking a 28-22 lead on a Cannen Cunningham layup. Moore had 11 first-half points and SMU scored 15 points on eight Pirate turnovers to take a 37-32 lead into the half.</p>
<p>SMU led by seven points after the opening bucket of the second half.</p>
<p>But East Carolina went on a 16-5 run, taking a 48-44 lead on one of Robinson’s four 3-pointers.</p>
<p>Moore responded with a 3-pointer that sparked a 10-0 run for the Mustangs, who retook the lead on a dunk by Ben Moore.</p>
<p>But ECU stayed in the game by hitting 3-pointers.</p>
<p>An 11-2 run, featuring 3s from Robinson, Paris Campbell and Whisnant put them back on top 62-61.</p>
<p>ECU was 11 of 30 from 3-point range during the team’s first meeting, a 77-54 SMU victory.</p>
<p>Kennedy put the Mustangs up for good with a conventional 3-point play that made it 67-64. The league’s sixth man of the year hit two more to push the lead to 69-64 after drawing the fifth foul on ECU’s Marshal Guilmette.</p>
<p>“They came out making shots,” said SMU guard Ryan Manuel, who hit four of his five shots to finish with eight points. “They had nothing to lose and I think we just stuck with it and after the game we came out with the win.”</p>
<p>SMU had 17 second-chance points and forced 15 East Carolina turnovers.</p>
<p>East Carolina lost three of its last four regular-season games heading into the tournament and needed overtime Thursday to beat UCF by a point.</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>SMU: The Mustangs dominated inside, outscoring ECU 44-16 in the paint, and 17-2 on second-chance opportunities. ...The Mustangs only loss in their last eight games came on this court two weeks ago to UConn.</p>
<p>East Carolina: The Pirates had won four of their last six meetings with SMU, but lost their only regular-season matchup this year by 23 points. Pirates coach Jeff Lebo played for SMU’s Larry Brown when Brown coached the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs.</p>
<p>QUOTEABLE</p>
<p>Jeff Lebo on his team’s 3-point shooting: “As a shooter myself, I don’t know why they miss or why they make. I wish I knew that, I’d be doing something else, probably.”</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>SMU: Plays Temple in the semifinals Saturday. The Owls beat Memphis, 80-75, in the quarterfinals.</p>
<p>East Carolina: Season over.</p>
<p>HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — No. 20 SMU wasn’t about to lose its conference tournament opener, not after being knocked out of the NCAA field because of a loss in its first game a year ago.</p>
<p>American Conference player of the year Nic Moore scored 20 points and the top-seeded Mustangs (25-6) held off East Carolina 74-68 Friday in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference. Markus Kennedy, the league’s sixth man of the year, added 15 points and six rebounds.</p>
<p>SMU lost to Houston in their opening game of the 2014 AAC and ended up as runner-ups in the NIT. This year, the Mustangs were tied with the eighth-seeded Pirates at 64 with 4 ½ minutes left.</p>
<p>But SMU closed the game on a 10-4 run, hitting eight free throws down the stretch to win their first conference tournament game in nine years.</p>
<p>“I think last year we probably would have packed it in,” said Larry Brown, the Mustangs’ Hall-of-Fame head coach. “But we’ve matured a little bit, and I think have handled adversity much better.”</p>
<p>Terry Whisnant and Antonio Robinson each had 18 points for East Carolina (14-18), which made 15 of its 35 3-point shots, but missed its last six attempts from behind the arc.</p>
<p>“We got good looks and as a coach, I think that’s what you want,” said East Carolina coach Jeff Lebo. “We knew coming in that we would have to shoot a lot of 3s to win this game.”</p>
<p>East Carolina’s first six shots Friday were all from 3-point range and they made five of them, taking an early 19-9 lead while holding SMU to 4 of 14 shooting during that span.</p>
<p>SMU responded with a 19-3 run, taking a 28-22 lead on a Cannen Cunningham layup. Moore had 11 first-half points and SMU scored 15 points on eight Pirate turnovers to take a 37-32 lead into the half.</p>
<p>SMU led by seven points after the opening bucket of the second half.</p>
<p>But East Carolina went on a 16-5 run, taking a 48-44 lead on one of Robinson’s four 3-pointers.</p>
<p>Moore responded with a 3-pointer that sparked a 10-0 run for the Mustangs, who retook the lead on a dunk by Ben Moore.</p>
<p>But ECU stayed in the game by hitting 3-pointers.</p>
<p>An 11-2 run, featuring 3s from Robinson, Paris Campbell and Whisnant put them back on top 62-61.</p>
<p>ECU was 11 of 30 from 3-point range during the team’s first meeting, a 77-54 SMU victory.</p>
<p>Kennedy put the Mustangs up for good with a conventional 3-point play that made it 67-64. The league’s sixth man of the year hit two more to push the lead to 69-64 after drawing the fifth foul on ECU’s Marshal Guilmette.</p>
<p>“They came out making shots,” said SMU guard Ryan Manuel, who hit four of his five shots to finish with eight points. “They had nothing to lose and I think we just stuck with it and after the game we came out with the win.”</p>
<p>SMU had 17 second-chance points and forced 15 East Carolina turnovers.</p>
<p>East Carolina lost three of its last four regular-season games heading into the tournament and needed overtime Thursday to beat UCF by a point.</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>SMU: The Mustangs dominated inside, outscoring ECU 44-16 in the paint, and 17-2 on second-chance opportunities. ...The Mustangs only loss in their last eight games came on this court two weeks ago to UConn.</p>
<p>East Carolina: The Pirates had won four of their last six meetings with SMU, but lost their only regular-season matchup this year by 23 points. Pirates coach Jeff Lebo played for SMU’s Larry Brown when Brown coached the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs.</p>
<p>QUOTEABLE</p>
<p>Jeff Lebo on his team’s 3-point shooting: “As a shooter myself, I don’t know why they miss or why they make. I wish I knew that, I’d be doing something else, probably.”</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>SMU: Plays Temple in the semifinals Saturday. The Owls beat Memphis, 80-75, in the quarterfinals.</p>
<p>East Carolina: Season over.</p> | No. 20 SMU beats East Carolina 74-68 in American quarters | false | https://apnews.com/7be8e16e10bf4399acfb7fb91f590b24 | 2015-03-13 | 2 |
<p>Your forever-boo Matt Damon has debuted a new ponytail. It is sandy-colored, nicely textured, lush, thick. It is also disconcerting. It looks like it should not be attached to his head. It's weird surfer-hair. It should be in a bun, but instead, Matt has chosen to rock it low and tight to the nape of his neck, making him look like a Revolutionary War hero.</p>
<p>It's the kind of thing that one of your friends quietly reveals one day at brunch, and everyone is so perplexed, so unsure of how to approach it delicately that the ponytail just hangs there, glaring at you balefully as you push Eggs Benedict around your plate and order another Bloody Mary.</p>
<p>We just have one question: Matt, why?</p>
<p>[h/t <a href="http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/07/matt-damon-unleashes-thick-flowing-ponytail.html" type="external">The Cut]</a></p> | Welcome To The World, Matt Damon's Ponytail | true | http://thefrisky.com/2015-07-02/welcome-to-the-world-matt-damons-ponytail/?utm_source%3Dsc-fb%26utm_medium%3Dref%26utm_campaign%3Dmatt-damon | 2018-10-06 | 4 |
<p>PHOENIX (AP) — The number of valley fever cases in Arizona surged in November, putting the state at a year-end total above 2016, the Arizona Department of Health Services said.</p>
<p>There were 926 cases reported in November, the highest monthly total since September 2015, The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday.</p>
<p>Officials aren’t sure how to explain the November surge, said Cara Christ, the state’s health care director.</p>
<p>The high volume of reports in November will likely put 2017′s total over the 6,101 cases reported in 2016.</p>
<p>Officials believe 2017′s total will remain under the 2015 total of 7,622.</p>
<p>Valley fever is a sometimes deadly respiratory illness caused by spores found in soil. It can cause flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath and rash.</p>
<p>Most cases occur in California and Arizona. Experts believe the disease is under-reported.</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that many doctors in Arizona’s Maricopa County were trained in areas where the disease is rare, said Dr. John Galgiani, director of the University of Arizona’s Valley Fever Center for Excellence.</p>
<p>A state health department study found that only a small percentage of people diagnosed with pneumonia are tested for valley fever, Galgiani said.</p>
<p>Doctors should always orders tests for valley fever for patients experiencing pneumonia, he said.</p>
<p>A new test for the disease by a Utah company promises to deliver results quicker.</p>
<p>While it can take a lab up to three weeks to complete the existing test, DxNA LLC can have the results within an hour, said David Taus, the company’s CEO.</p>
<p>Michael Saubolle, a clinical microbiologist with Sonora Quest, expects the medical laboratory to begin offering the DxNA test in early to mid-2018.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Arizona Republic, <a href="http://www.azcentral.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.azcentral.com" type="external">http://www.azcentral.com</a></p>
<p>PHOENIX (AP) — The number of valley fever cases in Arizona surged in November, putting the state at a year-end total above 2016, the Arizona Department of Health Services said.</p>
<p>There were 926 cases reported in November, the highest monthly total since September 2015, The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday.</p>
<p>Officials aren’t sure how to explain the November surge, said Cara Christ, the state’s health care director.</p>
<p>The high volume of reports in November will likely put 2017′s total over the 6,101 cases reported in 2016.</p>
<p>Officials believe 2017′s total will remain under the 2015 total of 7,622.</p>
<p>Valley fever is a sometimes deadly respiratory illness caused by spores found in soil. It can cause flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath and rash.</p>
<p>Most cases occur in California and Arizona. Experts believe the disease is under-reported.</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that many doctors in Arizona’s Maricopa County were trained in areas where the disease is rare, said Dr. John Galgiani, director of the University of Arizona’s Valley Fever Center for Excellence.</p>
<p>A state health department study found that only a small percentage of people diagnosed with pneumonia are tested for valley fever, Galgiani said.</p>
<p>Doctors should always orders tests for valley fever for patients experiencing pneumonia, he said.</p>
<p>A new test for the disease by a Utah company promises to deliver results quicker.</p>
<p>While it can take a lab up to three weeks to complete the existing test, DxNA LLC can have the results within an hour, said David Taus, the company’s CEO.</p>
<p>Michael Saubolle, a clinical microbiologist with Sonora Quest, expects the medical laboratory to begin offering the DxNA test in early to mid-2018.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Arizona Republic, <a href="http://www.azcentral.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.azcentral.com" type="external">http://www.azcentral.com</a></p> | Valley fever cases surged in Arizona in November | false | https://apnews.com/535b402b8fb14ce8991433ac5b99194a | 2018-01-01 | 2 |
<p>Consumer prices, retail sales also headline a busy day</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average was poised to hover around record highs on Friday, though stock futures pointed to slight caution with earnings reports from major banks, including J.P. Morgan Chase &amp; Co. and Citigroup Inc. in focus.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The economic front will also be busy, with data on consumer prices and retail sales due to hit before the market opens.</p>
<p>DJIA futures were flat at 21,509, while S&amp;P 500 futures were off 0.85 point to 2,444.75. Nasdaq-100 futures fell 1.35 points to 5,796.75.</p>
<p>On Thursday, the Dow industrials logged its 24th record close this year (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-aims-for-fresh-record-as-yellen-emboldens-bulls-2017-07-13), driven by gains for the financial and retail sectors. The index rose 0.1% to finish at 21,553.09. The S&amp;P 500 index added 0.2% while the Nasdaq Composite picked up 0.2%, its fifth-straight positive close.</p>
<p>Need to Know:Here's a quirkier game plan for markets that are 'priced for perfection' (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-quirkier-game-plan-for-markets-that-are-priced-for-perfection-2017-07-14)</p>
<p>On the whole, it's been a winning week for stocks, led by a nearly 2% gain for the Nasdaq, a roughly a 1% gain for the S&amp;P 500 and a 0.7% rise for the DJIA ahead of Friday's session. Dovish comments from Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen in Capitol Hill testimony boosted stocks this week.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Friday marks a big day for the start of second-quarter earnings season as major banks are reporting ahead of the bell.</p>
<p>Stocks to watch: J.P. Morgan(JPM) beat expectations on both revenue and profit, but shares gave up an early initial gain to turn about 0.9% lower.</p>
<p>Citi (C) and Wells Fargo &amp; Co.(WFC) will also report in the morning.</p>
<p>Ahead of those results had been expecting banks to deliver a weak quarter, potentially kicking off the latest in a string of disappointing earnings seasons (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-earnings-expect-another-meh-quarter-of-weak-trading-revenue-2017-07-10). The shine has come off the sector as hopes have faded that President Donald Trump will push through structural reforms and boost the economy. Disappointment from banks could weigh on the broader market, warned some.</p>
<p>"Soft financial results could dent the appetite and pull ... U.S. stocks down from their all-time high levels," said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at LCG, in a note to clients.</p>
<p>Read:Four key sectors to watch closely this earnings season (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/four-key-sectors-to-watch-closely-this-earnings-season-2017-07-13)</p>
<p>(http://www.marketwatch.com/story/four-key-sectors-to-watch-closely-this-earnings-season-2017-07-13)Data on tap: Also in focus for investors, consumer prices and retail sales for June are due at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Economists polled by MarketWatch expect the consumer-price index rose 0.1% month-on-month in June, while core inflation is seen coming in at 0.2%.</p>
<p>At 9:15 a.m., June industrial production and capacity utilization will be released.</p>
<p>Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan will speak on Fed and monetary policy in Mexico City at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.</p>
<p>Other markets: In Asia , markets ended the day with modest gains. European stocks (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/european-stocks-waver-but-best-week-in-two-months-in-sight-2017-07-14) stocks were mixed, but still looking at the best week in two months. A stronger British pound was weighing on the FTSE 100 (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stronger-pound-holds-ftse-100-back-for-2nd-day-2017-07-14) for a second day.</p>
<p>Oil prices firmed up, along with gold , while the dollar was easing back slightly.</p>
<p>Read:Saudi Arabia's worst-case oil scenario might surprise you ()</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>July 14, 2017 07:35 ET (11:35 GMT)</p> | MARKET SNAPSHOT: Dow Industrials Set To Hover At Record As J.P. Morgan, Citi Report | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/14/market-snapshot-dow-industrials-set-to-hover-at-record-as-j-p-morgan-citi-report0.html | 2017-07-14 | 0 |
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