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<p>Jan 22 (Reuters) - Western Copper And Gold Corp:</p> * WESTERN COPPER AND GOLD ANNOUNCES PRIVATE PLACEMENT
<p>* WESTERN COPPER AND GOLD CORP SAYS PLANS TO CONDUCT A NON-BROKERED PRIVATE PLACEMENT OF UP TO 2.6 MILLION UNITS AT A PRICE OF $1.15 PER UNIT</p>
<p>* WESTERN COPPER AND GOLD CORP SAYS INTENDS TO USE NET PROCEEDS FROM PRIVATE PLACEMENT FOR PERMITTING AND DEVELOPMENT OF CASINO PROJECT Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has told advisers he wants an early exit of U.S. troops from Syria, two senior administration officials said on Friday, a stance that may put him at odds with U.S. military officials who see the fight against Islamic State as nowhere near complete.</p>
<p>A National Security Council meeting is set for early next week to discuss the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State in Syria, according to U.S. officials familiar with the plan.</p>
<p>Two other administration officials confirmed a Wall Street Journal report on Friday that said Trump had ordered the State Department to freeze more than $200 million in funds for recovery efforts in Syria while his administration reassesses Washington’s role in the conflict there.</p>
<p>Trump called for the freeze after reading a news report that the U.S. had recently committed an additional $200 million to stabilize areas recaptured from Islamic State, the paper said.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-usa-trump-syria-wsj/trump-freezes-funds-for-syria-signals-exit-wall-street-journal-idUSKBN1H7006" type="external">Trump freezes funds for Syria; signals exit: Wall Street Journal</a>
<p>The funding was announced by departing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in February at a meeting in Kuwait of the global coalition against Islamic State.</p>
<p>The decision to freeze the funds was in line with Trump’s declaration during a speech in Richfield, Ohio, on Thursday, where he said it was time for America to exit Syria.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said that “in line with the President’s guidance, the Department of State continually re-evaluates appropriate assistance levels and how best they might be utilized, which they do on an ongoing basis.”</p>
<p>Trump is spending Easter weekend at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate.</p>
<p>“We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon,” Trump said on Thursday, based on allied victories against Islamic State militants.</p>
<p>“Let the other people take care of it now.&#160;Very soon, very soon, we’re coming out,” Trump said. “We’re going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be.”</p>
<p>Trump’s comments came as France said on Friday it could increase its military presence in Syria to bolster the U.S.-led campaign.</p>
<p>While the Pentagon has estimated that Islamic State has lost about 98 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, U.S. military officials have warned that the militants could regain the freed areas quickly unless they are stabilized.</p>
<p>Trump still needs to be convinced of that, said the U.S. officials with knowledge of the NSC meeting.</p> FILE PHOTO: A U.S. fighter stands near a military vehicle, north of Raqqa city, Syria November 6, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said U.S. DELIBERATIONS
<p>The two administration officials who confirmed the Wall Street Journal report and spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said Trump’s comments on Thursday reflected internal deliberations with advisers in which he has wondered aloud why U.S. forces should remain with the militants on their heels.</p>
<p>Trump has made clear that “once ISIS and its remnants are destroyed that the United States would be looking toward having countries in the region playing a larger role in ensuring security and leaving it at that,” one official said.</p>
<p>Such a policy is nowhere near complete, however, the official added.</p>
<p>The second official said Trump’s national security advisers have told him U.S. forces should stay in small numbers for at least a couple of years to make sure gains against the militants are held and ensure Syria does not essentially become a permanent Iranian base.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at Palm Beach International Airport, Florida, U.S., for the Easter weekend at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
<p>Top national security aides discussed Syria in a White House meeting recently but have yet to settle on a strategy for U.S. forces in Syria to recommend to Trump going forward, the official said.</p>
<p>“So far he has not given an order to just get out,” the official said. About 2,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Syria.</p>
<p>Trump last year went through a similar wrenching debate over whether to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, ultimately agreeing to keep them there but only after repeatedly raising questions of why they should stay.</p>
<p>Trump’s view on Syria may put him at odds with those of former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, named by Trump a week ago to replace H.R. McMaster as White House national security adviser.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton, John Walcott and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio, Susan Thomas and Tom Hogue</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - A white Louisiana police officer was fired on Friday and a second suspended for the killing of Alton Sterling, a black man shot in a 2016 incident that inflamed the U.S. debate on racial bias in law enforcement, a police official said.</p>
<p>Baton Rouge officer Blane Salamoni, who shot Sterling in a confrontation outside a convenience store, was dismissed for violating department standards on use of force and for losing his temper, Police Chief Murphy Paul told a news conference.</p>
<p>The second officer, Howie Lake, was suspended for three days for failing to maintain his composure. The decisions followed an administrative review of the July 2016 shooting, and both officers plan to appeal, Paul said.</p>
<p>The steps are designed “to bring closure to a cloud that has been over our community for far too long,” he said.</p>
<p>Sterling was among black men slain by police whose deaths sparked U.S. protests and helped fuel the Black Lives Matter movement.</p>
<p>Police released four videos of the confrontation with Sterling outside a convenience store, where he was selling CDs.</p>
<p>Paul called the footage from a police dash camera, officers’ body cameras, and a store surveillance camera “graphic and shocking to the conscience.”</p>
<p>Salamoni’s camera shows him yelling at Sterling with expletives to put his hands on a car. He points a gun at his Sterling’s head and shouts he will shoot him if he moves.</p>
<p>While struggling with Sterling, both officers’ cameras came loose. Lake’s footage ends by showing Sterling on his back in the parking lot, blood draining from his body.</p>
<p>Sterling, 37, was shot after a resident reported he had been threatened by a black man selling CDs. Police said Sterling was trying to pull a loaded gun out of his pocket when Salamoni opened fire.</p>
<p>Lawyers representing Sterling’s five children applauded Salamoni’s firing, but expressed disappointment that the officers would not face charges.</p>
<p>“The person who was out of control was Blane Salamoni,” attorney Michael Adams said at a news conference. “The person who stood by and let him be out of control was Howie Lake. That’s a tragedy.”</p>
<p>Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said this week that Lake and Salamoni would not face charges since they had reason to believe that Sterling was armed and was resisting arrest.</p> FILE PHOTO: A boy sits next to a makeshift memorial outside the Triple S Food Mart where Alton Sterling was fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. July 7, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman/File Photo
<p>The U.S. Department of Justice declined to prosecute the officers for civil rights violations in 2017, citing insufficient evidence.</p>
<p>Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled that women accusing Goldman Sachs Group Inc of discriminating against them in pay, promotions and performance reviews may pursue their claims as a group in a class-action lawsuit.</p> FILE PHOTO: The logo of Goldman Sachs is displayed in their office located in Sydney, Australia, May 18, 2016. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo
<p>The decision late Friday afternoon by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan covers female associates and vice presidents who have worked in Goldman’s investment banking, investment management and securities divisions since September 2004, and employees in New York City since July 2002.</p>
<p>Goldman was accused of systematically paying women less than men, and giving them weaker performance reviews that impeded their career growth.</p>
<p>Class certification can help plaintiffs achieve greater awards at lower costs than if they sued individually. Kelly Dermody, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, estimated that more than 2,000 people are in the certified class.</p>
<p>Goldman had no immediate comment.</p>
<p>The lawsuit is one of the highest-profile cases targeting Wall Street’s alleged unequal treatment of women, a claim raised in a variety of litigation against many banks for decades.</p>
<p>In her 49-page decision, Torres said the plaintiffs provided “significant proof of discriminatory disparate treatment” at Goldman.</p>
<p>She cited as an example an expert’s report that female vice presidents and associates were on average paid a respective 21 percent and 8 percent less than their male counterparts.</p>
<p>The judge also said the plaintiffs provided proof that Goldman was “aware of gender disparities and gender bias,” but did not adjust its policies.</p>
<p>“We obviously are very, very pleased,” Dermody said in a phone interview. “This case is eight years old, and sometimes it’s worth the wait.”</p>
<p>The plaintiffs were led by Cristina Chen-Oster, Mary De Luis and Allison Gamba, who were all vice presidents, and Shanna Orlich, who was an associate.</p>
<p>Torres said the class action will not include the claim that Goldman maintained a “boys’ club atmosphere” where women were allegedly subjected to unwanted stereotyping, harassment and retaliation.</p>
<p>She said this was because “individual” rather than “common” issues would predominate.</p>
<p>The lawsuit began in September 2010, and according to Torres was delayed largely by a dispute over the kind of relief that former employees could obtain.</p>
<p>The case is Chen-Oster et al v. Goldman Sachs &amp; Co et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 10-06950.</p>
<p>Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Susan Thomas</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>GAZA-ISRAEL BORDER (Reuters) - At least 16 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured on Friday by Israeli security forces confronting one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border in recent years, Gaza medical officials said.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of Palestinians, pressing for a right of return for refugees to what is now Israel, gathered along the fenced 65-km (40-mile) frontier where tents were erected for a planned six-week protest, local officials said. The Israeli military estimate was 30,000.</p>
<p>The United Nations Security Council was briefed on the violence in Gaza on Friday at the request of Kuwait. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour told the council at least 17 Palestinian civilians were killed and more than 1,400 injured.</p>
<p>Families brought their children to the encampments just a few hundred meters (yards) from the Israeli security barrier with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, and football fields were marked in the sand and scout bands played.</p>
<p>But as the day wore on, hundreds of Palestinian youths ignored calls from the organizers and the Israeli military to stay away from the frontier, where Israeli soldiers across the border kept watch from dirt mound embankments.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-israel-palestinians-un-guterres/u-n-chief-calls-for-independent-investigation-into-gaza-deaths-idUSKBN1H700W" type="external">U.N. chief calls for independent investigation into Gaza deaths</a>
<a href="/article/us-israel-palestinians-un/u-n-fears-gaza-situation-might-deteriorate-in-coming-days-idUSKBN1H61SX" type="external">U.N. fears Gaza situation might deteriorate in coming days</a>
<p>The military said its troops had used live fire only against people trying to sabotage the border security fence, some of them rolling burning tyres and throwing rocks, and that at least two of the dead were Hamas operatives.</p>
<p>Palestinian health officials said Israeli forces used mostly gunfire against the protesters, in addition to tear gas and rubber bullets. Witnesses said the military had deployed a drone over at least one location to drop tear gas.</p>
<p>One of the dead was aged 16 and at least 400 people were wounded by live gunfire, while others were struck by rubber bullets or treated for tear gas inhalation, Gaza health officials said.</p>
<p>Two Palestinians were killed by tank fire, the Gaza Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said the two were militants who had opened fire at troops across the border.</p>
<p>Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that Israel was responsible for the violence and declared Saturday a national day of mourning.</p>
<p>U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an independent, transparent investigation and appealed “to those concerned to refrain from any act that could lead to further casualties and in particular any measures that could place civilians in harm’s way,” his spokesman said in a statement.</p>
<p>A senior U.N. official told the U.N. Security Council there are fears the situation in Gaza “might deteriorate in the coming days.”</p>
<p>The United States, a close Israel ally, told the council it was “deeply saddened” by the loss of life.</p>
<p>“We urge those involved to take steps to lower tensions and reduce the risk of new clashes. Bad actors who use protests as a cover to incite violence endanger innocent lives,” U.S. diplomat Walter said.</p> RIGHT OF RETURN
<p>The protest presented a rare show of unity among rival Palestinian factions in the impoverished Gaza Strip, where pressure has been building on Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah movement to end a decade-old rift. Reconciliation efforts to end the feud have been faltering for months.</p>
<p>The demonstration was launched on “Land Day,” an annual commemoration of the deaths of six Arab citizens of Israel killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations over government land confiscations in northern Israel in 1976.</p>
<p>But its main focus was a demand that Palestinian refugees be allowed the right of return to towns and villages which their families fled from, or were driven out of, when the state of Israel was created in 1948.</p> A Palestinian runs during clashes with Israeli troops, during a tent city protest along the Israel border with Gaza, demanding the right to return to their homeland, the southern Gaza Strip March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
<p>In a statement, the Israeli military accused Hamas of “cynically exploiting women and children, sending them to the security fence and endangering their lives”.</p>
<p>The military said that more than 100 army sharpshooters had been deployed in the area.</p>
<p>Hamas, which seeks Israel’s destruction, had earlier urged protesters to adhere to the “peaceful nature” of the protest.</p>
<p>Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing an influx of Arabs that would wipe out its Jewish majority. It argues that refugees should resettle in a future state the Palestinians seek in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks to that end collapsed in 2014.</p>
<p>There were also small protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and about 65 Palestinians were injured.</p> Slideshow (24 Images)
<p>In Gaza, the protest was dubbed “The March of Return” and some of the tents bore names of the refugees’ original villages in what is now Israel, written in Arabic and Hebrew alike.</p>
<p>Citing security concerns, Israel, which withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, blockades the coastal territory, maintaining tight restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and goods across the frontier. Egypt, battling an Islamist insurgency in neighboring Sinai, keeps its border with Gaza largely closed.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Writing by Ori Lewis and Stephen Farrell; Editing by Larry King and Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Western Copper And Gold Announces Private Placement Trump tells advisers he wants U.S. out of Syria: senior officials White Baton Rouge policeman fired over shooting of black man U.S. judge certifies Goldman Sachs gender bias class action Israeli forces kill 16 Palestinians in Gaza border protests: Gaza medics | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-western-copper-and-gold-announces/brief-western-copper-and-gold-announces-private-placement-idUSASB0C1O5 | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
<p>White supremacist Samuel Johnson at an anti-immigration rally he organized in 2010Eric Johnson/Austin Daily Herald</p>
<p />
<p>Samuel Johnson isn’t exactly a lawyer’s dream client. He’s a white supremacist with a lengthy rap sheet who a couple years ago was accused of plotting an attack on a Mexican consulate. He ended up drawing a 15-year prison term on a gun charge, and his case is now on his way to the US Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear a challenge to his sentence. Johnson has won the <a href="http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Johnson-GOA-amicus-brief.pdf" type="external">vocal backing of a top gun rights group</a>, but as his case moves forward, it may eventually draw support from some liberals and civil libertarians who oppose harsh mandatory minimum sentences.</p>
<p>Johnson’s story started back in 2010, when he <a href="http://:%20http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/13-7120-Johnson-v-US-Govt-BIO.pdf" type="external">caught the attention of the FBI,</a> not long after he’d started organizing <a href="http://www.bluestemprairie.com/bluestemprairie/2012/04/white-supremacist-sam-johnson-subject-of-2009-bsp-interview-named-in-federal-affidavit.html" type="external">anti-immigration rallies in Minnesota</a>. Initially a member of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group, Johnson quit to start his own outfit, the Aryan Liberation Movement. He allegedly planned to support the group by counterfeiting money.</p>
<p>During a domestic terrorism investigation, Johnson, who has a long criminal record, told an undercover informant he’d manufactured napalm, silencers, and other explosives for the new group, and was amassing a stockpile of semi-automatic weapons and ammo. According to court documents, Johnson and another man, Joseph Thomas, were planning an attack on the Mexican consulate in Minneapolis for May 1, 2012. Law enforcement swooped in before the attack could be launched. Thomas was arrested on drug charges and ultimately pleaded guilty to a meth possession charge and sentenced to 10 years in prison.</p>
<p>When he was arrested, Johnson admitted to possessing an AK-47 and a .22-caliber semi-automatic handgun, plus ammo for both—a big no-no given that, as a convicted felon, he was barred from owning weapons. A federal grand jury indicted Johnson for the illegal possession of weapons and ammo. Prosecutors also invoked another federal statute, which is at the heart of Johnson’s Supreme Court case. The Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), a Reagan-era tough-on-crime measure similar to California’s three-strikes law, exposed Johnson to a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence for the gun possession charges because he already had three previous violent felony convictions for robbery, attempted robbery, and possession of a sawed-off shotgun.</p>
<p>Johnson pleaded guilty to a single gun possession charge and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, a sentence even the judge admitted was too harsh for the crime at hand but one he was powerless to change thanks to the ACCA. (But for the ACCA, Johnson’s sentence would have been much shorter—between 7 and 11 years.) In his plea agreement, Johnson reserved the right to challenge the constitutionality of the ACCA in an appeal, which he did. He lost his case in the Eighth Circuit, but in April, without much fanfare, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear his case. In July, Gun Owners of America (GOA), a gun rights group even more die-hard than the National Rifle Association, threw in with Johnson and filed an amicus brief on his behalf with the court.</p>
<p>Larry Pratt, GOA’s executive director, concedes that Johnson isn’t a very sympathetic character. But he says that’s precisely why GOA got involved—to prevent Johnson’s unsavory background from detracting from the serious constitutional issues at stake in his case. “Nobody’s interested in defending the guy per se,” Pratt says. “In fact, if anything I resent him more because who he is could mess [the law] up for a lot of really innocent people. Bad cases make bad law.”</p>
<p>Oral arguments haven’t been scheduled yet, but a ruling in Johnson’s favor could have a big impact on federal gun prosecutions by limiting prosecutors’ ability to secure long prison sentences for relatively minor gun offenses. But a Johnson victory might also give civil libertarians reason to cheer a check on prosecutorial power.</p>
<p>In the Johnson case, the justices must decide whether simply illegally possessing a short-barreled shotgun constitutes a “violent” crime that could trigger the lengthy mandatory minimum sentence for a career felon. The federal law is vague on this front. The ACCA specifically lists some violent felonies that would cause the mandatory sentence to kick in: burglary, arson, extortion, and the use of explosives. But then it adds that the extra penalty can also be imposed if one of the three or more previous felonies involved “conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another” and which are similar to those specific crimes laid out in the law.</p>
<p>It’s that last clause that’s created problems both for defendants and the courts. The lower courts have been all over the map in defining what constitutes the type of “violent” felony that would justify the extended sentence. Judges have deemed everything from purse-snatching, burglarizing an unoccupied commercial building, drunk driving, and fleeing the police in a vehicle as qualifying, not because theses acts are violent but because they could be. (The Supreme Court eventually <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/begay-v-us/" type="external">disqualified the use of DUI</a> but <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sykes-v-united-states-2/" type="external">affirmed that fleeing the police</a> in a car is a violent crime that could trigger extra years in prison.)</p>
<p>The courts have been especially inconsistent on whether Johnson’s crime, possession of a sawed-off shotgun, is worthy of a sentence enhancement. The government, the First Circuit, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against Johnson, have said that illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun meets the serious-risk standard Congress created. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence <a href="http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/BriefsV4/13-7120_resp_amcu_tbcpgv-etal.authcheckdam.pdf" type="external">also filed an amicus brief</a>in the Johnson case supporting that position, citing research showing that the mere presence of an illegal gun increases the potential for violence.</p>
<p>Yet four other federal circuit courts have looked at the same question and come to the opposite conclusion, finding that simply possessing a short-barreled gun is a lot different from using it. Johnson, whose prior gun possession conviction came after he was caught riding in the front passenger seat of a car with a gun in a bag on the backseat, contends that his crime hardly rises to the level of the “purposeful, violent, and aggressive” crime the Supreme Court has said can trigger the mandatory minimum sentence.</p>
<p>Even so, more mainstream gun rights organizations haven’t jumped on the bandwagon to support Johnson so far. (The NRA’s legal shop didn’t respond to questions about whether it would file a brief in the case.) Given Johnson’s background, it’s not hard to see why gun enthusiasts might not be rushing to his aid. GOA, though, has no such qualms.</p>
<p>Pratt himself has been tied to white-supremacist groups, starting with his <a href="http://leonardzeskind.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=75:armed-and-dangerous-the-nra-militias-and-white-supremacists-are-fostering-a-network-of-right-wing-warriors-&amp;catid=21:articles-op-eds-etc&amp;Itemid=35" type="external">presence at the launch of the militia movement</a> in the 1990s, at a meeting convened by a white-supremacist pastor. That said, in Johnson’s case, the radical gun group is on solid and potentially bipartisan ground. In fact, GOA makes arguments in its Supreme Court brief that echo liberal positions opposing the harshness of mandatory minimum sentencing and the excessive power it grants prosecutors.</p>
<p>Pratt is right when he says that the issues in the case have potential impact far beyond one white supremacist. The murky language in the ACCA has left the lower courts to define it on their own, with wildly different opinions resulting in vastly disparate sentences for defendants convicted of the same crimes. Pratt already has some supporters for his position on the high court, most notably Justice Antonin Scalia, who has blasted the ACCA as unconstitutionally vague.</p>
<p>Since 2007, the Supreme Court has taken four different stabs at trying to provide the lower courts more guidance on what sorts of crimes qualify as violent under the ACCA, most recently in 2011, in Sykes v. United States. Yet the lower courts’ decisions still are muddled, a situation Scalia predicted in a <a href="http://www.volokh.com/2011/06/09/justice-scalias-sykes-dissent/" type="external">scathing dissent in Sykes.</a> He wrote that instead of clarifying the law, the decision would only “sow further confusion,” and that the court’s jurisprudence in this area met the definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”</p>
<p>“Four times is enough,” he wrote, arguing the law should be declared void for vagueness. He went on to not only criticize the court but the members of Congress who wrote the imprecise criminal statute in the first place:</p>
<p>Fuzzy, leave-the-details-to-be-sorted-out-by-the-courts legislation is attractive to the Congressman who wants&#160;credit for addressing a national problem but does not have&#160;the time (or perhaps the votes) to grapple with the nittygritty. In the field of criminal law, at least, it is time to call a halt.</p>
<p>His colleagues ignored him, and not long after, refused to hear four more cases involving the ACCA. Scalia once again criticized them for leaving lower court judges to translate the law on their own, <a href="http://www.volokh.com/2011/06/27/scalia-dissents-from-denial-in-four-more-acca-cases/" type="external">writing:</a></p>
<p>Conceivably, they will simply throw the opinions&#160;into the air in frustration, and give free rein to their own&#160;feelings as to what offenses should be considered crimes&#160;of violence—which, to tell the truth, seems to be what we&#160;have done. (Before throwing the opinions into the air, however, they should check whether littering—or littering&#160;in a purposeful, violent, and aggressive fashion—is a felony in their jurisdiction. If so, it may be a violent felony&#160;under ACCA; or perhaps not.)</p>
<p>Scalia’s view on the ACCA doesn’t ensure a slam dunk for Johnson (or GOA), however. The Brady Center’s Jon Lowy notes that Johnson is “someone we should agree deserves very stiff punishment.” He says Johnson illustrates that the law is working as intended by ensnaring “exactly the people who should not have their hands on their guns.”</p>
<p>And then there’s the court’s recent record in gun cases. While in 2008 and 2010 the court issued landmark decisions enshrining the individual right to bear arms, overturning strict gun control laws in DC and Chicago, since then, most of its decisions have <a href="" type="internal">gone against the gun lobby.</a> Lowy says that in three cases in which the Brady Center has filed amicus briefs in the past year, it has prevailed, and the court has declined to hear a host of other cases where lower courts have upheld various gun control statutes.</p>
<p>Still, he declines to speculate about the outcome in Johnson’s case. “There’s always concern that the court picked [a case] for what in our view are the wrong reasons,” he says. But over the past year, despite fears that the court would continue to chip away at existing gun control laws, the justices have come down firmly on the side of gun violence prevention. “We’re hopeful that this one is one of those.”</p>
<p /> | Top Gun Rights Group Backs White Supremacist’s Supreme Court Case | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/gun-owners-of-america-samuel-johnson-neo-nazi/ | 2014-09-02 | 4 |
<p />
<p>John Burns’ New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/weekinreview/24burns.html?ei=5090&amp;en=fcd1b59b13f7b4a7&amp;ex=1279857600&amp;partner=rssuserland&amp;emc=rss&amp;pagewanted=print" type="external">piece</a> on Iraq’s slow slide into civil war had this tidbit near the end: “Despite these gloomy trends, American commanders have continued to hint at the possibility of at least an initial reduction of the 140,000 American troops stationed here by next summer, contingent on progress in creating effective Iraqi units. Some senior officers have said privately that there is a chance that the pullback will be ordered regardless of what is happening in the war, and that the rationale will be that Iraq – its politicians and its warriors – will ultimately have to find ways of overcoming their divides on their own.” Meanwhile, Helena Cobban <a href="http://csmonitor.com/2005/0721/p09s01-coop.htm" type="external">argues</a> that the U.S. should be doing just that, although she’s quite clearly wrong when she suggests that the U.S. wouldn’t be morally responsible for the inevitable post-withdrawal bloodbath.</p>
<p /> | Signs of Withdrawal? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2005/07/signs-withdrawal/ | 2005-07-25 | 4 |
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15275" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;" title="bono_obama" src="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/bono_obama.jpg" alt="Bono with Barack Obama" width="442" height="258" srcset="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/bono_obama.jpg 442w, https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/bono_obama-300x175.jpg 300w, https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/bono_obama-280x163.jpg 280w, https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/bono_obama-118x68.jpg 118w" sizes="(max-width: 442px) 100vw, 442px" /&gt;</a>At the G8 Summit held two weeks ago at Camp David, President Obama met with private industry and African heads of state to launch the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition,[1] a euphemism for monocultured, genetically modified crops and toxic agrochemicals aimed at making poor farmers debt slaves to corporations, while destroying the ecosphere for profit.</p>
<p>And Bono, of the rock group U2, is out shilling for Monsanto on this one.[2]</p>
<p>It’s phase 2 of the Green Revolution. Tanzania, Ghana, and Ethiopia are the first to fall for the deception, with Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and other African nations lining up for the “Grow Africa Partnership,” under Obama’s “Global Agricultural Development” plan.</p>
<p>In “Obama Pitches India Model of GM Genocide to Africa,”[3] Scott Creighton writes:</p>
<p>But African civil society wants no part of this latest Monsanto aligned ‘public private partnership.’ Whatever will the progressives do now that their flawless hero has teamed up with their most hated nemesis to exploit an entire continent like they did to India not that long ago?</p>
<p>With a commitment of $3 billion, Obama plans to ‘partner up’ with mega-multinationals like Monsanto, Diageo, Dupont, Cargill, Vodafone, Walmart, Pepsico, Prudential, Syngenta International, and Swiss Re because, as one USAID representative says ‘There are things that only companies can do, like building silos for storage and developing seeds and fertilizers.’</p>
<p>Of course, that’s an outrageous lie. Private citizens have been building their own silos for centuries. But it’s true that only the biowreck engineers will foist patented seeds and toxic chemicals on Africa.</p>
<p>Creighton continues:</p>
<p>Bono says that there has to be a ‘public private partnership’ in order to get this done and that they are going to be using the ideas of the African people and farmers. Really? This is what the African farmers say to that…</p>
<p>‘We request that: – governments, FAO, the G8, the World Bank and the GAFSP reconsider their promotion of Public/Private Partnerships which, as they are now conceived, are not suitable instruments to support the family farms which are the very basis of African food security and sovereignty.’ ~African Civil Society Organizations</p>
<p>I wonder if that could be any clearer. They don’t WANT the public private partnerships involved in this process…. It’s not enough that huge mega-corporations are bleeding the nations of Africa dry by sucking the valuable mineral resources out of their hills. No. As Bono says about the development in Africa:</p>
<p>‘They’re future consumers for the United States. The president is talking business. This is good. It’s a whole new development paradigm today. The old donor/recipient relationship… it’s over.’” ~Bono</p>
<p>Volatility chimed in [4]:</p>
<p>“The history of corporate agriculture and its ‘Green Revolution’ is a perfect example of the unfulfilled promises, and therefore proven lies, of corporatism. What was the Green Revolution? With a huge one-off injection of fossil fuels, and building upon ten thousand years of agronomy, corporate agriculture temporarily increased yields within the monoculture framework.”</p>
<p>But, in the Green Revolution, writes Volatility:</p>
<p>The soil is stripped of all nutrition and zombified by ever-increasing applications of synthetic fertilizer. Monoculture is ever more dependent on the increasing application of ever more toxic herbicides and pesticides. Deployment of GMOs escalates these vulnerabilities. Factory farms can exist only with ever increasing use of antibiotics. All these systems are extremely tenuous, vulnerable, not robust, not resilient. They’re all guaranteed to collapse. Hermetic monoculture, and industrial agriculture as such, is one big hothouse flower which requires perfect conditions to survive….</p>
<p>[T]he Green Revolution was a scam to use cheap fossil fuels to increase monocrop yield, drive tens of millions off the land, and use the stolen land and food to render food temporarily artificially cheap for Western consumerism.</p>
<p>Like with Monsanto’s Bt cotton deployed in India, at first yields improved and farmers profited. Now, however, according to a leaked Advisory from the Minister of Agriculture obtained by the Hindustan Times last month:</p>
<p>Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton…. In fact cost of cotton cultivation has jumped…due to rising costs of pesticides. Total Bt cotton production in the last five years has reduced.[5]</p>
<p>The Advisory definitively links farmer suicides to debt-enslavement enabled by the synthetic food model spawned by Monsanto, Dupont and other ecocidal corporations: “The spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers.”</p>
<p>That’s not all the harm wrought by the petrochemical synthetic ag industry, as this 2012 superweed map by the University of Wisconsin shows:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15272" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;" title="monsanto-superweeds-map2012 xUW" src="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/monsanto-superweeds-map2012-xUW.jpg" alt="Monsanto Superweeds" width="450" height="325" srcset="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/monsanto-superweeds-map2012-xUW.jpg 450w, https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/monsanto-superweeds-map2012-xUW-300x217.jpg 300w, https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/monsanto-superweeds-map2012-xUW-280x202.jpg 280w, https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/monsanto-superweeds-map2012-xUW-118x85.jpg 118w" sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px" /&gt;</a>Over half of US states are now plagued by agrochemically-induced superweeds.[6] An industry sponsored study[7] of pesticide use predicts that nearly a billion pounds of these toxic chemicals will be poured on US soils in 2016.</p>
<p>Insects have also developed resistance. As reported last August, “The Western rootworm beetle – one of the most serious threats to corn – has developed resistance to Monsanto’s Bt-corn, and entire crops are being lost.”[8]</p>
<p>In March, two dozen corn entomologists warned regulators that the only way to defeat growing insect resistance to genetically modified corn is to plant non-GMO seed. “Increasing pesticide use or buffer zone size will not solve the growing problem of rootworm resistance to corn genetically modified.”[9]</p>
<p>But if that doesn’t deter African farmers, these petrochemicals have also been linked to human birth defects. Where “Roundup Ready soy is being cultivated on a massive scale,” reports Dr. Mercola, “widespread reports exist of immediate illness defects from massive glyphosate spraying operations.”[10]</p>
<p>In fact, “Monsanto, Philip Morris and other U.S. tobacco giants knowingly poisoned Argentinean tobacco farmers with pesticides,” reports Courthouse News Service, “causing ‘devastating birth defects’ in their children, dozens of workers claim in court.”[11]</p>
<p>The Bt toxin used to engineer cotton and corn also kills human kidney cells, reports Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji,[12] and the drift from aerial application of Roundup prompted the Mississippi Rice Council to sound a national alarm over genetic damage to natural rice, calling for severely restricted aerial application. [13]</p>
<p>Newly emergent pathogens have appeared, reports Dr. Don M. Huber, a plant pathologist who coordinates the Emergent Diseases and Pathogens committee of the American Phytopathological Society, as part of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System. Last year, his team discovered a “self-replicating, micro-fungal virus-sized organism which may be causing spontaneous abortions in livestock, sudden death syndrome in Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soy, and wilt in Monsanto’s RR corn.”[14]</p>
<p>Huber’s warning to the USDA to halt GM crop approvals, and specifically, genetically modified alfalfa, was not only ignored, but two months ago, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack hastened the approval process for genetically engineered crops.</p>
<p>“The new rules will cut the time needed to approve biotech crops in half,” reports Dr. Mercola, “from an average of three years, to about 13 months for new versions of already existing crop technologies, and about 16 months for brand new technologies.”[15]</p>
<p>Obama’s Global Agricultural Development plan conspires with multinational corporations to foist these ecological and human health costs onto the public while siphoning the profits. As Creighton says, “Socialized costs, privatized profits. All in the name doing good and saving the people of Africa.”</p>
<p>Let’s hope these “public/private partnerships” are met with firm resistance by African farmers, as supported by this Declaration from a group of African civil society organizations.&#160;[16] The last thing Planet Earth and all its organisms need is more toxic industrial chemicals.</p>
<p>Notes:</p>
<p>1. USAID, “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition,” 18 May 2012.&#160; <a href="http://www.usaid.gov/press/factsheets/2012/fs120518.html" type="external">http://www.usaid.gov/press/factsheets/2012/fs120518.html</a></p>
<p>2. Kenny’s Sideshow, “Bono… again,” 18 May 2012. <a href="https://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2012/05/bono-again.html" type="external">http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2012/05/bono-again.html</a></p>
<p>3. Scott Creighton, “Obama Pitches India Model of GM Genocide to Africa,” 20 May 2012. <a href="https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/president-obama-pitches-cfr-plan-looks-to-bring-the-india-model-of-gm-genocide-to-africa/" type="external">http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/president-obama-pitches-cfr-plan-looks-to-bring-the-india-model-of-gm-genocide-to-africa/</a></p>
<p>4. Volatility, “African Wannsee Conference; Or, Bono Parties With Monsanto,” 28 May 2012.&#160;&#160; <a href="https://attempter.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/african-wannsee-conference-or-bono-parties-with-monsanto/" type="external">http://attempter.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/african-wannsee-conference-or-bono-parties-with-monsanto/</a></p>
<p>5. Zia Haq, “Ministry blames Bt cotton for farmer suicides,” 26 March 2012. <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Business/Ministry-blames-Bt-cotton-for-farmer-suicides/Article1-830798.aspx" type="external">http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Business/Ministry-blames-Bt-cotton-for-farmer-suicides/Article1-830798.aspx</a></p>
<p>6. Tom Philpott, “Monsanto’s ‘Superweeds’ Gallop through Midwest,” 19 July 2011. <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/monsanto-superweeds-roundup" type="external">http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/monsanto-superweeds-roundup</a></p>
<p>7. Freedonia Group, “Pesticides: Industry Study with Forecasts for 2016 &amp; 2021,” April 2012. <a href="http://www.freedoniagroup.com/brochure/28xx/2877smwe.pdf" type="external">http://www.freedoniagroup.com/brochure/28xx/2877smwe.pdf</a></p>
<p>8. Rady Ananda, “Monsanto GM Corn in Peril: Beetle develops Bt-resistance,” 24 Aug. 2011. <a href="http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2011/08/24/monsanto-gm-corn-in-peril-beetle-develops-bt-resistance/" type="external">http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2011/08/24/monsanto-gm-corn-in-peril-beetle-develops-bt-resistance/</a></p>
<p>9. Ananda, “Bug Docs Tell EPA US Should Stop Planting GM Corn,” 12 March 2012. <a href="http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2012/03/12/bug-docs-urge-epa-non-gmo-corn/" type="external">http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2012/03/12/bug-docs-urge-epa-non-gmo-corn/</a></p>
<p>10. Joe Mercola, “The Toxin So Dangerous It’s Causing Catastrophic Birth Defects,” 13 May 2012. <a href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/05/13/ge-food-cause-birth-defects.aspx" type="external">http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/05/13/ge-food-cause-birth-defects.aspx</a></p>
<p>11. Iulia Filip, “Monsanto and Big Tobacco Blamed for Birth Defects,” 10 Apr. 2012. <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/10/45469.htm" type="external">http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/10/45469.htm</a></p>
<p>12. Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji, “Bt Toxin Kills Human Kidney Cells,” 14 March 2012.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Bt_Toxin_Kills_Human_Kidney_Cells.php" type="external">http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Bt_Toxin_Kills_Human_Kidney_Cells.php</a></p>
<p>13. Ananda, “More problems with glyphosate: Rice growers sound alarm,” 16 May 2011.</p>
<p><a href="http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2011/05/16/glyphosate-and-natural-rice/" type="external">http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2011/05/16/glyphosate-and-natural-rice/</a></p>
<p>14. Ananda, “Scientists warn of link between dangerous new pathogen and Monsanto’s Roundup,” 20 Feb. 2011. <a href="http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2011/02/20/roundup-new-pathogen/" type="external">http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2011/02/20/roundup-new-pathogen/</a></p>
<p>15. Mercola, “The Dramatic New Rule Change for Genetically Engineered Foods,” 3 Apr. 2012.</p>
<p><a href="http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/03/13/why-will-gmo-crops-get-approved-faster-with-new-rule.aspx" type="external">http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/03/13/why-will-gmo-crops-get-approved-faster-with-new-rule.aspx</a></p>
<p>16. Regional Civil Society Consultation for Africa, “Final Declaration of Civil Society Organizations,” April 2012. <a href="https://kofic.s3.amazonaws.com/126/2251/African-Civil-Society-Declaration.pdf" type="external">http://kofic.s3.amazonaws.com/126/2251/African-Civil-Society-Declaration.pdf</a></p>
<p>This article was originally published at <a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2012/05/u2-bono-celeb-partners-with-monsanto-g8.html" type="external">Activist Post</a>.</p> | U2, Bono? Celeb partners with Monsanto, G8, to biowreck African farms with GMOs | false | http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/06/07/u2-bono-celeb-partners-with-monsanto-g8-to-biowreck-african-farms-with-gmos/ | 2012-06-07 | 1 |
<p>A new cancer "encyclopedia" represents a step toward the routine personalizing of cancer care and will speed up the search for new cancer drugs, scientists say.</p>
<p>The Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE), produced by US researchers working with the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis and made freely available Wednesday, details how hundreds of different cancer cells respond to anti-cancer agents, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17537242" type="external">according to the BBC</a>.</p>
<p>The data provided in the encyclopedia will reportedly help researchers to match the right drug to the right target in the right cancer patient.</p>
<p>Another British-led team, meantime, has identified hundreds of genetic markers of drug sensitivity in cancer cells, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gVG-W9mNpIrv1YFzwk0K5UQwJxUQ?docId=N0161731332946356356A" type="external">according to the UK Press Association</a>.</p>
<p>Both studies were published in the <a href="http://www.nature.com/" type="external">journal Nature</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/120109/painkillers-drugs-percocet-endocet-opana-zydone-excedrin-gas-x-fda" type="external">FDA warns about painkiller mix-up in Excedrin, Bufferin</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/idUS195874+28-Mar-2012+HUG20120328" type="external">Reuters reported</a> that the cell lines documented in the CCLE were acquired from commercial vendors in the US, Europe, Japan and Korea and represented "a diverse picture of cancer as a disease as they include many subtypes of both common and rare forms of cancer."</p>
<p>The data, <a href="http://www.rttnews.com/1850016/novartis-broad-institute-launch-the-cancer-cell-line-encyclopedia.aspx?type=bn&amp;utm_source=google&amp;utm_campaign=sitemap" type="external">RTT News wrote</a>, was placed on public domain so that many in industry and academia will use these data to discover new drug targets, to evaluate current therapies, and to facilitate treatment for their patients with cancer.</p>
<p>Some "personalized" drugs were already available, the Press Association wrote, including Herceptin, a breast cancer drug that only works for patients with an overactive HER2 gene.</p>
<p>The research has also suggested that a drug used for breast and ovarian cancers may be effective against Ewing's sarcoma, a childhood bone cancer, <a href="http://www.boston.com/Boston/whitecoatnotes/2012/03/boston-area-teams-assemble-encyclopedia-hundreds-cancer-cells-and-vulnerability-drugs/qId950SQGrY46lwJ1mBTMI/index.html" type="external">the Boston Globe wrote</a>.</p>
<p>"This is an invaluable resource, and in fact the term 'encyclopedia' is appropriate. It's a monumental amount of work, which will be useful and used in the years to come," the Globe quoted Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi, scientific director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Cancer Center, as saying. "An encyclopedia will be enabling for many, many labs in many countries."</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/120213/3d-printing-stepping-stone-creating-human-tissue-and-body-parts" type="external">3D printing: A stepping stone to new human tissue and body parts</a></p> | Cancer 'encyclopedia' to help personalize cancer care, scientists say | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-03-29/cancer-encyclopedia-help-personalize-cancer-care-scientists-say | 2012-03-29 | 3 |
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<p>The Environmental Protection Agency says it is going forward with a new federal rule to protect small streams, tributaries and wetlands, despite a court ruling that blocked the measure in 13 central and Western states.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The EPA says the rule, which took effect Friday in more than three dozen states, will safeguard drinking water for millions of Americans.</p>
<p>Opponents pledged to continue to fight the rule, emboldened by a federal court decision Thursday that blocked it from Alaska to Arkansas.</p>
<p>"We see this (rule) as very hurtful to farmers and ranchers and we're going to do everything to stop it politically," said Don Parrish of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of several farm and business groups that have filed suit against the regulation.</p>
<p>Lawsuits to block the regulation are pending across the country, and the Republican-controlled Congress has moved to thwart it. The House has ignored a White House veto threat and passed a bill to block it, and a Senate committee has passed a measure that would force the EPA to withdraw and rewrite it.</p>
<p>Four senators who oppose the regulation said that while well-intentioned, the water rule imposes excessive burdens on small farmers and ranchers.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>The senators "?" two Democrats and two Republicans "?" said in an opinion column Friday that the EPA has "created considerable and potentially costly confusion for many American businesses and communities who are just trying to do their jobs well."</p>
<p>The column, written by Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. and Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., shows opposition to the rule comes from both parties.</p>
<p>The EPA counters that the rule merely clarifies which smaller waterways fall under federal protection after two Supreme Court rulings left the reach of the Clean Water Act uncertain. Those decisions in 2001 and 2006 left 60 percent of the nation's streams and millions of acres of wetlands without clear federal protection, according to EPA, causing confusion for landowners and government officials.</p>
<p>The new rule would force a permitting process only if a business or landowner took steps that would pollute or destroy the affected waters "?" those with a "direct and significant" connection to larger bodies of water downstream that are already protected. That could include tributaries that show evidence of flowing water, for example.</p>
<p>In practice, the rule means that developers can no longer pave over wetlands and oil companies can no longer dump pollution into streams unhindered, restoring Clean Water Act protections to more than half the nation's streams, supporters say.</p>
<p>But opponents call the rule an example of federal overreach and fear a steady uptick in federal regulation of nearly every stream and ditch on rural lands.</p>
<p>Thursday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson in Fargo, N.D., is "a significant and rightful win for states' rights," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Chaffetz called the EPA rule "arbitrary and subjective' and said it "should never see the light of day."</p>
<p>More than half the states have sued the EPA in hopes of delaying or blocking the rule. State officials from Georgia to New Mexico to Wisconsin have suggested the regulations could be harmful to farmers and landowners who might have to pay for extra permits or redesign their property to manage small bodies of water on their private land.</p>
<p>The federal ruling Thursday was in North Dakota, where officials from that state and 12 others argued the new guidelines are overly broad and infringe on their sovereignty. The EPA said after the ruling that it would not implement the new rules in those 13 states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.</p>
<p>Several other lawsuits from other states and farm and business groups remain.</p>
<p>A federal judicial panel is set to hear arguments on EPA's request to consolidate the lawsuits at an Oct. 1 hearing in New York.</p>
<p>Since the rule was originally proposed last year, the EPA has been working to clear up what it says are misconceptions, such as critics' assertions that average backyard puddles would be regulated. Farming practices currently exempted from the Clean Water Act "?" plowing, seeding and the movement of livestock, among other things "?" will continue to be exempted, the EPA said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC</p> | New federal rule protecting streams takes effect in some states, not others | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/08/28/new-federal-rule-protecting-streams-takes-effect-in-some-states-not-others.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>We live in dark times. The threat of emotionally-stunted leftists going into psycho-tard rage mode is at its highest in recent memory. When angry progressives congregate, the&#160;immediate vicinity quickly&#160;devolves into a third world-like war zone. As was the case at the <a href="" type="internal">pro-Trump rally at Berkeley last weekend</a>. But, in the midst of all the chaos at the rally, a new warrior has risen. Clad in armor and clutching a big freakin’ stick. His name? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcGPTeUQkgM" type="external">Based Stickman</a>…</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Before we begin, let’s make one thing clear. Violence is no bueno, no matter whose side you’re on. Now, having said that…</p>
<p>&lt;img class="size-full wp-image-35442 aligncenter" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Mr-T-Laughing.gif" alt="Mr. T Laughing" width="350" height="216" /&gt;</p>
<p>I do believe meme gold has been struck. Just the sight of this gas-mask-clad vigilante is all sorts of chuckle-worthy. Also, as much as it guilts me to say it, watching this Based Stickman force back&#160;those leftist ruffians is a true delight.</p>
<p>To all on the left who might have a problem with the Stickman’s methods, where was your concern over the <a href="" type="internal">Antifa mama’s boys</a> who have steadily&#160;been <a href="" type="internal">beating innocent people</a> and <a href="" type="internal">breaking their stuff</a>" The Stickman emerges to strike back and suddenly you wonder where civility went" Give me a break.</p>
<p>All jokes aside, this has what it has come to when you want to voice an&#160;opinion that runs&#160;contrary to leftists. You have to dress up like a thrift-store Batman and wield a melee weapon, in the hope that you won’t come home wearing a&#160;full-body cast. Leftists have been escalating tensions at public rallies to the point where some conservatives are deciding to fight fire with fire. Or rather, sticks with sticks. While throwing down in fisticuffs is not cool, these leftists wanted a fight, and a fight is what they got. You made&#160;the Stickman, lefties. Now you must suffer his wrath…</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>NOT SUBSCRIBED TO THE PODCAST? <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/louder-with-crowder/id929121341?mt=2" type="external">FIX THAT</a>! IT’S COMPLETELY FREE ON BOTH <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/louder-with-crowder/id929121341?mt=2" type="external">ITUNES HERE</a> AND <a href="https://soundcloud.com/louderwithcrowder" type="external">SOUNDCLOUD HERE</a>.</p>
<p /> | BOOM! Pro-Trump Vigilante ‘Based Stickman’ Throws Down On Berkeley Rioters… | true | https://louderwithcrowder.com/based-stickman-berkeley-rioters/ | 2017-03-07 | 0 |
<p>DETROIT (AP) _ These Michigan lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>Poker Lotto</p>
<p>KH-6C-7D-8D-4H</p>
<p>(KH, 6C, 7D, 8D, 4H)</p>
<p>Midday Daily 3</p>
<p>5-7-3</p>
<p>(five, seven, three)</p>
<p>Midday Daily 4</p>
<p>9-7-4-5</p>
<p>(nine, seven, four, five)</p>
<p>Daily 3</p>
<p>9-1-9</p>
<p>(nine, one, nine)</p>
<p>Daily 4</p>
<p>6-1-7-7</p>
<p>(six, one, seven, seven)</p>
<p>Fantasy 5</p>
<p>02-03-06-20-31</p>
<p>(two, three, six, twenty, thirty-one)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $110,000</p>
<p>Keno</p>
<p>07-08-12-19-23-25-26-29-34-39-41-48-49-50-52-60-62-63-64-70-71-72</p>
<p>(seven, eight, twelve, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-nine, thirty-four, thirty-nine, forty-one, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-two, sixty, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>28-30-39-59-70, Mega Ball: 10, Megaplier: 3</p>
<p>(twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-nine, fifty-nine, seventy; Mega Ball: ten; Megaplier: three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $450 million</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p>
<p>DETROIT (AP) _ These Michigan lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>Poker Lotto</p>
<p>KH-6C-7D-8D-4H</p>
<p>(KH, 6C, 7D, 8D, 4H)</p>
<p>Midday Daily 3</p>
<p>5-7-3</p>
<p>(five, seven, three)</p>
<p>Midday Daily 4</p>
<p>9-7-4-5</p>
<p>(nine, seven, four, five)</p>
<p>Daily 3</p>
<p>9-1-9</p>
<p>(nine, one, nine)</p>
<p>Daily 4</p>
<p>6-1-7-7</p>
<p>(six, one, seven, seven)</p>
<p>Fantasy 5</p>
<p>02-03-06-20-31</p>
<p>(two, three, six, twenty, thirty-one)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $110,000</p>
<p>Keno</p>
<p>07-08-12-19-23-25-26-29-34-39-41-48-49-50-52-60-62-63-64-70-71-72</p>
<p>(seven, eight, twelve, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-nine, thirty-four, thirty-nine, forty-one, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-two, sixty, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>28-30-39-59-70, Mega Ball: 10, Megaplier: 3</p>
<p>(twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-nine, fifty-nine, seventy; Mega Ball: ten; Megaplier: three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $450 million</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p> | MI Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/8e8177c6c4c04036b0889181103ec275 | 2018-01-06 | 2 |
<p>The economic downturn has been rough on countless industries, and arts organizations in New York City that rely on endowment money to survive have been hit hard — not just, as City Journal’s James Panero points out, by the immediate effects of the meltdown felt round the world, but also by the “indirect effects” of how some of their funds have been managed.</p>
<p>City Journal via <a href="http://www.aldaily.com/" type="external">Arts &amp; Letters Daily</a>:</p>
<p>“All of the charities, all of the institutions lost money, but they didn’t have to lose 25 to 40 percent,” says Frank Martucci, a financier who has sat on several arts boards and opposed their aggressive strategy. “Why weren’t there some down only 10 percent? If you are all sharing the same strategy, it’s not really a diversified approach. Advisors are all pretty much the same. They tell you 10 to 30 percent in bonds and the rest in private equity, stocks, foreign securities, distressed securities. There are times you take your chances, but with charities I don’t think you ever do, and putting 85 percent of your money in equity and illiquid instruments is gambling. I hope this has taught people to be more conservative in their approach towards charity.”</p>
<p>Martucci advocates an eventual shift in endowment allocation to 40 percent to 50 percent in conservative fixed-income investments and the rest in equities—and only 5 percent to 15 percent of that in alternative investments. He also suggests that arts endowments move away from relying on active management and use volunteer board members with financial expertise to oversee investments, which can largely be maintained through bond index funds. “Managers of managers are like funds of funds,” says Martucci. “You can end up paying fees three times over.”</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2009/nytom_urb-arts-organizations.html" type="external">Read more</a></p> | New York Arts Institutions in Jeopardy | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/new-york-arts-institutions-in-jeopardy/ | 2009-08-05 | 4 |
<p>(Reuters) - Music streaming company Spotify launched a feature that will allow listeners to see stories, news and other content through photos, videos and text, the company said on Thursday, expanding beyond music ahead of taking itself public.</p> FILE PHOTO: Headphones are seen in front of a logo of online music streaming service Spotify in this February 18, 2014 illustration picture. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/File Photo
<p>The feature, called 'Spotlight', will have content from BuzzFeed News, Cheddar and Crooked Media, among others, Spotify said in a blog post on Thursday. ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2mSwxKD" type="external">bit.ly/2mSwxKD</a>)</p>
<p>Spotlight’s content will include news, pop culture, sports and politics, and will be available through a play list, said Spotify, which has 70 million subscribers.</p>
<p>Spotify has filed confidentially with U.S. regulators for an initial public offering and is targeting a direct listing in the first half of 2018, Reuters reported last week.</p>
<p>Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Oxygen supply device maker Inogen Inc said on Friday it was notifying 30,000 existing and former customers following a data breach that led to improper access of personal details of some rental clients.</p>
<p>The company, which makes portable devices that supply oxygen to patients with breathing difficulties and lung diseases, said some non-public financial information was also leaked after an employee’s email account was compromised.</p>
<p>The unauthorized access appeared to have occurred between Jan. 2 and March 14 and involved rental customers’ personal information such as names, contact details, Medicare identification numbers and insurance policy information.</p>
<p>However the affected data did not include payment card information or medical records, the company said in a filing <a href="https://bit.ly/2GUP8xE." type="external">bit.ly/2GUP8xE.</a></p>
<p>Inogen said it has hired a forensic firm to investigate and will provide credit monitoring and an insurance reimbursement policy to assist affected customers.</p>
<p>The company said its insurance policy may not be adequate to protect against all costs arising from the incident.</p>
<p>Inogen’s shares have risen about 81 percent over the past year and on Thursday closed at their highest level since the company went public in 2014.</p>
<p>Reporting by Tamara Mathias in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Sriraj Kalluvila</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - A U.S. judge in Philadelphia has ruled that limousine drivers for Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] are independent contractors and not the company’s employees under federal law, the first ruling of its kind on a crucial issue for the ride-hailing company.</p> The logo of Uber is pictured during the presentation of their new security measures in Mexico City, Mexico April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Ginnette Riquelme
<p>U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson on Wednesday said San Francisco-based Uber does not exert enough control over drivers for its limo service, UberBLACK, to be considered their employer under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The drivers work when they want to and are free to nap, run personal errands, or smoke cigarettes in between rides, Baylson said.</p>
<p>The legal classification of workers has been a major issue for “gig economy” companies that rely on independent contractors. Uber, in particular, has been hit with dozens of lawsuits in recent years claiming that its drivers are employees and are entitled to minimum wage, overtime, and other legal protections not afforded to contractors.</p>
<p>An Uber spokeswoman said the company is pleased with the decision.</p>
<p>Jeremy Abay, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he would appeal the ruling to the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 3rd Circuit would be the first federal appeals court to consider whether Uber drivers are properly classified as independent contractors.</p>
<p>Many of the cases filed against Uber have been sent to arbitration, but the plaintiffs in the Philadelphia case were among a small minority of drivers who had opted not to sign arbitration agreements with the company.</p>
<p>Last year, a state appeals court in Florida said Uber’s drivers were not its employees under Florida law. But state agencies in California and New York have said that they are under those states’ laws.</p>
<p>Baylson in Wednesday’s ruling said he was the first judge to rule on the classification of Uber drivers under federal law. His ruling comes about two months after a federal judge in San Francisco said that food delivery workers for Grubhub Inc were not the company’s employees.</p>
<p>The Grubhub case was the first of its kind against a so-called gig economy company to go to trial.</p>
<p>The Philadelphia lawsuit was filed in February 2016. The plaintiffs said Uber failed to pay them minimum wage and overtime in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which only applies to employees. The plaintiffs were seeking to represent all drivers in Philadelphia for Uber’s limousine service, UberBLACK.</p>
<p>The case is Razak v. Uber Technologies Inc, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, No. 2:16-cv-00573.</p>
<p>Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines’ privacy watchdog said on Friday it has started investigating Facebook Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">FB.O</a>) over a data breach involving British firm Cambridge Analytica that affected more than a million Filipino users of social media.</p> FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Facebook logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File photo
<p>The move follows a decision by European Union privacy watchdogs to look deeper into the harvesting of personal data from social networks for economic or political purposes.</p>
<p>Outside the United States, the Philippines had the largest amount of user data acquired by Cambridge Analytica, with 1.17 million accounts in the country affected, the National Privacy Commission (NPC) said last week.</p>
<p>In a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, dated April 11, the NPC said it would look into how Facebook shares personal data of Filipino users with third parties, and demand concrete action to protect their data privacy rights.</p>
<p>“We are launching an investigation into Facebook to determine whether there is unauthorized processing of personal data of Filipinos, and other possible violations of the Data Privacy Act,” it said in the letter, made available to the media on Friday.</p>
<p>A Facebook spokesperson said the company is committed to protecting people’s information and is engaged with the Philippines’ privacy watchdog.</p>
<p>“We’ve recently made significant updates to make our&#160;privacy tools easier to find,&#160;restrict data access on Facebook, and&#160;make our terms and data policy clearer,” Facebook said.</p>
<p>Recent research has shown Filipinos to be among the most active social media users in the world, spending on average more than four hours a day on platforms like Facebook.</p>
<p>Facebook has admitted that personal data of nearly 87 million users was improperly accessed by Cambridge Analytica, which has counted U.S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign among its clients.</p>
<p>A Hong Kong newspaper has said several people involved in President Rodrigo Duterte’s 2016 election campaign had met in 2015 with Alexander Nix, the now-suspended chief executive of Cambridge Analytica.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=FB.O" type="external">Facebook Inc</a> 165.36 FB.O Nasdaq +1.49 (+0.91%) FB.O
<p>Those officials said the meeting with Nix was during a lunch break at an information technology seminar in Manila and there has been no contact since.</p>
<p>The president’s spokesman said on Tuesday that Duterte’s election campaign did not rely on information bought from anybody, nor did it hire Cambridge Analytica’s services.</p>
<p>Duterte, a former mayor from outside of the sphere of national politics, successfully tapped Filipinos’ insatiable appetite for social media to help him win a 2016 election by a huge margin.</p>
<p>His office uses social media with gusto, courting popular bloggers, in some cases hiring them, to promote Duterte and discredit his opponents, and amplifying the message through “shares” and “likes”.</p>
<p>Duterte, however, has said he does not need social media, and on Friday denied any links to Cambridge Analytica.</p>
<p>“Why will I pay those Cambridge fools to work on my campaign? I could have lost with that,” Duterte told reporters.</p>
<p>Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty and Eric Meijer</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Coinsecure, an Indian cryptocurrency exchange, said nearly $3 million were stolen from its bitcoin wallet, the biggest reported so far in the country’s fledgling virtual currency market.</p> FILE PHOTO: A token of the virtual currency Bitcoin is seen placed on a monitor that displays binary digits in this illustration picture, December 8, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
<p>The theft is expected to further weaken trade in cryptocurrencies, which the government has likened to “Ponzi schemes” that offer unusually high returns to early investors.</p>
<p>Coinsecure, which has over 200,000 users trading on its platform daily, said that around 438 bitcoins, which were stored in a password-protected virtual wallet were siphoned off to an unknown destination on the internet after the details were leaked online.</p>
<p>“We regret to inform you that our bitcoin funds have been exposed and seem to have been siphoned out to an address that is outside our control,” the company said in a statement posted on its website.</p>
<p>Legal experts said there was a need to regulate the virtual currency market, instead of imposing restrictions on its trade.</p>
<p>“It is for reasons like these that there is a need to regulate crypto-exchanges,” said Anirudh Rastogi, founder and managing partner at TRA Law, a firm that specializes in emerging-technology businesses.</p>
<p>“Pushing the exchange business out from the formal economy to the informal cash economy to operate under the radar will worsen the problem, not solve it,” Rastogi said.</p>
<p>Coinsecure said it would compensate customers for losses from its existing funds.</p>
<p>Bitcoins in India were trading at 480,000 Indian rupees, or about $7,359 on Friday, according to cryptocurrency exchange Coinome, well below its international market price of about $7,771.</p>
<p>The Reserve Bank of India has already dealt a blow to the crytocurrency exchanges, barring banks from facilitating trade on virtual currencies and mandating them to unwind their existing relationship with exchanges within three months.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in Asia, Vietnam and South Korea have also suffered millions of dollars worth of fraud and embezzlement in some of the cryptocurrency businesses. Earlier this year, one of Japan’s cryptocurrency exchanges was hit by a daring $530 million theft of digital money.</p>
<p>($1 = 65.2800 Indian rupees)</p>
<p>Reporting by Neha Dasgupta, additional reporting by Abhirup Roy; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Spotify launches visual content in multimedia push ahead of IPO Oxygen device maker Inogen discloses customer data breach U.S. judge says Uber drivers are not company's employees Philippines' watchdog probes Facebook over Cambridge Analytica data breach India's Coinsecure exchange says $3 million worth of bitcoins stolen | false | https://reuters.com/article/us-spotify-spotlight/spotify-launches-visual-content-in-multimedia-push-ahead-of-ipo-idUSKBN1F72QO | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>Tony Gutierrez/AP</p>
<p />
<p>Texas lawmakers have already walloped abortion access with 24-hour <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/06/1682671/abortion-waiting-excessive-hardships/" type="external">mandatory waiting periods</a> and onerous rules that shut down <a href="" type="internal">almost half</a> of the state’s clinics. But one anti-abortion lawmaker is gearing up for more. Although the legislature isn’t in session this year, state Sen. Ed Lucio (D) is promising to introduce a bill for 2015 that would force women to undergo an hour-long adoption seminar before obtaining an abortion.</p>
<p>Lucio declined through a spokesman to be interviewed for this article. But <a href="ftp://ftp.legis.state.tx.us/bills/833/billtext/html/senate_bills/SB00001_SB00099/SB00017I.htm" type="external">a similar bill</a> he offered in 2013 provides clues about the forthcoming legislation. That bill instructed the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to create an educational course about adoption of up to three hours. Women would have to take the course, for free, online or in person, and submit a “certificate of completion” to the physician performing the abortion. The bill contained an exception for women who have become pregnant as the result of rape or incest or who required an abortion for medical reasons.</p>
<p>“It is my hope that, when presented with more information on adoption resources and services available, more pregnancies can be carried to term,” Lucio <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/texas_legislature/article/Lucio-files-bill-to-require-pre-abortion-adoption-4696182.php" type="external">told the San Antonio Express-News</a> a year ago.</p>
<p>Lucio isn’t the only anti-abortion legislator with his sight set on 2015. In terms of abortion politics, 2014 has been relatively quiet, especially compared with 2011 and 2013—two <a href="" type="internal">record</a>– <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthenews/2012/01/05/endofyear.html" type="external">breaking</a> years for the number of anti-abortion bills introduced in state legislatures. That’s largely because some state legislatures that produce a steady stream of anti-abortion legislation haven’t been in session, says Elizabeth Nash, the state issues manager for the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute. In 2015, Nash says, Texas and North Dakota lawmakers go back to work, and there will be no federal elections competing for attention—meaning the number of anti-abortion bills will likely rise again.</p>
<p>In fact, the only reason Lucio’s original bill didn’t pass in 2013 may be that he introduced it in the waning days of a special session that Gov. Rick Perry (R) convened to pass another anti-abortion bill. That one required abortion providers to have admitting privileges with a local hospital. Despite Sen. Wendy Davis (D)’s infamous filibuster, that law passed. Lucio can file a new bill on or after November 10 for consideration next year.</p>
<p>In Ohio, the state’s Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis has promised a “rather large and robust” slate of anti-abortion laws next year. Without providing details, Gonidakis <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/06/23/abortion-battles-may-increase.html" type="external">told the Columbus Dispatch</a> that his group is prepared to supply five or six bills to anti-abortion lawmakers. In Iowa, lawmakers next year are expected to <a href="http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/Lawmakers-Already-Looking-Ahead-to-2015-Session-256842671.html?ref=671" type="external">consider a bill</a> that bans physicians from giving instructions on abortion-inducing drugs by webcam or phone.</p>
<p>Iowa has more than a dozen clinics that provide “telemedicine” abortions—procedures in which patients use medication at home and receive advice on how to do so from supervising doctors via phone calls or video chats. In ten states where lawmakers have passed similar bans since 2011, telemedicine abortions <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-11/-webcam-abortion-laws-would-ban-practice-where-it-doesn-t-exist.html" type="external">were already illegal</a>, thanks to other anti-abortion laws. Perhaps it’s a sign: 2015 could turn out to be another blockbuster year for anti-abortion laws—but abortion foes might be running out of things to ban.</p>
<p /> | Mandatory Adoption Seminars: The Latest Anti-Abortion Scheme | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/texas-mandatory-adoption-seminar-before-abortion/ | 2014-07-31 | 4 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded OASIS Institute in Albuquerque a grant in the amount of $2,990 to support its Intergenerational Tutoring Program. The local grant is part of more than $4 million awarded to approximately 870 schools, nonprofits and organizations across the 43 states Dollar General serves.</p>
<p>Since its inception in 1993, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded more than $100 million in grants to nonprofit organizations, helping more than six million individuals take their first steps toward literacy or continued education.</p>
<p>"At Dollar General, our mission is serving others, and we are committed to making a difference in people's lives through the support of literacy initiatives and educational programs in the communities we call home," said Todd Vasos, Dollar General's chief executive officer.</p>
<p>The youth literacy grants are awarded at the beginning of the academic year in an effort to give teachers, schools and organizations a great start with the funding and resources they need for the upcoming school year. A complete list of grant recipients may be found online at www.dgliteracy.org. Grant applications for adult, family, summer and youth literacy grants will be available in January of 2016.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Tutoring program given $3K grant | false | https://abqjournal.com/647116/tutoring-program-given-3k-grant.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>The Obama administration has moved to restrict access to offshore oil drilling leases in the Atlantic, as well as off Alaska. Commercial oil production has never happened off the East Coast — and environmentalists consider that a major victory during Obama’s tenure.</p>
<p>But President-elect Trump has said that he intends to use all available fuel reserves for energy self-sufficiency — and that it’s time to be opening up offshore drilling.</p>
<p>While supporters say that expanded oil exploration is poised to become one of Trump’s signature accomplishments, environmentalists and other opponents see oil drilling policy as a looming conflict. Jacqueline Savitz, vice president of the ocean conservationist group Oceana, said she fears a return to the hard-fought struggles environmentalists faced with the previous Republican administration.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We’re hoping we’re not about to fall back into the ‘drill, baby, drill’ way of thinking,” she said. “Offshore drilling in the Atlantic is not a good investment.”</p>
<p>The American Petroleum Institute, a key voice of the oil and gas industries, has long said more aggressive drilling is needed for the U.S. to remain a world leader in energy production. The group accused Obama in May of lacking a long-term “vision” for fossil fuels extraction; its leaders say that Trump’s presidency represents a new dawn and that they intend to hold him to his word about fossil fuels.</p>
<p>“As a candidate, President-elect Trump pledged to pursue an energy approach that would include opening federal lands for oil and gas production including offshore areas,” said institute spokesman Michael Tadeo.</p>
<p>Early signs suggest Trump will make good on his plans for more aggressive drilling.</p>
<p>One of his favorites to lead the Environmental Protection Agency is Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a prominent rejecter of the scientific consensus on climate change. He is a longtime ally of the petroleum industry and a critic of the agency he would lead.</p>
<p>Trump’s favorites for energy secretary include Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm and drilling proponent Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.</p>
<p>The Trump transition team did not respond to requests for comment. Trump has said that it’s “incredible that we’re going slow on drilling,” and that he supports coastal drilling when it “can be done responsibly.”</p>
<p>Trump’s stance threatens to put a political promise ahead of science, said Cascade Sorte, a professor of biology with a focus on marine systems at the University of California, Irvine.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“I’m concerned there might not be the data that we need about what we’re destroying before we destroy it,” she said.</p>
<p>The Gulf of Mexico is the main offshore area that the U.S. plumbs for oil and gas. But in March 2010, Obama’s administration released a report that said the Gulf alone can’t be expected to meet increasing energy demands. The report included the possibility of opening up offshore Virginia for oil and gas exploration, and the administration signaled leases in the middle and southern East Coast were possible.</p>
<p>The plan got immediate pushback from environmental groups, who feared it would damage ecosystems. A month later, the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico put a hold on plans for expanding drilling.</p>
<p>Environmentalists say any attempt to reverse Obama’s restrictions on Atlantic and Alaskan drilling would galvanize resistance, as happened after the Gulf spill — and before that, following the 1969 Santa Barbara, California, oil spill and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster in Alaska.</p>
<p>“If President-elect Trump tries to undo any of those measures, he will be rejecting both science and the people and he will meet opposition,” said Greenpeace spokesman Perry Wheeler.</p>
<p>Democratic senators on both coasts have called for Obama to block any possibility of Pacific or Atlantic drilling before Trump takes office.</p>
<p>Many Alaska officials strongly back opening the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in the U.S. portion of the Arctic Ocean to drilling. But Obama’s administration last week announced a five-year offshore drilling plan that blocks the sale of new oil and gas drilling rights there.</p>
<p>The administration also has announced the Atlantic would not be included in the next round of offshore oil leases, available from 2017 to 2022. Connie Gillette, who oversees leases for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said that for now, the soonest any leases could be offered is 2023 to 2028.</p>
<p>Among those opposed to Atlantic drilling is Rep. Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican, who says his opposition dovetails with the conservative value of local control, including of natural resources. He said he is waiting for Trump to settle in before engaging him on the issue.</p>
<p>Many coastal business owners and residents have taken stands against Atlantic drilling, saying it would endanger key industries, such as commercial fishing and tourism. Frank Knapp, a South Carolina businessman who is the co-founder of the 12,000-member Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast, said they’ll fight any attempts to drill once Trump takes over.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what his personal convictions are, but I do know … a Republican Congress wants to drill every place they can, including off the Atlantic Coast, and we’re very concerned that they will push Trump to accomplish that,” he said.</p> | Drill, baby, drill? Election reignites offshore-oil debate | false | https://abqjournal.com/894267/drill-baby-drill-election-reignites-offshore-oil-debate.html | 2016-11-22 | 2 |
<p />
<p>On the subject of health care, the uninsured, and the underinsured, Matthew Holt makes a <a href="http://matthewholt.typepad.com/the_health_care_blog/health_plans/index.html" type="external">good point</a> about the Health Affairs study mentioned below. Stating the total number of un- or underinsured in a given year misses the scope of the problem: “[I]t’s the flow of people through un- and under- insurance that’s such a big issue, with more than 80m uninsured for at least 3 months in a 4 year period.” Very true.</p>
<p>UPDATE: Also, <a href="http://matthewholt.typepad.com/the_health_care_blog/2005/06/quality_want_to.html" type="external">here’s</a> “another good reason to choose your income level, (and by extension that of your parents) carefully.”</p>
<p /> | More Underinsurance | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2005/06/more-underinsurance/ | 2005-06-15 | 4 |
<p />
<p>This cartoon requires Macromedia’s Flash Player. If you don’t see the cartoon above, <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="external">download the player here</a>.</p>
<p>Mark Fiore is an editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a <a href="http://www.markfiore.com" type="external">web site</a> featuring his work.</p>
<p /> | Freedom From the Press | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/10/freedom-press/ | 2006-10-26 | 4 |
<p>By Allan Wolper Black Athlete Sports Network Published: 11/13/05 Excerpt:</p>
<p>Keith Woods, dean of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, sees the paucity of black editors as a reflection of sports life. "White editors are often like the coaches they cover," said Woods, an African American who covered sports for 10 years. "They have an 'old boy' network and they take care of their friends." <a href="http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_01254.shtml" type="external">More of this article...</a> <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&amp;ned=us&amp;q=%22Keith+Woods%22&amp;btnG=Search+News" type="external">Search Google News for more quotes by Keith Woods...</a></p> | Black Sports Editors: One Black List that Shouldn't Be Short | false | https://poynter.org/news/black-sports-editors-one-black-list-shouldnt-be-short | 2005-11-29 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>The fourth-quarter report released Monday provided the latest snapshot of a shrinking company that has been steadily losing ground in the digital advertising market that generates most of its revenue. Yahoo also disclosed the closure of the Verizon deal will be delayed for up to three months.</p>
<p>Although cost-cutting helped Yahoo bounce back from a loss during the same time in the previous year, the company’s net revenue slipped yet again to extend a downturn that has lasted through most of CEO Marissa Mayer’s four-and-half-year tenure. In a sign of modest progress, Yahoo’s revenue fell 4 percent after subtracting ad commissions, snapping a streak of four consecutive quarters of double-digit declines.</p>
<p>Yahoo’s long-running slump culminated in the company’s agreement last summer to sell its email service, websites and mobile applications to Verizon.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But after striking the Verizon deal, Yahoo revealed that it had been hit by two separate hacking attacks that stole the email addresses, birth dates, answers to security questions, and other personal information from more than 1 billion user accounts. The break-ins occurred in 2013 and 2014, raising further questions about Yahoo’s security controls and the timing of its disclosures.</p>
<p>The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into whether Yahoo should have announced the security breaches sooner than it did, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal that cited unidentified people familiar with the matter.</p>
<p>The SEC declined to comment. Yahoo pointed to an SEC filing in November that acknowledged the company is cooperating with various government agencies, including the SEC, that are seeking information and documents pertaining to the breaches.</p>
<p>Verizon has been doing its own review to determine whether it should re-negotiate the sales price or cancel the deal entirely on the premise that the news of the security breaches will cause many people to become leery of using Yahoo’s email and other services in the future. A downturn in traffic could make it more difficult for Verizon to sell ads.</p>
<p>Mayer said user engagement has remained stable without providing specific numbers in a statement accompanying the fourth-quarter results.</p>
<p>Even so, wrapping things up with Verizon is going to take longer than Yahoo had hoped. Instead of closing the deal by the end of March as originally planned, Yahoo predicted it will now be completed at some point from April 1 through June 30.</p>
<p>“The opportunities ahead with Verizon look bright,” Mayer said.</p>
<p>The Sunnyvale, California, company earned $162 million, or 17 cents share, during the final three months of 2016. That compared to a loss of $4.43 billion, or $4.70 per share, that included charges for layoffs and the decaying value of Yahoo’s past acquisitions.</p>
<p>If not for certain accounting items, Yahoo said it would have earned 25 cents per share. That figure exceeded the average estimate of 22 cents per share among analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research.</p>
<p>Yahoo’s fourth-quarter revenue totaled $1.47 billion. After subtracting commissions paid to advertising partners, Yahoo’s revenue stood at $960 million, down from $1 billion in the previous year.</p>
<p>For all of last year, Yahoo’s revenue declined 14 percent to $3.52 billion, after deducting ad commissions. It marked Yahoo’s lowest annual net revenue since 2004. At that time, Yahoo was slightly larger than Google. Now, Google generates about 20 times more revenue than Yahoo.</p>
<p>_____</p>
<p>Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights ( <a href="http://automatedinsights.com/ap)" type="external">http://automatedinsights.com/ap)</a> using data from Zacks Investment Research.</p> | Yahoo’s 4Q shows modest strides amid security breach fallout | false | https://abqjournal.com/934102/yahoos-4q-shows-modest-strides-amid-security-breach-fallout.html | 2017-01-23 | 2 |
<p>WACO, Texas (AP) — With big post players Kalani Brown and Lauren Cox inside, senior guard Kristy Wallace doesn’t always have to do a lot of scoring for No. 3 Baylor.</p>
<p>The Aussie can still put up some points.</p>
<p>Wallace scored a career-high 27 points while both post players had double-doubles and the Lady Bears won their 15th straight game, overwhelming No. 6 Texas 81-56 in a matchup of the Big 12′s top two teams Thursday night.</p>
<p>“How good are we? I think we found out tonight we’re pretty good,” coach Kim Mulkey said.</p>
<p>“I expected them to try to punch us and that’s exactly what they did. A little surprised, a lot surprised by our team’s lack of composure and competitiveness,” Texas coach Karen Aston said. “It was just a little bit of an old-fashioned butt-kicking.”</p>
<p>Wallace scored nine of her points in a game-turning 28-7 run for the Lady Bears (18-1, 8-0 Big 12), who were in control before the end of the first quarter.</p>
<p>“She was dictating this game from the jump,” Aston said.</p>
<p>That game-turning stretch included a 14-4 run over the final 3 1/2 minutes of the first quarter, during which Wallace hit a 3-pointer and emphatically punched her fist in the air as the crowd of 9,286 roared. The Bears outscored Texas 14-3 to start the second quarter.</p>
<p>“I just love moments like that. You feed off that,” said Wallace, who finished 11-of-16 shooting.</p>
<p>“She has just been a great distributor for our team. She’s got 6-7 and 6-4 inside that are having a great year. She doesn’t have to score,” coach Kim Mulkey said. “Tonight, she just had some openings and she felt it. ... She did what Kristy’s capable of doing night in and night out. She just doesn’t have to do it all the time.”</p>
<p>Brown had 17 points and 11 rebounds, her ninth double-double this season and 21st in her career. Cox had 17 points and 10 rebounds. The 6-foot-7 Brown and 6-4 Cox have combined for 129 points and 83 rebounds the last three games.</p>
<p>Brooke McCarty led Texas (15-4, 6-2) with 16 points on 5-of-19 shooting. Lashann Higgs added 13 points and Ariel Atkins 11.</p>
<p>“It is frustrating when you don’t show up,” Atkins said. “They outworked us, had more energy, played with passion. They were a team tonight. We weren’t.”</p>
<p>BIG PICTURE</p>
<p>Texas: Just 10 days earlier, Texas took No. 1 UConn to the wire before falling 75-71 at home. The Longhorns were also coming off a record 51-point win at Texas Tech. But they were only able to tie the game five times in the first 6 1/2 minutes, and never led, before the Lady Bears took over. McCarty and Atkins were a combined 2-of-15 shooting before halftime.</p>
<p>Baylor: After winning their first seven Big 12 games by an average margin of nearly 23 points, this was supposed to be the first significant test for the Lady Bears. They passed it without no problem and have a two-game lead over second-place Texas going into their next game that will mark the halfway mark of the 18-game conference schedule.</p>
<p>REMEMBERING CHAMEKA</p>
<p>There was a video tribute moment of silence before the game Chameka Scott, the player that coach Kim Mulkey called “the heartbeat” of Baylor’s first national championship team in 2005. Scott died Sunday from colon cancer that was first discovered in 2015. Members of Scott’s family and former Lady Bears teammates attended the game.</p>
<p>SHOOTING WOES</p>
<p>Texas went the final 3 1/2 minutes of the first quarter without a field goal after a Joyner Holmes layup tied the game at 14-all. Brown’s tiebreaking free throw started the quarter-ending 14-4 run. The Longhorns shot 31 percent (20 of 64) overall and 20 percent on 3-pointers (3 of 15).</p>
<p>“We let our offensive woes tonight, inability to make shots early really dictate what we did on the defensive end,” Aston said.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Texas plays four its next six games at home. The Longhorns host Iowa State on Saturday night.</p>
<p>Baylor also faces Top 25 games in its next two games, Sunday at No. 20 West Virginia and back at home next Wednesday against No. 19 Oklahoma State.</p>
<p>WACO, Texas (AP) — With big post players Kalani Brown and Lauren Cox inside, senior guard Kristy Wallace doesn’t always have to do a lot of scoring for No. 3 Baylor.</p>
<p>The Aussie can still put up some points.</p>
<p>Wallace scored a career-high 27 points while both post players had double-doubles and the Lady Bears won their 15th straight game, overwhelming No. 6 Texas 81-56 in a matchup of the Big 12′s top two teams Thursday night.</p>
<p>“How good are we? I think we found out tonight we’re pretty good,” coach Kim Mulkey said.</p>
<p>“I expected them to try to punch us and that’s exactly what they did. A little surprised, a lot surprised by our team’s lack of composure and competitiveness,” Texas coach Karen Aston said. “It was just a little bit of an old-fashioned butt-kicking.”</p>
<p>Wallace scored nine of her points in a game-turning 28-7 run for the Lady Bears (18-1, 8-0 Big 12), who were in control before the end of the first quarter.</p>
<p>“She was dictating this game from the jump,” Aston said.</p>
<p>That game-turning stretch included a 14-4 run over the final 3 1/2 minutes of the first quarter, during which Wallace hit a 3-pointer and emphatically punched her fist in the air as the crowd of 9,286 roared. The Bears outscored Texas 14-3 to start the second quarter.</p>
<p>“I just love moments like that. You feed off that,” said Wallace, who finished 11-of-16 shooting.</p>
<p>“She has just been a great distributor for our team. She’s got 6-7 and 6-4 inside that are having a great year. She doesn’t have to score,” coach Kim Mulkey said. “Tonight, she just had some openings and she felt it. ... She did what Kristy’s capable of doing night in and night out. She just doesn’t have to do it all the time.”</p>
<p>Brown had 17 points and 11 rebounds, her ninth double-double this season and 21st in her career. Cox had 17 points and 10 rebounds. The 6-foot-7 Brown and 6-4 Cox have combined for 129 points and 83 rebounds the last three games.</p>
<p>Brooke McCarty led Texas (15-4, 6-2) with 16 points on 5-of-19 shooting. Lashann Higgs added 13 points and Ariel Atkins 11.</p>
<p>“It is frustrating when you don’t show up,” Atkins said. “They outworked us, had more energy, played with passion. They were a team tonight. We weren’t.”</p>
<p>BIG PICTURE</p>
<p>Texas: Just 10 days earlier, Texas took No. 1 UConn to the wire before falling 75-71 at home. The Longhorns were also coming off a record 51-point win at Texas Tech. But they were only able to tie the game five times in the first 6 1/2 minutes, and never led, before the Lady Bears took over. McCarty and Atkins were a combined 2-of-15 shooting before halftime.</p>
<p>Baylor: After winning their first seven Big 12 games by an average margin of nearly 23 points, this was supposed to be the first significant test for the Lady Bears. They passed it without no problem and have a two-game lead over second-place Texas going into their next game that will mark the halfway mark of the 18-game conference schedule.</p>
<p>REMEMBERING CHAMEKA</p>
<p>There was a video tribute moment of silence before the game Chameka Scott, the player that coach Kim Mulkey called “the heartbeat” of Baylor’s first national championship team in 2005. Scott died Sunday from colon cancer that was first discovered in 2015. Members of Scott’s family and former Lady Bears teammates attended the game.</p>
<p>SHOOTING WOES</p>
<p>Texas went the final 3 1/2 minutes of the first quarter without a field goal after a Joyner Holmes layup tied the game at 14-all. Brown’s tiebreaking free throw started the quarter-ending 14-4 run. The Longhorns shot 31 percent (20 of 64) overall and 20 percent on 3-pointers (3 of 15).</p>
<p>“We let our offensive woes tonight, inability to make shots early really dictate what we did on the defensive end,” Aston said.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Texas plays four its next six games at home. The Longhorns host Iowa State on Saturday night.</p>
<p>Baylor also faces Top 25 games in its next two games, Sunday at No. 20 West Virginia and back at home next Wednesday against No. 19 Oklahoma State.</p> | No. 3 Baylor women win 15th straight, 81-56 over No. 6 Texas | false | https://apnews.com/166cb56b741c4d49ba55d3e1919c0157 | 2018-01-26 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>This is a spring Daniel Wilson and Dylan Pfeiff of Cibola will long remember.</p>
<p>The Cougars' doubles tandem on Thursday became perhaps the most unlikely state champion team at the state tennis tournament, winning three matches in one day to capture the Class 6A title at the Jerry Cline Complex.</p>
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<p>"We set the goal, right from the beginning, and to get it accomplished is just awesome," Pfeiff said.</p>
<p>In the final, Wilson, a senior, and Pfeiff, a junior, overcame Jacob Jeppson and Brandon Dodds of Eldorado. The scores were 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.</p>
<p>"We kind of just got better as the year went along," said Wilson. "We focused on solid ground strokes and getting to the net, and that gave us results."</p>
<p>Pfeiff and Wilson, the No. 3 seed, were the lowest-seeded state champion in singles or doubles, across 12 brackets in boys and girls.</p>
<p>"It was good to peak at the right time," Wilson said.</p>
<p>Chemistry is vital to any doubles team, but for these two, tennis was almost second nature.</p>
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<p>The friends play in a band together - Wilson on guitar and piano, Pfeiff on drums; they perform cover songs - and they both belong to Cibola's "S-Troupe" comedy group. Wilson said it is very much like "Saturday Night Live."</p>
<p>So who's the better musician, and who's the better comedian?</p>
<p>"He's probably better at both," Pfeiff quickly chimed in.</p>
<p>"I think we're even on the comedy," Wilson said.</p>
<p>They're also equals on the court, and have the medals to prove it.</p>
<p>"We just played with confidence, and knew we could get it done," said Pfeiff. "We always thought it was a possibility."</p>
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<p>The duo finished fourth at state last year.</p>
<p>And they were not the only doubles team from the Rio West area to win a state championship.</p>
<p>Will Katzman and Joshua Hood of Bosque School took the Class 1A-4A division, winning in straight sets over fifth-seeded Will McDermott and Ian Watson of St. Michael's.</p>
<p>The Bosque duo were seeded No. 2, and won each of their three matches Thursday in straight sets.</p>
<p>None of the area's singles players advanced past the semifinals.</p>
<p>Bosque's Caroline Donahue fell to eventual state champion Brandee Fulgenzi of Robertson in the 1A-4A girls semifinals, and later won third place with a straight-set victory over Yanru Wang of Sandia Prep.</p>
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<p>Rio Rancho's Enrico Barchieisi, the No. 4 seed in boys 6A singles, nearly reached the finals.</p>
<p>He took the top seed, La Cueva's Eli Echt-Wilson, to three sets before falling 6-1, 6-7, 6-2. Later, he was beaten in the third-place match by La Cueva's Gavin Korsan.</p>
<p>TEAM: A handful of area teams began team competition Friday.</p>
<p>Valley's boys, seeded 10th, fell 8-1 to Gadsden in the first round.</p>
<p>In 6A girls, Cibola downed Gadsden 5-4 in the first round, but was blanked 9-0 by La Cueva later in the day in the quarterfinals. Also in the quarters, Hobbs ousted Rio Rancho 6-3.</p>
<p>St. Michael's boys edged Bosque 5-4 in Friday's quarterfinals.</p>
<p /> | State doubles champs are a pair of funny guys who make music | false | https://abqjournal.com/582050/state-doubles-champs-are-a-pair-of-funny-guys-who-make-music.html | 2 |
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<p>President Trump tweeted about the strength of his base on Monday saying that even negative stories, like the Russia investigation, have driven them closer together.</p>
<p>“The Trump base is far bigger &amp; stronger than ever before (despite some phony Fake News polling). Look at rallies in Penn, Iowa, Ohio…….,” Mr. Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/894512983384129536" type="external">tweeted,</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/894514535062790144" type="external">adding</a> “…and West Virginia. The fact is the Fake News Russian collusion story, record Stock Market, border security, military strength, jobs…..” <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/894515865802223616" type="external">continuing</a>, “… Supreme Court pick, economic enthusiasm, deregulation &amp; so much more have driven the Trump base even closer together. Will never change!”</p>
<p>The president also pushed back against the idea that his 17-day stay at his Bedminster, New Jersey, home is a vacation. He said he plans to work out of his property due to construction at the White House.</p>
<p>“Working hard from New Jersey while White House goes through long planned renovation. Going to New York next week for more meetings,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/894521737534197762" type="external">tweeted</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2017/aug/7/donald-trump-says-his-base-is-closer-than-ever-des/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Trump says his base is closer than ever despite negative coverage | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/7/donald-trump-says-his-base-is-closer-than-ever-des/ | 2017-08-07 | 0 |
<p>The <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/New_England_Patriots/" type="external">New England Patriots</a> acquired cornerback Johnson Bademosi in a trade with the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Detroit-Lions/" type="external">Detroit Lions</a> on Saturday, according to multiple reports.</p>
<p>Detroit will receive a 2019 sixth-round pick from New England in the deal, ESPN’s <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Adam-Schefter/" type="external">Adam Schefter</a> reported.</p>
<p>The 27-year-old Bademosi is expected to be used primarily as a special teamer in New England.</p>
<p>Bademosi is entering his sixth NFL season after joining the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Cleveland-Browns/" type="external">Cleveland Browns</a> in 2012 as an undrafted free agent out of Stanford. He spent his first four seasons with the Browns before signing a two-year, $4.5 million contract with the Lions before last season.</p>
<p>Last season in Detroit, Bademosi had 22 tackles, a career-high five passes defensed and his lone interception as a pro in 16 games. He has 93 tackles and eight passes defensed over 78 career games.</p> | New England Patriots: Trade with Detroit Lions nets cornerback | false | https://newsline.com/new-england-patriots-trade-with-detroit-lions-nets-cornerback/ | 2017-09-02 | 1 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Austin, Texas, businessman Mike Stotts lost Romeo, his 15-year-old golden retriever, while camping in mid-August at Hyde Memorial State Park in Santa Fe.</p>
<p>After more than three days of searching, Stotts gave up and even used rocks and a cross to build a marker in the park for his pet, assuming the elderly Romeo had died or been killed by coyotes or bears.</p>
<p>But on Tuesday, Romeo was back in Stotts’ arms.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>KOAT-TV reports that Romeo escaped when Stotts unzipped his camping tent to adjust the rain cover.</p>
<p>Eli Madrid, a Chavez Security guard working in the Santa Fe watershed, found the dog Monday, with a collar indicating that Romeo had an identifying microchip. Stotts jumped in a car to drive back to Santa Fe for the reunion Tuesday at Madrid’s house. Romeo had a split ear and had lost a lot of weight, but the vet says he will be fine, according to KOAT-TV. — This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | Elderly Dog Survives Two Months in Wild | false | https://abqjournal.com/139196/elderly-dog-survives-two-months-in-wild-2.html | 2012-10-17 | 2 |
<p>STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) — A woman accused of driving her car into a crowd of people at Oklahoma State University’s homecoming parade ran a red light, “purposely” went around a barricade and drove over a police motorcycle before crashing into the spectators, a prosecutor said Monday.</p>
<p />
<p>“The evidence suggests this was an intentional act, not an accident,” Payne County District Attorney Laura Thomas said in a public statement. The driver’s actions demonstrate “a depraved mind and indifference to human life.”</p>
<p>At a bail hearing, the district attorney told the judge that Adacia Chambers is “looking at four life sentences” if convicted in the deaths of four people who were hit.</p>
<p>Special District Judge Katherine Thomas granted the request for $1 million bail and ordered a psychological evaluation for Chambers, who is being held on preliminary counts of second-degree murder.</p>
<p>“This was a well-known parade day and route, and these innocents were visible from a substantial distance,” the district attorney said in the statement.</p>
<p>The suspect appeared at Monday’s hearing via video. The only time she spoke was to say “yes” when the judge asked if she could hear her.</p>
<p>Prosecutors asked for more time to interview the dozens of witnesses who were at the scene Saturday and said one of the injured is in a “fragile” state, which could lead to more charges.</p>
<p>In Oklahoma, second-degree murder charges are warranted when someone acts in a way that’s “imminently dangerous to another person” but does so without premeditation. Each count is punishable by at least 10 years in prison.</p>
<p>Chambers, 25, of Stillwater, has yet to be formally charged — a step that requires prosecutors to file additional documents in court.</p>
<p>The judge scheduled the next hearing for Nov. 13.</p>
<p>After the hearing, Chambers’ attorney, Tony Coleman, said when he told Chambers about the deaths, “her face was blank.” He said he was not sure Chambers is aware that she’s in jail. Chambers had yet to ask to see her parents or boyfriend.</p>
<p>Police are awaiting blood tests to determine whether she was impaired by drugs or alcohol.</p>
<p>During an earlier interview with Chambers, Coleman said he “was not satisfied at all that I was communicating with a competent individual.”</p>
<p>Coleman has said Chambers was at work before the crash and that she does not remember much, only that she felt confused as she was removed from the car.</p>
<p>Chambers’ father, aunt and boyfriend spoke outside the courthouse, telling reporters that they don’t know what led to the crash.</p>
<p>Chambers father, Floyd Chambers, said his daughter had received inpatient mental health treatment several years ago. But nothing seemed amiss recently, except his daughter had recently called and said she wanted to move back home.</p>
<p>“I thought that was kind of strange, but I don’t know. She was very good about hiding her problems because she didn’t want the family to worry about her, and she kept to herself about things like that,” Chambers said, fighting back tears.</p>
<p>He said his daughter is a talented artist who loves music.</p>
<p>“I would like them (the public) not to think so badly of her, because that’s not just who she was. That’s not who I raised,” he said. “And when we get all the test results back, we’ll know.”</p>
<p>Aunt Lynda Branstetter said she saw her niece Friday night and nothing seemed unusual.</p>
<p>“This is so not her. This is not her character,” Branstetter said tearfully. “She’s one that’ll give you a big hug. And she’s one if you’re down, she’ll make you smile. That’s my Adacia.”</p>
<p>Her boyfriend, Jesse Gaylord, said Chambers had difficulty sleeping and only got an hour or two of sleep before leaving for work Saturday morning.</p>
<p>Gaylord said he never saw Chambers take any drugs — either prescription or illegal — and that the last time they drank alcohol was a few weeks ago, when they each had one beer on his birthday.</p>
<p>“As far as for her to purposefully go and do something, that would just not be possible. … She would never do anything like that consciously,” Gaylord said.</p>
<p>Gaylord said he had never even seen Chambers break any traffic laws.</p>
<p>“She’s honestly one of the most cautious drivers that I’ve ever ridden with. She never turns out in front of any cars. She doesn’t ever run yellow lights,” he said.</p>
<p>The crash killed three adults and a 2-year-old boy. At least 46 other people hurt, including many children.</p>
<p>On Monday, the Oklahoma medical examiner’s office identified the boy killed in the crash as 2-year-old Nash Lucas. Oklahoma State University said the boy’s mother, 20-year-old Nicolette Strauch, is a sophomore majoring in chemical engineering.</p>
<p>The dead adults were identified as Nikita Nakal, a 23-year-old MBA student from India at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, and a married couple, Bonnie Jean Stone and Marvin Lyle Stone, both 65, of Stillwater.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writers Sean Murphy and Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to show that the first name of the MBA student who died is spelled Nikita, not Nakita.</p>
<p>Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</p>
<p><a type="external" href="" /></p> | Prosecutor: Woman ‘Purposely’ Drove Car Into Oklahoma Parade Crowd, Killing 4 | true | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/adacia-chambers-oklahoma-state-homecoming-parade | 4 |
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<p>Training at Albuquerque’s 5,000-foot altitude, Frank Mir says, left him gasping for air at first.</p>
<p>“Then we went up to the mountains,” the former UFC heavyweight champion said in a recent interview, “and I really noticed it. People were trying to talk to me, and I was kind of wheezing.”</p>
<p>But the Las Vegas, Nev., native said it was the dizzying elevation of the talent at Albuquerque’s Jackson-Winkeljohn Mixed Martial Arts that brought him here two months ago – and that will bring him back.</p>
<p>“Obviously, it’s brought me to a different level to have (Greg) Jackson as a coach,” said Mir, now fully accustomed to the altitude. “(Mike) Winkeljohn, Brandon (Gibson), Chris Luttrell, Richard Montoya, there’s a ton of guys who are instructors here and tons of tough guys to train with.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“Obviously, people know (UFC light heavyweight champion) Jon Jones, (Donald) Cerrone. But then there are guys … that maybe aren’t so mainstream, but it’s still real high-level competition here at all times.”</p>
<p>Jackson coaches some of MMA’s best: Jones, Georges St-Pierre, Carlos Condit, John Dodson, et al. Still, he said, it’s a thrill when someone with Mir’s credentials joins the team.</p>
<p>“It’s flattering,” Jackson said. “I’m a human being and I like to be flattered every once in a while, so, yeah, it’s really cool.”</p>
<p>Mir (16-6) will fight under the Jackson-Winkeljohn banner for the first time Saturday when he faces Daniel Cormier (11-0) in a co-main event of UFC on Fox 7 in San Jose, Calif.</p>
<p>Cormier, a Louisianan who fights out of San Jose, is approximately a 7-2 favorite.</p>
<p>After his May 2012 loss by second-round TKO to Brazil’s Junior dos Santos, Mir (6-foot-3, 260 pounds) decided he needed an edge that training at his own gym in Vegas did not provide.</p>
<p>Frank Mir relaxing between workouts at Jackson-Winkeljohn’s gym Monday morning. Albuquerque, New Mexico.(Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>“(Jackson’s) isn’t like other gyms, where I can kind of go through the motions and still succeed and be victorious,” he said. “Here, if I’m not 100 percent, I go home with a lot of bumps and bruises.”</p>
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<p>He plans to be the one inflicting the bumps and bruises against Cormier (5-11, 238), a two-time U.S. Olympic wrestler. Mir’s goal?</p>
<p>“Take him out of his element. If he’s able to control the pace with his wrestling, smother and control, it would be a drawn-out fight. If it’s a fight with lots of exchanges and lots of chaos, I think that isn’t where he’s gonna do well.</p>
<p>“Anybody at heavyweight, I guess, can hope for a knockout. But I hunt them down and see them. And as far as submissions go, if he makes a mistake I’ll take one of his limbs home.”</p>
<p>Jackson said the plan is for Cormier to be facing a Frank Mir not seen in his previous 22 fights. The differences, he said, are more subtle than dramatic, but real.</p>
<p>“I think we’re fine-tuning, adding to what he’s got, but we’re also trying to reinvent his style a little bit,” Jackson said. “Get the pace higher, do some things that kind of shore up the things that he could do better.”</p>
<p>Cormier, Jackson said, is dangerous in all phases.</p>
<p>“I think this fight is almost like a world title fight,” Jackson said. “Frank’s got to perform at that level. (Cormier’s) got great kickboxing, great wrestling and great ground-and-pound, so hopefully we’ll be ready for all three of those things.”</p>
<p>MEANS BUSINESS: Moriarty’s Tim Means (18-3-1), who trains at Albuquerque’s FIT-NHB gym, is scheduled to face Florida’s Jorge Masvidal (23-7) on Saturday’s UFC on Fox 7 undercard.</p>
<p>Means’ last scheduled fight was scrubbed in September after he slipped in a sauna and struck his head. But he told UFC.com he plans to do all the striking Saturday.</p>
<p>“I feel that I’m the most aggressive 155-pounder in the UFC,” Means said. “I’m going to get in your face, and I’m going to force you to go backwards.”</p>
<p>Means-Masvidal and other prelim fights will be telecast on FX, starting at 3 p.m. — This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | Mir alters altitude, attitude | false | https://abqjournal.com/239406/mir-alters-altitude-attitude.html | 2 |
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<p>Insurance Superintendent John Franchini said plans that do not comply with the ACA are not "in the public interest."</p>
<p>Among other things, the ACA requires all health plans to provide a minimum level of coverage, including maternity coverage and certain preventive services. ACA-compliant plans also are barred from capping the amount of money they will pay to cover medical expenses.</p>
<p>Some plans sold to individuals and group plans sold to businesses are not ACA-compliant today but were grandfathered if they were in place before the law was enacted in 2010.</p>
<p>Presbyterian Health Plan has 8,000 individual and 11,000 small group members in grandfathered plans.</p>
<p>Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico has about 14,000 individual members in grandfathered plans and about 1,600 members in small group plans, according to CEO Kurt Shipley.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Shipley said the company hasn't decided how to respond to the new order, but he said "ultimately" all plans will comply with ACA.</p>
<p>"Getting people moved (into new plans) is probably a good thing for most people," he said.</p>
<p>"The ACA plans are really much more robust," Franchini said. "They protect the public better than noncompliant plans."</p>
<p>He said the ACA has created more insurance choices and that most people will find they pay less for coverage because they will receive federal subsidies.</p> | NM to end all non-ACA compliant plans | false | https://abqjournal.com/405295/nm-to-end-all-nonaca-compliant-plans.html | 2 |
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<p>In this picture taken Tuesday Nov. 19, 2013 Croatia’s defender Josip Simunic listens to the national anthem ahead of the World Cup qualifying playoff second leg soccer match against Iceland, in Zagreb, Croatia. Croatia’s World Cup qualification celebrations have been marred by apparent pro-Nazi chants by fans and defender Joe Simunic.</p>
<p>ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — A Croatian soccer player has been fined $4,300 for pro-Nazi chants after the national team qualified for the World Cup.</p>
<p>Croatia reached next year’s tournament in Brazil by beating Iceland 2-0 on Tuesday. After the match, Joe Simunic took a microphone on the field and shouted to fans: “For the homeland!” The fans responded: “Ready!”</p>
<p>The call was used by the Croatian pro-Nazi puppet regime that ruled the state during World War II.</p>
<p>The prosecutor’s office Simunic on Thursday for “spreading racial hatred.” It said he was aware this was the call used by the WWII regime. Simunic has defended his action, saying he was driven by love for his country.</p>
<p>Soccer’s governing body says it is considering disciplinary action against him.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Croatian player fined for pro-Nazi chants | false | https://abqjournal.com/305751/croatian-player-fined-for-pro-nazi-chants.html | 2 |
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<p>Fellow secularists, below is an excerpt from an article by Martin Peretz, publisher/editor of the weekly New Republic. He’s a dead-end Zionist, but I haven’t known him to make up quotes.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Martin Peretz, “Exercised About Kerry,” NY Sun, 10/27/04</p>
<p>For his part, Mr. Kerry grabs at any showy idea to demonstrate his sense of urgency. As a response to militant Islam and to encourage moderate Muslims, the presidential aspirant proposes that “the great religious figures of the planet” – he mentioned the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Dalai Lama – hold a summit.</p>
<p>To do exactly…what?</p>
<p>“To begin to help the world to see the ways in which Islam is not, in fact, a threat,” Mr. Kerry said, “And to isolate those who are, and to give people the strength to be able to come together in a global effort to take away their financing, their freedom to move, their sanctuary, and so forth.”</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>As a tourist, I once walked into St. Paul’s in London, when an ecumenical peace prayer began. The majors were all there, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews. They chanted, then filed out. I’ve been to London 11 times, &amp; don’t remember the date of this singular pious ceremony. Or between which wars this mummery occurred. And that is the important point. ‘Been there, done that.’ No amount of ecumenical pronouncements will solve the complex problems of the wider Middle East. Only our action of behalf of equality for the oppressed, Sudanese Blacks, Kurds in Iraq, Iran &amp; Turkey, the Palestinians, Muslims in India, women everywhere, will bring peace.</p>
<p>Kerry’s turn towards the spiritual cosmos actually demonstrates that he has no capacity to solve either American imperialism’s or the region’s crisis. It is yet another example of his contempt for the secularism of Jefferson &amp; Madison, the founders of his party. It is coupled with his call, at this Summer’s African Methodist Episcopal convention, for further involvement of ‘faith-based’ organizations in things the government should be doing on a scientific basis but ain’t, i.e., drug addict clinics, wayward kids institutions, employment training, etc.</p>
<p>Secularists, be warned. If you vote for Kerry &amp; he loses, you will be legitimately ridiculed as wasting your vote on a demagogue, who you knew intended to violate the 1st amendment’s separation of church &amp; state, out of fear of Bush. And, if he wins, you will be legitimately ridiculed as wasting your vote on a demagogue, who you knew intended to violate the 1st amendment’s separation of church &amp; state, out of fear of Bush.</p>
<p>In either case, you can’t tap-dance around the fact that you know that he intends to intertwine religion &amp; state, domestically &amp; internationally. You can’t say that it is OK for your candidate to help tear down the wall of separation, &amp; then claim to champion separation.</p>
<p>Its the same with secularism as with any ideal. You can’t fire up people for it if they know that you voted for its enemy. All that does is give folks the perfect excuse for continuing to vote for its foe. And indeed we can say, without contradiction, that whoever wins the election will be an enemy of separation.</p>
<p>The fight for it can only be won by taking the issue to the people, educating them as to why Jefferson &amp; Madison were so committed to separation. Can you scroll them up to 2004 &amp; have either say, ‘Yes!! I’m voting for Kerry. I don’t care that he intends to further weaken separation.’ Of course not. But if you can’t say that they would vote for Kerry, you can’t vote for him &amp; then pretend that you are defending their principles of separation of religion &amp; state.</p>
<p>LENNI BRENNER is the editor of <a href="" type="internal">51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis</a> and a contributor to <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>. He is presently editing Jefferson &amp; Madison on Separation of Church and State: Writings on Religion and Secularism. It will be published by Barricade Books in late October. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Christlike Kerry Roams Spiritual Universe | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/11/01/christlike-kerry-roams-spiritual-universe/ | 2004-11-01 | 4 |
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<p>Either way, many people are tempted to protect themselves with a credit monitoring service that actively watches your credit report and alerts you when there’s anything out of the ordinary – someone opening a new line of credit using your Social Security number, for example.</p>
<p>But is it worth the roughly $20-a-month cost?</p>
<p>Christina Tetreault, Consumers Union staff attorney, thinks not.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>While the service does bring some people peace of mind, there are other ways to get similar protection at no cost, Tetreault said.</p>
<p>For example, the three big consumer credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion – all offer a free credit report annually. If you stagger your request among the companies, you’ll get a free report every four months, Tetreault said.</p>
<p>For free reports, go to annualcreditreport.com to ensure you’re signing up for the free service with no strings attached. This is the only authorized website for free credit reports, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Or you can call 1-877-322-8228 to make the request.</p>
<p>Still, in between those three freebies, you must make sure to monitor on your own. And don’t wait until your credit card bill arrives to see how much you charged. Log on to your credit card account online frequently to track your spending and watch your balance. That way, you can spot and report unauthorized purchases quickly.</p>
<p>“Check for unusual charges, and an unusual charge can be as little as $1,” Tetreault said.</p>
<p>Those small amounts are important, she said, because they can be the work of “a fraudster testing to see if the (credit) card is any good.” In other words, the errant $1 charge might be just the start of more fraud to come.</p>
<p>Another free protective measure: set up credit card alerts. You can get alerts from most banks and credit card companies by email, text message or push notifications that pop up in the status bar or notification tray of your cellphone. Most issuers allow the customer to set up different types of alerts and their frequency, Tetreault said.</p>
<p>You want to make sure you don’t suffer “alert fatigue” by getting too many notices. However, Tetreault says she gets an alert for every purchase made because others in her family share the account, and she wants to stay on top of total purchases.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>For those who aren’t expecting to make a major purchase in the near future, consider a security freeze. Taking this step “makes it impossible for anyone to use your credit,” Tetreault said.</p>
<p>That’s because most creditors want to see the report before approving a new account.</p>
<p>You can lift the freeze temporarily, for a specific time or for a specific party, say, a potential landlord or employer, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The cost and lead times to lift a freeze vary, so it’s best to check with the credit reporting company in advance.</p>
<p>Tetreault said this kind of freeze is a “full-stop effort” that seniors especially should consider because “they’re not usually in a position to be seeking credit” and don’t have to worry about lifting the freeze very often – if at all.</p>
<p>Ellen Marks is assistant business editor at the Albuquerque Journal. Contact her at [email protected] or 505-823-3842 if you are aware of what sounds like a scam. To report a scam to law enforcement, contact the New Mexico Consumer Protection Division toll-free at 1-844-255-9210.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Cheap ways to shield yourself from ID thieves | false | https://abqjournal.com/962256/headline-606.html | 2 |
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<p>Share-sale plans are likely to bring pressure for cost cuts and governance changes</p>
<p>This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (November 22, 2017).</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>TOKYO -- Toshiba Corp.'s plan to sell $5.3 billion of new shares to overseas funds secures its future but will likely lead to demands for further cost-cutting, unit sales and governance reforms from activist investors.</p>
<p>Toshiba said on Sunday it would sell 2.3 billion shares, equivalent to 35% of its total shares after the new issuance, to a few dozen foreign funds including activists such as Singapore-based Effissimo Capital Management Pte Ltd., New York funds Elliott Management Corp. and Greenlight Capital, Inc., and Hong Kong-based Oasis Management Co.</p>
<p>Japanese companies have traditionally preferred to sell stakes to local investors, who tend to make fewer demands on management than foreign investors, particularly activist funds.</p>
<p>Travis Lundy, an analyst at investment research website Smartkarma, said Toshiba's share-sale plan will likely help it make necessary aggressive restructuring. He said Toshiba probably had no choice but to bring in foreign capital because it faced a March 31 deadline to recover from over $5 billion of negative shareholder equity or be delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.</p>
<p>Toshiba signed a deal in September to sell its flash-memory computer chip business to Bain Capital and other investors that would raise billions of dollars, but it may struggle to meet the March deadline to complete the sale.</p>
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<p>Seth Fischer, Oasis's chief investment officer, said he wanted to see Toshiba trim costs and sell certain business units if the prices were right. He said the fund would be seeking more management transparency after Toshiba fell into crisis following a series of missteps.</p>
<p>Once Toshiba sells its memory business, Oasis would be looking for it to use some of the funds to buy back shares, Mr. Fischer said.</p>
<p>The share-sale deal hands the greatest voting power to Effissimo, which will become the largest shareholder with 11.34% ownership and has amassed a growing portfolio of Japanese companies. Effissimo, which declined to comment on its holdings in Asia, pushed for greater disclosure at Sharp Corp. during the sale of that company last year.</p>
<p>Ichiro Yamada, executive officer for equities at Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance, which has billions of dollars invested in Japanese stocks, said some foreign funds are likely anticipating restructuring and those who have taken greater stakes will add greater pressure on management accordingly.</p>
<p>Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Asset Management said he expected more Toshiba staff cuts and a management shake-up if earnings don't improve.</p>
<p>Elliott and Greenlight declined to comment on their Toshiba investments. In a statement announcing the share sale plan, Toshiba said it would allow it to focus on becoming profitable.</p>
<p>Gregor Stuart Hunter in Hong Kong contributed to this article.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 22, 2017 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)</p> | Toshiba Opens Door to Activists -- WSJ | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/22/toshiba-opens-door-to-activists-wsj.html | 2017-11-22 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Moody's.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>As one of the largest credit-rating companies in the world, Moody's is a powerful force in the massive global fixed-income market. Thanks to its dominant competitive position and capital-light business model, it enjoys strong pricing power and healthy cash flows. But even the strongest businesses require monitoring, and investors will be searching for clues that Moody's competitive advantages remain intact when the company reports its first-quarter financial results on April 29.</p>
<p>Pricing powerMoody's credit-rating business, Moody's Investors Service (MIS), controls 37% of the ratings market, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Together with fellow industry leaders Standard &amp; Poor's and Fitch Ratings, this triumvirate possesses an approximately 95% share of the global market for credit ratings.</p>
<p>MIS also enjoys high barriers to entry due to regulatory protection, as the SEC recognizes only 10 credit-rating companies asNationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs). In addition, many institutional investors can only buy bonds rated by the "Big Three" NRSROs, making MIS' ratings a near-necessity for debt issuers. Combined, these factors give MIS incredible pricing power, with the company able to consistently raise prices at a long-term average of about 3% to 4% annually. In the quarters ahead, investors will want to see evidence that this trend will continue. Typically, gross margin can give some insight here, but due to the nature of its business, Moody's does not report this metric. We can look to operating margin, but this is less telling since it's affected by additional costs and expenses. Therefore, investors will likely listen for comments by management during Moody's conference calls that indicate the company is successfully passing on price increases to its customers.</p>
<p>Cash flow and capital returns As an asset-light business, Moody's requires little incremental capital to grow. That's helped the company produce impressive levels of free cash flow as its client base has grown.</p>
<p>This strong cash flow generation has allowed Moody's to reward its investors with share repurchases and a steadily rising dividend, which management recently increased by 9% in the fourth quarter. Moody's full-year 2016 outlook includes free cash flow of approximately $1.1 billion, of which $1 billion will be returned to shareholders via stock buybacks. When Moody's releases its first-quarter results, investors will likely want to see that the company is on track to meet, and preferably surpass, these targets.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>How to access Moody's resultsMoody's will announce its first-quarter financial results on Friday before the financial markets open. Investors can tune in to its live conference call, where management will discuss the quarter's results at 11:30 a.m. ET. Both the release and a link to the conference call will be available at the company's <a href="http://ir.moodys.com/CorporateProfile.aspx?iid=108462" type="external">investor relations website Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/28/what-to-watch-when-moodys-corporation-reports-earn.aspx" type="external">What to Watch When Moody's Corporation Reports Earnings Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGuardian/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Joe Tenebruso Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Moody's. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | What to Watch When Moody's Corporation Reports Earnings | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/04/28/what-to-watch-when-moody-corporation-reports-earnings.html | 2016-04-28 | 0 |
<p>Interior Secretary Salazar said that the amount of "developable" wind power off the East Coast could produce more energy than all the coal-fired electric plants in the U.S., and that wind’s potential to replace most of our coal power "is a very real possibility." We find his claims to be wildly optimistic, to say the least.</p>
<p>It’s true that government studies show there’s enough offshore wind to generate far more than coal plants currently do – in theory. But converting that wind to enough electricity to replace what’s now produced by coal won’t happen anytime in the foreseeable future. The Interior Department itself made clear its offshore wind estimate was a gross figure of potential resources only, saying in a report that there are several obstacles to achieving that.</p>
<p>We calculate that converting wind to enough electricity to replace all U.S. coal-fired plants would require building 3,540 offshore wind farms as big as the world’s largest, which is off the coast of Denmark. So far the U.S. has built exactly zero offshore wind farms.</p>
<p>Another government study last year concluded that to supply just 20 percent of U.S. electricity with wind turbines would require land-based equipment taking up an area "slightly less than the area of Rhode Island," plus scores of offshore wind farms.</p>
<p>A Salazar spokesman says the secretary did not mean to say that replacing coal power with offshore wind power was a realistic goal, but was only trying to draw attention to its potential.</p>
<p>At a public hearing in Atlantic City, N.J., on Monday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYPThxv2IqnjxnLF7V9Omy7dmjCAD97D6NB80" type="external">said</a> that wind turbine installations off the East Coast could generate 1 million megawatts (1,000 gigawatts) of energy, enough to replace 3,000 coal plants. The <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYPThxv2IqnjxnLF7V9Omy7dmjCAD97D6NB80" type="external">Associated Press</a> quoted Salazar claiming that wind power could replace most of the coal power in the United States. The AP&#160;account was syndicated in papers across the country. Salazar’s department says that he never implied that wind power would be immediately or even eventually capable of replacing fossil fuels. What did Salazar actually say?&#160;And is replacing coal power with wind power really plausible?</p>
<p>What Salazar Said</p>
<p>Here’s what Salazar <a href="http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=57275" type="external">said at the hearing</a>, a public discussion of the offshore energy potential of the Outer Continental Shelf.</p>
<p>Salazar, April 6, 2009: According to our report there is over 1,000 gigawatts of power, that’s a million megawatts of power, that are developable off the Atlantic coast. You think about that, put it in the context of what it means, with respect to an analogy to, or a comparison to coal-fired power plants, it’s the equivalent of the amount of energy that would be produced from about 3,000 medium-sized coal-fired power plants. That’s a tremendous amount of energy that’s out there in the Atlantic.</p>
<p>The AP also quoted Salazar as saying:</p>
<p>Salazar, April 6, 2009: The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility. … It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now.</p>
<p>According to the AP‘s reporter, Wayne Parry, Salazar made the "here and now" claim in remarks to reporters, not during his public remarks on camera.&#160;</p>
<p>DOI spokesman Frank Quimby says of Salazar’s 3,000 coal plant claim: "He was using it as a metric, as a frame of reference," not as realistic goal-setting. Salazar "has said many, many times that we’re going to need conventional fossil fuels … for the foreseeable future."</p>
<p>But we find that Salazar’s claim that a million megawatts of offshore wind power is "developable" and that replacing coal with wind power is "a very real possibility" are far-fetched propositions.&#160;</p>
<p>A Mighty Wind</p>
<p>The report to which Salazar refers in his remarks is a recently released <a href="http://www.doi.gov/ocs/report.pdf" type="external">Department of the Interior publication</a> that reviewed the available research on resources from the Outer Continental Shelf. In contrast to Salazar’s enthusiastic description, the report itself is sober about the challenges involved.</p>
<p>So what would it really take to replace coal with wind? Salazar is correct to say that there is evidence that winds along the East Coast offer a potential 1,000 gigawatts of energy production. The DOI&#160;report showed a potential 1,024 gigawatts from that area, based on information from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. And if power plants with 1,000 gigawatts of capacity were running at full power 100 percent of the time, they could theoretically generate 8.8 million gigawatt hours of energy a year, more than twice as much as the entire United States <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec7_5.pdf" type="external">2008 electricity production</a>. Of course, the wind doesn’t blow all the time and so wind turbines don’t operate at peak capacity all the time, either. But even if they ran at an average of 40 percent capacity, the DOE’s base <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/assumption/pdf/tbl13.2.pdf" type="external">assumption for offshore wind</a>, the plants could in theory generate enough energy to replace coal and most other electricity sources as well.</p>
<p>That’s the theory. In reality, some backup source of power would still be required for those times when winds were not producing enough. Jonathan Cogan of the Department of Energy told us: "You couldn’t really, just by themselves, replace a steady baseload supply like coal-fired or nuclear plants with an intermittent supply" such as wind turbines.</p>
<p>And in any case, a number of factors stand in the way of achieving the full 1,000-gigawatt potential. For one thing, Interior report shows that 75 percent of the wind energy is far offshore and would require development in waters of greater than 30 meters in depth, which the report finds too deep for economically and technologically feasible turbines. DOI shows only 253 gigawatts of energy resource potential from turbines off the East Coast in shallower water. And as the report points out, that still doesn’t "account for other competing uses of the ocean that may conflict with offshore wind development."</p>
<p>NIMBY Power</p>
<p>So far no offshore wind farms have been built in U.S. waters, even in shallow water. Turning "potential” offshore wind energy into real electricity requires overcoming huge practical problems including the NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”) factor. In a celebrated case, <a href="http://www.capewind.org/article24.htm" type="external">Cape Wind Associates</a> is proposing to build 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, off Cape Cod. The project would occupy 25 square miles of ocean and come within 5.6 miles of Cotuit, near Hyannis. On a clear day, the 258-foot-tall towers (with blades reaching as high as 440 feet, taller than the 305-foot Statue of Liberty) would be visible on the horizon.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="http://www.saveoursound.org/site/PageServer?pagename=About_Us_Mission_Our_Position" type="external">Opponents complain of “aesthetic pollution”</a> and raise other objections on their “Save Our Sound” Web site. <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/15/cape_wind_proposal_clears_big_obstacle/" type="external">Project foes</a> <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/15/cape_wind_proposal_clears_big_obstacle/" type="external">include former Gov. Mitt Romney</a> <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/15/cape_wind_proposal_clears_big_obstacle/" type="external">and Sen. Ted Kennedy</a>, who would be able to see the wind farm on the horizon from his family’s Hyannis compound (as in the simulated photo view from Hyannis Port at left, which was commissioned by Wind Power Associates for a federally required environmental review.) Former CBS News anchor <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/08/29/cronkite_urges_full_review_of_wind_farm_proposal/" type="external">Walter Cronkite</a>, a longtime yachtsman, appeared in a TV commercial opposing the project, though he withdrew his opposition in 2003.</p>
<p>The project has been in the works for years, and plans were first made public in 2001. It now has the support of the current governor, Deval Patrick, and in January it <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/15/cape_wind_proposal_clears_big_obstacle/" type="external">cleared a major regulatory hurdle</a> when the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service concluded that it would have little lasting impact on wildlife, tourism or navigation. But according to the Boston Globe, the project still lacks nine state and local permits. Meanwhile <a href="http://www.saveoursound.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&amp;id=6377" type="external">opponents are fighting on</a>, including local Native American tribes who say they are "spiritually connected" to Nantucket Sound and that the project would desecrate a "sacred site." Nevertheless, Cape Wind <a href="http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090313/NEWS/903130307" type="external">says it expects to begin construction next year</a>. Its maximum expected production will be 454 megawatts, but Cape Wind says it expects the <a href="http://www.capewind.org/FAQ-Category4-Cape+Wind+Basics-Parent0-myfaq-yes.htm#21" type="external">actual average to be 170 megawatts</a>.</p>
<p>If that’s the case, it would take more than 1,300 such projects to equal the current annual output of all U.S. coal-fired electric plants.</p>
<p>There Goes Rhode Island</p>
<p>Another way to look at the practical problem of locating wind turbines is given in a <a href="http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/42864.pdf" type="external">Department of Energy report</a> from last May. It concluded that to produce enough wind power to satisfy only 20 percent of U.S. demand (less than half of what coal plants fulfill) would require land-based turbines and related infrastructure that would take up an area "slightly less than the area of Rhode Island."</p>
<p>And in addition to those land-based plants, the 20 percent goal would require another 54 gigawatts of wind turbine capacity in offshore, shallow-water wind farms. That’s the equivalent of 119 wind farms the size of the proposed Nantucket Sound facility.</p>
<p>DOE found that the goal of producing 20 percent of U.S. electric power from the wind&#160;– by the year 2030&#160;– "could be feasible if the significant challenges identified in this report are overcome." Those challenges include limits on turbine performance and high initial costs of installation.&#160;</p>
<p>A Quarter-Million Turbines?</p>
<p>But what would it take to go beyond 20 percent, and replace all the coal-fired plants that now account for nearly half the nation’s electricity? And to do that using only wind farms in waters off the U.S. East Coast?</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/statistics/Offshore_Wind_Farms_2008.pdf" type="external">highest-producing</a> offshore wind turbine installation in operation, <a href="http://www.dongenergy.com/Nysted/EN/About_the_park/Introduction/Introduction" type="external">Nysted Wind Farm</a> in Denmark, has 72 turbines and a capacity of 165.6 megawatts. Assuming that 40 percent of that capacity can actually be realized, we figure those turbines put out an average of about 66 megawatt hours in an hour. Producing enough power to account for all of what is now put out by coal-fired plants in the U.S. would require 3,540 installations of that size, comprising well over 250,000 individual turbines.</p>
<p>Bigger wind farms are on the way. Planned projects like the 95-square-mile <a href="http://www.londonarray.com/" type="external">London Array</a> could have capacities closer to 1,000 megawatts, with perhaps a 400-megawatt hour output. But it would take 569 farms the size of the London Array to equal the output of all U.S. coal plants.</p>
<p>Correction:&#160;We initially used the phrase "megawatts per hour" at several points in the story. In fact megawatts are a measure of power (a rate at which energy is transmitted), not energy, so it is inaccurate to refer to megawatts per hour. None of the numbers in the story are affected by this change in terminology.</p>
<p>—by Jess Henig, with Brooks Jackson</p>
<p>Parry, Wayne. " <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYPThxv2IqnjxnLF7V9Omy7dmjCAD97D6NB80" type="external">Salazar: Eastern wind could replace coal for power</a>."&#160;The Associated Press. 6 Apr. 2009.</p>
<p>Ebbert, Stephanie, " <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/08/29/cronkite_urges_full_review_of_wind_farm_proposal/" type="external">Cronkite urges full review of wind farm proposal</a>." Boston Globe. 29 Aug 2003.</p>
<p>Energy Information Administration. " <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec7_5.pdf" type="external">Electricity Net Generation Total:&#160;All Sectors</a>." Mar. 2009.</p>
<p>U.S. Department of the Interior. " <a href="http://www.doi.gov/ocs/report.pdf" type="external">Survey of Available Data on OCS&#160;Resources and Identification of Data Gaps</a>." Apr. 2009.</p>
<p>European Wind Energy Association. " <a href="http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/statistics/Offshore_Wind_Farms_2008.pdf" type="external">Offshore Statistics January 2009</a>."&#160;Jan. 2009.</p>
<p>Cassidy, Patrick. " <a href="http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090313/NEWS/903130307" type="external">Cape Wind Permit Considered Likely</a>." Cape Cod Times. 13 Mar. 2009.</p>
<p>Alliance to Protect the Nantucket Sound. " <a href="http://www.saveoursound.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&amp;id=6377" type="external">National Organizations Call Upon Feds to Halt Review of Cape Wind</a>." 10 Apr. 2009.</p>
<p>Daley, Beth. " <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/15/cape_wind_proposal_clears_big_obstacle/" type="external">Cape Wind Proposal Clears Big Obstacle</a>." Boston Globe. 15 Jan. 2009.</p>
<p>United States Department of Energy. " <a href="http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/42864.pdf" type="external">20% Wind Energy by 2030</a>." May 2008.</p> | Hot Air on Wind Energy | false | https://factcheck.org/2009/04/hot-air-on-wind-energy/ | 2009-04-10 | 2 |
<p>Published time: 7 Dec, 2017 14:27</p>
<p>Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko, who received a lifetime Olympic ban from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday, has spoken of his willingness to quit “at any moment” if it’s in the best interests of all involved.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, the former sports minister was handed a lifetime ban from the Olympics as the result of an IOC Executive Board Meeting in Lausanne, which also banned Russia from sending a team to the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics amid allegations of state-sponsored doping.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/sport/412123-ioc-russia-fifa-world-cup/" type="external" /></p>
<p>However, the ruling did leave the door open for ‘clean’ Russian athletes to compete under the neutral flag and the acronym OAR (Olympic Athletes from Russia) in South Korea.</p>
<p>“Let’s not deal with this question now. You’ve known me for ages. I’m ready [to go] at any moment, if it will be for the best. I see who is saying this,” Mutko told journalists on Thursday, <a href="https://rsport.ria.ru/official/20171207/1129742222.html" type="external">R-Sport</a> reported.</p>
<p>As head of the Russian Football Union (RFU), Mutko will play a huge role in running next year’s FIFA World Cup, held in Russia from June 14 to July 15, but world football’s governing body have said any IOC decisions involving doping will not affect preparations for the tournament.&#160;“FIFA has taken note of the decision made by the IOC regarding the participation of Russian athletes at the upcoming Winter Olympics,” FIFA’s press service told TASS.</p>
<p>“This decision has no impact on the preparations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup as we continue to work to deliver the best possible event.”</p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin branded the IOC ruling regarding Russian athletes, which was based on the findings of an investigation led by former Swiss president Samuel Schmid, “politically motivated”, “unfounded” and “dishonest”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/sport/412140-putin-ioc-ban-russia/" type="external">READ MORE: Putin: IOC ban ‘politically motivated,’ but Russia will not boycott Olympics</a></p>
<p>However, Putin said Russia would not stand in the way of clean athletes wanting to compete under the neutral flag, and categorically ruled out any boycott of the Games.</p>
<p>An appeal has been submitted to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) by 22 athletes who were handed lifetime Olympic bans for their alleged part in state-sponsored doping at the Sochi Games. These include Sochi gold medalists Alexander Legkov, Alexander Tretyakov and Alexander Zubkov.</p>
<p>The athletes have requested that the appeals against their exclusion be heard before the beginning of the PyeongChang Games on February 9.</p>
<p>Later on Thursday, Mutko implied that resignation was not at the forefront of his immediate thoughts,&#160; <a href="https://rsport.ria.ru/official/20171207/1129742222.html" type="external">saying the main thing currently is for him to be with the athletes&#160;“to the end”.&#160;</a></p> | ‘I’m ready to go at any moment’: Vitaly Mutko mulls 'resignation' amid doping allegation row | false | https://newsline.com/im-ready-to-go-at-any-moment-vitaly-mutko-mulls-039resignation039-amid-doping-allegation-row/ | 2017-12-07 | 1 |
<p>America is schizophrenic about sex. On one level, a multibillion dollar porn, advertising and popular-entertainment industry caters to every imaginable sexual taste and fantasy. On the other, the religious right endlessly rails against the evils of illicit sexual pleasure. Against this kabuki performance, an unacknowledged crisis of nation’s sexual health is taking place.</p>
<p>Obama inherited a nation in crisis. A mounting fiscal crisis shadowed the ’08 campaign like a growing hurricane and climaxed as voters went to the polls. They cast their votes for him in large measure because they believed he was not, like McCain, a reincarnated Bush. Shorn of his evangelical Cowboy inarticulateness, with regard to banking, health insurance and war, Obama seems but a pale shadow of Bush’s corporatist outlook.</p>
<p>The crisis over the nation’s sexual health stems from the Christian right’s fear of sexual pleasure. It is expressed in the right’s deep-seated opposition to women’s reproductive health (particularly the right to an abortion), its adherence to teen abstinence-only polices, its acceptance of increased reported cases of STDs and AIDS and its admonitions over the increase in pregnancies among teen girls and young women.</p>
<p>In place of humane policies to address these and other sexual-health issues, the Bush presidency offered only moralistic judgments. Hidden in these judgments was a fundamentalist belief that the suffering resulting from personal problems relating to sexual life, especially resulting from sex occurring outside of heterosexual marriage, was a sign of God’s vengeance: One gets what one deserves.</p>
<p>Many hoped that Obama and the Democrats would bring a more humane set of values to the policies of sexual health. They may yet.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Congress’ adoption of the Stupak amendment to the health-insurance “reform” bill (H.R. 3962) reveals the deepening crisis over sexuality. The amendment, engineered by Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, further restricts a woman’s right to a safe, medically sanctioned and legal abortion. It was a brilliant maneuver by anti-choice forces that (apparently) caught the Democratic leadership with its proverbial pants down.</p>
<p>The issue of federal support for abortion was surely going to be a battleground in the Democrats’ effort to pass national health-insurance reform. While Roe remains the law of the land, the Christian right has mobilized for the last three-and-a-half decades to systematically restrict access to legal abortions. The Christian right embraces Republicans and Democrats, conservative and Blue Dogs; Stupak is associate the rightwing cabal, the Family, the evangelical Christian version of the Catholic Opus Dei.</p>
<p>Adding insult to injury, 64 Democrats voted for the amendment. They seem to have forgotten what Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg acknowledged: the right to an abortion is at the “center of a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship status.”</p>
<p>Other sex-related issues are part of the health-insurance legislation but garnered far less attention. These include:</p>
<p>Support for sex education. Under the Senate bill, two provisions are included that seem at odds with each other, the result of classic political compromise. One would allocate $75 million a year for comprehensive sex education or more secular “sex ed.” The other would allocate $50 million a year for abstinence education; the bill would reauthorize the Title V abstinence program that expired this summer. Under the Senate bill, there will be support for school based “health clinics.”</p>
<p>(Not surprising, Obama’s proposed budget for FY 2010 significantly shifts funding for sex education from abstinence-only programs to pregnancy prevention programs. Yet, in keeping with his “bi-partisanship,” the budget proposal includes a provision permitting those backing abstinence-only programs to receive funding.)</p>
<p>Support for pregnancy prevention. The House bill includes the “Healthy Teen Initiative to Prevent Teen Pregnancy” provision that creates a federal grant program to support “evidence based” programs that aim to reduce teen pregnancies; abstinence is not listed as an “evidence based” program.</p>
<p>Support for domestic partner tax benefits. The House bill incorporates the language of the proposed “Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act” which would apply marital-type tax advantages to same-sex couples. Under the bill, employees who have domestic partners would be treated the same as spouses.</p>
<p>Support for greater HIV-AIDS prevention. The House bill incorporates the “Early Treatment for HIV Act” that “would permit state Medicaid programs to provide HIV treatment to individuals before they develop AIDS.” It would extend the Social Security Act to give states the option of covering low-income people.</p>
<p>In keeping with the fear mongering over claims of “death panels,” the right has come out against these modest programs. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) warned that school health clinics would offer abortions to students. Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs with Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group, claims that “cosmetic ‘gender reassignment’ surgeries for both U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants who suffer from [the American Psychiatric Association] recognized ‘Gender Identity Disorder’ (GID) may also be provided – free of charge – courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. The current price tag for such a procedure can exceed $50,000.”</p>
<p>Americans for Truth about Homosexuality rails against what it sees as the encroachment of the “gay lobby.” It warns that the adoption of analytic categories like “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” will undermine the nation’s moral order: These terms “promot[e] the fiction, especially among schoolchildren, that homosexual behavior is natural and poses no health risks, admits here that the behavior involves unique health problems.”</p>
<p>One can only hope that the modest provisions supporting sex health and education will not suffer the same fate as abortion when the final heath-insurance bill makes its was through the reconciliation process.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>The sexual health of the nation is in crisis and why should it not be so? The “Great Recession” combined with the “Great Imperialists Folly,” the military misadventure that started in Afghanistan, moved to Iraq and is now spreading to Pakistan (will Egypt be next?), is having innumerable fallouts. How, in a society marked by escalating levels of unemployment, bankruptcies, foreclosures, homelessness and domestic violence, could one not expect sexual life to reflect the crisis? The current rise in STDs, teen pregnancy and HIV-AIDS rates are indicators of this crisis.</p>
<p>In the decade between 1997 and 2005, the level of sexual transmitted diseases (including syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea) jumped by 55 percent (to 1.4 million from 0.94 million). According to the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], there were 1.5 million reported STD cases in 2008. Most disturbing, adolescent girls aged 15–19 years accounted for 409,531 chlamydia and gonorrhea cases. Compound this situation, African-Americans, representing 12 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for about 71 percent of reported gonorrhea cases and almost half of all chlamydia and syphilis cases.</p>
<p>Teen pregnancies are on the rise. The Guttmacher Institute reports that there were a total of 1 million pregnancies (i.e., births, abortions and miscarriages) by teen females 15-19 years in 1990; in 2002, teen pregnancies had fallen to 746,800. Most troubling, the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics finds that teen pregnancies rose between 2005 and 2006, especially among teen girls (like Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, who was pregnant at 16 years) between the ages 15-17 years.</p>
<p>HIV-AIDS is on the rise. In 2007, there were approximately 1.2 million reported cases. However, the CDC reports that the rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15-24 years increased during 1997-2006. It states unequivocally: “The HIV/AIDS epidemic in African American communities is a continuing public health crisis for the United States. At the end of 2006 there were an estimated 1.1 million people living with HIV infection, of which almost half (46%) were black/African American.”</p>
<p>The increase in the rates of STDs, HIV-AIDS and pregnancy among young women indicates that America has yet to overcome the tyranny of rightwing, Christian anti-sex values that were implemented under the Bush administration “abstinence” policies. Women, the poor (especially African-Americans) and young women are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” in America’s emerging sex-health crisis.</p>
<p>Since the Civil War, the Christian right only once previously had as much power as it exercised under Bush. This occurred in the ‘20s, when the temperance movement, anti-immigrationists, the KKK and eugenicists pushed through the 18th Amendment establishing Prohibition, celebrated their whiteness in lynchings and backed the casino capitalism that catapulted the nation into the Great Depression. One can only wonder if nothing less than another and still-greater depression combined with a genuine “world war” are the only forces that can truly suppress the Christian right.</p>
<p>The stench of the Bush administration, like a desiccating carcass, continues to suffocate today’s possibilities. The term “crisis” seems inadequate to capture the magnitude of social dislocation bequeathed by the Bush presidency: an historically unprecedented catastrophe of finance capital; escalating levels of unemployment, bankruptcies, foreclosures, homelessness and domestic violence; a mounting health-care crisis; two foundering foreign military occupations; an enraged and well-armed rightwing populous; and a growing gap between the rich and the poor. Only Herbert Hoover may have bequeathed his successor as desperate a legacy.</p>
<p>DAVID ROSEN is the author of “ <a href="" type="internal">Sex Scandals America: Politics &amp; the Ritual of Public Shaming</a>” (Key, 2009); he can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | America’s Failing Sexual Health | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/12/01/america-s-failing-sexual-health/ | 2009-12-01 | 4 |
<p>PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Police have made an arrest in the death of a man who was seen staggering around a neighborhood in outer southeast Portland.</p>
<p>Sgt. Chris Burley says the man was unconscious when officers arrived Dec. 28. The victim — 35-year-old Jonathan D. Lehman — was taken to a hospital by ambulance and later died from his injuries. The medical examiner said he died from homicidal violence.</p>
<p>Burley said Monday that officers arrested 42-year-old Alphonzo Johnson. He's charged with assault, manslaughter and a probation violation.</p>
<p>PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Police have made an arrest in the death of a man who was seen staggering around a neighborhood in outer southeast Portland.</p>
<p>Sgt. Chris Burley says the man was unconscious when officers arrived Dec. 28. The victim — 35-year-old Jonathan D. Lehman — was taken to a hospital by ambulance and later died from his injuries. The medical examiner said he died from homicidal violence.</p>
<p>Burley said Monday that officers arrested 42-year-old Alphonzo Johnson. He's charged with assault, manslaughter and a probation violation.</p> | Arrest made in death of man seen staggering in SE Portland | false | https://apnews.com/amp/51c77a73ac204a92bfd245cddc544c24 | 2018-01-08 | 2 |
<p />
<p><a href="" type="internal">Elizabeth Warren</a> triumphs. Well, sort of. President Obama has <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/09/exclusive-president-obama-to-this-week-name-elizabeth-warren-to-special-advisory-role-to-white-house.html" type="external">reportedly tapped</a> her to be a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for the purposes of setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (She will also be awarded the title of assistant to the president.) This is not the same as nominating her to head the CFPB, which Warren, the Harvard professor who runs the Congressional Oversight Panel that monitors the TARP bailout, first (and presciently) <a href="http://%20http://www.democracyjournal.org/article.php?ID=6528" type="external">proposed establishing</a> in 2007—before the financial meltdown. But it’s close.</p>
<p>While Warren’s many fans on the left have been fervently pushing for her to be named the new federal watchdog agency’s first chief, there were clear signs that she would be met with resistance on Capitol Hill, with the banking and financial industries and their Republican allies in the Senate looking to prevent the plain-spoken consumer advocate from taking the reins of an outfit that is supposed to take on credit card firms, mortgage lenders, and banks that engage in abusive or deceptive practices. Rather than wage a high-profile fight over Warren—a battle that the White House might have been able to turn to its political advantage in the run-up to the congressional elections—the president has opted to sidestep the normal process and hand Warren a position not subject to Senate confirmation. She won’t become head of the new agency, but she will be its official godmother, overseeing its establishment.</p>
<p>For some Warren backers, this might seem a half measure. The progressive FireDogLake site called it “ <a href="http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/71556" type="external">the castration of Elizabeth Warren.”</a> But sources close to Warren tell me that is satisfied—even happy—with this appointment. And if she’s happy….</p>
<p />
<p>Still, it’s not a clear-cut victory for progressives, given that the move is open to interpretation. Is this a sign that Obama is yielding to GOP obstructionism? (Sen. Chris Dodd, the Democratic chairman of the banking committee, also seemed cool on appointing Warren to head the agency.) Or is this an indication that Obama can craftily outmaneuver GOP blockaders? Did Obama blink, or did he pull a fast one? Perhaps after Warren serves time as the agency’s midwife, she’ll be in a better position (politically) to be nominated as its first head. In any event, this decision will place the nation’s top consumer financial advocate in the news and in the offices of this new consumer protection agency.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Warren’s COP has released its latest oversight report on the TARP bailout. And its <a href="http://cop.senate.gov/reports/library/report-091610-cop.cfm" type="external">no-nonsense review</a> is decidedly mixed and hardly a ringing endorsement of Geithner’s management of the massive bailout program:</p>
<p>Although the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) provided critical support to the financial markets at a time when market confidence was in freefall, the program has been far less effective in meeting its other statutory goals, such as supporting home values, retirement savings, and economic growth….</p>
<p>Although the TARP quelled the financial panic in the fall of 2008, severe economic weaknesses remain even today. Since the TARP was authorized in October of 2008, 7.1 million homeowners have received foreclosure notices. Since their pre-crisis peaks, home values have dropped 28 percent, and stock indices — which indicate the health of many Americans’ most significant investments for college and retirement — have fallen 30 percent. Given that Treasury was mandated by law to use the TARP to address these measures of the economy, their lingering weakness is cause for concern.</p>
<p>In other words, Treasury did not do its job. It used TARP to save the banks and big financial firms; it was not as assiduous when it came to assisting homeowners, workers, and consumers. Mr. Geithner, please give your new special adviser a warm welcome.</p>
<p /> | Warren To Be Appointed—Sort Of | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/warren-be-appointed-sort-of/ | 2010-09-16 | 4 |
<p>Jan 19(Reuters) - GeneFerm Biotechnology Co Ltd :</p>
<p>* Says it will move its stock to Taipei Exchange from Emerging Market, effective Jan. 22</p>
<p>Source text in Chinese: <a href="https://goo.gl/eyHdSS" type="external">goo.gl/eyHdSS</a></p>
<p>Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BERLIN (Reuters) - German investigators were trying to work out why a man drove a camper van into a group of people sitting outside a restaurant in the western university city of Muenster on Saturday, killing two people before shooting himself dead.</p>
<p>The vehicle ploughed into people seated at tables outside the Grosser Kiepenkerl eatery, a popular destination for tourists in the city’s old town.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-germany-crash-timeline-factbox/factbox-deadly-attacks-in-western-europe-idUSKBN1HE0ND" type="external">Factbox: Deadly attacks in Western Europe</a>
<p>Forensic police combed the scene on Sunday after investigators named the victims as a 51-year-old woman from the Lueneburg area in northern Germany and a 65-year-old man from the Borken area near Muenster.</p>
<p>“According to the current state of the investigation, the driver is probably a 48-year-old man from Munich,” senior public prosecutor Martin Botzenhardt said in a joint statement with Muenster police.</p>
<p>“So far there are no indications of a possible background for the crime. The investigations are being conducted at full speed and on all fronts,” he added.</p>
<p>The perpetrator shot himself after crashing the silver-grey coloured van into the outside area of the restaurant, police said.</p> Police stands guard in a street near a place where a man drove a van into a group of people sitting outside a popular restaurant in the old city centre of Muenster, Germany, April 7, 2018. REUTERS/Leon Kuegeler
<p>The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported in its online edition that the perpetrator was Jens R., 48, who resided some 2 km (1.2 miles) from the crime scene.</p>
<p>Broadcaster ZDF said police were searching his apartment and that he had contact with far-right extremists, but there was no evidence thus far that he was a far-right extremist himself.</p> Slideshow (17 Images)
<p>The Sueddeutsche Zeitung said the man had psychological problems. The Interior Ministry in North Rhine-Westphalia would neither confirm nor deny the report.</p>
<p>Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement she was “deeply shaken”. On Saturday evening, the White House issued a statement sending U.S. President Donald Trump’s “thoughts and prayers” to the families of those killed.</p>
<p>French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: “All my thoughts are with the victims of the attack in Muenster. France shares in Germany’s suffering”.</p>
<p>Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Susan Fenton</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIRUT (Reuters) - A chemical attack on a rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta killed dozens of people, a medical relief organization and a rescue service said, and Washington said the reports - if confirmed - would demand an immediate international response.</p>
<p>Medical relief organization Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said 41 people had been killed, with other reports putting the death toll much higher. The civil defense rescue service, which operates in rebel-held areas of Syria, put it as high as 150 in a report on one of its Twitter feeds.</p>
<p>The Russian-backed Syrian state denied government forces had launched any chemical attack as the reports began circulating on Saturday night and said rebels in the eastern Ghouta town of Douma were in a state of collapse and spreading false news.</p>
<p>Reuters could not independently verify the reports.</p>
<p>The lifeless bodies of around a dozen children, women and men, some of them with foam at the mouth, were shown in one video circulated by activists. “Douma city, April 7 ... there is a strong smell here,” a voice can be heard saying.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-attack-usa/u-s-says-reports-of-chemical-attack-in-syria-horrifying-if-confirmed-calls-for-response-idUSKBN1HF02N" type="external">U.S. says reports of chemical attack in Syria 'horrifying' if confirmed, calls for response</a>
<p>The U.S. State Department said reports of mass casualties from an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma were “horrifying” and would, if confirmed, “demand an immediate response by the international community”.</p>
<p>President Bashar al-Assad has won back control of nearly all of eastern Ghouta in a Russian-backed military campaign that began in February, leaving just Douma in rebel hands. After a lull of days, government forces began bombarding Douma again on Friday.</p>
<p>The offensive in Ghouta has been one of the deadliest of the seven-year-long war, killing more than 1,600 civilians according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.</p>
<p>The Observatory said it could not confirm if chemical weapons had been used in the attack on Saturday.</p>
<p>Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said 11 people had died in Douma as a result of suffocation caused by the smoke from conventional weapons being dropped by the government. It said a total of 70 people suffered breathing difficulties.</p>
<p>Medical relief organization SAMS said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six people, and a second attack with “mixed agents” including nerve agents had hit a nearby building.</p>
<p>Basel Termanini, the U.S.-based vice president of SAMS, told Reuters another 35 people had been killed at the nearby apartment building, most of them women and children.</p>
<p>SAMS operates 139 medical facilities in Syria where it supports 1,880 medical personnel, according to its website.</p>
<p>“We are contacting the U.N. and the U.S. government and the European governments,” he said by telephone.</p>
<p>Syrian state news agency SANA said the rebel group in Douma, Jaish al-Islam, was making “chemical attack fabrications in an exposed and failed attempt to obstruct advances by the Syrian Arab army,” citing an official source.</p>
<p>U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauret recalled a 2017 sarin gas attack in northwestern Syria that the West and the United Nations blamed on Assad’s government.</p>
<p>“The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately,” she said.</p>
<p>“The United States calls on Russia to end this unmitigated support immediately and work with the international community to prevent further, barbaric chemical weapons attacks,” Nauert said in a statement.</p>
<p>The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons during the conflict.</p>
<p>Reporting by Dahlia Nehme and Mustafa Hashem; Additional reporting by Patrick Rucker and Tim Ahmann in Washington; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SAO BERNARDO DO CAMPO, Brazil (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva turned himself in to police on Saturday, ending a day-long standoff to begin serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption that derails his bid to return to power.</p> Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is carried by supporters in front of the metallurgic trade union in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, April 7, 2018. REUTERS/Francisco Proer
<p>Lula was flown by police to the southern city of Curitiba, where he was tried and convicted late last year, and taken to the federal police headquarters there to serve his sentence. Protesters supporting Lula clashed with police outside the walls of the building. Officers used stun grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.</p>
<p>In a fiery speech hours earlier to a crowd of supporters of his Workers Party outside the union building in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s first working class president insisted on his innocence and called his bribery conviction a political crime, but said he would turn himself in.</p>
<p>“I will comply with the order,” he told the cheering crowd. “I’m not above the law. If I didn’t believe in the law, I wouldn’t have started a political party. I would have started a revolution.”</p> Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva walks to enter a Federal Police plane in Sao Paulo, Brazil, April 7, 2018. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker
<p>Lula, who faces six more trials on corruption charges, finally ended the standoff when he moved out in a convoy of black police SUVs after pushing his way out of the steel workers union headquarters where he had taken refuge. He entered police custody more than 24 hours after a court deadline on Friday afternoon.</p>
<p>Lula’s imprisonment removes Brazil’s most influential political figure and front-runner from this year’s presidential campaign, throwing the race wide open and strengthening the odds of a more centrist candidate prevailing, according to analysts and political foes.</p>
<p>It also marks the end of an era for Brazil’s left, which was out in force in the streets outside of the union headquarters in the industrial suburb of Sao Paulo where Lula’s political career began four decades ago as a union organizer.</p>
<p>The throngs of supporters, which began gathering when he arrived late on Thursday night, dissuaded police from trying to take him into custody and heightened concerns about a violent showdown.</p>
<p>Supporters blocked Lula’s first attempt to leave the union building on Saturday afternoon, pushing back against fellow party members trying to open the gate for his car to leave. Workers Party chief Gleisi Hoffmann pleaded with supporters to let him exit.</p>
<p>Lula was convicted of taking bribes, including renovation of a three-story seaside apartment that he denies ever owning, from an engineering firm in return for help landing public contracts.</p> Slideshow (15 Images)
<p>“I’m the only person being prosecuted over an apartment that isn’t mine,” insisted Lula, standing on a sound truck alongside his impeached handpicked successor Dilma Rousseff and leaders of other left-wing parties.</p>
<p>A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Saturday rejected the latest plea by Lula’s legal team, which argued they had not exhausted procedural appeals when a judge issued the order to turn himself in.</p>
<p>Under Brazilian electoral law, a candidate is forbidden from running for office for eight years after being found guilty of a crime. Rare exceptions have been made in the past, and the final decision would be made by the top electoral court if and when Lula officially files to be a candidate.</p>
<p>The union where Lula, 72, sought refuge was the launch pad for his career in the late 1970s leading nationwide strikes that helped to end Brazil’s 1964-85 military dictatorship.</p>
<p>Lula’s everyman style and unvarnished speeches electrified masses and eventually won him two terms as president, from 2003 to 2011, when he oversaw robust economic growth and falling inequality amid a commodities boom.</p>
<p>“Those who condemn me without proof know that I am innocent and I governed honestly,” Lula said in a video message to his supporters. “Those who persecute me can do what they want to me, but they will never imprison our dreams.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Lisandra Paraguassú, Ricardo Brito and Jake Spring in Brasilia, and Brad Brooks in Sao Paulo; Writing by Anthony Boadle and Jake Spring; Editing by Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>DUBAI (Reuters) - Hackers have attacked networks in a number of countries including data centers in Iran where they left the image of a U.S. flag on screens along with a warning: “Don’t mess with our elections”, the Iranian IT ministry said on Saturday.</p> FILE PHOTO: A man types on a computer keyboard in front of the displayed cyber code in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo
<p>“The attack apparently affected 200,000 router switches across the world in a widespread attack, including 3,500 switches in our country,” the Communication and Information Technology Ministry said in a statement carried by Iran’s official news agency IRNA.</p>
<p>The statement said the attack, which hit internet service providers and cut off web access for subscribers, was made possible by a vulnerability in routers from Cisco which had earlier issued a warning and provided a patch that some firms had failed to install over the Iranian new year holiday.</p>
<p>A blog published on Thursday by Nick Biasini, a threat researcher at Cisco’s Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group, said: “Several incidents in multiple countries, including some specifically targeting critical infrastructure, have involved the misuse of the Smart Install protocol...</p>
<p>“As a result, we are taking an active stance, and are urging customers, again, of the elevated risk and available remediation paths.”</p>
<p>On Saturday evening, Cisco said those postings were a tool to help clients identify weaknesses and repel a cyber attack.</p>
<p>Iran’s IT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi posted a picture of a computer screen on Twitter with the image of the U.S. flag and the hackers’ message. He said it was not yet clear who had carried out the attack.</p>
<p>Azari-Jahromi said the attack mainly affected Europe, India and the United States, state television reported.</p>
<p>“Some 55,000 devices were affected in the United States and 14,000 in China, and Iran’s share of affected devices was 2 percent,” Azari-Jahromi was quoted as saying.</p>
<p>In a tweet, Azari-Jahromi said the state computer emergency response body MAHER had shown “weaknesses in providing information to (affected) companies” after the attack which was detected late on Friday in Iran.</p>
<p>Hadi Sajadi, deputy head of the state-run Information Technology Organisation of Iran, said the attack was neutralized within hours and no data was lost.</p>
<p>Reporting by Dubai newsroom, additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; editing by Ros Russell and G Crosse</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-GeneFerm Biotechnology to move stock to Taipei Exchange German police try to work out motive for Muenster attack Dozens reported killed in suspected Syria gas attack, Damascus denies Lula turns himself in to Brazil police, ending standoff Iran hit by global cyber attack that left U.S. flag on screens | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-geneferm-biotechnology-to-move-sto/brief-geneferm-biotechnology-to-move-stock-to-taipei-exchange-idUSL3N1PE3DD | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p />
<p>San Francisco is girding for a legal showdown over one of its most beloved and now shuttering institutions: a baseball memorabilia bar in tourist-heavy Union Square named for legendary batter and city son Lefty O'Doul.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The rambunctious piano and sports bar has catered to tourists and locals for decades, its walls crowded with Marilyn Monroe mementos, spurs and horseshoes honoring San Francisco mounted police, and photos of baseball greats.</p>
<p>But now the bar and restaurant's operator and the building's landlord are battling over who will continue the Lefty's tradition, with each side claiming pieces of what makes the bar sing. Wednesday is the establishment's final day after nearly six decades on Geary Street by the cling-clanging of cable cars.</p>
<p>Lefty's operator Nick Bovis announced earlier this month that the lease was up in February, but he reassured fans he would reopen at an undetermined location nearby with the same staff and musical acts.</p>
<p>But landlord Jon Handlery countered that Handlery Hotels was the real owner of Lefty's and that he would reopen the bar under new and improved management. He said Bovis was merely an operator.</p>
<p>Bovis quickly stripped the restaurant of mementos. Handlery then sued for the contents, and a San Francisco judge granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting the removal of any more items.</p>
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<p>Meanwhile, Bovis also sued, seeking to block the unauthorized use of the Lefty O'Doul's name, which he trademarked.</p>
<p>As the legal battle over Lefty's future unfolds, some say it's the end of an era.</p>
<p>Doug Pucel, a food broker from Chicago, has visited the bar once a year for about a decade and readily acknowledges the place is a dump. But he also called it wonderful.</p>
<p>"You'll see people walking in here in rags, and you'll see people walking in here in tuxedos and gowns," Pucel said. "Every walk of life comes in here."</p>
<p>Regular Matt Shirk, 37, mourned the looming closure of the cafeteria-style restaurant that fed him steadily when he was new to town, broke and sleeping on a friend's couch. That was in 2008. Since then, he's met girlfriends and eaten numerous holiday meals at Lefty's.</p>
<p>"I've sat in every single stool and at every single table and booth in this entire place," he said, looking around the bar. "It'll be an ugly legal battle for sure."</p>
<p>Francis "Lefty" O'Doul was born in San Francisco in 1897, a left-handed pitcher and outfielder who would cement his place in history as a colorful man about town, friend to Joe DiMaggio and an ambassador of baseball to Japan.</p>
<p>He was a two-time National League batting champion with a .349 batting average who played for a half-dozen major league teams. Locally, he was remembered for managing the San Francisco Seals from 1935 to 1951.</p>
<p>He opened his restaurant and cocktail lounge at its current location in 1958. It quickly became a favorite of famous pals as well as local workers attracted by the inexpensive, meaty food served cafeteria, or "hofbrau," style.</p>
<p>The Bovis family took over around 1998, and Nick Bovis trademarked the name. He organized annual Christmas toy drives and baseball outings in honor of the man who had a soft spot for disadvantaged kids.</p>
<p>But Sam Singer, a spokesman for the landlord, maintained Bovis hijacked a name he did not own. He also posed a philosophical question: "Even if Mr. Bovis opens up a Lefty O'Doul's somewhere else, if he doesn't have the memorabilia, is it really Lefty O'Doul's?"</p>
<p>Bovis said the restaurant and bar is more than the building.</p>
<p>He said he collected some of the memorabilia, and he's confident he can recreate the magic that allows tourists from Japan and the Midwest to wind up next to someone who lives up the street.</p>
<p>"This is where the local meets the traveler," Bovis said. "That part of it was really cool."</p>
<p>Last week, laborers in safety vests and tourists with shopping bags spilled inside for an early lunch. Regulars wandered in and sat on barstools with baseball bats for legs.</p>
<p>Some stopped to snap photos with a one-armed mannequin that became famous when its left arm was kidnapped and missing for more than three years before it was returned by mail. Accompanying photos showed it had been in Iowa. The arm is now encased and on display.</p>
<p>Lefty's also is known for another attraction, one who draws regular visitors from around the world: a former police officer from Ireland who plays the keyboard on weekends for festive and rowdy sing-alongs.</p>
<p>On a recent Saturday night, Frank O'Connor called out to Joe from New York, a group of girls from Livermore, and Dian and Don, a couple who got engaged under his piano four years ago.</p>
<p>The crowd got louder, friendlier and drunker as the evening wore on. O'Connor played "Piano Man" and "Brown-Eyed Girl," among other favorites. A young woman who was new to Lefty's and had marched for women's rights that morning swayed happily next to a coffee shop owner who has been a Saturday fixture for years.</p>
<p>"I'm going to miss a lot of the tourists that come in for the first time," said manager and 15-year employee John Fair. "It's going to be sad. It's going to be sad to leave this place."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press photographer Eric Risberg contributed to this report.</p> | Famous San Francisco baseball bar to close, future uncertain | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/01/31/famous-san-francisco-baseball-bar-to-close-future-uncertain.html | 2017-01-31 | 0 |
<p>HBO’s “Last Week Tonight With <a href="http://variety.com/t/john-oliver/" type="external">John Oliver</a>” won the Primetime Emmy Award for variety talk show on Sunday night.</p>
<p>SEE MORE: <a href="http://variety.com/e/contenders/" type="external">Awards: The Contenders</a></p>
<p>The weekly series was renewed earlier this week by HBO in a deal that keeps the “Daily Show” alum at the premium service through 2020.</p>
<p>Oliver, who also won for writing for a variety series earlier in the night, took the stage again to thank executive producer&#160;Liz&#160;Stanton, showrunner&#160;Tim Carvell,&#160;HBO, his wife, and … Oprah Winfrey.</p>
<p>“I met Oprah once. It was like meeting the queen, only much, much better,”&#160;Oliver quipped.</p>
<p>He also thanked the whole staff, who “got so wasted after last&#160;year’s award ceremony that they&#160;turned up to Universal Studios,&#160;either hungover or actively&#160;drunk and threw up on roller&#160;coasters,” he said.</p>
<p>“So Universal Studios, if there&#160;is someone vomiting on the Harry&#160;Potter ride&#160;tomorrow, they work&#160;for us.&#160;We have a show&#160;on Sunday.&#160;Please send them home,” he said before asking to be played off the stage. &#160;</p>
<p>“ <a href="http://variety.com/t/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver/" type="external">Last Week Tonight With John Oliver</a>” was up against&#160;TBS’ “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” CBS’ “The Late Late Show With James Corden,” HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” and CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”</p> | Emmys: John Oliver Thanks Oprah Winfrey for Variety Talk Series Win | false | https://newsline.com/emmys-john-oliver-thanks-oprah-winfrey-for-variety-talk-series-win/ | 2017-09-17 | 1 |
<p>Jan 24 (Reuters) - Corecivic Inc:</p>
<p>* CORECIVIC ANNOUNCES AWARD FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A 2,432-BED CORRECTIONAL FACILITY IN LANSING, KANSAS</p>
<p>* CORECIVIC INC - CO AWARDED A 20-YEAR LEASE AGREEMENT WITH KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS FOR A CORRECTIONAL FACILITY IN LANSING, KANSAS</p>
<p>* CORECIVIC INC - NEW FACILITY WILL REPLACE KDOC’S 2,405-BED LANSING CORRECTIONAL FACILITY</p>
<p>* CORECIVIC INC - LEASE AGREEMENT WITH KDOC WILL COMMENCE UPON COMPLETION OF FACILITY CONSTRUCTION WITH A BASE-YEAR LEASE RATE OF $14.9 MILLION</p>
<p>* CORECIVIC - ‍CONSTRUCTION OF NEW FACILITY IS EXPECTED TO COMMENCE IN Q1 2018 WITH TIMELINE FOR COMPLETION OF ABOUT 24 MONTHS​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Bengaluru Newsroom: +91 806 749 1136)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to replace his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, but the move is not expected to be made immediately, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.</p> National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster speaks at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, U.S., March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>Citing five people with knowledge of the plans, the Post said Trump was considering several possible replacements, including former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and Keith Kellogg, the chief of staff of the National Security Council.</p>
<p>The White House did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the president has signaled in recent days that a shake-up at the top levels of his administration was not over.</p> National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster speaks at the at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, U.S. March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>“I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want,” Trump told reporters after Tillerson was fired.</p>
<p>McMaster is not expected to be ousted immediately, the Post reported. Trump is willing to take his time making the change to avoid humiliating McMaster and carefully choose a strong replacement, the Post said.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>Trump never personally gelled with McMaster and the president recently told White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that he wanted McMaster replaced, according to the Post.</p>
<p>Trump has complained that McMaster, a three-star Army general, is too rigid and that his briefings go on too long and seem irrelevant, the Post reported.</p>
<p>McMaster is Trump’s second national security adviser, succeeding Michael Flynn who was dismissed a year ago for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States.</p>
<p>Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards:
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<p>MIAMI (Reuters) - A newly erected pedestrian bridge spanning several lanes of traffic collapsed at Florida International University on Thursday, killing four people, Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Dave Downey said.</p>
<p>Emergency personnel with sniffer dogs searched for signs of life amid the wreckage of concrete slabs and twisted metal after the 950-ton bridge crushed vehicles on one of the busiest roads in South Florida.</p>
<p>At least eight vehicles were trapped in the wreckage of the bridge and at least 10 people have been transported to hospitals, officials and doctors told news conferences.</p>
<p>Witnesses told local media the vehicles were stopped at a traffic light when the bridge collapsed on top of them at around 1:30 p.m. ET (1730 GMT).</p>
<p>“We’re working our way into the pile trying to create holes that we can actually physically see,” Miami-Dade Fire Department Division Chief Paul Estopian told reporters.</p>
<p>At one point, police requested television helicopters leave the area so rescuers could hear for any sounds of people crying for help from beneath the collapsed structure, CBS Miami television said.</p>
<p>Complicating the rescue effort was the uncertainty about the integrity of the bridge, parts of which remained off the ground, much of it inclined, local media reported.</p>
<p>The 174-feet (53-meter) long bridge connects the university with the city of Sweetwater and was installed on Saturday in six hours over the eight-lane highway, according to a report posted on the university’s website.</p>
<p>“If anybody has done anything wrong, we will hold them accountable,” said Florida Governor Rick Scott, at a Thursday night press conference, after his office issued statement saying a company contracted to inspect the bridge was not pre-qualified by the state.</p>
<p>The bridge was intended to provide a walkway over the busy street where an 18-year-old female FIU student from San Diego was killed while trying to cross last August, according to local media reports.</p>
<p>Students at FIU are currently on their spring break vacation, which runs from March 12 to March 17.</p> ‘A MIRACLE’
<p>Student Aura Martinez was having lunch in a nearby restaurant with her mother when a waitress told her the bridge had collapsed. She ran outside and helped pull a woman out of her car, most of which was flattened by the bridge.</p> First responders are shown as rescue efforts continue after a pedestrian bridge collapsed at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, U.S., March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Joe Skipper
<p>“Her car, it was literally a miracle of God, her car got squished by the bridge from the back, so she was able to get out and she was on the floor and it was just very traumatic,” she told the local CBS affiliate.</p>
<p>To keep the inevitable disruption of traffic associated with bridge construction to a minimum, the 174-foot portion of the bridge was built adjacent to Southwest 8th Street using a method called Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC). It was driven into its perpendicular position across the road by a rig in only six hours on Saturday, according to a statement released by the university.</p>
<p>The $14.2 million bridge was designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, the most dangerous measure by the National Hurricane Center, and built to last 100 years, the university said. ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2tQ2ARg" type="external">bit.ly/2tQ2ARg</a>)</p>
<p>The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to investigate why it collapsed.</p> Slideshow (13 Images)
<p>President Donald Trump thanked first responders for their courage on Twitter. Along with Governor Scott, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio went to the scene of the collapse.</p>
<p>Munilla Construction Management, which installed the bridge was founded in 1983 and owned by five brothers, according to its website. In addition to its Florida operations, the company also has divisions in Texas and Panama and employs 500 people.</p>
<p>“Munilla Construction Management is a family business and we are all devastated and doing everything we can to assist,” the company said in a statement.</p>
<p>FIGG Engineering said it took part in the bridge project and the collapse was a first in its 40-year history.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-florida-bridge-construction-factbox/factbox-how-the-collapsed-florida-bridge-was-erected-in-six-hours-idUSKCN1GR3AM" type="external">Factbox: How the collapsed Florida bridge was erected in six hours</a>
<p>Both companies said they would cooperate fully with investigators.</p>
<p>Colorado-based engineering company BDI said in a tweet on March 12 that it was “thrilled” to have conducted structural monitoring during the “spectacular” process of moving the bridge into place. The company removed the tweet on Thursday and said in a statement it did so out of respect for individuals affected by the collapse.</p>
<p>Scott’s office said FIU picked a firm that was not pre-qualified to check the design of the bridge, which was required because it was such a long pedestrian bridge and other unique characteristics.</p>
<p>“The firm selected, Louis Berger, was not FDOT pre-qualified for this service, which is required under FIU’s agreement with the state. FIU’s design build team is responsible for selecting a pre-qualified firm and ensuring this process is followed,” the governor said in a statement.</p>
<p>Officials at the Miami office of global engineering services firm Louis Berger were not immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>Reporting by Zachary Fagenson; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus, Joseph Ax, Daniel Wallis and Andrew Hay in New York, Scott Malone in Boston, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, James Oliphant in Washington, Keith Coffman in Colorado and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Lisa Shumaker</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean officials began preparations on Friday for a summit next month with North Korea aimed at reducing tensions on the peninsula, as a report showed the North had probably begun testing a nuclear reactor as recently as late February.</p> South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivers a speech during a ceremony celebrating the 99th anniversary of the March First Independence Movement against Japanese colonial rule, at Seodaemun Prison History Hall in Seoul, South Korea, March 1, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
<p>The report by intelligence analysts at Jane’s by IHS Markit said satellite imagery from Feb. 25 showed emissions of non-condensable gases from a stack at the North’s experimental light water reactor (ELWR) at the Yongbyon Atomic Energy Research Center, suggesting preliminary testing had likely begun.</p>
<p>The reactor could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, but North Korea is believed to already have enough fissile material for multiple nuclear bombs, according to Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.</p>
<p>Meantime, South Korean officials were set to convene their first meeting at the presidential Blue House to prepare for a summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un late next month.</p>
<p>Headed by Moon’s chief of staff Im Jong-seok, former prominent democracy activist, the team will hammer out plans for the summit, including when to contact the North and what will be discussed between Kim and Moon.</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump also accepted a summit invitation from Kim Jong Un, after a South Korean envoy told him earlier this month that the North’s leader was prepared to discuss denuclearization. Trump and Kim are expected to meet sometime in May although a location has not been set yet.</p>
<p>Although North Korea’s state media has yet to comment on the pending summits with Moon and Trump, its foreign minister Ri Yong Ho is visiting Sweden for talks with his Swedish counterpart Margot Wallstrom. Ri’s trip prompted speculation it could lay the groundwork for the summit in Sweden between Trump and Kim Jong Un.</p> North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves to people attending a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
<p>The push for these summits came after the North Korean leader said in a New Year’s address that he wanted to improve relations with the South following a year of heightened tensions brought on by the North’s nuclear and missile tests.</p> “WORK GOES ON”
<p>North Korea completed construction of the Yongbyon ELWR in 2013. It was optimized for civilian electricity production, and although it is not yet operational, it could start running with “little warning” later in 2018 or 2019, the Jane’s report said.</p>
<p>The experimental reactor is likely too small to provide much in the way of electricity, but is part of a “long-running effort” to develop a light-water reactor after a deal by an international consortium, including the United States, to provide two such nuclear power reactors in the 1990s fell apart, Pollack said.</p>
<p>“It’s their way of saying, ‘see, since you won’t give us what you promised, we’ll do it ourselves’,” Pollack said. “They haven’t made any agreements lately with the U.S., so the work goes on.”</p>
<p>An official at the South’s defense ministry said authorities were aware of the Jane’s report, which follows a similar one released on the 38 North website earlier this month that said a nearby reactor had also continued to show signs of operation.</p>
<p>The isolated state has maintained it will continue developing its nuclear program but later added it was open to abandoning the program if the security of its regime was guaranteed, according to South Korea.</p>
<p>Reporting by Christine Kim; Additional reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the most influential U.S. business lobbying group warned the Trump administration that unilateral tariffs on Chinese goods could lead to a destructive trade war that will hurt American consumers and U.S. economic growth.</p> U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue attends an event with the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Mexico City, Mexico October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Ginnette Riquelme
<p>U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement on Thursday that such tariffs, associated with a probe of China’s intellectual property practices, would be “damaging taxes on American consumers.”</p>
<p>His comments came after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said that Trump would in coming weeks get options to address China’s “theft and forced transfer” of American intellectual property as part of the investigation under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974.</p>
<p>Reuters reported on Tuesday that Trump was considering tariffs on up to $60 billion worth of Chinese information technology, telecommunications and consumer products, along with U.S. investment restrictions for Chinese companies.</p>
<p>Donohue said the Trump administration was right to focus on the negative economic impact of China’s industrial policies and unfair trade practices, but said tariffs were the wrong approach to dealing with these.</p>
<p>“Tariffs of $30 billion a year would wipe out over a third of the savings American families received from the doubling of the standard deduction in tax reform,” Donohue said. “If the tariffs reach $60 billion, which has been rumored, the impact would be even more devastating.”</p>
<p>He urged the administration not to proceed with such a plan.</p> U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with Ireland's Prime Minister, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 15, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
<p>“Tariffs could lead to a destructive trade war with serious consequences for U.S. economic growth and job creation,” hurting consumers, businesses, farmers and ranchers.</p>
<p>Navarro, speaking on CNBC television, said the remedies in the “Section 301” probe were among “many steps that the president is courageously going to take in order to address unfair trade practices.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think there’s a single person... on Wall Street that will oppose cracking down on China’s theft of our intellectual property or their forced transfer,” Navarro added.</p>
<p>But Navarro, a key architect of steel and aluminum tariffs announced last week by Trump, said that tariffs will not necessarily provoke a trade war.</p>
<p>“We can obviously do it in a way that can be good for the American people and good for the global trading system,” he said. “We can do this in a way that is peaceful and will improve and strengthen the trading system... Everybody on Wall Street needs to understand: Just relax.”</p>
<p>China has repeatedly said that there would be no winners in a trade war, but that it would protect its interests in the face of U.S. trade action.</p>
<p>China wouldn’t allow itself to become “the target for the arrows of adversity”, the official China Daily newspaper warned in an editorial late on Thursday.</p>
<p>“It should be borne in mind that even the most playful cat will scratch if you provoke it beyond a certain point,” the newspaper said.</p>
<p>Reporting by David Lawder and Lisa Lambert; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by James Dalgleish and Richard Borsuk</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-CoreCivic Announces Award For Development Of Correctional Facility In Kansas Trump has decided to remove his national security adviser: Washington Post Florida foot bridge collapse leaves four people dead South Korea gears up for summit, report shows North Korea testing reactor Chamber of Commerce warns Trump against China tariffs | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-corecivic-announces-award-for-deve/brief-corecivic-announces-award-for-development-of-correctional-facility-in-kansas-idUSFWN1PJ1EA | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
<p>Gov. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and Gov. Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) signed anti-LGBT laws in their states. (Photo of Brownback by Gage Skidmore courtesy Flickr; photo of McCrory public domain)</p>
<p>The week started out well enough. After the Human Rights Campaign Los Angeles gala on Saturday, when Chad Griffin urged Hollywood to stand with LGBT people in opposition to Georgia’s “religious freedom” bill, the Motion Picture Association of America issued a statement expressing confidence Gov. Nathan Deal would veto the measure.</p>
<p>Echoing <a href="" type="internal">a threat from the National Football League to withhold the Super Bowl from Georgia,</a> Disney and Marvel Studios, currently filming “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” in Georgia, announced <a href="" type="internal">they would take their business elsewhere</a> if discrimination became law in the state. AMC Networks, which produces “The Walking Dead” in Georgia, also urged a veto.</p>
<p>But after those small victories, things quickly changed. On Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback <a href="" type="internal">signed into law</a>SB 175, a religious freedom bill that would allow religious organizations at public universities to deny membership to LGBT students. Brownback became the first governor in the nation to sign this year a measure enabling anti-LGBT discrimination.</p>
<p>An even bigger disappointment came the next day when the North Carolina Legislature, in retaliation over a recently approved pro-LGBT ordinance in Charlotte, <a href="" type="internal">rushed through in a special session</a> House Bill 2 to undo all pro-LGBT protections in the state and prohibit transgender people from using public restrooms consistent with their gender identity. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory <a href="" type="internal">wasted no time in signing the measure</a>, which has been dubbed the worst anti-LGBT law in the nation.</p>
<p>Major businesses, including Google, Marriott, American Airlines, Trillium Asset Management and PayPal, came out against the law after it was signed, as well as Bank of America, the largest employer in the state. The National Basketball Association issued a statement saying it doesn’t know whether Charlotte can now successfully host the All-Star Game in 2017 and film producer Rob Reiner said he won’t make any more movies in the state.</p>
<p>But the fact remains the measure is now the law in North Carolina, and there’s no sign the legislature will revisit it anytime soon. It remains to be seen if any of the major companies that denounced the law will put their money where their mouth is and cease to engage in business in the state.</p>
<p>Measures in other states may soon be on the way to becoming law. In Tennessee, an anti-trans “papers to pee” bill prohibiting transgender students from using the restroom consistent with their gender identity was thought dead, but has been given new life. In the House, a committee that rejected the measure is set to reconsider the bill on Tuesday, and in the Senate, a committee this week approved the measure, clearing the way for a floor vote in that chamber.</p>
<p>In Mississippi, a Senate committee on Wednesday approved HB 1523, a bill that would expand the “religious freedom” law signed by Gov. Phil Bryant and enable businesses and state employees to discriminate against LGBT people. Under a deadline to take action by Wednesday, the full Senate may soon vote on&#160;it.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of losses this week and potential enactment of anti-LGBT laws in other states, LGBT advocates are saying it’s time for a reassessment of the movement, particularly in a way to ensure transgender people aren’t targeted by discriminatory measures.</p>
<p>Richard Socarides, a New York-based gay Democratic activist and former adviser to President Clinton on gay rights, said losses in North Carolina and Kansas demonstrate LGBT rights supporters need to build efforts at the state level.</p>
<p>“It becomes more clear every day that these state-by-state efforts to rob us of our hard won victories must be the new focus of our efforts,” Socarides said. “We must all focus on trying to defeat them and where we can’t, making sure the haters pay a price, whether at the ballot box or through working with business and community groups to send a message. As a community we need to re-organize, recommit, and redouble our efforts. Certainly whatever pause there may have been since the Supreme Court’s marriage decision must end.”</p>
<p>In an op-ed published on <a href="https://medium.com/@ChadHGriffin/the-path-forward-on-lgbt-equality-407a73a1e755#.rixqtz1s6" type="external">Medium</a>, HRC’s Griffin articulated his vision for the way forward, saying victory isn’t always assured.</p>
<p>“Sadly, we do not yet live in an era when these victories are inevitable,” Griffin said. “And while it would certainly be easier if we chose to fight only the winning battles, that is not why we do this work. We fight even when the climb appears steep and insurmountable.”</p>
<p>Griffin wrote the ultimate solution to defeats for LGBT rights at the state level is federal action, which would consist of passage of comprehensive LGBT non-discrimination legislation known as the Equality Act.</p>
<p>“But, until we build the bipartisan majority needed to pass the Equality Act in Congress and elect a president who will sign it into law, we must continue to fight these battles — in cities like Charlotte, in states like North Carolina and Georgia, and everywhere that LGBT people find their rights under siege by those who have cemented their feet on the wrong side of history,” Griffin wrote.</p>
<p>A key component of any reassessment will likely be messaging on transgender rights and allowing transgender people to use public restrooms consistent with their gender identity, which is considered the most contentious part of pro-LGBT non-discrimination measures and the driving force behind many of the anti-LGBT bills throughout the country.</p>
<p>Jillian Weiss, a transgender advocate and law professor at Ramapo College, said “reassessment is always a useful exercise” in the wake of losses like those in Kansas and North Carolina.</p>
<p>“There is also no question that efforts are being taken to address the problem in these states,” Weiss said. “However, the combination of victory blindness and failure to utilize and publicize the federal civil rights laws that already protect us have created fertile soil for the states’ rights backlash that we are now seeing.”</p>
<p>Weiss made the case LGBT advocates should immediately seek recourse in the federal court system, which has produced a growing number of victories in recent years in favor of LGBT rights.</p>
<p>“We ought to be in the federal courts of Kansas and North Carolina right now with top notch legal firms to fight these laws,” Weiss said. “Instead, we seem to be milling about in confusion. The truth is that the federal government, including the federal court system, is on our side right now. I myself have won a number of victories in very conservative courts on behalf of trans people in the last year. This should be known to all of our rights orgs. Why are we not taking advantage of this now?”</p>
<p>What makes North Carolina particularly troublesome for LGBT advocates is that it was passed in retaliation over the enactment of a pro-LGBT non-discrimination ordinance in Charlotte, sending the signal that efforts by cities in other conservative states to bar anti-LGBT discrimination may&#160;be overturned by state legislatures.</p>
<p>Rebecca Isaacs, executive director of the Equality Federation, said LGBT rights supporters should pressure North Carolina to make clear there will be consequences for states that seek to undermine the decisions of localities to protect LGBT rights.</p>
<p>“I think the thing we need to do is, number one, make it hard for them — as hard as we possibly can,” Issacs said. “Businesses need to come on board, people need to take their conferences out of there, people need to make it known that this is not the wave of the future, this is not the next best thing that our opponents should do. We want it to hurt.”</p>
<p>But Isaacs demurred when asked if an outright boycott is appropriate as a consequence of the enactment of the anti-LGBT law in North Carolina.</p>
<p>“What I think is really important in applying pressure, is that whatever it is, it is successful,” Isaacs said. “I’m very wary of specifically calling for boycotts unless they are really big, concerted efforts. But I think that if there is a groundswell of support, especially from business, the way it happened in other states as in Indiana and a lot of stuff happening in Georgia. I think it’s credible. And I think having businesses operate as a moderating force on this issue is going to be critical.”</p>
<p>In the event more states follow North Carolina and Kansas and pass anti-LGBT laws, some&#160;of the blame will be placed at&#160;the doorstep of the Human Rights Campaign, which continues to receive criticism for its&#160;perceived lack of national strategy to defeat such&#160;legislation.</p>
<p>Michael Petrelis, a gay San Francisco-based blogger and critic of the Human Rights Campaign, blamed the organization for allowing losses to occur as the organization advocates for electing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>“We’re suffering setbacks on the non-existent religious freedom crisis and hysteria over transgender people using restrooms from Indiana to Houston, South Dakota, Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas, Mississippi and other locales too depressing to think of, and HRC is putting too many resources into Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Petrelis said.</p>
<p>Petrelis said the first step of any reassessment process is for Griffin and other leaders of the LGBT movement to show how they are&#160;spending their time and disclose their calendars since Jan. 1.</p>
<p>“How does Griffin organize his schedule and who is he meeting with?” Petrelis said. “Our official leaders, just as with electeds, must open their calendars regularly for public inspection.</p>
<p>Blade photo editor Michael Key contributed to this report.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Chad Griffin</a> <a href="" type="internal">Equality Federation</a> <a href="" type="internal">Human Rights Campaign</a> <a href="" type="internal">Michael Petrelis</a> <a href="" type="internal">Pat McCrory</a> <a href="" type="internal">Rebecca Isaacs</a> <a href="" type="internal">Richard Socarides</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sam Brownback</a></p> | The no good, very bad week for LGBT Americans | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/03/25/the-no-good-very-bad-week-for-lgbt-people/ | 3 |
|
<p>Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) soared in early October, rising as much as 12% in anticipation of the chip designer's third-quarter results. But that report turned out to be a disappointment, and AMD shares tumbled. All told, AMD's stock fell 13.8% last month, <a href="http://marketintelligence.spglobal.com/" type="external">according to data from S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>AMD was destined to make a big move after this earnings report -- win or lose. Analysts raised their price targets ahead of the earnings release, noting strong results across the semiconductor industry and seeing no end to the cryptocurrency mining boom driving AMD's growth. At the same time, short-selling interest in the stock spiked to record levels, indicating a lot of skeptical investors willing to bet real money on AMD shares heading downward.</p>
<p>When the report finally arrived, AMD exceeded analyst targets across the board with adjusted earnings of $0.10 per share on sales of $1.64 billion. But the stock had been priced for absolute perfection, and AMD fell short of delivering on that. The next day, <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/25/why-shares-of-advanced-micro-devices-are-slumping.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=565db73c-c595-11e7-a19c-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">AMD shares closed nearly 14% lower Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Don't cry for AMD shareholders. Even after October's sudden correction, the stock is up a market-stomping 70% over the last 52 weeks. These shares are still set up for some crazy volatility, trading at 34 times forward earnings estimates, and with 19% of the share base borrowed out by short-selling pessimists.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>In November, I had to look outside and check for flying pigs or snowballs in Florida, as archrival Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) announced a new Core processor lineup featuring AMD's Radeon graphics technology. If these longtime adversaries are working together now, exactly how close might that partnership grow? Then again, Intel immediately followed up by pilfering AMD's top graphics guru, Raja Koduri, to create graphics solutions for it instead.</p>
<p>Those Floridian snowballs are melting again.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than IntelWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of November 6, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFZahrim/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=565db73c-c595-11e7-a19c-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Anders Bylund Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Intel. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=565db73c-c595-11e7-a19c-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Shares Plunged in October | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/10/why-advanced-micro-devices-inc-s-shares-plunged-in-october.html | 2017-11-10 | 0 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — A Congress that began with bright hopes for immigration legislation is ending in bitter divisions on the issue even as some Republicans warn that the political imperative for acting is stronger than ever for the GOP.</p>
<p>In place of a legislative solution, President Barack Obama's recent executive action to curb deportations for millions here illegally stands as the only federal response to what all lawmakers agree is a dysfunctional immigration system. Many Democrats are convinced Latino voters will reward them for Obama's move in the 2016 presidential and Senate elections, while some Republicans fear they will have a price to pay.</p>
<p>"If we don't make some down payment toward a rational solution on immigration in 2015, early 2016, good luck winning the White House," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, an author of the comprehensive immigration bill that passed the Senate last year with bipartisan support, but stalled in the GOP-led House.</p>
<p>With the expiration of the 113th Congress this month, that bill will officially die, along with its path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants in this country illegally.</p>
<p>Immigration is certain to be a focus for the new, fully Republican-led Congress when it convenes in January — but there's little expectation the GOP will make another attempt at comprehensive reforms.</p>
<p>Instead, GOP leaders in the House and Senate have pledged to take action to block Obama's executive moves, setting up a battle for late February when funding expires for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration matters. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised action on a border security bill as part of that.</p>
<p>Whether Congress can do anything to stop Obama remains unclear, since he's certain to veto any effort to undo his executive moves. It's also not clear lawmakers could pass a border bill, or that Obama would sign it if they did.</p>
<p>While some congressional Republicans are arguing for action on piecemeal reforms, most advocates are resigned to waiting until a new president takes office in 2017 for lawmakers to make another attempt at a comprehensive overhaul that resolves the central immigration dilemma — the status of the millions here illegally.</p>
<p>"They had the best chance in a generation and they couldn't get enough support from the Republican caucus," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, an immigrant advocacy group. "It may well be that they're going to have to lose the White House and both chambers of Congress for us to get comprehensive immigration reform."</p>
<p>When Obama won a second term in 2012 with strong Hispanic and Asian support, many national Republican leaders decided they needed to support policies that would attract those growing blocs of voters. The Republican National Committee formally embraced support for comprehensive immigration reform as a guiding principle for the GOP.</p>
<p>But legislative efforts stalled in the House as conservative Republicans balked at Boehner's efforts to advance the issue. Last summer's crisis over an influx of unaccompanied Central American minors arriving at the border caused shelter overloads and case backlogs, straining resources and creating the impression that the border was out of control — further souring political prospects for reform legislation.</p>
<p>In absence of congressional efforts, Obama promised he would act on his own, and he made good on that shortly after last month's midterm elections, announcing an array of changes that will include work permits and three-year deportation stays for some 4 million immigrants here illegally. It mostly applies to those who've been here more than five years and have kids who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.</p>
<p>The move inflamed Republicans, who have been fighting about it ever since, including a failed effort by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to block Obama in a Senate floor vote this past weekend. On Tuesday the dispute spilled over into debate on Obama's nominee to lead the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Sarah Saldana, the U.S. attorney in Dallas. She was confirmed 55-39 by the Senate over objections from Republicans who had initially supported her but turned against her because of her support for Obama's executive actions.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, some immigration advocates complained that the steps didn't go far enough as Obama faced criticism from both sides of the political divide.</p>
<p>A new Associated Press-GfK poll found that most Americans support allowing immigrants living in the country illegally a way to stay here lawfully. But only 43 percent of them think Obama was right to take executive action to make those changes, while 54 percent of them say he should have kept trying to make a deal with Republicans. Still, the poll also showed little sign of blowback for Obama. Although 57 percent disapprove of Obama's handling of the immigration issue, that was down slightly from 63 percent in October.</p>
<p>A group of 24 states joined in a federal lawsuit filed in Texas alleging that Obama overstepped his constitutional powers in a way that will only worsen the humanitarian problems along the southern U.S. border. And Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in federal court in Washington, contending that the policy is a magnet for more illegal entries into the country that will impose a burden on law enforcement.</p>
<p>In a court filing late Monday, the Justice Department argued for dismissal of Arpaio's case, saying he has failed to substantiate his claims.</p>
<p>Congressional Republicans say that Obama's actions created an even tougher climate for immigration legislation, but many Democrats and advocates contend that Republicans were terminally stalled on the issue anyway. Some Republicans question whether immigration legislation really is a political imperative for the GOP. "It's really mixed out there — some people want a big immigration bill, others don't," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a supporter of reform efforts.</p>
<p>And two years after a "Gang of Eight" senators launched an immigration overhaul drive on Capitol Hill, some of those same players say they have no plans to initiate another such effort.</p>
<p>"I'm not going to start it in the Senate," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "We've tried that."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press News Survey Specialist Emily Swanson and writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — A Congress that began with bright hopes for immigration legislation is ending in bitter divisions on the issue even as some Republicans warn that the political imperative for acting is stronger than ever for the GOP.</p>
<p>In place of a legislative solution, President Barack Obama's recent executive action to curb deportations for millions here illegally stands as the only federal response to what all lawmakers agree is a dysfunctional immigration system. Many Democrats are convinced Latino voters will reward them for Obama's move in the 2016 presidential and Senate elections, while some Republicans fear they will have a price to pay.</p>
<p>"If we don't make some down payment toward a rational solution on immigration in 2015, early 2016, good luck winning the White House," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, an author of the comprehensive immigration bill that passed the Senate last year with bipartisan support, but stalled in the GOP-led House.</p>
<p>With the expiration of the 113th Congress this month, that bill will officially die, along with its path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants in this country illegally.</p>
<p>Immigration is certain to be a focus for the new, fully Republican-led Congress when it convenes in January — but there's little expectation the GOP will make another attempt at comprehensive reforms.</p>
<p>Instead, GOP leaders in the House and Senate have pledged to take action to block Obama's executive moves, setting up a battle for late February when funding expires for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration matters. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised action on a border security bill as part of that.</p>
<p>Whether Congress can do anything to stop Obama remains unclear, since he's certain to veto any effort to undo his executive moves. It's also not clear lawmakers could pass a border bill, or that Obama would sign it if they did.</p>
<p>While some congressional Republicans are arguing for action on piecemeal reforms, most advocates are resigned to waiting until a new president takes office in 2017 for lawmakers to make another attempt at a comprehensive overhaul that resolves the central immigration dilemma — the status of the millions here illegally.</p>
<p>"They had the best chance in a generation and they couldn't get enough support from the Republican caucus," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, an immigrant advocacy group. "It may well be that they're going to have to lose the White House and both chambers of Congress for us to get comprehensive immigration reform."</p>
<p>When Obama won a second term in 2012 with strong Hispanic and Asian support, many national Republican leaders decided they needed to support policies that would attract those growing blocs of voters. The Republican National Committee formally embraced support for comprehensive immigration reform as a guiding principle for the GOP.</p>
<p>But legislative efforts stalled in the House as conservative Republicans balked at Boehner's efforts to advance the issue. Last summer's crisis over an influx of unaccompanied Central American minors arriving at the border caused shelter overloads and case backlogs, straining resources and creating the impression that the border was out of control — further souring political prospects for reform legislation.</p>
<p>In absence of congressional efforts, Obama promised he would act on his own, and he made good on that shortly after last month's midterm elections, announcing an array of changes that will include work permits and three-year deportation stays for some 4 million immigrants here illegally. It mostly applies to those who've been here more than five years and have kids who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.</p>
<p>The move inflamed Republicans, who have been fighting about it ever since, including a failed effort by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to block Obama in a Senate floor vote this past weekend. On Tuesday the dispute spilled over into debate on Obama's nominee to lead the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Sarah Saldana, the U.S. attorney in Dallas. She was confirmed 55-39 by the Senate over objections from Republicans who had initially supported her but turned against her because of her support for Obama's executive actions.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, some immigration advocates complained that the steps didn't go far enough as Obama faced criticism from both sides of the political divide.</p>
<p>A new Associated Press-GfK poll found that most Americans support allowing immigrants living in the country illegally a way to stay here lawfully. But only 43 percent of them think Obama was right to take executive action to make those changes, while 54 percent of them say he should have kept trying to make a deal with Republicans. Still, the poll also showed little sign of blowback for Obama. Although 57 percent disapprove of Obama's handling of the immigration issue, that was down slightly from 63 percent in October.</p>
<p>A group of 24 states joined in a federal lawsuit filed in Texas alleging that Obama overstepped his constitutional powers in a way that will only worsen the humanitarian problems along the southern U.S. border. And Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in federal court in Washington, contending that the policy is a magnet for more illegal entries into the country that will impose a burden on law enforcement.</p>
<p>In a court filing late Monday, the Justice Department argued for dismissal of Arpaio's case, saying he has failed to substantiate his claims.</p>
<p>Congressional Republicans say that Obama's actions created an even tougher climate for immigration legislation, but many Democrats and advocates contend that Republicans were terminally stalled on the issue anyway. Some Republicans question whether immigration legislation really is a political imperative for the GOP. "It's really mixed out there — some people want a big immigration bill, others don't," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a supporter of reform efforts.</p>
<p>And two years after a "Gang of Eight" senators launched an immigration overhaul drive on Capitol Hill, some of those same players say they have no plans to initiate another such effort.</p>
<p>"I'm not going to start it in the Senate," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "We've tried that."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press News Survey Specialist Emily Swanson and writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.</p> | End game: No immigration deal, just divisions | false | https://apnews.com/amp/75f1a3f22da2454096266243881bd924 | 2014-12-16 | 2 |
<p>From a press release published today by Christian Newswire:</p>
<p>Daniel Mattson’s life was marked by constant turmoil between his faith in God and his sexual attractions toward other boys, beginning when he was 6 years old. Finding the conflict between his homosexual desires and the teachings of his church too great, he assumed he was gay, turned his back on God in anger and eventually began a relationship with another man.</p>
<p>Yet freedom and happiness remained elusive until he discovered his true identity. In his brutally honest and frank debut book, WHY I DON’T CALL MYSELF GAY: How I Reclaimed My Sexual Identity and Found Peace, Mattson chronicles his journey of discovery that led him to understand how he was created and what he was created for.</p>
<p>Mattson believes he shouldn’t be reduced to the “feelings” that identify sexual orientation, nor be labeled by a term contrary to God’s plan for his life. Mattson shows that chastity is, in fact, part of the good news of the Gospel, and that the Catholic Church does welcome those with same-sex attractions, despite myths perpetuated by the media and gay-rights advocates.</p>
<p>“Daniel Mattson has written an honest account of the genuine struggles faced by those with same-sex attraction,” says Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, archbishop of New York. “Drawing upon a wealth of spiritual insights and wisdom from across our deep Catholic tradition, he shares with us how he has come to understand and accept God’s loving plan for his life, as well as the beauty and richness of the Church’s teaching on chastity. The tenderness and mercy of God is evident throughout and is a powerful reminder for all of us!”</p>
<p>RELATED: Last year Dolan spent $2 million lobbying against proposed changes to New York state law that would extend the statute of limitations for the victims of pedophile priests to pursue civil lawsuits. In 2013 it was revealed that Dolan sought and received Vatican permission to move $57 million in Catholic Church money into a cemetery fund so that it couldn’t be used to pay out settlements.</p> | Cardinal Timothy Dolan Endorses Ex-Gay Book Calling On Homosexuals To Live Loveless Lives Of Chastity | true | http://joemygod.com/2017/06/13/cardinal-timothy-dolan-endorses-ex-gay-book-calling-homosexuals-live-loveless-lives-chastity/ | 2017-06-13 | 4 |
<p>By Randy Fabi and Alison Leung</p>
<p>SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) - <a href="" type="internal">China</a> COSCO Holdings &lt;1919.HK&gt; &lt;601919.SS&gt;, the country's top shipping company, sought to reassure investors on Wednesday that negotiations with shipowners over unpaid bills would be resolved and its business remained strong.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>COSCO's decision to halt payments to several shipowners in the last few weeks to force better terms threatens to taint its reputation within the international shipping community. At least one of the company's ships it leases has been seized and further seizures have been threatened because of the debts.</p>
<p>China's unprecedented demand for iron ore, coal and other commodities was the main driver behind a freight market boom in 2008, boosting the global influence of COSCO, China Shipping Development &lt;600026.SS&gt; and other Chinese maritime companies.</p>
<p>Many of the shipping contracts currently being renegotiated were struck during the 2008 boom when the industry's largest capesize vessels were being rented by COSCO and others for more than $100,000 a day.</p>
<p>The dry bulk market has since plummeted due to the economic downturn and an oversupply of vessels, leaving COSCO paying 2008 prices for ships that now rent for $18,000 a day.</p>
<p>"I think (COSCO's action) hurts the Chinese shipping companies in terms of chartering in vessels in the future," said Janet Lewis, analyst at Macquarie Securities. "I hope this isn't representative of how China plans to throw its weight around in the future."</p>
<p>The world's largest dry bulk firm is in talks with shipping companies to prolong payments and reduce costs on chartered vessels following a sharp downturn in the freight market, said two COSCO officials.</p>
<p>"These are commercial disputes and we are dealing with them," a COSCO official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. "Our cash flow condition is good and our business development is normal."</p>
<p>MORE SEIZURES POSSIBLE</p>
<p>Greek shipowner and DryShips founder, George Economou, has threatened to seize ships operated by COSCO after it halted payments on high-priced charter contracts, the <a href="" type="internal">Financial Times</a> reported. Economou said he had the industry's biggest exposure to COSCO with 17 or 18 ships on charter to the company.</p>
<p>At least one COSCO-operated vessel in Singapore has already been detained so far due to outstanding debts, a COSCO official said.</p>
<p>It is not unusual for vessels to be detained at ports because of disputes between owners and operators, but typically they are released within a few weeks after a resolution is reached.</p>
<p>Despite the contract disputes, COSCO is expected to maintain its influence in the industry because of its size and because it is state-owned.</p>
<p>"They have over 400 dry bulk vessels and around half of that is chartered. Given the size of it, they will still be a major player," said Andrew Lee, an analyst at Nomura International.</p>
<p>COSCO's Hong Kong-listed shares have dropped 49 percent so far this year, underperfoming a 15 percent fall on the broader market &lt;.HSI&gt;.</p>
<p>COSCO, which is also the world's No.6 container ship operator, issued a profit warning this month, saying it would likely suffer a net loss in the first half of this year due to falling freight rates and high <a href="" type="internal">oil prices</a>.</p>
<p>In the first six months of last year, COSCO reported a net profit of 3.45 billion yuan ($539 million).</p>
<p>COSCO is expected to name a new chief executive this week due to the age of the current CEO and not because of the company's performance, officials said on Tuesday.</p>
<p>China Shipping Group's vice president, Ma Zehua, will replace 61-year-old Wei Jiafu as CEO.</p>
<p>($1 = 6.397 Chinese yuan)</p>
<p>(Reporting by Randy Fabi in Singapore and Alison Leung in Hong Kong; Editing by Matt Driskill)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | China COSCO seeks to reassure shipowners over unpaid bills | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/08/24/china-cosco-seeks-to-reassure-shipowners-over-unpaid-bills.html | 2016-01-28 | 0 |
<p>Two years ago, the renowned graffiti artist Revok moved from LA to Detroit. Josh Harkinson“Warning! This city is infested by crackheads. Secure your belongings and pray for your life.” So reads a hand-scrawled sign just off I-75 in Detroit, where a post-apocalyptic cityscape of looted and charred homes has come to represent a sort of <a href="" type="internal">sarcophagus of the American Dream</a>.</p>
<p>But beyond simply fueling murders and bribery scandals, decades of hard times have finally birthed new signs of life here in the Motor City, as its gritty neighborhoods attract a burgeoning community of artists, hipsters, and socially minded entrepreneurs. “With a little bit of motivation, you can make anything happen here,” says Jason Williams, a.k.a. Revok, a renowned Los Angeles graffiti artist turned Detroiter, whose lively murals adorn walls not far from the crackhead sign. “It’s all about the reality that you create for yourself.”</p>
<p>For those willing to brave the nation’s most dangerous major city, Detroit offers a tight-knit and successful creative community. The birthplace of Motown and techno still manages to turn out chart-busting artists like Eminem and Jack White. And growing numbers of bohemians have found that a few thousand dollars will buy them a classic brick townhouse or a loft in an art-deco skyscraper. Where old buildings have fallen, hundreds of urban gardens sprout.</p>
<p>Detroit is hardly the first city to lure urban homesteaders with access to cheap and artfully crumbling buildings. The same formula revitalized (and eventually gentrified) neighborhoods such as the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and San Francisco’s Mission and Dogpatch districts. The big difference in Detroit, however, is that its economy blew a rod long ago, triggering an exodus of more than half the city’s population—last year, it lost another 28,000 people. Barely a quarter of those who remain have a degree from a four-year college. During my recent visit, local elected leaders were warning that the city could run out of money—within the week.</p>
<p>Last year, in Guernica magazine, Wayne State literature professor John Patrick Leary cautioned against what he called “ <a href="http://www.guernicamag.com/features/leary_1_15_11/" type="external">Detroitism</a>,” the fetish for urban decay mixed with utopianism, “where bohemians from expensive coastal cities can have the $100 house and community garden of their dreams.” But Detroit offers much more. Here is a city that foretold the woes of America’s middle class—and spent decades searching for a path out of its recessionary wilderness. Forget the clichés about heirloom tomatoes and check out these four examples of creative Detroiters who are making a difference:</p>
<p>The Hip Landlord: Phillip Cooley When I first encounter Phillip Cooley, he is lounging on a sleek leather couch inside <a href="http://ponyride.org/" type="external">Ponyride</a>, the large, dusty, half-renovated warehouse near downtown that he recently picked up for $100,000. In an open kitchen behind him, a French press and 12-pack of PBR sit on a polished concrete countertop. Nearby, two women, formerly homeless, are sewing wearable sleeping bags for people, currently homeless. The owner of a company called Detroit Denim is rolling out a $300 pair of jeans. A web production worker is pecking away on a Mac.</p>
<p>“It’s all about collaborating on space,” explains Cooley, a former Paris fashion model and son of a prominent Michigan developer, who returned to Detroit in 2002. He offers low-rent studios to a slew of artisans and socially conscious entrepreneurs with the understanding that they’ll donate their labor to help him make the place more habitable.</p>
<p>Cooley made his name locally back in 2005 when he opened Slows BBQ in Detroit’s Corktown district, across from the hulking facade of an abandoned train station. With its hip design and fantastically popular pork sandwiches, Slows has helped anchor the district’s fledgling recovery—though not all of his investments have worked out. In 2009, four months after Cooley and a group of investors opened a high-end coffee shop across the street, it closed for lack of business. “People can make mistakes here and not be destroyed by them,” explains Cooley, who had leased the coffee shop’s three-story building for a paltry $1,500 a month.</p>
<p>Indeed, just last August, two of his former baristas opened Astro Coffee next to Slows. They serve individual cups brewed with beans from San Francisco’s ultra-gourmet Ritual Roasters. On the morning of my visit, it’s packed with tattooed and mulleted hipsters.&#160;</p>
<p>Veronika Scott trains new seamstressesOne way the Corktown scene differs from that of, say, Williamsburg, is in its culture of risk-taking. Take Ponyride tenant Veronika Scott. The recent University of Michigan grad slogged through a string of internships with New York design firms but found herself wanting to “design something around the actual needs of the real world, instead of chasing trends.” She gave up the chance to intern at IDEO, the hot Bay Area design house, and instead moved to Detroit to launch The Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit that hires the homeless to make clothing for other homeless—hence the innovative sleeping bags. When I poke my head into her office, she’s interviewing new seamstresses.</p>
<p>The Ponyride model requires tenants who are willing to work in scrappy circumstances, where you might find, say, disconnected heating ducts and power tools scattered at the base of a newly framed wall. Or two rooms full of air mattresses that serve as artist crash pads. “Detroiters are some of the most innovative and resourceful people in the world—because they have to be,” Cooley says. “So instead of competing for space, we are all neighbors.”</p>
<p>The Graffiti Artist: Jason “Revok” Williams Last year, just days after some of his paintings went up inside the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the renowned street artist Jason Williams was arrested by Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies and later sentenced to 180 days in jail for failure to pay a $2,800 vandalism fine. The incarceration of Williams, best known by his tag, “ <a href="http://revok1.com/" type="external">Revok</a>,” suggested to many graffiti writers that LA authorities would not tolerate their acceptance by the art world. The MOCA show should have meant “that it’s the best time to work in LA,” Williams recalls. “And yet I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to get the fuck out of here.'”</p>
<p>By the time he went to jail, Williams had already moved his belongings out of his Hollywood Hills apartment and into a huge loft in Detroit. While many first-time visitors see the city as a disaster zone, Williams’s first thought, he says, was: “Oh my God, I can paint everything.” Now a free man, he has become an enthusiastic Detroiter. “Not only can you live like a king,” he says, “but when you spend money here, you feel good about it.”</p>
<p>On a recent Thursday, I find Williams and his friend Jersey Joe (“ <a href="http://jerseyjoeart.com/" type="external">Rime</a>“) painting a huge mural involving a werewolf and bikini models on the side of a vacant building in the city’s old meat-packing district. A member of the international graffiti crew MSK, or “Mad Society Kings,” Williams has used his connections with artists and art sponsors to launch the Detroit Beautification Project, a grittier version of the Depression-era Federal Arts Project. The week before, he’d flown in the Jukebox Cowboys, a German graffiti crew, to paint an elaborate jukebox scene on an adjacent wall—just one of dozens of projects he’s facilitated around town.</p>
<p>As the two artists take turns fleshing out the mural from atop a scissor lift, an enthusiastic crowd gathers below. “How can I get in touch with you?” asks a camera-toting member of the Detroit Entertainment Commission. Far from being concerned about Williams’ work, he wants to know how the city can help.&#160;</p>
<p>The Renovator: Dan Gilbert You can’t talk about revitalizing Detroit without mentioning Dan Gilbert. In 2010, Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans, the nation’s fifth largest retail mortgage lender, moved his corporate headquarters and 1,700 workers into a downtown office building. But that was just the start. He has since become Detroit’s third-largest property owner after the city itself and General Motors—and by far its biggest booster.</p>
<p>Unlike real-estate speculators who sit on their vacant properties, Gilbert quickly renovates and aggressively markets his holdings to out-of-state firms. Since 2010, some 40 companies have announced moves into Gilbert-owned buildings, including, in just the last three months, Twitter, Chrysler Group LLC, and a cult New York coffee outlet called the Roasting Plant. Business means jobs. Earlier this year, Gilbert launched a website called ValleyToDetroit.com, aiming to attract some 2,000 laid-off Yahoo employees.</p>
<p>He’s offering powerful incentives. Gilbert’s venture-capital fund, Detroit Venture Partners, will fund promising startups that agree to headquarter in the Motor City. Thanks to his $12 million renovation of downtown’s historic Madison Building, renamed the M@dison, Gilbert can offer inviting work spaces at a fraction of the going rate in Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>As Detroit ponders cutting off entire neighborhoods from city services, Gilbert is betting that a smaller, nimbler “Detroit 2.0” will make a comeback downtown. It is the only major part of town that is gaining residents, thanks in part to an emerging pedestrian and bicycle scene connected to bars and restaurants—and, of course, to Gilbert, who in March said his own companies would soon have 5,400 people working there.</p>
<p>The Homesteaders: Gina Reichert and Mitch Cope</p>
<p>The Power House and the Hoodcat. Gina ReichertIt’s hard to miss the Hoodcat. A Bobcat bulldozer painted in whimsical pastels, it stands out like an Easter egg in December as it mounds up piles of dirt on a vacant lot in rough-and-tumble Hamtramck.</p>
<p>The dozer belongs to Gina Reichert and Mitch Cope, artists who are using it to help build the Ride It Sculpture Park, a skate-able sculpture concept funded by a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the auction of decks crafted by likes of multimedia sculptor Matthew Barney, and contributions from a local skate shop and national skate-gear companies. Reichert and Cope bought the land from the city for $1,500.</p>
<p>The park is the latest installment in an experimental arts-driven community revitalization that kicked off seven years ago when Reichert, an architect, and Cope, a former assistant curator at Detroit’s Museum of Contemporary Art, moved into a boarded-up grocery store amid the vacant, looted, and burned homes of Hamtramck’s Klinger Street. Ever since, the couple has been gradually purchasing those homes on the cheap and converting them into spaces for artists and art projects. Their efforts have attracted some 20 other creatively inclined homesteaders to this crime-plagued community, where Bangladeshi Muslims coexist with African Americans and aging Eastern Europeans.</p>
<p>With her two-year-old daughter and old mutt in tow, Reichert sets off to give me a neighborhood arts tour, crunching in her leather moccasins down a gravel alley past vacant lots full of chest-high weeds. The talk turns to how Detroit came to this: The decentralizing of factories during World War II, the interstate highway system that gave rise to the suburbs, racial discrimination. The Detroit race riots of 1967 “were the result of a decline that had been going on for a decade,” she says, as we pass a couple of armchairs rotting on the sidewalk.</p>
<p>At the end of one block, I catch sight of an uninhabited house painted to resemble an Etro shirt turned sideways. Known as the <a href="http://www.powerhouseproject.com/" type="external">Power House</a>, it’s Reichert’s first and longest-running renovation project. She’s filled its front windows with colorful sheets of thick plexiglass—a cheerful alternative to security bars. Last year, a visiting artist from Rotterdam replaced the south-facing side of the roof with a giant angular window that lets in solar heat in the winter, with the notion that the space could eventually be used as a classroom or performance venue.</p>
<p>The Power House leads to other projects in the same two square blocks. There’s the <a href="http://www.powerhouseproject.com/index.php?/projects/soundhouse/" type="external">Sound House</a>, painted inside and out with wispy and quasi-tribal patterns that suggest music—its creators envision a recording studio and pirate radio station; an unnamed project by artist Ben Wolf that reconfigured the ruins of a burned home into something out of Dr. Seuss; and a house known as Treasure Nest, a creation of Oakland artist Monica Canilao, whose junk collages using things like a plastic rocking horse and old windows would turn heads at Burning Man. The forthcoming Squash House project aims to convert an abandoned home into “a venue for a site-specific variety of squash”—as in the sport, not the vegetable.</p>
<p>It’s hard to not to see Reichert’s work as more than art. In front of the Sound House, for example, one of her Bangladeshi neighbors watches as a contractor installs a new metal roof. He’s thinking about getting the guy to install a similar roof on his place. “It’s going to last longer,” he says. “It’s nice.”</p>
<p>Reichert views neighborhood revitalization less as the mission of her work than a byproduct. “It’s not about being a do-gooder or saving anything,” she says. “It’s just about putting our practice out in the social realm.”</p>
<p>Across the street, Jonathan Isbell, a tattooed metalworker in heavy coveralls, crowbars wood siding off of a dilapidated shed. He’s salvaging it to remodel a house Reichert recently gave him (gave him!) as payment for building a metal fence around the Sound House. Striking up a smoke, Isbell takes me inside to show off the elaborate sculptures and light wells visiting artists had installed before he moved in. “It’s kind of like the Wild West here,” he says. “There are no building codes or rules or anything—there’s nobody to enforce them. If you are an artist, you can do whatever the hell you want.”</p>
<p>About a year ago, Isbell had been studying architecture in Los Angeles when he learned about the arts and sustainability scene in Detroit and decided to load his dog into his charcoal Chevy Blazer and drive here, site unseen. Now he grows his own food and plans to start a “rogue architecture and art school” for neighborhood kids. “I am just trying to make shit happen here,” he says. “It’s kind of a long-term vision, but its also kind of living a dream.”&#160;</p> | How to Bring Detroit Back From the Grave | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/detroit-economy-art-recovery/ | 2012-06-15 | 4 |
<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon’s drawing of the Illinois Lottery’s “LuckyDay Lotto Midday” game were:</p>
<p>04-09-10-34-43</p>
<p>(four, nine, ten, thirty-four, forty-three)</p>
<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday afternoon’s drawing of the Illinois Lottery’s “LuckyDay Lotto Midday” game were:</p>
<p>04-09-10-34-43</p>
<p>(four, nine, ten, thirty-four, forty-three)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in ‘LuckyDay Lotto Midday’ game | false | https://apnews.com/b26b848c8c4c48099cb9dc03b42e48e5 | 2018-01-09 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Last week Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz got some liberals all hot and bothered when he said Donald Trump embodies New York Values. &#160;Trump, liberals and haters of Ted Cruz have spent the past week trying to make it seem like Cruz was bashing 9/11 firefighters, was being anti-semetic, was using code for black people and so on.</p>
<p>When Cruz was asked on Foxnews what New York Values were he said:</p>
<p>&#160;“I’ll tell you, in the rest of the country, people understand exactly what that is.”</p>
<p>That’s not exactly true. &#160;Even New Yorkers and former New Yorkers know what that is.</p>
<p>As soon as I was old enough I shrugged off the Empire State and moved to the Free Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>As I like to say I am a New Yorker by birth but a Pittsburgher by choice.</p>
<p>So I have no qualms whatsoever about what Sen Cruz was referring too. &#160;The New York Values he was referring to encompass the idea that the government knows better than you. &#160;New York Values believe you cannot handle your own affairs, your own money, your own protection or your own thoughts. &#160;That is why the government is so invasive, the taxes are so high, gun control is so strict and the infringement upon free speech (when it runs counter to the will of the government) is so limited.</p>
<p>New York Values are the values of high taxes and gun control. &#160;Of the abolition of religion for the sake of moral ambiguity. &#160;Of the silencing of differing opinions under the hypocrisy of “acceptance.”</p>
<p>Ironically, Woody Allen illustrates what New York Values are in his movie “Annie Hall” when he says:</p>
<p>“Don’t you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.”</p>
<p>So it is NOT that surprising that even New Yorkers understand what Cruz is talking about and as such makes the newest straw poll in NYC understandable.</p>
<p>To wit:</p>
<p>The Results from the First Met Club Straw Poll of 2016 are as follows: 1st place: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage/" type="external">Ted Cruz</a> 33% 2nd place: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/" type="external">Donald J. Trump</a> 32% 3rd place: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MarcoRubio/" type="external">Marco Rubio</a> 20% 4th place: Joshn Kasich 7% 5th place: Chris Christie 3% 6th place: Jeb Bush 1% 7th place: Ben Carson 0%</p>
<p>So while many mouth drooling liberals hate having the rock they were hiding under lifted and a light shone on them calling them out for being what they are, there are New Yorkers who are finally saying “THANK YOU” for empathizing with what they have to live with every day.</p>
<p>Sen Cruz did offer the following apology which I think is fantastic.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio have all demanded an apology. I’m happy to apologize:</p>
<p>I apologize to the millions of New Yorkers who have been let down by liberal politicians in that state.</p>
<p>I apologize to the hard working men and women of the state of New York who have been denied jobs because Governor Cuomo won’t allow fracking. Even though there had been many high paying jobs just south in Pennsylvania, New Yorkers are denied the ability to provide for their families.</p>
<p>I apologize to all the pro-life and pro-marriage and pro-second amendment New Yorkers who were told by Governor Cuomo that they have no place in New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.</p>
<p>I apologize to all the small businesses who have been driven out of New York city by crushing taxes and regulations.</p>
<p>I apologize to the millions of unborn children, many African-American and Hispanic, whose lives have been taken by politicians who relentlessly promote abortion on demand with no limitations.</p>
<p>I apologize to all of the African-American children who Mayor de Blasio tried to throw out of their charter schools that were providing a lifeline to the American Dream.</p>
<p>I apologize to the people of New York who are offended when the New York Daily News lambastes anyone who prays for victims of violence.</p>
<p>I apologize to the people of faith who are ridiculed and insulted by the New York media.</p>
<p>And I apologize to all the cops and the firefighters and 9/11 heroes who had no choice but to stand and turn their backs on Mayor de Blasio, because Mayor de Blasio over and over again stands with the looters and criminals rather than the brave men and women of the law.</p>
<p>And to the millions of conservatives–working men and women in New York, with common sense values, trapped by the failures of your political leaders–I am glad to tell you, help us on the way. 2016, like 1980, will bring America back.</p>
<p>In short, Sen Cruz apologizes that so many people have to suffer under the yoke of New York Values.</p>
<p>And for that, I thank you Mr. Cruz.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.</p> | New York Values: Protect Criminals, Disarm the Law Abiding, Silence Dissent | true | http://bulletsfirst.net/2016/01/19/new-york-values-protect-criminals-and-disarm-the-law-abiding-silence-dissent/ | 0 |
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<p>Global stocks continued their selloff Wednesday, notably in financials, with Asian equities following up on the near-1% declines seen on Wall Street as a holiday-shortened trading week began there.</p>
<p>Tuesday was many U.S. market participants' first opportunity to react to North Korea's weekend claim of a successful hydrogen-bomb test, which sent Asian equities down on Monday; a number of markets there rebounded some on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The selling returned to Asia on Wednesday, though there weren't big declines but rather a continuation of recent risk-off sentiment. The yen continued to hit one-week highs versus the dollar, for example.</p>
<p>Also not helping Tuesday's U.S. trading were dovish comments from Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, who said the central bank should be cautious about raising short-term interest rates further until policy makers are confident of overcoming the "persistent failure" to reach 2% inflation.</p>
<p>She "started the ball rolling" regarding the selling, said Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG Group. The comments came "at a sensitive time for markets," he said, adding that Donald Trump's Tuesday-morning tweet about selling military equipment to Japan and South Korea added to the risk-off mood in the U.S.</p>
<p>As the dollar fell back below Yen109 overnight and U.S. Treasury yields reached 2017 lows of just above 2%, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average hit a fresh four-month low while falling 0.3% amid weakness in export and financial stocks. Banks were leading the declines in Australia, where the S&amp;P/ASX 200 was also down 0.3%.</p>
<p>Similar declines were seen elsewhere in the region, except for Hong Kong. There, the Hang Seng Index--among the world's best-performing stock benchmarks this year--fell 0.9% amid a 1.4% drop in index heavyweight HSBC and declines of at least 1% in Chinese-based banks.</p>
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<p>Financial stocks were notably weaker in the U.S. on Tuesday amid doubts about how quickly interest-rate increases there will come. The U.S. rate outlook is important for Asian financials as well, as margins have also been under pressure there in the global low-rate environment.</p>
<p>Australia's "big four" banks were down some 1%, and Japan's Topix bank subindex slid 1.5%.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, oil futures were down modestly in Asia after 2% to 3% gains overnight. Brent was recently off 0.5% at $53.13 a barrel. And gold prices were little changed, remaining at 11-month highs.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 05, 2017 22:21 ET (02:21 GMT)</p> | Financials Weigh on Global Stocks | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/05/financials-weigh-on-global-stocks.html | 2017-09-05 | 0 |
<p>Retro romance: Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling get into the swing of it in Damien Chazelle’s colorful musical, “La La Land.” ( <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3783958/mediaviewer/rm2541358848" type="external">IMDb</a>)</p>
<p>L.A., they say, is a state of mind, and the haters with quizzical brows and exaggerated eye rolls who hurl the epithet “la la land” to dismiss the place just don’t get it. They feel superior to Angelenos in thinking that the city is make-believe and its denizens fantasists.</p>
<p>We in Los Angeles know better. We know that those who use the term never have experienced the city at magic hour when the tail lights on the exit ramps twinkle like double strands of rubies underneath a bougainvillea sky.</p>
<p>Happily, director Damien Chazelle also knows better. He gets it. In his exhilarating and swoony “La La Land,” a modern love story told in song and dance, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star as Seb (short for Sebastian) and Mia. Both are artists whose ambitions get in the way of romance. And vice versa. He is a jazz pianist who pays the rent by playing in a rock cover band. She’s an aspiring actress working as a barista on a studio backlot.</p>
<p />
<p>As the characters sway in transfigured time through treasured L.A. locations such as Angels Flight, the Watts Towers and the Griffith Observatory planetarium, “La La Land” is like a documentary of a fantasy: realistic but sublime, and all captured in lollipop color by cinematographer Linus Sandgren. The spectrum here isn’t red-yellow-green-violet, it’s vivid cherry-lemon-lime-grape.</p>
<p>We meet Seb and Mia a beat or two before they meet each other. In the film’s first sequence, it’s the morning rush hour on the merge from the 105 East to the 110 North. Traffic is bumper to bumper. Rather than just sit there, drivers opt for an exuberant dance on car roofs and hoods in the film’s opening number, “Another Day of Sun.” (The movie’s songs of longing are composed by Justin Hurwitz and its dances staged, with naturalistic brio, by Mandy Moore, the choreographer known for her work on the reality TV show “So You Think You Can Dance.”)</p>
<p>Amid this burst of joy, Sebastian, trapped behind Mia’s car while she is distracted from the wheel, honks and maneuvers his retro convertible past her sedan and flashes his displeasure.</p>
<p>Retro modernism is “La La Land’s” visual theme — and its narrative conflict. Seb is a jazz purist (not unlike the music taskmaster played by J.K. Simmons in Chazelle’s previous film, “Whiplash”). When Seb is hired by Keith (John Legend) to join his jazz fusion band, Keith confronts him: “How are you going to be a revolutionary if you’re such a traditionalist?”</p>
<p>That question challenges this film that looks back to the midcentury musicals Gene Kelly made with Stanley Donen and Jacques Demy (uninterrupted, full-body dance shots) as it introduces some new moves. The latter include special effects and editing, especially the sequence in which Seb and Mia seem to dance on the stars projected on the planetarium ceiling.</p>
<p>Mia’s artistic ambitions are embryonic, not as fully developed as Seb’s. We see her auditioning for parts she is better than, but how does an untried actor demonstrate her range when the role’s range of emotion is so narrow? Through the film’s songs, especially “City of Stars” and “The Audition,” the actors express the characters’ inner thoughts and their body language, sometimes awkward, mostly graceful.</p>
<p>If songs permit characters to express feelings that dialogue cannot, musicals also reveal their intentions in how the characters dance. Who leads? Who follows? Are they in sync or at odds? The subtle shifts of parity and control illustrate how, though Seb and Mia aim for a relationship of equals, each sometimes needs the support and energy of the partner to go forward. Among the film’s many pleasures, its anatomy of a relationship is lovingly conceived and executed.</p>
<p>Chief among its delights, however, are Gosling and Stone. They surrender themselves to the characters, body and soul, which in turn makes it easy for the moviegoer to surrender to them.</p>
<p>For the musical-averse, no worries. Your manhood won’t atrophy if you see this film. You’re likely to recognize in Seb a better version of yourself.</p>
<p>And for musical lovers, let me tell you: When the film ended, I floated out of the theater misty-eyed, cockeyed and starry-eyed. My feet haven’t touched the ground since.</p> | Ooh, ‘La La Land’ | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/ooh-la-la-land/ | 2016-12-09 | 4 |
<p>Chicago Public Schools officials say they’re not waiting for pension relief from Springfield and are now telling principals to plan for an average 26 percent budget cut for the upcoming school year, a move that would lead to thousands of teacher layoffs and increased class sizes.</p>
<p>The announcement, made to a small group of school leaders this morning, comes a&#160;day after the state’s Secretary of Education Beth Purvis <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-cps-school-funding-formula-illinois-pensions-perspec-0517-md-20160516-story.html" type="external">penned an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune</a> saying that she could not “in good conscience” recommend a change to the state’s funding formula for schools that would include special set-asides&#160;for&#160;the beleaguered CPS.</p>
<p>District&#160;officials announced 39 percent cuts in so-called student-based budgeting, for a total loss of some $700&#160;million. CPS faces&#160;a $1 billion deficit. Student-based budgeting accounts for the vast majority of money sent to schools. Under the cuts, schools will get $2,547 for each&#160;student in the middle grades, down&#160;from the current $4,176,&#160;according to Catalyst calculations based on data from cuts made in February. (Late Tuesday evening, district officials&#160;provided slightly lower figures showing that student-based funding would&#160;drop to&#160;$2,495 from $4,088.)</p>
<p>Charter schools, which&#160;have also been bracing for massive cuts, will see “an equivalent cut.” Overall, taking into account additional money from sources including federal and state poverty grants, schools would see average cuts of about 26 percent, district officials said.</p>
<p>But there isn’t much left to cut. After a series of mid-year reductions, schools are&#160;down to the bone with “no fat to be trimmed,” said Northside College Prep Principal Kelly Mest. Her school stands to lose at least $1 million if the budget cuts materialize, she estimated.</p>
<p>“We are very creative, but I don’t know if there is enough creativity in the world for this. At this point it’s a matter of our community coming together and demanding fair funding. Because I don’t think anyone could look at this and call it fair,” she said, her voice full of emotion.</p>
<p>She was one of 15 principals invited to the&#160;meeting with CPS this&#160;morning to ask questions and provide feedback on “mitigation” strategies that could be used to cut costs, like sharing resources between schools.</p>
<p>In a statement,&#160;CPS spokeswoman Emily Bittner said the district has involved principals “earlier than ever” in the budget process and is working with “example schools” to understand the potential impact.</p>
<p>“Even as we continue to seek equal funding in Springfield, we must continue to plan for the worst – higher class sizes, loss of enrichment activities, and layoffs of teachers and support staff,” she said.</p>
<p>District officials did not release school-level data on the cuts.</p>
<p>Enrollment projections were not released either, though the district has continued to lose students in recent years. One principal of a more affluent&#160;elementary school&#160;has told Catalyst&#160;she worries about families exiting the public school system&#160;due to the budget uncertainty.</p>
<p>The early warning to principals comes in stark contrast to <a href="http://catalyst-chicago.org/2015/07/school-budget-cuts-spread-across-city/" type="external">last summer’s budget roll-out.</a> CPS officials then approved a budget that depended on $500 million in state aid that never materialized, and were then forced to hack away at schools’ budgets throughout the school year.</p>
<p>Not all principals were convinced that the announced&#160;cuts will become reality. “I think it’s a scare tactic,” said one principal, who heard about the cuts but hasn’t seen an actual budget document. “Why didn’t we get our real budgets? This is to scare Springfield into doing something.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, contract negotiations between the district and the Chicago Teachers Union have been stalled for months. CTU officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the potential cuts and layoffs.</p> | With no budget relief from Springfield, schools face massive cuts, layoffs | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/with-no-budget-relief-from-springfield-schools-face-massive-cuts-layoffs/ | 2016-05-17 | 3 |
<p>NEW YORK — While studying abroad last year, Swarthmore College senior Chinyere Odim met Valerie Smith, the first black president of her largely white liberal arts college. The meeting, as Odim recalls it, reminded her why a racial mix on campus matters.</p>
<p>“She was so excited to talk with me and to learn about my experience abroad," Odim, who is black and originally from Brooklyn, said of her conversation with Swarthmore President Smith while she visited London on her inauguration tour. “I feel like she gets me, and that’s why I appreciate her being here.”</p>
<p><a href="http://hechingerreport.org/new-faces-campus-students-races-welcome-first-black-presidents-largely-white-colleges/" type="external">Read this story and others on The Hechinger Report</a></p>
<p>Since 2013, seven small, highly selective liberal arts colleges not known for diversity have for the first time chosen college presidents who are black— just as students are demanding a better racial mix on their campuses.</p>
<p>In addition to Smith at Swarthmore, black presidents are now at the helm of Kenyon College in Ohio ( <a href="http://www.kenyon.edu/about-kenyon/office-of-the-president/" type="external">Sean Decatur</a> in 2013), Trinity College in Connecticut ( <a href="http://www.trincoll.edu/NewsEvents/NewsArticles/pages/Joanne-Berger-Sweeney-Elected-22nd-President-of-Trinity-College.aspx" type="external">Joanne Berger-Sweeney</a>, 2014), Wellesley College in Massachusetts ( <a href="http://www.wellesley.edu/news/14thpresident/biography#XWLo1pkF4hVwER1K.97" type="external">Paula Johnson</a>, 2016), the University of Puget Sound in Washington ( <a href="http://www.pugetsound.edu/about/office-of-the-president/campus-introduction/" type="external">Isiaah Crawford, 2016</a>), Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania ( <a href="http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/aboutus/president/biography/" type="external">John Williams,</a> 2015), and at Pitzer College in California ( <a href="http://pitweb.pitzer.edu/communications/2016/01/13/pitzer-college-appoints-melvin-l-oliver-as-its-new-president/" type="external">Melvin Oliver</a>, who started in July).</p>
<p>Special section: <a href="" type="internal">Get tips and advice about college at College Game Plan</a></p>
<p>The appointments at largely white institutions come at a time when racial strife has roiled college campuses. Many black students complain they feel isolated and more are opting to attend historically black colleges. At the nation’s top public colleges, black students are drastically underrepresented, according to federal records and enrollment data analyzed by The Hechinger Report, confirmed in a recent report from the Center for American Progress. Latino students are also underrepresented at top schools.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/why-more-black-students-are-enrolling-in-historically-black-colleges/" type="external">Why more black students are enrolling in historically black colleges</a></p>
<p>Data show there is plenty of room for improvement in leadership ranks: The most <a href="http://www.ncci-cu.org/downloads/Cordova-NCCI.pdf" type="external">recent survey</a> of 1,662 U.S. colleges found only 6 percent were led by black presidents (13.3 percent of the U.S. population is black). The 2012 survey from the <a href="http://www.acenet.edu/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">American Council on Education</a> was sent to public and private colleges and universities across the U.S., including two year programs: It’s now being updated.</p>
<p>Appointing black presidents signifies an important shift in the criteria colleges and their boards are using to assess leadership skills and experience and creates space for diverse leaders to enter higher education, said Lynn Gangone, vice president for ACE’s leadership programs.</p>
<p>“When I see this host of colleges looking to leaders of color and African-American leaders, in particular, I am thrilled,” said Gangone.</p>
<p><a href="http://pitweb.pitzer.edu/president/melvin-l-oliver/" type="external">Melvin Oliver</a>, the new president of Pitzer, calls the new group of black leaders “a particularly distinguished group of scholars," and speculates the appointments “may have been a fluke of timing.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, he sees many commonalities and hopes the new presidents can learn from another. “These are pretty much elite schools that would like to be more diverse, and all of us have challenges," Oliver said. “I hope we can have some breakthroughs that everyone can take advantage of as opposed to little solutions.”</p>
<p>And while the recent appointments are “great, and long overdue," they are just one step, cautioned <a href="http://scholar.gse.upenn.edu/gasman" type="external">Marybeth Gasman</a>, a professor of higher education in the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/five-things-no-one-will-tell-colleges-dont-hire-faculty-color/" type="external">The five things no one will tell you about why colleges don’t hire more faculty of color</a></p>
<p>“It is absolutely not enough to [just] have a black president," Gasman said. “Campuses need to work hard to diversify their student bodies and their faculty and staff. They need to stop making excuses.”</p>
<p>At Kenyon, a school of 1,689 that is more than 73 percent white, it’s not just black students who appreciate the new appointments. Emily Margolin, a white senior from New York City, inquired about the lack of diversity when she began considering colleges.</p>
<p>Margolin wanted a better racial and ethnic mix, so she asked an admissions officer about efforts for change underway on the idyllic rural campus in Gambier, Ohio, where just over 4 percent of students are black.</p>
<p>“He said, ‘Kenyon is working on it, but there is a predominant brand of young person who attends the school,’” recalled Margolin, now a political science major who loves her school but recognizes it has a lot of work ahead to become more diverse.</p>
<p>Kenyon President <a href="http://www.kenyon.edu/about-kenyon/office-of-the-president/" type="external">Sean Decatur</a> says the school is taking important steps, scouting for high-achieving students from backgrounds less represented on campus and inviting them to Kenyon for a weekend at the college’s expense.</p>
<p>“These programs connect us to college counselors to gain access to students who might have been overlooked,” Decatur said. “It gives students from Cleveland, Detroit or Chicago an opportunity to consider Kenyon, to get to know the campus. The weekend really plays a role in helping these students see themselves as part of the pool.”</p>
<p>At <a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/about/facts-figures" type="external">Swarthmore,</a> a school of 1,581 in Pennsylvania that is 6 percent black, protests have exposed divides on the sylvan campus, particularly in the aftermath of public vigils for <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-brown-and-eric-garner-the-police-use-of-force-and-race/" type="external">Michael Brown and Eric Garner,</a> two unarmed black men killed by police in 2014.</p>
<p>Odim, the student who met President Smith while studying in London, recalled that a few days after students wrote “Black Lives Matter" in the middle of campus on a large white chalkboard, someone wrote, “Go back to Africa” in apparent response.</p>
<p>Afterwards, some students took to Yik Yak, a messaging platform, to vent their irritation over displays of support for the Black Lives Matter movement.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/yale-students-break-through-generations-of-pained-black-silence/" type="external">Yale students break through generations of pained black silence</a></p>
<p>Odim was unaffected by the hostility: “I don’t feel personally attacked by it,” she said. “But it’s triggering and uncomfortable for a lot of other students on campus. The climate is tense but only when there is nationwide tension.”</p>
<p>Last year, when Swarthmore students showed their support for protesters at the University of Missouri — who had demanded the resignation of that school’s president over claimed mishandling of racism on campus — Swarthmore’s new president Smith, a scholar and former dean at Princeton University, met with student leaders.</p>
<p>“It was a very eloquent expression of the spirit of collaboration,” Smith said of the protesters. “The moment was meant to acknowledge solidarity with students across the country, and for the work that has to happen on our campus.”</p>
<p>Minority students at <a href="http://pitweb.pitzer.edu/" type="external">Pitzer,</a> a private institution of just over a thousand students that is part of the five-member <a href="http://www.claremont.edu/" type="external">Claremont College Consortium</a> in California, penned a <a href="http://pitweb.pitzer.edu/president/diversity/#letter" type="external">letter t</a>o the administration in November 2015 to express frustration at the college’s failure to support students of all backgrounds and races.</p>
<p>“We, students of color at Pitzer College, experience marginalization by this institution through manifestations of White Supremacy in the form of hate crimes, lack of diversity, power structures within academia, and racial profiling on our campus,” the letter said.</p>
<p>Pitzer’s student body is 5 percent black, 15 percent Latino, and 48 percent white, according to enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The administration <a href="http://pitweb.pitzer.edu/president/diversity/" type="external">responded</a> by convening a coalition to address campus climate and diversity. But some students feel they have not gone far enough.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/latino-students-earning-high-school-diplomas-wrestle-stubborn-equity-gap-next-stop-college/" type="external">More Latino students earning high school diplomas wrestle stubborn equity gap. Next stop, college</a></p>
<p>“Pitzer has this huge focus on racial justice,” said Aviya Hernstadt, a junior from Brooklyn. “But a lot of students feel like this image of the school is of one that fights for justice, but students get here and find that it is not actually practiced.”</p>
<p>In July, Pitzer welcomed Oliver, a scholar known for his research on racial and urban inequality. Oliver’s first challenge: a <a href="http://pitweb.pitzer.edu/president/messages-to-the-community/" type="external">community message</a> addressing a black Pitzer student’s widely publicized Facebook post <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/race-relations-college-campuses-black-pitzer-student-seeks-non-white-roommate-2400828" type="external">requesting a non-white roommate.</a></p>
<p>“Just having a black president doesn’t mean everything will be hunky-dory," Oliver said. “We could have just as much trouble as a white president being everyone’s president. You can’t just be the president of black students or Latino students.”</p>
<p>Oliver now wants to focus providing sufficient aid to attract students “that match our [social justice] mission … we don’t have the resources to attract them. We need to have the full paying student and sometimes that means our student body gets bifurcated.”</p>
<p>At <a href="http://www.trincoll.edu/Pages/default.aspx" type="external">Trinity College</a>, President Joanne Berger-Sweeney also said she is looking for ways to bring in income to fund programs aimed at increasing diversity.</p>
<p>“Everyone can say ‘I could do more if I had more money,’ but what matters is how you spend the money that you have,” said Berger-Sweeney, who is preparing for her third year as president of the leafy, gothic campus in Hartford, Connecticut. “We have to diversify our revenue in order to diversify our student body; it can’t all come from our tuition.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.trincoll.edu/Admissions/Pages/tuition.aspx" type="external">Annual estimated costs</a> at Trinity exceed $66,000; the student body is 6 percent black, 64 percent white, and 7 percent Latino, enrollment data shows.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/the-socioeconomic-divide-on-americas-college-campuses-is-getting-wider-fast/" type="external">The socioeconomic divide on America’s college campuses is getting wider, fast</a></p>
<p>Berger-Sweeney said <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/06/22/reinvent-or-bust-an-esteemed-liberal-arts-college-pushes-for-new-revenue/" type="external">her plans</a> include maximizing the use of Trinity’s campus when classes are not in session with academic camps, offering continuing education classes to professionals in the Hartford area and using school facilities for community events.</p>
<p>She also sees promise in raising revenue for more minority outreach and aid via a consortium model, like the one used at Pitzer and the Claremont Colleges, allowing colleges in the Hartford area to share some human resources and other administrative functions.</p>
<p>At Muhlenberg College, where fewer than 3 percent of the roughly 2,200 students are black, the board of trustees approved a comprehensive <a href="http://www.muhlenberg.edu/media/contentassets/pdf/president/initiatives/Diversity%20Strategic%20Plan%20-%20Final%20Approved%20Version.pdf" type="external">diversity plan</a> in October 2014 to help recruit and retain a more diverse faculty and student body; they also hired additional staff to promote multicultural life on the Allentown, Pennsylvania campus.</p>
<p>To boost minority enrollment, the administration has built partnerships with community-based nonprofit organizations, such as Prep for Prep and Say Yes to Education, that help form a pipeline to higher education.</p>
<p>“We are committed to have a diverse student body that covers all dimensions of difference,” Muhlenberg President John Williams said. “It is not just because it is the right thing to do. It is because it enriches our education.’’</p>
<p>The school’s board of trustees has agreed to spend an additional $125,000 per year — more than twice what it spends now — toward annual diversity initiatives, according to Muhlenberg’s <a href="http://www.muhlenberg.edu/media/contentassets/pdf/president/initiatives/Diversity%20Strategic%20Plan%20-%20Final%20Approved%20Version.pdf" type="external">strategic plan.</a>The school’s largest investment in diversity is $20.7 million in need-based financial aid annually.</p>
<p>Williams said he is encouraged that half of tenured-track faculty hired in 2016 are nonwhite, but acknowledged that change is a slow and challenging process. “We are just starting out on this journey,” he said.</p>
<p>Several of the new black college presidents agreed in interviews that addressing decades of racial disparity will involve both targeted outreach programs and generous financial aid packages for underrepresented minorities, along with creating more opportunities for such students to visit their campuses.</p>
<p>It may also mean diversifying faculty. By 2020, a majority of college students in the U.S. will be nonwhite. Yet nationally, just 6 percent of university faculty members are black and 5 percent are Latino, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=61" type="external">according to</a> the National Center for Education Statistics. Federal data show those figures have risen only slightly since 2009, and experts have questioned why so few black (and Latino) faculty members are being hired.</p>
<p>Related: <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/efforts-recruit-black-professors-rob-poorer-colleges-diversity/" type="external">How efforts to recruit black professors rob poorer colleges of diversity</a></p>
<p>In recent months, Yale, Brown, John Hopkins and the University of Cincinnati have all increased funding to recruit more minority faculty. In addition, about 75 colleges have hired new “diversity officers,” in the last year, according to Archie Irvin, president of the <a href="http://www.news.gatech.edu/2015/07/29/institute-diversity-vice-president-archie-w-ervin-elected-president-nadohe" type="external">National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education</a>.</p>
<p>Higher education officials say hiring black college presidents for the first time provides an opportunity to break new ground and set an example.</p>
<p>“Higher education’s end users — our students — benefit from seeing themselves mirrored in the front of the classroom, in the lab, and in the senior-most levels of academic leadership,’’ said Nancy Aebersold, founder and executive director of the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium <a href="http://www.hercjobs.org/about_herc/vision_mission_programs_history/" type="external">(HERC),</a> a nonprofit aimed at creating equity in higher education recruitment.</p>
<p>Aebersold added that college presidents “aren’t born, they are made, and institutions who aspire to have diverse representation in the role of chief executive officer should be identifying, nurturing, and contributing development dollars to leaders of color with this in mind.”</p>
<p>Others say the appointments are just a start. They called for better pipelines and preparation for top jobs on college campuses throughout higher education.</p>
<p>“We still have work to do — we need to focus on developing more pathways to presidency for people of color,” said Tia McNair, vice president of the office of diversity, equity and student success at the Association of American Universities and Colleges, known as <a href="http://aacu.org/" type="external">AAC&amp;U.</a> “The faculty and staff need to reflect the student body, which is increasingly diverse … we could be doing better in all areas.”</p>
<p>In the meantime, some students say having a black president at the helm is — at the very least — a sign of change they can embrace. Said Pitzer junior Aviya Hernstadt: “It is not logical that students at a social justice-oriented school are learning the complexities of race and socioeconomic status in an environment that is majority white and upper-class.’’</p>
<p>New president Oliver isn’t sure he agrees. “What I really worry about is [if] the campus becomes one where we don’t have the full range of socioeconomic students,’’ he said.</p>
<p>This story was produced by <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/" type="external">The Hechinger Report</a>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Hechinger Report editor Liz Willen contributed to this story. Read more about <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/" type="external">higher education.</a></p> | Students of All Races Welcome First Black Presidents to Largely White Colleges | false | http://nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/students-all-races-welcome-first-black-presidents-largely-white-colleges-n674021 | 2016-10-27 | 3 |
<p />
<p>HTC’s a company that normally is first in the industry. Not so with the HTC Flyer. It’s HTC’s first Android tablet, but plenty of others, including Asus, LG, Motorola, Samsung, beat it to the market. The HTC Flyer just landed exclusively in Best Buy stores on May 22nd for $499. Sure, it’s packed with HTC’s Sense UI, a 1.5GHz processor, and can be purchased with a stylus accessory that allows you to use the Flyer as a notebook, but can it hold its own against more powerful Android Honeycomb tablets?</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The HTC Flyer looks like a giant EVO or Inspire. It has the same aluminum unibody design which means it can feel a bit heavy at almost 15 ounces, but it’s obviously very sturdy. The backside has a white plastic area surrounding the tablet’s 5-megapixel camera, and there’s another removable hatch at the bottom where you can insert a microSD card. I wish HTC carried over its solid build to these two areas, as both appear that they would crack or snap easily under pressure.</p>
<p>The 7-inch display has a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution and text, images, and videos, looked sharp for the most part. Similarly, the screen was bright enough for viewing under sunlight, although I mostly found myself using the Flyer indoors. I love that there’s a small chin above and below the screen — when the tablet is placed down on a table, you can clearly see from the sides that the display won’t make any contact with the surface. This should help prevent scratches and other damage to the screen, though my mind goes back to the build quality of those two plastic pieces I mentioned and how they’ll hold up.</p>
<p>If you’re holding the tablet in portrait mode, there’s a power button on the top right of the device — next to a 3.5mm headphone jack — the volume buttons are on the upper right side, a microUSB charging port is on the bottom, and two speakers are on the back left. I love that HTC chose to go with a microUSB charging port, instead of a proprietary one; that means you can pack just one charger whenever you leave home. The back of the Flyer is home to a 5-megapixel camera, sans flash.</p>
<p>You know those three Android buttons for menu, home, and search, that are on every Android phone and tablet? HTC did something amazing with them. When the tablet is in portrait mode, those three buttons — as well as the stylus key — are on the bottom of the display. Tilt the Flyer into landscape mode, and they suddenly reappear below the screen. Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner?</p>
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<p>Lastly, the Flyer packs support for 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networks — the 4G version is known as the EVO View 4G on Sprint — and I didn’t have any issues using it on my home network for extended periods of time.</p>
<p>The HTC Flyer runs Android 2.3 with a flavor of HTC’s Sense user interface that was specifically designed for use on tablets. There are a few unique touches here and there, some of which we’ll see carried over in the next generation of Sense for smartphones, too. There are eight different home screen panels to customize, and I love that HTC has included newer, larger widgets for the weather, viewing photos, seeing your eBook library, viewing your contacts, and more. It’s easier to rotate around home screen panels now, too — the carousel now completes a full loop, which means you can jump from your far right home screen panel to the left one with just a quick flick. The 1.5GHz processor under the hood handles all of Sense’s eye candy with nary a struggle, save for the unlock mechanism, which, oddly, lagged at times.</p>
<p>My biggest issue with Sense on a tablet is the home screen in landscape mode. HTC wasted a ton of space here. I understand that it may have been necessary in order to display icons or widgets appropriately, but it feels like over half of the screen is taken up just showing the panels to the left and right of the current home screen. That’s space that could have been used for more widgets. You know Android users just love widgets.</p>
<p>The Flyer is free of bloatware since it’s a sans-carrier device. In fact, most owners will find all of the pre-installed software useful for one reason or another. There’s a Kid Mode option that’s powered by Zoodles for playing games that take advantage of the touchscreen, drawing and painting, reading kids books, sending email to family, and more. A Press Reader application can be used to subscribe to a number of global newspapers. I checked out an issue of The Washington Post and, while it’s far too hard to read zoomed out, I appreciated getting to see the current day’s articles after clicking them from a view of the full newspaper. Press Reader includes 7 free issues, too, so you can get a feel for whether or not a subscription is worth it.</p>
<p>We’re all used to the photos that Mac users take of themselves in Photo Booth on OS X, and the Flyer has a similar option. Using the front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera, you can take photos of yourself with silly effects such as bulge, mirror, pucker, and others. It’s a fun, but mostly useless feature.</p>
<p>The Reader application, powered by Kobo, is decent. After reading a few pages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland I was convinced reading an eBook on the Flyer is as good as the Galaxy Tab and other Android tablets I’ve used. I prefer reading with Kindle, however, as it’s easier to adjust the brightness on the fly.</p>
<p>The Flyer supports a a stylus input system, which HTC has dubbed “HTC Scribe.” The stylus itself is an insanely expensive $80 accessory, and that’s a lot to swallow for access to new features that are natively supported on an already-not-inexpensive $500 tablet. These days I’m more apt to taking notes on my phone than writing them down on a a piece of paper. Admittedly, I was no different in college when I opted for writing on my hand. So why should I write on a tablet? Sure, the stylus works well, and I like that there are options to draw anywhere on the screen — yes even the home screen — and that the tablet will automatically take a screen shot and sync with Evernote. Ultimately, my handwriting is still as messy as it ever was (the reason why I don’t write with a pen in the first place), and it’s not worth the extra $80.Worse yet, there’s nowhere to actually attach the stylus to the Flyer. I’ve probably misplaced it handful of times in the couple days I have spent with the Flyer.</p>
<p>The Flyer’s 5 megapixel camera took decent photos, though I prefer the shots taken with Samsung’s most of the time. It’s also capable of recording 720p video, although it doesn’t come with HDMI-out cables in the box, which is mildly shocking given that even many high-end phones offer that accessory. Recorded video looked decent when I played it back on my computer screen, however it lacked continuous auto-focus. I’m also unsure why HTC chose to eliminate a flash option — there’s plenty of room — so low light shots didn’t come out very well. There’s a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front of the Flyer for video chats, and the quality was solid during a quick test call with a friend.</p>
<p>The Flyer offered up decent battery life, but it wasn’t on a par with the larger 8.9-inch or 10.1-inch tablets that pack in huge batteries capable of idling for days. I’ve been using the Flyer for a while, but since tablets’ battery cycles are much lengthier than smartphones, the verdict is still out on the Flyer’s battery performance. It’s been able to endure my rigorous testing just fine, and with normal usage it’ll likely hit 2 days on a single charge without any problem. I was able to get through about 7 hours of hardcore use just fine, which means you should have no trouble with music and light video playback on a longer flight.</p>
<p>I love the HTC Flyer’s sturdy build, but I’m not a fan of the extra heft it adds to the device. People are split on tablet sizes, but I like the Flyer because that size delivers an excellent web browsing experience, eBook reading, and much more without having to fumble with the tablet too much. The Flyer offers a superior experience to the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, but it’s also more expensive. I prefer the 8.9-inch LG G-Slate and 10.1-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab overall — both offer better battery life,&#160; dual-core processors for extra speed, and support for Honeycomb. My fear is that the HTC Flyer won’t advance much in terms of software, while other competing tablets loaded with Honeycomb will continue to offer more robust features as they’re updated to Android 3.1 and beyond. Similarly, I’m worried that the Android Market will begin populating with more compelling Honeycomb applications, and anyone using the Flyer won’t ever have access to them. The Stylus worked well, and it’s fun and useful, but I wouldn’t pay $80 for it and think it should have been included in the box.&#160;I have to say that I’m actually a bit disappointed that a company like HTC released a product like the Flyer. HTC is an innovative company, but there unfortunately just isn’t anything innovative about this tablet.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/26/htc-flyer-review/" type="external">This content was originally published on BGR.com Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.bgr.com/" type="external">Opens a New Window.</a>More news from BGR:- <a href="http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/26/microsoft-creating-web-based-windows-phone-marketplace-for-mango/" type="external">Microsoft creating web-based Windows Phone Marketplace for Mango Opens a New Window.</a>- <a href="http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/26/t-mobile-rocket-3-0-42mbps-4g-usb-modem-hands-on/" type="external">T-Mobile Rocket 3.0 42Mbps 4G USB modem hands-on Opens a New Window.</a>- <a href="http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/26/google-announces-google-wallet-and-google-offers-for-mobile-payments/" type="external">Google announces Google Wallet and Google Offers for mobile payments Opens a New Window.</a></p> | HTC Flyer Tablet: Sturdy, but Hefty and Not Innovative | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/05/26/htc-flyer-tablet-sturdy-hefty-innovative.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday afternoon’s drawing of the Florida Lottery’s “Pick 5 Midday” game were:</p>
<p>5-2-9-3-0</p>
<p>(five, two, nine, three, zero)</p>
<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Saturday afternoon’s drawing of the Florida Lottery’s “Pick 5 Midday” game were:</p>
<p>5-2-9-3-0</p>
<p>(five, two, nine, three, zero)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in ‘Pick 5 Midday’ game | false | https://apnews.com/da152b5c39b44d56aa348fa34abcb8f4 | 2018-01-20 | 2 |
<p>President Vladimir Putin of Russia told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday that Israel would not be endangered by Russia’s decision to lift its ban on supplying S-300 missiles to Iran, the Kremlin said.</p>
<p>Putin stressed that the missiles have only defensive capability and said that the move would not compromise the security of Israel or any other Middle East country, the Kremlin said.</p>
<p>Netanyahu expressed “dismay,” according to a statement from his office, and told Putin that the step would only increase Iranian aggression and destabilize the Middle East.</p>
<p>Russia’s decision has also drawn <a href="" type="internal">rebukes from the White House</a>.</p> | Vladimir Putin Says S-300 Missiles-for-Iran Move Doesn’t Threaten Israel | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/world/vladimir-putin-says-s-300-missiles-for-iran-move-doesnt-n341316 | 2015-04-14 | 3 |
<p>FBI Director James Comey testified before the <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/hearing/oversight-federal-bureau-investigation/" type="external">House Judiciary Committee</a> in September. ( <a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Congress-FBI/193f44d203f946e4ab9035921977eaac/25/0" type="external">Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP</a>)</p>
<p>Crafting a compelling and intricate story is a challenge. The key, I learned as author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&amp;field-keywords=bill+blum" type="external">three popular legal thrillers</a>, is getting the right mix of character development, suspense, atmosphere and, above all, an ending no one can see coming. You need an active—and sometimes jaded—imagination to pull off the trick.</p>
<p>Still, even in my most febrile writer’s dreams, I couldn’t have devised a plotline approaching what happened the morning of Oct. 28, when FBI Director James Comey sent a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/28/us/politics/fbi-letter.html" type="external">terse, 166-word letter</a> to the chairs of eight congressional committees, disclosing that the bureau had discovered additional emails that required it to take further “appropriate investigative steps” regarding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private internet server during her tenure as secretary of state. Only last July, Comey had broken the hearts of Republicans everywhere as he told Congress and the world that the email probe had been completed and Clinton would not be prosecuted.</p>
<p>So forget WikiLeaks, and forget Clinton’s speeches to Goldman Sachs and the behind-the-scenes machinations of John Podesta: Comey’s letter was the ultimate October surprise, at once breathing new life into the seemingly moribund Trump campaign and triggering shockwaves of anxiety and spasms of political bed-wetting among Democrats.</p>
<p />
<p>And then came another, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/us/politics/fbi-hillary-clinton-email.html" type="external">even more improbable twist</a>: The new emails had been found on a laptop computer owned by none other than Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former New York congressman who just happens to be the estranged husband of top Clinton aide and confidante Huma Abedin. The emails had been uncovered during the course of a separate investigation into sexual messages Weiner had dispatched to a 15-year-old North Carolina girl.</p>
<p>If I had pitched a screenplay like that—even to the edgy Coen brothers—the concept would have been shot down as too implausible and incapable (in the argot of the trade) of generating the required “suspension of disbelief” needed to sustain viewer interest. I can just see the rejection note now, telling me that no one would buy into a culprit named Weiner with a penchant for circulating dick pics online. No one.</p>
<p>Except this plotline isn’t fiction. It’s fact, and it has the potential to alter the outcome of the presidential election and, with it, our collective future.</p>
<p>So I, along with sundry other legal and political commentators, have to ask: Why did Comey write his letter, and was his decision to do so a clear break with long-standing FBI and Justice Department policies — and possibly itself a violation of law? Even more fundamentally, I have to ask what the whole stomach-turning tale says about the state of American democracy.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, coming up with answers isn’t easy. For starters, only Comey knows the full extent of his motives. In his letter to Congress, the director wrote merely that his Oct. 28 letter was sent to “supplement my previous testimony,” given before the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/james-comey-testimony-clinton-email-225224" type="external">House Oversight Committee</a> in July and <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-director-testifies-on-extremist-violence-hillary-clinton-emails/" type="external">House Judiciary Committee</a> in September.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/28/read-the-letter-comey-sent-to-fbi-employees-explaining-his-controversial-decision-on-the-clinton-email-investigation/" type="external">a memo</a> circulated to FBI staff the afternoon of Oct. 28, Comey elaborated:</p>
<p>Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.</p>
<p>Comey is an imposing physical figure. A towering 6 feet 8 inches tall, he has a blunt, no-nonsense speaking style and a stern countenance. He also has a reputation for doing the right thing, no matter the consequences and who gets pissed off.</p>
<p>Comey was the guy who in 2004, as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/28/read-the-letter-comey-sent-to-fbi-employees-explaining-his-controversial-decision-on-the-clinton-email-investigation/" type="external">deputy attorney general</a>, rushed to the hospital bed of his seriously ill boss, John Ashcroft, and stood up to then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and George W. Bush chief of staff Andrew Card as they attempted to persuade the weakened Ashcroft to certify aspects of the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program that the Justice Department had deemed unconstitutional. If cast in a classic Hollywood movie for the gesture, you’d think of Gary Cooper, standing tall and alone as the quintessential lawman in “ <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044706/" type="external">High Noon</a>.”</p>
<p>But dig a little deeper into his background and a more nuanced and far less flattering picture of Comey emerges as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/politics/who-is-james-comey-fbi-director-things-to-know/" type="external">a GOP hitman</a>. Early in his government career, Comey worked as a special counsel for the Senate Whitewater Committee, investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton’s involvement in a set of shady Arkansas real-estate investments from the 1970s and&#160;’80s. Later, as a federal prosecutor, he supervised a probe of Bill Clinton’s 2001 pardon of financier Marc Rich, who had been indicted for tax evasion and illegally trading with Iran and subsequently fled the country.</p>
<p>In addition, Comey’s resume includes important and highly lucrative private-sector stints of a decidedly right-wing bent. As MarketWatch columnist Brett Arends catalogued in <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fbis-comey-has-a-sinister-history-as-a-political-and-corporate-fixer-2016-11-02/print" type="external">a post</a> Wednesday, Comey raked in millions a year in salary and stock bonuses as an attorney working on behalf of defense-contractor giant Lockheed Martin, and Bridgewater Associates, known as the country’s largest hedge fund. For a time, he held a seat on the board of HSBC, the global investment bank that was hit in March 2013 with a $1.3 billion fine for international money laundering.</p>
<p>Initially appointed to the Justice Department by the Bush-Cheney administration in 2003, Comey was nominated by President Obama in June 2013 to become FBI director. He was confirmed a month later by the Senate on a 93-1 vote, with Rand Paul, R-Ky., <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/29/sen-rand-paul-is-lone-dissenter-as-james-comey-con/" type="external">the lone dissenter</a>.</p>
<p>Among his public declarations since assuming the top post that September, Comey has claimed that the Black Lives Matter movement and the “Ferguson effect” (referring to the impact of street protests against police shootings and viral videos of police misconduct) are responsible for the <a href="http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/05/13/fbi-director-claims-the-ferguson-effect-and-black-lives-matter-are-to-blame-for-the-rise-in-violent-crimes-again/" type="external">recent uptick in violent crime</a> in some cities. His position has drawn sharp criticism from the Obama administration, as well as the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/12/fbi-director-james-b-comey-black-lives-matter-hams/" type="external">broader civil rights community</a>.</p>
<p>So, was Comey’s Oct. 28 letter the result of his pent-up urge to get back finally at the Clintons and the Democratic establishment? The highly respected Guardian columnist Spencer Ackerman <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/fbi-leaks-hillary-clinton-james-comey-donald-trump" type="external">asserted in an article</a> published Wednesday that the FBI has become “Trumpland,” populated by field agents and other officials rankled over Comey’s initial decision not to seek criminal charges against Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Those looking for bias in Comey’s letter might also point to the bureau’s release Tuesday of a 129-page archive from the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/01/fbi-releases-documents-on-bill-clintons-2001-pardon-financier-rich.html" type="external">Marc Rich investigation and pardon</a>. Why make such documents public, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/marc-rich-pardon-files-230590" type="external">Clinton backers have asked</a>, just days before voters head to the polls if not to place a thumb on the electoral scale?</p>
<p>Still, it’s not easy to come to any definite conclusions about Comey’s intentions. Ever since Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-everyone-looks-bad-because-bill-clinton-met-with-loretta-lynch/2016/07/02/a7807adc-3ff4-11e6-a66f-aa6c1883b6b1_story.html" type="external">fateful encounter with Bill Clinton</a> at the Phoenix airport in early July, Lynch has encountered demands that she recuse herself from the email controversy. As a result, Comey has been forced to become the public face of justice on the issue and take on the task of announcing the results of the long federal inquiry into the email controversy.</p>
<p>He remains that public face to this day.</p>
<p>To be sure, in revealing that the bureau is once again looking into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Comey has violated long-standing <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/eric-holder-op-ed-rips-comey-letter/" type="external">Justice Department protocols</a> that instruct federal prosecutors to remain silent about ongoing investigations within 60 days of an election.</p>
<p>But to be fair, Comey has been caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. By announcing that the email hunt is once again on, he has entered the forbidden arena of partisan politics, condemned by Democrats for boosting Donald Trump’s fading prospects at the last possible minute. On the other hand, remaining silent until after the election would also have had profound political ramifications, especially if Hillary wins, sparking outrage on the Republican right over yet another Clinton cover-up.</p>
<p>In the end, the biggest casualty in the entire tangled and interminable scandal may be democracy itself. We’ve been reduced to a pulp-fiction version of constitutional governance. The head of the nation’s pre-eminent law enforcement agency, his hand forced by an online sex addict named Weiner, may determine the outcome of one of the most consequential presidential elections in our history.</p>
<p>That’s something I, for one, never saw coming.</p> | James Comey, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Weiner and Our Descent Into Pulp Fiction Democracy | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/james-comey-hillary-clinton-anthony-weiner-and-our-descent-into-pulp-fiction-democracy/ | 2016-11-04 | 4 |
<p>A wave of violence has erupted between Israelis and Palestinians, and there are concerns that the unrest could escalate further.</p>
<p>There was a series of Palestinian stabbing attacks on Israelis Wednesday, but no serious injuries. Over the past few days, four Israelis have been killed in stabbings and a&#160;roadside shooting, and five Palestinians have been killed, including three attackers.</p>
<p>The pretext for the renewed violence is competing claims to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site — the Noble Sanctuary for Muslims and Temple Mount for Jews.&#160;In this conflict, social media is used by Israelis and Palestinians as armor and ammo.</p>
<p>Today, I visited the contested holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City with Gilad Hadari, a religious Jewish activist who visits the site every day as part of a campaign to allow Jews to pray there.</p>
<p>He had a Go Pro video camera strapped around his torso&#160;to document any harassment by Muslim activists or Israeli police.</p>
<p>His Go Pro camera films Muslim women shouting religious slogans of protest, and some of them film us, too.</p>
<p>Israeli police are on high alert, and have been placing restrictions on journalists visiting the site. I came as a visitor.</p>
<p>A policeman warned me not to do anything resembling Jewish prayer — no singing or mumbling prayers which police fear could spark violence.</p>
<p>Gilad Hadari, a religious Jewish activist, and Hadassah Lev&#160;visit&#160;the Temple Mount as part of a campaign to allow Jews to pray there.</p>
<p>Daniel Estrin</p>
<p>The minute we stepped out of the compound, though, Hadari began to sing a Jewish song: “May the temple be rebuilt.” That would mean building a Jewish temple where the Muslim Dome of the Rock shrine stands today. Muslims interpret that sentiment as a call to war.</p>
<p>Rebuilding the temple will come when the Messiah comes, Hadari believes. Until that day, he focuses on social media.</p>
<p>He monitors a long list of Palestinian Facebook groups in Arabic, which he can’t read. It gives him access to the videos and photos Palestinians post about the sensitive holy site.</p>
<p>When he sees videos of scuffles, he shares the link on Facebook and with the four Temple Mount themed groups he belongs to on the messaging service WhatsApp.</p>
<p>He said he once saw his own photo on a Palestinian Facebook page with a circle and an X over his face, which he considered a death threat.</p>
<p>When we left the holy site, he began to type out a status report of his visit to share with his social media groups.</p>
<p>Then, even before ambulance sirens began to wail, his phone began pinging with word of a nearby stabbing. An 18-year-old Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli who was carrying a gun and shot her.</p>
<p>Hadari, who is a medic, rushed to the scene.</p>
<p>It’s not long before a video taken right after the attack begins showing up on Facebook. Along the streets of the Old City, young Palestinians were glued to their cell phones, watching videos of various flashpoints of violence as they unfolded.</p>
<p>Walid Toufaha, 20, sat in a souvenir shop, watching a video of people rushing down a cobblestone alleyway as a girl screams. He said it was the Palestinian woman screaming after she was shot. He said he believes she was innocent.</p>
<p>“The more I see it makes me bitter,” Toufaha said. “See what happened with the woman today. She did nothing, and look what happened to her. When I look at this picture, I’m extremely sad, I’m extremely disgusted.”</p>
<p>Sitting next to him was a 16-year-old boy who thumbed through his Facebook feed to a gruesome photo of a Palestinian man, bloodied on the floor, shot dead by police in southern Israel. Police say he stabbed an Israeli.</p>
<p>Israeli kid lights candles for Israeli stabbing victims.</p>
<p>Daniel Estrin</p>
<p>The Islamic militant group Hamas appears to be banking that bloody videos will inspire Palestinians to violent action against Israelis. Hamas produced a video circulating on social media showing a Palestinian slitting a religious Jew’s throat, and then that Palestinian being shot dead as a martyr in what the video calls “defending the Al-Aqsa mosque,” located at the sensitive holy site.</p>
<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Palestinians and Muslim organizations are spreading vicious rumors that Israel intends to disrupt the fragile status quo at the holy site and allow Jewish prayer there.</p>
<p>Netanyahu has vowed to uphold the status quo. Hadari, the Jewish activist, said what matters most is not the “status quo,” but the “status update” on Facebook.</p>
<p>Jewish activists like him use Facebook to call on big groups of Jews to visit the Temple Mount. Masses show up, and police escort them in bigger groups than usual.</p>
<p>“I want to bring more Jews and more Jews and more Jews to the Temple Mount,” Hadari said.</p>
<p>New precedents are set, and they’re set thanks to his activism on Facebook.</p> | Escalating Middle East violence helped along by social media | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-10-07/escalating-middle-east-violence-helped-along-social-media | 2015-10-07 | 3 |
<p>By Richard Martin</p>
<p>(Reuters) – Chris Froome joined the pantheon of cycling greats on Sunday as he secured his first Vuelta a Espana victory, becoming the first rider since Frenchman Bernard Hinault in 1978 to win the Tour de France and Vuelta in the same season.</p>
<p>Frenchman Jacques Anquetil also did the double in 1963 although the Briton is the first man to win both since the Vuelta was shifted from its old start date of late April to late August, when temperatures in Spain are at their most unforgiving.</p>
<p>Even though Froome has dominated the Tour de France in recent times, with four wins in five years and three victories in a row, he has long talked about having unfinished business in the Vuelta, the race where he first made his name in 2011.</p>
<p>“I think it probably is my greatest achievement, being the first person to win the Tour de France and then go on to win the Vuelta,” Froome said.</p>
<p>“I have to say that is probably the toughest Grand Tour I’ve ever ridden. There was something different happening every day. I’ve had good days and then I’ve been lying on the ground, bleeding, thinking my race might be over.</p>
<p>“It’s been a rollercoaster –- absolutely relentless.”</p>
<p>Six years ago the Kenyan-born rider catapulted himself from a little-known domestique to a serious grand tour contender by upstaging Sky team mate Bradley Wiggins in the Vuelta with a stunning time-trial victory and impressive displays in the mountains.</p>
<p>He finished second overall behind Juan Jose Cobo, missing out on first place by 13 seconds.</p>
<p>That unexpected yet remarkable showing sparked a long mission to win the Vuelta. Froome came fourth in 2012 and second again in 2014 and 2016, while he was forced to abandon the race in 2015 after breaking a foot in a crash.</p>
<p>Froome missed out on the top prize in 2016 after a disastrous team display in stage 16 in Formigal, which lead to a radical makeover in the squad for this year’s Vuelta with only Christian Knees keeping his place along with the Briton.</p>
<p>This time Sky expertly shepherded Froome through the race, with Gianni Moscon and Wout Poels proving particularly valuable.</p>
<p>“Chris is smiling more here than when he won the Tour de France,” said Sky team mate David Lopez.</p>
<p>“He’s won four of them so for him the Vuelta was a bigger battle and more complicated for him, it was one he really wanted to win.”</p>
<p>DOMINANT TIME TRIAL DISPLAY</p>
<p>The Briton took the red jersey on the third stage in Andorra, before the race had even entered Spain, and rarely looked like losing it.</p>
<p>He struck his first real blow with a sharp, late attack to outstrip Esteban Chaves and win stage nine, his first grand tour stage victory of the season, and took a giant step toward the overall win with a dominant display in the individual time trial in stage 16, beating Wilco Kelderman by 29 seconds.</p>
<p>“What Chris Froome has achieved over the last 12 months has cemented his place as one of Britain’s greatest sportsmen,” said British Cycling’s chief executive Julie Harrington.</p>
<p>“To win the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana in the same year puts him up there with the best Grand Tour riders in the history of the sport. The cycling community in this country and indeed the whole nation are extremely proud of him.”</p>
<p>The victory also gives some relief to Team Sky and principal Dave Brailsford after the team became mired in controversy over the contents of a ‘jiffy bag’ delivered to them at the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine.</p>
<p>A newspaper report last year alleged it contained the corticosteroid triamcinolone although Brailsford said the package contained a legal flu treatment.</p>
<p>The allegations sparked an investigation by UK Anti-Doping and a parliamentary hearing.</p>
<p>Froome said in June that he was never offered triamcinolone by the team and was not aware of other Sky riders taking it.</p> | Cycling: Froome joins cycling greats after finally winning Vuelta | false | https://newsline.com/cycling-froome-joins-cycling-greats-after-finally-winning-vuelta/ | 2017-09-10 | 1 |
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<p>CARLSBAD, N.M. — A Carlsbad man has been convicted for the second time in the 2012 killing of another southern New Mexico man.</p>
<p>The Carlsbad Current-Argus reports ( <a href="http://bit.ly/2frhM14" type="external">http://bit.ly/2frhM14</a> ) that it took nearly an hour and a half for jurors to find Mathew Sloan guilty of first-degree murder and burglary. He was sentenced to life in prison.</p>
<p>The verdict came last week in district court. It was the second time Sloan was tried for the shooting death of 50-year-old Timothy Wallace of Artesia as the New Mexico Supreme Court had reversed Sloan’s previous convictions last year.</p>
<p>Prosecutors said while it’s unclear if Sloan intended to kill Wallace, evidence proved he was aware of his actions.</p>
<p>Sloan’s attorney pushed for lesser convictions, saying his client was more fearful of a co-defendant who was also convicted.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Carlsbad Current-Argus, <a href="http://www.currentargus.com/" type="external">http://www.currentargus.com/</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | New Mexico man sentenced in 2012 deadly shooting case | false | https://abqjournal.com/1068739/new-mexico-man-sentenced-in-2012-deadly-shooting-case.html | 2 |
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<p>When contemporary politicians refer to the Founders, they call upon a querulous and divided group that simply did not and cannot offer the singular guidance that we might wish.</p>
<p>On the night of his 2012 presidential victory, Barack Obama stood in front of a large crowd at McCormick Place to rejoice in the prospect of four more years. The speech was in many ways unremarkable. He thanked his wife, his daughters, his campaign, the American people. He pledged to finish what he started four years before. And in looking forward to four more years, he simultaneously looked backward. Way back. “I believe we can keep the promise of our founders,” he told his audience, “the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, or what you look like.”</p>
<p>That Obama referenced the Founders was not unexpected. It’s what politicians do. I only remember this instance because I happened to be writing a book on the way the Founders get used in political debate. And yet, even though I was prepared for a general reference to the Founders, I was astounded by the specifics of the comment.</p>
<p>Obama was trying to counter the Tea Party movement that had dogged most of his first term. After he proposed a program of mortgage relief in 2009, the CNBC commentator, Rick Santelli, had set off the movement by suggesting that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were “rolling over in their graves” as a result of Obama’s policies. From that point on, Tea Partiers claimed that the president was defying the limited-government principles of the Founding Fathers and in the process had begun to erect a quasi-socialistic state.</p>
<p>I think for many readers of this blog the historical errors of the Tea Party are so obvious that I don’t propose to dwell on them. In fact, let’s stipulate at the outset that the Tea Party’s view of the past, which often involves the collapse of past and present and the embrace of the past as just like the present, is so wrong-headed that it deserves to be called, as Jill Lepore has suggested, “historical fundamentalism.” But let’s set that aside.</p>
<p>What struck me as I listened to Obama’s speech was that he, too, presented the Founders with just as much historical anachronism and just as much malapropism as his Tea Party critics. Here was a black man citing the Founders, many of whom would have had a hard time believing that he could, as a black man, be president. And yet he cited them as though they were multicultural egalitarians. Though the Founders did not on the whole support class equality, gender equality, sexual freedom, or even racial equality, Obama used their supposed principles as a justification to create a multicultural society of opportunity.</p>
<p>It is odd, if you think about it, that here in the twenty-first century we continue to fight over men who have been dead for two hundred years. By the time of his speech, I was beginning to wonder if this is a peculiarity of American politics. You do not usually hear a British politician invoking Magna Carta in contemporary debate, for example. And it is hard to imagine a popular political movement in France beginning with a feverish call of return to the true meaning of the 1958 French Constitution. Even though both nations have their peculiar origins stories, myths that identify their uniqueness as a people in relation to the world, those myths do not mean that their national Founders possess intellectual cache in the twenty-first century. You might see the French President riding in a military truck down the Champs-Elysees on Bastille Day, but I can pretty much guarantee that you will not see him claiming to be a Jacobin or in the intellectual lineage of Napoleon.</p>
<p>It is all the more odd when you consider that, as a point of fact, the Founders were not united and not the originators of a universal American creed. They had profound disagreements about nearly every issue that mattered to them. They argued over the role of the federal intervention in the economy. They had differing visions of American foreign policy. They bickered over the authority of the executive, the relationship between the federal and the state governments. The Constitution was a point of vast dispute. When contemporary politicians refer to the Founders, they call upon a querulous and divided group that simply did not and cannot offer the singular guidance that we might wish.&#160;</p>
<p>So why do we do this? It was when Obama invoked the Founders that I figured it out. The Founding Fathers are, as a group, a political football. Everyone wants them in order to score points. To have them on your side (changing the metaphor slightly) is to dwell in the sunny uplands where the divine blesses all of your policies. To disagree with the Founders is … well, it’s just not done. Because a politician needs the Founders to justify his or her policies. And in those moments, more often than not, the Founders get re-created into the image of those who invoke them.</p>
<p>This distortion causes various intellectual and political problems. It turns the Founders from people into propaganda. It degrades political debate by converting policy disputes into more fundamental disputes over first principles. And it is, in its intellectual inaccuracy and misguided historical analogies, unworthy of a nation with the power and consequence of the United States. I hope, at least, that by becoming aware of that fact, we might begin to have a different kind of political debate.</p>
<p>This article was originally published by the <a href="http://s-usih.org/2015/05/why-we-should-stop-talking-about-the-founding-fathers.html" type="external">Society for U.S. Intellectual History</a>.</p>
<p>Like what you’ve read? <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/itt-subscription-offer?refcode=WS_ITT_Article_Footer&amp;noskip=true" type="external">Subscribe to In These Times magazine</a>, or <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/support-in-these-times?refcode=WS_ITT_Article_Footer&amp;noskip=true" type="external">make a tax-deductible donation to fund this reporting</a>.</p>
<p>David Sehat is associate professor of history at Georgia State University and author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/36495/biblio/9781476779775?p_tx" type="external">The Jefferson Rule: How the Founding Fathers Became Infallible and Our Politics Inflexible</a>.</p> | A Historian’s Case for Why We Should Stop Talking About the Founding Fathers | true | http://inthesetimes.com/article/17976/founding-fathers-outdated | 2015-05-20 | 4 |
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<p />
<p>The Department of Interior announced this week it would withhold a portion of the energy and minerals royalties it collects from producers using federal land. The withholding would be part of the federal government’s compliance with the across-the-board federal cuts that took effect earlier this month.</p>
<p>Some top New Mexico leaders, including Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Attorney General Gary King, said they are checking to see if there are ways the royalty cut can be averted.</p>
<p>In the short term, Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the state will be able to offset the federal cut with $570 million in reserves set aside this year.</p>
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<p>But Smith added: “We’re always concerned about it being the tip of the iceberg.”</p>
<p>The state’s 10 percent budget reserves were kept high in part to insulate the state and its annual budget from looming federal sequestration cuts and volatile energy industry royalties, Smith said.</p>
<p>“Obviously we can make the adjustment for that $26 million this year, but we don’t know what else is going to unfold,” Smith said.</p>
<p>Wyoming is the only state facing a royalties loss larger than New Mexico, one of the nation’s largest onshore oil and gas producers. Wyoming is facing a $53 million cut.</p>
<p>“The Budget Control Act of 2011, passed by Congress, mandates across-the-board, automatic 5.1 percent sequester reductions,” said Patrick Etchart, spokesman for the federal Office of Natural Resources Revenue. “By law, revenue payments to states are not exempt from the sequester. Cumulatively, approximately $110 million will be withheld from states and counties where energy production occurs on federal lands during the remainder of the current fiscal year,” he said.</p>
<p>The federal government previously paid state governments about 50 percent of energy and minerals royalties collected on federal lands within the state. New Mexico in 2012 received about $488 million in those royalties, money that went toward the state’s General Fund.</p>
<p>The proposed $26 million royalty cut for New Mexico represents less than 0.5 percent of the state’s $5.9 billion General Fund budget.</p>
<p>But the lost energy and mineral royalties are a particular concern because the cutback takes from revenues rather than federal appropriations, said David Abbey, director of the Legislative Finance Committee.</p>
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<p>Governor’s spokesman Enrique Knell reiterated that concern, saying that Gov. Susana Martinez is conferring with other state leaders about the cuts.</p>
<p>“They don’t represent the traditional type of programmatic cuts that the sequester was seemingly designed to enforce,” Knell said.</p>
<p>King said his Attorney General’s Office is reviewing the federal plan to withhold New Mexico royalties to determine whether the federal cuts can be appealed.</p>
<p>“It’s a little bit early for me to know what we can do, but I certainly have reviewed the issues with my litigation group,” King said.</p>
<p>Udall was critical of the royalty cuts.</p>
<p>“We are looking into this decision by the Department of the Interior and exploring options to see if it can be reversed, but the larger issue is the need to replace the draconian spending cuts of sequestration with a balanced approach to reducing the debt and deficit,” Udall said.</p>
<p>Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., said the royalties to be withheld by the Department of Interior represent just some of what are expected to be federal cuts hitting New Mexico.</p>
<p>“It’s because of the impact these cuts will have — as well as the impact of cuts to other programs vital to New Mexico — that I have opposed the sequester every step of the way,” Lujan said. “It is a failed experiment that is going to have real consequences for the people of New Mexico.”</p>
<p>Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., criticized the federal government for failing to tighten its own belt.</p>
<p>“The federal government is trying to bow out of their commitments to states after failing to cut wasteful spending within the government,” Pearce said. — This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | $26M dip in gas royalties likely | false | https://abqjournal.com/183269/26m-dip-in-gas-royalties-likely-2.html | 2013-03-29 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Like “The Little Engine That Could,” a coalition of small school districts pulled together to make it into the last leg of the federal Race to the Top.</p>
<p>The consortium of small, rural school districts from New Mexico, Washington and Arkansas put together an entry in the competition that has them in the final running for federal grant money from the U.S. Department of Education. From a pool of 61 finalists representing more than 200 school districts (there were 372 applicants), federal officials plan to give out about $400 million in grants to 15 to 25 winners who will be announced by the end of the year.</p>
<p>Of the 41 districts in the consortium, more than half are from New Mexico — Clayton, Des Moines, Estancia, Fort Sumner, House, Jemez Valley, Las Vegas City, Logan, Magdalena, Mora, Mosquero, Mountainair, Pecos, Quemado, Raton, Roy, San Jon, Santa Rosa, Springer, Vaughn and West Las Vegas.</p>
<p>Previously Race to the Top funds were awarded to states. This year the program challenged individual districts to come up with plans to target specific student groups. Three large New Mexico school districts — Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Bloomfield — applied individually, but were knocked out of the running.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The primary goal of the coalition’s plan is to use technology to create a web-based network for teachers in rural areas to share ideas and best practices.</p>
<p>Race to the Top is an initiative of the Obama administration and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “These finalists are setting the curve for the rest of the country with innovative plans to drive education reform in the classroom,” Duncan said.</p>
<p>Congratulations to the N.M. districts that took the time and initiative to work together toward more teacher effectiveness and better student achievement.</p>
<p>This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.</p> | Editorial: N.M.’s Small Districts Show How It’s Done | false | https://abqjournal.com/150819/nms-small-districts-show-how-its-done.html | 2012-12-04 | 2 |
<p>Boston Globe</p>
<p>: WASHINGTON - The federal investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff has broadened to examine his dealings with the Russian government and a pair of high-profile Russian energy company executives, according to documents made available to the Globe.</p>
<p>A subpoena in the case, issued this month to an Abramoff associate, says the US government is seeking information on Abramoff-related activities with "any department, ministry, or office holder or agent of the Russian government." The subpoena, which has not been made public, was given to the Globe by a person who is involved in the case.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/02/23/abramoff_ties_to_russians_probed/?page=full" type="external">Full story</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | Abramoff Ties to Russians Probed | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/abramoff-ties-to-russians-probed/ | 2006-02-24 | 4 |
<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) - A San Diego man banned from Alaska Airlines for touching a flight attendant says he's a victim of discrimination against men.</p>
<p>Mike Timon, angry over his treatment by the airline, called the <a href="http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-airplane-allegation-20171229-story.html" type="external">San Diego Union-Tribune</a> and told the newspaper in a story published last week that he was banned for touching the female flight attendant on the buttocks as he sat in first class on a flight from Oregon to San Diego on Dec. 26.</p>
<p>Timon said he touched the woman politely on her back to get her attention so he could order a drink. He said his gesture was misunderstood as sexual harassment, and he was met by police who escorted him off the plane. Police took statements from Timon and others but no further action.</p>
<p>"For me to be accused of this, and for me to be escorted off the plane by police? This is it. I'm blowing up," Timon said. "It's unnecessary. It's discrimination toward me."</p>
<p>Alaska spokeswoman Ann Johnson confirmed that Timon cannot fly on the airline pending the outcome of an investigation but said she could not provide specifics about his case.</p>
<p>"Alaska Airlines will not tolerate any type of sexual misconduct that creates an unsafe environment for our guests and crew members and we are fully committed to do our part to address this serious issue," Johnson said.</p>
<p>Timon, who owns a medical equipment company and frequently flies first class, said that when no drink came, he pressed his call button, and a male flight attendant came to say he had been cut off. Timon said he had only had a single drink and was sober.</p>
<p>Timon said widespread concern over sexual harassment has hurt men like him.</p>
<p>"What about us guys?" Timon said. "I can't tap a flight attendant on her back to politely ask for something, yet I get accused of something? It's out of control and I am pissed."</p>
<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) - A San Diego man banned from Alaska Airlines for touching a flight attendant says he's a victim of discrimination against men.</p>
<p>Mike Timon, angry over his treatment by the airline, called the <a href="http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-airplane-allegation-20171229-story.html" type="external">San Diego Union-Tribune</a> and told the newspaper in a story published last week that he was banned for touching the female flight attendant on the buttocks as he sat in first class on a flight from Oregon to San Diego on Dec. 26.</p>
<p>Timon said he touched the woman politely on her back to get her attention so he could order a drink. He said his gesture was misunderstood as sexual harassment, and he was met by police who escorted him off the plane. Police took statements from Timon and others but no further action.</p>
<p>"For me to be accused of this, and for me to be escorted off the plane by police? This is it. I'm blowing up," Timon said. "It's unnecessary. It's discrimination toward me."</p>
<p>Alaska spokeswoman Ann Johnson confirmed that Timon cannot fly on the airline pending the outcome of an investigation but said she could not provide specifics about his case.</p>
<p>"Alaska Airlines will not tolerate any type of sexual misconduct that creates an unsafe environment for our guests and crew members and we are fully committed to do our part to address this serious issue," Johnson said.</p>
<p>Timon, who owns a medical equipment company and frequently flies first class, said that when no drink came, he pressed his call button, and a male flight attendant came to say he had been cut off. Timon said he had only had a single drink and was sober.</p>
<p>Timon said widespread concern over sexual harassment has hurt men like him.</p>
<p>"What about us guys?" Timon said. "I can't tap a flight attendant on her back to politely ask for something, yet I get accused of something? It's out of control and I am pissed."</p> | Man says airline wrongly banned him for touching crew member | false | https://apnews.com/5d700dad74544777b695011d637ab263 | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
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<p>Canadian rock band April Wine will perform many of its hits during the show at Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino.</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — Life on the road has changed for Brian Greenway.</p>
<p>And it’s all been good changes.</p>
<p>Greenway is a member of Canadian rock outfit April Wine.</p>
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<p>The band hasn’t released a studio album since 2006’s “Roughly Speaking.”</p>
<p />
<p>“We haven’t done anything since the end of November and we’ve taken off since then,” he says during a recent interview. “It’s been great to be off of tour and not dealing with the weather.”</p>
<p>Greenway and April Wine, which includes Myles Goodwyn, Richard Lanthier and Roy Nichol, is back out on tour.</p>
<p>The band got its start in 1969 and has released more than 20 albums during its career.</p>
<p>The band found mainstream success during the 1970s with its singles, “You Could Have Been a Lady,” “Sign of the Gypsy Queen,” “I Like to Rock” and “Tonite is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love.”</p>
<p>“You Could Have Been a Lady” was originally recorded by the band Hot Chocolate and was commercial success, hitting No. 5 on the Canadian charts, as well as cracking the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States where it stayed for 11 weeks, peaking at No. 32.</p>
<p>Despite all that success, Greenway says the band doesn’t really know if they will work on new music. He says there have been talks, but no action.</p>
<p>“It seems like no one is interested in releasing our music,” he says. “It would be pointless for us to make music because they aren’t playing it on the radio. How much do people really sell? The music business is in a tough place right now.”</p>
<p>Greenway says the band will be performing most of the music from its album “Nature of the Beast” and work in some of the hits.</p>
<p>“It’s nice to have a catalog like ours,” he says. “We have the opportunity to be able to rotate songs in and out of our set list. We like to bring the songs in and out of the set about every five years.”</p>
<p /> | Longtime rockers: Together since ’69, April Wine still plays the hits | false | https://abqjournal.com/546941/santa-fe-rock-10.html | 2 |
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<p>Growing older makes many people cringe but it doesn’t have to. Dr. Manny sits down with Dr. Ken Druck, author of ‘Courageous Aging: Your Best Years Ever Reimagined,’ to talk about how to embrace growing older</p>
<p>While Florida -- and other sunny, warm places may top the list of popular retirement spots -- some lesser known cities could actually provide the best standard of living.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>That includes Pittsburgh, Boston and Minneapolis.</p>
<p>If you’re surprised to see them at the top of Bankrate’s ranking of best and worst cities for retirement, don’t be. Places that might offer seniors the best standard of living may look a lot different from our traditional sun-and-golf idea of retirement havens.</p>
<p>We scored the 50 largest U.S. metro areas for their: health care quality; tax burdens; crime rates; living costs; weather; public transportation; cultural amenities (things to do); percentage of the population over 65; and the overall well-being of seniors, as measured by the&#160; <a href="http://www.well-beingindex.com/" type="external">Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The ranking is based on the score totals. On the chart below, see how your dream destination fared. And make sure you’re saving enough&#160;to afford your perfect retirement.</p>
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<p>Sources: U.S. Census, The Tax Foundation, Creative Vitality Suite, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, The Council for Community and Economic Research, United Health Foundation, Gallup Sharecare Well-Being Index, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Healthview Services, Bureau of Transportation Statistics.</p>
<p>For data only available on a state basis, we applied statistics proportionally in the metro area based on metro residents who live in each state.</p> | The best and worst cities for retirement | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/11/best-and-worst-cities-for-retirement.html | 2017-11-11 | 0 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal">Wall Street</a> is warming up to <a href="" type="internal">Microsoft</a> Corp's $8.5 billion purchase of online chat service Skype.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>After initial shock at the price -- more than double its expected public valuation -- investors think Microsoft made a smart move buying advanced communications technology it can put into its products along with a ready base of users.</p>
<p>But there are still concerns the world's biggest software company -- with a patchy record on pleasing consumers and making acquisitions work -- can really pull it off.</p>
<p>"It's got huge potential. It pulls them directly into the telecoms area and they need to diversify," said Nick Landell-Mills at Indigo Equity Research. "But they haven't really made a lot of acquisitions. And Microsoft has noticeably failed so far on consumer. They are essentially an enterprise organization."</p>
<p>Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and Skype's U.S. base in <a href="" type="internal">Silicon Valley</a> are buzzing as the two companies start the process of working together.</p>
<p>Skype chief Tony Bates has been in Redmond with his team for much of the past two weeks, after the deal closed.</p>
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<p>Microsoft has not said what it plans for Skype -- its biggest acquisition to date -- except to say it is "incredibly excited" about getting the service into its products.</p>
<p>Most expect Skype video chat and messaging will start to appear soon on <a href="" type="internal">Xbox</a> game consoles, Windows phones and Windows Live messenger, and later as an expansion to its Lync messaging and video chat service for businesses.</p>
<p>THE STRATEGY</p>
<p>Skype, which popularized the VoIP -- voice over Internet protocol -- method of using a computer as a phone, is the clear leader in the market, with 145 million users who sign in at least once a month.</p>
<p>Its online chat service is free, but it has 8.8 million customers paying for premium services such as placing calls to mobile phones or landlines from a PC and video-conferencing, which it is pitching strongly to businesses.</p>
<p>Microsoft is hoping Skype will enrich its own programs and platforms and become a vehicle for ads, without frightening off Skype's loyal customers.</p>
<p>The most likely first step will be to bring Skype to the nearly 35 million active members of Xbox Live, Microsoft's online gaming setup, allowing players to video-chat while they play games or watch movies.</p>
<p>"They are turning the Xbox form purely a gaming device to being a communications or entertainment console," said Mark Moerdler, senior research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. "You can sit at your Xbox and be able to talk to other people through the camera in Kinect."</p>
<p>Microsoft will then look to introduce Skype as an app on its Windows Phones and make it complementary to its PC software, analysts said, helping it battle rival services <a href="" type="internal">Google</a> Talk and Apple Inc's FaceTime.</p>
<p>The strategy will be to draw more people into Skype, especially business users, pushing them towards paid services.</p>
<p>"It's a huge installed base and Microsoft can target them with services from Bing, ads and so on," said Jack Gold, head of J. Gold Associates, a telecoms research firm. "Skype can also plug into the Lync environment and give Microsoft scalability way beyond what they can do now, as many companies already use Skype."</p>
<p>TRACK RECORD</p>
<p>Microsoft regularly buys small companies as a way of bringing new technology and talent into the company. But it rarely makes big purchases.</p>
<p>Aside from its failed 2008 bid for Internet giant <a href="" type="internal">Yahoo</a> Inc , the company tends not to venture into multibillion dollar deals.</p>
<p>Of the big acquisitions it has done, the record is patchy at best. A decade ago it spent almost $2.5 billion buying business software firms Great Plains and Navision, which now form a central part of its offerings for corporations.</p>
<p>But its $6 billion deal to buy online ad firm aQuantive in 2007 -- its biggest deal before Skype -- was a flat out failure, with aQuantive's managers fleeing the new regime.</p>
<p>On the consumer side of the business, its record is also unconvincing. Microsoft made a great deal buying video game maker Bungie on the cheap in 2000 and used its wildly popular Halo combat game to establish the Xbox as a power in the console market. Despite that success, Bungie split from Microsoft in 2007.</p>
<p>Its purchase of innovative phone-maker Danger in 2008 ended disastrously in 2011 with the unpopular Kin phone, now axed.</p>
<p>A recurring theme is Microsoft's difficulty in getting people who work for young, fast-moving technology companies to adapt to being part of a 90,000-strong company whose revolutionary days are far behind it.</p>
<p>"Skype may suffer as an independent service and brand, under Microsoft's un-innovative culture," said Landell-Mills.</p>
<p>VALLEY TO SOUND</p>
<p>Perhaps for this reason, Microsoft intends to let Skype, with its 900 or so employees, operate as an independent unit.</p>
<p>Skype chief Bates will have an office at Microsoft's Redmond campus and report directly to CEO <a href="" type="internal">Steve Ballmer</a> there. But he is likely to spend most of his time at Skype's main U.S. base in Palo Alto, California.</p>
<p>Although headquartered in Luxembourg, Skype's development hub -- employing more than a third of its 900 or so employees -- is in Tallinn, Estonia, where the technology behind the company originated. It also has a large sales and marketing office in the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Although its employees will not be physically close, Skype will be part of Microsoft's entertainment and devices unit, which includes the Xbox and Windows phone teams.</p>
<p>Analysts expected Skype to add $250 million to $400 million to that unit's sales for the remainder of this fiscal year, pushing the total to about $10.6 billion, about half what is expected for the Windows and Office units.</p>
<p>The busiest part of the year is coming up for Skype, as users in the northern hemisphere tend to use the service more during the dark winter months, especially during the holiday season and <a href="" type="internal">Chinese New Year</a> when they want to reach out to friends and relatives.</p>
<p>Despite its million of users, Skype had operating profit of only $20.6 million in 2010. Analysts expect that to cut Microsoft's rich overall profit margins.</p>
<p>Microsoft has made no forecasts of Skype's sales or profitability, but did say last week that it would add about $600 million to operating expenses this fiscal year.</p>
<p>"If you look at what they paid to acquire such a huge user base which they can leverage, it was a reasonable cost to Microsoft for what they got," said Gold. "What they now do with it and how they execute will, of course, be the key determining factor." (Editing by Andre Grenon)</p> | Microsoft Works Out How to Play Skype | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/10/28/analysis-microsoft-works-out-how-to-play-skype.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
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<p />
<p>“We can’t certify the results of that race,” Bureau of Elections Director Bobbi Shearer told members of the canvassing board.</p>
<p>However, all other statewide races were ratified today by the board. The certification of the election results paves the way for judges, and some other officials, to legally assume office. New state Supreme Court justice Barabara Vigil will be sworn in today, for instance.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, several victorious legislative candidates who did not file mandatory campaign spending reports with Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s office before yesterday’s deadline will have to file those reports before being certified as winners, according to the Secretary of State’s office.</p>
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<p>The general election was held Nov. 6.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | State Canvassing Board Certifies (Nearly) All Election Results | false | https://abqjournal.com/151715/state-canvassing-board-certifies-nearly-all-election-results.html | 2 |
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<p>Lions Gate Entertainment's (NYSE: LGF-A) big screen reboot of the popular children's television property Power Rangers is off to a solid start. The picture bowed to $40.5 million in its domestic opening weekend -- outperforming tracking estimates suggesting that the picture would open to $36 million, and leaving the door open for future installments. As of this writing, shares of the company had gained nearly 10% following the movie's release.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>With aspirations of turning Power Rangers into a massive film franchise, and Lions Gate in need of hit new entertainment properties, the extent to which the property has staying power will be important for the company.</p>
<p>Image source: Lions Gate Entertainment.</p>
<p>Power Rangers' $40.5 million domestic opening isn't a bad start, but the picture isn't a huge hit either. The movie grabbed an additional $19 million from foreign markets over its first weekend, and has yet to debut in territories including France, South Korea, and Japan. The roughly $60 million global opening puts the film in position to recoup its roughly $100 million production budget and additional marketing expenses, but the performance doesn't make a clear case that Lions Gate has laid the foundation for a huge new franchise.</p>
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<p>Critical and audience receptions for the picture support the notion of a mixed outlook for the property, with 47% of critics on RottenTomatoes.com giving the picture a favorable review, while moviegoers had a warmer response. Surveys from CinemaScore indicate that Power Rangers was well-liked by its mostly millennial audience, so word of mouth may help the picture over the rest of its run.</p>
<p>Lions Gate has plans to produce at least five sequels in the property, and while the extent of Power Rangers' staying power at the box office will have some effect on the franchise's future, it seems likely that the company will move ahead with production on the first of these installments. The recently released franchise reboot can't be counted as a breakout hit, but it's performing well enough for the franchise-hungry Lions Gate to see if it can build a bigger audience with future iterations.</p>
<p>The merchandise-friendly nature of the Power Rangers franchise makes it an obvious fit for Lions Gate's consumer-products division, and the property can be counted on to factor into other budding initiatives at the company as well.</p>
<p>Power Rangers looks to be an important asset in the studio's push into game development: A mobile title built to tie in with the big film release launched as the fifth-highest-grossing game the week of its release, indicating the property has cross-medium appeal. Lions Gate is building up its game division, and recognizable franchises are often needed to stand out in the crowded mobile marketplace, so future releases built around the property are probably in the works.</p>
<p>Lions Gate is also expanding the reach of its entertainment franchises at theme parks and other location-based venues. A theme park that incorporates the company's film properties recently opened in Dubai, and Lionsgate Entertainment World is scheduled to open in China in late 2018. The company is also working to develop 20 branded leisure centers at malls and shopping plazas around the world, incorporating Lions Gate's key properties.</p>
<p>If the franchise has staying power, Power Rangers would seemingly be a good fit for these kinds of emerging business opportunities.</p>
<p>Following the success of young-adult properties Twilight and The Hunger Games, Lions Gate has been struggling to find its next big film series. The company aligns its model more around the production of mid-budget pictures than major studio rivals like Walt Disney and Time Warner, and the recent merger with premium television channel Starz has done a great deal to diversify its overall business. But big success in the movie industry still hinges on hit franchises.</p>
<p>Lions Gate is relaunching its Saw horror franchise later this year; it also aims to launch a franchise from a modern reboot of the Robin Hood story, with an origin story planned for March 2018. Further down the line, the company's next big franchise opportunity looks to be The Kingkiller Chronicle, a property adapted from a popular book series. Films, a television series, and video games built around the Kingkiller property are currently in the works.</p>
<p>Power Rangers isn't showing signs of being the next hit on the level of The Hunger Games, but the potential to build on the franchise is there, and that's good news for Lions Gate and its investors.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Lions Gate Class A SharesWhen 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>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/keithnoonan/info.aspx" type="external">Keith Noonan Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Lions Gate Entertainment (Class A) and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends Time Warner. 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> | What Does "Power Rangers" Mean for Lions Gate Entertainment? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/29/what-does-power-rangers-mean-for-lions-gate-entertainment.html | 2017-03-29 | 0 |
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<p>TUCSON, Ariz. — A former Pima County Sheriff’s Department chief deputy who was accused of misusing money seized under an anti-racketeering law has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft charges.</p>
<p>Christopher Radtke changed his plea Friday in federal court in Tucson to three misdemeanor counts of theft, each of which said he stole money adding up to less than $1,000.</p>
<p>Radtke resigned as chief deputy in October after his indictment on charges of embezzling forfeiture money from the department.</p>
<p>Sentencing is scheduled for April 7.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Arizona Daily Star, <a href="http://www.tucson.com" type="external">http://www.tucson.com</a></p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Former Pima County chief deputy pleads guilty in theft case | false | https://abqjournal.com/947361/former-pima-county-chief-deputy-pleads-guilty-in-theft-case.html | 2 |
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<p>Photo from Flickr under a Creative Commons license</p>
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<p>Doctors, nurses, psychologists, and other health care professionals complicit in <a href="" type="internal">the US torture program</a> should be subject to an independent investigation, and those found to have violated professional ethics or the law should be prosecuted and/or lose their license and professional society memberships. That sentiment, from the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), may well mark the first time a doctors’ group has demanded true accountability of its professional peers.</p>
<p>Back in 1986, PHR was founded on the idea that health care professionals—given “their specialized skills, ethical commitments, and credible voices, are uniquely positioned to investigate the health consequences of human rights violations and work to stop them.” Little did the founders realize they would one day be looking into the activities of their own government and colleagues.</p>
<p>Since 2002, doctors, medics, and mental health professionals in federal employ have brazenly violated longstanding and internationally recognized ethical obligations forbidding participation in torture and abuse of prisoners. As <a href="" type="internal">Justine Sharrock</a> reported in our July/August issue (“ <a href="" type="internal">First, Do Harm</a>“), some military doctors did speak up internally regarding the aberrant policies—which came down directly from Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon by way of the CIA and lawyers in the White House Office of Legal Counsel. But those voices were quickly stifled. Retired Army Brig. General Stephen N. Xenakis told Sharrock that after the dissenters were shut down, they and others feared for their careers and simply shut up.</p>
<p>They weren’t the only ones. Physicians for Human Rights, which shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, has been conducting the sorts of analyses that others—including state medical licensing boards and professional groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association—have simply refused to undertake.</p>
<p>PHR’s brand new report, Aiding Torture: Health Professionals’ Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 Inspector General’s Report (download <a href="http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/news-2009-08-31.html" type="external">here</a>), applies a medical lens to the following dubious procedures used on American detainees (not to mention mock executions, the brandishing of guns and power drills, and threats to sexually assault detainees family members and murder their children).</p>
<p>Forced Shaving of Head and Beard—Chiefly designed to inflict psychological harm by means of humiliation, both personal and religious.</p>
<p>Hooding—Aimed at causing dislocation and confusion….Prolonged sensory deprivation can result in depression, depersonalization and psychosis. According to the ICRC report, hooding, and other observed sensory deprivation techniques resulted in “signs of concentration difficulties, memory problems, verbal expression difficulties, incoherent speech, acute anxiety reactions, abnormal behavior and suicidal tendencies.”</p>
<p>Dietary Manipulation—Mr. Bin-al-Shib reported that he went three to four weeks without solid food, and was only provided with Ensure and water.…While physical risks of a liquid diet are minimal as long as appropriate calories and nutrients are provided, the intent of dietary manipulation is to inflict psychological distress by infringing on the detainee’s sense of autonomy and self control and increasing discomfort and a sense of helplessness and dependency.</p>
<p>Prolonged Diapering—Access to toilet is a universally recognized minimum standard for prisoners and detainees.…The chief aim of this technique is to cause psychological stress through humiliation, induced dependency, loss of autonomy, and regression to an infantile state. [At <a href="" type="internal">Guantanamo</a>, interrogators took] the detainee to pre-toilet-training levels. When combined with a liquid diet, the experiences of regression, humiliation, and dependency are magnified.</p>
<p>Walling—Six of the fourteen high-value detainees interviewed by the [Red Cross] reported being placed in a neck collar or roll and then slammed against a wall.…Walling results in blunt trauma and acceleration/deceleration type injuries. Blunt trauma can result in bruises and bleeding from ruptured blood vessels. Studies have observed persistence of musculoskeletal pain cause by blunt trauma even a decade after the trauma has occurred.…Psychological stress, which is the primary aim of the procedure, is achieved by use of surprise, generating a startle response, an experience of shock, loss of control and helplessness.</p>
<p>Confinement in a Box—An extreme example of stress positions, with the added effect of decreased access to fresh air, temperature changes, light deprivation, and isolation. Stress positions have been associated with permanent joint and ligamentous injury, and both acute and prolonged musculoskeletal pain….Like their canine counterparts, humans subjected to similar confinement develop psychomotor and cognitive responses that would be clinically diagnosed as depression and, in certain cases, PTSD. Such symptoms include apathy, helplessness, hopelessness, foreshortened sense of future, and a (in this case justified) lack of belief in their ability to affect their future prospects. In Seligman’s experiments, these symptoms were severe and lasting.</p>
<p>At a certain point, as we’ve reported, the CIA and Pentagon started requiring a doctor and a psychologist to be present during enhanced interrogations— <a href="" type="internal">psychologists</a> helped design the torture sessions and doctors signed off on them. The PHR authors counter <a href="" type="internal">the common rationale</a> that having doctors or psychologists around is in the prisoner’s best interest: The medical presence “did not make these methods safer, and in fact only served to sanitize their use and enable the abuse to escalate, thereby placing health professionals in the untenable position of calibrating harm rather than serving as protectors and healers as required by their ethical oath.” (This sentiment mirrors what several medical ethicists told Sharrock.)</p>
<p>Doctors, noted the report, also helped White House lawyers come up with <a href="" type="internal">their legal justifications</a> for torture, including waterboarding:</p>
<p>“Since the OLC lawyers had no direct experience of the techniques, they necessarily relied instead on the judgment of health professionals. Yet, in a striking example of bootstrapping, they turned for advice about the pain caused by the techniques to the very health professionals who were implementing them.</p>
<p>“It is precisely to avoid such complicity,” the report continues, “that health professionals have recourse to professional codes of ethics, as well as international standards of medical conduct. Familiarity with these codes—not to mention basic human decency—should preclude such conduct.”</p>
<p>Amen to that.</p>
<p>Follow Michael Mechanic on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/MichaelMechanic" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p>
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<p /> | Physicians’ Group Seeks Criminal Investigation of Torture Docs | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/08/physicians-seek-criminal-investigation-colleagues-who-tortured/ | 2009-08-31 | 4 |
<p>China’s President Hu Jintao’s four-day state visit to the United States that ended on Friday has unleashed an avalanche of empty verbiage, courtesy of the two governments, their media enablers, the punditocracy, and the blogosphere.</p>
<p>The trip, a victory lap for Hu prior to his retirement next year, appears essentially devoid of significant accomplishments or developments, unless you are a stockholder in Boeing (and can celebrate a US$19 billion payday occasioned partially, if not completely, by China’s desire to facilitate the visit with some feel-good tangibles for President Barack Obama and China’s friends in American big business).</p>
<p>Thankfully, a few useful observations can be extracted from the rhetoric and visuals surrounding the visit.</p>
<p>First, 2011 is not 2006.</p>
<p>In 2006, the occasion of Hu’s previous visit, George W Bush was still riding high in the early years of his second term. The “war on terror”, with a few bumps, was rolling along and doing in the surviving members of the “axis of evil” – North Korea and Iran – was at the top of the foreign policy agenda after the third member, Iraq, had already been dealt with. Confronting China – long a preoccupation of vice president Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne Cheney – to moderate its support of North Korea and Iran was an important priority. [1]</p>
<p>In April 2006, when Hu visited, the US campaign to financially isolate and destabilize North Korea – initiated with the Treasury finding that Macau’s Banco Delta Asia (BDA) was a “financial institution of money laundering concern” and toppled it into insolvency – was in full swing.</p>
<p>And China was feeling the heat.</p>
<p>As the architect of the effort, David Asher, subsequently testified to the US congress, the objective of the BDA designation was an aggressive effort to “kill the chicken in order to scare the monkey”, that is, intimidate China into actively participating in the financial blockade of North Korea by threatening its own institutions such as the People’s Bank of China with a BDA-type designation if it continued its dealings with the Pyongyang regime.</p>
<p>The campaign, led by Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Stuart Levey, was global in reach and reportedly successful enough to force some Chinese banks into cutting banking ties with North Korea. However, the US did not succeed in getting the Chinese government to change its North Korea policy or even abandon its support for BDA. [2]</p>
<p>China’s role as an impediment to Bush administration policies did not make for a particularly hospitable environment for Hu’s visit.</p>
<p>As Dana Milbank reported at the time:</p>
<p>The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities – some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the “national anthem of the Republic of China” – the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.</p>
<p>Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as Jiang [Zemin] got, but the administration refused, calling it instead an “official” visit. Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. Even the visiting country’s flags were missing from the lampposts near the White House. [3]</p>
<p>In addition to his sunglass-donning transgression, Cheney also had to deny he had marked Hu’s Oval Office briefing by taking a nap in his chair (thereby, perhaps inadvertently, leaving the impression that he had actually chosen to feign sleep in order to show his contempt for the red supremo).</p>
<p>The capper to the disastrous visit was the outburst of Dr Wang Wenyi, Falungong’s point person on the issue of vivisection and organ harvesting allegedly inflicted on Falungong practitioners by the Chinese government.</p>
<p>Despite having been denied press credentials by Maltese security during a previous overseas trip of Hu’s, somehow Wang was able to evade the scrutiny of the White House press office and acquire a one-day credential for Hu’s visit as the press rep of Falungong’s Epoch Times.</p>
<p>It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that somebody in the press office thought it might be a fun prank to throw Hu together with a Falungong activist.</p>
<p>In 2006, the Secret Service did not cover itself in glory, either, as Milbank described:</p>
<p>90 seconds into Hu’s speech on the South Lawn, the woman started shrieking, “President Hu, your days are numbered!” and “President Bush, stop him from killing!”</p>
<p>Bush and Hu looked up, stunned. It took so long to silence her – a full three minutes – that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service’s strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.</p>
<p>Fast-forward to 2011.</p>
<p>China is perhaps the second-largest economy in the world, has weathered the “great recession” nicely, and has sufficient cash and clout for Hu to avoid being treated like a punk dictator on this trip.</p>
<p>Hu received the full state visit treatment from Obama, including not one but two dinners with the president. He was also treated nicely by Vice President Joe Biden, who greeted him at Andrews Air Force Base with the red carpet and a military color guard.</p>
<p>During the joint press conference, Hu was heckled by demonstrators across the street but nobody arose from the press gaggle to scream at him. (Nevertheless, China cautiously blacked out the CNN live feed of the press conference, leading to a predictable spate of “Commies Can’t Handle the Truth” news reports and blog posts).</p>
<p>Tough talk on Chinese currency and human rights issues and Beijing’s irritating habit of supporting North Korea and Iran was carefully modulated, with both leaders performing a predictable and rather tedious tango for the benefit of the media.</p>
<p>Therefore, in the area of visuals, China got what it wanted: acknowledgment, not necessarily of its status as a burgeoning regional power, but of its role as an important US interlocutor.</p>
<p>Hu’s visit puts China on a par with US strategic allies India (state visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, November 2009) , and the Republic of Korea (state visit by President Lee Myung-bak, June 2010), while nosing out Japan (which, presumably as punishment for its political dysfunction and inability to toe the US line on relocation of the Futenma Marine Air Base on Okinawa, has been forced to content itself with a non-state official visit by Prime Minister Naoto Kan, September 2010).</p>
<p>Being recognized as a nation that the United States talks to, instead of one that the United States talks at, is an important goal of Chinese foreign policy.</p>
<p>In the warm glow of self-regard occasioned by the election of Obama, who has restored US foreign policy to a posture of engagement, negotiation and multilateralism, US observers often dismiss the Bush years of unilateral and coercive anti-diplomacy as an irrelevant aberration.</p>
<p>China, it is safe to say, has not, and can remember times when US military, diplomatic and economic might was concentrated against nations whose political system, economic leverage and desire for an independent foreign policy made them appear a threat.</p>
<p>Times like today, in fact.</p>
<p>Despite the ostensible existential threat posed by North Korea’s wobbly missiles and fizzling nukes, it is difficult for China to regard the strategic alliance between the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan, ostensibly aimed at the denuclearization of North Korea, as anything but a containment effort against China.</p>
<p>China’s proximate goal is to get from behind the North Korean eight ball and the wave of orchestrated pressure applied to Beijing by Seoul, Tokyo and Washington whenever North Korea misbehaves.</p>
<p>It hopes to achieve the restart of the six-party talks, which recasts China as an equal, even the leading partner in North Asian security – a position to be recognized by the United States.</p>
<p>In the conclusion of Hu’s “interview” (submitted questions with written answers) with the Washington Post on the eve of the visit, virtually the only concrete policy position in the entire 3,000-word exercise concerned the six-party talks:</p>
<p>China actively advocates and promotes the Six-Party Talks process. We hope that proceeding from the overall interests of the denuclearization of the peninsula and regional peace and stability, the parties concerned will take active measures and create conditions for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks. I am convinced that as long as the parties respect each other, engage in consultation on an equal footing, and implement the September 19 Joint Statement in a comprehensive and balanced way through the Six-Party Talks, they will arrive at an appropriate solution to the Korean nuclear issue and contribute to lasting peace and stability on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia. [4]</p>
<p>The prospect of a US-Chinese understanding on resuming the six-party talks has occasioned dismay in South Korea. Currently, South Korea has a de facto veto over North Korean diplomacy – the stated US position is that the North has to conduct inter-Korean dialogue to the satisfaction of the South before the wider six-party talks can resume – and it does not want to see its leading position diluted by US-China dealmaking.</p>
<p>Under the headline “China’s Hu Jintao’s visit: South Korea is worried Obama will cave on North Korea talks”, the Christian Science Monitor’s Donald Kirk wrote:</p>
<p>South Korea’s main concern appears to be that Mr. Obama will acquiesce to Mr. Hu’s call for six-party talks without the South’s full agreement – and without any substantive concessions on the part of North Korea. … The reason is that “six-party talks are not just for the nuclear issue but to ease tensions,” says Mr. Choi [Jin-wook, senior North Korea analyst at the Korea Institute of National Unification]. “North Korea is desperate to talk to Washington. That’s why Washington wants to meet, and Seoul doesn’t want to meet.” [5]</p>
<p>Traveling in Asia, Harvard’s Stephen Walt reported on similar fears by another state relying on US backing to stand up to Beijing: Vietnam.</p>
<p>I have given several lectures since my arrival here, and met with a number of Vietnamese officials. One theme that has come up repeatedly is the fear that the United States and China will reach some sort of great power condominium. at the expense of the weaker powers in the region. There is clearly considerable concern that the United States will “do a deal” with China, in effect granting it a free hand in its neighborhood in exchange for concessions elsewhere. [6]</p>
<p>South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam don’t need to brace themselves for an “Obama shock” just yet.</p>
<p>China containment still makes too much diplomatic and domestic political sense for the US (as well as business sense for the defense industries) to be abandoned now.</p>
<p>Even if the six-party talks resume, the South Korea/Japan/US coalition should be able to hold onto a united front in negotiating with China.</p>
<p>However, the mere fact that the United States was willing to bestow the prestige of a state visit on the leader of a somewhat scary communist state that refuses to sign onto the US security agenda for Asia is, of itself, significant.</p>
<p>In her January 14 speech keynoting Hu’s visit, Hillary Clinton tried to reassure allies of US steadfastness. But she also made it clear that the US was looking beyond a containment strategy:</p>
<p>Some in the region and some here at home see China’s growth as a threat that will lead either to Cold War-style conflict or American decline. And some in China worry that the United States is bent on containing China’s rise and constraining China’s growth, a view that is stoking a new streak of assertive Chinese nationalism. We reject those views.</p>
<p>In the 21st century, it does not make sense to apply zero-sum 19th century theories of how major powers interact. We are moving through uncharted territory. We need new ways of understanding the shifting dynamics of the international landscape, a landscape marked by emerging centers of influence, but also by non-traditional, even non-state actors, and the unprecedented challenges and opportunities created by globalization. This is a fact that we believe is especially applicable to the U.S-China relationship. Our engagement - indeed, I would say our entanglement - can only be understood in the context of this new and more complicated landscape. [7]</p>
<p>On a practical level, Hu can take encouragement from the fact that his state visit – and the open US desire to engage with China on some important levels – sends a dismaying message to small neighbors counting on US commitment to a traditional containment strategy to support them in pulling the dragon’s whiskers.</p>
<p>This allows China to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt in the hearts and policies of the smaller frontline Asian states that place their hopes in America as a reliable, permanent counterweight to Chinese economic and military encroachment.</p>
<p>South Korea and Japan can brace themselves for a round of divide and conquer as China asserts the existence of a special US-China relationship to slice and dice the conservative South Korean/Japanese axis represented by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japan’s Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara through bilateral outreach, appeals to national, corporate and individual self-interest, and invocations of the special, exclusive relationship between Beijing and Washington that Tokyo and Seoul cannot presume to share – but can perhaps hope to emulate.</p>
<p>PETER LEE edits China Hand.</p>
<p>Notes</p>
<p>1. Gary Hart, Lynne Cheney, and War with China , The Atlantic, Jul 5, 2007. 2. Two Lost Years, China Matters, Jul 19, 2007. 3. China and Its President Greeted by a Host of Indignities, Washington Post, Apr 21, 2006. 4. China’s Hu Jintao answers questions with Washington Post, Jan 16, 2011. 5. China’s Hu Jintao’s visit: South Korea is worried Obama will cave on North Korea talks, Yahoo!, Jan 18, 2011. 6. What Obama should NOT say to Hu Jintao , Foreign Policy, Jan 18, 2011. 7. Inaugural Richard C. Holbrooke Lecture on a Broad Vision of US-China Relations in the 21st Century, Jan 14, 2011.</p>
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<p /> | Hu Are You? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/01/21/hu-are-you/ | 2011-01-21 | 4 |
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<p>Freedom House has released its <a href="http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2014#.UuMAhxDTlaQ" type="external">annual report</a> on authoritarianism and found that people around the world are less free than they were a year ago.</p>
<p>The NGO has come to the same conclusion eight years in a row.</p>
<p>Here are some takeaways from the 2014 report (which looks back on 2013):</p>
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<p>Findings of the 41st edition of Freedom in the World, the oldest, most authoritative report of democracy and human rights, include:</p>
<p>There were some positive signs for the year:</p>
<p /> | People Are Less Free for the 8th Straight Year, Report Finds | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/people-are-less-free-for-the-8th-straight-year-report-finds/ | 2014-01-25 | 4 |
<p>On Wednesday, investigative journalist James O’Keefe’s <a href="http://projectveritasaction.com/" type="external">Project Veritas</a> released their latest undercover video exposing the well-connected Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic operatives accepting shady foreign donations, engaging in pay-for-access schemes and bragging about, once again, illegal collusion.</p>
<p>"In the effort to prove the credibility of the undercover donor featured in the videos and to keep the investigation going, Project Veritas Action made the decision to donate twenty thousand dollars to Robert Creamer’s effort. Project Veritas Action had determined that the benefit of this investigation outweighed the cost," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBrZItwVy4" type="external">reads</a>the caption of the Project Veritas video. "And it did. In an unexpected twist, AUFC president Brad Woodhouse, the recipient of the $20,000, heard that Project Veritas Action was releasing undercover videos exposing AUFC’s activities. He told a journalist that AUFC was going to return the twenty thousand dollars. He said it was because they were concerned that it might have been an illegal foreign donation. Project Veritas Action was pleased but wondered why that hadn’t been a problem for the month that they had the money."</p>
<p>Creamer, who resigned from Americans United For Change (AUFC) in the wake of the second Project Veritas video release, is caught bragging about his connections to the Hillary Clinton campaign once again, as he did in prior videos, which is in violation of FEC regulations. He also engages in discussions with an undercover reporter about accepting donations for access to Hillary Clinton herself.</p>
<p>As relayed on video, AUFC accepts a $20,000 "donation" from the undercover journalist, accessed via an offshore bank in Belize. Oddly enough, AUFC president Brad Woodhouse reportedly returned the cash only when he heard Project Veritas was releasing their undercover videos, claiming that he was concerned it might have been an "illegal foreign donation." This prompted O'Keefe to inquire: Why hadn’t the donation "been a problem for the month that they had the money?"</p>
<p>Watch:</p>
<p>O’Keefe has released three videos prior to this latest taped corruption. In Project Veritas’ first explosive <a href="" type="internal">video</a> release, O’Keefe uncovered potentially illegal coordination among the scandal-ridden Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton super PACs and the Hillary campaign to pay agitators to incite violence at Donald Trump rallies, in order to feed the narrative that Trump supporters are nasty, violent people and that Trump is toxic. Black hat operatives even disturbingly bragged about paying the mentally ill to incite violence.</p>
<p>In the wake of this video, Democratic operative Scott Foval was fired.</p>
<p>In the <a href="" type="internal">second video</a>, O’Keefe exposed Democrats, in their own words, “rigging” elections in favor of their party for the last 50 years via coordinated voter fraud. Operatives such as the now-fired Foval boasted about renting cars or buying them at auctions for illegal voters to use at different states’ polling sites to carry out the fraud. If there’s “no bus,” asserted Foval, “you can’t prove conspiracy.”</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton campaign official Robert Creamer <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/19/two-democratic-operatives-lose-jobs-after-james-okeefe-sting/" type="external">resigned</a> in the wake of the video’s release.</p>
<p>In O’Keefe’s <a href="" type="internal">third video release</a>, now-resigned Democratic operative Bob Creamer directly implicates Hillary in FEC violations. Hillary apparently wanted to build the narrative that Republican nominee Donald Trump was "ducking" his taxes, prior to Trump's leaked tax returns. So the former secretary of state allegedly thought of the plan to put "ducks on the ground," or in this case, grown adults (Foval included, by his own admission) dressed as ducks attending Trump and vice president nominee Mike Pence events.</p>
<p>"In the end, it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground," admits Creamer in the undercover footage. "So, by God, we would get ducks on the ground."</p>
<p>O'Keefe promises more damning videos to come.</p> | Video Exposes Hillary Camp, Dem Operatives: Paying For Access, Accepting Foreign Donations, Collusion | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10227/latest-james-okeefe-video-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2016-10-26 | 0 |
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<p>The Los Angeles Times‘ editorial page is skeptical about Bush’s new “Gulf Opportunity Zones” in New Orleans—tax incentives to bring businesses back into the area:</p>
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<p>To revive New Orleans’ economy, Bush has proposed creating “Gulf Opportunity Zones.” Similar to the “enterprise zones” that have been declared across the country since the 1980s, these would offer about $2 billion worth of tax breaks and loan subsidies to businesses that build and equip offices in Katrina’s wake.</p>
<p>Although some analysts are enthusiastic about enterprise zones, they may not be the best way to encourage New Orleans’ recovery. In general, most new jobs emanate from new, small businesses, which don’t benefit much from tax breaks because they don’t have much taxable income. By contrast, the beneficiaries of enterprise zones often are established businesses that move their offices into the zone to lower their tax burden.</p>
<p>Curiously, I haven’t seen any paper report on the fact that the city of New Orleans had <a href="http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr02-013new.cfm" type="external">already been designated</a> a “Renewable Community”—in essence, one of the aforementioned “enterprise zones”—and the Department of Housing and Urban Development had already been offering $17 billion worth of tax credits to businesses in the area since 2000. Did it do any good? Well, New Orleans remains one of the poorest cities in the country, and I haven’t found any indications that things have perked up over the past four years. Interestingly, the Bush administration decided not to offer <a href="http://www.hud.gov/offices/cfo/reports/04estimates/empowerment.pdf%20" type="external">any new grant funding</a> for these zones in 2004 “because the EZ program has not been deemed to be sufficiently effective.”</p>
<p>The classic knock against these tax breaks is that they are too small to entice most businesses to move, and the ones who do set up in these zones probably would have moved anyway, meaning they just get free money. I’m not sure how a few more tax breaks will help. That said, $2 billion is a relatively small part of the overall reconstruction budget, so in theory it’s worth a try, though this just seems like an odd thing for the White House to tout.</p>
<p /> | Enterprise Zones | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2005/09/enterprise-zones/ | 2005-09-21 | 4 |
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<p>For the past few years, video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have been a major craze.&#160; The designers of these games pride themselves on how close the game is to playing a real guitar, or being in a real band. Tiny plastic buttons almost simulate guitar strings, and notes pass by on the screen in time to the music. If you’d never played in a real band this could feel like a general approximation of what it’s like, but there are a few things that don’t seem quite right.</p>
<p>First and, unfortunately, most important is merch. If the programmers really wanted to give these games a lifelike feel they’d make a section of the game before you even begin where you beg borrow and steal money to print CDs and press T-shirts. There would also be an interlude after every level where you sat around for a few hours trying to get people to buy your t-shirts. Not only that, but if you failed to sell your t-shirts, you wouldn’t be able to move on to the next “venue” regardless of your caliber of playing.&#160;</p>
<p>Then they could get into the really fun stuff. The majority of the game would be spent sitting in a van crowded with gear, trying to navigate in all kinds of weather. Torrential rain and icy roads would make this part extra realistic and an unreliable transmission in the van could help make it feel like you were really on the road. To keep things interesting, there could be a whole level dedicated to trying to find gas money to keep the van running.&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Throughout all of these levels there would also be a meter for how well you were getting along with your band members. Dealing with the “Axl Rose Syndrome” in lead singers, and trying to keep your drummer from drinking too much would make this meter rise and fall.</p>
<p>Other uncontrollable situations would affect your progress, like angry phone calls from girlfriends at home or news of eviction from landlords because if you can’t put gas in the van you certainly can’t pay rent at home.</p>
<p>Now if Rock Band was really like being on tour, the game would have to make the actual playing satisfying enough to go through all of this. Those few minutes on stage would have to be worth all of the pain and frustration and bullshit, because in reality playing music professionally is more than a hobby, more than a full-time job, it’s a way of life and at it’s best, it’s all worth it.</p>
<p>LORENZO WOLFF is a musician living in New York. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>&#160;&#160;</p>
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<p /> | So You Want Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star… | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/12/12/so-you-want-be-a-rock-n-roll-star/ | 2008-12-12 | 4 |
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<p>When it comes to retirement savings, Americans are not doing a great job. This is especially true for the Baby Boomer generation -- a group that is starting to reach retirement age now, and will continue to do so for the next 15 years or so. Here are the alarming statistics about Baby Boomer's retirement readiness, and what you can do to get yourself ready.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>In a nutshell, Baby Boomers as a group are not ready for retirement. To illustrate this, consider these 10 statistics from an Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) <a href="https://www.myirionline.org/docs/default-source/research/boomer-expectations-for-retirement-2016.pdf" type="external">survey Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
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<p>It's not surprising that many baby boomers feel this way. According to data from Vanguard, the average American in the 55 to 64 age group has a <a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/10/10/the-average-american-has-this-401k-balance-how-do.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">401(k) balance Opens a New Window.</a> of $177,805.</p>
<p>This may sound like a lot of money, but keep in mind that it needs to last throughout retirement, which could be several decades. In fact, the often-used "4% rule" of retirement says that a retiree with this 401(k) balance can only expect to withdraw about $7,100 per year from their account without worrying about running out of money. Even when combined with Social Security, this isn't likely to be enough for most people.</p>
<p>Even worse, the median 401(k) balance is just $71,579 for this age group, meaning that half of 401(k) participants have less than this amount. I'll spare you the mathematical discussion, but this implies that there is a small group of people with a lot of money saved, and a lot of people with a small amount of money saved. Also, keep in mind that this only includes 401(k) participants -- the study found that only 55% of Boomers have anything saved for retirement at all.</p>
<p>There's no one-size-fits-all way to calculate your income need in retirement, but <a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/10/09/the-simple-way-to-find-your-retirement-number.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">here's Opens a New Window.</a> one good way to get an estimate:</p>
<p>In general, experts suggest that you'll need 80% of your pre-retirement income to sustain your quality of life after you retire. For example, if you earn $100,000 per year, you'll need roughly $80,000 per year after you retire. So, step one is determining how much income you'll need to live comfortably.</p>
<p>Next, figure out how much will come from other sources, such as Social Security and any pensions you may have. You can get a solid estimate of your expected Social Security income by creating an account at <a href="http://www.ssa.gov" type="external">www.ssa.gov Opens a New Window.</a> and viewing your latest Social Security statement. Most pension plans include a retirement income estimate with your statement as well.</p>
<p>Subtracting your other income sources from your income need tells you how much will need to come from savings. Continuing my previous example, if I need $80,000 in annual income after retirement, and my wife and I expect a total of $40,000 per year between Social Security and pensions, we'll need another $40,000 in income from investments.</p>
<p>Using the 4% rule I mentioned earlier (which admittedly is not perfect), multiply your income need by 25 to come up with your savings target. In my example, $40,000 times 25 gives me a savings goal of $1,000,000.</p>
<p>If you're not on track to retire with enough savings, the good news is that you can still do some damage control.</p>
<p>If you have a 401(k) or other retirement plan at work, consider increasing your contributions. For the 2017 tax year, you can choose to defer $18,000 of your salary ($24,000 if you're over 50 years old) into your 401(k), so chances are you could be saving more.</p>
<p>If you don't have an employer's plan, you can contribute $5,500 to <a href="https://www.fool.com/retirement/ira/index.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">an IRA Opens a New Window.</a> this year ($6,500 if you're over 50 years old), which you can then invest in virtually any stocks, bonds, or mutual funds you want. If you max out your IRA every year starting at age 50, and your portfolio produces a conservative 6% rate of return, you could build up a $150,000 account value by the time you're 65 -- not quite a million-dollar nest egg, but certainly enough to make a big difference.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that if you need to catch up, there are ways to do it, and your money will never have as much growth power as is does right now.</p>
<p>The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-social-security?aid=8727&amp;source=irreditxt0000002&amp;ftm_cam=ryr-ss-intro-report&amp;ftm_pit=3186&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 10 Statistics That Prove Baby Boomers Are in Big Trouble When It Comes to Retirement | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/02/28/10-statistics-that-prove-baby-boomers-are-in-big-trouble-when-it-comes-to.html | 2017-03-16 | 0 |
<p>Two female Spanish aid workers were kidnapped Thursday from Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.</p>
<p>The kidnapping of the two women, who work for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), was the third abduction of Westerners in Kenya in a month, <a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/gunmen-kidnap-two-foreign-aid-workers-kenyan-camp-125255073.html" type="external">Reuters reports</a>.</p>
<p>Authorities in Kenya have said they suspect the militant group with links to Al Qaeda, al Shabaab, is responsible.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/kenya/110920/new-kenyan-port-aid-economic-growth" type="external">Kidnappings, new Kenyan port threaten historic Lamu</a></p>
<p>"We've mobilized all the officers and alerted those at the border to ensure that no vehicle exits the country to Somalia. The whole border area is now sealed," North Eastern Province police commander Leo Nyongesa told Reuters.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/africa-emerges/aid-workers-kidnapped-northern-kenya" type="external">GlobalPost's Tristan McConnell in Nairobi</a> reports that the Dadaab refugee camp is a complex of camps home to over 400,000 Somalis.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ibvL43EthA_-TR_hWdYW5Up9B_DA?docId=CNG.9a36daffa5420a1b7ebbb0dad8ac623c.601" type="external">AFP reports</a> that a search for the women is underway, but authorities believe the gunmen have already taken the women towards the border with Somalia, which is plagued by decades of instability and war.</p>
<p>The women's driver was shot and seriously injured during the incident.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago Somali gunmen abducted female tourists from beach resorts in Kenya. Marie Dedieu, who is French, was taken from her beachfront home in Lamu and Judith Tebbutt, who is British, was captured and taken to Somalia. Gunmen killed her husband.</p> | Kenya: 2 Spanish aid workers kidnapped | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-10-13/kenya-2-spanish-aid-workers-kidnapped | 2011-10-13 | 3 |
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<p>New Mexico State University and other organizations will be sharing in federal funding that will help farmers and ranchers market their products and make them more competitive.</p>
<p>More than $538,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will go toward organizations that work to bolster economic opportunities for family farmers and support rural communities.</p>
<p>One of the groups, Delicious New Mexico, will receive $100,000 to provide outreach, marketing, training and technical assistance to improve and expand the Espanola Food Hub.</p>
<p>The Pinyon Foundation in Santa Fe will receive another $100,000 to produce and implement Spanish language multimedia campaigns to promote farmers’ markets nationwide.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Five other groups will also receive grants.</p>
<p>Under a separate initiative, nearly $500,000 will go to NMSU to help organic livestock and crop producers to be more competitive.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | $1M in federal funding to promote NM agriculture | false | https://abqjournal.com/470837/1m-in-federal-funding-to-promote-nm-agriculture-2.html | 2 |
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<p>Serena Rascon talks about her friend Victor Villalpando, the 16-year-old who was shot and killed by an Española police officer last Sunday, during a memorial ceremony at Moving Arts Española on Friday. Behind her is a slide show of photos of Villalpando, a dancer and gymnast. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>ESPAÑOLA – The spirit and life of a talented teenaged dancer gone too soon was celebrated by his friends and family Friday afternoon in a hall where performing was a focus of his life for 10 years.</p>
<p>Victor Villalpando, 16, was shot to death by an Española police officer last Sunday after he called, police say, to report himself as a suspicious person and then pulled a gun.</p>
<p>“This is where it really came to flower, his short life,” said Roger Montoya director and co-founder of Moving Arts Española. “Victor was a troubled soul, a brilliant artist and a kind and sensitive mentor.”</p>
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<p>Police dispatch recordings released Friday show that a young person identified by police as Villalpando called 911 on Sunday, reporting “some crazy kid” who appears to have a gun in his hand and “I don’t know if it’s real.” The caller says the kid is screaming, hitting himself in the head and has a green martial arts staff. “He said he wanted to die, but I don’t know,” the caller says.</p>
<p>“He needs help, fast,” the caller identifying himself as “James” reports.</p>
<p>VILLALPANDO: Was shot dead by police officer</p>
<p>Española police say Villalpando pulled a gun on a responding officer who was pat-searching him. The officer fired a single fatal shot. The State Police, in charge of investigating the shooting, has not confirmed whether Villalpando really had a gun, only that he produced a weapon.</p>
<p>But at Moving Arts on Friday afternoon, the circumstances of his death mattered little to about 200 people who filled the arts group’s building where they heard Villalpando, in his own words, describe in video clips what dance meant to him.</p>
<p>“I have been here since I can remember,” Villalpando says to the camera, adding, “This is going to be my last performance at Moving Arts” – he was accepted to attend the New Mexico School for the Arts in the fall.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t 100 percent sure of myself,” he adds, talking about his audition for the Santa Fe school. “I’ve seen some pretty bad days, and Moving Arts just pushed me through everything – the death of my mom.”</p>
<p>The video also shows Villalpando displaying his athleticism and dance prowess. “Dance is one thing they can never take away,” he says.</p>
<p>Some of the kids he mentored showed off their own moves. In front of a slide show of Villalpando’s life, young children took to the microphone.</p>
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<p>“Victor showed me cartwheels,” said one. “I miss him so much,” said a little girl. Another wore a T-shirt with a picture of Villalpando in a suit and pink tie with the words “In loving memory.”</p>
<p>The police dispatch recordings released Friday captured some of his last words. The voice identified as Villalpando’s says that the kid acting suspiciously with a stick is running between cars. “Oh my God, he almost got hit,” the caller says.</p>
<p>“I don’t want him to hurt himself or anyone else,” says the caller.</p>
<p>There have been reports that friends say Villalpando wanted to commit “suicide by cop.” His adoptive mother and a close friend told the Journal they never heard anything like that from Villalpando.</p>
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<p /> | Young dancer, gymnast remembered during memorial in Española | false | https://abqjournal.com/415434/young-dancer-gymnast-remembered-during-memorial-in-espantildeola.html | 2 |
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<p>Police arrested <a href="/topics/craig-stephen-hicks/" type="external">Craig Stephen Hicks</a>, 46, and charged him with the murder of three Muslim students at an apartment near the Chapel Hill campus at the University of North Carolina.</p>
<p>Authorities aren’t yet saying what <a href="/topics/craig-stephen-hicks/" type="external">Mr. Hicks</a>‘ alleged motivation may have been. But he turned himself into police shortly after the shootings, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/us/chapel-hill-shooting/index.html" type="external">reported</a>.</p>
<p>The three victims are Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; Yusor Mohammad, 21; and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.</p>
<p><a href="/multimedia/collection/monster-handguns/" type="external">PHOTOS: Hand cannons: The world's most powerful handguns</a></p>
<p>All three had been shot in the head, WRAL reported.</p>
<p>Authorities say the suspect and victims — Barakat and Mohammad were married and Abu-Salha was Mohammad’s sister — were neighbors and had been embroiled in a long-simmering dispute over parking, The Associated Press reported. But they didn’t conclude that the parking argument sparked the shooting.</p>
<p>Many in the American-Muslim community, meanwhile, are seeing the homicides as the result of religious persecution.</p>
<p>“Based on the brutal nature of this crime … the religious attire of two of the victims, and the rising anti-Muslim rhetoric in American society, we urge state and federal law enforcement authorities to quickly address speculation of a possible bias motive in this case,” Nihad Awad, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2015/feb/11/craig-stephen-hicks-46-arrested-in-shooting-death-/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Police charge man with murder in shooting death of 3 Muslim students at UNC | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/11/craig-stephen-hicks-46-arrested-in-shooting-death-/ | 2015-02-11 | 0 |
<p>RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi women were allowed into a sports stadium for the first time Friday to watch a soccer match between two local teams — though they were segregated in the stands from the male-only crowd with designated seating in the so-called "family section."</p>
<p>The move was the first of Saudi Arabia's social reforms planned for this year to ease restrictions on women, spearheaded by the kingdom's 32-year-old crown prince. The kingdom has also announced that starting in June women will be allowed to drive, lifting the world's only ban on female drivers.</p>
<p>More than just an incremental step toward greater rights, the presence of women in the sports stadium underscored a wider effort to integrate women in society and grant them more public visibility in a country where gender segregation is widely enforced and where most women cover their faces and hair with black veils and don loose-flowing black robes, known as abayas.</p>
<p>The first stadium to open its doors to women was in the Red Sea city of Jiddah. The stadium in the capital, Riyadh, will open to women on Saturday, followed by the western city of Dammam on Thursday.</p>
<p>At the Jiddah stadium Friday, young Saudi women wearing bright orange vests over their abayas were deployed to help with the female crowds. "Welcome to Saudi families," read a sign in Arabic erected across the section of the stadium reserved for women.</p>
<p>"It's very festive and very well organized. A lot of people are just really happy to be here. I think there's a lot of excitement when you walked in, especially among the children," said Sarah Swick of the match between Saudi soccer teams Al-Ahli and Al-Batin.</p>
<p>To prepare for the change, the kingdom designated so-called "family sections" in the stands for women, separated by barriers from the male-only crowds. The stadiums were also fitted with female prayer areas and restrooms, as well as separate entrances and parking lots for female spectators. Local media said women would also have their own designated smoking areas.</p>
<p>"Family sections" are ubiquitous across the kingdom, allowing married couples, direct relatives and sometimes groups of friends to sit together, isolated from male-only tables at restaurants and in waiting areas at banks and hospitals. The sections also include women out on their own or in groups with other women.</p>
<p>Although only 20 riyals ($5.33) a ticket, the family section for Friday's match was still less than half full.</p>
<p>"A lot of people wanted to wait and see how it is. Some thought it wouldn't be very safe or organized," said Swick, who attended the game with her Saudi husband and son, and her American mother.</p>
<p>Swick, who grew up in Maryland and has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past nine years, has attended football games in the U.S. and soccer matches in France, but said she was impressed with how organized Friday night's match was.</p>
<p>"I definitely think we will come back," she said.</p>
<p>An Arabic hashtag on Twitter about women entering stadiums garnered tens of thousands of tweets on Friday, with some using the hashtag to share photos of female spectators wearing their team's colors in scarves thrown over their black abayas.</p>
<p>While many welcomed the decision to allow women into stadiums, others spoke out against it.</p>
<p>Some used the hashtag to write that women's place should be in the home, focusing on their children and preserving their faith, and not at a stadium where male crowds frequently curse and chant raucously.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen as the driving force behind the loosened restrictions on women. Still in place, however, are guardianship laws that prevent women from traveling abroad, obtaining a passport or marrying without a male relative's consent.</p>
<p>Set to inherit a country where more than half the population is under 25 years old and hungry for change, the young crown prince has looked to boost his popularity by curbing nearly four decades of deeply entrenched ultraconservative influence. His reforms, which include allowing movie theaters to open in March after a more than 35-year ban, are also aimed at creating more jobs and increasing local spending on entertainment as the country faces several more years of budget deficit amid continued lower oil prices.</p>
<p>The country's large, new stadiums were built with hundreds of millions of dollars when oil prices were nearly double what they are now. The government spent lavishly on them in an effort to appease young Saudis and provide spaces for fans eager to cheer on local clubs, as well as hold national parades and ceremonies.</p>
<p>In a one-off, the stadium in Riyadh allowed families to enter and watch National Day festivities in September — marking the first time women had set foot inside.</p>
<p>In 2015, a Saudi woman who tried to attend a soccer game in Jiddah was arrested after local media said she was spotted by security officers "deliberately disguised" in pants, a long-sleeve top, a hat and sunglasses to avoid detection.</p>
<p>Over the years, though, there have been some exceptions for foreign women.</p>
<p>In 2015, an Australian female supporter of Western Sydney Wanderers soccer club was permitted to attend a match at Riyadh's main stadium and a group of American women traveling with a U.S. Congress delegation also watched a local club match there.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.</p>
<p>RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi women were allowed into a sports stadium for the first time Friday to watch a soccer match between two local teams — though they were segregated in the stands from the male-only crowd with designated seating in the so-called "family section."</p>
<p>The move was the first of Saudi Arabia's social reforms planned for this year to ease restrictions on women, spearheaded by the kingdom's 32-year-old crown prince. The kingdom has also announced that starting in June women will be allowed to drive, lifting the world's only ban on female drivers.</p>
<p>More than just an incremental step toward greater rights, the presence of women in the sports stadium underscored a wider effort to integrate women in society and grant them more public visibility in a country where gender segregation is widely enforced and where most women cover their faces and hair with black veils and don loose-flowing black robes, known as abayas.</p>
<p>The first stadium to open its doors to women was in the Red Sea city of Jiddah. The stadium in the capital, Riyadh, will open to women on Saturday, followed by the western city of Dammam on Thursday.</p>
<p>At the Jiddah stadium Friday, young Saudi women wearing bright orange vests over their abayas were deployed to help with the female crowds. "Welcome to Saudi families," read a sign in Arabic erected across the section of the stadium reserved for women.</p>
<p>"It's very festive and very well organized. A lot of people are just really happy to be here. I think there's a lot of excitement when you walked in, especially among the children," said Sarah Swick of the match between Saudi soccer teams Al-Ahli and Al-Batin.</p>
<p>To prepare for the change, the kingdom designated so-called "family sections" in the stands for women, separated by barriers from the male-only crowds. The stadiums were also fitted with female prayer areas and restrooms, as well as separate entrances and parking lots for female spectators. Local media said women would also have their own designated smoking areas.</p>
<p>"Family sections" are ubiquitous across the kingdom, allowing married couples, direct relatives and sometimes groups of friends to sit together, isolated from male-only tables at restaurants and in waiting areas at banks and hospitals. The sections also include women out on their own or in groups with other women.</p>
<p>Although only 20 riyals ($5.33) a ticket, the family section for Friday's match was still less than half full.</p>
<p>"A lot of people wanted to wait and see how it is. Some thought it wouldn't be very safe or organized," said Swick, who attended the game with her Saudi husband and son, and her American mother.</p>
<p>Swick, who grew up in Maryland and has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past nine years, has attended football games in the U.S. and soccer matches in France, but said she was impressed with how organized Friday night's match was.</p>
<p>"I definitely think we will come back," she said.</p>
<p>An Arabic hashtag on Twitter about women entering stadiums garnered tens of thousands of tweets on Friday, with some using the hashtag to share photos of female spectators wearing their team's colors in scarves thrown over their black abayas.</p>
<p>While many welcomed the decision to allow women into stadiums, others spoke out against it.</p>
<p>Some used the hashtag to write that women's place should be in the home, focusing on their children and preserving their faith, and not at a stadium where male crowds frequently curse and chant raucously.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen as the driving force behind the loosened restrictions on women. Still in place, however, are guardianship laws that prevent women from traveling abroad, obtaining a passport or marrying without a male relative's consent.</p>
<p>Set to inherit a country where more than half the population is under 25 years old and hungry for change, the young crown prince has looked to boost his popularity by curbing nearly four decades of deeply entrenched ultraconservative influence. His reforms, which include allowing movie theaters to open in March after a more than 35-year ban, are also aimed at creating more jobs and increasing local spending on entertainment as the country faces several more years of budget deficit amid continued lower oil prices.</p>
<p>The country's large, new stadiums were built with hundreds of millions of dollars when oil prices were nearly double what they are now. The government spent lavishly on them in an effort to appease young Saudis and provide spaces for fans eager to cheer on local clubs, as well as hold national parades and ceremonies.</p>
<p>In a one-off, the stadium in Riyadh allowed families to enter and watch National Day festivities in September — marking the first time women had set foot inside.</p>
<p>In 2015, a Saudi woman who tried to attend a soccer game in Jiddah was arrested after local media said she was spotted by security officers "deliberately disguised" in pants, a long-sleeve top, a hat and sunglasses to avoid detection.</p>
<p>Over the years, though, there have been some exceptions for foreign women.</p>
<p>In 2015, an Australian female supporter of Western Sydney Wanderers soccer club was permitted to attend a match at Riyadh's main stadium and a group of American women traveling with a U.S. Congress delegation also watched a local club match there.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.</p> | Saudi stadiums open for women in a first to watch soccer | false | https://apnews.com/amp/54adcc61344744f492c0710f75524523 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>BURAYU, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia's top opposition figure and hundreds of others were released from prison on Wednesday as part of the government's recent pledge to free detained politicians and "widen the democratic space for all" after the worst anti-government protests in a quarter-century.</p>
<p>Merera Gudina led the Oromo Federalist Congress party and was arrested a year ago under the country's state of emergency after he returned from Europe, where he had briefed lawmakers on widespread and sometimes deadly anti-government protests in the East African nation.</p>
<p>Merera was released along with 115 others from a federal prison on the outskirts of the capital, Addis Ababa. He was met by thousands of youths in his adopted hometown of Burayu outside the capital, with some chanting anti-government slogans.</p>
<p>"If the government is genuine about dialogue, then we will consider it," Merera told The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Another 361 detainees were freed Wednesday across southern Ethiopia, and several hundred others across the country are expected to be released in the coming months.</p>
<p>The releases come after Prime Minster Hailemariam Desalegn's surprise announcement earlier this month that the government planned to release imprisoned politicians and close the notorious Maekelawi prison camp.</p>
<p>His comments came after the most serious anti-government protests since the current government came to power in 1991. The demonstrations demanding wider freedoms began in late 2015 and engulfed much of the restive Oromia and Amhara regions before spreading into other parts of the country, leading to a months-long state of emergency that has since been lifted.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of people were arrested, and reportedly hundreds were killed, while one of Africa's fastest growing economies was disrupted.</p>
<p>The U.S. Embassy said in a statement it was "encouraged" by the new releases. "We are aware that reviews of additional cases are underway and hope they will be conducted in the same spirit. We understand these efforts as part of the government's decision to accelerate democratic progress."</p>
<p>"The release of opposition politician Merera Gudina and hundreds of other detainees in Ethiopia today must only be a first step toward freedom for all prisoners of conscience in the East African country," Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International's research and advocacy director for Africa, said in a statement. "Hundreds of prisoners of conscience continue to languish in jail, accused or prosecuted for legitimate exercise of their freedom of expression or simply for standing up for human rights."</p>
<p>Ethiopia's government has long been accused of arresting critical journalists and opposition leaders. Rights organizations and opposition groups have called for their release, saying they were arrested on trumped-up charges and punished for their points of view.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This version has been corrected to show the name of the top opposition politician is Merera, not Merara.</p>
<p>BURAYU, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia's top opposition figure and hundreds of others were released from prison on Wednesday as part of the government's recent pledge to free detained politicians and "widen the democratic space for all" after the worst anti-government protests in a quarter-century.</p>
<p>Merera Gudina led the Oromo Federalist Congress party and was arrested a year ago under the country's state of emergency after he returned from Europe, where he had briefed lawmakers on widespread and sometimes deadly anti-government protests in the East African nation.</p>
<p>Merera was released along with 115 others from a federal prison on the outskirts of the capital, Addis Ababa. He was met by thousands of youths in his adopted hometown of Burayu outside the capital, with some chanting anti-government slogans.</p>
<p>"If the government is genuine about dialogue, then we will consider it," Merera told The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Another 361 detainees were freed Wednesday across southern Ethiopia, and several hundred others across the country are expected to be released in the coming months.</p>
<p>The releases come after Prime Minster Hailemariam Desalegn's surprise announcement earlier this month that the government planned to release imprisoned politicians and close the notorious Maekelawi prison camp.</p>
<p>His comments came after the most serious anti-government protests since the current government came to power in 1991. The demonstrations demanding wider freedoms began in late 2015 and engulfed much of the restive Oromia and Amhara regions before spreading into other parts of the country, leading to a months-long state of emergency that has since been lifted.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of people were arrested, and reportedly hundreds were killed, while one of Africa's fastest growing economies was disrupted.</p>
<p>The U.S. Embassy said in a statement it was "encouraged" by the new releases. "We are aware that reviews of additional cases are underway and hope they will be conducted in the same spirit. We understand these efforts as part of the government's decision to accelerate democratic progress."</p>
<p>"The release of opposition politician Merera Gudina and hundreds of other detainees in Ethiopia today must only be a first step toward freedom for all prisoners of conscience in the East African country," Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International's research and advocacy director for Africa, said in a statement. "Hundreds of prisoners of conscience continue to languish in jail, accused or prosecuted for legitimate exercise of their freedom of expression or simply for standing up for human rights."</p>
<p>Ethiopia's government has long been accused of arresting critical journalists and opposition leaders. Rights organizations and opposition groups have called for their release, saying they were arrested on trumped-up charges and punished for their points of view.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This version has been corrected to show the name of the top opposition politician is Merera, not Merara.</p> | Ethiopia releases top opposition figure from prison | false | https://apnews.com/amp/c5083acd83c440ff815e8c426dc15531 | 2018-01-17 | 2 |
<p />
<p>A plaque that reads "Birthplace of 'Silicon Valley'" marks the garage in Palo Alto, California, where Hewlett-Packard Co. got its start in the late 1930s.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard became friends studying engineering at nearby Stanford University. At a time when working for larger corporations was much more common, the pair formed their own technology company at the encouragement of a former professor.</p>
<p>The two tinkered with various gadgets until they came up with an audio oscillator to produce and test sound frequencies. The device was notable in the use of a light bulb to simplify the circuit and reduce costs. The Walt Disney Co. bought eight to produce sound effects for its 1940 movie "Fantasia."</p>
<p>Over the decades, HP expanded into microwave signal generators, medical devices and pocket calculators. It introduced its first personal computer in 1980 and later made printers for PCs. It boosted its PC business with the $19 billion acquisition of Compaq in 2002 and became the world's largest PC maker in 2007.</p>
<p>But recently HP has had its share of stumbles and has failed to capitalize on important technology trends.</p>
<p>HP paid $1.8 billion in 2010 to buy smartphone pioneer Palm Inc. as customers began shifting spending from PCs to Apple and Android tablets and smartphones. But HP was unable to turn critical acclaim for Palm's webOS technology into devices customers wanted to buy. It shut down the business in 2011.</p>
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<p>That same day, HP unveiled a $10 billion deal to buy British business software maker Autonomy to strengthen its portfolio of software and services, which are more profitable than PCs. But a year later, HP wrote off most of that purchase price after alleging that Autonomy had misrepresented its true value during sale negotiations. Autonomy's founder has denied the allegations. Just months before that revelation, HP wrote down the value of its services business to reflect that it overpaid in a $13 billion deal for Electronic Data Systems in 2008.</p>
<p>HP has suffered from simultaneous management problems. CEO Mark Hurd was forced to resign in 2010 in an ethics scandal, and his successor, Leo Apotheker, was ousted less than a year later after a string of disappointing earnings reports and the botched handling of key strategy announcements. Among other things, Apotheker announced that HP was weighing whether to dump its PC division — leading to a period of uncertainty during which HP lost additional ground to China's Lenovo, the current No. 1 PC seller.</p>
<p>When Meg Whitman took over as CEO in 2011, she said HP would keep the PC business after all. But on Monday, HP announced that it was splitting off its PC and printer business, allowing the growing business of selling software and services to have a better chance to thrive as a separate company. The move echoes IBM's decision nearly a decade ago to sell off its PC business to Lenovo and focus on software and services.</p>
<p>Whitman, who has been leading the company's turnaround for the past three years, said that HP has now shored up its business enough to support the split. She said the move gives the two companies "the independence, focus, financial resources, and flexibility they need to adapt quickly to market and customer dynamics."</p>
<p>The PC and printer business will use the name HP Inc. and retain the blue and white logo. The services business will be called Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. Whitman will lead the Enterprise business and serve as non-executive chairman of HP Inc. Current PC and printer chief Dion Weisler will be CEO of HP Inc.</p> | HP's History: Can the company that started Silicon Valley stay relevant to its future? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/10/06/hp-history-can-company-that-started-silicon-valley-stay-relevant-to-its-future.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>On the Hugh Hewitt radio show, Donald Trump — the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination — fumbled his way through a foreign-policy pop quiz before announcing, “I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.” Oh, dear.</p>
<p>Courtesy of AJ Plus.</p>
<p>–Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Roisin Davis</a></p>
<p /> | VIDEO: Watch Donald Trump Epically Fail Foreign Policy Quiz | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/video-watch-donald-trump-epically-fail-foreign-policy-quiz/ | 2015-09-05 | 4 |
<p>White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has apologized profusely for his much-criticized comparison of Syria’s Bashar Assad to Adolf Hitler, but his clarification that he meant Hitler did not drop chemical bombs from airplanes requires some historical context. The Nazis manufactured and stockpiled thousands of tons of chemical munitions. While Hitler never employed them in battle, historians say that was largely for tactical reasons.</p>
<p>Spicer was skewered in the media for his initial comment — he said&#160;that Hitler “didn’t even sink to&#160;using chemical weapons.” As multiple news outlets quickly pointed out, Hitler had killed millions of Jews and others in concentration camp gas chambers during the Holocaust.</p>
<p>In the same press conference, Spicer clarified that he meant that Hitler “was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing.” More specifically, he said in yet another clarification after the press conference that he was “trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers.”</p>
<p>That’s more in line with the <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4666028/mattis-chemical-weapons" type="external">comment</a> Defense Secretary James Mattis made later in the afternoon when he said the intent of the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/06/politics/donald-trump-syria-military/" type="external">U.S. missile attack</a> on Syria on April 6 was “to stop the cycle of violence into an area that even in World War II, chemical weapons were not used on battlefields.”</p>
<p>“Even in the Korean War, they were not used on battlefields,” Mattis said. “Since World War I, there’s been an international convention on this.”</p>
<p>The&#160; <a href="https://www.state.gov/t/isn/4784.htm" type="external">Geneva Protocol</a>, signed in 1925, prohibited the use of poison gases.&#160;Germany ratified the protocol in 1929.</p>
<p>Historians say Hitler’s restraint when it came to the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, however, may have had less to do with some line that Hitler would not cross, and more to do with tactical decisions.</p>
<p>German chemist Gerhard Schrader — sometimes called “father of the nerve agents” — is believed to have created the first organophosphorus nerve agents in 1936. Schrader’s discovery came inadvertently while suffering loss of vision and shortness of breath while developing pesticides, as Jonathan Tucker — a former&#160; <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-06-013/tucker-to-discuss-book-on-chemical-warfare/2006-01-12/" type="external">biological weapons inspector</a> for the United Nations in Iraq — details in his book “ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Nerves-Chemical-Warfare-Al-Qaeda/dp/1400032334#reader_1400032334" type="external">War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda</a>.”</p>
<p>The compound, later called tabun, was reported to the German military authorities given its chemical weapon significance, John Hart, the head of the Chemical and Biological Security Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told us via email.</p>
<p>The agents developed by Germany were tabun, soman and sarin, Hart said, though they were never used against other states during World War II in state-to-state armed conflict.</p>
<p>Germany did, however, stockpile chemical munitions (mainly sulphur mustard and tabun — as well as sarin and soman), Hart said.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1292877/Did-Nazi-scientist-save-Britain-Hitlers-deadly-gas-killed-millions.html" type="external">The Daily Mail</a>, “by mid-1943, the Germans had managed to manufacture 12,500 tons of Tabun, much of which was loaded into munitions such as shells and bombs.”</p>
<p>So why didn’t Germany ever use those chemical weapons it had stockpiled?</p>
<p>In his book, “ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Spies-Stratagems-Incredible-Secrets-Revealed/dp/B000LBAQYS" type="external">Of Spies and Stratagems</a>,” Stanley P. Lovell, the head of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during the war, says historians would be wise to dismiss the notion that nerve gas munitions were not used in World War II for humanitarian reasons.</p>
<p>At the war trials at Nuremberg, Nazi leader Hermann Göring was asked why the Germans did not use “Gas Blau” to stop the Normandy invasion. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/11/us/explosive-in-the-sewers.html" type="external">Lovell</a> paraphrases Göring’s explanation that it was because they could not create suitable gas masks for horses, which were critical for&#160;transporting supplies.</p>
<p>From “Of Spies and Stratagems,” by Stanley Lovell:</p>
<p>Q. We know you had Gas Blau <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DYu4XOKdTyYC&amp;pg=PT55&amp;lpg=PT55&amp;dq=Gas+blau+and+nerve+agent&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=LxN3WtHm9G&amp;sig=agH3J3dXS9NDC6X5LzCYRLoX--Q&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi4ws3w0Z_TAhXD5iYKHYa5AQYQ6AEIMjAE#v=onepage&amp;q=Gas%20blau%20and%20nerve%20agent&amp;f=false" type="external">[a name used for nerve gas</a>] which would have stopped the Normandy invasion. Why didn’t you use it?</p>
<p>A. Die Pferde (the horses).</p>
<p>Q. What have horses to do with it?</p>
<p>A. Everything. A horse lies down in the shafts or between the thills as soon as his breathing is restricted. We never have had a gas mask a horse would tolerate.</p>
<p>Q. What has that to do with Normandy?</p>
<p>A. We did not have enough gasoline to adequately supply the German Air Force and the Panzer Divisions, so we used horse transport in all operations. You must have known that the first thing we did in Poland, France, everywhere, was to seize the horses. All our material was horse-drawn. Had we used gas you would have retaliated and you would have instantly immobilized us.</p>
<p>Q. Was it that serious, Marshal?</p>
<p>A. I tell you, you would have won the war years ago if you had used gas – not on our soldiers, but on our transportation system. Your intelligence men are asses!</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140309193836/http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/chemical-biological-warfare/germany.htm" type="external">historians</a> say Hitler’s reluctance to employ chemical weapons may have been tied to his exposure to mustard gas during World War I, which temporarily blinded him. Others suggest the use of chemical weapons was deemed inefficient, and risked exposing soldiers to friendly-fire incidents.</p>
<p>Finally, some believe Hitler was concerned about the retaliatory use of chemical weapons by Allied troops. Signers of the Geneva Protocol&#160; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140309193836/http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/chemical-biological-warfare/germany.htm" type="external">agreed</a> not to be the first to use chemical weapons in war, historians said, but they reserved the right to use them if the enemy did first.</p>
<p>A fascinating account from <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1292877/Did-Nazi-scientist-save-Britain-Hitlers-deadly-gas-killed-millions.html" type="external">The Daily Mail</a> details the claim that a German scientist “exaggerated the Allies’ capability of hitting back with their own chemical weapons, which caused the Fuhrer to rethink his plans.” The article cites the work of Frank Dinan, a professor emeritus of chemistry at Canisius College, who said the German scientist told Hitler that tabun and sarin appeared in patents and were publicized internationally — which was not true.</p>
<p>“There was a general lack of awareness of these agents in the UK and the US during the war,” Hart told us.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the article says, the scientist’s response gave Hitler enough pause to abandon calls for the use of Germany’s chemical weapons on the battlefield.</p>
<p>One further point: While Hitler may not have dropped chemical bombs, some believe the Germans did use poison gas against enemy soldiers in World War II. In her book “ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ivans-War-Life-Death-1939-1945/dp/0312426526" type="external">Ivan’s War</a>,” Catherine Merridale writes that Nazis used poison gas to kill some 3,000 Soviet troops and civilians holed up in caves after the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula in 1942.</p>
<p>Spicer has clarified and apologized for his original comment several times.</p>
<p>Again, this is his <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/spicer-makes-hitler-comment-at-press-briefing/" type="external">original statement</a>:</p>
<p>Spicer, press briefing, April 11: We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had … someone as despicable as Hitler, who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons. So you have to, if you’re Russia, ask yourself, is this a country [Syria] that you and a regime [the Assad regime] that you want to align yourself with?</p>
<p>Later in the same press conference, in response to a reporter who read back his quote, Spicer said this:</p>
<p>Spicer, April 11: I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no … he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing. I mean, there was clearly … there was not — in the — he brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that.</p>
<p>But I was saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent — into the middle of towns. It was brought — so, the use of it — and I appreciate the clarification. That was not the intent.</p>
<p>After the press conference, the White House provided this statement to the White House pool:</p>
<p>Spicer statement, April 11: In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable.</p>
<p>That night, Spicer <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/04/11/sean-spicer-entire-hitler-holocaust-apology-wolf-blitzer-tsr.cnn" type="external">went on CNN</a> to apologize for the remark.</p>
<p>Spicer on CNN, April 11: I was obviously trying to make a point about the heinous acts that Assad had made against his own people last week using chemical weapons and gas. And frankly I mistakenly used an inappropriate and insensitive reference to the Holocaust for which, frankly, there is no — there is no comparison. And for that, I apologize. It was a mistake to do that. …</p>
<p>Well, clearly, anybody who not just suffered in the Holocaust or is a descendant of anybody, but frankly, you know, anyone who was offended by those comments. It’s not — as I said, I’m not in any way standing by them. I was trying to draw a comparison for which there shouldn’t have been one. It was insensitive and inappropriate.</p>
<p>CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked Spicer if he did not know “that there were gas chambers where the Nazis brought Jews and others, gypsies, homosexuals and others, mostly Jews, to slaughter them in these poison gas chambers at Birkenau, near Auschwitz, and other death camps.”</p>
<p>“Yes, clearly, I’m aware of that,” Spicer said. “Again, as I said initially, there is no attempt to clarify. The point was to try to talk about the use of aircraft as a means by which Assad was using this to gas his people. But it was a mistake to do that.”</p>
<p>In an interview at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on April 12, Spicer <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?426814-1/sean-spicer-apologizes-hitlerassad-comparison" type="external">again apologized</a>.</p>
<p>Spicer, April 12: I got into a topic that I shouldn’t have. And — and I screwed up. I mean, you — you know, and I hope people understand that — that we all make mistakes.</p>
<p>We don’t want to belabor the issue. But Mattis also made the point that “chemical weapons were not used on battlefields” in World War II. As the historians we cited earlier make clear, Germany stockpiled chemical weapons. Hitler may not have made the decision to drop them on Allied troops, but that was likely for tactical reasons.</p>
<p>Spicer’s comments also sparked fake news postings.</p>
<p>A Facebook page called “Press Secretary Sean Spicer” – which <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PressSec/" type="external">has since been deleted</a> – posted a bogus statement attributed to Spicer saying: “The media has mischaracterized my recent statements on the Assad regime. It was not my intention to imply that Hitler had never used chemical weapons, but that he never used them on fellow Germans.”</p>
<p>A <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dhab_CxML4gJ:https://www.facebook.com/PressSec/+&amp;cd=2&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" type="external">Google cache version</a> of the page, captured at 9:18 p.m. ET on April 11, shows about 300 people had liked the post, nearly 2,000 had shared it and even more had commented on it. The page included several postings of articles from Breitbart Insider, a parody site (just note the fake Pulitzer reference, for instance, on the “ <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170327134652/http://brietbartinsider.com/about/" type="external">About Us</a>” page), not the actual Breitbart.</p>
<p>And the satirical site Newslo <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170412081248/http://politicops.com/sean-spicer-defends-gas-chambers-minute-part-world-war-ii/" type="external">fabricated several quotes</a> it attributed to Spicer, including a line that gas chambers were “a minute part” of World War II. Newslo, our readers <a href="" type="internal">may</a> <a href="" type="internal">recall</a>, often includes some real news in its stories, giving readers the opportunity to “show facts” or “hide facts.” In this case, its post started off with real Spicer quotes from the press conference, and then fabricated several paragraphs.</p> | Hitler and Chemical Weapons | false | https://factcheck.org/2017/04/hitler-chemical-weapons/ | 2017-04-12 | 2 |
<p>First, let me free myself of certain political constraints in this brief speculation about the Jimmy Carter phenomenon. That done, I think the analysis can be made much more candidly. I intend to vote for Carter and to work as hard as I can for his election. He is not, obviously, a socialist candidate, or, for that matter, a representative of the democratic left even though he moved in the latter direction during the months between his conquest of the nomination and his acceptance of it. There is much we don't know about the man, personally and politically; there may be some surprises, perhaps unpleasant ones.</p>
<p>I concede all this, and more. The fact remains that the question posed for the left is, Which holds out more hope for the future, a Carter or a Ford administration? The devotees of "vulture politics," who believe that defeats and humiliations radicalize people, can state their usual analysis. It will be as false as always. Those who believe that there is "no difference" between a president who would sign a bill for planned full employment and one who would veto it can retell the tale of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Those of us who understand that some gains can be won under Democrats and that gains, rather than defeats, hold out the possibility of energizing millions of people will fight to elect Carter.</p>
<p /> | On the 1976 Election | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/on-the-1976-election | 2018-10-07 | 4 |
<p />
<p>&#160; &#160; Tim Canova, a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, is seeking to oust Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz from her congressional seat in Florida. (Tim Canova)</p>
<p>Every week the Truthdig editorial staff selects a Truthdigger of the Week, a group or person worthy of recognition for speaking truth to power, breaking the story or blowing the whistle. It is not a lifetime achievement award. Rather, we’re looking for newsmakers whose actions in a given week are worth celebrating.</p>
<p>The urgent question in American politics is a simple one: Who, in contests for every available public office in the country, will stand with the American people against the indifferent power of special interests?</p>
<p />
<p>By the account of The Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald, Debbie Wasserman Schultz will not. A six-term representative for Florida’s 23rd Congressional District, chair of the Democratic National Committee and co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, Schultz became a villain of the 2016 Democratic primary when she severely limited the number of Democratic debates and scheduled them for times that ensured low viewership. This led to widespread perceptions that she had breached the obligation to neutrality that comes with her position of leadership within the party and was working for Clinton to limit the exposure of her opponent Bernie Sanders, a candidate with enormous populist appeal.</p>
<p>“In general,” <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/01/19/meet-debbie-wasserman-schultzs-first-ever-primary-challenger-tim-canova%20" type="external">wrote Greenwald</a>, “Wasserman Schultz is the living, breathing embodiment of everything rotted and corrupt about the Democratic Party: a corporatist who overwhelmingly relies on corporate money to keep her job, a hawk who supports the most bellicose aspects of U.S. foreign policy, a key member of the ‘centrist’ and ‘moderate’ pro-growth New Democrat coalition” and “a co-sponsor of the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)” who demanded that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden “be extradited, arrested, and prosecuted” because he allegedly “jeopardized millions of Americans”—a version of events that Clinton has endorsed without demonstrating it to the satisfaction of independent experts.</p>
<p>For the first time in her career, however, Wasserman Schultz faces a Democratic <a href="https://timcanova.com" type="external">challenger</a> for her seat in Congress: <a href="https://timcanova.com" type="external">Tim Canova</a>, “a smart, articulate, sophisticated lawyer,” in Greenwald’s words. A law professor seeking to help Sanders and other progressives resume the New Deal project of transforming the United States into a genuine social democracy, Canova supported Occupy Wall Street and opposed the Wall Street bailout and the Patriot Act, both of which Wasserman Schultz supported with votes. He served as an aide to the late Sen. Paul Tsongas, worked with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson against the drug war and for-profit prisons and advised Sen. Sanders on Federal Reserve policy on a committee that included economists Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Reich and James Galbraith. He vocally supported the effort led by then-Reps. Ron Paul and Alan Grayson to audit the Federal Reserve and has never wavered on his opposition to the <a href="" type="internal">Trans-Pacific Partnership</a>, an international trade treaty championed by President Obama that has long been negotiated by corporate lobbyists in secret. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html%20" type="external">Sen. Elizabeth Warren</a> has written that the agreement would “undermine U.S. sovereignty” by “allow[ing] foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws” in international courts “and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers.”</p>
<p>Canova also spent part of the 1990s warning against both Bill Clinton’s dismantling of Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law that for six decades prevented disasters in investment banking from spilling over into Americans’ savings, and the then newly developed financial derivatives — both of which precipitated the financial crisis of 2008. (You may recall that derivatives are so complicated that a vice president of Lehman Brothers and a Harvard economist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGh2OzI06o8" type="external">struggled</a> to explain them in filmmaker Michael Moore’s 2009 film, “Capitalism: A Love Story.”)</p>
<p>I first encountered Canova in San Rafael, Calif., in 2013 when he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUOgOdiog4g" type="external">spoke</a> to attendees of a two-day <a href="http://www.publicbankinginamerica.org/conference-2013.htm" type="external">conference</a> organized by the <a href="http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org" type="external">Public Banking Institute</a>, the organization founded by Truthdig contributor and public banking advocate <a href="" type="internal">Ellen Brown</a>, about the need to reform the Federal Reserve. (Investigative reporter Matt Taibbi and Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir also spoke.) “I think it’s so important here to understand the forces that have undermined our democracy, undermined our economic prosperity and are destroying the middle class and harming the poor,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUOgOdiog4g%20" type="external">Canova said</a> at the start of his remarks. “And of course, the importance of understanding our own roles, our own responsibilities as citizens, as agents of change, not alone, but acting together.”</p>
<p>In closing he said, “We have to see ourselves as benefactors for future generations fighting for democracy. We have to see ourselves as redeemers of our broken democracy.”</p>
<p>In an <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/01/19/meet-debbie-wasserman-schultzs-first-ever-primary-challenger-tim-canova/" type="external">interview</a> Greenwald conducted with Canova shortly after the latter announced his campaign, Canova continued with his theme of “making our institutions more democratically accountable,” a commitment that he said “has animated me throughout my career.” The conviction drives his challenge of Wasserman Schultz, whom he has described as “the quintessential corporate machine politician.” With Bernie Sanders closing in on Hillary Clinton in the polls before the caucus in Iowa, we at Truthdig were intrigued to learn that another credible public advocate was seeking to recover official power from the iteration of the Democratic Party that has kept its back to American workers for 2½ decades. What we learned compelled us to make him Truthdigger of the Week.</p>
<p>I spoke with Canova by telephone recently about the political prospects of U.S. progressives. The following transcript of our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.</p>
<p>* * *Alexander Reed Kelly:</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to speak with me, Tim, and on behalf of all of us at Truthdig, congratulations on your campaign.</p>
<p>Tim Canova: Thank you for the honor of being called a Truthdigger, Alex.</p>
<p>Q: I’m interested in your campaign as an expression of what many people feel is a revival of populism underway in the United States. You’re a progressive critic of the status quo mounting a congressional campaign against the Democratic Party establishment. Some people suggest that candidates like you should not be supported because they assume such candidates will not be able to work with the existing system. How do you respond to these claims? And if you obtain office, what will you see as your chief functions and responsibilities?</p>
<p>A: My responsibility would be to represent the interests of the people in my district, and by that I mean real live people, not corporate persons. The real live people of this country have been neglected for way too long. To those who say that there’s no room for progressives in our party’s politics, my response is that they don’t have much faith or confidence in democracy, and that progressives have done plenty of good in this country’s past. Are they going to dismiss the administrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy? The progressives going back to Teddy Roosevelt? It’s a way of basically trying to restrict democracy to big corporate interests. When Bernie Sanders is elected he’ll be able to work with Congress if we have a wave election that brings us a Democratic Congress with many progressives.</p>
<p>Q: That answer deals with pundits, political advisers and other public figures who resist challenges to the status quo. But what do you say to working people who find themselves repeating what these figures say?</p>
<p>A: I felt the same way for two or three years and have just in the past six months to a year come around to believing that now’s not the time to be discouraged. This is a great moment of opportunity for this country. The Bernie Sanders campaign has galvanized people all over the land. It’s OK to be demoralized now and then. It happens, especially when you’ve been on the losing side for so long. It’s OK to get down. But it’s also in the nature of human beings to get back up and fight.</p>
<p>Q: At the Public Banking Institute’s conference in San Rafael in 2013 you were bleak about our nation’s “prospect for reform” given what you described as our “two-party, corporate-owned duopoly.” You said: “It seems to me that nothing’s gonna change in this country under the Republicans and the Democrats. I’m sorry to say it as a lifelong Democrat: To me it suggests the need for a third party united by core principles.” Today you’re running for Congress as a Democrat. What changed between 2013 and now?</p>
<p>A: What changed for me was Bernie Sanders’ candidacy. Perhaps an Elizabeth Warren candidacy would have done this as well. It was the corporate establishment of the Democratic Party that I was criticizing in San Rafael. It was demoralizing to see the progressive wing of the party so marginalized during much of the Obama administration. But over the past six months or so, the growing movement behind Bernie Sanders’ campaign renewed my hopes in progressive reform within the Democratic Party and inspired my decision to run.Q: What will be your first priorities if and when you enter office?</p>
<p>A: I will try to form a bipartisan caucus on campaign finance reform—to try to take money out of politics. I say that because almost any other agenda that we’re concerned about, from Wall Street reform and job creation to climate change, all the corporate money in politics gets in the way of those agendas. That would probably be my first course of business. Right under campaign finance reform would be Wall Street reform and job creation and trying to be part of the effort to end this drug war and start us down the path of transforming this economy toward alternative energies and getting very serious about climate change. I’m here in south Florida where the projections are that in 20 to 30 years a lot of south Florida could be underwater. Climate change is not theoretical here in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District. People have to understand that it’s an existential problem.</p>
<p>Q: How do you pursue these objectives with colleagues who oppose them?</p>
<p>A: In the past I’ve worked with folks who you would not call progressive. As a law professor I worked in 2009 and 2010 with congressional staffs on both sides of the aisle on the Federal Reserve transparency provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. I worked with folks from the Ron Paul libertarian and Republican right to the Bernie Sanders and Alan Grayson camp on the progressive left. I would not write off anybody, and if they don’t agree initially you have to try to convince them. I also believe that electoral success has a powerful effect. I will be elected without a penny of corporate money. In our first three weeks our campaign has received more than 4,000 individual donations already. Electoral success speaks very loudly in Washington, and I think there will be other progressives this year and in the future who will also step up and, you could say, follow our playbook. The days when money can simply buy elections—let’s hope those days are quickly receding. Two years ago Eric Cantor spent something like $5 million in a primary that he lost to David Brat, an economics professor whom I read spent $200,000. People are clearly fed up with incumbents and business as usual, which helps explain the rise of Donald Trump as well as Bernie Sanders. Millennials in particular are less likely to be influenced by expensive 30-second commercials and more likely to just fast-forward through them. Just look at Jeb Bush’s campaign. How much has he raised—[more than] $100 million? He’s spent it everywhere and yet so far he has stayed down near rock bottom in the polls. There could be a number of reasons for this, but it seems to point to the increasing ineffectiveness of these kinds of campaigns. Hillary Clinton has raised a lot of money and it certainly seems that she’s not exactly clobbering Bernie Sanders at this point.</p>
<p>Q: In addition to Bernie Sanders’ campaign, did the electoral and policy successes of Seattle’s socialist City Councilwoman <a href="" type="internal">Kshama Sawant</a> and <a href="http://www.socialistalternative.org" type="external">Socialist Alternative</a>, the party behind her, influence your decision to run?</p>
<p>A: The Sanders campaign more than Kshama Sawant’s campaign in Seattle. I was a supporter of his from the day of his announcement, and as his campaign gathered steam it struck me that even if he’s elected president he’s gonna have a hard time governing with lawmakers like my opponent, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Her vote last summer to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership — the TPP — was the final straw not just for me but for a lot of labor folks and progressive Democrats here in south Florida. Many of us thought that someone should challenge her in the primary because of her fast-track vote, yet at that time I did not consider myself for the run. However, after many months it was clear no one else would do it, and I came to feel that if we want change, then all of us — ordinary folks like you and me — have to step up. There’s a problem when you see members of Congress getting re-elected at rates of 95 percent because the state legislatures have gerrymandered so many safe House seats. Then, on top of that, if there’s no primary challenge because it’s considered bad form for a Democrat to challenge an incumbent Democrat, then we’re saying that incumbents can gather corporate money, neglect the interest of their own constituents and it’s not a problem. They’ll get re-elected because they’re not challenged in primaries and in safe districts in the general election. And that’s just not the way democracy should work. Democracy is about contested agendas, contested elections and letting the voters decide. It’s a sad state when we’re afraid of contested elections.</p>
<p>Q: You would welcome a challenger if you become an incumbent, then?</p>
<p>A: I would certainly debate any challenger, let’s put it that way. I wouldn’t do anything to stop somebody from challenging me. I would welcome a debate.</p>
<p>Q: Do you have a sense of how many other people who possess credentials that would make them “electable” in the minds of many voters are ready to run for office if you, Sanders and others confirm that grass-roots-funded opposition candidates can get elected?</p>
<p>A: Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham law professor, has just announced that she’s running for Congress in New York, and Jamie Raskin, an American University law professor and Maryland state senator, is also running for Congress. Certainly lots of law professors are quite capable of running for office and this should not be seen as some kind of elitist statement. Professors aren’t making fortunes. They have devoted their lives to the study of ideas and to political activism. And that’s just one profession; there are many others to draw upon. What prevents so many ordinary people from stepping up is the view that they’ve internalized: that it’s futile, that they don’t stand a chance and they should just sit on the sofa and watch politics as a spectator sport. Those who want progressive change have got to step up and put their time and money on the line.</p>
<p>Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add regarding particular policies you endorse or any other topic?</p>
<p>A: We have already discussed the priorities of job creation, Wall Street reform, climate change and the drug war. I would be remiss if I did not ask for help from other concerned people, from truthdiggers everywhere. My opponent today is scheduled to have a $5,000-a-plate fundraiser. She can raise more today from a handful of CEOs than our campaign has raised in three weeks from 4,000 small donations. Just like the Bernie Sanders campaign, we need ordinary folks to step up and make small contributions—not just once, but again and again. I would urge people to go to our campaign website at <a href="https://timcanova.com" type="external">TimCanovaforCongress.com</a> and to join our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TimCanovaForCongress/?fref=ts" type="external">campaign Facebook page</a> and to spread the word and help in any way they can, including small contributions. Certainly one law professor cannot take on the machine alone. This is the fight between people power and a big, heartless corporate machine. I urge people to join us. I think it will send a major message to Washington that progressives in this country cannot be taken for granted by the corporate-dominated establishment. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party and progressive values and policy agendas were for many years great for our party, they made this country great, and they need to be the future of our party.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a> is an assistant editor at Truthdig.</p> | Truthdigger of the Week: Progressive Congressional Candidate Tim Canova | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/truthdigger-of-the-week-progressive-congressional-candidate-tim-canova-2/ | 2016-02-01 | 4 |
<p>Aug. 11 (UPI) — After discussions on compliance with an OPEC-led effort to balance the market, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said Iraq could be the target for more exports.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia and Iraq are the top two oil producers among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Saudi Arabia has taken a “whatever it takes” stance on a multilateral effort to balance an oversupplied market for crude oil with production declines, while Iraq is said to be the least compliant among parties to the arrangement.</p>
<p>Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said his country was willing to “open all fields” in order to improve bilateral relations with its ally, Iraq.</p>
<p>“The minister said that the kingdom is keen to supply Iraq with Saudi exports of petroleum, petrochemical and mineral products from iron and aluminum, support the investments between the two countries, and increase trade exchange at all levels,” <a href="http://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&amp;newsid=1655680#1655680" type="external">a statement</a> from the official Saudi Press Agency read.</p>
<p>Saudi officials hosted Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luabi <a href="https://www.upi.com/Iraq-Saudi-Arabia-express-full-commitment-to-OPEC-balancing-act/7411502368094/" type="external">earlier this week</a> to discuss recent trades in shared oil policy. The SPA reported that both sides restated their full commitment to the OPEC-led effort to trim production until the markets reach a target level that would indicate balance.</p>
<p>Vandana Hari, an industry analyst and founder of Vanda Insights, told UPI that it’s natural for Saudi Arabia to address the energy needs of its Arab neighbors, but the devil is in the details when it comes to market share among OPEC producers.</p>
<p>“One way to compensate for the loss of crude market share would be to refine more domestic crude production at home and step up refined product exports, which are not on OPEC’s radar,” she said.</p>
<p>According to OPEC, commercial oil stocks for the developed countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in June were still above the latest-five year average by about 252 million barrels. That comes even as commercial OECD stocks declined in the same month by 21.9 million barrels.</p>
<p>The International Energy Agency <a href="http://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/august/omr-all-in-it-together.html" type="external">said Friday</a> that, if OECD stocks fell by a half million barrels per day from now until the end of the first quarter 2018, when the OPEC agreement expires, stocks would still be well above the five-year average.</p>
<p>“There would be more confidence that re-balancing is here to stay if some producers party to the output agreements were not, just as they are gaining the upper hand, showing signs of weakening their resolve,” the IEA warned.</p>
<p>Secondary sources told OPEC economists that Iraq produced 4.4 million barrels of oil per day in July, a decline of 33,000 barrels per day from the previous month, but relatively on par with its average for the year. Saudi Arabia produced 10.06 million barrels per day, which at 31,800 above June levels, nearly offsets Iraq’s decline.</p> | Saudis ready to export more oil to Iraq | false | https://newsline.com/saudis-ready-to-export-more-oil-to-iraq/ | 2017-08-11 | 1 |
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<p>CLASS 2A BOYS No. 2 DEXTER 75, No. 3 CLAYTON 66: At the Star Center, the Demons (28-2) hit 13 3-pointers and capitalized on three fourth-quarter technical fouls to take a stunning comeback victory over the Yellowjackets (25-4). Clayton used a significant size advantage to steadily build a 12-point lead in the third quarter. But Dexter, paced by David Lopez's 26 points, continued to fight back. Clayton led 61-54 with 4:03 when Dexter's Missael Barrientos grabbed a defensive rebound and swung the ball to pull it away from Yellowjackets post Mark Craine. Craine was whistled for a foul then picked up a technical for pushing Barrientos. On his way off the court Craine also pushed Lopez to earn a second technical. The Demons hit all six free throws for the various calls and Kevin Bonner drained a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession. Suddenly the Demons led 63-61. Clayton's Koy Geary picked up another technical later in the quarter and the Demons pulled away at the foul line. Bonner finished with 16 points, and Kevin Paez added 14 for the Demons, who will play in their second straight Class 2A championship game Saturday. Craine had 20 points before fouling out for Clayton, which also got 17 points from Josh Durbin and a double-double (13 points, 18 boards) from Dakota Montoya. No. 4 TEXICO 63, No. 1 LAGUNA ACOMA 59: At the Star Center, Miguel Reyna scored 27 points and Brannon Karger scored all of his 14 in the second half to help the Wolverines (27-4) upset the previously unbeaten Hawks (29-1). Texico, which also ended Laguna's unbeaten run at the 2012 state tournament, trailed through most of three quarters Thursday. But Karger's 3-pointer with eight secconds left in the third tied the score at 47 and set up a frantic fourth. It was 55-all with 3:23 left, but Justin Rucker scored a driving basket that would give the Wolverines the lead for good. Laguna trailed by just two points and had the ball with eight seconds left, but Ryan Arkie missed a 3-point try and Karger capped the scoring with a breakaway layup. Elijah Ruben scored 18 points to pace the Hawks, who got 15 points from Deion Natseway and 12 from David McGee. Texico will face Dexter in Saturday's Class 2A championship at the Pit. The teams have not faced each other this season.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Class 2A Boys: Dexter wins, Texico beats Laguna Acoma | false | https://abqjournal.com/367989/class-2a-boys-dexter-beats-clayton.html | 2 |
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<p>As the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and were on the verge of taking over the Senate, George W. Bush announced that Donald Rumsfeld was out and Robert Gates was in as Secretary of Defense. When Bush is being run out of town, he knows how to get out in the front of the crowd and make it look like he’s leading the parade. The Rumsfeld-Gates swap is a classic example.</p>
<p>The election was a referendum on the war. The dramatic results prove that the overwhelming majority of people in this country don’t like the disaster Bush has created in Iraq. So rather than let the airwaves fill up with beaming Democrats and talk of the horrors of Iraq, Bush changed the subject and fired Rumsfeld. Now, when the Democrats begin to investigate what went wrong, Rumsfeld will no longer be the controversial public face of the war.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld had come under fire from many quarters, not the least of which was a gaggle of military officers who had been clamoring for his resignation. Bush said he decided to oust Rumsfeld before Tuesday’s voting but lied to reporters so it wouldn’t affect the election. Putting aside the incredulity of that claim, Bush likely waited to see if there would be a changing of the legislative guard before giving Rumsfeld his walking papers. If the GOP had retained control of Congress, Bush would probably have retained Rumsfeld. But in hindsight, Bush has to wish he had ejected Rumsfeld before the election to demonstrate a new direction in the Iraq war to angry voters.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld’s sin was not in failing to develop a winning strategy for Iraq. There is no winning in Iraq, because we never belonged there in the first place. The war in Iraq is a war of aggression. It violates the United Nations Charter which only permits one country to invade another in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council.</p>
<p>Donald Rumsfeld was one of the primary architects of the Iraq war.&#160; On September 15, 2001, in a meeting at Camp David, Rumsfeld suggested an attack on Iraq because he was deeply worried about the availability of “good targets in Afghanistan.” Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill reported that Rumsfeld articulated his hope to “dissuade” other nations from “asymmetrical challenges” to U.S. power. &#160;Rumsfeld’s support for a preemptive attack on Iraq “matched with plans for how the world’s second largest oil reserve might be divided among the world’s contractors made for an irresistible combination,” Ron Suskind wrote after interviewing O’Neill.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld defensively sought to decouple oil access from regime change in Iraq when he appeared on CBS News on November 15, 2002. In a Macbeth moment, Rumsfeld proclaimed the United States’ beef with Iraq has “nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.” &#160;The Secretary doth protest too much.</p>
<p>Prosecuting a war of aggression isn’t Rumsfeld’s only crime. He also participated in the highest levels of decision-making that allowed the extrajudicial execution of several people. Willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, which constitutes a war crime.&#160; In his book, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Seymour Hersh described the “unacknowledged” special-access program (SAP) established by a top-secret order Bush signed in late 2001 or early 2002. &#160;It authorized the Defense Department to set up a clandestine team of Special Forces operatives to defy international law and snatch, or assassinate, anyone considered a “high-value” Al Qaeda operative, anywhere in the world. &#160;Rumsfeld expanded SAP into Iraq in August 2003.</p>
<p>But Rumsfeld’s crimes don’t end there. He sanctioned the use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, which are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and thus constitute war crimes.&#160; Rumsfeld approved interrogation techniques that included the use of dogs, removal of clothing, hooding, stress positions, isolation for up to 30 days, 20-hour interrogations, and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli. &#160;According to Seymour Hersh, Rumsfeld sanctioned the use of physical coercion and sexual humiliation to extract information from prisoners. Rumsfeld also authorized waterboarding, where the interrogator induces the sensation of imminent death by drowning. &#160;Waterboarding is widely considered a form of torture.</p>
<p>Rumsfeld was intimately involved with the interrogation of a Saudi detainee, Mohamed al-Qahtani, at Guantánamo in late 2002. General Geoffrey Miller, who later transferred many of his harsh interrogation techniques to Abu Ghaib, supervised the interrogation and gave Rumsfeld weekly updates on his progress. During a six-week period, al-Qahtani was stripped naked, forced to wear women’s underwear on his head, denied bathroom access, threatened with dogs, forced to perform tricks while tethered to a dog leash, and subjected to sleep deprivation. Al-Qahtani was kept in solitary confinement for 160 days. For 48 days out of 54, he was interrogated for 18 to 20 hours a day.</p>
<p>Even though Rumsfeld didn’t personally carry out the torture and mistreatment of prisoners, he authorized it. Under the doctrine of command responsibility, a commander can be liable for war crimes committed by his inferiors if he knew or should have known they would be committed and did nothing to stop of prevent them. The U.S. War Crimes Act provides for prosecution of a person who commits war crimes and prescribes life imprisonment, or even the death penalty if the victim dies.</p>
<p>Although intending to signal a new direction in Iraq with his nomination of Gates to replace Rumsfeld, Bush has no intention of leaving Iraq. He is building huge permanent U.S. military bases there. Gates at the helm of the Defense Department, Bush said, “can help make the necessary adjustments in our approach.” Bush hopes he can bring congressional Democrats on board by convincing them he will simply fight a smarter war.</p>
<p>But this war can never get smarter. Nearly 3,000 American soldiers and more than 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died and tens of thousands have been wounded. Our national debt has skyrocketed with the billions Bush has pumped into the war. Now that there is a new day in Congress, there must be a new push to end the war. That means a demand that Congress cut off its funds.</p>
<p>And the war criminals must be brought to justice – beginning with Donald Rumsfeld. On November 14, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, and other organizations will ask the German federal prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation into the war crimes of Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials. Although Bush has immunized his team from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, they could be tried in any country under the well-established principle of universal jurisdiction.</p>
<p>Donald Rumsfeld may be out of sight, but he will not be out of mind. The chickens have come home to roost.</p>
<p>MARJORIE COHN, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Her new book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, will be published this spring by PoliPointPress.</p>
<p>This column originally appeared in the <a href="" type="internal">Jurist</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The War Crimes Case Against Rumsfeld | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/11/10/the-war-crimes-case-against-rumsfeld/ | 2006-11-10 | 4 |
<p>DENVER (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs got an enticing glimpse of their quarterback-in-waiting with the debut of <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/947580608695345152" type="external">Patrick Mahomes</a> II.</p>
<p>Now, it's back to the present, with Alex Smith starting in the playoffs.</p>
<p>Here's something good to know: Should he be called upon, Mahomes can step in with little worries after leading the Chiefs to a winning field goal during a 27-24 win over the Denver Broncos on a frigid Sunday in the regular-season finale.</p>
<p>Next up, Tennessee on Saturday in the wild-card game at Arrowhead Stadium. And back under center, Smith, who got the day off with the game essentially meaningless. Well, meaningless except for Mahomes getting an extended look to see what he can do.</p>
<p>Mahomes, picked 10th overall in the 2017 draft out of Texas Tech, showed poise in the pocket all afternoon. He finished 22 of 35 for 284 yards and an interception. Just when it looked like his day was over — subbed out to give Tyler Bray some work — Mahomes was summoned back to the field. He led the Chiefs on a drive with just under three minutes remaining that set up Harrison Butker's winning 30-yard field goal as time expired.</p>
<p>"I thought he did a nice job. He had complete command out there," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said.</p>
<p>Smith played a role Sunday, too, helping the QB he's grooming to take his job one day get a handle on a Denver defense that's one of the best in the league.</p>
<p>For that tutorial, thanks.</p>
<p>"Alex is an awesome guy. He helped me the entire game, showing me what he was seeing out there, and showing me the things he was recognizing and giving me tips the entire game," said Mahomes, who showed up for his postgame news conference wearing a <a href="https://twitter.com/pgraham34/status/947635305137541120" type="external">dazzling blue suit</a> . "You can't ask for a guy to be in front of you as well as Alex has been for me."</p>
<p>Mahomes has spent all season watching and waiting while Smith topped 4,000 yards passing for the first time in his 13th NFL season. Having clinched the AFC West for a second straight season, the Chiefs (10-6) turned the offense over to Mahomes.</p>
<p>At times, he looked like a rookie, sailing a pass to a wide-open receiver that <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/947584793385906176" type="external">landed in the arms</a> of Broncos safety Darian Stewart.</p>
<p>In other instances, he was downright electric, completing a long pass to Albert Wilson in the second quarter with <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/947593111873523712" type="external">safety Will Parks</a> draped on him.</p>
<p>"I thought he ruined a couple of great plays," Reid joked. "Listen, he did a nice job. He did a great job. You saw that in college, right? You saw that same thing in college and for him to be able to transfer it here to this level and you've (a Denver player) draped on you and you make a throw like that, there's not a lot of guys that can do that."</p>
<p>Reid took out Mahomes and inserted Bray with about seven minutes left and the Chiefs up 24-10. Bray fumbled on the first play and it was scooped up by linebacker Zaire Anderson for a 38-yard TD to make it 24-17. After a three-and-out, Paxton Lynch led a tying score that culminated with a 6-yard pass to Demaryius Thomas with 2:58 remaining.</p>
<p>Put back in, Mahomes was at his best on the final drive. He seamlessly led the team into field goal range.</p>
<p>The real deal?</p>
<p>"I wouldn't call him the real deal, but he has an arm, though," said Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall, whose team finished 5-11 to miss the playoffs for a second straight season. "He has a cannon. He has a cannon, man. You see him just running this way and he throws it back across his body and the guy catches it. I think he has all the talent, he has all the tools, but I'm not going to call him the real deal."</p>
<p>NOTES: Chiefs rookie running back Kareem Hunt scored on a 35-yard run on his only carry, securing the NFL rushing title over Todd Gurley and Le'Veon Bell, both of whom were inactive Sunday. To think, Hunt wasn't even going to play, but talked Reid into it. "He told me he'd get it taken care of quick and he did that," Reid said. ... Chiefs punt returner De'Anthony Thomas broke his leg on the final play of the first quarter. He will stay behind in Denver to undergo surgery, Reid said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
<p>DENVER (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs got an enticing glimpse of their quarterback-in-waiting with the debut of <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/947580608695345152" type="external">Patrick Mahomes</a> II.</p>
<p>Now, it's back to the present, with Alex Smith starting in the playoffs.</p>
<p>Here's something good to know: Should he be called upon, Mahomes can step in with little worries after leading the Chiefs to a winning field goal during a 27-24 win over the Denver Broncos on a frigid Sunday in the regular-season finale.</p>
<p>Next up, Tennessee on Saturday in the wild-card game at Arrowhead Stadium. And back under center, Smith, who got the day off with the game essentially meaningless. Well, meaningless except for Mahomes getting an extended look to see what he can do.</p>
<p>Mahomes, picked 10th overall in the 2017 draft out of Texas Tech, showed poise in the pocket all afternoon. He finished 22 of 35 for 284 yards and an interception. Just when it looked like his day was over — subbed out to give Tyler Bray some work — Mahomes was summoned back to the field. He led the Chiefs on a drive with just under three minutes remaining that set up Harrison Butker's winning 30-yard field goal as time expired.</p>
<p>"I thought he did a nice job. He had complete command out there," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said.</p>
<p>Smith played a role Sunday, too, helping the QB he's grooming to take his job one day get a handle on a Denver defense that's one of the best in the league.</p>
<p>For that tutorial, thanks.</p>
<p>"Alex is an awesome guy. He helped me the entire game, showing me what he was seeing out there, and showing me the things he was recognizing and giving me tips the entire game," said Mahomes, who showed up for his postgame news conference wearing a <a href="https://twitter.com/pgraham34/status/947635305137541120" type="external">dazzling blue suit</a> . "You can't ask for a guy to be in front of you as well as Alex has been for me."</p>
<p>Mahomes has spent all season watching and waiting while Smith topped 4,000 yards passing for the first time in his 13th NFL season. Having clinched the AFC West for a second straight season, the Chiefs (10-6) turned the offense over to Mahomes.</p>
<p>At times, he looked like a rookie, sailing a pass to a wide-open receiver that <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/947584793385906176" type="external">landed in the arms</a> of Broncos safety Darian Stewart.</p>
<p>In other instances, he was downright electric, completing a long pass to Albert Wilson in the second quarter with <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/947593111873523712" type="external">safety Will Parks</a> draped on him.</p>
<p>"I thought he ruined a couple of great plays," Reid joked. "Listen, he did a nice job. He did a great job. You saw that in college, right? You saw that same thing in college and for him to be able to transfer it here to this level and you've (a Denver player) draped on you and you make a throw like that, there's not a lot of guys that can do that."</p>
<p>Reid took out Mahomes and inserted Bray with about seven minutes left and the Chiefs up 24-10. Bray fumbled on the first play and it was scooped up by linebacker Zaire Anderson for a 38-yard TD to make it 24-17. After a three-and-out, Paxton Lynch led a tying score that culminated with a 6-yard pass to Demaryius Thomas with 2:58 remaining.</p>
<p>Put back in, Mahomes was at his best on the final drive. He seamlessly led the team into field goal range.</p>
<p>The real deal?</p>
<p>"I wouldn't call him the real deal, but he has an arm, though," said Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall, whose team finished 5-11 to miss the playoffs for a second straight season. "He has a cannon. He has a cannon, man. You see him just running this way and he throws it back across his body and the guy catches it. I think he has all the talent, he has all the tools, but I'm not going to call him the real deal."</p>
<p>NOTES: Chiefs rookie running back Kareem Hunt scored on a 35-yard run on his only carry, securing the NFL rushing title over Todd Gurley and Le'Veon Bell, both of whom were inactive Sunday. To think, Hunt wasn't even going to play, but talked Reid into it. "He told me he'd get it taken care of quick and he did that," Reid said. ... Chiefs punt returner De'Anthony Thomas broke his leg on the final play of the first quarter. He will stay behind in Denver to undergo surgery, Reid said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p> | QB-in-waiting Mahomes shows flashes of talent in Chiefs win | false | https://apnews.com/amp/955cff50692b4b29936ed62bbfeff0a0 | 2018-01-01 | 2 |
<p />
<p>The Dow maintained its momentum and climbed toward a new record high on Monday, while U.S. stocks closed a positive month of July.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 60 points, or 0.3%, to 21,891. The S&amp;P 500 inched about 2 points lower to 2,470. The Nasdaq Composite fell 26.5 points, or 0.4%, to 6,348.</p>
<p>Robust corporate profits have carried the Dow over the last week. Several members of the blue-chip index, including Boeing (NYSE:BA), Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) and McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD), reported better results than expected for the second quarter. According to Thomson Reuters data, U.S. corporations are expected to report a second straight quarter of double-digit earnings growth, the first such streak since 2011.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, tech stocks dragged down the Nasdaq in the latest session. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), which hit a record high last week, was down 1.9%.</p>
<p>Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE:SNI) rose less than 1% after Discovery Communications (NASDAQ:DISCA) announced <a href="" type="internal">a deal to buy the HGTV owner for $14.6 billion Opens a New Window.</a>. Discovery fell 8.2%.</p>
<p>Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) dropped 3.5% after CEO Elon Musk warned that production of the mass-market Model 3 would create “manufacturing hell” for the electric car maker.</p>
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<p>In economic news, pending home sales bounced back in June. Signed contracts to buy existing homes rose 1.5% last month, according to the National Association of Realtors. May pending home sales were also revised a bit higher.</p>
<p>Nymex West Texas Intermediate oil rose 0.9% to $50.17 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed 2.2% to $52.62 in recent trading.</p>
<p>The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.288% from 2.291%.</p>
<p>Monday capped a strong month for the stock market, helped in part by the Federal Reserve’s affirmation that it will move gradually to <a href="" type="internal">unwind its portfolio Opens a New Window.</a>. Economists also don’t expect another rate hike until the central bank’s December meeting.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq ended July with a 3.41% monthly gain, leading the way among the three major indices. The Dow was up 2.55%, and the S&amp;P advanced about 1.93%.</p> | Dow hits new high as stocks post July gains | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/31/dow-hits-new-high-as-stocks-seek-july-gains.html | 2017-07-31 | 0 |
<p>Lawyers for a Florida man scheduled to be executed in October want a delay in last-minute court proceedings due to the threat of Hurricane Irma.</p>
<p>Attorney Martin McClain said in a motion filed Wednesday that he and other lawyers representing Michael Ray Lambrix live in the expected path of the Category 5 storm. He said the attorneys need time to help their families get ready. McClain in his motion said that the state is expected to oppose the delay.</p>
<p>Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Friday scheduled Lambrix’s execution for Oct. 5.</p>
<p>The 57-year-old Lambrix, also known as Cary Michael Lambrix, was convicted of the 1983 killings of Clarence Moore and Aleisha Bryant. Prosecutors say he killed them after an evening of drinking at his trailer near LaBelle, about 30 miles from Fort Myers.</p> | Lawyers Facing Hurricane Irma Ask for Execution Delay | false | https://newsline.com/lawyers-facing-hurricane-irma-ask-for-execution-delay/ | 2017-09-06 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Honda's small HR-V crossover has been a big seller in both the U.S. and China. Image source: Honda Motor Company.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Honda Motor Company (NYSE: HMC) said on Monday that its net profit for the quarter ended Sept. 30 rose 39% from a year ago to 177 billion yen ($1.7 billion) -- despite a drop in revenue caused largely by the rising value of the yen.</p>
<p>The chart below, provided by Honda, shows how its results for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compare with the year-ago period. Note that Honda's fiscal year starts on April 1; the most recent quarter is the second quarter of its 2017 fiscal year.</p>
<p>Image source: Honda Motor Company.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Despite the nearly 10% year-over-year decline in revenue, it was a good quarter for the Japanese automaker. Honda attributed the revenue drop to unfavorable exchange-rate movements, particularly the increase in value of the yen versus the U.S. dollar.</p>
<p>But nearly every other indicator was strongly positive. Sales of Honda's automobiles and motorcycles rose 6.9% and 3.8%, respectively, with only the company's relatively small power products unit posting a sales decline (-2.7%).</p>
<p>Honda has long relied on steady global demand for its mainstay Fit, Civic, and Accord sedans. Over the last couple of years, the company has suffered as consumer tastes have shifted toward car-based "crossover" SUVs. But more recently, Honda has been able to recover by boosting production of its own popular HR-V and CR-V crossovers to meet surging demand. Demand has been especially strong in China, where Honda's vehicle sales were up 26% through the first nine months of 2016.</p>
<p>What's more, those sales were very profitable ones. Honda was able to post a big jump in profit despite the exchange-rate pressures because of a substantial improvement in profitability. Its operating margin rose 7% from 4.6% a year ago thanks to increased sales and a more favorable "mix" of products, a series of cost reduction efforts, and a favorable change in its pension accounting.</p>
<p>Honda's year-over-year comparison also benefited from a decrease in expenses related to the massive global recalls of defective airbags made by the Takata Corporation. Honda set aside a total of 556 billion yen ($5.29 billion) over the past two years to cover costs related to the Takata recalls.</p>
<p>The exchange-rate shifts and Honda's improved profitability led the company to revise its guidance for the full fiscal year that will end on March 31, 2017, with somewhat lower expectations for revenue but higher forecasts for profit.</p>
<p>Image source: Honda Motor Company.</p>
<p>Honda also said that it now expects its overall auto sales to be up 5% from last year, to 4.98 million vehicles, driven by an 11% increase in sales in Asia (excluding Japan).</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2691&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFMarlowe/info.aspx" type="external">John Rosevear Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Honda's Profit Jumps 39% on Cost Cuts and Strong China Sales | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/31/honda-profit-jumps-3-on-cost-cuts-and-strong-china-sales.html | 2016-10-31 | 0 |
<p>New York Mayor Bill de Blasio <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/29/countering-violent-extremism1.html" type="external">flipped his finger</a> at the ACLU, and more than 20 other human rights, civil liberties, and feminist organizations&#160;yesterday&#160;when he announced at the United Nations that&#160;New York City will join a global network of cities instituting race and religion-based surveillance under the banner of “Countering Violent Extremism.” This is terrifying.</p>
<p />
<p>The 21 organizations sent the mayor’s office&#160; <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/sites/default/files/092115%20Coalition%20Letter%20to%20Mayor%20Re%20CVE.pdf" type="external">a letter</a> on Sept. 21&#160;urging de Blasio&#160;to reconsider joining the&#160;federal surveillance program that ignores the what-should-be-obvious reality&#160;that white men&#160;are <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/24/domestic-terrorism-charleston_n_7654720.html" type="external">more deadly</a> to America than anyone else — and instead chooses to further&#160;criminalize Muslim communities.</p>
<p>Here’s a quick round-up of the shitty and violent ways the&#160;Counter Violent Extremism program&#160;does this:</p>
<p>It&#160;expands the <a href="" type="internal">school-to-prison</a> <a href="" type="internal">pipeline</a>&#160;that already targets brown and black kids.&#160;CVE&#160;has tranformed the relationship between Muslim kids and schools and social service providers into security-based engagements and tasked “teachers and social workers to identify students who they believe are at risk of violent extremism.” As the ACLU wrote last week,&#160;schools should be environments where curiosity, inquiry, and intellectual discourse thrive. I can’t say I care much for President Obama tweeting about Ahmed and his clock when the <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/9/the-criminalization-of-muslim-students-must-end.html" type="external">White House is the reason</a>&#160;students like him are seen as&#160;suspects and their clock-making is considered a bomb threats.</p>
<p>It is so obviously racist.&#160;The President, the U.S. Attorney General, and city mayors all love to brand the program as all-inclusive, and suggest that objects of their surveillance will include people that aren’t just brown and black. The reality is that it’s been more than a year since CVE pilot programs were launched in <a href="http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=30d739eaae2442c8d20aad278&amp;id=25a5c44b43&amp;e=%5bUNIQID" type="external">Boston</a>, <a href="http://files.ctctcdn.com/bd15115b001/d068ad69-9ad8-46a0-bdcd-b9d57454ed20.pdf" type="external">Minneapolis</a>, and <a href="http://www.advancingjustice-la.org/sites/default/files/20141113%20-%20MR%20-%20CVE%20Statement.pdf" type="external">LA</a>, and each and every one targets&#160;Muslim youth and their communities alone.</p>
<p>It&#160;doesn’t work — that is, it ignores actual violence.&#160;White people are the biggest terror threat in this country. White dudes with grudges. White cops with guns.&#160;White supremacists trying to take down the government. Three fourths&#160;of law enforcement agencies in America list right-wing extremists as <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/white-people-are-the-biggest-terror-threat-in-the-us-report-finds-10342987.html" type="external">their biggest threat</a>. This program ignores all of them. (For God’s sake, the White House convened a CVE summit just days after&#160; <a href="" type="internal">two Muslim women were murdered</a>for wearing the hijab in Chapel Hill).</p>
<p>It is incredibly silly.&#160;Linda Sarsour, resident badass activist and head of the Arab American Association of New York, pointed to the “criteria” the NYPD uses to identity terror threats. The behaviors that raise suspicion — at least when Muslim youth do them — include: “giving up cigarettes, drinking, gambling and urban hip-hop gangster clothes; wearing traditional Islamic clothing, growing a beard; becoming involved in social activism and community issues.”&#160;I don’t know how to describe this as anything but silly.</p>
<p>Danielle Jefferis <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/religion-based-suspicion-masquerading-counterterrorism-has-no-place-america" type="external">wrote</a> over at the ACLU last week that “religious-based suspicion masquerading as counterterrorism has no place in America.” I agree. Unfortunately, the largest city in the US adopting CVE&#160;is one more sign that the America&#160;we might envision&#160;and the one in reality are&#160;two very different things.</p> | NYC becomes one more city criminalizing Muslim youth and communities | true | http://feministing.com/2015/09/30/nyc-becomes-one-more-city-criminalizing-muslim-youth-and-communities/ | 4 |
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<p>GUADALAJARA, Mexico - As part of GlobalPost's project to interview 100 people in 20 locations around the world about the 2012 US election, we asked Mexicans:</p>
<p>Who do you want to win the 2012 US election?</p>
<p>Will the election affect your country?</p>
<p>How has your view of the US changed since President Obama took office?</p>
<p>What should the next US president do?</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Top priority:&#160;"The US has to move in an international direction because right now they are always thinking about national issues. Because of all the wars, they have lost part of their international strategy. The economies around the world are moving and changing, and they are not participating as they should be."</p>
<p>Top priority: "Change the way of doing things. In regards to the economy, the way it's designed is not working. The relationships between countries are not fair. But the main thing is the economy. They need to change the system to make it work for everybody, not just for a few."</p>
<p>Top priority: "They should be trying to resolve the unemployment problem. Immigrant labor is very important to the US because it's cheap. Sometimes we Mexicans produce a lot for very little money. The next president should take this into account. Of course, he isn't the only one who makes decisions, but the point should be how to manage all those millions of immigrants that go to the US and produce a lot for so little."</p>
<p>Top priority:&#160;"I still think it is important to have continuity with projects such as social security, immigration and the economy because the economy is bad in Mexico and in the US and in the world."</p>
<p>Top priority:&#160;"They need to make a deep transformation of the economy because so far this system just benefits a few people and has left so many people poor. It's like in Europe where the system's collapsing. And they need to look for peace because we're in a very unstable time. The relationship between the US and the Middle East is very weak and there is the danger of a new war starting."</p>
<p>GlobalPost series: See what the world thinks about <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/series/2012-us-presidential-election-if-the-world-could-vote" type="external">election 2012</a></p>
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<p>#world-vote-right h3 { color: #111111; font: bold 18px/1.4 Georgia; margin: 20px auto; text-align: center; text-shadow: 1px 1px #DDDDDD; }</p> | US Election: What if Mexico could vote? | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-10-11/us-election-what-if-mexico-could-vote | 2012-10-11 | 3 |
<p>Harangued by obnoxious black female left-wingers casting themselves as racial victims during an ITV-hosted town hall style event on Tuesday, UKIP leader Nigel Farage was denigrated as a racist who harbored animosity towards non-white persons. Farage advocated for the <a href="https://leave.eu/" type="external">Leave campaign</a>, arguing that the UK should depart from the EU superstate.</p>
<p>Tola Jaiyeola, an ITV-approved audience member selected to ask a question, sought to frame Farage as xenophobic, hateful of Muslims, and racist. Next to her was seated a young Muslim woman wearing a hijab.</p>
<p>“Nigel Farage, what I would like to know is how can you have the audacity to use such blatant scaremongering tactics for [the campaign to leave the EU]?” asked Jaiyeola. “In light of the recent horrific sexual assaults in Germany, you have basically suggested that a vote to remain is a vote for British women to be subdued to the same horrific assaults.”</p>
<p>Describing German Chancellor Angela Merkel as having made a “big mistake” by admitting millions of migrants with undesirable cultural attitudes, Farage called for the UK to prioritize immigration from commonwealth countries.</p>
<p>“A very large number of young single males have settled in Germany and in Sweden who’ve come from cultures where attitudes towards women are different,” said Farage.</p>
<p>“Are you demonizing migrants?” asked Jaiyeola. “Are you not embarrassed that [Archbishop of Canterbury] Justin Welby today said that you’re legitimizing racism?”</p>
<p>Farage was interrupted as he was stating that media-driven misrepresentations of his comments on immigration were the foundation of Welby’s statement.</p>
<p>“But you’re targeting a certain group of people and using them as bait to prey upon British people’s irrational fears about mass migration,” protested Jaiyeola.</p>
<p>Next up was Imriel Morgan, another ITV-approved questioner from the audience, who described Farage as “anti-immigration” and fomenting “discrimination” against blacks.</p>
<p>“I know a lot of people - I have access to a predominantly black British audience - and a lot of the concerns that they have raised alongside concerns that I have myself, is that you are going to increase the fear and discrimination of black British people through your anti-immigration rhetoric,” said Morgan. “Are you encouraging racism?”</p>
<p>Farage repeated his earlier call for immigration policies that were preferential towards candidates from commonwealth countries.</p>
<p>“I take a very strongly pro-commonwealth view,” replied Farage, adding that it was wrong of the UK to align itself more with the EU than the commonwealth. Morgan childishly rolled her eyes and made exaggerated facial expressions during his responses.</p>
<p>“You’re still anti-immigration,” interrupted a disinterested Morgan. “So I don’t see, you’re anti-immigration. You use scaremongering and inflammatory comments in your campaign that have gone against people that look non-white. How are non-white people going to stop facing discrimination about their identity and nationality in this country. That is what I really want to know.”</p>
<p>Morgan received applause from presumably like-minded leftists in the audience.</p>
<p>“The majority of people that look black-British, or non-white have those concerns,” continued Morgan with her monologue. “They are very real concerns and you’re dismissing them.”</p>
<p>Watch the entire event below.</p>
<p>EDITOR'S NOTE: Imriel Morgan has been identified as a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/imriel-morgan/" type="external">blogger</a> with socialist news giant The Huffington Post, and apparently <a href="https://uk.linkedin.com/in/imriel-morgan-2113a427" type="external">self-describe</a> <a href="https://uk.linkedin.com/in/imriel-morgan-2113a427" type="external">s</a> as a "diversity advocate." Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | Black Female Leftists Harangue Nigel Farage: You're Racist! | true | https://dailywire.com/news/6400/black-female-leftists-harangue-nigel-farage-youre-robert-kraychik | 2016-06-07 | 0 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>SANTA FE (AP) — Santa Fe National Forest offices are selling permits to cut dead and downed trees for firewood for personal use.</p>
<p>Forest officials say the permits went on sale earlier this week and cost $20 for five cords of wood.</p>
<p>Information on firewood areas is available at the forest headquarters in Santa Fe at 505-438-5300, or at ranger stations in Coyote, Cuba, Las Vegas, Espanola, Jemez Springs and Pecos.</p>
<p>The Santa Fe National Forest covers about 1.6 million acres in north-central New Mexico. It’s one of five national forests in the state.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Santa Fe National Forest offers firewood permits | false | https://abqjournal.com/195407/santa-fe-national-forest-offers-firewood-permits.html | 2 |
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<p>Beyonce has finally debuted her twins a month after they were born.</p>
<p>The singer posted a picture of herself holding the babies on Instagram late Thursday night and wrote in the caption, “Sir Carter and Rumi 1 month today.” She didn’t mention the babies’ genders.</p>
<p>Beyonce is wearing a flowing garment with a long veil in the photo and standing in front a flowered arch with the sea behind her.</p>
<p>It gained millions of likes in a matter of hours and already is among the most-liked Instagram photos of all time. Beyonce already holds that crown with her Instagram pregnancy announcement in February.</p>
<p>Rumors have swirled about the twins’ birth in recent weeks, but her representatives had declined comment on the matter.</p>
<p>Sir Carter and Rumi join 5-year-old big sister Blue Ivy.</p> | Beyonce Introduces Newborn Twins Sir Carter and Rumi | false | https://newsline.com/beyonce-introduces-newborn-twins-sir-carter-and-rumi/ | 2017-07-14 | 1 |
<p>The agents for change are multiplying. On Sunday, their drumming could be heard throughout Wall street, and their chants echoed in and around the ears of the tourists flocking towards the newly opened World Trade Center memorial one block away. The consistent banging of their drums provoked children, teens, and curious adults to ask the most popular question on the block, “What is going on over there?”</p>
<p>That question has turned out to be the administration’s worst enemy, as it sums up the true tempo and effectiveness of Occupy Wall Street. Curiosity is peaking. Questions are being asked. Answers are being traded. What is truly going on Wall Street? And why are hoards of patriotic Americans making nationwide pilgrimages to New York?</p>
<p>“I’m a child from the sixties who took part in the protests in Washington. I drove up from Maryland with my book club to support the youth and protect them anyway we can from the police,” said a white-haired librarian with extensive health issues.</p>
<p>“I’m sick of all these tuition increases, and I’m so afraid I’m not going to find a job when I graduate to cover all this. I see both my older brothers sitting at my mom’s house jobless and broke, and they both have degrees and are drowning in debt,” said a young Columbia student wearing a hand-painted face mask.</p>
<p>Their complaints varied in breadth and depth, and the list was long. Yet, underneath the stack of grievances, there is a common thread that weaves their stories together. What Occupy Wall Street protesters want most is a government that serves the people of America, not corporations. They want to see change in the way campaigns are financed. They want to put a stop to corporate greed, outrageous bonuses, and unwarranted wars. They want to know why the government is doing nothing in a tough job market to help create new jobs, and not offering incentives to companies to hire within its borders rather than outsource jobs abroad. Frustrated, they want to see the CHANGE promised by Obama, and they want to see justice, equality, and true liberty for all. To sum it up, the voices erupting from Wall Street&#160; all have justifiable grievances. The people want their great country back. They want to return to fulfilling their dreams.</p>
<p>Despite what the mass media wants the general public to believe, Occupy Wall Street is not a junkyard for hippies. Instead, it is a great example of a self-sufficient, organized community. What else would you expect from some of the most hardcore environmentalists, activists, and seasoned intellectuals from all walks of life — all meeting together in one place? Occupy Wall Street has turned into a collaborative and interactive platform for progressive reform. There are businessmen, government workers, teachers, blue and white collar types, professors, students, economists, philosophers, the brightest students from the best schools in the country, lawyers, doctors, brothers, sisters, babies and their mothers. The media should be very careful how they describe the protest or its attendees. Tomorrow, their brothers and mothers could be amongst the crowd.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Occupy Wall Street represents the collective grievances of the 99%. Every type of constituent profile is represented — and this is no joke. Not only domestically, but many foreign travelers have arrived in New York — not wanting to see the Statue of Liberty or the World Trade Memorial, but to take part in Occupy Wall Street. The French, Italians, Swedes, Croatians, Russians, Spaniards and more have also joined the assembly to show their support on behalf of their native lands. So, why has the general media been hiding the true story from us?</p>
<p>The people are finally speaking and thinking for themselves instead of the media speaking for the people. Can you imagine a medium-sized park that is half the size of a soccer field, positioned parallel to Wall Street and the World Trade Center, being turned into a great example of self-sufficiency? For the White House administration, Occupy Wall Street has turned into its biggest embarrassment.</p>
<p>These so-called “jobless hippies” have managed to cultivate a thriving cultural community in a matter of a few weeks. They have set up a library, a medical station, a printmaking circle, a printed newspaper, food kitchen, prayer corner, music space, recycling station, open platforms for speeches, interactive forums for exchanging ideas and finding solutions to problems. They are making small steps towards massive reform. All of this is happening just one block away from where the tragic event on September 11th claimed the lives of thousands of innocent Americans. The frustrated voices of thousands of nationals are marching for FREEDOM!</p>
<p>So can this go on forever? Costing the city millions in overtime pay for police officers, Mayor Bloomberg is now saying “the kids” can stay in the park for as long as they want – possibly indefinitely.&#160; Bloomberg’s recent warm announcement to the “problem” is due to the fact that the city can’t legally remove the protesters from their space. The park is private property and, so far, the owner of the space has no issues with the “occupiers.” Forced to change his tune, Bloomberg says the only thing that can prevent them now may be the weather.</p>
<p>The mayor sounds confident that protesters will withdraw back into their homes once temperatures drop this coming winter.&#160;However, if Occupy Wall Street should have to extend its stay into the cold season, this writer is going to call on all the native tribes across the land to come camp out in&#160;teepees&#160;for the holidays. Can you imagine the increase in compassion and awareness that would be generated amongst the global masses, if the world saw thousands of vets, senior citizens, teachers, and hopeless youngsters camped out in front of Wall Street in&#160;teepees&#160;and tents in the freezing cold? And for what? A job? A trip to the doctor? Peace of mind?&#160;WHAT?</p>
<p>How about, a peaceful and bountiful global village for our children?</p>
<p>Suzy Kassem is a writer, poet, philosopher, human rights activist, filmmaker, and true citizen of the world. She is also the author of ‘ <a href="" type="internal">Rise Up and Salute the Sun</a>‘ by Awakened Press.&#160;</p> | A Garden Grows on Wall Street | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/10/12/a-garden-grows-on-wall-street/ | 2011-10-12 | 4 |
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