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<p>Image source: Disney.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Walt Disneyreported its fiscal second-quarter2016 results after the market closed on Tuesday. The diversified entertainment giant posted year-over-year revenue growth of 4.1% while adjusted earnings per share rose 10.6%.</p>
<p>Shares of Disney fell 5.5% in after-hours trading on Tuesday and at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday were down about 4.3% from the previous day's close. Adjusted EPS growth of nearly 11% is solid for a company of Disney's size. However, the market was no doubt disappointed that earnings and revenue fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Renewed cord-cutting concerns also likely played a role in the stock's decline.</p>
<p>YOY = year-over-year. Data source: Disney.</p>
<p>Disney took a $147 million charge related to the discontinuation of its Disney Infinity video games business. The adjusted EPS result exclude this charge.</p>
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<p>Long-term investors shouldn't pay too much heed to analysts' estimates, as Wall Street is focused on the short term. However, market reactions are often explained by these expectations. So, it's worth noting that The House of Mouse fell short of both revenue and earnings expectations -- its first earnings miss in five years. Analysts were expecting adjusted earnings of $1.40 per share on revenue of $13.21 billion.</p>
<p>Here's how the four segments performed.</p>
<p>Data source: Disney.</p>
<p>Results were a mixed bag for Disney's largest and most profitable segment, which has been under extreme scrutiny since last August when concerns about cord-cutting and cord-slimming negatively affecting the profitability of the lucrative cable networks business first surfaced. Within the segment, cable networks' revenue declined 2% to $3.96 billion, while broadcasting revenue increased 3% to $1.84 billion. Cable networks' operating income rose 12% to $2.02 billion, while broadcasting experienced an 8% revenue decline to $278 million.</p>
<p>Cable networks' operating income rose due to an increase at ESPN -- largely a result of a "shift" in the fiscal calendar relative to last year -- partially offset by lower equity income from A&amp;E. The increase at ESPN was due to lower programming costs and higher affiliate revenue, partially offset by a drop in advertising revenue. Results benefited from the timing of the quarter relative to when college football playoff bowl games were played, which resulted in a decrease in programming costs and advertising revenue. One of these games aired in the second quarter, whereas seven games aired in the second quarter of the prior fiscal year.</p>
<p>ESPN's affiliate revenue growth was due to contractual rate increases, partially offset by a decline in subscribers -- a fact that could reignite the market's jitters.</p>
<p>Data source: Disney.</p>
<p>Disney's second-largest segment continues to be a steady performer thanks to continued strength in its domestic business, though there was a slight chink in its armor related to park attendance.</p>
<p>Guests shelled out more money, on average, for food, beverages, and merchandise while visiting Disney's domestic operations. They also had to open their wallets wider due to higher average ticket prices at domestic theme parks and the cruise line, and higher average hotel room rates. Attendance at domestic theme parks was relatively flat, as an increase at Disneyland was offset by a "modest decrease" at Disney World.</p>
<p>While one quarter hardly makes a trend, going forward investors should keep their eyes on park attendance figures, particularly at Disney World. The year-over-year dip could be a one-off thing that's bound to occasionally happen, but it also might indicate that some consumers have reached a saturation point with respect to Disney's ticket price increases.</p>
<p>Studio entertainment is riding high thanks largely to 2016's current global box office champ Zootopia. Image source: Disney.</p>
<p>Data source: Disney.</p>
<p>Studio entertainment posted fantastic results thanks to the phenomenally successfulStar Wars: The Force Awakens and 2016's current global box office champ Zootopia.</p>
<p>The Force Awakens, whichopened in domestic theaters on Dec. 18, shattered box office records. The movie was still going strong domestically in the fiscal second quarter, and didn't open in certain international markets until January. Disney Animation's whimsicalZootopia had rung up theater ticket sales of $959 million worldwide as of midday May 10.It was released domestically on March 4, which means that about a month's worth of theater receipts were included in the quarter's results.</p>
<p>Data source: Disney.</p>
<p>Lower operating income was primarily due to the impact of foreign currency translation due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar relative to other major currencies, lower operating margins and comparable-store sales at the company's retail business, and lower results for Infinity. (Disney is discontinuing its video games business.) These decreases were partially offset by higher licensing revenue, driven by Star Wars-based merchandise.</p>
<p>Like studio entertainment, this segment's results are prone to be particularly lumpy, so the year-over-year revenue and operating income declines aren't a concern, in my view. This is especially true since currency factors were largely at play. It's best to look at this segment with a wider time lens than a quarter -- and, if we do that, its results are moving in the right direction.</p>
<p>Disney's quarterly results were solid, not spectacular, but each quarter can't be dazzling, especially for such a large company. As long as metrics continue to move in the right direction, so should the stock over the long term.</p>
<p>The company doesn'tprovide forward guidance, but it has some exciting catalysts for growth on the horizon. Most notable is the opening of Shanghai Disneyland on June 16.All signs point to high demand for Disney's first park in mainland China.</p>
<p>Studio entertainment's powerful movie pipeline should continue to help drive results in Q3 and beyond. The Jungle Book,which opened in April, and Captain America: Civil War, which debuted internationally in April and domestically last weekend, should put some superhero-like strength in Q3's results. These movies are currently 2016's No. 2 and No. 4 top-grossing films worldwide, respectively, with Captain America likely to surge higher soon. Wrapping up the Q3 slate areAlice Through the Looking Glass, which hits the silver screen later this month, and Finding Dory,Pixar's long-awaited sequel to the belovedFinding Nemo,which opens in June.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/11/walt-disneys-q2-earnings-rise-11-on-box-office-hit.aspx" type="external">Walt Disney's Q2 Earnings Rise 11% on Box Office Hits, but Cord-Cutting Concerns Resurface</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFMcKenna/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Beth McKenna</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Walt Disney. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p> | Walt Disney's Q2 Earnings Rise 11% on Box Office Hits, but Cord-Cutting Concerns Resurface | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/11/walt-disney-q2-earnings-rise-11-on-box-office-hits-but-cord-cutting-concerns.html | 2016-05-11 | 0 |
<p>A fiction writer would be hard pressed to invent a character whose life was more tragic and sorrowful, yet more inspiring and socially relevant than that of Mary Harris Jones, better known as “Mother Jones.”</p>
<p>Born in 1837, in Cork, Ireland, the teenage Mary Harris and her family emigrated first to Toronto, Canada, then to the U.S., with stops in Monroe, Michigan and Chicago, before settling in Memphis, Tennessee, where Mary met and married George E. Jones, an ironworker and organizer for the National Union of Iron Moulders.</p>
<p>Mary opened a dressmaking shop in Memphis, in 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, fulfilling her dream of becoming a wife, mother and businesswoman.&#160; Then tragedy struck.&#160; Mary’s husband and four children (all of whom were under the age of five), died during a virulent yellow fever epidemic that swept through Memphis, leaving her a childless widow.</p>
<p>Following their deaths, and looking for a fresh start in a friendly environment, Mary returned to Chicago, where she set up another dressmaking business.&#160; Then, incredibly, four years later, disaster struck again.&#160; Mary’s dress shop, her home and her personal possessions were all lost in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.</p>
<p>It was in the wake of these personal tragedies that Mary Harris Jones became heavily involved in the labor movement, initially as an organizer for the Knights of Labor, and then, with the Knights of Labor’s dissolution, as an organizer and spokeswoman for <a href="" type="internal" />the United Mine Workers (UMW).&#160; In truth, she was considerably more than a UMW organizer; she became the coal miners’ patron saint.</p>
<p>By all accounts Mary was a brilliant, charismatic speaker, and a fearless, dedicated champion of social justice.&#160; The authorities (politicians, mine owners, business groups) were terrified of her.&#160; In 1897, at the age of 60, she began using the name “Mother Jones,” and in 1902, a West Virginia District Attorney with the improbable name of Reese Blizzard, famously referred to her as “the most dangerous woman in America,” sealing her reputation.</p>
<p>One of Mary’s chief concerns was child welfare.&#160; Not only was she an early and outspoken opponent of child labor, she took the maternal view that men’s wages should be generous enough to allow their wives to stay home and raise their children.&#160; A brave and independent thinker—and unquestionably affected by the deaths of her four young ones—Mary shied away from many of the feminist issues of the day, including women’s suffrage, believing that a mother raising her children trumped everything else.</p>
<p>Although the word “iconic” tends to be overused these days, the term certainly applied to Mother Jones.&#160; For roughly 60 years she was the working man’s spiritual leader and benefactor—part Madonna, part mediator, part rabble-rouser—a labor icon in every sense of the word.&#160; This brief summary of her career doesn’t do her justice.&#160; Suffice to say that in an era of colorful, larger-than-life male figures, Mother Jones more than held her own.&#160; She died in 1930, at the age of ninety-three.</p>
<p>A couple of labor activists and historians, Steve Fesenmaier (in West Virginia) and Sanford Berman (in Minnesota), have spearheaded a drive to have Mother Jones honored by a commemorative stamp.&#160; I’ve spoken with both men by telephone and was impressed not only with their staggering knowledge of labor history, but with their perseverance.&#160; They’ve been committed to this project for seven years.</p>
<p>What does it take for the USPS (United States Postal Service) to put you on a commemorative stamp?&#160; Several things, actually.&#160; You don’t have to be an American, and you don’t have to be an intellectual or moralist (Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne and Elvis have been on stamps), but you do have to be dead for a minimum of five years (although exceptions can be made for ex-presidents).</p>
<p>Commemorative stamps have been around since 1893.&#160; Interestingly, you can’t&#160; get on a stamp if you’re a religious figure.&#160; The USPS has a policy of not issuing stamps for people who were known primarily for their religious beliefs, which means Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are not eligible.</p>
<p>When atheists protested Mother Teresa getting her stamp, in 2010, the USPS was able to sidestep that potentially incendiary issue by claiming that the second-most famous Roman Catholic in the world (behind the Pope) was being honored for humanitarian rather than religious reasons.</p>
<p>The point that Messrs. Fesenmaier and Berman wish to emphasize is that the public can influence these selections.&#160; There’s a group called the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee, composed of approximately 15 people, that makes recommendations to the USPS.&#160; People can write to this committee and suggest candidates.&#160; If Duke Wayne and Elvis can get stamps, why not labor’s legendary benefactor, Mother Jones?</p>
<p>The mailing address:</p>
<p>Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee:&#160; Stamp Development</p>
<p>U.S. Postal Service</p>
<p>1735 North Lynn Street (Room 5013)</p>
<p>Arlington, VA 22209-6432</p>
<p>DAVID MACARAY, an LA playwright and author (“It’s Never Been Easy:&#160; Essays on Modern Labor”), was a former union rep. &#160; He is a contributor to&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion</a>, published by AK Press. Hopeless is also available in a&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Kindle edition</a>. He can be reached at&#160; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Mother Jones Deserves Her Own Stamp | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/05/15/mother-jones-deserves-her-own-stamp/ | 2012-05-15 | 4 |
<p>Imagine some guy who used to work for Arthur Andersen &amp; Co. pitching you his amazing tax-elimination product.</p>
<p>All you've got to do is form a partnership, an LLC and an S corporation, none of which have any real business purpose. Then you short some U.S. Treasuries, go long on some foreign stocks and bonds, shuffle these instruments like marked cards in a magic trick, pay enormous fees to some fancy lawyers and tax accountants to obfuscate, and abracadabra, no tax.</p>
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<p>Anyone who'd sell this scheme -- which the IRS calls an abusive tax shelter -- has got to be as kooky as those guys who say not to pay income tax because it's unconstitutional. Or maybe just blinded by the prospect of millions in easy profits.</p>
<p>Why would anyone go to such extremes to avoid paying taxes? America sustains the free-market capitalist system that makes people rich enough to owe taxes, yet they don't want to support it? Instead they turn to highly evolved charlatans such as Paul M. Daugerdas and his Rube Goldberg tax-dodging machinations?</p>
<p>A jury in Manhattan on Tuesday convicted Daugerdas, a 60-year-old lawyer from Wilmette, Ill., as the mastermind of a multibillion-dollar tax fraud. Also convicted were Denis M. Field, 53, of Naples, Fla., former CEO of accounting firm BDO Seidman; David Parse, 49, of Elmhurst, Ill., a former <a href="" type="internal">Deutsche Bank</a> broker; and an attorney and associate of Daugerdas, Donna M. Guerin, 50, of Elmhurst, Ill. Sentencing is Oct. 14. They each face more than 20 years in prison.</p>
<p>Several others already pleaded guilty in the case, including other former BDO Seidman executives. And in December, Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB) admitted guilt as part of a nonprosecution agreement and agreed to pay nearly $554 million to the U.S.</p>
<p>"These privileged professionals wove an intricate web of deceit that spanned nearly a decade, enabling them to enrich themselves and their well-heeled clients," said Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney in New York. "Surely there are many Americans who dread April 15th, but they put their checks in the mail nonetheless."</p>
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<p>The scheme demolished Dallas-based law firm Jenkens &amp; Gilchrist, which paid tens of millions to settle charges and lawsuits. The firm had been around for 56 years. It employed more than 600 lawyers. Yet it couldn't resist hiring Daugerdas and selling his questionable tax shelters for amazing profits.</p>
<p>Bharara said Daugerdas and the three other defendants who were just convicted netted more than $130 million in profits for themselves while generating more than $7 billion in fraudulent tax losses for their clients between 1994 and 2004.</p>
<p>Clients reportedly included a grandson of the late industrialist Armand Hammer, the late sports entrepreneur Lamar Hunt, trust-fund recipients, family business owners and even an early investor in <a href="" type="internal">Microsoft</a> Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT).</p>
<p>The case is a leftover from the free-wheeling Internet age. In 2005, a report from the <a href="" type="internal">Government Accountability Office</a> estimated that 207 of the Fortune 500 companies used tax shelters from 1998 to 2003, resulting in a $56 billion decline in revenue to the federal government.</p>
<p>One of the more-notable tax-shelter abuse cases came to light in 2003, when Overland, Kan.-based Sprint (NYSE:S) fired Chairman William Esrey and President Ronald LeMay for their use of the vehicles. Another involved federal prosecutors reaching a $465 million deferred-prosecution agreement with accounting giant KPMG LLP in 2005.</p>
<p>Despite the billions Daugerdas's case cost the U.S. Treasury amid a $14.3 trillion national debt and a stymied debate on the debt ceiling, his trial drew little attention. It was overshadowed by another trial in the same courthouse, that of convicted insider trader Raj Rajaratnam.</p>
<p>At least The American Lawyer stopped by to capture some color.</p>
<p>"Daugerdas is a heavyset man whose hair is grayer than it was when he was on the cover of The American Lawyer early in the last decade," the legal industry publication reported May 1. "Daugerdas .. headed to the eighth-floor cafeteria. .. Daugerdas had evidently become a regular. He handed three cards to the cashier -- a credit card, a drink card, and a meal club card. Buy 11, get one free."</p>
<p>Hey, who says there's no free lunch? Daugerdas soon may be getting all of his meals free.</p>
<p>(Al's Emporium, written by <a href="" type="internal">Dow Jones</a> Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. Contact Al at <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a> or <a href="http://tellittoal.com" type="external">tellittoal.com Opens a New Window.</a>)</p> | Tax Dodging is No Way to Achieve Tax Savings | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/05/27/tax-dodging-way-achieve-tax-savings.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>Actor Terry Crews has finally named the high-level talent agent who allegedly grabbed his crotch in front of his wife.</p>
<p>Last month, shortly after the Weinstein allegations rocked Hollywood, several male celebs, James Van Der Beek and Terry Crews among them, spoke out on Twitter about sexual harassment they faced at the hands of Hollywood power players. According to Crews, it was at a Hollywood event where a big-name agent grabbed his crotch in front of his wife.</p>
<p>Though <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/adam-venit-terry-crews-sexual-harassment-1202605857/#article-comments" type="external">Variety</a> did not specify exactly how Crews identified his alleged harasser, sources close to the actor did confirm he had been preparing to name agent Adam Venit of WME motion picture group as the man who violated him that evening. Here's a recap of his tweets:</p>
<p>Venit, who does not represent Crews, has since been placed on leave from WME. His extensive list of A-list clients include Dustin Hoffman and <a href="http://variety.com/t/brett-ratner/" type="external">Brett Ratner</a>, both of whom have been <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/dustin-hoffman-sexual-harassment-1202604822/" type="external">accused of sexual harassment</a> amidst the Weinstein fire, as well as Emma Stone, Adam Sandler, Diane Keaton, Shawn Levy, Vince Vaughn, Marc Forster, and Eddie Murphy.</p> | WHOA: Terry Crews Names The High-Level Agent Who Allegedly Grabbed His Crotch In Front Of His Wife | true | https://dailywire.com/news/23164/boom-terry-crews-names-high-level-agent-who-paul-bois | 2017-11-04 | 0 |
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<p>An Indian military commando is seen on the top of a building at the Indian air force base in Pathankot, India, Tuesday, Jan.5, 2016. Indian forces have killed the last of the six militants who attacked the air force base near the Pakistan border over the weekend, the defense minister said Tuesday, though soldiers were still searching the base as a precaution. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)</p>
<p>PATHANKOT, India - Indian forces have killed the last of the six militants who attacked an air force base near the Pakistan border over the weekend, the defense minister said Tuesday, though soldiers were still searching the base as a precaution.</p>
<p>Manohar Parrikar stopped short of saying the operation had ended, but Indian officials have said repeatedly that only six gunmen were involved.</p>
<p>Parrikar did not explain how just a handful of gunmen managed to paralyze a large Indian air base for almost four days, insisting that security forces had done "a commendable job." Seven Indian soldiers were killed during the attack.</p>
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<p>"I see some gaps (in intelligence) but we will be able to understand only after the investigation. But I don't think we compromised on security," he told reporters after touring the scene of the fighting. He noted that the base is large, and is wooded in some places, making it difficult to pin down the gunmen.</p>
<p>Indian officials had been warned beforehand that an attack could be imminent at the Pathankot base, and had flown commandoes there in case of trouble. The warning came after the gunmen kidnapped an off-duty policeman near the base two days before the attack began, apparently to steal his vehicle. The policeman was freed the next day, and warned security forces that a team of heavily armed militants was in the region.</p>
<p>Parrikar said the militants' weapons included AK-47 assault rifles with makeshift rocket launchers attached, mortar rounds that could be fired from the launchers, pistols, and 50-60 kilograms (110-130 pounds) of ammunition.</p>
<p>In the first known claim of responsibility, the United Jehad Council, an alliance of 13 Kashmir-based rebel groups, claimed that its "highway squad," which normally attacks military convoys, carried out the attack.</p>
<p>Alliance spokesman Syed Sadaqat Hussain said in a statement to Current News Service, which is based in the Indian portion of Kashmir, that the attack was a message to India that its security forces were not beyond the militants' reach.</p>
<p>The council is based in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between the countries but claimed in its entirety by both.</p>
<p>Sharad Kumar, chief of India's National Investigation Agency, has said that telephone intercepts suggested the attackers were from Pakistan. He gave no details on those intercepts in an interview Tuesday with the television news channel TimesNow.</p>
<p>Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to his Pakistani counterpart, Modi's office said in a statement, saying the Indian prime minister called on Pakistan "to take firm and immediate action" against those linked to the attackers. "Specific and actionable information in this regard has been provided to Pakistan," the statement added.</p>
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<p>Pakistani officials confirmed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had spoken to Modi, expressing his sadness over the attack and saying Pakistan would investigate any information that India provides.</p>
<p>Sharif also told Modi that the militants wanted to derail the Pakistan-India peace process, according to Pakistani Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid.</p>
<p>The attack followed Modi's surprise recent visit to Pakistan and came days before top foreign ministry officials were to meet in Islamabad to discuss a range of outstanding issues, including Kashmir.</p>
<p>India accuses Pakistan of arming and training insurgents in its portion of Kashmir. Pakistan denies that and says it only provides moral and diplomatic support.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Sullivan reported from New Delhi.</p> | India says all 6 militants killed in air base siege | false | https://abqjournal.com/700925/india-says-all-6-militants-killed-in-air-base-siege.html | 2 |
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<p>Four Lobos shot in red numbers to help the team record an 8-under 280 for a 54-hole total 838 (277-281-280), a 26-under score that topped a 15-team field that included the likes of No. 2 Illinois and No. 3 Texas.</p>
<p>The win marked the 28th career tournament win for coach Glen Millican, UNM’s 14th-year head coach, tying him with Dick McGuire (1954-76) as the Lobos’ winningest coach.</p>
<p>“Coach McGuire is bigger than anyone who’s followed him here,” Millican said. “He’s a Hall of Fame coach and a pioneer in the game who did some amazing things that laid the foundation for the rest of us to have success.</p>
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<p>“We’ve just tried to do the best we can to continue what he started.”</p>
<p>The 838 total is the eighth lowest score in school history — eight strokes off the all-time low of 830, accomplished twice in 2005 and 2006.</p>
<p>“We knew going in that it was going to take some great golf to have a chance today,” Millican said. “Nobody went out and had a career tournament; our guys went out and played their own games and played well. It was huge for us to get a lead to start the back nine, and they did a great job to finish it off.”</p>
<p>Senior Gavin Green led with a 3-under 69 on Sunday to finish at 7-under 209 for a tie for ninth place — eight strokes behind Georgia’s Lee McCoy.</p>
<p>Senior Sam Saunders finished with the best overall score for the Lobos, a 9-under 207 after a 1-under 71 on Sunday, to finish in fifth place.</p>
<p>Senior Sean Romero shot a 2-under 70 during the final round for a 54-hole 212 (4 under) and a tie for 13th. Sophomore Andrej Bevins, who struggled the first two days with a 9-over total, came back with a 1-under 71 on Sunday to finish at 8-over 224 and a tie for 61st.</p>
<p>“It should be very clear to our guys now that they’re capable of doing great things,” Millican said.</p>
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<p /> | UNM golfers win 3M Augusta; Millican ties McGuire | false | https://abqjournal.com/565145/lobos-win-3m-augusta-as-millican-ties-mcguire.html | 2 |
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<p>Hazing is illegal.</p>
<p>Albany (NY) police were called to a home around 1:00 a.m. on a noise complaint and ended up arresting seven college students for hazing four young women who wanted to join their sorority. The students arrested ranged in age from 19 to 21 years.</p>
<p>When police arrived at a University at Albany off-campus sorority house on a loud noise complaint, they saw four women being subjected to what appeared to be a sorority initiation. The four women had been blindfolded. One of them told police she was made to get on the ground and forced to eat what appeared to be mud while sour milk, rotten eggs, mold-covered food, and a liquid that smelled like urine was poured onto her face. After experiencing an allergic reaction, one of the victims was taken to the hospital where she was treated and released.</p>
<p>“Hazing is not only dangerous,” Albany Police Chief Steve Smith said; “it’s against the law.” Each of the arrested students was charged with one count of first degree hazing and one count of second degree hazing.</p>
<p>A university spokesman denounced the hazing and said the sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi, is not recognized by the university. The spokesman also said that an investigation is ongoing and if it is found that the accused students have violated the university’s code of conduct, appropriate measures will be taken.</p> | College Students Arrested for Dangerous and Disgusting Acts of Hazing | true | http://politicalblindspot.com/college-students-arrested-for-dangerous-and-disgusting-acts-of-hazing/ | 2016-11-25 | 4 |
<p>Protesters across Brazil have been speaking out about everything from poor public services and transit fare increases to the high cost of hosting the soccer World Cup next year and the Summer Olympics in 2016. Some have even called for a World Cup boycott in soccer-crazed Brazil.</p>
<p>On a hot summer morning, a small group of workmen in blue and yellow coveralls are putting the finishing touches on Rio de Janeiro's newly renovated Maracanã Stadium. It's the venue for the Confederations Cup, in the end of June, as well as the upcoming World Cup.</p>
<p>Wallace Gonçales, 33, is in charge of maintaining the stadium's fiber optics. It takes him a long time to get to his job.</p>
<p>"I get up very, very early," Gonçales says. "If I have to start work at 7 am, I get up at 4, and I don't get home until 8 or 9 at night.</p>
<p>Gonçales says he takes the bus and it's always crowded. "The prices have gone up but nothing has improved. It's really bad."</p>
<p>Even though Gonçales earns his living servicing this stadium, he's among the growing number of Brazilians calling for a World Cup boycott.</p>
<p>"The World Cup is going to be good, but having better services is more important."</p>
<p>On a nearby bridge, Leandro Cardoso is installing lights that will lead crowds from the subway to the stadium for the Confederations Cup final on June 30. He also takes public transportation to the job site, and his trip here isn't so smooth. It takes him 2 to 2-1/2 hours, so he sympathizes with the protestors.</p>
<p>"I haven't been to the protests yet, but I think they're wonderful and I'd really like to go," Cardoso says. "But I can't. I have to work."</p>
<p>But not all the construction workers at the Maracanã support the demonstrations. Anderson Alves, who is paving a sidewalk on the other side of the site, thinks the World Cup is critical for Brazil. And without it, he wouldn't have this job.</p>
<p>"I don't like the protests, they're just vandalism," Alves says. He doesn't think the World Cup is a waste of public funds. "If they didn't spend the money, there wouldn't be jobs."</p>
<p>But for many Brazilians, the Maracanã Stadium has become a symbol of corruption and misplaced government spending. There are plans to sell it to a private consortium, though the government has spent $500 million dollars of public money to renovate it. Another construction worker, Humberto Oliveira Silva, sees it as a worthwhile investment, even if the Brazilian public is picking up the bill. He says the World Cup, and the work leading up, to it will leave a lasting imprint.</p>
<p>"We'll have better transportation infrastructure and the city will benefit from it," Silva says. "The trains and bus systems will be our legacy.</p>
<p>For now, though, Brazilians seem more focused on the protests and strikes spreading throughout the country than on any benefits that might come from hosting two of the world's biggest sporting mega events.</p> | Brazilian Protesters Calling for a Boycott of the Soccer World Cup | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-06-28/brazilian-protesters-calling-boycott-soccer-world-cup | 2013-06-28 | 3 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico wildlife managers have relocated nearly three dozen bighorn sheep to the Jemez Mountains in hopes of boosting the population there.</p>
<p>The state Game and Fish Department says 34 sheep were captured this week at the Chevron Mine near Questa and transported south to Cochiti Canyon. The sheep found on mine property originated from the herd at Wheeler Peak.</p>
<p>Aside from augmenting the Jemez herd, biologists say they wanted to reduce the number of sheep along New Mexico Highway 38 between Questa and Red River.</p>
<p>Numerous sheep have been killed in traffic collisions on the rural highway in recent years. A motorcyclist died in one of those crashes.</p>
<p>Biologists say it’s possible the sheep released this week may move onto Cochiti Pueblo and Bandelier National Monument lands.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | New Mexico wildlife managers relocate bighorn sheep | false | https://abqjournal.com/966661/new-mexico-wildlife-managers-relocate-bighorn-sheep.html | 2 |
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<p>Filipino American&#160;Earlbhert Fabella has happy memories of his hometown, Tacloban&#160;City. Soon, he'll be putting those memories to the test.&#160;</p>
<p>He's headed back to the devastated town to find his mother.&#160;</p>
<p>Tacloban City is where Fabella was born and went to nursing school, years before he moved to Fresno, California, where he now works with the Department of Veterans Affairs.&#160;</p>
<p>"I'm getting on a plane bound for Manila tonight. A bunch of us, all nurses from the States, we're connecting with the Philippine Red Cross and we're hoping to get into Tacloban as soon as we can," Fabella says. "I'm worried about [my family] because food and water is not being sent to them. The house is still standing, although it is in ruins."&#160;</p>
<p>Fabella knows his mother survived the typhoon. But he says he's worried.&#160;</p>
<p>"I'm frustrated with the local government and national government response because it's very slow," he says. " And the United States&#160;military actually got there before them," he says.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>Filipino-American nurse Earlbhert Fabella</p>
<p>Fabella's Filipina mother worked as a nurse in New Jersey. Three years ago, she decided to retire back home in Tacloban City.&#160;</p>
<p>"Her sisters and her family are there, my cousins are there," Fabella says. "She wanted to spend her retirement days with her family."&#160;</p>
<p>Fabella's own memories of Tacloban stand in stark contrast to the images flashing across screens around the world today.&#160;</p>
<p>"Once you get off the plane, the people greet you with a smile. They're friendly enough to make you think that they're family. The mangoes are to die for. The air is fresh. It is a beautiful place to be in," &#160;he says.&#160;</p>
<p>But he's not clear what might greet him on arrival this time.</p>
<p>"I want to see the coffee shops. I want to see my old school. I want to see the&#160;college that I graduated from when I took up nursing over there.&#160;I'm afraid it's no longer going to be there," Fabella laments.</p> | A Filipino American returns to Tacloban City, in hopes of rescuing loved ones | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-11-12/filipino-american-returns-tacloban-city-hopes-rescuing-loved-ones | 2013-11-12 | 3 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Without the sacrifices of those blessed men, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/syrianarabarmy?source=feed_text&amp;story_id=1292761774143844" type="external">#SyrianArabArmy</a> men, men of dignity , men of God. No one of us in Syria would be able to drink water. #SyrianArabArmy controls <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/water?source=feed_text&amp;story_id=1292761774143844" type="external">#water</a> of AlKhafseh <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/aleppo?source=feed_text&amp;story_id=1292761774143844" type="external">#Aleppo</a>. Bless you SAA. ( those soldiers give their blood for our people to drink water.) ~ <a href="https://www.facebook.com/afrona.da?pnref=story" type="external">Afraa Dagher, Lattakia</a></p>
<p><a href="http://sana.sy/en/?p=101799" type="external">Syrian Arab News Agency</a></p>
<p>“The Americans lost nearly every war. They lost in Iraq, they had to withdraw at the end. Even in Somalia, let alone Vietnam in the past and Afghanistan, your neighboring country. They didn’t succeed anywhere they sent troops, they only create a mess; they are very good in creating problems and destroying, but they are very bad in finding solutions.”</p>
<p>President Bashar al-Assad said that the solution to the crisis in Syria should be through two parallel ways: the first one is to fight the terrorists, and this is our duty as government, to defend the Syrians and use any means in order to destroy the terrorists who’ve been killing and destroying in Syria, and the second one is to make dialogue.</p>
<p>The president added in an interview given to Chinese PHOENIX TV that any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation or consultation or permission, they are invaders, whether they are American, Turkish, or any other one.</p>
<p>Here&#160;is the full text of the interview:</p>
<p>Question 1: &#160;Thank you Mr. President for having us here in Dimashq, the capital of Syria. I think this is the first interview you have with Chinese media after the national ceasefire and after so many fresh rounds of talks, both in Astana and in Geneva, and of course after US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and these days, as we have seen, your troops are making steady progress in battlefields, but peace talks do not seem just as productive. So, as far as the Geneva talks is concerned, your chief negotiator, Mr. Jaafari, was trying hard to find out who should be sitting on the other side of the negotiation table. So, according to your idea, who should be sitting there?</p>
<p>President Assad: This is a very crucial question. If you want those negotiations to be fruitful, we have to ask “who is going to be sitting there?” I mean, there could be a lot of good people with good intentions, but the question is: who do they represent? That’s the question. In this situation, you have different groups, you have people who are, let’s say, patriotic, but they don’t represent anyone, they represent themselves. You have others who represent the terrorists, and you have terrorists on the table, and you have others who represent the agenda of foreign countries like Saudi Arabia, like Turkey, like France, UK and maybe the United States. So, it’s not a homogeneous meeting. If you want it to be fruitful, going back to the first point that I mentioned, it should be a real Syrian-Syrian negotiations. In spite of that, we went to that meeting because we think any kind of dialogue could be a good step toward the solution, because even those people who are terrorists or belonging to the terrorists or to other countries, they may change their mind and go back to their normality by going back to being real Syrians, detach themselves from being terrorists or agents to other groups. That’s why I say we didn’t expect Geneva to produce anything, but it’s a step, and it’s going to be a long way, and you may have other rounds, whether in Geneva or in Astana.</p>
<p>Question 2: But anyway, it is an intra-Syrian talks, right? But the matter of fact is, it is proxy dialogue. I mean, main parties do not meet and have dialogue directly.</p>
<p>President Assad: Exactly.</p>
<p>Journalist: Are you personally satisfied with the current negotiation format or mechanism?</p>
<p>President Assad: we didn’t forge this mechanism; it was forged by de Mistura and the UN with the influence of the countries that wanted to use those negotiations in order to make pressure on Syria, not to reach any resolution. As you just said, each one represents a different agenda, even the opposition delegations, it wasn’t one delegation; different delegations of the opposition. So, if I’m going to – as a government – if I’m going to negotiate with someone, who’s it going to be? Which one? Who represents who? That’s our question. So, you are right, this time there was no negotiations in Geneva, but this is one of the reasons, that’s why it didn’t reach anything. The only thing we discussed in Geneva was the agenda, the headlines, what are we going to discuss later, that’s it.</p>
<p>Question 3: But as we see, lot of time, money, energy have been put into this effort, and the clashes are still going on, people are still dying, and the refugees are still increasing.</p>
<p>President Assad: Exactly.</p>
<p>Journalist: What is the possible way of having a negotiation?</p>
<p>President Assad: Again, you are correct. The more delay you have, the more harm and destruction and killing and blood you’ll have within Syria, that’s why we are very eager to achieve a solution, but how and in which way? You need to have two parallel ways: the first one is to fight the terrorists, and this is our duty as government, to defend the Syrians and use any means in order to destroy the terrorists who’ve been killing and destroying in Syria. The second one is to make dialogue. This dialogue has many different aspects; you have the political one, which is related to the future of Syria; what political system do you need, what kind? It doesn’t matter which one, it depends on the Syrians, and they’re going to have referendum about what they want. The second part is to try to bring many of those people who were affiliated to the terrorists or who committed any terrorist acts to go back to their normality and lay down their armaments and to live normal life in return for amnesty that has been offered by the government, and we’ve been going in that direction for three years, and it worked very well. It worked very well. So, actually, if you want to talk about the real political solution since the beginning of the crisis, of the war on Syria, till this moment, the only solution was those reconciliations between the government and the different militants in Syria, many of them joined the government now, and they are fighting with the government. Some of them laid down their arms</p>
<p>Question 4: But talking about the Syria war, you can never exclude the foreign factors. The Saudi-backed high negotiating committee, HNC, are saying that they are counting on the Trump administration to play a positive role instead of the mistaken policies under his predecessor Barack Obama. So, from your side, what do you expect from Trump’s Middle East policy, particularly policy on Syria?</p>
<p>President Assad: The first part that you mentioned about their hopes, when you pin your hopes on a foreign country, doesn’t matter which foreign country, it means you’re not patriotic, and this is proved, because they should depend on the support of the Syrian people, not any other government or administration.</p>
<p>Now, regarding the Trump administration, during his campaign and after the campaign, the main rhetoric of the Trump administration and the president himself was about the priority of defeating ISIS. I said since the beginning that this is a promising approach to what’s happening in Syria and in Iraq, because we live in the same area and we face the same enemy. We haven’t seen anything concrete yet regarding this rhetoric, because we’ve been seeing now certain is a local kind of raids. You cannot deal with terrorism on local basis; it should be comprehensive, it cannot be partial or temporary. It cannot be from the air, it should be in cooperation with the troops on the ground, that’s why the Russians succeeded, since they supported the Syrian Army in pushing ISIS to shrink, not to expand as it used to be before that. So, we have hopes that this taking into consideration that talking about ISIS doesn’t mean talking about the whole terrorism; ISIS is one of the products, al-Nusra is another product, you have so many groups in Syria, they are not ISIS, but they are Al Qaeda, they have the same background of the Wahabi extremist ideology.</p>
<p>Question 5: So, Mr. President, you and Mr. Donald Trump actually share the same priority which is counter-terrorism, and both of you hate fake news. Do you see any room for cooperation?</p>
<p>President Assad: Yeah, in theory, yes, but practically, not yet, because there’s no link between Syria and the United States on the formal level. Even their raids against ISIS that I just mentioned, which are only a few raids, happened without the cooperation or the consultation with the Syrian Army or the Syrian government which is illegal as we always say. So, theoretically we share those goals, but particularly, not yet.</p>
<p>Question 6: Do you have personal contact with the President of the United States?</p>
<p>President Assad: Not at all.</p>
<p>Journalist: Direct or indirect.</p>
<p>President Assad: Indirect, you have so many channels, but you cannot bet on private channels. It should be formal, this is where you can talk about a real relation with another government.</p>
<p>Question 7: As we speak, top generals from Turkey, Russia, and the United States are meeting somewhere in Turkey to discuss tensions in northern Syria, where mutually- suspicious forces are allied with these countries.&#160; So, do you have a plan for a final attack on Daesh when the main players actually do need an effective coordination in order to clear Syria of all terror groups?</p>
<p>President Assad: Yeah, if you want to link that meeting with ISIS in particular, it won’t be objective, because at least one party, which is Turkey, has been supporting ISIS till this moment, because Erdogan, the Turkish President, is Muslim Brotherhood. He’s ideologically linked and sympathetic with ISIS and with al-Nusra, and everybody knows about this in our region, and he helped them either through armaments, logistically, through exporting oil. For the other party, which is the United States, at least during Obama’s administration, they dealt with ISIS by overlooking their smuggling the Syrian oil to Turkey, and this is how they can get money in order to recruit terrorists from around the world, and they didn’t try to do anything more than cosmetic against ISIS. The only serious party in that regard is Russia, which is effectively attacking ISIS in cooperation with us. So, the question is: how can they cooperate, and I think the Russians have hope that the two parties join the Russians and the Syrians in their fight against terrorism. So, we have more hopes now regarding the American party because of the new administration, while in Turkey nothing has changed in that regard. ISIS in the north have &#160;only one route of supply, it’s through Turkey, and they’re still alive and they’re still active and they’re still resisting different kinds of waves of attacks, because of the&#160; Turkish support.</p>
<p>Question 8: Now, US troops are in Manbej. Is the greenlight from your side? Did you open the door for these American troops?</p>
<p>President Assad: No, no, we didn’t. Any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation or consultation or permission, they are invaders, whether they are American, Turkish, or any other one. And we don’t think this is going to help. What are they going to do? To fight ISIS?&#160; The Americans lost nearly every war. They lost in Iraq, they had to withdraw at the end. Even in Somalia, let alone Vietnam in the past and Afghanistan, your neighboring country. They didn’t succeed anywhere they sent troops, they only create a mess; they are very good in creating problems and destroying, but they are very bad in finding solutions.</p>
<p>Question 9: Talking about Russia and China, they just vetoed a new UN sanction on Syria last week. What do these Chinese vetoes mean exactly for your country?</p>
<p>President Assad: Let’s be very clear about their position, which is not to support the Syrian government or the Syrian president, because in the West they try to portray it as a personal problem, and as Russia and China and other countries and Iran support that person as president. It’s not the case. China is a member of the Security Council, and it’s committed to the Charter of the United Nations. In that veto, China has defended first of all the Charter, because the United Nations was created in order to restore stability around the world. Actually, the Western countries, especially the permanent members of the Council as a tool or means in order to change regimes or governments and to&#160; implement their agenda, not to restore stability, and actually to create more instability around the world. So the second part is that China restored stability in the world by creating some kind of political balance within the United Nations, of course in cooperation with Russia, which is very important for the whole world. Of course, Syria was the headline, the main headline, this is good for Syria, but again it’s good for the rest of the world. Third, the same countries that wanted to use the UN Charter for their own vested interested are the same countries who interfered or tried to intervene in your country in the late 90s, and they used different headlines, human rights, and so on, and you know that, and if they had the chance, they would change every government in the world, whether big country or small country, just when this government tries to be a little bit independent. So, China protected the Chinese interests, Syrian interests, and the world interests, especially the small countries or the weak countries.</p>
<p>Question 10: If I’m not mistaken, you said China is going to play a role in the reconstruction of Syria. So, in which areas you think China can contribute to bring Syrian people back to their normal life after so many years of hardships?</p>
<p>President Assad: Actually, if you talk about what the terrorists have been doing the last six years, it’s destroying everything regarding the infrastructure. In spite of that, the Syrian government is still effective, at least by providing the minimum needs for the Syrian people. But they’ve been destroying everything in every sector with no exception. Adding to that, the Western embargo in Syria has prevented Syria from having even the basic needs for the livelihood of any citizen in Syria. So, in which sector? In every sector. I mean, China can be in every sector with no exception, because we have damage in every sector. But if we talk about now, before this comprehensive reconstruction starts, China now is being involved directly in building many projects, mainly industrial projects, in Syria, and we have many Chinese experts now working in Syria in different projects in order to set up those projects. But of course, when you have more stability, the most important thing is building the destroyed suburbs. This is the most important part of the reconstruction. The second one is the infrastructure; the sanitation system, the electricity, the oil fields, everything, with no exception. The third one: the industrial projects, which could belong to the private sector or the public sector in Syria.</p>
<p>Question 11: Alright. And it seems no secret that there are some Chinese extremists are here, fighting alongside Daesh. I think it is a threat to both Syria and China. What concrete or effective measures do you have to control border and prevent these extremists from free movement in the region?</p>
<p>President Assad: When you talk about extremists or terrorists, it doesn’t matter what their nationality is, because they don’t recognize borders, and they don’t belong to a country. The only difference between nationality and nationality, is that those for example who came from your country, they know your country more than the others, so they can do more harm in your country that others, and the same for Syrians, the same for Russian terrorist, and so on. So now, the measures, every terrorist should be defeated and demolished, unless he changed his position to the normal life. Second, because you’re talking about different nationalities -more than 80 nationalities – you should have cooperation with the other governments, especially in the intelligence field, and that’s what’s happening for example with the Chinese intelligence regarding the Uyghur terrorists who are coming from China through Turkey. Unfortunately, the only means that we don’t have now and we don’t control is our borders with Turkey, because the Uyghur&#160; in Particular, they came from Turkey, the others coming maybe from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, form the sea, maybe, and the majority from Turkey, but the Uyghur terrorists coming mainly from Turkey. Why? I don’t know why, but they have the support of the Turkish government, and they were gathered and collected in one group, and they were sent to the northern part of Syria. So, the mission now is to attack them, wherever they existed. Of course, sometimes you cannot tell which one… who is who, they mix with each other, but sometimes they work as separate groups from different nationalities. And this is very crucial kind of cooperation between the Syrian and the Chinese intelligence, and we did many good steps in that regard.</p>
<p>Question 12: Mr. President, as you may be fully aware that the “White Helmets” took an Oscar this year for the best documentary short, but folks are saying that the truth about this “White Helmets” is not like what Netflix has presented, so what is your take on this?</p>
<p>President Assad: First of all, we have to congratulate al-Nusra for having the first Oscar! This is an unprecedented event for the West to give Al Qaeda an Oscar; this is unbelievable, and this is another proof that the Oscars, Nobel, all these things are politicized certificates, that’s how I can look at it. The White Helmets story is very simple; it is a facelift of al-Nusra Front in Syria, just to change their ugly face into a more humanitarian face, that’s it. And you have many videos on the net and of course images broadcasted by the White Helmets that condemn the White Helmets as a terrorists group, where you can see the same person wearing the white helmet and celebrating over the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers. So, that’s what the Oscar went to, to those terrorists. So, it’s a story just to try to prevent the Syrian Army during the liberation of Aleppo from making more pressure on the attacking and liberating the districts within the city that have been occupied by those terrorists, to say that the Syrian Army and the Russians are attacking the civilians and the innocents and the humanitarian people.</p>
<p>Question 13: Right. Now Palmyra. I took a one-day trip to Palmyra this time. Now, the city is under your control, so as its strategic position is concerned, because Homs is the heart of Syria, it’s right in the middle, now, when you have Palmyra, what is your next target? Are you going to expand a military operation into Raqqa and Dier Ezzor?</p>
<p>President Assad: We are very close to Raqqa now. Yesterday, our troops reached the Euphrates River which is very close to Raqqa city, and Raqqa is the stronghold of ISIS today, so it’s going to be a priority for us, but that doesn’t mean the other cities are not priority, in time that could be in parallel, because Palmyra is on the way to Dier&#160;Ezzor city in the eastern part of Syria which is close to the Iraqi borders, and those areas that have been used by ISIS as route for logistic support between ISIS in Iraq and ISIS in Syria. So, whether you attack the stronghold or you attack the route that ISIS uses, it has the same result.</p>
<p>Question 14: How many days do you think this war is going to last?</p>
<p>President Assad: if we presume that you don’t have foreign intervention, it will take a few months. It’s not very complicated internally. The complexity of this war is the foreign intervention. This is the problem. So, in the face of that intervention, the good thing that we gained during the war is the unity of the society. At the very beginning, the vision for many Syrians wasn’t very clear about what’s happening. Many believed the propaganda of the West about the reality, about the real story, that this is against the oppression. If it’s against the oppression, why the people in Saudi Arabia didn’t revolt, for example? So, now what we gained is this, this is our strongest foundation to end that war. We always have hope that this year is going to be the last year. But at the end, this is war and you can’t expect what is going to happen precisely.</p>
<p />
<p>Question 15: Mr. President, you are President of the Syrian Republic, at the same time, you are a loving husband and a father of three. How can you balance the role of being a President, a father, and a husband?</p>
<p>President Assad: If you cannot succeed in your small duty which is your family, you cannot succeed in your bigger duty or more comprehensive duty at the level of a country. So, there is no excuse that if you have a lot of work to abandon your duties; it’s a duty. You have to be very clear about that, you have to fulfill those duties in a very good way. Of course, sometimes those circumstances do not allow you to do whatever you have to do, your duties, fully, let’s say.</p>
<p>Journalist: During a day, how much time you spend on work, and how much time you spend with your family members?</p>
<p>President Assad: Actually, it’s not about the time, because even if you are at your home, you have to work.</p>
<p>Journalist: Okay.</p>
<p>President Assad: Let’s say, in the morning and the evening, you have the chance, but in between and after those times, you have the whole day to work.</p>
<p>Question 16: Have you ever thought of leaving this country for the sake of your family?</p>
<p>President Assad: Never, after six years, I mean the most difficult times passed; it was in 2012 and 2013, those times we never thought about it, how can I think about it now?</p>
<p>So, no, no, this is not an option. Whenever you have any kind of reluctance, you will lose. You will lose not with your enemies; you lose with your supporters. Those supporters, I mean the people you work with, the fighters, the army, they will feel if you’re not determined to defend your country. We never had any feeling neither me nor any member of my family.</p>
<p>Question 17: And how is Kareem’s Chinese getting along?</p>
<p>President Assad: He learned the basics of Chinese language, I think two years ago. Unfortunately, the lady and the man who taught him had to leave, because they were members of the Chinese Embassy. They went back to China. Now, he stopped improve his Chinese language.</p>
<p>Question 18: Do you think it is a good choice to learn Chinese for him?</p>
<p>President Assad: Of course, of course, because China is a rising power.</p>
<p>Journalist: You didn’t force him to learn Chinese? It’s his own option, right?</p>
<p>President Assad: No, no, we never thought about it, actually. I didn’t think that he has to learn Chinese, and I didn’t expect him, if I thought about it, that he would say yes, because for many in the world the Chinese language is a difficult language to learn. He took the initiative and he said I want to learn Chinese, and actually till this moment, I didn’t ask him why. I want him to feel free, but when he’s getting older, I’m going to ask him how? How did it come through your mind to learn this language, this difficult language, but of course important language.</p>
<p>Journalist: You didn’t ask him before?</p>
<p>President Assad: No, not yet.</p>
<p>Journalist: So, you think it’s a good choice?</p>
<p>President Assad: Of course, of course. As I said, it’s a rising power, it’s important. I mean, most of the world has different kinds of relation with China whether in science, in politics, in economy, in business, I mean, in every filed you need it now. And our relation for the future is going to be on the rise. It was good, but it’s going to be on the rise because when a country like China proves that it’s a real friend, a friend that you can rely on, it’s very natural to have better relation on the popular level, not only on the formal level.</p>
<p>Journalist: Thank you Mr. President, thank you for your time.</p>
<p>President Assad: Thank you for coming to Syria, you’re most welcome.</p>
<p>Full interview here. Watch ~</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire Syria Files</a></p>
<p>SUPPORT 21WIRE – SUBSCRIBE &amp; BECOME A MEMBER @ <a href="https://21wire.tv/membership/plans/" type="external">21WIRE.TV</a></p> | PRESIDENT ASSAD: All Foreign Troops in Syria Without Invitation are Invaders | true | http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/03/11/president-assad-all-foreign-troops-in-syria-are-invaders-the-us-included/ | 2017-03-11 | 4 |
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<p>That’s according to a member of New Mexico’s health insurance exchange board of directors who spoke to the Economic Forum on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Martin Hickey, who is also CEO of New Mexico Health Connections, a co-op that will sell insurance on the exchange beginning Oct. 1, said, “People in October will see essentially simple choices — health plans by price.”</p>
<p>The Affordable Care Act, which establishes the exchanges, is an attempt to put into place market forces that don’t exist today to restrain unnecessary spending on health care and improve quality of care.</p>
<p>The industry provides a large volume of care, but it must instead provide value for the dollar and make it observable and transparent.</p>
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<p>“There is no real transparency (now), so there is no real competition,” Hickey said. “You don’t know what the pricing is.” The exchange is designed to provide that transparency, he said.</p>
<p>Individuals also will need to know more about the system.</p>
<p>Insurance companies, including his own, are unsure how to price insurance to be sold on the exchange, Hickey said. Though the law requires everyone to have insurance the penalties in the early years are low enough that some people probably won’t sign up. Insurers are concerned people who haven’t had insurance will require a lot of expensive care immediately when they finally have coverage. It is possible sick people will buy insurance and healthy people will not. Unless regulators intervene, it is possible some companies will under-price their products to attract customers and raise rates later.</p>
<p>“Nobody knows how this is going to turn out,” he said. “There are so many variables, so many assumptions, nobody knows exactly which ones are going to take hold.”</p> | Exchanges should make health care observable, transparent | false | https://abqjournal.com/214914/exchanges-should-make-health-care-observable-transparent.html | 2013-06-26 | 2 |
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<p>NEW YORK — A Las Vegas shooter’s perch in a 32nd-floor hotel room overlooking 22,000 people jammed into a country music festival below is just the kind of nightmare scenario police dread in places where big crowds and high-rises mix.</p>
<p>From two broken-out windows of the Mandalay Bay Resort, Stephen Craig Paddock had an unobstructed view to rain rapid-fire bullets on the crowd, with few places for them to hide. Survivors of Sunday night’s bloodbath that left 58 victims dead and more than 500 wounded repeatedly compared it to shooting fish in a barrel.</p>
<p>In places like New York, Chicago and Austin, Texas, where big events are planned in the coming days, police sought to reassure jittery residents Tuesday of some of the precautions they are taking to prevent just such a scenario.</p>
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<p>New York City’s police boss says that regularly includes sharpshooters with binoculars on rooftops scanning nearby building windows for potential threats, helicopters circling above with snipers of their own, and detectives making security sweeps of nearby hotels.</p>
<p>But he acknowledged there is only so much that can be done.</p>
<p>“We do understand,” said NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill, “that no city or town in this country is completely immune to such unbridled hatred.”</p>
<p>Added David Katz, CEO of Global Security Group, which conducts active-shooter training around the world: “The answer only really is, if there’s a sniper, there’s a counter-sniper.”</p>
<p>But “you’re not going to be able to deploy police units with sniper capabilities everywhere,” Katz said. “There are, at some point, too many things going on, too many opportunities to stop them all. Unfortunately, if someone is intent on doing harm they will find a way to do it.”</p>
<p>Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose son will be among the 45,000 runners in the city’s annual marathon Sunday, said emergency officials, including federal authorities, have conducted roughly a dozen workshops to talk through various scenarios and Chicago is prepared for “any eventuality.”</p>
<p>“People don’t just show up on marathon day and decide to run 26 miles. They train all year,” Emanuel said. “That’s also true of the Chicago police.”</p>
<p>Despite assurances of a heavy police presence at this weekend’s Austin City Limits music festival, expected to draw 75,000 people a day to a large park near the city’s downtown, organizers were offering refunds to anyone uncomfortable with attending following the Las Vegas shooting.</p>
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<p>Austin knows all-too well the dangers of high-angle shootings. In August 1966, Marine-trained sniper Charles Whitman fired for an hour and a half from the 27-story clock tower in the heart of the University of Texas campus, killing 17 people and wounding 30 more. Police stopped the carnage by shooting Whitman.</p>
<p>In the Las Vegas shooting, police say Paddock fired from his hotel suite for nine to 11 minutes before eventually killing himself. They say they found 23 guns in the room, along with 12 “bump stock” devices that can enable a semi-automatic rifle to fire continuously, like a fully automatic weapon.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most stark example of the crowd-building dynamic is in New York, where the city’s 36,000-officer department regularly goes on high alert for such events as the New Year’s Eve Times Square celebration, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, Monday’s Columbus Day parade, even some Yankees games.</p>
<p>For such events, the NYPD puts officers with body armor and high-powered weapons around the perimeter, sharpshooters on nearby rooftops to scan the windows of other buildings for threats, and cops with bullhorns on the streets instructing gawkers in nearby buildings to keep their windows closed.</p>
<p>They also have detectives ramp up security sweeps at hotels, particularly ahead of the holiday season. And the NYPD has a program to train thousands of private businesses and employees, from housekeeping staff to security, on how to spot explosives or tell a golf bag from a gun case.</p>
<p>David C. Kelly, associate managing director K2 Intelligence and the former assistant commissioner for counterterrorism at the NYPD, said the shooting forces private security and law enforcement alike to give more regular events treatment usually reserved for special occasions like a president or a pope’s visit.</p>
<p>“It’s a big ask, but maybe that’s what needs to be done now,” Kelly said. “It’s forcing law enforcement to look at this in three dimensions, the car in the crowd, the bomb in the backpack, now the assault from the air.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Deepti Hajela in New York, Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Will Weissert in Austin contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been corrected to show that the death toll is 58, not including the gunman, based on revised information from the Clark County coroner.</p> | Las Vegas high-rise shooting scenario a security nightmare | false | https://abqjournal.com/1073144/las-vegas-high-rise-shooting-scenario-a-security-nightmare.html | 2017-10-03 | 2 |
<p>Since the foundation of the United Nations’ Security Council, the Palestinians did not manage to have any kind of sway that would allow them to block or amend a proposed resolution in any meaningful way.</p>
<p>But miracles do indeed happen, as, for the first time, and after days of intense lobbying, a Palestinian delegation recently killed a draft resolution. Not only this, it also managed to block a presidential statement which is usually made when a resolution is buried, by way of explaining the circumstances behind its rejection.</p>
<p>But this ‘miracle’ has a bizarre twist. The resolution, drafted by Qatar and seconded by Indonesia, was merely expressing concern over the humanitarian disaster intensifying in the Gaza Strip and the deteriorating plight of one and a half million Palestinians dwelling, or more accurately, imprisoned there, lacking all imaginable necessities – electricity, fuel, clean water, food and medicine.</p>
<p>One would typically expect it to be Israel dispatching its delegations to the UN, armed with every possible pretext to deny Palestinians even the smallest window of opportunity to argue for their concerns – such as protection for refugees, humanitarian aid, or investigations into massacres.</p>
<p>Historically, support for Palestine remained high in the general assembly, despite Israel’s strategic development and detonement of anti-Semitic politics to intimidate member states. Not surprisingly, it was in the security council that Israel invested most of its energy, with US and Israeli ambassadors to the UN working diligently to block any SC resolution by buying the support of veto and rotating non-veto wielding members, or by bullying the daring few to withdraw their support for any particular draft.</p>
<p>More often than not, the US would insist on re-drafting a resolution before putting it to the vote.</p>
<p>If this did not work, a US veto was guaranteed. In recent years, starting with Madeleine Albright (later Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State) to John Negroponte (later US Ambassador to Iraq and now Deputy Secretary of State) to the present Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad (former US Ambassador to Iraq), the US anti-Palestinian stance has hardened beyond any possibility of compromise.</p>
<p>It was Negroponte who brazenly declared in 2002 that the US would veto any resolution regarding Israel that fails to condemn Palestinians.</p>
<p>In other words, Israel could get away with murder without any objection from the council.</p>
<p>Consequently, Palestinians fought with all of their might, with the help of various Arab ambassadors and other representatives to tip the balance in their favour, but to no avail. As long as the US remained at the helm of this undeniably corrupt arrangement, Palestine remained powerless to secure any tangible international support.</p>
<p>Keeping such a legacy in mind, it came as an unparalleled shock to learn of the double ‘successes’ of the Palestinian delegation to the UN on July 30, with, first, Qatar pulling out its resolution regarding Palestine, and second, the UNSC’s presidency refraining from issuing a statement to explain what went wrong.</p>
<p>Qatar’s hope had been to support starving Palestinians in Gaza and win some international sympathy on their behalf, which might embarrass Israel into allowing some urgent supplies into Gaza.</p>
<p>A few months ago, one would have thought such an event to be simply impossible: A Palestinian delegation, lobbying tirelessly at the UN to block a UN call for helping half of the Palestinian population living in complete isolation and facing ceaseless Israeli attacks in the occupied territories.</p>
<p>What could possibly justify such cruelty? To ensure that Hamas’ isolation is complete? To deny the ‘Islamists’ of Gaza the opportunity to score a point against the ‘secularists’ of Ramallah, thus to operate for a few more months before the mass starvation kicks in? Even these pitiful excuses no longer suffice.</p>
<p>However, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, tried his best to justify the scandal on the basis that “it is unacceptable for anyone, including friends, to act on our behalf without our knowledge no one should take such initiatives without consulting us.”</p>
<p>I wonder if Mr Mansour worried himself too much about the plight of Wael Abu Warda, 27, who died on August 4 from Kidney failure while waiting at Erez crossing, separating Gaza from Israel, or the many such individuals who die everyday in Gaza’s rundown hospitals?</p>
<p>Moreover, were the immediate needs of Gaza and its largely unemployed and malnourished population part of the Palestinian agenda when Condoleezza Rice visited Ramallah and met with Mahmoud Abbas, his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and his 14-member cabinet? Or did the $80 million Framework Agreement – a US reward to Abbas for following the American script to the letter – set aside a tiny amount for milk, fuel and perhaps couple of dialysis machines for those suffering in Gaza?</p>
<p>Back to the Palestinian ‘success’ at the UN, the miracle was of course no miracle at all; Palestinians had clearly utilised the same mechanism that Israel had used for years to block the mere possibility of bringing attention to the plight of Gaza. One hates to invoke the proverbial idea of Palestinians being their own worst enemy, but very few terms can describe the unfolding travesty, compounded by the fact that the Zionist lobby at the US Congress is now actively lobbying on behalf of Abbas.</p>
<p>$80 million seems too cheap a price for selling out one’s own people.</p>
<p>But considering the extreme circumstances, in the eyes of some, the price is just right.</p>
<p>RAMZY BAROUD teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology and is the author of <a href="" type="internal">The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle</a>. He is also the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com. He can be contacted at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | A Palestinian Miracle at the UN? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/08/14/a-palestinian-miracle-at-the-un/ | 2007-08-14 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Shares of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) are flying 16% higher to all-time highs Thursday morning as investors and Wall Street analysts applaud the social network’s across-the-board earnings beat for the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The positive momentum for Facebook puts the stock on track for its largest one-day rally since July and third-largest since going public in May 2012. In fact, Facebook's market capitalization swelled to nearly $155 billion on Thursday, exceeding that of banking conglomerate Citigroup (NYSE:C).</p>
<p>Mark Zuckerberg’s company released quarterly results late Wednesday that <a href="" type="internal">revealed strong mobile growth, impressive margins and continued user engagement improvements.</a></p>
<p>“The results in the quarter reinforce our thesis that Facebook will continue to benefit from core tailwinds from higher pricing, Instagram monetization, international growth, and higher engagement,” Nomura analyst Anthony DiClemente wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.</p>
<p>Like many analysts, DiClemente raised his price target on Facebook. Nomura now sees Facebook rallying to $70, up from $65. The new target implies 30.8% of upside from Wednesday’s close at $53.53.</p>
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<p>Facebook’s non-GAAP EPS of 31 cents topped forecasts by four cents, its gross margin expansion to 56% from 46% blew away estimates and 63% jump in revenue to $2.59 billion also impressed. Ad sales surged by a stronger-than-expected 76% to $2.34 billion thanks to mobile strength.</p>
<p>The positive reaction to Facebook’s fourth-quarter results stands in contrast to the apprehension triggered by the company’s third-quarter results.</p>
<p>“After last quarter, many in the market were nervously awaiting management’s conference call comments. That having been said, all of the items making people anxious were well addressed,” Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) analyst Heather Bellini wrote in a note to clients.</p>
<p>Goldman reiterated its “buy” rating on Facebook and raised its 12-month price target to $70 from $61.</p>
<p>In addition to the strong results, Goldman cited a shift in the way advertisers view the Facebook platform.</p>
<p>“The burden of proof is no longer on Facebook as advertisers are very happy with its broad reach, precise targeting” and return on investment, Bellini said.</p>
<p>A number of other firms sweetened their price targets on Facebook, including JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), which sharply hiked its target to $80 from $62 and kept an “overweight” weighting.</p>
<p>In recent trading, Facebook shares were up 15.82% to $66.00, leaving them 95% in the green over the past 12 months.</p>
<p>The Facebook rally trickled down to shares of other social-media stocks as Pandora (NYSE:P), Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) and Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) all rallied more than 4%. Other names heading north include LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) and Yelp (NYSE:YELP).</p> | Facebook Cruises to Record Highs on 4Q Enthusiasm | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/01/30/facebook-cruises-to-record-highs-on-4q-enthusiasm.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>OCT. 1, 2010</p>
<p>By STEVEN GREENHUT</p>
<p>When most people think of California, they think obviously enough about the populous and influential coastal cities, from the gleaming Southern California coast to the Bay Area. But east of the coastal ranges and west of the Sierra Nevada mountains lies a vast, fertile and highly populated agricultural region that offers the most varied produce in the nation, yet is suffering an agonizing fate thanks to the power of the environmental movement.</p>
<p>The signs on the dried out farmland along Interstate 5 tell the story: “Congress Created Dust Bowl.” They refer to the federal cut-off of water from the Central Valley to save the supposedly endangered Delta Smelt. It’s one of the clearest cases of the environmental movement’s priorities.</p>
<p>A region of about 6 million people suffers enormously high unemployment as a good portion of the area’s farmland dries out due to the lack of water. The water is being used instead to save what locals refer to as a bait fish. Because the bulk of California’s population lives near the coast, the Central Valley’s plight has received insufficient attention – at least until recent weeks on the campaign trail.</p>
<p>“I have spent a lot of time in the valley, and what is going on here due to lack of water is a humanitarian crisis,” GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman told a crowd near Fresno. GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina said that Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer “has walked away from every opportunity to help.” This attention can’t hurt.</p>
<p>Water supplies have increased after the Obama administration apparently traded water for votes from two San Joaquin Valley Democratic congressmen (Jim Costa of Fresno and Dennis Cardoza of Merced) for his health-care plan. But it’s still tough going in an area that is Ground Zero for the housing meltdown and that suffers viciously high unemployment rates.</p>
<p>Recent figures put the unemployment rate at 21.3 percent in Merced County, 18.9 percent in Stanislaus County, 18.3 percent in Tulare County and 18.4 percent in San Joaquin County. Some smaller towns have unemployment rates as high as 40 percent. Unemployment is traditionally high in those areas, but it’s much higher than normal given the water cut-off in an agriculturally dependent region.</p>
<p>But this crisis may not simply be a matter of the state’s elites having its priorities off kilter. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, believes the environmental Left is purposefully starving the region of water so that it returns to a more natural state. Rep. Nunes’ senior policy advisor, Andrew House, told me in March that 76 percent of the water that enters the Sacramento Delta flushes out to San Francisco Bay and is, essentially, wasted. This purposeful drying up of the San Joaquin Valley is part of a “green utopian experiment,” House argued. Since 1992, state policy has been pulling more and more water out of agricultural uses and diverting it to environmental protection.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, state officials refuse to upgrade a faltering water infrastructure, while environmentalists lobby for the destruction of the state’s dams.</p>
<p>I’ve interviewed and battled with many environmentalists in my days on a newspaper editorial page and it’s clear that these folks will use any excuse, or any fish for that matter, to achieve their goal of limiting growth and “protecting” the land from human uses, including agricultural ones. “The radical side of the environmental movement, working with their patrons in government, is fighting a war of attrition in the San Joaquin Valley of California,” House added.</p>
<p>Whether their motives are misguided or malevolent, the environmental movement clearly is wreaking destruction here. Given that the state’s real political power lies far from the inland farm regions, this is unlikely to change even if the worst offenders are booted from office in November.</p> | Big Green Dries Out Big Valley | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2010/10/01/big-green-dries-out-big-valley/ | 2018-10-20 | 3 |
<p>The Los Angeles City Council voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to ban plastic bags. If approved, the measure, pending environmental review and a subsequent vote, would make L.A. the biggest American city to do away with this major source of pollution.</p>
<p>The council originally considered banning paper bags as well, but decided instead to implement a 10 cent fee charged by retailers.</p>
<p>The ban applies to the cheap disposable shopping bags typically found in grocery stores, many of which end up clogging the city’s gutters and floating in its ocean. — PZS</p>
<p>KNBC:</p>
<p />
<p>The council approved a compromise measure, introduced Tuesday after years of debate over the issue, that would phase in a ban on plastic grocery bags. The measure will eventually require retailers to charge 10 cents for paper bags, which an original measure would have also banned.</p>
<p>The policy, approved on a 13-1 vote, will still need to be crafted into law by the City Attorney’s Office, and will be subject to an environmental review before it returns to the council for another vote. The council wants a final vote within four months.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Los-Angeles-City-Council-to-Consider-Banning-Plastic-and-Paper-Bags-153148665.html" type="external">Read more</a></p>
<p /> | The Plastic Bag Is So Passé | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-plastic-bag-is-so-pass/ | 2012-05-24 | 4 |
<p>A pall will hang over commencement at the University of Notre Dame this year — the pall of a great opportunity missed. Temporarily, one must hope.</p>
<p>Notre Dame’s new president, Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., got off to a brilliant start this past fall, with an inaugural address that located Notre Dame solidly within the ancient tradition of Catholic higher learning. Father Jenkins then led a pilgrimage to Rome, an act that embodied a key plank in the reformist platform announced in his inaugural address: to “think with the Church” means both to think and to think “with the Church.” Then, in April, things changed, dramatically and for the worse. After a campus wide debate, Father Jenkins announced that “the creative contextualization of a play like The Vagina Monologues can bring certain perspectives on important issues into a constructive and fruitful dialogue with the Catholic tradition.” Therefore, Father Jenkins decreed, the V-Monologues could continue to be produced on campus.</p>
<p>It was difficult, bordering on impossible, not to read Father Jenkins’ decision as a surrender to the most corrosive forces eating away at the vitals of Catholic higher education.</p>
<p>That view is shared by numerous Notre Dame faculty, among whom Father Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C., stands tall, literally, intellectually, and spiritually. In a public letter to his brother Holy Cross priest, Father Miscamble told Father Jenkins that “your decision is being portrayed as involving your ‘backing down,'” in part because of an untoward deference to “the convictions of certain senior Arts and Letters faculty that any restriction on this play would damage our academic ‘reputation’ — and especially among those ‘preferred peer schools’ whose regard we crave.” “Indeed,” Miscamble continued, “it is hard to understand [your decision] in any other terms.”</p>
<p>Then Father Miscamble got down to cases: “In your recent…statement you reveal a level of naivete about the process of a Catholic university engaging the broad culture that is striking and deeply harmful to our purpose as a Catholic university. We live at a time, as Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter pointed out some years ago, when the elite culture is programmed to trivialize religion. Further more, much of popular culture is deeply antithetical to religious conviction and practice. It offers a worldview completely at odds with any Catholic vision. It is a worldview from which none of us can be sequestered and, indeed, many of our students arrive here far more influenced by the reigning culture than by faith convictions.</p>
<p>“Amidst this larger context you are to permit the continued production and promotion of a play which, as our colleague Paolo Carozza rightly puts it, ‘seems to reduce the meaning and value of women’s lives to their sexual experiences and organs, reinforcing a perspective on the human person that is itself fundamentally a form of violence.’ Dialogue with this point of view is ridiculous. It should be contested and resisted at Notre Dame but never promoted. Notre Dame must hold to a higher view of the dignity of women and men. Might I ask that if this play does not meet your criteria of an ‘’expression that is overt and insistent in its contempt for the values and sensibilities of the University,’ then what would?”</p>
<p>Father Miscamble ends by asking his brother priest to “go back to your best self and to your original instincts and position on this matter. Don’t embarrass those of us who want to work with you to build a great Catholic university. Lead us.”</p>
<p>Anyone who cares about the flagship university of Catholic higher education in America must pray that Father Miscamble’s plea is heard by Father Jenkins, a man who has shown courage in the past. The V-Monologues is trashy, pornographic nonsense, like a lot of other stuff available in the movies and on cable-TV. A great university can’t monitor what its students watch on TV or in theaters. But it can teach them about stupidity. The V-Monologues are stupid, and one of the things a great Catholic university ought to teach its students is to avoid the stupid. It can’t do that by the “creative contextualization” of stupidity.</p>
<p>George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.</p> | A Golden Dome Opportunity Missed | false | https://eppc.org/publications/a-golden-dome-opportunity-missed/ | 1 |
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<p>Two derptastic examples of reporting this afternoon:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23259938/federal-heights-woman-fatally-shot-accident-assault-rifle" type="external">From the Denver Post</a>:</p>
<p>Police in Federal Heights are investigating the shooting death of a woman who was killed by a bullet from her recently purchased assault-style rifle.</p>
<p>Excuse me, a what?&#160;</p>
<p>What the hell is an "assault-style rifle?"</p>
<p>...&#160;described the rifle as an assault weapon, an AK-47 or similar style rifle ...</p>
<p>Again, what?&#160;</p>
<p>"Similar style rifle?" As in it's similar to a fully automatic rifle? Is it a fully automatic rifle?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/anastasia-adair-dead-dies-assault-rifle_n_3293336.html" type="external">Enter HuffPo</a>, who, like many websites, think that simply rewriting wire stories is original content. Ta da!</p>
<p>A Denver-area woman died Tuesday night after an&#160; <a href="http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/front-range/federal-heights/witnesses-anastasia-adair-was-handing-assault-rifle-to-husband-when-it-fired-striking-her-in-head" type="external">assault rifle she was handling accidentally fired and shot her in the head</a>.</p>
<p>Witnesses told ABC Denver affiliate KMGH that Anastasia Adair, 22, was passing an AK-47-style assault rifle to her husband, Dana "Shane" Adair, when the gun went off.</p>
<p>WHAT IS AN "ASSAULT-STYLE" RIFLE.</p>
<p>Was it a regular rifle made up to look like an AK-47? <a href="" type="internal">Like this pellet gun</a>&#160;(below) is made to look like an AR-15?</p>
<p />
<p>If something is an "assault rifle" it's a rifle capable of select fire and they've been banned since the 60s.</p>
<p>If it's an "assault style," that's a made-up term by people who have no idea what they're talking about and think that the paint job on a gun can make it shoot magic bullets.</p>
<p>Either way, in the era of information, it's amazing that no one takes the time to Google basic phrases and facts before slapping their byline on it and sending it out into the world.</p>
<p>*Edited to add: Obviously this couple did not handle their firearms responsibly. To use their mistake as an indictment of all gun owners is like using Nickelback as an indictment of all bands and banning&#160;instruments.</p>
<p>**Another addendum: Obviously the gun made the couple get drunk and irresponsibly handle their firearms.</p> | Progressives Have No Idea About Guns | true | http://danaloeschradio.com/progressives-have-no-idea-about-guns/ | 2013-05-18 | 0 |
<p>MILAN (AP) — The son of Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli has issued a statement denying sexual molestation allegations against his father from actor Johnathon Schaech.</p>
<p>Pippo Zeffirelli said in the statement Thursday that the allegations appeared to be “a true and proper vendetta,” and he questioned the timing of lodging them at a moment when the 94-year-old director is unable to defend himself because of his failing health.</p>
<p>Schaech wrote in People magazine that he was 22 years old when he went to work on the film “Sparrow” in 1992, and that Zeffirelli had tried to seduce him from the start. Then, while filming in Sicily, the actor said Zeffirelli got a key to his room and let himself in, molesting Schaech in his bed.</p>
<p>The allegation is part of a wave of sexual abuse allegations in Hollywood, media, politics, business and elsewhere that began in October when movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.</p>
<p>In his statement, Zeffirelli’s son said that the director had given Schaech his first break, but that the young actor was furious when he decided to dub his voice because of a throat problem that had made it difficult for the actor to speak. That, Pippo Zeffirelli said, was the source of the vendetta.</p>
<p>The son’s statement said Schaech has been in contact with the family in recent years, and inquired about the elderly director’s health last month. About a week later, People magazine inquired about the accusations, he said.</p>
<p>Zeffirelli has been out of the public eye due to his poor health, failing to show up this summer for the opening of a foundation in his native Florence that honors his life’s work as a theater and film director. His film credits include “Blue Lagoon” and “Tea With Mussolini.” He was nominated for two Oscars, for best art direction for the 1983 film “La Traviata,” and best director of “Romeo and Juliet” in 1968.</p>
<p>MILAN (AP) — The son of Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli has issued a statement denying sexual molestation allegations against his father from actor Johnathon Schaech.</p>
<p>Pippo Zeffirelli said in the statement Thursday that the allegations appeared to be “a true and proper vendetta,” and he questioned the timing of lodging them at a moment when the 94-year-old director is unable to defend himself because of his failing health.</p>
<p>Schaech wrote in People magazine that he was 22 years old when he went to work on the film “Sparrow” in 1992, and that Zeffirelli had tried to seduce him from the start. Then, while filming in Sicily, the actor said Zeffirelli got a key to his room and let himself in, molesting Schaech in his bed.</p>
<p>The allegation is part of a wave of sexual abuse allegations in Hollywood, media, politics, business and elsewhere that began in October when movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.</p>
<p>In his statement, Zeffirelli’s son said that the director had given Schaech his first break, but that the young actor was furious when he decided to dub his voice because of a throat problem that had made it difficult for the actor to speak. That, Pippo Zeffirelli said, was the source of the vendetta.</p>
<p>The son’s statement said Schaech has been in contact with the family in recent years, and inquired about the elderly director’s health last month. About a week later, People magazine inquired about the accusations, he said.</p>
<p>Zeffirelli has been out of the public eye due to his poor health, failing to show up this summer for the opening of a foundation in his native Florence that honors his life’s work as a theater and film director. His film credits include “Blue Lagoon” and “Tea With Mussolini.” He was nominated for two Oscars, for best art direction for the 1983 film “La Traviata,” and best director of “Romeo and Juliet” in 1968.</p> | Son denies molestation allegations against Franco Zeffirelli | false | https://apnews.com/0a0200416bb6419096a41b1f6476486c | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
<p>LONDON - Secretary of State John Kerry said neither the United States nor the international community would recognize the outcome of Sunday's Crimea referendum.</p>
<p>He said there would be "consequences” if Moscow does not find “a way to change course" <a href="" type="internal">over the future of Ukraine</a> - a sign that there had been no deal despite six hours of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in London.</p>
<p>Kerry said the only concern of the U.S. was the rights of the Ukrainian people. "We are interested in the people of Ukraine having their country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity respected," he told a news conference.</p>
<p>Although the two men posed for the cameras before their meeting, they appeared separately in front of reporters, underscoring the gap between Moscow and Washington.</p>
<p>"We do not have a common vision of the situation," Lavrov earlier told journalists through an interpreter, adding that the “dialogue was constructive."</p>
<p>Kerry warned that the referendum could be tantamount to the "backdoor annexation of Crimea." He added that Putin choosing to wait until after the referendum to make a decision was "a decision of enormous consequence with respect to the global community."</p>
<p>"If the referendum takes place there will be some sanctions," he added. "There will be some response, let me put it that way."</p> | Kerry: We Won’t Recognize Crimea Vote | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/kerry-we-wont-recognize-crimea-vote-n52966 | 2014-03-14 | 3 |
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<p>It's a really busy time, I know. But when Suba Iyer told me about how she closes out her year financially, I thought it would be of interest to the readers of Get Rich Slowly. So I asked if she would prepare an article and share her list with us - but reviewing it, it appears she made it even more comprehensive! Suba currently writes for FiveCentNickel.com.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The new year is just around the corner. How was your 2014? Did you get everything you wanted to accomplish done? Are you getting ready to set new resolutions? Before you do that, spend a little time to finish 2014 with a bang. Here are some money moves you can make in 2014, whatever is left of it, to make full use of the current year and get set up to start the new year off on the right foot.</p>
<p>What smart money moves are you making before the ball drops?</p>
<p>The original article can be found at GetRichSlowly.org: <a href="http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/14-smart-money-moves-to-make-before-the-end-of-the-year.html?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-194015910" type="external">14 smart money moves to make before the end of the year Opens a New Window.</a></p> | 14 Money Moves to Make Before 2015 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/12/06/14-smart-money-moves-to-make-before-end-year.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
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<p>Rio Rancho Police Chief Bob Boone has begun a review of a DWI arrest of his former deputy chief in July after the arresting officer allegedly failed to document that a woman and her baby were in the vehicle at the time of the stop.</p>
<p>Boone said he learned of the information Tuesday after a Journal inquiry about why former Deputy Chief Scott Kellogg was not charged with child abuse, and why the woman was not questioned before she was allowed to walk to her nearby home with her baby.</p>
<p>“I’m distressed that I didn’t hear of the passengers until yesterday,” Boone said. “We will do a review why it wasn’t listed in the report.”</p>
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<p>Brian Holland, who said he is the father of the baby, said he is concerned that the child was in the truck with a suspected drunken driver, and claims Kellogg has harassed him through phone calls and texts. Holland filed a police report Wednesday in reference to the alleged harassment, but Kellogg has not been charged and Rio Rancho police are looking into the allegations.</p>
<p>A phone number for Kellogg could not be found, and an e-mail to his Facebook account was not returned Wednesday.</p>
<p>Holland said his baby girl had her first birthday in August and identified her mother as Catalina Goularte, 37.</p>
<p>Rio Rancho police are looking into the identity of the woman and baby in the truck as part of its review.</p>
<p>Kellogg, 42, retired in October after the department began an internal investigation into a fight he was allegedly involved in during a September concert at Journal Pavilion. He had been with the department for 20 years.</p>
<p>On July 5, he was arrested about 2 a.m. on suspicion of aggravated DWI after a Rio Rancho police officer allegedly saw the pickup he was driving swerving on Sprint Boulevard near Enchanted Hills. Kellogg showed signs of impairment during field sobriety tests and later submitted to an alcohol-breath test, according to a Rio Rancho police report.</p>
<p>He blew 0.18 and 0.19 percent blood-alcohol concentrations, more than twice the state’s presumed level of intoxication, according to the report.</p>
<p>The report has no mention of a woman or her baby being in the vehicle that night.</p>
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<p>“I believe it was an omission by the officer,” Boone said. “I want to go back and check why.”</p>
<p>Boone said he responded to the call and was the second to arrive, but that he saw Kellogg alone in the truck.</p>
<p>Rio Rancho police spokesman John Francis said the arresting officer, who is listed in the report as Vernon Ford, allowed the woman and the baby to walk home because she lived close by.</p>
<p>At the time of the Kellogg’s arrest, Goularte had an active misdemeanor warrant out of Rio Rancho Municipal Court for unlawful use of a driver’s license, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, Francis said.</p>
<p>He said it is not standard for police to check the information of passengers in a vehicle involved in a traffic stop.</p>
<p>Boone said passenger information is usually checked if there is reasonable belief that a passenger is committing a crime or police have proof a passenger was involved in a crime.</p>
<p>As far as a child being in the vehicle of a suspected drunken driver, Francis said it is the arresting officer’s discretion to determine whether to charge someone with child abuse.</p>
<p>Many times police wait to see whether someone is convicted of DWI before pursuing child abuse charges, Boone said. According to Francis, police have up to a year from a DWI conviction to file child abuse charges.</p> | Rio Rancho Police Chief To Review DWI Arrest of Ex-Aide | false | https://abqjournal.com/8937/rio-rancho-police-chief-to-review-dwi-arrest-of-ex-aide.html | 2 |
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<p>WAUKEE, Iowa (AP) — School officials in central Iowa have reached a nearly $1 million settlement with a former employee who alleged he was wrongfully fired after reporting improper conduct by a high-ranking district officer.</p>
<p>The Waukee Board of Education unanimously approved the settlement with former Human Resources Director Terry Welker on Monday, the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/waukee/2018/01/22/waukee-pay-nearly-1-million-former-hr-director/1055466001/" type="external">Des Moines Register reported</a> .</p>
<p>“To pursue this further isn’t good for our district. It’s not good for our students or for our teachers,” said Board President Susan Bunz. “While I feel very confident saying we don’t agree with many of the accusations, we know that this is the best option under the circumstances.”</p>
<p>The school board eliminated Welker’s position in July amid budget cuts. Welker alleged he was terminated after he reported the district’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Rose to administrators.</p>
<p>A district investigation found that Rose mismanaged money, abused authority and violated policies. Investigators discovered that Rose had fabricated employee time cards, used school property for personal purposes and solicited money from district vendors for his son’s hockey team. Rose is the district’s fourth highest-paid employee.</p>
<p>Welker served as a key source for investigators and provided details of Rose’s misconduct from a “diary” he kept, that dated back to September 2015.</p>
<p>In the “diary,” Welker wrote about employees saying they were allegedly advised not to speak about Rose to human resources or the school board by administrators.</p>
<p>The district doesn’t admit wrongdoing in the settlement.</p>
<p>Bunz said that Welker’s settlement money will be diverted from the management budget, not from teachers or students.</p>
<p>Two other wrongful termination lawsuits against the district are ongoing, which could result in additional settlement agreements.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Des Moines Register, <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com" type="external">http://www.desmoinesregister.com</a></p>
<p>WAUKEE, Iowa (AP) — School officials in central Iowa have reached a nearly $1 million settlement with a former employee who alleged he was wrongfully fired after reporting improper conduct by a high-ranking district officer.</p>
<p>The Waukee Board of Education unanimously approved the settlement with former Human Resources Director Terry Welker on Monday, the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/waukee/2018/01/22/waukee-pay-nearly-1-million-former-hr-director/1055466001/" type="external">Des Moines Register reported</a> .</p>
<p>“To pursue this further isn’t good for our district. It’s not good for our students or for our teachers,” said Board President Susan Bunz. “While I feel very confident saying we don’t agree with many of the accusations, we know that this is the best option under the circumstances.”</p>
<p>The school board eliminated Welker’s position in July amid budget cuts. Welker alleged he was terminated after he reported the district’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Rose to administrators.</p>
<p>A district investigation found that Rose mismanaged money, abused authority and violated policies. Investigators discovered that Rose had fabricated employee time cards, used school property for personal purposes and solicited money from district vendors for his son’s hockey team. Rose is the district’s fourth highest-paid employee.</p>
<p>Welker served as a key source for investigators and provided details of Rose’s misconduct from a “diary” he kept, that dated back to September 2015.</p>
<p>In the “diary,” Welker wrote about employees saying they were allegedly advised not to speak about Rose to human resources or the school board by administrators.</p>
<p>The district doesn’t admit wrongdoing in the settlement.</p>
<p>Bunz said that Welker’s settlement money will be diverted from the management budget, not from teachers or students.</p>
<p>Two other wrongful termination lawsuits against the district are ongoing, which could result in additional settlement agreements.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Des Moines Register, <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com" type="external">http://www.desmoinesregister.com</a></p> | Iowa district settles termination lawsuit for nearly $1M | false | https://apnews.com/fa165b4071dd4adf9f3dd0c7beb21f46 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
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<p>Tyson Foods on Monday raised its profit forecast for the fiscal year, as the meat supplier's quarterly earnings easily topped expectations and revenue fell less than expected, helped by continued strong consumer demand and lower costs.</p>
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<p>Donnie Smith, Tyson's chief executive, said the company was helped in its fiscal third quarter by its focus on growth in prepared foods. Earnings jumped despite an overall decline in sales, a recent trend that executives have said shows Tyson's investment in packaged-food products -- aimed at reducing its dependence on shrink-wrapped fresh meats -- is paying off.</p>
<p>In June, the company named Tom Hayes as its president. Mr. Hayes was chief supply-chain officer at Hillshire Brands at the time of Tyson's $7.7 billion purchase of Hillshire in 2014. The deal enhanced Tyson's position in higher-margin prepared foods by picking brands such as Jimmy Dean sausages and Ball Park hot dogs. Sales volume in the prepared foods segment rose 1.9% in the latest period.</p>
<p>The Springdale, Ark., company has benefited recently from robust consumer spending, increased cattle supplies and low prices for animal feed. Tyson, the largest U.S. meat processor by sales, has said that expanding cattle, hog and poultry supplies would reduce costs for its prepared-foods business, while its restaurant clients would benefit from freer-spending consumers. Overall operating margin at the company rose to 8.2% in the latest period from 5.6% a year ago.</p>
<p>The company raised its full-year profit forecast to a range of $4.40 to $4.50 a share on an adjusted basis, compared with prior guidance of $4.20 to $4.30 a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected $4.36.</p>
<p>For its third quarter, which ended July 2, Tyson posted a profit of $484 million, or $1.25 a share, up from $343 million, or 83 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding certain items, per-share earnings were $1.21, up from 80 cents. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters forecast per-share earnings of $1.06 cents.</p>
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<p>Revenue slid 4.1% to $9.4 billion. Analysts had anticipated $9.33 billion.</p>
<p>Tyson shares, which have risen 76% in the past 12 months, rose 3.3% to $76.10 in premarket trading. The stock has been pushing to all-time highs for the past month.</p>
<p>Write to Joshua Jamerson at [email protected]</p> | Tyson, Helped by Prepared Foods, Beats and Raises Outlook | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/08/tyson-helped-by-prepared-foods-beats-and-raises-outlook.html | 2016-08-08 | 0 |
<p>Jan. 2 (UPI) — Computer systems for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection were down for approximately two hours Monday night, affecting travelers at airports across the country on the first day of the year.</p>
<p>The CBP said processing systems at various airports were down from around 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. EST. Several airports were affected, including Atlanta, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/John_F._Kennedy_International/" type="external">John F. Kennedy International</a> in New York City and Miami.</p>
<p>But the agency said security was not affected by the outage.</p>
<p>“During the technology disruption, CBP had access to national security-related databases and all travelers were screened according to security standards,” CBP said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/CustomsBorder/status/948027190360313856" type="external">statement on Twitter</a>. “At this time, there is no indication the service disruption was malicious in nature.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-customs-computer-outage-passport-control-passenger-delays/" type="external">CBS News reported</a> that approximately 2,000 passengers were in line at the Miami airport when the CBP passport control computers went down.</p>
<p>What a nightmare at Miami’s airport. Passport system is down. <a href="https://twitter.com/WPTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">@WPTV</a> <a href="https://t.co/QL17jSlFCP" type="external">pic.twitter.com/QL17jSlFCP</a></p>
<p>– <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Chris_Stewart/" type="external">Chris Stewart</a> (@CStewartWPTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/CStewartWPTV/status/948008958782070784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">January 2, 2018</a></p> | U.S. Customs computer outage causes airport delays | false | https://newsline.com/u-s-customs-computer-outage-causes-airport-delays/ | 2018-01-02 | 1 |
<p>Photo by thierry ehrmann | <a href="" type="internal">CC by 2.0</a></p>
<p>In the new era that Xi Jinping declared at the just-completed 19th CPC Congress, China’s power will be more visibly on display in its international relationships. That is likely to give the nation’s ill-wishers much fodder with which to demonize it further. All the more important, therefore, for well-informed onlookers to understand the context of Chinese power projection in the 21st century.</p>
<p>Since the dark days of the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese reformers and leaders of all political persuasion have regarded “fuqiang” (rich and strong) as the ultimate goal of China’s self-improvement efforts. First, of course, the catastrophic consequences of dynastic collapse had to be dealt with. Mao Zedong did that by leading an epic revolution that reunited the nation and restored its sovereign authority.</p>
<p>“Fu” (wealth) then became the historical mission of the Deng Xiaoping era. China accomplished it in spades, becoming an economic superpower and setting many world records in the process. To focus on that monumental task, Beijing’s foreign policy was low-key, risk-adverse and highly accommodating. It was perfectly encapsulated in Deng’s dictum, “Lie low and build strength.”</p>
<p>Now that “fu” is initially accomplished, China under Xi is finally turning to “qiang.” What does exercising strength mean, to the Chinese? Certainly not what the Western powers have demonstrated the past two centuries: hegemonic subjugation of other nations and peoples, looting their resources, and institutionalizing that exploitation via global systems rigged in their favor.</p>
<p>China’s way of exercising power is already apparent the past few years. At the core is an effort to build international ties of a mutually beneficial and largely economic nature. Its quintessence is the Belt &amp; Road Initiative, a vision to turn the entire EurAsian landmass into a vibrant, interconnected hub of human productivity and welfare. Millennia of history show that China is not at heart a predatory power.</p>
<p>But given contemporary realities, the BRI megaproject is more than likely to come under full-spectrum assault from the predatory, militaristic US-led imperium, whose longstanding global dominion it threatens. This is where Chinese strength will come in (together with that of BRI partners). Given EurAsia’s vastness, China will need powerful, state-of-the-art military capabilities simply to protect BRI’s footprint. And that, as President Xi has made clear, is what China is committed to building.</p>
<p>Beijing’s growing power will also be used to defend the nation’s core interests. Those who would challenge it on sovereignty issues can expect significantly stronger pushback. That includes Taiwan, the South China Sea, Diaoyu Islands, Tibet, Xinjiang and even Hong Kong, where local anti-Communists have joined forces with the imperium’s agents to stymie progress for two decades.</p>
<p>A time-honored Chinese maxim on the use of force goes: “If you don’t mess with me, I won’t mess with you. But if you mess with me, I will assuredly mess with you.” Mao and his successors actually stated that, from time to time. Another saying: “A weak country has no foreign policy.” In the 21st century, those adages will likely become the animus for China’s exercise of power.</p> | Chinese Power: How Will It be Used? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/11/08/chinese-power-how-will-it-be-used/ | 2017-11-08 | 4 |
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<p>He put his time in federal prison to good use, dreaming up a new system of debt collection that, he was sure, would keep him out of the reach of the law. Upon his release, he formed Check Investors Inc. and began buying returned checks from check-processing companies. These were bounced checks that had already gone through two rounds of debt collection without success – seemingly worthless paper. Check Investors bought 2.2 million such checks for pennies on the dollar.</p>
<p>Then the company got to work threatening the check writers. Collectors phoned consumers to rail at them as “criminals.” They told one woman that unless she paid up, “her children would ‘watch their mother being taken away in handcuffs.'” Someone who owed $14.70 was threatened with jail unless she coughed up that amount plus Check Investors’ fee of $130. One elderly woman was repeatedly called about her son’s bad check. She was told he would be “arrested and carted off to jail” unless she paid his debt and the fee.</p>
<p>I’m taking these facts from an opinion by the 3rd Circuit, the federal appeals court that sits in Philadelphia. Check Investors’ threats of criminal prosecution were false as well as abusive, since there are no debtors’ prisons in the United States. By adopting such tactics, the company’s agents repeatedly violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The Federal Trade Commission sued. Following a trial, Check Investors was ordered to cease debt-collection activities and pay $10.2 million in restitution.</p>
<p>On appeal, Sussman made the bold claim that his company was entirely exempt from the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. By its express terms, the act applies only to those who collect debts on behalf of “another.” Since Check Investors bought the hot checks, Sussman argued, it wasn’t working for “another.” It was a creditor, not a debt collector. The 3rd Circuit rejected his argument, choosing instead to interpret the act in a way that accomplished its obvious purpose: to protect consumers from abusive debt collectors. It affirmed the trial court’s business-killing decision. In 2008, the United States Supreme Court declined to review the case.</p>
<p>This past June, in the first-ever opinion by newly minted Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court addressed the exact same issue. But it did so in a different case involving a more respectable debt collector, Santander Consumer USA, which had purchased defaulted car loans from CitiFinancial. The Supreme Court concluded that the ex-con Sussman, and not the 3rd Circuit, had conducted the more acute legal analysis. The court unanimously held that a company that buys debt before trying to collect it is not a debt collector and therefore not subject to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. That conclusion, the court held, was mandated by the literal language of the act, just as Sussman had said.</p>
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<p>Consider two hypothetical companies. Company A collects debts on behalf of creditors, forwarding the proceeds to its clients minus a commission. Company B buys debts from creditors, paying for the purchase in installments equal to the money it collects minus a commission. There’s not much functional difference between the two. Yet under the Supreme Court’s decision, Company A is subject to the federal act while Company B is free from its strictures.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t necessarily mean Company B is free to emulate the abusive tactics of Check Investors and even sleazier operations, of which the field of debt collection gives many colorful examples. The New York Times reported in 2011 that one California agency, trying to collect the cost of a funeral, threatened to repossess the casket, asking the grieving mother if she wished to have her son’s body dug up and dumped on her doorstep. Even if such outrageous threats escape the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, they may violate any number of other laws. To take just one example, New Mexico has its own Collection Agency Regulation Act. The state statute borrows much of its terminology from its federal counterpart, but there’s nothing to stop our state courts from adopting the 3rd Circuit’s interpretation rather than the Supreme Court’s.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter whether the Supreme Court created the enormous loophole in the act or just recognized one that had been there all along. Either way, Congress could plug it with just a few words. But until it does, any collection agency can structure its affairs to exempt itself from the primary federal statute regulating its activities.</p>
<p>Joel Jacobsen is an author and has recently retired from a 29-year legal career. If there are topics you would like to see covered in future columns, please write him at <a href="http://legal.column.tips" type="external">legal.column.tips</a></p>
<p /> | Loophole aids debt collectors | false | https://abqjournal.com/1044068/loophole-aids-debt-collectors.html | 2 |
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<p>With U.S. saber rattling towards Venezuela now at its height, the Pentagon has decided to reactivate the Navy’s fourth fleet in the Caribbean, Central and South America.</p>
<p>It’s a bold move, and has already stirred controversy within the wider region.</p>
<p>The fleet, which will start patrolling in July, will be based at the Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida and will answer to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami.&#160; Rear Admiral Joseph Keran, current commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command, will oversee operations.&#160; About 11 vessels are currently under the Southern Command, a number that could increase in future.&#160; The Navy plans to assign a nuclear-powered air craft carrier, USS George Washington, to the force.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to see how the revival of the Fourth Fleet is warranted at the present time.&#160; The move has only served to further antagonize Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, already rattled by a U.S. navy plane’s violation of Venezuelan airspace over the weekend.&#160; In the long-term, the Pentagon’s saber rattling may encourage South American militaries to assert great independence from Washington, a trend which is already well under way as I discuss in my new book, <a href="" type="internal">Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left</a> (Palgrave-Macmillan).</p>
<p>Reacting angrily to the Navy’s announcement, Chávez said: “They don’t scare us in the least.” &#160;Chávez remarked that “along with Brazil we’re studying the creation of a South American Defense Council” which would defend South America from foreign intervention. “If a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) exists,” the Venezuelan leader postulated, “why can’t a SATO exist, a South Atlantic Treaty Organization?”</p>
<p>Though the resuscitation of the Fourth Fleet has led many to believe that the U.S. is pursuing a course of gunboat diplomacy in the region, there was a time when the force arguably served a real need.&#160; What is the history of the Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan waters?</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Venezuela in World War II</p>
<p>On the eve of the Second World War, Venezuela was the world’s leading oil exporter and during the conflict the oil rich Maracaibo fields, located in the westernmost Venezuelan state of Zulia, were considered a crucial resource for both the axis and allied powers.</p>
<p>British and American oil subsidiaries of Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil and Gulf had in fact long operated in the Maracaibo Basin prior to the outbreak of European hostilities.&#160; Transportation of crude from Jersey Standard’s producing fields in Lake Maracaibo region was carried out through use of specially constructed shallow draft tankers. &#160;A refinery owned by Royal Dutch Shell located on the island of Aruba, which processed Maracaibo crude, was strategically important as it supplied products not only to Britain but also to France.</p>
<p>In 1940, Britain received fully 40 percent of her total oil imports from Venezuela, and during the first years of the war that total jumped to as high as 80 percent. &#160;Venezuelan oil also represented a vital commodity for the Nazis and the ability of the German state to wage war in Europe.&#160; As late as 1938, oil produced from Aruba, Curacao and Venezuela accounted for 44 percent of German oil imports.&#160; Germany did not buy oil directly from Venezuela but from U.S. and British-Dutch oil companies which shipped Venezuelan crude to refineries in Aruba and Curacao and then sold the final product in Europe.&#160; Venezuelan-German trade remained at normal levels but ended abruptly in September 1939 with the beginning of the British naval blockade of Germany.</p>
<p>By 1940, with Britain increasingly isolated as the result of German attack and prior to the entrance of the U.S. into the war, Venezuelan sentiment was bitterly anti-German.&#160; Meanwhile Venezuela moved into the U.S. orbit and became a chief recipient of American economic aid. &#160;U.S. military officials preferred that Venezuela publicly stay neutral in an effort to preempt any German moves to shell Venezuela’s coast.</p>
<p>Venezuelan neutrality however was a mere legal fiction: in reality, the South American nation had granted U.S. ships and airplanes special access to ports and airstrips.&#160; Two days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Venezuela declared its solidarity with the United States and on December 31, 1941 the Andean nation severed relations with the Axis powers.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Operation “Roll of Drums”</p>
<p>It wasn’t long before the Venezuelan government’s decision to sell oil to the allies resulted in Nazi counter measures.&#160; On December 12, 1941 Hitler met with his naval advisers and approved PAUKENSCHLAG or “ROLL OF DRUMS” a U-boat operation in Western Atlantic/Caribbean waters.&#160; In February, 1942 German submarines plied the Caribbean, sinking 25 tankers in one month.</p>
<p>The Nazis were chiefly concerned with the Dutch islands of Curacao and Aruba, Dutch colonies where U.S. forces had set up defensive fortifications in order to protect refineries processing Venezuelan crude from Maracaibo (with an estimated crude capacity of 480,000 barrels a day, the Aruba refinery, owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey, and the Curacao refinery, owned by Royal Dutch Shell, outranked Abadan in Iran with 250,000 barrels; the Baku complex in the U.S.S.R. with about 230,000 barrels; and the largest plants in the United States at Baytown, Port Arthur, Bayonne, Baton Rouge, and Whiting with over 100,000 barrels each).</p>
<p>On 15 February 1942, a convoy of oil tankers and ships left the Maracaibo Bar.&#160; The first ships in line were the ‘Monagas,’ of the Mene Grande Oil Company, followed by the ‘Tia Juana’ and ‘Pedernales’ both belonging to the Lago Petroleum Corporation.&#160; These tankers were followed by the ‘Rafaela’ belonging to Shell, and the ‘San Nicolas’and ‘Orangestad,’ belonging to Lago Oil and Transport Co, based in Aruba.&#160; A number of other tankers joined the column.</p>
<p>German U-Boat Attack and Creation of the U.S. Fourth Fleet</p>
<p>Suddenly a German U-boat torpedoed the ‘Monagas’ which sank immediately.&#160; The tankers ‘Tia Juana,’ ‘Pedernales,’ ‘Rafaela,’ ‘San Nicolas,’ and ‘Orangestad’ were also hit and sustained casualties.&#160; On the same day, the oil refinery on Aruba was attacked by German submarine shellfire.&#160; The political fallout from the attack was predictable: soon, angry street protesters hit the streets of Caracas, denouncing German aggression.</p>
<p>In response to stepped up German escalation in the Caribbean, the U.S. Navy created the Fourth Fleet to hunt submarines in the South Atlantic.&#160; The U.S. moves came none too soon: as the naval war raged in the Caribbean, Venezuela suffered tremendous economic losses.&#160; As a result of the lost tankers, production in the Lake Maracaibo Basin had to be cut back by nearly 100,000 tons of crude daily.&#160; By July 1942 the situation was still dire, with tankers operating at only one-third their average capacity of 30,000 barrels.</p>
<p>German attacks on the Aruba refinery marked the beginning of the Battle of the Caribbean.&#160; It wasn’t until August, 1943 that the Fourth Fleet was able to turn the tables on the submarine menace in Venezuelan waters.&#160; In 1950, with German U-boats now long gone, the U.S. Navy disbanded the fleet.</p>
<p>Reviving the Fourth Fleet</p>
<p>The Navy claims that it needs to resuscitate the Fourth Fleet now to combat terrorism, to keep the economic sea lanes of communication free and open, to counter illicit trafficking and to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.</p>
<p>However, the move comes at a particularly sensitive moment within the region.&#160; U.S. ally Colombia launched a deadly raid across the Ecuadoran border in March, killing 16 members of the FARC guerilla insurgency including the organization’s number two, Raúl Reyes.&#160; Last weekend, Chávez accused Colombia of launching a cross-border incursion, while the Pentagon routinely lambastes Venezuela for its arms buildup including acquisition of high performance fighter aircraft, attack helicopters and diesel submarines.</p>
<p>Unlike the Second World War, when many South Americans welcomed the Fourth Fleet in Caribbean waters, some view the current U.S. naval presence as a veiled threat directed at the region’s new Pink Tide countries.&#160; In an interview with Cuban television, Bolivian President Evo Morales remarked that the U.S. naval force constituted “the Fourth Fleet of intervention.”</p>
<p>Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro has asked why the U.S. has sought to revive the Fourth Fleet at this precise moment.&#160; Writing in the Cuban newspaper Granma, Castro suggested that the move constituted a return to U.S. gunboat diplomacy.&#160; Castro, whose island nation confronted a U.S. naval blockade during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, remarked “The aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs that threaten our countries are used to sow terror and death, but not to combat terrorism and illegal activities.”</p>
<p>NIKOLAS KOZLOFF is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left</a> (Palgrave-Macmillan)</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | U.S. Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan Waters | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/05/24/u-s-fourth-fleet-in-venezuelan-waters/ | 2008-05-24 | 4 |
<p>The growing complexity of marketing to consumers hasn't been lost on CMOs.</p>
<p>But somewhere in the vast space between traditional methods, big data analytics, social listening, mobile apps, clickstream data, geolocation logs, and an array of other data points lies a basic truth: The purpose of every technology, solution, and approach is to forge strong, lasting relationships with customers so that they buy and use a product or service over and over again.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>But it doesn't stop there. "You must find a way to trigger these behaviors and transform them into habits," Fogg told CMO.com. Within this construct, underlying attitudes and values take a back seat to actual behaviors. "It's different in a lot of ways than traditional thinking about marketing," he added.</p>
<p>The concept--behavior design--is attracting growing attention in the marketing arena. Tapping into peoples' habits, rather than attempting to fundamentally change the way they think and act, is its emerging focus.</p>
<p>As&#160; <a href="http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/2/12/marshalindsay_quick_chat.html" type="external">Marsha Lindsay Opens a New Window.</a>, CEO at ad agency&#160; <a href="http://www.lsb.com/" type="external">Lindsey, Stone &amp; Briggs Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;(LSB), explained to CMO.com: " <a href="http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/4/3/marketers_need_to_ma.html" type="external">Habit has a huge influence Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;on how people behave and how they live their lives. It determines what people do, how they buy things, how they use products, Web sites and apps, and whether they continue to use them over time. Behavior design is a way to connect with them far more effectively."</p>
<p>At the heart of the idea is the realization that many products and services fail because they do not trigger the right action or reaction from a potential or existing customer. Despite extensive surveys, expensive focus groups, and sophisticated software and analytics, marketing too often stumbles.&#160; <a href="http://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate" type="external">Abandonment rates for shopping carts Opens a New Window.</a>hover around 67 percent. Consumers open&#160; <a href="http://www.localytics.com/blog/2014/app-retention-improves/" type="external">20 percent of mobile apps only once Opens a New Window.</a>--and if they don't open an app at least once in a week, there's a 60 percent chance they won't use it again. Meanwhile, devices and tools go unused. For example,&#160; <a href="http://localmobilesearch.net/news/data-and-forecasts/wearables-after-high-interest-high-abandonment" type="external">more than half Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;of the consumers who have purchased wearable devices, such as a Nike Fuelband+ or Fitbit, no longer use it.</p>
<p>A Matter Of Habit Understanding the unconscious mind and entrenched habits is at the center of behavior design. Charles Duhigg raised awareness of this topic in his 2012 book, “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/081298160X" type="external">The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Opens a New Window.</a>”&#160;Among other things, Duhigg tells the story of how, by studying videos of people making their beds, Proctor &amp; Gamble marketing specialists in the 1990s figured out how to transform a new product called Febreze, then on track to become a colossal failure, into a billion-dollar a year brand. The key? The people who most needed the odor-diffusing product had learned to live in stinky environments. But marketers identified a consistent habit: People took pride in completing a project--in this case, making their beds. P&amp;G rebranded the product as a postcleaning reward.</p>
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<p>According to a growing body of research, somewhere in the vicinity of <a href="http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/4/3/marketers_need_to_ma.html" type="external">95 percent of purchasing decisions are habituated Opens a New Window.</a>. Lindsay pointed out that the most successful products and marketing campaigns connect to existing behavior patterns and habits. For example, she cited KFC's repackaging of food containers to fit automobile cupholders as a perfect example of effective behavior design.</p>
<p>"It is remarkable that it took many years for a company to figure this out," she said. Likewise, Facebook has achieved remarkable success by delivering a constant stream of notifications that, in a sense, serve as rewards and condition a person to come back often.</p>
<p>Other companies, such as Amazon.com, Netflix, Starbucks, and Nest, have established themselves as leaders in the field. The common denominator is that these firms have identified the factors that lead to high customer retention, higher levels of loyalty, increased use or consumption, and a usability model that is easily etched into a person's daily habit through their Web sites, apps, and products. In fact, many of these companies rely on psychologists, usability experts, data scientists, and business analysts to garner a more comprehensive view and frame things in different--and distinctly nontraditional--ways.</p>
<p>A starting point for understanding behavior design is to recognize that "daily habits are powerful," Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab’s Fogg said. In fact, outstanding products, well-designed technology, and highly appealing advertisements are often not enough to overcome psychological barriers. Behavior design focuses on walking a consumer through a task in the simplest and most straightforward way possible, he added. A lot of behavior design revolves around understanding trigger points. These triggers can derive from an external source, such as an alert, alarm, or notification, or they might come from opening a refrigerator or driving past a fast food restaurant on the way to work in the morning.</p>
<p>Indeed, cues and rewards--and, in some cases, gamification--are integral components of behavior design. While a marketer can create a path, there's no guarantee that consumers will follow it to the end without the right prompts. The goal, LSB’s Lindsay said, is to use these mechanisms consistently so that people engage in the desired actions in a rote and unthinking way. Within this framework, Fogg said that marketers must focus on three basic components: knowing what behavior to trigger, understanding how to achieve the desired behavior, and testing solutions and iterating in order to perfect a solution and create the pathway for a habit.</p>
<p>Of course, all of this incorporates a broad and sometimes murky expanse of business and marketing. Laurence Vincent, chief branding officer at UTA Brand Studio, pointed out that behavior design touches numerous areas, from product design and packaging to nomenclature and advertising. For example, Starbucks uses specific language for beverages sizes--Tall, Grande, and Venti--to reduce errors while reinforcing the brand.</p>
<p>"The hallmark of effective behavior design is that you are solving a marketing or operational challenge,” he told CMO.com. “You're not just introducing something for aesthetics or a cool factor. It actually changes the way people do things--and the way they behave."</p>
<p>Intelligent Designs No single path to results exists within the behavior design space. Stacey Sarris, an independent usability designer, said that an initiative must start with a simple question: What problem can I solve for a consumer? Before a company can introduce an effective Web site or an app, before it can design a product or redesign packaging and marketing, there's a deep and abiding need to understand consumers, behavior, and trigger points.</p>
<p>"A starting point is to identify what makes a person feel good about what they are doing. What makes them enjoy the product and want to come back for more?" she told CMO.com</p>
<p>A problem with traditional marketing, Lindsay pointed out, is that it is heavily focused on responses, opinions, and words. "Unfortunately, people are not good observers of their behavior, so it is difficult to ask them questions and receive accurate information," she stated. "They are often on autopilot, and they are not even aware of what they are doing or why they are doing something."</p>
<p>This ranges from how a person puts on his or her shoes and ties the laces to which route an individual takes to work and whether they speed or tailgate along the way. "If you ask people to answer questions in surveys and focus groups, they are unable to codify the thinking and answer in a meaningful way,” Lindsay said. “They cannot put these concepts into words."</p>
<p>Behavior design, on the other hand, may require analytics expertise in order to dissect data and identify patterns surrounding habits and rituals. An organization starting from scratch may want to develop ethnographies and expand from there. "The culture is the starting point for everything else that follows," Lindsay explained.</p>
<p>Yet it also is important to examine relationships that revolve around key variables, such as geographic location, time of day, what evokes a positive emotional response, and what types of stimuli activate habits. Only then is it possible to train consumers to achieve a desired response. "The process is very similar to what it takes to train a dog," Lindsay said.</p>
<p>Also critical, however, is the business must ensure it has framed marketing, promotions, and other endeavors correctly--and that behavior design is leading to the correct set of behaviors. Lindsay argues that some industries--insurance is a prime example--habitualize the wrong behaviors.</p>
<p>"A lot of these companies spend a great deal of time and money training consumers to shop around and find the lowest price. They discourage loyalty and diminish their brand," she said, while others, including cable TV companies, provide better prices and incentives to new customers than long-time and loyal customers. "This causes them to pause and reconsider alternative brands."</p>
<p>Fogg said that CMOs and others in marketing must radically rethink habit--particularly as digital technologies take hold and tools emerge for understanding habits and behavior in far more granular ways. There's a need to dial back focus groups and surveys and reel in guesswork and intuition.</p>
<p>"A lot of the assumed wisdom and traditional ways of marketing are wrong or no longer practical," he explained. "It's important to start with a blank slate, map out behavior, and examine things in a far more systematic way. Marketing executives must focus directly on behavior and use it as the basis for making decisions."</p>
<p>Ultimately, identifying and choosing the right target behaviors takes a good deal of work to, Fogg added. There's a need to conduct constant testing and ongoing analysis--and work in fast and iterative ways in order to systematically arrive at an answer. There's also a need to engage in behavior sequencing--identifying a number of scenarios--and then test them quickly to understand what has the biggest impact and produces the best results.</p>
<p>"If something does not work, you move onto the next thing," he said. "It is not guesswork in the sense of hiring an agency and developing lots of insights. Behavior design is a way to systematically explore options and validate results until you identify the factors that drive the desired behavior."</p>
<p>Achieving success requires CMOs to "unlearn some of the traditional approaches to marketing," Fogg concluded. "If you are looking to create habits in people, it's not about getting them to do the same thing for two weeks or 21 days. The idea is to make it easy for people to do what they already want to do. It's about the strength and immediacy of the emotion when people engage in an activity or behavior. That's what ultimately makes something successful and keeps a person engaged and loyal over the long run. The one that makes it easiest wins."</p>
<p>More From CMO.com</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/8/11/at_companies_data_sh.html" type="external">Data Should Always Be On Tap Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/8/8/lessons_from_the_okc.html" type="external">Lessons From The OKCupid And Facebook Debacles Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://www.cmo.com/content/cmo-com/home/articles/2014/8/6/here_comes_big_data_.html" type="external">Here Comes Big-Data-Enabled Multitouch Attribution Opens a New Window.</a> <a href="http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/8/11/i_took_the_wrong_job.html" type="external">I Took The Wrong Job Opens a New Window.</a></p> | Marketers Must Get In The Habit Of Behavior Design | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/08/15/marketers-must-get-in-habit-behavior-design.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Dist. of Columbia Lottery's "DC 4 Evening" game were:</p>
<p>6-8-5-1</p>
<p>(six, eight, five, one)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Dist. of Columbia Lottery's "DC 4 Evening" game were:</p>
<p>6-8-5-1</p>
<p>(six, eight, five, one)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'DC 4 Evening' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/06a26f9a33d44e918c1e2d57ce52743b | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
<p>Jan 24 (Reuters) - Eleven Biotherapeutics Inc:</p>
<p>* ELEVEN BIOTHERAPEUTICS APPOINTS RICHARD FITZGERALD AS CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER</p>
<p>* ELEVEN BIOTHERAPEUTICS - ‍RICHARD FITZGERALD HAS BEEN APPOINTED AS FULL TIME CFO, FITZGERALD HAD BEEN SERVING IN ROLE ON INTERIM BASIS SINCE OCT 2017​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>AUSTIN/SCHERTZ, Texas (Reuters) - A package bomb blew up at a FedEx distribution center near San Antonio on Tuesday, the fifth in a series of attacks that have rocked Texas this month and left baffled investigators searching for what they suspect is a serial bomber.</p>
<p>The package filled with nails and metal shrapnel was mailed from Austin to another address in Austin and passed through a sorting center in Schertz, about 65 miles (105 km) away, when it exploded on a conveyer belt, knocking a female employee off her feet, officials said.</p>
<p>It was the fifth of a series in explosions in Texas in the past 18 days that have killed two people, injured others, and left hundreds of federal and local investigators scrambling to find the perpetrator and a motive.</p>
<p>“We do believe that these incidents are all related. That is because of the specific contents of these devices,” interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told members of the Austin City Council, the Austin American-Statesman reported.</p>
<p>A further package sent by the same person was discovered and turned over to law enforcement, FedEx Corp said in a statement on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Fedex did not give further details on the second package but a FedEx employee with knowledge of the incident said another box had been tracked to a south Austin facility. The facility was evacuated, said the employee, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.</p>
<p>Speaking through the media, officials have appealed to the bomber to reveal the motives for the attacks. They have also asked the public for any tips, offering a $115,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the culprit.</p>
<p>“Somebody has to know something,” said Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Christina Garza. “The person behind these explosives, please, we want to know why.”</p>
<p>“This is obviously a very, very sick individual, or maybe individuals,” President Donald Trump told reporters. “These are sick people, and we will get to the bottom of it.”</p> Law enforcement personnel are seen gathering evidence outside a FedEx Store which was closed for investigation, in Austin, Texas, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flores
<p>The four previous explosions - which took place between March 2 and March 18 - killed two people and injured four others, unnerving residents of Austin, the state capital of some 1 million people.</p>
<p>The first three devices were parcel bombs dropped off in front of homes in different Austin neighborhoods. The fourth went off on Sunday night on the west side of the city and was described by police as a more sophisticated device detonated through a trip wire.</p> Slideshow (18 Images) MOTIVE?
<p>Investigators were trying to work out a motive for the bombings and identity of the bomber or bombers, a U.S. security official and a law enforcement official told Reuters.</p>
<p>The FBI was investigating the FedEx package explosion on the assumption of a connection to the Austin bombings, the law enforcement official said. Both sources declined to be identified.</p>
<p>Security experts said the recovery of the second Fedex package and the attacker’s use of a commercial parcel service could give investigators important clues.</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-texas-blast-whitehouse/no-known-link-to-terrorism-in-texas-bombings-white-house-idUSKBN1GW293" type="external">No known link to terrorism in Texas bombings: White House</a>
<p>Police have not given any details about the address on the second parcel or whether it contained any kind of device, saying only that it was a suspicious package.</p>
<p>But if it did contain an unexploded device, that “will be of great forensic value, then you will be able to tell unequivocally the construction techniques that are used,” said Danny Defenbaugh, a Texas-based security consultant who worked for the FBI for 33 years.</p>
<p>The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were among those working with local officials in Austin, Schertz and San Antonio.</p>
<p>“We have agents from across the country. We have our national response team here. We have explosive detection canines here. We have intel research specialists,” Frank Ortega, acting assistant special agent in charge of the San Antonio ATF office, told reporters. “We’ve been working around the clock.”</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Mark Hosenball and Lisa Lambert in Washington, Andrew Hay and Eric Johnson; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Rosalba O'Brien; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Tom Brown</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - From double-checking delivered packages to watching their step when walking their dogs, Austin residents have been nervously changing daily habits since a series of mysterious bomb attacks hit the Texas city in recent weeks.</p> Balloons are pictured in front of a home on Oldfort Hill Drive, where victim Draylen Mason was killed by a bomb, in Austin, Texas, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
<p>“There seems to be no rhyme or reason or pattern to the bombings, which makes it even more unnerving,” said Paula Bonick, 44, a senior business advisor for an Austin firm.</p>
<p>Because four of the five devices were parcel bombs, Bonick has asked her relatives to let her know if they are sending a package so that she is not caught off guard. The arrival of a FedEx or UPS truck at work instills both anxiety and empathy for the drivers.</p>
<p>Since March 12, when two parcel bombs exploded within hours of each other, Austin police have sent out frequent reminders in Spanish and English on social media to avoid suspicious packages and call authorities if they see one.</p>
<p>So far, they have responded to nearly 1,300 calls, 420 of which came between 8 a.m. on Monday and 8 a.m. on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Many residents were making sure home surveillance cameras worked properly after police asked for recordings in the neighborhoods of the blasts for clues of the perpetrators.</p>
<p>People walking dogs were paying closer attention to their surroundings after two pedestrians set off a trip wire bomb on Sunday.</p>
<p>The Austin Independent School District said in a letter sent to school families on Monday, when students returned to classes from spring break, that staff would do perimeter checks of campuses for any suspicious items.</p>
<p>The city’s largest newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, posted an article on Tuesday giving advice to parents on how to speak to their children about the bombings.</p>
<p>The Japanese consulate in Houston has instructed its nationals to leave any area with suspicious people or objects immediately and then contact authorities.</p>
<p>None of the bombings have targeted a public venue and two of the blasts took place during the South by Southwest tech, movie and music festival, which attracts about a half million people to the city, at locations a few miles from the activity. Live music houses said crowds were still gathering while bars and restaurants were bustling with people.</p>
<p>At Radio Coffee and Beer, scores of people basked in the sun and dined on tacos on Tuesday at the south Austin venue a few miles from two blast sites.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to stop what I’m doing because of the bombings, but I am trying to be more aware of my surroundings,” said school worker Monica Marcelo, 32.</p>
<p>Others were more nervous. Michael Park, 41,&#160;a vice president of finance for a stormwater management developer, said the recent spate of bombs brought back memories of the 2002 sniper shootings that killed 10 people in Washington, where he used to live.</p>
<p>He has instructed his three kids not to pick up any packages delivered to his house until he verifies they were expected.</p>
<p>“The seeming randomness of these package bomb attacks brings back memories,” he said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Sachi Jenkins; Editing by Richard Chang</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Salesforce.com Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CRM.N" type="external">CRM.N</a>) said on Tuesday it would buy U.S. software maker MuleSoft Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MULE.N" type="external">MULE.N</a>) for about $5.90 billion in a cash-and-stock deal, illustrating CEO Marc Benioff’s push to bolster the company’s cloud-based portfolio with new technology.</p> FILE PHOTO - The Salesforce logo is pictured on a building in San Francisco, California, U.S. October 12, 2016. REUTERS/Lily Jamali
<p>MuleSoft shareholders would get $36 in cash and 0.0711 of a Salesforce share, or $44.89 per share, representing a premium of 36 percent to Mulesoft’s Monday close.</p>
<p>MuleSoft shares were up 5 percent in extended trading after rising 27 percent during the day. Salesforce shares were down more than 2 percent after the bell.</p>
<p>Including debt, the deal was valued at $6.5 billion, the companies said in a joint statement.</p>
<p>“It is really a natural fit for Salesforce to own Mule,” Steve Koenig, analyst at Wedbush Securities said.</p>
<p>“Salesforce usually helps customers move to the cloud and digitally transform their business that often starts with CRM, so having Mule helps eliminate friction as customers transform their business and to provide a more complete solution,” he said.</p>
<p>MuleSoft listed on the New York Stock Exchange on March 17 last year at $17 apiece. It closed up 40 percent on the first day of trading, giving it a market value of nearly $3 billion.</p>
<p>Salesforce Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm, led a $128 million funding round in MuleSoft in 2015.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CRM.N" type="external">Salesforce.com Inc</a> 125.12 CRM.N New York Stock Exchange +0.14 (+0.11%) CRM.N MULE.N ORCL.N KO.N MCD.N
<p>Salesforce holds more than 18 percent of the global customer relationship management software market, followed by Oracle Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ORCL.N" type="external">ORCL.N</a>) with 9.4 percent, according to 2016 figures provided by research firm IDC.</p>
<p>MuleSoft makes software that provides enterprises with tools to automatically integrate various applications, devices and disparate data to help businesses networks run faster. It counts Coca-Cola Co ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=KO.N" type="external">KO.N</a>), McDonald’s Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MCD.N" type="external">MCD.N</a>), Salesforce and Spotify ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SPOT.N" type="external">SPOT.N</a>) among its customers.</p>
<p>Reuters had reported about the deal earlier on Tuesday.</p>
<p>BofA Merrill Lynch is Salesforce’s financial adviser and Goldman Sachs advised MuleSoft.</p>
<p>Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - The Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Australian woman last July was arrested on Tuesday on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, prosecutors said.</p> Mohamed Noor, 32, is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters March 20, 2018. Hennepin County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS
<p>Mohamed Noor, 32, turned himself in and was arrested for the death of Justine Damond, 40, who had called 911 about a possible sexual assault near her house, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said at a news conference announcing the charges.</p>
<p>“There is no evidence that Officer Noor encountered a threat, appreciated a threat, investigated a threat or confirmed a threat that justified his decision to use deadly force,” Freeman said. “Instead, Officer Noor recklessly and intentionally fired his handgun.”</p>
<p>After Noor shot her, Damond put her hands on the gunshot wound on the left side of her abdomen and said, “I’m dying” or “I’m dead,” Freeman said.</p>
<p>The shooting drew condemnation in Minnesota and Australia, where Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called it “shocking” and “inexplicable.” Then-Minneapolis police chief Jamee Harteau resigned after city officials said procedures had been violated and Damond “didn’t have to die.”</p>
<p>The third-degree murder charge accused Noor of committing an “eminently dangerous act” and showing a “depraved mind,” and the second-degree manslaughter charge cited “culpable negligence creating unreasonable risk,” the records showed.</p>
<p>The penalty for third-degree murder is up to 25 years in prison and second-degree manslaughter carries a penalty of up to 10 years, according to a state website.</p>
<p>Freeman, Minneapolis’ top prosecutor, had delayed his decision in December, saying his office needed more time and that he lacked sufficient evidence to charge Noor.</p>
<p>Noor has been on paid leave and refused to be interviewed by Minnesota state investigators. Noor’s attorney, Tom Plunkett, said his client should not be charged.</p> FILE PHOTO: Justine Damond, also known as Justine Ruszczyk, from Sydney, is seen in this 2015 photo released by Stephen Govel Photography in New York, U.S., on July 17, 2017. Courtesy Stephen Govel/Stephen Govel Photography/Handout/File Photo via REUTERS
<p>“The loss of Justine Ruszczyk Damond is a tragedy and Officer Noor again personally extends his continued condolences to her family for their loss,” Plunkett said in a statement.</p>
<p>“The facts will show that Officer Noor acted as he has been trained and consistent with established departmental policy,” Plunkett added. “Officer Noor should not have been charged with any crime.”</p> ‘INIQUITOUS ACT’
<p>Damond’s fiance, Don Damond, and her father, John Ruszczyk, issued a joint statement in which they praised the decision to charge Noor and hoped it resulted in a conviction, calling it “one step toward justice for this iniquitous act.”</p>
<p>“No charges can bring our Justine back. However, justice demands accountability for those responsible for recklessly killing the fellow citizens they are sworn to protect,” they said in the statement.</p>
<p>Damond, who was living in Minneapolis and engaged to be married, approached the police after their arrival, authorities have said. She had owned a meditation and life-coaching company.</p>
<p>Neither Noor, who came to the United States from Somalia as a child, nor Matthew Harrity, another officer in the patrol car, had their body cameras activated, police have said.</p>
<p>Harrity was startled by a loud sound near the patrol car shortly before Noor fired from the passenger seat of the patrol car through Harrity’s window, Freeman said.</p>
<p>Harrity, who pulled out his handgun during the incident but did not fire it, said both officers “got spooked” when Damond appeared “out of nowhere,” Freeman said.</p>
<p>Noor is scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis. Prosecutors are asking that Noor’s bail be set at $500,000, Freeman said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Todd Melby in Minneapolis; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Matthew Lewis</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Eleven Biotherapeutics Appoints Richard Fitzgerald As CFO Fifth Texas parcel bomb blast leaves U.S. investigators baffled Serial bombings put Texas capital on edge Salesforce to buy MuleSoft for $5.9 billion Minnesota officer charged with murder in Australian's death | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-eleven-biotherapeutics-appoints-ri/brief-eleven-biotherapeutics-appoints-richard-fitzgerald-as-cfo-idUSASB0C268 | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
<p>The October 13 BBC headline read:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Clashes in Syria leave 19 dead – rights activists</a>.</p>
<p>That gives the impression that the brutal Syrian army killed 19 Syrian demonstrators.</p>
<p>Not quite.</p>
<p>The story continues:</p>
<p>The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people died when government troops attacked the northern town of Banash.</p>
<p>In the southern town of Haara, armed men killed at least nine soldiers.</p>
<p>That’s nine Syrian government soldiers.&#160; According to Syrian government reports, 1100 Syrian government forces have been killed since the uprising began.</p>
<p>Anti-government violence by armed groups is one of the inconvenient truths about the Syrian uprising.</p>
<p>Democracy activists don’t want to admit it; sympathetic media outlets don’t want to report it.</p>
<p>Now that the issue is becoming unavoidable, the new tactic is to excuse it as the response of incensed deserters, while deploring the “slide toward civil war.”</p>
<p>Not so.</p>
<p>The issue of “armed gangs” has been there from the beginning.</p>
<p>It took a willful abdication of journalistic responsibility to suppress it—and to continue to misrepresent it in order to evade responsibility for the simple-minded (and single-minded) pro-democracy media cheerleading&#160; that characterized most reporting on Syria.</p>
<p>Now that the non-violent anti-government &#160;protests are sputtering into futility, center stage is taken by the advocates of violent struggle.</p>
<p>For the West and Sunni states to breathe more life into the anti-Assad movement, violence has to be portrayed as inevitable, principled response, not escalating provocation seeking to obscure the failure of a political movement.</p>
<p>I expect the media to cover the issue of anti-government violence with same dishonest, guilty evasiveness it has displayed in the past.</p> | Syria and the Media | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/10/18/syria-and-the-media/ | 2011-10-18 | 4 |
<p>An expectant crowd showed up to hear former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speak at an event for tea party supporters in Manchester, N.H., on Labor Day, the traditional first day of campaigning for presidential primary candidates.</p>
<p>According to CBS News:</p>
<p>Palin drew about 600 people, more than double the number that turned out for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at a tea party event in Concord, N.H., on Sunday. Many had hoped to hear the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee announce her candidacy, some of them chanting "Run, Sarah, run."</p>
<p>However, Palin made no such announcement, merely thanking her vocal fans for their support. "I appreciate your encouragement. I do," she told them.</p>
<p>Instead, she used her speech to hit on her favorite themes, like individualism.</p>
<p>"Solutions come from you," Palin told voters, according to CBS News. "It is you who run our factories and own our small businesses, who fight our wars, who build our communities with a service heart, that is our country. - Hope is in you. It's not that nebulous <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20101756-503544.html" type="external">hopey-changey stuff</a> we heard in 2008.?</p>
<p>Palin also urged tea partiers to eschew infighting for unity. On Sunday, a tea party group called FreedomWorks had held a protest against including Mitt Romney on the roster of speakers at a tea party rally in Concord, N.H., Reuters reports. FreedomWorks opposes the Massachusetts healthcare plan Romney introduced.</p>
<p>"We don't have time to be bogged down in internal conflicts," Palin said, adding that all candidates should be heard, including "those who are humble enough to admit they need you and have seen the light."</p>
<p>The will she-won't she question was a popular discussion topic among the audience.</p>
<p>Rod Silverwood, a Palin activist collecting signatures at a booth at the event on Monday, told Reuters he thought she would run. "We believe she'll pick a day to announce that has some meaning to the nation," he said. "We think September 17, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/05/us-usa-campaign-palin-idUSTRE7843DS20110905" type="external">Constitution Day</a>, would be logical because her message has been about restoring America to the basic concept of what the constitution is about."</p>
<p>"I don't think she's going to run; I think it's too late," Di Lothrop, a member of the Nashua County Republican group, told the Washington Post. "She's bringing her presence here just to support the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaigns/sarah-palins-waiting-game-on-presidential-race-continues/2011/09/05/gIQAGr0b4J_story.html" type="external">tea party</a>. But my husband thinks she will run."</p>
<p>Some voters may be tiring of the tease.</p>
<p>On Sunday, Fox News released a poll showing that 71 percent of <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/09/05/2011-09-05_sarah_palin_pleads_for_tea_party_unity_we_dont_have_time_for_friendlyfire_confli.html?r=news/politics" type="external">Republicans</a>and 66 percent of self-identified tea partiers do not want Palin to run in 2012, the New York Daily News reports.</p>
<p>(More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/110905/labor-day-obama-gop-republican-candidates-jim-demint" type="external">Obama, Republican candidates spend Labor Day on campaign trail</a>) &#160;</p> | Palin draws bigger crowd than Romney on Labor Day | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-09-05/palin-draws-bigger-crowd-romney-labor-day | 2011-09-05 | 3 |
<p>Disclaimer:Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.</p>
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Nate weakens after landfalls in Louisiana, Mississippi | false | https://newsline.com/nate-weakens-after-landfalls-in-louisiana-mississippi/ | 2017-10-08 | 1 |
<p>Sasha Breger Bush. is a lecturer at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Her research includes global finance, derivatives, social policy, food, and farming. And her recent book is entitled Derivatives and Development.</p>
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<p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay.
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<p />Most people know by now that commodities—that's anything from iron ore to wheat or milk or any other things that we consume and make things with—are mostly controlled these days by finance. Big banks and big speculators are highly involved in commodity markets all around the world.
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<p />Well, there's been a movement for the last ten years which purports to democratize finance. That's to allow derivative exchanges to be open to small farmers so they can minimize their risk, we are told. Well, just how democratic is it?
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<p />Now to talk about all this we're joined now by Sasha Breger Bush. She's a lecturer at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Her research includes global finance, derivatives, social policy, food, and farming. And her recent book is entitled Derivatives and Development. And she joins us from Denver.
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<p />Thanks a lot for joining us, Sasha.
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<p />SASHA BREGER BUSH, LECTURER, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, UNIV. OF DENVER: Thanks so much for having me, Paul. It's a pleasure.
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<p />JAY: So, Sasha, tell us essentially why is this supposed to be democratic, and how do small farmers interact with these derivatives exchanges?
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Well, so, the argument is that small farmers are exposed to global markets and that global markets are volatile, and so when global prices fluctuate, the incomes of farmers and the livelihoods of farmers fluctuate right along with them.
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<p />Now, in the past, government used to protect farmers from some of these fluctuations. But since the late '80s and early '90s, we've seen government playing a smaller and smaller role as far as risk management goes. And so, many in the development establishment have argued that by trading in derivatives, farmers can get the same kind of price-risk management that they used to get without all the muss and the fuss of government intervention. So that's basically the argument that we're [crosstalk]
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<p />JAY: So the issue is a small farmer, let's say they're producing coffee and they're expecting to get x up here—I'm showing in my hand up here—for their coffee, except when the coffee's ready to deliver to market, there's been a drop and it's actually down here, and they just did the whole season for nothing—they're going to lose money. So they need to mitigate that risk. So what's wrong with the derivative exchange for doing that? Actually, before you tell me what's wrong with it, just explain how they do it, so people get that.
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Okay. So a farmer, if he or she is worried that prices are going to fall, that farmer could enter the futures market and sell their coffee forward, meaning that they sell it at a predetermined price before they've even harvested it. So by fixing this price, they may be able to get a higher price, and thus a higher income level, than if they had stayed out of the derivatives market altogether.
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<p />JAY: And that's because a speculator on the other side is actually going to bet prices will go up. So they're willing to buy this derivative at x price, 'cause they think it's actually going to be higher when it comes to market.
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Precisely right. What the big exchanges do is they match up an investor on one side who thinks prices are going to fall with an investor on the other side who thinks prices are going to rise, and a deal is made between them. So one pays the other, depending on what the market outcome is.
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<p />JAY: Okay. So that sounds good. Now farmers have guaranteed price, and life goes on, and now we have a democratic exchange. What's wrong with all that?
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Precisely right. And what's not to like? Well, there are a few issues that to my mind are really critically important in understanding some non-democratic tendencies in derivatives markets vis-Ã&#160;-vis farmers.
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<p />First and foremost, the markets are not necessarily efficient with their price determination, particularly since we've seen more and more speculators getting involved in the markets over the last tenÂ&#160;years. Prices have been distorted as a consequence, meaning that the insurance that farmers are trying to buy on those markets may not do as good a job as they would have hoped or they might have without the speculators' influence. So that's one issue that's ongoing.
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<p />The second issue is that despite 20Â&#160;years of innovation and trying to create ways for farmers to access these markets, by and large developing country farmers, many of whom are small- and medium-sized, are simply unable to access the markets for a whole variety of reasons—they're too small, the coffee or whatever crop they're growing may not be recognized as valid by the markets. We see problems with information and technical access to the markets. So that's one big issue in terms of democracy, whether these markets are actually accessible, right, as we're trying to make them to proliferate these products among farmers.
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<p />And last, but not least, one issue that really has caught my eye, particularly over the last few years, is, despite all this rhetoric about democratizing finance and bringing farmers into the fold, what we actually see is increasingly concentrated market structures. So while we might see more and more traders participating in these markets, the exchanges and clearinghouses that are actually facilitating these exchanges and making sure that credit risk is managed on these exchanges, these entities are becoming more and more concentrated. So I see this as kind of a democratic facade that we're trying to get farmers to participate, on the one hand, in the name of democracy, but behind the scenes we're seeing more and more concentrations of wealth and power—a rather undemocratic trend, in my mind.
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<p />JAY: Well, let's break up two things. Let's go back, first of all, to one point you made earlier. Now, most small coffee farmers—and this is utter speculation on my part, but I can't believe most small coffee farmers in Latin America, for example, have ever heard of a derivatives market, never mind have access to it. So we—even at best-case scenario, we have to be talking bigger middlemen of some kind that would even have the lawyers and the means to access these kind of markets, are we not? I mean, an ordinary small peasant farmer can't have any involvement with this.
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Well, precisely right, hence the problem with recommending derivatives markets as substitutes for other kinds of government policies that may better serve small producers. This is a really troubling trend, in my opinion. Governments have backed away from guaranteeing prices to farmers, subsidizing production in the name of neoliberal reform. Yet at the same time, the alternatives, the market alternatives we're providing to small farmers are utterly inadequate. So we're creating an environment in which mid-sized or maybe the largest farmers are able to manage risks on derivatives markets, leaving smaller and peasant farmers to become increasingly more marginalized.
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<p />JAY: This is sort of what's—this is to some extent what's gone on in Canada (we're not just talking the developing world), where the Harper government's trying to get rid of—I guess they have now, getting rid of the Canadian Wheat Board. Isn't it essentially that? They had the Canadian Wheat Board that helped manage risk for Canadian wheat farmers, and now—I'm sorry, I can't remember now if they've actually gotten rid of it now or they're about to get rid of it. But that's the objective, is it not, to push farmers into these private markets and get rid of something that most farmers, based on polling, thought was working perfectly well?
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Precisely right. And coffee-producing governments, coffee-producing countries had analogous institutions. So there were coffee boards and coffee institutes that served that same role as that Canadian Wheat Board you were discussing. And many of these were dismantled. Most of them, almost all of them were dismantled in the context of structural adjustment and liberalization in the '80s and '90s.
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<p />JAY: Well, let's go back to your other point, then, how there's fewer and fewer of these markets. In fact, in a recent piece you wrote, you talked of how one of the biggest markets just bought the next-biggest market, so it's even more concentrated. But why does that matter? Who cares how many markets there are? Why does that affect the process?
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<p />BREGER BUSH: You know, and by way of analogy, I mean, going into the supermarket, you may indeed be able to pick from any number of different kinds of shampoo. But there are increasingly fewer and fewer supermarket chains where you can actually buy shampoo at all. And I see the same process going on in derivatives markets. We're seeing a proliferation of products' efforts to democratize product offerings, but there's fewer and fewer exchanges and clearinghouses behind the scenes actually offering and facilitating these trades.
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<p />Now, this is problematic for at least four reasons that I can think of. First, uncompetitive marketplaces, firms operating in uncompetitive marketplaces can influence prices and contract specifications and product offerings. The bigger the exchange and the more globally oriented it is, the less likely its contracts and its products are to cater to small farmers or to other smaller actors in commodities markets. So that's one big issue, the manipulation of prices and product offerings.
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<p />Second, there's some evidence to suggest that as the big exchanges get bigger and more liquid and take on more and more traders, now any smaller startup exchange potentially in a developing country would have an increasingly difficult time competing with them. So, the bigger the exchange, the bigger the barriers to entry are for other exchanges, smaller ones that might want to compete with them. So this is also problematic, to my mind.
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<p />Third, as we know from the current financial crisis, bigger and large concentrated financial markets undermine stability. We've seen this issue of too big to fail constantly coming up in the context of the crisis and folks warning us about the dangers of financial institutions that are too large in terms of global financial fragility and instability. So that's a third concern.
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<p />And fourth, and I think perhaps most important, to my mind, big financial institutions have a lot of political power. And the bigger the institution, the more political influence they may have. And this strikes me also as rather undemocratic.
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<p />JAY: Does having less exchanges make it easier for major institutions involved in speculation and derivative plays to influence the price?
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<p />BREGER BUSH: I'm not sure that that's the case. I don't know that necessarily speculators would find it easier to influence the price, but it is the case—and there are a few instances that I could cite—as larger exchanges try to accommodate their biggest clients. Right? They try to make the environment as conducive to their big clients as they can. And so we've seen, for example, on LIFFE, in the coffee context, that the size of the [crosstalk] contract—.
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<p />JAY: Life being one of the bigger exchanges.
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Exactly. LIFFE is the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange, and it's going to be acquired by the intercontinental exchange this year. And so LIFFE recently doubled its contract size for robusta coffee contracts.
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<p />Now, on the one hand, this is excellent for LIFFE's biggest investors, because they wanted a bigger contract, they wanted to reduce transaction costs. But for farmers, potentially, growing robusta coffee somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, this creates an even larger barrier to entry, because they'll have to produce twice as much coffee to be able to trade in one single contract.
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<p />JAY: So in fact even less access to this derivatives market that's supposed to help you manage your risk.
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Precisely.
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<p />JAY: Right. So, just finally, what public policy would you like to see to help farmers minimize risk?
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<p />BREGER BUSH: You know, I think there are all sorts of really incredible alternatives that governments, nonprofits, and farmers could be thinking about as an alternative to derivatives. We have alternative trade networks like Fair Trade. We have real successes in supply management, which are government efforts to manage supplies to keep prices stable. And, indeed, there's been a revival of interest in supply management since the food crisis has erupted over the past five or six years. We could be thinking about organizing producers into producer unions (this is a model that Colombia has employed really successfully) that give farmers more bargaining power with international traders and with coffee processors as a means to stabilize and raise prices.
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<p />And I think that's probably one of the biggest problems of all this talk about derivatives and farmers, that it's monopolizing the conversation as well, not just the markets, but the conversation about what kinds of alternatives there are. There are a whole wealth of alternatives out there that have nothing to do with highly financialized and monopolized markets.
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<p />JAY: Right. Thanks for joining us, Sasha.
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<p />BREGER BUSH: Thanks so much, Paul. I appreciate it.
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<p />JAY: And thanks for joining us on The Real News Network.
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<p />End
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<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | The Financialization of Food | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D9602%23.UST3aFpev0A | 2013-01-31 | 4 |
<p>Nearly 1,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq since last Memorial Day, and President Bush has said he expects the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070527/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_memorial_day;_ylt=AtaNK_KBoN.KI.zyacJUuvys0NUE" type="external">surge</a> in casualties to continue through the summer: "It could be a bloody - it could be a very difficult August."</p>
<p>AP via Yahoo:</p>
<p>BAGHDAD - Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling - and expected to rise in coming months.</p>
<p>In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year. And with the Baghdad security operation now 3 1/2 months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.</p>
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<p>"It could be a bloody - it could be a very difficult August," he said last week.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070527/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_memorial_day;_ylt=AtaNK_KBoN.KI.zyacJUuvys0NUE" type="external">Read more</a></p> | A Grim Memorial | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/a-grim-memorial/ | 2007-05-27 | 4 |
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<p>“My attendance is in no way an endorsement of the President-elect or the destructive, divisive rhetoric that has defined him throughout his campaign and transition,” said Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., who was elected caucus chairman last year.</p>
<p>Richmond said he “will not be there to celebrate” and has “a deep respect and understanding” for decisions made by other CBC members who have announced plans to skip the event.</p>
<p>After Lewis said in an interview that he did not consider Trump to be a “legitimate” president, Trump tweeted that Lewis is “all talk, talk, talk” and should “focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities.” He continued attacking Lewis, who was physically beaten on several occasions during the civil rights movement, on Twitter and in interviews.</p>
<p>At least 20 members of the 49-member caucus – including Lewis and the previous chairman, Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C. — have announced plans not to attend Friday’s swearing-in ceremony. They are among nearly 70 House Democrats who are intending to skip it. But in recent days, several Democrats have stepped forward to explain why they will be attending despite their personal distaste for Trump.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., said Wednesday that she wants Trump “to see me front and center as he’s sworn in” and suggested that her colleagues were playing into Trump’s hands.</p>
<p>“I suspect President-elect Donald Trump will use this expression of free speech as an excuse to bypass Democrats and to push his extreme agenda with utter impunity,” she said in a statement. “With that in mind, I refuse to be a pawn in the president-elect’s efforts to rally support from congressional Republicans. … When he sees me, I want him to see The Resistance.”</p>
<p>Richmond said that he has a “responsibility to take every opportunity to educate the incoming president on the problems faced by our constituents, and the thoughtful solutions our members propose.” He offered another reason – to wish President Barack Obama a fond farewell.</p>
<p>“I feel obliged to say goodbye to the first black president, who was continually disrespected over the course of his time in office,” Richmond said. “He deserves our gratitude and support.”</p> | Congressional Black Caucus chair says he will attend the Trump inauguration | false | https://abqjournal.com/931411/congressional-black-caucus-chair-says-he-will-attend-the-trump-inauguration.html | 2017-01-19 | 2 |
<p>While Americans are reeling from the high-drama death of Trumpcare the probe into Russian involvement in American politics is being slowly snuffed out by one of its lead investigators: Devin Nunes.</p>
<p>House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’ decision to <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/24/521367161/paul-manafort-to-testify-on-russia-as-house-intel-committee-drama-continues" type="external">cancel an open hearing</a> with former Obama administration officials has left lawmakers with a second week lacking any public actions on the probe into impropriety in the connections the Trump administration has to Russia.</p>
<p>Nunes, himself a member of Trump’s transition team, has faced accusations from both Democrats and Republicans that he’s not overseeing a fair and independent investigation and failing to conduct proper oversight.</p>
<p>Nunes’ fellow Californian, Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, called it an effort to “choke off” public information about the probe. Schiff also had <a href="" type="internal">choice words</a> about Nunes briefing the President on evidence not presented to the Committee, which he called “obstruction of justice”.</p>
<p>And while some people with ties to the investigation, like former Trump campaign manager and <a href="" type="internal">pro-Russia lobbyist</a> Paul Manafort, have offered to testify before the committee, Nunes insistence on voluntary testimony means that these hearings could be closed-door sessions, or even have pre-established off-limits topics, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/03/25/521415644/after-a-wild-week-the-house-trump-russia-probe-endures-barely" type="external">which Schiff argues defeats the point</a>.</p>
<p>“That effort to defend the indefensible has led us down this terrible rabbit hole and threatens the integrity of the only investigation [into Russian meddling] that’s authorized in the House,” said Schiff.</p>
<p>Schiff remains optimistic that the House can conduct a credible, bipartisan investigation, however said Friday that what’s needed is an independent, special process. <a href="" type="internal">Senator John McCain agreed</a>, saying a special committee was needed as Congress had lost all credibility already.</p>
<p>House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes during the committee’s hearing on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</p>
<p>A&#160; <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/russia-donald-trump-investigation-independent/2017/03/24/id/780662/" type="external">Quinnipiac University poll</a> found 66% of Americans agree that an independent investigation is needed, and 65% think the issue of Russian interference is important.</p>
<p>Former Congressman, moderate Republican and MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough <a href="" type="internal">went a step further</a>, tweeting that removing Nunes as Intelligence Chair was in the best interest of the American people and national security.</p>
<p>Another California Democrat, Rep. Eric Swalwell, told reporters that Nunes betrayed his duty to conduct an independent investigation.</p>
<p>“We were attacked by Russia this past election, and our constituents are counting on us to get to the bottom of what happened,” <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/rep-swalwell-nunes-betrayed-duty-independent-russia-probe/" type="external">Swalwell said to PBS News Hour’s Hari Sreenivasan</a>. “I think what we need to do is, he needs to find an on-ramp, because this investigation must continue to go forward. And he must work with Democrats.”</p>
<p>Swalwell also said: “We want to illuminate the obstruction. We want to preserve our access.”</p>
<p>But for all the clamor and demand for an independent investigation and saber-rattling over Nunes’ legitimacy, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/devin-nunes-russia-trump-investigation-democrats-236471" type="external">its unlikely Democrats will walk away</a> from the House probe.</p>
<p>“Democrats feel that if we’re not engaged in this investigation, no one will be,” said Schiff. “In the minority, the only power we have is the power of public persuasion.”</p>
<p>So, unless and until a special commission is established to probe into Russian tampering with American politics, the Democrats are stuck with Nunes and his tight grip on public information.</p> | Nunes Attempts to Choke Russia Probe While America Watches Trumpcare Burn | true | http://resistancereport.com/politics/nunes-chokes-russia-investigation/ | 2017-03-25 | 4 |
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<p>A: Even though I’m among those embarrassed at the middling results we get from our vast expenditures on health care, the visit of a young Nepali friend over Christmas reminded me that we have much to be thankful for, even as we try to improve some of what is wrong with American medicine.</p>
<p>My young friend Griwan has been in medicine for about three years; I have for more than 13 times that. Yet Griwan has seen some diseases that have never occurred in the U.S., and some that have been eliminated here, thanks to public health successes.</p>
<p>In the category of “never seen here,” Griwan mentions an entire hospital ward given over to dengue where he trained in Pakistan. Dengue, which is also called “bonebreak fever,” is a terrible plague in some parts of the world, carried by certain mosquitos. It causes high fevers, muscle aches so severe that they make people feel as if their bones are breaking, and a mental depression that may last for months. Most people recover, but a few go on to develop a highly lethal form of the disease called Dengue hemorrhagic fever, where the blood platelets decrease to the point that bleeding may occur anywhere.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Mosquitos are also the culprits for another disease we rarely see in the United States, malaria. Griwan tells me that malaria is the first thing he was taught to consider in the case of someone in Pakistan with high fever. We don’t think of it except in travelers.</p>
<p>Malaria was once as common in the younger United States, but public health and hygiene measures – reducing places where mosquitos could breed and killing them off – has nearly eliminated this dread disease from this country. Around the world, though, an estimated 655,000 people die of malaria every year.</p>
<p>Public health measures, primarily better sewage disposal, also make typhoid fever rare here while still common in Nepal. Typhoid fever causes severe fever, diarrhea and all too often death in the developing world.</p>
<p>We badly need a vaccine against malaria, and there are many researchers actively working to produce one. We do have an excellent vaccine against measles, so that while Griwan has seen this disease, younger pediatricians in the U.S. have not. Griwan has seen children with polio where he trained in Pakistan, too – I have never seen polio and hope that in a few years no one in Pakistan or anywhere will see it again. Control of polio and measles has been made possible only by vaccines.</p>
<p>Griwan’s country, Nepal, has made great progress against not only measles, polio and malaria, but also leprosy, tuberculosis and less dramatic causes of shortened life expectancy and infant death. Nepal’s life expectancy at birth is 68 years, up a full 10 years over the past 20 years; in the U.S., we can expect to live an average of 79 years, but that’s up only 3 years over the past two decades. Infant mortality is 38.7/1,000 live births in Nepal now, but that is down an impressive 58 percent. We don’t have 4 percent of our newborns dying in the U.S. – it’s just above 0.5 percent – but our infant mortality rate has fallen only 38 percent during the same period of 20 years.</p>
<p>Probably the most favorable thing Griwan has told me he has learned about American medicine in New York, Iowa and now New Mexico, is that American physicians are much more courteous in their relationship with patients than their Asian counterparts. He has watched receptionists, nurses and physicians all greet their patients warmly, inquire about their health and their families. He has seen frightening news developed in sensitive, thoughtful ways, softening the blows that fall on patients and families dealing with cancer, for example. He has seen physicians and nurses and social workers going out of their way to find solutions for troubled patients – to look for their well-being in ways that he doubts are common in his small, impoverished country, and he hopes to take this patient-centered methodology back with him to Nepal.</p>
<p>Many of us tend to think of American medicine as impersonal, driven just by profit and not by genuine concern for the patients. It’s good to see from the viewpoint of a visitor that not everything is broken about the U.S. health system. We do pour immense resources into the health system: Nepal spends $63 on health per person per year, or 5.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP); the U.S. spends $7,960 per year, or 17.6 percent of GDP. Griwan helps to point out that we get something for that huge difference.</p>
<p>Lance Chilton, M.D., is a pediatrician at the Young Children’s Health Center in Albuquerque, associated with the University of New Mexico. Send questions to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p /> | U.S. has successes to celebrate | false | https://abqjournal.com/335631/us-has-successes-to-celebrate.html | 2014-01-13 | 2 |
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<p>The 32-year-old divorced single mother and Oglala Sioux woman now lives on North Dakota’s Spirit Lake Reservation.</p>
<p>For the past three years, Charboneau let film crews into her life and chronicle her struggles to raise her two children, further her education and heal from the wounds of sexual abuse she suffered as a child. The result is the two-part documentary, “Kind Hearted Woman.”</p>
<p>The series will premiere at 7 p.m. April 1-2 on PBS. There will also be a special screening at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. The event is free and open to the public and will have a discussion moderated by Tara Gatewood, host of the radio program, “Native America Calling.”</p>
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<p>“I was terrified of telling my story,” Charboneau explains. “The director was only the third person I had ever told about my story. Now I was supposed to tell complete strangers and that was very intimidating. At the same time, I have kept this a secret for so long, it started to become freeing.”</p>
<p>“Kind Hearted Woman” also follows Charboneau’s battles in tribal court with her ex-husband for custody of the children, even after he is convicted of abusive sexual contact with his daughter, illuminating how serious this problem is on the reservation. Her quest to heal her family, find a man worthy of her love, build a career and fulfill her goal of returning to her reservation to help prevent the abuse of women and children, takes her on an intimate and inspiring journey full of heartbreak, discovery and redemption.</p>
<p>Charboneau and director David Sutherland started working together after she sent him one of her poems.</p>
<p>“I knew he made documentaries for PBS and asked me to be one of his subjects after he got the poem I sent him,” she recalls. “I told him of all my demons on how I was abused as a child by my adopted family and how I would go downhill and start drinking. I struggle with it all and am still working to make it all better.”</p>
<p>With her story, Charboneau says she now deals with losing the family that raised her.</p>
<p>“They don’t want nothing to do with me, and I was just a foster child to them,” she says. “They were supposed to protect me and they hurt me. When I decided to tell my story, they all turned their backs on me because I told the secrets.”</p>
<p>Sutherland says he chose Charboneau because he had never really had a Native American woman as a subject.</p>
<p>He says he got the idea while working on his previous film, “The Farmer’s Wife.”</p>
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<p>“I’ve worked a lot chronicling life in rural poverty,” he says. “My last film didn’t delve into the abuse that exists in these areas. What I wanted to do is work with mental health groups and recovery groups. I found one group that was working with women who were trying to recover from abuse. In this group, this is where I found Robin, but not on the first try. I was trying to reach out to another forgotten corner of the American landscape, this time to put a face on a Native family so that we could see them close-up with all the detail that illuminates the rich reality of their lives.”</p>
<p>Charboneau’s daughter, Darian, is now 17 years old and her son, Anthony, is 12.</p>
<p>Charboneau says that each of her children has grown into an upstanding youth.</p>
<p>“Darian now works with various groups about abuse and how to notice the warning signs for abuse,” she says. “Anthony gives presentations on ADHD. Both of them are very outspoken and are able to be role models for younger people.”</p>
<p>Charboneau says it’s her goal to bring attention to abuse on the reservations.</p>
<p>“The fact is, the numbers are low because of the under reporting,” she says. “The reality of people being victims of abuse on the reservation is high. But we are raised that you don’t talk about the stuff and ‘don’t tell the family secrets.’ David has changed my life forever because he listened when no one else did. It’s improved our lives and I am continuing to work on being a better person and get myself together. It’s a struggle, but now I’m on a better path.”</p> | Film depicts journey back from sexual abuse | false | https://abqjournal.com/181934/film-depicts-journey-back-from-sexual-abuse.html | 2013-03-25 | 2 |
<p>For armchair prophets who declared half a decade ago that share prices were bound to rise forever and make the whole world rich, watching Producer/director Alex Gibney’s new documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is bound to be like looking at snapshots of a party with where they got drunk with strangers, put lampshades on their heads, and ended up unconscious on the couch with their wallets gone and the house trashed. In the fog of morning-after regret there is the echo of the gibberish of the night before: The Dow Jones was going to hit 20 thousand! Stock market prices weren’t inflated because this was a “market renaissance!” Globalization would float all boats! Why, in the New Economy, workers wouldn’t need unions because they’d all be wealthy shareholders!</p>
<p>Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, adapted from <a href="" type="internal">Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind’s book by the same name</a>, rightly rekindles a public discussion about the price the world paid for general credulity about the notions of ever-rising markets based on the virtues of corporate self-maximization. Although it seems incredible given the magnitude of the financial scandals that have in the last two decades gutted public utilities, pension funds, credit unions, workers’ personal savings, and a significant number of treasuries and national banking systems around the world, the public has still never fully come to grips with the implications of these debacles.</p>
<p>Making a serviceable film about a corporate scandal that everyone ought to have seen coming seems a straightforward task. The moral story Big Business Gone Bad after all is a fable of right over wrong that even the most docile members of the mass media have mastered. For those who didn’t cut their teeth in the 1980s and 1990s on BCCI’s arms deals, Michael Milken’s insider trading, Chase Manhattan’s handling of Raul Salinas’ drug and bribe money, the plundering of the Savings and Loans, the untoward bailouts of investment banks caught in the East Asian Financial Crisis, the Federal Reserve’s intervention in the hedge fund world of Long Term Capital Management, the new century brought us plenty more graft, lies, and hapless workers cheated out of billions at at Worldcom, Tyco, Halliburton, and finally Enron.</p>
<p>Given that head start, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room does more with its subject matter than anyone has done before. While righteous pundits at CNN or the Lehrer Report featured tired pieces about the decline in corporate ethics or the need for greater vigilance at the Securities and Exchange Commission–with the underlying inquiry being that of how on earth could the executives at Enron have gone so far astray–Gibney’s film suggests that there was nothing about Skilling, Lay, Fastow, or any of the other principals that was, in corporate terms, particularly nefarious. The film points out that executives at Enron were ambitious, to be sure, determined to make big profits, little concerned about their employees and eager to cut out the competition, but that none had any grand plan to scuttle the corporation and run away with billions in cash. In fact, despite the self-consciously macho culture of the corporation, in which employees were charged yearly with voting up to 15 percent of the workforce Survivor-style out of the corporation, the film suggests through close-ups of the traders that most of the people who took home the millions were former high school dorks. One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, for example, at an interview with Charles Wickman, a former trader whose rubbery broad face lends him an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Potatohead, recalling his motivations at the corporation: “If I’m going to my boss’s office to talk about compensation, and if I step on some guy’s throat and that doubles it, then I’ll stomp on that guy’s throat.”</p>
<p>The visuals are entertaining and well-assembled: workers in rumpled suits carrying their pink slips and desk effects in cardboard boxes with the steel-and-glass Enron skyscraper gleaming behind them; naked strippers and champagne; corporate jets and luxury cars emitting the coiffed figures of now-infamous executives Jeff Skilling, Andrew Fastow, and Ken Lay, shots of dad and son Bush and their industry colleague Dick Cheney sending their Enron friends their best wishes in personal video greetings. Between theses images, the film relies smartly on a mixture archival footage and solid, smart interviews with journalists who wrote book-length accounts of the scandal, ex-Enron people, and various other players in the drama, including a hapless Gray Davis in lights-out California.</p>
<p>Beyond its elegance, the film’s strongest point is its ambiguity. Like a mystery novel with the last chapter torn out, Gibney’s film never offers the viewer a clear answer as to who or what was to blame for the Enron fraud. Was it Ken Lay, who built the company and was known to tolerate misconduct and graft among in the upper ranks at times? Perhaps, but Lay would have been nowhere without his right-hand man Jeff Skilling, who figured out how to make fictive profits with so-called mark-to-marketing treatment, which enabled the accountants to put down projected future profits as current assets. But then the film reminds us that Skilling could never have done what he did without a cooperative Securities and Exchange Commission to legalize his accounting scheme or an eager Arthur Andersen to conjure the fictive profits and make yearly losses into gains and please the shareholders. Skilling also needed the magic of Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow who, for $45 million in skimmed-off fees, set up shell corporations where Enron could hide $30 billion dollars in debts from its investors. And because Enron was doing little in the energy industry in the 1990s that was actually bringing in revenue, it was clearly the Wall Street brokers who were recommending the stock to their clients and keeping the share prices booming and the cash flowing to Enron were more than minor players. But then, the same analysts point out self-righteously that if they asked too many questions about Enron, their bosses in the brokerages and financial groups threatened their jobs because parent companies stood to lose lucrative investment banking deals with Enron, who, after all, was leading the market in derivatives. And all of this would have been impossible to maintain if Enron’s savage securities traders hadn’t been able to define the derivatives market in gas and oil futures in the first place by finding loopholes in new deregulation laws big enough to drive a truck through, and that of course was the fault of visionless politicians who blithely handed public trusts to the private sector in the name of efficiency.</p>
<p>The chain of deferred culpability that so strongly links the boardroom to the halls of government gives the film great narrative strength, but it also suggests one false conclusion, which is that Enron achieved what it needed politically through the Bush family and the Republican party. This may be convenient four years after the exit of Democrats from the White House, but it obscures the reason why Enron or any of the other corporate scandals that broke after January 2001 did not become campaign issues in the last election cycle. The California deregulation bill that infused a faltering Enron with no less than 5 billion dollars in extorted rates was after all passed in 1996 by an Assembly controlled by Democrats. Likewise, the Bush Administration who was blamed for not putting an end to the California energy crisis did in fact cap prices after five months in June 2001. The Clinton Administration, by contrast, stood by for nineteen months of energy gaming between May 1999 and January 2001.</p>
<p>The Democratic Party was just as whorish as the Republican Party when it came to Enron’s money, just a little less pricey. Between 1999 and 2000, the Republican Party took in about $1.1 million from Enron in soft money contributions, but the Democratic Party was happy to take in $532,000. Enron also saw clear to grease the campaigns of 70 Senators in 1989-2001, including 27 Democrats.</p>
<p>Given the constraints of a two-hour film, the fairest statement may be that an account of the Enron’s fall ought to supplemented at some point by a prequel that shows something about how such a corporate behemoth rose in the first place. Such a cinematic sibling would feature the cast of characters in the Clinton administration who could not do enough for Enron, domestically or internationally, or a set of powerful New Democrats working with Joe Lieberman who bent over backwards to do what they could for Enron and took plenty of their money and legislative suggestions. The prequel would also feature Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright’s State Department bullying public officials in Mozambique, Brazil, and Argentina into accepting Enron’s terms on pipelines, or turning a blind eye while Enron-backed thugs in Maharashtra, India beat up citizens who were protesting the $3.2 billion gas plant going up their front yards. Perhaps there might be an interview with Mack MacLarty, Clinton’s advisor and turned Enron project director who helped run political interference for the company when its projects were turned down by the World Bank, who considered them unviable. Thanks to a Democratic White House, Enron instead got $2.4 billion in loans and loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Of these loans, U.S. taxpayers would eventually mop up $1 billion in unpaid debts left by the corporation after it went bankrupt. Finally, there may be footage somewhere of Enron executives attending meetings of the World Trade Organization, where Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was happy to help Enron and its accounting partner Arthur Anderson help dictate the content of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, which, not incidentally, helped export and standardize Arthur Anderson’s creative accounting methods to the rest of the world. After leaving public office, the esteemed Mr. Rubin would later go to work for Citigroup and use his connections at Treasury to try and bail out Enron in mid 2001. Then there’s the odious role of neoliberal environmental groups, such as NRDC, which shilled for the deregulation of electric utilities and lobbied on behalf Enron’s raid to acquire local power companies such as Portland General Electric. NRDC’s energy guru Ralph Cavanagh told the skeptical residents of Oregon that Enron was a company they could “trust.”</p>
<p>These very significant omissions aside, the film does what a film should do: it puts the mega-corporation back in the spotlight and suggests that the demise of Enron and the disappearance of 60 billion dollars in equity ought not to have shocked anyone and will likely happen again with a similar cast of characters. Detailing the decade-long chronology of Enron’s rise, the film makes it clear that the company’s collapse was actually years overdue, and all its deceptions were orchestrated with complicity of all the major players in the market and most of the agencies charged with overseeing corporate activities. In so doing, Gibney actually manages to lay out a compelling logical framework for a colossal scandal that we have yet to fully process.</p>
<p>HEATHER WILLIAMS is an Associate Professor of Politics at Pomona College; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Hollywood Does Enron | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/05/07/hollywood-does-enron/ | 2005-05-07 | 4 |
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<p>**Bumped up from TAM Wire. Posted by robscaffe**</p>
<p>More unbiased news from the Left:</p>
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<p>UPDATE: Within hours of our publication of this article, Time Magazine removed the allegation that Israeli soldiers had stolen Palestinian organs from their video. Further coverage at Times of Israel.</p>
<p>Time Magazine should be ashamed for giving new life to a horrendous blood libel accusing the IDF of stealing Palestinian organs.</p>
<p>In the middle of a video about the Israeli military, we are told that the “IDF is not without controversy.” Their example?</p>
<p>….in 2009 a Swedish report came out exposing some Israeli troops of selling organs of Palestinians who died in their custody….</p>
<p>The reference is to a completely made up tabloid style article in an obscure Swedish paper, that even the author admitted was not based on any evidence….</p>
<p>Via Times of Israel: Time retracts IDF organ harvesting allegation</p>
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<p>Time magazine retracted allegations that Israeli soldiers harvested and sold Palestinian organs.</p>
<p>On Sunday, the magazine deleted the allegations from a two-minute video on its website about the Israel Defense Forces and added a correction, writing at the end, “Correction: The original version of this video cited a contested allegation in a 2009 Swedish newspaper report as fact. The allegation has been removed from the video.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/time-retracts-idf-organ-harvesting-allegation/" type="external">Continue reading</a></p> | true | http://tammybruce.com/2014/08/time-magazine-accuses-idf-of-stealing-palestinian-organs-retracts-story.html | 0 |
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<p>Hillary Clinton’s relationship with labor unions has been relatively strong. But like any long-running courtship, it has had its problems. Even as she's the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination, labor unions so far are withholding their support - and their resources - to ensure that Clinton takes up their priorities, including an increase in wages, the ability to organize and protecting social security.</p>
<p>It's long been a complicated relationship and one previous and costly battle with unions that spilled into the public had dire consequences for Clinton. During her bid for the Democratic nomination in 2008, an ugly battle between her and then-candidate Barack Obama during the Nevada primary exposed the cracks in Clinton’s coalition and the uneasiness that some unions had with the then-New York Senator.</p>
<p>Just days before Nevada Democrats headed to caucus sites for the third nominating contest that year, a major union, UNITE Here, endorsed Obama, giving him a major boost heading into Nevada where 60,000 of its members live and work for the Culinary Workers Union in Nevada.</p>
<p>That endorsement led to packed, raucous caucus sites, especially in hotels on the strip, President Bill Clinton making personal pleas to caucus goers inside hotel casinos and a lawsuit filed by the National Education Association, a Clinton-backed union, challenging the rules of the caucus.</p>
<p>While many of the public sector unions backed Clinton back then, the Culinary Workers weren’t the only ones to side with Clinton’s opponent. Other major unions, SEIU, the Teamsters, the Food and Commercial Workers and the federation of unions, Change to Win, also backed Obama that year.</p>
<p>Eight years later, Clinton is back in the presidential game and took her first trip to Nevada Tuesday, she made a strong appeal to the culinary workers with promise to address immigration – a top priority for the Latino dominated union.</p>
<p>“We are in a global competition, and I intend for us to win it. And I’m not about to let anybody who can make a contribution to our economy and our society get thrown away,” Clinton told the audience.</p>
<p>The culinary workers aren’t yet ready to endorse Clinton. Yvanna Cancela, political director for the union said on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” Tuesday that the organization is “open to all of our options.”</p>
<p>And that’s the stance of many of the unions.</p>
<p>The Culinary workers parent organization, UNITE Here, which represents more than a million workers, is also not ready to jump behind Clinton, the overwhelming frontrunner in the Democratic race.</p>
<p>“We’re looking for authenticity and identity,” D. Taylor, the president of UNITE Here said. “For someone who’s the voice of those whose voices have not been heard.”</p>
<p>Last week, Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, failed to pledge support of Clinton. Instead he put pressure on her in a national policy speech, saying a portion of working class voters “couldn’t see any significant different between the two parties.”</p>
<p>“Working people, together, are rising. The question is, will our candidates listen? Will they seize this opportunity? I wonder, and so do the vast majority of working Americans. The truth is we’re skeptical,” Trumka said.</p>
<p>He went on to say that workers are “tired of taking ‘maybe’ for an answer” on some of their core priorities.</p>
<p>One of the issues particularly concerning to the AFL-CIO is the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement President Barack Obama is pushing and Congress is considering. It’s an issue that is splitting the Democratic Party with its leader, Obama, pushing it and many members of Congress, as well as the AFL-CIO, strongly opposed. Clinton hasn’t yet staked out a position on it, saying generically that any trade deal must include environmental and American labor protections.</p>
<p>Labor groups are also looking to see who she will hire as an indication of the type of policies she’ll espouse. They’d prefer that Bill Clinton’s economic advisers, many of whom also advise(d) President Obama, aren’t on her roster, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and others who come from Wall Street. Unions battled her husband, President Bill Clinton in the 90s over NAFTA, a free trade deal they vehemently opposed. (During her 2008, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/feb/25/barack-obama/clinton-has-changed-on-nafta/" type="external">Hillary Clinton said</a> she doesn't support NAFTA.)</p>
<p>While Clinton is the formidable frontrunner, her only opponent – so far - is Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a strong ally of the unions and could provide a stark contrast to Clinton.</p>
<p>While Clinton was addressing Nevadans, Sanders was holding a town hall talking about federal budget impacts at a International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Hall in Maryland where he comfortably peppers his economic remarks with union support.</p>
<p>At that event, Sanders said, "Today the largest private sector employer in America is Wal-Mart – low wages, minimal benefits, vehemently anti-union. That in one metaphor is the transformation of the American economy – from an economy that produced real products, paid people real wages, had a real union, to the Wal-Mart economy."</p>
<p>Paco Fabian, spokesperson for the Good Jobs Nation Campaign, a coalition of low-wage workers pushing for a $15 per hour wage and collective bargaining, said Sanders has been a solid ally of workers.</p>
<p>“He’s been a champion of working families,” Fabian said. “His willingness to show up to speak to wokers where they are whether it’s the strike line or the union hall, he’s willing to hear what workers have to say.”</p>
<p>In her soft roll out, Clinton has not laid out any specific policy details. As she formulates them, she's likely to weigh political reality with the plight of unions.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">A new NBC Poll found</a>, for instance, shows that for the first time since 1999, a plurality of Americans are supportive of trade deals. Thirty-seven percent say that trade deals has benefited Americans compared to 31 percent who say the deals haven’t.</p>
<p>In addition, the influence of unions in electoral politics has diminished in recent years and union membership has lagged, especially private sector unions, as well as changes to campaign finance law that have increased the influence of the individual donor through third party political groups such as super PACs.</p>
<p>Taylor, the head of UNITE here, however, says that while union membership is on the general decline, unions are still able to have a voice in politics because union members vote at a higher proportion than the general public. He says that Democrats have to excite and mobilize the base.</p>
<p>“In the 2014 elections was a lack of enthusiasm,” he said attributed to Democrats’ losses around the country. “Democrats have to show results every year, not just during election years.”</p> | Hillary Clinton May Be The Leader, But Unions Are Holding Out | false | http://nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/hillary-clinton-may-be-leader-unions-are-holding-out-n354561 | 2015-05-06 | 3 |
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — What makes a song THE song of the eyes of The Recording Academy? In the history of the 59 record of the year winners at the Grammy Awards, sometimes those songs captured the mood or sentiment of a universal emotion, or showcased a singer’s supreme talent. Sometimes the Grammy-winning song benefited from being featured in a hit film, or became a cultural touchstone for a year. And often these songs are just insatiably catchy and fun.</p>
<p>Many of these records of the year become pop music standards, still widely beloved and influential today, from Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” to the Eagles’ “Hotel California” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Still other songs quickly lose their popularity as trends change or the artists who made them popular grow tired of repeating them.</p>
<p>Just ask Art Garfunkel why “Mrs. Robinson,” the hit song that was the first of two record of the year wins for Simon &amp; Garfunkel, is still a great song today.</p>
<p>“It really swung,” Garfunkel said of the tune, which won in 1969. “It was infectious. It made you get up out of your seat and get on the dance floor. You can’t ignore that the rhythm cooked. That’s why it was a hit. Paul Simon plays great acoustic Martin guitar.”</p>
<p>The song wasn’t fully complete when it appeared in the hit film “The Graduate,” so the film version just has the two singers vocalizing a missing verse with “do-do-do-do-do.” And it’s widely considered the first rock ‘n’ roll song to be named record of the year.</p>
<p>“I give the credit to Mike Nichols,” Garfunkel said of the film’s director, who had the folk rockers help him with the soundtrack. “It was Mike as a film director who was open to rock ‘n’ roll and started looking at what we rockers were doing in our world and how it might sync into the film world.”</p>
<p>For singer Roberta Flack, she benefited from the right timing. Flack, one of only two artists who have won the category two years in a row, had released her song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” years before it won in 1973.</p>
<p>“Clint Eastwood called, wanting to have it as a part of his film, ‘Play Misty for Me,’” said Flack in an email interview. “The record label wanted to have it re-recorded with a faster tempo, but he said he wanted it exactly as it was. With the song as a theme song for his movie, it gained a lot of popularity and then took off.”</p>
<p>Flack won again the next year for the song “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” which also became a hit when it was re-imagined as a hip-hop song by the Fugees in 1996.</p>
<p>Country vocal trio Lady Antebellum were just as surprised as anyone else when their name was called on that Grammy stage for record of the year for their hit “Need You Now” in 2011. Going up against artists like Jay-Z and Eminem, they figured they were the underdogs.</p>
<p>“We were shocked,” said singer Charles Kelley. “I think we were just the little engine that could and it sounded like nothing else that had come out that year.”</p>
<p>“We still felt new. We felt like the Nashville band that was out of place at the big party,” said singer Dave Haywood.</p>
<p>Ann Powers, music critic and correspondent for NPR Music, said that Grammy voters, who have to be directly involved with recording to be eligible to vote, love artists like songwriter Carole King who are considered “insiders” within the musical community. But that doesn’t mean voters aren’t swayed by other factors.</p>
<p>“The Grammys are not a popularity contest,” said Powers. “They are not just about numbers, but they are heavily influenced by commercial success.”</p>
<p>Jackson had a record-breaking Grammy sweep in 1984 with eight wins thanks to his ground-breaking album “Thriller,” which remains the best-selling album of all time. It cemented him as a cultural phenomenon who still influences artists today.</p>
<p>“He had incredible, unrivaled commercial success,” Powers said. “He was a great dancer. He was an amazing singer. He had the best producers. And he was innovative in this new art form, the music video.”</p>
<p>Sometimes a win for record of the year is a cultural statement. Take the first country song to win in the category, the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice,” in 2007. It was a direct rebuke of Nashville’s country music community, which turned its back on the group in the wake of comments lead singer Natalie Maines made about then-President George W. Bush about the second Iraq War.</p>
<p>“Them winning record of the year, winning these major Grammys, was the Los Angeles-based music industry saying country is behind the times and they are regressive and they are not supporting artists that deserve to be supported,” Powers said.</p>
<p>But the popularity of a song after winning a Grammy can sometimes become a burden. Bobby McFerrin’s hit a capella song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” introduced the acclaimed jazz vocalist to a much wider audience and even George H.W. Bush started using it as a presidential campaign theme. But it also suffered a backlash, and McFerrin told The Associated Press in 2013 that he hasn’t played the song in its entirety since 1988. It won in 1989.</p>
<p>Eric Clapton wrote his Grammy-winning song “Tears in Heaven” after the death of his 4-year-old son in 1991, but the guitar legend told the AP in 2004 that he had decided to stop playing the song.</p>
<p>Even the artists can’t always predict a hit. Garfunkel was initially unsure about their second record of the year win, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” when they were in the studio recording it. He thought the song started too slow, but their label head Clive Davis loved the unconventional style.</p>
<p>“I thought it was a dark horse with an outside chance,” Garfunkel said of the song, which won in 1971.</p>
<p>It has since been covered by dozens of artists, including Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Fiona Apple. The song just last year topped Billboard’s U.K. singles chart when it was recorded by an all-star cast as a charity for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.</p>
<p>Garfunkel still loves performing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” during his shows. “I look at it as a terrific song with a great melody that I want to execute better tonight than I have ever done in my life,” Garfunkel said.</p>
<p>The 60th annual Grammy Awards will be held Sunday in New York City and aired on CBS.</p>
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<p>Online:</p>
<p>www.grammy.com</p>
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — What makes a song THE song of the eyes of The Recording Academy? In the history of the 59 record of the year winners at the Grammy Awards, sometimes those songs captured the mood or sentiment of a universal emotion, or showcased a singer’s supreme talent. Sometimes the Grammy-winning song benefited from being featured in a hit film, or became a cultural touchstone for a year. And often these songs are just insatiably catchy and fun.</p>
<p>Many of these records of the year become pop music standards, still widely beloved and influential today, from Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” to the Eagles’ “Hotel California” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Still other songs quickly lose their popularity as trends change or the artists who made them popular grow tired of repeating them.</p>
<p>Just ask Art Garfunkel why “Mrs. Robinson,” the hit song that was the first of two record of the year wins for Simon &amp; Garfunkel, is still a great song today.</p>
<p>“It really swung,” Garfunkel said of the tune, which won in 1969. “It was infectious. It made you get up out of your seat and get on the dance floor. You can’t ignore that the rhythm cooked. That’s why it was a hit. Paul Simon plays great acoustic Martin guitar.”</p>
<p>The song wasn’t fully complete when it appeared in the hit film “The Graduate,” so the film version just has the two singers vocalizing a missing verse with “do-do-do-do-do.” And it’s widely considered the first rock ‘n’ roll song to be named record of the year.</p>
<p>“I give the credit to Mike Nichols,” Garfunkel said of the film’s director, who had the folk rockers help him with the soundtrack. “It was Mike as a film director who was open to rock ‘n’ roll and started looking at what we rockers were doing in our world and how it might sync into the film world.”</p>
<p>For singer Roberta Flack, she benefited from the right timing. Flack, one of only two artists who have won the category two years in a row, had released her song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” years before it won in 1973.</p>
<p>“Clint Eastwood called, wanting to have it as a part of his film, ‘Play Misty for Me,’” said Flack in an email interview. “The record label wanted to have it re-recorded with a faster tempo, but he said he wanted it exactly as it was. With the song as a theme song for his movie, it gained a lot of popularity and then took off.”</p>
<p>Flack won again the next year for the song “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” which also became a hit when it was re-imagined as a hip-hop song by the Fugees in 1996.</p>
<p>Country vocal trio Lady Antebellum were just as surprised as anyone else when their name was called on that Grammy stage for record of the year for their hit “Need You Now” in 2011. Going up against artists like Jay-Z and Eminem, they figured they were the underdogs.</p>
<p>“We were shocked,” said singer Charles Kelley. “I think we were just the little engine that could and it sounded like nothing else that had come out that year.”</p>
<p>“We still felt new. We felt like the Nashville band that was out of place at the big party,” said singer Dave Haywood.</p>
<p>Ann Powers, music critic and correspondent for NPR Music, said that Grammy voters, who have to be directly involved with recording to be eligible to vote, love artists like songwriter Carole King who are considered “insiders” within the musical community. But that doesn’t mean voters aren’t swayed by other factors.</p>
<p>“The Grammys are not a popularity contest,” said Powers. “They are not just about numbers, but they are heavily influenced by commercial success.”</p>
<p>Jackson had a record-breaking Grammy sweep in 1984 with eight wins thanks to his ground-breaking album “Thriller,” which remains the best-selling album of all time. It cemented him as a cultural phenomenon who still influences artists today.</p>
<p>“He had incredible, unrivaled commercial success,” Powers said. “He was a great dancer. He was an amazing singer. He had the best producers. And he was innovative in this new art form, the music video.”</p>
<p>Sometimes a win for record of the year is a cultural statement. Take the first country song to win in the category, the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice,” in 2007. It was a direct rebuke of Nashville’s country music community, which turned its back on the group in the wake of comments lead singer Natalie Maines made about then-President George W. Bush about the second Iraq War.</p>
<p>“Them winning record of the year, winning these major Grammys, was the Los Angeles-based music industry saying country is behind the times and they are regressive and they are not supporting artists that deserve to be supported,” Powers said.</p>
<p>But the popularity of a song after winning a Grammy can sometimes become a burden. Bobby McFerrin’s hit a capella song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” introduced the acclaimed jazz vocalist to a much wider audience and even George H.W. Bush started using it as a presidential campaign theme. But it also suffered a backlash, and McFerrin told The Associated Press in 2013 that he hasn’t played the song in its entirety since 1988. It won in 1989.</p>
<p>Eric Clapton wrote his Grammy-winning song “Tears in Heaven” after the death of his 4-year-old son in 1991, but the guitar legend told the AP in 2004 that he had decided to stop playing the song.</p>
<p>Even the artists can’t always predict a hit. Garfunkel was initially unsure about their second record of the year win, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” when they were in the studio recording it. He thought the song started too slow, but their label head Clive Davis loved the unconventional style.</p>
<p>“I thought it was a dark horse with an outside chance,” Garfunkel said of the song, which won in 1971.</p>
<p>It has since been covered by dozens of artists, including Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Fiona Apple. The song just last year topped Billboard’s U.K. singles chart when it was recorded by an all-star cast as a charity for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.</p>
<p>Garfunkel still loves performing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” during his shows. “I look at it as a terrific song with a great melody that I want to execute better tonight than I have ever done in my life,” Garfunkel said.</p>
<p>The 60th annual Grammy Awards will be held Sunday in New York City and aired on CBS.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Online:</p>
<p>www.grammy.com</p> | Grammy winning artists reflect on what makes a song a hit | false | https://apnews.com/aa6118fdbf324b23aec794c066a75e15 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
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<p>Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are ditching the bikinis and getting back to the burgers.</p>
<p>The chains are famous for advertisements featuring models and celebrities like Paris Hilton, Kate Upton and Emily Ratajkowski munching on burgers while scantily clad.</p>
<p>A new commercial for the chains shows the imagined Carl Hardee Sr. taking back control of the operation from immature son Carl Hardee Jr. Carl Sr. rips down photos of swimsuit models and puts up framed pictures of hamburgers. The chains are now calling themselves “pioneers of the great American burger.”</p>
<p>The company’s racy advertising campaign had a defender in Andrew Puzder, who is stepping down as CEO of the chains’ parent company, Carpinteria, California-based CKE Restaurant Holdings. Puzder withdrew as President Donald Trump’s nominee for Labor Department secretary last month.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Back to burgers: Carl’s Jr. ditches bikini-clad ads | false | https://abqjournal.com/979052/back-to-burgers-carls-jr-ditches-bikini-clad-ads.html | 2017-03-30 | 2 |
<p>Saudi Arabian officials are talking with banks about issuing what would be the country's first international bond sale, according to a Financial Times report Thursday, which cited people familiar with the matter. The plan to raise debt comes as the country has been using foreign exchange reserves for domestic spending in the wake of collapsing oil prices. Saudi Arabia wants the bond sale to take place later this year, the report said, and banks have been asked to indicate their terms for the sale.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Saudi Arabia Talking To Banks About International Bond Sale: Report | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/20/saudi-arabia-talking-to-banks-about-international-bond-sale-report.html | 2016-05-20 | 0 |
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Watch out, New England. Here comes Sacksonville.</p>
<p>Get ready, Philly. The Vikings are sailing into town.</p>
<p>Tom Brady and the big game-tested Patriots (14-3) square off against the sack-happy Jacksonville Jaguars (12-6) next Sunday in the AFC championship game in Foxborough, Massachusetts — with the winner headed to the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>"It's been an awesome year," Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles said, "and we want to keep it going."</p>
<p>In the NFC, Nick Foles and the resilient Philadelphia Eagles (14-3) host Case Keenum and the surprising Minnesota Vikings (14-3) — in a matchup of teams that overcame losing their starting quarterbacks.</p>
<p>"They count us out all the time," said Minnesota's Stefon Diggs, whose 61-yard touchdown catch as time expired Sunday gave <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/stunner-keenum-diggs-td-last-play-vikes-win-29-24" type="external">the Vikings a stunning 29-24 victory.</a> "Nobody thinking we can do it. This game was over. I don't stop playing till the clock hit zero. That's it."</p>
<p>The Vikings open as a 3 ½-point favorite against the Eagles, while the Patriots open favored by 9 1/2 in their game.</p>
<p>Being here is nothing new, of course, for New England, which has advanced to the Super Bowl in three of the past six seasons.</p>
<p>For fresh-faced Jacksonville, however, this is all rare territory.</p>
<p>The Jaguars are playing in the conference title game for just the third time in franchise history, and first since losing to Tennessee during the 1999 season. Jacksonville is also one of four franchises to never play in the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>"I'm sure there will still be tons of people that are going to disapprove or talk negative or hate or do whatever they want," Bortles said. "But we get to keep playing. We get an opportunity to go play in Foxborough for another week, so I'm just honored to be able to do this and especially with this group of guys."</p>
<p>And, it has all come full circle for Tom Coughlin, who was Jacksonville's coach the previous time the franchise got this far in the postseason.</p>
<p>He went on to win two Super Bowls with the New York Giants — both against Bill Belichick's Patriots — but is now the Jaguars' executive vice president of football operations. He helped assemble a squad with coach Doug Marrone that has been powered by a tenacious defense that ranked second in the NFL during the regular season in sacks.</p>
<p>After a few ho-hum games, Bortles, running back Leonard Fournette and the Jaguars offense showed it isn't too shabby, either, outslugging Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/jaguars-stun-steelers-45-42-earn-trip-afc-title-game" type="external">in a stunning 45-42 victory Sunday.</a></p>
<p>"Obviously, with what they have on their side of the ball, it's a good team and we know they've got a good offense," Bortles said. "We knew we had to keep scoring."</p>
<p>There's also this neat nugget: Jacksonville's first AFC championship game appearance came during the 1996 season — against New England, which went on to play in the Super Bowl under then-coach Bill Parcells and lost to the Brett Favre-led Green Bay Packers.</p>
<p>The Patriots have made it to the AFC championship game for seven straight seasons, clinching this trip with <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/patriots-beat-titans-35-14-head-back-afc-title-game" type="external">a 35-14 drubbing of the Tennessee Titans</a> on Saturday night.</p>
<p>"The reality of the NFL is what we did this week will have nothing to do with what happens next week," Brady said. "We're going to have to go repeat it, so you've got to get right back to work, right back to the process of trying to figure out how to break down our opponent.</p>
<p>"Everyone's got to feel good physically and mentally and go out there and try to cut it loose one more time in a huge game."</p>
<p>The Patriots know how to do that, and they're masters of tuning out distractions. Despite a published report during the week that raised questions about the relationships between Brady, Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft, New England was all business on the field against the Titans.</p>
<p>"It's pretty incredible to be a part of that," Brady said. "I think the thing is that we don't really take it for granted around here. I know how hard it is to get to this game. We're very blessed to do it."</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Philadelphia is playing for the NFC title for the 11th time, but hasn't won it since the 2004 season — when the Eagles went on to lose to the Patriots in the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>"We'll be ready for next week," defensive tackle Fletcher Cox said.</p>
<p>The Eagles used steady play by Foles and a late goal-line stand by their <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/eagles-use-goal-line-stand-elliott-fgs-beat-falcons-0" type="external">defense to beat the Atlanta Falcons 15-10 on Saturday.</a> It set up Philadelphia's first conference championship appearance since the 2008 season.</p>
<p>And it comes despite the Eagles losing starting quarterback Carson Wentz, a leading MVP contender, to a season-ending knee injury last month.</p>
<p>"Our team never wavered, defense did an amazing job, special teams," Foles said. "That's just been the story this year is that we just all stuck together."</p>
<p>The same can be said of the Vikings, who entered the season with Sam Bradford as their quarterback and had big playoff hopes. But he went down with a knee injury after the first week — and it appeared Minnesota's dreams might be dashed.</p>
<p>Enter Keenum, an unheralded and undrafted backup who ended up having the best season of his career.</p>
<p>To top it off, Keenum combined with Diggs on one of the most stunning plays in NFL playoff history, a winning TD that sent the Vikings to their 10th NFC title game and first since the 2009 season.</p>
<p>"I don't even know right now," Keenum said. "I have no words."</p>
<p>And now, the Vikings, Eagles, Patriots and Jaguars are all one win away from the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Watch out, New England. Here comes Sacksonville.</p>
<p>Get ready, Philly. The Vikings are sailing into town.</p>
<p>Tom Brady and the big game-tested Patriots (14-3) square off against the sack-happy Jacksonville Jaguars (12-6) next Sunday in the AFC championship game in Foxborough, Massachusetts — with the winner headed to the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>"It's been an awesome year," Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles said, "and we want to keep it going."</p>
<p>In the NFC, Nick Foles and the resilient Philadelphia Eagles (14-3) host Case Keenum and the surprising Minnesota Vikings (14-3) — in a matchup of teams that overcame losing their starting quarterbacks.</p>
<p>"They count us out all the time," said Minnesota's Stefon Diggs, whose 61-yard touchdown catch as time expired Sunday gave <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/stunner-keenum-diggs-td-last-play-vikes-win-29-24" type="external">the Vikings a stunning 29-24 victory.</a> "Nobody thinking we can do it. This game was over. I don't stop playing till the clock hit zero. That's it."</p>
<p>The Vikings open as a 3 ½-point favorite against the Eagles, while the Patriots open favored by 9 1/2 in their game.</p>
<p>Being here is nothing new, of course, for New England, which has advanced to the Super Bowl in three of the past six seasons.</p>
<p>For fresh-faced Jacksonville, however, this is all rare territory.</p>
<p>The Jaguars are playing in the conference title game for just the third time in franchise history, and first since losing to Tennessee during the 1999 season. Jacksonville is also one of four franchises to never play in the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>"I'm sure there will still be tons of people that are going to disapprove or talk negative or hate or do whatever they want," Bortles said. "But we get to keep playing. We get an opportunity to go play in Foxborough for another week, so I'm just honored to be able to do this and especially with this group of guys."</p>
<p>And, it has all come full circle for Tom Coughlin, who was Jacksonville's coach the previous time the franchise got this far in the postseason.</p>
<p>He went on to win two Super Bowls with the New York Giants — both against Bill Belichick's Patriots — but is now the Jaguars' executive vice president of football operations. He helped assemble a squad with coach Doug Marrone that has been powered by a tenacious defense that ranked second in the NFL during the regular season in sacks.</p>
<p>After a few ho-hum games, Bortles, running back Leonard Fournette and the Jaguars offense showed it isn't too shabby, either, outslugging Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/jaguars-stun-steelers-45-42-earn-trip-afc-title-game" type="external">in a stunning 45-42 victory Sunday.</a></p>
<p>"Obviously, with what they have on their side of the ball, it's a good team and we know they've got a good offense," Bortles said. "We knew we had to keep scoring."</p>
<p>There's also this neat nugget: Jacksonville's first AFC championship game appearance came during the 1996 season — against New England, which went on to play in the Super Bowl under then-coach Bill Parcells and lost to the Brett Favre-led Green Bay Packers.</p>
<p>The Patriots have made it to the AFC championship game for seven straight seasons, clinching this trip with <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/patriots-beat-titans-35-14-head-back-afc-title-game" type="external">a 35-14 drubbing of the Tennessee Titans</a> on Saturday night.</p>
<p>"The reality of the NFL is what we did this week will have nothing to do with what happens next week," Brady said. "We're going to have to go repeat it, so you've got to get right back to work, right back to the process of trying to figure out how to break down our opponent.</p>
<p>"Everyone's got to feel good physically and mentally and go out there and try to cut it loose one more time in a huge game."</p>
<p>The Patriots know how to do that, and they're masters of tuning out distractions. Despite a published report during the week that raised questions about the relationships between Brady, Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft, New England was all business on the field against the Titans.</p>
<p>"It's pretty incredible to be a part of that," Brady said. "I think the thing is that we don't really take it for granted around here. I know how hard it is to get to this game. We're very blessed to do it."</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Philadelphia is playing for the NFC title for the 11th time, but hasn't won it since the 2004 season — when the Eagles went on to lose to the Patriots in the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>"We'll be ready for next week," defensive tackle Fletcher Cox said.</p>
<p>The Eagles used steady play by Foles and a late goal-line stand by their <a href="https://pro32.ap.org/article/eagles-use-goal-line-stand-elliott-fgs-beat-falcons-0" type="external">defense to beat the Atlanta Falcons 15-10 on Saturday.</a> It set up Philadelphia's first conference championship appearance since the 2008 season.</p>
<p>And it comes despite the Eagles losing starting quarterback Carson Wentz, a leading MVP contender, to a season-ending knee injury last month.</p>
<p>"Our team never wavered, defense did an amazing job, special teams," Foles said. "That's just been the story this year is that we just all stuck together."</p>
<p>The same can be said of the Vikings, who entered the season with Sam Bradford as their quarterback and had big playoff hopes. But he went down with a knee injury after the first week — and it appeared Minnesota's dreams might be dashed.</p>
<p>Enter Keenum, an unheralded and undrafted backup who ended up having the best season of his career.</p>
<p>To top it off, Keenum combined with Diggs on one of the most stunning plays in NFL playoff history, a winning TD that sent the Vikings to their 10th NFC title game and first since the 2009 season.</p>
<p>"I don't even know right now," Keenum said. "I have no words."</p>
<p>And now, the Vikings, Eagles, Patriots and Jaguars are all one win away from the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>For more NFL coverage: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">http://www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p> | Showdowns set: Jags-Patriots in AFC, Vikings-Eagles in NFC | false | https://apnews.com/amp/5bf07d7b7740495dbc37d27baf054ad3 | 2018-01-15 | 2 |
<p />
<p>The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) received Armenia as the latest signatory on October 10, 2014, following ratification by Russia, <a href="http://en.itar-tass.com/economy/753419" type="external">Kazakhstan</a>, and <a href="http://eng.belta.by/all_news/politics/Belarusian-MPs-ratify-EEU-Treaty_i_76349.html" type="external">Belarus</a>. The EEU will enter into effect on January 1, 2015. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), along with its functionality and relevance, is coming apart at the seams. The Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia have signed association agreements with the European Union (EU), and nations like Azerbaijan <a href="http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_06_18/Azerbaijan-receives-no-formal-invitation-to-Customs-Eurasian-Union-FM-Lavrov-5744/" type="external">did not receive a formal invitation into the EEU</a>. The creation of the EEU and its implementation promises to promote investment and growth among the involved nations, particularly among the smaller landlocked nations like Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. However, geopolitically the EEU adds another layer of complexity to inter-Caspian relations as the region seems now divided in half, and where the Nagorno-Karabakh issue remains unresolved.</p>
<p>An earlier draft of the EEU agreement seemed to imply the creation of a customs post between Armenia and Karabakh, which <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/node/70416" type="external">locals see as an unfortunate division</a> between two very closely linked peoples. If such a custom post is created, it would serve as evidence that Armenia will go to great lengths to cooperate and appease Russia even at the expressed concern of the occupied regions it has suffered so much isolation to defend. From a legal viewpoint, however, a custom post makes sense. Neither Russia nor Armenia claim that Karabakh is a part of Armenia, so the territory cannot be part of the EEU.</p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin cited improvements in Armenian policies in its common standard practices as a good indicator of progress and <a href="http://rt.com/business/194920-armenia-joins-eurasian-economic-union/" type="external">expressed</a> “hope that in the first two years after Armenia’s joining we will see a positive macroeconomic effect.”&#160; The Eurasian Economic Union summit in Minsk, where the deal with Armenia was signed, also saw the creation of <a href="http://rt.com/business/194920-armenia-joins-eurasian-economic-union/" type="external">a roadmap for Kyrgyzstan’s joining of the EEU</a>.</p>
<p>The same day that Armenia signed the EEU agreement, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, also in Minsk, reiterated the importance of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). He <a href="https://en.trend.az/azerbaijan/politics/2320598.html" type="external">stated</a> “the initiative that Azerbaijan promotes in the CIS, as well as with regional and bilateral cooperation, serves to reinforce security, predictability and cooperation.” The continued cohesion of the CIS is under question, however. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko <a href="http://www.uznews.net/en/world/27886-cis-summit-in-minsk-a-commonwealth-of-unfriendly-states" type="external">acknowledged</a> that “unfortunately disintegration tendencies are growing in the Commonwealth, especially considering attempts by individual well-wishers to bury CIS.”</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, the EEU will further pull participating nations into a dependent relationship with Russia. While economic ties will grow both ways, the sheer economic size of Russia will tower over its fellow EEU members. This will afford it greater leverage over its fellow members. Russia accounts for a staggering 87% of the EEU’s GDP.</p>
<p>Armenia’s participation in the EEU will likely produce greater investment and cooperation with over EEU nations, however these pale in comparison to the economic advantages it could experience over a peaceful settlement over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts. What seems most likely is a continuation of the status quo in the region.</p> | Economic Consequences of the Eurasian Economic Union | false | http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/10/27/economic-consequences-of-the-eurasian-economic-union/ | 2014-10-27 | 1 |
<p>The path to meaningful climate change just got rockier, as climate talks in Bangkok ended with a sizable gap between rich and poor countries. Many fear Bangkok's downfall will mean, at most, a weak agreement in Copenhagen, host of the climate conference heralded by many as an event that could "save" our environment. - JCL</p>
<p>The Guardian:</p>
<p>Global climate change talks came to an end in Bangkok today in an atmosphere of distrust and recrimination, with the rift between rich and poor countries seemingly wider than ever. After two weeks of negotiations there have been no breakthroughs on big issues such as money or emissions cuts.</p>
<p>With just five days of negotiating time now left before the concluding talks in Copenhagen in December, delegates said it appeared a weak deal was the most likely outcome, and no deal at all was a possibility.</p>
<p />
<p>However, President Obama's expected visit to Oslo to receive the Nobel peace prize in the middle of the climate talks raised hopes that he would make the short journey to Copenhagen to galvanise governments.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/09/bangkok-climate-talks-end" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Bangkok Climate Talks Come Up Empty | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/bangkok-climate-talks-come-up-empty/ | 2009-10-09 | 4 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/agecombahia/6283388208/sizes/m/in/photostream/"&gt;Fotos Gov/Ba&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p />
<p>Climate change-related disasters caused $14 billion in health costs in first decade of the 2000s, according to a <a href="" type="internal">new paper published this week</a> in the journal Health Affairs. The paper looks at six case studies of weather events in the US, all of the type predicted to increase or grow more severe as climate change progresses, like hurricanes, floods, and heat waves. It then determines the cost of disease, injury, and death related to those events.</p>
<p>Each individual event can be pricey. Ozone pollution in the US over the period of 2000 to 2002 cost $6.5 billion in emergency room visits, missed days at work or school, or early deaths (a particular concern for the elderly and people with preexisting respiratory conditions). The California heat wave in 2006, during which record temperatures were recorded all over the state over a two-week period, cost $5.4 billion. A lot of those costs came from hospitalizations and ER visits for problems like dehydration and heat stroke.</p>
<p>Sure, going to the hospital is pricey. But dying isn’t free, either. The researchers used the EPA’s <a href="" type="internal">value of a statistical life</a>—a rough estimate of how each individual life costs—of $7.9 million.</p>
<p>$14 billion is a pretty big number for just 10 years. But that’s only looking at a handful of specific incidents. There are also costs associated with climate change that don’t stem from extreme events—things like increased problems related to asthma or allergies, or even problems like <a href="" type="internal">kidney stones</a>, as we reported last year.</p>
<p>“Health has been unfortunately absent and not at the front and center in the discussion of what climate change is all about,” Kim Knowlton, a senior scientist in the health and environment program at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the lead author on the paper, told Mother Jones. “It really is a problem with a human face. I think this work draws out dimension that hasn’t been drawn out previously.”</p>
<p>The paper points to the fact that climate change is something that both health care providers and insurers might want to pay more attention to. As I <a href="" type="internal">reported last year</a>, insurers have been slow to take on climate as an issue they should be factoring into their long-term planning.</p>
<p>The US has already seen a record number of <a href="" type="internal">billion-dollar weather disasters</a> in 2011. And those tallies don’t include the kind of health-related costs that these public health experts discuss in the paper. Meanwhile, the <a href="" type="internal">forthcoming IPCC report</a> anticipates more extreme weather down the line.</p>
<p /> | Health Tab for Climate Change: $14 Billion | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/health-tab-climate-change-14-billion/ | 2011-11-08 | 4 |
<p>Donald Trump Jr.?s team is hiding something; that much is clear following a series of explosive reports from the New York Times laying out the details of a 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.</p>
<p>NBC News <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russian-lawyer-brought-ex-soviet-counter-intelligence-officer-trump-team-n782851?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma" type="external">has now revealed</a> that there was a sixth, previously unreported upon person at that meeting. This revelation comes after it came out that an apparently admitted former Soviet counterintelligence officer was also at that meeting. Although he was not initially named in media reports, the Associated Press has named that fifth person as&#160;Rinat Akhmetshin.</p>
<p>Besides&#160;Akhmetshin, Kushner, Manafort, Trump Jr., and&#160;Veselnitskaya, there was, as mentioned, a sixth person at the meeting.</p>
<p />
<p>This person has yet to be named, although an attorney for Donald Trump Jr. named Alan Futerfas has described them as a translator. This explanation for that person's presence at the meeting is, however, lacking, since at least&#160;Akhmetshin could speak English. Why then, would they need an extra translator at the meeting?</p>
<p>The question is still not answered of what&#160;Akhmetshin himself was doing there in the first place. Futerfas described him as a "friend of Emin [Agalarov]?s and maybe as a friend of Natalia [Veselnitskaya]?s."</p>
<p>The Agalarovs are the Russian family who set up this now infamous meeting. The invitation from the Agalarovs' publicist, Rob Goldstone, for Trump Jr. to meet with&#160;Veselnitskaya marketed her and the information she would be providing as coming from the Russian government.</p>
<p>Futerfas says that when he asked&#160;Akhmetshin if he worked for the Russian government, he laughed it off. This dismissal, however, is sure to be highly unsatisfactory for investigators looking into possible Trump team collusion with Russia in the latter's efforts to sway the outcome of the 2016 U.S. elections.</p>
<p>Trump Jr. is, of course, eager to jump on board any dismissals of the meeting as inconsequential. This eagerness underlies his repeated lies of omission, having not disclosed the presence of either&#160;Akhmetshin or the yet unnamed "translator." He didn't even initially acknowledge the meeting's stated purpose of handing off dirt from the Russian government on Hillary Clinton, instead simply claiming the meeting was about "adoption."</p>
<p>He has been called before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain himself, and in the meantime, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has actually long been seeking answers on&#160;Akhmetshin, who the Senator says "had failed to register as a foreign agent even though he had been lobbying in the U.S. for Russian interests."</p>
<p>Twitter's reaction to the news about this sixth person present at Trump Jr.?s 2016 meeting with&#160;Veselnitskaya is below.</p>
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<p>Featured Image via&#160; <a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/635449682" type="external">Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images</a></p> | NBC EXCLUSIVE: Trump Jr Caught In New Lie That Could Change America Forever | true | http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/07/14/nbc-exclusive-trump-jr-caught-in-new-lie-that-could-change-america-forever/ | 2017-07-14 | 4 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Tag Your Tots is a new feature at the balloon fiesta, brought to families by the New Mexico State Police. Orange wrist bracelets are offered to children, whose parents give a telephone number to correspond with a number encoded on the wrist band.</p>
<p>If a child then shows up lost or is seen wandering around without parents, police can connect the number on the wrist band with the telephone number provided by the parent. At the balloon fiesta on Sunday, State Police were able to reuinte five families using the wrist band system.</p>
<p>“A lot of people already know to bring kids to us,” said State Police patrolman Adam Sandoval. He added that in the morning, a lot of parents stopped by to get their kids tags.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Tag Your Tots debuts at Balloon Fiesta | false | https://abqjournal.com/276797/tag-your-tots-debuts-at-balloon-fiesta.html | 2 |
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<p>Despite its vast natural beauty, Montana is more often noted for its <a href="http://www.newswest.com/crossingline/pocatello1.html" type="external">far-right wackos</a>, from militant Christian extremists to anti-technology nut jobs than its environmental activists. But throughout the state (and the rest of the Northwest), there are groups and individuals working to change all that. Surprisingly, some of these folks are just as interested in prayer and Bible recitations as they are in preventing clearcuts.</p>
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<p><a href="/mustreads/101900.html" type="external">10/19 – Regis irks disabled</a></p>
<p><a href="/mustreads/101800.html" type="external">10/18 – Bush, North Korea, and the Moonies</a></p>
<p><a href="/mustreads/101700.html" type="external">10/17 – Gay in Guatemala</a></p>
<p><a href="/mustreads/101400.html" type="external">10/14 – African tradition may fuel AIDS</a></p>
<p>A recent MISSOULA INDEPENDENT article examines the “Green Christian” movement through the eyes of three practitioners. Most interesting is the story of Peter Illyn, a former evangelical preacher and founder of the activist group Target Earth, who now regularly hauls beer and God-rock bands into the wilderness for what he calls “keggers for Christ.”</p> | Eco-Christianity in the Rockies | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2000/10/eco-christianity-rockies/ | 2000-10-20 | 4 |
<p>Sir Paul Stephenson, head of London’s Metropolitan Police Service—commonly known as Scotland Yard—resigned Sunday just hours after police arrested former editor Rebekah Brooks in the Murdoch hacking scandal. Evidence that police officers <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/world/europe/17police.html?_r=1&amp;pagewanted=all" type="external">colluded</a> with Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid executives to suppress evidence of telephone hacking has been mounting over the past week.</p>
<p>Many of those who are demanding full disclosure in this case are not cheering about <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/07/rebekah_brooks_arrested_in_mur.html" type="external">the Brooks arrest</a>. Some members of the British Parliament and others have observed that the detainment may prevent the newly resigned Murdoch editor from having to answer to the House of Commons.</p>
<p>Even if Brooks is forced to face MPs later this week, she may enjoy a less than hostile reception. It was disclosed Sunday that John Wittingdale, the parliamentarian charged with leading the inquiry against Brooks and the Murdoch family, has <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-senior-mps-secret-links-to-murdoch-2315111.html" type="external">connections</a> with members of the Murdoch empire. –ARK</p>
<p>The New York Times:</p>
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<p>The commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Services, Sir Paul Stephenson, resigned his post on Sunday just hours after his officers arrested Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of Rupert Murdoch’s media operations in Britain, as damage from a phone-hacking scandal moved to the highest levels of British public life.</p>
<p>In a news conference, Sir Paul said his position was “in danger of being eclipsed by the ongoing debate by senior officers and the media. And this can never be right,” according to a report by The Guardian.</p>
<p>The Metropolitan Police, commonly referred to as Scotland Yard, has come under harsh scrutiny in recent days, accused in the press and by British politicians of currying too close a relationship with tabloid executives.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/world/europe/18hacking.html?hp" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Scotland Yard Chief Quits, Ex-Editor Arrested in Hacking Case | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/scotland-yard-chief-quits-ex-editor-arrested-in-hacking-case/ | 2011-07-17 | 4 |
<p>TRENTON, N.J. (AP) _ These New Jersey lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>5 Card Cash</p>
<p>JD-2C-4C-5D-7D</p>
<p>(JD, 2C, 4C, 5D, 7D)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p>
<p>Pick 3</p>
<p>5-3-8, Fireball: 8</p>
<p>(five, three, eight; Fireball: eight)</p>
<p>Pick 4</p>
<p>4-8-1-9, Fireball: 8</p>
<p>(four, eight, one, nine; Fireball: eight)</p>
<p>Cash 5</p>
<p>09-11-16-19-39, Xtra: 2</p>
<p>(nine, eleven, sixteen, nineteen, thirty-nine; Xtra: two)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $186,000</p>
<p>Midday Pick 3</p>
<p>0-3-4, Fireball: 7</p>
<p>(zero, three, four; Fireball: seven)</p>
<p>Midday Pick 4</p>
<p>4-0-0-1, Fireball: 7</p>
<p>(four, zero, zero, one; Fireball: seven)</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>TRENTON, N.J. (AP) _ These New Jersey lotteries were drawn Friday:</p>
<p>5 Card Cash</p>
<p>JD-2C-4C-5D-7D</p>
<p>(JD, 2C, 4C, 5D, 7D)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p>
<p>Pick 3</p>
<p>5-3-8, Fireball: 8</p>
<p>(five, three, eight; Fireball: eight)</p>
<p>Pick 4</p>
<p>4-8-1-9, Fireball: 8</p>
<p>(four, eight, one, nine; Fireball: eight)</p>
<p>Cash 5</p>
<p>09-11-16-19-39, Xtra: 2</p>
<p>(nine, eleven, sixteen, nineteen, thirty-nine; Xtra: two)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $186,000</p>
<p>Midday Pick 3</p>
<p>0-3-4, Fireball: 7</p>
<p>(zero, three, four; Fireball: seven)</p>
<p>Midday Pick 4</p>
<p>4-0-0-1, Fireball: 7</p>
<p>(four, zero, zero, one; Fireball: seven)</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> | NJ Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/e5b5ef15de5e4cfa999a87276176de6b | 2018-01-06 | 2 |
<p>Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s rule is coming to an end in Libya and a picture of contrasts is emerging. There is a contrast between the celebratory mood in London, Paris and Washington on one hand and Libya itself on the other. With Gaddafi down and disappeared but not altogether out of the scene, a contrast between the west and the east in that vast desert land. The east includes Benghazi, the anti-Gaddafi factions’ stronghold. In the west, the popular sentiment is much more ambivalent toward the National Transitional Council and its NATO backers.</p>
<p>Thus far, the NTA’s senior leaders have spent more time abroad, or at their base in Benghazi, than in Tripoli, where conditions are precarious. Is Chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil’s passage to the Libyan capital hindered by security, because Gaddafi’s troops have taken off their uniforms and melted into the population with their guns? Or it is the fear of the rival militias of Nisrata and Nafusa, who did most of the fighting but whose loyalties to the Transitional Council are uncertain.</p>
<p>Contrast also haunts life at large. The Economist correspondent in Tripoli spoke of those the NTA may regard as its constituency, but also those who view the recent <a href="" type="internal" /> events with “disaffection” and “nervousness” as they adapt themselves to the new situation. Reports of smugglers looting large numbers of portable missiles and small weapons are adding to the climate of fear and uncertainty. Libya’s tribal society is truly split.</p>
<p>On Thursday (September 1), President Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Cameron of Britain welcomed delegates to Paris for an international conference on Libya. And Syria-based al-Rai channel broadcast a defiant message from Colonel Gaddafi. Never to miss his moment, the colonel warned that “the traitors will come to an end and NATO will collapse.” Meanwhile in London,&#160; the curtain went up a little, revealing intentions hitherto undeclared and a secret plan hatched to bring Gaddafi down.</p>
<p>As the Paris conference opened, Britain and France lost no time before planting their flags in the Libyan sand, determined to secure their share of the prize. The race for Libyan oil had begun. France asserted that it was “fair and logical” for its companied to benefit after the war. BP, a rival, was already holding private talks with members of&#160; the Transitional Council of Libya. And the council had to deny reports of a secret deal under which French companies would control more than a third of Libya’s oil production. It is a little premature to celebrate, though, for it is not known how soon and how fast the oil will start flowing again.</p>
<p>The role of Britain’s bombers from the sky and that of its special forces on the ground to help the anti-Gaddafi forces had been known for some time. Now, more has been revealed about the extent of military-intelligence planning at the highest levels in London to bring about Gaddafi’s downfall. According to leaks, Prime Minister Cameron set up a top-secret “Libya oil cell” to plot against Gaddafi as NATO embarked on its bombing campaign. The secret unit is said to have played a “crucial role” in blocking oil supplies to Tripoli while making sure that the rebels continued to receive fuel supplies unhindered. The plot was the “brain child” of the international development minister, Alan Duncan, an ex oil trader, who convinced the British Prime Minister and the National Security Council that Colonel Gaddafi would defeat the rebels unless they got access to oil and the colonel was deprived of it.</p>
<p>The Guardian disclosed how the plan was devised and executed. With strong backing from Prime Minister Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague, a select group of British officials and foreign intelligence service (MI6) officers was involved in the operation. Their task – to control the flow of oil in and out of Libya. For weeks prior to the fall of Tripoli, Gaddafi’s forces struggled to keep on the move, as his stocks of refined oil were exhausted. The rebels were getting supplies and trading Libyan oil and diesel freely.</p>
<p>In months and years to come, Prime Minister Cameron will face some tough scrutiny. For his international development minister, the prime mover behind the covert operation of regime change in Libya, has previously worked as a consultant with the Swiss oil firm Vitol. The minister also has close ties with the company’s chairman, Ian Taylor, a donor to the Conservative Party. Given Switzerland’s neutrality, how the authorities there view a Swiss firm’s involvement in the Libyan war is yet to be established.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there are matters of more immediate curiosity. Human Rights Watch says it has discovered secret files buried deep in Gaddafi’s private offices. They contain evidence of how close the United Kingdom and the United States were to Gaddafi in the torture regime in the “war on terror” in the past decade; how previous animosities were forgotten; and how the United States used Libya for its torture program, transporting suspected militants for enhanced interrogation outside U.S. jurisdiction. The relationship between Britain and Libya became so close that Swedish, Dutch and Italian intelligence agencies used the services of MI6 to approach the Libyans for help in dealing with their own “terrorist suspects.” Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of the Transitional Council of Libya, was Libya’s justice minister until his defection early this year.</p>
<p>Deepak Tripathi&#160;is the author of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism</a>&#160;(Potomac Books, Incorporated, Washington, D.C., 2011) and&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan</a>&#160;(also Potomac, 2010). His works can be found at: <a href="http://deepaktripathi.wordpress.com/" type="external">http://deepaktripathi.wordpress.com</a>&#160;and he can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p> | MI6, Oil and Libya’s Torture Chambers | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/09/05/mi6-oil-and-libyas-torture-chambers/ | 2011-09-05 | 4 |
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<p>The Assayii Lake Fire has destroyed at least five structures and many Navajo families have concerns about the fate of their sheep camps in the Chuska Mountains, just east of the Arizona-New Mexico border.</p>
<p>Fire officials said about 50 homes near the rural communities of Naschitti and Sheep Springs remained threatened, but crews have managed to contain 5 percent of the fire.</p>
<p>News of the progress spread quickly among Navajos, many of whom have taken to social media in the days since the human-caused fire was first reported to call for donations of hay for livestock, water and prayers.</p>
<p>Gladys Plummer, a Navajo medicine healer, made the same plea at a public meeting this week. She asked local traditional healers and others from different faiths to help her in prayer, the Navajo Times reported Thursday.</p>
<p>Plummer’s hands shook while she performed a ritual and offered a song of protection and prayer for the communities affected by the fire, the forest and the wildlife.</p>
<p>“Just love one another,” she said told the community members at the meeting.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Crews used bulldozers Thursday to build containment lines on the fire’s northeastern and southern flanks, while others patrolled and mopped up the edges of the fire that were secure.</p>
<p>More than 840 firefighters and personnel are assigned to the blaze, along with 27 engines, four dozers and 10 helicopters.</p>
<p>The fire was first reported June 13 in the Bowl Canyon area. It’s burning through a steep and rugged area that includes pinon and juniper forests and brush.</p>
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<p /> | Progress against wildfire reported | false | https://abqjournal.com/418243/progress-against-wildfire-reported.html | 2 |
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<p>Environmental and renewable-energy groups are fighting PNM’s plans for making up the lost electricity when it shuts down two of the four units at the San Juan Generating Station. These are the stacks of the four units at the plant seen at dusk. (Courtesy of PNM)</p>
<p>The battle over where New Mexico’s electricity will come from after Public Service Company of New Mexico shuts down half of the coal-fired units at San Juan Generating Station near Farmington is growing.</p>
<p>Environmentalists and renewable energy advocates adamantly oppose a PNM proposal to increase its share of coal-generated electricity from San Juan by 132 megawatts after some of the plant’s other co-owners abandon it.</p>
<p>They fear PNM is committing New Mexico consumers to another two decades of coal-fired electricity despite rising costs from federal environmental regulations, while squandering an opportunity to double down on renewable energy for the future.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>PNM maintains its plan is the most cost-effective approach to meet federal mandates to reduce nitrogen oxide and other emissions at San Juan while still maintaining the electric system’s reliability and affordability for New Mexico ratepayers.</p>
<p>Steve Michel is chief counsel for Western Resource Advocates.</p>
<p>The issue is expected to come to a head this fall, when the state Public Regulation Commission holds hearings about San Juan.</p>
<p>Steve Michel, chief counsel for Western Resource Advocates, said PNM basically is proposing to shoulder New Mexico ratepayers with more responsibility at San Juan by picking up the slack for other owners who will leave the plant under a plan to shut two of the station’s four generating units by 2017.</p>
<p>Close another unit</p>
<p>“The problem is, even with the two-unit shutdown, the plant will still produce more megawatts of electricity than the facility co-owners want, so PNM is acting like a sponge to absorb the excess capacity,” Michel said. “It shouldn’t be PNM’s role to take on what others don’t want. I think it reflects a lack of interest in shutting down any more of the plant’s capacity.”</p>
<p>Rather than fully maintaining the plant’s two remaining units, Michel and others say PNM should forego the extra 132 MW and possibly consider shutting down a third generator.</p>
<p>Mariel Nanasi is executive director of New Energy Economy.</p>
<p>“We need to look at the long-term implications of what we do today,” said Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy. “In other states like California, utilities are choosing solar and wind generation as we move forward, not investing more in coal. PNM is asking us to be the sponge for other utilities that are fleeing San Juan.”</p>
<p>The San Juan overhaul reflects efforts to bring the plant into compliance with federal air-quality standards that aim to control nitrogen oxide emissions, which cause haze.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>PNM and its co-owners propose shutting two units at San Juan, then installing new pollution controls on the remaining ones. The Environmental Protection agency is expected to accept that plan in September, culminating a yearlong period of public comment.</p>
<p>After that, PNM still needs PRC approval to actually abandon the two units targeted for shutdown, plus approval for alternative generating resources to make up for lost electricity.</p>
<p>But while all the owners are in agreement on shutting half the plant, negotiations have continued on the stakes that each one will retain in the remaining units.</p>
<p>PNM Director of Production Tim Driver points at one of the exhaust stacks at the San Juan Generating Station. PNM will shut down two of the plant’s four units and plans to take over more of the capacity of the remaining two units as other owners abandon the plant.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Those negotiations are complex because PNM is one of nine co-owners, which include utilities and municipalities from at least four different states. And, with four of the nine owners now planning to completely relinquish their interest in San Juan, PNM has been negotiating with the others about how to divvy up the remaining stakes and the costs for new pollution controls.</p>
<p>PNM currently owns about 46 percent of San Juan’s total 1,701 MW net generating capacity. That total will be cut by about 838 MW after the two-unit shutdown.</p>
<p>Under PNM’s latest proposals to the PRC, the utility would add 132 MW to its current stake in one of the two remaining units as other owners relinquish their shares. All told, PNM would lose 286 MW of generating capacity at the plant, but retain 497 MW.</p>
<p>That’s different from what PNM proposed last December, when it called for acquiring 78 MW more of capacity in one remaining unit. That would have meant losing 340 MW of ownership in the plant overall, while retaining 443 MW.</p>
<p>Complex negotiations</p>
<p>PNM executives said the increase reflects the complexity of negotiations with other owners.</p>
<p>“By shutting down two units, we had to look at restructuring all remaining shares in the plant,” said PNM Planning and Resources Director Pat O’Connell. “Until now, we weren’t completely sure which owners were definitely exiting and which ones would increase their shares.”</p>
<p>Apart from PNM, the city of Farmington will increase its stake from 43 MW now to 65 MW to maintain capacity when other owners leave, he said.</p>
<p>To make up for lost generation and meet growing electric demand in coming years, PNM wants to acquire another 134 MW of electricity from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona, add a new 177 MW natural gas-fired plant near Farmington, and build 40 MW more of utility-scale solar generation.</p>
<p>Based on extensive computer modeling in the past year, PNM says that would allow it to maintain system reliability at the lowest cost after the two-unit shutdown.</p>
<p>“Our modeling shows it’s a good plan,” O’Connell said. “It reduces coal while increasing nuclear, gas and solar. That gives us a more balanced mix of resources to maintain system reliability, and it’s the least expensive plan compared to other options.”</p>
<p>$90 to your bill</p>
<p>Based on preliminary estimates, the utility says its plan could cost average residential customers about $90 per year, or about 10 percent more on their bills after 2018.</p>
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<p>6. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association</p>
<p>7. Southern California Public Power Authority</p>
<p>8. City of Anaheim, Calif.</p>
<p>9. MSR Public Power Agency (in California)PNM currently owns 46 percent of San Juan’s generating capacity and is the plant operator.</p>
<p>After units two and three are shut down on Dec. 31, 2017, the following four co-owners will completely exit the plant:</p>
<p>1. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association</p>
<p>2. Southern California Public Power Authority</p>
<p>3. City of Anaheim, Calif.</p>
<p>4. MSR Public Power Agency (in California)</p>
<p>But opponents say the long-term costs of locking in more coal, rather than adding more renewables as replacement power, will be far more costly in the long term. That’s because a host of new environmental regulations are coming in the next year or so, including a new rule on how power plants manage coal ash disposal, water intake and effluence, and carbon emissions.</p>
<p>The EPA proposed in June that states reduce their carbon emissions from coal plants 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. If that rule is approved as-is next year, it would mean New Mexico would need to cut its current carbon-emission rate by 34 percent, according to Maureen Gannon, PNM’s executive director for environmental services.</p>
<p>The impact on San Juan is not yet clear because EPA’s proposals allow states to implement many measures, such as increasing energy efficiency to lower consumption while adding more renewable resources to systems, rather than just shut coal generators or add pollution controls. In addition, the rule requirements could change through public comment over the next year.</p>
<p>The environmental and renewable energy groups insist that if their proposals are adopted, it would cost consumers less that what PNM proposes, but none had any kind of customer cost projections or data.</p>
<p>Studying EPA’s rule</p>
<p>“The proposed rule and supporting documents amount to 1,500-plus pages,” Gannon said. “We have a team reviewing it, but it’s not an easy rule to digest. We’re still trying to understand its implications.”</p>
<p>Environmentalists and renewable advocates say it clearly will impact San Juan, especially if PNM absorbs another 132 MW of coal capacity at the plant.</p>
<p>“Our calculations indicate PNM’s current plan at San Juan will not meet the new EPA requirements,” said David Van Winkle, energy chairman for the New Mexico Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy.</p>
<p>In addition, coal ash regulations, which the EPA will finalize in December, could force costly investments by PNM in new disposal methods, he said. In fact, the utility told investors in June that it faces “significant exposure” from that forthcoming rule.</p>
<p>And apart from new federal regulations, PNM faces rising costs for the coal it consumes at the plant, which is supplied by BHP Billiton’s San Juan Coal Mine. BHP is expected to significantly increase prices after the two-unit shutdown to make up for lost sales.</p>
<p>Hearing in October</p>
<p>As a result, opponents want PNM to provide more answers about the costs of absorbing additional coal from exiting San Juan owners given upcoming environmental regulations. They also want a more thorough assessment of the other replacement power, including the cost-effectiveness of adding more nuclear as opposed to more renewables such as wind and solar.</p>
<p>In early July, they asked the hearing examiner, Ashley Shannauer, to divide the case into two phases but he rejected those requests last week, confirming instead that all issues will be reviewed in a single hearing in October.</p>
<p>“There are long-term policy questions about whether we should be investing in coal at all at this point, or in nuclear energy, especially given the declining costs for renewables,” Nanasi said, adding it’s unclear if PNM’s plan would cost the least.</p>
<p /> | San Juan battle lines drawn | false | https://abqjournal.com/432516/san-juan-battle-lines-drawn.html | 2014-07-21 | 2 |
<p>The easiest place to find evidence of the campaign at the moment is online. The One Million Signatures Campaign began with a demonstration in 2006 in which dozens of women were arrested. Currently a woman is worth half as much as a man in terms of legal compensation. The best known supporter of the campaign is Iran's Nobel Peace Winner. She says, the Iranian women are against these laws and that this government is doing injustice in the name of Islam and many high ranking clerics have said the same thing. The goal is to deliver one million signatures to Iran's Parliament and the UN, but it doesn't look like an easy task. About 50 of the campaign's volunteers, most young women, have been arrested for getting signatures. One woman who was arrested was charged with spreading anti-government propaganda, a serious matter in Iran. She refused to pay the $20,000 bond but spending time in prison proved a revelation. In prison that woman met another woman who didn't want to leave because she felt safer in prison than at home. She decided these were the women the campaign was designed to help, and then felt more determined to continue on. What's dangerous is that the charges are always associated to endangering national security and vague security crimes. This woman thinks it's the cost of advocating change. This woman says the campaign is about rights, not politics, and that's most important.</p> | Iranian women petition for legal equality | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-03-27/iranian-women-petition-legal-equality | 2008-03-27 | 3 |
<p>A federal judge will rule next week on a union's antitrust lawsuit that seeks to block the sale of a Maine paper mill to a Canadian metal recycler.</p>
<p>Parties appeared in court Tuesday to respond to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers' suit. The suit seeks to block the sale of Verso Paper Corp.'s mill in Bucksport, which shut down production this month, to AIM Development.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Judge John A. Woodcock could rule by Monday, WABI-TV reported. The union wants to clear the way for a buyer that would operate the business as a paper mill. Its lawsuit says Verso engaged in a conspiracy to monopolize the market for coated printing paper.</p>
<p>Verso also operates a mill in Jay and recently acquired its rival NewPage in a $1.4 million deal. The federal Department of Justice required Verso to sell off its Rumford mill because of antitrust concerns. Verso announced a deal to sell the 700-employee Rumford mill to Canada-based Catalyst Paper Corp. in October.</p> | Judge expected to rule soon on union's lawsuit against Maine mill sale to Canadian firm | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/01/13/judge-expected-to-rule-soon-on-union-lawsuit-against-maine-mill-sale-to.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Jimmy Butler played the type of game Tom Thibodeau was thinking about when he brought the veteran guard to Minnesota in the offseason.</p>
<p>Butler scored 12 of Minnesota’s 14 points in overtime and finished with a season-high 39 to lift the Timberwolves to a 128-125 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday night.</p>
<p>Thibodeau, Minnesota’s coach and president of basketball operations, gave up a first-round draft pick and two players — both former first-round picks — to acquire the Olympian and three-time All-Star from Chicago, where Thibodeau coached him from 2011-15.</p>
<p>“He’s got an unbelievable will to win, and that’s what makes him so special,” Thibodeau said. “When his best is needed, he’s always at his best. Always been that way, and that’s not going to change.”</p>
<p>Butler scored Minnesota’s first 11 points in overtime. Then with the game tied 125-all and 50 seconds to go, he drove to the basket again before kicking it out to Jamal Crawford, who drained the go-ahead 18-foot jump shot.</p>
<p>“I really was going to shoot the ball, I won’t lie to you,” Butler said. “But if Jamal screams ‘Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!’ three times, that means pass it to him, he’s open. He did what he’s done for us all year: make some shots.”</p>
<p>After the Nuggets missed on the other end, Butler skied for the defensive rebound, brought the ball down the court and drew a foul. He hit one of two free throws, and Denver’s Trey Lyles missed a desperation 3-point attempt at the buzzer to help Minnesota hang on after blowing a 19-point lead.</p>
<p>“That’s an All-Star. He showed his worth right there,” said Lyles, who finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds. “He done it to us in the earlier game, too, and when a guy gets going like that it’s tough to stop him, and kudos to him. We kind of threw everything we had at him, and he was able to take it and still finish.”</p>
<p>Will Barton scored 28 points and Nikola Jokic had 22 for the Nuggets, whose three-game winning streak ended.</p>
<p>Andrew Wiggins made five 3-pointers and scored 21 points for Minnesota, which won its fifth straight. Taj Gibson added 20 points, and Karl-Anthony Towns had 14 points and 13 rebounds.</p>
<p>The Wolves played the overtime period without Towns, who fouled out late in the fourth quarter, and point guard Jeff Teague, who limped off the court in the final 20 seconds with what appeared to be a left leg injury. Gibson fouled out on Denver’s first possession in overtime, leaving the Wolves without three starters for the game’s most crucial stretch. But as long as one of them was Butler, they were in fine shape.</p>
<p>“I hope everyone’s recognizing how special he is,” Thibodeau said. “He’s changed everything for us. Big play after big play. Guards everyone. Hustle plays. Tough rebounds. In traffic. Passes, shots, free throws. Everything.”</p>
<p>Minnesota led by as many as 19 points and was ahead 109-100 after Wiggins’ four-point player with just under three minutes to play in regulation. But Denver stormed back and Barton hit a pair of free throws to send the game to overtime tied at 114.</p>
<p>“Down 19 points, second half, second night of a back-to-back, we could’ve very easily have folded and just rolled over,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “I loved the fact that our guys never did that. We competed.”</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>Nuggets: Lyles has scored in double digits in Denver’s last seven games. ... The Nuggets are 2-4 on the back end of back-to-backs this year. After beating Utah on Tuesday, they are 5-1 on the front end. ... Denver had held its previous three opponents below 86 points, its longest such streak since 2012.</p>
<p>Timberwolves: F Nemanja Bjelica played his second straight game after missing the previous 15 with a sprained foot. He finished with one point and three rebounds in 10 minutes. ... Minnesota’s 71-point first half was its highest-scoring half this season. ... Minnesota improved to 19-6 against the Western Conference and 7-1 against the Northwest Division.</p>
<p>GOING DEEP</p>
<p>The Timberwolves came into the game 29th in the NBA in 3-pointers made per game at 8.1, but they already had nine (on 18 attempts) by halftime and finished the night 12 for 29 from beyond the arc. They made their first five 3-pointers on consecutive shots by Towns, Teague, Wiggins (twice) and Butler to build an early lead.</p>
<p>That included a 4-for-4 start by Wiggins, a 30 percent 3-point shooter on the season who had made just 13 of 50 3-pointers in December going into Wednesday’s game. His five on the night were the most for any Timberwolf this season.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Nuggets: Host Philadelphia on Saturday.</p>
<p>Timberwolves: At Milwaukee on Thursday.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP NBA: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p>
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Jimmy Butler played the type of game Tom Thibodeau was thinking about when he brought the veteran guard to Minnesota in the offseason.</p>
<p>Butler scored 12 of Minnesota’s 14 points in overtime and finished with a season-high 39 to lift the Timberwolves to a 128-125 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday night.</p>
<p>Thibodeau, Minnesota’s coach and president of basketball operations, gave up a first-round draft pick and two players — both former first-round picks — to acquire the Olympian and three-time All-Star from Chicago, where Thibodeau coached him from 2011-15.</p>
<p>“He’s got an unbelievable will to win, and that’s what makes him so special,” Thibodeau said. “When his best is needed, he’s always at his best. Always been that way, and that’s not going to change.”</p>
<p>Butler scored Minnesota’s first 11 points in overtime. Then with the game tied 125-all and 50 seconds to go, he drove to the basket again before kicking it out to Jamal Crawford, who drained the go-ahead 18-foot jump shot.</p>
<p>“I really was going to shoot the ball, I won’t lie to you,” Butler said. “But if Jamal screams ‘Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!’ three times, that means pass it to him, he’s open. He did what he’s done for us all year: make some shots.”</p>
<p>After the Nuggets missed on the other end, Butler skied for the defensive rebound, brought the ball down the court and drew a foul. He hit one of two free throws, and Denver’s Trey Lyles missed a desperation 3-point attempt at the buzzer to help Minnesota hang on after blowing a 19-point lead.</p>
<p>“That’s an All-Star. He showed his worth right there,” said Lyles, who finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds. “He done it to us in the earlier game, too, and when a guy gets going like that it’s tough to stop him, and kudos to him. We kind of threw everything we had at him, and he was able to take it and still finish.”</p>
<p>Will Barton scored 28 points and Nikola Jokic had 22 for the Nuggets, whose three-game winning streak ended.</p>
<p>Andrew Wiggins made five 3-pointers and scored 21 points for Minnesota, which won its fifth straight. Taj Gibson added 20 points, and Karl-Anthony Towns had 14 points and 13 rebounds.</p>
<p>The Wolves played the overtime period without Towns, who fouled out late in the fourth quarter, and point guard Jeff Teague, who limped off the court in the final 20 seconds with what appeared to be a left leg injury. Gibson fouled out on Denver’s first possession in overtime, leaving the Wolves without three starters for the game’s most crucial stretch. But as long as one of them was Butler, they were in fine shape.</p>
<p>“I hope everyone’s recognizing how special he is,” Thibodeau said. “He’s changed everything for us. Big play after big play. Guards everyone. Hustle plays. Tough rebounds. In traffic. Passes, shots, free throws. Everything.”</p>
<p>Minnesota led by as many as 19 points and was ahead 109-100 after Wiggins’ four-point player with just under three minutes to play in regulation. But Denver stormed back and Barton hit a pair of free throws to send the game to overtime tied at 114.</p>
<p>“Down 19 points, second half, second night of a back-to-back, we could’ve very easily have folded and just rolled over,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “I loved the fact that our guys never did that. We competed.”</p>
<p>TIP-INS</p>
<p>Nuggets: Lyles has scored in double digits in Denver’s last seven games. ... The Nuggets are 2-4 on the back end of back-to-backs this year. After beating Utah on Tuesday, they are 5-1 on the front end. ... Denver had held its previous three opponents below 86 points, its longest such streak since 2012.</p>
<p>Timberwolves: F Nemanja Bjelica played his second straight game after missing the previous 15 with a sprained foot. He finished with one point and three rebounds in 10 minutes. ... Minnesota’s 71-point first half was its highest-scoring half this season. ... Minnesota improved to 19-6 against the Western Conference and 7-1 against the Northwest Division.</p>
<p>GOING DEEP</p>
<p>The Timberwolves came into the game 29th in the NBA in 3-pointers made per game at 8.1, but they already had nine (on 18 attempts) by halftime and finished the night 12 for 29 from beyond the arc. They made their first five 3-pointers on consecutive shots by Towns, Teague, Wiggins (twice) and Butler to build an early lead.</p>
<p>That included a 4-for-4 start by Wiggins, a 30 percent 3-point shooter on the season who had made just 13 of 50 3-pointers in December going into Wednesday’s game. His five on the night were the most for any Timberwolf this season.</p>
<p>UP NEXT</p>
<p>Nuggets: Host Philadelphia on Saturday.</p>
<p>Timberwolves: At Milwaukee on Thursday.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP NBA: <a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="" type="internal">https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball</a></p> | Butler’s 39 points lift Wolves past Nuggets, 128-125 in OT | false | https://apnews.com/06e57520b99f494abcace1580d72d2ef | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Nokia planned to launch its first smartphone using Microsoft's <a href="" type="internal">Windows Phone 7</a> at the end of the year, according to Taiwan's Commercial Times, which did not identify a source.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The newspaper also said Taiwanese handset contract maker Compal Communications was the sole company to receive orders for Nokia's Window phones and would start shipment in the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>Two models of Window phones were on Nokia's plan -- one with a full touch screen and another sleek one with a keypad.</p>
<p>The world's largest handset maker announced in February it would use Microsoft's Windows phone software in all of its smartphones [ID:nLDE71A0DG], and said it would start volume shipments of these smartphones in 2012.</p> | Nokia to Launch its First Windows Phone Late This Year | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/05/25/nokia-launch-window-phone-late-year-media.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Ford Motor Co. is cutting production as U.S. demand for new vehicles slows, but so far, its rivals aren't doing the same.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Ford said Tuesday it will temporarily idle four of its North American assembly plants this month to better align production with demand.</p>
<p>After six straight years of growth, U.S. sales of new vehicles are slowing. In the first nine months of this year, U.S. sales totaled 13.1 million new vehicles, up less than 1 percent from 2015.</p>
<p>"This is a roller coaster that's gone to the top," said Mike Harley, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book. "I wouldn't be surprised if other automakers follow suit."</p>
<p>But sales are still near last year's record-high levels, and so far, Ford's chief rivals are sticking to their production plans. General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles both said Tuesday that all of their plants are operating normally. Toyota Motor Corp. said last month that it plans to increase production of Tacoma pickup trucks at its plant in Baja California, Mexico. Toyota is adding 400 workers and investing $150 million in the plant by 2018.</p>
<p>Dearborn-based Ford warned in July that U.S. sales to individual, non-fleet buyers would likely decline in the second half of this year. Pent-up demand that accumulated during the recession has been satisfied. At the same time, more used cars are hitting the market, competing with new cars for buyers' attention.</p>
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<p>Harley said automakers have to trim extra inventory when there's nowhere else to put it. In September, Ford had 78 days' supply of vehicles on dealers' lots, while its luxury Lincoln brand had 101 days' supply, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. The industry average was 65 days.</p>
<p>"You need to turn off the faucet so you don't flood the yard," Harley said.</p>
<p>Ford has scheduled one-week closures for plants in Kansas City, Missouri, and Hermosillo and Cuatitlan, Mexico. Those plants make the F-150 pickup truck, the Fusion sedan and the Fiesta subcompact. It also scheduled two weeks of down time for its Louisville, Kentucky, plant, which makes the Ford Escape and Lincoln MKC small SUVs.</p>
<p>Ford Escape sales were up 1 percent in the first nine months of this year, while F-Series pickup sales were up 6 percent. But sales of both vehicles were down in September.</p>
<p>Ford says the cuts won't impact its financial guidance. It still expects a pretax profit of $10.2 billion this year.</p>
<p>Ford's shares fell 9 cents to $11.79 in afternoon trading Tuesday.</p> | Ford cutting production as US demand slows | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/18/ford-cutting-production-as-us-demand-slows.html | 2016-10-18 | 0 |
<p>There are too many U.S. grocery chain stores, said George Whalin, head of Retail Management Consultants, in The Sacramento Bee of June 7. Call it overcapacity in the grocery industry.</p>
<p>A few new owners of the Albertsons grocery chain are responding accordingly. In early June, three companies purchased Albertsons Inc. for the tidy sum of $17 billion.</p>
<p>One of the trio, Cerberus Partners, an investment firm based in New York, partnered with the commercial real estate firm of Kimco Realty Corp. To halt a fall in profits for Albertsons during the past four years, 100 of its stores nationwide will be closing, 37 of which are located in Northern California.</p>
<p>These “under-performing stores” did not bring an acceptable return on investment to owners, according to Albertsons spokeswoman Quyen Ha. And the consequences for Albertsons employees?</p>
<p>How many of them will become jobless is not yet known. Contrast their bitter fate with that of Larry Johnston, CEO of Albertsons.</p>
<p>Mr. Johnston earned about $60 million as Albertsons shareholders lost around $900 million between 2000 and 2003, said Graef Crystal, a business professor at UC Berkeley, in a report on KTVB NewsChannel 7, the NBC station in Boise, Idaho on July 8, 2003. Nice work if you can get it.</p>
<p>Albertsons competes for profits and market share in the grocery industry with discounter Wal-Mart Stores Inc., owned by the Walton family of multi-billionaires. Their wealth is built on the backs of Wal-Mart’s hourly work force, which earns lower wages than unionized Albertsons workers.</p>
<p>As the good Marxists in corporate America know, low wages plus high productivity boost profit rates. Driven thusly, grocery companies compete to undersell their rivals and put them out of business.</p>
<p>Wal-Mart is pursuing this strategy with a vengeance in California. In early 2006, Kroger-owned Ralphs fell to the Wal-Mart discount rout, departing the Sacramento area, having shut down eight of its stores in the capital region.</p>
<p>Two years earlier, unionized Southern California grocery workers endured a five-month strike and lockout, trying to prevent Safeway-owned Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons from making deep cuts to employees’ health benefits and hourly wages. On one hand, the employers did not get all of the cuts they wanted at the end of the five months.</p>
<p>On the other hand, new-hire grocery workers in the south state were forced to labor for lower wages and fork out higher co-pays for their health benefits. The grocery chains had sought such cuts due to competition from Wal-Mart.</p>
<p>It is unclear how many Albertsons workers will be fired as a result of the upcoming store closures. What is clear is that overcapacity runs a red line through the U.S. economy, from airlines to cars, and more.</p>
<p>Currently, the shake-out underway in the marketplace of U.S. grocery chains is falling hard on wage earners. They are living the lives of pay cuts and layoffs under President George W. Bush’s “Ownership Society.”</p>
<p>National health care would provide a cushion for the human harm created by overcapacity in the U.S. economy. It is time to think and act outside the box of the usual labor union-company agreements fueled by market share and profits.</p>
<p>SETH SANDRONSKY is a member of Sacramento Area Peace Action and a co-editor of Because People Matter, Sacramento’s progressive paper. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Grocery Chains and Bush’s Ownership Society | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/06/10/grocery-chains-and-bush-s-ownership-society/ | 2006-06-10 | 4 |
<p>A new study says that choosing restaurant food over fast food is not such a wise choice after all. Restaurant meals are full of just as many calories as greasy burgers and salty fries at a fast food joint.</p>
<p>A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that rather than focusing only on fast food, researchers should look at restaurant food; they should also realize that the food can actually be worse for a person than fast food.</p>
<p>Researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2003 to 2010 involving nearly 18,000 U.S. citizens. The University of Illinois researchers compared the nutrient and calorie consumption of people who regularly ate at restaurants with people who regularly eat fast food. They also <a href="http://www.hngn.com/articles/110603/20150718/restaurant-food-bad-fast-study-finds.htm" type="external">examined</a>&#160;the caloric intake from home-cooked meals versus restaurant meals.</p>
<p>The study revealed that restaurant foods contained more nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, potassium and vitamins,&#160;Gazette Tribune&#160;reports. But, the foods also contained higher sodium and cholesterol contents than foods from fast food chains.</p>
<p>Additionally, meals cooked at home contained nearly 200 calories less than foods from fast food restaurants and normal restaurants. Both also contain 10 more milligrams of cholesterol and 10 more grams of fat than home-cooked meals.</p>
<p>A community and kinesiology health professor at the University of Illionois and author of the study, Ruopeng An, <a href="http://www.hngn.com/articles/110603/20150718/restaurant-food-bad-fast-study-finds.htm" type="external">stated</a>&#160;that those who ate at “full-service restaurants” consumed a significant amount more cholesterol per day than those who ate at home. An added that the additional cholesterol intake, “58 milligrams per day,” is about 20 percent of the recommended 300 milligrams per day.</p>
<p>In order to lower the risk of obesity and health issues that come along with it, researchers encourage people to begin preparing meals at home. Dietitian at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City Lori Rosenthal, who was not a participant or researcher involved in the study, said that when meals are prepared at home, “we know exactly what the foods we are eating contain.”</p>
<p>Rosenthal added that when dining at a restaurant, “we are leaving the ingredients up to the chef or fast food chain.”</p>
<p /> | Restaurant food is just as bad for you as fast food, study reveals | false | http://natmonitor.com/2015/07/18/restaurant-food-is-just-as-bad-for-you-as-fast-food-study-reveals/ | 2015-07-18 | 3 |
<p>Disclaimer:Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.</p>
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | This week's rally in energy stocks could keep going, analysts say | false | https://newsline.com/this-week039s-rally-in-energy-stocks-could-keep-going-analysts-say/ | 2017-09-16 | 1 |
<p />
<p>A fund of funds is exactly as it sounds -- it is a fund that invests in other mutual funds or hedge funds. The basic idea is that a fund of funds can offer greater diversification and access to high-minimum funds, albeit with an additional layer of fees.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>One of the most common examples of a fund of funds is a target date mutual fund. Target date funds allocate investors' capital based on their expected retirement date. For example, Vanguard's target date mutual funds pool investors' money and invest it into four other Vanguard funds.</p>
<p>Fund of funds are also common in hedge funds, which typically have high minimum investments that often top $1 million or more. By investing in a fund of hedge funds, an investor who might not ordinarily be able to scrounge up enough to meet the minimum investment for a hedge fund can invest in a fund of hedge funds and get access to an investment vehicle that might have traditionally been out of reach.</p>
<p>Fund of funds were famously brought into the spotlight by a $1 million bet between legendary investor Warren Buffett and hedge fund manager Protege Partners. Warren Buffett bet that an S&amp;P 500Index fund would beat the performance of five funds of funds picked by Protege over a 10-year period, after fees. So far, it looks like Buffett's charity will win the friendly wager.</p>
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<p>One of the biggest criticisms of funds of funds is that they make investing more expensive by adding another layer of annual management and performance fees. A fund of funds might charge investors annual management fees of 0.5% to 1% each year to invest its clients' capital in funds that charge another 1% annual management fee. Over time, the additional fee burden makes it difficult for funds of funds to generate good returns for their investors.</p>
<p>Similarly, just as it is difficult to pick market-beating stocks, studies show it is just as tough to select market-beating fund managers. Selecting star fund managers from a pool of thousands of fund managers is no easy task, as historical performance is no guarantee of future results.</p>
<p>Finally, because a fund of funds may invest in hundreds of funds, it may become so diversified that beating the market is impossible. A fund of 20 funds that each holds 50 stocks could own 1,000 investments, assuming no overlap in the underlying funds' positions. With that kind of diversification, the fund of funds' investors would likely be better off owning a low-fee index fund that offers vast diversification at a substantially reduced price.</p>
<p>Despite the industry's criticisms, funds of funds and fund allocation are big businesses. One of the most successful allocators, Blackstone'sHedge Fund Solutions unit, recently reported having more than $68 billion of client assets that it invests in other managers' funds.</p>
<p>This article is part of The Motley Fool's Knowledge Center, which was created based on the collected wisdom of a fantastic community of investors. We'd love to hear your questions, thoughts, and opinions on the Knowledge Center in general or this page in particular. Your input will help us help the world invest, better! Email us at <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a>. Thanks -- and Fool on!</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/what-is-a-fund-of-funds.aspx" type="external">What Is a Fund of Funds? Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | What Is a Fund of Funds? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/07/10/what-is-fund-funds.html | 2016-07-10 | 0 |
<p>Former Beatles drummer <a href="/topics/ringo-starr/" type="external">Ringo Starr</a> on Wednesday announced that he was canceling a show in North Carolina in protest of a law that prohibits people from using the public facilities of the opposite sex.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry to disappoint my fans in the area, but we need to take a stand against this hatred,” <a href="/topics/ringo-starr/" type="external">Mr. Starr</a> said in a statement. “Spread peace and love.”</p>
<p><a href="/topics/ringo-starr/" type="external">Mr. Starr</a> was set to play on June 18 at the Koka Booth Ampitheatre in Cary, North Carolina.</p>
<p><a href="/news/2016/apr/13/john-bel-edwards-louisiana-governor-rescinds-relig/" type="external">SEE ALSO: Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards rescinds religious liberty order</a></p>
<p>He is the latest musician to cancel a show in North Carolina in response to House Bill 2, which was signed into law last month by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and requires that people use the public restrooms and showers of their biological sex, not their preferred gender identification.&#160;</p>
<p>Bruce Springsteen announced last week that he would not perform in the state, followed by Bryan Adams. Jimmy Buffett and Gregg Allman have been harshly critical of the law but pointedly not canceled shows.</p>
<p>Mr. McCrory on Tuesday announced an executive order clarifying the law, allowing private businesses to regulate their restrooms however they please.</p>
<p>But that apparently was not enough to placate <a href="/topics/ringo-starr/" type="external">Mr. Starr</a>, who described the law as bigotry.</p>
<p>“How sad that they feel this group of people cannot be defended,” he said.</p>
<p>Other artists set to play in North Carolina soon are Beyonce and Justin Bieber.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. <a href="http://license.icopyright.net/3.7280?icx_id=/news/2016/apr/13/ringo-star-cancels-north-carolina-concert-protest-/" type="external">Click here for reprint permission</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Ringo Starr cancels North Carolina concert in protest of transgender bathroom law | true | http://washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/13/ringo-star-cancels-north-carolina-concert-protest-/ | 2016-04-13 | 0 |
<p>A number of Washington Republicans are pointing fingers at <a href="http://variety.com/t/steve-bannon/" type="external">Steve Bannon</a>’s brand of politics as being responsible for the <a href="http://variety.com/2017/politics/news/doug-jones-wins-alabama-senate-race-1202638526/" type="external">loss of a Senate seat</a>, but Bannon himself is suggesting a different reason. Democrats did a better job at getting out the vote.</p>
<p>On “Breitbart News Radio” on SiriusXM’s Patriot Channel on Wednesday, Bannon credited the Democratic National Committee for getting involved in the Alabama Senate race and boosting the fortunes of Doug Jones.</p>
<p>Jones, a former federal prosecutor, edged out Moore, a former judge, to win the seat. Jones is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the state in 25 years.</p>
<p>“The DNC came in here, slipped in here, under the radar, and did an amazing job of organizing — what’s my favorite word? Ground game,” Bannon told Alex Marlow on the show. “You got to give the devil its due. I tell people every day. There’s no magic wand. You are going to have to outwork people. If you get outworked you are going to lose, and I got to tell you, their ability to get out votes, that is what it comes down to.”</p>
<p>“You have to grind it out. This is going to be five, 10, 15, 20 years, every day. If we’re prepared to do it, we win,” he said.</p>
<p>He also gave little indication that he was backing away from his involvement in political races, as he seeks to usurp the GOP establishment with figures like Moore and <a href="http://variety.com/t/donald-trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a> who center their personas on nationalist and anti-elitist rhetoric.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the race, some Republicans publicly blamed Bannon, who campaigned for Moore and provided strategic advice, for also influencing President <a href="http://variety.com/2017/politics/news/trump-kirsten-gillibrand-tweet-1202637342/" type="external">Donald Trump</a>’s decision to endorse him late in the race.</p>
<p>The Senate Leadership Fund, which is working to expand Republicans’ majority in the Senate, put out a statement on Tuesday night saying that “not only did <a href="http://variety.com/2017/music/news/melissa-etheridge-steve-bannon-siriusxm-1202637261/" type="external">Steve Bannon</a> cost us a critical Senate seat in one of the most Republican states in the country, but he also dragged the President of the United States into his fiasco.”</p>
<p>Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) was more cutting on Wednesday, tweeting angrily, “After Alabama disaster GOP must do right thing and DUMP Steve Bannon. His act is tired, inane and morally vacuous. If we are to Make America Great Again for all Americans, Bannon must go! And go NOW!!” He said on CNN that Bannon “does&#160;not belong&#160;on the national stage. He looks like some disheveled drunk that wandered onto the political stage.”</p>
<p>Trump tweeted early on Wednesday, “The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said <a href="http://variety.com/t/roy-moore/" type="external">Roy Moore</a> will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!”</p>
<p>The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said <a href="http://variety.com/2017/politics/news/jeff-sessions-roy-moore-sexual-assault-1202614494/" type="external">Roy Moore</a> will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!</p>
<p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/940904649728708609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">December 13, 2017</a></p>
<p>He also appeared to indirectly blame Moore in another tweet, writing, “If last night’s election proved anything, it proved that we need to put up GREAT Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and Senate.”</p>
<p>Bannon, a former Hollywood producer and financial executive, served as Trump’s chief strategist until August, when he returned to serve as&#160;the executive chairman of Breitbart News. The site on Wednesday <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/13/five-things-went-wrong-roy-moore/" type="external">published a list</a> of the “Five Things That Went Wrong for Roy Moore.” They included “not having a unified GOP,” “margins of loss in urban counties was too much to overcome,” Jones over-performing in swing counties, higher turnout, and Moore depending too much on votes from one of his strongholds, the Wiregrass region.</p>
<p>Listen below:</p> | Steve Bannon on Roy Moore’s Defeat: DNC ‘Did an Amazing Job of Organizing’ | false | https://newsline.com/steve-bannon-on-roy-moores-defeat-dnc-did-an-amazing-job-of-organizing/ | 2017-12-13 | 1 |
<p>In his 11 years in Congress, Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, Texas, has made a habit of vexing his political party. Cuellar, one of eight children born to migrant worker parents, endorsed George W. Bush in 2000, voted against abortion funding, and called for sped-up deportation of undocumented children who cross the Mexican border. &#160;</p>
<p>This year, Cuellar achieved another unusual distinction: He is, at least for now, the lone Democratic congressional candidate, incumbent or otherwise, who has received a campaign donation this election cycle from the National Rifle Association, according to data tracked by the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00053553&amp;cycle=2010" type="external">Center for Responsive Politics</a>. (This calculation reflects reporting through March 31.) Cuellar did not respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p>It is not too late for the NRA to back other candidates in the 2016 elections, of course, but an analysis of the recent history of the gun group’s election spending suggests that the NRA will donate few, if any, other Democrats.</p>
<p>Subscribe to receive The Trace’s newsletters on important gun news and analysis.</p>
<p>The NRA has leaned Republican since at least the early 1990s, but as recently as halfway through the first term of President Barack Obama, it still supported many Democrats standing for election to Congress, especially in the South and West.</p>
<p>For the 2010 campaign cycle, the gun group gave more than $350,000 in direct contributions to 65 Democratic House candidates. By 2014, almost all that support had disappeared: The gun group donated just $38,000 to only 12 Democratic campaigns.</p>
<p>Representative Filemon Vela, another Democratic Texan, received his only NRA donation in 2012, $1,000, during his first congressional campaign. In an interview, he said that he didn’t recall the contribution. NRA lobbyists visited him after his election, but, he says, “I never heard from them again.”</p>
<p>NRA giving to Senate Democrats has also disappeared. The last such candidate to receive an NRA donation was West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin in 2012, who received $6,500 from the group. That contribution was made before the Sandy Hook massacre, and before Manchin, along with Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey, introduced legislation to close the so-called background check loophole. (The bill failed in the Senate amid fierce NRA opposition.)</p>
<p>A recent <a href="" type="internal">analysis</a> by The Trace and the New York Daily News of so-called independent expenditures — money spent attacking or supporting candidates — showed that that the primary political spending objective of the NRA is now to target and defeat Democrats.</p>
<p>From 2010 to 2016, the NRA spent at least $33.4 million on attack ads, mostly in an effort to defeat Democrats.</p>
<p>Democratic House members who have received financial support of any kind from the NRA are now the political equivalent of the black rhino — a once-common African mammal now at the brink of extinction.</p>
<p />
<p>An analysis of $56 million in election spending shows a group willing to take out gun-friendly former allies.</p>
<p>by <a href="" type="external">Mike Spies for The Trace and Sarah Ryley for the New York Daily News</a></p>
<p />
<p>Of 21 congressional Democrats who were beneficiaries of independent NRA expenditures in 2010 and 2012, just one — Tim Walz, from southern Minnesota — remains in office.</p>
<p>Of the 30 Democrats who received direct support from the NRA in 2012, a dozen still hold their House seats. They include Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, and Collin Peterson of Minnesota.</p>
<p>The plummet in the NRA support for Democrats highlights the group’s increasingly partisan posture, which is at odds with its past attempts to avoid party allegiances. It also highlights bigger political shifts.</p>
<p>Both major political parties have moved into more clearly defined ideological and regional groupings. In the 2010 election, 30 conservative Democrats, many of them members Blue Dog Coalition who tended to oppose gun regulation, lost to Republicans as the Tea Party won congressional seats for the first time.</p>
<p>The result has left fewer Democrats representing voters who put a premium on gun rights, and fewer Republicans whose constituents focus on issues such as abortion rights.</p>
<p>“Most organizations that have an ideological bent have become partisan organizations as the parties have become more homogenous,” David Wasserman, who covers House races for the Cook Political Report, tells The Trace. “It’s not exclusive to the NRA. We see it with Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign. They have become Democratic organizations almost exclusively.”</p>
<p>Manchin says he thinks the gun lobby has erred by not trying to work with him on background check legislation. “You would think the NRA would be reaching out to people like me that really believe staunchly in defending the Second Amendment, but also in trying to find a balance with just some common sense,” he says.</p>
<p>Manchin says the NRA no longer resembles the group he “grew up in … that taught gun safety and responsibility.”</p>
<p>[Photo: Shutterstock]</p> | Meet the Last NRA Democrat | false | https://thetrace.org/2016/05/last-nra-democrat-congress-2016/ | 2016-05-20 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE:WYN) said Friday its fourth-quarter profit rose 6.2%, as the hotel operator benefited from growth in its timeshare business.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Parsippany, N.J.-based company reported net income of $86 million, or 65 cents a share, versus $81 million, or 57 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted per-share earnings rose to 73 cents from 63 cents.</p>
<p>Revenue was up 9% at $1.2 billion, a slight beat compared to Wall Street’s estimate for $1.18 billion. Analysts accurately projected adjusted earnings of 73 cents a share.</p>
<p>Wyndham’s vacation ownership group, the largest top-line contributor, saw a 12% jump in revenue to $658 million. Adjusted pretax earnings climbed 19%.</p>
<p>The lodging segment posted revenue growth of 10%, with domestic revenue per available room up 4.7% year-over-year. The metric ticked 3.8% higher globally amid improved results in China. Vacation exchange and rentals revenue rose 4%.</p>
<p>Also on Friday, the company raised its quarterly dividend by 21% to 35 cents and unveiled guidance for the new fiscal year. Wyndham expects adjusted earnings of $4.18 to $4.28 a share and revenue of $5.25 billion to $5.35 billion.</p>
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<p>Wyndham, whose portfolio of hotel brands includes Ramada, Howard Johnson and Days Inn, said it spent $115 million to repurchase 1.8 million shares during the latest period.</p>
<p>Shares fell 3.2% to $70.01 in late-morning trading. As of Thursday’s close, the stock rallied 16.7% over the last six months.</p> | Wyndham Posts In-Line 4Q EPS, Boosts Dividend | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/02/07/wyndham-posts-in-line-4q-eps-boosts-dividend.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>WASHINGTON - In an assertion of same-sex marriage rights, Attorney General Eric Holder is applying a landmark Supreme Court ruling to the Justice Department, announcing Saturday that same-sex spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other, should be eligible to file for bankruptcy jointly and are entitled to the same rights and privileges as federal prison inmates in opposite-sex marriages.</p>
<p>The Justice Department runs a number of benefits programs, and Holder says same-sex couples will qualify for them. They include the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and benefits to surviving spouses of public safety officers who suffer catastrophic or fatal injuries in the line of duty.</p>
<p>On Monday, the Justice Department will issue a policy memo to its employees instructing them to give lawful same-sex marriages full and equal recognition, to the greatest extent possible under the law.</p>
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<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Holder applies same-sex ruling to Justice Department | false | https://abqjournal.com/350528/holder-applies-samesex-ruling-to-justice-department.html | 2 |
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<p>After a turbulent first half this year, <a href="http://www.idg.com/www/rd.nsf/rd?readform&amp;t=search&amp;q=Intel" type="external">Intel Opens a New Window.</a>'s business is looking up and expected to improve as PC shipments rise, a company executive said on Thursday.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Intel</a> felt the impact of PC shipments slowing down in the first half, but consumer demand for PCs is rising and will continue to have a positive impact on Intel's business, said Stephen Smith, vice president and director of PC client operations and enabling, during a press event.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"We got a sense of the turnaround in the second quarter," Smith said. PC shipments picked up in the third quarter, and overall PC shipments in 2009 are expected to be higher than 2008, Smith said, citing IDC numbers.</p>
<p>IDC on Wednesday said that PC shipments worldwide will grow by double digits on a yearly basis through 2013, partly due to increased commercial spending and increased demand for portable PCs like laptops and netbooks. Shipments either dropped or were flat during the first three quarters of 2009 compared to last year.</p>
<p>The main driver for Intel's business over the last year has mainly been the consumer segment as commercial spending dried up, Smith said. The consumer segment will continue to grow faster than the commercial segment, and will continue to be an important part of Intel's business, he said. New consumer buying patterns may emerge as PC makers introduce new form factors.</p>
<p>Netbooks provide an example of how new form factors could impact the business, Smith said. Netbooks were introduced late last year and have become a success, Smith said. More than a year ago, people were questioning if netbooks would be a success, he said.</p>
<p>The comments come just a day after the U.S. <a href="" type="internal">Federal Trade Commission</a> filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel, accusing the chip maker of illegally using its dominant market position to stifle competition and deprive consumers of choice in the microprocessor industry. Intel however has denied the FTC's claims. Intel is the world's largest chip maker, with its processors going into more than 80 percent of PCs worldwide.</p>
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<p>Intel is also preparing for the release of its next-generation of laptop and desktop processors, which should boost the company's business, Smith said. The company in February committed to spending US$7 billion over the next two years to revamp manufacturing plants. The company has already started manufacturing new desktop and laptop processors using the 32-nanometer process, an upgrade over existing chips made using the 45-nm chips. Intel has said that the new chips will be cheaper to manufacture, work faster and draw less power.</p>
<p>More from IDG:</p> | Intel emerging from turbulent first half, exec says | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2009/12/17/intel-emerging-turbulent-half-exec-says.html | 2016-03-18 | 0 |
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<p>I hate to say it but I let one of my handguns get a little too humid this summer and didn’t do the proper preventive maintenance on it. &#160;So, after spending the summer locked in its case I recoiled in disgust when I saw that it was covered in some parts by surface rust.</p>
<p>Not the kind of rust you can just wipe off mind you…the kind that sticks.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, as I have been restoring a motorcycle recently I had acquired some fantastic rust dissolver that was chewing up and spitting out rust like ole-timey tobacco.</p>
<p>Yet the problem with these rust dissolvers is that they are extremely potent. &#160;The kind you need to wear rubber gloves with and will eat paint right down to the metal. &#160;So they cannot be used on a place that you do not want to see the original metal.</p>
<p>So with dissolver i couldn’t use and my pistol all orangey like it had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carotenosis" type="external">carotenosis</a> I remembered an old wives tale about how aluminum foil will erase rust. &#160;Literally make it disappear as if by magic.</p>
<p>While I had my doubts (hence no before and after pictures), I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it.</p>
<p>ABRAKAZAM! &#160;POW!</p>
<p>A small piece of foil and a few back and forth’s over the infected areas and the rust was GONE.</p>
<p>No scratching, no abrasions, no damage.</p>
<p>The only thing that remained was a fine white film. &#160;I figure it was some pixie dust or other equally magical remnant. &#160;Instead of washing that off with water I broke out some Hoppe’s No. 9 and gave a light coat. &#160;Toweled that off then added a light coat of oil then wiped that off too.</p>
<p>Color me amazed.</p>
<p>It was like the pistol was fresh from the factory.</p>
<p>I can’t recommend the aluminum foil technique enough. &#160;It is completely amazing.</p>
<p>Surface rust is going to happen, moisture from hunting, from humidity, from our hands and bodies are going to get in there a time or two and if we put up our firearms for a while you may find yourself in a similar situation as me.</p>
<p>Before you shell out for some abrasive solvent or getting it parkerized again, go to your cupboard and pull out some aluminum foil, you may be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>And for those of you who do not wish to adhere to “magic” as the explanation for how aluminum foil erases rust I give you the science behind it.</p>
<p>Aluminum oxidizes faster than nearly any other metal, and that is how aluminum foil removes rust. &#160;Rubbing the foil on rust removes the coating of aluminum oxide that covers all metallic aluminum exposed to the air, and the exposed aluminum metal wants to be oxidized so badly that it will actually steal oxygen from iron oxide, aka rust, and reduce it back to iron metal.</p>
<p>It’s a balance of power thing…aluminum demands the oxygen and takes it from the iron.</p>
<p>In summation, to get rid of rust on your firearm:</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> | Gun Tip of the Day: Aluminum Foil Kills Rust | true | http://bulletsfirst.net/2013/09/20/gun-tip-of-the-day-aluminum-foil-kills-rust/ | 0 |
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<p>Flickr/zzzack (Creative Commons.)</p>
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<p>When Afghan President Hamid Karzai was in Washington last month, President Obama and his aides repeatedly maintained that the Afghan leader was making progress in fighting corruption, which is rampant throughout Afghanistan and threatens the Obama administration’s plans to bolster a central government that can become capable of taking on the Taliban and al Qaeda. A <a href="http://%20http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/joint-statement-president-and-president-karzai-afghanistan" type="external">joint statement</a> from Obama and Karzai referred to Karzai’s “efforts to strengthen the powers and authorities” of the High Office of Oversight, Kabul’s national anti-corruption unit.&#160; Asked whether Karzai was making progress combating corruption, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs <a href="http://%20http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-briefing-press-secretary-robert-gibbs-5172010" type="external">pointed to</a> this office, and he <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-briefing-press-secretary-robert-gibbs-and-fema-administrator-craig-fugate%20" type="external">noted</a> that the High Office “now operates with a mission to increase its accountability.” In another briefing, Lt. General Douglas Lute, a deputy national security adviser, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/briefing-ben-rhodes-deputy-national-security-advisor-strategic-communications-and-l" type="external">asserted</a> that Karzai had provided the head of this office “renewed powers to deal with corruption.” Yet shortly after Karzai departed Washington, the RAND Corporation held a briefing on Capitol Hill that delivered a starkly different message: The High Office of Oversight and its commissioner, Mohammad Yusin Osmani, are virtually powerless to confront the serious corruption that infects the senior levels of Karzai’s government.</p>
<p>Osmani became head of this anti-corruption office in 2008, and last November he was <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2009/1116/p06s07-wosc.html" type="external">grousing</a> that his outfit lacked the resources and authority to pursue or prosecute cases. His High Office could only refer corruption cases to police and prosecutors, who might themselves be corrupt. At that time, the Afghan government was announcing new initiatives to crack down on graft, yet Osmani’s office was only <a href="http://www.myvoa.com/2009/11/interview-with-afghanistan%E2%80%99s-corruption-czar/" type="external">30 percent staffed</a>. In December, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released a <a href="http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/SIGAR20Audit-10-2.pdf" type="external">report</a> on the High Office of Oversight, noting that Osmani’s unit “suffers from significant gaps in operational capacity.” SIGAR’s investigation concluded that the HOO is “greatly understaffed, and many of its employees are either inexperienced or lack basic skills, such as computer use and information gather ing techniques.” The report added, “the HOO lacks the organizational, external, and personal independence required by international standards for an oversight institution.” (The report also pointed out that the US government had “no office or individual specifically designated to oversee or coordinate” US assistance to this office.) The SIGAR report was clear: the High Office of Oversight was a mess. In March, Karzai, under pressure from Washington to demonstrate progress on the anti-corruption front, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iCpV8F9FLwKSczIzjlGh-IFgOLzQ" type="external">signed a decree</a> granting the office the power to investigate allegations of corruption. “I wish him success,” Karzai said of Osmani.</p>
<p>But Osmani hasn’t had much success. This spring, RAND held a three-day workshop in Kabul that brought together several dozen members of Afghanistan’s small anti-corruption community, including journalists, members of parliament, public interest advocates, and Osmani. The conference participants reported that in Afghanistan—which is ranked the <a href="http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table" type="external">second most corrupt country</a> in the world by Transparency International (after Somalia)—corruption has far exceeded what was once customary graft. They complained that corruption has infested small daily interactions, large government contracts, and the appointments of senior government officials, and that it is undermining the legitimacy of both the Karzai government and the international community, including the United States. These participants shared their own tales of graft: having to pay tax agents bribes to accept tax filings, having to offer bribes so they can pay electricity bills. (A recent <a href="http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghanistan-corruption-survey2010-Eng.pdf" type="external">UN report</a> estimates that bribes make up one-quarter of the Afghan economy, and it notes that one out of four Afghans were forced to pay at least one bribe to a police office in the previous year.)</p>
<p>At the Kabul conference, Osmani delivered a speech in which he blamed Afghanistan’s hyper-corruption on three reasons that he claimed were beyond the government’s control: a cultural decline that has caused more Afghans to view corruption as acceptable; too much international aid flowing into Afghanistan without strict accountability; and the Afghan government’s lack of independence, due to that outside assistance. (Speaking to the Afghan Senate in early April, Osmani <a href="http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?ctl=Details&amp;tabid=1741&amp;mid=1882&amp;ItemID=8439" type="external">said</a> that foreigners were responsible for 80 percent of the corruption in Afghanistan.) Conference participants challenged Osmani’s analysis and called for the Afghan government to assume more responsibility for confronting corruption.</p>
<p>Several weeks later, on May 21, RAND held a briefing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill for a handful of congressional staffers and foreign policy wonks to report on the findings that had come out of the Kabul conference. Two RAND researchers—Cheryl Benard and Elvira Loredo—went through a dry PowerPoint presentation that outlined the basics (corruption is a big problem) and noted that Osmani’s office is regarded as “well-intentioned but weak.” (See the PowerPoint <a href="" type="internal">here</a>.) But in her remarks, Benard, who is married to former US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, expressed surprise at how far and deep corruption has spread in Afghanistan. She commented that before she and Loredo organized the Kabul conference, they expected to find that corruption in Afghanistan was “kind of normal” for a Third World country. But, she said, “it has totally crossed the line” and now “penetrates and obstructs daily life.” Corruption, she maintained, is a profound “roadblock” to rebuilding Afghanistan. Moreover, she remarked, many Afghans, who are generally not fond of the Taliban, believe that “at least [the Taliban] are principled, they are not corrupt. You can get fast justice” with the Taliban—as opposed to having to bribe police officers, municipal officials, judges, teachers, and others.</p>
<p>As for dealing with high-level corruption, Benard said, “I wouldn’t expect much from Osmani’s office.” She explained that he still doesn’t have the “muscle” to chase after graft at the top of the Karzai government—not even after his powers have officially been expanded. “If Osmani decides he’s going to take on these big shots, Osmani is dead meat,” she said. Should he attempt anything like that, she added, “all he’ll do is eliminate himself.” The only effective path for him, Benard remarked, is to zero in on low-level and mid-level corruption—and “it may percolate up.” The conventional view, she noted, is that “you have to start at the top. Karzai has to jail his brother [who runs Kandahar and who is widely regarded as corrupt], some top-level ministers have to be put on trial as an example.” But that is not realistic, she said; instead, Osmani ought to focus on establishing complaint mechanisms and curbing bribes at the ground level, such as in local licensing offices. (Benard indicated she was optimistic that Osmani and others in the anti-corruption crowd could achieve progress in this manner.)</p>
<p>The RAND briefing was not in sync with the talking points repeated by Obama administration officials when Karzai was in town. Osmani and his office are not in a position to make substantial gains in the near-term. Yet the excessive corruption of Afghanistan undermines the US mission there by undercutting the legitimacy of the Karzai government, Washington’s partner, and by fueling popular resentment that can be easily exploited by insurgents. During the Capitol Hill briefing, Benard recalled that while she was in Kabul she frequently heard from Afghans upset about corruption that “if this isn’t changing, it’s your fault. You guys are really running the show here.” Meaning, you Americans. If Afghans indeed blame the United States for the corruption that burdens and angers them, US policy will be greatly hindered. And none of the upbeat administration talk about Osmani and his High Office will change that.</p>
<p /> | Afghan Corruption Czar Is “Dead Meat” if He Pursues Top Graft | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/afghan-anti-corruption-chief-dead-meat-if-he-pursued-top-graft/ | 2010-06-03 | 4 |
<p>Jan 19 (Reuters) - VEON LTD:</p>
<p>* VEON APPOINTS ALEXANDER PERTSOVSKY AS ALTERNATE DIRECTOR FOR ALEXEY REZNIKOVICH Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Finance Ministry proposed crafting a cover story with a school operator at the heart of a political scandal to justify a discount in the price of public land sold to the school, a ministry official said on Monday.</p> FILE PHOTO: The construction site for an elementary school of Moritomo Gakuen, an educational institution, is seen in Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan April 26, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
<p>The admission is likely to increase opposition parties’ calls for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to resign over the scandal involving the sale of state-owned land to school operator Moritomo Gakuen, which had ties to Abe’s wife.</p>
<p>The affair, along with other government missteps, is clouding Abe’s chance of winning a third three-year term as leader of his Liberal Democratic Party. Victory in a September party vote would put him on track to become Japan’s longest serving premier as long as his coalition controls parliament.</p>
<p>Following reports of the cover story, Abe on Monday repeated earlier statements in parliament that he and his wife were not involved in the land sale and said there is no evidence indicating they were involved. Abe has also said in the past he would resign if he or his wife were found to be involved.</p>
<p>“Last year on Feb. 20 a finance bureau employee contacted Moritomo Gakuen’s lawyer ... and suggested saying a lot of money was spent on the removal of rubbish and thousands of trucks were used,” Mitsuru Ota, head of the Finance Ministry’s finance bureau, told parliament.</p>
<p>“Moritomo’s lawyer did not take any action on this phone call. It was wrong for us to ask Moritomo Gakuen to say something that was not true,” Ota said, adding that the attempt to cook up a story was “highly embarrassing”.</p>
<p>Ota’s comments confirmed a report by public broadcaster NHK last week and followed a March 12 admission by the ministry that it had altered documents relating to the land sale.</p>
<p>The plot of land in Osaka, western Japan, was appraised to be worth 956 million yen ($8.95 million) but the ministry granted the school operator an 820 million yen discount.</p>
<p>It originally said the sale was appropriate and was heavily discounted to offset the costs of removing a lot of rubbish buried on the plot.</p>
<p>Prosecutors in Osaka arrested the operator of Moritomo Gakuen and his wife in July last year on suspicion of illegally receiving government subsidies.</p> FILE PHOTo: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, and his wife Akie Abe, right, wait for their car after the welcoming ceremony for Spanish King Felipe and Queen Letizia at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Wednesday, April 5, 2017 REUTERS/Eugene Hoshiko/Pool
<p>The National Board of Audit, which is independent of the cabinet and has the authority to investigate spending by government agencies, said in November there was not enough evidence to support the heavy discount. That increased speculation that Moritomo Gakuen’s operator used his ties with the prime minister’s wife to secure the discount.</p>
<p>The fresh revelation comes on the heels of another scandal that is also eroding Abe’s support rates. Abe’s defense minister said last week that the army last year had found activity logs from a controversial 2004 to 2006 deployment to Iraq, but had failed to report them to his predecessor.</p>
<p>Abe has apologized for the defense ministry’s failure to disclose activity logs.</p>
<p>A survey by broadcaster Japan News Network published on Monday showed voters who disapproved of Abe’s cabinet rose five points to 58.4 percent and supporters fell 9.3 points to 40.0 percent, the first negative rating in six months.</p>
<p>($1 = 106.8600 yen)</p>
<p>Editing by Sam Holmes</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council will meet on Monday following rival requests by Russia and the United States after a deadly chemical attack in Syria and a warning by U.S. President Donald Trump that there would be a “big price to pay.”</p> FILE PHOTO - The United Nations Security Council meets on Syria at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., March 12, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Segar
<p>Russia called for a meeting of the 15-member council on “international threats to peace and security,” though the precise topic of discussion was not immediately clear, diplomats said on Sunday.</p>
<p>A minute later the United States, France, Britain, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Kuwait, Peru and Ivory Coast called for a meeting to discuss the chemical weapons attack in Syria, said diplomats who saw the email requests.</p>
<p>An agreement was reached late Sunday to hold one meeting on Monday instead of two, diplomats said.</p>
<p>“The Security Council has to come together and demand immediate access for first responders, support an independent investigation into what happened, and hold accountable those responsible for this atrocious act,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in a statement on Sunday.</p>
<p>Haley warned last month that if the U.N. Security Council fails to act on Syria, Washington “remains prepared to act if we must,” just as it did last year when it bombed a Syrian government air base over a deadly chemical weapons attack.</p>
<p>Trump said on Sunday there would be a “big price to pay” after medical aid groups reported dozens of people were killed by poison gas in a besieged rebel-held town in Syria. The Syrian government denied its forces had launched such an attack and Russia, President Bashar al-Assad’s most powerful ally, called the reports bogus.</p>
<p>A joint statement by the medical relief organization Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and the civil defense service, which operates in rebel-held areas, said 49 people had died in the attack late on Saturday in the town of Douma. U.S. and other officials said they were working on Sunday to verify details of the attack.</p>
<p>Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish &amp; Shri Navaratnam</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BEIRUT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Sunday there would be a “big price to pay” after aid groups said dozens of people were killed by poison gas in a besieged rebel-held town in Syria, an attack the opposition blamed on Syrian government forces.</p> A girl looks on following alleged chemical weapons attack, in what is said to be Douma, Syria in this still image from video obtained by Reuters on April 8, 2018. White Helmets/Reuters TV via REUTERS
<p>As international officials worked to try to confirm the chemical attack which happened late on Saturday in the town of Douma, Trump took the rare step of directly criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin in connection with the incident.</p>
<p>With tension running high, Syrian state television later issued a report of a suspected U.S. missile strike on a Syrian air base, prompting a swift U.S. denial of any such attack.</p>
<p>The Syrian state denied government forces had launched any chemical assault. Russia, President Bashar al-Assad’s most powerful ally, called the reports fake.</p>
<p>Trump threatened action, although it was unclear what he had in mind. Last year, he authorized a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base days after a sarin gas attack on civilians.</p>
<p>“Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay,” Trump wrote on Twitter.</p>
<p>The Russian Foreign Ministry warned against military action on the basis of “invented and fabricated excuses.”</p> Related Coverage
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-assessment/u-s-assessment-is-syrian-town-suffered-chemical-attack-sources-idUSKBN1HG015" type="external">U.S. assessment is Syrian town suffered chemical attack: sources</a>
<a href="/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-un/u-n-security-council-to-meet-on-monday-after-syria-attack-idUSKBN1HF0TU" type="external">U.N. Security Council to meet on Monday after Syria attack</a>
<p>The medical relief organization Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and the civil defense service, which operates in rebel-held areas, said in a joint statement 49 people died in the attack.</p>
<p>“Yesterday reports emerged of yet another chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime,” said the Syrian Negotiation Committee, a political opposition group.</p>
<p>U.S. government sources said Washington’s assessment was that chemical weapons were used in a besieged rebel-held town in Syria, but they are still evaluating details.</p>
<p>The European Union also said evidence pointed to the use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces.</p>
<p>A European diplomat said Western allies would work on building a dossier based on photos, videos, witness testimony and satellite images of Syrian flights and helicopters. However gaining access to samples on the ground would be difficult.</p>
<p>The U.N. Security Council will meet twice on Monday following rival requests by Russia and the United States.</p>
<p>U.N. war crimes investigators had previously documented 33 chemical attacks in Syria, attributing 27 to the Assad government, which has repeatedly denied using the weapons.</p>
<p>Russia has repeatedly blocked efforts to hold Syria accountable both at the U.N. and OPCW.</p> ‘HORRIBLE’ IMAGES
<p>In the early hours of Monday, Syrian state television reported loud explosions heard near the T-4 airfield in the city of Homs in what it said was a suspected U.S. missile strike. The report ignited a storm of messages on Twitter.</p>
<p>The Pentagon denied any such attack.</p>
<p>“At this time, the Department of Defense is not conducting air strikes in Syria,” the Pentagon said in a statement.</p> A child cries as they have their face wiped following alleged chemical weapons attack, in what is said to be Douma, Syria in this still image from video obtained by Reuters on April 8, 2018. White Helmets/Reuters TV via REUTERS
<p>“However, we continue to closely watch the situation and support the ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable.”</p>
<p>Last week, Trump said he wanted to bring home the 2,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Syria working to help fight Islamic State militants. His advisers have urged him to wait to ensure the militants are defeated and to prevent Assad’s ally Iran from gaining a foothold.</p>
<p>Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said Assad was “emboldened” after Trump’s remarks and said the U.S. president now needed to respond decisively.</p>
<p>Tom Bossert, Trump’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, told ABC’s “This Week” the White House would not rule out launching another missile attack and called photos of the incident “horrible.”</p>
<p>One video of the new attack shared by activists showed bodies of about a dozen children, women and men, some with foam at the mouth. “Douma city, April 7 ... there is a strong smell here,” a voice can be heard saying.</p>
<p>Reuters could not independently verify the reports.</p>
<p>Last year, one factor in Trump’s decision to bomb Syria was televised images of dead children.</p>
<p>Two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Trump would likely await a conclusive “high confidence” intelligence assessment that the government used chemical weapons.</p>
<p>The presence of Russian forces at a number of Syrian military bases complicates the process of picking targets for any strike, said one official.</p>
<p>While some in the administration believe Russian forces should not be considered immune to attack because of Moscow’s support for Assad, officials said Putin would see any loss of Russian lives or equipment as a deliberate escalation, and likely would respond by increasing support for Assad, or retaliating in other ways.</p> NEW TEAM AT WHITE HOUSE
<p>Trump had a previously scheduled meeting at the White House on Monday with senior military leaders. He has shaken up his core national security team, replacing national security adviser H.R. McMaster with John Bolton, a hard-charging former U.N. ambassador, who officially begins on Monday.</p>
<p>Bolton last year praised Trump’s missile response, though he has generally focused more on Iran as a bigger security threat.</p>
<p>Top White House officials were uncertain what advice Bolton may have given Trump about Syria, said a U.S. official.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>However, two officials said Trump has been adamant about withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria, despite warnings about the consequences from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other military officials.</p> SHELTERING IN BASEMENTS
<p>The Ghouta offensive has been one of the deadliest in Syria’s seven-year-long war, killing more than 1,600 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.</p>
<p>The monitoring group said it could not confirm whether chemical weapons had been used in the attack on Saturday.</p>
<p>Medical relief organization SAMS said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six, 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, most of them women and children, had been killed at a nearby apartment building.</p>
<p>SAMS and the civil defense said medical centers had taken in more than 500 people suffering breathing difficulties, frothing from the mouth and smelling of chlorine.</p>
<p>Tawfik Chamaa, a Geneva-based Syrian doctor with the Syria-focused Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), a network of Syrian doctors, said 150 people were confirmed dead and the number was growing. “The majority were civilians, women and children trapped in underground shelters,” he told Reuters.</p>
<p>Douma is in the eastern Ghouta region near Damascus. Assad has won back control of nearly all of eastern Ghouta from rebel groups in a Russian-backed military campaign that began in February, leaving just Douma in rebel hands.</p>
<p>Facing defeat, rebel groups elsewhere in eastern Ghouta have left. Until now, the prominent insurgent group Jaish al-Islam has rejected that option, but the attack led the group to finally give in to the government’s demand to leave.</p>
<p>There was no immediate comment from the group.</p>
<p>Taking Douma would seal Assad’s biggest victory since 2016, and underline his unassailable position in the war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since it mushroomed from protests against his rule in 2011.</p>
<p>Reporting by Dahlia Nehme and Tom Perry in Beirut, Mustafa Hashem in Cairo, Roberta Rampton, John Walcott, Mark Hosenball, Matt Spetalnick, Michelle Price and Sarah Lynch in Washington, Michelle Nichols in New York, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Anthony Deutsch in Amstersdam, John Irish in Paris, and Polina Ivanova in Moscow; Writing by Tom Perry, Roberta Rampton and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Adrian Croft, James Dalgleish and David Gregorio</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has told the United States for the first time that it is prepared to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets President Donald Trump, a U.S. official said on Sunday.</p> North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the launch of a Hwasong-12 missile in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 16, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS
<p>U.S. and North Korean officials have held secret contacts recently in which Pyongyang directly confirmed its willingness to hold the unprecedented summit, the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>The communications, still at a preliminary stage, have involved State Department officials talking to North Korea apparently through its United Nations mission, and intelligence officers from both sides using a separate backchannel, the official said.</p>
<p>Until now, the United States had relied mostly on ally South Korea’s assurance of Kim’s intentions.</p>
<p>South Korean envoys visited Washington last month to convey Kim’s invitation to meet. Trump, who has exchanged bellicose threats with Kim in the past year, surprised the world by quickly agreeing to meet Kim to discuss the crisis over Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States.</p>
<p>But North Korea has not broken its public silence on the summit, which U.S. officials say is being planned for May. There was no immediate word on the possible venue for the talks, which would be the first ever between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean leader.</p>
<p>The U.S. official declined to say exactly when the U.S.-North Korea communications had taken place but said the two sides had held multiple direct contacts.</p>
<p>“The U.S. has confirmed that Kim Jong Un is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula‎,” said a second U.S. official.</p>
<p>South Korea’s presidential Blue House welcomed the communication between North Korea and the United States, with one official saying the development was “positive”.</p>
<p>“We are aware contact between North Korea and the United States is going well,” said another Blue House official on condition of anonymity.</p>
<p>“We don’t know, however, up to what extent information is being shared between the two.”</p>
<p>On Monday, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton is due to begin his role as Trump’s national security adviser, while on Thursday Senate confirmation hearings begin for Mike Pompeo, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state. Both have taken hawkish stances on North Korea.</p>
<p>The second South Korean official said the South’s National Security Office head, Chung Eui-yong, could speak with Bolton over the telephone as early as Tuesday.</p>
<p>Questions remain about how North Korea would define denuclearization, which Washington sees as Pyongyang abandoning its nuclear weapons program.</p>
<p>North Korea has said over the years that it could consider giving up its nuclear arsenal if the United States removed its troops from South Korea and withdrew its so-called nuclear umbrella of deterrence from South Korea and Japan.</p>
<p>Some analysts have said Trump’s willingness to meet Kim handed North Korea a diplomatic win, as the United States had insisted for years that any such summit be preceded by North Korean steps to denuclearize.</p>
<p>Tension over North Korea’s tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile surged last year and raised fears of U.S. military action against Pyongyang.</p>
<p>But anxieties have eased significantly since North Korea sent athletes to the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February. The neighbors are technically still at war after a 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire, not a truce.</p>
<p>North and South Korea will hold their first summit in more than a decade towards the end of April.</p>
<p>The two Koreas have been holding working talks since March to work out details of the summit, like the agenda and security for the two leaders.</p>
<p>Kim met Chinese President Xi Jinping in a surprise visit to Beijing in late March, his first trip outside the isolated North Korea since he came to power in 2011.</p>
<p>Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstromm; Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL; Editing by Peter Cooney and Rosalba O'Brien</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Veon Appoints Alexander Pertsovsky As Alternate Director For Alexey Reznikovich Japanese ministry proposed cover story on land sale at heart of scandal: official U.N. Security Council to meet on Monday after Syria attack Trump says 'big price to pay' for Syria chemical attack North Korea tells U.S. it is prepared to discuss denuclearization: source | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-veon-appoints-alexander-pertsovsky/brief-veon-appoints-alexander-pertsovsky-as-alternate-director-for-alexey-reznikovich-idUSASB0C1JA | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p>Writer-director <a href="http://variety.com/t/jordan-peele/" type="external">Jordan Peele</a> sat down with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night’s episode of “ <a href="http://variety.com/t/the-late-show/" type="external">The Late Show</a>,” and shared his thoughts on his thriller film “ <a href="http://variety.com/t/get-out/" type="external">Get Out</a>” receiving a Golden Globe nomination for best musical/comedy.</p>
<p>“I submitted it as a documentary,” Peele told Colbert, echoing a tweet he posted earlier on Wednesday, which read, “‘ <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/awards/get-out-jordan-peele-awards-contender-1202614958/" type="external">Get Out</a>’ is a documentary.”</p>
<p>“Here’s the thing, the movie is truth,” he continued. “The thing that resonated with people was truth, so for me it’s more of a historical biopic.”</p>
<p>The nomination of Peel’s film, which was billed as a thriller and deals with racial tension in the United States, caused some confusion on social media. With only two categories available at the Globes — drama and musical/comedy — decision-makers can have trouble selecting a category for some films. Matt Damon-starrer “The Martian,” which is about a lone astronaut surviving on Mars, was also nominated in the musical/comedy category in 2015.</p>
<p>Colbert also remarked on the fact that ‘Get Out’ has a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and asked Peele what he thought the missing 1% was.</p>
<p>“Racism,” the actor responded.</p>
<p /> | Jordan Peele Tells Stephen Colbert He Considers ‘Get Out’ a Historical Documentary | false | https://newsline.com/jordan-peele-tells-stephen-colbert-he-considers-get-out-a-historical-documentary/ | 2017-11-16 | 1 |
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<p>Police have reported it appears on neighbor was attempting to save a woman who was being beaten by her boyfriend during a domestic dispute; to which he ended up killing the boyfriend by shooting him.</p>
<p>The Clark County District Attorney will decide if said neighbor&#160;will face charges.</p>
<p>The man who shot the boyfriend has not been arrested and is cooperating with investigators, according to Metro Police detectives.</p>
<p>Police were called to the apartment on Mission Laguna Lane around 10 p.m. Thursday night by a security guard who reported the shooting.</p>
<p>Investigators believe the dead man had been abusing his girlfriend for hours before the shooting. &#160;They said the victim had obvious signs of abuse and was bleeding from her face. &#160;They also believe the man had kicked down a door inside the couple’s apartment earlier Thursday.</p>
<p>Before the shooting, police believe the woman ran from her apartment and found a neighbor she knew in the parking lot. The woman’s long-time boyfriend apparently chased her and got into an argument with the neighbor.</p>
<p>– <a href="http://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/armed-neighbor-shoots-kills-domestic-violence-suspect/770729773" type="external">Las Vegas Now</a></p>
<p>“There was a verbal argument and there was some yelling,” said Metro homicide investigator, Lt. Dan McGrath. &#160;“What I was told by the security guard was he told him to back up. &#160;He told him to get back or he would get shot.”</p>
<p>According to the police, the neighbor fired one shot during that confrontation and ended up killing the boyfriend, who has a history of domestic violence involving his girlfriend.</p>
<p>Investigators are not immediately releasing the names of anyone involved in this incident, but have disclosed the boyfriend was an African-American man in his 50’s.</p>
<p>Detectives claim this whole situation&#160;could have been prevented.</p>
<p>“If you hear your neighbors yelling and screaming and fighting, please call the police,” said McGrath. “That’s our job. &#160;We’ll come out… You may end up saving somebody from getting seriously injured or killed.”</p>
<p>GirlsJustWannaHaveGuns asked <a href="https://www.yolofskylaw.com" type="external">legal expert A.J. Yolofsky</a>about the case and here is what he had to say:</p>
<p>There are two interesting things happening from a legal perspective.</p>
<p>1) The neighbor didn’t stop the boyfriend in the act of battering the girlfriend. The article says that the woman found the neighbor in the apartment building’s parking lot. It seems that the boyfriend followed the girlfriend into the parking lot, then got into an argument with the neighbor.</p>
<p>These facts suggest that the boyfriend was shot because he got into an argument with the neighbor, not because the neighbor stopped a crime from occurring (beating the girlfriend.) The neighbor’s criminal liability is different in this situation because it could be argued that there was no self-defense necessary. Nevada does allow for the use of force to defend a third person, which could lead to the neighbor not being charged with an offense.</p>
<p>Who said what to whom and when will be extremely important. If the neighbor started a “fight” with the boyfriend (think shouting or being overly macho instead of attempting to calm the situation,) then the neighbor may be criminally liable.</p>
<p>2) The officer’s quote at the end of the article is noteworthy because our society has become too ignorant about coming to the aid of our fellows. Many remember the story of Kitty Genovese who was raped multiple times and murdered in New York over the course of several hours. No one came to her aid or called the police during her ordeal. Too often, people ignore the horrors next door because “they don’t want to get involved.”</p>
<p>Could the girlfriend have been spared her trials that day if a neighbor or passer-by simply called 911? Was the neighbor who ended the confrontation the first or second person from whom the girlfriend sought help? Importantly, there is almost never any legal liability for a person who contacts law enforcement to report some type of suspicious activity.</p>
<p>What could have been done to avoid the horror that occurred in San Bernardino if neighbors had contacted the police because of the numerous deliveries and the individuals who kept coming around that house?</p>
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<p /> | Neighbor Saves Woman From Violent Beating by Boyfriend, Who is Now in City’s Morgue | true | http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/neighbor-saves-woman-from-violent-beating-by-boyfriend-who-is-now-in-citys-morgue/ | 0 |
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<p>George H.W Bush had been admitted to a hospital over the weekend due to breathing problems. Reports from AP show that his condition may have deteriorated since he has been moved to the intensive care unit of a Houston hospital. The former First Lady Barbara Bush is also in the hospital. Reports claim that the former president was taken to the hospital due to shortness of breath.</p>
<p />
<p>In a statement made by McGrath, the 92-year-old Bush is responding well to treatments. Reports from his office also state that Bush was treated for an acute respiratory problem that stems from pneumonia. However, reports from his office also said that doctors had performed a procedure to protect and clear his airway that required sedation and as a result, he was stable and resting comfortably.</p>
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<p>McGrath also said that doctors and everyone was very pleased and they all hope to have him out very soon. In a report issued by Jean Becker, who is Bush's chief of staff, Bush will be released in a few days. The Former First Lady Barbara Bush was also admitted as a precaution on Wednesday for coughing and fatigue.</p>
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<p>The Former President Bush served as U.S. President from 1989 to 1993, he has a form of Parkinson's disease and he uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility purposes.</p>
<p>Back in 2015, he was hospitalized in Maine after falling at his summer home an incident that caused him to break his neck bone, he was also hospitalized in Houston the previous December for about a week for shortness of breath. In 2012, he spent his Christmas in the ICU for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues. However, he celebrated his 90th birthday by making a tandem parachute jump in Kennebunkport, Maine. Three days after his 92nd birthday celebration, he led a group of 40 wounded warriors last summer on a fishing trip at the helm of his speedboat.</p>
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<p>In a note that was written to President-elect Donald Trump, the elder Bush explained why he won't attend the inauguration on Friday, adding that his doctor told him that sitting outside in January will put him in the grave. His letter was posted on twitter by his spokesman Jim McGrath.</p> | George H.W. Bush Now In Intensive Care, Barbara Bush Also Hospitalized | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/1085-George-H-W-Bush-Now-In-Intensive-Care-Barbara-Bush-Also-Hospitalized | 2017-01-18 | 0 |
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<p>The Attorney General’s Office is still investigating the matter, which one Kirtland resident said shows a lack of interest in resolving the issue.</p>
<p>Phil Sisneros, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, said thorough investigations take time.</p>
<p>“There oftentimes are a lot of people to interview; lots of times there’s a great deal of documents that have to be gone over,” he said. “Every case is different. I wish they could all be done in 90 days, but the reality is, they just don’t go that fast. It’s not for lack of trying.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The bonuses in question were paid to 990 district employees in late 2010. Employees received $1,000 for attending a districtwide training that was only a few hours long. The superintendent who agreed to the bonuses no longer works at Central Consolidated.</p>
<p>Then-interim Education Secretary Susanna Murphy determined the bonuses were illegal, and Skandera affirmed this opinion after she took office. Skandera wrote a letter to the Attorney General’s Office in January 2011, requesting an opinion on whether one-time bonuses like the ones at Central Consolidated violate the anti-donation clause of the state constitution.</p>
<p>Central Consolidated isn’t the only district to wrestle with this issue. Last year, Rio Rancho Public Schools gave employees $500 bonuses to help compensate for the fact that they wouldn’t receive true raises. The legality of these bonuses was called into question by a memo to all districts from the Public Education Department, cautioning that such bonuses appeared to be unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The Public Education Department is waiting on the attorney general, spokesman Larry Behrens said in an email.</p>
<p>“It is our interpretation that (Central Consolidated’s) action in 2010 is not permissible,” he wrote. “However, it does appear there is an area of contention in this complex law. Moreover, since we have received similar requests from other districts, we recognize any action taken with (the school district) could set a statewide precedent. That’s why we feel it is necessary to get an opinion from the Attorney General first.”</p>
<p>Chris Manning, a Kirtland resident whose family has been embroiled in efforts to split the school district, said two years is too long to wait for the state to take action. He said he believes the attorney general and the PED are avoiding the issue because declaring the bonuses illegal would create a difficult situation.</p>
<p>“Do they declare it illegal and then do nothing? And then what precedent does it set?” Manning said. “At a very minimum, they need to be coming out and saying, ‘Yes, we find this to be illegal and some action should be taken.’ Even if it’s a slap on the wrist.”</p>
<p>Central Consolidated spokesman James Preminger said the district’s current administration would not agree to any such bonuses, and is waiting for an attorney general’s opinion to determine whether the district has to take any action.</p>
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<p /> | School district bonus investigation too slow, critic says | false | https://abqjournal.com/252428/bonus-inquiry-called-too-slow.html | 2013-08-24 | 2 |
<p>On Wednesday, Homeland Security chief John Kelly <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39215655" type="external">announced</a> that 40 percent fewer illegal immigrants entered the U.S. from Mexico in February than from the previous month.</p>
<p>Kelly claimed that the "change in trends" resulted from President Trump’s immigration policies.</p>
<p>Kelly <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-idUSKBN16G08H" type="external">stated</a> that the number of “inadmissible persons” at the southern border dropped to 18,762 persons in February from 31,578 in January. He added, "Since the administration's implementation of executive orders to enforce immigration laws, apprehensions and inadmissible activity is trending toward the lowest monthly total in at least the last five years.”</p>
<p>Kelly said the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency usually sees a 10 to 20 percent increase in apprehensions of illegal immigrants from January to February.</p>
<p>On January 25, Trump signed two executive orders. One ordered a wall to be built along the roughly 2,000-mile U.S-Mexico border. It also provided additional resources to DHS to stop people intending to “illegally enter the United States without inspection or admission,” and called for an additional 5,000 border agents.</p>
<p>"Since the administration's implementation of executive orders to enforce immigration laws, apprehensions and inadmissible activity is trending toward the lowest monthly total in at least the last five years.”</p>
<p>Homeland Security chief John Kelly</p>
<p>The second order reinstated the Secure Communities Program, which ICE uses to target undocumented immigrants. It also instructed the State Department to “withhold visas or take other measures to ensure countries take back the undocumented immigrants the U.S. sends back, and also strips federal grant money from sanctuary cities that harbor undocumented immigrants,” <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-immigration-executive-order-wall/" type="external">according</a> to CBS News.</p> | THE TRUMP EFFECT: 40% Fewer Illegal Immigrants Crossed From Mexico Into U.S. From January To February | true | https://dailywire.com/news/14270/40-fewer-illegal-immigrants-crossed-mexico-us-hank-berrien | 2017-03-09 | 0 |
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<p>According to a new study, the antiwar movement in the United States is now driven almost entirely by Independents and supporters of third parties.&#160; The findings have media outlets asking “Whatever happened to the antiwar movement?” even as thousands of Americans took to the streets in cities across the country earlier this month to protest the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.</p>
<p>The new paper, published in the journal Mobilization by Michael Heaney and Fabio Rojas, analyzes what the authors call “the demobilization of the antiwar movement in the United States” between 2007 and 2009. &#160;Based on interviews with over 5,000 demonstrators at nearly 30 major antiwar protests across the country over that two year period, the researchers conclude that the electoral success of the Democratic party in the elections of 2006 and 2008 led to the large-scale abandonment of the antiwar movement by Democrats, even despite the party’s failure to deliver on its antiwar promises. &#160;</p>
<p>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; “Activists identified with the Democratic Party were disproportionately likely to leave the movement as time went on, as they considered Democratic electoral success to be concomitant with the achievement of their policy aims,” they write. &#160;</p>
<p>In their interviews and surveys, the researchers tracked the partisan composition of the protests they attended. &#160;In 2007 and 2008, participation by self-identified Democrats fluctuated between 37% and 54%, and then plunged to a low of 19% in late 2009. &#160;Over the same period, participation by third party supporters and Independents who professed no party affiliation fluctuated between 46%, when Democratic turnout was at its high, and over 85%, as Democratic turnout reached its nadir. &#160;</p>
<p>The report concludes that, “the withdrawal of Democrats from the movement in 2009 appears to be a significant explanation for the falling size of antiwar protests.” &#160;The research team’s surveyors estimated that hundreds of thousands of individuals turned out for antiwar protests in early 2007 and dwindled to the hundreds by late 2009. &#160;</p>
<p>The report’s findings have prompted a number of mainstream media outlets to ask: “Whatever happened to the antiwar movement?” &#160;On April 15th, both NPR and the Wall Street Journal published articles posing that exact question. &#160;The <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/04/15/135391188/whatever-happened-to-the-anti-war-movement" type="external">piece at NPR</a> noted that, “Now and then, small pockets of protesters still band together,” while the <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/04/15/what-happened-to-the-anti-war-movement/?mod=google_news_blog" type="external">WSJ</a> report stated that antiwar protests remain at about the levels common in late 2009, “drawing mere hundreds.”&#160;</p>
<p>Remarkably, neither of these articles mentioned the fact that on the previous weekend, thousands of Americans had gathered in New York and San Francisco to protest the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya.&#160; As it turns out, the protests were widely ignored in the mainstream media. &#160;A <a href="http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/592/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6545" type="external">report</a>by the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting drew attention to the dearth of coverage and called on news media to “stop blacking out progressive protests,” writing: “The antiwar protest had thousands of attendees–and received almost zero corporate media coverage.” &#160;</p>
<p>Neither NPR nor the Wall Street Journal appear to have reported that upwards of 10,000 anti-war protesters gathered in New York City on April 9th, and that thousands more converged in San Francisco the next day, even though these were likely the largest antiwar demonstrations in the country since 2008. &#160;Coverage of the protests was almost entirely confined to local media outlets, third party news sources and blogs. &#160;</p>
<p>The protests in New York and San Francisco, along with smaller gatherings in other cities, were organized by the United National Antiwar Committee, a relatively new antiwar umbrella organization founded in the summer of 2010.&#160; It consists of a diverse coalition of antiwar and peace groups as well as Independent and third party political organizations. &#160;Among the featured speakers at the protest in San Francisco’s Delores Park was Malalai Joya, an antiwar and women’s rights activist who was driven from her seat in Afghanistan’s parliament because of her opposition to both the US occupation and local warlords, according to a <a href="http://socialistworker.org/2011/04/11/protesting-war-and-austerity" type="external">report</a> at the Socialist Worker. &#160;</p>
<p>Numerous third party leaders spoke at the events in New York City. &#160;Among them were Howie Hawkins, a former Green Party nominee for governor, Charles Barron, a local elected official and leader of the Freedom Party, and prominent antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, who waged an unsuccessful bid for Congress as an Independent against Nancy Pelosi in 2008, coming in second in the race with just over 16% of the vote. &#160;Sheehan pulled no punches in her remarks.</p>
<p>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; “People say there’s only two things guaranteed in life: death and taxes. I can guarantee you three more things: if you vote for a Democrat or a Republican, you’re voting for more war, you’re voting for more economic oppression, and you’re voting for more environmental devastation,” she said to the assembled crowd in the heart of New York City.&#160;</p>
<p>Reportedly, the United National Antiwar Committee is now working to build on the momentum created in New York and San Francisco, and is coordinating with immigrant and workers rights groups to stage a new round of protests across the country on May 1st. &#160;Maybe the mainstream media will take note.</p> | Antiwar movement revitalized by Independents and third party groups | false | https://ivn.us/2011/04/20/antiwar-movement-revitalized-independents-and-third-party-groups/ | 2011-04-20 | 2 |
<p>ProPublica’s series on the dangers of the acetaminophen found in Tylenol highlights the importance of investigative work; a poem written by an Alexandrian poet in 1898 about the government’s idleness is extremely relevant these days; meanwhile, research shows apologizing, even for something outside your control, establishes trust. These discoveries and more below.</p>
<p>On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/these-journalists-spent-two-years-and-750-000-covering-one-story/280151/" type="external">These Journalists Spent Two Years and $750,000 Covering One Story</a> In recent weeks, ProPublica has published a major—and scathing—investigative series on the dangers of Tylenol’s main active ingredient, acetaminophen.</p>
<p><a href="http://anticap.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/where-is-george-grosz/" type="external">Where is George Grosz?</a> Of course, George Grosz “still resonates today.”</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://adobeairstream.com/art/artist-technologist-re-animates-extinct-species/" type="external">Artist-Technologist Re-Animates Extinct Species</a> “New media” is actually middle-aged.</p>
<p><a href="http://hyperallergic.com/86243/at-artprize-what-the-f-is-art/" type="external">At ArtPrize, What the F is ‘Art’?</a> Grand Rapids is a two hour drive due west of the state’s bankruptcy carnival that is Detroit, the hometown of President Gerald R. Ford, and the first city in the U.S. to add fluoride to its drinking water. It is an easy-to-visit city located on the banks of the Grand River whose early citizens were primarily of Dutch and German origin.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/waiting-for-the-barbarians-and-the-government-shutdown.html" type="external">“Waiting for the Barbarians” and the Government Shutdown</a> We like to think that all great poetry has perennial significance, is “for the ages”; but “Waiting for the Barbarians,” written in Greek in 1898 and first published, in Egypt, in 1904, seems particularly prescient this week.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/29/malcolm-gladwell-david-and-goliath-interview/print" type="external">Malcolm Gladwell: ‘If My Books Appear Oversimplified, Then You Shouldn’t Read Them</a> Malcolm Gladwell is in his natural habitat – a cafe in New York’s West Village, down the street from his apartment – engaged in a very Gladwellian task: defending Lance Armstrong.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/7b14f656-243d-11e3-8905-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2gaGNpcoP" type="external">Graphic Scores: Lively Alternative Ways of Writing Down Music</a> Music notation is at best a compromise, at worst a lie.</p>
<p><a href="http://bostonreview.net/blog/palumbo-liu-public-intellectual-provocateur" type="external">The Public Intellectual as Provocateur</a> It used to be that public intellectuals were a rare breed.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.psmag.com/blogs/news-blog/value-apologizing-extends-blameless-67410/" type="external">The Value of Apologizing Extends to the Blameless</a> New research suggests “superfluous apologies,” such as expressing sorrow for bad weather, builds trust.</p> | Tylenol's Dangers Revealed Thanks to Investigative Journalism | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/tylenols-dangers-revealed-thanks-to-investigative-journalism/ | 2013-10-07 | 4 |
<p />
<p>If your company's <a href="https://www.recruiter.com/benefits.html" type="external">benefits packages Opens a New Window.</a> aren't competitive, you'll have a hard time competing for top talent in the candidate pool. Worse, you'll start hemorrhaging employees as they are lured away by more attractive offers from your competitors. You may even&#160;be forced to replace these top-tier workers with talent from the bottom of the barrel. To avoid this nightmare situation, you need to prove to your employees that you care about their well-being.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Unfortunately, more than 60 percent of employees are dissatisfied with their benefits plans, according to <a href="http://www2.thomsons.com/l/137371/2016-09-23/zvpvw" type="external">Global Employee Benefits Watch 16/17 Opens a New Window.</a>, a new study from benefits software firm <a href="https://www.thomsons.com/" type="external">Thomsons Online Benefits Opens a New Window.</a>. With that many unhappy workers out there, companies that fail to&#160;engage their employees and find out what benefits they really need are bound to&#160;suffer from high turnover and low productivity.</p>
<p>What Employees Need</p>
<p>Employees need to know that the things that are important to them – family, health, the future – are also important to the companies they work for.</p>
<p>"There are a number of basic benefits that provide a sense of security and protection to employees," says Chris Bruce, cofounder and managing director of Thomsons. "One major area where this comes into play is benefits that help employees prepare for changes in life circumstances that can lead to financial uncertainty. Protection for one's family, such as life insurance and disability benefits so that employees can make sure they are financially secure if they are unable to work, is&#160;still top of mind for today's workforce."</p>
<p>Bruce also says that, depending on the country, medical insurance is "a key benefit that employees want today." Retirement benefits are also highly sought after.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"Employees want security in knowing they will have income when they choose to stop working," Bruce adds.</p>
<p>What Employees Want</p>
<p>While the basics like health insurance, life insurance, and retirement packages are still pretty much a given, many companies have also started to use&#160;benefits as a tool to attract and retain top talent – and you should, too.</p>
<p>"Often, employees see greater value from 'fringe' benefits," Bruce says. "These benefits are often linked to lifestyle choices. For example, at Thomsons Online Benefits, we have two personal trainers who come to the office every Wednesday evening and take a group of our employees to a local park to train. For those that take part, this is their favorite benefit and something they would really miss if they left the company."</p>
<p>In addition to fringe benefits around the office, employees want the freedom to break out of the nine-to-five mold.</p>
<p>"We also found that flexibility is a critical benefit sought after by today's workforce," Bruce says.</p>
<p>According to Thomsons' research, 35 percent of U.S. employees find flexible work schedules have the greatest impact on job satisfaction – second only to annual salary increases, cited by 40 percent of U.S. employees.</p>
<p>"Additionally, more than a third of employees in the U.S. noted they wanted unlimited time off more than a salary increase, but this is a benefit less than 13 percent of employees currently receive," Bruce&#160;notes.</p>
<p>The good news is that businesses these days seem to understand how important it is to offer appealing benefits programs.</p>
<p>"Over the past 30 years, companies have taken cost and risk out of their programs and, in doing so, have specifically targeted choice and access as ways to return value to the employees," says Bruce. "This shift in benefits approach has led us to the fourth generation of benefit philosophy and design – something we can best describe as 'on-demand benefits.' Companies want to provide their employees with the best possible experience of working for them. However, with the increasing diversity and ever-changing needs of the workforce, companies must drive toward greater choice to do so."</p>
<p>Engaging Employees Is Key</p>
<p>So, what's the best way find out what sorts of benefits employees are looking for? It's simple: Try asking.</p>
<p>"Engaging employees continues to remain the No. 1&#160;strategic objective for 80 percent of human resources and reward professionals, according to the survey," Bruce says. "The report also revealed that 92 percent of these professionals believe benefits play an important role in achieving engagement. When asked about factors impacting benefits engagement, 60 percent cited the quality of communications as the No. 1&#160;factor."</p>
<p>Despite the best of intentions, however, many businesses are still missing out on key opportunities to engage their workers.</p>
<p>"Almost 70 percent of employees in global organizations want to hear about benefits around key life stages, such as marriage or home purchase, but only 46 percent of employers use these moments as an opportunity to engage with their workforce," says Bruce.</p>
<p>This is a mistake, because communicating benefits frequently and at the right times can boost employee engagement.</p>
<p>"Companies that say they have an engaged workforce are 25 percent more likely to communicate at least every two months regarding benefits," Bruce explains. "Taking this continuous approach also helps employees understand the value of their benefits packages and how [these packages]&#160;can support them and their families in their everyday lives."</p>
<p>Your employees are the lifeblood of your organization. They are the cogs and wheels that keep you in business. Take a look at the benefits you offer to your workforce and make sure they're still timely and relevant. Your employees and your bottom line will thank you.</p> | Are Your Benefits Packages Still Relevant? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2016/11/28/are-your-benefits-packages-still-relevant.html | 2016-12-03 | 0 |
<p>At least five New York City Wells Fargo branches received envelopes containing a white powdery substance Monday, FOX News Channel reported.</p>
<p>Each affected branch has been closed and will remain so until the situation is deemed 100 percent safe, a Wells Fargo representative told FOX.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>New York City Police Department officers are investigating the incidents.</p>
<p>"Envelopes containing white powder were received at some Wells Fargo locations in Manhattan Monday afternoon," Wells Fargo spokeswoman Alexandra Ball said.</p>
<p>"The safety of our customers and team members are our top concern and our focus is on ensuring premises are safe. We are cooperating with the police, and we have no further information to share at this time."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Multiple NYC Wells Fargo Branches Receive Envelopes With Powdery Substance | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/04/30/multiple-nyc-wells-fargo-branches-receive-envelopes-with-powdery-substance.html | 2016-01-26 | 0 |
<p>Photo courtesy of Wikipedia commons</p>
<p />
<p>When is an <a href="" type="internal">exploding Pinto</a> a good thing? When that Pinto explodes from zero to 60 in 3.5 seconds, powered exclusively by electric batteries. Last week, NPR ran <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112006313" type="external">a great piece</a> on the <a href="http://www.nedra.com/" type="external">National Electric Drag Racing Association</a>, a group of hot rod enthusiasts who are replacing V8s with electric motors in old muscle cars and kicking ass on the racetrack.&#160; “I tore it all down, took the front end down, took the engine,” said Mike Willmon, owner of the 1978 Pinto. “The infamous exploding gas tank is gone. Now the batteries take up the back trunk area where the gas tank used to be.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>To the extent that their hobby catches on, people like Willmon will be vital low-carbon emissaries to the NASCAR crowd. Sure, Tesla’s $100,000 roadster has shown that electric cars can be fun, but taking that message to Joe Sixpack means proving that clean-tech can be done in your garage and can smoke the fossil fuel competition. Clouds of burning rubber, Willmon told NPR, “is the only emissions this car makes.”</p>
<p /> | When Pintos Explode in a Good Way | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/08/when-pintos-explode-good-way/ | 2009-08-31 | 4 |
<p>The summer before my senior year of college, my parents adopted a cat. When they found him he was covered in dirt and matted fur. He hung his head low and did not purr. When you ran your hand over him, he was skin and bone to the touch. Then my parents took him to the vet where he was groomed. They took him into a home where he received nourishment and love. Day by day, he became more confident and started to reveal more of his personality. He began to purr. He was like a brand new cat.</p>
<p>Some weeks later, my step-dad brought up this transformation. Speaking to the condition in which he was originally found, my step-dad said, “If being in those conditions does that to a cat, imagine what it does to a human being.”</p>
<p>I thought about that interaction while sitting in a courtroom in El Paso, TX watching as 10 young men and one young woman stood in front of the judge in shackles and blue jump suits. All were first time offenders and none had a criminal history. “We shackle them in case they get violent,” the judge said when we were able to speak with him after the sentencing. “I don’t even see the shackles anymore. It’s a good thing. It helps me to not see them as criminals.”</p>
<p>But I can’t forget the shackles. I don’t want to forget.</p>
<p>What does it do to a human being to be treated like a criminal when s/he is not one? What does it do to a human being to have to apologize for “crimes committed against God and the United States” when s/he was only trying to make a better life for him or herself? What does it do to a human being to be seen as invalid by other human beings?</p>
<p>“It’s important to come to the border. To come here is to be unsettled by truth.”</p>
<p>These were the words spoken to us by Rubin Garcia, one of the founders and the current executive director of Annunciation House, our host for the week in El Paso. Being unsettled by truth was the unofficial theme during the Justicia en la Frontera/Justice at the Border Friendship Tour.</p>
<p>We were unsettled by truth as we gathered at the border fence. Some children on the other side ran up to see the approaching foreigners. Their mother kept a watchful eye on them from a distance. Despite the fence that indicated and assumed arbitrary differences between “us” and “them”, and despite border patrol agents watching our every move, we met with them. Like all children, they wanted to know if we had candy. They wanted to laugh with us. They wanted to show us their puppy. Yet the fence between us made contact and relationships limited. “These are people I’ll never know,” said one of our group members. “How can I get to know them through a fence?”</p>
<p>As we were leaving, one of the little girls dropped the fork she had been playing with onto the U.S. side of the fence. As I stooped down to pick it up, I thought, “Isn’t it interesting that this piece of plastic has more of a ‘right’ to be here than she does.” I slid the fork back through the fence to her, wondering what the border patrol might be thinking.</p>
<p>We were unsettled by truth as we learned about U.S policies and practices and their harmful effects. Such as the Merida Initiative, an agreement passed into law in 2008 between the US and Mexico to stop arms and drugs from being trafficked across the border. This resulted in highly militarized police forces in Juarez and other cities throughout Mexico. Father Peter, a Catholic Priest who has been living in Juarez for almost 20 years, said, “Militarization distorts the role of the police. The idea of the military is to ‘fight against enemies,’ so a militarized police force creates a rift and distrust between the people and the police.” Or the Secure Communities Program (also 2008) where local police are put in charge of enforcing immigration policies and identifying “criminal aliens” in their communities. Or the Bracero Program that brought 5 million Mexican migrant workers to the U.S. between 1942 and 1964 to take over rural farm areas when the majority of Americans were moving to the cities. When the program ended (due to technological advancements in farm machinery and the fact that farm owners could hire undocumented workers more cheaply), industrialized agriculture became the norm. The current food industry is propelled by greed, profit, racism, classism, and indifference from society. Only 10 corporations control food production and distribution, and food producers care more about making a profit than caring for actual nutritional value, humanity, or the environment. Carlos Marentes, the director of the Farm Labor Union (Centro de los Trabajasores Fronterizos), dreams of an Oppression-Free Food movement; oppression free for both the worker and the environment.</p>
<p>We were unsettled by truth as we met with Carman, the Annunciation House volunteer who informed us of the realities she experiences daily. Guests (those living at Annunciation House) being stopped at gas stations and asked to show papers. Families divided as some members are separated, detained, or deported while others are allowed to stay. The U.S. denying people asylum because we do not see their fear as credible. The fact that the detainment centers and prisons are owned by private companies and “need to fill beds.”</p>
<p>We were unsettled by truth from the border patrol agents who said that, yes, they will teargas people they catch actively cutting the fence. From Shalini at Diocesan Migrant &amp; Refugee Services who said, regarding legal immigration, that we can’t realistically expect people to wait in that line as it will take some 150 years or more to get their application processed. From Patty, an Annunciation House guest and former small business owner who shared her heartbreaking story of asking the U.S. for asylum after being threatened and extorted by the drug cartels. From Luis who introduced us to the term Unaccompanied Alien Children, the official term used to describe the thousands of unaccompanied children coming into the U.S.</p>
<p>But despite the often painful topics and emotional encounters, I saw God.</p>
<p>God was there when we met with Christina who runs a children’s library in Anapra, Juarez and provides scholarships to help families with their school fees.</p>
<p>God was present in the passionate and feisty spirit of Lorena Andrade, the coordinator for Centro Mayapan, who spoke about the organization’s focus of creating leadership roles and encouraging women to advocate for policy that supports economic development, workers’ rights, and food justice for themselves and their community.</p>
<p>God was present in the welcoming community and friendly smiles from the volunteers and guests at Annunciation House.</p>
<p>And God was there when Patty, despite everything she’s been through, said, “I don’t hate those people. I feel sorry for them and hope that God will touch their hearts so all of this will end.”</p>
<p>I want to close with an excerpt from a poem shared on the Friendship Tour:</p>
<p>I guess at first, there were the people who invented the borders</p>
<p>And then the borders began to invent people.</p>
<p>They invented border police, armies and border guards.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>While borders are still standing, we are all in prehistory.</p>
<p>The real story begins when all borders are gone.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Supongo que al principio, fuera la gente que inventó las fronteras</p>
<p>Y entonces las fronteras comenzaron a inventar a la gente.</p>
<p>Era las fronteras que inventaron a la policía,</p>
<p>Los ejércitos y los guardias de la frontera.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Mientras las fronteras todavía están de pie</p>
<p>Estamos todos en prehistoria</p>
<p>La historia real comenzará cuando todas las fronteras ya se habrán ido.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>— Yevgeny Yevtushenko</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Unsettled by truth: A border awareness experience | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/unsettled-by-truth-a-border-awareness-experience/ | 3 |
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<p />
<p>But not the final step.</p>
<p>“Our theme all year, and I said it at our banquet last year, is one more step,” Manzano football coach Chad Adcox said. “And that’s what we did.”</p>
<p>The Monarchs survived an early body blow delivered by Las Cruces, scored a crucial touchdown on the final play of the first half, then turned things over to the defense in the second half as No. 1 Manzano advanced to the Class 6A state football championship game with a 28-10 victory over No. 4 Las Cruces on Friday night in the semifinals at the Field of Dreams.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“This is what we wanted,” said Manzano junior running back Xavier Ivey-Saud, who barrelled his way through Las Cruces for 194 yards on 32 carries, including a 21-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter. “We all had that feeling that we didn’t want what happened last year, so we took advantage of the opportunity.”</p>
<p>Manzano suffered a semifinal defeat a year ago to Rio Rancho.</p>
<p>This team, filled with veterans from that loss, ran their record to 12-0 as Manzano advanced to the state final for the third time in school history, after 1996 and 2010, seasons that both ended with losses to Mayfield.</p>
<p>Combined with La Cueva’s 37-34 overtime win over Cleveland on Friday, there will, at last, be an all-Albuquerque state championship game.</p>
<p>The Bears and the Monarchs will play Dec. 2 at 1 p.m. at Wilson Stadium, the second 1-vs.-2 matchup between these District 2-6A rivals this year. Manzano won 28-21 in early October.</p>
<p>The Monarchs were behind most of the first half Friday. Las Cruces took the opening kickoff 78 yards in five breezy plays, with Chase Chaloupek going over from the 1 just 2:12 into the game.</p>
<p>The Bulldawgs (10-2) were looking to double that lead later in the first quarter, but on a fourth-and-7 from the Manzano 12, Las Cruces rolled the dice, opting not to kick a field goal. It backfired, as Payton Ball was forced into an incomplete pass.</p>
<p>“That was huge,” Adcox said. “I told our kids before we walked out there, that they would come out with guns blazing. And we had to be ready to counter it.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Manzano went 88 yards the other way for a touchdown on 10 plays; senior quarterback Jordan Byrd scored from the 5, but the PAT was pulled, leaving the Monarchs trailing 7-6. Momentum had turned, however.</p>
<p>“It’s not about getting hit,” Ivey-Saud said. “It’s about how hard you get hit, and keep going.”</p>
<p>The next time Las Cruces had a chance to kick, it didn’t gamble, and a field goal made it 10-6. But on the last play before halftime, Manzano seized the lead with a risky maneuver of its own as Adcox eschewed a field-goal try with 3 seconds left, instead throwing from the Las Cruces 4.</p>
<p>Byrd lofted a TD pass to 6-foot-4 junior Jack Blankenship, who went up over a shorter Bulldawgs’ defensive back to grab the touchdown. The play design called for Byrd to look for Andrew Erickson, and if he was double covered, to go to the other side where Blankenship was isolated with one-on-one coverage.</p>
<p>“Usually when coach calls on me, I get super nervous,” Blankenship admitted. “Because I don’t get the ball too much. But … I just said, ‘I’m ready for this.'”</p>
<p>Byrd added a 2-point run for a 14-10 Manzano halftime lead.</p>
<p>“I knew I was going for it the whole time,” Adcox said of the touchdown call. “We can’t even kick PATs very well right now.”</p>
<p>An interception of Ball by Manzano linebacker Alejandro Vallejos set up Ivey-Saud’s 21-yard scoring run for 21-10.</p>
<p>“That’s the toughest team I’ve ever played,” Vallejos said of the Bulldawgs.</p>
<p>Byrd added an insurance TD with 5:57 left in the fourth quarter.</p>
<p>“That’s a hell of a team,” Las Cruces coach Mark Lopez said.</p>
<p>MANZANO 28, LAS CRUCES 10</p>
<p>Manzano 0 14 7 7 — 28</p>
<p>Las Cruces 7 3 0 0 — 10</p>
<p>Scoring: LC, Chase Chaloupek 1 run (Jorge Figueroa kick); M, Jordan Byrd 5 run (kick failed); LC, Figueroa 26 FG; M, Jack Blankenship 4 pass from Byrd (Byrd run); M, Xavier Ivey-Saud 21 run (Cameron Herrera kick); M, Byrd 4 run (Herrera kick). Records: M 12-0; LC 10-2.</p>
<p>First downs: M 18; LC 18. Rushes-yards: M 49-296; LC 38-180. Passing: M 4-7-0—36; LC 6-18-1—108. Total offense: M 332; LC 288. Punts-avg.: M 1-50; LC 0-0. Fumbles-lost: M 1-1; LC 3-0. Penalties-yards: M 5-43; LC 3-24.</p> | Football: Top-seeded Monarchs advance to 6A title game | false | https://abqjournal.com/1097617/football-top-seeded-monarchs-advance-to-6a-title-game.html | 2017-11-24 | 2 |
<p />
<p>The Commonwealth Fund has <a href="http://www.cmwf.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=275323" type="external">a new study</a> out on a topic near and dear to my heart: young adults. In particular, most of them don’t have health insurance, since after they pass the tender age of 19, they either get booted off their parents’ dependent coverage, or booted off Medicaid, or booted off CHIP. Meanwhile, many graduates lose coverage immediately after leaving college. And hey, we may look healthy, but not always—pregnancies, emergency room visits, diabetes—and young adults are less able to handle catastrophic costs than are, say, older adults who have saved up the money.</p>
<p>At any rate, the paper notes that it’s relatively easy to cover young adults, but as with most such studies, merely makes the moral case for doing so. Hey, I love the moral case; it’s a great case. But I figure most people either believe that millions of uninsured Americas are a moral scandal or they don’t. Fortunately, the paper hints at an economic case for covering young adults as well:</p>
<p />
<p>Contrary to conventional wisdom, young adults do not so easily dismiss the risks of not having health coverage. When the Biennial Health Insurance Survey questioned young workers about their desire for health insurance, seven of 10 of those between 19 and 29 years of age said that health insurance was very important to them in deciding whether or not to take a job, a rate similar to that for older workers.</p>
<p>In an ideal labor market, people would take the job they were best-suited for, so that we could properly harness everyone’s productive and creative capabilities and launch our way into the 21st century. Etcetra. But this survey suggests that a lack of coverage may be skewing the employment choices young people make. It’s possible that this affects older adults to, where, say, a parent might remain in a job she isn’t best suited for because she’s afraid of losing coverage for her family. In theory, the economy of the future should have a lot of labor mobility and people switching from one job to the next quite frequently; but a lack of health insurance will only gum up the works.</p>
<p /> | Health Insurance and Mobility | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2005/05/health-insurance-and-mobility/ | 2005-05-10 | 4 |
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<p>State Police are looking for a man who escaped from a Department of Health Facility in Belen.</p>
<p>Harold Romero, 41, escaped around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, police said.</p>
<p>He assaulted and battered an employee then ran towards Interstate 25 from Estancia Road to the Belen West mesa.</p>
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<p>Romero is described as 5’6″, 140 pounds, brown hair, dark complexion, no teeth and wearing a blue T-shirt and gray with white sweat pants.</p>
<p>Anyone with information is asked to call 841-9256.</p>
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<p /> | Man Escapes From Belen Facility | false | https://abqjournal.com/8452/man-escapes-from-belen-facility.html | 2 |
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<p>Dear Debt Adviser,Two years ago I went through a divorce. I suffered a big financial setback and have been working to repair my credit. I had a credit account that became a charge-off account on my credit report. I started paying down the balance, but it does not help my credit score at all. Should I continue to pay down the balance or use that money to pay off other debts and let the charge-off account just fall off my credit report after seven years? It is very frustrating paying money that isn't even helping to repair my credit score. Thank you.-Valari</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Dear Valari,</p>
<p>I can understand your frustration. A divorce is hard enough, but having financial problems on top of it just makes everything worse. It will take time to recover from your split, and it will take time to recover from your credit mess. Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes when it comes to credit regeneration. I say regeneration rather than repair because it's closer to what actually has to happen. You can't get out a credit toolbox and repair your credit. You have to "regrow" it. Your credit has been through a damaging storm and like a damaged tree, it will take time to regenerate the parts that were damaged.</p>
<p>But the good news is that as more time passes from the time of your credit damage, the better looking and stronger your credit landscape becomes. However, time is not the only ingredient needed to regenerate your credit; you also need to plant new positive information on your credit report. The easiest way to add positive information is to pay all your credit obligations on time and as agreed. But, you also need to pay off any past due obligations, including this one.</p>
<p>The Debt Adviser's quick tips:* Regenerate good credit.* Add positive payment history.* Develop a spending plan.</p>
<p>As you have found, paying your charged-off account does not immediately improve your credit score. The reason is that, because the account was charged off in the first place, and until you show that you can handle the repayments in full, the credit scoring models are saying that you are a high-risk borrower. The older the charge-off becomes, the less negative impact it will have on your score.</p>
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<p>If you choose to leave the charge-off as unpaid, most potential lenders will see that on your credit report and be leery of lending to you, regardless of how high your credit score may be. Lenders prefer to see that you eventually paid what you owed, rather than that you never paid. In addition, if you stop paying on the charged-off account, you may find yourself in the midst of a full-scale collection process that could range from mildly unpleasant to horrific.</p>
<p>My suggestion is that you work out a plan to pay all your debts, including the charged-off account, as quickly as your budget allows. The sooner you put the stress of your financial problems due to your divorce behind you, the better. If you have not developed a spending plan, I recommend that you start there. A plan will put you in control of your spending and offer you the security of knowing that you are on a course to better days ahead.</p>
<p>I have seen too many people try and fail to manage their finances in situations like yours. Often, the cause of their failure is not taking the time to do some simple and relatively painless budgeting. A good plan will put you in control of how your hard-earned money is spent. Plus, a spending plan will help you know how to reach your much-deserved financial goals -- one of which is to pay off your debt and improve your credit.</p>
<p>Ask the adviser</p>
<p>To ask a question of the Debt Adviser, go to the "Ask the Experts" page and select "Debt" as the topic. Read more Debt Adviser columns and more stories about debt management.Bankrate's content, including the guidance of its advice-and-expert columns and this web site, is intended only to assist you with financial decisions. The content is broad in scope and does not consider your personal financial situation. Bankrate recommends that you seek the advice of advisers who are fully aware of your individual circumstances before making any final decisions or implementing any financial strategy. Please remember that your use of this web site is governed by Bankrate's Terms of Use.</p> | Repairing Credit Post-Divorce Takes Time | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2010/12/02/repairing-credit-post-divorce-takes-time.html | 2016-03-17 | 0 |
<p>In December, the district will unveil a new high school “score card” that aims to give parents more information to help them pick the best high school for their teenagers.</p>
<p>Among other indicators, the score card shows the gains high school students make on standardized tests, which the district is now calculating for the first time. The goal, says Xavier Botana, chief of accountability for the federal No Child Left Behind law, is to determine whether schools are “moving kids at the same rate that schools nationally are moving their kids.” Botana supervised the development of the card, which is intended to report more in-depth statistics than the state’s school report card.</p>
<p>Because the state’s high school test—the Prairie State Achievement Exam—is administered only to juniors, the district is analyzing the gains students make as they move through ACT’s college testing sequence: the 9th-grade Explore, 10th-grade PLAN and the 11th-grade ACT. The gains students make in each successive year are compared to the gains made by students across the country who scored at the same level on the first test. The score card reports the percentage of students in each school who meet or exceed the expected gains.</p>
<p>Showing test-score gains is a more accurate way to demonstrate whether a neighborhood school is making progress with its students. “It levels the playing field,” says Peter Ballard, a member of the district team that developed the card. “It doesn’t look at where the kid starts but how much they progress in a year.”</p>
<p>For that reason, showing gains is also likely to provide a wake-up call to high-scoring schools, which typically have selective enrollments, if students do not progress much from year-to-year, or if minority students make less progress than whites.</p>
<p>“I think that’s going to challenge us in ways we haven’t been challenged before,” says Donald Fraynd, principal of Jones College Prep in the South Loop. “It’s a more accurate measure of what we are doing in our schools. We shouldn’t be celebrated for just beginning with a strong student. We should be celebrated for what we do to move that student forward.”</p>
<p>Among other indicators, the score card reports the number of graduates who enroll in college, the number of students who take Advanced Placement courses and pass course exams and the number of freshmen on-track to graduate at the end of 9th grade. For some indicators, the district is including three years’ worth of data to show trends.</p>
<p>Paul Reville, a lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Education and president of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, a Massachusetts-based think tank, says the card is a good idea. “It broadens the information that usually is talked about,” he says. “It’s also attending to progress as well as just snapshots.”</p>
<p>Next year, the district will add the results of student surveys about school climate, teacher expectations and support from school staff. Data that is disaggregated by race also will become available online.</p>
<p>Parents need more help</p>
<p>At first, some principals in neighborhood high schools balked at the score card idea because central office said it planned to rank all schools together, whether neighborhood-based or with selective enrollment.</p>
<p>“You’re just not starting from the same point,” notes Richard Norman, principal of Senn High in Edgewater and former director of admissions at Northside College Prep. “Principals wanted to be compared with their peers.”</p>
<p>The district agreed to have separate rankings, Botana says. The main rationale for the score cards is to give parents better information about high schools. “If you’re a parent and you’re looking among five schools, and you really care about attendance, you can see how they rate,” Botana says.</p>
<p>But one mother of five says it will take more than a score card to help parents make the best schooling choices.</p>
<p>Until she attended a community forum, Jackie Dukes was not considering alternatives to Hyde Park High in Woodlawn for her youngest son. But “listening to the panel” convinced her to consider the University of Chicago’s new charter high school, which will open next fall. Dukes, who is still weighing high school options, says her son “will need a lot more of a push to go from high school to college,” and liked the university’s plans for preparing all students for post-secondary education.</p>
<p>The card is available in English, Spanish and Polish at schools and on the <a href="http://www.cps.k12.il.us/schools/scorecard" type="external">CPS web site</a>.</p> | Score card opens new window on high school performance | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/score-card-opens-new-window-high-school-performance/ | 2005-12-05 | 3 |
<p>Let them eat cake!</p>
<p>Arup - the company who created the Gherkin skyscraper in London - will be producing a giant two-story replica of the iconic building in cake at the Battersea Park festival in London, near to the start of the river pageant, on Sunday.</p>
<p>The effort will be one of four by different engineering teams, all competing to build the tallest cake to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee next Sunday.</p>
<p>Stephanie Black, an electrical engineer with Arup, said the team was used to working with concrete and steel, but less so with materials such as chocolate and fruit cake.</p>
<p>She told the Sunday Times: "While we know a lot about concrete and steel, we were dealing with things like chocolate and fruit cake.</p>
<p>"We had to do a lot of testing on the new materials before we realised that diamond-shaped blocks of crispy cakes were the most sturdy."</p>
<p>Together the teams will use 66lb of flour, 408lb of butter, 990lb of sugar, four vats of golden syrup and 1,480lb of chocolate. Once completed, the cakes will be dismantled and fed to the Jubilee crowds.</p> | Giant Cake Bake to Celebrate Jubilee | true | https://thedailybeast.com/giant-cake-bake-to-celebrate-jubilee | 2018-10-04 | 4 |
<p>Tawakul Karman, 32, is one of three women's rights activists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Friday. She is the first Arab woman to receive the prize.</p>
<p>The mother of three -- who told the BBC that she didn't even know she was nominated for the prize, and found out through their news service -- was honored for her activism work in Yemen during the Arab Spring, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15216473" type="external">BBC</a> reports.</p>
<p>More: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/111007/profile-leymah-gbowee-nobel-peace-prize" type="external">Leymah Gbowee wins Nobel Peace Prize</a></p>
<p>Karman organized regular sit-ins and protests in Sana'a's Freedom Square, in hopes of ending the 33-year rule of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, according to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/8813170/Nobel-peace-prize-profile-of-Tawakul-Karman.html" type="external">The Telegraph</a>. She and other activists with Women Journalists Without Chains, an organization she founded in 2005, also demonstrated for the advancement of women's rights and the protection of freedom of expression, reports <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/201110711019647156.html" type="external">Al-Jazeera English</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>Karman, who has been jailed many times for her efforts by the leaders in Yemen, dedicated the prize to the youth in the Arab Spring.</p>
<p>"I give the prize to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people," she allegedly said, reports&#160; <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2096442,00.html" type="external">Time Magazine</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/111007/nobel-peace-prize-ellen-sirleaf-johnson-criticism-liberia-presidential-election" type="external">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf slammed by Liberia election candidate</a></p>
<p>Karman is a member of Yemen's leading opposition party, the Islah, a conservative religious movement that calls for reform in accordance with Islamic principles. She herself takes a more progressive approach to Islam and the Shari'a, wearing a headscarf instead of a full face veil, reports <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15216473" type="external">BBC</a>. During the Arab Spring, she and thousands of other women broke the country's 7 p.m. curfew to spend the night in Freedom Square.</p>
<p>More: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/111002/liberia-news-ellen-johnson-sirleaf-runs-reelection" type="external">Nobel Prize Laureate profile: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</a></p>
<p>Thorbjoern Jagland of the Norwegian Nobel Committee told the <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_NOBEL_PEACE_PRIZE?SITE=FLTAM&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" type="external">AP</a> that the prize is "a signal that the Arab Spring cannot be successful without including the women in it."</p>
<p>Karman said she was unaware of her nomination because she is so deep in the revolution in Yemen, working vigilantly to make gains in the country.</p>
<p>"We will build our country with peace. ... All the youth and women, this is a victory for our demand for citizenship and human rights," she allegedly told <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/201110711019647156.html" type="external">Al-Jazeera English</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/111007/nobel-noble-peace-prize-three-winners-sirleaf" type="external">Three women share Nobel Peace Prize</a></p> | Profile: Tawakkul Karman first Arab woman to win Nobel Peace Prize | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-10-07/profile-tawakkul-karman-first-arab-woman-win-nobel-peace-prize | 2011-10-07 | 3 |
<p>Photo from flickr user &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/1987porsche944/3283335473/" target="blank"&gt;1987porsche944 (Infinite recursion)&lt;/a&gt; used under a Creative Commons license</p>
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<p>From last year’s outbreak of salmonella-tainted tomatoes, to an internal <a href="http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/AC/07/briefing/2007-4329b_02_01_FDA%20Report%20on%20Science%20and%20Technology.pdf" type="external">analysis</a> (PDF) warning the agency can’t adequately regulate new medical devices or protect the safety of the nation’s food supply, all the bad publicity the Food and Drug Administration has earned in the last two years revealed an agency plagued by lack of funding and incompetence.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/reports/public-health/safety-of-medical-devices/ph-fda-20090218.html" type="external">report</a> released Wednesday by Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based watchdog group, adds another item to the list of bad ink for the FDA, this one a product of downright negligence.</p>
<p>POGO alleges the Food and Drug Administration deliberately disregarded regulations governing non-clinical tests of medical devices such as defibrillators, pacemakers and stents.</p>
<p>According to the report, officials at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health decided not to subject certain devices to the rigorous testing outlined by the Good Laboratory Practice regulation, which ensures the accuracy and integrity of safety data submitted to the FDA. Why? It isn’t quite clear. GLP testing can be costly and lengthy. According to the <a href="http://pogoarchives.org/m/science/fda-device/appendix-d.pdf" type="external">whistle-blowers</a> (PDF) who contacted POGO, employees were pressured to overlook any false data submitted by device manufacturers who didn’t subject their products to GLP oversight.</p>
<p>An excerpt from one letter sent to POGO by an anonymous FDA staffer:</p>
<p>There is mandatory indoctrination of employees to overlook fraud and omissions in applications. Also incentives (bonuses, outstanding appraisals, and public recognition) reinforce this behavior.</p>
<p>And another:</p>
<p>Irresponsible management, supervisors, and team leaders have put corporate interests above public safety and undermine the health and lives of American citizens. The world does not know about the government’s ineptitude in the review of medical and radiological devices.</p>
<p /> | Report: FDA Ignores Safety Regs, Risks Lives | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/report-fda-ignores-safety-regs-puts-lives-risk/ | 2009-02-18 | 4 |
<p>As Donald Trump nears the end of his first 100 days, media commentary focuses primarily on how little he has achieved in comparison to other presidents. It’s a mistake, however, to discount the threat that the Trump administration poses to our fundamental rights. His attorney general, former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, is a case in point.</p>
<p>Sessions has set out with a vengeance to transform the Department of Justice into a Department of Injustice. He’s been hindered by the incompetence that characterizes this administration. He’s home alone in his department, with no nominations offered for the heads of top DOJ units — the civil rights, criminal or national security divisions. His deputies — Nos. 2 and 3 in the DOJ — have been nominated but not confirmed.</p>
<p>That has slowed but not stopped Sessions’ efforts to rollback basic rights. He’s reversed the Justice Department’s position of challenging voter identification laws; he deems the Voting Rights Act too “intrusive.” Now the DOJ will intervene in favor of states that pass discriminatory measures to restrict access to the ballot. The right to vote — the fundamental right of a democracy — will now depend on the willingness of judges to stand up for the truth, as U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos did in ignoring the DOJ intervention and ruling that the Texas ID law was “passed, at least in part, with a discriminatory purpose.”</p>
<p>Sessions has issued orders to revive the old, failed war on drugs. The promising bipartisan efforts to reform sentencing provisions to end the mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders are to be abandoned. Sessions wants to revive private prisons and insure them a steady stream of prisoners. People of color, particularly young African-American men, will be the greatest victims of this injustice.</p>
<p>Sessions has called for a “review” of all the reform agreements that Obama’s Civil Rights Division has reached with police forces. His DOJ sought to delay implementation of a consent decree reached in Baltimore in the wake of the Freddy Gray killing. Sessions scorns these agreements as “political expediency” that will “handcuff the police.” In Baltimore, the judge ignored the DOJ’s efforts to impede reform. But despite the outcry at the killings of young black men and women, Sessions is clearly telling police they can act with impunity once more.</p>
<p>And Sessions has been point on the administration’s efforts to ramp up deportation, terrorize immigrants and defend the president’s unconstitutional Muslim ban. He expressed amazement that a “judge sitting on an island in the Pacific” could overturn the president’s order. That judge was a federal district court justice in the state of Hawaii, part of the union for 58 years.</p>
<p>Sessions has issued letters to nine sanctuary cities, counties and states, including the state of California, New York City, Chicago and Cook County, threatening to deny federal grant funds — largely funds for local law enforcement — unless they commit to cooperating with the administration’s sweeping assaults on immigrants. This arbitrary assertion of federal power is particularly remarkable from Sessions, who as a senator declaimed endlessly about the glories of states’ rights. Luckily, Sessions wasn’t at Herod’s side when Mary and Joseph sought sanctuary in Egypt with the baby Jesus.</p>
<p>The sanctuary jurisdictions have vowed to resist Sessions edicts. Speaking for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, spokesman Matt McGrath noted: “The administration’s plan to deny federal funds to cities that are standing up for their values is unconstitutional, and Chicago is proud to stand with 34 cities and counties across the country in asking a federal court to prevent the federal government from illegally withholding federal funds.”</p>
<p>New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio declared that New York City will “remain a city welcoming of immigrants who have helped make our city the safest big city in the nation. Any attempt to cut NYPD funding for the nation’s top terror target will be aggressively fought in court. We won’t back down from protecting New Yorkers from terror — or from an overzealous administration fixated on xenophobia and needless division.”</p>
<p>The assault on rights — for the LGBT community, for people of color, for women, for immigrants — is clear. Efforts to rollback voting rights, civil rights, police reform and sentencing reform have already begun. The resistance — from courts, from decent public officials, from activists and citizens of conscience — has been and will be fierce. Sessions’ Department of Injustice is measure of the damage that Trump can do. Instead of making America a more perfect union, Americans will have to mobilize to defend their rights from the very department that is tasked with protecting them.</p> | Jeff Sessions is Rolling Back Basic Rights | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/04/28/jeff-sessions-is-rolling-back-basic-rights/ | 2017-04-28 | 4 |
<p>The 2012 Olympics kicked off with a special Hyde Park concert featuring UK bands Duran Duran, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics and Paolo Nutini.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19014489" type="external">The BBC reported</a> the show coincided with the games' opening ceremony, which aired on large screens in the park.</p>
<p>But as <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-duran-duran-plotting-new-album-after-olympic-celebration-20120726,0,7301163.story" type="external">the Los Angeles Times</a> wrote, the event wasn't an official Olympics event, but meant to coincide with the Danny Boyle-directed opening ceremony across town. Each of the four acts represented the different countries of the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Scottish singer-songwriter Nutini opened the concert, Duran Duran represented England, Stereophonics are Welsh and Snow Patrol represented Northern Ireland, the BBC reported.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/macro/olympic-vermin-london-NBC-video" type="external">Olympic Vermin: What to watch while NBC doesn't broadcast the opening ceremonies</a></p>
<p>Duran Duran's John Taylor told the BBC: "We feel very English. But we feel British too, so we're in the right place."</p>
<p>Lead singer Simon Le Bon, who performed in a union jack themed jacket, called the gig "amazing" and said it was "the biggest show we've ever played in London town," adding "may we have a peaceful games".</p>
<p>Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody joked "My 100 metre sprinting days are long past me."</p>
<p>Over at the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium, crowds of 80,000 gathered including the Queen and a number of other celebrities and world figures.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/taxonomy/term/18979/120727/location-video-london-city-divided" type="external">Video: London, a city divided</a></p> | Duran Duran, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics kick off Olympics with concert | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-27/duran-duran-snow-patrol-stereophonics-kick-olympics-concert | 2012-07-27 | 3 |
<p>In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein firestorm, a video has surfaced showing Jimmy Kimmel, who has been praised by many on the Left as a spokesman for their agenda, and sort of a <a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/jimmy-kimmels-monologue-las-vegas-shooting" type="external">moral compass</a>, has had his own issues with sexism, nowhere near Weinstein’s level of depravity, but still decidedly uncomfortable to look at in retrospect.</p>
<p>In the video, speaking to a pretty young blonde, Kimmel announces, “I’ve stuffed something in my pants, and you’re welcome to feel around on the outside of the pants. You have then ten seconds to guess what it is in my pants.”</p>
<p>As the blonde starts to grope him, Kimmel instructs, “You should use two hands.”</p>
<p>The next shot is of a brunette groping Kimmel’s crotch, as he comments, “You’ve done this before, haven’t you.”</p>
<p>Following that, another blonde is on her knees before him, groping him, as Kimmel tells her, “Maybe it would be easier if you put your mouth on it.”</p>
<p>The next shot is of Kimmel addressing yet another pretty blonde, asking her, “How old are you?” When she answers, “Eighteen,” he asks, “You sure of that? Cause old Jimmy doesn’t need to do time.”</p>
<p>Back to woman number one, fully groping him, as Kimmel quips, “You’re going to make a fine wife.”</p>
<p>Back to woman number two, as Kimmel asks her, “And your guess is?”</p>
<p>She replies, “A vibrator?”</p>
<p>Kimmel tells her, “A vibrator?” Then he pulls out an object from his pants, announcing, “No, it is actually a zucchini with a rubber band on it. But you could use it as a vibrator with a rubber band on it. Look,” as he vibrates it in his hand.</p>
<p>Video below:</p> | WATCH: 'Moral Compass' Kimmel Has Series Of Women Grope His Crotch | true | https://dailywire.com/news/22161/watch-moral-compass-kimmel-has-series-women-grope-hank-berrien | 2017-10-11 | 0 |
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Pekka Rinne gave the Nashville Predators a chance to overcome their slow start.</p>
<p>Rinne made 37 saves and Filip Forsberg scored at 3:55 of overtime to lift the Predators over Edmonton 1-0 Thursday night, handing the Oilers their eighth consecutive defeat.</p>
<p>Nashville won its third straight thanks in large part to Rinne, who stopped Jordan Eberle on a penalty shot early in the extra session.</p>
<p>In the opening period, Rinne made nine saves before the Predators registered their first shot on goal. It was Rinne's second shutout of the season and the 34th of his career. His 15 wins lead the NHL.</p>
<p>"Early on, if it weren't for him, we would have been in trouble," Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said. "The first eight or nine minutes, I think everybody would admit we were not sharp. It was a really strong effort by him."</p>
<p>Viktor Fasth had 24 saves for Edmonton, which fell to 0-11-2 against Western Conference teams.</p>
<p>"We haven't been able to take many positives lately, where at the start of the season, we felt good about the way we played even though maybe we came out on the short end of the stick," Oilers coach Dallas Eakins said. "This one for the group was a step forward even though we couldn't get both the points."</p>
<p>Seconds after Forsberg hit the crossbar with a shot and Nashville defenseman Roman Josi hit the post, Forsberg spun to free himself from a defender and beat Fasth with a wrist shot from the left circle.</p>
<p>"It was a really long shift, actually. I was pretty tired when I got the last shot there, so I was just trying to spin off the guy and try to hit the net," Forsberg said. "I was fortunate that it went in."</p>
<p>The rookie's 10 goals lead the team.</p>
<p>Rinne's best save came 13 seconds into overtime when he denied Eberle's penalty shot after Predators captain Shea Weber was called for closing his hand on the puck while it was in the crease. Rinne made the ensuing stop on Eberle with his left skate against the post.</p>
<p>"He is really nifty in penalty shots. I think that he is one of the better shooters stats-wise in the NHL in penalty shots and shootouts," Rinne said. "I thought he got a little bit too close to me and I was able to get my leg over there and he didn't put it over my leg."</p>
<p>Eberle thought he had Rinne beat.</p>
<p>"I just had to get it upstairs," Eberle said. "I think when you go down that way, it's extremely tough and you feel like you let your teammates down."</p>
<p>The Predators finished 0 for 5 on the power play. They are an NHL-worst 1 for 37 at home this season with the man advantage.</p>
<p>Nashville center Mike Fisher appeared in his first game of the season. Fisher sustained an Achilles tendon injury while training over the summer and missed the first 21 games.</p>
<p>Oilers forward Matt Hendricks was injured at 2:12 of the first period when he blocked a shot from Weber. The shot hit Hendricks in the left leg.</p>
<p>After the game, Eakins said X-rays were negative, but Hendricks' inability to bend his knee kept him from returning to the ice.</p>
<p>NOTES: Oilers D Justin Schultz was a healthy scratch for the first time this season. ... Nashville C Matt Cullen sat out with an upper-body injury and is day to day. ... The Predators concluded their season series with Edmonton, winning all three games.</p>
<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Pekka Rinne gave the Nashville Predators a chance to overcome their slow start.</p>
<p>Rinne made 37 saves and Filip Forsberg scored at 3:55 of overtime to lift the Predators over Edmonton 1-0 Thursday night, handing the Oilers their eighth consecutive defeat.</p>
<p>Nashville won its third straight thanks in large part to Rinne, who stopped Jordan Eberle on a penalty shot early in the extra session.</p>
<p>In the opening period, Rinne made nine saves before the Predators registered their first shot on goal. It was Rinne's second shutout of the season and the 34th of his career. His 15 wins lead the NHL.</p>
<p>"Early on, if it weren't for him, we would have been in trouble," Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said. "The first eight or nine minutes, I think everybody would admit we were not sharp. It was a really strong effort by him."</p>
<p>Viktor Fasth had 24 saves for Edmonton, which fell to 0-11-2 against Western Conference teams.</p>
<p>"We haven't been able to take many positives lately, where at the start of the season, we felt good about the way we played even though maybe we came out on the short end of the stick," Oilers coach Dallas Eakins said. "This one for the group was a step forward even though we couldn't get both the points."</p>
<p>Seconds after Forsberg hit the crossbar with a shot and Nashville defenseman Roman Josi hit the post, Forsberg spun to free himself from a defender and beat Fasth with a wrist shot from the left circle.</p>
<p>"It was a really long shift, actually. I was pretty tired when I got the last shot there, so I was just trying to spin off the guy and try to hit the net," Forsberg said. "I was fortunate that it went in."</p>
<p>The rookie's 10 goals lead the team.</p>
<p>Rinne's best save came 13 seconds into overtime when he denied Eberle's penalty shot after Predators captain Shea Weber was called for closing his hand on the puck while it was in the crease. Rinne made the ensuing stop on Eberle with his left skate against the post.</p>
<p>"He is really nifty in penalty shots. I think that he is one of the better shooters stats-wise in the NHL in penalty shots and shootouts," Rinne said. "I thought he got a little bit too close to me and I was able to get my leg over there and he didn't put it over my leg."</p>
<p>Eberle thought he had Rinne beat.</p>
<p>"I just had to get it upstairs," Eberle said. "I think when you go down that way, it's extremely tough and you feel like you let your teammates down."</p>
<p>The Predators finished 0 for 5 on the power play. They are an NHL-worst 1 for 37 at home this season with the man advantage.</p>
<p>Nashville center Mike Fisher appeared in his first game of the season. Fisher sustained an Achilles tendon injury while training over the summer and missed the first 21 games.</p>
<p>Oilers forward Matt Hendricks was injured at 2:12 of the first period when he blocked a shot from Weber. The shot hit Hendricks in the left leg.</p>
<p>After the game, Eakins said X-rays were negative, but Hendricks' inability to bend his knee kept him from returning to the ice.</p>
<p>NOTES: Oilers D Justin Schultz was a healthy scratch for the first time this season. ... Nashville C Matt Cullen sat out with an upper-body injury and is day to day. ... The Predators concluded their season series with Edmonton, winning all three games.</p> | Forsberg, Rinne lead Preds over Oilers 1-0 in OT | false | https://apnews.com/amp/4ef09d771e49425e804ed8a94cb8d79d | 2014-11-28 | 2 |
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