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<p>NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — An Army veteran who says someone left a scalpel inside him after surgery is suing a veterans affairs hospital.</p>
<p>Bridgeport resident Glenford Turner says the scalpel was only discovered years later, after he suffered from long-term abdominal pain. He sued the VA in U.S. District Court last week, seeking unspecified compensatory damages.</p>
<p>Court papers say Turner had surgery at the VA hospital in West Haven in 2013. Nearly four years later, he went back to the VA with dizziness and severe abdominal pain. An X-Ray showed there was a scalpel inside his body.</p>
<p>Turner had to undergo surgery to remove the scalpel. His lawyer, Joel Faxon, said doctors confirmed it was the same one. Faxon called it “an incomprehensible level of incompetence.”</p>
<p>The VA said Monday it doesn’t typically comment on pending litigation.</p>
<p>U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said he was appalled and stunned by the “egregious medical malpractice case.”</p>
<p>“I have asked for a detailed explanation from VA of this deeply troubling report,” he said in a statement. “I am demanding also full accountability so this kind of horrific negligence never happens again.”</p>
<p>NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — An Army veteran who says someone left a scalpel inside him after surgery is suing a veterans affairs hospital.</p>
<p>Bridgeport resident Glenford Turner says the scalpel was only discovered years later, after he suffered from long-term abdominal pain. He sued the VA in U.S. District Court last week, seeking unspecified compensatory damages.</p>
<p>Court papers say Turner had surgery at the VA hospital in West Haven in 2013. Nearly four years later, he went back to the VA with dizziness and severe abdominal pain. An X-Ray showed there was a scalpel inside his body.</p>
<p>Turner had to undergo surgery to remove the scalpel. His lawyer, Joel Faxon, said doctors confirmed it was the same one. Faxon called it “an incomprehensible level of incompetence.”</p>
<p>The VA said Monday it doesn’t typically comment on pending litigation.</p>
<p>U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said he was appalled and stunned by the “egregious medical malpractice case.”</p>
<p>“I have asked for a detailed explanation from VA of this deeply troubling report,” he said in a statement. “I am demanding also full accountability so this kind of horrific negligence never happens again.”</p> | Army vet sues VA over scalpel left in body after surgery | false | https://apnews.com/7c3b970d36224a6481c99159afeec7d5 | 2018-01-15 | 2 |
<p>In his zillionth glorious Twitter attack against our hideous elite media, President-elect Donald Trump (my four favorite words after "CNN's in last place") ripped into Vanity Fair early Thursday morning: "Has anyone looked at the really poor numbers of @VanityFair Magazine," Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/809383989018497024" type="external">exclaimed,</a> "Way down, big trouble, dead! Graydon Carter, no talent, will be out!"</p>
<p>Naturally, the predictable response from our foo-foo, media Betters -- you know, those visionaries who assured us Trump had no chance of winning the Republican nomination or the presidency -- was more of their arrogant and ferocious certainty that The Donald <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=vanity%20fair&amp;src=typd" type="external">was once again beclowning himself</a>.</p>
<p>The meta-feud is over the magazine's hyperbolic blasting of Trump Grill as what "could be the worst restaurant in America." And according to the very same media that bowed and scraped even as their Precious Obama went well beyond a tweet and <a href="https://reason.com/blog/2013/02/28/the-most-openly-and-transparently-thin-s" type="external">into outright retaliation</a> against them, Trump is just supposed to sit back and eat this crap.</p>
<p>Yeah, that's just not going to happen, and it shouldn't.</p>
<p>First off, unlike calling everyday Americans "irredeemable deplorables" and "bitter clingers," Trump is no bully. He is counter-punching against those in possession of millions of gallons of ink; he is picking on someone his own size.</p>
<p>Moreover, in the age of New Media, this is just smart politics.</p>
<p>Trump is the first Republican president ... to fully grasp and properly exploit just how much his base feverishly, desperately, and savagely hates the national media.</p>
<p>Trump is the first Republican president (and national politician) to fully grasp and properly exploit just how much his base feverishly, desperately, and savagely hates the national media. (To be accurate, we are just hating the media back. They started it.) Holding on to your base is Politics 101, especially when you are a president. That's how Bill Clinton survived impeachment. That is also why George W. Bush limped out of office with a 25% approval rating; he lost his base pushing amnesty and a crony for the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>On top of that, from a purely strategic standpoint, these attacks are invaluable. Since he first announced his candidacy 18 months ago, the Democrat Party has only achieved the status of being Trump's second-place foe. By a country mile, the national media has openly and belligerently assumed the role as Trump's arch-enemy, and every time he uses his social media savvy to focus on their hostility and bias, two important things happen:</p>
<p>1) The media prove how thin-skinned they are by engaging in an institution-wide freak out. These smugs are never more unattractive to the public than when they are beside themselves fuming with self-righteousness.</p>
<p>2) Trump's attack combined with the media's deliciously predictable Pavlovian response, almost always results in an intense social media focus on his intended target, and this in turn results in thousands of tweets and dozens of written pieces exposing what almost always turns out to be yet another example of glaring media hypocrisy and bias.</p>
<p>Systematically, tweet-by-tweet, Trump is dismantling the most vile, evil, corrupt, and partisan institution in America: our media.</p>
<p>In other words, there is no downside.</p>
<p>Systematically, tweet-by-tweet, Trump is dismantling the most vile, evil, corrupt, and partisan institution in America: our media. The man is a happy warrior who enrages them into ferocious attacks and, <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/809431072228392960" type="external">again</a> and <a href="" type="internal">again</a> and <a href="" type="internal">again</a> and <a href="" type="internal">again</a>, exposes them as feckless, powerless, naked frauds with absolutely no moral authority or sway over public opinion.</p>
<p>The media's horrific influence is at long last in a glorious death spiral, something that would not be happening were it not for Trump's willingness to punch these bullies right in the nose.</p>
<p>Follow John Nolte on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/NolteNC" type="external">@NolteNC</a></p> | Trump's Twitter-Attack On Vanity Fair Is The Lord's Work | true | https://dailywire.com/news/11655/trumps-twitter-attack-vanity-fair-lords-work-john-nolte | 2016-12-15 | 0 |
<p>BALTIMORE, MD. Bill Harvey’s topic for discussion, at the Progressive Action Center, on January 12, 2003, was entitled, “War-What’s in it for us?” His answer to that key question, after a wide ranging analysis of twenty specific ways a war with Iraq would affect Americans, and of the possible economic, social and cultural impact on the country, rang out loud and clear. He declared, “Nothing, but bad news!”</p>
<p>Harvey, a Green Party activist, author, and Labor historian, urged the Anti-War Movement to appeal “directly to the self interest of the American people . . . moving their interests about any possible war with Iraq to the center of the national debate. We already live in a war-ravaged nation. Since WWII,” he added, “we haven’t had any so-called ‘declared wars,’ because warfare is the norm in our society. The bloated Military Budget is at $400 billion and rising. We are also subjected to a parade of lies. The hypocrisy is breath taking. We need enemies, too, to maintain this warfare state. This is why they (the War Party) have created terms like ‘rouge states’ and ‘axis of evil.’ The perception of ‘over there,’ in many important respects, turns out to be right here.</p>
<p>“Today, civil liberties are a swamp,” Harvey continued, referring to the recently enacted draconian USA Patriot Act and the creation of the Homeland Security Agency. “As for race relations, well, just take a look at what is happening to the Arab-American community,” he said. “Arab people in this country are the most degraded and dehumanized people in our public culture. It is everywhere. For example, Jay Leno, the NBC ‘Tonight Show’ host regularly cracks jokes at their expense, as do other shows and movies. Leno recently featured on his program a comedian, whose main spiel was an insulting rant against Arabs.”</p>
<p>On another topic, Harvey pondered, “Wouldn’t it be great, if people would start to raise questions about the effect that our wars have had on their own lives and to hear someone say, ‘War really made a mess of this neighborhood and my family.'” Harvey pointed out how a high percentage of the U.S. veterans of the first Gulf War, in 1991, almost twenty-eight percent- -160,000 personnel- -ended up with “service-related medical problems, three times higher than the Vietnam War era rate.</p>
<p>“Let’s also put the spotlight on the energy industry,” he said. “We, the people of the U.S. don’t really need Iraq’s oil or the oil from the Middle East for that matter. It only supplies about 15 percent, or less, of our present needs. They, the U.S. and British oil companies, do need the oil, in order to maintain a measure of control over the economies of Japan and some countries in Europe, and to some extend China and Russia, too.</p>
<p>“A war with Iraq will mean a huge increase in energy costs in the short term for Americans,” Harvey said. “And, in the long term, if the war is successful, by their requirements, it will mean continuous control of prices by the energy industry. So, what would be the point of us fighting a war for [the oil industry,] thus allowing their firm control over such key decisions?</p>
<p>“Back in the 70s,” he said, “an alternative energy source was a major public issue, until the oil and automobile companies maneuvered it out of the public eye. Only in [an oil-dominated] capitalistic society can energy derived from the sun and wind be regarded as ‘alternative energy sources.’ In that one term,” he emphasized, “you can read what this whole society is about.”</p>
<p>Shifting to the security issues, Harvey underscored, how, “They (the War Party) are rolling the dice with our safety. A U.S. war with Iraq, and who knows what else might come up on their agenda in the very near future, like: the mass expulsion of the Palestinians; or a move on Iran, which I would say is likely; a move on Saudi Arabia, a possibility; or even attacks on Syria or Kuwait. All of these things,” he said, “if they do go down, will mean that a lot of outraged people will be even more outraged at us. I think we can only realistically expect the result from that to be increased terrorist activity in the U.S. And, all of this also goes to increasing fear and insecurity among the people, which serves, too, the interest of the power structure.</p>
<p>“They tell us we are in a ‘war without end’ and the cost of that war shows up in many unrecognized ways, too, like in U.S. aid to countries in preparing for war,” Harvey continued. “Topping that list are Israel and Columbia, among others. There is also the interest on the military’s percentage of the the national debt. Just recently, too, the War Party bought out some members of the UN Security Council, who were on the fence about joining us in the war against Iraq. And, then, there are also the enormous clean up cost and occupation that come after a conflict.</p>
<p>“War doesn’t occur in isolation,” said Harvey, who was speaking under the auspices of the “Coalition Against Global Exploitation” (GAGE). “War, and threats of war, is just one aspect of a full court press. Financial, economic and military imperialism go hand in hand. When Karl von Clausewitz said, ‘War is a continuation of politics by other means,’ he was onto the scent. Though, he would be amazed by the ingenuity of the guys that we are up against today.</p>
<p>“Nevertheless, people are kicking back,” Harvey concluded. “People of faith are raising questions. There have been growing demonstrations around the country, activism on college campuses is up, the labor movement is stirring, and many in strategically placed groups are raising their voices.”</p>
<p>Perhaps, we should all be asking, like Bill Harvey did, “What is in this deal (War with Iraq) for the American people?”</p>
<p>WILLIAM HUGHES is the author of “Baltimore Iconoclast” (Writer’s Showcase), which is available online. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>(C) WILLIAM HUGHES 2002</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | War on Iraq, What’s In It for Us? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/01/14/war-on-iraq-what-s-in-it-for-us/ | 2003-01-14 | 4 |
<p>Newmont Mining Corporation (NEM) will report its next earnings on Jan 25 BMO. The company reported the earnings of $0.35/Share in the last quarter where the estimated EPS by analysts was $0.33/share. The difference between the expected and actual EPS was $0.02/share, which represents an Earnings surprise of 6.1%.</p>
<p>Many analysts are providing their Estimated Earnings analysis for Newmont Mining Corporation and for the current quarter 13 analysts have projected that the stock could give an Average Earnings estimate of $0.37/share. These analysts have also projected a Low Estimate of $0.22/share and a High Estimate of $0.53/share.</p>
<p>In case of Revenue Estimates, 5 analysts have provided their consensus Average Revenue Estimates for Newmont Mining Corporation as 1.91 Billion. According to these analysts, the Low Revenue Estimate for Newmont Mining Corporation is 1.8 Billion and the High Revenue Estimate is 2.01 Billion. The company had Year Ago Sales of 1.79 Billion.</p>
<p>These analysts also forecasted Growth Estimates for the Current Quarter for NEM to be 48%. They are projecting Next Quarter growth of 40%. For the next 5 years, Newmont Mining Corporation is expecting Growth of 3.02% per annum, whereas in the past 5 years the growth was -17.78% per annum.</p>
<p>Some buy side analysts are also providing their Analysis on Newmont Mining Corporation, where 2 analysts have rated the stock as Strong buy, 0 analysts have given a Buy signal, 2 said it’s a HOLD, and 0 analysts rated the stock as Sell. (These Recommendations are for the Current Month Only reported by Yahoo Finance.)</p>
<p>When it comes to the Analysis of a Stock, Price Target plays a vital role. Analysts reported that the Price Target for Newmont Mining Corporation might touch $48.5 high while the Average Price Target and Low price Target is $42 and $33 respectively.</p>
<p>The Relative Volume of the company is 1.8 and Average Volume (3 months) is 4.34 million. The company’s P/E (price to earnings) ratio is 49.74 and Forward P/E ratio of 24.55.</p>
<p>The company shows its Return on Assets (ROA) value of 0.4%. The Return on Equity (ROE) value stands at 0.8%. While it’s Return on Investment (ROI) value is -4.1%.</p>
<p>While looking at the Stock’s Performance, Newmont Mining Corporation currently shows a Weekly Performance of -5.89%, where Monthly Performance is -3.37%, Quarterly performance is -9.6%, 6 Months performance is 0.55% and yearly performance percentage is 5.73%. Year to Date performance value (YTD perf) value is 1.76%. The Stock currently has a Weekly Volatility of 2.43% and Monthly Volatility of 1.73%.</p> | Worth Watching Stock Newmont Mining Corporation (NEM) | false | https://newsline.com/worth-watching-stock-newmont-mining-corporation-nem/ | 2017-12-12 | 1 |
<p>Jan 18 (Reuters) - Guangdong Hybribio Biotech Co Ltd</p>
<p>* Says it will fully buy Kunming-based 70 percent owned medical examination firm and Taiyuan-based 85 percent owned medical examination firm for 2.3 million yuan in total</p>
<p>Source text in Chinese: <a href="https://goo.gl/HbkVbv" type="external">goo.gl/HbkVbv</a></p>
<p>Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">DBKGn.DE</a>) has been asked by European Central Bank supervisors to calculate the potential costs of winding down its investment banking operations, a source told Reuters on Sunday.</p> FILE PHOTO: A statue is pictured next to the logo of Germany's Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany September 30, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo
<p>Germany's biggest lender has been calculating the financial effects of a potential move to quit investment banking for some time, and the move is not related to the switch in Deutsche Bank's top management position last Sunday when retail banking expert Christian Sewing was appointed to replace chief executive John Cryan.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DBKGn.DE" type="external">Deutsche Bank AG</a> 11.7 DBKGn.DE Xetra +0.03 (+0.27%) DBKGn.DE
<p>The point of the exercise is to estimate how the value of Deutsche Bank's capital market and derivatives business would develop if the bank was to exit abruptly from new business, the source said on condition he not be named because the matter is confidential.</p>
<p>Deutsche Bank said it "routinely" calculates the consequences of an orderly winding-down of positions in trading books for regulators. The ECB declined comment.</p>
<p>Germany's daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung was first to report on Deutsche Bank's explorations induced by the ECB, saying other lenders are to face similar requests at a later stage.</p>
<p>Deutsche Bank is already in the middle of a global review of the investment bank, known internally as Project Colombo, to determine the way forward as revenues shrink and clients and staff leave.</p>
<p>Reporting by Hans Seidenstuecker, additional reporting by Frank Siebelt. Writing by Andreas Cremer, editing by Kathrin Jones and David Evans</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc bought Clarity Money, a personal finance startup, to bolster its Marcus online lending business, it said Sunday.</p> A Goldman Sachs sign is displayed inside the company's post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<p>Buying Clarity Money, a free app that helps consumers manage their personal finances, is expected to add over 1 million customers to the financial service firm's Marcus business. Marcus offers tools to help customers save and borrow. Clarity Money will be re-branded as Marcus by Goldman Sachs over time, the company said.</p>
<p>Terms were not disclosed.</p>
<p>Goldman launched Marcus in October 2016 as a way to court Main Street borrowers saddled with credit card debt. It offers loans from $3,500 to $40,000 and targets credit card borrowers who can benefit from consolidating debt into a single loan with a lower interest rate.</p>
<p>GS Bank, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, is making the acquisition. Clarity Money CEO Adam Dell will join Goldman Sachs as a partner.</p>
<p>(This version of the story corrects in paragraph 4 to say that Marcus offers loans up to $40,000, not $30,000)</p>
<p>Reporting By Jessica Resnick-Ault; Editing by Nick Zieminski</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold and oil traded slightly lower as markets opened for the first time since Western powers launched a missile attack on Syria, but equities are unlikely to experience big losses unless the West strikes again or Russia retaliates.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Syrian firefighter is seen inside the destroyed Scientific Research Centre in Damascus, Syria April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
<p>"The news flow is actually better than what it looked like at one point during last week, as the strike was surgical, followed by a pullback. Reports show a lot of care was taken not to hit Russian targets, which is a good sign and the market should take heart from that," said Salman Ahmed, chief investment strategist at Lombard Odier investment managers in London, speaking before trading resumed.</p>
<p>Spot gold and major crude benchmarks eased slightly, as the market reacted to the military actions over the weekend. Treasuries also weakened, while equities rose.</p>
<p>Gold has benefited in recent days as a safe-haven asset amid a U.S.-China trade dispute and the escalating conflict in Syria, which also pushed oil above $70 a barrel because of concerns about a spike in Middle Eastern tensions.</p>
<p>"It ended up being a very measured attack," said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital Management in New York. "The greater fears of the oil market of this spilling into a greater conflict that could involve Iran and Saudi Arabia has not and will not come to pass."</p>
<p>World stocks wobbled last week but still ended with the best weekly gain in over a month, as investors await potentially healthy U.S. company earnings.</p>
<p>Despite heightened geopolitical risks, the impact on so-called safe-haven assets has been short-lived and modest. While the yen rose initially on fears of a Syrian strike, it ended near seven-week lows to the dollar last week.</p>
<p>On Saturday, U.S., French and British missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria's chemical weapons program in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack a week ago, although the assault appeared unlikely to halt Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's progress in the seven-year-old civil war.</p> ADVERTISING
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<p>(For map of Syrian strikes, see <a href="https://tmsnrt.rs/2EKgAMN" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2EKgAMN</a>)</p>
<p>The bombing, denounced by Damascus and its allies as an illegal act of aggression, was the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and his powerful ally Russia.</p>
<p>But the three countries said the strikes were limited to Syria's chemical weapons capabilities and not aimed at toppling Assad or intervening in the civil war.</p>
<p>Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets, said gold was poised to gain on Monday but the rally would not be very steep: "The focus will be on the counter-reaction from Russia."</p>
<p>Gold, often used as a store of value in times of political and economic uncertainty, could rally toward $1,400 per ounce after two consecutive weeks of gains.</p> FILE PHOTO: Syrians wave Iranian, Russian and Syrian flags during a protest against U.S.-led air strikes in Damascus, Syria April 14, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
<p>"If we do break above $1,365, that next week we would be very bullish," said Aslam.</p>
<p>Tokyo will be the first major market to open on Monday and the yen will likely strengthen to the dollar, but not beyond 106.50, said Itsuo Toshima, market analyst at Toshima &amp; Associates, adding that he did not expect stocks traders to make sharp moves.</p>
<p>"The first attack was within expectations and was already priced in the market. ... However, if there is a second round of strikes, that is not in line with expectations. So that should prompt a sharp risk-off move in markets," he added.</p>
<p>Frank Benzimra, head of global markets for Asia Pacific at Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking, said stocks would plunge only in case of new strikes by Western powers.</p>
<p>In case of such an escalation, oil would rally further, the yen would spike and Japan's domestic defensive stocks would outperform international stocks.</p>
<p>"For the stress on Asia equity markets to be sustainable, we would need to have oil prices spiking to such a level that fundamental concerns, i.e. higher inflation and risks on growth, return to the market," he said.</p>
<p>Amrita Sen from Energy Aspects said that despite Middle Eastern tensions and looming new U.S. sanctions on Iran, oil had outperformed most expectations this year and may have rallied too far too fast.</p>
<p>"We are likely to get a sell-off this week as the extent of the Syrian strikes have been muted and, in general, calmer nerves prevail in Washington," she said.</p>
<p>Oil traders had locked in long positions ahead of the weekend, in anticipation of potential strikes, sending both West Texas Intermediate CLc1 and global benchmark Brent LCOc1 crude futures to their highest since 2014.</p>
<p>Reporting by Jan Harvey in London and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; Additional reporting by Vidya Ranganathan, Sujata Rao and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by David Evans and Peter Cooney</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Oil fell nearly 2 percent on Monday after U.S. drilling activity rose and fears waned about escalating tensions in the Middle East following air strikes on Syria over the weekend.</p> FILE PHOTO: Oil pumping facilities are seen at Venezuela's western Maracaibo lake in Venezuela, November 5, 2007. REUTERS/Isaac Urrutia/File Photo
<p>The United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles on Saturday, targeting what they said were three chemical weapons facilities in Syria in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack on April 7.</p>
<p>The oil price had risen nearly 10 percent in the run-up to the strikes, as investors bulked up on assets, such as gold or U.S. Treasuries, that can shield against geopolitical risks.</p>
<p>By 0851 GMT on Monday, Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 slipped $1.34 to $71.24 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures CLc1 were down $1.16 at $66.23 a barrel.</p>
<p>"As far as developments in Syria are concerned, the market has had a sigh of relief in the sense that there is no escalation, either diplomatically, or on the ground, following the intervention by the U.S., France and the UK," said BNP Paribas global head of commodity market strategy Harry Tchilinguirian.</p>
<p>"As a macro asset-allocator, if you want to hedge your portfolio against geopolitical risk, your prime candidate is oil, especially if that risk is in the Middle East."</p>
<p>Although Syria itself is not a significant oil producer, the wider Middle East is the world's most important crude exporter and tension in the region tends to put oil markets on edge.</p>
<p>"Investors continued to worry about the impact of a wider conflict in the Middle East," ANZ bank said.</p> ADVERTISING
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<p>Fund managers hold more Brent futures and options than at any time since records began in 2011, according to data from the InterContinental Exchange.</p>
<p>Investors have added to their bullish positions in Brent, which now equal nearly 640 million barrels of oil, in nine out of the last 10 months, in part thanks to the premium of the front-month futures contract over those for delivery at a later date, known as "backwardation".</p>
<p>Backwardation makes it profitable to retain a bullish position in oil futures.</p>
<p>Aside from a flurry of profit-taking after the air strikes, oil also came under some pressure from another rise in U.S. drilling activity.</p>
<p>U.S. energy companies added seven rigs in the week to April 13, bringing the total to 815, the highest since March 2015, and nearly 20 percent higher than a year ago, services firm Baker Hughes said on Friday.</p>
<p>Despite this, Brent is still up more than 16 percent from its 2018 low in February.</p>
<p>Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein and Roslan Khasawneh in Singapore; Editing by Edmund Blair</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-Guangdong Hybribio Biotech to fully buy two medical examination firm for totalling 2.3 mln yuan ECB asks Deutsche Bank to gauge investment banking exit costs: source Goldman Sachs buys personal finance start-up Clarity Money Oil, gold open lower despite Syria strikes; Russian retaliation in focus Oil prices drop as fears about Syria strikes fallout wane | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-guangdong-hybribio-biotech-to-full/brief-guangdong-hybribio-biotech-to-fully-buy-two-medical-examination-firm-for-totalling-23-mln-yuan-idUSL3N1PD1XW | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p>Off-price retailer Ross Stores (NASDAQ: ROST) stock jumped 20% higher last month, according to data provided by <a href="http://marketintelligence.spglobal.com/" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;compared to a 2.8% increase for the broader stock market.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The rally put Ross Stores stock back above the market's 18% gain so far in 2017 after it had logged losses as great as 17% earlier in the year.</p>
<p>November's gain followed an earnings report by the retailer that showed healthy operating trends heading into the holiday season. Comparable-store sales growth was 4% in the third quarter, while management had predicted a more modest expansion of between 1% and 2%. Ross Stores' earnings also beat expectations by rising to $0.72 per share due to surprisingly strong profit margins.</p>
<p>CEO Barbara Rentler and her team reacted to the improving operating position by raising their forecast for the holiday season. They now expect Ross Stores to expand comps by between 2% and 3% rather than the 1% to 2% uptick they had predicted back in August. At the same time, struggles among full-price retailers, especially department-store chains, should generate opportunities for the company to secure quality inventory at a discount. That should help keep Ross Stores' <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/08/22/ross-stores-remains-winner-brick-mortar-retail.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=ca792c28-d9f4-11e7-9d50-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">positive growth streak Opens a New Window.</a> alive, while supporting continued healthy returns for shareholders.</p>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSigma/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=ca792c28-d9f4-11e7-9d50-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Demitrios Kalogeropoulos Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=ca792c28-d9f4-11e7-9d50-0050569d32b9&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Ross Stores Stock Gained 20% in November | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/12/05/why-ross-stores-stock-gained-20-in-november.html | 2017-12-05 | 0 |
<p>&#160;The Science Conference Lounge. Julia Whit</p>
<p>Editor’s note: Julia Whitty is on a three-week-long journey aboard the the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, following a team of scientists who are investigating how a changing climate might be affecting the chemistry of ocean and atmosphere in the Arctic.</p>
<p>Every other night someone gives a lecture in the Science Conference Lounge at 7pm. First up was Captain Beverly Havlik, Commanding Officer of USCGC Healy. She gave a riveting seafaring description of the Healy‘s pivotal role in keeping the people of the city of Nome from freezing last winter.</p>
<p>Advance of the sea in in the Bering Sea near Nome from&#160; 09-26 November 2011. Image courtesy of the United States Coast Guard</p>
<p>You might remember the story. An early monster of a storm swept through the Bering Sea 08-10 November 2011, which turned around the tug and barge delivering fuel to Nome. In the wake of the storm, sea ice closed in too fast for the vessels to return. In the maps above you can see how the ice front advanced a whopping 180 nautical miles (207 miles) in only 18 days.</p>
<p>The Russian tanker Renda steaming in the wake of USCGC Healy in the Bering Sea. Image courtesy of the United States Coast Guard</p>
<p>Since there are no roads connecting Nome to the outside world, the people there rely on sea and air cargo for virtually all of their goods. As Captain Havlik explained, it would be tough for flights to make up the 1.3 million gallons of fuel a tanker ship normally delivers. The equivalent by air would require 270 flight—which are also vulnerable to weather during the Alaskan winter. But what if the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy could lead a tanker ship to Nome? Turns out the only tanker available was the T/V Renda, a Russian ship. So bureaucracies were laid aside. And the crew of Healy, who were looking forward to steaming home to Seattle for the December holidays after an extremely long season in the Arctic, were told they were needed in the north again.</p>
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<p>The two ships entered the ice on 06 January (map below), 365 nautical miles (420 miles) from Nome. Healy broke ice and Renda steamed in her wake. When Renda bogged down, Healy performed a variety of icebreaking maneuvers to free her. Though none of it was that easy. Captain Havlik described the many frustrations: translation problems between Russian and American crews; issues of trust (since the icebreaker needed to steam extremely close to Renda to cut her free); extreme cold; the ever-changing pack ice.</p>
<p>Progress to Nome (1 nautical mile = 1.15 miles) of Healy and Renda, 2012. Image courtesy of the United States Coast Guard</p>
<p>In the map above you can see their progress through the ice. Some days were better than others. There were other considerations too. A transit closer to Saint Lawrence Island (center of map) would likely have provided something of a lee shore from winds and ice. But the island is critical winter habitat for the endangered sea ducks known as spectacled eiders, so that was a no go.</p>
<p>Nome, January 2012. The red dotted line shows where the fuel hose connecting T/V Renda to the town was laid. Image courtesy of the United States Coast Guard.</p>
<p>After eight days plowing through a frozen sea, the two ships arrived at the port of Nome. Because the harbor was too shallow for Healy‘s draft all the fuel had to be offloaded 460 yards from shore. A path was mowed through the pressure ridges in the ice and two hoses were laid out connecting the fuel tanks on Renda with the fuel tanks in Nome. The pumps ran nearly nonstop for the next 60 hours. The citizens of Nome turned out to help. A few Alaskans from other parts of the state flew in to help. The Healy and Renda crews were thanked with batches of cookies and cakes from the people of Nome.</p>
<p>Return progress of Healy and Renda through the ice. Image courtesy of the United States Coast Guard</p>
<p>By the time the fuel transfer was complete and the ships started back south the pack ice had grown further and open water was now a daunting 500 nautical miles (575 miles) away. But Healy and Renda had a working system in place. And they were steaming with the wind this time. As you can see from the map above, they made better time.</p>
<p>In-ice mission stats Image courtesy of the United States Coast Guard</p>
<p>“The crew of Healy was outstanding,” said Captain Havlik. And the mission was proof that the US needs more icebreakers. USCGC Healy is currently the only operational icebreaker in the the US fleet—Coast Guard or Navy.</p> | How Our Vessel Saved Nome: Arctic Ocean Diaries No. 7 | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/arctic-ocean-diaries-dispatch-no-7/ | 2012-10-17 | 4 |
<p>Dec. 18 (UPI) — A jury in Massachusetts found a member of the Genovese La Cosa Nostra crime organization guilty of extortion-related charges Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice said.</p>
<p>Richard Valentini, 52, of East Longmeadow, Mass., was guilty of one count of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by threats or violence, and one count of interference with commerce by threat or violence.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/associate-la-cosa-nostra-found-guilty-extortion-related-charges" type="external">Prosecutors said</a> there was evidence Valentini and other members of the crime family extorted businesses in Springfield. He assaulted one businessman and threatened to cut off his head and bury his body if he didn’t comply with demands. The businessman paid the men $20,000 over seven weeks to protect himself and his business.</p>
<p>U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Hillman scheduled Valentini to be sentenced March 12. Each charge carries up to 20 years in prison, five years of supervised release, a fine of $250,000 and forfeiture.</p>
<p>Co-defendants Francesco Depergola, 61, of Springfield, Mass., and Gerald Daniele, 52, of Longmeadow, Mass., each <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/12/07/2-Genovese-La-Cosa-Nostra-members-plead-guilty-to-extortion/4841512682371/" type="external">pleaded guilty</a> earlier in the month to extortion-related charges.</p> | Jury convicts Genovese La Cosa Nostra member of extortion | false | https://newsline.com/jury-convicts-genovese-la-cosa-nostra-member-of-extortion/ | 2017-12-18 | 1 |
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<p>EFFECTIVE, EFFICIENT: Behind an effective defense and efficient offense led by outside hitters Sierra Foley and Brianna Montaño, Los Alamos High School on Tuesday swept five-time defending 3A champion Pojoaque Valley 25-20, 25-14, 25-20.</p>
<p>3 UPCOMING THINGS TO SEE OR DO</p>
<p>FOOTBALL: Two big prep football games are on tap this weekend, beginning with tonight’s cross-town rivalry match between Santa Fe High School and Capital. The host Demons (1-1) are coming off a 26-0 win over Grants, while the Jaguars (1-1) fell 27-14 to St. Michael’s. Santa Fe has won the last four games in the series by a combined score of 151-22.</p>
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<p>The Horsemen (2-0) face a tough challenge at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at home against fellow 4A title contender Taos (2-0), which reached the state semifinals last season before bowing out – like St. Mike’s, in the quarterfinals – to eventual champion Robertson.</p>
<p>RUNNING: For the third straight year, the famous Rarámuri (Tarahumara) runners will take part in the Santa Fe Thunder Half Marathon.</p>
<p>Santiago Batista Gonzales and Pedro Lerma Lino are Rarámuri – which means “those who walk through life correctly” or “he who runs well” – and will be competing.</p>
<p>Last year, Lino won a rugged trail race lasting two days and two nights in Copper Canyon, earning 400 pounds of beans, corn and other staples for his village.</p>
<p>The women’s field includes Nike N7 ambassador and USA Olympic Trials qualifier Alvina Begay, 2013 Hokkaido Marathon champion Yuko Watanabe and Sarah Kiptoo, last year’s runner-up in the 2013 Santa Fe Thunder Half Marathon.</p>
<p>On the men’s side, 2013 Santa Fe Thunder Half Marathon winner Nelson Oyugi (1:02:23) looks to defend his title against 2013 Big Sur Half Marathon champion Jacob Chemtai, 2013 Pune (India) winner Habtamu Arga, 2009 Tokyo Marathon fifth-place runner Kenta Oshima, and 2013 Victoria Marathon champion Lamech Mosoti.</p>
<p>The female and male half marathon victors will earn over $4,000 in prize money.</p>
<p>Races begin at 8 a.m. at Fort Marcy Park.</p>
<p>For more information on the event, see <a href="http://santafethunder.com" type="external">santafethunder.com</a>.</p>
<p>SOCCER: Two of the top local girls teams will face tough tests on the road Tuesday. St. Michael’s (4-1), which owns a 26-4 goal-scoring advantage over its opponents, faces defending 4A champion St. Pius (8-0), which is outscoring its opponents 40-8. And Los Alamos, which is 2-3 in a rugged schedule thus far, travels to perennial title contender Albuquerque Academy (2-2-1).</p>
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<p /> | Week in Review: A look back at the top sports stories in northern New Mexico | false | https://abqjournal.com/460754/week-in-review-a-look-back-at-the-top-sports-stories-in-northern-new-mexico-25.html | 2 |
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<p>The most startling implication of Anthem/Blue Cross of California’s announcement last week that it is going to raise individual health insurance rates by up to 39 percent this year is not that insurance companies are arrogant and untouchable. That was already well known.</p>
<p>What has to be more alarming for the 800,000 Californians who are covered by Blue Cross individual health insurance policies is that their insurance rates appear to have entered what insurance industry underwriters call a death spiral.</p>
<p>In response to the announcement, President Barack Obama told CBS News, “That’s a portrait of the future if we don’t do something now.” Everyone from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to Congressional committee chairman to California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, weighed in, promising investigations and asking Blue Cross for delays in implementation.</p>
<p>Their castigations of Blue Cross feel satisfying because part of the reason for the rate increase is an overreach by Blue Cross, as they pursue their endless quest for greater profits even in a time of extreme economic hardship. But they miss the more technical, scarier point: even Blue Cross doesn’t like to raise rates this much. They’d much rather get their slow and steady increases and keep the game going longer.</p>
<p>No, Blue Cross was forced into a huge increase because of the accelerating breakdown of the finance structure of the for-profit insurance industry. With this magnitude of increase, the day will come much sooner when real change in the industry is unavoidable.</p>
<p>A death spiral is no better than it sounds. A death spiral occurs when rising rates cause healthy people to leave the coverage pool (dropping coverage altogether). This exodus of the healthy is a feedback loop that causes rates to rise even faster as fewer and less healthy people are left paying premiums to cover all the cost of their claims without the cost dilution effect of premiums paid in by those who file fewer claims. The higher the rates go, the more people leave, the greater the rate increase must be in the next cycle, causing more people to leave, etc.</p>
<p>As Blue Cross itself explained in a statement issued late Monday, “Therefore, as medical costs increase across our member population, premium increases to the entire membership pool result. Unfortunately, in the weak economy many people who do not have health conditions are foregoing buying insurance. This leaves fewer people, often with significantly greater medical needs, in the insured pool.”</p>
<p>This is not good news for individual policy holders anywhere in the nation, some 13 million people in 2008. As costs continue to rise, the death spiral will gather steam in individual state pools.</p>
<p>The health care reform bills pending in Congress attempt to address this problem by forcing all the healthy people back into the pool by mandating that they purchase coverage. Congress recognizes that the cost of this coverage is already unaffordable, so the bills provide subsidies to help pay the premiums. By the time the bill would go into effect in 2014, rate increases will have greatly outpaced increases in the subsidy amount, which is tied to increases in the poverty level. This will leave big premiums for people to pay, even with subsidies.</p>
<p>The insurance companies already are arguing that the penalties proposed in the bills for not purchasing insurance are too low to be effective, so by 2014 people who can’t afford ever more onerous premiums will be more likely to elect not to purchase coverage and pay the lesser penalties instead.</p>
<p>The answer to the problem: eliminate all these distinct pools and replace them with one, big nationwide pool, with everybody in and nobody out, as would be provided by a single-payer system. Multiple pools, multiple insurance carriers, multiple marketing systems, and all the other redundant layers of bureaucracy required in the for-profit insurance scheme simply add unnecessary cost – and no value – to the delivery of health care.</p>
<p>Jeff Sher lives in the Bay Area. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | Health Insurance Death Spiral | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/02/12/health-insurance-death-spiral/ | 2010-02-12 | 4 |
<p>Last June Fox News <a href="" type="internal">retired</a> their classic slogan “fair and balanced.’ It has taken nearly a year for them to come up with a new one. But earlier this month they revealed it to be “Real News, Real Honest Opinion.” <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsCorpse/status/973287749645082624" type="external">Their promo promised</a> that “It’s about to get REAL.” Which kind of implies that it’s been bullshit up until mow.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewsCorpse/posts/2078698535478264" type="external" /></p>
<p>An example of what Fox regards as “Real News’ was on display Sunday morning on Fox and Friends. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes aired a segment about the <a href="" type="internal">firing</a> of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. That’s a serious issue and demands serious attention and thoughtful analysis. So naturally Fox and Friends turned to YouTube vloggers Diamond and Silk.</p>
<p>For those of you who are unaware of this dynamic duo, they are African-American sisters who were confirmed nobodies until they pledged their unquestioning allegiance to Donald Trump. At that point they were snatched up by Fox News and other right-wing media as representatives of the black Republican perspective. Since <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/16/politics/trump-black-approval-rating/index.html" type="external">polls show</a> that Trump is viewed favorably by only about three percent of African-American voters, D&amp;S made a profitable choice to become among the few black supporters of Trump in the media. They join such intellectual icons as Herman Cain and Omarosa as Fox News regulars.</p>
<p>On Sunday’s episode of Fox and Friends, the subject of McCabe’s abrupt dismissal after more than twenty years of service to his country came up and the insight of D&amp;S was sought out (video below). The pair, who seem to perform only as a twosome, began their predictably negative harangue in harmony by complaining that McCabe has been offered work by Democrats in congress so that he can preserve his pension:</p>
<p>Diamond: What we don’t understand is how is it that the Democrats wanna offer McCabe a job so he can have money in his pocket, but they wouldn’t even come to the table for law abiding Americans to make sure we had money in our pockets. What are the Democrats trying to hide? What do McCabe have over the Democrats’ head? What are they covering up? Are they colluding? Maybe we need to bring in a special prosecutor to watch the Democrats and McCabe. Because we know Mueller is gonna turn a blind eye. That’s what I think. Silk: And it sounds like a kickback, patty whack, give a dog a bone kinda deal.</p>
<p>If that sounds like the Real Housewives of Trumplandia rattling off cliched talking points, that’s because it was. Most of it had nothing to do with the question at hand. They just wanted to rant about Democrats covering up – who knows what, and colluding with – who knows who. So they shoehorned it into their routine. For the record, it’s the Democrats who have been working to put money into the pockets of the American people through increases in the minimum wage and tax reform that favors the working and middle classes rather than the rich and corporations. But D&amp;S aren’t especially concerned with facts.</p>
<p>The rest of the segment was spent attacking MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle for making a trivial comment that Fox Christianists blew up into an unholy abomination. Ruhle merely expressed some curiosity at Trump’s choice for chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, suggesting that the decision was “God’s will.” That led to a couple of minutes of of outright sermonizing. And of course, the conclusion by D&amp;S was that Democrats “despise Christianity.”</p>
<p>So Fox News spent nearly four minutes interviewing these ignorant blowhards who have no qualifications whatsoever to provide political analyses. That puts them in the same boat as most of Fox’s hosts and contributors. Almost none of them came to their roles with any experience in journalism or political science. And yet Fox now wants to characterize itself as the network of “real news.” But with cartoon characters like Diamond and Silk weighing in on matters as important as the President’s collusion with Russia to tamper with our elections, and obstruction of justice, they must have a very twisted definition of reality. Stay tuned for their a riveting debate on gun reform between Sean Hannity and Ted Nugent. Followed by a probing discussion of North Korea’s nukes with Happy Days’ Chachi, Scott Baio.</p>
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<p>How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QSSMOES/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00QSSMOES&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=newscorpsecom-20&amp;linkId=TLI6JC2OYE22MUTS" type="external">Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.</a> Available now at Amazon.</p> | This is ‘Real’ News? Fox and Friends Interview with Diamond and Silk Descends Into Lunacy | true | http://newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p%3D33353 | 4 |
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<p>President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is employing a different law firm as federal investigators continue to probe whether he had improper ties to Russia.</p>
<p>One day after it became known&#160;the FBI conducted a pre-dawn <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/manafort-trump-raid/2017/08/09/id/806682/" type="external">raid of Manafort’s Virginia home</a> last month, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/10/hold-manafort-switching-legal-team-as-feds-crank-up-heat-on-him-hold-241507" type="external">Politico reported Thursday</a> that Manafort — who worked for Trump’s presidential campaign from March to August 2016 — is retaining the services of a boutique law firm in Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni told Politico, “Mr. Manafort is in the process of retaining his former counsel, Miller &amp; Chevalier, to represent him in the office of special counsel investigation. As of today, WilmerHale no longer represents Mr. Manafort.”</p>
<p>WilmerHale had represented Manafort up to this point during the investigation into whether he colluded with Russia during Trump’s campaign. No evidence has been made public that suggests he had an improper relationship with the Kremlin, although he has done lobbying work for several foreign leaders in the past. Federal and Congressional investigators are combing through documents and records in search of a link.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/09/manafort-fbi-son-law-241464" type="external">Politico also claimed Thursday</a>&#160;the FBI sought out cooperation from Manafort’s son-in-law Jeffrey Yohai this summer, likely in an effort to put more pressure on Manafort. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/10/politics/manafort-yohai-justice-department-investigation-russia/index.html" type="external">CNN noted</a> Yohai met with federal investigators and provided them with documents and information.</p>
<p>It was reported last month <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/paul-manafort-17M-debt-pro-russian/2017/07/19/id/802671/" type="external">Manafort was in debt to pro-Russia interests</a> by as much as $17 million before he joined the Trump campaign last year.</p> | Politico: Manafort Replaces Legal Team in Wake of FBI Raid | false | https://newsline.com/politico-manafort-replaces-legal-team-in-wake-of-fbi-raid/ | 2017-08-10 | 1 |
<p>Sept. 19 (UPI) — Dominca Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said he needed to be rescued from his damaged home after Hurricane Maria hit his island nation as a powerful Category 5 storm.</p>
<p>“The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God!” Skerrit wrote on Facebook Monday night as the eye of the storm, with winds of up to 160 mph, swept over the island. “We do not know what is happening outside. We not dare look out. All we are hearing is the sound of galvanize flying. The sound of the fury of the wind. As we pray for its end!”</p>
<p>“Rough! Rough! Rough!” he wrote an hour later. “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.”</p>
<p>Moments later, Skerrit said, “I have been rescued.”</p>
<p>After Maria swept through Dominica, Skerrit said the island suffered “widespread devastation.”</p>
<p>“So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace,” he <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SupportRooseveltSkerrit/posts/999579703517217" type="external">wrote on Facebook</a>. “My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains.”</p>
<p>Skerrit said many other people lost roofs from the fierce winds and building damage is rampant, creating the possibility people are stuck in the debris.</p>
<p>“Come tomorrow morning we will hit the road, as soon as the all clear is given, in search of the injured and those trapped in the rubble,” he said. “I am honestly not preoccupied with physical damage at this time, because it is devastating…indeed, mind boggling. My focus now is in rescuing the trapped and securing medical assistance for the injured.”</p>
<p>He added: “We will need help, my friend, we will need help of all kinds.”</p>
<p>The Caribbean has been hit hard by hurricanes this season and, before Maria hit, Skerrit urged the 70,000 residents on the island to be prepared, despite the possibility of storm fatigue.</p>
<p>“Fire, ambulance services, police and others have been called out. We should not take this storm lightly,” <a href="https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-maria-impacts-caribbean" type="external">said Skerrit</a>. “I know that there is an exhaustion with all these storms. But we have to treat every single storm with the same level of preparedness.”</p>
<p>Maria is now en route towards the Virgin Islands, where it is expected to reach Tuesday and could still be a Category 5 storm.</p> | Dominica PM live-blogs Maria: 'I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane' | false | https://newsline.com/dominica-pm-live-blogs-maria-i-am-at-the-complete-mercy-of-the-hurricane/ | 2017-09-19 | 1 |
<p>Image source: Total investor presentation.</p>
<p>Total has been a beacon of light in what has been a rather dark oil and gas market over the past couple of years. Even though oil prices have been well below the $100-a-barrel mark that we saw back in 2014, the company has been able to churn out much better earnings results than the rest of its big oil peers. This hasn't been complete luck, though. Total's management has been able to get there through some large cuts to its operational budget and bringing a quiver of large projects online.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>These five quotes from CFO Patrick de la Chevardiere help paint a pretty good picture as to how the company has been able to outperform its peers and what the company needs to focus on in the coming quarters and beyond if it wants to keep up this momentum.</p>
<p>Just about every oil and gas company out there is saying that they are cutting costs and getting ready for that lower-oil-prices-for-longer scenario that so many have feared. Based on some of the results de la Chevardiere highlighted during the most recent conference call, Total is indeed making those deep cost cuts to its operations:</p>
<p>All of that cost-cutting is a primary reason why Total's net income result declined only 18% from 2014 to 2015 while its integrated oil and gas peers saw net income declines of 40% or more.</p>
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<p>Despite Total's strong results lately, the company is still spending more money than what's coming in the door. De la Chevardiere points out that the company is close, but there is one caveat:</p>
<p>Net investment is the key word here, because that includes asset sales the company used to gain a little more cash. Selling diminishing assets or those that don't necessarily fit into the company's long-term vision is pretty common in thisbusiness, but it shouldn't be relied upon as a steady source of cash. The bigger focus needs to be on cutting its costs such that it can generate cash profits withoutneeding to sell assets.</p>
<p>Another way that the company can get closer to that cash breakeven is to cut spending. According to de la Chevardiere, there is plenty of room in the 2017 budet to do that if necessary:</p>
<p>Keep in mind though, that breakeven here is for its capital expenditures only and does not include its dividend payments. Sill, this is pretty good progress. Just last year the company's breakeven price projection was $60 a barrel, but that was also based on $19 billion in capital spending. With only 60% of that budget committed, there is a chance that breakeven for 2017 could come down significantly depending on where oil prices are and how aggressively the company wants to pursue some of its larger investments over the next couple of years.</p>
<p>Last year, Total blew away its integrated oil and gas competitors by posting a production gain of 9%. It appears that Total could be in line for another big bump this year as well:</p>
<p>We should also keep in mind that this production increase projection was before the company announced that it had won a concession contract with Qatar for the Al-Shaheen offshore field. The 25-year concession project will result in a production boost of just under 100,000 barrels per day for Total in a place where oil production is cheap in relation to other projects.</p>
<p>Even beyond these current catalysts, Total's management is also cognizant that it needs to keep spending to grow and replace any declining production. So de la Chevardiere made a point to highlight the progress on one of its largest future projects, the Yamal LNG facility in Russia:</p>
<p>Clearly Yamal is going to take a lot of spending to get off the ground, but the size of Russia's gas fields and the total cacpacity of this project should make it worth it long-term as long as Total and its partners can keep the facility's construction on time and on budget. Keep an eye out over the next several quarters for more updates on this project.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/06/these-5-quotes-from-totals-management-show-why-its.aspx" type="external">These 5 Quotes From Total's Management Show Why It's One of the Best in Big Oil Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFDirtyBird/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Tyler Crowe Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned.You can follow him at Fool.comor on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TylerCroweFool" type="external">@TylerCroweFool Opens a New Window.</a>.The Motley Fool recommends Total. 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> | These 5 Quotes From Total's Management Show Why It's One of the Best in Big Oil | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/07/06/these-5-quotes-from-total-management-show-why-it-one-best-in-big-oil.html | 2016-07-06 | 0 |
<p>GLOBALPOST LIVE BLOG: SYRIA PEACE TALKS</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 3:17 PM ET</p>
<p>Hezbollah says Assad's allies have right to respond to Israeli attacks in Syria</p>
<p>Reuters — Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that Israeli strikes inside Syria were also an aggression against Syria's regional allies and they had the right to retaliate.</p>
<p>"The frequent attacks on different sites in Syria is a major breach. We consider (those) hostilities (to be) against all the resistance axis," he told the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV.</p>
<p>"(Retaliation) is an open issue ... It is not only Syria's right to respond but also it is the right of the axis of resistance to respond. When this right will be executed is subject to certain criteria ... it could happen any time." Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and some Palestinian factions consider themselves an "axis of resistance" against Israel.</p>
<p>Hezbollah is a staunch ally of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and has sent hundreds of combatants to fight alongside his forces in the nearly four-year civil war.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 2:12 PM ET</p>
<p>Aid for Al-Waer residents</p>
<p>Al Jazeera's Diana Al Rifai <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/01/syria-waer-homs-ceasefire-2015115132343266417.html" type="external">reports</a> that food aid has reached Al-Waer:</p>
<p>Abu Ahmed, waiting for bread in freezing temperatures, told Al Jazeera that several food trucks had arrived. He and his friends used bits and pieces of paper and waste to light a fire to stay warm.</p>
<p>"We have been without any electricity, diesel or gas for heaters for too long now," he said. "Children are really cold, we live in extreme cold."</p>
<p>Read the story <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/01/syria-waer-homs-ceasefire-2015115132343266417.html" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 1:44 PM ET</p>
<p>For an in-depth background on the Syrian conflict</p>
<p>Check out GlobalPost's Polk Award-winning series <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/series/inside-syria" type="external">Inside Syria</a>.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 1:12 PM ET</p>
<p>US-led forces launch 22 airstrikes against IS militants in Iraq and Syria</p>
<p>Reuters — US-led forces launched 11 airstrikes each in Syria and Iraq since Wednesday, targeting Islamic State fighters, equipment and buildings, the US military said.</p>
<p>Five of the strikes in Syria were in the contested city of Kobani near the Turkish border, where they destroyed four fighting positions, a building and a tactical unit, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement on Thursday.</p>
<p>US and partner nations launched strikes near seven Iraqi cities including Mosul, Baiji and al Qaim, destroying a shipping container, tactical units, buildings, boats and land vehicles, it said.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 12:11 PM ET</p>
<p>Some Syrian refugees would rather face bombs at home than endure Lebanon's harsh winter anymore</p>
<p>The winter storms have worsened the suffering of Syrian refugees. GlobalPost Middle East/Africa editor and senior correspondent Richard Hall visited Syrian refugee camps in Chekka, Lebanon. Hall reports:</p>
<p>This will be the fourth winter many of them have endured since fleeing the devastating war in Syria, and their predicament has grown progressively worse as the conflict has dragged on.</p>
<p>The influx has put a strain on the local population as they now have to compete for jobs and resources with a greater number of people. Some local authorities have imposed curfews for Syrians, while violence towards refugees has been increasing.</p>
<p>Fearful of not being able to cope with any more refugees, the Lebanese government recently imposed new restrictions on Syrian refugees crossing its border.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the ones that have already made it here are worried for the future. Even before the storm, some families were struggling to survive.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 11:32 AM ET</p>
<p>More on the Al-Waer truce</p>
<p>Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, The Associated Press' Diaa Hadid <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/01/15/syrian-rebels-government-reach-truce-in-besieged-area" type="external">spells out the specifics</a> of the truce between Syrian rebels and government forces in Al-Waer that went into effect today.</p>
<p>"Activist Beibars al-Tilawi said officials promised to allow the UN to deliver more food while the two sides discussed how to end the standoff," Hadid <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/01/15/syrian-rebels-government-reach-truce-in-besieged-area" type="external">writes</a>. "The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the truce.&#160;Al-Tilawi, who spoke from al-Waar via Skype, said the rebels were outgunned, and that the experience of fighters once holed up Homs' Old City was instructive: the area was destroyed, thousands of civilians were killed or forced to flee, and ultimately rebels negotiated their surrender in May 2014."</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 10:54 AM ET</p>
<p>Kerry backs peace talks</p>
<p>The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/world/middleeast/kerry-backs-syrian-peace-talks-in-russia.html" type="external">reported</a> that US Secretary of State John Kerry is on board with Russia's attempt to broker peace between the Syrian government and the opposition. Here's an excerpt from the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/world/middleeast/kerry-backs-syrian-peace-talks-in-russia.html" type="external">story</a>:</p>
<p>Mr. Kerry’s support for the Russian and United Nations initiatives comes as the American-led push to negotiate a solution to the bloody Syria conflict, the so-called Geneva process, has faltered. The United States has not withdrawn its public insistence that no enduring political settlement is possible as long as President Bashar al-Assad is in power.</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 10:15 AM ET</p>
<p>Will this last?</p>
<p>According to this tweet by Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, a truce has reportedly been agreed to in Al-Waer, a suburb of Homs.&#160;</p>
<p>UPDATE: 01/15/15 9:45 AM ET</p>
<p>Syrian opposition will lose out if boycotts Moscow talks, Russia says</p>
<p>Reuters —&#160;Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday Syrian opposition representatives would risk losing influence in peace efforts if they do not attend planned talks in Moscow.</p>
<p>The refusal of prominent opposition figures to attend the Jan. 26-29 meeting, intended to bring together representatives of President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian opposition groups, has dealt a blow to Russian efforts to seek solution to the Syrian conflict.</p>
<p>"Those who decide not to take part in this event, they will lose in terms of their positions in the peace talks process as a whole," Lavrov told a news conference.</p>
<p>Moscow, Assad's key ally, says it still hopes the Western-backed National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces will be represented at the talks.</p>
<p>Some 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria, which started with street protests against Assad in March, 2011, and then descended into a civil war. Radical Islamist groups have gained an upper hand in the insurgency.</p>
<p>#color { border-color:#bbbbbb; border-style:solid; border-width:1px; background-color:#F8F8F8; float:center; margin-left: 5px; , , , margin-right: 15px; margin-bottom: 30px; line-height:14px display:block; padding: 15px; }</p> | Meanwhile, in Syria: Another attempt to end the devastating war (LIVE BLOG) | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-01-15/meanwhile-syria-another-attempt-end-devastating-war-live-blog | 2015-01-15 | 3 |
<p>One way to catch a poacher is by smell.</p>
<p>Winding up a hill in southern Kenya, a tracker dog is guided by a scent — past thorned bushes and through brush.</p>
<p>On the other end of the leash is ranger Mutinda Ndivo. He keeps his eyes on the red earth, looking for footprints.</p>
<p>Today this is a training exercise, but the pair have caught many poachers — or attempted poachers — this way.</p>
<p>Ndivo knows the way poachers work, because he was one. A notorious one at that. My translator, Joseph,&#160;said Ndivo’s name and photo were in the news back in the day.</p>
<p>Ndivo’s father taught him how to poach, using poisoned arrows. By 1989 he’d made a name for himself, killing up to seven elephants a day.</p>
<p>But even if he was notorious, Ndivo was still at the bottom of the wildlife crime chain. He had no idea where the ivory went or who it funded. He just took his money, and didn’t ask too many questions.</p>
<p>It was the law that ultimately stopped Ndivo. He was caught, imprisoned, and had to sell off most of what he owned to pay a $100,000 fine. And ultimately that was it — it was too expensive, too risky for him to poach. He got a job with wildlife NGO <a href="https://biglife.org/" type="external">Big Life</a> for $200 a month.</p>
<p>The Kenyan government is hoping these same economic forces will prevent others from poaching. Last year they put into effect a strict wildlife act. It imposes life sentences or fines up to $200,000 for poaching elephants or other wildlife.</p>
<p>The law’s just one of the tools being used to combat poaching. The Kenyan government has increased funding to the wildlife service. It built a new forensic lab to test wildlife products to aid in prosecution.</p>
<p>Also key has been the government’s openness to work with NGOs,&#160;like Big Life.</p>
<p>Bernard Kiptoo works with Big Life to monitor wildlife crime and makes sure incidents are prosecuted. “We have to be there,” he says, “because we doubt that these people will actually be brought before the courts.”</p>
<p>When cases do go through the system, however, the results are striking. He points to a white board with past cases of elephant poaching.</p>
<p>“On July 27, 2011, somebody was arrested for spearing an elephant at Olpakai. And when he was taken to the courts he was fined 30,000 and released,” Kiptoo says.</p>
<p>That’s about $300&#160;US, not even worth the cost of one cow.</p>
<p>In a similar case last year, after the bill was passed, a man was charged with seven years in prison.</p>
<p>Now, that may help deter smaller&#160;poachers, but not the sophisticated poachers who are more likely to be connected to large criminal groups. Stopping them will take an even bigger effort.</p>
<p>“Their insurances, their connections, their income is so large that it should probably take some time to really try to squeeze these guys to make this law a deterrent,” says Johan Bergenas, who studies transnational security with the <a href="http://www.stimson.org/" type="external">Stimson Center</a> and works extensively with Kenyan anti-poaching initiatives. He says that while it may still be too early to know the real effect of the wildlife bill, it’s a big step in African conservation.</p>
<p>“The way I would look at this bill ... [is] that this is no longer a western-led, big NGOs in Washington, Brussels, [and] Stockholm ...&#160;making money off of elephants looking cute,” he says. “I would look at it as a way where Africans are taking ownership of their economic assets. Africans are seeing the impact of wildlife crime and what it does to their economies, what it does to their security, what it does to their development.”</p>
<p>Here around <a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/kenya/southern-kenya/amboseli-national-park" type="external">Amboseli National Park</a>, local communities are active in this fight.</p>
<p>Big Life rangers have received a call — an elephant has trampled a garden.</p>
<p>These rangers are all locals, and they know it’s not easy living alongside wildlife.&#160;The landowner stands with arms crossed, tears in her eyes. She says this garden is the only way she can afford to pay for her three kids’ education.</p>
<p>Here’s where an NGO like Big Life makes the difference. Rangers provide her with flares to scare away wildlife, and will compensate her if any of her own animals are killed.</p>
<p>Where before there may have been a retaliatory poaching of the elephant, now these rangers have won over a community member. This woman will likely become part of Big Life’s informer network —&#160;people who notify rangers of any suspicious activity.</p>
<p>And a community that values wildlife is key. Tourism — mostly from wildlife — is huge here, making up about 12 percent&#160;of Kenya’s economy. Security expert Johan Bergenas says for the economic security of the country, Kenya needs to keep these animals alive.</p>
<p>“Over the next 15 to&#160;20 years, as they are transitioning their economy into a more industrial economy, they cannot afford to have sectors of their society squashed by transnational criminals and not being able to make that transition into a more developed country,” he says.</p>
<p />
<p>Poisoned arrows confiscated from poacher close to Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya. The black area surrounding the arrowhead is a plant-based poison that can kill an elephant if it enters the blood.</p>
<p>Briana Duggan</p>
<p>After a day’s work, the rangers go back to their base and make a meal of maize flour mash and greens. They spend about 23 days out of the month deployed here.</p>
<p>For Muimo Yiambat, who has five kids and a wife at home, wildlife, more than anything, means money.</p>
<p>“We get a sponsorship because of wildlife,” he says. “We get a profit because of wildlife. So I am happy. I am happy to work even a very hard job because we benefit through the wildlife.”</p>
<p>Here, along Kenya’s other front line, it comes down to economic incentives.</p>
<p>And for the wildlife to thrive, their protectors have to believe they're more beneficial alive than they are dead.</p> | Anti-poaching efforts in Kenya focus on saving animals — and people too | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-07-21/anti-poaching-efforts-kenya-focus-saving-animals-and-people-too | 2015-07-21 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Investors have punished FireEye's (NASDAQ: FEYE) stock this year as its growth pace sinks against a backdrop of net losses. The cybersecurity specialist, which aims to disrupt the industry with a package of next-generation threat protection, is struggling to convince enough IT managers to commit scarce resources to its virtual-machine-based platform.</p>
<p>I recently highlighted FireEye's biggest win of the year -- its <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/31/fireeye-incs-biggest-win-in-2016-so-far.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">sharply falling expenses Opens a New Window.</a>--and today I'm taking a closer look at the greatest drag on its operations: product sales.</p>
<p>The product business segment is down 18% through the first six months of the year and lopped $9 million out of second-quarter revenue. In contrast, FireEye's subscription sales rose by $28 million in Q2, its support sales improved by $8 million, and its professional services segment ticked up by less than $1 million.</p>
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<p>Rival Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW) is faring much better on this metric. Product revenue improved by 24% last quarter which, combined with a 62% spike in subscription revenue, produced 41% higher overall revenue. FireEye's total revenue growth, in contrast, was a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/05/fireeye-inc-plunges-after-turning-in-a-disastrou-2.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disappointing 19% Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Strip out the gains from the company's recent purchase of iSight and the result is even worse, as organic revenue improved by just 11% in the quarter.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/FEYE/revenues_growth" type="external">FEYE Revenue (Quarterly YOY Growth) Opens a New Window.</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Executives said in a conference call that the latest product revenue slump was related to lower tech fees, along with a decline in sales for its email product, as customers instead opt for its cloud-based email security subscription offering. That trend is likely to continue, and so FireEye isn't forecasting a rebound in the product business this year. In contrast, Palo Alto projects its product sales to rise by 12%, with continued solid growth in 2018.</p>
<p>On the plus side, though, FireEye did manage a slight uptick in profitability for the product division. And that boost contributed to surprisingly strong earnings in its fiscal second quarter. Overall operating margin was still deep in negative territory, but it marked the company's best performance on that metric since the third quarter of 2012.</p>
<p>There are a few big benefits to FireEye's business shifting toward subscription services. For one, the company is growing an established sales base that it can work to renew rather than look entirely at incremental customers for extra business. As a result, the company might not need to direct as much cash toward marketing, leaving more for the important task of innovation around product improvement.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Second, renewal rates are above 90% and have spiked to represent 20% of the sales footprint (from about 10% a year ago). These positive trends combine to produce a steadier and more predictable revenue and profit stream -- one that is likely to become even more so in the future.</p>
<p>As the stock price drop demonstrates, investors aren't happy with the overall direction of FireEye's business. But neither is the company, which recently installed a new CEO in hopes of reigniting sales growth.</p>
<p>FireEye's new leader, Kevin Mandia, is focused on building out its security platform to provide a comprehensive solution that covers everything from threat detection to neutralization. The company doesn't need robust product sales to lead the way toward this goal. Still, it's likely that a rebound in this division -- in addition to faster billings growth on subscription sales -- will be needed before Mandia and his team can claim that a real recovery is under way.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2667&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSigma/info.aspx" type="external">Demitrios Kalogeropoulos Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends FireEye. The Motley Fool recommends Palo Alto Networks. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | FireEye Inc's Worst Business Segment in 2016 So Far | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/28/fireeye-inc-worst-business-segment-in-2016-so-far.html | 2016-09-28 | 0 |
<p>In an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsHP6ET_jcE" type="external">interview</a> posted online on Sunday, actor Matthew McConaughey perfectly takes on hysterical anti-Trump Hollywood, laying out their unfathomable reality: "[Trump's] our president... it's time for us to embrace and shake hands with this fact. And be constructive with him over the next four years," boldly asserts the actor.</p>
<p>And that's just one of the unexpected highlights from McConaughey.</p>
<p>The actor was being interview by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsHP6ET_jcE" type="external">Andrew Marr</a> for his new film "Gold," a fittingly titled flick about an American man who chases down a "literal dream." Here's how the exchange goes down:</p>
<p>"For quite a lot of this film, I sort of thought 'this is not Trump's America, but small-time, central, redneck America sticking one up to the snotty East Coast elites,' as it were," says the interviewer.</p>
<p>"Stickin' it to the man, for sure," replies the "Gold" star. "I mean, it's an underdog story. This is the guy that nobody bets on. This is like millions of people, if not billions, who get out of bed everyday, and don't have a ticket to the American Dream. That are going to have to hustle their way in the backdoor, the sidedoor, or come down the chimney, and be an entrepreneur, and make it their own way—by hook or by crook."</p>
<p>Marr continues to dig at temper tantrum-filled (see: <a href="" type="internal">Lena Dunham</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Meryl Streep</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Joy Behar</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Rosie O'Donnell</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Madonna</a>, etc.) elitist anti-Trump Hollywood: "So, every single American actor or artsy type who comes over to London dumps on Trump. You all completely hate him. Do you think it's time maybe Hollywood and the culture elite in America gave this guy a break?" he asks the actor.</p>
<p>"Well, they don't have a choice now," McConaughey stunningly replies. "He's our president. And, it's very dynamic and as divisive of an Inauguration and time as we've had. At the same time, it's time for us to embrace and shake hands with this fact. And be constructive with him over the next four years. So anyone, even those who may strongly disagree with his principles or things he's said and done — and that's another thing, we'll see what he does compares to what he has said — no matter how much you even disagreed along the way, it's time to think about how constructive can you be... 'Cause he's our president for the next four years, at least, the President of the United States."</p>
<p>Alright, alright, alright.</p>
<p>Watch the interview, below:</p>
<p><a href="http://ijr.com/2017/02/791723-just-stop-a-moment-bask-in-the-glory-of-the-most-amazing-mcconaughey-like-statement-about-donald-trump/" type="external">H/T</a>IJ Review</p> | Matthew McConaughey's Epic Take on Hysterical Anti-Trump Hollywood | true | https://dailywire.com/news/13070/matthew-mcconaugheys-epic-take-hysterical-anti-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2017-02-01 | 0 |
<p />
<p>What: According to data provided by <a href="http://www.spcapitaliq.com" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>, shares of the clinical-stage biotech Sarepta Therapeutics gained nearly 14% last month. The stock's rebound -- after falling by nearly 70% the month before -- was due to the FDA extending the review period for the company's experimental Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug, eteplirsen, to May 26, 2016. Duchenne is a rare muscle-wasting disordercharacterized by the inability to produce a sufficient amount of the protein dystrophin, which plays a critical role in strengthening muscle fibers.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Image source: Public domain.</p>
<p>So what: Because of the fairly harsh briefing documents released by the FDA ahead of the drug's former advisory committee review date and the rejection of BioMarin's competing therapy drisapersen around the same time, the market abruptly decided that eteplirsen's regulatory review was doomed -- causing the massive sell-off in Sarepta's shares in January. However, this extension by the FDA seems to have sparked at least some renewed optimism that the drug may garner a conditional approval from the agency later this year.</p>
<p>Now what: While this extension might mean that the FDA hasn't shut the book on eteplirsen, the fact remains that company has yet to even receive an updated advisory committee date from the agency. This panel review was supposed to occur on Jan. 20, but was canceled due to inclement weather. The bottom line is that this public review will provide significant insight into the agency's overarching view of the drug, and until that event takes place, it's impossible to handicap eteplirsen's chances of getting a green light from the FDA. That's why I think investors may want to remain cautious with this speculative stock for the time being.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/13/heres-why-sarepta-therapeutics-shares-rebounded-in.aspx" type="external">Here's Why Sarepta Therapeutics' Shares Rebounded in February Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/gbudwell/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">George Budwell Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends BioMarin Pharmaceutical. 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>
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<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> | Here's Why Sarepta Therapeutics' Shares Rebounded in February | true | http://foxbusiness.com/investing/2016/03/13/here-why-sarepta-therapeutics-shares-rebounded-in-february.html | 2016-03-13 | 0 |
<p>Still reeling from reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called him a “moron,” President Donald Trump boasted on Friday that he would best Tillerson in an IQ test.</p>
<p>In an interview with <a href="https://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/exclusive-interview/#5440908bbdec" type="external">Forbes</a> published Tuesday morning, Trump denied that Tillerson did actually call him a “moron,” but said that if reports were true, he may have to compare IQs with his secretary of state.</p>
<p>“I think it’s fake news, but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win,” Trump told Forbes.</p>
<p>NBC News <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> last week that Tillerson called Trump a “moron,” setting off the President. Since the report, Trump has attacked NBC News and <a href="" type="internal">denied</a> the outlet’s reporting on Tillerson’s comments.</p>
<p>The secretary of state held a press conference just to clarify his positive feelings about Trump, but <a href="" type="internal">did not directly deny</a> calling the President a moron. A spokesperson for Tillerson later <a href="" type="internal">denied</a> that he made the comment.</p>
<p>Trump’s anger did not subside after his secretary of state groveled via press conference, however. The president has <a href="" type="internal">reportedly</a> been fuming over the report and continued to <a href="" type="internal">attack NBC</a> over the&#160;weekend.</p> | Trump: If Tillerson Really Called Me A Moron, We Should Take An IQ Test | true | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-tillerson-iq-test | 4 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Homeless veterans can receive free clothing, backpacks, bedding, food, hot meals, hygiene kits, flu shots, basic medical screening, legal consultation and other goods and services Thursday and Friday during the 2014 Project Stand Down &amp; Hands Up at Noon Day Ministries, 101 Broadway NE.</p>
<p>The annual outreach is modeled after military “stand-downs” during which battle-weary troops could find a haven to rest, receive medical treatment and get a hot meal before returning to combat.</p>
<p>Thursday’s event, open only to veterans, will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday’s stand-down is open to veterans and nonveterans, also from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.</p>
<p>Representatives will be on hand to assist veterans in filing for VA and state veteran benefits and to provide information about shelters and housing.</p>
<p>For more information, call 265-0512 or visit <a href="http://www.nmvic.org" type="external">www.nmvic.org</a>.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Noon Day Ministries offers help for homeless vets | false | https://abqjournal.com/479491/noon-da-ministries-offers-help-for-homeless-vets.html | 2 |
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<p>On the day I heard that President Obama had officially declared the Iraq war over, I was at the Danville Veterans’ Administration hospital (VA) with my partner S, an Iraq War veteran. S is six months into a disability application, a request for benefits and compensation for disabilities sustained during military service, which will likely take another year to process.</p>
<p>We found ourselves navigating through a maze of yellowed walkways and drab interiors, shuttled from admissions offices to mental health clinics. While we were not the only ones moving through that system, we were perhaps moving faster than the others. Many veterans of previous wars—the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, World War II—lined the route, being pushed in wheelchairs, walking on canes, some perhaps visiting for the day with their families, some completely alone. S was one of the only young people I saw in this wing of the VA, and based on the way people looked at us, they clearly knew that he was a “hero” of the war that President Obama had just declared “completed.”</p>
<p>It took S five years to work up the guts to apply for disability status after getting home, and now I understand why. Anyone who has ever spent time in the military knows that there is a stigma against saying you are hurt, especially if those wounds are not visible. And then to go back to the institution that hurt you, with no record of the injuries you have sustained, to ask for help, to say you are not OK, runs the risk of adding insult to injury.</p>
<p>But being there with S, I realized there is another dimension to VA visits enough to keep you away for a lifetime: the proof that war is a lifetime for those who survive, that it traps you in its drab hallways, in its medical appointments and slow-moving applications and appeals, in its memory and worldview, in its wounds. Long after the war is declared over and the country stops paying attention to their suffering, veterans still walk those hallways, go to those appointments, and take those pills.</p>
<p>President’s speech</p>
<p>Even though Obama ran on the anti-war ticket, he ended up declaring the war a success. All day, I turned over in my head the President’s speech from that morning: “We knew this day would come. We’ve known it for some time. But still there is something profound about the end of a war that has lasted so long. It’s harder to end a war than begin one. Everything that American troops have done in Iraq—all the fighting, all the dying, the bleeding and the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has landed to this moment of success.”</p>
<p>I wondered what it would have sounded like for Obama to speak those words at the Danville VA. Would “the end” sound as profound to “the dying and the bleeding” within these walls?</p>
<p>When VA mental health care professionals evaluate veterans for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), they ask them to identify traumatizing incidents, the moments that ruptured their internal wellness. For some people it is an explosion, a rape, a body blown to bits. For others, simply being over there is enough to transform their perception that the world is a decent place or can ever be a decent place.</p>
<p>I was invited to join S in his mental health evaluation to corroborate his story. When he shared his traumatizing moments, my eyes began to burn, something inside me began to shake and scream. I’ve seen the haunting, detachment, and fear alongside the tenderness, love, and hope that’s in him. I’ve wrestled with the events that have dug deep holes of anxiety and despair in him, holes that you can lose yourself in.</p>
<p>There is nothing profound about the end of this war. It is pain and wreckage. It is symptoms on a PTSD checklist. It is trauma that goes unrecognized, here and in Iraqi communities. It is loss that is mourned, and loss that there is no one left to mourn. It is another night that S can’t sleep, just like every other night, tossing and turning. It is something that can never be undone.</p>
<p>The movement won</p>
<p>This is not meant to be a hopeless article. The “end” of the Iraq War is significant. It means troops will be leaving, and thus some lives will be spared trauma and loss. We all know that this is a direct result of the anti-war movement—its impact on public opinion made the war no longer politically viable. And in that sense, we have won.</p>
<p>Throughout this war, I have learned that traumatized communities have profound strength when they collectively organize; that soldiers and veterans have been organizing the whole time to bring their brothers and sisters home; and that Iraqis have been not only struggling to survive but also courageously organizing against occupation.</p>
<p>As a member of the Civilian Soldier Alliance and an ally to Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), I know firsthand that transformation is possible, collective healing is real and has happened throughout these wars, and those who are organizing will not stop or ever give up. I have worked with courageous veterans and service members in IVAW’s Operation Recovery, a campaign that takes on the rampant problems of military rape and sexual assault, PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, and other injuries that plague military service members by organizing around their right to heal and exit traumatic situations. I have seen the strength and courage of World War II, Vietnam, and Gulf War veterans organizing demonstrations, marching in the streets, and helping each other survive. And I have also seen the day-to-day brave acts of S and the kindness that radiates from him.</p>
<p>But the “end” of the Iraq war does not signal an end to US foreign policy based on brute self-interest, geopolitical control, and military empire. There was no apology, no talk of reparations, and no stated intention to shift direction. The “security” contractors and private companies will not leave anytime soon, and many soldiers will simply be transferred to “the good war” in Afghanistan or sent to one of 800 US bases around the world.</p>
<p>War and occupation in Afghanistan continue, as well as military campaigns against Pakistan, Yemen, and other countries the US public is not informed about, and the possibility of a war against Iran grows. The US continues funding and arming Israel’s apartheid policies towards Palestinians, as well as supporting dictators and monarchs in the Middle East and North Africa, helping put down any popular protests that challenge US strategic interests.</p>
<p>This is not to mention that at this moment of Occupy uprisings domestically, with Occupy Wall Street pushing the parameters of what we thought was possible, the US government is expanding its abilities to employ militarism against its own people with the latest “anti-terror” bill and shooting protesters with the same tear gas canisters it exports to Israel.</p>
<p>My generation</p>
<p>I saw my generation sent off to war. I watched as they were marched onto the tarmac and disappeared into airplanes. I watched the bombs explode in shock and awe attacks, followed the counter-insurgency, and then the surges. I marched with veterans when they returned home, wounded and determined that the only way to heal was to stop these wars. I watched people in the US mobilize against the wars, and I watched people give up, stop caring. I watched the wars become normal, invisible.</p>
<p>And now I am terrified that I will see my generation disappeared into VA clinics, onto the streets (veterans today comprise a quarter of all homeless people), or lost to suicide.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine what it is like for the people in Iraq who have lived under war and occupation for almost nine years and who will now live under the hand of security contractors, such as Blackwater, and US-installed politicians for years to come. Many estimate that the Iraq war has killed over one million Iraqis and displaced over 10 million, with countless others traumatized, wounded, and disabled. Iraqis are now left with a society torn, traumatized, and impoverished by over nine years of war.&#160; Bombs ripped through Baghdad last week, killing five and wounding 39, just as the Obama Administration was ringing the bells of “victory.”</p>
<p>To call this success, to call this profound, is a dishonor to my generation’s loss. It is justification for events that have no justification. It is ideological footing for future wars, future trauma, future loss.</p>
<p>The day the Iraq War “ended,” the VA was the same as ever. People shuffled to appointments, waited in waiting rooms, and filled out more paperwork. The wounds, both physical and mental, did not heal, the homeless were not housed, and the dead were not resuscitated.</p>
<p>S was evaluated for disability eligibility. This evaluation will be added to a pile of papers which will eventually be mailed and added to another pile, and then more waiting and more appointments.</p>
<p>When we got into the car to drive home, the radio blared the news that the Iraq war is “over” and played a clip of Obama’s “success” speech to Ft. Bragg soldiers. I quickly reached over to turn off the radio, and I gripped my partner’s hand as we drove away in silence, the VA disappearing behind us…until the next appointment.</p>
<p>Sarah Lazare is a writer and organizer in the US anti-war veteran and GI resistance movement. She is a steering committee member of the Civilian-Soldier Alliance and an ally to Iraq Veterans Against the War. She is also an active union member and a graduate student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where she is studying Arabic and learning about social movements in the Middle East and North Africa.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on <a href="http://www.leftturn.org/" type="external">Left Turn</a>.</p> | The End of a War for Whom? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/01/04/the-end-of-a-war-for-whom/ | 2012-01-04 | 4 |
<p>BRISTOL, Va. — Virginia Intermont College has been placed on probation for the next six months by its accrediting agency — the most recent action taken by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges related to the Baptist-affiliated school’s financial stability.</p>
<p>Two years ago SACS placed <a href="http://vic.edu/" type="external">Intermont</a> on warning for failure to “demonstrate that is has a sound financial base and a recent financial history demonstrating financial stability.”</p>
<p />
<p>Probation is a more serious sanction and is often, though not always, the last step taken before an institution’s accreditation is revoked, according to <a href="http://www.sacscoc.org/" type="external">SACS’s website</a>. The action was taken by the accrediting agency at its annual meeting Dec. 8-11 in Dallas.</p>
<p>At the end of the six-month probation period, SACS will decide whether or not to reaffirm Intermont’s accreditation.</p>
<p>During the probation period, the Bristol, Va., college will remain accredited and president E. Clorisa Phillips said in an email the school is working diligently to address SACS’s concerns.</p>
<p>“Since 1925, Virginia Intermont has remained fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges,” she said. “The decision by the commission to continue VI’s monitoring period and place the college on temporary probation for six months does not imply any shortcoming of the college’s academic programs, nor does it affect the college’s ability to receive federal financial aid for students.</p>
<p />
<p>Phillips said Intermont has spent the past year increasing its financial strength.</p>
<p>“Although the SACS decision was unexpected and disappointing after working diligently toward 10-year reaffirmation, VI has made good progress toward full compliance and pledges to thoroughly address the concerns cited by the Commission which will be detailed in the coming weeks,” she added. “As we continue to move forward, VI will ensure the highest level of responsiveness to SACS, along with transparency and accountability to our students and all constituents of the College.”</p>
<p>Phillips <a href="http://www.tricities.com/news/article_7e4e026a-441c-11e2-b85c-001a4bcf6878.html" type="external">told</a> the Bristol Herald Courier that Intermont will “complete the job of meeting all SACS criteria.”</p>
<p>“Students, faculty, staff and alumni want that and so do I,” she told the Herald Courier. “Whatever SACS’s current reasoning, remember that we have come a long way and we are not going to stop.”</p>
<p>The 128-year-old Intermont, which enrolls about 550 students, has been affiliated with the <a href="http://www.vbmb.org/" type="external">Baptist General Association of Virginia</a> since its founding. The BGAV allocates some funds to the school — in 2012 the amount was $2,000 — and it nominates a portion of the school’s 20-member board of trustees.</p>
<p>Robert Dilday ( <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.</p> | Accrediting agency puts Virginia Intermont on probation, cites continued financial stability concern | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/accreditingagencyputsvirginiaintermontonprobationcitescontinuedfinancialstabilityconcern/ | 3 |
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<p>But the court said the way the rules have been implemented is unlawful and allowed several claimants to challenge their rejection by U.K. immigration authorities.</p>
<p>Since 2012, Britons who want to bring spouses from outside a group of mainly European Union nations to the U.K. must earn at least 18,600 pounds ($23,000) a year — more if the couple has children. Several people who were rejected under the rules took the government to court, arguing the law breached their right to a family life.</p>
<p>Seven Supreme Court justices ruled that the income requirement was “acceptable in principle.” They said the fact the rule “may cause hardship to many does not render it unlawful.”</p>
<p>But the judges said the rule had been implemented in a “defective” way. The justices said authorities must consider the welfare of children and whether applicants have other funding sources.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Saira Grant, chief executive at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said the judgment “is a real victory for families, especially those with children.”</p>
<p>She said the government should “take immediate steps to protect the welfare of children in accordance with their legal duty.”</p>
<p>The Home Office said the court had endorsed the government’s approach, but it was “carefully considering what the court has said in relation to exceptional cases where the income threshold has not been met, particularly where the case involves a child.”</p> | UK court: Income rule to bring in foreign spouses is lawful | false | https://abqjournal.com/954897/uk-court-income-rule-to-bring-in-foreign-spouses-is-lawful.html | 2 |
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<p>Sept. 7 (UPI) — Powerful <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Hurricane-Irma/" type="external">Hurricane Irma</a> killed at least 10 people and left a path of destruction in the eastern Caribbean Islands on Thursday.</p>
<p>The Category 5 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, destroyed the islands’ homes and buildings and left millions without electricity.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/09/07/hurricane-irma-leaves-trail-destruction-across-caribbean/640761001/" type="external">death toll</a>, which was likely to rise, was four in St. Martin and St. Barthelemy, revised down from the death toll of eight emergency officials gave earlier in the day. There was also one dead in Anguilla and one, a child, in Barbuda. Later on Thursday, three deaths were reported in Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said the island of 1,600 people was “barely habitable” with about 95 percent of the structures damaged and communication cut off Wednesday.</p>
<p>From Antigua, he told <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41182991" type="external">the BBC</a> it would cost $100 million to rebuild Barbuda.</p>
<p>Browne said Antigua, with a population of around 80,000 people, escaped major damage but airplanes are unable to land on the island.</p>
<p>Princess Juliana International Airport, the third largest in the Caribbean, was destroyed in the Dutch-controlled Sint Maarten in St. Martin. The northern French side also was heavily destroyed.</p>
<p>President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a> owns a waterfront estate there but information about his property was not reported, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/09/06/hurricane-irma-just-slammed-into-trumps-caribbean-estate-and-is-headed-toward-his-florida-properties/?tid=sm_fb&amp;utm_term=.797b7e433097" type="external">The Washington Post</a>.</p>
<p>“It’s an enormous catastrophe — 95 percent of the island is destroyed,” top local official Daniel Gibbs told BBC of Saint Martin.</p>
<p>The storm passed by Puerto Rico on Wednesday afternoon, leaving about two-thirds of the island’s 1 million electric customers without power in the U.S. territory. Ramos, chief executive of the island’s electric utility, also said 56,000 of the nation’s 3.4 million residents were without potable water.</p>
<p>Gov. Ricardo Rossello <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/06/us/hurricane-irma-puerto-rico-florida/index.html" type="external">told CNN</a> Puerto Rico was hit hard even though the eye of the storm was off shore with winds of more than 100 mph.</p>
<p>“From the center of operations that we have over here in San Juan, there is pretty significant damage already done,” he said.</p>
<p>Puerto Rico’s <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/hurricane-irma-continues-advance-florida-category-storm/story?id=49673384" type="external">three deaths</a> were an elderly woman after a fall en route to a shelter, a younger woman from electrocution in her home and a man from a traffic accident.</p>
<p>Charlyn Gaztambide Janer told <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hurricane-irma/hurricane-irma-skirts-puerto-rico-lashing-it-powerful-winds-flooding-n799086" type="external">NBC News</a> “this is a lot better than it was predicted to be” although power was out in her home in the San Juan suburb of Guaynabo.</p>
<p>“I lived through <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Hurricane_Hugo/" type="external">Hurricane Hugo</a> [in 1989] and that was far, far worse. That was horrible. This is nothing compared to that.”</p>
<p>Michael Coleman, who took shelter in a cement bunker in the U.S. Virgin Islands’ St. Thomas said “the wind was so intense. Trees and roofs flying.”</p>
<p>In the British Virgin Islands, Kennedy Banda said he and his family were taking shelter in a bathroom as the strong winds blew out the windows of his home. The hurricane’s eye passed over the north islands.</p>
<p>Necker Island, the private island owned by Virgin Group founder <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Richard_Branson/" type="external">Richard Branson</a>, was “utterly devastated.”</p>
<p>“It is a traumatic time here in the British Virgin Islands,” he said in a <a href="https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/hurricane-irma" type="external">blog post</a> dictated by satellite phone. “Hurricane Irma is continuing a path of destruction that brought the eye of the storm to Necker Island, Moskito Island and the whole surrounding area.”</p>
<p>He said he and others on the island were safe in a concrete cellar on the island. He urged those still in the path of Irma to “stay inside, ideally in organized shelters or other solid concrete structures with water, supplies and emergency contact plans.”</p>
<p>The most powerful Atlantic storm in a decade battered Dominican Republican, Haiti, and Turks and Caicos on Thursday afternoon, and was then headed to Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida but was forecast by the National Hurricane Center to drop to a Category 4.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2017/live-updates/weather/hurricane-irma-a-monster-storms-devastating-path/irma-pummels-the-dominican-republic/?utm_term=.b776cdef3d26" type="external">In the Dominican Republic</a>, Cabarete and Sosua — popular resort areas in the Puerto Plata region — were battered by the storm.</p>
<p>The Dominican Republic’s president also canceled work in the government and companies.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/world/americas/hurricane-irma-caribbean.html" type="external">In Haiti</a>, 800 temporary shelters were set up, and the Haitian government called for all institutions, public and private, to be shut down Thursday afternoon.</p>
<p>In Turks and Caicos, officials halted emergency services temporarily as the storm came close. They warned of severe floods and storm surges.</p>
<p>“All residents and tourists are instructed to stay indoors, as responders will not be able to provide relief services during this time until further notice,” said Virginia Clerveaux, the director of the Disaster Management Department.</p>
<p>In the Bahamas, emergency evacuations have been ordered for six southern islands — Mayaguana, Inagua, Crooked Island, Acklins, Long Cay and Ragged Island.</p>
<p>“This is the largest such evacuation in the history of the country,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said.</p> | Hurricane Irma kills at least 10 in Caribbean | false | https://newsline.com/hurricane-irma-kills-at-least-10-in-caribbean/ | 2017-09-07 | 1 |
<p>Beijing has blamed the Dalai Lama for inciting a string of nine Tibetan protesters who set themselves on fire in recent months, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15372731" type="external">the BBC reports</a>.</p>
<p>The latest protester was Tenzin Wangmo, a 20-year-old nun who died Monday from self-immolation. Wangmo <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15347106" type="external">reportedly</a> called for Tibet's freedom before she set herself on fire. At least five of the Tibetan protesters have died resulting from their injuries, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g3_OmjTH9xU8lfTP2wvkGXDYzYhw?docId=f0f986b1e0a44cf0b0431f6726b6c0b1" type="external">according to the AP</a>.</p>
<p>The rise in Tibetan protestors setting themselves on fire in has been an indication for some of the rising tension between Tibet and China.</p>
<p>VIDEO:&#160;Thousands rally in support of Tibetan monks</p>
<p />
<p>The Tibetan spiritual leader led prayers and fasting Wednesday in honor of the nine protesters at his temple, in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala where he lives in exile. Services in New Dehli and Taiwan were also held for the protesters, including messages of support on Twitter.</p>
<p />
<p>[ <a href="http://storify.com/kyleykim/tibetan-protest-supporters" type="external">View the story "Tibetan Protest supporters" on Storify]</a></p>
<p>The Chinese government spoke out against the protests the same day they were being honored.</p>
<p>"In the wake of the incidents, overseas Tibet independent forces and the Dalai group did not criticise the cases," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told journalists at a news briefing. "On the contrary, they beautified, played up such issues to incite more people to follow suit. As we know, such splittist activities at the cost of human lives is violence and terrorism in disguise."</p>
<p>Aba county in Sichuan province, where the majority of the protests have been, is under strict Chinese security presence. Free Tibet Director Stephanie Brigden said unrest is growing.</p>
<p>"The number and frequency of self-immolations is unprecedented," <a href="http://www.freetibet.org/newsmedia/unrest-tibet-widens-two-tibetans-shot-and-nun-dies-after-setting-fire-herself" type="external">Brigden said in a press release</a>. "The acts of self-immolation are not taking place in isolation, protests have been reported in the surrounding region and calls for wider protests are growing. China has already responded with force in one instance we have grave concerns that greater force may be deployed if protests spread."</p> | China: Dalai Lama at fault for self-immolations (VIDEO) | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-10-19/china-dalai-lama-fault-self-immolations-video | 2011-10-19 | 3 |
<p>The overwhelming reaction in American and European comment on the Russian riposte to Georgia’s attack on Russian “peacekeeping” forces in South Ossetia has been that Russia showed too much of its claws. It should now be ostracized or penalized for “overreaction” to an attack on its soldiers.</p>
<p>This response evades acknowledgement that the real damage Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili has done has been to the United States and NATO, and to Georgia itself, which for the foreseeable future will now be a nation of limited sovereignty, and an awkward embarrassment to its Western allies.</p>
<p>It will have Russian troops indefinitely stationed on its territory to protect South Ossetia and Abkhazia, henceforth self-declared independent entities under Russian protection (or eventually annexed to Russia at their own petition). The Russians, at this point, prefer the first solution because, as they like to emphasize, it follows the precedent of Kosovo’s self-proclamation of independence from Serbia in February of this year, under American sponsorship.</p>
<p>The crisis has been a turning point in current international relations because it demonstrated that the United States could not or would not defend Georgia, despite the widespread international impression that Washington, after having trained Georgia’s troops and showily displayed the Saakashvili government as its protege, was in some way implicated in the Georgian attack on South Ossetia, and on the Russian soldiers legally there as “peacekeepers.”</p>
<p />
<p>Those Russian soldiers had been there for 16 years under an international agreement following a first Georgian attempt to “recover” the linguistically and historically distinct South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of them autonomous Russian — and subsequently Soviet — protectorates or regions since 1810.</p>
<p>Now U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney says he is going to visit Georgia next week, after visits to Azerbaijan and Ukraine — which no doubt are in need of some bucking up after this display of Russian fury and of American “diplomatic restraint” (meaning lack of rational alternative). American naval vessels are in the Black Sea, and one of them, a destroyer, has delivered some humanitarian supplies to a southern Georgian port.</p>
<p>Another U.S. vessel, an unarmed Coast Guard cutter, is scheduled to make another delivery Wednesday to the port of Poti, patrolled by Russian forces and with nearby Russian checkpoints.</p>
<p>The Russians have darkly declared their suspicion that American vessels have been delivering arms to Georgia at other places along the coast. Even though the Russians destroyed all that was left of the new American military equipment and installations recently given to Georgia, even Saakashvili is unlikely to want to start up the war again — at least just now, unless Cheney is going to bring with him the 82nd Airborne Division and the 6th Fleet. That, of course, is what Saakashvili seemed to expect the night when his invasion turned into a debacle. “Where is America?” he said, “Where is the Free World?” He has since received reassurances from presidential candidate John McCain and vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, both fans of the unsuccessful Georgian liberator.</p>
<p>This has been an inane and stupid affair, except for the unfortunates who got killed or maimed, or lost their homes, or have been ethnically cleansed by one side or another during the past days and are now grieving refugees. The United States left Saakashvili and the Georgians twisting in the wind, after telling them they were going to belong to NATO and help spread freedom in the Caucasus.</p>
<p>Ukraine and the Baltic states have been given the lesson that great powers do not go to war against other heavily armed great powers just to settle ancient sectarian quarrels or linguistic rivalries in client countries, even if those are prospective NATO members.</p>
<p>Poland and the Czech Republic had thought it prudent to humor the obsession of Washington and its arms manufacturers with building a missile-defense system against Iran’s committing suicide. Now they find that Russia is furious about something they had taken on faith from the U.S., but turns out to have been, to Washington politicians, a voter-pleasing and money-making boondoggle.</p>
<p>Israel now finds Syria talking with Moscow arms suppliers. Russian cooperation with the U.S. on various matters — Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah; counterterrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, and oil and gas supplies to Europe — is now expected to cease.</p>
<p>Why? As far as one can make out, because a certain number of policy types in the Clinton and Bush II administrations, and in the Pentagon, decided that it could be a cost-free demonstration of American power of intimidation to build NATO right up to Russia’s front door. Why, they could even take over some of Russia’s historical dependencies and protectorates — just to show who’s No. 1.</p>
<p>Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at <a href="http://www.williampfaff.com" type="external">www.williampfaff.com</a>.</p>
<p>© 2008 Tribune Media Services Inc.</p> | The Cost of Saakashvili's Folly | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-cost-of-saakashvilis-folly/ | 2008-08-27 | 4 |
<p>Associated PressBenjamin James Johnson, 27, tried to bring 12 paintings of Saddam and Uday Hussein into the United States last week, according to a <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/foxcamera1.html" type="external">criminal complaint</a>. It says Johnson, a former Fox news engineer who was embedded with U.S. troops in Baghdad, gathered up the paintings at one of Uday's palaces. Johnson initially told Customs officials he was given the paintings by Iraqi citizens, said he had planned to keep them "for decoration" and to give one to Fox News. Johnson has been fired. &gt; <a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1871545" type="external">Fewer than 200 journalists still embedded with U.S. troops (E&amp;P)</a></p> | FNC staffer fired for trying to bring Saddam art into U.S. | false | https://poynter.org/news/fnc-staffer-fired-trying-bring-saddam-art-us | 2003-04-23 | 2 |
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<p>Our little group of a dozen families was running out of time. After meeting every weekend for three years to plan our hoped-for cohousing community, and after investing much of our savings to acquire a few acres of land, it looked as though our dream would fail. We couldn’t find a bank that would finance a cooperative.</p>
<p>Visit the table of contents for the Spring 2013 issue of YES! Magazine, <a href="" type="internal">How Cooperatives are Driving the New Economy.</a></p>
<p>It was our local credit union that saved us. “You’re owned by your members? What’s so odd about that? We’re owned by our members,” the president of the Kitsap Credit Union mused.</p>
<p>With that financing, we were able to build 30 affordable homes and a common house, and to make space available for gardens, an orchard, a playfield, and a tiny urban forest. In 1992, we moved into Winslow Cohousing, the first member-developed cohousing community in the United States.</p>
<p>Co-ops—just like people—can get more done together than anyone can do alone. The good news is that co-ops come in many forms and are more common than you might imagine. They are owned by workers, residents, consumers, farmers, craftspeople, the community, or any combination. What they have in common is that they circulate the benefits back to their member-owners, and these benefits ripple out to the broader community. As <a href="" type="internal">Marjorie Kelly explains</a>, cooperative forms of ownership allow the well-being of people, the planet, and future generations to take priority over profits for shareholders and executives.</p>
<p>This is an exciting moment for cooperatives. A growing disillusionment with big banks and corporations is sparking interest in economic alternatives, and new opportunities are opening up:</p>
<p>• The United Steelworkers and other unions are exploring worker-ownership as a means to assure stable, living-wage jobs that can’t be outsourced to low-wage regions.</p>
<p>• Communities seeking alternatives to profit-driven corporate health insurance are forming health care co-ops.</p>
<p>• Hundreds of thousands of people who “moved their money” from Wall Street banks to local banks and credit unions now have a say in how their money is used.</p>
<p>• Consumers are turning to co-ops like Equal Exchange for ethically produced goods, and Equal Exchange, in turn, supports co-ops made up of farmers and producers in some of the world’s poorest regions.</p>
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<p>These cooperatives can be powerful forces for change. Vancity, Canada’s largest credit union, targets its investments to local enter- prises that have positive impacts. It divested its holdings in Enbridge due to concerns about the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. And it adopted a living wage policy that applies to its own employees and to service providers.</p>
<p>Cooperative structures can strengthen an economy. For example, Italy’s Emilia Romagna region, where about a third of the economy is cooperative and has far less inequality. Most people there can find living wage jobs, and quality of life is high.</p>
<p>Last year, Winslow Cohousing celebrated its 20th year, and the grown sons and daughters of the early members returned to share what it meant to them to grow up in a community, surrounded by love and support.</p>
<p>My hope? That many more children have the opportunity to grow up in cooperative spaces; that more adults get the respect and empowerment that comes from working in cooperatives and buying from co-ops; and that over time, diverse forms of democratic ownership displace predatory capitalism as the foundation for our economy.Like what you’re reading? YES! is nonprofit and relies on reader support. <a href="" type="internal">Click here to chip in $5 or more</a> to help us keep the inspiration coming.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Cooperative Way to a Stronger Economy | true | http://yesmagazine.org/issues/how-cooperatives-are-driving-the-new-economy/the-cooperative-way | 4 |
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<p>Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Fox News contributor, on the failure of the 'skinny' repeal of ObamaCare.</p>
<p>Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act, joined the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo to discuss what he described as a long-term affordability problem in health care.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“I actually prepared, the President [Trump] has seen, a memo with about nine or ten things that can be done that could directly address this problem of cost control,” he said.</p>
<p>Emanuel said one of the most important things impacting the cost control of health care is changing how doctors and hospitals are paid.</p>
<p>“Right now, we pay them a fee for service every time they do something,” he said. “They remove a prostate for suspicion of prostate cancer. They do a procedure on the knee, they get paid.”</p>
<p>The Fox News contributor suggests creating a “bundle payment” system that includes all surgical fees, such as operating room cost, anesthesiologist fees and recovery time, would add efficiency to the system and remove unnecessary care.</p>
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<p>“Put it in one fee, give it to the doctors and hospitals and say, ‘guys figure out how to make this more efficient,’ that actually works remarkably well,” Emanuel said.</p>
<p>Emmanuel noted that under the Obama administration, 50 percent of Medicare fee-for-service payments will be tied to alternative payment models (APMs) by 2018.</p>
<p>“If they made private insurance companies do it, private insurance companies who get contracts with the government - through the exchanges, through TRICARE, through the federal employee health benefits - that they have to do it, you would have a big push in the right direction,” he said.</p> | ObamaCare architect: Changing how we pay doctors and hospitals will reduce health care costs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/07/28/obamacare-architect-changing-how-pay-doctors-and-hospitals-will-reduce-health-care-costs.html | 2017-07-28 | 0 |
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<p>The president's nominee for HHS secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, center, will likely have her hands full. (Charles Dharapak/The Associated Press)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON - Abruptly on the spot as the new face of Obamacare, Sylvia Mathews Burwell faces logistical and political challenges.</p>
<p>Burwell, until now White House budget director, was named by President Barack Obama on Friday to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who oversaw the messy rollout of the health care overhaul. Now the new secretary must keep the complex program running smoothly and somehow help restore a cooperative dialogue with Republicans who are hoping to use the law's problems to regain control of the Senate in November.</p>
<p>Obama showered praise on Sebelius, a hero for his party's liberal base, whose impending retirement had been a tightly guarded secret.</p>
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<p>The president ignored calls for Sebelius to resign last fall, after the website for consumers to enroll in new coverage experienced weeks of crippling technical problems. Last month, as it started to look like sign-ups would beat expectations, Sebelius approached the White House about stepping aside, officials said.</p>
<p>"Under Kathleen's leadership, her team at HHS turned the corner, got it fixed, got the job done," Obama said. "And the final score speaks for itself." About 7.5 million people have signed up for subsidized private health insurance through the new law, exceeding an original target of 7 million widely thought to be unattainable because of the website problems.</p>
<p>Obama quickly pivoted to Burwell, 48, a low-profile Washington veteran now serving as his budget chief. He stressed her role last year in helping to end a government shutdown and reach a two-year budget deal with a politically divided Congress. "Sylvia is a proven manager, and she knows how to deliver results," Obama said.</p>
<p>Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who will hold confirmation hearings for Burwell, said there's an opportunity for her to move the health care debate beyond stalemate.</p>
<p>While a political truce is unlikely over Obama's health overhaul, Wyden ticked off a list of issues where Republicans and Democrats might be able to find compromise. Among them: revamping the way Medicare pays doctors, providing coordinated care for patients with chronic illnesses and using data to encourage delivery of quality health care at lower cost.</p>
<p>Health and Human Services is a $1 trillion agency that plays a key role in American society and the economy. More than 100 million people receive coverage through Medicare, Medicaid and, now, Obama's health law. The secretary also oversees the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates a broad range of consumer products, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the front line for public health.</p>
<p>But Burwell could have her hands full addressing issues with the health care law, predicted Brookings Institution health economist Mark McClellan.</p>
<p>"Don't underestimate the remaining implementation challenges for the Affordable Care Act," said McClellan, who oversaw the rollout of the Medicare drug benefit for President George W. Bush. "It's true that the first open enrollment season - was just the front end of the implementation process."</p>
<p /> | New face, old problems at HHS | false | https://abqjournal.com/382926/new-face-old-problems-at-hhs.html | 2 |
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<p>DURANGO, Colo. (AP) — Durango police say they still don’t know why two men were giving away marijuana at a downtown street corner.</p>
<p>Joseph Bires and Daniel McKnight are facing charges of disturbing the peace and being in possession of more than 1 ounce of marijuana after they were arrested on Monday.</p>
<p>Colorado law now allows people age 21 or older to possess less than 1 ounce of marijuana. It can be consumed in a private residence, but it is illegal to consume or display the drug in public.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20130514/NEWS01/130519715/Police-halt-pot-giveaway-downtown-" type="external">The Durango Herald</a>, the men were given a municipal citation and released.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Men cited for pot giveaway in Durango | false | https://abqjournal.com/199279/men-cited-for-pot-giveaway-in-durango.html | 2013-05-15 | 2 |
<p>A woman who attended grad school with Neil deGrasse Tyson says the now-famous astrophysicist drugged and raped her at the University of Texas back in 1984.</p>
<p>Tchiya Amet tweeted her allegations as part of the "#MeToo" campaign — a social media-based effort to help women reveal incidents of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and rape in their past. Amet made the same claims in 2014 and again in 2016, and resurfaced a blog post from 2014 as part of the effort.</p>
<p>In the post, Amet claims Tyson slipped her a "mickie" — a slang-term for the date rape drug GhB — and then took her back to a room where he had sexual intercourse with her against her will. The essay, written as an open letter to Tyson, asks the scientist what he would say to his family and hers, given his past impropriety.</p>
<p>What would you say to my parents if I had told them when it had happened that you had slipped me a mickey and that you raped me while I was unconscious? What would you say to them now if they were still alive? What will you say to your wife, the woman that was on the phone as you handed me the water to drink, in a cup made out of account shell? Do you have any idea how your act of violence affected my life, the lives of my parents, my ex-husband, my daughters, and anyone and veryone that has anything to do with me?</p>
<p>Tyson hasn't commented on the allegations, though it appears that some in the media were asking him for a response as far back as last year. Amet says that when she confronted Tyson, he was "totally confused" and said nothing.</p>
<p>David McAfee, an outspoken atheist and author — and fan of Tyson — has <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidGMcAfee/status/923716184729534464" type="external">been trying to get Tyson to answer the allegations</a>, ostensibly to clear his name, but so far Tyson has refused to comment. McAfee <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2017/10/neil-degrasse-tyson-accused-of-rape/" type="external">has been chronicling the incident at Patheos</a>, having followed the story for some time, and confirming that Amet and Tyson were classmates.</p>
<p>Typically, Tyson's silence might just be taken as a refusal to acknowledge unsupported allegations. After all, these same allegations have resurfaced several times, and the media seems to have avoided the story. But given the recent outpouring of support for victims of sexual violence — and the shocking allegations that have poured forth against people like Harvey Weinstein — Tyson may not get the same free pass this time as he has when these accusations surfaced previously.</p> | Former Grad Student Accuses Neil De Grasse Tyson Of Rape | true | https://dailywire.com/news/22912/former-grad-student-accuses-neil-de-grasse-tyson-emily-zanotti | 2017-10-30 | 0 |
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<p>— Complete coverage: <a href="" type="internal">Roswell school shooting</a></p>
<p>Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal</p>
<p>State Police said late Thursday they were aware of Instagram posts by Mason Campbell and are looking into whether they are relevant to Tuesday’s Berrendo Middle School shooting.</p>
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<p>On Sunday night, Campbell posted: “Tommorow will be the first Monday that will be fun for me lol never thought I’d say that.”</p>
<p>There was no school Monday due to a water line break. On Tuesday, police say Campbell entered the school gym with a 20-gauge shotgun concealed in a duffel bag and shot 13-year-old Kendal Sanders and 12-year-old Nathaniel Tavarez.</p>
<p>The most pressing question has been what could have sparked the shooting, and some classmates have said Campbell was sometimes bullied by other students.</p>
<p>State Police earlier said they are looking to social media to find out more information about Campbell’s possible motives.</p>
<p>The Journal on Thursday became aware of Campbell’s Instagram name and was able to view his posts.</p>
<p>When someone on the site asked him why he was looking forward to Monday, Campbell responded that he was planning to hang out with his grandmother after school.</p>
<p>Among earlier posts on his account, Campbell appears to be on good terms with one of the victims, Nathaniel Tavarez. A couple of months ago, he posted a picture of Tavarez’s Instagram profile with the message: “Hey you guys should follow” him.</p>
<p>Campbell also reposted an item on bullying four months ago, which showed a cartoon sequence in which a group of blob figures laugh at one blob who ends up alone. The heading says “Repost if you hate bullying.” At the bottom it says, “I bet 99 percent won’t.” Campbell’s accompanying comment was, “This makes me so mad.” He also said he hates bullying.</p>
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<p>On Aug. 11, he posted: “The devil starts tomorrow hope your ready.” Then he commented: “Yes it does.” After that comment, he refers to school as “retarded.”</p>
<p>Campbell also posted several photos of himself, most of them showing him with headphones and one with him and a cat.</p>
<p>A number of people – many appearing to be fellow students – have since commented on the Sunday post, either asking that people pray for and forgive Campbell, or arguing that he did not deserve such support.</p>
<p>— Complete coverage: <a href="" type="internal">Roswell school shooting</a></p>
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<p /> | Police look at Campbell’s Instagram posts | false | https://abqjournal.com/338415/police-look-at-instagram-posts.html | 2 |
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<p>After being "comatose" for the better part of a year, India's ruling United Progressive Alliance government is finally showing the will to fight -- announcing that beleaguered Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will today begin regular interactions with top local news editors to address growing concerns about his government.</p>
<p>Reporting that Singh may now begin addressing the media as frequently as once a week (grumble grumble), <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/pm-to-speak-to-media-frequently-upa-government-getting-back-on-track/articleshow/9033161.cms" type="external">the Economic Times noted</a> that "Singh, a low-key former academic, has addressed only three nationally telecast press conferences in the last seven years and has given few one-on-one interviews."</p>
<p>Talking may not be enough.&#160;</p>
<p>The government's continued opposition to a civil society proposal to include the PM and the higher judiciary among the bodies monitored by a powerful new ombudsman's office has eroded public confidence in his "clean image," and raised the volume among critics who claim that Singh is just a puppet for Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi.</p>
<p>Now Singh is playing catch-up, having missed his moment in the early days of the corruption scandals related to the Commonwealth Games and the allocation of 2G telecom licenses (among myriad others). At that time, the PM held all the cards, and had Singh (privately) offered his resignation unless he was allowed to root out corruption wherever he found it, the inevitable arrest of former telecom minister A. Raja and various business tycoons would probably have made him look like a hero. Instead, by pretending to have no power or failing to realize the leverage that he did hold, Singh allowed the government to drag its feet and niggle over the way that an investigation should be conducted and who should lead it.</p>
<p>Then, the last time he spoke out to "save" his reputation and protect the UPA from further embarrassment, he essentially said that he couldn't do anything about corruption because the alleged perpetrators were his coalition partners and his government needed them to stay in office. &#160;(Oh! That explains everything. Sorry about the bad press!)</p> | Indian PM plans regular chats with media to boost flagging image | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-06-29/indian-pm-plans-regular-chats-media-boost-flagging-image | 2011-06-29 | 3 |
<p>Aggressive hipsters using black tarps to cover protestors’ signs</p>
<p>(Infowars) – Hipster provocateurs are using black tarps to censor signs held by pro-life protestors outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin, Texas.</p>
<p><a href="http://thecrux.com/dyncontent/psi-5-book_lookwhosgoingbankruptnextinamerica_cid_03022015/?cid=MKT015071&amp;eid=MKT041077&amp;snaid=&amp;step=start" type="external">Special Headline: Guess Who’s About To Go Bankrupt in America [Learn More]</a></p>
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<p>The anti-free speech demonstrators were found to be members of Red Guard Austin, a self-proclaimed “Marxist Leninist-Maoist” organization which espouses communist viewpoints.</p>
<p>http://www.infowars.com/obama-supporters-censoring-signs-at-blacklivesmatter-abortion-protest/</p> | Obama Supporters Censoring Signs at #BLACKLIVESMATTER Abortion Protest | true | http://teaparty.org/obama-supporters-censoring-signs-blacklivesmatter-abortion-protest-100006/?utm_source%3Drss%26utm_medium%3Drss%26utm_campaign%3Dobama-supporters-censoring-signs-blacklivesmatter-abortion-protest | 0 |
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<p>AUSTIN, Ind. (AP) — Main Street in this southern Indiana city is lined with blooming dogwood and redbud trees and punctuated by a short stretch of well-kept storefronts. It's a tidy appearance that masks a darker side of the community — the worst HIV outbreak in state history, which health officials warn hasn't yet peaked.</p>
<p>The outbreak is tied to needle-sharing among drug users who are mostly shooting up a liquefied prescription painkiller called Opana. A Scott County health department nurse described the desperate measures some users took before the recent emergency needle-exchange program, saying they'd told her they used the same needle hundreds of times.</p>
<p>Austin residents say the last 15 years have seen a steady growth in drug use, prostitution and drug-related crime, particularly in low-income areas with shabby rental homes. They fear the outbreak, which is up to 135 cases since the beginning of the year, will make times even harder in the 4,200-resident community that's 30 miles north of Louisville, Kentucky.</p>
<p>"A lot of people are scared, scared for their children, scared for their children to be outside because of the carelessness of the users discarding their needles," said Teresa White, who along with her husband, John, has found used syringes in the parking lot of their West Side Auto &amp; Service Center.</p>
<p>Indiana sees about 500 new HIV cases each year, state statistics show, so 135 in one community is far beyond normal. State health officials said Tuesday they've enlisted specialists from Virginia, Colorado, Missouri and other states to help track down about 130 people who may have shared needles or had unprotected sex with those who have already tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.</p>
<p>Indiana accepted the added help because it "is absolutely essential" in containing the public health emergency, Deputy State Health Commissioner Jennifer Walthall said.</p>
<p>Residents say drug use has long plagued the community not far from Interstate 65, where the main employers including a large canning factory that opened in the late 19th century and a Pepsi plant. The outbreak is hurting the city's image in ways local officials don't yet fully appreciate, Austin Police Chief Donald Spicer said.</p>
<p>"It's done a lot. It's probably hurt our economy. It's hurt the people, maybe kept away some people who come here and spend money. There's a lot of negatives that can come with something like this," he said.</p>
<p>Gov. Mike Pence approved a monthlong needle-exchange program for Scott County on March 26 and extended it on Monday for another 30 days.</p>
<p>Ninety-five people are participating in the program, according to Brittany Combs, the public health nurse for the Scott County Health Department. They get a week's worth of clean syringes in a small paper sack that includes pamphlets on drug use, rehabilitation options and a small plastic bag with condoms, bandages and cotton balls.</p>
<p>Before the program started, Scott County had only one pharmacy where people could buy syringes, Combs said, and a requirement to sign a registry drove many drug users away out of fear of arrest. Combs said some users have described re-using and sharing needles so many times that dosage numbers were rubbed off the plastic tube, she said.</p>
<p>"It's been staggering to see the number of times that people have used the same needle — I mean upward of 300 times. They will use the same needle until it literally breaks off in their arm. I've heard that multiple times. They'll take a file and they'll file it to make it sharper so they can keep using it," she said.</p>
<p>Walthall said the current crisis is a reflection of the drug abuse problems that are a scourge in many parts of the nation.</p>
<p>"There's nothing that makes Scott County different than any other rural county in America. It just happens to be the first that brought out attention to this constellation of events. There is an opiate epidemic across the United States," she said.</p>
<p>That's little comfort to residents seeing the outbreak in real time.</p>
<p>Samantha Collins, who works at one of the town's only eateries, Marko's Pizza and Subs, said people in adjacent communities are looking down on Austin, an attitude that's surfaced at school athletic events.</p>
<p>"My stepdaughter is in sixth grade and different schools come in for sports, for games, and they're like, 'I hope we don't have to use Austin's balls,' she said. "This has nothing to do with our children."</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Ind. (AP) — Main Street in this southern Indiana city is lined with blooming dogwood and redbud trees and punctuated by a short stretch of well-kept storefronts. It's a tidy appearance that masks a darker side of the community — the worst HIV outbreak in state history, which health officials warn hasn't yet peaked.</p>
<p>The outbreak is tied to needle-sharing among drug users who are mostly shooting up a liquefied prescription painkiller called Opana. A Scott County health department nurse described the desperate measures some users took before the recent emergency needle-exchange program, saying they'd told her they used the same needle hundreds of times.</p>
<p>Austin residents say the last 15 years have seen a steady growth in drug use, prostitution and drug-related crime, particularly in low-income areas with shabby rental homes. They fear the outbreak, which is up to 135 cases since the beginning of the year, will make times even harder in the 4,200-resident community that's 30 miles north of Louisville, Kentucky.</p>
<p>"A lot of people are scared, scared for their children, scared for their children to be outside because of the carelessness of the users discarding their needles," said Teresa White, who along with her husband, John, has found used syringes in the parking lot of their West Side Auto &amp; Service Center.</p>
<p>Indiana sees about 500 new HIV cases each year, state statistics show, so 135 in one community is far beyond normal. State health officials said Tuesday they've enlisted specialists from Virginia, Colorado, Missouri and other states to help track down about 130 people who may have shared needles or had unprotected sex with those who have already tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.</p>
<p>Indiana accepted the added help because it "is absolutely essential" in containing the public health emergency, Deputy State Health Commissioner Jennifer Walthall said.</p>
<p>Residents say drug use has long plagued the community not far from Interstate 65, where the main employers including a large canning factory that opened in the late 19th century and a Pepsi plant. The outbreak is hurting the city's image in ways local officials don't yet fully appreciate, Austin Police Chief Donald Spicer said.</p>
<p>"It's done a lot. It's probably hurt our economy. It's hurt the people, maybe kept away some people who come here and spend money. There's a lot of negatives that can come with something like this," he said.</p>
<p>Gov. Mike Pence approved a monthlong needle-exchange program for Scott County on March 26 and extended it on Monday for another 30 days.</p>
<p>Ninety-five people are participating in the program, according to Brittany Combs, the public health nurse for the Scott County Health Department. They get a week's worth of clean syringes in a small paper sack that includes pamphlets on drug use, rehabilitation options and a small plastic bag with condoms, bandages and cotton balls.</p>
<p>Before the program started, Scott County had only one pharmacy where people could buy syringes, Combs said, and a requirement to sign a registry drove many drug users away out of fear of arrest. Combs said some users have described re-using and sharing needles so many times that dosage numbers were rubbed off the plastic tube, she said.</p>
<p>"It's been staggering to see the number of times that people have used the same needle — I mean upward of 300 times. They will use the same needle until it literally breaks off in their arm. I've heard that multiple times. They'll take a file and they'll file it to make it sharper so they can keep using it," she said.</p>
<p>Walthall said the current crisis is a reflection of the drug abuse problems that are a scourge in many parts of the nation.</p>
<p>"There's nothing that makes Scott County different than any other rural county in America. It just happens to be the first that brought out attention to this constellation of events. There is an opiate epidemic across the United States," she said.</p>
<p>That's little comfort to residents seeing the outbreak in real time.</p>
<p>Samantha Collins, who works at one of the town's only eateries, Marko's Pizza and Subs, said people in adjacent communities are looking down on Austin, an attitude that's surfaced at school athletic events.</p>
<p>"My stepdaughter is in sixth grade and different schools come in for sports, for games, and they're like, 'I hope we don't have to use Austin's balls,' she said. "This has nothing to do with our children."</p> | HIV outbreak in Indiana affecting residents' quality of life | false | https://apnews.com/amp/828d2731b0794c71946f7563f6020870 | 2015-04-21 | 2 |
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<p>Pianist Claire Huangci returns to Santa Fe to perform with the Santa Fe Concert Association Orchestra on New Year’s Eve.</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in D Minor is one of those pieces that Claire Huangci has heard about for years and never played. Her wish to perform the work, which she says is quite popular in Europe, will come true on New Year’s Eve.</p>
<p>Huangci is a guest artist with the Santa Fe Concert Association and plays this 1932 piece with the association’s artistic director Joseph Illick during a 5 p.m. concert at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. Illick plays the first piano part and conducts the Santa Fe Concert Association Orchestra.</p>
<p>“It’s a special piece,” said Huangci by phone from Germany, where she is working on her doctorate in music. “It’s one of the main concertos for two pianos. The two pianos have to sound like one breath. The parts have to be woven together seamlessly. Sometimes, one piano enters in the middle of the other piano’s phrase.”</p>
<p>Although Huangci and Illick will enjoy three or four days of practicing together, Huangci felt that Illick should play the more rhythmically dominant first piano part since he is also conducting the orchestra.</p>
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<p>“This is a jazzy, modern piece, not an impressionistic one,” said Huangci. “It was quite ahead of its time. There are hummable melodies that I think the audience will enjoy.”</p>
<p>Huangci, who was a guest of the Santa Fe Concert Association several years ago, is thrilled to be back in town for the New Year’s Eve concert. “I had such a good experience two years ago with Joe that I was delighted to accept his invitation to return,” she added.</p>
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<p>Born in Rochester, N.Y., Huangci began her international career at the age of 9. In 2003 she was accepted by the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and studied with Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman. While studying for four years at Curtis, she made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Wolfgang Sawallisch.</p>
<p>Huangci has been studying at the Musikhochschule Hannover since 2007 and earned her master’s degree in February. Among her awards are first prize at the 2009 International Chopin Competition in Darmstadt, Germany, and first and special prizes at the 2010 International Chopin Competition in Miami. Last summer her solo debut recording of works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Prokofiev was released by Berlin Classics.</p>
<p>“I try to be as versatile in my playing as possible,” she explained. “Classical music is a narrow field. I want to play as many works in a convincing way as possible. The reason my first recording has pieces by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev is that I love Russian works. My next recording will have Mozart concerti.”</p>
<p>The New Year’s Eve program also features Johannes Brahm’s Symphony No. 2.</p>
<p /> | Seamless piano parts ‘sound like one breath’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/327950/seamless-piano-parts-sound-like-one-breath.html | 2 |
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<p>According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 2 billion users represent a global community whose interest are served at no charge, a community that facilitates and encourages historically unprecedented social interconnection on a global scale Unquestionably much of this is positive.</p>
<p>Facebook was an easy and available means to help launch the Arab Spring,&#160;Occupy,&#160;Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March in response to the election of Donald Trump, the Students March for Our Lives and the movement in response to gun violence.</p>
<p>Facebook also represents the crystallization of series of global problems. Facebook’s rise is contemporaneous with the emergence and the rapid consolidation of a global netocracy, an internet based capitalism, enriching a billionaire class at the expense of the many. Facebook has become the tool not just for interconnection, but for the growth of sequestered and divided groups as the new normal for whom different opinions are considered “fake news” as well as the tool used to propagate outlandish conspiracy theories and a thousand flowers of bigotry.</p>
<p>Global Netocracy</p>
<p>Facebook is the poster child of the global netocracy. Facebook now has a market capitalization of more than $450 billion dollars with annual revenue in 2017 of $27.6 billion dollars, up from $7.9 billion in 2013, a 350% increase in 4 years. Earning before taxes were $20.6 billion, and after taxes $15.9 billion, soaring from $2.9 billion in 2014. This is an astounding economic success. Mark Zuckerberg has not only become one of the planet’s richest men as Facebook CEO. He has maintained control of the majority of voting shares. It is literally his company until death do them part.</p>
<p>Facebook represents a standard for a global model of concentration of wealth and power in the 21st&#160;century, joined by companies like Google, Amazon, and Uber. Entrepreneurs with computer skills and good or lucky timing have privatized and enclosed the global information commons and have enriched themselves by providing services for free or for reduced prices to the billions. These are so-called Unicorn companies, the right place at the right time and have achieved global market dominance supported by their ability to use enormous piles of cash to purchase would be competitors, often for billions, or related internet companies in traditional corporate fashion.</p>
<p>Wealth is channeled upward in pyramidal fashion from users, whose information is the product, to a relatively small cadre of technical and marketing staff to stockholders and, at the peak, to founding billionaires, now aspiring trillionaires. Who needs hard assets when you control the gateways to cyberspace.The netocracy, of course, feeds on an ever expanding underclass created by upward transfer of wealth. This is what Alexander Bard calls the consumtariat. The billionaires and their well paid minions thrive while the middle class shrinks, wages stagnate or fall along with taxes, and the social safety net is shredded in the name of economic necessity and support for economic growth. The afflicted working class is turned by politicians against competition from immigrants and minorities. MAGA. Brexit.</p>
<p>Regulation of Facebook as a preeminent global media company is certainly necessary. Britain, just decided that the broadcast propaganda of Fox “news” will not be welcome on State controlled airways. But Facebook is different. It is at the heart of the internet;s global social interconnection.</p>
<p>What we need to recognize and take action on is that Facebook can be transformed not merely as a vehicle to build wealth for Zuckerberg and friends, but, over time, as a user owned and worker owned cooperative that share the benefits and assets, and makes the global internet commons a venue for common wealth for all users and for its workers. It is not in either the national or the common global interests of the billions for a handful of billionaires to own and control the portals and tools that characterize the global internet commons.</p>
<p>The kind of global monopoly power now wielded by a small number of corporations, enriching a small number of individuals, needs to be recognized as an intolerable and unsustainable model for a global economy in the 21stcentury. For me, the most effective means of dealing with the Facebooks of the world is not simply breaking them up into smaller national companies, or treating and regulating them as public utilities. Classic examples are trustbusting in a manner similar to the break-up of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company into a number of what would be giant, vertically integrated oil majors; or dividing the utility empire of Samuel Insul into regulated “public” utilities; or, more recently, the break up of ATT into today’s competitive telecom giants.</p>
<p>Internet Users Bill of Rights</p>
<p>A model new internet user’s bill of rights should be passed by all nations. The internet users bill of rights mandates that as a matter of U.S. law that any internet company operating in the United States in exchange for the ability to sell user data for advertisers must take a number of mandated actions:</p>
<p>+ Incorporation as a B or Benefit corporation with social mission.</p>
<p>+ Social mission includes crediting users with 10% of income from sale of their data that is converted into voting stock ownership.</p>
<p>+ Workers would also purchase stock under a profit sharing employee stock ownership ESOP structure. (ESOPs are classic tools for corporate owners t csh out their interests over time to workers.)</p>
<p>+ A user seat and a worker seat would be guaranteed on the company board immediately.</p>
<p>Overtime Facebook would be transitioned to a company owned by its users and by its employees. Mark Zuckerberg and his cohorts would still be rich, but the wealth and power of the internet would be democratized, with large scale and distributed asset building and broad based ownership and control.</p>
<p>Where does the money come from? Facebook’s revenue in 2017 was $27.6 billion, almost all from advertising.This means on average the data harvested from each user each member of the Facebook “community” produces $10 per year in add revenue for Facebook.</p>
<p>In the U.S., the Facebook add Cost Per Mile (CPM) is $6.27–add speak for 1,000 views of your add — for an E-commerce company add. The Click Through Rate (CTR) is 1.72% for the add which means a Cost per Click (CPC) of $.31.</p>
<p>Facebook Cooperative Transformation</p>
<p>If users were entitled to 10% of add income for the use of their data, about $2 billion a year divided among 2 billion Facebook users, or one dollar a year per person on average. If this ten percent was converted to fractional stock ownership with voting rights, the consumer members of the Facebook Community would become equity holders, not just a resource whose data is mined for the profit of Facebook and advertisers.</p>
<p>Two billion a year would mean building a significant voting block of user stockholders in addition to stock holding employees. 5% ownership or more, plus board seats , is viewed as exercising significant influence over a corporation which eventually would become a worker and user owned and controlled cooperative.</p>
<p>The transformation of Facebook over time into an appropriately regulated cooperative could keep the successful management team in place while cashing out owners interests through the Employee Stock OwnershipPlan (ESOP) and Facebook user stock purchases through 10% share of add revenue. Mark Zuckerberg would still be a very rich man, but the internet Titan would no longer bestride the word as a colossus.</p>
<p>Facebook Then and Now</p>
<p>The significance of Facebook’s negative influence stretches beyond economic inequity and the ability to spread fake news and manipulate elections through using tools designed for targeted advertisements. This is.of course, the basis for Facebook’s “free” service and economic success. Facebook has also proven to be an effective means to incite ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. By its nature, Facebook is tailor made to manipulate and appeal to parochial interest as the new normal, to define contrary opinions as “fake news”, to further outlandish conspiracy theories like pizza gate, and serve as a comfortable gathering and organizing realm for Nazis and bigots and terrorists. Its hermetical online nature challenges traditional assurances that free speech by its nature is self-equilibrating, where the problems raised by the abuse of free speech is cured by more speech.</p>
<p>Facebook instead puts devotees inside an echo chamber of self-reinforcing, cult-like propaganda without the necessity for government interference. We are watching the creation of a Manichean world of red states and blue states, or Crips and Bloods, of Shia and Sunnis. Facebook’s media and business ecosystem is based on self-selection that is completely compatible with maximizing add revenue pitched to self-selected groups for consumption that suits their life style. Padded mats, comfortable clothes, meditation paraphernalia are targeted to for yoga and meditation enthusiasts. AR-15s, banana clips, and bullet proof vests are offered to militia members and to followers of ISIS.</p>
<p>The future of our economy and our world can no longer be ceded to the self-interest of billionaire lords and masters of the netocracy. It’s time to open our eyes and for our democracy to take action in our collective self-interest, to embrace freedom and justice not&#160;honor slavish obedience.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Facebook: A Cooperative Transformation | true | https://counterpunch.org/2018/04/11/facebook-a-cooperative-transformation/ | 2018-04-11 | 4 |
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<p>As they anticipate the Federal Reserve's eventual tapering of quantitative easing, investors worried about rising interest rates are wondering if they should hedge their bets on fixed income by putting money in ultrashort-term bond funds.</p>
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<p>Ultrashort-term bonds have maturities of a year or less, versus short-term bonds, which typically mature in one to three years. The shorter the maturity, the less susceptible the funds are to losing principal. That's appealing because as interest rates rise, bond prices fall.</p>
<p>But while shortening maturity could reduce a bond's interest rate risk, it doesn't mean it's a safe investment. There are other risks with ultrashort-term bonds that investors need to be aware of before they buy.</p>
<p>Bond funds are not cash substitutes</p>
<p>Some investors believe the ultrashort funds act as a substitute for money market funds, delivering relative safety and a slightly higher yield than traditional bank accounts. But that's a mistake, says Phil Sharkey, head of investments for Citi Private Bank, New York metro.</p>
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<p>"These are nothing like cash," he says. "If people are thinking of these as cash substitutes, they're not." Ultrashort-term bond funds can hold riskier assets to provide that extra bump in yield, Sharkey adds, but those assets are susceptible to a drop in value. "That was painfully illustrated during the financial crisis," Sharkey says, when the market plummeted. "When severe stress comes, these funds don't act like cash."</p>
<p>Even money market funds, thought to be nearly as safe as cash, shocked investors during the 2008 financial collapse, when the Reserve Primary Fund "broke the buck" by falling below its $1-per-share price. That spurred a run on money market funds, which caused some of them to sell assets at a loss. While the government stepped in to stop the run by guaranteeing these funds, regulators have yet to come up with a permanent solution to prevent this from happening again.</p>
<p>Bottom line: Bond funds should be considered risk assets in your portfolio, even if they are relatively safe compared to equities, says Sharkey.</p>
<p>A little boost in yield might not be worth the risk</p>
<p>"Ultrashort-term bond funds pay a little more yield because you're taking on more risk," says Matthew Valeri, portfolio manager with EFG Capital Advisors in Miami. Investors who understand the difference between bond funds and cash still need to be aware of potential pitfalls that come with that extra yield.</p>
<p>Generally, the funds' underlying assets include relatively safe debt such as U.S. Treasury obligations and investment-grade corporate issuers, explains Valeri. But they can also hold riskier assets such as high-yield credit. Valeri says that, depending on the underlying assets, ultrashort-term bond funds could yield only between 25 basis points and 75 basis points over money market funds.</p>
<p>Another big danger of ultrashort-term bond funds is one many bond fund investors have already experienced, says Brent Fykes, senior investment partner at GenSpring Family Offices. "When you buy through a mutual fund, you run the risk of a run on the fund," he says.</p>
<p>When other investors pull out of a fund in anticipation of rising rates, for example, managers are forced to sell at the wrong time, capturing losses, says Fykes. Compounding the problem is the fact that in a rising rate environment, they have little chance of making up those losses. "We saw a bit of that in June," he says. "The fund has to sell some underlying bonds at probably the worst time."</p>
<p>There's a time and place for bonds</p>
<p>Fykes says that most of the time, investors are interested in ultrashort-term bonds for a specific financial need in the near future, such as a tax bill or major purchase six months down the road, and they want to earn a little yield in the meantime.</p>
<p>But they could be included in an investor's long-term portfolio, along with other fixed-income assets. Sharkey advises investors to consider their entire portfolio and financial needs both now and in the future before deciding how big of a role bonds -- both short and long term -- will play. A lot of a portfolio's allocation will depend on the investor's appetite for risk. "The bottom line is, investors can ask themselves a fairly simple question: What is the worst-case scenario for loss?"</p>
<p>Fixed-income markets are very efficient, he adds, and although he favors equities for growth and yield in the current environment, it doesn't mean clients should shun bonds if they are important to an individual's overall financial strategy. The three keys to meeting financial goals, he adds, are to adopt a strategy that works for the investor's risk tolerance and time horizon, assemble a portfolio to match the strategy and, finally, maintain the course through market volatility. "It's not a strategy if you don't stick with it," he says.</p>
<p>Does safety mean never having to say 'high yield'?</p>
<p>In general, Fykes says, buying bonds through mutual funds is not the best solution because of the risks associated with the actions of other investors and the lack of individual control. He favors owning individual bonds because investors have more control over when to sell. In the current rate environment, he believes those who desire a bond portfolio should own short-term rather than longer-term bonds to reduce their exposure to interest rate risk.</p>
<p>"For those who want to eke out a little more yield than cash, there really is not a substitute, but if you want bonds, owning individual bonds is better than investing in a fund," says Fykes. By creating a managed account of individual bonds, the investor can hold them to maturity and know the exact yield based on the maturity, he adds.</p>
<p>Valeri says alternatives to ultrashort-term bond funds won't offer much yield but will offer safety. Traditional bank savings and certificate of deposit accounts will provide the additional Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. guarantee, which investors won't get with a bond fund or money market fund.</p>
<p>The best approach to a bond portfolio is a laddered one, Valeri adds. By spreading out, or "laddering" the durations of various bonds, investors can gain the relative safety of bonds while mitigating interest rate risk. Ultrashort-term bonds could play a part in such a portfolio, he adds.</p>
<p>It's a tough environment for retirees right now, Valeri says, because although they would like to pull back on risk, with the currently depressed rates, it's become more difficult to earn a decent yield on fixed income. "That's creating a situation where many retirees are taking on more risk to increase their fixed-income returns."</p> | Are Ultrashort-Term Bond Funds Safe? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/10/09/are-ultrashort-term-bond-funds-safe.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>What a difference a year makes.</p>
<p>After New York voters approved four upstate casinos last November, four Atlantic City casinos have closed, gambling profits plunged from Connecticut to Mississippi, and new casinos opened or were greenlighted in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.</p>
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<p>That increasingly unsettled, crowded market has casino developers and gambling opponents alike speculating that state regulators may award three licenses instead of the four authorized in the 2013 referendum.</p>
<p>"Gaming revenues are going to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey," said Jeffrey Hyman of the proposed Howe Caverns Resort and Casino, west of Albany. "They could award fewer than four. They're going to decide, and they're going to decide soon."</p>
<p>Gambling opponents said the increased competition — blamed for casino closings in Atlantic City and Biloxi, Mississippi — shows why New York state should take its gambling expansion cautiously.</p>
<p>"With all the failures around the country, we don't think New York state should be in the business of promoting this as economic development," said Cara Benson, member of a group fighting plans for a casino in East Greenbush near Albany. "Just because you can award four doesn't mean you should."</p>
<p>The state board reviewing casino pitches is expected to make its decisions later this month, with 16 proposals vying for licenses to be split among three areas: the Capital Region, the Finger Lakes/Southern Tier and the Catskills/Hudson Valley.</p>
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<p>Board members won't say which way they're leaning, or how many licenses they plan to recommend.</p>
<p>Nowhere in New York is the competition for a license as fierce as the Catskills/Hudson Valley region, where nine projects have been proposed for Orange, Sullivan and Ulster counties.</p>
<p>The region was seen as the most likely to receive two licenses, and the possibility that one could be withheld worries some local officials.</p>
<p>The casinos were intended to bring jobs and tourism to economically struggling areas of the state. The three regions were picked to spread out the benefits — and to avoid competition with existing tribal casinos.</p>
<p>Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro wants to see two casinos in the region: a large destination resort complex in the Catskills and a smaller facility in Orange County.</p>
<p>"You're seeing casinos fail in areas where they're saturated," he said. "We think this region can support two."</p>
<p>Gamblers are increasingly choosing smaller casinos closer to home, and the reshuffling of the market is causing chaos for the industry. Atlantic City lost four of its 12 casinos this year, and behemoths like Connecticut's Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods have seen slumps — even as other states have gotten into the market.</p>
<p>Several developers have warned that a casino in Orange County, with its proximity to New York City, would make it almost impossible for a casino to work in Ulster or Sullivan.</p>
<p>Two groups looking to open casinos in Sullivan cited potential competition in Orange when they dropped out of the running, and the backers of the proposed Nevele Resort, Casino and Spa have said they won't be able to move forward if an Orange County project is also selected.</p>
<p>Mitchell Grossinger Etess, CEO of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, agrees, though he said two casinos in Sullivan County could co-exist — and even benefit each other by creating a synergy that attracts tourists. He said he believes four upstate casinos can succeed.</p>
<p>"The way they've done it — spreading the licenses out around the state — can work," he said.</p>
<p>With millions of dollars riding on the outcome, developers said they're focusing on doing what they can to secure a license and leaving the difficult decision to the regulators.</p>
<p>"We're not the facility location board. The only thing we can do is put our project in the best light and present it as best we can," said Charles Degliomini, spokesman for the proposed Montreign Resort Casino in Sullivan County. "Whether they put two in our region is out of our hands."</p> | Fewer than 4? Unsettled gambling market has some speculating New York could go slow on casinos | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/11/15/fewer-than-4-unsettled-gambling-market-has-some-speculating-new-york-could-go.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>This cartoon requires Macromedia’s Flash Player. If you don’t see the cartoon above, <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="external">download the player here</a>.</p>
<p>Mark Fiore is an editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a <a href="http://www.markfiore.com" type="external">web site</a> featuring his work.</p>
<p /> | Font Politics 2004 | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/font-politics-2004/ | 2004-09-23 | 4 |
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<p>BOSTON (MA)Boston GlobeBy Michael Paulson, Globe Staff, 5/3/2003</p>
<p>Voice of the Faithful, after winning a significant victory with the removal of a ban against the organization in New York, is making a renewed push for unfettered access to church meeting halls in Boston and elsewhere around the nation.</p>
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<p>Bishop Thomas V. Daily of Brooklyn this week became the first US bishop to reverse a ban against the lay organization, which was formed by Massachusetts Catholics upset over the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Daily, who in October had barred Voice of the Faithful from meeting on church property in Brooklyn and Queens, this week sent a letter to those area's priests and deacons, declaring that after a series of meetings between his aides and the group's leaders, he had changed his mind.</p>
<p>''I became aware that a number of good and dedicated members of our diocese, who were members of VOTF, were truly desirous to reflect on our present ecclesial concerns and collaborate in strengthening the unity of our church,'' wrote Daily, a Belmont native who was ordained in Boston and who served as a top aide to Cardinal Humberto S. Medeiros of Boston in the 1970s and 1980s.</p> | Group sees N.Y. victory as boost | false | https://poynter.org/news/group-sees-ny-victory-boost | 2003-05-03 | 2 |
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<p>Navajo Nation police officer Houston James Largo was shot and killed a week ago while responding to a domestic violence call near the small town of Prewitt. (SOURCE: Navajo Nation Office Of The President And Vice President)</p>
<p>The 40-mile chase that began near Shiprock had crossed into Arizona, where the suspect, armed with an assault rifle, crashed his vehicle that March 2015 night and opened fire. One officer was killed and two were wounded, while Largo escaped injury and received a commendation for helping a fellow officer to safety.</p>
<p>One week ago, Largo again faced gunfire – this time alone on a dark New Mexico road while en route to a domestic violence call on the eastern edge of the United States’ largest American Indian reservation.</p>
<p>The 27-year-old was found critically wounded, on the ground bleeding about 50 yards from the vehicle he had stopped, sheriff’s officials said. He was flown to an Albuquerque hospital where he died.</p>
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<p>“He embodied what we ask for from our officers right to the very end,” said Amber Kanazbah Crotty, a lawmaker on the Navajo Nation council. “The violence we are seeing is showing our officers are not only stretched thin, but they also are facing challenges with the vastness of the area.”</p>
<p>The Navajo Nation covers 27,000 square miles in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, where tribal officers patrol the rural roads alone, Navajo Police Chief Phillip Francisco said. That can leave them without backup during a life-or-death situation, especially in circumstances in which the nearest fellow officer is more than an hour away, he said.</p>
<p>Tribal jurisdictions across the West often cover sweeping, remote areas that are larger than some U.S. states, but with far fewer police.</p>
<p>“It’s just a fact of geography that creates all sorts of challenges as far as policing reservations,” said Tim Purdon, a former U.S. attorney for North Dakota and partner at the Minneapolis law firm Robins Kaplin. “The issue here is both officer safety and public safety.”</p>
<p>The FBI has released few details stemming from its investigation into the March 12 shooting, including what sparked it. But Largo’s death has renewed focus on the dangers that Indian Country’s remote landscapes can pose for officers both within the Navajo Nation’s chronically understaffed police department and on remote reservations from the Dakotas to the Southwest.</p>
<p>In Montana, fewer than 20 Bureau of Indian Affairs officers serve the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, which spans an area of the Great Plains twice the size of Rhode Island, Tribal Chairman Floyd Azure said.</p>
<p>He called the situation “abysmal,” saying the reservation is likely in need of more than twice as many officers than it has.</p>
<p>A high volume of domestic violence calls adds another layer of danger for officers on many reservations. Such calls are statistically considered the most deadly for police.</p>
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<p>More than half of Native American women and nearly half of men surveyed by the National Institute of Justice for a report released last year said they had experienced physical violence by a partner.</p>
<p>The Navajo Nation, home to more than 175,000 people, has fewer than 250 patrol officers and investigators. The officers responded to more than 4,600 domestic violence calls in 2015, the most recently available figures.</p>
<p>The last three fatal shootings of Navajo officers, including Largo, happened while responding to reports of domestic disputes. The others included Officer Alex Yazzie in March 2015 near Red Valley, Ariz., and Sgt. Darrell Cervandez Curley in Kaibeto, Ariz., in 2011.</p>
<p>“For the Navajo Nation, they work twice as hard and twice the area with half the staff,” Chief Francisco said.</p>
<p>He declined to comment directly on the facts of the case but said the area where Largo was shot is especially desolate, and the lack of cellphone service there has been a serious safety concern for authorities.</p>
<p>The town closest to the incident is Prewitt in New Mexico, a tiny, unincorporated community in McKinley County. The area where the shooting occurred is so remote, Francisco said, that sometimes officers’ radio transmissions will fail.</p>
<p>“You’ll look out and see a couple houses in different areas, but everything is so spread apart,” he said. “It can be overwhelming when you drive through.”</p>
<p>It remained unclear last week whether another officer had also been called to the same domestic violence dispute as Largo.</p>
<p>A woman who came up on the scene used Largo’s radio to call for help, the county sheriff’s office said, and the first authorities to arrive found him with a bullet wound in the forehead.</p>
<p>It wasn’t yet known how much time elapsed between the shooting and when emergency responders arrived.</p>
<p>The Navajo Times obtained a report from the sheriff’s office, one of the law enforcement agencies that initially responded to the shooting, saying that when deputies arrived, the driver of the pickup truck that Largo had stopped on the county road was handcuffed to the steering wheel.</p>
<p>The driver provided information about the suspect, and authorities found him hiding on a ridge nearby.</p>
<p>The FBI has not commented on the report or the suspect, except to say that they had a suspect in custody.</p>
<p>“Our officers put themselves in highly volatile situations every day in addressing domestic violence situations,” Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said last week in response to Largo’s death.</p>
<p>Last year, Begaye had asked U.S. House members to increase the Interior Department’s public safety budget for Indian Country, as he testified that an officer shortage on his reservation was to blame for increasing response times to crimes.</p>
<p>The Bureau of Indian Affairs is responsible for providing law enforcement on reservations that don’t have their own police and provides federal funding for those that do.</p>
<p>On the Navajo Nation, there is roughly one officer for every 1,000 residents. The national average is double that rate.</p>
<p>Of the department’s officers, Largo – a five-year veteran of the force – was an especially active and passionate officer, the police chief said.</p>
<p>This report is one of a series of stories from the CJ Project, an initiative to broaden the news coverage of criminal justice issues affecting New Mexico’s communities of color. Partners and collaborators in the project include the Santa Fe New Mexican, Associated Press, Asian American Journalists Association, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and National Council on Crime &amp; Delinquency. Supporters include the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.</p>
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<p /> | Death reflects dangers faced by tribal officers | false | https://abqjournal.com/972047/death-reflects-dangers-faced-by-tribal-officers.html | 2017-03-18 | 2 |
<p>BEIRUT (Reuters) – France should know that Iran’s missile program is not an issue that can be negotiated, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, said in an interview with state media on Monday.</p>
<p>“French official, other officials, who want to speak about Iran’s affairs need to pay attention to the deep developments that have come to pass in the region in past decades and the big changes between the current situation and the past,” Qassemi said Monday, according to state media.</p>
<p>“The Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely not negotiate on defense and missile issues.”</p>
<p>Tension between Iran and France increased last month when French President Emmanuel Macron said that Iran should be less aggressive in the region and should clarify its ballistic missile program.</p>
<p>His foreign minister also denounced, during a visit to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s “hegemonic temptations”.</p>
<p>France could play a productive role in the Middle East by taking a “realistic and impartial approach”, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told Macron in a telephone call two weeks ago, according to Iranian state media.</p>
<p>Iranian state media said Rouhani told Macron that the Islamic Republic was ready to develop its relations with France on all bilateral, regional and international issues based on mutual respect and shared goals.</p>
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<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | France should know that Iran's missiles are not negotiable: spokesman | false | https://newsline.com/france-should-know-that-iran039s-missiles-are-not-negotiable-spokesman/ | 2017-12-04 | 1 |
<p>Sales of new U.S. homes slumped 3.4 percent in August, the second straight monthly decline.</p>
<p>The Commerce Department said Tuesday that sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 560,000. This followed a 5.5 percent decline in July. Still, sales gains earlier this year mean that sales are running 7.5 percent higher year-to-date than in 2016.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Sales could worsen in coming months as parts of Texas and Florida — both hit by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma — find that new construction gets delayed as the focus turns to rebuilding properties that were flooded or damaged by the fierce winds and rainstorms.</p>
<p>But August's drop in new home sales also points to the limits of the rebound from the Great Recession and the housing bust that triggered the downturn a decade ago. Home values have climbed at a much faster pace than incomes, meaning that many buyers had to strain their budgets to purchase a house. Low mortgage rates reduced the financial crunch somewhat, but then sales listings began to dwindle and many would-be buyers have found themselves outbid on existing homes and priced out of new housing developments.</p>
<p>A shortage of homes for sale coupled with rising prices has turned affordability into a challenge for many would-be buyers. Fewer new homes priced below $200,000 are coming onto the market. New homes at these relatively affordable prices were 14 percent of sales in August, down from 17 percent in 2016 and 19 percent in 2015.</p>
<p>The median sales price increased 3.7 percent in the past 12 months to $368,100</p>
<p>New-home sales in August fell in the Northeast, South and West, while staying unchanged in the Midwest.</p>
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<p>The sales decline over the past two months was so significant that the months' supply of new houses on the market ballooned to 6.1 months. That figure had been hovering around 5.3 months in June — raising a question of whether builders will wait to sell off some of their inventory before breaking ground on more new houses.</p>
<p>The pace of new-home construction dropped 0.8 percent in August, but that was largely because of fewer apartment buildings being started.</p> | Sales of new US homes fell 3.4 percent in August | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/26/sales-new-us-homes-fell-3-4-percent-in-august.html | 2017-09-26 | 0 |
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening’s drawing of the Texas Lottery’s “Two Step” game were:</p>
<p>04-15-18-29, Bonus: 33</p>
<p>(four, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-nine; Bonus: thirty-three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $425,000</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday evening’s drawing of the Texas Lottery’s “Two Step” game were:</p>
<p>04-15-18-29, Bonus: 33</p>
<p>(four, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-nine; Bonus: thirty-three)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $425,000</p> | Winning numbers drawn in ‘Two Step’ game | false | https://apnews.com/759f9dac8fae44ca9f10615d922f22a0 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>“ <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/your-energy-america" type="external">Your Energy America</a>” is a newly formed front group pushing Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline. By tracing hosting information for the group’s website, DeSmog has found evidence pointing to the&#160;PR&#160;firm behind the group:&#160;DDC&#160;Advocacy, which has known ties to the Republican&#160;Party.</p>
<p>Short for Democracy, Data&#160;&amp;&#160;Communications,&#160;DDC‘s&#160;founding partner, chairman, and&#160;CEO,&#160;B.R.&#160;McConnon in the past “has acted as a key contact and spokesperson for [ <a href="" type="internal">National Federation&#160;</a> <a href="" type="internal">for</a> <a href="" type="internal">&#160;Independent Business</a>],” according to his LinkedIn.&#160;NFIB&#160; <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Federation_of_Independent_Business#Ties_to_the_Koch_Brothers" type="external">takes funding</a>&#160;from&#160; <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/koch-industries-inc" type="external">Koch Industries</a>&#160;and other major corporate interests, and McConnon&#160; <a href="" type="internal">began his career</a>&#160;as a policy analyst for the Koch-founded Citizens for a Sound Economy, the precursor to&#160; <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/americans-for-prosperity" type="external">Americans for Prosperity</a>.</p>
<p>“Your Energy” was launched <a href="" type="internal">&#160;in the heat</a>&#160;of the Virginia gubernatorial primary races and is run by the&#160; <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/2519" type="external">American Gas Association</a>. The race for Virginia’s highest office&#160;recently saw Democratic Party candidate Ralph Northam and&#160;GOPcandidate Ed Gillespie come out ahead as their parties’ nominees for the looming November&#160;election.</p>
<p>Dominion’s Atlantic Coast pipeline, slated to run from West Virginia to North Carolina and slice through western Virginia,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">serves&#160;as a key issue</a>&#160;in the race, with both Northam and&#160;Gillespie coming out in support of the pipeline.&#160; <a href="" type="internal">According to ThinkProgress</a>, “During the primary, Northam and his&#160;PAC&#160;received $109,283.30 from Dominion’s executives, board members, lobbyist, and&#160;PAC,” while Gilespie&#160;received&#160;$43,125.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.yourenergyvirginia.com/" type="external">Your Energy Virginia</a>, an offshoot of Your Energy America, whose website is also hosted by&#160;DDC,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">served as a sponsor</a>&#160;for the Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s 2017 Energy and Sustainability Conference held in May. Dominion served as the lead sponsor for that convening, which featured a keynote address by Virginia’s Democratic Governor, Terry&#160;McAuliffe.</p>
<p>A source who requested anonymity and attended the Chamber of Commerce event told DeSmog, he saw&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Ryan Lowry</a>,&#160;DDC’s Vice President of Client Relations, wearing a Your Energy Virginia name badge at the event.&#160;DDC&#160;has played a pioneering role in pushing web-centric “ <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/astroturf-the-only-grass-that-withstands-toxic-friends-of-science" type="external">astroturf</a>” public relations campaigns, which it calls&#160;“grassroots.”</p>
<p>“The firm was among the first to try to use technology for grassroots advocacy,” Jim Gianiny,&#160;DDC‘s president,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">said in 2010 interview</a>&#160;with the Personal Democracy Forum. “The firm built up a consulting and grassroots advocacy practice around its technology to become the full-service issue advocacy firm that we are&#160;today.”</p>
<p>Koch, American Petroleum Institute Clients of&#160;DDC</p>
<p>DDC&#160;is an&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Associate Member</a>&#160;of&#160; <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/edison-electric-institute" type="external">Edison Electric Institute</a>&#160;(EEI), a lobbying and advocacy wing of the electric utilities industry which has paid&#160;DDC&#160;over $1.8 million to do public relations work since 2012, according to&#160;U.S.&#160;Internal Revenue Services (IRS) tax forms. According to a <a href="" type="internal">&#160;list of web domains</a>&#160;hosted by&#160;DDC&#160;and&#160; <a href="" type="internal">obtained by ThinkProgress</a>&#160;in 2009, the Koch Industries political affairs committee, KochPAC —&#160;as well as&#160;several tobacco&#160;companies — have websites hosted by&#160;DDC.</p>
<p>“We’re strategic partners and problem solvers for your most complex public affairs issues,”&#160; <a href="http://ddcpublicaffairs.com/solutions/#sthash.KxCVGZI7.dpuf" type="external">DDC&#160;says on its website</a>. “We offer the most innovative digital tools, technology and data to help you get the results you need, when and where you need&#160;them.”</p>
<p>A&#160; <a href="" type="internal">2007 client list</a>&#160;tracked down by DeSmog shows that&#160;DDC&#160;has also worked with companies such as&#160;BP, Dominion, Edison Electric, Southern California Edison, the&#160; <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/us-chamber-commerce" type="external">U.S.&#160;Chamber of Commerce</a>,&#160;San Diego Gas&#160;&amp;&#160;Electric, News Corp (owner of Fox News), and others. On its website, a&#160;DDC&#160;case study page also&#160; <a href="" type="internal">says it did the digital work</a>&#160;for the&#160; <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/american-petroleum-institute" type="external">American Petroleum Institute</a>‘s&#160; <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Energy_Citizens" type="external">Energy Citizens</a>&#160;campaign to promote&#160; <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/" type="external">hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)</a>&#160;in the&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Marcellus Shale</a>.</p>
<p>“DDC&#160;has actively partnered with the American Petroleum Institute (API) for years, designing, executing, and managing all facets of their key national advocacy program,”&#160; <a href="" type="internal">explains the profile</a>.</p>
<p>“DDC&#160;was tasked with creating an on-the-ground campaign focused on raising the profile of Energy Citizens in support of natural gas production from the ‘Marcellus Shale’ formation in Pennsylvania. This was the first time a consumer-based advocacy group would collaborate with other local landowners, small businesses, and industry groups to support natural gas development from the Marcellus Shale site; conveying positions to government officials, the media, and the broader public; as well as building organizational&#160;momentum.”</p>
<p>In the “Energy Citizens” Marcellus campaign,&#160;DDC&#160;said it helped to convene two roundtable meetings with local congressional representatives, get 170&#160;letters of support published and sent to Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Commission, and recruited over 2,300 people to take up the&#160;cause.</p>
<p>According to&#160;IRS&#160;tax filings reviewed by DeSmog,&#160;API&#160;paid&#160;DDC&#160;$29.3 million for its work between 2011 and&#160;2015.</p>
<p>Tobacco, Bush Ties To&#160;DDC</p>
<p>DDC&#160;also has its own political action committee named&#160; <a href="" type="internal">DDC&#160;PAC</a>, which has&#160; <a href="" type="internal">given thousands of dollars</a>&#160;in campaign contributions exclusively to Republican Party candidates. The Guardian&#160; <a href="" type="internal">reported in 2013</a>&#160;that&#160;DDC&#160;was working for Phillip Morris on a website trying to fend off efforts to mandate plain packaging for the tobacco&#160;industry.</p>
<p>In 2011,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">DDC&#160;acquired the firm</a>&#160;BlueFront Strategies, which was at the time owned and founded by&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Sara Fagen</a>, who served as White House political director for President George W. Bush and as a top strategist to the 2004 Bush re-election campaign. Fagen, who served as a&#160; <a href="" type="internal">fundraiser&#160;and did data work</a>&#160;for Jeb Bush’s short-lived 2016 presidential run, now works as a partner at&#160;DDC. Her husband, Joel Fagen, works for Fox&#160;News.</p>
<p>Corporate Get Out the&#160;Vote</p>
<p>The day before the June 13 gubernatorial primary election in Virginia, The Intercept’s Ryan Grim reported that Dominion had&#160; <a href="" type="internal">done an internal push</a>&#160;of its employees to go to the polls and vote for Northam.&#160;DDC&#160;has actually done this sort of thing before, according to a 2012 article by Lee Fang published in The Nation, which pointed to a similar effort to urge Koch Industries employees to get&#160;out the vote for Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt&#160;Romney.</p>
<p>“DDC&#160;Advocacy is part of a cottage industry of Beltway consultants who specialize in helping businesses activate their employees and customers into mini lobbyists,”&#160; <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/your-boss-going-mine-your-vote-more-corporations-step-coercion/" type="external">reported Fang</a>. “It’s not clear if&#160;DDC&#160;Advocacy is replicating the type of explicit candidate endorsements pioneered by Koch for these other&#160;companies.”</p>
<p>Dominion itself has a get-out-the-vote website, DominionEnergyAction.com, which is hosted by the firm Charles River Associates.&#160;Charles River’s clients&#160; <a href="http://charlesryan.com/energy.aspx" type="external">have included</a>&#160;Dominion, American Petroleum Institute, Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia,&#160;Peabody Energy, and&#160;others.</p>
<p>Sara Fagen, then named&#160; <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sara_Taylor" type="external">Sara Taylor</a>&#160;and a&#160; <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/former-rove-aide-sara-taylor-becomes-msnbc-pundit-76b3232f5a63" type="external">key aide</a>&#160;to Bush chief of staff and campaign chief&#160; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove" type="external">Karl Rove</a>, was credited by The Washington Post as a “ <a href="" type="internal">microtargetting</a> <a href="" type="internal">&#160;guru</a>” who in 2004 “was among those who helped use sophisticated analysis of consumer data to enable the Bush campaign to target potential voters even when they resided in Democratic-leaning voting districts.”&#160;DDC&#160; <a href="" type="internal">spent over $4 million</a>&#160;on various get-out-the-vote techniques in 2012 on behalf of Republican Party presidential candidate&#160;Romney, according to&#160;U.S.&#160;Federal Election Commission data, which does not require&#160;DDC&#160;to disclose who paid the firm to do the&#160;work.</p>
<p>Getting out the vote is one thing, but creating the veneer of a grassroots movement in support of pipelines is another related, but albeit distinct, thing altogether. What they share in common: a need for the appearance of everyday people&#160;working together as a means to an&#160;end.</p>
<p>“The fossil fuel industry craves its own grassroots movement, and they really are having a hard time not appearing to be the thugs that they are,”&#160; <a href="https://climateinvestigations.nationbuilder.com/who_we_are" type="external">Kert Davies</a>, executive director of the Climate Investigations Center,&#160; <a href="" type="internal">recently told ThinkProgress</a>&#160;of Your Energy America. “In most cases, our communities are an obstacle for these companies to get through so that they can make&#160;money.”</p>
<p>DDC&#160;representatives did not respond to a request for&#160;comment.</p> | Here’s the PR Firm Behind ‘Your Energy America’ Front Group Pushing Atlantic Coast Pipeline | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/06/16/heres-the-pr-firm-behind-your-energy-america-front-group-pushing-atlantic-coast-pipeline/ | 2017-06-16 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It may not incite the same amount of fear as cancer, but diabetes is a growing problem within the United States. According to the 2014 National Diabetes Statistics Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 29.1 million people in the United States have diabetes (based on 2012 data). This works out to around 9% of the U.S. population.</p>
<p>Of these 29.1 million people, 90% to 95% have type 2 diabetes, which is characterized by the body's inability to properly utilize insulin, leading to glycemic imbalances. Type 2 diabetes tends to develop over time and is potentially reversible if caught in the prediabetes stage. Left untreated, though, type 2 diabetes can lead to a host of co-morbidities, or even death. The CDC lists diabetes as the seventh leading cause of death based on data from 2014, with 76,488 deaths directly attributed to the disease.</p>
<p>Diabetes can also be quite a strain on the healthcare system and patients' pocketbooks. A PhRMA report from 2014 pegged the total cost of diabetes in the U.S. at $245 billion, which includes $176 billion in direct medical costs and $69 billion in indirect costs, such as missed work or premature death that leads to reduced economic productivity. PhRMA also notes that a typical year of diabetes medications can run a patient about $4,110.</p>
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<p>Image source: Merck.</p>
<p>One of the current standard-of-care medications for type 2 diabetics is Merck's (NYSE: MRK) Januvia, a DPP-4 inhibitor. DPP-4 inhibitors work to increase incretin levels, which in turn reduce glucagon, an elevator of blood sugar levels. With glucagon suppressed, insulin production increases, leading to improved glycemic balance. In a long-term cardiovascular study involving Januvia known as TECOS, the drug was shown not to increase major adverse cardiovascular events compared to a placebo, which was the primary endpoint.</p>
<p>However, a next-generation class of therapy known as SGLT-2 inhibitors represents a potentially new path forward for type 2 diabetes patients. Instead of working through the pancreas or liver, as prior type 2 diabetes medications have done, SGLT-2 inhibitors work with the kidneys to suppress glucose absorption. By suppressing this absorption, SGLT-2 inhibitors allow the patient to remove excess glucose through their urine, thus achieving improved glycemic balance.</p>
<p>More importantly, during clinical trials throughout the SGLT-2 space, a pretty discernible trend of weight loss (Januvia is a weight-neutral drug) was witnessed, as well as lower systolic blood pressure, for patients taking these drugs. Being overweight or obese doesn't guarantee you'll develop type 2 diabetes, but there does seem to be a correlation between excess weight and the development of type 2 diabetes that SGLT-2 inhibitors could help improve.</p>
<p>Image source: Boehringer Ingelheim.</p>
<p>The real game-changer for the SGLT-2 space came last summer when Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and development partner Boehringer Ingelheim reported long-term cardiovascular data from the EMPA-REG OUTCOME trial for Jardiance. The study results showed that Jardiance led to a 38% reduction in cardiovascular death, a 35% reduction in hospitalization for heart failure, and a 32% drop in all-cause mortality. This was the first time ever that a diabetes drug delivered superior cardiovascular results relative to a current standard of care, which is especially important since about half of all type 2 diabetes deaths are caused by cardiovascular disease.</p>
<p>The big question surrounding Eli Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim's study is whether this effect was specific to Jardiance or if this is a class effect. In other words, will other SGLT-2 drugs demonstrate similar superiority over a placebo in a long-term trial? We may soon have the answer.</p>
<p>A long-term study known as CANVAS, which is slated to end in February 2017 and befittingly involves Johnson &amp; Johnson's (NYSE: JNJ) Invokana (the first SGLT-2 inhibitor approved in the United States) could be a game-changer of epic proportions for type 2 diabetics.</p>
<p>Image source: Johnson &amp; Johnson.</p>
<p>Invokana received the Food and Drug Administration's blessing for approval in 2013 and has exhibited the same side effects of weight loss and lowered systolic blood pressure that other patients taking SGLT-2 inhibitors have demonstrated in clinical trials. The key will be whether or not Invokana follows Jardiance's footsteps and leads to a superior reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events relative to a placebo. If Invokana does, the case becomes substantially stronger that SGLT-2 inhibitors may offer superiority over other classes of type 2 diabetes medicines, including Merck's Januvia.</p>
<p>Though Merck's management has stood by its assertion that DPP-4 inhibitors and SGLT-2 inhibitors are complementary medicines, Johnson &amp; Johnson's study could completely change this "CANVAS" (pardon the pun).</p>
<p>In May, the U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published its recommended final guidelines for patients with type 2 diabetes, and they strongly favored SGLT-2 inhibitors. NICE is the United Kingdom's version of the FDA in the United States.</p>
<p>Here's what the director of the NICE Centre for Health Technology Evaluation <a href="https://www.nice.org.uk/news/press-and-media/nice-recommends-three-diabetes-treatments" type="external">had to say Opens a New Window.</a>:</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Although the FDA isn't bound to follow the recommendations of overseas drug regulators -- or even the recommendations of its own advisory panels -- I find it probable that the FDA will take NICE's praise of SGLT-2 inhibitors into consideration if Invokana also delivers superior cardiovascular results in CANVAS. It's possible that updated guidance from the FDA could recommend that physicians turn to SGLT-2 inhibitors in situations where metformin isn't enough to control their glycemic levels, instead of DPP-4s like Januvia.</p>
<p>Only time will tell what happens next, but we could be on the precipice of a major long-term shift in type 2 diabetes care.</p>
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<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a>has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name <a href="http://caps.fool.com/player/tmfultralong.aspx" type="external">TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/TMFUltraLong" type="external">@TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Johnson and Johnson. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | This Long-Term Cardiovascular Study Could Revolutionize the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes | true | http://foxbusiness.com/investing/2016/08/06/this-long-term-cardiovascular-study-could-revolutionize-treatment-type-2.html | 2016-08-06 | 0 |
<p>Donald Trump received some heavy criticism, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/284658-republicans-question-trumps-trip-to-scotland" type="external">even from Republicans in Congress</a> for leaving America to fly to Scotland and promote one of his business ventures, a hotel and golf course in the middle of a presidential election.</p>
<p>On top of that, his trip coincided with England just voting to abandon the EU, and with the press corp surrounding him, Trump began his speech talking for what seemed like an eternity, not on what a world leader would say on this historic day, but by detailing in precise language how incredible and tremendous his new golf course is.</p>
<p>"We've taken that building and made it something special, Inside that lighthouse right now are incredible suites.."</p>
<p>"I don't know if you'll get the chance but you should try and get to see the suites cause they are two of the most beautiful suites you'll ever see."</p>
<p>He went on to describe how awesome the new holes on 9,10, 11 and 4 are because they had been changed and moved out to the ocean.</p>
<p>After about five-seven minutes <a href="http://www.cnn.com/shows/new-day" type="external">, CNN's Chris Cuomo of New Day,</a> broke into his speech in shock of what he was seeing and said, "we'll break into Donald Trump's statement right now, which is not something we often do, but it's very remarkable at this point because of what he hasn't mentioned yet."</p>
<p>The Daily Beasts' John Avlon was incredulous and said, "This is insane. The presumptive Republican nominee has the world watching on an historic day and he's doing a five mine advertorial for his golf course and in great detail....he seems to be trying to profit off of a presidential run and not taking it seriously. This is Trump's steaks after winning the primary."</p>
<p>David Gregory then added, "I think John understates the importance of adding suites to the White House."</p>
<p>He continued, "this just seems like political malpractice. I'm just as bemused as everyone else, looking at this, thinking how strange this is."</p>
<p>I have to say this was amazing even for this buffoon.</p>
<p>I also found it interesting that for a man who usually can't finish a complete sentence when he's talking politics, didn't stammer or stutter much when describing the gorgeous ocean view behind them.</p> | CNN Analysts Destroy Trump's Bizarre Scotland Presser Pimping His Golf Course | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2016/06/cnn-analysts-destroy-donald-trumps-bizarre | 2016-06-24 | 4 |
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) _ These Dist. of Columbia lotteries were drawn Sunday:</p>
<p>DC 3 Evening</p>
<p>5-7-8</p>
<p>(five, seven, eight)</p>
<p>DC 3 Midday</p>
<p>1-1-7</p>
<p>(one, one, seven)</p>
<p>DC 4 Evening</p>
<p>0-6-4-9</p>
<p>(zero, six, four, nine)</p>
<p>DC 4 Midday</p>
<p>6-1-0-9</p>
<p>(six, one, zero, nine)</p>
<p>DC 5 Evening</p>
<p>9-8-4-2-6</p>
<p>(nine, eight, four, two, six)</p>
<p>DC 5 Midday</p>
<p>7-0-2-7-0</p>
<p>(seven, zero, two, seven, zero)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $343 million</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $440 million</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (AP) _ These Dist. of Columbia lotteries were drawn Sunday:</p>
<p>DC 3 Evening</p>
<p>5-7-8</p>
<p>(five, seven, eight)</p>
<p>DC 3 Midday</p>
<p>1-1-7</p>
<p>(one, one, seven)</p>
<p>DC 4 Evening</p>
<p>0-6-4-9</p>
<p>(zero, six, four, nine)</p>
<p>DC 4 Midday</p>
<p>6-1-0-9</p>
<p>(six, one, zero, nine)</p>
<p>DC 5 Evening</p>
<p>9-8-4-2-6</p>
<p>(nine, eight, four, two, six)</p>
<p>DC 5 Midday</p>
<p>7-0-2-7-0</p>
<p>(seven, zero, two, seven, zero)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $343 million</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $440 million</p> | DC Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/b3324baab7164d9a93b615e69dc71fd0 | 2018-01-01 | 2 |
<p />
<p>By Warren WatsonAmerican Press InstitutePublished: 7/26/05</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Excerpt:</p>
<p>Bob Steele, an ethicist at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said that the exaggeration of celebrity as a news value has reached a crisis point.</p>
<p>The balance between news and entertainment in the media changed dramatically and in short order. Many point to the O.J. Simpson murder scandal in 1994-95 as the turning point.&#160; <a href="http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/content/6909.cfm" type="external">More of this article...</a> <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&amp;ned=us&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=%22Bob+Steele%22" type="external">Search Google News for more by Bob Steele...</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | As news looks to the stars, is it reaching new lows? | false | https://poynter.org/news/news-looks-stars-it-reaching-new-lows | 2005-08-04 | 2 |
<p><a href="" type="internal">MP3 Link</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />This week on CounterSpin: Political journalists would likely tell you they take the Black Lives Matter movement seriously, but it’s up to us to tell them that that has to mean more than prompting presidential candidates to say the words aloud. We’ll talk about some potential elements of an actual criminal justice reform agenda with Michele Jawando, VP of Legal Progress at the Center for American Progress.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">MP3 Link</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Also on the show: Many people have concerns about what happens to their food—whatever it is they do to a tomato that lets it get shipped halfway around the world and sit on a shelf for two weeks… That tends to be a story about science or marketing, but not, usually, about the rights of the people that grow the food. That’s where the idea of food sovereignty comes in. We’ll discuss what that means with Beverly Bell of the group Other Worlds.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">MP3 Link</a></p>
<p>And first our quick look back at the week’s press, including fake ISIS nuclear plots and the Democratic debate.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">MP3 Link</a></p>
<p>LINKS:</p>
<p>Subscribe: <a href="" type="internal">Android</a> | <a href="" type="internal">RSS</a></p> | Michele Jawando on Criminal Justice Reform, Beverly Bell on Food Sovereignty | true | http://fair.org/home/michele-jawando-on-criminal-justice-reform-beverly-bell-on-food-sovereignty/ | 2015-10-16 | 4 |
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<p>General Motors Co's bid to block hundreds of lawsuits, potentially worth billions of dollars, over a deadly ignition-switch defect broke down on Monday when the Supreme Court refused to hear its appeal claiming the suits were barred by the No. 1 U.S. automaker's 2009 bankruptcy.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The justices declined to review a 2016 ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected GM's bid to block customer lawsuits related to crashes and diminished vehicle value because the plaintiffs had not been properly notified of the defect prior to the bankruptcy filing.</p>
<p>The case involved a faulty ignition switch in GM vehicles linked to 124 deaths and 275 injuries. The switch could slip out of place, causing engine stalls while driving and cutting power to critical brakes, steering and air bag systems.</p>
<p>The defect prompted Detroit-based GM to begin recalling 2.6 million vehicles in 2014. It has already paid roughly $2 billion in criminal and civil penalties and settlements in connection with the switch. The company previously acknowledged that some of its employees knew about the switch defect for years before a recall was initiated.</p>
<p>In 2015, a U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled that GM was shielded from liability over its pre-bankruptcy actions. The 2nd Circuit reversed that ruling. Since the plaintiffs were not properly notified of the defect, barring them from suing GM would violate their constitutional rights to due process, the court found.</p>
<p>The ruling affected injury and death cases stemming from pre-bankruptcy crashes, as well as claims from customers who said their vehicles lost value as a result of the ignition switch and recalls involving other parts. The claims could be worth up to $10 billion, according to court papers.</p>
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<p>GM, supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, said under the federal bankruptcy code, its 2009 bankruptcy sale to a new government-owned entity made it "free and clear" of former liabilities.</p>
<p>The 2nd Circuit's decision would undermine one of the largest bankruptcies in history, GM said in its petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the matter. That ruling also would throw into doubt future corporate rescues if buyers of a company's assets fear being saddled with "the supposed sins of the seller," GM added.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)</p> | US Supreme Court Rejects GM Bid to Block Ignition Switch Suits | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/24/us-supreme-court-rejects-gm-bid-to-block-ignition-switch-suits.html | 2017-04-24 | 0 |
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<p>BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) — Paulina Navichoc lives in San Pedro, a remote village high in the mountains surrounding Lake Atitlan in western Guatemala. This Christmas her family has food, clothes and medicine they might otherwise have gone without if it weren’t for WorldCrafts, a non-profit ministry of Woman’s Missionary Union.</p>
<p>Paulina and her mother, a pastor’s wife who became a widow last year, work together to make hand-beaded Christmas ornaments that WorldCrafts sells for $19.99.</p>
<p>Andrea Mullins, director of WMU’s product-development center, said people often ask why WorldCrafts products are more expensive than other similar products on the market.</p>
<p>The answer, Mullins said, is because the ministry’s aim is not to make a profit, but to improve the lives of women like Paulina who live in extreme poverty in nations all over the world.</p>
<p>“One of the interesting facts about WorldCrafts is that we are a fair-trade organization,” Mullins recently told a group of Baptist state convention executive directors and editors visiting the Birmingham, Ala., headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention-related&#160;auxiliary organization.</p>
<p>That means WorldCrafts buys products only from businesses that abide by Fair Trade Federation guidelines, which include&#160;paying fair wages and practicing environmental sustainability.&#160;</p>
<p>“We in the United States are a free-trade society,” Mullins said. “We’ve seen what free trade can do — both positive and negative — over the last few months. Fair trade gives people who are very poor a place at the table.”</p>
<p>Beyond helping the working woman’s immediate family, Mullins said, WorldCrafts partnerships help communities by bringing new jobs and income into local economies.</p>
<p>“We’re not after them to get the cheapest price that they can give us,” Mullins said. “We work with them so they are</p>
<p />
<p>getting a fair price and also help them to invest back into the community.”</p>
<p>The program also establishes credibility for Baptist missionaries. All artisans involved with WorldCrafts are also in contact with mission personnel. Often, helping local businesses is a core&#160;part of the missionary’s ministry.</p>
<p>“Many of our missionaries work in high-security places, and they couldn’t go in and work with the people they work with if they didn’t have some sort of a business platform to go into that country,” Mullins said. “We do that.”</p>
<p>If a missionary leaves, however, the business continues. “Our objective is, in the long term, to bring sustainable transformation to people who are living in poverty,” Mullins said.</p>
<p>Started in 1996 with one artisan group –Thai Country Trim in Thailand — Mullins said WorldCrafts now works in 38 countries with 66 artisan groups ranging in size from a few people to hundreds of workers.</p>
<p>WorldCrafts imports more than 300 different items of indigenous artistry from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Items offered at the WMU online store range alphabetically from backpacks, baskets, Bible covers and bookmarks to stationery and tablecloths. Prices start at 79 cents for a key ring to a Mount Ararat Rug that sells for $199.99.</p>
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<p>Mullins acknowledged that some of the items would cost less if they were mass produced in a factory, but those profits might go to the owners of a sweatshop instead of people who need the income to live a better life.</p>
<p>Compared to items of similar quality, however, Mullins said WorldCrafts’ prices are often quite comparable to those charged by for-profit businesses. That is especially true when the value of an item is&#160;gauged by&#160;the amount of work it took to produce.</p>
<p>Making a single hand-beaded <a href="" type="external">Ki’che Christmas Ball</a> takes a Mayan woman in Guatemala a full day, but the sale of that ornament will feed the artisan’s family for a week in an area so poor that only about two children in five reach preschool age due to malnutrition.</p>
<p>Another new product, the $29.99 <a href="" type="external">King’s Garden Bracelet</a>, is made by women in Afghanistan —&#160;many of them widows due to that country’s decades of war. Featuring more than 1,000 beads applied by hand, the product would have no access to market if not for contact with WMU.</p>
<p>WorldCrafts products are not sold in stores. They can be purchased online at <a href="http://media.newvoicemedia.org/%22http://www.worldcraftsvillage.com//%22" type="external">http://www.worldcraftsvillage.com/</a> or ordered from a <a href="http://media.newvoicemedia.org/%22http://www.worldcraftsvillage.com/party/docs/WC0809catalog.pdf/%22" type="external">catalogue</a>. One popular way to purchase the items is at WorldCrafts <a href="http://media.newvoicemedia.org/%22http://www.worldcraftsvillage.com/party/docs/WCStory.pdf/%22" type="external">parties</a>.&#160;They can be <a href="http://media.newvoicemedia.org/%22http://www.worldcraftsvillage.com/party/docs/WCHow2Host.pdf/%22" type="external">planned</a> as a small home gathering, an existing group or a large event such as at a church.&#160;</p>
<p>One added benefit of the parties, Mullins said, is they provide an opportunity to educate women about undiscovered talents of other women from around the world.</p>
<p>-30-</p> | WMU WorldCrafts program brings income to impoverished, gifts to U.S. | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/wmu-worldcrafts-program-brings-income-to-impoverished-gifts-to-us/ | 3 |
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<p><a href="http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfront.net/files/2014/08/taylor_swift_video-1.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>Last week, our very own Chloe Angyal <a href="" type="internal">took Taylor Swift to task</a> over her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM" type="external">new video</a>, which features women of color twerking. She argues that these Black and brown twerkers are used as props in the video to highlight Taylor’s whiteness. She explains:</p>
<p>“There’s lots I could say about this video, but I want to compare two dance sequences, and focus on them, because I think they’re really telling. The first is the ballet sequence, with the dozen ballerinas, all of whom appear to be white, in Swan Lake style tutus and headdresses. The second is the hip hop and twerking sequence, with the half dozen Black and brown dancers in denim shorts, leopard print jackets, and chunky gold jewellery…</p>
<p>Compare that to the twerking sequence, when Swift is surrounded by dancers who all appear to be of colour. Again, she’s dressed the same as them, and has her hair tightly braided. But this time, while they’re all dancing, she’s either trying to dance like them (adorkably, of course; everyone knows that Princess Taylor doesn’t really twerk), or she’s gawking at them. There is honest to god a shot in which she crawls between a bunch of Black and Brown women’s legs and gazes up, wonderingly, at their shaking asses.</p>
<p>So Taylor Swift is not a pure white dancing snowflake swan princess ballerina, but she really wants you to know that she’s still white. That’s what I take away from this video.”</p>
<p>And she isn’t the only one who feels that way. Earl Sweatshirt <a href="http://www.blackyouthproject.com/2014/08/earl-sweatshirt-taylor-swift-is-perpetuating-black-stereotypes-with-new-video/" type="external">took to Twitter</a> to air some of his grievances as well.</p>
<p>Me? As a Black woman, I disagree. I think it is really important to contextualize this scene within the broader theme of the video. Swift is celebrating individuality and the inability to fit into any one clique. She visually represents this in the video by using different types of dancers as the symbolic cliques. They include: ballerinas, interpretive dancers, break dancers, some futuristic movers and shakers, a dope hand dancing dude, ribbon dancers, cheerleaders, and twerkers. As Chloe mentioned, Swift sets herself apart from all of these different subsets of popular American performance and culture. And the truth is that twerking is a part of that culture because Black American culture is still American. Keeping that in mind, I would have found it more problematic had she not included twerkers; especially given all of the mainstream coverage the dance has garnered recently via her pop star colleagues, I think it would have represented a devaluing and <a href="" type="internal">erasure of Black female art forms</a>.</p>
<p>Because Black American culture is a part of American pop culture, I think it is important to recognize that twerking does not represent a “no fly zone” in which white people are not allowed to ever mention nor reference it. This is not about banning any certain race from twerking; all I ask is that you <a href="" type="internal">be good at it and remain conscious of your position</a>. Black folks have very valid reasons to be on the defensive about cultural appropriation and the commodification of Black bodies. But every reference a white person makes to Black culture is not racist.</p>
<p>This is probably a stretch, but I thought Taylor Swift was actually pushing back against the idea that as a pop star today she should be utilizing images of Black female bodies&#160;in order to maintain relevance in the industry in this video. But don’t hold me to that.</p> | Counterpoint: I don’t think Taylor Swift’s new video is racist | true | http://feministing.com/2014/08/27/counterpoint-taylor-swifts-new-video-isnt-racist/ | 4 |
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<p>Many analysts are providing their Estimated Earnings analysis for Companhia Siderurgica Nacional and for the current quarter 1 analysts have projected that the stock could give an Average Earnings estimate of $-0.05/share. These analysts have also projected a Low Estimate of $-0.05/share and a High Estimate of $-0.05/share.</p>
<p>In case of Revenue Estimates, 1 analysts have provided their consensus Average Revenue Estimates for Companhia Siderurgica Nacional as 1.53 Billion. According to these analysts, the Low Revenue Estimate for Companhia Siderurgica Nacional is 1.53 Billion and the High Revenue Estimate is 1.53 Billion. The company had Year Ago Sales of 1.18 Billion.</p>
<p>These analysts also forecasted Growth Estimates for the Current Quarter for SID to be 73.7%. They are projecting Next Quarter growth of -800%. For the next 5 years, Companhia Siderurgica Nacional is expecting Growth of 22.3% per annum, whereas in the past 5 years the growth was -37.59% per annum.</p>
<p>When it comes to the Analysis of a Stock, Price Target plays a vital role. Analysts reported that the Price Target for Companhia Siderurgica Nacional might touch $3.67 high while the Average Price Target and Low price Target is $2.57 and $1.85 respectively.</p>
<p>The Relative Volume of the company is 0.71 and Average Volume (3 months) is 3.34 million.</p>
<p>The company shows its Return on Assets (ROA) value of -1.7%. The Return on Equity (ROE) value stands at -12.4%. While it’s Return on Investment (ROI) value is 4.6%.</p>
<p>While looking at the Stock’s Performance, Companhia Siderurgica Nacional currently shows a Weekly Performance of -1.75%, where Monthly Performance is -11.46%, Quarterly performance is -29.56%, 6 Months performance is 10.89% and yearly performance percentage is -36.54%. Year to Date performance value (YTD perf) value is -30.65%. The Stock currently has a Weekly Volatility of 3.85% and Monthly Volatility of 4.43%.</p> | Research Report For Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (SID) | false | https://newsline.com/research-report-for-companhia-siderurgica-nacional-sid/ | 2017-12-07 | 1 |
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<p>Former Governor, Mitt Romney, is allegedly stepping up his game to not only <a href="" type="internal">talk the talk</a>, but walk the walk. If rumors are true, Romney would&#160;attempt to insert himself as the fall candidate to take on whoever the Democratic nominee is. Could Romney pull such a move off? After his previous failure, would he have any chance against Clinton or Bernie?</p>
<p>From: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/03/politics/mitt-romney-stop-trump-at-convention/index.html" type="external">CNN</a></p>
<p>Mitt Romney has instructed his closest advisers to explore the possibility of stopping Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention, a source close to Romney's inner circle says.</p>
<p>The 2012 GOP nominee's advisers are examining what a fight at the convention might look like and what rules might need revising.</p>
<p>"It sounds like the plan is to lock the convention," said the source.</p>
<p>Romney is focused on suppressing Trump's delegate count to prevent him from accumulating the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination.</p>
<p>But implicit in Romney's request to his team to explore the possibility of a convention fight is his willingness to step in and carry the party's banner into the fall general election as the Republican nominee. Another name these sources mentioned was House Speaker, Paul Ryan,&#160;Romney's running mate in 2012.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/03/politics/mitt-romney-stop-trump-at-convention/index.html" type="external">Continue Reading</a></p>
<p>0 comments</p> | LEAKED: Romney Will Attempt to Block Trump at RNC | true | http://freedomsfinalstand.com/leaked-romney-will-attempt-to-block-trump-at-rnc/ | 0 |
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<p>Baghdad.</p>
<p>Cricket is allowed but chess is “absolutely forbidden”. Women may not shake hands with men. Music is permitted but only if it is not for enjoyment. Men cannot pray when wearing earrings.</p>
<p>These are the views of the most powerful man in Iraq. After the US invasion, various American officials and generals believed they occupied this position. They turned out to be wrong. As the election victory of the Shias has confirmed, the most influential figure in Iraq, dressed in tattered grey robe and black turban, is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.</p>
<p>In politics he is a moderate. He opposes the US occupation but has not issued a call to oppose it in arms. It was his determination that Iraqis must be allowed to vote which forced the US, after prolonged prevarication, to agree to an election. It was under his auspices that the United Iraqi Alliance, combining diverse parties, mostly Shia, was formed. It is likely to win at least half the vote.</p>
<p>US officials have been quick to insist just how different the Iraqi Shia clergy are from their Iranian equivalents. Vice-President Dick Cheney said over the weekend that “the Iraqis have watched the Iranians operate for years and create a religious theocracy that has been a dismal failure”. Mr Cheney vaguely implied that Iraqi Shia religious leaders believed in the separation of church and state. It is true that the ayatollah and his school of religious thinking do not believe that clerics should rule directly, taking over positions in government. But they do not really have to. The victorious religious parties, mostly led by laymen, are quite capable of setting up an Islamic state on their own.</p>
<p>Iraq could be on the verge of seeing the greatest setback to women’s rights in the Middle East since Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran in 1979. Laws on marriage, divorce and inheritance could be changed in favour of men. Under Islamic law, daughters inherit less than the sons.</p>
<p>The views of Ayatollah Sistani on chess, cricket, music, earrings and almost any other topic can be found on his highly professional website (Sistani.org). They show tolerance of other religions. Last year he was swift to condemn attacks on Christian churches in Baghdad as “abhorrent crimes”. He counselled restraint when Shia leaders demanded retaliation after the bloody bombings of Shia shrines and processions.</p>
<p>There is also no doubt that Iraq is heading towards some form of Islamic republic even if it is more liberal than Iran. This is likely to be reflected in the new constitution to be drafted by the National Assembly just elected. “We call for having Islam as the main and only source of legislation and we reject any article that runs contrary to the Islamic legislation,” said Ibrahim al-Ibrahimi, the spokesman of another Grand Ayatollah, Ishaq al-Faladh. “We call on Iraqi officials to preserve the face of Iraq and not to separate religion and state.” Ayatollah Faladh is not as influential as Ayatollah Sistani but, politically liberal though the latter may be, his views are in keeping with Islamic social norms.</p>
<p>Even if the Shia clergy try to stay behind the scenes, they will have great authority over Iraqi politics. Neither of the two main Shia parties, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and Dawa, long persecuted by Saddam Hussein, are very popular. They are seen by many Iraqis as carpetbaggers, arriving in Iraq on the back of an American tank. Sciri and the Badr Brigade, its paramilitary wing, fought on the Iranian side in the Iran-Iraq war and allegedly tortured Iraqi prisoners of war.</p>
<p>Without the support of Ayatollah Sistani, the religious parties and independent individuals would have had far fewer votes. They must listen to the clergy.</p>
<p>Iyad Allawi, the interim Prime Minister, vied for the secular vote in a campaign heavily financed by the US and conservative Arab states. Even so he will finish well behind the Shia coalition and the Kurdish Alliance. Already there are signs of Iraq becoming more Islamic particularly in Sunni districts. Many shops selling alcohol, usually owned by Christians, have closed. Some have been attacked. In al-Rashid Street and the largely Sunni district of Dohra, shops selling CDs have been destroyed. Female students at Baghdad University now frequently have their heads covered to make it less likely that they will be kidnapped.</p> | Sistani’s Vision for Iraq | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/02/09/sistani-s-vision-for-iraq/ | 2005-02-09 | 4 |
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<p>President John F. Kennedy is seen riding in a motorcade approximately one minute before he was shot in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963. In the car riding with Kennedy are Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy and Gov. and Mrs. John Connally of Texas.</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — Even after seeing the Zapruder film at least 100 times, the graphic explosion of blood, bone and brain still slams Richard Stolley in the gut.</p>
<p>On today’s 50th anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy, the journalist credited with clinching the rights to the infamous footage that seared the public consciousness will speak at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. LIFE recently released a coffee-table book, “The Day Kennedy Died,” featuring Stolley’s story about the film. He now lives in Santa Fe.</p>
<p>Stolley first saw the 26-second film in home movie hobbyist Abraham Zapruder’s business office the day after the assassination. Incredibly, two Secret Service agents were also viewing it for the first time.</p>
<p>Retired journalist and magazine editor Richard Stolley.</p>
<p>“When his head blew off, I think it was the most dramatic moment of my journalism career,” the former LIFE magazine editor said in a telephone interview from New York. “All three of us uttered an ‘Ugh!’ simultaneously.”</p>
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<p>Stolley was LIFE magazine’s Los Angeles bureau chief when news of the president’s shooting spit out across The Associated Press teletype machine on Nov. 22, 1963. Stolley and LIFE reporter Tommy Thompson, along with two photographers, raced to the airport to catch a plane to Dallas.</p>
<p>Stolley had spent four years of his career covering racial violence in the south. But the tragic events at Dealey Plaza would change his life forever.</p>
<p>First the group set up a de facto newsroom inside the Adolphus Hotel. Thompson, a former Houston newspaper editor, volunteered to track down the Oswald family through his Texas police contacts. Later that evening, Stolley got a call from a part-time LIFE correspondent saying she had heard a local businessman had been at the murder site with a movie camera. She couldn’t spell the man’s name, but she pronounced it “Za-proo-dur.” Stolley picked up a phone book and found the name of Abraham Zapruder listed. He was the owner of a women’s dress manufacturing company. Stolley dialed the number every 15 minutes.</p>
<p>Dallas businessman Abraham Zapruder shot the 26-second piece of film that has become a vital documentation of American history.</p>
<p>“He was out all that evening getting the film processed,” Stolley said. He finally reached a weary Zapruder at 11 p.m.</p>
<p>“He was a mess,” Stolley continued. “He was very tired. You could just hear it in his voice. I kept telling myself, ‘This man saw a murder.’ And he was a great fan of Kennedy.”</p>
<p>All of Stolley’s reporter instincts told him not to push. He later learned that after the 58-year-old Zapruder had captured the horrific scene, he had shouted, “They killed him! They killed him!” stumbling into his office incoherently.</p>
<p>Early bird</p>
<p>Stolley asked the stricken Zapruder if he could come by his office at 9 a.m. the next morning, and the cameraman agreed.</p>
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<p>But some of Stolley’s more aggressive instincts prevailed; he showed up at 8 a.m., beating a herd of 12-15 reporters who followed at the appointed 9 a.m.</p>
<p>“I’ve seen that film 100 times,” he added. “Every time, my heart skips.”</p>
<p>Knowing LIFE wanted to secure the print rights, Stolley offered Zapruder $50,000, adding he would have to call New York if the businessman wanted more. Meanwhile, reporters banged on the door, slipped notes underneath it, shouted and re-dialed his phone continuously.</p>
<p>“He kept using the word ‘exploited’ several times,” Stolley said. “He was getting increasingly upset by the noise. He looked at me and said, ‘Let’s go.’ ”</p>
<p>Stolley slipped out the back door with the original film in his hand, leaving Zapruder to face the angry mob.</p>
<p>“Some of them were still pissed off at me years later,” Stolley added.</p>
<p>When LIFE’s New York editors saw the film, they rushed to buy all the rights for $150,000.</p>
<p>“Dallas back then was a tough town,” Stolley said. Presidential candidate “Adalai Stevenson had been spit on. It was a very tough and anti-Semitic place.”</p>
<p>Knowing Zapruder was Jewish, his lawyer decided to donate $25,000 of the fee to a fund set up for the family of officer J.D. Tippit, whom Oswald had killed just 45 minutes after shooting the president.</p>
<p>LIFE published the piece just three days later, pulling a planned cover story about then-college quarterback Roger Staubach.</p>
<p>“We had to do the film in black and white,” Stolley said. “Color processing took too long.”</p>
<p>The LIFE editors decided to omit frame 313, the most graphic of the 486 images. They pared the set down to 22 for public consumption. Then on Sunday, Oswald’s assassination by strip club owner Jack Ruby demanded yet another layout and re-write.</p>
<p>Lee Harvey Oswald wears his U. S. Marine uniform in a photograph that was found in his wallet on the day he killed John F. Kennedy.</p>
<p>Four months later, LIFE transferred Stolley to its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he covered Lyndon Johnson, the man who would not have been president but for the assassination.</p>
<p>“There was that constant reminder,” Stolley said.</p>
<p>Broken man</p>
<p>He spoke with Zapruder a few times afterward, describing him as a broken man. The film haunted him for the rest of his life. Above all, he didn’t want to upset the Kennedy family.</p>
<p>“He didn’t talk about it much,” Stolley said. A few weeks afterward, Stolley realized Zapruder didn’t have a copy of his own film.</p>
<p>“He said, ‘I don’t want that film in my home,’ ” Stolley said. “He got bags and bags of mail. Overseas desk clerks would recognize the name. And he had to testify before the Warren Commission” charged with investigating the murder. Zapruder spoke of a recurring nightmare placing him in Times Square, where a man hawked tickets to see the cheap thrill of the president’s murder on the big screen.</p>
<p>In “The Day Kennedy Died,” his granddaughter Alexandra writes that he stopped making home movies. He could hardly bear to look into a camera lens. He grew to dread anniversaries of the assassination because he was bombarded by interview requests.</p>
<p>In the age of smartphones, some cite him as the first citizen journalist.</p>
<p>For decades, Zapruder’s near-mythic artifact would provide fodder for countless conspiracy theorists, as well as others equally convinced that Oswald had acted alone.</p>
<p>“I’ve been looking at it for 50 years,” Stolley said. “I’ve never met a journalist who believed there wasn’t a single shooter. He had opportunity. He was a very good marksman. He was a very troubled young man.”</p>
<p>Oswald’s widow, Marina, has changed her mind on the conspiracy issue “two or three times,” Stolley said, although she later referred to her husband as “a crackpot, a nut.”</p>
<p>“That family was so despondent and depressed and just shaken to the core,” Stolley said. “They had no money for a lawyer. She was in a foreign country whose language she did not speak.”</p>
<p>“She now thinks there was a second shooter,” he added.</p>
<p>Later in Washington, Stolley wrote a story about a traveling exhibit of Kennedy’s Oval Office artifacts. He asked for a cover portrait and an interview with Jacqueline Kennedy. She agreed to the former and declined the latter. But Stolley sent a reporter to the photoshoot. The journalist heard her talk about how lonely she was raising two children alone in Georgetown, dutifully feeding the quotes to Stolley.</p>
<p>“I met Mrs. Kennedy for the first time” at the exhibition opening, he said. “I was afraid they wouldn’t like the story because I quoted some things I was told she had said. I thought they would be really upset, but they weren’t. She wrung my hand and said what a wonderful story it was in that incredible, breathy voice of hers.”</p>
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<p /> | Film captured assassination | false | https://abqjournal.com/306415/film-captured-assassination.html | 2 |
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<p>Photo Credit: Albert H. Teich / Shutterstock.com</p>
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<p>Ivanka Trump surprised many of her followers on Instagram when she sent out a famous rabbinic aphorism but attributed it to Harry Potter star Emma Watson. She uploaded an image which said, “If not me, who? If not now, when?” and attributed it to Watson, most famous for playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series.…</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Ivanka Trump Ruthlessly Mocked After Attributing Famous Rabbinical Quote to Actress Emma Watson | true | http://alternet.org/election-2016/ivanka-trump-ruthlessly-mocked-after-attributing-famous-rabbinical-quote-actress-emma | 2016-09-12 | 4 |
<p>Former CIA analyst</p>
<p>Last Wednesday it was Attorney General John Ashcroft-joined Friday by me-too Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge-claiming that “credible intelligence from multiple sources indicates that al-Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States” between now and the November election.</p>
<p>If “credible intelligence” sounds to you like protesting too much, there is ample reason to be skeptical. Overshadowing Ashcroft’s dramatic warning that al-Qaeda planned to “hit the United States hard” was the headline-grabbing, specific claim that “an al-Qaeda spokesman announced that 90 per cent of the arrangements for an attack on the United States were complete.”</p>
<p>Had Ashcroft thought to check this out with the CIA-or even NBC-he would have learned that the “al-Qaeda spokesman” was actually “Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades”-a fact later conceded with some embarrassment by the FBI. According to a senior US intelligence official, this “group” may consist of no more than one person with a fax machine. The “Brigades” have nonetheless claimed responsibility for the power blackout in the Northeast last year, a power outage in London, and the March 11 train bombings in Madrid. NBC news analyst Roger Cressey, a former deputy to counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, notes, “The only thing they haven’t claimed credit for recently is the cicada invasion of Washington.”</p>
<p>What’s going on?</p>
<p>“Intelligence” is being conjured up once again to serve the political purposes of the Bush administration. Merely recall the litany of spurious claims against Iraq, all said to have been based on “solid sources,” that Secretary of State Colin Powell dwelled on in his UN speech of February 5, 2003.</p>
<p>But what purposes are served in the current political context? Fanning further fear of terror is the only remaining ploy to boost the president’s sinking poll numbers. The struggle against terrorism is the issue on which George W. Bush still gets relatively good marks. Small wonder that he used “terror/terrorist/terrorism” no less than nineteen times in his speech at the Army War College on May 24. But is that all that is afoot here?</p>
<p>I believe there may be considerably more. With only five months before the election, the president’s men are getting desperate. Iraq is going from bad to worse and the prospect of substantial improvement before November is virtually nil. Worse still, revelations of the past few weeks strongly suggest that the president, Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, et al. have deeply personal incentive to make four more years for Bush a sure thing.</p>
<p>The Nettle of the Geneva Conventions</p>
<p>Put yourself in their position. Addressing whether or not Washington should honor the Geneva Conventions on Prisoners of War, the president’s chief legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, warned him in a memorandum of January 25, 2002 that US law-the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. 2441)-prohibits “war crimes” defined to include any grave breach of the Geneva Conventions on Prisoners of War. Gonzales made it clear that this prohibition applies to US officials and noted that punishments for violations of Section 2441 include the death penalty.</p>
<p>Gonzales advised the president that, in the opinion of Ashcroft’s Justice Department, the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al-Qaeda and that the president had the authority to determine that they also do not apply to the Taliban. (This would not be the first time that forces branded “terrorists” were declared exempt from the Geneva Conventions. In World War II when armed, uniformed Allied troops landed behind German lines, Hitler ordered them to be executed for “terrorist activities,” as Professor Frederick Sweet noted in a recent article in Intervention magazine.)</p>
<p>Gonzales described Ashcroft’s opinion as “definitive,” but added that the State Department had expressed “a different view.” Buried in the legalese is thinly disguised nervousness that others, too, might have a different view. Under the “positives,” Gonzales notes:</p>
<p>“It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441. Your determination would create a reasonable basis in law that Section 2441 does not apply, which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution.”</p>
<p>The president’s lawyer concluded that a determination by President Bush that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Taliban “substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441).”</p>
<p>“A reasonable basis in law?” “Substantially reduces” the threat of prosecution? If I were President Bush I would not find these phrases altogether reassuring. And neither, one would assume, does Attorney General Ashcroft.</p>
<p>And if this were not worrisome enough, Gonzales adds an eerily prophetic statement in listing the “negatives:”</p>
<p>“A determination that the Geneva Convention does not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban could undermine US military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries.”</p>
<p>Then there was Abu Ghraib.</p>
<p>There is nothing in the Geneva Conventions that gives anyone the right to make a unilateral decision to exempt opposing forces. And the Conventions hold the “Detaining Power”-not individual soldiers-responsible for maltreatment of detainees.</p>
<p>From the catbird seat of the “sole remaining superpower,” however, the Bush administration has shown considerable disdain for international law. On occasion it has stretched it well beyond the breaking point-as in claiming that the invasion of Iraq was authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Section 2441 of the War Crimes Act of 1996 is different. This is US law, in which the strictures of the Geneva Conventions are embedded.</p>
<p>Nightmares</p>
<p>For the Bush administration, the nightmare is losing the November election-a prospect believed to be unlikely until just recently. For many of us citizens, the nightmare is the president and his associates resorting to extra-legal measures to ensure that there is no “regime change” in Washington for four more years. Logic and human nature would suggest that possible liability to prosecution under the War Crimes Act are among the more weighty factors they take into account.</p>
<p>Bush administration leaders may even look on the prospect of a terrorist event in the US in the coming months as a possible opportunity as well as a risk. I do not suggest they would perverse enough to allow one to happen, or-still less-to orchestrate one. But there is ample reason to believe that they would take full political advantage of a terrorist attack-or even just the threat of one. Ashcroft’s remarks last week might be regarded as the opening salvo in a campaign to condition the country for this.</p>
<p>No less a figure than Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the war on Iraq, went so far as to predict publicly last November that if terrorists attacked the US with “weapons of mass destruction,” the Constitution would probably be discarded in favor of a military form of government.</p>
<p>But, you say, that would mean a constitutional crisis without parallel in the history of our country. Perhaps. But was there not a good warm-up in the fall of 2002? Did we not then experience a constitutional crisis when Congress was duped into ceding to the president its constitutional power to declare war? And it was all accomplished by spreading the myth that Saddam Hussein was close to exploding a “mushroom cloud” over us-a myth based on a known forgery alleging that Iraq was acquiring uranium from Africa.</p>
<p>In a recent op-ed in a newspaper in Maine, Charles Cutter poses the key question for the next five months. Cutter asks:</p>
<p>“How far would they go? With blood on their hands and God on their side, what actions would Bush &amp; Co. consider too extreme-when the goal is to extend their control over the financial and military power of the American presidency?”</p>
<p>An elevated threat level justifying martial law and postponement of the election? No doubt such suggestions will seem too alarmist to those trusting that there is a moral line, somewhere, that the president and his senior advisers would not cross. I regret very much to say that their behavior over the past three years leaves me doubtful that there is such a line. If my doubts are justified, the sooner we all come to grips with this parlous situation the better.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, don’t be taken in by “credible intelligence.”</p>
<p>RAY McGOVERN was a CIA analyst for 27 years from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and a contributor to <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html" type="external">Imperial Crusades</a>, CounterPunch’s hot new book on the Afghan/Iraq wars. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>This article was initially posted on <a href="http://www.TomPaine.com/" type="external">TomPaine.com</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Beware of Credible Intelligence | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/06/02/beware-of-credible-intelligence/ | 2004-06-02 | 4 |
<p>Editor's Note: This dispatch is part of a GlobalPost Special Report exploring the rift between Sunni and Shia Muslims, "In the Land of Cain &amp; Abel," marking 10 years since the US invasion of Iraq began. &#160;</p>
<p>RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Following a circuitous route from here up through Turkey or Jordan and then crossing a lawless border, hundreds of young Saudis are secretly making their way into Syria to join extremist groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, GlobalPost has learned.</p>
<p>With the tacit approval from the House of Saud, and financial support from wealthy Saudi elites, the young men take up arms in what Saudi clerics have called a “jihad,” or “holy war” against the Assad regime.</p>
<p>Based on a month of reporting in the region and in Washington, over a dozen sources have confirmed that wealthy Saudis, as well as the government, are arming some Syrian rebel groups. Saudi and Syrian sources confirm that hundreds of Saudis are joining the rebels, but the government denies any sponsoring role.</p>
<p>The Saudis are part of an inflow of Sunni fighters from Libya, Tunisia, and Jordan, according to Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute.</p>
<p>“Most of the foreigners are fighting with al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham,” both extremist groups, Zelin said.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="" type="external">Exclusive interview with leader of Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra</a></p>
<p>Sunni extremist fighters are now part of a vicious civil war that has killed an estimated 70,000 people and created more than a million refugees. The fighters are also part of a larger struggle in a region in which opportunistic leaders stoke the age-old rift between the Sunni and Shia in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia itself.</p>
<p>The Saudis hope to weaken their regional competitor Iran, a Shia theocracy that is backing Assad. Saudi officials also hope to divert simmering political unrest at home by encouraging young protesters to instead fight in Syria, according to Saudi government critics.</p>
<p>The government seeks to “diffuse domestic pressure by recruiting young kids to join in another proxy war in the region,” said Mohammad Fahd al-Qahtani, a human rights activist and economics professor at the Institute of Diplomatic Studies in Riyadh. They are joining ultraconservative groups who “definitely are against democracy and human rights. The ramifications could be quite serious in the whole region.”</p>
<p>In one documented case, a Saudi judge encouraged young anti-government protesters to fight in Syria rather than face punishment at home. Twenty-two year old Mohammed al-Talq was arrested and found guilty of participating in a demonstration in the north-central Saudi city of Buraidah.</p>
<p>After giving 19 young men suspended sentences, the judge called the defendants into his private chambers and gave them a long lecture about the need to fight Shia Muslims in Syria, according to Mohammed’s father, Abdurrahman al-Talq.</p>
<p>“You should save all your energy and fight against the real enemy, the Shia, and not fight inside Saudi Arabia,” said the father, quoting the judge. “The judge gave them a reason to go to Syria.”</p>
<p>Within weeks, 11 of the 19 protesters left to join the rebels. In December 2012, Mohammed al-Talq was killed in Syria. His father filed a formal complaint against the judge late last year, but said he has received no response.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia shares no border with Syria, so young fighters such as Mohammad must travel through Turkey or Jordan.</p>
<p>Those without criminal records can fly as tourists to Istanbul. Those convicted of crimes or on government watch lists cannot travel without official Ministry of Interior permission. Critics say the government allows such militants to depart with a wink and a nod. Then they sneak across the Jordanian border into southern Syria.</p>
<p>The young militants are sometimes funded by rich Saudis. They acquire black market AK-47s and cross at night along the now porous Syrian borders, according to a local journalist.</p>
<p>Sami Hamwi, the pseudonym of an exiled Syrian journalist who regularly reports from inside the country, has carefully observed the flow of the Saudi fighters to Syria. He told GlobalPost that groups of 3-5 Saudis often join Jabhat al-Nusra, a prominent rebel faction the United States says has links to Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>Al-Nusra went public in February 2012 after taking credit for several major bombings in Damascus and Aleppo. Its reputation as one of the most effective fighting groups, as well as its efforts to provide aid to average Syrians, has won over some in the opposition.</p>
<p>Many Syrians “like the fact that Saudis come with a lot of money,” Hamwi said. “Civil society activists do not like foreign fighters. They think they will cause more trouble.”</p>
<p>The term “civil society activists” refers to the largely secular, progressive Syrians who led the initial stage of the Syrian uprising but who have since been eclipsed by the armed militias.</p>
<p>Saudi officials deny that the government encourages youth to fight in Syria. They point to a religious decree (fatwa) issued by Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh. He urged youth not to fight in Syria, noting that aid to rebels should be sent through “regular channels.”</p>
<p>But Saudi authorities also admit they have no control over people who legally leave the country and later join the rebels.</p>
<p>Fighting with the rebels in Syria is illegal, declared Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior. “Anybody who wants to travel outside Saudi Arabia in order to get involved in such conflict will be arrested and prosecuted,” he said. “But only if we have the evidence before he leaves the country.”</p>
<p>That position gives the Saudi government plausible deniability, according to Randa Slim, a scholar with the Middle East Institute in Washington. The Saudi government purges the country of young troublemakers while undermining a hostile neighbor, she said. “In the name of a good cause, they are getting rid of a problem.”</p>
<p>Human rights activist al-Qahtani called the Saudi stand a “don’t ask, don’t tell policy.” Saudi authorities have a strategic goal in Syria, he said.</p>
<p>“Their ultimate policy is to have a regime change similar to what happened in Yemen, where they lose the head of state and substitute it with one more friendly to the Saudis,” al-Qahtani said. “But Syria is quite different. It will never happen that way.”</p>
<p>Last week, a Saudi Court sentenced al-Qahtani to 10 years in prison for sedition and providing false information to foreign media. Human rights groups <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/saudi-arabia-punishes-two-activists-voicing-opinion-2013-03-11" type="external">immediately defended al-Qahtani</a>, saying he is being persecuted for his political views and human rights work.&#160;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, evidence mounts that Saudis are pouring into Syria.</p>
<p>Last year a close friend of Abdulaziz Alghufili bought a Kalashnikov rifle and slipped into Syria to join an extremist militia fighting the Assad regime. “My friend is putting his life at risk,” said Alghufili, an electrical engineer not involved in his friend’s activities.</p>
<p>So far his friend remains alive. But dozens of Facebook pages and Twitter feeds document the deaths of other Saudis not so fortunate. Almost all joined the al-Nusra Front.</p>
<p>“Most people going there don’t think they will come back,” Alghufili said. “They will fight to die or win freedom.”</p>
<p>The Muslim Brotherhood maintains the most support among rebel fighters, but has recently met strong competition from extremists, including al-Nusra, which supports the establishment of an Islamist state and a harsh version of Sharia law in Syria.</p>
<p>Al-Qahtani argues that Saudi support for al-Nusra resembles their aid to the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Back then Osama bin Laden was a scion of a Saudi construction magnate who transferred his inherited wealth out of Saudi Arabia and into what came to be called “The Base,” English for Al Qaeda. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia encouraged the flow of Arab fighters and arms to the Afghans, part of a proxy war against the Soviets.</p>
<p>Saudi authorities set up networks to support the mujahedeen. “They recruited kids to fight there,” al-Qahtani said. “They financed them and provided them with [airplane] tickets.”</p>
<p>In the 1980s, the CIA and Saudis backed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an ultraconservative Islamic extremist because his group was the best organized and most anti-communist, although it lacked popular support. After the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Hekmatyar switched sides and today is fighting the United States and NATO.</p>
<p>The Saudi government faced a similar problem with its former clients. When the Soviet backed regime fell and the fighters returned to Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, some engaged in terrorist bombings and assassinations in an unsuccessful effort to overthrow the government. A nascent form of Al Qaeda began to take shape, metastasizing throughout the region and eventually lining up against the Saudi and US governments.</p>
<p>Al-Qahtani notes that the current support for Syrian rebels falls well below the massive effort in Afghanistan, in part because the Obama administration has tamped down Saudi efforts, worried about the growth of extremist groups.</p>
<p>Some US officials and analysts argue that the Saudi government doesn’t arm extremist groups at all, having been chastened by the Afghan experience. According to their view, the Saudi government and al-Nusra ideologically oppose one another and compete for the same, conservative political base in the region.</p>
<p>A State Department official described Saudi Arabia as an opponent of Syrian extremist groups. “The Saudi government and Arab League share the same concerns about Nusra,” he said. “Nobody wants instability.”</p>
<p>The Washington Institute’s Zelin agrees.</p>
<p>“All the funding for such groups comes from private sources,” Zelin said. “The Saudis learned the lessons of Afghanistan in 1980s.”</p>
<p>The Middle East Institute’s Slim sees truth in both arguments.</p>
<p>The Saudi royal family certainly doesn’t want a repeat of terrorist fighting on its own soil, nor does it want to anger its chief ally, the United States, Slim said.</p>
<p>“To avoid US ire, they can have individuals fund al-Nusra while the government funds groups vetted by the US,” she said. ”The Saudis are outsourcing the fight.”</p>
<p>Officially, the Obama administration offers political support to the Syrian rebels and provides only “humanitarian” aid in the form of communications equipment, food and medical supplies. The British provide humanitarian supplies that may include body armor and night vision goggles.</p>
<p>But the CIA has also facilitated covert military aid since at least the middle of 2012. The CIA sent operatives to southern Turkey to vet various factions of the Free Syrian Army, the umbrella group encompassing most of the local militias fighting Assad. Those fighters who passed muster received arms from Saudi Arabia and the gulf emirate of Qatar, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&amp;pagewanted=print" type="external">according to the New York Times</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>In May 2012, a Saudi- and Qatar-financed shipment of small arms landed in Turkey and was trucked to the Syrian border <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/27/us-syria-crisis-centre-idUSBRE86Q0JM20120727" type="external">without interference from Turkish authorities</a>. The shipment included AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and small-caliber machine guns. In 2013, CIA sources admitted that the agency is training Syria rebels in Jordan.&#160;</p>
<p>The US initially helped supply militias led by the Muslim Brotherhood, but later soured on the Brotherhood and sought to arm other groups more in agreement with US policy, according to Brotherhood leaders.</p>
<p>Officially, the Obama administration is proceeding cautiously to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of extremist groups like al-Nusra. Syrian opposition leaders say, in reality, the United States is being parsimonious with aid because it hasn’t found rebel leaders it can trust.</p>
<p>"The Americans haven’t supported the revolution strongly enough because they are still looking for someone who can ensure their interests in the future," Omar Mushaweh, a spokesman for Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood living in Istanbul, said last year.</p>
<p>The activities of Saudi Arabia — along with Turkey, Qatar, Iran and the United States —&#160;have significantly complicated the Syrian civil war, according to Saudi human rights activists.</p>
<p>“The people of Syria want their revolution to be as clean as possible,” al-Qahtani said. “Once foreigners are involved, it could lead to the situation of Afghanistan. It could give an excuse for the Syrian regime that it is foreigners who are fighting, which is a wrong policy.”</p>
<p>Freelance journalist Reese Erlich’s reporting on the Sunni/Shia rift is presented in partnership with NPR.&#160;</p>
<p>This story is presented by <a href="http://thegroundtruthproject.org/" type="external">The GroundTruth Project.</a>&#160;</p> | Saudi youth fighting against Assad regime in Syria | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-03-13/saudi-youth-fighting-against-assad-regime-syria | 2013-03-13 | 3 |
<p>2015's heat and drought in Montana forced many black bear families to forage far from their natural habitat. Quite a few of the wandering bears wound up being shot or hit by cars. And that means there were a lot of orphaned black bear cubs this year.</p>
<p>“We’ve been really, really busy with bears, all throughout the state this year,” says Brady Murphy, a game warden in Augusta, Montana. “We’ve handled a lot of different urban wildlife bear complaints.”</p>
<p>While wildlife in the West is often protected by authorities, the animals' presence is not always appreciated residents.</p>
<p>Reporter Clay Scott of Mountain West Voices found himself right in the thick of things when he and a friend spotted a black bear cub while driving down a dirt road on the Montana prairie, miles from suitable black bear habitat.</p>
<p>“At first, as it scurried through the grass, it looked like a black lab puppy. Then it scampered up a power pole,” Scott said.</p>
<p>Scott made a call and game wardens were soon on the way. When they arrived, less than a half hour later, the cub was looking down at them from the top of a 40-foot power pole.</p>
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<p>The black bear cub perched atop a telephone pole, just seconds before he lost consciousness from the tranquilizer and fell. (Photo: Sarah Hewitt)</p>
<p>Warden Murphy decided to try to get some Telazol, a tranquilizer, into the bear so they could bring him somewhere to be relocated. He didn't have any tranquilizer darts, so he put out a call for help. Two other&#160;wardens responded from other districts and set out for their location.</p>
<p>Game wardens in Montana cover vast territories. Teigan Winters drove 50 miles to the spot; Kqyn Kuka came in from north of Great Falls, an hour-and-a-half drive. Scott asked Murphy why, in the middle of hunting season, three wardens would converge on a power pole in the middle of the prairie to tranquilize a black bear cub.</p>
<p>“You don’t do this job to get rich. You do it because you love the resources and you want to protect them, and you have that strong passion,” Murphy responded.</p>
<p>When the other wardens arrived with a dart pistol and tranquilizers, they realized that, even if they managed to hit the bear cub with a dart, the cub wouldn’t survive the fall. Instead, they devised a plan is to lure the cub down, chase him up a smaller pole and then dart him. Kuka offered her sleeping bag as a kind of net to catch the falling cub.</p>
<p>First, they tried firing a blank cartridge from a shotgun over the bear’s head to frighten him into moving down. But at the explosion, the cub didn't even flinch.</p>
<p>Finally, for reasons known only to the cub, he straddled the pole and started to move down. When he reached the ground, the group gave chase in their pickup truck. As hoped, the cub scurried across the road and up the smaller pole.</p>
<p>One expertly-placed dart shot later, the cub began to wobble on the pole and the wardens rushed into place to catch him.</p>
<p>“Here he comes!” Kuka exclaimed. “Oh, yes! You got him! Unbelievable! We did it!”</p>
<p>They laid the cub carefully in the back of the pick-up. It turned out to be a male, weighing less than 25 pounds. The cub will spend the winter at Montana Wild, the wildlife rehab center in Helena, and will be released next spring.</p>
<p>This article&#160;is based on <a href="http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=16-P13-00003&amp;segmentID=5" type="external">story</a> that aired on PRI's <a href="http://loe.org/index.html" type="external">Living on Earth</a> with Steve Curwood</p> | The tale of one lost bear cub and its rescue by game wardens | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-01-25/tale-one-lost-bear-cub-and-its-rescue-game-wardens | 2016-01-25 | 3 |
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<p>In a prime-time speech on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama made a forceful case for a possible strike against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He reiterated the argument that the United States has both a humanitarian obligation to respond to the horrific use of chemical weapons against civilians, and a national security interest in preventing Assad from using such weapons again and signaling to other tyrants that such attacks will not be tolerated. The president tried to deploy both emotion (referring to the dreadful images from the August 21 chemical weapon attack near Damascus) and logic (contending that an assault would lessen the odds of future attacks, limit the possibility that chemical weapons fall into the hands of extremists, and prevent US troops from facing chemical weapons in conflicts down the road). He tried to respond to the main reservations raised by lawmakers and voters. (Should the United States be the world’s policeman? No, but no one else can respond to this particular attack now.) The news of the night was that he asked Congress to put off any vote on a resolution authorizing him to launch a limited strike against Syria so that the United States could pursue the deal proposed by Russia that would place Assad’s chemical weapons under international control. And Obama announced he was sending Kerry to negotiate with the Russian foreign minister. Still, the speech was aimed at bolstering support on Capitol Hill and within the public for military action against Syria, if diplomacy fails. Obama summed up his case:&#160;</p>
<p>Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria, along with our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the worst weapons will never be used. America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.</p>
<p>There’s no telling whether this speech will win over skeptical citizens and legislators. But with a diplomatic resolution possible—though by no means a given—and a showdown in Congress postponed, perhaps Obama did not have to.</p>
<p /> | Video: Obama Makes His Case on Syria | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/video-obama-syria-speech/ | 2013-09-11 | 4 |
<p>Medical workers are struggling to contain the worst Ebola outbreak in history, with the death toll from the virus nearing 5,000 and the World Health Organization warning that the number of new cases a week could reach 10,000 in the next two months.&#160;</p>
<p>As the virus spreads overseas, experts are turning to so-called "big data" to bring the epidemic under control.&#160;</p>
<p>Mobile phone calls, airline bookings, tweets, field reports, government announcements and population statistics are among the vast amount of information being collected, filtered and analyzed by sophisticated computer software tools around the world.</p>
<p>The information is enabling data mining experts to&#160;predict where the virus could be headed next and how many people are likely to be infected.&#160;</p>
<p>While many people are deeply suspicious about data collection — you can hardly blame them after Edward Snowden's revelations about the US government's mass surveillance of Americans' telephone and email communications — it could be critical to containing Ebola.&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>The intelligence gathered from scanning the internet and cell phone data is helping governments and health agencies in West Africa respond more quickly and effectively to the crisis. They can potentially spot new outbreaks, identify areas at risk and deploy resources to areas where they are most needed.&#160;</p>
<p>Swedish non-profit organization&#160; <a href="http://www.flowminder.org/" type="external">Flowminder</a>&#160;has been using cell phone data to map population movements in West Africa. This is helping authorities estimate where the Ebola virus could appear next.</p>
<p>In Senegal, for example, local cell phone carrier Orange Telecom supplied Flowminder with data from 150,000 handsets, which it was able to use to develop maps of travel patterns in the region and help the government and health agencies anticipate the trajectory of the virus. The data had been stripped of information that could identify the user.</p>
<p>Senegal is now officially Ebola-free.</p>
<p>“If there are outbreaks in other countries, this might tell what places connected to the outbreak location might be at increased risk of new outbreaks,” <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/530296/cell-phone-data-might-help-predict-ebolas-spread/" type="external">Linus Bengtsson,</a> cofounder of Flowminder, said.&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Closer to home there is&#160; <a href="http://healthmap.org/site/about" type="external">HealthMap</a>, an infectious diseases tracking system developed by a team at the Boston Children’s Hospital in 2006. The creators of the map have been <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/healthmap-ebola-outbreak-109881.html" type="external">praised</a> for raising the alarm about Ebola days before the World Health Organization officially announced the outbreak.</p>
<p>The system uses computer algorithms to scan thousands of websites, such as news, social media and government websites, for mentions of infectious disease outbreaks around the world. It then slices and dices the data into an easy-to-digest format, such as maps and graphs.&#160;</p>
<p>During the Ebola crisis, HealthMap has been using data from the World Health Organization to show when and where people died from the virus. It has also modeled the spread of the outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have been hardest hit by the epidemic, and estimated the number of future cases.</p>
<p>At Northeastern, computer and health sciences professor Alessandro Vespignani and his team at&#160; <a href="http://www.mobs-lab.org/" type="external">MoBS Lab</a> have developed a computer model that is designed to predict the path of Ebola.</p>
<p>The system creates a “synthetic world” using a wide range of data, including the distribution of the population, demographics and air travel, and then adds a “few infected people” to predict how many more will be felled and where, Vespignani said.&#160;</p>
<p>Based on the data they have gathered so far, which Vespignani said is limited by West Africa's weak health care system and under reporting of Ebola cases, the countries at the highest risk of infections in the coming four to six weeks include France, Belgium, the UK and “many countries in the African region."</p>
<p>But Vespignani emphasized that he is predicting only a handful of cases in those countries, not a huge outbreak like in West Africa.</p>
<p />
<p>Photo courtesy of MoBS Lab, Northeastern</p>
<p>Special software that enables disaster relief agencies to send text messages en masse is also helping raise awareness about the highly contagious virus among affected populations and get much-needed information from remote regions back to governments and agencies still struggling to get a grip on the escalating crisis.&#160;</p>
<p>In Sierra Leone, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has been using a&#160; <a href="http://www.ifrc.org/ar/news-and-media/news-stories/africa/guinea/taking-preventive-action-to-stop-the-ebola-outbreak-in-west-africa-65674/" type="external">text messaging system</a> called Trilogy Emergency Relief Application <a href="http://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/beneficiary-communications/tera/" type="external">(TERA)</a> to send alerts and advice about Ebola to people living in a specific region.</p>
<p>To work, TERA requires local cell phone network operators to install the software in their network. Once installed, TERA can detect which handsets are switched on and which cell towers they are connected to. The TERA operator then selects a region on a map and sends text messages to cell phones in that zone. &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>“It's been doing an excellent job in Sierra Leone, sending out in the region of two million messages per month, helping the communities there to prepare themselves, try to avoid getting infected, and then if they do, to know what to do about it," Robin Burton from the IFRC <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29610865" type="external">told the BBC.</a></p>
<p>“Unlike TV and radio, if we send them a text message it's retained on the phone."</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29573964" type="external">BBC</a> has also launched an English and French language public health information service on WhatsApp in West Africa to keep users up to date about the virus. &#160;</p>
<p>Experts acknowledge that sophisticated computer algorithms and models alone won't win the battle against Ebola. It will require many more highly trained doctors and nurses on the ground and stronger health care systems, which are sorely lacking in the impoverished region. But big data analytics can help bring the outbreak under control.&#160;</p>
<p>"(Big data) can be a high level guide to case tracking, but ultimately you have to get to the specific person (with the virus),”said Andrew Schroeder, director of research and analysis at Direct Relief, a California-based nonprofit organization that has been sending medical supplies to countries affected by the Ebola epidemic.</p>
<p>“It’s not good enough to know in general terms where people are moving. You have to find that guy and interview him and make sure you know what his symptoms are.</p>
<p>“That level of needle in the haystack phenomenon is just not something that we have a big data answer for.”</p> | How cell phones can help predict where Ebola will break out next | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/how-cell-phones-can-help-predict-where-ebola-will-break-out-next | 2014-10-23 | 3 |
<p>TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Advocates of industrial hemp production in Kansas are pursuing a new legislative proposal for allowing state universities to research it.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2017_18/measures/documents/sb263_00_0000.pdf" type="external">new bill</a> is narrower than a measure opposed by law enforcement officials last year. The Topeka Capital-Journal <a href="http://cjonline.com/news/local/state-government/2018-01-16/advocates-industrial-hemp-production-research-shift-focus" type="external">reports</a> that the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee had a hearing Tuesday.</p>
<p>The new measure would allow state universities to research industrial hemp but prohibit its cultivation outside state-sanctioned test plots.</p>
<p>The House approved <a href="http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2017_18/measures/documents/supp_note_hb2182_01_0000.pdf" type="external">a bill</a> last year to allow research and commercial cultivation with industrial hemp growers licensed by the state Department of Agriculture. The measure stalled in the Senate because of law enforcement opposition.</p>
<p>A Kansas Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman said it is less concerned about this year’s bill, and several law enforcement groups did not formally oppose it.</p>
<p>TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Advocates of industrial hemp production in Kansas are pursuing a new legislative proposal for allowing state universities to research it.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2017_18/measures/documents/sb263_00_0000.pdf" type="external">new bill</a> is narrower than a measure opposed by law enforcement officials last year. The Topeka Capital-Journal <a href="http://cjonline.com/news/local/state-government/2018-01-16/advocates-industrial-hemp-production-research-shift-focus" type="external">reports</a> that the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee had a hearing Tuesday.</p>
<p>The new measure would allow state universities to research industrial hemp but prohibit its cultivation outside state-sanctioned test plots.</p>
<p>The House approved <a href="http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2017_18/measures/documents/supp_note_hb2182_01_0000.pdf" type="external">a bill</a> last year to allow research and commercial cultivation with industrial hemp growers licensed by the state Department of Agriculture. The measure stalled in the Senate because of law enforcement opposition.</p>
<p>A Kansas Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman said it is less concerned about this year’s bill, and several law enforcement groups did not formally oppose it.</p> | Industrial hemp backers narrow proposal for Kansas research | false | https://apnews.com/643c7b463596421bb36341de20897596 | 2018-01-16 | 2 |
<p />
<p>The Oleo Strut was a coffeehouse in Killeen, Texas, from 1968 to 1972. Like its namesake, a shock absorber in helicopter landing gear, the Oleo Strut’s purpose was to help GIs land softly. Upon returning from Vietnam to Fort Hood, shell-shocked soldiers found solace amongst the Strut’s regulars, mostly fellow soldiers and a few civilian sympathizers. But it didn’t take long before shell shock turned into anger, and that anger into action. The GIs turned the Oleo Strut into one of Texas’s anti-war headquarters, publishing an underground anti-war newspaper, organizing boycotts, setting up a legal office, and leading peace marches.</p>
<p>David Zeiger was one of the civilians who helped run the Oleo Strut. He went on to a career in political activism and today, at 55, he is a filmmaker and the director of Sir! No Sir!, a new documentary on the all-but-forgotten antiwar activities of GIs from Fort Hood to Saigon. The GI Movement, as it was then known, was composed of both vets recently returned from Vietnam and active-duty soldiers. They fought for peace in ways big and small, from organizing leading anti-war organizations to wearing peace signs instead of dog tags. By the early ‘70s, opposition to the Vietnam War within the military and amongst veterans had grown so widespread that no one could credibly claim that opposing the war meant opposing the troops. Veterans wanted an end to the war; their brothers in Vietnam agreed.</p>
<p>Zeiger put off making this movie for years, convinced the public didn’t want to hear another story about the ‘60s. What finally spurred the project was the Iraq War and the role some <a href="/commentary/columns/2005/09/memorys_revenge.html" type="external">Vietnam vets are playing in keeping America’s young men and women from seeing the same horrors they saw.</a> When GIs from the current war started coming home and <a href="/news/feature/2004/11/10_400.html" type="external">wondering what they’d been fighting for</a>, Zeiger’s days at the Oleo Strut took on a new relevance. His film is a remarkable interweaving of vets’ stories about their intensifying resistance to the war, starting with the lone objectors of the late ‘60s and culminating with open disobedience throughout the ranks in the ‘70s. One vet even recalls an episode from 1972 in which Military Police joined enlisted men in burning an effigy of their commanding officer. The images that accompany such stories are just as powerful. As a young doctor is escorted into a military court for refusing to train GIs, hundreds of enlisted men lean out of nearby windows extending peace signs in support. It’s an image that the Army didn’t want the American people to see then, and probably wouldn’t want the American people to see today.</p>
<p>Sir! No Sir! won the Documentary Audience Award at the L.A. Film Festival and is slated for broad release before the end of the year. David Zeiger spoke with MotherJones.com from the Los Angeles office of his production company, Displaced Films.</p>
<p>MotherJones.com: Talk a little about your history with the GI Movement.</p>
<p>David Zeiger: In the late ‘60s I reached a point where I believed that there was really no alternative for me than to become part of the movement against the war. My opposition to the war had grown very deeply but I hadn’t been really involved in anything. I starting looking around for what was going to be the most effective place and situation to help. I ran into this small group from the GI Movement, some vets and some civilians from Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. It became obvious to me very quickly that this was the most solid, most direct way to go after the war. It was a situation where people were opposing the war that no one thought would oppose the war. Not just because they were GIs. These were mostly working class guys, guys who had gone into the military out of patriotic motives or because that was just what you did. And they were becoming one of the strongest forces against the war.</p>
<p>MJ: What brought you back to the project, some 35 years later?</p>
<p>DZ: I started making films in the early ‘90s. I always knew that this story was one that needed to be told and had never been told. But the way I always characterized it was, “This is a film that needs to be made but I’m never going to make it.” At the time, it just wasn’t a film that would have much resonance for people. It would be another story from the ‘60s. What prompted me to make the film was September 11, and the War on Terror’s segue into the Iraq War. I saw that this had suddenly become a story that would have current resonance, something that would immediately connect with what’s going on today.</p>
<p>MJ: How did you find the veterans that appear in the film?</p>
<p>DZ: Several of these guys were people I knew because I had been at Fort Hood. Then there were veterans’ organizations like Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace—I put a call out for stories through their various means of communication. I also ended up [getting] in touch with people nobody had ever heard of before. Their missions were so top secret they were under threat of federal prosecution if they went public with any of their stories. They came to me and basically said, “We want to finally tell our story. We haven’t been able to tell it for 35 years.” We still don’t know what will happen to them. We’ll know when the film is in theaters.</p>
<p>Also, Several books played a big role in keeping memory of the movement alive and giving me the foundation for the film — especially Soldiers in Revolt by David Cortright, and A Matter of Conscience: GI Resistance Furing the Vietnam War by William Short and Willa Seidenberg.</p>
<p>MJ: Did it take any effort to get the veterans to open up—the public conception of the Vietnam vet is of a man too pained to talk openly about his experiences.</p>
<p>DZ: Yeah, that’s a very big myth. In this situation that was not at all a problem. These are people whose stories had been suppressed and ignored since the war. They knew that their story was a story of the Vietnam War that needed to be told. For most of these veterans, it was more a matter of finally being able to tell their story, stories the overall zeitgeist was against being told. It was not a matter of reluctance.</p>
<p>MJ: The film has already gotten a good deal of interest in Europe. Do you anticipate that domestic interest will be as strong?</p>
<p>DZ: Well, yeah, how to put this? I anticipate that kind of interest, but until the film was made I think U.S. television didn’t quite get how relevant the film is in the current world. It was hard to explain that to people. Now that the film is made we’re getting much stronger interest. A big strength of the film, and what I think is going to bring it into the mainstream, is that this is historical metaphor. We don’t have to say a word about Iraq in the film for it to be clearly identified with Iraq for people. But [because it doesn’t mention Iraq], the film can’t be shoved into the category of a propaganda film.</p>
<p>MJ: You mentioned that you were a civilian organizer at Fort Hood during the Vietnam War. At that time, was the civilian public widely aware of the GI Movement?</p>
<p>DZ: The evidence suggests that they were. As you see in the film, there were CBS Nightly News stories about the GI Movement. There is a segment in the film of Walter Cronkite talking about the GI underground press. In the state of Texas, where there was a very large anti-war movement in Austin and Houston, and the center of the Texas movement for a time was at Fort Hood. The armed forces demonstrations were major events for the whole state. I think people knew generally that there was opposition in the military, but they didn’t know the details or how widespread it was. But it was certainly more prominent than people remember it. It has been thoroughly wiped out of any histories of the war.</p>
<p>MJ: How visible was the GI Movement amongst American soldiers in Southeast Asia? Were they aware that their fellow soldiers were protesting the war on bases abroad and in the States?</p>
<p>DZ: Yes. The GI anti-war press was everywhere. Just about every base in the world had an underground paper. Vietnam GI was the first GI paper. It was sent directly to Vietnam from the U.S. in press runs of 5,000 and they were getting spread all over the place because they’d be handed from person to person. Awareness of the GI Movement was at different levels but it was still very widespread.</p>
<p>MJ: How did the GIs manage to write and print these papers, especially when their actions were, presumably, being watched?</p>
<p>DZ: That was where the coffeehouse came in. [The GIs] did the work, for the most part, off base. At the Oleo Strut we had an office that they worked in and we had a printer that would print it for us. Some of these papers would get mimeographed secretly on the military bases because the guys working on them would be clerks and they had access to the proper resources. So there was a range, from something someone had typed up and mimeographed and got out about 500 copies of, to these pretty sophisticated papers like the Fatigue Press at Fort Hood, where we’d have a press run of 10,000 copies. We’d hand them out off base but they’d also be distributed on base. Guys snuck on base and would go through barracks and put them on beds and foot lockers.</p>
<p>One story we didn’t put in the film was about some guys at Fort Lewis near Seattle. They wanted to bring GIs to an anti-war demonstration, but they didn’t have an underground paper yet. They took a bunch of leaflets on base late at night and drove around throwing the leaflets out the window. In the military, if there’s litter on the base the brass doesn’t pick it up; they send out the GIs out to police the base and pick it up. So the next morning they sent several companies out to pick up all this litter and before they realized what this litter was, it was too late. It’s funny: repression breeds innovation.</p>
<p>MJ: The movie talks a lot about the GI coffeehouses and how some of them were attacked and shut down. Did GIs ever claim their First Amendment rights were being thwarted?</p>
<p>DZ: Yes, and there were cases that went all the way to the Supreme Court about that. The Supreme Court fairly consistently ruled that so-called “military necessity” trumped free speech. But there was a tremendous support network of lawyers during the period of the GI Movement who would help challenge these things. There were many cases of GIs challenging the military’s right to not allow them to distribute the underground papers on base. No one won [laughs], but there were a lot of attempts to create change.</p>
<p>MJ: Another thing you discuss in the film is the FTA [“Free the Army” or “Fuck the Army”] tour, a variety show packed with celebrities that wanted to counterbalance the pro-war Bob Hope. Where did the tour perform?</p>
<p>DZ: Well, it was banned from bases. What they typically did was come into military towns that had a support organization like the coffeehouses, and they would either perform at the coffeehouses, or if it was possible, in a larger venue. I know when the FTA show came to Killeen we spent months trying to get an auditorium or even an outdoor site rented to us and no one would do it. So the FTA Tour came to town and performed at the Oleo Strut, which had a capacity of maybe 200 people. Rather than doing two shows that day, they did four. When they did their tour of Asia, which is where we got the footage for the film, they got a lot of outdoor venues and larger venues, but they were never allowed on bases. Keep in mind, these were the top Hollywood stars of the day, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. They had just come off of Klute, won a ton of awards. But of course they weren’t allowed on any bases.</p>
<p>MJ: And the GIs who saw the shows were free enough that 800 of them could go see the show in one day?</p>
<p>DZ: Yeah. By 1970 and 1971, the combination of the actual organized GI Movement and the general culture of resistance that had emerged inside the military was so strong that you could openly walk around bases wearing whatever anti-war stuff you wanted to wear. Actually, the guys in the U.S. couldn’t do that as much; guys in Vietnam were doing it a lot more. But regardless, that sense of opposition, that sense of FTA, was so strong the army couldn’t completely stomp down on it.</p>
<p>MJ: Your film never mentions John Kerry. Why?</p>
<p>DZ: Because so many people wanted us to put him in [laughs]. That was part of it. Frankly, we didn’t have him in mainly because we didn’t want that to become what the film was about. The film made about his military service during the campaign, Going Upriver, has a lot of footage about his involvement with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which is also in our film. Ironically, that film was made to help Kerry’s campaign, but if anything, it hurt it. It didn’t win over anyone that was against him to begin with, but people who supported Kerry because of his anti-war stance during Vietnam saw how startlingly far he’s gone in his ultimate betrayal of the stand he took in the 1960s. We thought anything like that would be distraction for this film.</p>
<p>MJ: Why do you think the GI Movement has faded from the public’s memory of Vietnam?</p>
<p>DZ: There’s been a number of factors. There was this whole element in the mid to late ‘70s of people kind of wanting to forget. Hollywood, in depicting the war in the 1970s, never mentioned the GI Movement. Coming Home, which was a very good film in very many ways, started with a much more radical approach to what GIs had gotten into. But by the time the film was finished, it was a much more conciliatory film, and that became the theme that a lot of people latched onto about Vietnam in the ‘70s: Let’s forget it all. Then in the ’80s, the political climate with the Reagan administration became one of rewriting the history of the war. Of course, if you’re going to rewrite the history of the Vietnam War from a right-wing perspective, the GI Movement would be written out completely. Both politically and in every film made at the time, the Movement was literally written out of history.</p>
<p>MJ: The rewriting of history you mention seems to posit the troops as honorable American boys that supported the war, distinct from hippie protestors. Your film makes it clear that that’s a false distinction, and those are false labels. What impact do you think your film will have on people from younger generations whose only experience with Vietnam is a history that has been revised?</p>
<p>DZ: I hope it will really shock people. I want you walk out of the theater thinking, “Holy shit! I’ve been lied to so thoroughly I better take a really close look at this stuff.” And it’s especially important when comparing it to now. I want people to seriously question this idea that opposing the war means opposing the troops. Hopefully they will come to the conclusion that it’s not a given. That’s a political perspective, and it’s a right-wing political perspective, a very pro-war political perspective. And it’s a political perspective that undercuts any serious movement against the war, both among civilians and among GIs. The way the Vietnam War gets summed up is that the Vietnam War was “unpopular,” and that’s what screwed up the GIs. So people today say, “If that’s true, then if the Iraq war is unpopular it’s going to screw up the Iraq GIs.” Well, the Vietnam War wasn’t unpopular. The Vietnam War was criminal.</p>
<p>MJ: One of the most compelling images from the film is the entrance to the Fort Dix stockade in New Jersey, where a sign reads, “Obedience to the Law is Freedom.” Vietnam began a period in American life where that axiom could no longer be taken as faith. What do you think the long-term ramifications of Vietnam are?</p>
<p>DZ: That sign really summarized the Army’s view of military life. The ramifications are, if nothing else, that it’s possible to go up against and defeat a very powerful empire. One of the guys in the film made a point we didn’t end up using: The United States had the biggest army in the world, the best equipped, the best trained, the best fed—and we lost. We got beat by an indigenous force that totally undercut the ability of the United State to get a foothold in their country. And that’s a universal lesson, and that’s a lesson that is extremely dangerous for any country that, despite its protestations, is in fact bent on being a world empire. It’s inspiring for anyone who doesn’t want to live in that sort of situation anymore.</p>
<p>Films mentioned by David Zeiger:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sirnosir.com" type="external">Sir! No Sir!</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407263/" type="external">Going Upriver</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077362" type="external">Coming Home</a></p>
<p /> | Sir, No Sir! An Interview with David Zeiger | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2005/09/sir-no-sir-interview-david-zeiger/ | 2005-09-01 | 4 |
<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday afternoon's drawing of the Illinois Lottery's "LuckyDay Lotto Midday" game were:</p>
<p>12-18-22-32-42</p>
<p>(twelve, eighteen, twenty-two, thirty-two, forty-two)</p>
<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday afternoon's drawing of the Illinois Lottery's "LuckyDay Lotto Midday" game were:</p>
<p>12-18-22-32-42</p>
<p>(twelve, eighteen, twenty-two, thirty-two, forty-two)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'LuckyDay Lotto Midday' game | false | https://apnews.com/b4b3b347cd644c97aafd308a3e8159b9 | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
<p>Both Television Week and Broadcasting &amp; Cable are reporting that the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)&#160;has unexpectedly reversed its longtime position in support of the&#160;35 percent cap on&#160;television station ownership. After being abandoned by the three major networks (most recently, ABC), the NAB has&#160;changed course and is now opposing efforts to roll the&#160;recently-approved 45 percent cap back to 35 percent.&#160;There's speculation that the&#160;trade group&#160;is doing so in response to moves the networks have made to create&#160;a competing lobbying organization&#160;to represent the interests of&#160;their owned and operated stations. <a href="http://www.tvweek.com/news/web070903.html" type="external">See Television Week</a> for more details.</p> | NAB Reverses Position on Ownership Cap | false | https://poynter.org/news/nab-reverses-position-ownership-cap | 2003-07-09 | 2 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — After 41 years in business, an Albuquerque-based trading company is closing its doors forever.</p>
<p>Golden Eagle Trading Co. in Nob Hill is liquidating its inventory of jewelry, Western and Native American goods and collectibles.</p>
<p>The closure comes after several years of change within the company. Golden Eagle founder Al Vendegna closed the company’s longtime retail outlet — called <a href="http://www.westofsantafe.com/" type="external">West of Santa Fe</a> — in Las Vegas, Nev., in 2010 with plans to reopen elsewhere. He died the following year.</p>
<p>His wife, Karla, and daughters Kerry Elich and Amber Le <a href="" type="internal">revived the store in Albuquerque</a>. In 2013, they opened the company’s previously-locked Nob Hill design/manufacturing/wholesale/corporate headquarters to shoppers.</p>
<p>But Elich told the Journal via email that her mother has realized that “without Al, she no longer has the same passion for the business,” and that she’s ready to retire and try something new.</p>
<p>“While there is some mourning over letting go of the past and liquidating our jewelry, antiques &amp; collectibles that took over 40 years to accumulate, it is also with an eager spirit to learn and do something new in this life,” Elich said via email. “We are so grateful to have called Albuquerque home to our wildly successful adventure in Native American and Western culture for over (four) decades. It really has been a wild ride with so many rewards along the way.”</p>
<p>Golden Eagle is currently open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Nob Hill’s Golden Eagle Trading to close | false | https://abqjournal.com/479792/nob-hills-golden-eagle-trading-to-close.html | 2 |
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<p>Jimi Hendrix ExperienceFreedom: Atlanta Pop Festival Experience Hendrix/Legacy &#160;</p>
<p>Jimi Hendrix was at a musical crossroads when he played the Atlanta Pop Festival on July 4, 1970. With bandmates Mitch Mitchell (drums) and Billy Cox (bass) in tow, he turned in a fiery 16-song set that mixed reliable crowd-pleasers such as “Purple Haze” and “Foxey [sic] Lady” with less-flashy, socially conscious material like “Message to Love” and “Straight Ahead,” which wouldn’t see official release until after his death less than three months later. While Hendrix could easily have phoned it in on the oldies and still thrilled the crowd, he didn’t, preferring to add different, darker textures to his hits; the bluesy staples “Red House” and “Hear My Train a Comin'” found him, as always, using familiar structures to veer off in exciting, unexpected directions. Whether Hendrix was on the verge of entirely abandoning the rock scene for uncharted territory remains unknown, but Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival suggests big changes were definitely in the offing.</p>
<p /> | Jimi Hendrix’s Last Big American Concert Hit Darker Notes | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/new-album-captures-jimi-hendrixs-last-historic-concert/ | 2015-09-12 | 4 |
<p>AP: STERLING, Va. – The Senate may be the place for some former first ladies, but President Bush on Thursday categorically ruled out a run for office by his wife, Laura Bush.</p>
<p>“She’s not interested in running for office. She’s interested in literacy,” Bush said during an appearance at JK Moving &amp; Storage. | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-5557428,00.html" type="external">story</a></p>
<p>Now the only ones to worry about are his twin daughters, his nephew George P. Bush, and his mother, Barbara “Antoinette” Bush, who had such <a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054719" type="external">thoughtful things to say about Katrina evacuees</a>.</p>
<p /> | Thank Providence for Small Miracles! | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/thank-providence-for-small-miracles/ | 2006-01-20 | 4 |
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<p>Monday’s official unveiling of the Geneva peace accord was attended by a small group of world leaders and given support, albeit lukewarm, by the United States and Yasser Arafat, though not by Ariel Sharon. The proposal, a culmination of three years of work by Israeli and Palestinian politicians, attempts to end the current negotiation stalemate by reviving some of the main principles of the Oslo peace process. Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo, the central proponents of the accord, have succeeded in securing a fair amount of support from the Israelis and Palestinians, but not from the leadership of either side.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=351461&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;contrassID=2&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;subContrassID=1&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;sbSubContrassID=0&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;listSrc=Y" type="external">accord</a> is a permanent status agreement that sets permanent borders between Israel and a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines. It provides a two-state solution with Jerusalem as a shared-capital secured by an international peacekeeping force. A small number of Palestinian refugees would be absorbed by Israel, while others will be repatriated to the Palestinian state. The large settlements surrounding Jerusalem would be absorbed into Israel in exchange for current Israeli land included in the future Palestinian state. While the proposal carries on the legacy of the Oslo process, it also entails the same problems: a shared Jerusalem is a tough negotiating challenge, the issue of Palestinian refugees has already brought protests from the Palestinian sector.</p>
<p>In Geneva, the former United States president Jimmy Carter lauded the agreement and painted a <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/366879.html" type="external">rosy picture</a> of its possibilities.</p>
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<p>“There remains one basic choice for the Israelis: do we want permanent peace with all our neighbors, or do we want to retain our settlements throughout the occupied territories. … And it is of equal importance that the Palestinians renounce violence against Israeli citizens in exchange for the commitments of this Geneva initiative. … It is unlikely that we shall ever see a better foundation for peace. …The people support it. Political leaders are the obstacle to peace.”</p>
<p>While Carter’s “basic choice” for Israel goes to the heart of the issue, his cheery pronouncement doesn’t match the reality on the ground. Israeli and Palestinian leaders have so far shown themselves incapable of negotiating a lasting peace deal, but Carter’s claim that the people strongly support it is misleading. The most recent numbers out of Israel show <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/366835.html" type="external">moderate Israeli support</a> for the plan: 31 percent in favor and 38 against. Proponents of the accord have recently distributed the proposal to homes across Israel, an impressive grassroots strategy that might just pay off. Despite vicious attacks from the Ariel Sharon’s administration, the moderate support for the plan includes 13 percent of Sharon’s Likud party. Israelis might not be keen on the Geneva accord, but nor are they happy with the performance of their current prime minister. A Ha’aretz poll released Monday found that only 43 percent of Israelis think Sharon is doing a “fairly good” job, while 14 percent answered “fairly terrible” and another 27 percent answered “terrible.” Such numbers don’t bode well for Sharon, and could be responsible for the so-called “Sharon Initiative.” Last week in an unusual Q&amp;A session with Israeli news editors, Sharon told the journalists that he thought Israel must <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;u=/nm/20031127/wl_nm/mideast_dc_63" type="external">cede some land for peace</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, across the Green Line, an Israeli army incursion into Ramallah on Monday left four Palestinians dead, including a six-year old child. Palestinians recently <a href="http://www.nzz.ch/2003/12/01/english/page-synd4506256.html" type="external">surveyed</a> by the Texas’ Rice University and the International Crisis Group in Washington, responded with 55.6 percent support for the accord, with 38.5 percent in opposition.</p>
<p>Such numbers show promise for the Geneva negotiators but they’re somewhat complicated by the facts on the ground. While the politicians held their quiet meeting in Switzerland, thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank protested the “traitorous” accord. In Northern Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;u=/afp/20031201/wl_mideast_afp/mideast_peace_geneva_031201164135" type="external">1,500 Palestinian refugees protested</a> the fact the Geneva accord waives Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their original homes, many of which are now located inside the 1948 borders of Israel.</p>
<p>The Geneva accords aren’t likely to be transformed into a formal peace agreement, but, as the American actor and peace activist, Richard Dreyfuss, present at the signing, said, “To sum it up in one word, this initiative represents hope.” While hope is an elusive factor in the polls, many pundits in Israel argue that the desperate situation has caused voters to grasp onto any chance for change. With the Intifada in its third year, and the Israeli economy struggling, the polls show Israelis frustrated with Sharon’s performance.</p>
<p>And judging by the past week of statements from Qureia and Sharon, there is a will to negotiate, even if it’s obscured by the usual political games. Last week the Israeli daily Maariv cited an anonymous government source as claiming that Sharon is considering dismantling several illegal settlements in Gaza and <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;u=/ap/20031129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians_1594" type="external">annexing</a> West Bank settlements — home to 50,000 Israelis. Legalizing such settlements would not only violate international law, but contradict the requirements of the American brokered “road map.” Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 war, but it has never official annexed West Bank settlements to the state. Meanwhile, U.S. envoy William Burns has been busy negotiating a meeting between Sharon and Qureia. With the U.S. once again trying to steer the two sides into a deal, the Sharon administration appears to be attempting to please the Americans. An Israeli government source told Reuters that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the U.S. envoy that his government was preparing to dismantle 10 settlement outposts in the West Bank. Burns’ visit to Israel follows an announcement last week that the <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;u=/ap/20031127/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians_1566" type="external">U.S would cut $289.5 million</a> out of $9 billion of its loan guarantees due to Israel’s continued construction in the West Bank. Meanwhile in Cairo, an Egyptian brokered cease-fire negotiation with Palestinian militant leaders has been postponed for later this week</p>
<p>The accords have detractors on both sides. Arab-Israeli Knesset member, Azmi Bishara, writes that even if the Palestinian leadership gets its act together, the plan will ultimately <a href="http://www.amin.org/eng/azmi_bishara/2003/oct23.html" type="external">die without acceptance from the Israeli leadership</a>. And on the periphery of the debate, those opposed to the premises of the Oslo accord are predicting <a href="http://www.merip.org/mero/mero112403.html" type="external">another round</a> of failed negotiation.</p>
<p>But, as Ha’aretz writes in its Monday editorial, the best outcome of the accord will not be its translation into an official agreement, but rather <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/366873.html" type="external">its ability to push Israeli politicians</a> and their Palestinian counterparts into developing a basis for fresh negotiations.</p>
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<p>“This alternative is timely, both because it is intended to shake both peoples out of their resignation to the miserable status quo in which they are mired, and because it challenges their leaders to think in new terms and to propose fundamental solutions to the conflict. From this perspective, the Beilin-Abed Rabbo document has already achieved an important goal: It has spurred the leaders of Israel’s political parties to propose their own plans for an agreement, and has compelled the heads of the various Palestinian political movements to define their own positions in relation to it.”</p>
<p /> | Oslo to Geneva | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2003/12/oslo-geneva/ | 2003-12-02 | 4 |
<p>Fans of Bernie Sanders are always saying that what they love about the Democratic socialist candidate is that he's unwavering in his stances on things.</p>
<p>It turns out, he's such a consistent politician that he's literally been running on the same issues for 40 years.</p>
<p>Over and over and over.</p>
<p>Case in point, this unearthed ad of his from 1972. It seems he just copy and pastes his slogans for each new election cycle...</p>
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<p>But this meme floating around seems to sum him up even better...</p>
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<p>And for ol' times sake, possibly the best moment of Bernie's presidential campaign run when he was silenced by the #BlackLivesMatter movement and immediately turned into Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm...</p>
<p>#BernYourEnthusiasm</p> | FLASHBACK: Unearthed Bernie Ad From 1972 | true | https://dailywire.com/news/3151/flashback-unearthed-bernie-ad-1972-chase-stephens | 2016-02-04 | 0 |
<p>MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) — Authorities say one person died in a fire that destroyed a home in Mount Vernon.</p>
<p>The Skagit Valley Herald <a href="https://www.goskagit.com/news/local_news/one-dead-in-mount-vernon-house-fire/article_9a8ebfff-b8f1-5e03-8cc5-2826756e6137.html" type="external">reports</a> firefighters were called to the home at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday and that once they arrived, they called for additional personnel.</p>
<p>Mount Vernon Fire Chief Bryan Brice confirmed that a body was found in the home.</p>
<p>Brice says an investigation into the fire’s cause and the victim’s identity is ongoing.</p>
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<p>Information from: Skagit Valley Herald, <a href="http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com" type="external">http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com</a></p>
<p>MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) — Authorities say one person died in a fire that destroyed a home in Mount Vernon.</p>
<p>The Skagit Valley Herald <a href="https://www.goskagit.com/news/local_news/one-dead-in-mount-vernon-house-fire/article_9a8ebfff-b8f1-5e03-8cc5-2826756e6137.html" type="external">reports</a> firefighters were called to the home at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday and that once they arrived, they called for additional personnel.</p>
<p>Mount Vernon Fire Chief Bryan Brice confirmed that a body was found in the home.</p>
<p>Brice says an investigation into the fire’s cause and the victim’s identity is ongoing.</p>
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<p>Information from: Skagit Valley Herald, <a href="http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com" type="external">http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com</a></p> | 1 dead in Mount Vernon house fire | false | https://apnews.com/c1df850954ca4e6faecacb9a233df404 | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
<p>Rep. Barney Frank, the first openly gay member of Congress, isn't happy about the "high honor" Barack Obama has bestowed on the Rev. Rick Warren, who recently likened gay marriage to incest and pedophilia. This isn't a speech at a forum, the congressman points out, but a role that is "traditionally given as a mark of great respect."</p>
<p>AP via Google:</p>
<p>"Mr. Warren compared same-sex couples to incest. I found that deeply offensive and unfair," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said in a broadcast interview.</p>
<p>"If he was inviting the Rev. Warren to participate in a forum and to make a speech, that would be a good thing," Frank said. "But being singled out to give the prayer at the inauguration is a high honor. It has traditionally given as a mark of great respect. And, yes, I think it was wrong to single him out for this mark of respect."</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jL1wHfvxbVuH4tkCehILUCNJjqrgD9579L700" type="external">Read more</a></p> | A Frank Assessment: Rev. Rick Is Offensive | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/a-frank-assessment-rev-rick-is-offensive/ | 2008-12-22 | 4 |
<p>Which industries are seeing the biggest gains in hiring?</p>
<p>The following analysis breaks down data from the April jobs report. It shows the industries that have grown their workforce at least 3% in the last year. To eliminate smaller, more obscure areas, only industries that employ at least 750,000 people are included. Interestingly, the biggest gain by far was in temporary help services.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The health care, auto, and construction industries are also seeing decent job growth.</p> | Where the Jobs Are | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/05/02/where-jobs-are.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
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<p>Here are some thoughts for the holidays:</p>
<p>Word that the Army’s psy-op propagandists and perception mongers in the Pentagon had manufactured a fraudulent hero legend around the “friendly fire” death of footballer-turned special forces combatant Pat Tillman–much like the fraudulent tale woven about “rescuing Pvt. Lynch” during the Iraq war’s initial days–should have us all on our guard regarding the stories out of Washington purveyed to us by a willing and gullible corporate media. If we take this scummy scam conducted at the late Tillman’s expense as a starting point, we might go on to ponder some other things. Among them:</p>
<p>A majority of us Americans think that the unprovoked invasion of Iraq was a mistake–a mistake that has cost nearly 1300 American lives so far, with no end in sight, and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi lives (right up there on a scale comparable to the butchery of Saddam Hussein himself)–yet we just re-elected the man who is responsible for this colossal crime.</p>
<p>Americans continue to flock to auto dealerships to buy SUVs and trucks even though it is common knowledge that the money they pay to fuel these gas-guzzling behemoths goes straight into the pockets of the corrupt, dictatorial regimes, like Saudi Arabia and Yemen, that are breeding and even financially backing the terrorists who have been attacking Americans at home and abroad.</p>
<p>A decisive majority of Americans believe that healthcare should be a right, and that the solution to America’s healthcare crisis is to have a nationalized medical system like Canada’s, yet such an idea isn’t even on the table in Washington, and is not even discussed by the two parties during national campaigns.</p>
<p>A majority of Americans believe that anything that federal or state government runs is bound to be heavy-handed, bureaucratic and prone to corruption, and yet a majority of Americans also supports having those same governments administer the death penalty.</p>
<p>Government statistics keep telling us that the national income is rising, but the average American family today, with both parents working their butts off, is spending 75 percent of its disposable income on housing, food and transportation, compared with less than 50 percent of income back in 1960, when most families were supported by only one job. (Explanation for this enigma: the national income is an average, but with the rich getting unprecedentedly richer and the poor poorer, you can quickly see where the missing income is going.)</p>
<p>Most Americans continue to believe the fantasy that they have the best lifestyle in the world, but in fact, people in Europe and even in countries like Japan and Taiwan, in many ways, live better than do we Americans, in terms of diet, leisure time, old age security, healthcare, and even safety from terrorism.</p>
<p>With a dogmatism that resembles religious zealotry, American schools teach (or preach to) U.S. students that capitalism is the best economic system, and that the American political system is a model for the world, yet bombed-out-looking American inner cities shock visitors from Europe and even from the more advanced countries of Asia. Poverty in the U.S., while hidden from public view, is the equivalent of a mid-sized third world nation in our midst, with millions of American children growing up hungry, ill clothed, uneducated, and trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair.</p>
<p>In the land of the free, an employer is free to fire an employee for wearing a button supporting a political candidate disliked by her boss. Verbally criticizing a “superior” (there’s a great term, like “boss”, to find still in circulation in what is supposed to be a democratic society or equals) on the job is grounds for dismissal. The much celebrated freedom of speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights applies only to those few waking hours when citizens are asleep or during those few hours when they are either on their commutes to and from work or at home with their families.</p>
<p>And now this: After taking over the airwaves, taking over the print media, and dominating even the Internet, American corporations are now moving to conquer that last bastion of freedom of expression and information–the grapevine. In a cover story in last Sunday’s New York Times, it was disclosed that companies with names like BzzAgent and Tremor are using tens of thousands of weird but willing volunteers to spread product advertisements by word of mouth, pretending that they are simply voicing their own independent opinions.</p>
<p>Since Washington, particularly these days, is little more than a particularly large corporate monopoly, we shouldn’t be surprised to find its PR and image-control agents adopting the same techniques to promote the kind of scams we saw in the just-exposed Tillman saga. Expect volunteers in your community to begin soon talking in the check-out line about how well the war is going, and about how exciting the Iraqi experiment in democracy is.</p>
<p>Or maybe about how brilliant our maximum leader is.</p>
<p>Happy Holidays!</p>
<p>DAVE LINDORFF is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512283/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal</a>. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512984/counterpunchmaga" type="external">This Can’t be Happening!</a>” to be published this fall by Common Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff can be found at <a href="http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/" type="external">www.thiscantbehappening.net</a>.</p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Psst! Hey Buddy, Did You Hear How Well the Iraq War’s Going? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/12/07/psst-hey-buddy-did-you-hear-how-well-the-iraq-war-s-going/ | 2004-12-07 | 4 |
<p>TASMANIAABC Southern Tasmania NewsTasmania's Premier Jim Bacon has joined calls for Peter Hollingworth to step down as Governor-General.The Premier says Dr Hollingworth's decision to stay in the position, in light of a report into his handling of child sex abuse complaints, is detracting from the importance of the role of Governor-General."I don't think the Governor-General really has any other choice," he said. "He is damaging the office of Governor-General, it's clear that adverse findings have been found in relation to the Anglican Church.</p> | Tas Premier calls for G-G resignation | false | https://poynter.org/news/tas-premier-calls-g-g-resignation | 2003-05-03 | 2 |
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<p>Investing for growth? One of the stocks below might be exactly what your portfolio needs.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>If you're investing for some long-term goal, growth stocks should probably make up at least part of your portfolio. The challenge? Picking the growth stocks with strong long-term prospects, but also without the kind of wealth-destroying risks that many investors ignore.</p>
<p>With that in mind, we asked five of our contributors to offer up a growth stock that not only fits those qualifications but is also worth buying now. Here's a look at five growth stocks to buy in May, and why our contributors say they're worth investing in right now.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSymington/activity.aspx" type="external">Steve Symington Opens a New Window.</a>:I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think now is a great time for long-term investors to pick up shares of online real estate specialist Zillow Group .</p>
<p>In fact, I only just finished pounding the table for Zillow in a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/19/5-growth-stocks-to-buy-in-march.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">similar roundtable article Opens a New Window.</a> in March. At the time, I suggested better days were ahead as Zillow emerges from a transition year following its acquisition of competitor Trulia last February. Among the most significant fruit of that acquisition is the benefit of scale for both its core marketplaces segment and its emerging markets, including mortgages and rentals.</p>
<p>Sure enough, Zillow shares recently closed sharply higher after the company's first-quarter results <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/04/zillow-group-inc-closes-a-fantastic-quarter.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">handily exceeded expectations Opens a New Window.</a>, with revenue growth accelerating to 25% on a pro forma basis, including 34% and 65% increases in real estate and mortgages revenue, respectively.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff rightly called it "an incredible start in 2016," punctuated by a company-record 166 million unique users in March across Zillow's four consumer brands (Zillow, Trulia, StreetEasy, and HotPads). What's more, Zillow increased its revenue guidance for the full year on the heels of this strong start, leaving the market no excuse not to bid up its shares.</p>
<p>Even so, I think Zillow is a winner that will keep on winning. And if Zillow can sustain this momentum as the year wears on, the recent pop could be just the beginning as it works to take as much market share as possible in these early stages of growth.</p>
<p>: Forget the whole "sell in May" saying, I think right now is a great time to pick up shares of dominant online video streamer Netflix . After peaking at over $130 just a couple months ago, shares have fallen by over 30% and currently trade in the ballpark of $90, thanks in part to its recent earnings release.</p>
<p>First-quarter revenue jumped to $1.8 billion, and the company put up a strong sequential increase in international members. Netflix added over 4.5 million memberships all around the world, and even though Netflix's international business operates at a loss, this is an important long-term growth avenue. Growth in the U.S. continues to decelerate because of Netflix's mature dominance domestically, but it was still able to add over 2 million paid memberships.</p>
<p>Shares fell after earnings because the company's guidance for member growth in the second quarter was below analyst expectations. Total memberships in the U.S. are expected to increase by only 500,000, below the 586,000 additions the market was expecting.</p>
<p>But that short-term shortfall is presenting a compelling entry point for the long-term picture. As a high-multiple growth stock, Netflix tends to be volatile in the short term, but patient investors can take advantage of that volatility.</p>
<p>: After posting a stronger-than-expected first quarter, AbbVie now appears primed to start regaining lost ground, and perhaps even begin to print new highs later this year. AbbVie's stock has struggled lately because of the forthcoming patent expiration for its anti-inflammatory drug, Humira, combined with the company's massive debt load, stemming in large part from its $21 billion acquisition of Pharmacyclicslast year.</p>
<p>However, the drugmaker's strong first-quarter numbers should help to mute some of these concerns for the time being. After all, AbbVie's "big three" -- Humira, Imbruvica, and Viekira Pak -- all posted strong sales growth in the first quarter, supporting management's claims that the company can continue to generate industry-leading levels of growth going forward. Put simply, the drugmaker should be able to carry its hefty debt load without any major hiccups, or reductions in shareholder rewards.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the Street has AbbVie's top line growing by 12% this year and another 10% in 2017, meaning that analysts don't seem to be overly concerned with Humira's patent expiration or the launch of newer hepatitis C therapies that could cut into Viekira Pak's market share. While investors will certainly want to keep a close eye on these pivotal issues, the numbers so far side with management's long-term business outlook. As such, investors may want to consider adding this dividend growth stock (yielding 3.65% at current share prices) to their portfolio this month.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a>: Following what's pretty much been a 30% beat-down to begin the year, I'd suggest growth investors consider nibbling on Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in May.</p>
<p>Regeneron's early-year woes can be traced to two main sources. First, the biotech industry as a whole was clobbered to begin the year, and it still hasn't quite recovered. Valuations in the industry were arguably rich, so a retracement seemed only healthy. Additionally, Regeneron and partner Sanofi announced that quarterly sales of PCSK9 inhibitor Praluent, a next-generation LDL-cholesterol-lowering injection, amounted to a mere $10 million in the first quarter. Despite its strong LDL-C reductions in clinical studies, its low Q1 sales totals imply a struggle getting physicians and insurers to accept its notably higher annual cost ($14,600 wholesale).</p>
<p>But I'd opine that those frowns are about to turn upside-down thanks to three key factors.</p>
<p>Image source: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.</p>
<p>First, Regeneron's and Sanofi's Eylea, a treatment for a host of ophthalmologic conditions, continues to be a superstar. Regeneron predicted full-year 2016 sales growth of 20% for Eylea in February, which would peg it around $3.3 billion in U.S. sales this year. That's nothing to sneeze at.</p>
<p>Secondly, Regeneron has an impressive but oft-overlooked pipeline. Sarilumab, an IL-6R antibody, could pack some serious punch as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and non-infectious uveitis, while dupilumab, an Il-4R antibody, is tackling atopic dermatitis in children and adults (in separate trials). Not surprisingly, both experimental drug candidates are partnered with Sanofi. Wall Street believes if both are approved, they'll become blockbuster drugs ($1 billion+ in peak annual sales). Lastly, Regeneron could benefit from Amgen'scompeting PCSK9 inhibitor Repatha, which is slated to report data from its long-term cardiovascular study in the second-half of 2016. If Repatha demonstrates superiority over current standards of care, it could be a major boon to all PCSK9 inhibitors, and not just Amgen's Repatha.</p>
<p>Expected to double its EPS and revenue between fiscal 2015 and 2019, Regeneron looks like an intriguing buy here.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFVelvetHammer/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Jason Hall Opens a New Window.</a>: Now is a fantastic time to invest inHain Celestial Group, Inc. . Hain just reported third-quarter earnings, and after a couple of quarters of stalled growth in the U.S., the company showed that its recent efforts to reignite growth are <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/04/3-ways-hain-celestial-group-inc-continues-driving.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">paying off Opens a New Window.</a>. Revenue increased 13%, earnings per share jumped an incredible 47%, and the future looks great.</p>
<p>Things aren't perfect, as illustrated by the company's failed attempt to rebrand its Celestial Seasonings teas, but a return to the legacy packaging, and the retention of its retail distribution has management confident it can get sales back to prior levels, while a major shuffling of its products into corresponding groups, seems like a smart move to help drive further distribution and growth of the core brands.</p>
<p>And despite a solid record of managing costs and integrating acquisitions over the years, the company isn't standing still. Chief Operations Officer James Meiers is heading upProject Terra, an initiative to reduce costs, improve processes and efficiencies, and to better leverage the company's growing scale and brands more effectively with purchasing, co-packing, and distribution among other things.</p>
<p>Looking at the company's historical results; the huge growth opportunity for its healthy, organic, and natural foods to take market share around the world; and the recent drubbing that has put the stock trading at a forward price-to-earnings multiple below 20, now's an excellent time to buy this wonderful growth stock and hold for the next decade or more.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/05/14/5-growth-stocks-to-buy-in-may.aspx" type="external">5 Growth Stocks to Buy in May Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFNewCow/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Evan Niu, CFA Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Netflix. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/gbudwell/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">George Budwell Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/elihpaudio/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Jason Hall Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Amgen, Hain Celestial, Netflix, Zillow Group (A shares), and Zillow Group (C shares). <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Sean Williams</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSymington/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Steve Symington Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Hain Celestial, Netflix, Zillow Group (A shares), and Zillow Group (C shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. 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> | 5 Growth Stocks to Buy in May | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/14/5-growth-stocks-to-buy-in-may.html | 2016-05-14 | 0 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Make some room on your kitchen shelves: Albuquerque is getting an influx of cinnamon, cardamom and curry powder.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.penzeys.com/" type="external">Penzeys Spices</a> could open its new Albuquerque store as early as this week, a spokeswoman told the Journal Thursday.</p>
<p>Margie Gibbons said the store is scheduled to undergo some final inspections Friday. If it clears those without unexpected delays, Gibbons said the store will be ready to welcome customers at its 4410 Wyoming NE location, in the same shopping center as Michaels and Party City.</p>
<p>Based in Wisconsin, Penzeys sells more than 300 spices, herbs and seasonings in various quantities - usually by the quarter, half and three-quarters cup. The company already has a presence in 30 states, according to its website. The Albuquerque store will mark its first New Mexico location.</p>
<p>Once it officially launches in Albuquerque, it will be open from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sunday.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Penzeys Spices ready to get cooking in Albuquerque | false | https://abqjournal.com/664036/penzeys-spices-ready-to-get-cooking-in-albuquerque.html | 2 |
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<p>CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Two gunmen burst into a home east of the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez where people were celebrating a baseball victory and killed 10 people, authorities said Monday.</p>
<p>The killings occurred Sunday night in Loma Blanca, a town in the Juarez Valley. The dead included a 7-year-old girl, her mother, three teenage boys and five adult men, said Arturo Sandoval, spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutors’ office.</p>
<p>The bodies were found scattered over a radius of about 12 yards (meters) around the home, suggesting some had tried to flee when they were gunned down. A trophy from the baseball game was also found at the home.</p>
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<p>The manager of the local baseball team, the Cardinals, was present at the party and said a total of about 30 people attended, but the others were able to escape by running away. He said he saw only one gunman, who he described as a young man.</p>
<p>The manager, who asked not to be identified by name for fear of reprisals, said the killings could have been motivated by resentment over the team’s victory; he said there is betting on games in the local league.</p>
<p>Over 30 shell casing found at the scene indicated that an assault rifle was used in the attack.</p>
<p>“One of the lines of investigation it’s a possible revenge,” said Jorge Gonzalez Nicolas, an assistant Chihuahua state prosecutor. He said five men were kidnapped from the town’s baseball field two months ago, and the killings could be related to that.</p>
<p>He said witness statements cast doubt on a possible drug gang link. He added that at least two gunmen took part in the assault.</p>
<p>Chihuahua Gov. Cesar Duarte said “there is evidence that we will make public soon” in the case, which he said “will not stop us in the battle against impunity.”</p>
<p>It was one of the biggest massacres in the area since the 2010 killing of 15 people in an attack on a birthday party in Villas de Salvarcar, a working-class neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.</p>
<p>Sandoval said there was no information yet on the possible motive in the Loma Blanca killings; The Villas de Salvarcar massacre was believed to have involved a case of mistaken identity, in which one drug gang attacked a party it mistakenly thought was attended by members of a rival gang.</p>
<p>The Juarez Valley, a largely agricultural region that stretches along the Rio Grande, has been the scene of frequent turf battles between gangs allied with the Sinaloa drug cartel, and gunmen of the local Juarez cartel.</p>
<p>However, violence in Ciudad Juarez and surrounding areas has dropped significantly in recent years.</p>
<p>Ciudad Juarez recorded 341 homicides so far in 2013, down from 952 killings by gangs in the first half of 2012, and 1,642 in the first half of 2011.</p> | 10 killed in massacre near Juarez | false | https://abqjournal.com/268197/10-killed-in-massacre-near-juarez.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Zip codes: House 20515, Senate 20510</p>
<p>Capitol operator: (202) 224-3121</p>
<p>HOUSE</p>
<p>Ben Ray Luján (D)</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Steve Pearce (R)</p>
<p>Michelle Lujan Grisham (D)</p>
<p>RAIL-PASSENGER BUDGET: Voting 316 for and 101 against, the House on March 4 passed a bill (HR 749) that would authorize $7.2 billion through fiscal 2020 for rail-passenger service between U.S. cities, consisting of $5.3 billion for Amtrak operations and capital improvements, $1.2 billion for grants to state-operated passenger lines and $625 million for Amtrak debt service.</p>
<p>The bill establishes Amtrak’s profitable Northeast Corridor service between Washington and Boston as a separate financial entity so that its surpluses could no longer be used to subsidize money-losing routes in other regions.</p>
<p>The bill gives states greater say in the operation of Amtrak routes within their borders.</p>
<p>In addition, the bill would allow short-cut environmental reviews of rail-passenger construction projects; launch a study into the possible restoration of passenger service between New Orleans, La., and Orlando, Fla.; permit passengers to travel with dog and cat pets and require American-made iron and steel to be used for capital improvements.</p>
<p>A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate, where it stands a chance of passage.</p>
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<p>YES: LUJAN GRISHAM, LUJÃN, PEARCE</p>
<p>RAIL-PASSENGER SUBSIDIES: Voting 147 for and 272 against, the House on March 4 refused to strip HR 749 (above) of its subsidies of rail-passenger service, effectively killing the more than 15 money-losing Amtrak routes operating outside of the Northeast Corridor.</p>
<p>A yes vote was to end federal subsidies of rail-passenger service.</p>
<p>YES: PEARCE NO: LUJAN GRISHAM, LUJÃN</p>
<p>BOOST IN AMTRAK SECURITY: Voting 184 for and 232 against, the House on March 4 defeated a Democratic motion to increase the budget for Amtrak’s police force in HR 749 (above) by $150 million annually and require the force to give hiring preference to veterans.</p>
<p>A yes vote was to adopt the motion, which, had it prevailed, would have immediately amended the bill.</p>
<p>YES: LUJAN GRISHAM, LUJÃN, NO: PEARCE</p>
<p>SENATE</p>
<p>Martin Heinrich (D)</p>
<p>Tom Udall (D)</p>
<p>NEW RULE FOR UNION ELECTIONS: Voting 53 for and 46 against, the Senate on March 4 approved a resolution (SJ Res 8) that would kill a new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rule compressing the time between the filing of a union-organizing petition and the vote on whether to unionize.</p>
<p>Set to take effect April 14, the rule bars litigation intended mainly to delay elections and allows forms to be filed electronically with the NLRB during the election process instead of only by regular mail.</p>
<p>In addition, the rule requires employers to provide organizers with workers’ email addresses and cellphone numbers, going beyond the present requirement that they provide only names and home addresses.</p>
<p>Established in 1934, the NLRB is charged with overseeing collective bargaining and protecting the workplace rights of both labor and management.</p>
<p>A yes vote was to send the resolution to the House.</p>
<p>If it passes there, it would require President Obama’s signature to take effect.</p>
<p>NO: UDALL, HEINRICH</p>
<p>VETO OF KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE BILL: Voting 62 for and 37 against, the Senate on March 4 failed to reach a two-thirds majority needed to override President Obama’s veto of a bill (S 1) to require federal approval of a Keystone XL Pipeline section from the Canadian border to Steele City, Neb.</p>
<p>This would be the final link in a nearly 4,000-mile Keystone XL network for shipping tar-sands crude from Hardisty, Alberta, to refineries in Texas and the Midwest and ports on the Texas Gulf Coast. TransCanada Corp. is the pipeline owner.</p>
<p>NO: UDALL, HEINRICH</p>
<p /> | How your congressional delegates voted | false | https://abqjournal.com/551542/how-your-congressional-delegates-voted-56.html | 2 |
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<p>WASHINGTON – Donald Trump’s arrival in Washington Thursday on the eve of his inauguration as the 45th president snapped the capital city into its new reality, as the buoyant business mogul celebrated his unlikely political ascent with signature bravado and spontaneity.</p>
<p>Kicking off three days of carefully orchestrated inaugural proceedings infused with pomp and guided by precision and protocol, the president-elect reveled in the moment and delivered a tribute to the populist movement that propelled him into office.</p>
<p>“We all got tired of seeing what was happening and we wanted change, but we wanted real change,” Trump said on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. “It’s a movement like we’ve never seen anywhere in the world, they say.”</p>
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<p>Exhorting thousands of supporters at the conclusion of an evening concert that was punctuated by a glimmering fireworks display, Trump vowed, “We’re going to work together, and we are going to make America great again – and, I’ll add, greater than ever before.”</p>
<p>Trump and his extended family signaled a new era in the country’s governance as they stepped off a military plane at Joint Base Andrews. They headed directly to his Pennsylvania Avenue property, the Trump International Hotel, where the president-elect irreverently toasted his Cabinet nominees.</p>
<p>“We have by far the highest IQ of any Cabinet ever assembled,” Trump said in a characteristically grandiose – and unprovable – declaration before several hundred supporters, lawmakers and allies at an official luncheon. He scanned the room for familiar faces and riffed on each individually, as if he were delivering a toast.</p>
<p>Trump narrated his journey and the day’s festivities on Twitter. “On my way!” Trump tweeted as he headed in the afternoon to Arlington National Cemetery, where he and Vice President-elect Mike Pence laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. They both stood in silence with their hands over their hearts as a bugler played taps.</p>
<p>As Trump put the finishing touches on the inaugural address he will deliver from the steps of the Capitol after taking the oath of office at noon Friday, Pence and their incoming administration were preparing to assume control of the federal government.</p>
<p>Addressing reporters Thursday from the transition team’s Washington headquarters, Pence said, “It is a momentous day before a historic day.”</p>
<p>The vice president-elect noted that all 21 Cabinet nominations have been made and that 536 “beachhead” officials are ready to report for duty at federal departments and agencies.</p>
<p>President Barack Obama’s appointees packed up their belongings and vacated their offices Thursday, although the Trump team is retaining 50 of them in critical positions throughout the government to ensure continuity until Trump can more fully staff his administration. The temporary holdovers include Brett McGurk, a special envoy coordinating the war against the Islamic State; Nick Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center; and Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.</p>
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<p>“Our job is to be ready on Day One,” Pence said. “The American people can be confident that we will be. . . . It’s going to be a very humbling and moving day for the president-elect his family and for mine. But let me tell you, we are all ready to go to work.”</p>
<p>Trump and his team on Thursday sent signals suggesting an attempt to begin repairing relations with groups he demonized throughout his transition, including the intelligence community and the media. Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary, calmly answered questions for an hour in his first formal briefing with journalists and confirmed that Trump would soon visit the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to express his gratitude to career intelligence officers.</p>
<p>While the bureaucrats-to-be were working, Trump supporters from throughout the country who had descended on Washington were partying at the concert at the Lincoln Memorial, which was bathed in patriotic lighting. Throngs of people extended toward the Washington Monument as an assortment of military bands and recording artists performed.</p>
<p>As Trump and his wife, Melania, descended the monument’s steps at sunset, the president-elect saluted the marble statue of President Abraham Lincoln, flashed a tight smile and pumped his fist in the air to the roar of the crowd and the Rolling Stones’ “Heart of Stone” playing from the speakers.</p>
<p>But the concert served as a reminder of Trump’s limited popularity. Despite his electoral-college victory, a majority of voters cast their ballot for someone else in November’s election. Trump is the least-popular incoming president in at least four decades, with 40 percent of Americans holding a favorable impression of him and 54 percent holding an unfavorable one, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week.</p>
<p>Entertainers such as Elton John, Celine Dion and the rock band Kiss said publicly that they turned down invitations to perform at inaugural festivities. One artist scheduled to perform at the Lincoln Memorial concert – Broadway’s Jennifer Holliday – dropped out last week, the day after the announcement, saying she had heard concerns from the gay community about the message her participation would send.</p>
<p>The concert headliners were country singers Toby Keith and Lee Greenwood and the rock band 3 Doors Down, which performed one of its hits, “Broken,” the lyrics of which echoed Trump’s appeal to disenchanted Americans:</p>
<p>“This is the call to the broken/To all the ones who’ve been thrown away/This is the call to the broken/Stand up and take back your world today.”</p>
<p>Trump used his various social-media platforms to promote the concert, and at 3:21 p.m., less than an hour before it began, he tweeted to his more than 20 million followers to join him on the Mall, “no tickets required.”</p>
<p>Thousands of people heeded his call, yet there were large pockets of empty space along the reflecting pool. Adhering to its usual policy, the National Park Service did not provide crowd size estimates.</p>
<p>Even if it was not a historic turnout, the reality-television-producer-turned-politician appeared to relish the spotlight. As Greenwood sang his signature song, “God Bless the USA,” Trump swayed, smiled and flashed a thumbs-up – though he appeared bored at other times as he fidgeted from his seat behind bulletproof glass.</p>
<p>Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the day’s events signaled that “this man is going to do it his way.”</p>
<p>“Everything points to this incredible sense of grandiosity,” Mann said. “He’s telling the country, ‘Get used to it.’ “</p>
<p>Past presidents began to descend on Washington to witness Trump’s swearing-in, including Jimmy Carter, who was spotted aboard a commercial Delta flight from Atlanta. Hillary Clinton, who was Trump’s Democratic opponent, and Bill Clinton were planning to attend.</p>
<p>George H.W. Bush will not be making the trip. He and his wife, Barbara, were hospitalized in Houston this week. The former president was in stable condition Thursday and hoping to be discharged from the intensive-care unit in coming days, while the former first lady was recovering from bronchitis, spokesman Jim McGrath said.</p>
<p>Trump spent part of Thursday making final preparations for the ceremony. He visited Blair House, the government property where he is scheduled to stay the night before moving into the White House, and met there Thursday afternoon with Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. to discuss arrangements for Friday’s ceremony. Roberts will administer the oath of office. Trump is expected to use two Bibles – a family one and one that Lincoln used at his first inauguration in 1861.</p>
<p>Trump’s aides said he has taken personal ownership of his speech, writing and rewriting drafts himself with the help of a few advisers, and practiced delivering it before teleprompters this week at Trump Tower in New York.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be a very personal and sincere statement,” Spicer said. “I think it’s going to be less of an agenda and more of a philosophical document – a vision of where he sees the country, the proper role of government, the role of citizens.”</p>
<p>Trump and Pence are planning to begin the day Friday at a church service at the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, which sits on Lafayette Square across from the White House and has been frequented by presidents. From there, they will have tea with the Obamas on the South Portico of the White House before making their way down Pennsylvania Avenue for the Capitol, where Trump will be sworn in.</p>
<p>Following his inaugural address, Trump will attend a congressional luncheon in the Capitol and see off the Obamas, who are heading to Palm Springs, California, for a vacation. The Trumps will then watch the inaugural parade – which aides say is expected to last about 90 minutes, among the shortest on record – from a reviewing stand outside the White House. Trump will attend three official inaugural balls in the evening.</p>
<p>On Saturday morning, the new president will attend a traditional national prayer service at Washington National Cathedral before spending the rest of the weekend settling into his new home and meeting with his advisers.</p>
<p>Pence marveled to reporters: “Sometimes people stop me on the street they say, ‘How you holding up? I can’t imagine how busy you are.’ And I just tell them, ‘Well, you just have to understand, the energy and the enthusiasm of Donald Trump is contagious.’ “</p>
<p>– – –</p>
<p>Lenny Bernstein and Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed to this report.</p>
<p>– – –</p>
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<p /> | First winds of change stir as Trump arrives | false | https://abqjournal.com/931713/trump-begins-inaugural-festivities-as-he-prepares-for-the-presidency.html | 2017-01-19 | 2 |
<p>Titanium dioxide producers received a rare bit of bad news today -- with a little bit of drama sprinkled in.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Tronox (NYSE: TROX) appeared set to proceed with its proposed acquisition of the titanium dioxide business of Cristal, a privately held global mining and chemical company based in Saudi Arabia, as recently as the first of December. That's when the comment period expired under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, a major antitrust law that grants the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice powers to intervene in large business mergers.</p>
<p>But investors' celebration may have been a little premature. Today the FTC decided to block the proposed merger citing concerns about competitiveness in the global titanium dioxide market. Tronox has vowed to appeal the decision, which it thinks is based on erroneous information about the market's structure, but the stock dropped as much as 27.1% today. That's because Wall Street thinks the proposed Cristal acquisition is critical to the company's valuation and future growth.</p>
<p>Nearly every major titanium dioxide producer was affected by the news today. Shares of Valhi (NYSE: VHI) dropped as much as 27.9%, while shares of Kronos Worldwide (NYSE: KRO) fell up to 13%. Even the more diversified producer Chemours (NYSE: CC) saw its shares down 5.8% at 12:16 p.m. ET.</p>
<p>The surprise move from the FTC is catching the titanium dioxide industry off guard for good reason. While the decision to block the proposed merger was handed down days after the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act waiting period ended, the real kicker is the argument the commission is using to justify its stance. The three main points the FTC argues:</p>
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<p>The first point may be the most subjective, but the other two arguments are making the industry's top producers shake. Simply put, if the FTC recognizes the titanium dioxide market as an oligopoly, then it opens the door to further action and certainly makes any future potential expansion among top producers that much more difficult.</p>
<p>Is the titanium dioxide market an oligopoly? Well, there's certainly a very small number of companies that exert control over the global industry. Chemours, Venator Materials (NYSE: VNTR), and Kronos Worldwide <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/06/13/5-best-titanium-stocks-to-buy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5017136a-daac-11e7-a793-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">own roughly 45% of global production capacity Opens a New Window.</a>. They have all benefited tremendously -- almost unbelievably -- in the past year thanks to rising selling prices. Whether or not they're coordinating production to help their collective case is unknown, although the FTC seems to be wary of allowing power to concentrate further.</p>
<p>There's not much investors can do besides wait. If the FTC makes its case that the global titanium dioxide market is already too concentrated, then that will complicate future expansion -- even if Tronox wins an appeal on the technicality that the decision was handed down days after the appropriate window expired. For now, it's still early in the process, but investors may have been warned.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than TronoxWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=19abe8f9-82ac-4367-b3ba-f71476f6a38d&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5017136a-daac-11e7-a793-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Tronox wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=19abe8f9-82ac-4367-b3ba-f71476f6a38d&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5017136a-daac-11e7-a793-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of December 4, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBlacknGold/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5017136a-daac-11e7-a793-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Maxx Chatsko Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;referring_guid=5017136a-daac-11e7-a793-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Here's Why Titanium Stocks Were Crushed Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/12/06/heres-why-titanium-stocks-were-crushed-today.html | 2017-12-06 | 0 |
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<p>President Obama has been waiting for this exact moment to seize all happiness and joy from the playful minds and hearts of happy Easter-celebrating Christians this weekend. The Easter weekend has been in early celebration since Friday. Obama has been lying in wait under the murky waters of hatred&#160; to spring forth this brutal and ugly war time upon the happily drinking and unsuspecting Christians as they celebrate this happy and joyful time of nice weather, glorious deeds done by Christ, and friends and family gatherings.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Not only has this been Obama’s plan all along, but his entire cabinet has helped him plan this ugly time of war from beginning to the inevitable end. It makes me sick how&#160; he could do this to us! He plans to release his deadly force of chemtrail jets on Easter Sunday&#160;upon families as they&#160;gather for the Easter celebration.</p>
<p>Be aware of his evil plans as you and your family celebrate this happy time. Beware the Obama!</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Obama is Officially Declaring War on Easter | true | http://bigamericannews.com/2015/04/04/obama-is-officially-declaring-war-on-easter/ | 2015-04-04 | 0 |
<p>ADP jobs report comes in ahead of expectations</p>
<p>The Dow broke above the 22,000 threshold for the first time ever on Wednesday, putting the blue-chip index on track for its seventh straight daily rise even as the broader market pulled back on weakness in telecom and consumer-discretionary shares.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Major indexes opened higher a day after Apple Inc.(AAPL) posted stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-shares-soar-as-fiscal-third-quarter-earnings-beat-expectations-2017-08-01) and iPhone sales that met expectations. Its stock rose 4.7% and hit a record in its biggest one-day percentage rise since February.</p>
<p>The tech giant is the market's largest stock by market value, which means it has an outsize weight on the overall moves of all three major indexes.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 23 points, or 0.1%, to 21,987, with gains powered almost entirely by Apple. Earlier, the average touched an intraday high of 22,036.10. If the blue-chip index ends higher, it would mark its sixth straight closing record.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 was off by 7 points, or 0.3%, at 2,470, with eight of the 11 primary S&amp;P sectors down on the day. Telecom shares shed 1.1%, consumer-discretionary shares fell 0.8%, and real-estate shares fell 0.7%.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq Composite Index declined 32 points, or 0.5%, to 6,331. The tech-heavy Nasdaq had previously risen as much as 0.5% on the day.</p>
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<p>Read:Apple's earnings-driven gain puts the Dow on pace to top 22,000 (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apples-earnings-driven-gain-puts-the-dow-on-pace-to-top-22000-2017-08-02)</p>
<p>Wall Street remains solidly higher for 2017, with major indexes having hit a series of records. However, those gains have raised some concerns about valuations.</p>
<p>"People are saying the move has been overdone, but they've been saying that for a while," said Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management. "Valuations do look stretched relative to historical norms, but investors are looking a little farther out, and valuations don't look that bad in that context."</p>
<p>"Overall, earnings have been coming in good this season, with stocks beating on revenue and profits," Jacobsen said. "The fact that the market is still reacting to that in a positive way tells me that stocks aren't in a bubble, that there's fundamental support."</p>
<p>Apple has been one of the market's biggest gainers thus far this year, up 36%. The results could provide support to the idea that technology stock valuations are justified by their levels of growth.</p>
<p>Read: A quarter of S&amp;P 500's 2017 climb due to five stocks (yes, those five) (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-quarter-of-sp-500s-2017-climb-due-to-five-stocks-yes-those-five-2017-07-27)</p>
<p>Don't miss:One giant reason why tech bubble talk may simply be overblown (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-giant-reason-why-tech-bubble-talk-may-simply-be-overblown-2017-08-02)</p>
<p>Adding to the positive tone on the day, private-sector hiring remained strong in July (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/private-sector-continues-to-see-strong-job-gains-in-july-adp-says-2017-08-02)as employers added 178,000 jobs in the month, more than had been expected, according to ADP. The report is sometimes seen as a positive sign ahead of the closely watched payrolls report, which will be released on Friday.</p>
<p>"This is not a sign of an economy that's rolling over. This is a sign of an economy that's starting to accelerate," Jacobsen said.</p>
<p>Still, as stocks enter the typically difficult late summer season near record levels, investors are likely to remain cautious until the Friday jobs report hits, said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial.</p>
<p>"Friday employment will be very important in determining what the Fed is going to do, and typically we see a bit of caution ahead of that," Krosby said.</p>
<p>Read:Apple's earnings have Wall Street learning to 'stop worrying and love the super cycle' (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apples-earnings-have-wall-street-learning-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-super-cycle-2017-08-02)</p>
<p>In the energy sector, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (PXD) sank 11% while Range Resources Corp. (RRC) lost 11%, leading the sector's declines.</p>
<p>Among other movers, Match Group Inc.(MTCH) rose 1.1% after the online dating company late Tuesday turned in earnings that fell short of forecasts (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/match-group-shares-slip-after-earnings-miss-announced-leadership-shuffle-2017-08-01) but also announced a new chief executive.</p>
<p>Health-plan administrator Humana Inc.(HUM) reported earnings that beat forecasts and lifted its full-year outlook (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/humana-beats-profit-expectatons-and-lifts-outlook-but-revenue-falls-shy-2017-08-02), while Burger King-parent Restaurant Brands International Inc.(QSR) missed profit forecasts (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/burger-king-parent-restaurant-brands-misses-profit-revenue-estimates-2017-08-02). Shares of Humana were up 4.8% while Restaurant Brands was down 0.7%.</p>
<p>Illumina Inc.(ILMN) shares jumped more than 14% after the DNA sequencing company reported strong revenue results (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/illumina-shares-rally-as-revenue-tops-street-view-2017-08-01) late Tuesday.</p>
<p>Cardinal Health Inc.(CAH) shares dropped nearly 10% following a downbeat outlook (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cardinal-health-stock-drops-3-on-downbeat-fiscal-2018-guidance-2017-08-02) for the year, while DaVita Inc.(DVA) shares fell nearly 8% following earnings.</p>
<p>Mondelez International Inc.(MDLZ) topped earnings forecasts and said its CEO Irene Rosenfeld will step down effective November. Shares rose 0.1%.</p>
<p>Time Warner Inc. (TWX) rose 0.1% after its earnings easily beat forecasts.</p>
<p>Shares of Molson Coors Brewing Co. (TAP) gained 3.1% after its results.</p>
<p>And after the market closes, Tesla Inc.(TSLA), Fitbit Inc.(FIT) and American International Group Inc.(AIG) are among major companies slated to report.</p>
<p>Read:Tesla earnings -- Will Model 3 live up to the hype? (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-earnings-will-model-3-live-up-to-the-hype-2017-07-27)</p>
<p>Opinion:U.S. economy needs to create 4.4 million more jobs (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/economy-needs-to-create-44-million-more-jobs-2017-07-31)</p>
<p>In Federal Reserve news, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-should-keep-to-its-slow-tightening-pace-even-with-tepid-inflation-mester-says-2017-08-02)said the Fed should keep its slow tightening pace even with soft inflation.</p>
<p>San Francisco Fed president John Williams will talk about monetary policy in Las Vegas, Nev., at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.</p>
<p>Other markets:Oil prices (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-remains-lower-after-smaller-than-expected-inventory-drop-2017-08-02) fell 0.4% after the Energy Information Administration said that crude-oil inventories fell by 1.5 million barrels in the latest week.</p>
<p>Gold (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-slides-from-a-nearly-8-week-high-even-as-dollar-remains-under-pressure-2017-08-02) dipped 0.1% to $1,278.20 an ounce, and trades around a nearly eight-week high..</p>
<p>Asian markets closed mixed (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/asian-markets-get-boost-from-apples-strong-earnings-2017-08-01), while European stocks (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/european-stocks-struggle-as-oil-and-bank-shares-are-dragged-down-2017-08-02) traded mostly lower.</p>
<p>--Sara Sjolin in London contributed to this report.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 02, 2017 13:15 ET (17:15 GMT)</p> | MARKET SNAPSHOT: Apple Buoys Dow As S&P 500, Nasdaq Retreat | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/02/market-snapshot-apple-buoys-dow-as-s-p-500-nasdaq-retreat.html | 2017-08-02 | 0 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The biologists at Bandelier National Monument showed up earlier this month in a fascinating New York Times piece about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/the-wilderness-act-is-facing-a-midlife-crisis.html?_r=3&amp;referrer=" type="external">rethinking the notion of wilderness</a>:</p>
<p>At Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, the past century of livestock grazing and fire suppression had turned much of the savanna-like landscape into one crowded with dense juniper and pinyon trees, with bare earth below. “The rates of soil erosion had accelerated to damaging levels,” as rains chewed away at the almost 3,000 archaeological sites that the monument was established to protect, said Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the survey’s Jemez Mountains Field Station.</p>
<p>After 15 years of study, in 2007 the park started taking chain saws to about 5,000 acres of land — mostly in the monument’s 23,000-acre Bandelier Wilderness — cutting small trees and mulching the ground with their branches. The scale of the action “was and remains unprecedented” in wilderness, where engines aren’t usually permitted, he said.</p>
<p>It’s worked. Rates of erosion have fallen by at least an order of magnitude, while native grasses and shrubs have increased threefold.</p>
<p>“I think we improved the resilience of the system going forward,” Brian Jacobs, a Bandelier botanist, said. “The healthier a system is going into these changes, the more likely it is to be able to respond favorably.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/the-wilderness-act-is-facing-a-midlife-crisis.html?_r=3&amp;referrer=" type="external">The full article is worth a read</a>.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | In Bandelier, chainsaws in the wilderness | false | https://abqjournal.com/428983/in-bandelier-chainsaws-in-the-wilderness.html | 2 |
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<p>A major national parks concessionaire has dropped efforts to trademark names of the most popular properties at the Grand Canyon.</p>
<p>Xanterra (zan-TAYR'-uh) Parks &amp; Resorts applied for roughly 20 trademarks before its contract to manage South Rim hotels, restaurants and mule rides expired at the end of December. It later won a temporary contract.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office now lists some of them as "dead." For others, Xanterra has stated it is abandoning the applications.</p>
<p>Xanterra had sought a trademark for names including Phantom Ranch, Hopi House and El Tovar. The Greenwood Village, Colorado-based company didn't respond Thursday to request for comment.</p>
<p>The National Park Service had said it considers the names to be property of the agency, pursuant to trademark rights under common law.</p> | Park concessionaire abandons applications to trademark names of popular places at Grand Canyon | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/05/07/park-concessionaire-abandons-applications-to-trademark-names-popular-places-at.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
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<p>KEEPING SCORE: The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index fell seven points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,093 as of 10:03 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 81 points, or 0.5 percent, to 18,054. The Nasdaq composite fell six points, or 0.1 percent, to 4,976.</p>
<p>MORE JOBS: U.S. employers extended a healthy streak of hiring in February by adding 295,000 jobs, the 12th straight monthly gain above 200,000. The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent from 5.7 percent. Still, the strong job gains weren’t enough to boost wages by much. The average hourly wage rose just 3 cents in February to $24.78 an hour.</p>
<p>ANALYST TAKE: The strong hiring report will likely fuel speculation that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates as early as June. Last week Fed Chair Janet Yellen indicated that a summer hike was possible, while leaving the door open to a later increase. “All things considered I think this is a very good labor market report and will only feed into expectations for a rate hike from the Fed in June,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA. “The rally in the dollar immediately after the release clearly supports this view.”</p>
<p>THE BIGGEST LOSERS: The yield on the 10-year Treasury note jumped to 2.20 percent from 2.12 percent late Thursday, as investors factored in a higher probability of a summer rate hike.</p>
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<p>Stocks that pay rich dividends, such as utilities, telecommunication companies and real estate Investment companies, slumped the most. These stocks have been popular while interest rates on bonds have remained low. If interest rates on bonds rise, they become less attractive by comparison.</p>
<p>EUROPE’S DAY: In Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 0.3 percent while the CAC-40 in France was flat. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares fell 0.5 percent.</p>
<p>DOLLAR SPIKES: The dollar was the main mover after the release of the job figures as traders priced in an earlier rate hike. The euro, already at 12-year lows, slid 1.5 percent to $1.0856 while the dollar rose 0.8 percent to 121.13 yen.</p>
<p>ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude was down 40 cents to $50.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was down 12 cents to $60.36 a barrel in London.</p> | US stocks open lower after strong jobs report | false | https://abqjournal.com/551000/us-stocks-open-lower-after-strong-jobs-report.html | 2 |
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<p>The Post holds a 7.3 percent state in the major league baseball club that is majority owned by brothers Dick and Charlie Monfort.</p>
<p>Ed Moss, CEO of the Denver Post, said Digital First Media, which operates MediaNews Group, owner of the newspaper, is seeking to sell the minority stake in the Rockies as the Post focuses on core print and digital business.</p>
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<p>"We've made great strides in growing our audience in the last few years, so when we look at anything that the company is involved in, what we want to do is have our focus on our core business," Moss said. "And anything that's not tied to it, we're going to evaluate whether we want to stay associated with those businesses or not."</p>
<p>Forbes magazine recently valued the franchise at $464 million, which would put the newspaper's stake at more than $33 million.</p>
<p>"If we don't get what we think would be a fair value, we are certainly happy to keep our interest," Moss emphasized.</p>
<p>The Post has held its stake in the team since the Rockies were founded more than two decades ago and Moss said the decision to seek a buyer for its stake is not a reflection of the team's ownership or the newspaper's relationship with the Monforts.</p>
<p>"We have a great relationship with the Rockies organization and certainly our reporting has been totally independent of our ownership stake and that will always continue," Moss said.</p>
<p>Moss said Los Angeles-based investment bank Park Lane and Katten Muchin Roseman LLP, a sports law group, will field offers for the newspaper's 7.3 percent stake.</p>
<p>The Rockies are coming off a 98-loss season, their worst ever, but attendance remained strong in spite of their poor performance on the field. Manager Jim Tracy resigned after the season, and the club on Wednesday night named former shortstop Walt Weiss as his replacement.</p> | Denver Post Selling Stake in Rockies | false | https://abqjournal.com/144925/denver-post-selling-stake-in-rockies.html | 2012-11-08 | 2 |
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<p>About 100 Genesis employees will occupy the 45,000-square-foot headquarters building, which will be called Albuquerque Square Western Headquarters. Sun’s old 34,800-square-foot headquarters building on Masthead is for sale at $5.74 million or for lease at $15 a square foot.</p>
<p>Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry, left, and Genesis HealthCare Senior Vice President Paxton Wiffler unveil the sign in front of the company’s new western division headquarters. The building is part of the old Sun Healthcare Group campus. Genesis bought Sun Healthcare last year. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Sun had a 250-person support staff in Albuquerque when it sold to Genesis.</p>
<p>The division headquarters will support Genesis operations west of the Mississippi, where it has 56 properties.</p>
<p>Paxton Wiffler, senior vice president of operations, said Albuquerque-based staff also will evaluate and help execute Genesis efforts to grow its business in the West. When growth does occur, he said, it is possible more people will be added to the divisional headquarters workforce.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Wiffler said Albuquerque’s location and the staff already in place here “made this the initial ideal location” for the headquarters and made “tremendous financial sense.”</p>
<p>City officials said Genesis received no government incentives to locate the headquarters in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>Genesis, based in Kennett Square, Pa.,&#160; operates assisted living, skilled nursing and other senior-focused health-care facilities primarily in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast. It has facilities in New Mexico that employ 1,200 people and provides care in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Washington as well.</p>
<p>Sun was founded in Albuquerque in 1989 and once was among the nation’s largest health-care firms serving older people. The company entered federal bankruptcy protection in 1999 emerging as a reorganized company, headquartered in Irvine, Ca., with new management in 2002.</p> | Genesis HealthCare opens western HQ in ABQ | false | https://abqjournal.com/270537/genesis-healthcare-opens-western-hq-in-abq.html | 2013-09-27 | 2 |
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<p>Within hours of airing a <a href="http://www.kfoxtv.com/video/24147983/index.html" type="external">surveillance videotape</a> of a homeless man carefully folding a U.S. flag military style in the driving rain, <a href="http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/24169381/detail.html" type="external">El Paso television station KFOX</a> began getting calls and e-mails from people around the country to see how they could help.</p>
<p>“We’ve had calls from North Carolina, upstate New York, Austin, Pennsylvania, you name it. We never expected the story to take off like this,” KFOX news director Elizabeth O’Hara said.</p>
<p>On July 4, KFOX aired the story of Gustus Bozarth, a homeless man who lives in a makeshift shack near METI Inc., a federal contractor in east El Paso, where a strong wind and rain storm knocked down a flag pole on June 27.</p>
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<p>Surveillance video showed that the man later identified as Bozarth carefully folded the flag and sheltered it from the storm during the middle of the night.</p>
<p>Since the story was aired, it has been picked up around the nation, including on <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/07/05/novick.homeless.man.saves.flag.kfox?hpt=C2" type="external">CNN.com</a> and <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/video/austinkvue-tv-15750583/homeless-man-rescues-american-flag-during-storm-20738426" type="external">yahoo.com</a>, KFOX reported.</p>
<p>“We’ve received a lot of heart-warming responses,” METI Inc. spokeswoman Rebecca Orozco told KFOX. “People wanting to help, people wanting to get him a job, people wanting to feed him for a year.”</p>
<p>And the television station is working with a local agency to coordinate offers to help Bozarth, KFOX said.</p>
<p>“I would like to send this man a $20 reward from me. I don’t have lots of monty, and I am an immigrant working on getting my citizenship. But I want Mr. Bozarth to know that there is someone out there who thinks he is a hero,” KFOX viewer Jack Siriani wrote.</p>
<p>As for Bozarth, he tells KFOX he’d have done the same thing with or without the attention.</p>
<p>“Interesting, interesting,” he told the station. “It’s going to change my life.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>7:40am 7/5/10 — Who Says El Pasoans Aren’t Patriotic?: Homeless man rescues downed American flag during driving wind and rain.</p>
<p>Last week, we reported the Men’s Health magazine survey that placed El Paso 99th out of 100 cities in a survey of America’s most patriotic cities, and told you how some El Pasoans mightily objected to the ranking.</p>
<p>Now comes proof positive that El Pasoans are patriotic, and the evidence comes from an unexpected source.</p>
<p>The flag that normally flies high in front of METI Inc., a federal contractor in east El Paso, was knocked down, along with its flag pole, during a storm on Sunday, June 27, according to <a href="http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/24140757/detail.html" type="external">KFOX-TV</a>.</p>
<p>“The wind and the rain knocked over the flag pole, causing the flag pole to lie on the parking lot overlooking Boeing Drive,” METI Inc. spokeswoman Rebecca Orozco told the El Paso television station.</p>
<p>But a surveillance video showed a man carefully folding up the American flag military-style, then placing the flag pole off to the side — all in the driving wind and rain and in the middle of the night, KFOX-TV said.</p>
<p>“After watching the surveillance videos we noticed that it was a Good Samaritan who we suspect was a homeless man that came to the rescue of the flag around 1:40 in the morning,” Orozco told the station. “It was an amazing experience to see that; it was very heart-warming to see that a homess man or a Good Samaritan who was walking around that area at that time of the day in the rain will come to the rescue of the U.S. flag.”</p>
<p>KFOX-TV went out and found the man who performed this patriotic act.</p>
<p>His name is Gustus Bozarth, who lives in the back of a warehouse not far from the downed flagpole, with a small television set and two cats named Lynx and Bobcat, KFOX said.</p>
<p>Bozarth said he’s been all over the country, and that while working security in Tampa, Fla., he learned how to properly fold the flag, the station reported.</p>
<p>“It’s a small respect, folding the flag like that,” Bozarth told KFOX.</p>
<p>Incidentally, Albuquerque didn’t fare too well in that Men’s Health magazine survey, either — finishing a dismal No. 80.</p>
<p>Here’s what the <a href="../news/metro/022337349034newsmetro07-02-10.htm" type="external">Albuquerque Journal’s Charles Brunt</a> had to say last week about the ruffled feathers in the Duke City.</p>
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<p>8:40am 6/29/10 — El Paso Near Bottom of Magazine’s ‘Most Patriotic Cities’ List: Men’s Health mag puts El Paso at No. 99, Albuquerque not much better at No. 80.</p>
<p>Remember when dissent was the highest form of patriotism? Well, El Pasoans are dissenting mightily at Men’s Health magazine’s list of America’s <a href="http://menshealth.com/mhlists/patriotic-cities/index.php?cm_mmc=MagURL-_-Auguest2010-_-metrogrades-_-patrioticcities" type="external">“Most Patriotic Cities,”</a> which puts <a href="http://menshealth.com/mhlists/patriotic-cities/patriotic-cities-el-paso.php#slidetop" type="external">El Paso at No. 99</a>, just ahead of Jersey City, N.J., in the lowest spot.</p>
<p>What about being home to one of the nation’s largest Army posts (Fort Bliss)? asks the <a href="http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_15397961" type="external">El Paso Times</a>. And what about El Paso County being home to 48,250 veterans in the past fiscal year?</p>
<p>Maybe it was moving all those Patriot missiles from Fort Bliss to Fort Sill that did the trick.</p>
<p>But no, according to Men’s Health magazine, the rankings were based on several criteria: percentage of registered voters who turned out for state and federal elections from 2004 to 2008; money spent on military veterans per capita; percentage of residents who volunteer, participate in civic activities and/or work with neighbors; and sales of fireworks and U.S. flags.</p>
<p>But wait, the magazine pleads, “before anyone e-mails us from Jersey City, there are no unpatriotic towns.”</p>
<p>“I don’t put much credibility on their ratings,” El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Times. “I think Men’s Health should have come down here when we honored the troops that came home from Iraq (12,000 people showed up for a downtown parade in 2008) … Maybe they should show up on Fourth of July at Music Under the Stars to watch fireworks while hearing the symphony … Or maybe they should look at all the vets that go to the VA and at Beaumont Army Medical Center.”</p>
<p>Cook, a Vietnam veteran, told the Times the magazine didn’t take into account El Paso’s long history with the military and Fort Bliss.</p>
<p>For the record, Men’s Health says the most patriotic city in the United States is Portland, Ore., followed by Salt Lake City; Kansas City, Mo.; Seattle, Wash.; and Tampa, Fla., while Yonkers, N.Y.; Corpus Christi, Texas; Honolulu; El Paso; and Jersey City bring up the rear.</p>
<p>Lest those of us who live a little further north think we can crow, the <a href="http://www.menshealth.com/star-spangled-cities/index.html" type="external">magazine lists Albuquerque</a> at No. 80 from the top — well down in the bottom half of patriotic cities.</p>
<p>But before we rattle off all of Albuquerque’s military and patriotic attributes, we should say we don’t much like saying who’s patriotic and who’s not.</p>
<p>We kind of like the way New Mexico’s Motor Vehicle Division puts it in its blurb on the state’s colorful Patriot license plate:</p>
<p>Patriot (Motor Vehicle Code Section 66-3-424.17 NMSA 1978)</p>
<p>The Patriot registration plate is available to any motor vehicle owner who is a patriot. No proof of patriotism is required (emphasis added). $8.00 of the $27.00 fee collected for each Patriot plate is transferred to the Armed Forces Veterans License Fund, for the purpose of expanding services to rural areas of the state, including Native American communities and senior citizen centers.</p>
<p>Fee: $27.00 upon initial registration.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Updated at 5:40am — Homeless Man Who Tended Flag Becoming a National Hero | false | https://abqjournal.com/8293/updated-at-540am-homeless-man-who-tended-flag-becoming-a-national-hero.html | 2 |
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<p>Wall Street Journal NBC "Today" show tech editor Corey Greenberg (left) has charged companies thousands of dollars to get their products on local news programs, reports James Bandler. Greenberg has also appeared CNBC's "The Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo" to plug products made by Apple Computer and Creative Technology -- companies that have paid him in the past. "It should have been disclosed. He was bound by our policies" which require contributors to disclose such payments to the network, says a CNBC spokeswoman. PLUS: More TV news experts who collect money from companies they "cover."</p> | "Today" tech editor is paid by Sony, Epson, H-P, others | false | https://poynter.org/news/today-tech-editor-paid-sony-epson-h-p-others | 2005-04-19 | 2 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21499556@N04/2568931976/"&gt;Ammad Abd Rabbo&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>Whether you believe the body count of <a href="http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=n242912" type="external">the Libyan government</a> (300), the <a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/23/italy-press-gaddafi-halt-violence-against-protesters" type="external">Italian government</a> (1,000), a <a href="http://www.jpost.com/SpecialSection/Article.aspx?ID=209545&amp;R=R1" type="external">French doctor-witness</a> (2,000), or a <a href="http://www.ansamed.info/en/libia/news/ME.XEF93179.html" type="external">member of the International Criminal Court</a> (10,000), one thing remains undisputed: terrible, terrible things are <a href="" type="internal">happening in Libya</a>.</p>
<p>Yesterday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/23/n-africa-mideast-protests-libyas-interior-minister-quits/%20" type="external">statement</a> condemning the violence, saying that “Those responsible for brutally shedding the blood of innocents must be punished.”</p>
<p>Those are pretty strong words. But what they are not is a resolution. If you’re thinking that the UN is theoretically supposed to actually do the punishing the secretary general is referring to, you would be correct: In 2005, its member nations agreed to the <a href="http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/" type="external">Responsibility to Protect doctrine</a>, which stipulates that if a government starts slaughtering its own people the UN is responsible for taking “timely and decisive” action. I’ve <a href="" type="internal">blathered at length</a> about cases where the UN has failed to do this, but the Guardian‘s Carne Ross <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/23/unitednations-libya?CMP=twt_fd" type="external">puts it fantastically</a> in regards to Libya:</p>
<p>What is happening in Libya is the true test of such declarations, and it is for every UN member, including the UK and US, in their positions as permanent members of the council, to declare loud and clear—and now—that this principle must be respected, and if it is not, that consequences will follow.</p>
<p>A possible UN&#160;resolution could say that if dictator Muammar Qaddafi doesn’t stop the slaughter, the international community will freeze his regime’s assets, resort to sanctions, or even force. It must be really hard, though, to get something like that together; with all the states involved and China and Russia predictably pulling the old “we shouldn’t interfere with other people’s business, especially people who sell oil” card, it certainly takes a super long time to pass a resolution. Right, Ross?</p>
<p>I spent four and a half years negotiating resolutions on the Middle East at the UN Security Council. When it wishes, the council can make decisions in hours. We agreed a resolution condemning the 9/11 attacks in less than an hour, the morning after the attacks took place.</p>
<p>Alright, well, there’s that. When it comes to the lack of meaningful UN action on Libya, it’s not disorganization, or excessive bureaucracy to blame—just a healthy dose of sacklessness.</p>
<p /> | Why Won’t the UN Do Anything About Libya? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/un-united-nations-libya-qaddafi/ | 2011-02-24 | 4 |
<p>The news that Joel Klein is leaving the New York City Schools and that Ron Huberman will leave the Chicago Public Schools left two of the largest school districts in our country grappling with leadership challenges. [Note: Terry Mazany, president of the Chicago Community Trust, will serve as interim CEO for CPS after Huberman’s departure.]</p>
<p>Their successors will control school systems that educate 1.6 million students, a figure that surpasses the public school population of all but nine states.&#160; While some observers worry that these changes will create a vacuum of reform-minded leadership, this is more properly viewed as an opportunity to continue those reforms that have proven effective, discontinue outmoded district procedures that have not worked, and demonstrate for the country what effective district leadership requires.</p>
<p>To be sure, both men were instrumental in the current national climate of data-driven instruction and assessment, and their tenures underscore the effect mayoral control can have on school systems.&#160; Mayor Bloomberg has picked Klein’s replacement, Cathleen P. Black.&#160; Chicago’s next mayor will ultimately decide who will lead CPS into a new era in 2011.&#160; As Chicago readies itself for new leadership, we should demand the system implement policies that put student needs before adult interests and focus on a few, core areas:&#160;</p>
<p>•&#160;&#160;&#160; Academic Standards:&#160; Illinois standards are insufficiently rigorous and provide students an unrealistic measure of their achievement levels.&#160; We must create more rigorous college and career-ready standards tied to diploma standards, ensure that our testing system measures meaningful skills that prepare students for college or a career, and provide realistic alternative options for students who plan to enter the job market upon graduation.</p>
<p>•&#160;&#160;&#160; Accountability grounded by data:&#160; Schools should be judged based on how well they improve educational outcomes among students.&#160; We must establish a data system that is sophisticated enough to measure actual student growth and use this growth in making significant policy decisions about schools.&#160; Schools themselves should be provided enhanced flexibility in exchange for heightened accountability, and every school should have performance-based student achievement objectives memorialized in a written document made available to the public.</p>
<p>•&#160;&#160;&#160; School Options:&#160; Chicago’s mosaic of magnet schools, selective enrollment schools, charter schools, and related programs within schools should be improved and the admissions process made more transparent to parents and communities.&#160; In addition, these options should be extended to parents in all neighborhoods, especially those with a dearth of high-quality seats.&#160; Charter schools in particular, which now serve 10% of the Chicago student population, should be allowed to expand to low-capacity neighborhoods, provided such schools have a track record of success and a sound management plan.&#160; Charter school students should also be funded equitably and not disadvantaged by facilities policies that irrationally restrict district-owned buildings to traditional public schools.&#160; As a corollary, we must intervene in any school, however organized, that struggles to demonstrate sustained student improvement, including closing schools that have failed students consistently.</p>
<p>•&#160;&#160;&#160; Instructional Time:&#160; Chicago is alone among the 50 largest urban districts in permitting an exceptionally short 172-day school year and a 5-1/2 hour school day.&#160; New York doesn’t allow this — we shouldn’t either. Many districts are rightfully making international instructional time comparisons, where American schools fare poorly.&#160; In Chicago, we do not even meet national comparisons. The days of providing our neediest students with the shortest school day, the shortest school year, and the least-qualified instructor and then asking them to pass high-stakes tests should end.&#160; Optional, part-time pilot programs in a small sample of schools are insufficient.&#160; We must extend learning time.&#160;</p>
<p>•&#160;&#160;&#160; Funding Reform:&#160; The Chicago school system’s budget over the past 10 years has increased in inflation-adjusted dollars, while its enrollment has steadily declined. The solution is to move toward a student-based funding model that recognizes that student needs should drive funding allocations. So-called weighted student funding models should ensure that funding arrives at the school as real dollars—not as teaching positions, ratios, or staffing norms—that can be spent flexibly, with accountability systems focused more on results and less on inputs, programs, or activities.</p>
<p>•&#160;&#160;&#160; Teachers and leaders:&#160; A school system is only as good as its teachers and principals. We must focus our energies squarely on effective teachers and school leadership, including prioritizing the recruitment of new school leaders, improving the quality of teachers and leaders in the classroom, and supporting alternative programs to lower barriers for capable and interested future teachers and principals.&#160; We cannot continue to ignore labor realities, should accept that the era of most teachers staying 30 years is over, and manage turnover so that the most effective teachers are retained and rewarded.</p>
<p>•&#160;&#160;&#160; Efficiency:&#160; Chicago has more than 50 school buildings that are enrolled at less than 50% capacity, and many of those produce abysmal results for students.&#160; Most of Chicago’s schools were built when housing patterns and population densities were dramatically different, but the school system has not adjusted to the new reality.&#160; A holistic school facilities solution is possible that includes consolidation, phasing in new school options, and expanding school facilities in targeted neighborhoods. In particular, there are portions of our city, especially in heavily Latino areas, where schools are dramatically over-enrolled.&#160; We should use new school options, including high-quality charter schools, co-location arrangements, and similar models to reduce overcrowding and provide incentive for school providers to locate in areas where the need is greatest.&#160;</p>
<p>Chicago has a proud history and in many ways has led the nation in school reform efforts.&#160; It initiated mayoral control, pioneered local school governance models, and examined new school options before other large districts. The good news is that we know much more than we did when mayoral control was initiated almost 15 years ago — it is time for the next school superintendent to improve upon this tradition by focusing on what matters:&#160; student outcomes and the life chances they create.&#160;</p>
<p>Andrew BroyPresidentIllinois Network of Charter Schools</p>
<p /> | New schools chief must focus on education reform and student needs | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/new-schools-chief-must-focus-education-reform-and-student-needs/ | 2010-11-16 | 3 |
<p>By Ken Camp</p>
<p>The <a href="http://texasbaptists.org/" type="external">Baptist General Convention of Texas</a> Executive Board voted Feb. 26 to create a committee to study the potential sale of the Baptist Building in Dallas.</p>
<p>“The executive director has been approached about the possibility of selling the Baptist Building,” according to a report by the board’s administration support committee. “The potential buyer seems to have a serious interest. Based on this, the formation of an ad hoc committee to study any offer and to study possible relocation possibilities seems advisable at this time.”</p>
<p>Executive Director David Hardage said <a href="http://www.baylor.edu/" type="external">Baylor University</a> had expressed interest in the BGCT property as a possible site for its expanded Louise Herrington School of Nursing.</p>
<p>The $11.5 million Baptist Building was constructed in 1988 at 333 N. Washington on land leased from Baylor Health Care System. The BGCT Executive Board used proceeds from the sale of the property in downtown Dallas, combined with trust funds, to finance construction without using any Cooperative Program mission money. Ten years later, the health care system’s board of directors voted to give the land, valued at $2.5 million, to the state convention.</p>
<p>In other business, the Executive Board approved a plan to forgive debt that Baptist University of the Américas owes the BGCT. Pointing to BUA’s primary mission to train Hispanic Baptist pastors and church leaders, Richard Rogers of Huntsville, chair of the administration support committee, called the debt-forgiveness plan “a chance to invest in the future of a changing Texas.”</p>
<p>BUA carries $9.8 million in debt, with more than $3 million owed to the BGCT. The plan offers a dollar-for-dollar forgiveness of every dollar BUA raises from donors toward debt the school owes the BGCT.</p>
<p>The BGCT Executive Board anticipates BUA should be able to retire loans from the BGCT in three to four years.</p>
<p>The board also honored Suzii Paynter for her service as director of the Christian Life Commission, director of public policy and leader of the BGCT Advocacy/Care Center. She recently was elected executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Atlanta.</p> | BGCT considers building sale | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/bgct-considers-building-sale/ | 3 |
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<p>Photo Credit: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com</p>
<p>We are all of us drowning in polls, but&#160;The&#160;Washington Post’s&#160; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-new-50-state-poll-shows-exactly-why-clinton-holds-the-advantage-over-trump/2016/09/05/13458832-7152-11e6-9705-23e51a2f424d_story.html" type="external">poll of each of the individual 50 states</a>, posted online on Tuesday and presented in a special section of the paper’s print edition Wednesday, is something else again. The survey of 74,000 voters, compiled from August 9 through September 1, offers us two things that most national polls don’t: A window on the broader future of American politics, and a clear picture of how the third-party candidacies of Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein are affecting this year’s race.</p>
<p>First, to this year’s election and the curious role of the third parties: By presenting numbers for all the states, the&#160;Post&#160;poll makes clear that the Johnson and Stein candidacies pose a bigger problem for Clinton than they do for Trump. In nine swing states—Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas (whose voters, in the&#160;Post&#160;poll, are evenly split between Clinton and Trump), and Virginia—Clinton’s share of the vote in a four-candidate race declines from its level in a two-candidate race by a bigger margin than Trump’s does. In those nine states, her share drops by 1, 2, or 3 percentage points more than his. In three other swing states—Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin—the two candidates’ percentages decline by equal amounts. In not a single swing state does Trump’s decline exceed Clinton’s when the other two candidates are factored in.</p>
<p>In every one of those dozen swing states, Johnson is polling roughly three times the percentage that Stein is getting—on average, about 12 percent to her 4 percent. In every one of those states, Clinton’s decline exceeds the percentage of pro-Stein voters, meaning some number of Clinton’s supporters when she’s pitted only against Trump go not for Stein but for Johnson when the field is expanded. It’s reasonable to infer that she’s losing those votes not for reason of ideology but because some voters have doubts about Clinton’s conduct and character—at least, as the media have presented them for several decades—and see Johnson, who is largely a&#160;tabula rasa&#160;to most voters, as a non-ideological alternative (which by any measure he’s not) to both Clinton and Trump. For that matter, we can’t assume that some Stein supporters don’t have similar motivations—that their reluctance to vote for Clinton may be less about Stein’s progressivism than about their distaste for Clinton’s persona.</p>
<p>Indeed, one oddity of this race is that the two candidates of the presumably fringe parties on the left and right are receiving much of their support less because voters are flocking to them for their programs and policies, and more because they dislike the temperaments and characters of the two main candidates. Trump’s temperament isn’t going to change, any more than the leopard will become spotless.&#160;Clinton’s image may improve somewhat as a result of her debate performances, but the media’s magnification of her flaws is unlikely to abate between now and Election Day.</p>
<p>There is only so much Clinton can do to win the support of those who’d back her were it just a two-candidate race. So far, her pronouncements on domestic and economic policy reflect the decidedly progressive platform that the Democrats adopted at their convention, many of its planks coming straight from Bernie Sanders’s campaign. Clinton clearly understands that these positions—a higher minimum wage, opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, free public college tuition, and the like—play well on both the middle and the left of the spectrum, and may give her a shot at reclaiming some voters who now support Stein. To the extent that she’s played to the center since the convention, it’s been on foreign policy, contrasting both her positions and her experience with Trump’s. The Republicans who have publicly endorsed her have come chiefly from the GOP’s foreign policy shops, and she’s probably right if her assumption is that their backing makes it more acceptable for college-educated professionals who normally vote Republican to cross over to back her. She may well be right if she also assumes that she’ll win over more of those voters by taking those positions than she’ll lose on the left.</p>
<p>But staunching defections on the left probably hinges less on any policy, and more on progressive voters’ fear of a Trump victory. In the 1948 election, early polling showed that Progressive Party nominee and former FDR vice-president Henry Wallace would take a sizable chunk of votes from Democratic President Harry Truman, but Wallace’s numbers shrank as Election Day approached, and he eventually claimed just 2.4 percent of the vote. If Clinton is to pull votes from Stein and Johnson’s columns—something that the&#160;Post&#160;poll makes clear she needs to do—it will chiefly be due to the completely rational terror that a looming Trump presidency inspires in voters as the day of electoral judgment draws nigh. &#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Now to the future: The most striking aspect&#160;of the&#160;Post’s&#160;state-by-state polls is the degree to which racial composition—and by extension, the level of immigration—is shaping and likely will continue to shape American politics. When Michigan and Wisconsin—longtime Democratic strongholds but also Rust Belt states with few immigrants and a disproportionately high share of white working-class voters—give Clinton a mere two-point edge, something is happening. When Texas (in which more than 5,000 people were polled) and Arizona—longtime Republican bastions, but with massive numbers of Latino residents and immigrants—comes in with numbers all but identical to Michigan’s and Wisconsin’s (Clinton has a one-point lead in each), something even more remarkable is happening.</p>
<p>The Texas figures in particular are mind-boggling. To be sure, Texas and California had the identical share of Latino residents last year (38.5 percent), but Texas is the anchor state of the GOP’s Electoral College bloc, just as California anchors the Democrats’. California Latinos, however, vote in greater numbers than their Texas counterparts and vote more Democratic as well—partly because the state’s labor movement has done massive political outreach to the Latino community, while Texas barely has a labor movement to speak of. California is also home to far more Asian Americans than Texas, and its white voters, particularly in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, are well to the left of Texas whites (it’s almost impossible to be to the right of Texas whites, Austin to the contrary notwithstanding).</p>
<p>But if we’re to believe the Texas polling is even within five points of being accurate, the specter of a Trump presidency has apparently roused Latino voters as never before, while also alienating college-educated whites who customarily vote Republican. Moreover, Texas is just one of a number of Southern or Southwestern states with sizable minority or immigrant populations that are surprisingly close in the&#160;Post’s&#160;survey. Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina all either give Clinton a tiny lead or are tied, while Mississippi (!) gives Trump just a two-point edge. All four of those other states (not Mississippi) have seen substantial immigration and, in the case of Georgia and North Carolina, sizable growth in the college-educated populations in their major cities. As for Mississippi, the state is 37.6 percent African American, a bloc that, like Latinos in Texas, has apparently heard the alarm bell in the night.</p>
<p>Taken as a whole, the&#160;Post’s&#160;numbers seem to confirm the thesis of John Judis and Ruy Teixeira’s 2002 book&#160;The Emerging Democratic Majority&#160;(which was initially excerpted in the&#160;Prospect).&#160;Judis and Teixeira predicted—correctly—that the rising share of immigrants and college-educated professionals would soon tip the electorate decisively toward the Democrats. What they didn’t predict—what no one predicted—was the continued erosion of Democratic support in the white working class, which at the time they wrote was a&#160;fait accompli&#160;in the South but not yet a decisive factor in the Midwest.</p>
<p>It is now, as the&#160;Post’s&#160;numbers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio (where Trump holds a three-point lead) clearly suggest. The decline of white working-class support for the Democrats has engendered a debate as to its causes: whether it’s due to the declining economic condition (and, indeed, life expectancy) of working-class whites, or to their racial and cultural resentment at the rising number of minorities and the programs the Democrats have championed for the past 50 years to help them. Clearly, the cause isn’t simply one or the other. The sense of abandonment that many working-class whites feel is rooted both in economics and culture. It’s worth noting, however, that even at the height of the United Auto Workers’ power in Michigan, as far back as 60 years ago and more, it could persuade its white members to vote for Democrats for state and federal office, where economic policies were formulated and implemented, but never could persuade them to vote Democratic for Detroit city officials, who held sway over policing, school and housing policies—that is, over the policies with the greatest impact on race relations and discrimination.</p>
<p>Still, the presidential contest is for a federal office with huge power over economic policy. Shouldn’t unions be moving their white members toward Clinton? They probably are: The AFL-CIO released survey data yesterday that showed Trump is polling just 36 percent among its members in five swing states (Florida, Nevada and three in the Midwest: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). That, of course, is a survey of all its members, not just its white working-class members, whose level of Trump support is certainly higher than these aggregate totals. But more important than the preferences of these union members is the preferences of non-members who would have been members before the near collapse of private-sector unionism—that is, before corporations abandoned their employees for cheaper labor in China, before American management began to oppose and thwart unionization all across the private sector, and before a number of these states (Wisconsin and Michigan most notably), under Republican government, went right-to-work. In 2015, just 15.2 percent of the Michigan workforce was unionized, just 12.3 percent of Ohio’s, and just 8.3 percent of Wisconsin’s—all states where close to 40 percent of the private sector workforce was unionized in the mid-20th century.</p>
<p>The AFL-CIO’s Working America program, which goes door to door in white working-class neighborhoods to talk with non-union voters, does yeoman work, but there’s no question that unions’ capacity to reach and impact the kind of voters they once had as members isn’t what it used to be. Looking at exit polling since the early 1970s, white working class union members have tended to vote Democratic at a rate 20 points higher than their non-union counterparts—a tribute to the unions’ ability to get its white members to consider economic issues, not just what for some is their racial fear and loathing. Looking at the numbers in the&#160;Post’s&#160;poll, then, one explanation for the surprisingly high level of Trump support in the Midwest—beyond the purely economic or racial—is the declining level of unionization.</p>
<p>However large a role white racism is playing in this year’s election—and the evidence suggests it isn’t small—what the&#160;Post&#160;poll illustrates is the degree to which racial composition is playing a decisive role in many states.&#160;In those states to which immigrants have flocked since 1980, Clinton is doing better than Democrats have done before; in the states that immigrants have largely shunned, most particularly where the white working-class share of the population has remained high, Trump is doing better than Republicans have done before. Trump’s candidacy has clearly mobilized both minorities (con) and working-class whites (pro) in greater numbers than we’ve seen in previous elections, but the movement of these two constituencies into the Democratic and Republican camps, respectively, didn’t begin with this election and won’t end with it.</p>
<p>It’s hard to envision what changes the Republicans are likely to make that will win them a substantial share of minority voters, since the party has been trending in a white nationalist and xenophobic direction for many years, and isn’t likely to transform the racial attitudes and provincialism of its base voters. And unless the Democrats can create a vibrant full-employment economy (no easy task in an age of globalized and robotized production), or unless Republicans regain executive power and plunge us into another disastrous war or recession, it’s hard to see what would impel those working-class whites who have drifted right to return to the Democrats’ ranks.</p>
<p>In other words, in elections still to come, the Democrats are likely to pick up the growing Southern border states and states with increasing percentages of college-educated whites, while the Republicans may run stronger than they have in the shrinking states of the once industrial Midwest. Electoral advantage: Democrats.</p>
<p>Harold Meyerson&#160;is the executive editor of&#160;The American Prospect.&#160;His email is&#160; <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p> | Bad News and Some Good From a New 50-State Poll: Third Party Candidates Are Hurting Clinton | true | http://alternet.org/election-2016/shifting-electoral-map-gives-democrats-advantage | 2016-09-08 | 4 |
<p>“The problem goes beyond parties and politicians. It’s the system . . . . All our politicians are in the pocket of elites who own, lobby, litigate, bully and bribe their way into every element of our lives. Even single cell organisms unite and fight for survival when their species is threatened.”</p>
<p>– <a href="" type="internal">Kim Hunter</a>,&#160;British Columbia Artist and Activist</p>
<p>Twenty years after the United Nations Earth Summit of 1992, hundreds of civil society, small farmer, and grassroots organizations gathered here in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to once again sound the alarm by taking to the streets, organizing workshops, and planning future campaigns.</p>
<p>After 150 years of self-destructive Business as Usual – empire-building, waging war on nature, undermining public health, brainwashing the body politic, burning fossil fuels, and discharging greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere and the oceans like there’s no tomorrow – the sense here in Rio was that we’ve reached the end of the road. Greenhouse gas pollution and chaotic weather patterns are increasing, not decreasing. Crops are failing. Forest fires, drought, floods and pestilent diseases are increasing. As speaker after speaker in Rio emphasized we are literally on the verge of melting the polar icecaps, burning up the Amazon and the tropical rainforests, killing the oceans, and destroying the soil’s fertility and its ability to store carbon. We’re also sitting on a methane time bomb that, unless we change course in the next decade, will explode in the frozen tundra and the shallow sea beds of Siberia and Alaska, exterminating most of the living organisms on the planet.</p>
<p>Dominated by powerful multinational corporations, distracted by know-nothing media conglomerates, and betrayed by cowardly politicians and bureaucrats, homo sapiens are facing, and unfortunately in many cases denying, the most serious existential threat in our 200,000 year evolution: catastrophic global warming.</p>
<p>The good news, here in Rio and across the world, is that the global grassroots are rising up. A significant segment of the 99%, the underclass, are finally standing up and saying, “Hell no!” to business as usual. Inspired by the rising of the global grassroots – the Arab Spring, the European indignados, and the U.S. Occupy Wall Street movement – they’re taking on Wall <a href="" type="internal" />Street criminality, nuclear power, coal plants, tar sands and fracking, out-of-control assaults on public health by Big Ag and Big Pharma, and misguided cutbacks in public services.</p>
<p>Real change, not the hollow “change you can believe in” of the Obama administration, is in the air here in Rio.</p>
<p>Yet despite this new resurgent energy, as the meager results of the “official” Rio+20 conference demonstrate, after 20 years of struggle we are not yet strong enough to force the 1000 corporations and 1400 billionaires who rule the Earth to change course. Although the Earth and climate crisis obviously call for a radical makeover, most national governments and multinational corporations who gathered here in Rio are still pushing feeble reforms that amount to too little, too late. The so-called “Green Economy” vision, as postulated by the multinational elite at Rio+20 – Monsanto, Cargill, and BP et al – will do little or nothing to stop our headlong rush to disaster.</p>
<p>While Big Ag, Big Biotech, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Timber, and Big Finance push their united “Green Economy,” agenda, a major segment of the global grassroots remain fragmented and divided, bogged down in thousands of defensive single-issue battles.</p>
<p>In order to turn away from what can only be described as a global suicide economy, many of us here gathered in Rio these past few weeks now agree that we need to revise and expand our analysis and strategy. We can no longer afford to oversimplify the dynamics of our life-or-death problems or project solutions that are partial or incomplete. We can no longer afford to campaign in isolation around critical issues like tropical deforestation, industrial agriculture, poverty, deteriorating public health, resource wars, or fossil fuel energy production as if they were disconnected from one another.</p>
<p>If we want to build a mass movement for survival we’ve got to stop oversimplifying the causes of the Greenhouse Crisis as well as oversimplifying the solutions. Food, forest, natural health, anti-war, social justice, alternative energy, green jobs, indigenous, and climate activists must close ranks and take on the Climate Criminals.</p>
<p>Today’s pressing global issues such as poverty, war, hunger, pollution, mass unemployment, species extinction, and deteriorating public health are directly related to the forces and misguided policies that propel global warming.&#160; As we begin to make the Great Transition to alternative energy, energy conservation, infrastructure retrofitting, mass transportation, organic agriculture, recycling and composting of biomass, and reforestation we will also be well on our way to solving all or most of the world’s most pressing problems. As the soil and food chain is revitalized through organic soil management, as animal husbandry and rotational grazing replace CAFOs, public health will be improved. As forests and wetlands are preserved, as mass reforestation takes place, GHG emissions will fall and soil and biomass sequestration will increase. As small organic farms and ranches proliferate, rural poverty and pollution will decrease.&#160; Biodiversity will be enhanced, species extinction will slow. Hundreds of millions of rural and urban green jobs will lift the majority of the world’s population out of poverty, while at the same time a green and solar-based economy will eliminate the need for resource wars, such as the current conflicts in the Middle East.</p>
<p>By broadening our analysis of the causes and solutions to the Climate Crisis, we lay down the foundation for a qualitatively broader and more powerful Movement that can overturn Business as Usual and mobilize a global grassroots revolution for survival, sustainability, health, peace, and justice.</p>
<p>At the same time we’ve got to stop preaching “gloom and doom” as our primary message. Global warming is the most serious threat that humans have ever faced, but it can be and will be reversed. And as we make the Great Transition to an organic and sustainable Commonwealth we will be healthier, happier, and wiser. By broadcasting a more positive message, we can build a critical mass that will put an end to Business as Usual. This is the grassroots message from Rio+ 20: “Unite and Fight for Survival.”</p>
<p>In closing, a note of realism. We’ve got to understand as activists that millions of people aren’t going to join in on our climate action movement immediately. Most people don’t wake up in the morning thinking about the climate crisis.&#160; They have more pressing personal and family issues on their mind. Some people are preoccupied with personal health or economic issues. Others are so depressed or strung out on drugs, both illegal and prescription, that they live in a mental fog. Some people honestly don’t understand how food, health, peace, and economic justice issues are related to the climate crisis. Others sincerely believe that political issues like getting corporate money out of politics supersede everything else. Keeping these realities in mind, we’ve got to move forward now, prove ourselves, educate the public and unite the large but disparate forces we already have. Once objective conditions ripen, once the climate crisis gets worse, people will join up with our movement in droves. The hour is late. But keep in mind the fundamental reason for joining in on the struggle for a better world: It’s the best way to live.</p>
<p>Ronnie Cummins&#160;is the co-founder and National Director of the Organic Consumers Association. He is a contributor to&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Hopelesss: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion</a>, forthcoming from AK Press.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Hour is Late | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/06/29/the-hour-is-late/ | 2012-06-29 | 4 |
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