text
stringlengths 104
92.5k
|
|---|
[WM]Limericks Bill Kurtis reads three news-related limericks: Skullface – Book – Wastebasket, Relish The Taste and Shower Flower.
Bill Kurtis reads three news-related limericks: Skullface – Book – Wastebasket, Relish The Taste and Shower Flower.
Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank. But first, it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on the air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAITWAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924. Or click the contact us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org. There, you can find out about attending our shows here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass. on June 21.
Hi. You're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
JILL PADEN: Hi. I'm Jill Paden, and I'm from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
HONG: Hi. How's things in Fort Lauderdale?
PADEN: Pretty wonderful, I have to say.
HONG: And what do you do down there in Fort Lauderdale?
PADEN: I'm an overeducated stay-at-home mom of two wonderful boys who will love the poop train story, by the way.
PADEN: Cannot wait for them to hear that.
HONG: What is it about boys and poop?
HONG: Woo. I'm excited, too.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Don't get ahead of yourself, Jill.
HONG: Here is your first limerick.
KURTIS: Who would get that?
HONG: I mean, that was a hard one. Teachers have finally figured out how to teach Shakespeare to bored teens - translating it into emoji. Forget about, what light through yonder window breaks - now it's light bulb, window, girl face, peach, #Juliet.
HONG: #I love reading. While some educators say that the rise of emoji-based learning is damaging to both students and teachers, we say frown face. Quit being such losers. Eye roll. Why bother reading all of "Oedipus" when you could save a ton of time reading an eggplant, a mom emoji and then 1,000 puke faces?
POUNDSTONE: You know, that's just so terrible. I mean, screens don't belong in the classroom to begin with. And the idea that everything you teach has to somehow be cutesy to entertain the children. You know, and then we wonder why they - you have to get the court system to get them out of your house when they're 30.
HONG: Here's your next limerick, Jill.
HONG: Hot dog. A survey found 43 percent of Americans are very sensible and don't want to know what's in hot dogs. And the other 57 percent are in hot dogs.
HONG: Mystery meat solved. Americans eat 20 billion hot dogs a year. But, to be fair, most of those were by Mitt Romney.
HONG: Even so, that is a lot of people willing to eat what is essentially a blind date with a meat tube.
HONG: Enough about me - what about you? Well, I'm mostly rat hair.
HONG: You guys eat hot dogs? I've stopped.
ADAM FELBER: I will now.
HONG: All right, Jill. Here's your last limerick.
KURTIS: Shower. You've been practicing.
HONG: Yes. Excellent, Jill. If you're wondering what people are doing in their showers these days, you've come to the right place, Mike Pence.
HONG: People are showering with their plants, but not in a gross romantic way - in a gross, humidifying way. The idea is you load your shower up with eucalyptus branches, turn the water on and suddenly, your bathroom is filled with a fresh, healthy scent, a bunch of wet leaves and a confused koala bear.
HONG: Bill, how did Jill do?
KURTIS: You know, Jill was really good. She got them all right.
HONG: Jill, great job. Thank you so much for playing our game.
PADEN: Thank you very much for having me. |
[WM]On Wednesday 2nd May the Gaza Center for Political and Development Studies staged a ceremony to award a group of writers and activists addressing prisoners’ issues. The ceremony, sponsored by The Islamic Society-Jabalyia (ISJ) and Viva Palestina-Malaysia, was attended by dozens of activists at the prisoners’ tent at the Square of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City.
"This event takes place in order to support Palestinian political prisoners in their struggle for their inalienable human rights. A year ago, CPDS announced a creative writing contest to promote prisoners rights. We received more than 20 submissions by activists from different countries. This competition is to encourage people to keep telling the story of Palestinians’ suffering. Today we are celebrating those activists and encouraging other young writers who can convey the message of those who sacrificed their happiness, families and future to defend our collective rights as Palestinians," said Dr Mahmoud Alhirthani, CPDS chairman.
"Without the support of different bodies, this effort would not have succeeded. Thanks to the Islamic Society in Jabalia and thanks to Viva Palestina Malaysia, who help CPDS and provide us with the support necessary to stand by the prisoners. This support is enabling an Arabic opera to be subtitled in English and a number of reports on the prisoners to be translated into English," he added.
The event, the first of its kind in Gaza, was attended by ex-prisoner Chris Bandak, who was freed in the last swap which took place in October 2011 and deported to Gaza. In his speech, Bandak highlighted the importance of supporting prisoners.
"Palestinian prisoners expect us to stand by them. They have nothing to fight the armed soldiers with but their stomachs and resilience. If you fail them, you fail Palestine. They are the symbol of our eternal struggle," he noted.
Eng. Abdul-Reheem Shihab, ISJ chairman, stressed the importance of supporting prisoners who are subjected to humiliation in the occupation jails. "The Society supported prisoners-related activities and will keep doing that," he concluded.
The ceremony is one in a series CPDS has held to award young writers who write about Palestine. The center is set to hold a course on Writing Press Releases for the Western Media to get the word about Palestine out to the English speaking world and western media outlets. |
[WM]1. A food processor opens up a world of possibilities, such as hot soups or icy cold concoctions. It may be a bit bulky, but processors can be used to make raw desserts, banana ice cream and pie crusts. For more savory options, processors are great for quickly ricing and shredding vegetables. Get your own for less than $30 on Amazon.
2. Wooden spoons are going to be your new best friends. Metal tools scratch many pots and pans, but wood won’t cause them any harm. They can be used to stir up hot mixtures, such as soups or stews, or for room-temperature treats, such as cookie dough and brownie batter. Prices range from $5–$20, depending on the size and quality.
3. A stainless steel cookie dough scoop will ensure your cookies look the same shape and size. They come in a variety of sizes — a two-tablespoon size is perfect for your average cookie — and double as ice cream or muffin batter scoops. A good one will cost about $15.
4. Oven mitts are critical for safety in the kitchen. Make sure the oven mitts you’re using are durable and won’t let heat get to your hands. Silicone oven mitts are the best option. They won’t tear or stain and double as trivets underneath hot pans. Guarantee a cooking career free of burns for around $30.
5. Non-stick baking mats are key to making sure your baking projects don’t stick to the pan, and you’ll never have to use parchment or wax paper again. They’re also great when rolling out bread dough and trying not to make the biggest mess imaginable. They come in different sizes, and prices range from about $10–$30.
6. Sheet pans are the wonder of the kitchen that can do no wrong. They’re great for baking cookies, sheet cakes or entire meals. Throw a bunch of veggies tossed in olive oil in there and you’re good to go. Not to mention that the cleanup is a breeze. Find a set of two on Amazon for about $30.
7. A good wood cutting board lasts a lifetime if it’s taken care of. Obviously, they’re great for cutting and preparing foods, but they also work as serving boards for your fancy cheese and wine parties. Invest at least $20 for a quality board that will serve you well. |
[WM]France was stepping up efforts on Monday to persuade world powers to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, as Muammar Gaddafi’s troops battled rebel fighters for control of the strategic oil town of Brega.
France said on Sunday it would consult other powers “in the coming hours” to try to set up such a zone to assure the protection of civilians “in the face of the terrible violence suffered by the Libyan population”.
It said the Arab League’s weekend call on the United Nations to impose such a zone showed the world’s concern for Libyan civilians.
Arab support satisfies one of three conditions set by Nato for it to police Libyan air space. The others were proof that its help was needed, and a UN Security Council resolution.
On the ground, government troops advancing east took Brega early on Sunday in what looked like an increasingly confident drive towards the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
However, the rebels, inspired by the overthrow of the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents to try to end Gaddafi’s four-decade rule, said they had re-taken Brega on Sunday night. There was no way of verifying the rival claims.
The government, whose forces had previously captured Ras Lanuf, another oil town 100km west of Brega, said earlier it was certain of victory and threatened to “bury” the rebels, whom it linked to al-Qaeda and “foreign security services”.
Gaddafi himself met the Russian, Chinese and Indian ambassadors and urged their countries to invest in Libya’s oil sector, badly disrupted by the uprising and the flight of tens of thousands of expatriates oil workers.
Libyan oil exports have been badly disrupted by the fighting, lack of staff, international sanctions and the refusal of international banks to fund trade deals.
Some experts say it may take a year for output to recover to its previous level of about 1,6-million barrels per day.
International crude prices fell by about $1 a barrel on Gaddafi regaining territory over the weekend.
At the United Nations, a diplomat told Reuters the Security Council would hold consultations on a no-fly zone on Monday.
Russia and China, diplomats said, would have difficulty vetoing authorisation for a no-fly when the Arab League had requested it.
Envoys said Moscow and Beijing might prefer to abstain when the issue came to a vote.
France hosts a Group of Eight foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday and said they would discuss the violence in Libya.
The Libyan government said it would welcome an African Union panel to try to help resolve the crisis, but condemned the Arab League call for a no-fly zone, describing it as “a dangerous act for Arab security that only serves the Zionist enemy”.
Time, however, is short for ill-equipped rebels facing far superior firepower, including warplanes and helicopters.
A Libyan government army source told state television on Sunday: “Brega has been cleansed of armed gangs,” and rebel fighters retreating eastwards were demoralised.
Brega is 220km south of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi and Ajdabiyah is the only sizeable town between them.
The flat desert terrain means the government’s aircraft and tanks outweigh the rebels’ enthusiasm and light weaponry, except in towns where the odds against the rebels are reduced.
State television carried a confident official message. “We are certain of our victory, whatever the price,” it said.
“Those acts of division will be buried together with those who committed them, who are linked to foreign security services and the terrorist organisation al Qaeda,” it said.
Late on Sunday, rebel media officer Mustafa Gheriani told reporters in Benghazi the rebels had retaken Brega, killed 25 Gaddafi fighters and taken 20 prisoners.
The Libyan conflict has escalated from a popular uprising similar to protests that toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and have shaken other countries in the region. It is now more akin to a civil war.
Protests in the capital had stopped.
Fresh from crushing the revolt in Zawiyah, west of Tripoli, elite government troops and tanks turned to Misrata, Libya’s third biggest city with 300 000 people and the only pocket of rebel resistance outside the east. |
[WM]EXCLUSIVE: Kodi Smit-McPhee has scored a lead role in 20th Century Fox‘s Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes. The follow-up to Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is directed by Cloverfield‘s Matt Reeves, who also helmed Smit-McPhee in Let Me In opposite Chloe Moretz. Smit-McPhee is currently filming The Young Ones, directed by Jake Paltrow, alongside Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning and Michael Shannon. The Australian native most recently voiced the title character in the Oscar-nominated animated feature ParaNorman.
The Fox sequel is ramping up for a May 23, 2014 Memorial Day weekend release, which the studio announced last year. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Smit-McPhee’s been busy. He’s completed Ari Folman’s The Congress with Robin Wright, Paul Giamatti and Harvey Keitel; plays the title character in Michael J. Johnson’s The Wilderness Of James opposite Isabel Furman, Virginia Madsen, and Evan Ross; and has the lead role in A Birder’s Guide To Everything opposite Ben Kingsley. He’ll also appear as Benvolio in Carlo Carlei’s version of Romeo & Juliet (adapted by Downton Abbey‘s Julian Fellowes) with Hailee Steinfeld, Douglas Booth, Ed Westwick, and Paul Giamatti. Smit-McPhee is represented by ICM Partners and managed by The Schiff Co. |
[WM]Max Verstappen has fired back at his critics, urging them to judge Sebastian Vettel as harshly as they did him after the German’s first lap antics in the French Grand Prix on Sunday.
Heading into the first turn, Vettel was leading the championship, but a collision with Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas effectievly handed the race, and the standings lead, to Lewis Hamilton.
While Vettel recovered to fifth after behind handed a five-second penalty, Bottas suffered damage and limped home in seventh.
The crash helped Red Bull’s Verstappen to a trouble-free second place finish around the Paul Ricard circuit, but speaking afterwards, he was eager to highlight Vettel’s misdemeanour.
Verstappen has been subject to criticism for accidents in China, Azerbaijan and Monaco this season, but after another incident involving Vettel, after a handful last season too, the Dutchman believes the same questions should be aimed at the German as he had to deal with.
“I think next time you see Seb you should ask him to change his style,” the Dutchman said in the post-race press conference. “Because honestly, it’s not acceptable.
“That’s what they said to me at the beginning of the season, so I think they should do the same! And then, of course, Seb shouldn’t do anything, and just drive again and learn from this and go on.
“I hope when we get to Austria that the journalists ask him if he will change his approach because that is what l heard for so many races.
“Mistakes happen and they happen to the best of us,” he continued. “But it makes me angry because they won’t be as bad on him as they were on me.
His words off the track certainly spoke more than his actions on it. His was a routine run after the first corner. With Hamilton managing the pace at the front, Verstappen never expected to catch the Mercedes out in front.
He added: “Finishing second here in Paul Ricard is better than we expected coming into the weekend.
For Daniel Ricciardo, it was a frustrating afternoon in the south of France. After avoiding the carnage at the first corner, Ricciardo was running third after passing Carlos Sainz’s Renault.
But a late stop from Kimi Raikkonen saw the Finn scythe through the field, passing Vettel and Ricciardo en route to the final podium position, with the Australian having to settle for fourth place.
He said: “I’m obviously a bit disappointed and it’s a shame to lose out on the podium today.
“We were definitely quicker than fourth place and it could have been a good battle with Max. I don’t know why yet but the front wing was damaged during the race.
“Before the pit stop we had really good pace on the supersofts, I don’t know how good compared to Lewis as he was so quick, but it seemed that we were pulling away from Kimi and catching Max. |
[WM]Colorado legislators have narrowly voted in a bill that would establish state-run financial services for marijuana sellers, in an effort to ease the cash-only burden afflicting commercial weed distributors.
The bill, which is pending approval from Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and then the Federal Reserve, would set up "cannabis credit co-ops" throughout the state. Because the sale of marijuana is still federally illegal, Colorado's pot sellers have found it difficult to find national banks willing to offer financial services for their businesses. This, according to Representative John Singer, has made marijuana businesses targets for criminals (with so much cash lying around) and hindered the state's ability to track revenues for tax purpose. Singer, the proposal's main backer, said that the co-ops would be "the final piece to our pot puzzle."
The vote was the ultimate compromise for legislators who wanted to keep the cooperatives limited to marijuana businesses. But industrial hemp farmers had voiced problems about accessing banking services, specifically with co-mingling loans on crops such as wheat and corn with hemp. "Two farmers with lines of credit were threatened, one told outright that if he grew hemp, the bank would terminate his line of credit," said Samantha Walsh of the Rocky Mountain Hemp Association.
The co-ops would be a step towards ameliorating what Attorney General Eric Holder referred to as a public safety problem. He said in January that "Huge amounts of cash, substantial amounts of cash, just kind of lying around with no place for it to appropriately deposited is something that would worry me from just a law enforcement perspective."
Representatives from Hickenlooper's office said that he will sign the bill. However, it still might not solve anything, as it's likely to be ultimately blocked by the Federal Reserve, because there's no provision for deposit insurance, which is required by other banks. |
[WM]As the Merced County Spring Fair prepares to enter its 125th year, fair management is striving to continue in the face of budget cuts.
About three years ago, the state stopped funding the fair system. Local businessmen and the Merced County Spring Fair Heritage Foundation have stepped in to raise enough funds to continue to pay out more than $40,000 in prize money to youth for projects ranging from ag mechanics to livestock.
Fundraisers have also been critical in operating the fair and attracting talent.
More then 6,000 students come to the fair through the free school tour program, which provides them with hands-on learning about agriculture. The fair includes musical entertainment, a plethora of rides, plenty of food and an abundance of contests.
New this year is a bull-riding rodeo called Jaripeo Ranchero. The event is scheduled for May 1.
What began as a spring picnic by town founder Henry Miller in 1890 has grown into an energetic community event supported by businesses, local organizations and families. |
[WM]Proposals to use lie detectors to search for spies and to impose the death penalty for espionage would violate fundamental constitutional liberties, said Morton Halperin, Washington director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Halperin called on Congress to reject anti-espionage proposals as unconstitutional. The proposals were contained in amendments to defense authorization bills. The real problems include "overclassification of information and excessive numbers of employees with access to sensitive information," Halperin said. |
[WM]TEN couples in Cagayan de Oro City finally tied the knot in front of the altar last Saturday, March 23, during the mass wedding rites held at St. Augustine Cathedral, this city.
The mass wedding, according to the Oro Citizen’s and Wellness Center, is part of the aftercare activity of the Community Based Rehabilitation Program (CBRP) implemented through the City Anti-Drug Abuse Council (CADAC), as some of the grooms and family members of the newly-wedded couples are graduates of the said program.
“Part kini sya sa atong Community Based Rehabilitation Program nga dili lang hisgutanan nga rehabilitate sila diha sa drug addiction but gusto sad nato nga mai-strengthen ang family ties sa mga magtiayon,” City Administrator Teodoro Sabuga-a Jr. said.
The city government and the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro sponsored the expenses used to process the couples’ requirements, their marriage certificates and the wedding rings.
Monsignor Perseus Cabunoc, who presided over the ceremony, lauded the effort of the local government in organizing the event which strengthens and officially place God in the relationship of the couples.
He mentioned the importance of receiving the sacrament of matrimony as the newly-wedded couples live together and build their own family.
Couple Demuel Santaan, a graduate of the CBRP, and his wife Mayene Mampalaod-Santaan, for their part, expressed their gratitude and happiness that after six years of living together they finally got married.
Despite living a simple life as a farmer and a housewife, the couple said they are happy with their simple life and looking forward for a better future, especially when concerning their plans on having a child or children.
“We are hoping mahimo kini nga inspirasyon sa mga atong mga ubang drug responders, labi na ang mga kabataan, nga diay naa pa gyu’y paglaom,” Sabuga-a said.
After the wedding, the reception was held at the Duaw Park where City Mayor Oscar Moreno congratulated the newly-wedded couples. |
[WM]Buckeye Valley’s Zach Kreft completed the trifecta at Tuesday and Thursday’s MOAC Championships, winning individual titles in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200.
Zach Kreft won a trio of individual MOAC championships and Nina Hilt nabbed two of her own to lead the Buckeye Valley boys and girls track teams during Tuesday and Thursday’s MOAC Championships at Mount Gilead.
Kreft dominated the distance events, crossing the finish line well before the other runners in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200.
He won the 800 in 2:00.24 (three seconds ahead of the runner-up from North Union), the 1,600 in 4:36.49 (10 seconds ahead of the second-place runner) and the 3,200 in 10:16.22 (nearly half a minute faster than any of the other competitors).
Hilt won both hurdle events with relative ease, too. She picked up first-place points in the 100-meter event in 16.08 seconds while winning the 300-meter race in 48.19 seconds — a mark more than four seconds faster than her prelim time.
Other Baron standouts included Raquel Warner, who won the 200 (26.37 seconds) and the boys 4×800 relay team (Gavin Shearer, Bill Daily, Cameron Hurt and Kreft), which won its event in 8:26.8.
Team wise, Buckeye Valley’s girls finished third in the Red Division with 94 points. Galion won the title with 141.50 points while Pleasant nabbed runner-up honors with 109.50.
Mount Gilead’s girls won the Blue Division crown with 164.50 points.
The Baron boys, meanwhile, finished fourth in the Red Division with 80 points. Galion won the team title with 158 points, River Valley finished second with 117 and Marion Harding smoothed out the top three with 81.50.
Mount Gilead took top honors in the Blue Division with 157.50 points.
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2016/05/web1_kreft-1.jpgBuckeye Valley’s Zach Kreft completed the trifecta at Tuesday and Thursday’s MOAC Championships, winning individual titles in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200. |
[WM]Bangalore: In the U.S., top outsourcing customers such as Bank of America and several local governments are asking vendors such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro to deliver more projects locally. These outsourcing customers are also canceling job offers to foreign workers in an attempt to address anti offshoring sentiments and cope with legislative requirements of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).
In the last few months, at least five new outsourcing contracts had new clauses which mandated that certain work be delivered onshore, reports The Economic Times. Under this regulation, Bank of America and other financial services organizations who have received funds under TARP need to ensure that they try and employ local American workers before hiring a foreign workers.
"Bank of America's Merill Lynch integration projects are being delivered locally because of TARP requirements. On any other day, it would have asked Infosys or other companies to do," said a U.S. based person familiar with the bank's outsourcing initiatives.
A spokeswoman at Bank of America confirmed that her company had canceled around 50 H1B job offers in order to comply with TARP. Several graduates from the University of Michigan are among many potential H1B workers left stranded in the US.
"Recent changes in U.S. legislation made it necessary for Bank of America to rescind job offers it had made to students requiring H-1B sponsorship. Bank of America had very much looked forward to these individuals joining the company," said Kelly E Sapp, spokeswoman at Bank of America.
Experts such as Phil J Fersht, research director at Boston-headquartered AMR Research, say all TARP funded banks have canceled their H1B offers. "All TARP-funded banks are rescinding H1-B offers right now, except in critical roles and existing outsourcing deals where its imperative to have offshore managers onsite. It's a political 'hot potato' especially after the AIG bonus fiasco."
The TARP-funded banks are not the only ones demanding more local delivery. Several government customers including City of Tucson, which works with TCS and State of Missouri, which is a Wipro customer, have asked these vendors to move over 80 percent of work to the U.S., and create local jobs. |
[WM]On Nov. 2, when “Bohemian Rhapsody” — the biopic of Freddie Mercury, lead singer of British rock group Queen — debuts on U.S. screens, it will mark latest in a long string of highly diverse films lensed by cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel.
The DP’s work, which goes back to the early ’80s, has encompassed war stories (“Three Kings”), dark comedy (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”), historical drama (“Marshall”), TV movies and series, multiple documentaries — and the genre for which he is perhaps best known – superhero movies, including “Superman Returns” and four installments of the X-Men franchise.
Sigel was attracted to visual art from a young age, and at first honed his skills as a painter. He experimented with abstraction, but always came back to more representational imagery that served a narrative. He arrived in New York City from Detroit at age 18, having been invited to the Whitney Museum’s artist-in-residence fellowship program.
Sigel soon began making personal films and, given the political turmoil of the time, he gravitated to documentaries with social topics. Soon he was travelling to the world’s hot spots with a camera, especially Central America. He shot a documentary that showed U.S. audiences the first images of the Contras’ secret militia in Nicaragua.
His work came to the attention of master cinematographer, director and activist Haskell Wexler, who needed a DP for what became “Latino,” a 1985 film set against Ronald Reagan’s proxy war against the Nicaraguan government. “What drew me into narrative and feature filmmaking was the desire to control the visual storytelling more than you can with photojournalism,” Sigel says.
Despite his subsequent foray into indie and studio features, Sigel’s name still comes up among cinematographers as an under-the-radar trendsetter whose films are considered game-changers – “Drive” and “Three Kings” being the most often cited.
“Three Kings,” directed by David O. Russell in 1999, took a bold, even risky approach to color, contrast, film stocks and lab processes that is still influential. “Drive,” directed by Nicholas Winding Refn, used the then-new Arri Alexa digital camera.
Along the way, Sigel has forged working relationships with numerous directors, working most often with Bryan Singer. The forthcoming “Bohemian Rhapsody” will be their 12th narrative project together.
The visual artist and social documentary aspects of Sigel’s mindset still have a strong impact on his choices. Director Reginald Hudlin worked with Sigel on “Marshall,” last year’s biopic about the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. |
[WM]Is Agunah Tamar Epstein's Remarriage Legal Without Orthodox Divorce?
Epstein, who has conducted a high-profile, years-long campaign to force her recalcitrant ex-husband to grant her a religious bill of divorce, appeared recently to have found a way around her dilemma.
Tamar Epstein, the prominent “chained woman” whose right to remarry under traditional Jewish law was long stymied, may have finally found two Orthodox rabbis willing to help her wed again. But her fate in the broader Jewish community — and the fate of any children she may have — is anything but ensured.
Epstein, who has conducted a high-profile, years-long campaign to force her recalcitrant ex-husband, a Capitol Hill congressional aide, to grant her a religious bill of divorce, appeared recently to have found a way around her dilemma. Traditional Jewish law bars a woman from remarrying without first receiving such a bill of divorce, even if, like Epstein, she is already civilly divorced. But on September 24, Epstein was wed to her new husband by a prominent rabbi in Memphis, Tennessee, after an unnamed Philadelphia Orthodox rabbi used a rare procedure to annul Epstein’s earlier marriage.
This seemed to end the 33-year-old’s status as an agunah, as such women are known in Hebrew — a term commonly translated into English as “chained woman.” But this was not necessarily the happy ending that many had hoped she would get.
The decision to allow Epstein to remarry ignited a firestorm within the Orthodox community. Opponents of the decision are making it clear that Epstein and any future children she may have will not find acceptance in the Orthodox community of which she considers herself a part.
“The woman is considered married for all purposes and is forbidden for any other man until a religious court rules otherwise,” Rabbi Aharon Feldman, head of Baltimore’s Ner Israel Rabbinical College, wrote in an open letter he addressed to fellow rabbis and religious leaders. “In the meanwhile, she must leave her second ‘husband,’ and if she has children, they will be considered bastards until relieved by a religious court.” Under traditional Jewish law, children classified as bastards — mamzerim in Hebrew — are not allowed to marry other Jews who are born to women considered to be legitimately married.
Epstein has long become the face of the struggle of chained women in America. A resident of Silver Spring, Maryland, she married Aharon Friedman in 2006; the couple’s only daughter was born a year later. In 2010 she and Friedman decided to separate; they got a civil divorce, but Friedman refused to provide his wife with a get, a religious bill of divorce, which is required under Jewish law to release the wife from the marriage. Epstein thus became an agunah, unable to remarry until her estranged husband grants her the religious divorce.
Epstein’s plight touched the hearts of many in the metropolitan Washington Orthodox community and led to a series of articles condemning Friedman. Her sympathizers held routine demonstrations outside Capitol Hill, where Friedman works as a congressional staff aide to Rep. Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican. Several area Orthodox synagogues decided to boycott Friedman, not allowing him to pray with the congregation until he signs his wife’s get. But despite the protests, Friedman has refused to grant the religious divorce, reportedly in an attempt to use the refusal to leverage his request for changing visiting rights of the couple’s daughter in his favor.
Some rabbinical authorities view the breakthrough that allowed Epstein to remarry as a creative solution. But others condemn it as a violation of Jewish law.
The breakthrough came earlier this fall, when a rabbinic authority in Philadelphia issued a heter, or permission, that annulled Epstein’s marriage based on the claim that Friedman was mentally ill at the time the couple married. The identity of this rabbinical authority was not disclosed, but according to several ultra-Orthodox websites it was likely to have been Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, head of the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia. In the past, Kamenetsky has worked to resolve Epstein’s situation.
Although the unnamed rabbinical authority was not provided with any professional mental evaluation of Friedman’s condition, the rabbi ruled that had Epstein known of these mental issues in advance, she would never have married Friedman, and therefore the marriage is annulled and Epstein is free to remarry. Annulment, while existing in traditional Jewish law, is a very rare procedure, and according to a source in the Orthodox community, it has never been used in modern times.
Epstein’s marriage to Adam Fleischer in a traditional Jewish ceremony in Memphis was officiated by Rabbi Nota Greenblatt, who is the head of the city’s Orthodox umbrella organization, Vaad Hakehilloth, and is a well known halachic authority.
The controversy that ensued centered on interpretation of religious law rather than on Epstein’s right to be released from her husband. Even those critical of the unusual halachic procedure were, for the most part, sympathetic to Epstein’s plight. They reiterated their call for Friedman to issue a religious divorce.
All parties involved declined to discuss the permission given to Epstein for her subsequent marriage, stating it was a private, personal issue.
Advocates of women’s rights under Jewish law were also cautious about the broader implications of this ruling. “There is a concept of annulment in Jewish law that can be applied in some cases, but I am neutral on this topic,” said Rabbi Jeremy Stern, executive director of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, an organization established to help chained women be set free. Stern said his group focuses on the need for divorced men to provide their ex-wives with a get.
Many rabbis argue that Epstein’s resort to what they view as a questionable procedure is inconsistent with Jewish law and will do nothing to solve the problem.
“It is clear at this point that Tamar Epstein is still married to Aharon Friedman — because the heter she received to remarry is a sad joke based on a clear corruption and misuse of halachic principles,” wrote Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn, one of the ultra-Orthodox community’s leading voices on issues of marriage.
Furthermore, rabbis who oppose the move are now working to sign up as many rabbinical voices as possible in the Orthodox community, to ensure that, in the future, the community does not accept Epstein’s annulment and the use of the practice.
“Until now, there were a few attempts” by rabbis to annul marriages, Feldman wrote. But they changed nothing, “because the protest of our rabbis silenced them.” But this time is different. “Now, this permission is coming from an important and significant rabbi, and if we do not protest, our pact will come apart,” Feldman warned. |
[WM]The Maryland teenager who terrorized his high school used his father's handgun to shoot a girl he'd just broken up with and another classmate, investigators said Wednesday.
Austin Wyatt Rollins, 17, was later killed when he traded shots with the school resource officer at Great Mills High School, they said.
"Rollins and the female victim had a prior relationship that recently ended," the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. "The handgun utilized by Rollins in the shooting was legally owned by Rollins' father."
Rollins' alleged target, 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey, remains in critical condition at a local hospital. But a 14-year-old boy who happened to be in a hallway when Rollins opened fire was released after being treated for a gunshot wound to the leg.
It was not clear how the teenager, who lived in Lexington Park, Maryland, got hold of his father's weapon or what make or caliber it is.
The Maryland shooting happened as a national debate is underway on how best to protect students from gun-toting attackers. It was rekindled by the Valentine’s Day massacre of 17 students and staffers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The quick response of St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Deputy Blaine Gaskill, who had been assigned to the school last year, stands in stark contrast to that of Parkland school safety officer Scot Peterson, who resigned amid reports that he went AWOL when the shooting started.
The National Rifle Association has been quick to point to Gaskill as proof that armed guards and teachers are a better deterrent than gun control. But Gaskill faced a teenager armed with a handgun, not a rifle like the Parkland shooter.
Nevetheless, what Gaskill is reported to have done is extremely rare.
The Washington Post, which has done an analysis of dozens of school shootings, reported Wednesday that Gaskill would only be the second school resource officer to kill an active shooter since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
In the aftermath of the Parkland mass killing, President Donald Trump has called for arming teachers — an idea praised by the NRA and dismissed as a “colossally stupid idea” by many educators and school safety advocates.
Still, Florida Gov. Rick Scott last month inked a new law that defied the NRA by raising the age to buy all firearms to 21 and imposed other gun-buying restrictions — but also allowed trained school workers and teachers to arm themselves.
Meanwhile, Gaskill got a shout out Wednesday from Stephen Willeford, who was praised in November after he fatally shot the gunman who'd killed 26 people at a Texas church in Sutherland Springs.
In a telephone interview with NBC News, Willeford said he would “be honored to shake the hand" of Gaskill.
“He’s another good guy with a gun,” he said, repeating a phrase that is part of the NRA's mantra about armed citizens being the only thing "that can stop a bad guy with a gun."
Willeford is not likely to get any argument on the good guy part from Gaskill’s boss, Sheriff Tim Cameron, or Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. Both have praised the 34-year-old “tough guy” for putting his own life on the line Tuesday.
“While it’s still tragic, he may have saved other people’s lives,” Hogan said of Gaskill in the aftermath of Tuesday’s shooting.
Gaskill has yet to make a public statement.
Willeford's brush with fame came after he pursued Texas church shooter Devin Patrick Kelly and shot him dead. He used a rifle similar to the Ruger AR-556 that Kelley used to commit the massacre.
It was later revealed that Willeford was a longtime NRA gun instructor — so the powerful gun lobby, which has been fighting attempts to ban such weapons, was quick to dub him as their kind of hero.
They did the same for Gaskill on Tuesday.
Willeford, who recently was the guest of Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Tex., at the State of the Union address in January, has done only sporadic interview since the Nov. 5 tragedy that pulled him from obscurity.
His lawyer, Pamela Thompson of San Antonio, said that’s mostly been by design. |
[WM]Labyrinths of Memory (Matahat El-Zakirah) play will be performed several times over three days at Osiris art space, the same location that hosted the play in December 2015.
Directed by Nora Amin, the interactive performance transforms the entirety of Osiris’ space, its hallway, rooms and kitchen, to function as an unusual stage with separate performances on every part of it.
The different spaces offer distinctive stage sets that match certain memories that were drawn from participants in an acting workshop held earlier by Amin at Osiris.
“Shut in alone with each of the actors in turn, listening to him or her and engaging in an intimate exchange of memories, each member of the audience becomes actively involved in shaping the encounter,” theatre critic Nehad Seleiha wrote of the work in Al-Ahram Weekly.
Labyrinths of Memory stars Shehab Ibrahim, Mohamed Abo El Yazeed, Maha Omran, Ahmed Gamal, Nada Abdallah, Ahmed El-Sawy, Ahmed Abdallah, Mohamed Abaza, Karim Refaat and Hend El-Shimy. |
[WM]The stock of State-owned manganese-ore mining company MOIL is down by about 12 per cent in the last month. This seems to be largely on account of lower-than-estimated sales volumes and realisations in the December 2018 quarter. Though the total sales volumes were down by 3 per cent Y-o-Y to 8.37 lakh tonne, revenue and operating profit grew at a healthy 11 per cent and 20 per cent to ₹332 crore and ₹185 crore respectively, aided by reduced costs.
Net profit for the quarter stood at ₹120 crore, 16 per cent higher Y-o-Y.
While realisations of non-fines and fines increased 8 per cent and 4 per cent Y-o-Y, it remained flat over the previous quarter. The company has announced price cuts over the last two months across various grades to boost sales in the fourth quarter of FY19. Demand for manganese ore, a key input for steel, will be impacted if the outlook for the latter turns weak. |
[WM]The design, which features a 452-bedroom hotel plus apartments, was approved by the authority last week but must now win a green-light from the London mayor’s office.
Denise Hyland, Greenwich Council’s member for regeneration, enterprise and skills, said: ‘This will be the first four-star hotel east of Tower Bridge on this side of the river.
The project on the Greenwich Penionsula features a 3,000m² event space with capacity for 3,000 people and a green ‘living roof’.
The proposed hotel will feature a 3,000m² event space with dramatic views of the O2 arena – formerly the Millennium Dome.
It is thought the clear-span ballroom (40m x 75m) would be the largest bespoke space of its kind in London.
The scheme for developer AEG Europe is for a site on the north-western tip of the Greenwich Peninsula.
As hotel designs go this one is pretty uninteresting. I know I am being very critical but surly for a brand new concept Hotel & Event space this needs to have the "WOW" factor. It will follow in the footstep of the unimaginative millennium dome.
Somethings been nagging me for years - a suitable adjective for that dome thing. Ta, that fits the bill as the concept marries nicely with the "peninsular". Lord Love us, error on error and now someones tossing some mass cubes together and calling it a hotel.
Yep, wonderful, way to go.
Call me cynical, but I'm thinking you wouldn't be so enthusiastic justfacades if it was to be a hotel made out of cheese, .. yeah try making a facade out of that justfacdes. |
[WM]Stamford's Old Town Hall Redevelopment Agency this week chose Nov. 19 for the opening ceremony for the renovated Old Town Hall building.
Both Mayor Dannel Malloy and the new mayor elected that week are expected to be in attendance. Plans also include local high school band performance. Not long after the ribbon-cutting, the building, which has been closed since 1987, will be open to the public.
An earlier plan to hold a large outdoor party downtown to commemorate the completed restoration was scrapped due to costs and timing. Agency members are considering turning part of the building into a museum.
Educational assistants, city school district employees who work with special education students and in kindergarten classrooms, would be renamed para-educators under a proposal Stamford's Board of Education is considering.
On Tuesday, the board's Labor Committee approved a revised job description, which focuses more on the employees' skill set and the job's caring and nurturing aspects, said Denise Gagne, the school district's executive director of human capital development.
The scheduled closure of Westport's Saugatuck post office has been delayed until Sept. 5, according the United States Postal Service.
The post office had been set to close Saturday due to environmental and safety concerns, a postal service spokeswoman has said. The delay was due to difficulty arranging the move of a temporary trailer location for post office boxes, according to a USPS statement.
Saugatuck post office box customers will be able to pick up mail from a trailer in the parking lot at 20 Saugatuck Ave., near the Fast Stop Convenience Shop, beginning Sept. 8. Mail will be available at the trailer Mondays through Fridays, 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturdays from 7a.m. to 1 p.m. Other postal transactions, including stamp sales and package shipments can be made in at Fast Stop, a contracted postal service provider.
Westport First Selectman Gordon F. Joseloff and U.S. Congressman Jim Himes had written to the postmaster general Wednesday stating dissatisfaction with the sudden closure of the Westport office.
Stamford police chased several men in the city's Cove neighborhood early Thursday morning after catching them breaking into unlocked cars.
Police recovered a bag -- discarded by the thieves -- containing about $1,000 worth of valuables, including two GPS devices, a Sony Playstation console and several pairs of sunglasses stolen from cars, according to Stamford Police Lt. Sean Cooney.
Officers responded at 1:30 a.m. to Horton Street on a report of four young men stealing valuables from cars in the area.
A Darien Police Department dog searched the area for more than a half hour, tracking a scent to the Willowbrook Court condominium complex without success, Cooney said. |
[WM]Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) today announced details for its upcoming five-day Worldwide Developers Conference starting June 9. The show, to be held at San Francisco’s Moscone center, will kick off with a keynote by CEO Steve Jobs. But most importantly, for the first time, the event will feature an iPhone track for mobile developers interested in sessions and hands-on labs time with the OS X iPhone 2.0 software, iPhone SDK and soon-to-be released App Store. Release.
At the show, many people expect Jobs to take the stage and unveil the highly anticipated 3G iPhone, which is rumored to be black and have new features, such as GPS. But the phone will likely only be an incremental improvement over the first one. What will provide a larger impact to the mobile industry is the software on the phone — the Apple SDK, the availability of enterprise features, such as Microsoft’s (NSDQ: MSFT) ActiveSync, and the App store, which will provide mobile developers a new business model and distribution network for their goods. At a March press conference, Apple said it would officially launch these features in June.
Coincidentally, the company’s stock hit $190 for the first time since January 4, reports Barron’s. That means the stock has recovered almost completely since declining from $198 at year-end to an intra-day low at $115.44 on February 26. |
[WM]This dashcam video shows what can go wrong if you’re lazy and you don’t clear that huge block of snow and ice off of the roof of your car—it can fly off and crush the car behind you.
The poor Saab driving behind one such lazy driver had its windshield smashed in while the driver was distracted by a riveting discussion of the dangers of ISIS.
Indeed, ice is the greatest threat to America at the moment. Or at least our windshields. |
[WM]San Francisco, as everyone who lives there knows, is a city desperate for more space. But making due with a small lot can sometimes lead to amazing things—like this 1,900-square-foot home designed by Craig Steely.
The one-year-old house is built atop a 24 foot by 24 foot concrete garage, perched above San Francisco's Dolores Park. The three-story home is actually quite small, but a number of clever details make it seem expansive—from pivoting windows to the operable wood louvers that reappear around the home.
Around the time the house was being designed, the new on-ramp to the Golden Gate Bridge was under construction which necessitated clearing a grove of Monterey Cypress trees in it's path from the Presidio. We secured some of these trees and working with a local milling shop turned them into 90 solid wood louvers. |
[WM]The �unofficial� track season for Oregon�s De�Anthony Thomas actually began about five yards short of the goal line on his game-opening kickoff return for a touchdown in the Fiesta Bowl.
That was when the running back for the UO football team decided to dip his head and lean across the goal line as if he was breaking the tape at the finish line of a 100-meter race.
On Saturday, Thomas made it official.
Despite a cold and drizzly afternoon at the Oregon Preview, he dazzled a crowd of 4,402 at Hayward Field with three victories as the Ducks kicked off the 2013 outdoor track and field season.
There was also an American record in the 2,000-meter steeplechase by Oregon Track Club Elite�s Bridget Franek, and the Ducks� Liz Brenner made her track and field debut in the javelin, her fourth varsity sport at Oregon.
Thomas opened by anchoring the 4x100-meter relay to a meet record of 40.35 seconds. He teamed with two other football players � Dior Mathis and B.J. Kelley � plus Arthur Delaney to break the mark of 40.46 set by Oregon in 1992.
For an encore, Thomas easily won the 100 with an all-conditions personal best of 10.31. He was aided by a tailwind of 2.1 meters per second, just above the legal limit of 2.0, or he would have moved into the seventh spot on the all-time UO list.
Thomas closed out his day with another dominant performance in the 200. He hit the tape in 21.17, followed by Mathis at 21.30.
Will Thomas and his football buddies be able to run track this year and still take care of their spring football responsibilities?
UO track and field coach Robert Johnson took note of Thomas� times under less than ideal conditions with little or no practice in a season-opening meet in mid-March.
Brenner, the second-team all-American outside hitter for the NCAA runner-up volleyball team who also has played basketball and softball at Oregon, wasn�t too thrilled with her third-place finish in the javelin at 141 feet, 5 inches.
However, it was her first time competing in that event since she was a senior at Jesuit High School in 2011. She had two practices leading up to the Preview.
Franek broke the U.S. record in the 2,000 steeplechase at 6:19.09, eclipsing the old mark of 6:20.66 set by Carrie Messner in 2007. The OTC Elite also got wins from Julia Lucas in the women�s 3,000 (9:21.91), Hassan Mead in the men�s 3,000 (7:58.43), and Ben Blankenship in the mile (3:48.57).
As for the Ducks, sophomore Johnathan Cabral set a meet record in the 110 high hurdles (13.68) and junior Laura Bobek moved up to No. 5 on the all-time list in the discus with a lifetime best of 172-6.
Freshman Alyssa Monteverde swept the 100 hurdles (14.05) and 400 hurdles (64.83); freshman Greg Skipper won the hammer with a 6-foot PR at 210-10; Delaney won the men�s 400 (47.84); junior English Gardner won the women�s 400 (54.31) and junior Parker Stinson bounced back from knee tendinitis to take second in the 3,000 (8:02.32).
Alexa Efraimson, a high school sophomore from Camas, Wash., won the women�s 1,500 with a fast time of 4:19.54, and UO alum Britney Henry took the hammer throw at 206-7. Oregon State�s Michele Turney set a school record in the triple jump by finishing second at 38-6?1/4. |
[WM]Michelle Morris was surprised when her mom handed her the May 24th issue of Sports Illustrated and she saw her name and face staring back at her with a small write-up.
Sports Illustrated included Morris in a "Faces in the Crowd" segment. The item chronicled how the La Cañada High graduate propelled the University of Georgia to win the NCAA Varsity Equestrian National Championship during a sudden-death ride-off.
"It's always our goal to get to that point and win the national championship," Morris said. "It was the most intense thing I have ever been through in my entire life. It was so exciting and a great way to end it, obviously."
When Morris was told she would be riding in the sudden-death ride-off to help the Georgia Bulldogs to a possible win in the national championship, she showed poise and came through, said Meghan Boenig, Morris' coach at Georgia.
"I'm sure she was panicking somewhere, but she never showed it," Boenig said. "She was able to go out there and beat her opponent by 30 points, which gave Texas A&M no chance to come back. It gave our whole team a huge breath."
Somehow it got even better for Morris. Not only was she a part of a championship-winning team, but she also won the individual title in the event.
"The individual was actually really unexpected," Morris said. "It was something I knew was possible throughout the year, but it wasn't one of my main goals because it's almost as if you think about it — it doesn't happen. You just have to keep being consistent throughout the year."
This all sounds like the perfect ending to a dramatic senior season, but it's not. Morris, who turned 21 on June 20, was only a sophomore, and has two more years at Georgia.
Morris began her involvement in the sport by chance. While running errands with her mom, a 7-year old Morris spied a flier for a horse-riding camp, which ended up sparking her equestrian career. After attending the camp she told her mother she wanted to take riding lessons, and her interest evolved from there.
Soon, Morris was with a trainer in Chatsworth and at 13 she began training with Karen Healy in Thousand Oaks, who she still works with today. Healy's training reinforces the basics of riding and was influential in getting her experience in shows, Morris said.
That is important at the college level because Morris is always riding a different horse. Often, she has to focus so much on controlling different horses with different personalities and tendencies that she has little time to worry about her skills. The experience Healy has given Morris has proven priceless.
"I remember [Healy] telling my parents, 'the more you get into the show ring, the less the nerves are going to be and it will just become second nature,' " Morris said. "Training with her has helped me out a lot with that."
Morris graduated from La Cañada in 2008 and was a member of the Interscholastic Equestrian League. It was through her participation in IEL that she decided to ride in college because the team-aspect appealed to her.
After deciding she wanted to ride in college during her junior year, Morris prepared a recruiting tape and sent it to the four big riding schools in the NCAA: Georgia, the University of South Carolina, Auburn and Texas A&M. NCAA rules state coaches cannot contact players until July 1 before their senior year in high school.
"Literally, that day, July 1, the coach from Georgia called me and said she loved my tape and invited me to come out for a recruiting visit," Morris said.
During her recruiting visit, Morris saw all that Georgia had to offer, and it was everything she wanted in a school: a big campus, an elite football program in the South East Conference and a great telecommunications program. The Bulldogs made Morris a great scholarship offer and she signed her letter of intent.
"I am so happy with my decision," Morris said. "It is everything I wanted in a college experience."
Georgia and Boenig are also happy with her decision, as she was named the Most Valuable Player of her team in 2010.
Not only is Morris a great rider for the Bulldogs, who knows how to push the envelope and impress the judges, but she is a leader as well, Boenig said. She works with the program's freshmen to let them know what to expect during practices and shows.
"[Morris] is a technician out there," Boenig said. "She knows exactly how to get a little bit more out of each maneuver and has an incredible feel for whatever horse she is riding. She can get more out of any horse than other riders."
Now the question is: How does Morris improve on her sophomore season where she won nearly every major award available to her?
"She wants to continue to be a powerhouse," Boenig said. "I'm going to ask for her to take on a bigger leadership role on the team next year."
Morris said she will continue to concentrate on the goal she's always had of staying consistent in every competition; something she believes is one of the hardest things to do in any collegiate sport.
"Honestly, I don't know how it could be any better," Morris said. "But if the next two years I am there we are able to win the team championship again that would just be fantastic."
The problem is Morris will face a new challenge next year, as opponents will be gunning for her.
"It isn't going to be an easy road next year because people are going to remember her," Boenig said. "She has become a moving target and she has to keep moving to stay on top because they are coming back stronger and better prepared for her." |
[WM]Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has doled out sops and freebies to dalits, backward classes, minorities and economically weaker sections, considered the Congress’ vote bank, in the 2014-15 budget ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha elections. For urbanites, the budget was a raw deal as neither big projects were announced to improve living conditions, nor employment opportunities created.
The budget proposal presented in the Assembly on Friday had no major programmes for asset creation or new flagship schemes. At the same time, Siddaramaiah, who also holds the finance portfolio, did not impose any fresh tax on the common man despite a shortfall in revenue to the tune of Rs 3,716 crore in the current fiscal.
In an effort to blunt the influence of the Aam Aadmi Party in Karnataka, Siddaramaiah announced that a separate anti-corruption legislation will be enacted in the State on the lines of the Centre’s Lokpal Act. He has not honoured his promise to provide free laptops to PUC students, though SC/ST students of professional courses will get the gadget.
Siddaramaiah restrained from imposing fresh taxes on commodities. He also left stamp and registration levies and motor vehicle taxes by and large untouched. However, prices of beer and liquor will go up.
Siddaramaiah hiked additional excise duty on beer by 13 percentage points and imposed a 5.5-per cent Value Added Tax on spirits served in bars, clubs and star hotels in urban areas. VAT was being imposed on liquor for the first time, a move that would fetch the exchequer an additional Rs 200 crore per annum. The additional excise duty on beer will fetch another Rs 100 crore. These were the two only additional resource mobilisation measures (ARM) in the budget.
Interestingly, the budget proposal and ARM measures will come into effect from March 1. Traditionally, new budget proposals come into effect from the start of the financial year, April 1.
Siddaramaiah increased grants to the SC/STs under various departments from Rs 8,614 crore to Rs 15,834 crore. The biggest sop in the budget was the Rs 2,718-crore loan waiver scheme for 11.41 lakh beneficiaries who had secured loans for constructing houses under the Ashraya programme. |
[WM]The indictments against a Pineville brother and sister in a triple murder case provide a few more details in the October case in which the three bodies were found in two spots during one day.
The indictments against a Pineville brother and sister in a triple-murder case provide a few more details in the October case in which the three bodies were found in two spots during one day.
Matthew Sonnier and Ebony Nicole Sonnier will be arraigned on Dec. 12 after indictments, formal charges alleging a serious crime, were returned against them last week. Both are suspects in the deaths of Latrice Renee White, Jeremy Deon Norris and Kendrick Dwann Horn.
Rapides Parish District Attorney Phillip Terrell said Wednesday that his office intends to seek the death penalty for Matthew. A decision hasn't been made regarding the case with Ebony, he said.
The bodies of all three victims were found on one day — Oct. 18 — in two different locations. White's body was found lying on Melrose Street in Pineville. The 42-year-old woman had been stabbed and thrown from a car.
Hours later, the bodies of Norris, 28, and Horn, 33, were found on fire in a ditch on Old Boyce Road outside of Alexandria.
The siblings were arrested and charged within a week. Law enforcement officials were tight-lipped when announcing the arrests, but the indictments against the pair provide a few more details into what officials believe happened.
"I don't want to go into any detail about evidence and how much evidence we have, and get into the facts of the case that might hinder the DA with his prosecution of this case because it is a very, very serious case," said Rapides Parish Sheriff William Earl Hilton at a press conference announcing the Sonniers' arrests. "There's gonna be a lot of court in front of us to get this through the system and to get these people convicted and bring justice to them and to the community."
Matthew, 29, was indicted on three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of obstruction of justice. Ebony, 31, was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder and two counts of obstruction of justice.
The second-degree murder charge against Ebony is for White's death.
The counts from both indictments concerning White and Horn state that the siblings "had the specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm upon a victim who was a witness to a crime" for the purpose of preventing their testimony in a criminal action or proceeding.
The indictment against Matthew alleges that he killed Norris, also known as "Apple," during an armed robbery or attempted armed robbery "while engaged in the distribution and exchange or an attempt thereof of a controlled dangerous substance."
Ebony was a principal to Norris' murder, alleges the indictment against her.
The obstruction of justice charges accuse both of removing the bodies of Norris and Horn from wherever the homicides happened, "cleaning and attempting to clean the blood and firearms evidence from inside a blue Dodge Dakota truck" and then wrapping both bodies in material from an above-ground swimming pool.
The indictments continue that the pool material was secured to the bodies with cables and that both bodies were set fire on Old Boyce Road.
Attorneys from the Louisiana Capital Defense Project now are listed as representing Matthew in Rapides Parish Clerk of Court records. Two motions already have been filed in the case, including one to reduce bond that also is scheduled to be heard on Dec. 12.
Hugo Holland, who prosecutes death penalty cases across Louisiana, is representing the state, according to the records.
According to the clerk's website, Ebony does not have an attorney yet.
Both remain in the Rapides Parish Detention Center. Bond was set for Ebony at $913,600, but she is being held without bond on the two first-degree murder charges.
Matthew also is being held without bond on the three murder charges. |
[WM]It is a nightmare scenario hospitals must be prepared for, although they hope those preparations will never be used.
On Monday, that nightmare came to Kingston General Hospital when the sound of gunshots shattered the normal hum of the busy hospital.
Millhaven Penitentiary inmate Corey Ward is alleged to have disarmed a correctional officer and fired his gun, wounding the visiting family member of a patient in the leg. Ward has been charged with three counts of attempted murder and a review has been launched.
In response to the shooting, the hospital declared Code Silver, which is designed to alert staff to the existence of a person with a weapon in the hospital and to set off planned emergency procedures.
Code Silver is the latest colour code that is part of hospital emergency preparedness. It was introduced by the Ontario Hospital Association in 2016, 25 years after a standardized system of colour codes, including Code Orange for an external disaster and Code Red for a fire, was introduced.
Code Silver is, to a certain extent, a sign of the times, with a steady increase in gun violence across the country.
Willmore is currently working on modules to train employees at The Ottawa Hospital on what to do in the event of a Code Silver.
Hospital shootings remain rare in Canada, although that is not the case in the United States. Between 2010 and 2011, there were 154 hospital-based shootings in the U.S., according to one study. Numbers have most likely increased since then.
On Monday, while Kingston General was dealing with Code Silver, a police officer, a doctor and a pharmacy resident were all shot at Chicago’s Mercy Hospital.
“This is a rather rare event, but not so rare that we can’t pay attention to it,” said Willmore. In fact, he noted, there has been a steady rise in gun violence in Canada — especially in Ontario — in recent years.
Kingston is not the first Canadian hospital to be shattered by gunfire. In Cobourg a man shot his wife and then was shot by police at the local hospital in 2017. There have been several other shootings in hospitals across the province in recent years, including in Fort Erie and Northumberland.
The Ottawa Hospital, which held a Code Orange training exercise last week based on the scenario of a mass shooting in the community, is, like other hospitals, preparing for a possible shooting within one of its campuses.
Willmore is working on a 15- to 20-minute simulation module that staff in various departments can do. The exercise gives staff a scenario involving an active shooter in the hospital and takes them through what they should do.
The reality of active shooters, though, is that there are few things people can do to remain safe.
The options are limited to running, hiding or trying to survive by whatever means possible, Willmore said. That could include fashioning weapon out of equipment in the hospital to try to disarm the shooter. The scenario also raises potentially difficult ethical questions — including whether to remain with a patient who is unable to hide.
Dr. Alan Drummond, an emergency physician at the Perth hospital and co-chair of public affairs for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, said there is growing alarm about violence against staff in hospitals, including gun violence. |
[WM]Claude Isaacs and Eric Roubbi, two French nationals accused of killing Lee Zeitouni in a hit-and-run case in Tel Aviv last September said Thursday that a trial held in Israel would be unfair.
Michel Apelbaum, one of Roubbi’s lawyers, spoke to Haaretz following the publication of French First Lady Carla Bruni’s letter to the Zeitouni family to argue that the case should not become an international media circus, and instead should be moved into a French court, rather than an Israeli one.
According to Apelbaum, the accused want to be judged in France, but that no trial can go forward since the Israeli authorities have not made a request for France to look into the case.
“We need to be very clear on one point — and this point is that the Israeli government has not asked the French government to take any jurisdictional action against my client. If they really wanted to see this case in front of a judge, they could ask the French minister of justice to take action against these men. But the Israeli government has not done this until now,” Apelbaum said.
This story "Men Charged in Tel Aviv Hit and Run Want French Trial" was written by Haaretz. |
[WM]Over the Cool & Dre production, Joey Crack references his 2002 hit “What’s Luv?” and raps about Donald Trump and Kanye West (“What’s Trump without a little of Kanye?”).
Breezy provides the radio-ready hook, singing about a girl who’s chasing clout. “Now you’re callin’ me for attention, feenin’ for attention / Say you’re looking for that action,” he sings, while Dre drops some rhymes of his own.
In addition to collaborating with Fat Joe, Chris is readying a duet with Agnez Mo and a joint album with Rich the Kid. |
[WM]The robbers, precise as they were about meeting the two Brinks security guards on the 11th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:30 A.M., were a little fuzzier about their exit from the building once the money was in their hands.
As they left, half a dozen security cameras captured images of their unmasked faces for posterity.
And as Brooklyn boys universally disliked in their neighborhood, their decision to return there proved calamitous. Before the sun had set, friends and neighbors by the dozens were calling police hot lines, hoping to collect a $26,000 reward for the thieves' capture.
Melvin Desmond Folk was the first to fall, turned in by his wife, according to police investigators. Michael Reed came next, handcuffed in the home of an elderly acquaintance who was feeding him cookies.
And the lone holdout, Richard Gillette, has three law enforcement agencies in hot pursuit as well as a host of civilian trackers hoping to win the crime-stoppers lottery. |
[WM]The final group of Irish peacekeepers to serve in Chad arrived back in Dublin this afternoon.
For the first time in three decades, there are now no large Irish battalions serving overseas.
The 186 soldiers were met at Dublin airport by the Minister for Defence Tony Killeen and the acting Chief of Staff, Major General Dave Ashe.
The troops were also given an enthusiastic reception by their families.
Irish soldiers have been serving on four-month tours of duty in Chad for the past two years.
But at Easter, the Government decided to end the mission because of uncertainty over the UN mandate.
An earlier group of 200 peacekeepers returned from Chad over a week ago.
A small group of 11 will remain to serve at the force headquarters in Chad but they will not be on operational duties.
There is provision for 850 Irish troops to serve abroad at any one time.
But with the recent end of the mission in Kosovo and now Chad, only a few dozen soldiers will be on foreign postings.
Minister Killeen said Ireland’s commitment to peacekeeping remains very strong and he expects invitations to serve abroad in the future.
General Ashe said the Defence Forces would use the time ahead to gather their resources and prepare for any future mission, though he said there are none on the horizon at the moment. |
[WM]SACRAMENTO — Returning to his alma mater, C.K. McClatchy High School, Attorney General Xavier Becerra stood in front of students, parents and cameras Tuesday night to deliver the Democratic response to the State of the Union in Spanish.
“It says to other students that it does not matter where you come from, how humble your background may be, you can reach those dreams through hard work,” said C.K. McClatchy Principal Peter Lambert.
Having sued the Trump administration 45 times over varying issues, the attorney general is used to being at odds with the president. His speech was expected to be no exception.
“He is the symbol of resistance in California,” said CALmatters columnist Dan Walters.
Walters said we should expect immigration and health care to be top focuses for Becerra’s rebuttal.
“He’ll be talking about immigration, seeing himself as kind of the embodiment of the American dream. His parents were immigrants from Mexico,” Walters told FOX40.
While Tuesday night’s speeches are mostly symbolic, Walters says talking points will be geared toward party agendas for the presidential election.
As for students watching in the audience, just seeing an alumnus from their school on the national stage is a point of pride.
The attorney general’s speech was not the first time a State of the Union response was delivered in Spanish, as well as English. The first time that happened was back in 2011.
It is an honor to be here with you from C.K. McClatchy High School in the City of Sacramento, the capital of the State of California. I am here with future leaders of our country — McClatchy students — where I also studied, but about four decades ago!
My parents began their life together in the United States for the same reason that many other families come to this country: to work hard and give their children a better life. Upon leaving Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, they brought with them their faith and not much else. They trusted in the promise of this country that all those who work hard and play by the rules, have earned the opportunity to get ahead.
I know I am the product of those who fought to open the doors of opportunity. The optimism – that characterizes the waves of immigrants who have come here – runs through my blood. And if the state of our nation can be characterized as “strong,” it is because people like my parents and yours — citizens or immigrant — built this country.
There is no other country like the United States.
The world needs us strong and ready. The world looks to us as a leader and partner.
How can it be, then, that our young, rich, and strong nation finds itself in a state of disorder, stress, hostility?
How can it be that what defines the state of our country in 2019 is the shutdown of the government at the hands President Trump? And not only once, but perhaps a second time in the coming weeks.
It shouldn’t surprise us that the majority of people here in the United States think that the country is moving in the wrong direction. And that four out of 10 Americans believe that this is the worst government that they have seen in their life.
If President Trump wanted to seriously advance comprehensive immigration reform, including border security, Democrats are and have been ready. But closing our government — and leaving hundreds of thousands of workers without work or pay — is not that way to do it.
We are ready to reject this foolish proposal, in court, the moment it touches the ground.
1. They are also putting a wall between you and your doctor, dictating what services you can receive. That is why my fellow Attorneys General and I defend, in court, people like Elizabeth from Florida. Having healthcare coverage allowed her to complete university and ensured that her husband had coverage to defeat cancer. And now, Elizabeth is an attorney.
2. Also the Trump Administration — they are putting a wall between you and the voting booth. But I have news for you here: They failed! During the November elections, Latinos, especially young people, came out to vote in historic numbers! Thank you!
3. What else? They are also putting a wall between our veterans and their medical services. They are ready to waste millions of dollars on a border wall instead of helping our veterans who deal with long delays in hospitals.
4. And they’re also building a wall between parents and their children, by putting children in cages that separate them from their families.
Now that you see your power, are you ready to open new doors?
Don’t you think that it is already the time that we in our government build schools, not walls? Then, get those hands ready to vote in the next election!
Our system of government rewards the participation of everyone. And with 66,000 Latino citizens reaching 18 years of age, the voting age, every month, we have many hands to reward.
And comprehensive immigration reform to fix our broken system: Check! Check! Check!
In the courts and in Congress, or at the polls, we have to fight for our agenda. That is why I have fought as Attorney General in court against the President’s Administration and we are winning!
1. In protecting the DACA program, we fought and won for 700,000 young people.
2. In protecting the Affordable Care Act, we are the protagonists. More than four million Latinos depend on the ACA for their health insurance.
3. In protecting college students against fraudulent loans, we fought and won for thousands of them.
Over the years, they have reaped the fruits of their labor and dedication to their family. There is no doubt that the ‘State of the Union’ of Maria Teresa and Manuel Becerra is strong and resilient.
If you asked my parents what is the state of our Nation, I am sure they would paint an image more real than what President Trump presented tonight. They know what it means to work hard and to respect the rules.
And they know well that to stay strong as a united people, we have to work together and push those heavy doors open so that all our children – like the students from CK McClatchy – can walk through them, and have an opportunity.
Whether it’s with marches on the streets or marches to the polling booths, with fights in the court or through Congress, we will do what’s needed to ensure a strong and vibrant national Union.
Friends, with faith and the strength of our labor, and respecting the diverse contributions of the American people, the United States will continue to be the home of the American Dream.
Thank you. Good night and may God bless you. |
[WM]Someone taped a Kim Kardashian selfie to a treadmill in Bushwick. We're not sure why.
RELATED: How Did This Jonas Bro Get So Ripped? |
[WM]We have an entire generation of folks who have no idea how to change the own oil in the car.
When one of my grandkids asked me if I could sew a button on for her, I was amazed. Don’t you have a needle and thread I asked? No, she told me and I am not sure how to do it if I did.
I wondered if my eighth grade sewing teacher, Mrs. Barnes, was rolling over in her grave. I can remember hemming a tea towel over and over again when I was in school because I couldn’t get the stitches even enough to please her.
When I think how many things my grandkids have never learned, I realized I was glad that sewing was a requirement when I was in junior high school. It was certainly a pain at the time, but it gave me a skill I may never have had otherwise.
And while no one has ever asked me to prepare a Rosy Apple Compote, I remember that was one of the first requirements in my cooking class. Our cooking teacher also taught us the presentation was as important as the food itself.
We had to prepare a special breakfast for Easter and I added a little red and blue food coloring to my scrambled eggs. My teacher was very impressed and I got an A, probably the only one I got in that class.
My dad was much less overwhelmed when I prepared my special dish for him on Easter morning. He thought it was the most disgusting mess he had ever seen and looked more like liver than eggs. Needless to say, I didn’t cook for my dad again until after I was married.
And I can’t remember which class I was in when I was in high school, but one of my teachers taught us all how to balance a checkbook. I have discovered that is a lost art. Even my own kids bank online and accept whatever the bank says as their balances. I am still not that trusting.
I’m not sure how long ago schools stopped teaching basic life skills, but it’s a shame they did. We have an entire generation of folks who have no idea how to change their own oil in the car. Of course, most people would rather have someone else do that anyway.
But what if the handle on your toilet breaks? Do you really need to call a handy-man for such a simple fix? I’m not one to preach about repairs. If it can’t be fixed with Duct tape or Super Glue, I am lost. But I can sure iron a crisp white dress shirt.
I know I am somewhat of an anachronism, but we Baby Boomers may be the last generation that was prepared to take care of ourselves. Hopefully, at some point, the millennials will realize there is no app that can do the laundry, sew, cook and create a budget. Maybe those chores will have to be revisited. |
[WM]As of June 1, experts from the Ministry of Tourism will start independent checks of hotels and restaurants on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. This was announced in Varna today by Minister Nikolina Angelkova, where she had a working meeting with the control authorities for the preparations for the beginning of the season.
Last summer, the Ministry of Tourism remained in the shadow of Deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov, who, together with tax inspectors, closed down bars with violations.
With recent amendments to the Tourism Act adopted last week, however, the Ministry of Tourism now has the right to control tourist sites. The strengthened control functions of the tourist office provide for a control unit to inspect persons providing tourist services and their sites. They will be able to draft protocols, send them to the CPC for ex-post control and sanctions.
The change was due to the numerous reports of violations addressed to the Ministry of Tourism. Until now, only the CPC, at the request of the Ministry of Tourism, could take away the category of accommodation, which put the ministry in a "tied hands" situation. |
[WM]The United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, says that the US cannot afford to wait for conclusive proof of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs before it attacks Iraq.
He equated the reluctance of America's allies to get involved with the appeasement of Nazi Germany.
His most outspoken remarks on Iraq to date appeared to be a deliberate move by the Bush Administration to ratchet up the anti-Saddam rhetoric in the face of scepticism at home and abroad.
Speaking of Nazi Germany, Mr Rumsfeld told Fox News on Tuesday: "Think of all the countries that said, 'Well, we don't have enough evidence'.
"I mean Mein Kampf had been written. Hitler had indicated what he intended to do. Maybe he won't attack us. Maybe he won't do this or that. Well, there were millions of people dead because of the miscalculations."
He said the risk of a terrorist attack with a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon was so high, that the US could not wait for more evidence before acting.
In another development, intelligence officials on Tuesday said at least a handful of senior members of al-Qaeda had taken refuge in Iraq.
Iraq has often been cited by US officials as a haven for al-Qaeda fighters who have fled the US military campaign in Afghanistan.
"There are some names you'd recognise," a defence official said.
The reports of a more significant al-Qaeda presence in Iraq come as the Pentagon plans for a possible invasion. They also serve President George Bush's arguments for toppling Saddam.
A senior US intelligence official said there was no evidence that Saddam had formally "welcomed in or sheltered" the terrorists.
"They are not the official guests of the Government," another official said. They were largely still "on the run".
But Mr Rumsfeld scoffed at the notion that al-Qaeda's members were hiding in Iraq without the full knowledge or protection of the Government.
Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, said in an interview with CBS News on Tuesday that members of al-Qaeda were operating in the northern part of Iraq and were not under the control of the Iraqi Government.
They were operating under the Kurdish opposition leader, Jallal Tallabani, "an ally of Mr. Rumsfeld".
Meanwhile, General Wesley Clark, NATO's commander during the Kosovo war, has joined the growing ranks of US elder statesmen, including prominent Republicans and former US military commanders, in urging caution about attacking Iraq.
General Clark said on Tuesday that privately even the "hawks" in the US Government acknowledged that Iraq was no threat to America. |
[WM]The long wait for Tesla's new Model 3 is almost over.
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk will unveil the company's first car for the masses Thursday night. Tesla fans who can't afford the Model S, which costs between $70,000 and $140,000, have eagerly awaited this day for years. The Model 3 will be priced at about $35,000.
Tesla will start taking $1,000 deposits from buyers in stores Thursday morning, and online at 10:30 p.m. ET that night, which is when the car will be unveiled.
But there are still more questions than answers about the Model 3. Here's what we do -- and don't -- know about the car.
When can buyers actually get one?
Tesla expects to start delivering the Model 3 in "late 2017." So even if you're one of the first to reserve one, it'll still be a long wait. And ramping up production can take a while, so it could easily be 2018 before even early buyers can get their hands on a car.
The Model 3 will be more like Tesla's Model S sedan than its Model X crossover. But the company has kept the design under wraps. It definitely won't have the distinctive falcon wing doors of the Model X.
How far will it go on a charge?
The base model Model S has a minimum range of 240 miles, but the Model 3 probably won't go quite as far. The Model 3's battery will be smaller and lighter in order to keep the cost of the car down, and the size of the battery pack is what determines range.
Musk has been quoted as saying 200 miles should be the minimum range for any all-electric car.
At $35,000, the Model 3 will cost about half the price of the base version of the Model S. And buyers will get tax breaks -- there's a $7,500 federal deduction, and some states offer as much as $2,500 in credits. The average price of all new cars today is about $34,000, according to Kelley Blue Book.
What options will it offer?
Musk said in February that Tesla might hold back on some features for the Model 3 to get the car to market faster, having learned a lesson with the much delayed Model X SUV.
"In retrospect, it would have better to do fewer things with the first version of Model X, and then roll in ... new technologies over time," Musk said. "I do think that there was some hubris there with the Model X."
Of course, some of the most talked-about Tesla features cost thousands of dollars. If they're available for a Model 3, they could quickly end the car's claim of being a moderately priced for those who add them.
For example, the "ludicrous mode" that lets the car to go 0 to 60 in only 3 seconds, adds $10,000 to the price of a Model S, and it requires all wheel drive, which adds another $5,000, as well as high performance motors that add $20,000. Autopilot features add another $2,500. |
[WM]Slowing economic growth in China is taking some of the glow off of one of the country’s greatest attractions for foreign businesses: consumers’ willingness to splurge on higher-priced goods as incomes rise.
Rein is the author of “The End of Copycat China,” “The End of Cheap China,” and “The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order.” Excerpts follow.
Q. What’s your take on China’s economy?
A. It’s much weaker than people realize. Labor markets are bad. Starting in October, it became very difficult for even kids from top universities like Stanford and Columbia to get jobs. When we started our business in 2005, they would graduate from the U.S. in June, they looked for a visa in the United States for three or four months, couldn't get one, and then came back to China. It used to take me a week in order for me to hire someone. I'd have to decide very quickly. Even in August 2018, we’d have to decide in a week. Now, people that I interviewed in October are still looking for jobs. The labor markets collapsed in October.
So from a consumer spending standpoint, that's hitting hard. They're starting to trade down. They're skipping the big-ticket items like houses and cars. They're still travelling overseas, but they're going not so much to America or the UK; they're now going more closer -- so Thailand and Japan. We're very bullish on domestic tourism.
The next thing is they're just trading down in general. So instead of buying a Starbucks latte, they're going to Luckin. Instead of going to Imax movie theaters, they're watching on iQiyi and online videos. So in 2019, the premiumization drive that a lot of people said consumers would do is over, and they're now trading down. A big shift.
Q. What does all of this mean for multinationals? To what extent are multinationals caught up in China's mixed relations with the West?
A. You haven't seen anti-American sentiment on the consumer side except for Apple. Because people feel that the United States is going into hostage diplomacy by arresting (Huawei CFO) Meng Wanzhou, people are supporting Huawei. But, in general, people aren’t buying multinationals’ (goods) not because of the economy and not because they're anti-American. It’s because they're becoming more supportive and more nationalistic when it comes to Chinese brands.
For instance, in 2011, we interviewed 5,000 consumers in 15 cities, and at the time 85% of consumers surveyed always buy a foreign brand over a local brand. In 2016, we did the same research. This time, 60% of consumers said they would always buy a domestic Chinese brand over foreign brand. I didn't even do the research in 2017 or last year.
So Apple's problems in China are not due to the economy. They're not due to anti-American sentiment. They're due to the fact that they're being out competed by Huawei, Oppo and Vivo at a much better price points.
Q. How are multinationals as a group reacting to all of this?
A. They're getting hit very hard. The only brands that are doing well would be heritage brands that have an incredible brand position – a Nike, Chanel, Estee Lauder. Other brands are in confused mode. They think it's the economy, but it's not. They need to adjust. They need to understand that the day Chinese just desire Western brands is over.
Q. How should they adjust?
A. They either need to buy a Chinese firm. They need to either go even more upmarket, in some cases they have to offer more value products.
Q. Any recent examples of a multinational buying a Chinese firm? Multinational?
A. You don't want to go too down. What you want to do is offer more like, “Buy five, get five.” It's more of a value play.
A. The food market is a difficult one because companies are getting hit by Ele.me and Meituan. Anything that's 30 RMB and less is dead, because people can just buy something at half of the price. So you need to try to go more upmarket, be a little bit of premium, a little bit healthier. And then you're able to win. It's not easy.
Q. That's what Yum is trying to do?
A. That's what they're trying to do. I'm very negative on say McDonald's. All these guys earn a lot of trouble. For the first time in about a decade, I'm bullish on instant noodles. People are starting to buy the cheap three or four (yuan) noodles again.
Q. When is this going to end?
A. This is a long time period. The economy is a lot worse than people realize. None of my clients are making a lot of money. If nobody's making money, how on earth are you getting six percent growth？ I just I can't figure it out.
A. There are two things hitting autos. First, prices are so high and people are concerned about their savings, and so they're skipping autos. It's hitting the American brands because of the tariffs. People are buying a Lexus and they're still buying a BMW because China has lowered the tariffs from Germany and Japan, but people are not buying American brands. You saw Ford’s sales dropped 50% year on year in the fourth quarter. And you also have the issue where people to use shared mobility. That's a big trend in China because it's very difficult to buy a license plate. It's expensive. I've never been able to get one. My company has had to buy all of my license plates and they cost $30,000 each. So the American auto manufacturers are in a lot of trouble. They're going to continue to double-digit (sales) drops this year.
Now the second thing is people are hoping for an end of the trade war and they're saying if there is an end to the trade war China might lower the tariffs on cars even more. So people are taking a wait and see attitude to see is it going to be cheaper in three months. And that's what's happened with Tesla. They're waiting for when Tesla opens their factory in China in May, or when they lower their prices which they just did last week by $20,000-30,000. So the market for American autos in China is in trouble because people have no money, or if they have money, they have a wait and see attitude.
Q. What does this shared economy mean for foreign businesses? It’s easy to think of Chinese companies like Didi benefitting and maybe a Geely, which seems to be building up a fleet to supply that sector.
A. It’s too expensive to own a car in China, and a lot of Chinese -- younger Chinese especially -- tell us they don't even want to drive. It's too stressful, too much traffic, too expensive and too much risk of an accident. They'd much rather outsource driving either to a driver or autonomous cars.
Q. Where can foreign companies fit into the shared space?
A. What they can do is sell fleets. But if they sell fleets to the taxi companies, that lowers their brand image. Hyundai did that with the taxi companies; now nobody wants to buy a Hyundai. They could invest in some of the Chinese Internet players and do co-partners partnerships with them. |
[WM]On June 17, hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent will be stateless.
Last week, I wrote that the Dominican Republic has summarily stripped over a hundred thousand Dominicans born in the DR of Haitian parents of their citizenship and is threatening to deport them to Haiti. And though initial reports suggested that the deadline for deportation might be delayed, it now seems to be going forward as planned: In four days, hundreds of thousands of people in the Western Hemisphere will become stateless.
Where is the US press? Why aren’t they covering it? And why the silence from human-rights groups? The main page of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch has three posts on Venezuela. Nothing on the Dominican Republic. HRW’s director Ken Roth is a prolific voice on Twitter—yet nothing on the topic since November 11, 2014 (but do a Twitter search for @KenRoth and Venezuela and bathe in the stream).
The pope has spoken out, sort of. He told Dominican bishops that they “cannot be indifferent to the plight of Haitian immigrants.” Yet the impending expulsion will not be of immigrants but Dominicans of Haitian descent, born in the Dominican Republic, with family and friends and property and work in the Dominican Republic; many of them have never been to Haiti or know anyone in Haiti (though the Dominican press insists on calling them “Haitians”).
The Dominican government has set up a number of centers where Dominicans of Haitian descent can try to “regularize” their status, and thus avoid being expelled. It’s a charade. The offices are overcrowded, understaffed, and the needed paperwork doesn’t exist (many Dominicans of Haitian descent were born in rural areas, since their parents came to work the sugar fields, with midwifes and not in hospitals, and were therefore never issued birth certificates).
As of the 17th, hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Dominican-Haitians here will be rendered stateless and eligible for summary detention and deportation. The Dominican government maintains that they will not delay implementation of the law, despite pressure from the US, the UN, the OAS, and the Pope.
The government also announced last week that they do not intend to deport those who have already registered for legalization. However, I am documenting dozens of personal accounts from Dominican-Haitians who have gone to great lengths to register, some as much as 8-9 months ago, and as of today have not received any type of confirmation that their paperwork has even been processed. Without confirmation, they are still eligible for deportation. This does not even consider the hundreds of thousands of others who lack birth certificates and thus could not register in the first place.
Given the common practice of nightly police sweeps, the government solicitation of passenger buses, the official declaration of intent to pass Law 169-14 without delay on June 16, and the general history of anti-Haitian abuses on the part of law enforcement and government authorities, it is reasonable to assume that the infrastructure is now in place for mass detention and deportation of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent from the Dominican Republic. The general attitude among this vulnerable subpopulation is a mix of fear and resignation.
This aid worker is asking for contacts in the US press; he wants to stay anonymous but wants to report on what he sees over the next week, especially in poorer neighborhoods, where he has contacts and first-hand experience. If you are a journalist and interested, e-mail me at [email protected] and I’ll put you in touch. |
[WM]Sentenced: Maurice Hennegan, 25, was sentenced to 32 years to life in prision for murdering a man who was romantically involved with Hennegan’s estranged girlfriend.
A Bedford-Stuyvesant man will spend decades behind bars for a murderous crime of passion, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
A Brooklyn judge sentenced 25-year-old Maurice Hennegan to 32 years to life in prison for gunning down a man who was romantically involved with Hennegan’s estranged girlfriend, according to prosecutors. Hennegan was convicted by a jury in March, and sentenced on April 10 by Supreme Court Justice Vincent Del Giudice.
According to trial testimony, Hennegan confronted his ex-girlfriend on the morning of Sept. 28, 2016, about a relationship she had with the victim, 38-year-old Neil Thompson. Hennagan then went to the Bedford-Stuyvesant laundromat where Thompson worked, before finding him down the street, entering a deli at the corner of Hart Street and Tompkins Avenue.
At approximately 7:24 a.m., Hennegan followed the victim into the deli and fired a revolver multiple times from point blank range, killing Thomspson and hitting a 64-year-old bystander in the hand, prosecutors said.
Hennegan can be seen in surveillance footage from inside the deli during the incident, and he admitted his guilt in multiple text messages to associates following the shooting, but managed to evade authorities for several months, using elaborate disguises to mask his identity. The fugitive donned glasses and a fake mustache, grew out his hair, and used a walking cane, according to the District Attorney’s office.
Hennegan was eventually arrested, while in possession of 19 twists of crack-cocaine, on Feb. 16, 2017, at Varet Street near Manhattan Avenue in Williamsburg, according to prosecutors. He was convicted of second-degree murder and third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Following the sentencing, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez blasted the Hennegan’s recklessness and committed his office to cracking down on gun violence.
But all my favorite rap stars say guns be cool. What up? |
[WM]Organize your corporate travel faster, at lower cost. Hotailors is a next-gen AI-powered travel platform.
Hotailors is a platform for organising business travels that grants access to the best real-time offers from 2.000.000+ hotels and 700+ airlines in the whole world.
Thanks to our solution you can plan, book & expense business trips in less than 5 minutes. Accordingly to your travel policy, budget limits and cashless for your employees.
With our reporting, integrations and real-time analytics, you can easily control your travel policy, reduce spendings and increase the efficiency of your company.
Hotailors ia an artificial intelligence powered marketplace for business travels. Friendly to use technology based on artificial intelligence to plan, book and expense business travel in 5 minutes. Within one login on one dashboard, user has access to almost 2 mln booking offers and flights from over the world.The solution is dedicated to companies who want to save time and money by optimizing process of business policy in the organization. Thanks to the combination of artificial intelligence and 3000 logged travel experts on the platform, Hotailors optimizes the time of booking hotels and flights up to 5 minutes and reduces cost to 80%. |
[WM]BELLVILLE — Law enforcement officials are still trying to figure out why a man opened fire on another man late Sunday morning in a Delaware, Ohio rest area, severely injuring the man, and then took off north on Interstate 71, where he crashed his vehicle and died, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
As of Monday night, the gunman’s victim, Alexander Melchert, a freshman at the College of Wooster, remained in critical condition at a Columbus hospital.
The suspect in the shooting, Shawn A. Johnson, 25, of Westerville, was being chased by troopers on I-71 when he apparently lost control of his vehicle after, running over some road spikes placed across I-71, and crashed into a guardrail.
Troopers reportedly surrounded the man in the crashed vehicle, and after not hearing anything from him, approached the vehicle and discovered Johnson dead, reportedly of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead shortly after 3 p.m.
The alleged shooting occurred in an I-71 rest area in Delaware County shortly after 11 a.m. According to the highway patrol, the suspect fired several shots at Melchert, hitting him more than once. Troopers think Johnson chose Melchert at random.
WBNS TV Channel 10 in Columbus reported that court records suggest Johnson was angry with a family member, which may have precipitated the shooting.
Also, according to 10TV, family members told investigators Johnson was struggling with mental health issues.
The vehicle pursuit and crash ended near mile marker 172. The Ohio 13 exit off I-71 is at mile marker 169. |
[WM]Conventional wisdom will be put to the test in the 2020 Democratic primaries, according to Columbia, S.C., Mayor Stephen Benjamin (D).
"I think all bets are off the table in [that] no one who's smart will take anything for granted," Benjamin told Hill.TV's Jamal Simmons on "Rising."
"They'll come and spend the time learning the state, talking to them about what's important," he added in a Tuesday interview that aired the following day.
"I think some of the conventional wisdom will be tested this time," he said, referring to the primary season as a whole.
South Carolina's will be the third primary contest in 2020, after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
"Everyone is going to have to come and grind it out," he said. "Julián Castro was a fantastic HUD [Housing and Urban Development] secretary. He was very good, I will tell you, to the people of Columbia during his tenure in the Obama administration."
Castro launched his White House bid earlier this month.
Benjamin also praised other candidates and potential contenders, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand Kirsten Elizabeth GillibrandCory Booker has a problem in 2020: Kamala Harris Booker to supporter who wanted him to punch Trump: 'Black guys like us, we don't get away with that' 2020 Dems ratchet up anti-corporate talk in bid to woo unions MORE (D-N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann WarrenTim Ryan doesn't back impeachment proceedings against Trump Schiff: Democrats 'may' take up impeachment proceedings Trump claims Democrats' plans to probe admin will cost them 'big time' in 2020 MORE (D-Mass.), former Vice President Joe Biden Joseph (Joe) Robinette BidenCory Booker has a problem in 2020: Kamala Harris 2020 Dems ratchet up anti-corporate talk in bid to woo unions Resurfaced Buttigieg yearbook named him 'most likely to be president' MORE and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The field of presidential hopefuls is expected to grow in the coming weeks.
A Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey released exclusively to The Hill on Tuesday found that 43 percent of respondents said they would cast their vote for a Democratic candidate in 2020. |
[WM]MTS has flicked the switch on 4G LTE wireless service at Grand Beach and Victoria Beach.
Two of six communities that are receiving the service in 2013, vacationers will now have access to faster download and upload speeds while at the cabin.
“Just in time for May long weekend, MTS is offering ultra-fast 4G LTE wireless service in two of Manitoba’s most popular cottage country destinations,” said MTS president Kelvin Shepherd.
The faster network is only available to users who have LTE-enabled wireless devices.
To help Manitobans to remain even more connected, the province is increasing the number of WiFi hotspots in Manitoba parks. |
[WM]Eli Sister (John C. Reilly) is a frontier hit man with a heart of gold. Familial duty forces the wouldbe shopkeeper to be one-half of a killing duo with his brother, Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix), a drunk just like their Pa. Together, they are the most-feared hired guns roaming the Oregon plains. Their mission in “The Sisters Brother” -- a darkly funny and (surprisingly) sweet Western -- is to find a prospector/chemist named Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed), torture him until he reveals his secret formula for mining gold, then kill him. Easy peasy. Especially when abetted by John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), a "lead man" sending the brothers poetic dispatches on Warm’s whereabouts.
The movie -- based on the 2011 novel by Patrick deWitt and adapted and directed by France’s Jacques Audiard (“A Prophet”) -- isn’t as straightforward as it appears. This is not your grandfather’s Western. No, Audiard has more ironic thoughts on his mind, and his top-notch cast provides the perfect vessel to explore brotherhood, greed, friendship and sacrificing the life you want to live for the life you have to live.
It doesn’t always stick the landing. The shifts in tone are jarring, changing on a dime from Coen Brothers-esque to a more violent Tarantino vibe. I applaud the ambition, even if the slapstick and serious stuff don’t always meld. The plot moves slowly, like a man on horseback, as Audiard oscillates between the brothers and Morris tailing Warm. The film, set at the height of the Gold Rush, is lean on plot and heavy on character study, with the brothers regularly trading barbs and punches on their way to San Francisco, where all four characters will connect, much to the story’s benefit.
Be warned: “Sisters Brothers” is not for the squeamish. There’s blood, guts, huge spiders and a cringe-worthy amputation. The body count is high, “six or seven” in the opening frame alone, as the brothers botch a job, killing everyone inside a house. Horses are not safe, either. The sibs might murder, scheme and steal, but it’s not all grim. In one standout scene, Eli has a tender, if awkward, exchange with a prostitute, asking her to re-enact the moment the woman he loves gave him a red shawl. Every night Eli cuddles that wrap while falling asleep. It is ironic bits like that that forgive the film’s early monotony.
Gyllenhaal and Ahmed share an easy screen rapport, just like they did in the underrated thriller “Nightcrawler.” Ahmed’s Warm is an earnest fellow, hoping to make a buck so he can form a “true democratic society” in Texas. Gyllenhaal’s Morris speaks with precision and writes about his travels in a “book of adventures.” Rutger Hauer (“Bladerunner”), in a blink-and-you’ll miss him cameo plays the Commodore, the brothers’ employer.
The terrific cast props up the writing to make the material seem better than it is. Even watching Reilly’s Eli brush his teeth for the first time is weirdly sweet. With all this talk of gold propelling the action, it’s Reilly who has the Midas touch. |
[WM]Police and fire departments across the country are cracking down on officers for posting racist, violent memes and comments. But it’s not enough.
Dallas shooter Micah Johnson’s attacks towards law enforcement have incited a new wave of anti-Black Lives Matter declarations by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and others, who have called the group “inherently racist.” They believe BLM is, in part, to blame for the deaths of the five police officers.
Now many law enforcement officers and other civil servants have been reprimanded for making offensive and even threatening social media postings describing BLM activists as racists and terrorists. Individual officers have been demoted, suspended, or in few cases, fired, after community members reported posts to city officials.
The name of the patrol officer was not initially released by the South Carolina police department. It was only released after it spread via social media, a model Sergeant Michael Woody from the Detroit Police Department says was followed in the case of Detective Weekley.
As Sergeant Woody’s statement suggests, it is likely that there are far more incidents of this nature that have been reported. Though underreported, other inappropriate social media postings by law enforcement officers have come to light this week.
Derek Hale, a sergeant for Louisville Metro Corrections was suspended after sharing an abhorrent meme on Facebook featuring a white police officer and the words, “If we really wanted you dead all we’d have to do is stop patrolling your neighborhoods...and wait.” Two Memphis policemen were placed on suspension after one allegedly posted a Snapchat picture featuring a gun aimed at an emoji of a black man running.
Lieutenant R. Kelley Hughes, Communications Liaison for the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, told The Daily Beast that in addition to Captain Morris, another local fireman and a local paramedic were also discharged due to inappropriate or threatening social media statements related to the Columbia BLM protest.
Officer Rodney Lee Wilson of the Overland Park force in Kansas was also fired for threatening comments posted on Facebook. “We’ll see how much her life matters soon,” he commented on a photo that LaNaydra Williams of Dallas, Texas posted of her 5-year-old daughter, India, back in 2014. “Better be careful leaving your info open where she can be found :) Hold her close tonight it’ll be the last time [sic],” he wrote.
In light of these incidents, some police departments have developed specific social media policies for employees to follow. The Nashville Police Department’s policy on social media use urges employees to “act with respect and exercise common sense…do not engage in any online communications that could reflect negatively on the department or its members,” and includes a reminder that “existing rules of conduct” apply to social media usage.
Yet without specific protocols in place, it is likely to continue and many officers will keep expressing racist and/or violent views on social media without any disciplinary action. Overland Park Police Chief Francis Donchez Jr. fired Officer Wilson and posted a statement on the Police Department’s Facebook page, but did not identify Wilson by name.
Chief Donchez wrote that the department would “not tolerate any form of discrimination or threats” and that “possible disciplinary action for inappropriate behavior by staff members includes several steps including termination of employment.” He did not specify whether charges would be brought against Wilson, or if the department would adopt new policies to prevent against similar social media attacks in the future. |
[WM]SAN FRANCISCO – A San Francisco UPS driver recovering from a gunshot wound said Monday in an interview that he does not understand why his colleague Jimmy Lam shot him and killed three fellow drivers last week, but does not believe the shooter had reason to feel disrespected, which police have suggested as a possible motive.
Alvin Chen, 43, cried at times as he told The Associated Press about the chaotic shooting inside a UPS warehouse Wednesday that also left Lam dead after he killed himself and left another driver with a gunshot wound.
Although police have suggested Lam might have felt disrespected by other workers, Chen said it would have been out of character for any of the three men who were killed to have done so.
It would have been especially out of character for two of the drivers who were his close friends, Chen said, adding that he knew of no animosity between them and Lam.
"I'm heartbroken. I can't understand why this happened," Chen said, a pair of crutches nearby.
The workplace deaths of the UPS drivers — Wayne Chan, 56; Benson Louie, 50; and Mike Lefiti, 46 — shocked San Francisco and stunned UPS workers. Chen said he felt compelled to speak out about the dead drivers to speculation that Lam might have been motivated to open fire because of bullying.
A San Francisco Police Department official has said Lam appears to have felt disrespected by co-workers, but did not know if that motivated the shooting.
The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because the officer was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
Chen said Lam never indicated before the shooting that he had problems with other workers, and said he had a friendly chat with Lam about their routes on the Monday, two days before the shooting. They spoke Cantonese to each other, although Lam's ethnicity is unclear. Records show Lam moved to the United States as an infant from Thailand.
The day of the shooting started like any other work day, Chen said, with drivers doing warm-up stretches and listening to company announcements before they were scheduled to climb into their trademark brown UPS trucks for the day.
Chen said he was standing in his usual spot, by Chan and Louie, when he heard a loud pop like a firecracker behind him. He dismissed it as a prank but turned and saw smoke.
He heard a second pop and felt pain. When he looked down, he saw blood pouring down his leg.
Chen got into the cab of the truck closest to him, hoping to hobble out through the truck's rear door and slip down a hallway and into the street.
He was about 60 feet (18 meters) from the exit when he saw Lam blocking his path, scanning the room as if looking for someone.
"But I don't know who he's looking for," Chen said.
He turned back, checking to make sure he wasn't being followed. He encountered another UPS driver hiding behind a truck. That's also when Chen noticed a body on the ground. It was his friend Wayne Chan.
Terrified to stay put, Chen decided to find a hiding place and went into an empty office, bleeding as he ran.
"I knew if I don't run, I may get killed," he said.
Police eventually found Chen on the floor behind a desk, unable to stand up and with his hands raised as officers had demanded. Chen found out when he was being treated at a hospital that Louie had also been killed.
"I keep dreaming every night when I close my eyes, that moment. It's really scary, I can tell you," he said. "And you don't want it to happen next to you and around you. It's a very, very bad experience."
Chen said he does not know how he feels about Lam, although it's more sadness than anger.
"I'm not even thinking like I hate him or not," he said. "I'm not."
AP reporter Linda Wang contributed to this report. |
[WM]Talk about a killer college essay.
Trevor Greene, the principal of the Yakima, Wash., school, applauded Gaby for sacrificing her senior year to find out what it would be like to be an expectant teen mom.
"I admire her courage. I admire her preparation," he said. "I give her mother a lot of credit for backing her up on this."
That was before he added that he would never let his own teenage daughter do it.
Most moms go out of their way to support their kids' school projects. (Hey, I have pictures of Maya temples made from sugar cubes and perfectly scaled dioramas of rain forests, complete with misters, from my kid's fourth grade class to prove it.) And we'd like to think that we'd stand by our teen daughters no matter what happens. But would you be willing to support the web of lies – not to mention the heartache and the hurtful exposure – involved in such an ambitious plan? And if you were on the other end of that experiment – as a parent thinking you're about to become a grandparent – could you forgive the other mom for duping you?
Is this a cool class project? Or just a cruel lie? |
[WM]WALKERTOWN � Brenna Hicks hit five 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 18 points to lead visiting Alamance Christian School to a 42-30 victory against Gospel Light in the first round of the North Carolina Christian School Association state playoffs for girls� basketball Friday night.
Hicks hit a pair of 3s in the final 30 seconds for the Warriors (10-8).
Leanne Barker added 14 points and 12 rebounds for ACS.
-- SOUTHERN ALAMANCE 51, GREENSBORO SMITH 39: At Mt. Hermon, Southern Alamance clinched a share of second place in the Metro Conference by winning on Senior Night as junior Shaylen Burnett scored 21 points.
The Patriots (20-4, 9-3) slowly pulled away in the second half. Hollie Boggs added 13 points.
Dajah Rudison-Williamson scored 12 points for Greensboro Smith (9-15, 4-8).
-- EASTERN ALAMANCE 56, ROCKINGHAM COUNTY 36: At Wentworth, Eastern Alamance placed four players in double-figure scoring, led by Deja Dunn�s 16 points and Jaimee Cousin�s 14, as the Eagles cruised past Rockingham County in the Mid-State 3-A Conference regular-season finale for both teams.
Terri Rogers and Aliyah Bryant added 10 points apiece for Eastern Alamance (19-5, 12-2), which will be the No. 2 seed in next week�s conference tournament.
N�Quierra Hammick scored 13 points to pace the Cougars (12-12, 6-8).
-- EASTERN GUILFORD 65, WESTERN ALAMANCE 34: At Gibsonville, a huge second-quarter burst sent Eastern Guilford to a Mid-State 3-A Conference romp.
Going into the second quarter down two, the third-place Wildcats (16-8, 9-5) outscored the Warriors 19-6 , keeping Western Alamance (5-19, 3-11) from having a chance to rebound.
Leeaysia Williamson had 15 points and was 9-for-10 from the free-throw line. Callie Patterson had 11 points and Erica Olerich had 10 to lead Eastern Guilford.
Ashley Breazeale and Kierra James had 10 points each for the Warriors.
-- NORTHERN GUILFORD 40, WILLIAMS 24: At Greensboro, the Bulldogs dropped their final regular-season game but held on to the No. 4 seed for next week�s Mid-State 3-A Conference Tournament.
Cassidy Jordan scored 10 points to lead Williams (14-10, 8-6).
Aliyah Grinage and Amanda Coffer scored 13 points apiece for the Nighthawks (23-1, 14-0).
-- RIVER MILL 51, FRANKLIN ACADEMY 36: At Graham, Daijah Faucette scored 17 points to lead River Mill past Franklin Academy and the Jaguars completed an undefeated season in the Carolina 12 2-A / 1-A Conference.
The victory marked the fourth consecutive season that River Mill has finished undefeated in conference play.
Lenaira Ruffin had 13 points and 21 rebounds for the Jaguars (21-3, 16-0). |
[WM]Dave Eggers' history as the motive force behind the experimental, expectations-challenging literary-goofery platform McSweeney's hangs heavily over his new book, What Is The What. Simultaneously billed as an autobiography and a novel, it does manage to be both: Eggers interviewed Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng at length about his life, then wove his horrifying story into a fictionalized narrative. Eggers' stagy, novelistic writing is jarring, and it inevitably casts every given fact into doubt. But while it's sometimes hard to take the literary tropes seriously, the autobiographical content is riveting, and in all likelihood, more accessible than any similarly massive, sprawling non-fiction treatise on Sudan's politics.
Eggers frames Deng's story with a break-in at his home: Living as a political refugee in America, Deng is assaulted and robbed in his apartment, and his ordeal stretches out throughout 475 pages as, suffering, he recalls how he suffered as a child in Sudan. A child of an African tribe, the Dinka, he grows up in an ethnically mixed area, but political events far away forcibly set Arab tribesmen from north Sudan against the Africans in the south. The rebel group SPLA, led by Dinka John Garang, is no friendlier, and Deng and his family are caught in the middle, seeking safe havens in an increasingly unstable, violent battleground. When Arab horsemen destroy Deng's village, he starts a lengthy journey that lasts more than a decade and leads to multiple countries and refugee camps.
Eggers skims over the region's voluminous religious and political divides, presenting a bare-bones version of events and concentrating on the increasingly wild rumors and hopes that the refugees live by, and on the mundane details of life for a lost child in a generation of them. In his oddest conceit, his version of Deng mentally addresses each new installment of his story to the individuals he encounters or remembers, evoking their names over and over as he describes his heartbreaking journey. He isn't telling an abstract story to the air, he's recounting his own life directly and determinately to real people, demanding that they hear and see him. Though he couches that force of will in a mild, polite voice, it's hard to resist in any format. His story comes in an odd shape, but it reads as a story that must be told, and must be attended. |
[WM]Super Bowl LIII wasn't the most exciting championship game, with the New England Patriots beating the Los Angeles Rams 13-3.
However, some bettors may have had some exciting nights if they made the right calls. Of note, some unexpected props with large odds hit, leading to a great return on investment for those making the right calls.
Scott Hastings of OddsShark posted a list of Super Bowl LIII prop bet results Sunday, and here's a look at a few unlikelier props that returned well.
The over/under for this game was 55.5 points, so needless to say, the one-touchdown prop brought back a huge return on investment. If you were bearish on the Rams, you received 20 times your bet.
Pats quarterback Tom Brady made 35 pass attempts on Sunday. Only one of them was picked, but it just so happened to be his first. New England had 407 total yards and only one turnover, so it wasn't as if the offense was inept on a day when defenses largely ruled. But if you were particularly pessimistic about Brady's first throw, then you won big.
Playing Monday Morning Quarterback, this looks like one of the best value bets on the prop sheet. Edelman was the leading postseason receiver entering the playoffs and finished that way after his 10-catch, 141-yard performance.
Los Angeles Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman (or the officials) were to thank for this one after he was questionably called for unnecessary roughness on running back Rex Burkhead.
Not a huge surprise here as Michel had 53 carries and five touchdowns in his two AFC playoff games leading into the Super Bowl.
Betting this prop feels like playing Russian roulette, as it's hard to discover an edge. Still, if you bet blue, cash your slips for four times your investment.
Bettors who placed this wager may have been nervous after Pats kicker Stephen Gostkowski missed a 46-yard field goal wide left with the score tied at zero, but after three punts, he hit a 42-yarder to break the scoreless tie.
On a night where defenses ruled, this is a fairly surprising result. Even more shocking was that this didn't hit the over after Rams defensive end John Franklin-Myers sacked Brady late in the first quarter. L.A. had three other quarterback hits, but none of them resulted in sacks. |
[WM]Encouraging good eating habits in children, sustainable diets and food as medicine will be among the topics discussed at a major event this weekend.
Food for Thought at the School of Artisan Food over May 13-14 will have ten speakers including Nicole Pisani, ex-chef at Ottolenghi restaurant Nopi, food writer and cook Felicity Cloake, and Prof Tim Spector, author of ‘The Diet Myth’.
“We are not talking about fads and fashion, but subjects that affect our environment, health and economy”, said Alison Parente, founder of the school on the Welbeck estate.
A Sheffield restaurant has been hailed as one of the top seven vegan dining spots in the UK.
Pure on Raw, Shalesmoor, was included in the list from dining club membership Tastecard.
The full programme for this month’s Sheffield Food Festival has now been revealed .
The event from May 27-29 in the city centre will include an artisan market, tastings, chef demonstrations, pop up farmyard and an Eats, Beats and Treats night market on Fargate for the first time, as well as a programme of talks and debates on food.
Visit www.sheffieldfoodfestival.co.uk for the full programme.
Trippets Lounge Bar is hosting a wine tour through Southern Italy and Sicily tonight from 7.30pm with John Hattersley from Hattersley Wines. It costs £35 per person. Six wines will be paired with dishes from the kitchen of the bar on Trippet Lane. |
[WM]SALT LAKE CITY — Recent reports show that Utah's charter schools are improving, but are they doing enough to keep up with charter schools in other states?
Utah's overall score from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools went up ten points from last year, settling at 131. Despite the rise in score, Utah dropped from 12 to 20 in comparison to other states. Alliance officials say it isn't because of any mistakes Utah is making, but because other states are dramatically improving.
"I think that's an indication that charter schools are very popular in the country, right now, and other states are being even more aggressive than Utah is with implementing them and putting them into place," said Utah State Charter School Board Chair Tim Beagley.
Beagley said they're not too worried about the drop in the rankings. Some of it can be attributed to changes in how the rankings are made. He also said the study shows some areas where Utah can improve.
One of the things the state got dinged on was how they monitor a charter school's performance; other states require charter schools to re-certify every 10 to 15 years.
"(Here), they're really just driven by how popular they are and whether or not the students and the parents want to continue to use their services," Beagley said.
Utah school administrators have a new system to track school progress and performance. The Utah State Office of Education on Friday unveiled the state's new system with the release of Utah Comprehensive Accountability System data for the 2011-12 school year.
Beagley said they're moving forward with plans for better accountability, but they also need to improve the way charter schools get funding. Technically, there isn't a cap in the number of schools set by the schools board. The legislature does set limits on how many students they will give funding to.
"The way to solve that problem is to get a better funding mechanism where we don't really have a limit on the funding and the funding we have in place simply goes wherever the student goes," he said.
However, officials in Utah meet with regulators in other states at least once a year to see what's working well and what isn't.
"We are very well connected, I think, to the other agencies in the country that are doing this," he said. |
[WM]Although the question of European nationals in the UK has been addressed, the fate of UK nationals working in the EEA still remains unknown. It's a pressing topic for EU and UK businesses, writes Robert Glick.
A third of Serbians think that German companies are the best investors and that a job at a German firm guarantees a good salary and working conditions, job safety and career advancement. EURACTIV Serbia reports.
More than a quarter of employers in Britain say staff members from other European Union countries have considered leaving their firms or the country in 2017 after last year's Brexit vote, an industry group said on Monday (13 February).
EU policy-making needs to re-appropriate and prioritise democratic governance, the quality of employment and the full development of a 'social Europe’, as well as a human-rights based approach to EU foreign relations, writes Dr Cristina Blanco Sío-López. |
[WM]A martyr with his brothers Narcissus and Marcellus at Tomi, in Pontus along the southern Black Sea. They are listed as soldiers in the armies of co-Emperor Licinius Licinianus. Argeus and Narcissus were beheaded. Marcellus, a young lad, was imprisoned for a long time after being flogged and was then drowned. |
[WM]A class action suit has been filed by a Birmingham Alabama woman that accuses Apple of deceptive advertising in their claim that the 3G iPhone is "twice as fast" as the previous model. AppleInsider has more details.
Always referring to the device as the "Defective iPhone 3G," Smith and her legal team assert that e-mail, text, and most other downloads were considerably slower than what Apple promised. This in no small part stemmed from the reliability of the connection: the device would connect to 3G less than a quarter of the time to 3G even in areas AT&T says should provide "excellent" coverage, according to the lawsuit.
I've previously mentioned my problems with the lack of AT&T 3G coverage in my area when their online coverage viewer says it should be "excellent." However, Since AT&T installed a new tower in my area earlier this month, 3G and GSM reception has been appreciably better. For example, I can now receive phone calls in my house. Obviously, your mileage will vary.
But why Apple? Shouldn't the suit be directed to AT&T who is providing such poor 3G coverage and support even where "coverage" exists? What about iPhone 3G customers that don't live in 3G coverage areas that are forced to pay an extra $10/mo to receive the same 2G/EDGE service they had with the original iPhone?
Thoughts on the suit? Does it have any merit? |
[WM]From the moment the first model walked down the runway at Calvin Klein Collection’s resort show Thursday morning in a printed, double-breasted angora cotton belted coat, followed by two other models in printed looks, it was clear creative director Francisco Costa was challenging his and our expectations of minimalism.
For prints isn’t something expected from this storied house of minimalism. Monochrome is more its style. Those prints were subtle yet eye-opening on many levels. They showed Mr. Costa was again pushing the boundaries of minimalism, this time by proposing a riveting, inspired kind of glam minimalism. |
[WM]Your credit card company doesn't have your best interests at heart.
Credit cards have caused financial pain for millions of consumers. It's easy to run up a balance, but as too many people find out the hard way, it's a lot harder to get it paid down. Even if you're diligent about getting your debt repaid, high interest rates work against you, creating a big headwind that's hard to fight against month after month.
Even your credit card issuer's own policies can tempt you into staying in debt a lot longer than you should. By simply ignoring your card company's advice and doing what most people would logically think of as the right way to pay down debt, you can get your card balances zeroed out years sooner. Below, we'll show you how to do it and why so many people don't.
The problem that so many credit card holders run into has to do with the minimum payment provisions that card companies have. You'd think that a lender would want to get repaid as soon as possible, but that's actually not the case for credit card companies. The opportunity to charge double-digit interest rates in an environment where mortgage loans generate less than 5% interest for lenders encourages lenders to keep those card balances as high as possible for as long as they can.
As a result, the minimum payment provisions that many card companies use don't do much to pay down your outstanding balance. One common provision involves having someone repay the greater of 2% of their balance or $25 each month. That might sound like a lot, but when interest charges eat up more than half of those payments, there's not much left to apply toward reducing the principal you owe.
As a simple example, say that you have a $5,000 balance on a credit card that charges a 17% annual interest rate. Using the 2% or $25 rule, your minimum payment will start out at $100. Of that amount, more than $70 will go toward paying the interest on your $5,000 balance. The remainder will go toward paying down your debt slightly.
The next month, your balance will be about $30 lower, so your minimum payment will be incrementally lower, at $99.42. Because you owe slightly less money, your interest due will be lower, but it won't drop by as much as the minimum payment did. Over the ensuing months, you'll find that you pay down principal at a slower and slower rate, as your minimum payments fall.
It'll take you almost 10 years just to get your debt halfway paid off if you follow the strategy of paying just the monthly payment. Even after $25 minimum payments kick in around year 20, it'll still take you another seven years to zero out your balance. Over that 27-year period, you'll pay more than $10,000 in interest charges -- double the initial amount you borrowed in the first place.
Fortunately, there's a way to slash the time it takes to get out of debt and the interest you have to pay. Since you have to make that initial $100 minimum payment, it's reasonable to think that you can afford to keep making $100 payments in future months as well. Even if that's the only thing you change, the impact is immense.
In the example above, if you make sustained $100 monthly payments on your credit card, you'll get that debt paid down in a bit more than seven years. You'll pay roughly $3,750 in interest over that time frame -- producing interest savings of more than $6,000 along the way. The simple reason: Your $100 monthly payments ensure that an increasing amount of money goes toward paying down principal month after month, and the resulting faster decline in your card balance cuts your interest charges, creating a positive feedback loop that makes it easier to get your debt paid off.
It does take discipline to make more than the monthly payments you owe on your cards. Your bank is never going to encourage you to do so, and in fact, you can expect financial institutions to dangle offers that make it easier for you to take on more debt.
But being out of debt is a financial necessity, especially when it comes to credit cards. With such high interest charges, it pays to dig yourself out of credit card debt as quickly as you can, and simple strategies like this one can make it a whole lot easier. |
[WM]Sascha Segan MiFi 500 LTE by Novatel Wireless (Sprint) The Sprint MiFi 500 is a solid workhorse wireless hotspot for Sprint's new tri-band LTE network.
Removable battery. Solid Wi-Fi range. Supports Sprint's new tri-band LTE network.
Very basic on-device display. No external antenna port. No global roaming support.
The Sprint MiFi 500 is a solid workhorse wireless hotspot for Sprint's new tri-band LTE network.
Need a solid, workhorse hotspot to use on Sprint's network? The Novatel MiFi 500 LTE (free with contract) is a reliable choice, besting its main competitor the Netgear Zing on our tests of speed and range. The Zing beats it out for an Editor's Choice based on its flexibility (especially with its optional desktop cradle), but the MiFi 500 is the one to go to if you need to blanket a larger area with Sprint Wi-Fi.
The MiFi 500 LTE is a nondescript little brick, when compared to the zingy Zing. It's a plastic puck, 3.8 by 2.4 by .7" (HWD) and 3.35 ounces, made of shiny black plastic on top and soft-touch gray plastic around the sides. The back is removable, so you can replace the 1800mAh battery; I haven't found replacement batteries on the market yet, but I'm sure they're coming. The MiFi lacks an external antenna port.
There's a big gray power button on the top face, as well as a few physical navigation buttons. Hit the power button and the dim little OLED screen lights up with signal strength and battery indicators. By flipping through onscreen menus, you can find the Wi-Fi network name and password, check which devices are connected to the hotspot, check signal strength in dBm, and activate WPS setup.
You get many more management options on the simple, clear Web-based management portal. There, you can monitor your data usage, and set up your 2.4GHz-only 802.11 b/g/n network using VPN passthrough, DMZ, port filtering, and port forwarding.
The MiFi supports up to 10 Wi-Fi devices and can connect to an eleventh as a USB modem; plugging it into a Mac or PC it works right away, without installing any drivers. With an extra driver, it gives your PC GPS support.
The MiFi 500, unlike the Zing, is not world-capable. It only works on Sprint's 3G EVDO and tri-band LTE networks. Also note that Sprint's "unlimited" sales pitch doesn't apply to hotspots; all hotspot plans are capped, costing $34.99 for 3GB, $49.99 for 6GB or $79.99 for 12GB.
Testing Sprint's new LTE network in New York City is an exercise in frustration. It's spotty and inconsistent, strongest in remote parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn. I had to use the Sensorly mapping app to find individual towers that Sprint had activated in Manhattan and Queens, and even then, the network showed a weird behavior with upload tests truncating early.
The reason to buy the new MiFi and Zing is that they support Sprint's new tri-band approach to LTE. Sprint has been taking its existing 1900MHz LTE network and supplementing it with 800MHz, which does much better at penetrating buildings, and 2600MHz, which should provide scorching speed in urban areas. Unfortunately, Sprint's buildout there is even less developed than their 1900MHz buildout, and we haven't had a chance to test the mixed coverage.
But you get what you get, and you try not to get upset. We tested LTE with the MiFi and Zing in five locations. In three of them, the MiFi was considerably faster. In one, the Zing prevailed, and in the last one, the MiFi dropped to 3G while the Zing pulled out decent LTE speeds.
Indoors, the MiFi showed much better range than the Zing. While the Zing's speeds started to drop off after about 50 feet, the MiFi held on well to about 100 feet.
The Zing also showed slightly longer battery life than the MiFi—although remember, the MiFi's battery life really wins because the battery is replaceable. I got 7 hours, 40 minutes with the MiFi compared to 7 hours, 55 minutes with the Zing.
If you're looking for a Sprint hotspot and need long WiFi range without a cradle, the MiFi 500 is your pick. The Netgear Zing is more manageable and flexible, it roams worldwide, and it supports external antennas, so it's a better choice for most people.
If you have a Sierra Wireless Tri-Fi, I'd say hold onto it for now. Sprint just hasn't built out enough of its tri-band LTE network for the advantages to kick in quite yet. I'd peg early 2014 for when these hotspots will start opening up speed and coverage advantages over the Tri-Fi.
Bottom Line: The Sprint MiFi 500 is a solid workhorse wireless hotspot for Sprint's new tri-band LTE network. |
[WM]The Reporter brought home six journalism awards from NYPA’s spring convention — including top prizes in three categories — this past weekend at the Gideon Putnam Resort and Spa in Saratoga Springs.
And Times/Review Newsgroup, which includes the Reporter’s sister papers, The Suffolk Times and The News-Review, topped all other newspaper groups in the state for total wins at Saratoga.
The News-Review received the Stuart C. Dorman Award for overall editorial excellence, and The Suffolk Times picked up first place honors for general excellence.
The 2013 NYPA entries were judged by the Pennsylvania Press Association, just as NYPA members volunteer to judge other states’ entries in their competitions.
Mr. Olsen was speaking about one of the most prestigious awards that NYPA bestows, which went to Staff Reporter Julie Lane for her multi-part series on the serious problems of postal delivery on the Island. Ms. Lane’s series took first place over every newspaper in the association, winning the Sharon R. Fulmer Award for Community Leadership.
“This issue is so core to a community’s needs and the coverage demonstrates a newspaper’s ability to have a major impact …” the citation from the judges read.
The award comes with a $500 stipend the writer can donate to the charity of her choice. Julie has chosen to split the stipend between the Shelter Island Educational Foundation and the Shelter Island Ambulance Foundation.
Ms. Lane also won a third place award for feature writing for “From Russia with love,” a profile of a college student and part-time Island resident who began life in a Russian orphanage.
Editor Ambrose Clancy won a first place NYPA award for feature writing for a story on two Islanders who were dead center at the horrific Boston Marathon bombings.
It wasn’t just words that NYPA recognized and honored from the Reporter’s pages. Both free lance photographer Eleanor Labrozzi and Staff Photographer Beverlea Walz took home prizes in photography categories.
Ms. Walz’s prize was a third place finish for “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” a cover photo of Shakespearean actors arriving by boat for a performance at Sylvester Manor. |
[WM]I have to admit – I’m a huge breakfast person. But this Friday, waking up late for my 10 meant that I had to skip the most important meal of the day. Stomach grumbling, I made it through the end of my 11 and a meeting with just one thought keeping me going – eating The Box for lunch.
For those who have been away from campus or buried away in the stacks for a while, The Box is Dartmouth’s first food truck, founded by Tuck students, a non-DDS option for hungry students. Due to my meal-planning ineptitude, I was ready to try everything The Box had to offer by the time lunchtime rolled around. Luckily, the options were good and I grabbed a sandwich, side and dessert before settling down on a nearby bench and enjoying a rare burst of Hanover sunshine.
My first and only experience with falafel prior to this meal was during my foreign study program last term, when our group stopped by a well-known stand in Paris before proceeding to walk to the nearest metro station. In that short time, I managed to leave a messy trail of morsels from my falafel concoction down the sidewalks of the City of Lights. Classy, I know.
This time was no different – I proceeded to get those “mixed greens” all over my bench and self, desperately digging through my backpack for a spare napkin I had luckily stashed in there earlier in the term for emergencies like this. Despite my consumption struggles, I definitely enjoyed the sandwich. The salsa added a nice tangy flavor that blended well with the rest of the ingredients. The pita bread is also advertised as being made fresh every morning, which definitely added to the experience. Just don’t attempt to eat it gracefully on a date or something.
The granola was exciting because in my opinion, the nutty mixes tend to be pretty hit-or-miss. In this case, The Box’s was a definite hit – not only could I eat chocolate and still pretend to be healthy, but it had just the right balance of sweetness and saltiness with the nuts added in. If you need a quick snack that gives you energy and tastes delicious, this is a great option.
Sadly, The Box was out of their raved-about salted chocolate chip and oat cookie by the time I got there, so I opted for the other dessert option instead. The truffle had bits of date in it and tasted a bit nutty. It was slightly bitter, so I’d recommend it if you want a dessert that’s not too sweet. Next time I may try to get there earlier for the cookie, though.
Overall, I would definitely recommend giving The Box a try at least once this term, though any more than that may put a bit of a dent in your wallet. I personally tend to have leftover DBA at the end of the term, so it’s hard to justify putting down 12 dollars for (an albeit delicious) lunch. I would also love to see more variety in the future — being able to customize your meal with a sandwich, salad or grain bowl is nice but having only three meal options to create them with caters toward limited palates. Still, The Box offers a nice alternative on Tuck Drive for when you just can’t stand another grim Novack lunch while doing work for your 2. |
[WM]Responding to every bit of Russian propaganda "is counterproductive, because it is reactive and you are always behind the curve,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Benjamin Ziff tells senators in Washington, Nov. 3, 2015.
When a Russian news outlet edited the U.S. ambassador into a picture of an opposition rally, the U.S. Embassy countered by editing the ambassador into a series of improbable photos — for instance, on the moon and at an ice hockey rink.
The idea was to show that the original photo was propaganda, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Benjamin Ziff told a Senate subcommittee in Washington on Tuesday.
The ploy worked. “This tweet was retweeted extensively within Russia,” he said.
Modern Russian propaganda is no longer concerned with censorship. Rather, it is widespread and prolific, filling up the media space to such an extent that people sometimes can’t tell what is right and what is not.
Ziff said the Russians have “a sophisticated $1.4 billion-a-year propaganda apparatus.” They claim to reach 600 million people across 130 countries.
“It’s skillful, it’s flexible and it’s adapted to the geography of the audience,” said Leon Aron, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy research group, and a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors that oversees VOA.
The impact of all that Russian disinformation on Western democracies “appears paltry,” Aron testified, adding that the main reason is a highly competitive media environment that exposes people to a wide range of facts and interpretations.
Here, Aron said, “the weaponization of information occurs” when it provokes strong negative emotions leading to hatred and worse.
Both Aron and Ziff told the Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on Europe and regional security cooperation that the answer is to empower local communities to develop a rich and uncensored media environment.
Aron gave an example, citing a report aired on Russia’s most widely watched television channel. A terrified woman identified as a refugee from the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government said she witnessed Ukrainian soldiers publicly executing the wife and son of a pro-Russian separatist: "The child was crucified on a bulletin board in the center of the city, while the woman was allegedly dragged behind a tank until she was dead."
“Complete fake,” said Aron, and it was exposed by the website stopfake.org, run by alumni and students of the Mohyla School of Journalism in Kyiv. Students tracked down the woman’s family. She had done the interview for money after her husband joined the pro-Russian separatists, leaving her with no means of support.
“If there is one key theme that runs through the Kremlin’s thinking, it’s cynicism,” testified book author Peter Pomerantsev of the Legatum Institute, a public policy think tank. It is a cynicism, he added, that makes no distinction between democracies and authoritarian regimes, between truth and lies.
“So it doesn’t matter if Vladimir Putin says one day there are no Russian soldiers in the Crimea and a few weeks later says, yes, there are, because what they are saying is there is no value to the idea of truth,” he said. |
[WM]Regulator warns Global-GMG radio deal may hit competition | City A.M.
GLOBAL Radio’s £70m deal to buy GMG Radio was yesterday cleared by the Competition Commission, but the regulator warned that the takeover could drive up advertising prices across the UK.
In London – where Global Radio runs Heart, LBC, Choice, Gold, Capital and Xfm – the commission cleared the deal, which would see Global take ownership of GMG’s Smooth Radio.
But in Manchester, Scotland, Cardiff, Yorkshire, the east Midlands and north Wales it cautioned that competition in local advertising markets could be affected.
“The CC has found that in many areas where Global and Real and Smooth stations currently overlap and compete, advertisers ... could face higher costs,” the commission said in a statement. |
[WM]CELEBRITY mums Billie Faiers and Abbey Clancy are loving this affordable toy.
Celebrity mums Tamara Ecclestone, Billie Faiers and Abbey Clancy like to treat their children to the best toys on the high street.
And it appears there is now a new must-have toy in town, the Magical Unicorn Carriage.
These celebrity mums have been sharing a first look at the magical carriage by Little Tikes, as Billie’s Nelly, Tamara’s Sophia and Abbey’s Sophia enjoy the fun unicorn.
The Magical Unicorn Carriage comes with a rotating glow-up unicorn horn and even chopping noises from the unicorn.
A similar shape as the classic Cozy Coupe, the carriage is perfect for your kids this summer.
Little Tikes explain on their site: “Parents will love the handle to push the unicorn ride on!
“Featuring a removable floor board for younger children and as they grow, converts to a foot-to-floor ride on toy.
The only thing that can top this off is the affordable price, at only £119.99.
The must-have toy of the summer will be out in the UK soon – so be quick!
Vintage toys value: How much money are your old and rare childhood toys worth? |
[WM]The Nokia Lumia 900 is the top of the Finns' range of Windows Phone handsets with a huge screen and 8-megapixel camera -- but can it offer enough to beat the best of Android?
At first glance, the Lumia 900 looks very similar to the slightly smaller Lumia 800, with similar colourful plastic shell. Come a little closer though and you'll notice the 4.3-inch screen, making it a much more substantial handful than the 800's 3.7-incher.
Behind its protective Gorilla Glass the AMOLED touchscreen offers 800x480-pixel resolution, which is perfectly respectable but it's not among the sharpest, scraping in behind the iPhone, HTC One S and Samsung Galaxy S3. Even the 800 is a little sharper, since it squeezes the same pixel count into its smaller screen. It's beautifully sensitive though, and Nokia's ClearBlack technology offers rich contrast with exceptionally deep, dark blacks offsetting the slightly oversaturated colours.
Considering the price and the 900's place at the top of the Windows Phone tree, it's disappointing that it only offer a single-core 1.4GHz processor, especially since its rivals are now routinely offering dual-core or even quad-core handsets. Still, it ain't slow, and the relative simplicity of the Windows OS certainly seems to be in its favour, since it whips through the apps with ease, even when you have a bunch of them open and running.
The latest Windows Phone 7.5 Mango is the operating system, which is beautiful to look at, and easy to find your way around, even if you're a Windows Phone newbie. Facebook and Twitter are incorporated into the OS, so once you've set up your accounts, Facebook pictures and the latest tweets will start appearing on the dynamic tiles on your homepage. Disappointingly though, as with other Mango handsets, the 900 won't be making the jump to Windows Phone 8 Apollo when it comes along later this year.
Nokia Music, with its selections of playlisted music that you can stream for free; Local Scout also GPS to help you find some even rather obscure local stuff and there's a full version of the Microsoft Office suite on board too.
The browser looks good, but still lacks Flash support, so you won't be able to play all the video that's available, and the YouTube app is still only a link to the website, which is a shame.
The 8-megapixel camera comes with a Carl Zeiss lens, as we expect from the higher quality Nokia handsets. It opens quickly with a long push on the shutter button on the side and offers a range of settings to play with. Probably too many settings actually, unless you know what you're after when you're playing around with contrast, saturation, exposure, ISO, metering and white balance.
Detail isn't quite as good as it should be and less than perfect light conditions were quick to throw up issues with noise. It will record video at 720p HD, which comes out pretty well even when played back on a much bigger screen. There's also a 1-megapixel camera on the front for self-portraits and video calls -- besides the larger screen, this is the main difference between the 900 and the 800.
As with other Windows Phone handsets, there's no opportunity to expand the memory via microSD card, so you're stuck with the 16GB of onboard memory plus the 25GB of free cloud storage that comes with Microsoft's SkyDrive service.
There's no option to replace the battery with a spare since it's sealed-in, iPhone-style, but it's a big 'un, and gave us a good one and a half days' worth of use.
It's bigger, but despite its really rather lovely screen, the Lumia 900 is really no more powerful than its little brother, the Lumia 800, which offers a similar spec for a more modest price. |
[WM](c)2006 Gravity Corp. & Lee Myoungjin(studio DTDS). All Rights Reserved.
(c)2006 GungHo Online Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
[WM]When it comes to corruption and Congress, the line the law polices is the wrong line, writes Lawrence Lessig.
Seven years after moving from the federal capital to a federal prison, former congressman (and top gun Navy pilot) Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) is going home. Convicted of bribery for trying to sell defense contracts for $2.4 million in cash and yachts, Cunningham was sentenced to what was then the harshest punishment ever meted out to a bribe-taking congressman.
The United States Congress needs the likes of Cunningham. Because the rare conviction of a member doing something plainly wrong reaffirms the claim of the others on Capitol Hill that they are not like him. Cunningham was a crook. He engaged in classic quid-pro-quo bribery. But no one credible believes that there are many more that stupid or perfidious. Congress is filled neither with top guns nor with craven criminals. And therefore, its leaders would have us believe, Congress is not corrupt.
But what the conviction of Cunningham should teach us is not that other members Congress should be trusted, but that the line the law polices is the wrong line. Sure, Cunningham was an exception, along with the man who broke his record for harshest sentence, William Jefferson (D-LA), who began a 13-year sentence last year, after federal agents found $90,000 in his freezer and tied that money to a $400,000 bribe. But corruption on Capitol Hill, in the plain meaning of the term that the Framers of our Constitution would have recognized, is endemic.
Cunningham reduced his deal to a very explicit transaction—literally, he wrote it down. In a bizarre note scribbled on his office stationery, Cunningham gave his co-conspirators a simple (if confused) schedule of how much it would cost to get the defense contracts they were seeking. What made his behavior a crime was this quid pro quo—not just that he would benefit personally; Cunningham would have been just as guilty if the payment was to be a campaign contribution rather than a yacht.
Such blatant exchanges don’t happen much—either for personal or for political benefit. But a more complicated dance certainly does. As lobbyists make their clients' cases to members of Congress, those members certainly know just how much those lobbyists have helped. That help isn’t a crime. Indeed, lobbyists are meticulous in keeping their behavior within formal ethical lines. But even within those lines, influence is peddled. And for members starved for campaign funds, even a very little bit can go a long way.
The economy of that dance plainly corrupts Congress. Because rather than staying focused—as Madison promised they would be—“upon the People alone,” Congress is increasingly focused upon it funders.
Yet those funders are not America. They are the tiniest slice of America. No more than 1/20th of 1 percent of us give enough to count as a relevant funder of a congressional campaign. And as members spend hours every day frantically trying to find some of that 0.05 percent who might help, they learn the words their funders want to hear. Remember the Skinner Box—a rat in a cage frantically trying to figure out which buttons it must push to get its pellets of food—and you have a good sense of the life of a congressman.
That dance does more harm to the Republic than an aircraft carrier full of Randy “Duke” Cunninghams ever could. For it is that sort of influence that steered Congress to deregulate Wall Street, that drives Congress to ignore climate change, and that says Congress can pass health-care reform only by including a $250 billion subsidy to insurance companies and Big Pharma.
Yet there’s nothing in the law to police this sort of corruption. Indeed, if Justice Kennedy really believes his own rhetoric in Citizens United, it may well be that the First Amendment would even ban an effort to limit this sort of corruption. And thus are we protected against the harmless sins, but are constitutionally required to remain vulnerable to radically more harmful ones.
Cunningham is a reminder of what’s not wrong with Congress. Congress is not a bunch of crooks. What Congress is is a democratic institution that, according to the latest Rasmussen Poll, can’t even garner more than 6 percent of the public’s approval. And that’s not because we don’t like what Congress does. It is instead because, as John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse have powerfully demonstrated, we “believe special interests have hijacked the political process.” They—meaning almost all of Congress, not just the Cunninghams—are not in it for us, most of us believe. They’re in it for the funders and the funder’s agents, the lobbyists.
There are many contexts in which the law is obsessed with the relatively harmless sins while oblivious to undeniably harmful ones. But there is none as significant as this. America’s government doesn’t work because it refuses to grok this most obvious of corruptions. And until it does, it’s not just defense contracts that will get lost. It is practically every important decision that our government must make. |
[WM]P&O Ferries is using software from Compuware to help it identify performance bottlenecks in its core systems.
Previously, P&O had no visibility of its systems, so if a problem occurred the team could not easily identify the root cause.
P&O is now using Dynatrace to monitor Java virtual machines in performance engineering.
Dynatrace is used by P&O Ferries to identify any particular piece of Java code that affects performance. |
[WM]Business, medical, construction and development interests have poured money into the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Robert Bentley, while labor unions and PACs that received contributions from gambling have been a major source of cash for the campaign of Democrat Ron Sparks.
An analysis of the most recent campaign disclosure forms in the governor's race, filed last week, shows that both candidates received a majority of their major contributions from political action committees.
Of the $3.3 million Bentley raised since the runoff, his largest contribution came from the Republican Party of Alabama PAC, which put in $435,000 drawn from businesses, other PACs, individuals and other Republican candidates.
The retired dermatologist also got a big boost from medical interests, including a $250,000 donation from Alabama Medical PAC, $25,000 from the dental PAC, $15,000 from the state anesthesiologists PAC, plus numerous individual contributions from doctors. Coupling the medical PAC donations with contributions from individuals identifying themselves as doctors, Bentley collected a total of $334,925 from medical sources.
Political fundraiser Mike Echols of Tuscaloosa rounded up $220,540 for the Bentley campaign, contributing through PACs fueled by a variety of interests, including construction and nursing homes.
The nursing home industry also gave through its PACs, contributing $103,500.
PACs operated by Tuscaloosa's Ryan deGraffenried III, which took in money from a variety of businesses including construction and paving, contributed $130,000 to the Bentley campaign. The same amount came from the constellation of business-oriented PACs operated by Montgomery lobby firm Fine Geddie.
Montgomery lobbyist Clark Richardson distributed $64,000 from his clients and $50,000 came from PACs operated by Birmingham governmental affairs consultant Steve Bradley.
Trucking industry PACs gave $50,000 to Bentley.
PACs related to the construction and road-building industry gave heavily to Bentley, including $80,000 from cement producers PACS; $50,000 from the Alabama Builder's PAC and $47,000 from the Associated Builders and Contractors PAC. PACs related to the coal industry gave Bentley $31,000.
Of contributions to Bentley $1,000 or greater, $267,500 came from businesses, $979,683 came from individuals and $1.4 million came from PACs.
Of the $783,306 Sparks raised since his last report, the biggest chunk came directly from the state teacher's union, A-Vote, which gave $105,000.
In addition, Sparks received $17,000 from PACs operated by lobbyist Joe Cottle, which were largely funded by the teacher's union.
Sparks, who is running on his proposals to establish a lottery and legalize and tax casino gambling, took in $128,500 from PACs operated by lobbyists who have received donations either directly or indirectly from gambling interests.
That includes $57,500 from lobbyist John Teague's PACs and $28,500 from John Crawford PACs.
In addition to the teacher's union, Sparks also received $76,000 from a variety of unions.
Coal industry PACs gave Sparks $25,000.
Montgomery governmental affairs consultant Harvey E. Cauthen Jr. and his PACs gave Sparks $20,000.
Among major donors, Sparks got $62,500 from businesses, $174,600 from individuals and $406,500 from PACs. |
[WM]Find useful information for MIP current students below.
The MIP Student Association (IPSA) is an entirely student-run group comprised of first and second-year MIP students.
The Stanford International Policy Review (SIPR) is a student-led international relations and public policy journal based in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy at Stanford University. |
[WM]The release of 26 Palestinian prisoners and the approval of West Bank settlement expansions has both Israelis and Palestinians crying foul.
The mother of Palestinian Salah al-Shaer, who has been held by Israel for 20 years, kisses his picture after hearing news on the expected release of her son in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, August 12, 2013. Israel on Monday named 26 Palestinian prisoners to be freed this week under a deal enabling U.S.-backed peace talks to resume, although Palestinians said these had been undermined by newly announced plans to expand Israeli settlements.
A day after stirring harsh rebuke from Palestinians over the greenlighting of further settlement construction in Palestinian territory, the Israeli government angered many Israelis when it announced the names of 26 Palestinian prisoners to be released on Wednesday as part of the US-backed deal to relaunch peace talks.
The Financial Times reports that the prisoners' release – the first of 104 Palestinians Israel agreed in principle to free as part of the peace talks – is highly unpopular among the Israeli public because most of those being set free were convicted of the murder of Israelis or were suspected Palestinian collaborators.
“It’s a victory for the Palestinians who are identified with the terrorists, and it’s a sad day for society in Israel and it’s a sad day for free society in the world,” Meir Indor, chairman of Almagor, a Jerusalem-based advocacy group for victims of terrorist attacks, told the Financial Times. The group has petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to stop the release.
Uri Ariel, Israel’s housing minister and a member of the rightwing Jewish Home party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, said on Monday that the release made a “mockery of the judiciary”.
The prisoners' names were announced early to provide a 48-hour window for those opposed to their release to file appeals to Israel's High Court. But Reuters notes that "based on past decisions, the court is widely expected not to intervene."
The Israeli furor over the prisoners' release comes less than 24 hours after a similarly negative reaction from Palestinians in response to Israel's statement Sunday that it would allow construction of some 1,200 homes in West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements to move forward. Palestinians say that the move is an attempt to undermine the peace talks before they start.
"Approving such a massive number of housing units three days before we go to negotiations is sick,’’ a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told The Christian Science Monitor. "We may not come" to the talks, he said.
But the Monitor also reports that some say the move was necessary to allow peace talks to proceed, by "mollify[ing] Mr. Netanyahu’s pro-settler constituency, which is upset over the renewed talks" and the prisoner releases.
Some Palestinians also see the move as an Israeli tactic to undermine Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and force him to step away from the negotiating table – thereby making the Palestinians seem like the side opposed to peace.
Israel "understands the psychology of the Palestinians. Now that the Palestinians want to override this settlements obstacle, Israeli radicals are planting minefields to undermine the credibility of the PA so it will walk away," says Mohammed Dajani, a political science professor at Al Quds University.
In an analysis for Haaretz, Barak Ravid writes that the Israeli government's contradictory responses to the peace talks stem from Netanyahu's unwillingness to "cross the Rubicon" and commit fully to them.
Officials who have spoken to Netanyahu say his behavior, his hesitation and zigzagging result from his lack of trust in Abbas. Netanyahu, say the officials, is willing to cross the river but wants to know if Abbas will do the same. He is worried that while he is jumping into the turbulent waters filled mostly with political whirlpools, Abbas will remain on the bank and let him drown alone.
If Netanyahu wants the Americans, Palestinians and most of all the Israeli public to take him seriously, he must leave his old tactics behind. Abandon the criticism, the spin, worn-out PR tricks and blame games - and enter the peace talks without looking back. |
[WM]Nearly 50 years of protests, lawsuits and ballot battles over low-income housing have made San Francisco a nationwide model for efforts to keep urban America from becoming home to only the very rich or the very poor, according to a paper that will be released Wednesday.
The land-use struggles that continue today, along with the long-remembered urban renewal fights of the 1960s, make it easy to forget just how far the city has come toward a community-centered development plan, said Marcia Rosen, former director of the city's Redevelopment Agency and lead author of the study of the city's affordable housing policy.
"The city originally wore a black hat when it came to development, but in subsequent decades we've worn the white hat," said Rosen, now the executive director of the National Housing Law Project.
The paper, done under the auspices of Rosen's organization and the Poverty and Race Research Action Council in Washington, D.C., will be unveiled at a San Francisco gathering of fair housing and community development groups. Wendy Sullivan, an attorney and planning consultant, is co-author.
The paper gives the city's community groups much of the credit for fighting City Hall in a long-running effort to keep San Francisco a racially and economically diverse community.
"Once notorious for urban renewal that diminished housing affordability and displaced residents," the paper says, "San Francisco is now renowned nationally for its best practices in housing and community development."
Despite "limited land for development, extremely low rental vacancy rates and high demand for housing," over decades the city has developed "thoughtful policies designed to preserve and enhance housing opportunities ... prevent displacement of low-income families and create inclusive communities," the authors say.
By providing examples of local innovations that work, similar efforts can be adopted by other cities and, ultimately, find their way into federal housing policy, said Philip Tegeler, president of the action council, a civil rights policy organization.
San Francisco "provides an example of how community advocacy can work," he said. "Cities need diversity. They need workers as well as executives."
It took time for local officials to realize that. The redevelopment projects of the '60s bulldozed chunks of the Western Addition and Yerba Buena, sending poor and middle-income residents packing to make way for wider streets, commercial development and civic projects. Aging residential hotels were razed in the name of progress, with little or no concern about what would happen to the people who called those places home.
But neighborhood and tenant organizations quickly formed to battle against the demolition efforts, filing lawsuits and gathering political support. As they won some battles, they pushed ahead with efforts to provide relocation help for ousted residents, limit evictions, ban residential hotel demolitions and require low-income housing and other programs.
The city's affordable housing movement wasn't just the product of the progressive community and angry tenants. For example, San Francisco voters passed limits on office construction in 1986, a $100 million affordable housing bond in 1996 and, earlier this month, a $50 million housing trust fund.
Support for affordable housing in the city "doesn't just come down from the policy level," said Tiffany Bohee, who deals with a number of housing plans as executive director of the city's Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure. "The voters have signaled resoundingly that this is what they want us to do."
The change documented in the paper has been dramatic. Although more than 3,200 housing units destroyed by urban renewal in the Western Addition were never replaced, the Rincon Point-South Beach redevelopment project - which added 2,800 units, 24 percent of them low-income, along with commercial space, parkland and AT&T Park - was built without destroying any housing.
Rosen's paper provides a look at the nuts and bolts of the city's housing wars, showing how activists took a little-noticed, grassroots liberal cause and made it so much a part of San Francisco's political mainstream that a former tenants' attorney is now the city's mayor.
"The business community and parts of the development community have signed on, realizing that affordable housing helps jobs and the city's economy," Rosen said. "The process has been about building support in San Francisco and making it a place where nurses, teachers, restaurant workers and hotel workers can live." |
[WM]Police have arrested a suspect in the murder of a man found dead this week in Manchester, New Hampshire.
New Hampshire Attorney General confirms that 34-year-old Jordan Gamache was charged Friday with second degree murder in the shooting death of 39-year-old Ryan Chafin, who was found dead early Tuesday morning in a home on Douglas Street.
Authorities believe Gamache shot Chafin multiple times.
Gamache is due to be arraigned Monday in the 9th Circuit District Division Court in Manchester.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 603-792-5506. |
[WM]Some independent experts say DNA testing is inadequate for analyzing botanical products.
ALBANY, N.Y. — DNA barcoding has exposed some infamous cases of food fraud, like cheap catfish sold as pricey grouper and expensive "sheep's milk" cheese that was really made from cow's milk.
But can it tell if a pill touted as an energy-booster contains ginseng or is just a mix of rice powder and pine?
Some scientists say yes, while industry groups and some independent experts say DNA testing alone is inadequate for analyzing botanical products that have gone through a lot of processing from leaf to tablet.
About 65,000 dietary supplements are on the market, consumed by more than 150 million Americans, according to a 2013 Canadian government study. The American Botanical Council estimates U.S. sales of herbal supplements came to $6 billion that year.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires companies to verify their products are safe and properly labeled, but supplements are exempt from the FDA's strict approval process for prescription drugs.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says lax oversight of supplements can have serious public health consequences, noting a 2013 hepatitis outbreak traced to a tainted diet supplement and the death of a baby at a Connecticut hospital after doctors gave the child a probiotic supplement later found to be contaminated with yeast.
Last week, Schneiderman ordered Wal-Mart, Walgreen's, Target and GNC to stop selling store-brand herbal supplements that DNA tests found questionable.
Schneiderman's action followed a Clarkson University study he commissioned and he also referenced a 2013 study published by University of Guelph researchers.
The Clarkson study tested hundreds of bottles of store-brand herbal supplements sold as treatments for everything from memory loss to prostate trouble, and found 4 out of 5 contained none of the herbs listed on the labels.
At the University of Guelph, researchers used DNA fingerprinting to find that a third of 44 supplements tested contained no trace of the plant on the label.
But the dietary supplement industry takes issue with DNA testing and some consumer advocacy groups say the method by itself is inadequate because it cannot detect the most serious problems with supplements — contamination with heavy metals or chemical adulterants.
"There's no problem with DNA barcoding as a science; however, it should be used appropriately. It has limitations," said Nandakumara Sarma, director of dietary supplements for US Pharmacopeia, which sets quality standards and testing protocols for drugs, vitamins and supplements.
The United Natural Products Alliance, a trade group, says it is sending people out around the country to buy large quantities of the supplements cited by Schneiderman and submit the bottles, unopened, to five or six certified botanical testing labs for analysis.
"They will perform universally accepted methods and procedures to test the products and will independently report their findings, which will be made public," said Loren Israelsen, the group's president. "We feel the most appropriate response to bad science is good science."
The American Botanical Council, a nonprofit research and education organization based in Austin, Texas, was particularly critical of the Guelph study.
"We raised the question if any of these products are extracts, and if so, what other analytical technologies were used to help ensure the validity of the results obtained by DNA testing," said Mark Blumenthal, the council's founder and director.
"DNA testing seldom is able to properly identify chemically complex herbal extracts, because often DNA doesn't get through the extraction process," Blumenthal said.
He said at least some of the products cited by Schneiderman are likely made from extracts, which can be validated by other common lab tests.
Tod Cooperman, president of the consumer-funded ConsumerLab.com, also dismissed the Guelph and attorney general's DNA studies as inappropriate for validating herbal supplements.
"There are definitely problems with herbal supplements but this is not the right method to test those products," Cooperman said.
His lab performs a range of tests on vitamins, herbal products and other dietary supplements to determine quality and purity, and provides the results to consumers who subscribe to his service.
Blumenthal also is working to expose bad products. He launched the Botanical Adulterants Program four years ago to ferret out suppliers who sell adulterated or mislabeled ingredients to manufacturers of herbal supplements. One goal of the program is to identify what laboratory tests are most effective.
Pieter Cohen, a Harvard Medical School researcher whose area of expertise is tracking down dangerous supplements, said the new versions of methamphetamine he has found in diet and sports supplements would never be spotted by DNA testing.
"There is so much wrong with the quality of supplements today that it's a shame the New York attorney general is not using sound science to focus on the most important problems," Cohen said. "The FDA has done hundreds of spot inspections of supplement companies, and they have found that 7 in 10 are not compliant with basic manufacturing practices."
Schneiderman's office stands by the validity of its DNA testing.
"Rather than attacking testing methods that have been validated by more than 70 published papers, the time has come for the herbal supplements industry to put concerns about what is and is not included in its products to rest," Matt Mittenthal, spokesman for the attorney general, said in an email.
The attorney general's office did not respond to a follow-up email asking why conventional, widely accepted testing wasn't used to verify the DNA test results, which would have made the findings more indisputable.
US Pharmacopeia provides independent third-party certification to drug and supplement manufacturers, who can then use the certification to assure consumers their products are genuine.
But John Atwater, director of verification programs for the organization, said less than 1 percent of herbal supplements carry the USP mark.
He noted the program is voluntary. "It's up to manufacturers and consumers to demand it," he said. |
[WM]Aren't we supposed to be over this sort of thing?
Am I attractive? Well, that partly depends on your race — or so says an analysis of the preferences of users logged into a popular Facebook dating app, Are You Interested, which allows clients to click “yes” if they find a person attractive or take the option of skipping to the next profile page. |
[WM]One week after a dog spooked by fireworks was hit by a SkyTrain, resident Bruce Mitchell is asking the City of Vancouver to revisit its fireworks bylaws.
On Oct. 29 2015, Mitchell’s East Vancouver home was burned to the ground in a fire caused by an errant firecracker. Mitchell’s two cats were killed in the fire, and he barely escaped with his life. When he heard that a dog had died this year after fireworks frightened her so much she bolted, Mitchell knew he had to speak up.
Within seconds, thick black smoke was pouring up the stairs, cutting off Mitchell’s exit. The 103-year-old wood frame house went up in flames almost instantly. The cats bolted. Mitchell escaped out the back deck and down a ladder with the help of his neighbours. The smoke and flames spread so quickly that had he been sleeping, he probably would not have survived.
Authorities confirmed that the blaze had been ignited by a firecracker. Mitchell’s neighbours reported seeing a group of young men dash away and leave the scene in a car. The group was questioned and released without charges.
The city of Vancouver bylaws allow sales of fireworks from Oct. 25 to 31, with the stipulation that users apply for a permit, be over the age of 19 and use the fireworks only on Oct. 31 and on private property. Mitchell says the bylaw is clearly unenforceable. When he saw the story about Maggie, a local lab-chow, who ran away last week after a firework spooked her in a public park, Mitchell reached out to share his experience.
“I lost everything I owned, and my two cats lost their lives.” Mitchell wonders how many other tragedies have to happen before officials reconsider Vancouver’s annual fireworks bonanza. “Had fireworks been banned in Vancouver it might have prevented the death of this dog and the burning down of my house,” said Mitchell.
Surrey, Richmond and North Vancouver have a standing ban on fireworks. Vancouver fire and rescue information officer Jonathan Gormick said most of the problems with fireworks are related to illegal and underground sales on sites such as Craigslist.
“We’re keen on finding the safest regulation possible,” said Gormick. Working with mayor and council, Gormick said permitting, education and enforcement is the most effective strategy. Since the city’s permitting bylaw went into effect nine years ago, Gormick said people have been less likely to buy from underground sources and there has been close to a 75 per cent reduction in firework-related incidents. |
[WM]The US economy “remains strong”, the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, told Congress on Tuesday as he signaled the central bank is on course to carry on gradually increasing interest rates in the coming months.
In his first congressional testimony since his appointment, Powell painted an upbeat picture of the country’s economic health and dismissed recent wobbles in the stock market.
“Some of the headwinds the US economy faced in previous years have turned into tailwinds,” said Powell. He told Congress his “personal outlook for the economy has strengthened since December”.
Powell managed to avoid controversy – one of the key aims of the Fed chair – ably deflecting politically charged questions about the US’s huge debts, the impact of Donald Trump’s recently announced $1.5tn tax cuts and income inequality. US stock markets barely moved during his testimony.
The Fed is expected to raise rates three times this year. “Further gradual increases in the federal funds rate will best promote attainment” of the Fed’s objectives of achieving full employment and controlling inflation, said Powell.
The rebound in the US jobs market which has continued uninterrupted for a record seven years finally seems to be lifting wages in the US after a long period of stagnation.
That news led to sharp sells-offs in stock markets that have broken records since Donald Trump’s election as investors bet the Fed would hike interest rates more quickly in order to dampen fears of rising inflation.
Powell said that while assets were “high” he had no real concerns about systemic risks in the US economy at present.
The Fed “will continue to strike a balance between avoiding an overheated economy” and allowing inflation to rise to the Fed’s target rate of 2%, Powell said.
Powell’s testimony is the first from a Fed chairman since the passage of Trump’s tax cuts programme. The cuts have been cited as the impetus for bonuses at companies including American Airlines, AT&T and Disney.
But critics have pointed out that bonuses are not the same as wage rises and that the tax benefits to corporations dwarf the size of the benefits to individuals.
Powell, a former investment banker for the Carlyle Group and longtime member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors under his predecessor Janet Yellen, was sworn in on 5 February as the Federal Reserve’s 16th chair. |
[WM]Bigg Boss 12 contestants: Jasleen Mathur is said to be dating Bhajan singer Anup Jalota. We will find out more about the duo in Bigg Boss Season 12.
Bigg Boss 12 contestants: Bhajan singer Anup Jalota and his rumoured girlfriend, singer Jasleen Matharu are one of the ‘vichitra jodi’ of Bigg Boss 12.
Salman Khan hosted Bigg Boss 12 will feature some ‘vichitra jodis’ this season. One of the jodi is Bhajan singer Anup Jalota and his rumoured girlfriend, singer Jasleen Matharu. A few photos of Jasleen and Anup has been shared on an Instagram account.
Jasleen Matharu is a singer, performer and actor born and brought up in Mumbai. She, reportedly, started learning classical and western music at the tender age of 11. She has also performed with singer Mika Singh’s troupe for over 3 years.
Jasleen is a trained dancer in Bharatnatyam, Hip-Hop, Salsa and Belly-Dancing. She also featured in some music videos. Love Day Love Day is Jasleen’s solo debut album as singer and performer and the video was directed by her father, Kesar Matharu.
Bigg Boss 12 contestant Jasleen Matharu is also a brown belt in kickboxing and has been practicing it for the past 7 years.
As per reports, Jasleen Mathur is dating Bhajan singer Anup Jalota.
We will find out more about the duo in Bigg Boss Season 12. |
[WM]You've gotta watch this impressive Super Mario Bros. playthrough by speedrunner "Blubbler." Blubbler beats the game in a bewildering 4:57.69.
Previously, the world record for an "any percentage" completion run was held by andrewg, according to the SMB Leaderboards Wiki. The time? 4:58:09. A second can make all the difference in a speedrun!
Here, the speedier time is chalked up to a lucky bullet bill glitch used in Blubbler's run at level 8-2, which allowed Blubber to skip the walk to the castle.
Curious about the particulars of runs like this one? You should check out the Speed Demos Archive page on Super Mario Bros., which details some of the techniques and strategies used in speedruns such as this one.
And in case you're confused about how the timing is measured in this run, it starts when the timer appears in level 1-1, and it ends when Mario hits the axe in 8-4. |
[WM]Parents with children in tow stagger onto a waiting train at Donaghmede Dart station. At Heuston, a group of mildly inebriated tourists are trying to navigate the Luas map, while across Dublin transport staff keep watch over the thousands who have descended on the city for St Patrick’s Day.
Dublin on St Patrick’s Day is a riot of green flags, shamrocks and alcohol, making it one of the busiest days of the year for staff and passengers on a transport system that has increasingly been grappling with concerns over anti-social behaviour and violent incidents.
“Saturday nights and Paddy’s Day. They’re the two days you want to avoid,” says Dublin Bus driver Mark Maloney.
At 9.30am in Howth, it’s easy to forget there’s a festival at all. Yet as the train edges closer to the city, it becomes harder to ignore the shamrock hats, the fake ginger beards and the guitarist at Donaghmede delighting passengers with a rendition of Dirty Old Town.
At Clongriffin at 10.30am, there is little sign of the anti-social behaviour that has become a bugbear for the local community.
The number of violent or anti-social incidents on public transport is growing, with 407 complaints of anti-social behaviour on Irish trains last year, up from 246 the year before.
Fianna Fáil TD John Lahert cites the prevalence of a “low-grade, menacing type of behaviour” on Dublin trains. “Petty crime has become pretty much accepted,” he said.
Tommy Broughan, Independent TD for Dublin Bay North, described a “constant level of complaints” from constituents about anti-social behaviour and vandalism at the station.
“We have asked for stations like Clongriffin and Donaghmede that there would be security so you wouldn’t come out on your own,” Broughan said. On busy days, like St Patrick’s Day, it’s worse. “People feel intimidated around festival times,” he said.
Indeed, it was hard to ignore the strange emptiness of the large concrete station. With no staff presence, broken ticket machines and only a gaggle of French tourists for company, waiting there offered an eerie start to the day.
However, as the train got closer to Dublin, the carriage became sweaty and cramped as children and families competed for space with adults out for a day of drinking.
As we alight at Connolly station, cans are cracked open as hundreds of people mill through the turnstiles while a group of gardaí look on.
What differentiates St Patrick’s Day from an average day, aside from the crowds, is the sheer weight of security, stewards and gardaí on platforms, from Connolly Dart Station to the Smithfield Luas.
For numerous drivers and staff who spoke to The Irish Times, this is what made a difference.
The National Bus and Rail Union has long called for a transport police unit, similar to those found in the UK.
However, John Power, chairman of the Railway Safety Advisory Council, suggested that it was not realistic to create a dedicated transport police force. Instead a “greater push towards community policing” could create significant progress, he said.
Specific figures for transport-related crimes on previous St Patrick’s weekends are not available, but a spokesman for Iarnród Éireann said two incidents were reported respectively at Heuston and at Pearse last year out of 100,000 journeys.
Today, there was little sign of anything serious. Groups of teenagers singing and chanting on the Luas was as dramatic as it got during daylight, even if drinking was largely tolerated.
One Iarnród Éireann driver, who asked for his name not to be used, said the company will be praying it can get through the weekend without attention being focused on anti-social or violent incidents.
Drivers, they said, often feel discouraged from reporting incidents that are increasingly seen as commonplace. Fears are echoed by staff across the system.
Colin Whelan, a Dublin bus driver, described how an unprovoked attack by a passenger left him off work for nearly four months. The attack, which saw the assailant shatter the protective glass in his cab, rendered Whelan shaken, covered in blood and forced to undergo tests for hepatitis, Aids and HIV. |
[WM]Migrants use wifi and a hub for plugging in their smartphones at a temporary shelter for migrants opened this week in a hall of the Berliner Messe trade fair grounds on October 8, 2015 in Berlin, Germany.
LONDON — Refugees can now use a Facebook chatbot to apply for asylum in the US, Canada, and the UK — helping them navigate unfamiliar legal systems and avoid exorbitant lawyers' fees.
It's an update to DoNotPay — a Facebook chatbot that assisted 250,000 people in challenging parking fines, and has since been expanded into multiple other sectors, from claiming compensation for delayed flights to providing HIV legal advice.
DoNotPay is a chatbot built in Facebook's messenger interface. It talks to the user and asks them questions, just like a real person, and records their responses.
"There's this huge problem among immigration lawyers where the majority of their time is spent filling out forms rather than actually challenging the legal complexities of the case," Browder, whose grandmother fled the Holocaust, said in a phone call from California. "So what this does, it takes down hundreds of details from individuals and automatically fills out" the necessary forms.
Built with the help of various lawyers and non-profits, the chatbot will ask everything from the applicant's age and nationality to whether they are "afraid of being subject to torture" in their home country.
In the US and Canada, it will help fill in asylum applications, while in the UK — where you have to apply in person — it assists in filling out asylum support forms. The student says he's also looking at expanding the bot to include Germany "if I have time."
DoNotPay began by challenging parking fines, but has since expanded into multiple other areas, including delayed flights, PPI, homelessness in the UK, and HIV legal advice.
"I originally started with parking tickets and delayed fights and all sorts of trivial consumer rights issues," Browder said, "but then I began to be approached by these non-profits and lawyers who said the idea of automating legal services is bigger than just a few parking fines. So I've since tried to expand into something more humanitarian."
Donald Trump's recent ban on visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries has highlighted the plight of refugees and migrants, but Browder says the bot isn't a response to the new US president's actions. "This was so long overdue. I started in the summer [of 2016] and although it seems more important now than ever it's actually not a reaction to recent political events."
The chatbot is launching on 12.01 AM, UK time, on Wednesday morning. It's free to use, and will remain that way, Browder said. "It's completely free as a public service, I don't want to make some quick money."
Even though DoNotPay has gone far beyond its original intentions, Browder said he has no plans to change its name. "I think for better or worse, it's a brand everyone seems to know now," he said.
"I want to make it as recognisable as possible so people understand that they don't have to pay lawyers huge amounts of money for just copying and pasting documents." |
[WM]'Black Panther''s box office dominance continues as the Marvel blockbuster passed 'Titanic' to become the third highest-grossing film of all time.
Black Panther‘s box office dominance continues to shatter records as the Marvel blockbuster vaulted past Titanic to become the third highest-grossing film of all time.
James Cameron’s Titanic – which enjoyed a 12-year reign as the highest-grossing film until it was usurped by the director’s Avatar in 2009 – fell to Number Four on the all-time list after Black Panther leapt past the 1997 epic’s $659.5 million domestic total, the Hollywood Reporter writes.
Without adjusting for inflation, Black Panther now only sits behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936 million) and Avatar ($760 million) on the all-time domestic box office list, according to Box Office Mojo.
Black Panther previously became the highest-grossing superhero film ever after surpassing The Avengers’ $624 million haul. However, that record, as well as the Number Three spot, could be in jeopardy when Avengers: Infinity War – featuring Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther and his fellow Wakandans – opens in theaters later this month.
Two months after Black Panther‘s theatrical release, the Marvel movie continues to resonate culturally: Boseman is scheduled to host tonight’s episode of Saturday Night Live, marking the second SNL episode this season to feature a Black Panther actor; Sterling K. Brown hosted the March 11th episode. |
[WM]A message in a bottle that washed up more than 108 years after it was thrown into the sea may be the world's oldest, a marine association has said.
The bottle was released in the North Sea between 1904 and 1906 and found by a woman on a beach in Amrum, Germany.
Inside a postcard asked that it be sent to the Marine Biological Association of the UK, where the bottle was returned.
The association in Plymouth said the bottle was one of some 1,000 released as part of marine research.
The research, looking at ocean currents, was carried out by George Parker Bidder, who went on to become MBA president from 1939 to 1945.
Inside each bottle was a postcard that promised a shilling to anyone who returned it.
An old English shilling was sent by the association to retired postal worker Marianne Winkler, who found the bottle in April during her holiday to the German island, about 310 miles (500km) away from the UK.
The association said it was waiting to hear whether it was a world record for the oldest message in a bottle found.
The existing world record for the oldest message in a bottle is 99 years and 43 days, found west of the Shetland Islands in July 2013. |
[WM]“God’s Plan” was named the Best Rap Song.
Drake’s smash hit “God’s Plan” just received the Grammy Award for Best Rap Song.
The big news story may not, however, be about his winning the award. It will likely focus on what happened after he accepted his trophy.
CBS’ broadcast of the show cut to commercial during Drake’s acceptance speech. The very well could have been due to time (the speech was going quite long) and signal (he seemed to take a momentary pause).
Skeptics, however, may wonder if the cut had anything to do with content. Just prior to the commercial break, Drake had made the point that success (and awards) in the entertainment industry are based on opinion (as opposed to sports championships, which go to the team that won the game). He noted that if an artist is connecting with fans who will part with their time and money to show support, then they do not need a trophy (such as a Grammy).
The sentiment was quite innocuous (and very resonant with the audience), and it is hard to imagine directors or producers taking offense with what he said. It was clearly meant to be motivational as opposed to condemnatory.
The coincidental timing will nonetheless have some fans speculating. Such speculation has already emerged in some Tweets.
And regardless of what prompted the cut, it certainly seemed jarring and awkward. |
[WM]Gay nephew might want for his aunt to advise him or intercede on his behalf with his dad.
Dear Amy: My college-age nephew confided in me that he is gay.
I was very surprised. I am OK with his sexuality. It is his own business and no one else’s.
My nephew hasn’t told his parents, and he isn’t sure when he will.
I told him that we all love him just as he is and that this would not matter to anyone, but I don’t know that for a fact. I am pretty sure there are family members who would be upset.
As his aunt, am I supposed to talk (confidentially) to my brother and his wife, and ask for their understanding?
Or should I keep my nephew’s secret until he is ready to tell them himself?
Generally, I would ask my sisters, mother or husband for advice, but this is just not their business. My instinct is to keep his confession a secret.
As a mother, I would be devastated to know my son told someone else first, and not me. Our family is pretty conservative; he would be the first “out” relative.
Dear Aunt: I agree that this is not your news to disclose, but your nephew came to you for a reason. Why? Perhaps he is starting his process of “coming out” by test-driving the scenario with you first.
He might want for you to advise him or intercede on his behalf with your brother. Do not do so unless he asks you to.
It sounds as if he chose the right person to speak with. Now you two could have another conversation. Tell him that now you’ve absorbed this news, you wonder if he would like to talk some more. Let him manage this at his own pace.
Be loving and supportive. Ask questions — and listen. |
[WM]Family and friends of Capt. Elizabeth Hagner, the officer in charge of the Female Engagement Team, Regional Command Southwest, pose for a shot during the Relay for Life in Towson, Md., June 17. After losing multiple family members to cancer, Hagner and her family started participating in the event last year to help raise money and awareness for cancer patients and research.
This work, Deployed Towson, Md., Marine stays involved in family’s fundraiser [Image 4 of 4], must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. |
[WM]We missed this one on Friday… Universal has released a new trailer for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor on the Papa John’s Pizza website. When a movie trailer is released on a Pizza website, that should tell you a lot about the quality of the film. Too bad you don’t get a free pizza with the purchase of a movie ticket. Or even a free movie ticket with the purchase of a pizza. You gotta love those DVDs that include free movie cash. Watch the trailer below, and as always, tell me what you think in the comments!
You can also watch the trailer in High Definition on Papa John’s. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor will hit theaters on August 1st 2008. |
[WM]A New York Times reporter appeared as a guest on MSNBC Thursday but unfortunately spent quite a bit of time battling with her hair against the wind.
Julie Hirschfeld Davis was on the show to talk about President Trump’s executive order on religious liberty but had to deal with the wind whipping her hair into her face and mouth.
At one point, Davis had to move her hair out of the way four times in under 15 seconds, somewhat distracting from the point she was making.
Perhaps MSNBC should consider moving their broadcast indoors or providing their guests with stronger hold hairspray.
To Davis’ credit, she managed to deliver her point without interruption, despite the wind practically feeding her her own hair. |
[WM]Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido is trying to get millions of dollars in humanitarian aid into his country despite a blockade from disputed President Nicolas Maduro; State Department correspondent Rich Edson reports.
The U.S. government says it will position 190 metric tons of supplies by Friday, ready to deploy throughout Venezuela, according to Mark Green, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The problem is figuring out how to get that aid into Venezuela.
Pallets of food, medicine and hygiene kits are in neighboring Colombia and warehouses throughout the region.
Contested Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is blocking international aid, calling it an American attempt to overthrow his government.
"This not an earthquake. This is not a hurricane. This is not a tornado or a flood,” Green said. “This is one man and one regime imposing dictatorial rule, imposing suffering and pain on people."
"This not an earthquake. This is not a hurricane. This is not a tornado or a flood. This is one man and one regime imposing dictatorial rule, imposing suffering and pain on people."
Green said he’s coordinating with the Colombian government to ensure that Guaido, the opposition leader, has the aid his country needs -- though he said the next step is up to Guaido.
“We know it's not enough that the humanitarian aid enters,” Guaido said at a Caracas news conference. “We must open the humanitarian channel, no matter what."
Guaido is organizing aid caravans to try to cross Saturday into Venezuela, potentially setting up a confrontation with the Venezuelan military.
The day before Guaido’s caravans leave for Venezuela, billionaire Richard Branson says he’s organizing a benefit concert to fund more aid for Venezuelans. Branson told the Associated Press that he’s trying to raise $100 million from viewers who would pay to watch it streamed on the internet. |
[WM]The Narromine Garden Club have gifted their annual donation to local organisation the Narromine Volunteer Rescue Association (VRA). The club gathered at the Narromine VRA headquarters on December 5 to hand over a cheque of $1000. The money raised and collected by the Garden Club through memberships and raffles held throughout the year is donated to a different Narromine organisation each year. The NSW VRA is an emergency response organisation and service dedicated to assisting the communities in NSW. The organisation attend almost 10,000 incidents per year from motor vehicle accidents to first aid and traffic control at community events, and raise funds to support their squads operating and complete training.
The Narromine Garden Club have gifted their annual donation to local organisation the Narromine Volunteer Rescue Association (VRA).
The club gathered at the Narromine VRA headquarters on December 5 to hand over a cheque of $1000.
The money raised and collected by the Garden Club through memberships and raffles held throughout the year is donated to a different Narromine organisation each year.
The NSW VRA is an emergency response organisation and service dedicated to assisting the communities in NSW.
The organisation attend almost 10,000 incidents per year from motor vehicle accidents to first aid and traffic control at community events, and raise funds to support their squads operating and complete training. |
[WM]Kip Hagopian is the chairman of Maxim Integrated Products Inc., a semiconductor company, and was a founding general partner of Brentwood Associates, a venture capital and private-equity firm. Lee Ohanian is professor of economics at UCLA and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Their op-ed appeared Oct. 29, 2012, in the Wall Street Journal.
Many of those who assert that the rich don't pay their fair share of the nation's bills often point to how Social Security and Medicare are funded. For example, columnist Paul Krugman wrote on his New York Times blog in 2010 that "the payroll tax is regressive, as are most state and local taxes, which largely offsets the progressivity of the income tax." And President Clinton's secretary of labor, Robert Reich, said in an October 2007 blog post, "payroll taxes take a much bigger portion of the paychecks of lower-income Americans than of higher-income [Americans]. Viewed as a whole, the current tax system is quite regressive."
On the contrary, studies show that the Social Security and Medicare programs, viewed as a whole, are anything but regressive.
The payroll taxes that fund these programs are collected for the express purpose of providing income supplements and medical care during retirement. In the case of Social Security, earned income is taxed proportionately at 12.4% (split evenly between employee and employer) up to a cap that is currently set at $110,100. Those who assert that the Social Security tax is regressive note that the income cap results in a decline in taxes paid as a percentage of income as income rises above the cap. But this observation omits three critical facts.
First, the amount of one's Social Security income at retirement is also capped. Second, higher-income workers receive less of a benefit as a percentage of their contributions than do lower-income workers. The payouts to retirees are, and are intended to be, redistributive. Third, Social Security income is subject to the income tax—and the income tax is progressive.
Given the design of Social Security, the only way the program could be regressive is if the mortality rate differences between the group of higher-income and lower-income workers were so large that higher-income people received greater lifetime benefits for each dollar contributed. But this is not the case, according to a 2009 study by the Social Security Administration's Office of Retirement and Disability Policy. Rather, the study concludes that "Social Security is modestly progressive on a lifetime basis; currently, the program lies approximately halfway between paying a benefit directly proportional to lifetime taxable earnings and paying a flat dollar benefit to each retiree."
In the case of Medicare, the amount paid into the system—2.9% of income, split evenly between employee and employer—is proportionate to income and has no cap. So a person with a lifetime income of $5 million will pay five times as much into the system as a person with a lifetime income of $1 million.
In theory, therefore, the benefits provided by Medicare (paid health care) should be the same for each beneficiary. And like Social Security, lifetime benefits are affected by differences in mortality rates among different income groups (the poor tend to die younger). However, lower-income beneficiaries are more likely to become ill than higher-income beneficiaries and thus consume more benefits. Higher-income beneficiaries are more likely to privately insure or pay out of pocket in old age, thus reducing their demands on the system.
So what is the bottom line? Based on the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, health economists Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University and Darius Lakdawalla of USC found that the poorest groups receive the most benefits at any given age, and that this advantage in benefits received significantly outweighs the fact that as a group, they die younger. The authors' 2006 study "Does Medicare Benefit the Poor?" was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Public Economics. On the whole, the authors conclude that "Medicare is an extraordinarily progressive public program, in dollar terms or welfare terms."
The studies suggest that both of the payroll-tax systems are progressive, not regressive. Moreover, according to a July 2012 study by the Congressional Budget Office, entitled "The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2008 and 2009," the entire U.S. federal tax system (including the earned-income tax, the various capital income taxes, the two types of payroll taxes, the corporate tax, and the excise tax) is also progressive.
Those who assert that "the rich" do not pay their "fair share" seem to be ignoring these other facts: A study released in 2008 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported the U.S. federal income tax system is the most progressive of any of the 24 countries of its member nations. And an October 2011 report by the Tax Foundation noted that in 2009 the top 1% of U.S. earners—who earned 17% of the income—paid 37% of the taxes. The top 5% earned 32% of the income and paid 59% of the taxes. The bottom 50% paid 2.3% of taxes, and the bottom quintile received money back in the form of refundable tax credits.
Those who would increase the marginal rates paid by the top income earners must confront the depressing effect that higher taxes will have on business creation and expansion—and on jobs. Giving a bigger piece of a smaller economic pie to lower-income earners is not likely to be in America's interest. |
[WM]CANTON The deadline to apply for the Stark County Mental Health & Addiction Recovery Workforce Development Scholarship is Friday.
The scholarship is offered to an individual in the workforce to extend his or her training and education in the mental health, alcohol or drug field. Applicants must be an employee of a not-for-profit behavioral health organization in Stark County.
Scholarship applications from eligible applicants, with required narrative, should be submitted online. Only complete applications will be accepted. Apply at https://starkmhar.org/advocacy/starkmhar-scholarships.
The scholarship is awarded at the annual leadership breakfast in June. |
[WM]A little over 5 acres of land in a prime area of Western North Carolina. Upon arrival to the home site, you'll pass gorgeous mountain views, a babbling creek and pasture land. This property has a storage shed already in place and the land is ready for your use which could be gardening, farming or a private estate. Close to Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Hendersonville and Asheville. |
[WM]Vicki Denton, who on vacation to Orlando from Ohio, perused items in the gift shop at Hollywood Studios when the alleged incident occurred in 2016.
A woman who contends she was injured after being run over by another Walt Disney World visitor on a motorized scooter at the theme park has filed a lawsuit against the company.
While on vacation from Ohio, Vicki Denton perused items in a Hollywood Studios’ gift shop when the alleged incident occured in 2016, the lawsuit said.
The action, filed earlier this month against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts in Orange Circuit Court, is seeking more than $15,000 in damages.
The woman on the scooter tried to go in reverse but mistakenly moved forward instead. She hit Denton, pinning her against a checkout counter, and Denton fell over the scooter, said her Orlando attorney Michael Sanchez.
Denton was taken to the hospital, said Sanchez, who declined to release details about her injuries, although the lawsuit said they were permanent in nature.
He pointed to a 2015 lawsuit filed by his Orlando firm where a visitor was allegedly hit by a scooter in the line for Magic Kingdom’s Splash Mountain ride in 2013. The alleged incident broke the man’s femur, the lawsuit said. It is still pending.
In response, Disney released a statement saying, “Both of these lawsuits center on incidents from several years ago between guests, and both involved personally owned motorized scooters. We will respond to the allegations as appropriate in court.
“Our focus is on providing a safe environment for our guests and cast members,” the statement added. |
[WM]Islamabad: Effective tourism strategies can contribute a lot to strengthen Pakistan’s economy and improve its international image and the key industry players are taking steps for it.
This was stated by CEO of the Serena Hotels for South and Central Asia Aziz Boolani ahead of the Pakistan Travel Mart (PTM) slated to take place from October 2 to 4 at the Expo Centre, Karachi.
The event is a travel and tourism expo meant to connect all stakeholders of mobility in Pakistan including travel, tourism and hospitality. It will offer visitors an opportunity to explore various options related to travel and lodging facilities and introduction to hotel properties.
Aziz Boolani said the Serena Hotels would participate in the PTM to promote tourism, demonstrate the award-winning services and facilities at their properties and showcase the incredible natural beauty and heritage venues across Pakistan.
He lauded the PTM initiative saying it will help realise the immense tourism potential of Pakistan by bringing together all stakeholders, including airlines, tour operators, travel agencies, technology partners and government officials.
“Pakistan is blessed with numerous tourist attractions, from civilisations of antiquity, unique heritage, diverse topography from mountains to beaches and religious sites. We need to project the right image of the country to the outside world and at the same time the Government needs to improve the basic infrastructure including the road network, water and sanitation, safety and security," he said.
Aziz Boolani said the tourism sector had the potential to become the main economic driver for the country as was the case for many countries. |
[WM]Buddhadev had written a strong letter of protest to Manmohan Singh objecting to Mulford's behaviour.
Taking serious exception to US Ambassador David Mulford writing directly to West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee for his remarks against the American President, the CPI-M on Friday said the party expected a response from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue.
"The US ambassador does not seem to understand how to behave in this country. An ambassador has to behave according to certain norms," CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat told reporters at the end of the two-day politburo meeting of the party in Kolkata.
In a letter, Mulford had objected to the Chief Minister's description of US President George Bush as a leader of the "most organised pack of killers" at an election rally in Kolkata on January 8.
Mulford had also said such remarks would be detrimental, especially in inviting US investors to West Bengal.
Karat said the CPI-M had earlier demanded Mulford's recall following his comment on the Left parties' stand on FDI in retail trade.
He said the ambassador had no business to write to the chief minister directly.
Bhattacharjee, he said, had written a strong letter of protest to Manmohan Singh objecting to Mulford's behaviour.
"The Prime Minister has got the chief minister's letter by now. We expect a response from him," Karat said. |
[WM]Two officers of a company that operates three Manhattan hotels were indicted yesterday in a scheme to help homeless people fraudulently obtain welfare checks and split the money with the hotels.
District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau of Manhattan, who announced the indictments, said they resulted from a study of the three hotels announced last December by the city. He said his office was delayed in moving more quickly on the case because of difficulty in finding the welfare recipients involved in the purported scam.
Although the investigation found that each of the hotels was receiving about twice as many welfare checks as it had occupied rooms, Mr. Morgenthau said the difficulty in tracking down homeless people believed to be involved in the purported scam resulted only in charges involving the Barbour. None of the 10 welfare recipients who were located in the search were charged because they are aiding the prosecution by giving testimony, officials said.
City welfare regulations require a person to provide a rent receipt to qualify for welfare, but officials at the city's Human Resources Administration said welfare recipients have never been formally referred by the agency to any of the three hotels.
Indicted yesterday were the vice president of the operating company, Zisla Nikelsberg, 49 years old, of Brooklyn, and the secretary, Larry Heller, 27, of Staten Island. Both were charged with second-degree grand larceny and could face up to seven years in prison. The Hotel Barbour Operating Company was also charged with grand larceny. It faces a fine of up to $24,000 if convicted.
All the defendants pleaded not guilty yesterday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan before Justice Harold J. Rothwax and were released on their own recognizance, pending a hearing on May 14. |
[WM]In their first game since dropping out of the top five, the Irish delivered a redemption performance against Boston College, picking up a 50-point win over the Eagles while simultaneously moving one step closer to cementing Arike Ogunbowale’s legacy, as the senior guard passed current associate coach Beth Cunningham on the list of all-time scorers in the program.
No. 6 Notre Dame (23-2, 10-2 ACC) wasted no time in the opening quarter, taking an 8-0 lead in the first 1:21. However, the Eagles (14-11, 3-9) responded with back-to-back layups to cut the deficit in half before senior forward Jessica Shepard poured in four points of her own as well as a steal to spark another Irish run. With two minutes left in the quarter, Boston College knocked down four-straight free throws and a jumper to bring the deficit within single digits. While the second quarter proved to be more of the same, as the Irish outscored the Eagles 29-11, the real show came after halftime, when the Irish found their offensive rhythm, recording 37 points, while maintaining lockdown defense to hold Boston College to seven points in the quarter. Irish head coach Muffet McGraw liked how her team was able to energize the offense through opportunities in transition.
Irish senior guard Arike Ogunbowale dribbles down the court during Notre Dame’s 97-70 win over Florida State on Feb. 10 at Purcell Pavilion.
Returning to the court, the Eagles did their best to match the Irish, who outscored them 9-5 in the first three minutes. However, the real damage came in the remaining seven minutes, as Ogunbowale and co. went on a 26-2 run. This offensive performance saw all five starters contribute, as well as freshman guard Abby Prohaska. The reserve guard stepped up in the absence of fellow rookie guard Jordan Nixon, who injured her hamstring during warmups. Prohaska finished with four points, two rebounds and two steals.
McGraw credited this impressive performance in part due to the absence of Boston College junior starting guard Taylor Ortlepp, who was out of the lineup with an ankle injury. Although Ortlepp only contributed three points in the Eagle’s 29-point loss to the Irish on Jan. 20, she has proven to be a solid leader, averaging 11.6 points per game to go along with her 35.6 percent shooting from long range.
Having built a 59-point lead, the Irish lost some of their momentum in the final frame, allowing 18 points — as many as they did in the entire first half combined. However, it did show glimmers of what’s to come for the Irish in the years ahead, most notably in the form of Prohaska and sophomore forward Danielle Patterson, who tallied six points, seven rebounds — four of which were offensive — and a steal on the night. All five starters finished in double digits, led by Ogunbowale’s 23 to go along with her seven assists and three steals, all while only committing two turnovers. Those 23 points brought her career-total to 2,324, just 34 points short of passing 2013 graduate Skylar Diggins-Smith.
McGraw didn’t seem surprised by this achievement, saying it wasn’t even on their radar when Ogunbowale returned at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
With only four games remaining in the regular season, the Irish will take the weekend off before heading on a road trip to Raleigh, North Carolina, to take on No. 12 North Carolina State on Monday. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. |
[WM]DPR members Jim Ragsdale, Diane Kane, Angeles Liera and pro tem chair Mike Costello discuss condo conversion projects.
During the Jan. 10 meeting of the La Jolla Development Permit Review committee (DPR), board members voted unanimously to form a research subcommittee that will look into the consequences of condo conversion in the neighborhoods south of Pearl Street.
“The issue with the condo conversions in this particular neighborhood is that you’ve got two units on a lot and the proposals we’re getting are essentially lot-splits that put an imaginary line across the lot, making two smaller lots that don’t comply with what is zoned in the code for that area,” said board member Diane Kane during her presentation on the topic.
In the past year, DPR members have reviewed three condo conversions of existing dwelling units, two of them in the area south of Pearl Street (7432-7436 Fay Ave. and 7435-7437 Eads Ave.) and a third in WindanSea, the second area where trustees have identified the problem (247-249 Kolmar St.). A fourth condo conversion heard by the board in the last 12 months was a map waiver for 7569-7571 Hershel Ave. (just north of Pearl), a three-apartment building under construction at the time, with which trustees had no problems.
The 7435-7437 Eads Ave. map waiver project received DPR’s approval in December, but it was pulled from the La Jolla Community Planning Association’s agenda and it will be heard in full review 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 2 at the Rec Center, 615 Prospect St.
Applicants Sarah Horton and Tim Golba explain the details of the Caplan Residence project to DPR members.
“The question I asked is why these were condo conversions and not a lot-splits,” Kane continued, adding the answer is that the lots in question are 5,000 square feet, and the minimum size for a lot in the zone is 3,000 square feet, so they can’t be split in two.
Kane said she has concerns about the applicability of the condo conversion map waiver in these cases. “This planning tool is totally legitimate for single buildings, multi-unit apartment buildings that are being turned into condos or for larger multi-family units where you have common area. But when you only have two units on a lot, and they are separate, and they share no property in common, it doesn’t seem to meet the requirements for a condo. So, why is the City allowing the condo conversion process to be used for this particular situation?” she elaborated.
The City has mechanisms in place to keep affordable housing within the Coastal Zone, but those can be waived by a contribution of an in-lieu fee to the San Diego Housing Trust Fund, and most developers in La Jolla pay rather than give up units for low- or medium-income families.
With the added concern of residents, DPR members agreed that something has to be done to better serve the community when reviewing condo conversion projects. Trustee Liera proposed perusing the San Diego Municipal Code for requirements “dangling around” in different sections and making a checklist for applicants, so they’d know what to bring in when they present to DPR.
The committee unanimously approved a motion to form a condo-conversion research subcommittee whose ad-hoc members are trustees Kane, Liera and Brian Will. The issue will be discussed further in upcoming DPR meetings.
Architect Tim Golba’s presentation about a demolition and construction of a 4,302-square-foot, two-story single-family residence at 1418 Park Row received unanimous approval from DPR. After a preliminary review on Dec. 20, the applicant granted some of the committee’s requests, such as replacing the rooftop stucco band for a rail, lowering the front fence to three feet tall, redoing the driveway and adding glass to the garage door.
— DPR next meets 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14 at the La Jolla Rec Center, 615 Prospect St. |
[WM]Everybody knows the parable of the man who built his house on sand. When the storm came, all his hard work and investment was washed away.
If the gospel were being written today, perhaps it would be called the parable of the man who built his house on riparian land.
The images we have seen of expensive buildings being knocked down and cleared away are certainly shocking. It seems such a waste.
And of course, in the parable, it is slightly different, for it is the forces of nature that come and wash away the man’s house, not the forces of some government agency as has been seen in recent times.
Couldn’t they be made to pay a fine instead? Couldn’t the building be repossessed or nationalised? Could this situation have been avoided?
Well, perhaps. The truth is that this situation could have been avoided - by not building on riparian land without permission.
It’s as simple as that. No one just starts building without some sort of plan.
Now the Government has shown us very clearly that plans have to be legal, or they won't be very good plans.
It is indeed a pity to destroy perfectly good buildings. But destroying them is the simplest way to enforce the rule of law and make sure illegal constructions do not happen again.
People need to know that when they break the law, it will cost them more time and money in the long run.
The parable of the man who built his house on sand is designed to make you think about the difference between making sure you have the right foundations in place and simply taking shortcuts through life.
Some of these enthusiastic riparian land builders would do well to read it.
People who built without the correct permissions were taking shortcuts and building on poor foundations.
And that is the reason their buildings are now tumbling down, one after the other. They have only themselves to blame.
Sometimes in emergencies, you just have to get on with whatever needs doing, whether you have the paperwork or not.
But when it is just a case of chasing profits or saving a bit of time, I’m sorry; you either follow the rules or don’t complain when your house comes crashing down.
The State is there to be the rock on which citizens build. And whenever you cheat it, you turn it into sand. We should endeavour to make the State a gift that every generation receives from their elders.
To do that, we need to make sure that the State is a rock we can rely on. And that is why the illegal buildings needed to come down.
This parable about building a house is not just true for a literal house or a dream or a project, but it is even more true for building our Government and public institutions.
For many people, particularly the young, we think of these institutions as already fixed, and more dead than alive. But the truth is, our public institutions are made of people. People who are alive, People like you and me.
And therefore they are fluid and always capable of change and progress, and adapting to new ways of thinking and living. But for this to happen we need to be engaged citizens and to hold them to account.
We have a unique chance right now in the war on graft. Public opinion is strongly in favour of the anti-corruption drive that President Uhuru Kenyatta has pursued. But the moment will pass.
We need to make the most of this moment of goodwill and public attention to put the foundations in place and make sure that we are building on a solid basis for the future, no matter who is in power.
We have a moment right now to get behind reforms to make sure that this cleansing of certain corrupt individuals is not just a surface pruning that allows the graft to grow back even stronger next year.
We need to make sure the structures are in place so that zero-corruption becomes the norm, the expectation and the easy route for everyone in public life because that is the number one route to improving our economy and making our country live up to its full potential. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.