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Russia's Citizen K How Demyan Kudryavtsev came to own the country's best-respected newspaper
Photo: Alexandra Mudrats / TASS
By the end of 2015, Russia's main business newspaper, Vedomosti, will finally pass to a single owner: Demyan Kudryavtsev. All of the publication's foreign co-founders—Sanoma Magazines, Financial Time Group, and Dow Jones—have sold him their shares. He has pledged to develop the daily newspaper using his own resources. Kudryavtsev has long been a major player on the Russian media market, though his prominence as a businessman has not been particularly prominent, until lately. For more than ten years, Kudryavtsev was a close associate of oligarch Boris Berezovsky (who died in 2013). Among other work, Kudryavtsev is said to have helped Berezovsky organize support for Ukraine's 2004 "Orange Revolution." He headed the Kommersant publishing house and ran afoul of Kremlin authorities in the wake of the mass protests of 2011-2012. He managed a return to the media business after three years of being virtually forgotten, equipped with money to buy the country's main business daily, after, it seems, being "pardoned" by the Kremlin. Meduza special correspondent Ilya Zhegulev tells Kudryavtsev's story.
Demyan Kudryavtsev was born in Leningrad. He enrolled in the journalism school at the university, but then decided on an abrupt change in his life course at age 19. He left his parents and joined the growing emigration wave, leaving in 1990 for Israel.
He took Israeli citizenship in place of his former Soviet passport.
Finishing his military service, Kudryavtsev entered the philology department of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, quickly joining local Russian-language intellectual circles. He self-published the journal Inhabited Island and the online literary journal Eye. Almost immediately upon moving to Israel, he met another Soviet émigré, Anton Nosik, while out walking his dog. They ended up as close friends and even worked together. As one example, they jointly put out the unofficial humor supplement "Vymia" (Russian for "Udder") for the weekly Israeli-Russian newspaper Vremia.
Kudryavtsev composed poetry that made a name for him first in Israeli, then also in Russian literary circles.
But that was no easy way to make a living, and he had many one-off side projects.
Working on design and computer graphics, for example, Kudryavtsev made an interactive CD-ROM tour of Jerusalem for the city's 3,000th anniversary.
The most interesting of Kudryavtsev's projects while in emigration was the company Delta III, a startup developing IP telephony. "Demian and his partners thought of it this way: two computers are connected to telephone lines, you call through the telephone line, and the computer can send the signal anywhere, across oceans. There, another computer decrypts the recording and sends it through a local landline telephone. That's how they suddenly got international phone calls at the price of local ones," remembers Anton Nosik.
But Kudryavtsev did not wait around long enough for the company to turn a profit. As Nosik recalls, he "needed to have something to eat," which led him more and more frequently to Russia, where the Internet industry was developing far faster than in Israel.
Demian Kudryavtsev (left) and Anton Nosik in 2009
Photo: Grigorii Sobchenko / Kommersant
The first legitimately serious business that Kudryavtsev got into was organized by Emelian Zakharov—a former partner of one of the first Russian millionaires, Ilya Medkov.
Medkov started out as a freelancer in the directory and information service Fact—the precursor to the Kommersant publishing house. He made a fortune, became a banker, and was killed in 1993 by a sniper's bullet. Medkov's murder had a major influence on his friend Zakharov, who left the country, returning only after two years, when he decided to found an Internet provider. That company would be named Cityline.
In 1995, the necessity of Internet access in every home was not yet a foregone conclusion, and providers themselves were busy generating the first Russian-language online content. This was a task for which Zakharov required manpower. He called his former classmate Nosik in Israel, and Nosik recommended the now-famous designer Artemy Lebedev.
A year earlier, 20-year-old Lebedev had founded the company WebDesign, and along with Kudryavtsev they became some of the first website designers on Russia's newborn Internet.
It was at Lebedev's that Zakharov first met Kudryavtsev. "He made an incredible impression on me," Emelian Zakharov now recalls. "He was smart, talented, charming, and friendly, with a sharp and lively mind. The man instantly became my friend."
It was as one of the five co-founders of Cityline that Kudryavtsev moved to Moscow. At first, before he had found his own place, he shared Zakharov's apartment. In his role as general producer for the company Netskate (financed by Cityline), Kudriavtsev took part in the creation of the first popular online portals—the daily updated collection at Anecdote.ru or Nosik's blog, "The Evening Internet." It was the very beginning of the Russian Internet. "At the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s, there was nobody on the internet that hadn't either used our consulting services or been our clients," remembers one of the managers then working with Kudryavtsev.
As Zakharov recalls, Cityline was "unbelievable in its efficiency" as a company. "When we sold it, we had as many clients as our main competitor (Golden Telecom), with a staff of just 40 employees, while Golden Telecom had nearly a thousand."
From initial investments of $4 million, Cityline sold to the very same Golden Telecom for $29 million after just five years.
At the time of the sale in 2001, Kudryavtsev owned 10 percent of Cityline shares, becoming a dollar millionaire at age 30 after making $2.9 million from the transaction.
While working at Cityline, Kudryavtsev met the man who would become his patron and older comrade over the next ten years.
One of the Cityline co-founders, Georgii Shuppe, was married to Ekaterina Berezovskaia, the younger daughter from the first marriage of oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The latter had a good relationship with his son-in-law. When Shuppe suggested that Berezovsky invest in a project with potential in 1998, he quickly agreed, and became a shareholder in Cityline.
Boris Berezovsky made good friends with the team at Cityline. It was this time when Berezovsky was the executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose federation of post-Soviet successor states, and was lobbying for the creation of a customs union. He once gathered the company's top management and asked them to come up with a unified system of communication and accounting for the union to operate on. Diving in eagerly, the young businessmen came up with a solution that remained only to be presented at the meeting of CIS prime ministers. Berezovsky told them: "you came up with it, present it yourself."
Emelian Zakharov refused, while Cityline general director Rafael Filinov had a lisp and shied away from public speaking. Kudriavtsev would have to be convinced. As Filinov retells it, the proposed speaker's look was the real problem. "He was always all rumpled, dressed like a bum. But my wife was in charge of the shopping mall Nostalgia, with fantastic suits. We took measurements quickly, brought him the suit, only we were off by a bit on the waist of the pants," Filinov laughs. In the end Kudriavtsev went to the meeting, at least decently dressed but still unshaven. So he had to shave on the go in the bathroom of the President Hotel, where the meeting of prime ministers was being held. Upon seeing Kudriavtsev all cleaned up, Berezovsky froze in astonishment. "Couldn't you go out like that all the time?" asked the oligarch with the intonation of a schoolteacher.
The success of that presentation, made by then 27-year-old Kudriavtsev, left an excellent impression on Berezovsky. He singled him out amongst the top leadership of Cityline, thereafter giving orders directly to him.
Boris Berezovsky (center) as executive secretary of the CIS
Photo: Dmitrii Dukhanin / Kommersant
Berezovsky's man
Kommersant editor-in-chief Andrei Vasilev first met Kudriavtsev in 1999. "He was always wearing something like a black field coat, and was constantly carrying some documents for Boris [Berezovsky]," Vasilev says.
Kudriavtsev surprised him at a meeting for the election campaign of the Edinstvo ("Unity") movement—a sort of prototype for United Russia (the country's current ruling party). Berezovsky was one of the founders of the movement. Vasilev claims he was required to attend as the general director and editor-in-chief of the Kommersant publishing house that Berezovsky owned.
"Everybody at the meeting had started wondering: where are we going to find somebody to handle the creative side?" Vasilev explains. "Then Demian suddenly gets up and says: there's this guy Orlusha, hell of a guy, he'll crank out creative in spades for you. And then everybody looked at me in surprise."
Vasilev himself was friends with Orlusha (full name Andrei Orlov), who was both a poet and a political analyst. They had worked together briefly, and Vasilev had not expected anybody else to put forward his candidacy. Orlusha was immediately approved for the role, and he was a great asset in the handling of the subsequent electoral campaign.
By 1999, Kudriavtsev was Berezovsky's right-hand man. He was his personal press secretary and advisor. He had de facto control over Berezovsky's main media holdings—the TV channel ORT and Kommersant. A partner of both men told Meduza it was Kudriavtsev himself who penned the campaign strategy for Edinstvo, which Berezovsky then passed off as his own.
Beyond that, the same source contends, Kudriavtsev even wrote the first public speeches of Vladimir Putin, before the presidential elections in March 2000.
As is well known, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Putin had a serious falling out shortly after the election. Demian Kudriavtsev went on working for the now-disgraced oligarch.
It was Kudriavtsev who set up the 2000 deal to sell ORT to Roman Abramovich. That was when Berezovsky ran into conflict with Putin, and the Presidential Administration decided to take the TV channel under its control. According to a friend of the now-deceased oligarch, "After the betrayal by Kostya [Ernst, general director of ORT], who stopped following Berezovsky's directives under pressure from Presidential Administration head Aleksandr Voloshin, Boris had nobody left that he trusted. And yet he continued to trust Demian like his own son."
The stake in ORT was sold for $300 million.
A source close to the deal said that Kudriavtsev took a commission of just under 1 percent.
When Berezovsky left the country in the fall of 2000, going first to France and then to London, Kudriavtsev went along with him.
Demian Kudriavtsev at the funeral for Boris Berezovsky in London, August 5, 2013
Photo: Aleksei Filippov / RIA Novosti / Scanpix
One day, when Kommersant special correspondent (co-author of a best-selling quasi-autobiographical book on Vladimir Putin, First Person) Natalia Gevorkian was already living in Paris emigration, her telephone rang.
It was Kudriavtsev; they would not let him into Russia and had sent him back to Paris on the same plane he'd arrived on.
"I'm in shorts, he said, one bag and nothing else with me. And no money either," Gevorkian remembered in conversation with a Meduza correspondent. "He came over to my place, and was not in very good shape. Depression was setting in, and it lasted for quite some time."
Kudriavtsev had no Russian passport—he had yet to finalize Russian citizenship after the collapse of the USSR.
He traveled on his Israeli passport, getting visas for his time in Russia. It was only in 2005 that he would get a permanent visa, after which he could also apply for citizenship.
Kudriavtsev rented an apartment in London where Berezovsky had settled, bringing his wife and kids to join him.
He continued to manage Berezovsky's remaining media interests, which still included Nashe Radio, Kommersant, and the television channel TV-6. "He was constantly with Boris," said businessman Yuli Dubov, a friend of Berezovsky. "Because Demian was such a smart guy, Boris really enjoyed talking with him."
Kudriavtsev was among the few who dared butt heads with Berezovsky. And one of their main disputes arose out of the situation in Ukraine in 2004.
Point-man for the revolution
In emigration, Berezovsky remained fully engaged in politics: he assured everyone that in would take just a bit more and "the regime in Russia will fall." And while that had yet to happen, the oligarch took part in political projects in Russia's neighboring countries.
The idea of supporting Viktor Yushchenko in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections was born when David Zhvaniya, a deputy in the Ukrainian parliament, appealed to him for help. Along with another deputy and businessman named Petro Poroshenko, who serves today as Ukraine's president, they promised to reward Berezovsky for his support. According to the businessmen's plan, Yushchenko was to become the president and Poroshenko the prime minister. Berezovsky agreed, and spent more than $70 million on Yushchenko's campaign (and the Maidan protests that followed it). Representing his interests in Kiev was none other than Demian Kudriavtsev. In the heat of the standoff on the Maidan, he went around the tent city giving out some sort of orders.
However, Yulia Tymoshenko, a bright star in those events and Ukraine's future prime minister, persuaded Berezovsky to bet on her instead of Poroshenko.
Kudriavtsev had a serious clash with the outcast oligarch over this issue, urging Berezovsky not to get involved in power struggles among people who were, effectively, strangers. He told Berezovsky to stay the course, supporting the Yushchenko-Poroshenko tandem.
In September 2004, not long before the elections, Yushchenko was poisoned, spending a long time in the hospital and falling out of sight. And when he reappeared, he had suffered horrific transformations in appearance. This bothered Berezovsky, and a scheme with Tymoshenko—the most charismatic politician of the moment in Ukraine—seemed more appealing than ever. For that reason Berezovsky told Yushchenko that he would only continue supporting him if he agreed to take Tymoshenko as prime minister in place of Poroshenko.
Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko during a meeting on the Maidan in Kiev, 2004
Photo: Fyodor Savintsev / TASS / Corbis / Vida Press
Ultimately, Berezovsky would pay dearly for trusting Tymoshenko. The oligarch was counting on cashing in for his support in the elections, as he had in Russia after backing Boris Yeltsin in 1996. In Ukraine, he had his eye on the telecoms monopoly Ukrtelekom, the Odessa Port Plant, a stake in the steel mill Krivorozhstal, and a plot for the construction of a million square meters of housing in Kiev. Berezovsky was plainly tricked; he was barred from entering the country, while Tymoshenko and Yushchenko stopped taking his calls.
Yet Berezovsky and Kudriavtsev fared better in another revolution. Not long before his death, Berezovsky told me that along with his partner and friend, Badri Patarkatsishvili, he'd financed a "consulting group" in 2005 that helped Kurmanbek Bakiev become President of Kyrgyzstan. The head of that group was Demian Kudriavtsev.
The "Tulip Revolution" was far cheaper than its "Orange" predecessor—costing Berezovsky a mere $5 million.
The victorious Bakiev compensated Berezovsky with a stake in a gold mining interest—the Jerooy deposit with the second biggest reserves in the country.
The company that took control of the deposit—Global G.O.L.D. Holding Gmbh—was headed by Rafael Filinov, who Berezovsky knew from Cityline, and Kudriavtsev was among the minority shareholders.
After an investment of only $12 million, Filinov later sold the enterprise to a Kazakh company for $130 million. Kudriavtsev got another big payday from the deal—around $3.5 million.
Having finished with the revolutions, Berezovsky decided in 2005 to refocus on bringing to order his main Russian media holding, Kommersant.
Kudriavtsev told him at the time that the impending crisis of the print media was apparent to shareholders, but that editor-in-chief Andrei Vasilev was obstructing needed changes. Berezovsky went for a management shakeup. The publishing house was stagnating, time for new blood, he explained.
Andrei Vasilev and part of the leadership was sent to Kiev in spring 2005 to launch the newspaper Kommersant-Ukraine.
The head editor at Kommersant, as proposed by Kudriavtsev, became a former employee who then headed Gazeta.ru, Vladislav Borodulin. Former NTV-Plus director Vladimir Lensky became the publisher's general director. Kudriavtsev missed the mark with this latter appointment; the arrogant Lensky immediately had a falling out with the other leaders of the newspaper.
Little acquainted with the working protocol among editors, the new manager made enemies out of the staff with his very first order: a ban on drinking while at work. At the end of 2005, a whole Kommersant delegation flew to London. Their main demand was the dismissal of Lensky, and he was out by the first days of 2006, with Kudriavtsev himself named as the replacement.
Kudriavtsev immediately impressed the staff, recalls Maksim Kovalsky, former editor-in-chief of the magazine Kommersant-Vlast. The new general director stayed out of editorial issues, and was more one of the group than Lensky, who had tried to corporatize Kommersant's homey atmosphere. "I remember when one of the oldest employees, Nikolai Vardul, came up to me, dumbfounded. Supposedly, he goes into Kudriavtsev's office, and he's sitting there in an armchair with his foot tucked under himself. That was a new one!" laughed Vladislav Borodulin.
In 2006, Berezovsky transferred his Kommersant shares to his friend and partner Badri Patarkatsishvili, who began preparing the sale of the business. A source close to discussions of the deal said Berezovsky was planning to sell Kommersant for $120 million. That was a decent price, the source thought, taking into account the publisher's 2005 profit of $13 million.
But Patarkatsishvili shoved Berezovsky aside in the sale, asking Kudriavtsev to seek potential buyers himself.
Kommersant, Patarkatsishvili reasoned, was not a commercial enterprise, but a political one, and it could be sold for far more.
In the end, Kudriavtsev attracted one of the richest businessmen in Russia, the billionaire owner of Metalloinvest, Alisher Usmanov.
In spite of Usmanov's later claims that he paid $200 million for Kommersant, a source close to the deal says the real price tag was higher: $280 million. And Kudriavtsev again took his commission, comprising 1 percent of the sale.
After Usmanov acquired the business, the question of the general director's position arose. Usmanov was not originally committed to keeping Kudriavtsev. Such appointments already required Kremlin approval by then, and the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Vladislav Surkov, could not forgive Kudriavtsev's role in the Orange Revolution.
It was Andrei Vasilev, returning from Ukraine, who stood up for Kudriavtsev. He told Usmanov that he'd be more comfortable collaborating with Kudriavtsev than with "some kind of metalworker." Kudriavtsev also benefitted from the fact that the sale of Kommersant was informally overseen by Dmitry Medvedev, who was then deputy prime minister and a potential successor to Putin in the 2008 presidential election. Vasilev remembers his conversation with Medevedev: "What is it you want with Kommersant? what is it you want out of me?" Vasilev asked. Medvedev, according to the editor-in-chief, responded ironically, "I want Kommersant to be like [it was] under Vasilev." Then Vasilev complained about Surkov, who "dictates from behind Usmanov who should be named general director." Medvedev said he'd look into it, and Kudriavtsev remained in his position for the next several years.
Demian Kudriavtsev in his office at Kommersant
Photo: Sergei Avduevsky / Rodionov Publishing House / TASS
Kudriavtsev's Kommersant became more modern. It spawned its own radio and television stations, and several magazines. The newspaper itself went from black-and-white to color ink. Still further, the website, which had earlier merely duplicated the newspaper (behind a paywall), was separated into an independent resource, making money off advertising.
They changed the layout, began to upload news content updates throughout the day, and opened it up for all readers. As a result, according to then commercial director Pavel Filenkov, in place of the $200,000-300,000 a year that the site had made from selling subscriptions, Kommersant Online began to generate upwards of $5 million annually from ad sales.
In 2008, the government unexpectedly relieved the newspaper Rossiiskaia Gazeta of its monopoly on publishing bankruptcy notices. Kommersant won a competition to reassign the privilege. In 2011 alone, the publisher made $20 million off of its Saturday printing of Arbitration Court proceedings.
Kommersant TV, on the other hand, turned out to be one of Kudriavtsev's bad ideas. Its lack of popularity can be judged by the fact that even in the publisher's cafeteria, its own channel played for just a month before the television was switched back to the customary favorite, Discovery. The television project was shut down immediately following Kudriavtsev's departure, by which time, in Filenkov's estimate, the station had lost $30 million.
Kudriavtsev explained then that the project had been killed during takeoff, that given investment over another couple years, it would have become profitable. The radio station Kommersant FM also operated at a loss, but it wasn't closed down. For comparatively small costs, it helped develop the brand of the entire media company.
Another unsuccessful Kudriavtsev project was the launch of the magazine Citizen K in 2007. The new publication was kicked off to much fanfare: Russian pop star Zemfira sang at the launch party, and everybody who purchased the first edition of the magazine got a free copy of her new album. But in five years, the publication never turned a profit. According to Pavel Filenkov, Citizen K "siphoned off" $7 million from the publisher. The magazine was also shut down immediately after Kudriavtsev's departure.
"At any rate, thanks to the fact that Kommersant TV was a separate 'sister' project without a juridical link to the publishing house, its profit remained around 10 million dollars annually," says Filenkov. "Although that did not greatly concern the investor. For either Badri or Usmanov, the yearly income of Kommersant amounts to a rounding error on the cost of their breakfast."
Usmanov was satisfied that his media business was not asking him for money, but something entirely different did concern him.
Enter the Kremlin
At the outset, the paper's editorial policy remained unchanged under Usmanov. "Kommersant remained the same as it had been. Demian was not involved with content," explains former head editor of Vlast Kovalsky. "At times he just said, 'This could be a topic,' or asked, 'Is this of any interest to the magazine?' I would calmly respond, you know, that I'm not interested, and the conversation ended. Demian never insisted."
But over time, there were excesses. In November 2007, Kommersant ran an interview with Finansgrupp head Oleg Shvartsman, in which he detailed "velvet reprivatization" and new voluntary-compulsory methods for consolidating private holdings in state hands under the supervision of the influential Igor Sechin. "I had gone to St. Petersburg to open an ice rink, when the calls started coming in. It was a sh**show," Vasilev remembers. "By evening, Demian called to say, 'Come back immediately on Sunday—they've really got me by the balls here!'"
On that occasion, Kommersant's leadership was able to fend off the furious claims of the Presidential Administration. The pressure was ratcheted up gradually, though, especially in the year leading up to the parliamentary elections. In early 2011, Kudriavtsev called Vlast's editor, Maksim Kovalsky, several times to ask that he use more care in writing about the upcoming Sochi Olympics. The reason was that, in multiple conversations with Kudriavtsev, the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Aleksei Gromov, had supposedly argued that Kommersant-Vlast was violating media principles on the dissemination of objective material. For Kovalsky, the most surprising part was when Kudriavtsev next said, "You know, Gromov isn't that far off the mark."
"I understood the situation as meaning he was no longer our envoy there, but their agent here," Kovalsky recalls.
The conflict became even more intense in the fall of 2011, when Kudriavtsev issued an order under which the editor-in-chief of the media group, Azer Mursaliev, could make editorial changes in any of its publications after submission by individual head editors. Kovalsky made it loud and clear that he would never send columns for the editor-in-chief's approval, and if Mursaliev cared to make changes, he had better take over running the magazine himself.
Former head editor of Kommersant-Vlast magazine, Maksim Kovalsky
Photo: Viacheslav Prokof'ev / Kommersant
Finally, in the magazine issue immediately following the Duma elections in 2011, Vlast ran a picture of a defaced voting ballot with profanity directed at then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin scrawled across it. Enraged, Usmanov personally demanded Kovalsky's dismissal, and Kudriavtsev did not protest. He did then take responsibility for the messy situation himself, however, and also promised to resign. The scandal in the press reached a point where businessman Mikhail Prokhorov offered to buy the publishing house from Usmanov, and Vladimir Putin himself publicly mentioned the defaced ballot.
But it wasn't until June 2012 that Kudriavtsev resigned, when he claimed the move was his own decision, though multiple sources attest that his departure was not voluntary.
The Kovalsky scandal was the last straw for the Kremlin and Usmanov alike, the latter tiring of having to react to angry calls from above about each new edition of the newspaper. Usmanov wavered, but Gromov was insistent: bigger heads than Kovalsky had to roll.
The parties were forced to announce a peaceable end to the relationship. As compensation for his resigntation, Kudriavtsev is said to have received $3 million. The former general director of Kommersant found himself jobless. The Kremlin had effectively blacklisted him, scaring off any potential employers. He was tapped as a candidate for multiple positions, only to be crossed off the short-list at the last minute.
After the departure of Rafael Akopov as general director of Profmedia, for example, rumors circulated that Kudriavtsev would take the position. But billionaire Profmedia owner Vladimir Potanin removed him from the list of candidates. Kudriavtsev was in extremely rough shape: pale and not just thinning but wasting away. He fell seriously ill. "He was barely saved from the afterworld," says his friend Emelian Zakharov.
So as not to sit idle, Kudriavtsev created the company Yasno–Communications, which carried out consulting in multiple spheres, including development. In one instance, the agency had a project in 2014 to develop the grounds of Moscow State University for the National Intellectual Development foundation, headed by Katerina Tikhonova (rumored to be one of Vladimir Putin's daughters).
The agency did research, archival work, surveys, and was supposed to prepare a framework on that basis.
But suddenly there was no longer a need for Kudriavtsev's services. According to a source with links to state security agencies, the surname of the Yasno-Communications owner was still enough to bother patrons in the Kremlin.
The buyer
In late 2013, the Finnish company Sanoma Magazines ran a press release indicating in which markets it planned to remain active. Only one country where Sanoma was previously active was left off: Russia. That news piqued the interest of three friends: Vladimir Voronov, Martin Pompadur, and Demian Kudriavtsev.
London-based Voronov was in charge of the News Media Radio Group (the owner of Nashe Radio, Best FM, and Radio Ultra), founded in partnership by Boris Berezovsky and the Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch.
Martin Pompadur, meanwhile, was chairman of the board of directors at the European subsidiary of Murdoch's NewsCorp.
The friends decided to buy up Sanoma's Russian business (all of its media holdings were to be sold in one bundle), including a stake in the company Business News Media, which publishes the newspapers Vedomosti and The Moscow Times. Formally, the joint-stock company belonged to the Cyprus offshore firm Delevoi Standard, Ltd. A third of the shares in this Cypriot company belonged to Finnish Sanoma Magazines, while the other two-thirds were split between Pearson (printer of Financial Times) and Dow Jones (The Wall Street Journal).
Negotiations were tense. Sanoma set its price, and—having done its research—the three partners proposed a steep discount. In fact, the publisher was putting up serious losses each year. Moreover, the ownership agreement was structured such that Sanoma, Pearson, and Dow Jones split annual royalties of $10 million from the business three ways. But whereas the brands Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal ran on the top line of Vedomosti, and the Western editions could benefit from generous content-sharing with the Russian paper, Sanoma got nothing but this royalty.
Issues of Vedomosti come off the printer
Photo: Sergei Fadeichev / TASS / Scanpix
Drawing attention to the losses benefitted the buyers, who secured the desired discount. Beyond that, politics came into play: the annexation of Crimea and Western sanctions, followed by new legislation banning more than 20-percent foreign ownership of Russian media outlets.
After that law passed, Sanoma representatives appealed directly to Kudriavtsev with an offer just one-third of their original asking price.
Talks with Kudriavtsev were kept under the strictest secrecy. It was only in December 2014 that Pearson and Dow Jones discovered that he was the buyer, and they were very displeased.
Kudriavtsev's reputation, to their mind, was ambiguous. It was at that same time that the deal became known among the top managers at Vedomosti. The purchase had been completed entirely without their participation—nobody even bothered to ask them.
"We were sold like potatoes, behind our backs," Vedomosti chief editor Tatiana Lysova fumes. "I told Demian: you bought us, and you didn't even talk with me. He responded: and what would that have changed? You would have said, apparently, 'Demian, we don't like you,' and I'm supposed to reconsider as a result?"
In May 2015, Kudriavtsev completed the transaction and placed on the board of directors his friends, Pompadur and Voronov, who were not technically part of the deal, but were its de facto beneficiaries.
It bears noting that, in addition to the stake in Business News Media, Kudriavtsev wanted to buy the company Axel Springer Russia, which prints the influential business monthly Forbes. But he couldn't reach an agreement—the publisher's general director, Regina von Flemming, was strongly opposed.
From April through the end of the summer, Pearson and Dow Jones were in search of practically any buyer for their shares, which the law in any event demanded they give up. There was no interest in Vedomosti, however. The partners hired Moscow lawyers to find them some way of staying in the Russian market. They met with Aleksandr Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor (Russia's media regulatory watchdog), but he could offer no help to investors. There was no alternative.
In September, literally a month before the final deal went through, the foreign shareholders were approached unexpectedly with an offer from Sergei Petrov, a Duma deputy and the founder of the car dealership chain Rolf. He was interested in Vedomosti. Later, however, he withdrew is offer. Upon hearing that news, Tatiana Lysova contacted him and set up a meeting. "I figured that for a stable future at Vedomosti, an arrangement with two investors independent from one another would be better. In case one of them suddenly wanted to do something unfortunate, there would still be the possibility of appealing to the other," Lysova explains regarding her intervention in the negotiations. "I also supposed that two significant, independent investors might mean some chance of convincing the foreigners to hold onto at least a small stake in Vedomosti. And Petrov himself gave no cause for suspicion—he is an entirely respectable person of like mind and values to ours. He's hardly likely to do anything to the detriment of our operations."
Lysova succeeded in changing Petrov's mind, and he submitted a second offer. But this time the sellers rejected the application: Kudriavtsev was a sure thing, and Petrov hadn't out-bargained his offer.
Petrov's representatives sent a letter asking for more time to carry out due diligence, to check up on the financial standing of the investment. The sellers had no time, though, and in any event another buyer was ready.
Lysova again went to meet with Petrov. Finding out that his people had dropped the ball, the businessman promised to submit yet another offer. The next day, however, Lysova discovered that Petrov had decided against fighting for the shares. This time, the explanation came not from Petrov, but from one of the top managers at Rolf in charge of investment.
"Look at it our way," he told Lysova nonchalantly over the phone, "it's a complicated deal with many risks. Sergei is a Duma deputy, the profit prognosis is uncertain, and we are also in the middle of downsizing our main business. Right now, for example, we have decisions to make, like whether or not to open a new dealership. And the costs involved are comparable. Only there we have strong EBITBA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization]."
Lysova understood perfectly. "I get it," she said. "We can't provide 300 percent EBITDA. We are not a dealership—that's totally true. We apologize for being unable to compete with the automobile trade." With that, she hung up.
"Demian said that the money was all his, although we heard that he has places to take out loans," said one participant in talks from Petrov's camp. "He [Kudriavtsev] promised, if we raised our offer, he would do the very same. Does Sergei need to be dealing with things like that? He'd also wanted to maintain somehow the presence of Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal in Vedomosti as a shield against risks to its reputation. But that was not possible. On the whole, the minuses outweighed the pluses of the purchase."
According to an insider source, Petrov wanted to set out to save the free speech, while Western investors were merely interested in selling their shares for the highest price.
By fall, the market was left wondering whether Kudriavtsev spent his own money on Vedomosti, or used someone else's—a shadow investor's—to complete the deal.
The newspaper itself reported its valuation at 10 million euros, including its debt. According to information at Meduza, the newspaper's overall debt was roughly 7 million euros. Those obligations were taken up by Kudriavtsev's friend Pompadur. According to the news agency RBC, the liabilities cost Pompadur some 6 million euros.
Demian Kudriavtsev meets with the editorial staff at Vedomosti after acquiring Sanoma's share
Photo: Aleksandr Astakhov / Vedomosti / fotoimedia
So it turns out that a friend chipped in 6 million euros for Kudriavtsev. He also had enough to cover the 4 million euros he paid back in the spring for the stake from Sanoma.
Kudriavtsev's cumulative income over the past 15 years amounts to $20 million, including includes his salary, which averages $1 million annually, first from Berezovsky, and then from Usmanov, as well as commissions and income from the sale of shares in various companies. He's lived rather modestly, without big luxury-item purchases. One of his biggest investments was the construction of a house in Pirogovo on the Ostashkovsky highway. But this year, Kudriavtsev sold that house for $1.5 million.
To complete the deal, it was imperative that Kudriavtsev resolve his biggest issue: the Kremlin's disfavor. It seems as if he succeeded on that front. Back in the spring of 2015, Kudriavtsev said he was discussing the Vedomosti deal with authorities and nobody had blocked him, so far. Perhaps the Kremlin, tied up in several geopolitical conflicts simultaneously, was simply not up for it. Perhaps (and not without reason) the presidency figured it could make arrangements with any owner—so long as he was a Russian citizen, the levers of influence should suffice. Lower ranking officials presumed that somebody must be behind Kudriavtsev.
According to Meduza's sources, Kurdiavtsev told friends that Roskomnadzor told him they would only speak with the real owner, when he needed to update the license registries for The Moscow Times and other former Sanoma publications.
Kudriavtsev also had another problem: he tried renouncing his Israeli citizenship, but Israel has no forms confirming that procedure. Roskomnadzor, meanwhile, was unwilling to accept a copy of the announcement. For that reason, Kudriavtsev had to register Vedomosti and The Moscow Times under his wife's name.
When Kudriavtsev ended up as the lone buyer for Vedomosti, he informed Tatiana Lysova. At first, she promised to resign, and Kudriavtsev was not about to stop her. But in November, at a meeting with the staff, Kudriavtsev openly announced that he would be happy if Lysova decided to stay. And so she did.
As insurance, however, she requested that investors change the company charter before the deal was completed. The final document clearly laid out that content-decisionmaking is the exclusive province of the head editor. Any changes to the corporate charter are subject to the approval a majority of full-time staff members. Additionally, the chief editor gained a seat on the board of directors of Vedomosti's parent company.
Lysova has expressed cautious optimism. "To many of us, it seemed that Demian wanted to become general director in order to control all procedures personally. But when he met with the staff, he said without any prompting that he has no interest in that. And he wants the current general director, Gleb Prozorov, to stay on in his position."
According to Lysova, Kudriavtsev handled himself with restraint. In response to the question of whether he intended to change anything, Kudriavtsev said he had no concrete decisions in mind, but would like to learn in more detail what works at Vedomosti and how. Prozorov is truly a member of the old guard, working at the paper since 1999. But the whole team will not be kept intact. The former director and publisher of Vedomosti, Mikhail Dubik, for example, left his position at the beginning of November.
According to Lysova, inasmuch asVedomosti's staff thinks about Kudriavtsev, it thinks he earned getting the newspaper. "Throughout the whole story, absolutely everybody—myself included—showed their weaknesses and were full of doubts. Kudriavtsev alone acted decisively, firmly aware of what he needed and he made a great effort to ensure the deal worked in his favor," Lysova says.
Kudriavtsev becomes Vedomosti's legally-confirmed owner before New Year's. On the day the transaction was announced, Elizaveta Osetinskaia, the former chief editor of Vedomosti and Forbes, and the current chief editor of the news agency RBC, gathered friends together for a drink to Vedomosti. "We aren't saying that everything will necessarily be bad—it's just going to be different," she told people. "But it will never again be the way it was."
Demian Kudriavtsev declined to comment for this story.
Ilya Zhegulev


Sulphur River Regional Mobility Association Chairman Delbert Horton presented a check in the amount of $49,435.74 as a refund of the Delta County investment funds not used in the expansion of State Highway 24. Each entity received a refund based on what was contributed.
Motorists are urged to be aware of incidents of flashing flooding in the East Texas area. The Texas Department of Transportation has mapped several areas of closure. Turn around, don't drown is being emphasized by authorities.
In Delta County residents had to be evacuated by local volunteer fire fighters and law enforcement. According to law enforcement the home was located at 1918 Farm-to-Market 1531 near Klondike.
"This is most flooding along FM 1531 I had seen in my time with Delta County," said Lieutenant Ryan Brown, who has been with DCSO since 2011. The water was over the five foot flood gauge. "I have never seen it at this magnitude." He waded shin to knee-deep water during the evacuation.
The North Sulphur River had flooded over its banks.
Some areas reported a range of over eight to 11 inches of rain over the span of the night.
"Fortunately, we didn't have any other rescues," said Lieutenant Brown, noting driving around a barricade is a Class B Misdemeanor and can result in a trip to jail, especially if first responders' lives are put at risk.
Delta County closures include: FM 71, FM 1531, FM 904 (water is receding), FM 2068 (water is receding).
Delbert Horton with the Sulphur River Regional Mobility Authority Board brought good news to Delta County informing the court the County will be receiving a refund of $49,435.74 from the $132,144.00 put up for the purchasing of right of ways and utilities during the expansion of State Highway 24.
It has just been announced by the Texas Department of Transportation that traffic flow on State Highway 24 between Cooper and the Hunt County line has shifted to the newly constructed west lanes.
According to TxDOT Public Information Officer Tim McAlavy, the work on the old east lanes will begin, as part of the project to upgrade this segment of the highway from two lanes of traffic to four lanes.
On Sunday, Sept. 11 an accident involving a couple on a Harley Davidson motorcycle and a couple in a Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicle occurred at the intersection of State Highway 24 and Farm-to-market 64.
State Highway 24 (at John's Creek) reopened late Tuesday afternoon after being closed due to excessive flooding, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. The Delta County Sheriff's office has been informing drivers to be aware some GPS devices (such as on cell phones) has not been updating with detour information, when deemed necessary.
In a regular session of the Delta County Commissioners Court Nicki Beeler was reappointed unanimously to the Sulphur River Regional Mobility Authority Board as requested by Delbert Horton. Representatives from Delta, Hunt and Lamar counties serve on the SuRRMA board. This board was created as a conduit for the funds on this project [expansion of State Highway 24].
The Delta County Sheriff's Office reports State Highway 24 is open for traffic. It had been closed since Nov. 28 when the area received an excessive amount of rain hindering passage through the construction zone between Cooper and Commerce.
Travelers have had to detour from both directions.
Texas State Highway 24 remains closed between Cooper and Commerce due to flooding. Detour routes are available for people driving between the two cities.
Driver Mathew Sikes, 27, was fortunate to walk away from this rollover accident on State Highway 24 Saturday just past Highway 19 intersection.
A two-vehicle rollover last Friday morning in which no injuries occurred on FM 1528 and State Highway 24 in Delta County between a Dodge truck and Jeep Wrangler was weather-related.
On Saturday evening an all terrain vehicle (ATV) is believed to be the cause of a house fire of a home located on State Highway 24 in Klondike.
"We received the call at 4:49 p.m. and had to attack through the attic," said Tanner Crutcher, Cooper Volunteer Fire Captain, on the home/shop combination structure.


Exactly 50 years ago — on 16 May 1966 — China launched its Cultural Revolution campaign to reinstate and preserve the country's communist ideology. But the state media has barely made a mention of this historic day that also marked the return of Mao Zedong, the then Chairman of the Communist Party of China, to power.
Instead, leading media houses focused on the Chinese government's anger over the South China Sea reports released by the Pentagon, or about Donald Trump.
In a bid to remove his rivals, Mao had started the campaign 50 years ago, which was later declared a mistake by the Communist leader as the warfare had left over 1.5 million people in China dead.
The revolution had set the nation back on the political and economic fronts, and destroyed the country's social fabric, until it tailed off with Mao's death in September 1976.
China has not had any official commemoration to mark the 50th year of the historic event, although, neo-Maoists have been staging private commemorations, the AP reported.
"The Cultural Revolution gave the word revolution a bad name. Yet that was what the party's claim to authority wrested on," David Kelly, director of research at a Beijing based think-tank told Al Jazeera.
"Now it has been replaced by the word reform. In the past you had to show that you were part of the revolution that was going to transform China. Now the fight is over whether you are inside or outside reform," he added saying that the movement almost took China back to the middle ages.
Although the party rejected the movement five years after it ended, the traces of the revolution continued to be visible in the authoritarian political system, the AP reported a veteran journalist Gao Yu as saying.
Gao, who was a university student in 1966, said the violence that took place during that decade was impossible to avoid, although she was initially excited about the revolution. However, it soon faded as she had witnessed her home being raided by fanatical young Red Guards who accused her father – a former ranking party cadre - of disloyalty to Mao.
"I saw so many respected teachers in universities and high schools get beaten up. The movement wasn't so much a high profile political struggle as a massive campaign against humanity," the 72-year-old party critic added. Gao, a dissident, was imprisoned for seven years for leaking state secret documents. However, she was allowed to return home on medical parole.
Chen Shuxiang lost his father to one such incident of students beating up teachers. He is still waiting for answers to know who killed his father or what happened to his bloodied body, according to the New York Times.
"Just before he died, my father wasn't even allowed a mouthful of water," Chen said. The 72-year-old retired teacher who lives in northwest Beijing added: "It's something I don't like to think about even now, but also I want to hear from those who did this. Why did they pick him out? Where did his ashes go?"
China formally closed the chapter about the Cultural Revolution with a 1981 party document that declared it as a "catastrophe" for the nation.


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Technology continues to advance rapidly, and changing demands of tech-savvy consumers can open up new markets. Many Asian consumers – Singaporeans included – stand at the frontier of technology adoption. Think of the new opportunities like private hire vehicles, online shopping, food delivery using an app, and even fintech solutions, which have sprung up in recent years.
Indeed, technology innovations has changed the way we work, live and play. However, for people in the workforce, technological advances could be seen as a double-edged sword.
On one hand hand, technology and automation can increase productivity and allow us to perform higher value work. Many of us, especially the younger generation, have grown up with technology. This puts us in a better position to seize opportunities brought about by new digital advances.
On the other hand, technological disruptions could make certain job functions redundant – potentially within several years or decades. Earlier jobs like office typists, lift attendants, and bus conductors are virtually extinct within the span of a generation.
We examine 3 jobs today that have evolved, and explore what Singaporeans can do to keep themselves relevant and take advantage of opportunities created by technological changes.
Whether you're a small business owner, working at a listed company, or running a non-profit organisation, good bookkeeping is essential.
As complicated as accounting procedures might be, a lot of it is also predictable and rules-based.
As more organisations adopt electronic means of invoicing and sending/receiving payments, much of this work has the potential to become automated. Together with optical character recognition and artificial intelligence capabilities, software can make sense of the data.
Thanks to improvement in technology, accountants have been relieved of much time they need for the man-hour intensive manual work. This gives them more time to serve more clients (and get paid highly for) and to provide them with higher value adding services like consulting and forensic auditing.
For Singaporeans who wish to reskill and adapt to changing job demands, there's the Adapt and Grow initiative, which was enhanced in Budget 2017. Mid-career Singaporeans and PMETs who are ready to make the switch to another sector can also benefit from Professional Conversion Programmes (PCP) to learn new skills and take on new roles.
More than 250,000 jobseekers have benefitted from the Adapt and Grow initiative in 2017, while close to 3,800 PMETs have received training and wage support for their career switch under the PCP.
Gone are the days where only commercial taxis would ply the roads, and passengers have to stand by the road side to flag a cab (and often in vain).
Today, GPS technology has become so advanced that passengers can call for a taxi or private hire vehicle anytime, anywhere with a few taps on the mobile phone.
The technology has become so smart that we do not even need to enter our boarding point. Our location is automatically tracked.
Drivers' locations are also tracked, and jobs can be automatically accepted on their behalf to match them to the nearest passenger. This saves the driver time and effort to look for a passenger on the road.
Faster and easier job acceptance means more time to make more money. Greater convenience for passengers also means greater demand, and more job opportunities for both taxi drivers and private hire drivers.
Selling and buying properties can be a tedious and long process, especially the logistical effort needed to arrange for the seller, potential buyers and property agents to do a physical viewing of the house.
But increasingly, property agents are using technology to help them market the property in more convenient ways that can reach more people at a fraction of their time and costs.
Today, more and more property agents are using 360-degree video camera technology to capture the entire house. This allows potential buyers to do a virtual walk-through of the house without leaving their homes.
Property agents are also making use of social media platforms to market the property to more potential buyers through engaging video showcases of the property.
The future is clearly in tech. And if you think you need a stronger head start on how to navigate the digital landscape, there are programmes such as SkillsFuture for Digital Workspace and TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA).
If you are short of time to sit down in a classroom, you can take up short, modular e-learning courses offered by local universities, polytechnics and ITEs. This way, you can make use of your commuting time or break time to access courses catering to your skills and job needs, and learn at your own pace and time.
What's more, you can enjoy funding support if you take approved courses under the SkillsFuture framework. There are also subsidies of up to 90% of course fees under the SkillsFuture Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy are available to old workers who wish to upskill and reskill themselves.
To ensure that Singaporeans are matched to jobs where they can best use their skills, the Government introduced the National Jobs Bank in Budget 2017 to make it easier for jobseekers to look for jobs, as well as for companies looking to hire.
These measures for workers form one part of a broader range of efforts to get Singapore ready for tomorrow's economy.
Other than preparing Singaporeans for the opportunities and jobs of the future, there are also plans like the Industry Transformation Maps to support the transformation of our industries and businesses.
New technologies are reshaping the global economy and jobs, and with it, they bring new opportunities, such as helping us be more productive at work.
Singaporeans are starting from a strong foundation, with extensive resources and support available to improve our employability and earning potential for years to come.
The key is to continually adapt ourselves so that we can not only be ready for the future, but to thrive and prosper.
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or, Doom and Gloom or Hope and Glory?
Recently, I've read a couple of predictions by intuitives about the future. One is by a man whose out-of-body experiences with a future incarnation of himself has informed his current self that within the next few decades most of the earth will be inundated with a flood that nearly wipes out humanity. Grim. The other is by a man who also has an out-of-body experience with a future self, but he says that humanity will successfully navigate the treacherous environmental waters we're currently in, and make remarkable leaps forward on all sorts of levels. Hopeful.
Which intuitive do you believe?
Fortunately, there is wisdom. Lorna Byrne, who has seen and spoken with angels since she was an infant, says the angels have shown her MANY possible futures, some very dismal, others very hopeful, and most somewhere inbetween. She is told that humanity has currently steered away from complete devastation and extinction, so that's good news, but still how do we know what's going on with all of these possibilities?
When people see a vision, or are shown something in the future through their third eye, (or merge with a future self), that future is never set in stone. Whatever is seen is most likely probable not predictive. It all depends on how high the probability is set. Daskalos, a healer from Cyprus and considered the great Christian mystic of the past century, talked about personal karma only being set about 1-3 days out, and even then you couldn't be absolutely certain. Otherwise, with free will and personal choices, people can change the future. The future is simply a complex matrix of probabilities. Anything is possible, but not everything is probable.
Here's an example. Last summer, before I was going to go on a mini-vacation to Cannon Beach, Oregon, I had a psychic dream. For me a psychic dream (see my e-zine this month for the explanation of different dream states) means my third eye opens while I'm asleep and I start to see future probabilities. In this particular psychic dream, I saw myself driving my car and then T-boning another car. Yikes.
And indeed, that weekend, as I was driving to the Oregon coast, a driver whose car was parked on the side of the road in a random spot, suddenly and inexplicably reversed, directly in front of and perpendicular to me, while I was driving at 35 mph. Why she did this was beyond me. I wasn't the only car on the road, so she must not have looked at all to see if it was safe to stick her car out into oncoming traffic.
So here I was facing the exact same scene I had seen in my psychic dream. She was stopped right in front of me and it looked like there was nowhere for me to go: To the left was a big berm with a semi-truck parked beside it and I was driving on a one-lane section of the road that to the right had a large, high curb. So my only option other than hitting her was to try to swerve into the narrow pull-off where she had suddenly pulled out of. Thus, while slamming on my brakes and blaring my horn, I turned to the right to try to avoid t-boning her. Then, suddenly, she put it in drive and gunned it back into the turn off spot, right where I was now headed! I had to quickly swerve to the left in order not to t-bone her (again).
Yes, it was what I had seen in my third eye, except that my quick maneuvering worked. I didn't T-bone her. Thankfully. I was able to get around her and continue on. The probability of crashing into her had been extremely high considering my speed and how closely she had suddenly shot out in front of me with no warning. However, what I had seen in my third eye still wasn't predictive. Perhaps because of what I had seen in my third eye, I was given a soul warning and it caused me to react more quickly. I don't know that for sure, but I do know that I didn't hit her and very easily could have. Regardless, my psychic dream showed a probability but it was not predictive at 100%.
When any intuitive reads your future energy, they are also reading probabilities based on where you are at spiritually and energetically at the time of the reading (as well as where THEY are spiritually and energetically—they may not be able to see some possibilities, may misinterpret others...) However, if your personal choices tomorrow go in a different direction than whatever trajectory you are currently on, your future possibilities and probabilities change.
There may be some absolutes that are set in your lifetime. Your soul may have chosen to meet one or more soulmates from previous lives. Your soul may have set up certain conditions to help you work through karma and learn certain spiritual lessons. However, your response is not set. You can choose. You do choose. All the time. You might in fact meet a soulmate, as your soul predetermined, but you decide not to marry or befriend that person for any number of reasons. You might have a chance to go in many career directions, but because you've chosen one particular one, say counseling, your spiritual lessons are unique to that profession.
Each and every choice you make alters your future, and this is true with humanity's future as well. This may be a relief to some of you, but might cause others of you to worry. But no worries, no matter what you choose, you (and we all) will in time, in lifetimes, and in the multi-dimensional universes, work everything out in the way that is exactly right. And you can always ask for help and guidance, and commit your way to the highest and best for you and all. Remember that you, the True You, is always ultimately and eternally safe, no matter what you choose, no matter what happens. The True You shines into infinity and beyond. All past, present, and future choices and circumstances dissolve into the Love you and we all are.
From, You are Light, p. 87.


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Kennebec Arsenal buildings in Augusta get new roofs
Workers are taking steps to make six of the seven buildings tucked between the former Augusta Mental Health Institute campus and the Kennebec River secure from vandals and weather.
By Keith EdwardsKennebec Journal
AUGUSTA — New roofs top several of the historic Kennebec Arsenal buildings that otherwise stand idle along the Kennebec River, awaiting private development.
The roofing work is the most visible, but not the only, improvement made to the property recently by contractors working for would-be Arsenal developer Tom Niemann, a North Carolina man who bought the property from the state in 2007. It is a designated National Historic Landmark that has been described as among the state's most endangered historic properties.
High Maintenance: Workers replace the roof on the South Burleigh building at the Kennebec Arsenal. Photo by Joe Stanton
Awaiting a purpose: This file photo taken on Oct. 23 shows the Kennebec Arsenal, on the east bank of the Kennebec River in Augusta. Staff photo by Joe Phelan
While a lawsuit filed by the state against Niemann's companies alleging he has failed to maintain or preserve the property still looms, state officials have been in communication with Niemann as he has had work done on the property to make sure it meets historic preservation standards. Also, lawyers for both the state and Niemann have agreed to extend deadlines related to the lawsuit as they seek an alternative resolution to the litigation.
Meanwhile, workers are taking steps to make six of the seven primarily stone-walled buildings tucked between the former Augusta Mental Health Institute campus and the Kennebec River secure from vandals and weather-tight. Buildings with new roofs include the small gatehouse and larger commandant's quarters, and the riverfront North Burleigh. The portion of the South Burleigh building's roof that is covered with shingles has been replaced, and the slate portion is due for repair this week. Officials said the barracks building's slate roof also will be repaired this week. The roof of the Old Max building was in good enough shape that it didn't need to be replaced.
Kathleen "Sukey" Sikora, an Augusta resident who is working as Niemann's project leader at the arsenal, said after this week every building at the complex other than the large, stately, but neglected, Burleigh building will have a good roof.
"What we're focusing on now is preservation, not development, first," said Sikora, who said she is in constant communication with Niemann. "Getting the buildings so they're secure and weather-tight."
That has included the new roofs as well as sealing windows, some of which have new glass; others are covered with boards.
Sikora said work on the big Burleigh building is on hold at least until masonry that is at risk of falling off is made safe. She said the building will need a significant amount of work.
State officials said the lawsuit will continue.
"While the state is pleased Mr. Niemann has been making some necessary repairs following the filing of our lawsuit, there is still much work that needs to be done," said Jennifer Smith, director of legislative affairs and communications for the state Department of Administrative and Financial Services. "The state is scheduled to have a supervised mediation session on this matter later this month and will continue the lawsuit and discussions to resolve the issues at the arsenal as appropriate."
Other work completed at the arsenal, according to Sikora, included new basement steps, a door and floor jacks to stabilize the gatehouse until more structural work can take place at the building, which Niemann plans to renovate soon into offices for his firm.
"The gatehouse was literally collapsing, because of a gaping hole in the roof and bad drainage that made the basement a swamp," Sikora said. "So the gatehouse has been saved."
Work also included the restoration of electricity to the gatehouse, the commandant's quarters and Old Max. That allows security cameras to function and keep an eye on the property, which has been hit by extensive vandalism, including the removal of copper piping.
"Copper thieves did a number on this whole complex," Sikora said. "For $400 worth of copper, they did $80,000 in damage."
Sikora said after work on the gatehouse is complete, which could be within a couple of months, the building most ready for development is the barracks, which was used for state offices more recently than the other arsenal buildings. She said the plan for the barracks, which could change if tenants express interest in something different, is to develop two residential units upstairs and office or retail space on the first floor.
However, the unresolved lawsuit, which the state filed after years of officials' frustration that Niemann wasn't developing, maintaining or preserving the property to their liking, remains a factor. The lawsuit seeks to compel Niemann to maintain the property or, if he cannot, possibly to have the property turned back over to the state.
"The lawsuit is hampering progress," Sikora said. "Investors and tenants are skittish because of it, but Tom is confident that will be resolved once they see how much preservation work has been done."
In a motion approved Oct. 21 by Justice Michaela Murphy, lawyers for both sides agreed to postpone scheduled mediation of the lawsuit for 40 days, to Nov. 25, as discussions toward a resolution continues, and have until Dec. 4 to complete the mediation.
"The parties have been engaged in significant discussions relating to potential resolution of this matter and are working to narrow the issues that exist between them," the motion states.
Sikora said Mike Johnson and other officials from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission have been helpful, approving work to make sure it is up to historic preservation standards, and assisting her in dealing with related "red tape."
She said the work has been expensive, but that Niemann did not want to disclose specifics about the cost.
The arsenal is considered by some preservationists to be one of the best and earliest surviving examples of 19th-century munitions depots in the country.
It was built from 1828 to 1838.
In August, Maine Preservation designated the property as among the state's most endangered historic properties.
Keith Edwards — 621-5647
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Kent Thompson is a New York freelance guitar player. He has played locally and internationally over 20 years. He began his music career in Australia where he studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. While in Australia, Kent played bars, clubs and and made TV appearances with various bands and acts. Kent moved to London and continued to freelance. He has performed from Asia through Europe and North Africa. He is also available for private lessons and new projects. Stay tune for the new record.


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Rudolf Basedau (* 20. November 1897 in Geesthacht; † 23. Oktober 1975) war ein deutscher Politiker der SPD.

Leben und Beruf
Nach Volksschule und Lehre arbeitete Basedau bei der Deutsche Werft AG im Werk Geesthacht-Düneberg. Dort wurde er Vorarbeiter, Betriebsmeister und schließlich Schichtleiter. Er lebte zeitlebens in seiner Geburtsstadt Geesthacht. Danker und Lehmann-Himmel charakterisieren ihn in ihrer Studie über das Verhalten und die Einstellungen der Schleswig-Holsteinischen Landtagsabgeordneten und Regierungsmitglieder der Nachkriegszeit in der NS-Zeit als "oppositionell / gemeinschaftsfremd".

Partei
Basedau beteiligte sich 1945 an der Wiedergründung der SPD. Von 1950 an war er Ortsvorsitzender seiner Partei in Geesthacht.

Abgeordneter
Basedau war von 1950 bis 1967 Landtagsabgeordneter in Schleswig-Holstein. Dort vertrat er zunächst den Wahlkreis Lauenburg-Süd und ab 1954 den Wahlkreis Lauenburg-Stormarn. Von 1962 bis 1967 war er stellvertretender Vorsitzender des Eingabenausschusses.

Ehrungen
Am 30. Dezember 1966 wurde Basedau auf Vorschlag der Landesregierung das Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse des Bundesverdienstkreuzes verliehen.

Weblinks

Einzelnachweise

Landtagsabgeordneter (Schleswig-Holstein)
Träger des Bundesverdienstkreuzes 1. Klasse
SPD-Mitglied
Person (Geesthacht)
Deutscher
Geboren 1897
Gestorben 1975
Mann

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Deloitte suggests China will use blockchain 'strategically'
The Big Four accounting and auditing firm has revealed China's increasingly encouraging opinion on blockchain technology in a recent research report
Oliver Knight
Blockchain technology will be used strategically instead of tactically by China, according to a recent report by Big Four auditing firm Deloitte.
The firm surveyed 1,386 respondents across 11 countries, including 200 in China, to shed light on the attitudes surrounding cryptocurrency and digital assets.
The survey shows that 73% of Chinese enterprises believe that blockchain is a top-five strategic priority, a figure that is "substantially higher" than most other countries in the sample.
"Some 34% of respondents 'strongly' believe in the disruptive potential of blockchain, more than most countries in our sample," the report adds.
"This is important, given China's place in the global economy and the leadership role it has assumed in the Asia-Pacific region."
6 questions organizations should be asking about #blockchain https://t.co/jJmWoblTRW
— Deloitte (@Deloitte) June 27, 2019
"China, more than anywhere else in the world, will use blockchain strategically instead of tactically," says Paul Sin, consulting partner at Deloitte Advisory (Hong Kong) and leader of Deloitte's Asia-Pacific blockchain lab.
"More projects are driven by top management, who use blockchain as a strategic weapon rather than a productivity tool."
China's relationship with blockchain technology has been intriguing, with a ban being issued on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and Bitcoin-to-fiat exchanges in late 2017.
However, China has recently shown a lighter approach to blockchain technology, exemplified by social media giants WeChat partnering with Coin Rivet earlier this year.
Also, in spite of cryptocurrencies being banned in 2017, the Financial Times reported that China filed more blockchain patents than any other country in the same year – a move that undoubtedly shows its interest in the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies.
For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here.
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The Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) has announced the launch of a new regulatory sandbox containing specific guidelines for cryptocurrency and digital token issuance. The news comes after...
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Oil buyers steer clear of Venezuela over Petro payments
Buyers of Venezuelan crude oil have stopped dealing with the South American nation after officials started demanding payment of port fees in the country's controversial Petro cryptocurrency. Sources told...
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New Hampshire's proposal to accept Bitcoin for tax payments fails
New Hampshire's innovative state legislation that would have allowed state agencies to accept cryptocurrencies as payment for taxes has been retracted. The state House of Representatives announced the retraction...


text:
Q: Basic, putting select option by a choose from an another select

         <fieldset>
                <legend>D'où venez-vous ?</legend>

Pays:
            <select id="pays">
                    <option value="1">Canada</option>
                    <option value="1">France</option>
            </select>

Ville:<select id="ville"onclick="myFunction()">
 </select>

             </fieldset>

Basically, what I want to do is to put option on my second select called '' ville '', When i choose Canada it will give me 3 city from that other select and vice versa for France. I'm not sure how to do this exercice. thanks. Should I use a for, or only if else conditions could work.

A: This would be a solution:

// Setting variables which cannot be redeclared
const pays = document.getElementById('pays');
const france = ['Paris', 'Lyon', 'Marseille'];
const canada = ['Toronto', 'Vancouver', 'Victoria'];

// If select element (#pays) changes
pays.addEventListener('change', () => {
  // France
  if (pays.value === 'France') {
    createElement(france);
  }
  // Canada
  else if (pays.value === 'Canada') {
    createElement(canada);
  }
});

// Create option elements
function createElement(country) {
  const ville = document.getElementById('ville');
  // Delete all values before adding new ones
  ville.innerHTML = '';

  // Use a loop for the array called "country"
  country.forEach((e) => {
    // Setting variables which could be redeclared within a block
    let option = document.createElement('option');
    let text = document.createTextNode(e);
    // Appen the element with text
    option.appendChild(text);
    ville.appendChild(option);
  })
}
<select id="pays">
  <option value="Canada">Canada</option>
  <option value="France">France</option>
</select>

<select id="ville">

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home » HOW EHS PROS USE THE INTERNET - 2006
HOW EHS PROS USE THE INTERNET - 2006
Dear Subscriber,
ISHNjust completed a study of 320 subscribers learning how they use the internet in all its permutations here in 2006. It's a chance to benchmark your own use of the 'Net against a random sampling of several hundred pros.
Here's what we learned:
Of course almost every EHS pro employs the internet as a tool of the trade - 97% according to our survey.
But they are not using it as much as you might think. Compared to Internet Usage surveys we conducted in the go-go boom years of the 'Net - the late '90s and circa 2000 before the bubble burst - the novelty has worn off and EHS pros are smarter users. Plus search engines have come a long ways.
So your typical EHS pro now spends only about one hour each workday using the internet to search for EHS-related information.
About 10% spend two hours each day. Very few spend more time than that.
The object of their searches has not changed over the years that the 'Net has been at their disposal. Compliance, compliance, compliance is the name of the internet search game. Eight of ten EHS pros say obtaining OSHA-related information is their number one objective.
That includes regulatory interpretations, MSDS specifics, enforcement data, and as one respondent described, "hazard and toxicology information beyond what's available on an MSDS."
No wonder OSHA's web site is by far the most popular destination for EHS pros on the 'Net. Almost nine of ten pros say they regularly visit OSHA's site. Imagine the traffic if the agency was more active in standards-setting...
EPA and NIOSH sites are noticeably less popular: about 39% of pros visit EPA's site regularly; 27% regularly hit the NIOSH site.
Organizations with loyal followings - professional associations and societies such as ASSE and AIHA, and safety magazines such asISHN- are other high-traffic sites.
How big of a headache is spam mail for you? The average EHS pro deletes about 20% of their daily emails without ever opening them. We thought the percentage would be higher; perhaps our spam filters or firewalls are not as effective as yours.
EHS newsletters abound on the 'Net. On average, 31% of EHS pros receive 1-2 newsletters per week; 26% receive 3-4; and 19% look forward to 5-6 each week. That's got to keep a lot of editors busy.
It's a whole different story for EHS blogs. The blogosphere in general may be expanding faster than American Idol's audience, but only 3% of EHS pros regularly visit an EHS blog. Practical pros have always been more interested in technical info than rants and raves.
Webcasts are mushrooming like e-newsletters and blogs, but at this point it is the minority of EHS pros who have participated. In the past year, only 13% paid to "attend" a webcast, while 30% attended a free webcast.
What's the hang-up with webcasts, even if they are free? Not enough time to participate, say 38% of pros. About 25% are not familiar with the technology. One survey respondent probably speaks for many when saying: "I want a face-to-face interaction."
Compliance, culture and getting employees more involved in safety and health processes are the subjects most likely to draw webcast audiences. Our survey respondents reported little interest in topics such as international EHS standards, emerging issues such as nanotechnology, and management systems such as the new ANSI Z10 voluntary standard.
As we said, EHS pros tend to be a practical-minded crowd. They want information today that they can apply tomorrow on the job.
Interest in and use of distance learning courses delivered over the internet seems to be mostly reserved for certified professionals seeking certification maintenance points. In the past year, only 22% of pros we surveyed have taken a distance learning course.
Future use of distance learning shows more promise than webcasts or audio conferences. Forty-four percent of pros plan to take a distance learning course in the next 2 years - compared to 13% who plan to participate in a future paid webcast and 13% who plan to register for a paid audio conference.
Secure web platforms inside an organization's firewall - intranet sites - are natural delivery mechanisms for safety and health applications, report more than half (54%) of our survey respondents.
Updating and posting company safety policies and manuals is the number one intranet app, cited by 80% of pros with access to an intranet site. Posting presentations, checklists and tracking injury reporting and training session attendance are other popular uses. About 46% of pros with intranet access say online training is delivered via the site.
In general, the overwhelming majority of safety and health training is still delivered in the classroom, according to our survey - 85% vs. 15% delivered online.
There's slightly greater acceptance in using the internet to manage MSDSs. About one-quarter of our respondents (26%) say they use an internet service to manage their MSDS inventory. About another 10% plan to switch over to online MSDS management in the next 2 years.
How Are You Using The Internet?
The great challenge confronting EHS pros
TECHNO-STRESS & EHS PROS
EHS WORLDWIDE HORIZONS: Savvy pros flag process problems


The Sweet Zodiac Astrology Cat Card measures 4.25" x 5.5" (10.5 cm x 14 cm) and is blank on the inside.
Cards are printed using archival Canon inks on 100% recycled cardstock. Each card comes with a coordinating envelope and is packaged in a compostable cellophane sleeve.


Chalet's Debbie Pants is a pull-on crop length pant with an elastic waistband. Made in a black and white stretch knit with a crackle pattern, the Debbie Pants fall above the ankle on most. Double ring tie closure patch pocket on either side. Slightly wide leg.
Small (S): Waist 26", Hips 38", Length 33", Inseam 22", Rise 13"
Medium (M): Waist 27", Hips 39", Length 33.5", Inseam 22", Rise 13.5"
Large (L): Waist 28", Hips 40", Length 34", Inseam 22.5", Rise 14"
Extra Large (XL): Waist 29", Hips 41", Length 34.5", Inseam 22.5", Rise 14.5"


text:
Q: Get legacy params[:action] to work in Rails I'm parsing a third-party API that send me a value on an unfortunately attribute called action. Since Rails reserves action param for controller actions, I'm getting create as value instead of the value they send me.
Is there any way to bypass this rails default just for this case so I can read the value the thid-party api is sending me?

A: This will help
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionDispatch/Request.html#method-i-request_parameters
You can get access to parameters using request.request_parameters() or something like that and use them.

A: You can either try request.POST or, as a final resort, parse request.raw_post.


text:
<?php

/* :default:index.html.twig */
class __TwigTemplate_c2f39bfdfcc49ffae4179ed32b35be9084d9ea7a95c58c469e91fc57ad03a2a2 extends Twig_Template
{
    public function __construct(Twig_Environment $env)
    {
        parent::__construct($env);

        // line 1
        $this->parent = $this->loadTemplate("base.html.twig", ":default:index.html.twig", 1);
        $this->blocks = array(
            'body' => array($this, 'block_body'),
        );
    }

    protected function doGetParent(array $context)
    {
        return "base.html.twig";
    }

    protected function doDisplay(array $context, array $blocks = array())
    {
        $this->parent->display($context, array_merge($this->blocks, $blocks));
    }

    // line 3
    public function block_body($context, array $blocks = array())
    {
        // line 4
        echo "    Homepage.
";
    }

    public function getTemplateName()
    {
        return ":default:index.html.twig";
    }

    public function isTraitable()
    {
        return false;
    }

    public function getDebugInfo()
    {
        return array (  31 => 4,  28 => 3,  11 => 1,);
    }
}
/* {% extends 'base.html.twig' %}*/
/* */
/* {% block body %}*/
/*     Homepage.*/
/* {% endblock %}*/
/* */

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
EconomyUS News
One-Third Of All Americans Don't Make Enough Money To Even Cover The Basic Necessities
Michael Snyder March 31, 2016 560 Views
Do you remember the days when it seemed like almost everyone in America was middle class? Unfortunately, those days are long gone and the grinding down of the middle class in the United States appears to be accelerating. According to a brand new study that was just released by Pew Charitable Trusts, household spending increased by 14 percent between 2004 and 2014, but median household income decreased by 13 percent during that same time period. Both of those figures were adjusted for inflation. What this means is that the cost of living has steadily gone up, but our incomes have gone down. In fact, as you will see below approximately one-third of all Americans don't even make enough money to pay for the basic necessities at this point. The middle class is being squeezed like never before, and very few of our leaders seem to care.
It isn't because we are buying a lot of luxuries that our expenses are going up. According to Pew, U.S. families are now spending a larger percentage of their budgets on the basics such as housing, food, health care and transportation than they were a decade ago. In fact, it has gotten to the point where approximately one-third of all Americans don't bring home enough money to cover the core necessities. The following comes from Zero Hedge…
However, according to a striking new Pew study while household spending has returned to pre-recession levels (the average household spent $36,800 in 2014) incomes have not.
Specifically, while the median income had fallen by 13% from 2004 levels over the next decade, expenditures had increased by nearly 14%. But nobody was more impacted than the one-third of households which the study defines as "low-income." Pew finds that while all households had less slack in their budgets in 2014 than in 2004, lower-income households went into the red by over $2,300.
In other words, approximately one third of American households were no longer able to cover the core necessities – food, housing and transportation – with average income.
A decade ago, U.S. households in the bottom third of the income scale still had an average of $1,500 left over each year after paying for the basic necessities of life.
But today, those same households are $2,300 in the red after paying for the basic necessities of life. Perhaps this is one reason why credit card debt in this country has hit a new all-time high.
Families in the middle third of the income scale are being squeezed as well. A decade ago those households had $17,000 left over each year after paying for the basic necessities, but now that number has fallen to just $6,000.
And of course most of that "discretionary income" is rapidly spent on other things such as entertainment. As a result, most American families find themselves living on the financial edge…
Previous Pew research found that one in three American families overall have no savings. And even among households with incomes of over $100,000, 1 in 10 say they are in that situation.
At this point, the typical U.S. household "cannot replace even one month of income with liquid savings".
So what is going to happen when things get really tough in this country?
What are people going to fall back on?
And already the job losses are starting. The energy industry has lost more than 100,000 good paying middle class jobs since the start of last year, and just today we learned that Boeing could be laying off as many as 8,000 workers. The following comes from the Seattle Times…
Since Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Ray Conner announced a drive to cut the workforce six weeks ago, his team has taken steps expected to eliminate 4,000 jobs by June — and that may be only halfway towards the total cuts this year.
An internal Boeing document obtained by the Seattle Times reveals that at least one company unit is targeting a 10 percent workforce reduction overall.
And people with knowledge of what's planned say that's roughly the percentage of jobs expected to be cut statewide.That would translate to as many as 8,000 jobs being eliminated.
Sadly, this is probably just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.
Just look at the following chart from Zero Hedge. Employment levels almost always follow changes in corporate profits, and right now corporate profits are falling dramatically…
America is heading for much harder times, and this is something that I discuss in my new book. Just like last time around, large numbers of workers with little to no cushion to fall back on are going to find themselves in desperate situations when they lose their jobs. Millions of Americans will go from living comfortable middle class lifestyles to facing an existence of poverty and despair very, very rapidly.
All of this is just the acceleration of a trend that has been playing out over the past several decades. The middle class in America is being systematically destroyed, and I want to share with you once again some key numbers that prove this point that come from one of my previous articles…
#1 For the first time ever recorded, middle class Americans make up a minority of the population. But back in 1971, 61 percent of all Americans lived in middle class households.
#2 According to the Pew Research Center, the median income of middle class households declined by 4 percent from 2000 to 2014.
#3 The Pew Research Center has also found that median wealth for middle class households dropped by an astounding 28 percent between 2001 and 2013.
#4 In 1970, the middle class took home approximately62 percent of all income. Today, that number has plummeted to just 43 percent.
#5 There are still 900,000 fewer middle class jobsin America than there were when the last recession began, but our population has gotten significantly larger since that time.
#6 According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#7 For the poorest 20 percent of all Americans, median household wealth declined from negative 905 dollars in 2000 to negative 6,029 dollars in 2011.
#8 A recent nationwide survey discovered that 48 percent of all U.S. adults under the age of 30 believe that "the American Dream is dead".
#9 At this point, the U.S. only ranks 19th in the world when it comes to median wealth per adult.
#10 Traditionally, entrepreneurship has been one of the engines that has fueled the growth of the middle class in the United States, but today the level of entrepreneurship in this country is sitting at an all-time low.
#11 If you can believe it, the 20 wealthiest people in this country now have more money than the poorest 152 million Americans combined.
#12 The top 0.1 percent of all American families haveabout as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.
#13 If you have no debt and you also have ten dollars in your pocket, that gives you a greater net worth than about 25 percent of all Americans.
#14 The number of Americans that are living in concentrated areas of high poverty has doubled since the year 2000.
#15 An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.
#16 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percentof all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month, and nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.
#17 In 2007, about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.
#18 According to Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, the authors of a new book entitled "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America", there are 1.5 million "ultrapoor" households in the United States that live on less than two dollars a day. That number has doubled since 1996.
#19 46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out.
#20 The number of homeless children in the U.S. has increased by 60 percent over the past six years.
#21 According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year.
#22 The median net worth of families in the United States was $137, 955 in 2007. Today, it is just $82,756.
So is there any hope for the middle class in America?
Please feel free to share what you think by leaving a comment below…
Article reposted with permission from End of the American Dream.
Take a look at the future of America: The Beginning of the End and then prepare.
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text:
Home » World News » Pope urges foreign media…
Pope urges foreign media to use power of press to seek truth
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis urged foreign correspondents on Saturday to humbly use the power of the press to…
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis urged foreign correspondents on Saturday to humbly use the power of the press to search for the truth and give voice to the voiceless, saying journalism is an important tool to counter the hatred, prejudice and fake news.
In an audience with the Foreign Press Association in Rome, Francis also urged journalists to not fall prey to sending click-bait headlines and half-reported stories, saying errors can not only misrepresent the truth but damage entire communities.
He lamented attacks on journalists around the globe and assured reporters that the Catholic Church at large appreciated their work "even when you touch a raw nerve, including within the ecclesial community."
While Francis meets with journalists regularly during his foreign trips, it was the first time a pope has received the Foreign Press Association, which represents journalists from more than 50 countries, since St. John Paul II in 1988.
Francis kept his distance from the press in his native Argentina. But in the past year, he and his aides have repeatedly praised the role of the media in exposing the clergy abuse scandal and for reporting about the plight of migrants, "forgotten wars" and other cases of human suffering.
"We need journalists who are on the side of victims, on the side of those who are persecuted, excluded, thrown away and discriminated against," Francis told the roughly 400 journalists and their families in the frescoed Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace.
"We need you and your work to not forget so many situations of suffering that often are in the dark, or have light shining for a moment only to return to the darkness of indifference," he said.
The association's president, Patricia Thomas of The Associated Press, told Francis that more and more journalists are being killed, threatened and imprisoned for merely reporting the news. But she said the threats weren't merely physical.
"Today in many parts of the world, journalists are being discredited daily, accused of spreading fake news that is really just news that people in power don't like," she said. "This process of delegitimization has had a corrosive effect, the dangers of which are obvious."
Francis said a free press was indispensable to guard against authoritarianism.
"Let's not forget that in dictatorships, one of the first things they do is take away the freedom of the press or 'mask' and not allow a free press."
But Francis also urged humility in reporting, saying reporters who think they know everything before they start out aren't doing their job. And he warned against parroting the hatred, vitriol and prejudices in the current public discourse, urging instead calibrated language that respects the dignity of all.
Thomas invited Francis to visit the association's headquarters, on the appropriately named Via del'Umilta — Humble Street — and gave him an honorary press card to get in the door.


Have you just adopted a new furry friend or are looking at it and aren't sure what to expect? Here are some helpful resources we've put together for things you might encounter. If you have any questions at all, feel free to contact us!
Tips for the first 30 days of cat adoption.
Introducing your new pet to your other animals.
Animal Planet's General Cat Care Tips.
Jackson Galaxy has some great information! From quirky tips and tricks to getting to the bottom of behavior issues, you can find a ton of useful information here.
Kitten Lady has amazing information on fostering kittens! From supply lists to bottle feeding, we appreciate all the work she has put into educating people and saving kitten lives!
Duquesne University also has some great cat tips, from choosing the right cat, to caring for your cat, and even information on bottle feeding kittens!
*Special thanks to Beth, Mia & Ella for finding some of these resources for us!


text:
Q: How do I negate the $.is function in jQuery? jQuery has a function called 'is' that checks for a given property, for example:
$('#article').is(':visible')

This will check if div#article is visible.
However I can't find the is-not function. I'd like to write:
$('#article').is-not(':visible')

What is it?
I checked the docs and found .not but I realized that .not does something completely different than the ".is-not" function that I'm looking for.

A: 1. To negate any expression, apply the logical not operator, !:
!$('#article').is(':visible')
2. Or you could use the :not() selector...
$('#article').is(":not(:visible)")
3. Options 1 & 2 are general solutions which will work to negate any selector provided to is(). In this particular case, you can test if an element is not :visible by testing if it is :hidden...
$('#article').is(":hidden")

Samples:

var $a = $("#article");
console.log("logical not: %s", !$a.is(":visible"));
console.log("not selector: %s",$a.is(":not(:visible)"));
console.log("hidden selector: %s", $a.is(":hidden"));


Continues the subject of the preceding Sonnet. The poet has no merits worthy of deep grief or prolonged remembrance. He feels ashamed of his productions; and his friend ought to have the same feeling.
8. Than niggard truth. -- Than strict truth.
9, 10. Lest your true love, &c. -- Lest the reality of your love for me should be questioned or denied, when the falsity of your eulogies has been detected.
12. And live no more, &c. Since the poet's name would recall the poet's works.
Shakespeare, William. Sonnets. Ed. Thomas Tyler. London: D. Nutt, 1890. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2013. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/72.html >.


text:
Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters Bomber Jacket
Decrease quantity for Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters Bomber Jacket
Increase quantity for Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters Bomber Jacket
There are a few individuals in the professional world today who have the fortitude and the will to stand up against the prejudice that permeates the free world. Foremost among these people are the teachers and educators, who seek to make a better world through education and enlightenment. Much like what Professor Charles Xavier envisioned when he put up a school for mutants, the logo of which is proudly displayed on the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters Bomber Jacket.
Prejudice, hatred, and bigotry have become commonplace in the world we live in, and among the few institutions where these evil things are not allowed are schools, and this is why mutants flock to Professor Xavier's school, so that they may better themselves through education and training. Faculty and school personnel actually wear the likeness of this bomber jacket as a uniform.
In a world filled with hate and ignorance, the only viable solution for survival is education, which is why the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters remains the one shining beacon of hope for humans everywhere, without which mutants would need to learn to hide to stay alive, or fight for their continued survival. This bomber jacket carries with it the symbol that stands for hope, refuge, and enlightenment for many mutants.