Prompt: Get the biggest Manchester United FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Sergio Romero loves Louis van Gaal so much that he was once quite literally prepared to smash through a brick wall for the man he regards as his second father. Romero, the Argentine keeper who has replaced David De Gea in Manchester United’s team for the first two games of the Premier League season, became so enraged after making the mistake that saw Van Gaal’s AZ Alkmaar team

knocked out of the Dutch Cup that he punched a dressing-room wall. His anger left him with a hand so badly broken that he missed the climax of his club’s incredible 2009 Eredivisie title triumph. Van Gaal branded Romero a fool. But that didn’t prevent the United boss from asking the 28-year-old if he was interested in a mutual rescue mission when De Gea’s refusal to sign a new contract began to give United a problem earlier this summer. “I am back with my old manager and I am so happy,” said Romero. (Image: AFP/Getty) “I owe Louis van Gaal so much. I will tell you what I told the boss the first time we worked together: that when you have an Argentine in your team, you get a never-give-up mentality. “I find it incredible that I am now at this club after the year that I have had. I wasn’t wanted anywhere else, but I am coming towards the strongest and best part of my football life.” When Van Gaal took Romero to Alkmaar in 2007, he had a rule at the club that the players could only talk Dutch. It was then that the keeper discovered a side to the disciplinarian Dutchman that will surprise many. (Image: Michael Regan) Romero recalled: “I was told that Van Gaal only allowed the players to speak Dutch – and that the rule was not broken for anyone. “I felt as if I had arrived in a complete new world in Holland. I’d spent my entire youth with my first club, Racing Club in Argentina. “But then I found out that the coach was not as hard as everyone had said. “He helped me by speaking to me in Spanish every day, talking in a very quiet voice so that the other


Prompt: CocoRosie / Busdriver Venue, Vancouver BC, October 24 Photo: Alan Ranta Published Oct 25, 2013 9 Surrealism was in the air as the CocoRosie faithful came out in force, as hippy-gypsy Renaissance Fair ladies in frilly dresses that looked like they walked out of the freak-folk duo's liner notes filled Venue to capacity.With skeletons and mummies hanging from the ceiling to light the Halloween spirit, and a clothesline stretched across the stage, Los Angeles rapper Regan Farquhar (a.k.a. Busdriver) warmed the crowd up with a solo set. He tweaked beats ranging from hard house to symphonic glitch over which he

laid his signature cerebral flows, delivered at a breakneck pace that could rival Busta Rhymes in his prime. While obviously talented, Farquhar seemed almost schizophrenic, alternately dazzling and befuddling as he attempted to engage the distracted crowd with hard-stop teasers and beckons to the crowd for responses.Upping the theatrics, CocoRosie sisters Bianca and Sierra Casady, along with multi-instrumentalist Takuya Nakamura and ace beatboxer TEZ, took the stage wearing stripy muumuus, the first of many costumes they'd move through. Sierra would rock lingerie, an apron, and a sequin geometric tutu, while Bianca put on a Twin Rivers t-shirt from the clothesline, a top hat, overalls, a "Pride" baseball hat, and saggy bottom jogging pants, with both later donning the tribal masks from their "We Are On Fire" video.Their performance went far beyond costumes, though: Nakamura played a Nord keyboard, upright piano, and trumpet, among other things; Sierra spent time between harp, piano, and vocal processors; and Bianca laid down bass lines on a Korg and performed various wind instruments. TEZ was the only musician who didn't change instruments between every song.Everything felt live and fresh. For all the dense soundscapes, they sprinkled in stunning minimal moments like when Bianca sang the majority of "Harmless Monster" from their recent albumwith just a piano accompaniment, or when TEZ nailed an awe-inspiring solo beatboxing exhibition mid-set, including his take on Ginuwine's "Pony."Their theatricality was something else. They played with the clothesline, or at least got caught up in it a couple times, and used a white vanity set to stage Broadway moments, fanning themselves there before an early costume change or reapplying makeup. With her creepy, childlike voice and hip-hop style, Bianca was reminiscent of Beth Gibbons, but Sierra earned MVP of this show; her opera training at the Conservatoire de Paris shined through,


Prompt: Bernie Sanders’ campaign ended months ago, but at least one Jewish participant in this reliably horrific presidential election still has the chance to make history on November 8th. According to an Emerson College poll published this week, Evan McMullin, the independent conservative candidate for president, holds a slim lead over Donald Trump in his home state of Utah, topping Trump 31% to 27%. If McMullin were to win The Beehive State, the ex-CIA agent and former director of the House Republican Conference would snag six entire electoral votes—as would his running mate, former Republican strategist (and, we should note, member

of the Tribe) Mindy Finn. This would be the first time since a maverick elector cast a vote for Libertarian John Hospers in 1972 that a third-party candidate took home an electoral tally, something that such one-time household names as John Anderson, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader couldn’t accomplish. (In an ironic reversal, the last third-party candidate to win a state was segregationist George Wallace in 1968.) It’s fitting that this election season could end with such a rarity. Anderson, Perot, and Nader were nationally prominent figures when they launched their independent bids for the presidency. But Perot, who got 19% of the popular vote in 1992, was up against incumbent president George H.W. Bush and charismatic Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. Anderson ran against the Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980. Third-party options aside, both elections offered a compelling binary choice between fairly traditional candidates. If McMullin and Finn win Utah, it would underscore the widespread dissatisfaction at the Republican and Democratic candidates, who at one point were the two least-popular presidential nominees in history. The unique dynamics of the 2016 race benefit McMullin in another respect: as Noah Feldman recently noted in Bloomberg View, solid-red Utah has seen through Donald Trump to a degree that few other places have, largely thanks to the state’s sizable Mormon population, a religious demographic that, Feldman notes, is “genuinely repulsed by Donald Trump.” Trump has exposed conservative ideology as being fluid and conditional for GOP voters and many of their elected leaders. Not so with Utah’s Mormons, who seem unwilling to lower their standards of moral behavior for the New York real estate developer’s benefit. Mormons are also sensitive to the scapegoating of other religious groups: As Feldman writes, the church came out forcefully against Trump’s proposed ban on all Muslim travel


Prompt: A team led by postdoctoral associate John Heron of Cornell University has developed a room-temperature magnetoelectric memory design that replaces power-hungry electric currents with an electric field. It could lead to low-power, instant-on computing devices. “The advantage here is low energy consumption,” Heron said. “It requires a low voltage, without current, to switch it. Devices that use currents consume more energy and dissipate a significant amount of that energy in the form of heat. That is what’s heating up your computer and draining your batteries.” The researchers made their device out of bismuth ferrite, which is both magnetic and ferroelectric,

meaning it’s always electrically polarized; and that polarization can be switched by applying an electric field. This rare combination makes it a “multiferroic” material, allowing for it to be used for nonvolatile memory devices with relatively simple geometries. Other scientists have demonstrated similar results with competing materials, but at impractical cold temperatures, like 4 Kelvin (-452 Fahrenheit). Their results were published online Dec. 17 in Nature, along with an associated “News and Views” article. Collaborators from the University of Connecticut; University of California, Berkeley; Tsinghua University; and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich where also involved in the research, which was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science. Abstract of Deterministic switching of ferromagnetism at room temperature using an electric field The technological appeal of multiferroics is the ability to control magnetism with electric field1, 2, 3. For devices to be useful, such control must be achieved at room temperature. The only single-phase multiferroic material exhibiting unambiguous magnetoelectric coupling at room temperature is BiFeO3 (refs 4 and 5). Its weak ferromagnetism arises from the canting of the antiferromagnetically aligned spins by the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya (DM) interaction6, 7, 8, 9. Prior theory considered the symmetry of the thermodynamic ground state and concluded that direct 180-degree switching of the DM vector by the ferroelectric polarization was forbidden10, 11. Instead, we examined the kinetics of the switching process, something not considered previously in theoretical work10, 11, 12. Here we show a deterministic reversal of the DM vector and canted moment using an electric field at room temperature. First-principles calculations reveal that the switching kinetics favours a two-step switching process. In each step the DM vector and polarization are coupled and 180-degree deterministic switching of magnetization hence becomes possible, in agreement with experimental observation. We exploit


Prompt: LOS ANGELES, Calif. - An artist is making it difficult to believe there's actually a copy of Justin Bieber's latest album for sale in Los Angeles. Paz Dylan, a 25-year-old electronic musician and artist known only as Paz, says he planted 5,000 copies of an album that appears to be Bieber's "Believe" but actually contains a copy of Dylan's own CD. The fakes appeared at retailers such as Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart on Tuesday, April Fools' Day. "We were meticulous," said Paz, who fancies the stunt as more of a performance art piece than a gag. "We paid a

lot of attention to detail because we wanted these to stay up on shelves as long as possible." The wrapped CDs resemble "Believe" right down to the bar code and silky Bieber portrait on the cover. However, Paz's artwork is on the inside of the back cover, and the disc itself is slathered with images of cats, pizzas and a dog stuffed inside a taco. The CD itself contains the 13 tracks from Paz's synth-heavy independent release "From the Bottom of My Heart to the Top of Your Lungs." The only differentiating factor is that Paz's subversive CD package lacks the kind of sticker that usually covers the top of a CD case, which is found beneath the wrapper of most unopened albums. The Associated Press independently verified the stunt by purchasing random copies of what looked like Bieber's "Believe" from widely scattered Los Angeles-area locations such as a Wal-Mart in Baldwin Hills, Target in Burbank and Best Buy stores in West Hollywood and Culver City. In each instance, the CDs were scanned and paid for as if they were Bieber CDs. But when they were opened outside the store, each contained a copy of Paz's album, not Bieber's. "Although Mr. Dylan is clearly not a Belieber, we know that many of our customers are, and we are taking care of those who didn't get what they intended to purchase," said Best Buy spokeswoman Carly Morris. Target spokesman Evan Lapiska said the company was aware of the claim and was investigating the matter, while Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah McKinney said customers could return the CD for a full refund or the real version. "We know that every great artist wants to get on the shelf at Wal-Mart, but there's a right way to do it," said McKinney. "All of our L.A.


Prompt: Persons using assistive technology might not be able to fully access information in this file. For assistance, please send e-mail to: mmwrq@cdc.gov. Type 508 Accommodation and the title of the report in the subject line of e-mail. Abortion Surveillance --- United States, 2007 Please note: An erratum has been published for this article. To view the erratum, please click here. Karen Pazol, PhD Suzanne B. Zane, DVM Wilda Y. Parker Laura R. Hall, MPH Sonya B. Gamble, MS Saeed Hamdan, MD, PhD Cynthia Berg, MD Douglas A. Cook, MBIS Division of Reproductive Health National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and

Health Promotion, CDC Corresponding address: CDC, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Reproductive Health, 1600 Clifton Rd., NE, MS K-21, Atlanta, GA 30333. E-mail: cdcinfo@cdc.gov. Abstract Problem/Condition: Since 1969, CDC has conducted abortion surveillance to document the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions in the United States. Reporting Period Covered: 2007. Description of System: Each year, CDC requests abortion data from the central health agencies of 52 reporting areas (the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and New York City). This information is provided voluntarily. For 2007, data were received from 49 reporting areas. For the purpose of trend analysis, data were evaluated from the 45 areas that reported data every year during the preceding decade (1998--2007). Abortion rates (number of abortions per 1,000 women) and ratios (number of abortions per 1,000 live births) were calculated using census and natality data, respectively. Results: A total of 827,609 abortions were reported to CDC for 2007. Among the 45 reporting areas that provided data every year during 1998--2007, a total of 810,582 abortions (97.9% of the total) were reported for 2007; the abortion rate was 16.0 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15--44 years, and the abortion ratio was 231 abortions per 1,000 live births. Compared with 2006, the total number and rate of reported abortions decreased 2%, and the abortion ratio decreased 3%. Reported abortion numbers, rates, and ratios were 6%, 7%, and 14% lower, respectively, in 2007 than in 1998. Women aged 20--29 years accounted for 56.9% of all abortions in 2007 and for the majority of abortions during the entire period of analysis (1998--2007). In 2007, women aged 20--29 years also had the highest abortion rates (29.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 20--24 years and 21.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 25--29


Prompt: Obama administration efforts to train laid-off coal miners and their spouses for the “jobs of the future” are turning out to be somewhat of a double-edged sword. A new report by the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank found some coal miners have successfully gotten jobs in other industries, but the report also hints that those re-employed miners are making way less than before. The Cleveland Fed reported an electrical lineman program at Hazard Community and Technical College had successfully retrained 124 laid-off miners by fall 2015. That program had a job placement rate of 90 percent, but it had a couple

drawbacks. “Many graduates travel outside the region for work during the week and return on the weekends. Demand for the electrical lineman program is high (there is a two-semester waiting list) because students exiting the program earn, on average, $20 per hour,” the Cleveland Fed reported. A $20 an hour wage comes out to a $41,600 annual salary. That’s a little over half the average $72,000 a year salary of Kentucky coal miners. The U.S. Labor Department has spent $14 million to the Hiring Our Miners Everyday, or HOME, program in Eastern Kentucky where thousands of coal miners have lost their jobs, in part, due to increasing federal energy regulations. It’s part of President Barack Obama’s plan to revitalize dying coal communities. Obama promised $35 million to help “communities and workers successfully adapt to changes in the coal industry and power sector.” Obama administration regulations have been blamed for many of the job losses across Kentucky and the rest of coal country. Kentucky has been one of the hardest hit areas by the downturn in coal mining, losing 1,500 jobs in the first three months of 2016. That’s a 17 percent decline in coal employment. Kentucky lost 5,188 coal jobs during from 2008 to 2013 — a 31 percent reduction in the state’s coal mine workforce. So far the HOME program has “enrolled more than 3,000 laid-off coal miners and their spouses,” and 1,449 of them have gotten program support while undergoing retraining. “More than 1,100 have obtained new employment, while 90 participated in internships through the HOME program,” the Cleveland Fed reported. “Feedback from employers who are hiring workers who have been through the HOME program has been positive, too; EKCEP staff have heard ‘universally rave reviews about coal industry workers.’” Miners who have underwent jobs programs in Colorado


Prompt: A new national poll find that a majority of Americans support shifting funding away from Planned Parenthood to community health centers that don’t do abortions. Robert Morris University (RMU) conducted an extensive poll to discover the pro-life climate in the nation, gender and class differences in pro-life views, attitudes on supporting Planned Parenthood funding, and amount of awareness of the existence of the undercover videos. All respondents were asked which of three positions on abortion best reflected their own personal view: • 21.1 percent responded as “pro-life” and opposed to all abortions. • 32.4 percent responded as opposed to abortions

except for the exceptions of rape, incest and the mother’s health • 38.9 percent identified themselves as pro-choice. Age differences abounded: “44.6% of seniors identified as pro-choice, but only 29.2% of those under 45.” And these views seem to be reflected across socioeconomic lines too. The analysis reports: “Rich people are pro-choice; it’s a clear division”: Of those in a household which earns over $100,000 a year, 54/98 identify as “pro-choice,” or 55.1% Of those in a household which earns under $100,000 per year, 315/853 identify as “pro-choice,” or 36.92% Of those in households earning over $100,000 a year, 33/98 or 33.6% of respondents wanted to give Planned Parenthood funds to perform abortions Of those in households earning under $100,000 a year, only 253/853 or 29.66% of respondents wanted to give Planned Parenthood funds to perform abortions A strong contingent of Democrats want tax dollars to fund abortions specifically: • 17.4% of Republicans • 43.4% of Democrats • 30.8% of Independents The poll authors conclude: So about half of Democrat respondents venturing an opinion want taxpayer-funded abortions This is “pro-choice” in the sense of “abortion is a good thing” and therefore should be government funded (30.5% of all respondents think this) The results of this poll are more accurate than some polls reported by the media. According to a news release: Previous polling on the issue of funding Planned Parenthood has shown majority support for government funding of Planned Parenthood. But the RMU poll, conducted before a gunman killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, has a very different result: 53.3 percent support defunding Planned Parenthood, while 31.5 percent oppose it. The poll asked respondents if they would support or oppose a plan by U.S. Congressional Republicans to shift Planned Parenthood funds to community clinics that perform


Prompt: The men are receiving copies of letters addressed to the local prosecutor’s office and police departments, according to one of the letters obtained by the Kyiv Post. Kyiv’s Desnyansky District Military Commissar has admitted sending out the threatening letters that warn men they could face up to five years in jail for failing to appear for service. Vitaliy, a Kyiv resident, was shocked and scared when he received the curious letter. It was stapled to a utility bill and said he was ordered to attend a local recruitment office at a given date – even though he’d never been sent

an official draft notice, and no one from the local recruitment office had ever contacted him. He would not give his full name out of fear of receiving more pressure from military officials. Vitaliy is not the only one who has been sent such letters. They have been a hot topic on social media and forums, with users already sarcastically dubbing them “letters of happiness.” Activists and lawyers say the documents were drawn up incorrectly and are intended to bully the recipients. Although Vitaliy wasn’t the addressee of the letter, by appearances, a copy of it was sent to him merely because it concerns a legal case being made against him. In the correspondence, the military commissar asks prosecutors and police to open an investigation into Vitaliy, who “committed a crime, as defined in Article 336 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: being obliged to perform military service, he is evading it through inaction, and he failed to appear at the times set by the recruitment office without giving a valid excuse.” The letter also says that Vitaliy must be included on the “single register of citizens who are evading military service.” The document ended with the date on which Vitaliy should come to the recruitment office. Once the initial shock receded, Vitaliy consulted a lawyer. “The lawyer examined the document, and came to the unequivocal conclusion that there were, and are, no valid reasons for such accusations to be made,” Vitaliy told the Kyiv Post. Ihor Godetsky, another lawyer who has been consulted by dozens of men about similar letters, agrees – under current Ukrainian legislation, not a single military commissar has the authority to send out such documents. “The document that regulates the actions of the military is the Rule on the Military Commissariat, and it doesn’t contain


Prompt: The Rohingya Muslim crisis of Myanmar is fast becoming a thorn in the back of the Narendra Modi government, especially in the light of PM's recent Myanmar visit, where he refused to entertain the demands of Indian Muslims to raise the issue of alleged genocide of Rohingya Muslims being conducted by Myanmar Army and Buddhist civilians. Furious with the seeming lack of sympathy in the Union government towards the plight of the Rohingya Muslims, the Muslim community of the Braj region held angry protests against this 'genocide', terming it to be the worst crime against humanity being committed by the

government of Myanmar, in which Indian government was playing the role of a complicit partner by deciding to deport the Rohingya Muslim refugees from India. An effigy of the prime minister of Myanmar was burned at the Madarsa Moin-ul-Islam in Agra by the students and Madarsa teachers, demanding that the Myanmar government stop the genocide of Rohingya Muslims and the Indian government pressurizes the Bangladesh government into accepting the Rohingya refugees coming from Myanmar. Talking to India Today after the Friday Namaz, Rashtriya Sarvdaleey Muslim Action Committee President Haji Jameeluddin and Secretary Mohd. Shareef Kale said that it was very disappointing that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not raise any concerns over the mistreatment of Rohingya Muslims with the Myanmar government during his visit to that country. Haji Jameeluddin said that the most surprising statement came from Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, who called these refugees 'illegal immigrants', whereas there is a vast deal of difference between people crossing borders in search of better livelihood and those crossing the border to save the lives of their families. Irshad Pehelwan of Mathura warned the Myanmar government of dire consequences if the state-sponsored oppression of Rohingya Muslims did not stop there. Offering their prayers for the safety of the innocent Muslims, who were dying in the 'terrorist acts' of Myanmar military and police, the Muslims in Mathura demanded that the Indian government allow the Rohingya Muslims to seek asylum in India till their homeland was not restored to a peaceful state. Shayeed Patel of Firozabad, along with a large number of Muslims, burned an effigy of the Myanmar prime minister and gave a memorandum to the district administration, addressed to Prime Minister Modi, requesting Indian intervention in this humanitarian crisis. Muslim leader Mohd. Yaseen Qureshi said that the


Prompt: Fingerprint riddle leads to new call for Dr David Kelly inquest Found in woods: Dr David Kelly's possessions did not have any fingerprints on them Fresh information casting doubt on how weapons inspector Dr David Kelly died has been sent to the Government by campaigners trying to secure an inquest into his death. Attorney General Dominic Grieve was presented with legal papers on Monday arguing that because there were no fingerprints on five items found with Dr Kelly’s body – including the knife he supposedly used to kill himself – a coroner’s inquest must be held to determine how he

died. The information, covering dozens of legal and scientific points, was submitted by a group of doctors who believe Dr Kelly’s death has never been investigated properly. Mr Grieve will now consider if there is sufficient fresh evidence for a full examination of what remains one of the most notorious episodes of Tony Blair’s premiership. His decision is expected shortly. Dr Kelly, a world-renowned weapons inspector, is said to have killed himself after being named as the prime source of a BBC report accusing Blair’s government of lying to take Britain into the Iraq war. His body was found in woods close to his home in Oxfordshire on July 18, 2003. Uniquely, for an unexpected death such as his, no coroner’s inquest has ever been held. The public inquiry into his death chaired by Lord Hutton found that he killed himself after slashing his wrist with a blunt pruning knife and overdosing on painkillers. But Mr Grieve has been told by the doctors that they have established a range of fresh evidence questioning the official finding and highlighting several irregularities. They state that it has been established, using the Freedom of Information Act, that there were no fingerprints on five items found with Dr Kelly’s body: the knife, a watch, his mobile phone, an open water bottle and blister packs of pills he supposedly swallowed. In their legal papers, the doctors state: ‘It is submitted that to properly investigate the circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death, any coroner would be obliged to make inquiries as to why there were no fingerprints found, including for example seeking evidence on whether any tests were carried out to establish if anything had been used to attempt to erase fingerprint evidence. Fresh inquiry call: Body of the government scientist was found at Harrowdown Hill, Oxfordshire,


Prompt: Art museum in Nuevo Polanco, Mexico City The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City and a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City - Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto. It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, 19th- and 20th-century Mexican art and an extensive repertoire of works by European old masters and masters of modern western art such as Auguste Rodin, Salvador Dalí, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and Tintoretto. It is considered one of the most complete collections of its kind.[2][3] The museum is named after Soumaya

Domit, who died in 1999, and was the wife of the founder of the museum Carlos Slim.[4] The museum received an attendance of 1,095,000 in 2013, making it the most visited art museum in Mexico and the 56th in the world that year.[1] In October 2015, the museum welcomed its five millionth visitor.[5] Collection [ edit ] The Julián and Linda Slim gallery, Plaza Carso building, where much of the Rodin and Dali collection is displayed The Museo Soumaya has a collection of over 66,000 pieces of art. The majority of the art consists of European works from the 15th to the 20th centuries. It also holds Mexican art, religious relics, and historical documents and coins.[6] The museum contains the world's largest collection of pre-Hispanic and colonial era coins.[4] The museum holds the largest collection of casts of sculptures by Auguste Rodin outside France, and the world's largest private collection of his art.[7] Slim owns a total of 380 casts and works of art by Rodin. His late wife, whom he credits with teaching him much of what he knows about art, was an admirer of Rodin's work.[4] In addition to Rodin, some notable European artists whose work is displayed include Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, the circle of Leonardo da Vinci, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Joan Miró, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, El Greco, Camille Claudel, and Tintoretto.[6] The most valuable work of art in the collection is believed to be a version of Madonna of the Yarnwinder by a member of the circle of Leonardo da Vinci. Another version of the same painting has been valued at over £30 Million.[4] Several Mexican artists are also featured, including Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo.[7] The director of the museum has claimed that the total worth of the art


Prompt: Jess said she was sorry for getting her father into trouble (pic: MEN) A man who was arrested and cautioned for slapping his 13-year-old daughter across the face fears he will no longer be able to work with children. Jim McCullough, of Manchester, hit Jess after she banged a neighbour's window at midnight, and she called the police. He has now quit the football coaching and community work he has done for over 15 years, as the caution could stop him working with vulnerable children. Mr McCullough said he had never slapped Jess before. She has apologised. The father-of-four said

he felt striking Jess was the only way to get her to understand what she had done. The single parent, from Wythenshawe, said: "I wish I had asked for my day in court rather than accepted a police caution. "That way I could have explained that I was trying to do what was right for my daughter. I did deserve the slapping because of the things I'd been doing Jess McCullough "Jess isn't bad, but some of the 13-year-olds who live here do use drugs and drink and I don't want that path for her." Mr McCullough said he had had no trouble with his other three children Christopher, 22, Nicola, 21, and Joanna, 19. A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: "When an offence is admitted the offender is always liable to receive a caution. "Had the offence not been admitted, officers would have pursued the matter with the CPS. 'Wrong message' "An allegation of domestic violence was made and GMP officers always take these allegations very seriously." Mr McCullough previously had a clean criminal record and recently qualified as a security guard, but said his work prospects had been ruined. Jess, a year nine pupil at Parklands High School in Wythenshawe, said she was sorry for what had happened. She said: "I did deserve the slapping because of the things I'd been doing. "I was expecting my dad to come home from the police station and for everything to be the same as before." National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) policy manager Lucy Thorpe said: "All parents can sometimes be pushed to the limit by teenagers who are looking to see how far they can go but smacking won't solve the problem. "It simply tells your child that violence is acceptable and gives the message


Prompt: May 16, 2011 Doug Singsen and Rebecca Sun report on the energetic and angry teacher-led protests against budget cuts in New York and Los Angeles. LARGE AND lively teacher-led protests on Wall Street in New York and in downtown Los Angeles on successive days highlighted the growing anger over how budget cuts and layoffs are decimating public education. The spirit of the two protests recalled the February mass labor mobilization in Wisconsin over union-busting legislation. Though far smaller, the LA and New York demonstrations tapped into the same widespread anger at politicians for bailing out banks and the rest of

Corporate America during the financial crisis--and making school kids and teachers, and all working people, pay the price. On Thursday, May 12, close to 20,000 people invaded the financial district of downtown New York as part of a protest organized by unions and activist groups. The demonstration incorporated the demands of public-sector workers, students, immigrants and the homeless around the central demand: "Make big banks and millionaires pay." The protest also targeted the city's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, whose recently announced budget includes plans to fire 4,200 teachers, and close 20 fire stations and dozens of senior centers, among other cuts. Tens of thousands descended on Wall Street for a labor demonstration against budget cuts and layoffs (Alexander Super | SW) Antonia, a high school student in Manhattan, said, "I organized students from my high school to attend the rally, because at our school, we're already hurting. I don't know how future students will be able to succeed when we were already barely scraping by." May 12 was a major step forward for the anti-budget cuts movement in New York and brought together dozens of unions and activist groups, including the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), Transport Workers Union Local 100, Communication Workers of America (CWA) 1080, Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, the health care union 1199SEIU, New York Communities for Change, Picture the Homeless, Make the Road-New York, VOCAL-NY, Community Voices Heard, Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, Citizen Action, New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts and dozens more. The protest began at 4 p.m. at eight different assembly sites dedicated to teachers, students, transit/energy, peace, immigration, jobs, social services and housing. These feeder marches were originally supposed to converge on Wall Street at 5 p.m., where protesters would break up into 100 small teach-ins, before concluding with a closing rally.


Prompt: Think of it this way. Let's say the government suspects you are a terrorist and it has access to your Facebook account. If you're an American citizen, it can't do that currently (with certain exceptions)—but for the sake of argument. So all of your friends, that's one hop. Your friends' friends, whether you know them or not—two hops. Your friends' friends' friends, whoever they happen to be, are that third hop. That's a massive group of people that the NSA apparently considers fair game. For a sense of scale, researchers at the University of Milan found in 2011 that everyone

on the Internet was, on average, 4.74 steps away from anyone else. The NSA explores relationships up to three of those steps. (See our conversation with the ACLU's Alex Abdo on this.) Inglis' admission didn't register among the members of Congress present, but immediately resonated with privacy advocates online. 3 hops! That's a LOT OF DATA as my FISA/surveillance people know. A LOT. — Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) July 17, 2013 Do the math: Your whole contact list. All their contact lists. All THOSE people's contact lists. That's a LOOOT of people. #FISAOvesight — Julian Sanchez (@normative) July 17, 2013 @normative If you don't want to share your contact lists with the government, maybe you just shouldn't know people. — Jon Henke (@JonHenke) July 17, 2013 The hearing was far more critical of the government than previous hearings have been. Members of the House from both political parties had strong words for the agency representatives, often focused on how the letter of the law had been exploited. Ranking Minority Member John Conyers (MI): "You've already violated the law in my opinion." Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY): "I believe it's totally unprecedented and goes way beyond the statute." Rep. Ted Poe (TX): "Do you see a national security exemption in the Fourth Amendment? … We've abused the concept of rights in the name of national security." The author of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, reminded the government that the act was up for renewal in 2015. The provisions for phone metadata collection, he warned, have "got to be changed … otherwise in a year or year and a half you're not going to have it any more." Inglis' admission isn't likely to help the effort to convince members of the House that the surveillance programs should be kept as is. Neither


Prompt: Jeb! waiting for people to show up to his Republican party. Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images Entertainment, D. Anschutz/Thinkstock. Mike Murphy finds it all very funny that people think Jeb Bush is in trouble. The head of Bush’s $100 million super PAC, Right to Rise, considers most political punditry this cycle to be stupid. Conceded. But both the stupid and occasional non-stupid pundits all agree on one thing: Things aren’t going well for Bush, and one cannot assume that the old rules governing Republican presidential nominating contests will inevitably save him. Murphy outlined his thinking

in a rare extended interview with Bloomberg Politics. Why? Most practically, to signal Right to Rise’s thinking to the official Bush campaign and leery donors. Or, in Murphy’s words: “[W]e thought it would be good to kind of go through our theory of the race in a more distributed way.” His theory is lacking. Nowhere, between all his mockery, does he get to the heart of the matter: why people don’t like Jeb Bush right now, and how Right to Rise intends to change that. “What I find is we’re in this funny casino of the pre-season now,” he says, “where the complete sum of pundit knowledge in this race, with a few rare exceptions, is based on national polling that in my view is completely meaningless.” Zuh? There will always be a fair share of bad national poll coverage. If there’s more of it this time, Murphy can blame the Republican National Committee and its media partners for pegging debate participation to national polling status. But it’s not like Bush is only doing badly in national polls that don’t matter, anyway. He’s doing poorly in polls of early states, too. Bush is doing lousy in Iowa. That’s fine: Bush is one thing and Iowa Republicans are a whole other thing. But he’s also performing lousy in New Hampshire, a state he has spent an extraordinary amount of time in and has been advertising in. He is not leading in Florida, his natural firewall, or South Carolina, the GOP establishment’s traditional firewall for their chosen representative. How important are early state polls? They can and do fluctuate along with everything else. Murphy, whether he means to or not, implies that early state polls are important, because he dramatically lowers Bush’s expectations in those early states based on how poorly things


Prompt: De la forma en que Marita juntaba sus pesitos no quita ni suma nada a la historia, salvo por el detalle que los medios también lo han ocultado para que "la verdad no arruine una buena nota". Todos ganaron con el caso de Marita Verón. Ya había escrito algo sobre la prostitución y la trata aquí: Querido Eugenio Hacia el año 1997se quería poner linda para el jubileo del año 2000. Había plata y las tasas de interés estaban por el suelo.Se pusieron a invertir de tal manera que generaron un boom inmobiliario que hizo que el rancho se les

llenara de albañiles turcos (que después se fueron a), africanos y de los países delHubo tal migración que surgió un problema: las putas europeas eran caras para los salarios de los obreros. Por cuanto ante ese desbalance comenzaron a migrar trolas de losque si bien habían dejado la guerra atrás la crisis los comía vivos.Las primeras prostitutas independientes que entraron fueron rumanas y búlgaras, las primeras víctimas de las mafias de trata de personas fueron las albanesas cuyo país aun estaba asediado por la guerra de exterminio.Así comenzó la última ola de trata de personas en Europa, que recién se pudo contener hacia 2005 cuando eldio por finalizada la existencia de mafias relacionadas al secuestro para alimentar el mercado de la prostitución.Una simple y bestial situación de oferta y demanda. Hay que considerar además que la demanda era de baja calidad. Por eso un campesino turco que se pasaba el día fratachando una catedral por 60 euros y dormía en un contenedor podía violarse a una pobre mujer drogada y a veces atada sin muchas vueltas al asunto.A la par del problema surgieron -cuándo no- estudiosos del fenómeno que fueron financiados para tranquilizar las culposas almas europeas. Esos estudios sobre trata de personas tenían su base europea en. Cuando se les acabó el curro de la trata de personas, psicólogos, sociólogos, politólogos y cualquier otra especialidad de esas que no generan nada productivo, descubrieron la "violencia de género", otro regalito que también exportamos oportunamente.La creencia de que enexisten redes al estilo de organizaciones mafiosas, con jerarquías y estructuras mafiosas relacionadas con la trata de personasCuando en realidad. Por cuanto, cuál sería el valor práctico de secuestrar mujeres para obligarlas a prostituirse, con el riesgo legal (bajo, es cierto) que eso conlleva y con, supongo, el disgusto de quienes consumen prostitutas,


Prompt: In our post-factual world, history has become another battlefield, with far-flung hostilities over cultural and political differences as well as the imperial adventures abroad. But, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan once remarked, we are entitled to opinions, not to our own facts. Glenn Beck peddles a notion of the “Progressive Era” — a time when Republicans and Democrats and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson proudly called themselves “progressives” — as the period when all the evils of modern America became manifest. Original, yes. Factual, no. Then we have Dick Armey, once a leader in proclaiming a “Contract With America” and

currently head of Freedom Works, one of the more vocal incarnations of the tea party that provides a ready microphone for well-heeled right-wing backers and their views. Armey now has given us a classic perversion of history. At a gathering to vent against President Barack Obama’s tax and health policies and alleged socialism, someone in the audience questioned how the movement could use the Federalist Papers, largely written by Alexander Hamilton, as any basis for its beliefs. After all, Hamilton, the questioner contended, was “widely regarded” as a strong nationalist, who advocated life terms for the president and senators, a strong national bank, protective tariffs, the assumption of state debts (to ensure their payment and thereby establish a creditable international standing), state governors appointed by the president, and the diminution of state authority to little more than an administrative role. That is History 101, of course, but a good question for those who insist on Hamilton as a patron saint of American “conservatism.” Armey was incredulous, even contemptuous, and simply dismissed the questioner, as well as history. “Widely regarded by whom?” he asked suspiciously, and then answered his own question. “Today’s modern ill-informed political science professors … ? I just doubt that was the case, in fact, about Hamilton.” In the great tradition of Henry Ford, Armey simply would dismiss history as “bunk.” Hamilton certainly is the patron saint of the American state. As George Washington’s secretary of the treasury, he fashioned public policy based on the necessity for strong authority at the center, saying things like “A national debt is a national blessing,” “Every Power Vested in Government is in its nature Sovereign,” and “A Well-Organized Republic can scarcely lose its Liberty from any other Source than that of Anarchy.” Hamilton knew that the nation’s earlier failed experience under


Prompt: The Democratic Party is suffering a nervous breakdown. An entitled cast of urban liberals is taking to the streets protesting the free and fair defeat of a candidate for whom they couldn’t be bothered to volunteer. Twentysomething Democratic staffers are reportedly offering their resignations in the form of screaming meltdowns, blaming acting Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile for their inevitable death due to catastrophic climate change. Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has implied that, having won the presidency as a result of a campaign of hate aided by the less-than-covert works of Russian intelligence, Donald Trump lacks legitimacy.

This liberal pain is real, but also projection. The party has been decimated at every level, and is now entering a rebuilding period. How it rebuilds is the question. The first choice the party will have to make is who is going to right the ship at the DNC, and the choices before the party perfectly reflect their conundrum in the post-Obama era. The two most viable candidates who appear interested in leading the DNC through this grim valley are indicative of the Democratic Party’s addiction to radicalism. Howard Dean—a former DNC chair, presidential candidate, and Vermont governor—has thrown his hat in the ring. On first glance, an intemperate absolutist who earnestly accused the teetotaler president-elect of nursing a cocaine habit would seem to be a perfect fit for America’s post-rational moment. There is, however, a candidate even better suited to channel the unrestrained Democratic id in our self-indulgent age: Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison. Under Barack Obama, the Democratic Party has been reduced to a modest faction representing the interests of urban, progressive America. Who else is a better fit to epitomize the party than an urban progressive? Ellison represents the most liberal district in a liberal state, just outside central St. Paul. He is an African-American Muslim convert, thereby appealing to the party’s self-conception as a champion of the rights of ethnic minorities, which they perceive to be particularly vulnerable in the coming Trump era. Because he is a solid fit for the DNC on paper, Ellison has won the support of the most important voices in his party. According to reports, Ellison has the outright backing of incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and Senator Bernie Sanders. He has been praised by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has emerged as a power broker in the new Progressive Era. In


Prompt: The police may use deadly force to shoot and kill a motorist who leads them on a reckless, high-speed chase, even if the suspect's car is temporarily cornered, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. In a unanimous decision, the justices threw out an "excessive force" claim brought against Arkansas police officers who chased a speeding car across the bridge into Memphis and shot the driver when he refused to give up. In the past, the court had said police may use force to stop a fleeing motorist because he represents a danger to the public. But the law has been unclear

on whether "deadly force" can be used against the occupants of a stopped car. In the case decided Tuesday, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the officers were justified in shooting the motorist because he continued to maneuver his car after he had been temporarily stopped by a squad car. As the motorist, Donald Rickard, tried to drive away, police fired 15 shots in all, killing him and a passenger. Alito also said officers deserve the benefit of the doubt when they are engaged in a high-speed pursuit. "We analyze this question from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight," he wrote in Plumhoff v. Rickard. The case began on a summer night in 2004 when officers in West Memphis, Ark., pulled over a white Honda because the car had only one headlight. When an officer sought to question the driver, he sped away. The chase reached 100 miles per hour when Rickard crossed the bridge into Memphis. Sgt. Vance Plumhoff led the pursuit and collided with the fleeing vehicle, sending it spinning into a parking lot. Though Rickard's car was cornered, he put it into reverse and spun the wheels. When Rickard refused to surrender, Plumhoff fired three shots into the vehicle. The car then spun away, and officers fired more shots, killing the driver and his passenger. Rickard's daughter sued, alleging the officers violated the 4th Amendment by using "excessive force" to make an arrest. A federal judge and the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the suit to proceed on the theory that a jury should decide whether the shooting was excessive. But the Supreme Court decided there was no constitutional violation. "It is beyond serious dispute that Rickard's flight posed a grave public safety risk, and


Prompt: What do you guys know about Nova? Nothing? Unless you love the New Warriors or the cosmic Marvel shenanigans, chances are you haven’t seen this guy cannonballing into the bad guys’ faces. Luckily I’ve got the lowdown on this garishly clad cosmonaut so sit back, relax, and enjoy the read. Firstly, Nova is actually Richard Rider, an all ’round average American teen. In a story that eerily resembles Hal Jordan’s origins, Rider discovers Rhomann Dey, a dying alien and the last centurion of the Nova Corps of Xandar. Dey bequeaths the youngster with all the powers of the Nova Prime

(flight, strength, energy blasts, etc.) and Rider starts beating the crap out of the thugs in New York City. To make a long story a little shorter Xandar eventually recalls its centurions, the planet having been reformed, and then Nova starts punching cosmic thugs. After a while Nova gets tired of the endless void and the endless punching (but not really), and after racking up some great rivalries and deadly enemies, he decides to go back to Earth, relinquishing his powers. He tries to live Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream but like a junky, he goes into Nova Force withdrawal until Night Thrasher reawakens the energy inside him and invites Rich to join the New Warriors. For a while he teams up with the Thrasher, Namora, Speedball, and the rest of the gang but it’s not long before he takes to the stars again as a member of Xandar’s finest. If he’d been stateside, things might have gone differently in Stamford on that fateful day that sparked the Civil War. Alas, it was not to be. Rich decides not to pick sides in the war, especially since there are more pressing matters developing at the fringes of the universe. Eventually everything comes to a head when the Annihilation Wave rolls out from the Negative Zone. Nova and his United Front take on the Wave, legion upon legion of Annihilus’ insectile minions, until the psychotic conqueror taps into the power of Galactus. In an all too brief summation of way too many comics composing the Annihilation: Ronan the Accuser is bad ass, millions of worlds are destroyed, Thanos does some crazy shit, Drax kills people and then Thanos, Nova and his pals lose the war, and then in a final showdown with Annihilus, Rich rips his insides out through his freaking mouth!


Prompt: Every year, the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup includes a new batch of amateur clubs hoping to be the tournament’s latest Cinderella story. And every year, TheCup.us introduces soccer fans across the country to these teams that have been the heart and soul of this competition for more than a century. This year, we are expanding our annual “Meet the USASA” series to include the USSSA and US Club Soccer. We bring you “Meet the Underdogs.” For the third year in a row the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup will kick off in the State of Colorado. This year, it

will be Boulder-based Harpo’s FC of the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA) hosting the Kansas City Athletics of the United States Adult Soccer Assocation (USASA) on April 25. The game will be played at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park Field No. 20, just outside of the home of Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids. Harpo’s FC, which is sponsored by a local bar, Harpo’s Sports Grill, will be making its first-ever appearance in the US Open Cup. Founded in 1997 as a rec-league team, Harpo’s has gradually grown into one of the regional powers in the Colorado Amateur Soccer League (CASL). Just in the last few years they have won the City of Boulder Men’s D-1 title four times, and won three CASL D-1 championships in addition to multiple tournaments, including last year’s state cup. In 2014, they were 35-2-4 in outdoor games. With their outdoor success, they decided to take their game indoors. They joined the Premier Arena Soccer League (PASL) and their winning ways continued. This past season, under the name Avery Brewing FC, they were Rocky Mountain Division champions (7-1-0) and the Brewers finished as the 2014-15 National Cup runner-up in the second-tier indoor league (behind the Major Arena Soccer League). Johnny Freeston, the club’s owner and manager, says the team has come a long way since their ‘beer league’ beginnings. “Admittedly, when the team started it was just a group of guys who just wanted to keep on playing after high school and college,” said Freeston. “In those early days, there was probably more drinking than playing, but could still ball.” Freeston arrived in Boulder around 2005 and eventually found himself in a leadership role. In 2012, he decided they had enough talent on the roster and in the area to start challenging for trophies. For Freeston,


Prompt: (NaturalNews) The mainstream media have been tireless in their recent efforts to discredit and demonize those who dare question the safety or efficacy of vaccines, and particularly those who choose not to have their children vaccinated.What seems obvious now is that an honest dialogue on the subject seems nearly impossible in a climate of fear-mongering created by those who control the flow of information to the masses.The reports recently being circulated by the major media outlets are designed to lead people to believe that the entire anti-vaccine movement has grown out of response to a single (and allegedly spurious, according

to the pro-vaccine camp) study linking mercury-containing vaccines with incidences of autism.Although there may be room for debate on that particular aspect of the subject at hand, what the media is not mentioning is that there are far more reasons to be skeptical about vaccines in general.The typical news story seen lately tends to label "anti-vaxxers" as the worst type of conspiracy nuts -- a small group of tin-foil-hat-wearing wackos who threaten their children's lives and the rest of the populace with their paranoid delusions. Many news reports have advocated imprisonment for parents who refuse to vaccinate their children.At the same time, vaccines are being promoted as completely safe and effective -- an assertion which is simply not true. There are mounds of evidence from dozens of studies indicating that many vaccines are neither efficacious nor harmless.A glaring example is the extremely compelling evidence that Merck & Co., one of the largest vaccine manufacturers on the planet, has provided false statements and faked clinical trials in connection with their mumps vaccine This fraud and deception on the part of Merck has been occurring for at least the past decade, and might still be occurring if it weren't for the actions of two whistleblowers from the company's laboratories who initially filed a lawsuit in 2012 -- a lawsuit which, despite Merck's efforts to have it dismissed, has recently ballooned into a federal case:The company now faces federal fraud charges. The whistleblowers' court documents state that Merck:"...failed to disclose that its mumps vaccine was not as effective as Merck represented, (ii) used improper testing techniques, (iii) manipulated testing methodology, (iv) abandoned undesirable test results, (v) falsified test data, (vi) failed to adequately investigate and report the diminished efficacy of its mumps vaccine , (vii) falsely verified that each manufacturing lot of mumps


Prompt: From incomprehensible bathrooms, to toxic hotel water, to the mass execution of an astonishing number of feral dogs, one might forget that the Russians had seven years to prepare for the Sochi Olympics. Americans have been quick to ridicule Vladimir Putin and his minions. But we should instead take a lesson. After all, how different are our myriad ObamaCare problems? After being promised lower premiums, better coverage and greater portability, we actually are ending up with massive cancellations, higher premiums and degraded coverage. The Obama administration didn’t have quite the seven years the Russians had to prepare for the Olympics

but it was pretty close. And our ObamaCare fiasco and Russia’s Sochi fiasco are due to the same error: Both of us are using government to solve problems that could have been better solved by markets. Government runs on a system defined by power and benefit. Politicians seek power and special interests benefit by encouraging them to exercise it at your expense. What results? Wall Street bailouts of corporations deemed “too big to fail,” mountains of regulation that favor established businesses at the expense of potential new competitors and an annual avalanche of legislation that serves only to empower entrenched interests of every stripe. Markets, on the other hand, run on a system of profit and loss. Entrepreneurs and investors seek profits and customers guide them by paying for good products and refusing to pay for bad products. What results? Smartphones, wonder drugs, home delivery of pizza in 30 minutes or less and countless other things you use every day. Government is a tool of coercion while markets are tools of cooperation. Society needs both but as we see with Sochi and ObamaCare, the damage caused by using the wrong tool to solve a problem is often worse than the problem itself. Russia spent more than $50 billion preparing Sochi. And what did visitors and athletes get for all that money? Not nearly enough. This is always the answer when governments decide to do what markets can do better. Markets are not perfect. They are populated by sometimes selfish, often ignorant, always fallible humans. What the defenders of big government seem to miss is that government is populated by those very same humans. The difference between markets and government isn’t that one is less error-prone than the other; it’s that the market’s profit-and-loss system provides built-in incentives for people to