Prompt: In a disturbing article endorsed by Planned Parenthood, one feminist writer claims “no difference” between choosing to kill a child in utero and the profoundly devastating experience of miscarriage suffered by millions of women across the globe. A real champion of women. In her piece for Romper titled, “I’m Miscarrying Right Now, & It’s Only Strengthening My Beliefs About Abortion,” writer Danielle Campoamor describes her experience dealing with “severe abdominal cramps and blood in my underwear” as she tries to equate miscarriages with abortions. “There is a common misconception that the mom who miscarries is a very different person than

the woman who aborts, but I’m here to say there is no difference,” Campoamor writes. “Those two results of pregnancy, unplanned or not, are treated very differently by society in general and by the anti-choice advocates legislating away women’s right to choose,” she continues. “In this country, women who experience miscarriage are shown mercy and grace, and women who choose abortion are attacked and condemned.” “Miscarriage and abortion are sisters,” she claims. “Just like my body knew what to do when an abnormal embryo implanted itself in my uterus, my mind knew what to do when a healthy embryo found its way to the soft lining of my uterine wall back when I was 23 years old, in an unhealthy relationship, living paycheck-to-paycheck, unwilling and unable to be a mother.” According to Campoamor, who also writes for TIME, Cosmopolitan, USA Today, Buzzfeed, and Salon, it is hypocritical for her “friends who once labeled me a murderer” to “voice their sympathy and pledge their prayers if I reached out to them.” “I will find comfort in the knowledge that every outcome of pregnancy — be it a miscarriage, an abortion, or a birth — is normal,” she concludes. Planned Parenthood seems to agree with Campoamor’s conclusion. Planned Parenthood Action on Twitter There is a common misconception that the mom who miscarries is a very different person than the woman who aborts, but I’m here to say there is no difference. I am both of those women.” [email protected] https://t.co/si6ejCrgrL Perhaps Compoamor would feel differently if organizations, like Planned Parenthood, and their employees weren’t found to be profiting from fetal tissue sales. The Department of Justice recently requested documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee in relation to Planned Parenthood’s alleged involvement in the sale of aborted babies’ body parts. “The Department of


Prompt: Prior research suggests that liberals are more complex than conservatives. However, it may be that liberals are not more complex in general , but rather only more complex on certain topic domains (while conservatives are more complex in other domains). Four studies (comprised of over 2,500 participants) evaluated this idea. Study 1 involves the domain specificity of a self‐report questionnaire related to complexity (dogmatism). By making only small adjustments to a popularly used dogmatism scale, results show that liberals can be significantly more dogmatic if a liberal domain is made salient. Studies 2–4 involve the domain specificity of integrative complexity.

A large number of open‐ended responses from college students (Studies 2 and 3) and candidates in the 2004 Presidential election (Study 4) across an array of topic domains reveals little or no main effect of political ideology on integrative complexity, but rather topic domain by ideology interactions. Liberals are higher in complexity on some topics, but conservatives are higher on others. Overall, this large dataset calls into question the typical interpretation that conservatives are less complex than liberals in a domain‐general way. It has practically achieved the state of an axiom in our field that liberals are more complex thinkers than conservatives. This is not without reason. Meta‐analyses—covering a vast array of evidence related to dogmatism, uncertainty avoidance, openness to experience, need for closure, and integrative complexity—suggest that liberals are indeed more complex than conservatives (see Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Van Hiel, Onraet, & De Pauw, 2010; see also Joseph, Graham, & Haidt, 2009). Nonetheless, we believe that the judgment that conservatives are broadly simple‐minded may be premature. In the present article, we provide an alternative framework for understanding existing differences in complexity between conservatives and liberals and some initial evidence for that framework. Our approach focuses on considering more fully the topic domain that the complexity measurement is relevant to. The Domain Specificity of Complex Thinking Complex thinking is domain‐specific.1 Someone can think highly complexly about the Iraq War, and yet still think very simply about broccoli. A lot of evidence using many different operations of complex thinking underscores this point (Conway, Schaller, Tweed, & Hallett, 2001; Houck, Conway, & Gornick, 2014; Judd & Lusk, 1984; Liht, Conway, Savage, White, O'Neill, 2011; Pancer et al., 1995; Sidanius, 1984; Suedfeld, 2000; Tetlock, Peterson, & Lerner, 1996). For example, the complexity of thinking can be affected by the importance


Prompt: by “Most Frequently Charged Offenses” in Fairfax County Brought to You by our: Fairfax Criminal Defense Attorney Our Fairfax criminal defense attorney analyzed a total of: 1,738 criminal charges, pursuant to… 217 distinct Virginia laws and local ordinances The data was collected from public arrest records provided by the Fairfax County Police. These records reflect roughly a 3 month period during the year 2013. If you live in Northern Virginia, this information may be of interest. This data analysis is provided to the public, courtesy of our Fairfax criminal defense attorney – Brenton D. Vincenzes. Feel free to share this

study with friends and family. If you are a journalist or media outlet, you may submit inquiries here. 18 Categories: Arrest Frequency Chart from Fairfax Criminal Defense Attorney Our Fairfax criminal defense attorney sorted arrests into the 18 broad categories below. They are listed in order from least frequently charged category of offenses to the most frequently charged category of offenses. Percentages Chart Courtesy of our Fairfax Criminal Lawyer As you can see, the least commonly charged offenses fell into the category of operation of boats, barely registering with less than a half of one percent. At the other end of the spectrum, offenses related to driver’s license problems, lack of insurance, and other related charges accounted for more than a quarter of all offenses charged in the given period. The next section contains our main infographic, followed by interesting notes and observations, some of which surprised even our Fairfax criminal defense attorney himself. Infographic: Fairfax County Arrest Frequency Comparison and Analysis, brought to you by: our Fairfax Criminal Lawyer In addition to the broad categories as depicted above, the infographic reveals the most frequently charged Code sections for each of the 18 main criminal offense categories. Don’t forget: our Fairfax criminal lawyer lists his ten most interesting findings following the infographic. Our Fairfax Criminal Lawyer was Surprised by these 10 Findings: Surprising: Schedule III and IV drugs are rarely implicated in an arrest in Fairfax County. Only 2 arrests out of 1,738 involved a schedule III substance, and likewise, only 2 arrests involved a schedule IV substance. Well-known Schedule III substances include the drugs Ketamine, Buprenorphine, and opioid painkiller, Hydrocodone (Vicodin), in limited quantities. Schedule IV substances include anti-anxiety drugs Alprazolam (Xanax) and Clonazepam (Klonopin). Surprising: When it comes to distribution or possession with intent to distribute offenses, it


Prompt: by 1. Clancy Lives! Take heart, you fans of slam-bang super-spy adventure stories! Tom Clancy is not dead; he lives on in the pages of the Washington Post, channeled through the airport-thriller prose of Barton Gellman — one of the small coterie of media custodians doling out dollops from the huge archive of secret NSA documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Drawing on that archive of what should be shocking, empire-undermining revelations, Gellman and his co-authors last week penned a story that is, in almost every respect, a glorification of state-ordered murder: a rousing tale of secret ops in exotic

lands, awesome high-tech spy gear, flying missiles, deadly explosions, and dogged agents doing the grim but noble work of keeping us safe. No doubt Hollywood is already on the horn: it’s boffo box office! The story describes how the NSA’s determined leg-work helped Barack Obama shred the sovereignty of a US ally in order to kill a man — in the usual cowardly fashion, by long-distance, remote-control missile — without the slightest pretense of judicial process. It’s really cool! Just watch our boys in action: “In the search for targets, the NSA has draped a surveillance blanket over dozens of square miles of northwest Pakistan. In Ghul’s case, the agency deployed an arsenal of cyber-espionage tools, secretly seizing control of laptops, siphoning audio files and other messages, and tracking radio transmissions to determine where Ghul might “bed down.” … “NSA threw the kitchen sink at the FATA,” said a former U.S. intelligence official with experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan, referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the region in northwest Pakistan where al-Qaeda’s leadership is based. … Surveillance operations that required placing a device or sensor near an al-Qaeda compound were handled by the CIA’s Information Operations Center, which specializes in high-tech devices and “close-in” surveillance work. “But if you wanted huge coverage of the FATA, NSA had 10 times the manpower, 20 times the budget and 100 times the brainpower,” the former intelligence official said.” I mean, get a load of these guys: 100 times the brainpower of ordinary mortals! Didn’t I say they were super-spies? The target was Hassan Ghul, an al-Qaeda operative who was once in American custody but was released after giving his captors the tip that eventually led them to Osama bin Laden. (He was also tortured after giving the information — because, hey, why


Prompt: Early one morning last October police forces surrounded the residents of Gompad, a remote village in the state of Chhattisgarh in eastern India, and attacked. Sixteen people were killed, including an older couple and their 25-year-old daughter, who was stabbed in the head with a knife and had her breasts sliced off. Her 2-year-old son survived, but three of his fingers were chopped off. A neighbor who witnessed the massacre was shot in the leg as she tried to escape. What prompted the rampage? The cops suspected the villagers of sympathizing with Maoist insurgents, believing that some were informants. A

criminal case has been filed by the survivors against the state. Business as usual in this part of the world. The Indian government is trying to exterminate Maoists known as Naxalites and since 2004 have killed 1,300 of them; trapped in the crossfire, 2,900 villagers have also died. The Naxalites have claimed their share of victims, too. A few months before the Gompad attack Vimal Meshram, a village head, was gunned down by Maoists in a market in the same district (Bastar). His crime: He was an outspoken supporter of a plant that Tata Steel, one of India's luminary companies, has been trying to build for the past five years . He is one of 1,650 or more people--villagers, police and police-backed vigilantes--who have been killed by Maoists, just in this district. In the bloodiest attack yet, 80 or more paramilitary troops were killed in early April as they tried to flush out Maoist rebels in the forests of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh. This is India's dirty war: a brutal struggle over valuable real estate that pits the Naxalites against some of the nation's most powerful commercial interests. What began 43 years ago as a small but violent peasant insurrection in Naxalbari, a West Bengal village, is now a full-fledged conflict led by the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) across 20 of the country's 28 states (see map below), affecting 223 districts. The fight is over land, much of it in the interior, that has rich deposits of coal and bauxite. On one side of the struggle are the rebels--perhaps 10,000 of them armed and out in the field every day, and a militia of 100,000 who can be called up on short notice. Driven by a violent ideology, the Naxalites claim to be fighting for the land rights of


Prompt: Forty years ago, NASA landed a spacecraft on the surface of Mars, giving us our first close-up view of the so-called Red Planet. And, in what seems to be standard protocol for NASA missions, the 90-day operation stretched into a six-year mission, paving the way for later Mars rovers like Opportunity and Curiosity. The Viking 1 spacecraft touched down on the Martian surface on July 20, 1976, seven years after Apollo 11 astronauts stepped out onto the moon. The landing was originally scheduled for America’s Independence Day, July 4. But once in orbit around Mars, the satellite carrying Viking revealed

that the landing site was incredibly rocky, notes Bill Barry, NASA’s chief historian. So mission controllers adjusted the date so the spacecraft could find a smoother place to land. The Viking mission was a huge success from an engineering perspective, an 11-month journey through space to a perfect landing on another planet. The heat shield and parachute design were updated and used in subsequent missions to Mars. And Viking’s measurements of the Martian atmosphere and surface are being used and analyzed to this day. But scientists were really anticipating the results from the life sciences payload carried by the lander. This apparatus housed four different tests in a space the size of a soccer ball, according to Glenn Bugos, historian for the NASA Ames Research Center. A week after landing, soil samples were put through this barrage of tests to look for evidence of life: mainly carbon molecules and gases released by organisms metabolizing a variety of nutrients that had been added to the soil. Three tests came up negative. But the fourth one had a promising result… at least initially. In this test, water, nutrients and a radioactive form of carbon were added to the Martian soil. If any organisms ate the radioactive nutrients, they would emit a specific gas. The lander detected this gas spewing out of the soil during the first time it ran the test. But during the next two trials, there was nothing. This has puzzled scientists for decades. Some researchers have tried to recreate the tests here on Earth and their results have led some scientists to say the tests were “inconclusive” instead of “negative.” At a panel discussion on the history of the Viking 1 mission, Bugos said that the lack of definitive results killed the desire to search for life on Mars.


Prompt: This product hasn't received any reviews yet. Be the first to review this product! Read reviews all over internet... So I watched some Unboxing vids, and read online reviews, and freaked myself out, AFTER ordering this jacket. Some people online are really NOT fans of this website, or their products. All I can do is speak from MY experiences... The item shipped fast. The item arrived fast. The packaging was perfect. Well sealed, compact without damaging the jacket. Professional looking. The jacket was exactly how it was advertised. It fits perfect (which for me is the hardest part of shopping

online). I really can't say anything bad about my experience with this company or product. In fact, I'll probably order myself the Star Lord jacket for Christmas. Yes, I recommend this product. Verified Purchase. I recommend this product. Look NO further tha right here I could not believe the quality of the product I received. It is expertly made, uses very supple and attractive leather and fits like a glove. READ the measurement chart and make sure you USE it to guaranteed the right fit. Had a little bit of a time with communications BUT the item arrived within 4 days. Yes, I recommend this product. Verified Purchase. I recommend this product. Tis a good buy a great medium to light jacket, good color not exactly like the movie which is good because i dont want to look like im cosplaying in everyday life. The best part about this jacket is not being attacked by a girl with a big metal stick and a droid that shocks you. Yes, I recommend this product. Verified Purchase. I recommend this product. Recommended It is the best and most amazing jacket of Finn. Recommended Yes, I recommend this product. Verified Purchase. I recommend this product. OH MY GOSH. I don't usually review products but I could not resist for this item. So this jacket just arrived (within a week!!!) in time for the holidays. I purchased it as a gift for my brother. Not only is the material soft, comfortable, and warm, but it seems very durable and high quality. I am usually skeptical about ordering online, but this gamble was worth every penny. If this jacket fit me, my brother would be getting something else for Christmas. I would have kept it myself! Overall, wonderful product and it even comes with a


Prompt: U.S. Marines from Delta Company, Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry-East navigate their way through the obstacle course aboard, Camp Geiger, N.C., Oct. 04, 2013. Delta Company is the first company at center with female students. (Photo: Warrant Officer Paul Mancuso, U.S. Marines) Story Highlights Thirteen women taking the latest infantry course Services must open combat roles to women who qualify One test: Carrying an 85-lb. pack for 10 kilometers or more CAMP GEIGER, N.C. — Mist clings to the ground and the sun won't make an appearance for another three hours. The 263 Marines of Delta Company, Infantry Training

Battalion, shoulder their bulky packs and set off. The air is still cool, but 85-pound packs are heavy. Soon the Marines are sweating through their camouflage uniforms and noncommissioned officers are moving between the two files of Marines, shouting encouragement and encouraging stragglers to keep up. The Marine Corps has been training infantrymen here since 1953. This year is different. Among Delta Company's 263 Marines are 13 women who have volunteered to participate in a closely watched experiment into the feasibility of integrating females into the infantry. The infantry is among a handful of military jobs that remain male-only preserves. The women, who are shouldering the same packs and wearing the same combat uniforms as the men, are barely distinguishable from the men as they trudge in the darkness. "We treat everyone the same," said Staff Sgt. Billy Shinault, a Marine instructor who chatted while working a bolt of chewing tobacco after the hike. "We would be doing them a disservice to lower the standards." Shortly before he left office earlier this year, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the military to lift the ban on women serving in ground combat specialties, such as the infantry and special operations. He left it up to the services to figure out how to put the order into effect. The services have until January 2016 to do so. Exceptions would require approval of the defense secretary. Women have been serving in plenty of jobs that have exposed them to combat over the past decade in Iraq and Afghanistan. But ground combat jobs have remained off-limits. These jobs require physical strength, feats of endurance and spending a long time in primitive field conditions. The infantry is the leading edge of the ground combat specialties. Its mission is as basic as it is elemental. Infantrymen carry


Prompt: “You can’t get bigger arms unless you go heavy on the barbell or on some dumbbells.” Yeah, that’s what more than one guy told me at the gym. Hearing this advice made sense to me. I had seen the workouts before in magazines and they always threw in 4 exercises for biceps and 4 exercises for triceps. Add in 10 to 12 reps per set per exercise and I was being promised arms bigger than the Hulk. It made sense at the time. Lift some iron and watch the muscle grow. That’s the common advice and it works, but only

if you do it right. However, lifting weights is not the only way to gain muscle in your arms. If you want to get awesome results you should include bodyweight exercises. Anytime someone tells me that you can’t get muscular arms by using only your bodyweight I point to a gymnast. Simply look at a gymnast and you will quickly see that weights are not the only way to make significant gains in muscle. You don’t have to lift like a bodybuilder. Sure you can grab a barbell, put some weight and go at it. I am all for that. You can lift heavy weight and see results but having thicker arms is best when you do certain exercises that trigger maximum growth. That’s where bodyweight movements can come in. Here are a list of exercises for biceps and triceps without having to use weights. Bodyweight Exercises For Biceps Chin Ups: This exercise is one of the forgotten and unsung bodyweight exercises. Some see this as either being too easy while others look at it as too difficult to do. It is often considered a back exercise but in reality it is much more than that. Chin ups are a compound movement that will give your back and your biceps a killer workout. This exercise is similar to a barbell curl except that it follows a natural movement and can be tough as you lift your own weight. Parallel Grip Chin Ups: Another great option for building your biceps. The palms face each other on parallel bars allowing for a movement that is easier on the wrists and shoulders than a pull ups. The positioning of the hands and arms is very much like a Hammer Curl; however this exercise also works on the lats. If you don’t have access


Prompt: The speculative Chinese commodity bubble has begun to reach the mainstream as Citi's warning to "hold on to your hats" today at the surge in trading volumes across Rebar, Iron Ore, Coke, and Copper literally exploded with the former now the most actively trade commodity in the world. The frenzy has become so insane that the head of the largest metals exchange in the world exclaimed at a conference in Singapore today that "I don't think most people who trade it know what it is." We suspect he is 100% correct and judging by the following chart, we know exactly

how it will end. As Bloomberg reports, the head of the world’s largest metals exchange said while volumes in China’s commodity futures markets have become phenomenal, it’s possible some traders don’t even know what it is they are buying or selling. “Why should steel rebar be one of the world’s most actively-traded futures contracts?” Garry Jones, chief executive officer of the London Metal Exchange, said at a conference in Singapore on Wednesday. “I don’t think most people who trade it know what it is.” Trading of commodity futures in China from steel reinforcement bars -- a benchmark product used in construction -- to iron ore, coking coal and cotton has ballooned this month on an unprecedented surge in retail investor interest. The jump in volumes has stunned global markets, according to Morgan Stanley, while eliciting concern from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Exchanges in Asia’s top economy including in Shanghai have announced a series of measures this month to cool the frenzy, and said more steps may follow. “If you look at the client base of most Chinese exchanges, it’s heavily retail-focused,” Jones said on a panel discussion addressing commodities and risk management in China. The exchanges there “have very high retail participation. They have a very high velocity of trading,” he said. Now where have we seen this pattern of massive speculative volume rushing in from retail investors chasing a trend? The speculative activities will be vulnerable to a sharp reversal, once the upward price momentum wanes, according to BMI Research, a unit of Fitch Group, drawing parallels with a rally, followed by a slump, in Chinese equities last year. And that did not end well for price action before in 2015... or 2009... And just as expected above...once the volume reaches a crescendo it crashes and The Party's Over


Prompt: PUL, which stands for polyurethane laminate, is a waterproof fabric most often used for cloth diapers and wet bags. I started my PUL journey about 2 years ago, when I made some side-mirror covers for my father-in-law for Christmas. They were gray terry-cloth inside, PUL outside, and he uses them for every storm. They were a wild project, and they didn’t leave me in love with PUL so I stashed it away, until last summer. I was part of the Leominster Marketplace (farmer’s market) last summer and one of the shoppers asked if I could make her a smaller version

of a dinosaur bag I had with me, nothing that she wanted to use it as a snack bag. The PUL I had is food grade, so I said “Yeah, absolutely! I’ll make it and bring it with me next week!” Obviously, she never came back for it. But I got my first taste of lining a bag with it! I don’t love working with PUL because it’s kind of slippery and I never know if I should pin it in place or just hold it so it can slip around more. But since making the dino bag, quite a few people have expressed interest in makeup bags that are not cotton lined. Makeup explodes or seeps out, gets all over the cotton, leaks through. But if I was going to make a waterproof makeup bag, I needed to stand by it’s waterproof-ness. So I made a tester and did some tests. Test 1: Pour 4 cuts of water into the bag. Delayed leaking but still massive leaking. The fabric is waterproof but the seams are not at all. Test 2: Pour a cup of shampoo into the bag. Minor seeping from seams after 2 hours. I had it set on a paper towel, propped up so the shampoo pool would sit on a side-seam interception, and you could see the small seep spot. I moved the bag after an hour and ended up with a second small spot next to the first. Conclusion: The bag is not waterproof. But it is leak-resistant. A little water isn’t going to leak out and get everywhere. A cup of shampoo isn’t going to ooze out and sticky-up the rest of your luggage. It will stay in the bag! That’s what I was after. After the rigorous testing, I made a few bags


Prompt: James Brightman Editor, North America Tuesday 9th June 2015 Share this article Share If you haven't heard of ARK: Survival Evolved, that's about to change. The game has been available on Steam Early Access for just under a week, and it's off to a red-hot start. Studio Wildcard has shared exclusive data with GamesIndustry.biz, revealing that over 400,000 units have already been sold at $25 apiece, yielding over $10 million in revenues. The game has also seen peak concurrent users of 64,411 so far. While big budget projects in the traditional AAA space can have a hard time recouping costs,

smaller indie teams can often fare better with smaller investments. At this rate, it seems likely that ARK will yield a nice return for Studio Wildcard. "It's too early to talk about profit since we still have a game to make and there are plenty of costs associated with all of that, but the revenue from sales has already paid for the $1.5 million cost of development over the past seven months," Jesse Rapczak, co-founder, co-creative director, Studio Wildcard explained to GamesIndustry.biz. "My personal view is that Early Access should be for games that could be considered nearly complete or where the end is in sight" The project has a long way to go still, as the official release is planned for June 2016 on Xbox One, PS4 and Steam, but Rapczak noted that the core aspects of the game are all in place. "80 percent of the main game is done, with hundreds of hours of gameplay there already. It's just down to balancing and feedback from the players. If all goes well we may even add more content once the community gets their hands on the mod tools. More on that later," he teased. Rapczak was a technical art director on Microsoft's HoloLens for a couple of years, and you can bet that VR/AR has rubbed off on his studio and ARK. "We already have an early implementation of VR support in the game today with Oculus Rift. Considering my background with HoloLens I am very excited about this and it is one of the areas we will be improving on throughout Early Access. Our plan is to ship VR on PC and PS4 with Project Morpheus," he noted. Early Access has been a mixed bag for both consumers and developers, with varying level of success for indies


Prompt: Questrade Offers Commission Free ETFs and Weekend Links Seems that the competition is rising among the low cost stock brokerages in Canada! The hot ticket these days seem to be free ETF trades which started with Scotia iTrade followed by Virtual Brokers. Both brokerages have their own selection of ETFs available for free trades. It was only a matter of time before low cost provider Questrade got into the game – which they have, but have stepped it up a notch. Questrade is offering no commissions on purchases of any ETFs, however, there will be their regular $4.95 commission on

selling. For those of you unfamiliar with Questrade, here is my Questrade review. How Does it Work? This is straight from the Questrade website: You’ll pay the ETF commission at the time of purchase, but we’ll rebate you in two business days There are no minimum number of shares you have to buy. Hold them for as long as you’d like Buying ETFs for free is only available if you’re trading on one of the Questrade IQ platforms ECN fees or any other incidentals charged by the markets are your responsibility Your standard commissions will apply when you sell an ETF Who benefits? I can see this new incentive working best with index investors who buy, but rarely sell. This is a great way to keep portfolio fee drag as low as possible. Perhaps the biggest advantage of this offer is that investors can choose any ETF without restriction. Here is an example of a low cost index ETF portfolio using Vanguard and iShares ETFs. I’m not sure if this deal is enough to convince an investor to switch from their current brokerage, but it’s a great deal for current account holders like me! Weekend Links Sony points collector? Sign up for the free Mastercard for 10k points @ Canadian Money Forum Housing Affordability Metrics @ Michael James on Money 3 Ways Larger Families Can Save on Accommodations When Vacationing @ Sustainable Personal Finance The proper use of RRSPs: the one formula approach @ Retire Happy Blog 3 Golden Rules to Rid Yourself of Debt @ My Own Advisor Is Your Portfolio Truly Diverse? @ Canadian Finance Blog Group RESP Plans are Loaded with Fees @ Canadian Capitalist How Mobile Technology Can Improve Your Health @ Boomer and Echo Can You Make Money from Survey Sites? @ Financial Highway Buying


Prompt: In February, 2015, neurologist Oliver Sacks – arguably the world's best-known brain doctor and the greatest physician writer in English, wrote an article in The New York Times called My Own Life, announcing that "my luck has run out." Dr. Sacks, 81 years old, still wildly productive, clear-headed, feeling robust, and swimming a mile a day, had just found out he had multiple metastases, from an ocular cancer that had been treated nine years before. One-third of his liver was filled with cancer. No sooner had he shared his ill fortune than did he begin to write of his gratitude

for the years he had been granted since his original diagnosis, and his overall feeling of gratitude for having lived as "a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet … " Story continues below advertisement Hardly a word more was said about the cancer. For now, face to face with dying, he was not quite done with living. He would restrict himself to essentials, which meant saying goodbye to dear friends and family, and continuing to write as he always had, hoping to die "in harness." A group of short, extraordinarily affecting essays followed, his farewell to the world, leaving many readers in tears. Dr. Sacks's specialty had been documenting how an individual, trapped in an extreme mental state that altered perception and even identity, retained his humanity. How, one wondered, might Dr. Sacks bear up when facing his own ultimate transformation? There were surprises, and some revelations, too, in these lyrical meditations, which have been gathered together in a very short book collection – called, fittingly, Gratitude, which appeared on Nov. 24, not long after the release of his memoir, On The Move. The essays in Gratitude had a spare beauty about them – unusual for a writer who so loved the rich tangent. They were unique among his other, more lush, scientific writings. They had the feel of wisdom literature. Wisdom sifts; a wise man, mindful that he has little time to say what he must, gets to the point. And the tone was unusual. They were both stoical and poignant. These are two qualities that rarely go together; we tend to think of stoicism as a kind of armour worn against our emotions, and poignancy as the breaking through, into our stream of consciousness, of emotions, even our most tender and delicate feelings. The poignancy


Prompt: All observations in astronomy are based on light (electromagnetic radiation) emitted from stars and galaxies and, according to the general theory of relativity, the light will be affected by gravity. At the same time all interpretations in astronomy are based on the correctness of the theory of relatively, but it has been difficult to accurately test Einstein's theory of gravity on scales larger than the solar system. Now astrophysicists at the Dark Cosmology Centre at the Niels Bohr Institute have managed to measure how the light is affected by gravity on its way out of galaxy clusters. The observations confirm

the theoretical predictions. The results have been published in the scientific journal, Nature. Observations of large distances in the universe are based on measurements of the redshift, which is a phenomenon where the wavelength of the light from distant galaxies is shifted more and more towards the red with greater distance. The redshift indicates how much the universe has expanded from when the light left until it was measured on Earth. Furthermore, according to Einstein's general theory of relativity, the light and thus the redshift is also affected by the gravity from large masses like galaxy clusters and causes a gravitational redshift of the light. But the gravitational influence on light has never before been measured on a cosmological scale. "It is really wonderful. We live in an era with the technological ability to actually measure such phenomena as cosmological gravitational redshift," says astrophysicist Radek Wojtak, Dark Cosmology Centre under the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Galaxy clusters in the searchlight Radek Wojtak, together with colleagues Steen Hansen and Jens Hjorth, has analysed measurements of light from galaxies in approximately 8,000 galaxy clusters. Galaxy clusters are accumulations of thousands of galaxies, held together by their own gravity. This gravity affects the light being sent out into space from the galaxies. The researchers have studied the galaxies lying in the middle of the galaxy clusters and those lying on the periphery and measured the wavelengths of the light. "We could measure small differences in the redshift of the galaxies and see that the light from galaxies in the middle of a cluster had to 'crawl' out through the gravitational field, while it was easier for the light from the outlying galaxies to emerge," explains Radek Wojtak. Then he measured the entire galaxy cluster's total mass and with that


Prompt: The activists pushing Senate Democrats to resist Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court seat Republicans robbed from Barack Obama recognize that Neil Gorsuch has no business replacing the late Antonin Scalia. Will Senate Democrats come to the same conclusion? The case against confirming Gorsuch is the same as the case against confirming Robert Bork three decades ago: the man holds fast to a fringe ideology that will disenfranchise and discriminate against anyone who is not a member of the economic elite. Gorsuch simply cannot be trusted to apply the law fairly and objectively. In her 2009 Scalia biography American

Original, Joan Biskupic discussed the Reagan administration’s prime motive for nominating Scalia to the High Court: Foremost in the minds of [Reagan’s advisers] was this opportunity to shift the Court’s direction. [Scalia’s] appointment could help project components of the Reagan revolution far into the future. Reagan’s [1981] appointment of [Sandra Day] O’Connor had fulfilled a campaign promise to place a woman on the Court. This new nomination could be more of a reflection of Reagan’s quest for a remade judiciary… Patrick Buchanan, the former Nixon speechwriter and TV commentator whom [White House Chief of Staff] Don Regan had brought in to be communications director at the White House, had written a memo touting Scalia as a major contributor to the legal legacy Reagan hoped to leave…Buchanan had written in his Scalia memo, “The stakes here are immense–whether or not this President can leave behind a Supreme Court that will carry forward the ideas of the Reagan Revolution–into the 21st century.” Just as Scalia was the full embodiment of the Reagan vision on the Supreme Court, so too would Gorsuch fully embody the Trump vision, ensuring unequal justice under law for anyone not in Trump’s rarefied financial air. Gorsuch would move the legal right closer to achieving the longstanding goal of removing all traces of what right-wingers regard as progressive legal activism from the Court. Of course, what right-wingers regard as progressive legal activism, the rest of us call equality. There is nothing immoral or dishonest about Democratic Senators factoring politics into their decision to resist Gorsuch (if they choose to do so, that is). The raw reality is that on the High Court, Gorsuch would, as a committed right-wing ideologue, screw over members of the Democratic Party’s constituency. Why would any Democratic Senator collaborate in a scheme to wound their


Prompt: Google-centric Chromebooks are turning out to be a big deal and they’re only getting bigger. Shipments of laptops running Chrome OS increased 67 percent in the third quarter of 2014 compared to the previous quarter, according to market research firm ABI Research. A big jump like that should be expected, however, when comparing a spring-summer selling period to the back-to-school season. What’s really interesting is that ABI expects Chromebook shipments to double in size for 2014 compared to 2013. ABI also predicts that North America will account for 78 percent of worldwide Chromebook sales for 2014. Why this matters: The

PC market ain’t what it used to be, but Chromebooks are surging in popularity. Google recently claimed that Chromebooks now account for 50 percent of sales to education institutions in the U.S., according to OMG Chrome. Microsoft has also noticed this trend and went after the growing popularity of Chromebooks during IFA Berlin in September. During the trade show, Windows PC makers—who also happen to be Chromebook makers—announced a bunch of dirt cheap, low-spec Windows laptops to compete with Chrome OS devices. More than just a browser in a box Chromebooks started out as devices that were more or less useless without an Internet connection. Since then, however, Chrome OS has morphed into a more powerful platform with offline functionality, a special version of Adobe Photoshop, a growing catalog of desktop-like apps, and deep integration with Android. Add to that Google’s popular suite of productivity apps from Gmail to Google Drive and it’s easy to see why Chromebooks are becoming more popular. The fact that they’re very inexpensive and easy-peasy to maintain surely helps as well. Not content with just Chromebooks, Google is also expanding Chrome OS functionality into other platforms. This is especially true for Windows, where anyone running Windows 8.1 can run Chrome in modern UI mode, where it basically transforms into a Windows-friendly version of Chrome OS. Allowing people to become comfortable using the Chrome ecosystem within a PC platform they’re already used to could earn Google a few more converts to Chrome OS over time. But let’s not be too bullish. It’s still early days for the Chromebook, and fighting Microsoft on its home turf of the PC market rarely turns out well. As ABI points out, Chromebooks could turn out to be just another fad like netbooks before them, especially once a wave of low-cost,


Prompt: Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a way to swiftly and precisely control electron spins at room temperature. The technology, described in Nature Communications, offers a possible alternative strategy for building quantum computers that are far faster and more powerful than today's supercomputers. "What makes electronic devices possible is controlling the movement of electrons from place to place using electric fields that are strong, fast and local," said physics Professor Jesse Berezovsky, leader of the research. "That's hard with magnetic fields, but they're what you need to control spin." Other researchers have searched for materials where electric fields

can mimic the effects of a magnetic field, but finding materials where this effect is strong enough and still works at room temperature has proven difficult. "Our solution," Berezovsky said, "is to use a magnetic vortex." Berezovsky worked with physics PhD students Michael S. Wolf and Robert Badea. The researchers fabricated magnetic micro-disks that have no north and south poles like those on a bar magnet, but magnetize into a vortex. A magnetic field emanates from the vortex core. At the center point, the field is particularly strong and rises perpendicular to the disk. The vortices are coupled with diamond nanoparticles. In the diamond lattice inside each nanoparticle, several individual spins are trapped inside of defects called nitrogen vacancies. The scientists use a pulse from a laser to initialize the spin. By applying microwaves and a weak magnetic field, Berezovsky's team can move the vortex in nanoseconds, shifting the central point, which can cause an electron to change its spin. In what's called a quantum coherent state, the spin can act as a quantum bit, or qubit--the basic unit of information in a quantum computer, In current computers, bits of information exist in one of two states: zero or one. But in a superposition state, the spin can be up and down at the same time, that is, zero and one simultaneously. That capability would allow for more complex and faster computing. "The spins are close to each other; you want spins to interact with their neighbors in quantum computing," Berezovsky said. "The power comes from entanglement." The magnetic field gradient produced by a vortex proved sufficient to manipulate spins just nanometers apart. In addition to computing, electrons controlled in coherent quantum states might be useful for extremely high-resolution sensors, the researchers say. For example, in an MRI, they could


Prompt: According to Salinas police, the man on the left tracked down his estranged wife in Salinas and shot her and three of her family members. (Aug. 27, 2015) Advertisement Salinas police: Estranged husband stalked and shot wife; killed 2 others Share Shares Copy Link Copy Two people are dead and two others are critically wounded after a domestic violence shooting unfolded in Salinas outside a federal office building.It happened at 8:45 a.m. Thursday outside the U.S. Social Security Administration office on the 900 block of Blanco Circle."This incident was purely domestic violence," Police Cmdr. Vince Maiorana said.VIDEO: 2 dead, two

wounded in Salinas shootingMaiorana said an estranged husband and wife who live in Garden Grove, Calif. were having marital conflicts.The 32-year-old woman wanted to get away from her 50-year-old husband, so she drove to Salinas to stay with her aunt, uncle, and cousin, he said."The wife had come up to Salinas get away from martial difficulties they were having in Southern California," Maiorana said.The husband decided to follow and stalk his wife, police said. He found her Thursday morning outside the Social Security office while she was with her family.The husband argued with his wife until he pulled out a 9mm handgun and opened fire on everyone.The 51-year-old aunt and 64-year-old uncle died at the scene. The wife and her 28-year-old cousin were also shot and rushed to a trauma center in critical condition.Witness Mark Keszler told KSBW that the gunman showed very little emotion immediately after the shooting. "The scariest part of it was that he was so stoic. He just didn’t have any kind of emotion, anything in his face. That was really chilling. It was like watching a horror film," Keszler said.More than 10 people called 911. Officers surrounded and locked down the area. The suspected shooter was pointed out to officers by witnesses, and he was taken to the police station."(Witnesses) assisted us and directed us to the identity of the suspect. The cooperation we got from witnesses out at the scene was extraordinary," Maiorana said.Police declined to release the names of the victims and suspected shooter. He was still being questioned at the police station late Thursday afternoon."Our suspect completely confessed to what he did. We’re having a very candid conversation now on why he did what he did. We don’t know yet if there was premeditation, or if it was a spur of the


Prompt: Yuri Drozdov, handler of Soviet undercover spies during Cold War, dies at 91 June 26, 2017 by Joseph Fitsanakis General Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov, who held senior positions in the Soviet KGB for 35 years, and handled a global network of Soviet undercover officers from 1979 until 1991, has died at the age of 91. Drozdov was born in Minsk, Soviet Belarus, in 1925. His father, Ivan Dmitrievich Drozdov, was an officer in the tsarist army who sided with the communists in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. After serving in World War II, Yuri Drozdov joined the KGB in 1956. Following his

training, he was appointed liaison officer between the KGB and East Germany’s Ministry of State Security, commonly known as the Stasi. His knowledge of East German intelligence affairs prompted his involvement in the famous 1962 spy-swap between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets surrendered the American pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had been captured in May 1960, when the U-2 spy plane he was piloting was shot down over Soviet airspace. In return, they received Rudolf Abel (real name Vilyam Fisher) a Soviet undercover spy who was captured in New York in 1957, posing as an American citizen. From 1964 until 1968, Drozdov was stationed in Beijing, China, where he served as the KGB rezident, effectively the agency’s chief of station. He returned to Moscow and in 1975 was posted under diplomatic cover in the United States, where he commanded the KGB’s station in New York until 1979. Upon his return to the USSR, Drozdov was promoted to chief of the KGB’s Directorate S, which handled the agency’s worldwide network of so-called illegals —intelligence officers serving abroad without official cover or formal connection to the Soviet Union. Shortly after his return to Moscow, Drozdov also headed Operation STORM-333, a daring attack on the presidential palace in Afghanistan, during which Soviet special forces killed Afghan President Hafizullah Amin and essentially fired the opening shots of the decade-long Soviet-Afghan war. The experience prompted Drozdov to recommend to his superiors the establishment of a new KGB special-forces unit. It was created in 1981 under the name Vympel (Pennant) and headed by Drozdov himself. He commanded several Vympel missions in and out of the USSR before resigning from the KGB in 1991. Little is known about the specifics of Drozdov’s death. It is believed that he died on June 21, surrounded


Prompt: Editor's note: This article was updated with new figures on procurement. MOSCOW — Despite the pressure of Western sanctions, the sharp devaluation of the Russian ruble and runaway inflation at home, Russian defense firms featured in this year's Defense News Top 100 ranking saw surging revenues as exports reached new highs and the government poured money into defense procurement. Russia's largest defense firm, air defense concern Almaz-Antey, saw revenues rise 10 percent to $9.2 billion, up $883.5 million over 2013. The Tactical Missile Corp., maker of air-to-air systems, saw the most drastic increase with a 48.6 percent rise in revenue

to $2.8 billion in 2014. Other Russian firms that made the ranking were the United Aircraft Corp., which owns Sukhoi, MiG and Irkut, and saw revenues rise 7 percent to $6.2 billion; Russian Helicopters, which finished at $3.96 billion, up 16 percent over 2013; and the United Engine-building Company, which saw a 25 percent increase over 2013 revenues to $3.3 billion in 2014. Other firms that made the  list were tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod, which reported defense revenues of $1.54 billion in 2014 — a 1 percent rise — and electronics component manufacturer RTI, rising 15 percent to $947 million. Russia's shipbuilding conglomerate, the United Shipbuilding Corp., declined to participate in the ranking. The impressive rise in revenues for Russian defense manufacturers, despite the pressure of Russia's economic crisis and Western sanctions, was likely due to record-setting export revenues and government procurement expenditures as President Vladimir Putin's decade-long $350 billion military rearmament drive kicked into high gear. Export and Procurement Surge Russian firms exported a record $13.2 billion worth of military hardware abroad in 2014, continuing a nearly 10-year year-on-year rise in export revenues for Russia's defense industry. Exports were largely unharmed by sanctions, as Russia's major trading partners are non-Western nations with close political ties to Moscow, such as China, India, Algeria and Venezuela. At the same time, Russian procurement hit a new high, with about 2 trillion rubles (US $33.2 billion) spent on new equipment in 2014, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in April. This was a large increase over the 2013 state defense order, which Medvedev said was valued at around 1.5 trillion rubles. Devaluation and Inflation Although Russian firms saw soaring revenues, Western sanctions did have an impact on the industry, though their effects are not readily apparent from the revenue data. Sanctions combined with a


Prompt: Only injury or attitude can stop Dele Alli's sensational rise, says Graeme Souness Dele Alli celebrates scoring Tottenham's opener against Watford with Jan Vertonghen and Eric Dier Graeme Souness believes only injury or a lapse in attitude can halt Dele Alli's unrelenting progression to the top of world football. The England international underlined his claim as one of the brightest young talents in the game with a starring role in Tottenham's 4-0 victory over Watford on Saturday. After the Hornets had held Spurs in a frustrating opening half hour at White Hart Lane, the 20-year-old, three days before his 21st

birthday, opened the scoring in emphatic style with a curling effort from range. His 16th goal of the season laid the foundations for a resounding win as Spurs moved to within four points of league leaders Chelsea. On a personal note, Alli's strike was the 40th Premier League goal he has played a hand in, more than Frank Lampard (15), Steven Gerrard (13) and David Beckham (12) had managed by the same point of their illustrious careers combined. 40 - Dele Alli (40) has had a hand in as many PL goals before turning 21 as Lampard (15), Gerrard (13) & Beckham (12) combined. Star. pic.twitter.com/fWzi2Crd2Y — OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) April 8, 2017 And, after another eye-catching performance, Souness was left in no doubt Alli was destined for the top. "At 20-years-old, Dele Alli has the world at his feet," Souness told Sky Sports. "He doesn't look out of place as a star of the Premier League - a league regarded as the hardest to play in with some of world's great players. Dele Alli is destined for the pinnacle of world football, according to Souness "How far can he go? Two things will determine how far he can go. "If he's unlucky, injuries could play a part, or if he stops turning up every game wanting to learn. .@Dele_Alli scores his 16th PL goal this season and his 7th goal in his last 8 PL apps at White Hart Lane #PL pic.twitter.com/u8yDEV3HeP — Sky Sports Statto (@SkySportsStatto) April 8, 2017 "But he strikes me as someone whose feet are on the ground with the determination to get to the very top. "This performance against Watford only makes me think even more that he has a real chance of achieving that." 2:59 Highlights: Tottenham 4-0 Watford Highlights: Tottenham 4-0 Watford Fellow


Prompt: In the aftermath of the Second World War, with much of Europe in ruins, millions of people displaced, the horrors of the Holocaust a recent memory and an uneasy peace splintering the European continent, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded. NATO tied the security of European democracies to American military power in order to deter then Soviet expansion and aggression. On May 6th, 1955 West Germany joined NATO and the Soviet Union retaliated with the Warsaw Pact coalition eight days later. For decades, Europe was fractured by ideology, economic systems and outlook. Today, NATO remains the most important alliance

in the world. Unlike other international bodies and forums, NATO has proven its ability to influence global affairs by not only shaping military outcomes but also buttressing a stable world order by virtue of its very existence. While the European Union looks increasingly shaky, and the prospect of a Brexit adding to the instability, NATO is a rock upon which diplomacy and military planning remains constant. Predicated on consensus, NATO, as a political forum and a military organization, engages its members with three pillars: Collective defence, cooperative security and crisis management. For Canada, NATO provides a forum to express Canada’s position on the most important international security issues. Be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Europe, the Seas surrounding the Horn of Africa or the ongoing war against extremists, NATO coalitions enable Canada to project Canadian power and Canadian values abroad. Canada’s position is in stark contrast to that of certain American politicians: We need more NATO, not less of it. In a past life, I was a passionate advocate for NATO expansion. I still am. The inclusion of Georgia and Macedonia into NATO should occur in the near term and I look forward to one day welcoming those two nations sharing the protective umbrella of NATO. The exclusion of Ukraine in the Alliance was to our collective shame. With a concentrated push, Ukraine’s path to membership would have united large swaths of that nation and what most see as the illegal Russian invasion of Crimea would not have occurred. As it is, Russia’s Prime Minister has declared a new Cold War against NATO and Russian rhetoric has once again regressed to a tone of antagonism. NATO, with it’s combined and interdependent strength, has acted as an effective deterrent to many forms of invasion, aggression and violence and will continue to do so.


Prompt: During Jan/Feb AIG would call up and just ask for complete unwind prices from the credit desk in the relevant jurisdiction. These were not single deal unwinds as are typically more price transparent - these were whole portfolio unwinds. The size of these unwinds were enormous, the quotes I have heard were " we have never done as big or as profitable trades - ever ". This is largely due to AIG-FP unwinds. Allowing for significant reserve release and trade PnL, I think for the big correlation players this could have easily been US$1-2bn per bank in this period. far

these profits were a) one-time in nature due to wholesale unwinds of AIG portfolios, b) entirely at the expense of AIG, and thus taxpayers, c) executed with Tim Geithner's (and thus the administration's) full knowledge and intent, d) were basically a transfer of money from taxpayers to banks (in yet another form) using AIG as an intermediary. This protocol would allow non-market close outs The purpose of the Protocol is to permit parties to agree upfront that in the event of a counterparty default, they will use Close-Out Amount valuation methodology to value trades. Close-Out Amount valuation, which was introduced in the 2002 ISDA Master Agreement, differs from the Market Quotation approach in that it allows participants more flexibility in valuation where market quotations may be difficult to obtain . Industry participants observed the significant benefits of the Close-Out Amount approach following the default of Lehman Brothers. In launching the Close-Out Amount Protocol, ISDA is facilitating amendment of existing 1992 ISDA Master Agreements by replacing Market Quotation and, if elected, Loss with the Close-Out Amount approach . "This is yet another example of ISDA helping the industry to coalesce around more efficient and effective practices, while maintaining flexibility," said Robert Pickel, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, ISDA. "The Protocol permits parties to value trades in the way that is most appropriate, which greatly enhances smooth functioning of the market in testing circumstances." Zero Hedge is rarely speechless, but after receiving this email from a correlation desk trader, we simply had to hold a moment of silence for the phenomenal scam that continues unabated in the financial markets, and now has the full oversight and blessing of the U.S. government, which in turns keeps on duping U.S. taxpayers into believing everything is good.I present the insider perspective of trader Lou


Prompt: Panhandler Lawsuit Kim Pindak stands outside Chicago's federal courthouse after the first day of testimony in a civil lawsuit involving him and and other panhandlers Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, in Chicago. He and another panhandler brought a suit that alleges they lost up to $10 a day because authorities bar them from begging in Daley Plaza, a popular public square in the city. The trial that started today is a rare instance of jurors being asked to decide the issue of panhandlers' rights. (AP Photo/Michael Tarm) CHICAGO -- A federal civil trial pitting two panhandlers against one of the nation's

largest sheriff's departments got underway Monday, in a case stemming from a lawsuit that alleges the men were improperly stopped from begging at a popular Chicago square. Kim Pindak and Sam Phillips claim they lost up to $10 a day over four years because Cook County sheriff's deputies told them repeatedly they couldn't ask for money at Daley Plaza, best known for its iconic Chicago sculpture by Pablo Picasso. Pindak, 63, said during a break in the trial that he was forced to supplement his income by begging because all but $30 of his $750-a-month federal disability assistance went toward paying living expenses at an assisted-living facility. "A lot of people see us as scam artists," he said. "I don't live in the Waldorf Astoria. I'm just trying to survive." Wearing a sports jacket his attorneys bought him for the trial, Pindak said over lunch that he never imagined he would one day be a subject in a rare panhandler case to go before a federal jury. He quickly added, "I never thought I would be a panhandler, either." He said he once aspired to become a physician before suffering debilitating mental illness. The extra income from panhandling allows him to buy an occasional coffee, a pair of shoes or sometimes books about his favorite hobby -- chess. Back in the courtroom, he often looked uneasy as he sat at a table for the plaintiffs. The judge, Rebecca Pallmeyer, has presided over some of the most notable cases in recent Illinois history, including the corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan. In recent years, courts nationwide have increasingly agreed that asking passers-by for money is constitutionally protected free speech under the First Amendment, said Rebecca Glenberg, a civil liberties lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. A


Prompt: The Khronos Group’s WebGL technology is a cross-platform, low-level 3D graphics API for the web. Recently, Context Information Security published two reports critical of the WebGL technology, WebGL – A New Dimension for Browser Exploitation and WebGL – More WebGL Security Flaws. One of the functions of MSRC Engineering is to analyze various technologies in order to understand how they can potentially affect Microsoft products and customers. As part of this charter, we recently took a look at WebGL. Our analysis has led us to conclude that Microsoft products supporting WebGL would have difficulty passing Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle requirements.

Some key concerns include: Browser support for WebGL directly exposes hardware functionality to the web in a way that we consider to be overly permissive The security of WebGL as a whole depends on lower levels of the system, including OEM drivers, upholding security guarantees they never really need to worry about before. Attacks that may have previously resulted only in local elevation of privilege may now result in remote compromise. While it may be possible to mitigate these risks to some extent, the large attack surface exposed by WebGL remains a concern. We expect to see bugs that exist only on certain platforms or with certain video cards, potentially facilitating targeted attacks. Browser support for WebGL security servicing responsibility relies too heavily on third parties to secure the web experience As WebGL vulnerabilities are uncovered, they will not always manifest in the WebGL API itself. The problems may exist in the various OEM and system components delivered by IHV’s. While it has been suggested that WebGL implementations may block the use of affected hardware configurations, this strategy does not seem to have been successfully put into use to address existing vulnerabilities. It is our belief that as configurations are blocked, increasing levels of customer disruption may occur. Without an efficient security servicing model for video card drivers (eg: Windows Update), users may either choose to override the protection in order to use WebGL on their hardware, or remain insecure if a vulnerable configuration is not properly disabled. Users are not accustomed to ensuring they are up-to-date on the latest graphics card drivers, as would be required for them to have a secure web experience. In some cases where OEM graphics products are included with PCs, retail drivers are blocked from installing. OEMs often only update their drivers once per


Prompt: Beaver Island as we know it first appeared out of the ice eleven thousand years ago. Since then, its form has changed considerably because of the rise and fall of Lake Michigan, which has ranged over a differential of 375'. The Lake dropped to a very low level about 8,000 years ago, and stayed down for 4,000 years. During this time, this land was not an island at all but an appendage of the mainland. Then the Lake rose to 30' above its present level, submerging all of Beaver except the central plateau. Next, it dropped about ten feet, producing

a slightly smaller version of our present Island. The edge of this configuration was layered with beach gravel. When a logging railroad was built in 1904, it was placed on this firm bed. We know that Native Americans passed by Beaver Island as long ago as 2,200 years. There is no proof that they lived here, but the oral tradition of the Odawas, who have resided here for over 300 years, is that there were small fishing villages in many of the bays when they arrived. Arrowheads, spear heads, and fragments of Woodland-period pottery indicate that at least they came ashore. Fire-cracked rocks mark their cooking fires along the bluff. In 1871 the archeologist Henry Gillman opened some of the mounds in the harbor, and was surprised at the "uncommonly skillful workmanship" of the artifacts he found. The Odawas (Ottawas) migrated westward in the ripples of Native American movement that retreated from contact with the whites, arriving on Beaver Island in the mid-1700s. At times they were recruited to help in skirmishes between the English and the French, but little was known about their lives until Father Baraga came from L'Arbre Croche in 1832 to convert the Indians living on the north shore to Catholicism. He baptized 22 Indians, but those living in the settlement near Whiskey Point remained pagan. A few years later, some of the 199 Indians living on Garden Island, 2 miles north (and the site of over 3,000 Indian graves), were converted by other missionaries. White traders and trappers began to appear in the early 1800s. Trapping, fishing, and cutting wood for the passing steamers allowed men to earn a living at this frontier. By the 1840s, two trading posts were flourishing. Economic power shifted here from Mackinac Island because of Beaver's good fishing, ample forests,


Prompt: Want to download torrents on iPad at full speed, but afraid of jailbreaking your iOS device? Wondering if you can download torrents on your iPhone without jailbreak? Well, that should not be a problem if you follow the method featured in this article. Introduction Previously, I had written a post featuring the best torrent downloader app for an iPhone. In that I had mentioned a much easier way to download torrents on your iPhone, iPad or even on an iPod touch. But there’s a catch in that. These torrent downloading apps can be installed only on a jailbroken iOS device

from third party app stores like Cydia. This can be a problem to some iOS users for whom jailbreaking may be a strict no-no. However, the good news is that, there is a work around to this problem. In this article I am sharing a new idea that would help you download torrents on your iOS device without the need of a jailbreak. What are torrents? Torrenting is a file sharing protocol on the internet that is fundamentally different from all other ways of downloading a file. In the traditional way of downloading a file, a file can only be downloaded from a single source on the internet. However, in torrents’ case, a file can be downloaded, bit by bit, from the source of upload as well as from fellow downloaders. Hence, by using up multiple sources of downloading simultaneously, torrents can potentially increase the speed of download of a file when compared to direct downloads. While downloading a torrent file there are three types of sharing sources that you will come across. Users who have completed their download and are sharing/seeding it for others to download are called seeders. The more seeders a file has, the faster the download is bound to complete. Users who only have a portion of the file, but are uploading it and downloading the rest at the same time are called peers. Peers are very useful in increasing the overall speed of downloading a torrent file. Users who have just started downloading the torrent and have no portion of it to share with the others are called leechers. The torrent files themselves are just trackers that keep track of the different download locations in real time. They manage the seeding and leeching of a file to different computers. Why Torrent? The internet has developed


Prompt: CLOSE On Thursday afternoon, Woods and about 100 students rushed Davis' cash register to surprise her with an oversize check for nearly $2,500, printed on an image of the blues, pinks and greens of the Aurora Borealis. Watch Vicke Davis receive $2,500 to see the Northern Lights in Canada below. ASU sophomore Chase Ebiner (left) hugs from dining room cashier Vicke Davis after she received a $2,350 check for her dream trip on Jan. 21, 2016, at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University in Tempe. (Photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic) Vicke Davis, 59, is something of a celebrity among

students at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. “Everyone knows her,” junior Alysa McCormick said. “She remembered my name before I remembered her name.” As an employee in the college's dining hall in Tempe for the last three years, Davis has asked about the students’ lives before every breakfast, lunch and dinner. And because she cares, she remembers their answers. She knows if they’re a freshman or senior, how their classes are going, where they went on vacation. “Vicke is obviously a star component of the Barrett experience,” sophomore Hannah Houts said. “She knows all my family. … She sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to my dad once even though it wasn’t his birthday — because he was getting cake.” One chilly fall day last semester, junior Quintin Woods handed Davis his meal card to buy lunch and, as she swiped it, asked about her “dream trip." Without hesitation, she replied “the Northern Lights,” the bands of light that appear in the sky at night, especially in arctic regions. She heard that if you sing or whistle, the colorful streaks will dance with you. On Thursday afternoon, Woods and about 100 students rushed Davis' cash register to surprise her with an oversize check for nearly $2,500, printed on an image of the blues, pinks and greens of the Aurora Borealis. NEWSLETTERS Get the AZ Memo newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Get the pulse of Arizona -- Local news, in-depth state coverage and what it all means for you Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Mon-Fri Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for AZ Memo Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters As Woods handed her the check and a


Prompt: Dr. Ashraf Marwan remains a riddle in his death, just as he was in his life. The man who for a large part of the Israeli intelligence community is considered the most senior spy in the history of the state, the one who warned on the eve of Yom Kippur in 1973 that war was about to break out, was also, according to others, a double agent who was trying to get the Israelis to fall into his trap – with some success. He was an Egyptian billionaire, and happened to be the son-in-law of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel

Nasser. He also served in the Presidential Office under Nasser and was a close aide to Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat.On June 27, 2007, at the age of 63, he died mysteriously.“I do not have to prove to anyone that our sources were first-class,” says Zvi Zamir, head of the Mossad in 1973, and the one who met with Marwan on October 5 in London and heard about the date of the war.“In Military Intelligence, they treated him as a double agent without having any proof. We proved that he was not. I hope you will understand the importance of such intelligence at a time when war was expected. Ashraf Marwan was an unparalleled source in our history.”Eli Zeira, who was the head of Military Intelligence during the Yom Kippur War, led the double-agent theory, but it turns out that in the intelligence division, Zeira wasn’t alone in his theory: Maj.-Gen. (res.) Shlomo Gazit believes that Marwan’s contribution was mostly harmful, since the warning he delivered came only hours before the outbreak of the war.“Fifty-five percent [certain that] Marwan was a double agent,” Gazit volunteered. “I did not care about his death, but the phenomenon is important to me. I have a clear opinion – whether he was a real agent or a double agent – that the damage he caused was terrible. If we hadn’t used Marwan, the State of Israel, being led by the IDF, would have prepared for the war a week earlier when news began to arrive about what was happening in Egypt. But they said that if Marwan didn’t tell us about it, it wasn’t serious, it was just an exercise. That doesn’t mean he was a double agent. But the fact is that when you have a super-agent – a super-super-super agent – you are


Prompt: Harry Redknapp has met me. Years ago my neighbour at the time organised a testimonial for one of the Charlton players against West Ham and my wife’s family are rabid Hammers, so there we were in the director’s box at the Valley. Before kick-off Peter waves to me and beckons me down to the front. I’m happy to thank him but he says, “Where are the rest of you? Come and meet Harry. Harry!” he shouts, “Someone I want you to meet.” Harry strolls over, is as pleasant as can be as we exchange a few words and the photo,

once pride of place in my wife’s daughter’s living room, is now shoved behind a cupboard in their loft but I’m there, hanging back and forcing a smile. Peter Varney and I used to work for Lewisham Council – he was something in building – and we got to know each other better during the 5 week strike over, well, I forget now but it was important. Lovely bloke and a good neighbour. He used to cut the thick hedge that divided our front gardens and it was only when he moved that I realised it was on my side of the line but he never mentioned it. A lifelong and long-suffering Charlton fan, he did a bit for the supporters club and for charity. We’d be chatting over the fence and his wife would call out, “Pete, phone. Again!!!” “Coming. Who is it”.” “Kevin Keegan” “Tell Kev to hang on a minute, I’m busy.” Although he was too modest to speak about it, he must have been good because one day it was announced that Pete was the new CEO at Charlton. From humble beginnings on the picket line, he was in the boardroom and moved away. I, um, downsized. I never took to Harry. I wanted to, for him to be the football man with a heart of gold who brought success to clubs in the right way. Fact is, my image of him has been tainted from the start as my wife’s family chronicled his dodgy wheeler-dealing that left him in pocket (allegedly) and successive clubs in a ruinous state financially. I refused to succumb to his assiduously cultivated persona of all-round good ol’ Uncle Harry. It was none of my business, until a couple of years ago anyway, but I don’t like being manipulated. Despite his


Prompt: Something fishy may be happening in the e-book world. Apple, Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group Inc., Simon & Schuster Inc., Macmillan Publishers, and HarperCollins Publishers have just been slapped with a class action anti-trust lawsuit. The Hagens Berman law firm of northern California is bringing the suit and the plaintiffs – according to the Hagens Berman website – are Anthony Petru of California and Marcus Mathis of Mississippi. Hagens Berman claims that Apple and the five publishers colluded to drive up e-book prices and eliminate Amazon's lead in the e-book market. Amazon previously sold e-books at $9.99, for less money

than the physical books cost and often at a loss in order to drive up demand for e-books and thus, the Amazon Kindle. The plaintiffs believe that Apple, about to release the iPad that it hoped with compete with the Kindle as an e-reader, and publishers, annoyed at Amazon's low prices, worked together to force Amazon to drive up prices. They did this by forcing Amazon to stop using discount pricing and start using the agency model. The agency model allows publishers to set prices for their e-books, with the online store taking a portion of the price. Previously Amazon had bought e-books from publishers and set its own low prices. In the agency model, according to Ars Technica, Amazon would not be allowed to sell e-books at prices lower than those set by the publishers. Since the publishers in question supposedly control 85% of the popular books on Amazon, it was inevitable that Amazon would have to raise e-book prices – and it since has. If the Hagens Berman claims are true, then Apple and five publishers are guilty of collusion and violating anti-trust laws by preventing free trade and driving up prices. It sounds like a good argument, but where's the proof? Unfortunately for Apple, there might be some. A conversation between Apple founder, Steve Jobs, and Walt Mossberg from The Wall Street Journal at the unveiling of the iPad was documented in The New Yorker, and shows evidence that Apple knew about Amazon's price hike before it happened, reports Ars Technica. Mossberg apparently asked Jobs why anyone would pay more for an e-book from Apple when they could pay less and get it from Amazon. Jobs said that the price difference would soon be eliminated because publishers were unhappy with Amazon's low pricing. If the case is


Prompt: Donald Duck and Tigger Is Donald Duck a pervert? Gawker seems to think so. Yesterday evening, it posted an item asking: “Who are the strange people in the furry costumes at Disney World, and are they pervs? After Donald Duck grabbed her boob, a 27-year-old is suing Disney.” The woman’s complaint, according to Gawker, “includes a helpful list of other Disney character transgressions, like the time Tigger molested a 13-year-old girl. … Moral of the story: Men who wear masks are not to be trusted.” Readers of the item soon began posting their own allegations. One recalled: “When I was

in High School the Shamu at the Sea World in Ohio freaked me out. He kept giving me these big bear hugs that were really hard and rough. He also kept my face covered with his fins while he was doing this. Very creepy. I can understand why this lady was totally offended.” Another agreed: “Similar experience in high school with a crash test dummy at Disney (near the test track). Creepy.” A third added: “When my family visited Magic Mountain in the 70s, a horny person dressed up as a grape pinched my dad’s ass and then scampered away.” A fourth wrote: “UGH! I remember going to Disney with my brother and sister. I was like 16 and they were like 12 and 10—so I was confused that all the characters seemed to want to kiss ME on the cheek and hug ME more than my siblings.” We’ve seen this pattern before: an allegation of groping, followed by a bunch of other people recalling similar abuse. The initial charge makes the rest of the claims credible. But sometimes the allegations, and even the triggered memories, are false. That’s what happened to Tigger. Don’t let it happen to Donald. Gawker bases its description of the Tigger case—”the time Tigger molested a 13-year-old girl”—on the complaint against Donald, which was posted yesterday by the Smoking Gun. The complaint alleges: 9. This incident is one of a long line of continuing, long standing, similar prior incidents that have occurred on Defendant’s various resort premises. … 10. Authorities in Florida received 24 more complaints in the week since a Walt Disney World employee was charged with molesting a 13-year-old girl and her mother while dressed as the character ‘Tigger’ in 2004. 11. Numerous of those cases were deemed credible enough to be investigated


Prompt: Premier League star Roberto Firmino suffered a burglary at his home in Liverpool by a hooded gang who stole £70,000 worth of possessions. The Liverpool forward's home was targeted by the thieves before Christmas who are believed to have watched the house for a number of days and pounced when the Brazilian left with his wife and two children. They ransacked the Victorian property in Liverpool for jewellery, watches and clothes amounting to £70,000 before leaving on foot. Roberto Firmino and his family were moved to a hotel over Christmas by Liverpool officials after his home was raided by a

hooded gang. Jewellery, watches and clothes were taken Firmino and his wife Larissa Pereira were said to have been left shaken by the burglary It is believed the thieves previously targeted the property but were disturbed on that occasion. Liverpool officials moved the Brazilian and his family - wife Larissa and two small children - into a hotel over Christmas and have now provided the 25-year-old with a security team tasked with protecting them at the home. A source told The Sun: 'They'd obviously been watching Roberto come and go, then swooped in. 'It's thought they are the same guys who were disturbed mid-burglary on a previous occasion. 'He was obviously shaken up as he has a young family, so the club had him in a hotel before giving him security at the house.' Firmino had his home burgled by a gang before Christmas - he is pictured playing in the FA Cup at the weekend for Liverpool against Plymouth Firmino speaks to manager Jurgen Klopp as he prepares to come on against Plymouth Firmino came off the bench in Liverpool's goalless draw against Plymouth at Anfield Forensic tests have been taken at the property and the gang are believed to have been wearing hoods, with one in a blue Puffa coat. Detective Inspector Steve Christian, from Liverpool CID, said: 'I'd like to appeal to the consciences of the offenders and ask them to put themselves in the victim's position and think how they would feel if this happened to them. 'While the occupiers were not in at the time, it has clearly been very upsetting to find their home has been targeted in this way. 'I would ask the offenders to do the right thing and return the stolen items to the owner in any way possible. 'I would


Prompt: The new Presto fare system will be up and — hopefully — running at every subway station in the city on Friday morning. The TTC says the last Presto-free station, Coxwell, will have an operating card reader in place for the morning commute. But whether that new equipment will work is less certain, as some riders have been discovering. The TTC says its received more than 600 complaints about faulty Presto equipment this year. (CBC) Frustrated customers say they're facing big problems reloading their cards at Presto machines across the city, problems that Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, insists it

is close to ironing out. Customers have also reported problems with card readers at subway stations and on streetcars and buses, TTC spokesperson Heather Brown said. In total, the TTC has logged some 620 Presto complaints system-wide so far this year. If the bugs that have plagued card loaders can't be worked out, Metrolinx says it has a brand new generation of fare-loaders waiting to be installed in TTC stations. Customers could be partially at fault "We will completely agree they are not reliable," Anne Marie Aikins, Metrolinx senior manager of media relations, said earlier this week. "Sometimes it's just usability — a customer who takes their card out too fast. But we're also diagnosing whether it's a software fix that needs to happen." Metrolinx is set to roll out "a next generation of self-loading machines that we expect to be much better than these current ones," she said, adding those machines would be delivered in the new year. Metrolinx is responsible for front-line maintenance of the Presto machines. Metrolinx's Anne Marie Aikins says her agency is working to iron out glitches with Presto card loaders. (CBC) Currently there are 75 fare loaders in TTC stations across the city. Customers have reported problems with card readers as well. As of Friday, all buses will be equipped with them, the TTC says. Streetcars have been accepting Presto since 2015. Help is on the way The TTC's Brown told CBC Toronto on Thursday that the commission keeps track of rider complaints about faulty Presto machines, but doesn't distinguish between readers and loaders. TTC chief executive officer Andy Byford on Wednesday expressed frustration with Presto gate glitches, but said help is on the way. TTC CEO Andy Byford expressed frustration with the Presto problems. (CBC) "There is a software patch and an increase


Prompt: An NYT report indicates Donald Trump Jr. tried to collude with the Russian government A bad look for a man already in hot water. An explosive new report in the New York Times says that Donald Trump Jr. was told in advance of his meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya that she had negative information to offer about Hillary Clinton and that the source of the information was the Russian government. According to the Times, citing “three people with knowledge of the email,” Rob Goldstone, the British publicist who set up the meeting, contacted Trump and told him he should

meet with Veselnitskaya because she could share information sourced to the Russian government. After the Times first reported Saturday on the meeting’s existence, Trump acknowledged that it took place, but made no mention of the Russian government being a source of Veselnitskaya’s alleged information. It’s not clear at this point that she actually had any such information — from what we can tell, she sought the meeting to discuss with the Trump campaign her longstanding attempt to get a set of sanctions related to human rights abuses lifted. And there’s no indication that the Veselnitskaya meeting had anything to do with the emails pilfered by Russian-backed hackers from the Democratic National Committee or John Podesta. Still, the fact that the Trump campaign took a high-level meeting — Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner were also present — whose ostensible purpose was for the Trump campaign to work with the Russian government to take down Clinton certainly increases the level of plausibility around the possibility that people from Trumpworld were involved in the anti-Clinton information operation that we do know took place. Donald Trump Jr. is getting into a lot of trouble Even before this latest revelation, Donald Trump Jr.’s participation in the meeting was a potential source of legal trouble for him. That’s because it’s essentially illegal to seek foreign help of any kind in a political campaign. Under 52 USC 30121, 36 USC 510, the law governing foreign contributions to political campaigns, you don’t have to actually get useful help from foreigners, according to this law: The mere fact that Trump Jr. asked for information from a Russian national about Clinton, and heard her out as she attempted to describe it, might have constituted a federal crime. “If what Donald Trump Jr. said was true ... then they should have


Prompt: Whiskey lovers are more full of it than they seem, and may be exaggerating their ability to even tell rye and bourbon apart, a study by Drexel University found. Instead, the average consumer is more swayed by brand, age and alcohol content. The fashion for drinking whiskey appears to be overtaking people’s knowledge of it, assistant professor at Drexel’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management, Jacob Lahne, found. He arrived at the results by carrying out a simple blind sorting exercise. "There is definitely a tendency for bartenders to talk about how some drinks should absolutely be made with bourbon

or rye, and I think it's clear now that there is more flexibility," Lahne says. “In a way it’s fun and exciting – it gives you a bigger universe to play with.” Read more While the two spirits have their distinct traditions, chemical and taste differences (try telling a Scotsman something about the merits of Bourbon), the only legal difference between rye and bourbon is that the latter is for the most part fermented corn mash, while rye is grain. The mash bill – or the collection of raw materials used for a specific blend – could be different by a small fraction and still cause a drink to be pigeonholed into another category. For his sample Lahne used 21 participants and trays with 10 mystery whiskeys – half of them bourbon, the other half rye. The order was random. The subjects were instructed to only smell, not taste. This exercise basically matches the testing procedures for Scotch whiskey evaluation. Days later the subjects came back and were told to reorder the previously smelled whiskeys into groupings. The order in which the whiskeys were presented was exactly the same. The difference was that this time around the whiskeys all got fancy brand names and specially-designed labels. The next part is a bit more complex. The researchers had to use statistical analyses to interpret the participants’ choices. Eventually the conclusion Lahne and team arrived at is that the average participant did not order his poisons according to mashbill, but was instead swayed by the flashy label and all the cool information it gave – such as years aged, the type of cask and so on. It was noticed that Jim Beam whiskeys were often grouped together, something Lahne attributed to the established tell-tale signs of house brands. Jim Beam, for instance,


Prompt: Closing Europe’s Borders Becomes Big Business This is the first of a two-part report on extraordinary measures the EU is taking to keep unwanted migrants out of the EU. ATHENS/WARSAW, Jan 9 2013 (IPS) - The European Union is implementing a new border management system with tougher migration control the core aim. Major security and weapons companies are already reaping the benefits. Frontex, the EU border agency, has financed major weapons and security equipment producers to present their equipment in demonstrations. European national border guards have participated in these demonstrations as potential customers, IPS learns. Frontex confirmed to IPS that

the agency has been paying weapons and security equipment manufacturers to participate in demonstrations of equipment which national agencies attended as potential customers. “In the case of companies Lockheed Martin, FAST Protect AG, L-3 Communications, FLIR Systems, SCOTTY Group Austria, Diamond Airborne Sensing and Inmarsat, it (the reimbursement) was 30,000 euros,” the agency told IPS in an emailed response. The companies participated in demonstration of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (Drones) in Aktio in Greece in October 2011. Thirteen companies and consortiums (Israel Aerospace Industries, Lockheed Martin, FAST Protect AG, L-3 Communications, FLIR Systems, SCOTTY Group Austria, Diamond Airborne Sensing, Inmarsat, Thales, AeroVision, AeroVironment, Altus, BlueBird) demonstrated technological solutions for maritime surveillance. “The payments made to the companies to cover the costs incurred by them to participate in the demonstration in Aktio varied from 10,000 euros to 198,000 euros,” said Frontex. U.S.-based Lockheed Martin, French Thales and Israeli IAI are among the biggest weapons and security equipment producers in the world. The demonstrations are part of the preparation for the launch of EUROSUR, the European External Border Surveillance System meant to enhance cooperation between border control agencies of EU member states and to promote surveillance of EU’s external borders by Frontex, with a particular focus on the Mediterranean and North Africa, in view of controlling migration to Europe. Surveillance plans envisage the possibility of using drones to spot migrant boats trying to cross the Mediterranean. EUROSUR is one of the two main elements of Europe’s new border management regime along with ‘Smart Borders’ which will put in place an ‘Entry-Exit System’ (EES) to identify visa overstayers, and establish a Registered Traveller Programme (RTP) to enable pre-vetted individuals to cross borders faster. The system would rely heavily on use of biometrics and on the collection of a huge database of passenger personal information.


Prompt: Westminster Presbyterian Church on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis plans to demolish an eight-story glassy office building adjacent to its historic site and expand the church’s footprint in its place. The building project, contingent upon church board approval next week, is part of a larger campaign focused on positioning the church for its next 100 years in downtown Minneapolis. The campaign also will raise up to $7 million for charity and community services, including about $4 million for new affordable housing in the city, said senior pastor Tim Hart-Andersen. Westminster is seeking city approval for a two-story, 41,000-square-foot modern expansion with

large plazas and gardens lining the highly trafficked street. Early cost estimates put the project at $27 million to $28 million. The church in 2012 purchased the property at 1221 Nicollet Mall for $8.7 million. At that time, the 3,100-member Westminster announced that it planned to eventually raze the blue-hued office building to make way for a church expansion. The original portion of Westminster was built in 1897 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Westminster plans to use the addition for worship and gathering space, a multipurpose room, classrooms, youth spaces, church offices and community partnership space, according to documents filed with the city. Westminster Presbyterian Church on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis plans to demolish the 9-story office tower it owns next door and replace it with a two-story, 41,000 square foot church expansion. “We want to be a part of this city’s growth for years to come,” Hart-Andersen said. “One of our principles is to be ecologically responsible as it is our understanding of caring for creation. There will be a green roof that will water the plaza and provide water for the bathrooms. “We really want it to be an example of how you can have a green and sustainable building in the heart of the city.” Community partners About 25 percent of the new space is designed to host community partners, including one of two possible nonprofits, Hart-Anderson said. Declining to name the organizations they are having conversations with, Hart-Andersen did say it will probably either be a nonprofit that provides services for early intervention for babies and toddlers who have suffered trauma or an urban school. In addition to the expansion, Westminster plans to renovate 30,000 square feet of its existing interior to provide new libraries and co-working space. The modern-style


Prompt: Posted on Wednesday, 02 April 2014 11:03 By Christian Freymeyer While the origin of illicit financial flows ranges from government embezzlement to human trafficking, and from corporate tax evasion to grand corruption, the destination seems less ambiguous. A $35 million mansion in California, artwork totaling €18 million, and a $38 million dollar private jet. These sound like items purchased by the world's wealthiest oligarchs, right? Well, they were actually acquired by Teodorin Obiang, son of President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea. as long as financial institutions in the EU remain complicit in the transfer of illicit capital, African countries will

continue to bleed billions When his father convenes with other leaders for this week's EU-Africa summit, a wide range of topics will be covered. But there's one issue in particular that should be given a loudspeaker during the talks in Brussels: illicit financial flows. Africa and Europe have a unique financial relationship. It's one that is marked by illicit capital flowing out of African countries into bank accounts in financial centers across the EU. While the younger Obiang's official salary is less than $7,000 per month, he managed to spend more than $315 million between 2004 and 2011 on sports cars, beachfront mansions, lavish apartments, and even some Michael Jackson memorabilia. And this is only one example. In 2011 alone, it's estimated that €43.7 billion left Africa by way of illicit financial flows; this money should rather have been invested in infrastructure, education and healthcare, all of which are areas highlighted by the EU-Africa Summit. Just to put that number into perspective, African countries received a combined €34.3 billion in developmental aid the same year, according to statistics from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). While the origin of illicit financial flows ranges from government embezzlement to human trafficking, and from corporate tax evasion to grand corruption, the destination seems less ambiguous. The end game for most is to move funds to a place where they can be used freely, and preferably, anonymously. At the moment, that task is far too easy. Loopholes in the current system have fostered a strange breed of companies. They don't do any real work, don't have any employees, and, more often than not, don't even disclose who owns them. These anonymous companies are one of the primary vehicles used to funnel illicit money from Africa into places like the EU. To set


Prompt: This is a list of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords as published by Mexican federal authorities on 23 March 2009. According to a BBC Mundo Mexico report, the 37 drug lords "have jeopardized México national security."[1][2] As of 8 January 2016, 25 drug lords have been captured, eight have been killed and four remain fugitives. The list of drug lords is grouped by their drug cartels. Mexico offers up to 30 million pesos (about 1.6 million U.S. dollars) for the capture of each of the fugitives.[2][3][4] The United States also offers rewards for two of them.[5] The most-wanted of the

37 drug lords was Joaquín Guzmán Loera, for whom Mexican and U.S. governments offered a total bounty of 7 million USD.[6] He was captured on 22 February 2014 in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, where he was staying at a hotel.[7] He escaped yet again on 11 July 2015 through a 1.5 kilometer long tunnel from his cell in the Mexican maximum security prison he had been housed in. Guzmán was recaptured by Mexican Marines following a gun battle on 8 January 2016.[8] Recent events [ edit ] As of 18 January 2011, Mexico had captured or killed 20 of the 37 in the most-wanted list.[9] The 21 June 2011 arrest of José de Jesús Méndez Vargas,[10] a.k.a. "El Chango", brought the total to twenty-one captured or killed.[11][12] On 4 November 2011, Francisco Hernández García was captured bringing the total to 22 captured or killed. A leader of the Zetas drug cartel, Raúl Hernández Lechuga was captured on 12 December 2011, which brought the total to 23 captured or killed so far.[11][12][13] On 26 September 2012, Iván Velázquez Caballero was captured by Mexican security forces, bringing the total captured or killed so far to 24.[14] Then the 7 October 2012 killing of Heriberto Lazcano brought this total to 25 captured or killed so far.[15] On 15 July 2013, Miguel Treviño Morales was apprehended by the Mexican Marines in a town called Anáhuac, Nuevo León, near the border of the state of Tamaulipas,[16] bringing the total captured or killed so far to 26. Then, the 27 January 2014 apprehension of Dionisio Loya Plancarte,[17] a.k.a. "El Tío", brought the total captured or killed to 27, and leaving the Mexican government with 10 such fugitives still on the loose. On 23 June 2014, Fernando Sánchez Arellano was arrested by soldiers of the Mexican Army and federal