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http://mashable.com/2016/09/21/dairy-queen-snack-menu-event/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016092119id_/http://mashable.com/2016/09/21/dairy-queen-snack-menu-event/
|
Here's what happened when we blew NYC's mind with free DQ Bakes! Snacks (Paid content by the new oven-hot Snack Menu by DQ Bakes!)
|
You never really know what kind of magical things can happen when you walk around New York City.
Sometimes, you might experience something you never saw coming, like the queen of sweet treats – the Dairy Queen® brand – giving away savory, oven-hot snacks.
That's just what happened when the Dairy Queen® brand and Mashable planned a surprise pop-up giveaway in Union Square last week to introduce the first-ever, oven hot DQ Bakes!® Snacks Menu.
Thousands of unsuspecting Dairy Queen fans were able to stop by the pop-up to indulge with two of these new savory snacks. Many who visited the event never thought that the brand — well-known for frozen favorites like Dilly Bars and Blizzard Treats — would ever break into the hot snacks world.
Image: BRITTANY HERBERT
At the event, local foodies got acquainted with the new DQ Bakes!® offerings: soft pretzels with zesty queso dipping sauce and potato skins, also featuring the zesty queso, topped with bacon bits and cheddar cheese. In addition to tasting the new snacks, New Yorkers made themselves into “snackable content” by creating snack-themed GIFs to share out with friends.
The new oven-hot Snack Menu also includes buffalo chicken and chicken bacon BBQ "snack melts." All three of these new menu items start at under $2 at participating locations.
Image: brittany herbert
"People are snacking more and more every day and aren't able to always get three meals in, particularly millennials," said Michelle Forcier, Director of Marketing for American Dairy Queen Corporation (ADQ), while taking a break from helping her team hand out the oven-hot snacks. " We wanted to provide a great tasting, craveable product that fits in a snacking price point."
One of the event's pleasantly surprised gourmands praised the quality of the snacks, saying, “This is the kind of thing I would get at a nice, sit-down restaurant." This snack menu, that's been four years in the making, is the first of its kind offered by a quick service restaurant, or QSR.
In addition to munching on these savory new treats, visitors had a lot of fun with the on-site GIF booth creating dozens of GIFs; some of the best ones are featured in this article. Fans were dancing, posing and, of course, eating the DQ Bakes!® Snacks in the snackable GIFs, which were frequently shared on social media.
On top of everything, the GIFs were also projected onto a big screen TV at the pop-up, which gave a lot of participants a delicious 15 seconds of fame.
For more information about where you can pick up some of the new DQ Bakes!® Snacks Menu, visit DairyQueen.com and share your favorite using #SnackMeDQ.
|
Pretzel sticks, potato skins, and zesty queso - oh my!
|
[
"Dairy Queen"
] |
09-21-2016
|
mashable.com
|
2016092119
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/12/09/in-pope-francis-era-catholics-still-finding-their-footing/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2013121219id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/12/09/in-pope-francis-era-catholics-still-finding-their-footing/
|
In Pope Francis era, Catholics still finding their footing
|
The message of the Broadway classic, Fiddler on the Roof, is contained in the title. The fiddler symbolizes the effort required to play sweet music while simultaneously balancing religious traditions on the pitched slope of modernity. Now, with Pope Francis, there is a Fiddler on the Roof moment for Catholic America. The left-wing and the right-wing will have to find balance just as the fiddler adjusted to the sloping roof in order to stand erect. It won’t be easy.
We Catholics have been fighting among ourselves since St. Paul (Acts 15) argued against Mosaic observances, but we maintain unity by respecting the authority of the pope. That respect, incidentally, distinguishes us from other Christians. Pope Francis has changed the emphasis of Catholicism by setting new priorities. Even without considering doctrine, he has called for an about-face, wherein the right-foot emphasis of his two predecessors has now shifted 180º to a left-foot emphasis. Proof of the shift is found in our collective scrambles to interpret Catholicism so as to favor our own predispositions.
Take, for instance, the two contrasting descriptions of the speech from out-going USCCB President, Cardinal Timothy Dolan. The loudest right-wing voice from the Catholic League praises the farewell as evidence the fight against the Obama Administration started under Dolan will continue unchanged. John A. Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter, however, notes that the emphasis on religious liberty in the cardinal’s farewell address shifted away from that issue in the United States to focus on other countries. Which interpretation was correct, or are both consistent with the balancing act now necessary?
Similarly, Archbishop Chaput who (in)famously stated that conservatives were confused by Pope Francis, delivered a battle cry to combat poverty and social injustice that put him back in line with the papal emphasis. Chaput delivered his presentation in Mexico and it merited praise from NCR columnist, Michael Sean Winters, whose piece carried the title, “Hell to Freeze Over Soon!” suggesting the rarity of his agreement with Philadelphia’s cultural warrior. Note, however, that Chaput like Dolan pointed his message to conditions outside the United States. This avoided the need for retraction while simultaneously relocating the speaker with the pope and still in line for promotion by a cardinal’s red hat.
The game goes on in the media. The Associated Press report on Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter, Evangelii Gaudium, stated that the pope had affirmed that abortion was “non-negotiable.” Since this exact phrase does not appear in the papal letter, one can only assume that it was placed there because the writer felt it was required to balance the strong denunciation of trickle-down Capitalism and neo-liberalism emphasized by progressive Catholics.
In the same sort of balance-seeking, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, a Vatican official downplayed the possibility of Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics such as had been raised by the bishops of Germany in response to Pope Francis’ initial request for input on the subject. That response did not end the hassle, as the German bishops retorted that Müller’s article ran counter to the pope’s request for dialogue.
This Catholic balancing act will continue with high visibility as bishops order the faithful in their dioceses to respond to the questions posed by the pope in preparation for the next synod. One can expect, for instance, that response to the issue of gay marriage will be interpreted differently according to each respondents starting point on right or left. The overwhelming majority will oppose Catholic marriage for gays and lesbians within the church, but the issue is about legal recognition of civil marriage in society. I have participated in such discussions and a key factor for many religious people is deciding if they think “being gay” is a genetic condition or a moral choice. In other words, are people born with attraction to the same sex in God’s plan or is such attraction “unnatural” and something that can be removed by therapy and refusal to sin? The pastoral response to legalized same-sex marriage, I submit, is greatly affected by how sexual orientation is defined. For a Catholic Fiddler on the Roof it is the difference between breaking the tradition or “bending it a little.” Our unity comes from singing “L’chaim to life!” with Evangelii Gaudium.
|
We Catholics have been fighting among ourselves since St. Paul.
|
[
"Jessica Stahl",
"Anthony Stevens Arroyo"
] |
12-09-2013
|
washingtonpost.com
|
2013121219
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/driver-killed-2-intersection-presses-permit-article-1.2299995
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2015072219id_/http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/driver-killed-2-intersection-presses-permit-article-1.2299995
|
Aussie who killed 2 in crashes wants driver's permit
|
Sheila Paras/Getty Images/Flickr RF An Aussie driver convicted of mowing down two motorists at the same intersection in crashes seven years apart is pushing to get back on the road, according to reports.
An Australian farmer who killed two men in different crashes seven years apart at the same rural intersection keeps trying to get back on the road, according to reports.
Michelle Thiele was convicted in the April 2000 death of another driver and pleaded guilty in the June 2007 death of a motorcyclist near Mannum, Australia, ABC News of Australia reported.
She allegedly failed to yield to oncoming traffic and rammed into both motorists at Thiele Road and Mannum Road. Investigators branded her an incompetent driver, according to ABC.
But her lawyer is pushing for her to be allowed to get her learner’s permit, ABC reported Monday. Thiele, whose license had been canceled, sued when the Registrar of Motor Vehicles refused her the permit in 2013.
The farmer, from the town of Pompoota, paid a AU$300 fine (about $220) in the 2000 accident and avoided an eight-month jail term on a good behavior bond after admitting to driving without due care in the 2007 incident, according to ABC. She lost her license in 2010, a year after her second trial.
Driver involved in 2 fatal crashes is "such a risk" shouldn't be given learners permit, trial told @abcnewsAdelaide pic.twitter.com/jvvllfjEzm — James Hancock (@jameshancockABC) July 21, 2015
A review board upheld the Registrar’s denial of her permit, but Thiele didn’t receive “procedural fairness,” her lawyer, Joana Fuller told a court Monday.
“Both the Registrar and the review committee have held and continue to hold an intractable view that Ms. Thiele should never drive again.” Fuller said. “The Registrar is intent on ensuring that Mrs. Thiele does not ever drive again, even pursuant to a learner's permit.”
The Registrar’s attorney, Anthony Keane, said Thiele may well pass a driving test. But, he added, “It has to be quantifiable ... when you're alone in a vehicle in two years, three years, seven years down the track that you will not break the road rules.”
Follow on Twitter @tobysalkc
tsalinger@nydailynews.com
|
A woman who allegedly killed two men in crashes seven years apart at the same rural intersection wants to get back on the road.
|
[
"Tobias Salinger"
] |
07-22-2015
|
nydailynews.com
|
2015072219
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/myers-jets-giants-relevant-quarter-mark-article-1.2385107
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2015100519id_/http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/myers-jets-giants-relevant-quarter-mark-article-1.2385107
|
Myers: Jets, Giants both relevant at quarter mark
|
Bill Wippert/AP Rueben Randle proves to be effective a week after the Giants cut Preston Parker.
Anything short of Tom Brady having his four-game suspension reinstated for Deflategate and Aaron Rodgers then getting four games for Inflategate — he admits he likes his footballs over the PSI limit — the Giants and Jets won’t be playing each other in the Trolley Car Super Bowl just outside San Francisco in February,
Even so, considering the slop the Giants and Jets put on the field the last few years, it’s a huge bonus they’ve made it through the first quarter of the season and they’re still relevant.
The Jets are 3-1 and alone in second place in the AFC East behind the 3-0 Patriots after Sunday’s 27-14 victory over the Dolphins at Wembley Stadium.
MYERS’ BOOK REVEALS UNTOLD STORY OF BRADY VS. MANNING
New York Daily News A date with the Bills is just what the Giants needed to get back in the groove.
Rex Ryan may have moved his act to Western New York, but he’s still the little brother after the Giants beat the Bills 24-10 to get to 2-2 after their 0-2 start. “It shows we got grit,” Tom Coughlin said.
The Giants reached the quarter-pole in a three-way tie for first with Dallas and Washington, with the Cowboys falling to New Orleans in overtime Sunday night.
The Jets won four games in Ryan’s sixth season in 2014. They’re almost there with rookie coach Todd Bowles — with 12 games left to play. At this time last year, the Jets were in the midst of an eight-game losing streak after opening the season with a victory. “This gives us a chance to start the second quarter of the season with a good note,” Bowles said. “Through four games, I’m happy — 16 games, we’ll see.”
MEHTA: JETS' IVORY TOWERS OVER DOLPHINS IN LONDON
The Giants will try to avoid the road they travelled last year when they lost their first two games, won their next three, then lost seven in a row.
“The guys played hard,” Coughlin said after beating the Bills. “We do play hard.”
So far, here’s what I like about the Jets:
1. The daily drama is gone. Bowles doesn’t have any patience for stupidity leading to calamity — that’s why Geno Smith hasn’t put on his helmet yet on game day — and has the respect of his players.
2. Chris Ivory and Brandon Marshall give the offense an identity. Ivory is a violent runner, Marshall’s catching radius is so wide he makes Ryan Fitzpatrick look accurate.
3. The defense, which will be the Jets’ strength over the long four-month season, will get even better when Sheldon Richardson rejoins the team Tuesday following his drug suspension. He has two weeks to get back in football shape before the Jets play again Oct. 18. Bowles should get him a designated driver: Can you imagine him going 143 mph on the Jersey Turnpike?
Matt Dunham/AP Todd Bowles provides a calming presence as the Jets are off to a 3-1 start.
So far, here’s what I don’t like about the Jets:
1. Antonio Cromartie is vulnerable. Darrelle Revis on the other side and Buster Skrine in the slot are not, which means a lot of balls will be coming Cro’s way.
2. Fitzpatrick can’t throw deep. His 58-yarder to Marshall on the Jets’ first play against the Dolphins was underthrown and should have been a 73-yard touchdown.
3. Rookie Devin Smith must step up as the third receiving option behind Marshall and Eric Decker. His camp injury prevented him from establishing chemistry with Fitzpatrick.
He returned last week and has been targeted 14 times in two games with only five catches for 53 yards.
FOLLOW THE DAILY NEWS SPORTS ON FACEBOOK. "LIKE" US HERE
Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images Odell Beckham Jr. hasn't even really got going yet and the Giants are still 2-2 with position to improve.
So far, here’s what I like about the Giants:
1. Eli Manning has seven TDs and only one INT even though Odell Beckham Jr. has had just one signature game. When OBJ gets going and if Victor Cruz gets back, the offense will be explosive.
2. Shane Vereen gives Manning an option out of the backfield he hasn’t had since Tiki Barber.
3. The defense is still learning Steve Spagnuolo’s system and has given up a respectable 82 points. In Spags’ first four games in his first time as Giants defensive coordinator in 2007 they gave up 100 points, including 80 in the first two games.
VACCHIANO: SUDDENLY, JPP IS FORGOTTEN MAN
So far, here’s what I don’t like about the Giants:
1. The fourth quarter still makes Big Blue Nation nervous. The Giants really could use JPP’s pass rush when teams start throwing the ball to come from behind.
2. They are the first team in NFL history to blow 10-point fourth quarter leads in each of their first two games and lose. They easily could be 4-0.
3. Why did Coughlin endorse Manning throwing on second and third down from the Buffalo 8 with just under four minutes left and the Giants up by 14? A field goal would have made it an insurmountable three-score game. Manning threw his first pick of the season, briefly giving life to a beaten team.
Paul Childs/REUTERS Brandon Marshall is having a major impact on the Jets offense.
The next quarter of the semester:
-Jets: After the bye, they get Washington at home. But the big one is Oct. 25 at Foxborough, then games at Oakland and home against the Jags. They should go 3-1 in the second quarter. It’s too much to expect them to beat the Pats on the road with Brady on his revenge tour.
-Giants: They get an easy one next Sunday night at home against the 49ers, then at Philly on a Monday night, the Cowboys at home, without Tony Romo and Dez Bryant, then at New Orleans. A 4-0 sweep is not inconceivable. They should do no worse than 3-1.
|
It’s a huge bonus the Jets and Giants made it through the first quarter of the season and they’re still relevant.
|
[
"Gary Myers"
] |
10-04-2015
|
nydailynews.com
|
2015100519
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1430259/little-lad-two-has-to-be-rescued-by-firefighters-after-getting-head-stuck-in-toilet-training-seat/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016071219id_/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1430259/little-lad-two-has-to-be-rescued-by-firefighters-after-getting-head-stuck-in-toilet-training-seat/
|
Little lad, two, has to be rescued by firefighters after getting head STUCK in toilet training seat
|
Oscar Clare's mum Kellie Marie Allen turned round and saw he had wedged the £5 Asda potty firmly around his neck
THIS is the moment a two-year-old boy was rescued by firefighters after he got a toilet training seat stuck over his head.
Little Oscar Clare was in the bathroom when mum Kellie Marie Allen, 27, turned round and saw he had wedged the £5 Asda potty firmly around his neck.
SWNS 5 Little Oscar Clare, two, is helped by firefighters after getting a toilet training seat stuck round his neck
SWNS 5 Kellie Marie tried water, oil and butter to free Oscar before taking him to the fire station
Kellie desperately tried to free the toddler by wetting his hair and even poured oil and butter over his neck but it was stuck fast.
She was eventually forced to drive him to her local fire station where firefighters cut Oscar free from the plastic seat.
The bizarre accident unfolded at 8am on Sunday while Kellie was looking after Oscar at their home in Telford, Shrops.
Single mum Kellie said: “We were in the bathroom and he’s got a habit of sticking it on his head.
“I told him to get it off and instead he pulled it further down.
“I tried to get it off and I realised it was stuck. I took him to the front room and sat him down and was trying to pin his ears back and pull it off.
SWNS 5 Firemen let Oscar Clare sit in the fire engine after using metal cutters to free him from the potty seat
SWNS 5 Kellie Marie Allen at home with her toddler son Oscar Clare after his rescue
SWNS 5 Oscar slipped the training seat over his head and it got stuck fast and had to be cut off
“I had butter and oil on his ears and water and nothing would work.
“At first he thought it was funny but then when he realised it wouldn’t come off he started screaming.
“Luckily I managed to get hold of his granddad who lives around the corner and he came and drove us to the fire station.
“We knocked on the door and showed the firefighters Oscar and they were like ‘oh that’s an unusual start to the day’.
“They tried to pull it over his ears but he was screaming and it obviously wasn’t going to come off.
“In the end they used some snippers they usually use to cut little bits of metal and got it off.
RELATED STORIES TOT's Skin Hell Toddler needed to be lathered in cream every hour thanks to eczema so bad he looked beaten up Potty mouth! This toddler just overheard his dad say a swear word… and he won’t stop repeating it Strop stars Mums share perfectly timed photos of their furious toddlers in the midst of their tiresome tantrums Nice one, dad! After man makes a right hash of dressing his toddler, wives share husbands’ epic parenting fails Trendy tots The five most fashionable celeb toddlers we can't get enough of
“They were really good with him and one of them was talking to him and holding his neck while the other cut it off.
“Afterwards they let him sit in a fire engine and gave him a little tour.”
Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service re-tweeted a picture of Oscar being rescued on their Wellington Fire Station twitter page.
They tweeted: “Unusual start to the day! 2 year old with a toilet seat stuck over his head. Crews used small gear to remove. The things we do as children.”
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368
| null |
[
"Felix Allen"
] |
07-12-2016
|
thesun.co.uk
|
2016071219
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2014/01/18/best-and-worst-performing-cloud-computing-stocks-jan-13-to-jan-17-and-year-to-date/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014011919id_/http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2014/01/18/best-and-worst-performing-cloud-computing-stocks-jan-13-to-jan-17-and-year-to-date/
|
Best- And Worst-Performing Cloud Computing Stocks Jan. 13 To Jan.17 And Year-to-Date
|
The five highest performing cloud computing stocks year-to-date on the Cloud Computing Index are Qualys Qualys (NASDAQ: QYLS), Juniper Networks Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR), Riverbed Technology Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ:RVBD), Workday (NYSE:WDAY), and VMWare (NYSE:VMW). A $10K investment in Qualys shares made on January 2th of 2014 is worth $12,305.00 as of market close Friday, and $10K invested in Workday shares are worth $11,310.00. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP share prices are included for comparison.
The following graphic compares how $10,000 invested on January 2nd of this year in the highest performing cloud computing stocks, in addition to IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP are valued today.
Please see the full Cloud Computing Index for market caps, average volumes, 52-week high and low share prices, Earnings per Share, Price/Earnings Ratio, and Beta. I am using the Google Finance Portfolio option to track the performance of these stocks. For information on how this index was created, see the description at the end of this post. I do not hold equity positions or work for any of the companies mentioned in this blog post or included in the Cloud Computing Index and this post is not meant to provide investment advice. It is simply a glimpse into the performance of these company’s stock prices over time. Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.
Best Performing Cloud Computing Stocks, January 13 to January 17, 2014
Worst Performing Cloud Computing Stocks, January 13 to January 17, 2014
Best Performing Cloud Computing Stocks In 2014
Worst Performing Cloud Computing Stocks In 2014
Comparing Cumulative Stock Performance
Performance of the Cloud Computing Index over the last year is compared to NetSuite, Salesforce, IBM, Oracle and SAP is below. This index has been up 22.98% over the last year, with NetSuite (NYSE:N) up 60.89%, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) up 38.11%, IBM (NYSE:IBM) down 2.24%, Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) up 9.60% and SAP (NYSE:SAP) up .66%. Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.
Specifics on the Cloud Computing Stock Index
I used The Cloud Times 100 as the basis of the index, selecting twenty companies all of which are publically traded. The latest edition of the Cloud Computing Index is shown here. The filter applied to these companies is that 50% or more of their revenues are generated from cloud-based applications, infrastructure and services.
|
The five highest performing cloud computing stocks year-to-date on the Cloud Computing Index are Qualys (NASDAQ: QYLS), Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR), Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ:RVBD), Workday (NYSE:WDAY), and VMWare (NYSE:VMW). A $10K investment in Qualys shares made on January 2th of 2014 is worth $12,305.00 as of market close Friday, and $10K invested in Workday shares are worth $11,310.00. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP share prices are included for [...]
|
[
"Louis Columbus"
] |
01-18-2014
|
forbes.com
|
2014011919
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/volvo-station-wagon-dominates-chevy-truck-tug-of-war-article-1.2582547
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016033019id_/http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/volvo-station-wagon-dominates-chevy-truck-tug-of-war-article-1.2582547
|
Volvo station wagon dominates Chevy truck in tug-of-war
|
Score one for the Swedish.
In a good old-fashioned game of tug-of-war, it was an American-made truck vs. a Swedish-made station wagon in the video above. ‘Merica.. cased closed. Right?
WRONG!
So wrong in fact, this video left me pleading with the Volvo v70 station wagon, “Stop! Stop! He’s already deeeaddddd!!!”
FOLLOW DAILY NEWS AUTOS ON FACEBOOK. 'LIKE' US HERE.
I want to call it an upset of epic proportions, but the station wagon dismantled the truck. The only thing upset here are readers who own a Chevy Truck, hoping no one with a Volvo presents them with a similar challenge.
Justin Mikell via YouTube Today is a sad day for American-made trucks everywhere.
In the ultimate mano e mano, you vs. me, let’s see what ya got – game, the truck never even stood a chance. I even looked up the definition of tug-of-war to make sense of all this, and one of the meanings read - “a situation in which two evenly matched foes are striving to keep or obtain the same thing.”
If that’s the case, we may not be able to define this as a tug-of –war, because the matchup was clearly by no means even. This was peak Tiger Woods vs. the field, New England Patriots vs. the Cleveland Browns, Led Zeppelin vs. Winger, Leo DiCaprio vs. Ashton Kutcher!
Alright, that’s enough. Again.. the truck has a family. Let’s all go eat cheeseburgers, drink Budweiser, watch baseball and forget this video ever happened.
|
If Vegas had handicapped this matchup, they probably would have gotten it wrong.
|
[
"Chris Powers"
] |
03-30-2016
|
nydailynews.com
|
2016033019
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/01/16/how-republicans-stole-democrats-recruiting-strategy/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014011619id_/http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/01/16/how-republicans-stole-democrats-recruiting-strategy/
|
How Senate Republicans stole Democrats’ recruiting strategy
|
Ed Gillespie's decision to run against Sen. Mark Warner in Virginia this fall is the latest piece of evidence that Republicans have learned well from the recruitment strategy of Senate Democrats in 2012.
Gillespie is not a favorite in the race. He probably has less than a 30 percent chance of winning. But, he is a serious candidate who will raise money and run a real campaign against Warner, and, if the national environment collapses for Democrats or the incumbent makes a major mistake, will be positioned to win in a swing state.
In short, Virginia is now a race in play -- an expansion of the playing field on which the fight for the Senate majority will take place. Republicans are up to something similar in New Hampshire where former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown certainly seems to be moving in the direction of challenging Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) this fall. Say what you will about Brown -- carpetbagger, lost his last race etc. -- but with him the race is on the map and without him it, well, isn't. Republicans have set a similar course in Michigan where former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land continues to post very impressive numbers in the Democratic-leaning open seat being vacated by Sen. Carl Levin (D).
The GOP's 2014 strategy might ring a bell. That's because it's the exact strategy that Democrats put in place in 2012 to hold the Senate.
Facing daunting raw numbers -- 21 Democratic seats were up as compared to just nine Republican ones -- as well as a slew of Democratic retirements in difficult states (Wisconsin, Virginia and North Dakota), Senate Democrats did everything they could to widen the playing field. Take Indiana and North Dakota.
In Indiana, then Rep. Joe Donnelly (D) decided to run for the Senate under the belief that if Sen. Dick Lugar lost in the Republican primary the race might be winnable. Lugar lost and Donnelly won -- despite the fact that President Obama only took 44 percent of the vote in the state. In North Dakota, former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp (D) decided to run despite the Republican lean of the state. She ran a great campaign, her heavily touted Republican opponent did not and she now sits in the Senate.
What Republicans then are trying to do is to give themselves the sort of margin for error in 2014 that Democrats didn't allow them in 2012. Let's do the math.
Republicans need to win six seats to re-take the majority. In West Virginia, South Dakota and Arkansas, Republicans recruited their strongest candidate into the race and are, at worst, even odds to take those Democrats seats. That gets Republicans halfway to their goal.
The key to the Republican strategy is making that next tier of seats (and recruits) as big as possible since a few of the candidates will flame out, some of the incumbents will prove tougher to beat than they appear now and the national political environment could well shift several times between now and November. By our count, Republicans now have seven Democratic seats in this second tier: Alaska, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia.(Some Republicans would throw Minnesota into that mix due to self funder Mike McFadden's candidacy but we remain skeptical.) In some of those seven states, Republicans have a solid candidate in a tough primary (Alaska with Dan Sullivan, Louisiana with Bill Cassidy). In others they have an unproven field (North Carolina, Montana, Michigan). In still others, it remains to be seen whether the Democratic incumbent is genuinely vulnerable (New Hampshire, Virginia).
But, in all cases, there is a credible Republican in the race who can raise the money needed to compete against the incumbent and has a real chance at being the party's nominee. That means that Republicans need only to win three of these seven second-tier races -- assuming they win Arkansas, South Dakota and West Virginia and don't lose their own seats in Kentucky and Georgia -- to re-take the majority.
At the moment, Senate Republicans have two major holes in their "expand the map" strategy: Colorado and Iowa. Colorado has moved toward Democrats in the last two presidential elections buts remains a place where Republicans need to be able to compete. At the moment, the Republican field is led by Ken Buck who lost a very winnable race for Senate in 2010. In Iowa, the retirement of Sen. Tom Harkin (D) should have made for a sterling pickup opportunity for Republicans but their field -- at least at the moment -- is a mish-mash of sort-of-knowns and unknowns, none of which have broken from the pack as of yet.
Keep an eye on those two states over the next few months. (The filing deadline in Iowa is March 14; in Colorado it's April 15.) Adding one of those two -- or maybe even Minnesota making it into that second tier -- would further expand Republicans' paths to a majority.
One thing's for sure: If they make it over the top this November, Senate Republicans should send their Democratic counterparts a nice thank you gift for showing them the way.
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Ed Gillespie is the latest Republican candidate to help expand the Senate playing field for GOP.
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[
"Chris Cillizza"
] |
01-16-2014
|
washingtonpost.com
|
2014011619
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success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2015/jan/03/arab-spring-migrant-wave-instability-war
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2015010319id_/http://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2015/jan/03/arab-spring-migrant-wave-instability-war
|
Arab spring prompts biggest migrant wave since second world war
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The two “ghost ships” discovered sailing towards the Italian coast last week with hundreds of migrants – but no crew – on board are just the latest symptom of what experts consider to be the world’s largest wave of mass-migration since the end of the second world war.
Wars in Syria, Libya and Iraq, severe repression in Eritrea, and spiralling instability across much of the Arab world have all contributed to the displacement of around 16.7 million refugees worldwide.
A further 33.3 million people are “internally displaced” within their own war-torn countries, forcing many of those originally from the Middle East to cross the lesser evil of the Mediterranean in increasingly dangerous ways, all in the distant hope of a better life in Europe.
“These numbers are unprecedented,” said Leonard Doyle, spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration. “In terms of refugees and migrants, nothing has been seen like this since world war two, and even then [the flow of migration] was in the opposite direction.”
European politicians believe they can discourage migrants from crossing the Mediterranean simply by reducing rescue operations. But refugees say that the scale of unrest in the Middle East, including in the countries in which they initially sought sanctuary, leaves them with no option but to take their chances at sea.
More than 45,000 migrants risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean to reach Italy and Malta in 2013, and 700 died doing so. The number of dead rose more than four times in 2014 to 3,224.
“We know people who died – they used to live with us,” said Qassim, a Syrian refugee in Egypt who now wants to reach Europe. “But we will try again to cross the sea because there’s no life for us Syrians here.”
In Egypt, up to 300,000 refugees from the Syrian war were initially welcomed with open arms. But after Cairo’s sudden regime change in summer 2013, the atmosphere turned drastically, leading to rampant xenophobia against Syrians and increased arrests and detentions of those who, for understandable reasons, did not carry the correct residency paperwork.
The situation is even worse in Jordan and in Lebanon, which now houses more than 1 million Syrian refugees – more than a fifth of the country’s total population.
Their presence has created an unprecedented strain on national resources, leading to the Lebanese government tightening restrictions last week on Syrians entering the country. And while Turkey has simultaneously moved to strengthen refugees’ rights, Turkish shores are likely to remain a popular launch pad for migrants looking to reach Europe because of both the comparatively high cost of living, as well as rising xenophobia, particularly in the country’s south.
Libya, another major point on the migration route from the Middle East and north Africa, is also no longer a safe haven after a civil war erupted there last year. The plight of refugees there, as well as across the region, makes a mockery of those who suggest the wave of migration is caused simply by economic migrants.
“If they’re economic migrants,” asked Doyle, “then how do we explain that after every outbreak of violence and repression we get a new wave of people from the area that’s just had that outbreak? Why was it that, in the huge September disaster in the Mediterranean, the people who drowned were Palestinians, just a couple of weeks after the war between Gaza and Israel? And why is it that since last year there has been a steady flow of people from Eritrea, when we know there are serious problems in that country?”
But such arguments have yet to convince the British government, which refused last October to help Mediterranean rescue operations, and which by last June had admitted fewer than 150 Syrian refugees.
|
Migrants fleeing the Middle East and north Africa are already risking everything as they try to escape war at homeMigrants give thanks after ‘ghost ship’ Ezadeen rescued in Mediterranean
|
[
"Patrick Kingsley"
] |
01-03-2015
|
theguardian.com
|
2015010319
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success_wayback
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train
|
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/01/31/silk-road-vendor-filing-claim-for-seized-bitcoins-argues-he-sold-only-legal-items/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014013119id_/http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/01/31/silk-road-vendor-filing-claim-for-seized-bitcoins-argues-he-sold-only-legal-items/
|
Silk Road Vendor Fighting To Reclaim Seized Bitcoins, Argues He Sold Legal Products
|
Somewhere in the $164 million worth of bitcoins held by the U.S. government, there’s a chunk of the cryptocurrency that until very recently belonged to Peter Ward, a British self-described “cybertechnohippy” and dealer in drug paraphernalia like bongs, marijuana seeds, and rolling papers. Now Ward wants his bitcoins back, and he’s willing to create a thorny legal mess to get them.
On Thursday, Ward began the process of retaining a lawyer to file a claim for what he says were 100 bitcoins–worth around $95,000 at current exchange rates–seized by the FBI in the takedown of the Silk Road online black market for drugs last October. Unlike most of Silk Road’s sellers, Ward says he earned his bitcoins through entirely legal means, offering the same merchandise that he advertises on the public Internet from his head shop Planet Pluto in Devon, England.
“I’m probably in a unique position in that I can prove my coins came from selling legal items,” says Ward, who argues his wares included only drug accessories and UK-legal substances like salvia and the morphine-like kratom. “I sold on Silk Road because it had a large user base that matched my target customers. Where better to sell king-size rolling papers?”
Earlier this month the Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced that a judge had signed off on a forfeiture order that will allow it to sell around 29,000 of the seized Silk Road’s bitcoins–the other 144,000 taken by the government are still being claimed by Ross Ulbricht, the alleged creator of the now-defunct black market.
But Ward, who describes himself on his Twitter feed as an “aging psychonaut” who “enjoys exposing hypocrisy and bullshit and taking back the interweb from the suits,” says the FBI failed to consider his claim on a small fraction of the market’s 29,000 coins. And he hopes to use that claim to delay the sell-off of the government’s stash until he’s been charged and brought to trial. “I think they forgot about little old me,” he writes to me in an email. “It will be cool if an old hippy can throw a spanner in the big FBI machine.”
On October 2nd–also Ward’s 52nd birthday–he says British agents broke down his unlocked door, arrested him, and seized all of his electronic devices, as well as a collection of his drug-related merchandise. (They took his personal stash of cocaine and marijuana, too, he admits. “The coke was on the mirror ready for my birthday line when I returned from the post office,” Ward writes.)
In the questioning that followed, Ward says he told agents of the UK’s National Crime Agency that despite his active presence on the Silk Road, his bitcoins were earned legally. He says he was then released on bail and has yet to be charged with anything.
All of that means the FBI, who were in communication with the NCA, should have considered Ward’s claim to some of the Silk Road bitcoins, according to Steven L. Kessler, an asset forfeiture lawyer who Ward is in the process of retaining. “The statute requires that if the government of the United States has knowledge of an individual with an asset subject to forfeiture, the owner has to get notice,” says Kessler. “Clearly after you’ve arrested a person, you have direct knowledge.”
Just because most of the items listed for sale on the Silk Road were contraband doesn’t mean Ward should be painted with the same brush, Kessler argues. He uses an analogy familiar to fans of the show “Breaking Bad.” ”Laundromats that are fronts for illegal activities still have washers and dryers,” he says. “The operation of the washing and drying machines, barring another argument, isn’t illegal. Whirlpool isn’t going to be charged with illegal activity because they’re supplying the equipment.”
I’ve contacted the FBI for comment on whether it failed to consider Ward’s claim for his bitcoins, and I’ll update this post if I hear back.
In the mean time, Ward says he’s asking for Bitcoin donations to fund his legal battle, and says he hopes it ends with the return of what he claims are his legal earnings. But if his efforts result instead in a protracted showdown that delays the sale of the Silk Road’s bitcoins, he tells me he’d be just as happy. “They are my coins and I don’t want the FBI to use them for their nefarious purposes,” he says. “But who wouldn’t want to stick it to the man if they had the chance?”
With reporting contributed by Runa Sandvik in Washington, DC.
–
Follow me on Twitter, email me, anonymously send me sensitive documents or tips, and check out the new paperback edition of my book, This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers.
See also on Forbes:
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Somewhere in the $164 million worth of bitcoins held by the U.S. government, there's a chunk of the cryptocurrency that until very recently belonged to Peter Ward, a British self-described "cybertechnohippy" and dealer in drug paraphernalia like bongs, marijuana seeds, and rolling papers. Now Ward wants his bitcoins back, and [...]
|
[
"Andy Greenberg"
] |
01-31-2014
|
forbes.com
|
2014013119
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2014/aug/17/sp-newcastle-united-manchester-city-live-mbm
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014081719id_/http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2014/aug/17/sp-newcastle-united-manchester-city-live-mbm
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Newcastle United v Manchester City – as it happened
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3.00pm BST
Who’s ready for another season of Alan Pardew? No doubt Manuel Pellegrini can’t wait to renew acquaintances with the grown man who called him a “fucking old cunt” when they last met. Let’s hope Pards has calmed down since that fateful January afternoon, although he probably has now that he’s got that and his desire to headbutt David Meyler out of his system. He’s going to be a changed man this season.
And wouldn’t Newcastle like a season of calm? To be fair, they did all right at times last year, especially before Christmas, but then it all went pear-shaped after they surrendered meekly in the third round of the FA Cup and sold Yohan Cabaye. It was a sign of Mike Ashley’s lack of ambition and then they went and told supporters that they can’t be expected to try to win trophies because it’s a proven FACT, that’s right, a FACT that simply cannot be countered by logic or reason, that doing so would inevitably lead to relegation, another Police Academy film and the end of the universe. Winning stuff? No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong chaps, it’s the bottom line you want to be concerned about.
But Newcastle have - get this - made some interesting signings this summer, Siem De Jong, Remy Cabella and Daryl Janmaat standing out in particular, and should give Manchester City a good game today. They will be encouraged by the way that City dozed through last week’s Community Shield, not that that really told us much, and the mess they made the last time they tried to defend their title. But that was when Roberto Mancini was in charge and the atmosphere was rather more febrile than it is now under Pellegrini. City have improved in key areas, they have given Yaya Toure his birthday cake and they still have the strongest squad - and what’s more, they’ve won their last 10 matches against Newcastle and haven’t lost to them since 2005.
Kick-off: 4pm.
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Minute-by-minute report: Goals from David Silva and Sergio Aguero were enough to earn Manchester City victory
|
[
"Jacob Steinberg"
] |
08-17-2014
|
theguardian.com
|
2014081719
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success_wayback
|
train
|
http://nypost.com/2016/01/29/gop-candidates-bash-each-other-and-trump-at-debate/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016012919id_/http://nypost.com/2016/01/29/gop-candidates-bash-each-other-and-trump-at-debate/
|
GOP candidates bash each other — and Trump — at debate
|
With Donald Trump boycotting, the leading Republican presidential candidates took the opportunity Thursday night to bash one another in an issues-focused debate just four days before the Iowa caucuses.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who are running behind Trump in the polls, clashed heatedly as they vied to be the toughest guy on stage in fighting terrorism and enforcing immigration laws.
“Now you want to trump Trump on immigration!” Rubio shouted at Cruz, accusing his rival of wooing donors by backtracking in adopting a Trumpian hard line against amnesty.
“You know, I like Marco,” Cruz deadpanned in response. “He’s very charming. He’s very smooth.”
But once in Washington, “Marco made the choice to go the direction of the major donors to support amnesty,” Cruz claimed.
Rubio sparred with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in another fiery clash over immigration.
“You used to support a path to citizenship!” Rubio blasted.
“So did you!” Bush responded.
There was unanimity, though, on the topic of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
“The days of the Clintons in public housing are over,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said in one of the best-received zingers before an audience of 1,600 at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines.
Christie sidestepped a question about the low point in his governorship — the Bridgegate scandal.
“Three investigations proved I knew nothing!” he said.
Top-polling Trump was reduced to a punch line — and his nemesis, Fox moderator Megyn Kelly, to a straight man.
Kelly’s first question of the debate — asking Cruz to “address the elephant not in the room tonight” — was met with a quip from the Texas senator.
“I’m a maniac. And everybody on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly. And, Ben [Carson], you’re a terrible surgeon,” Cruz replied. “Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump section out of the way . . .”
The comment drew hearty laughter.
Before the debate, a new poll showed Trump holding a dominant position in the three states that get first crack at picking the Republican nominee.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll had Trump up 32 to 25 percent over Cruz in Iowa; 31 to 12 percent in New Hampshire; and 36 to 20 percent in South Carolina.
In a bizarre turn of events, Trump was at his own televised fund-raiser for veterans three miles away during the debate.
“I’ve never seen one like this,” said CNN commentator David Axelrod. “But I’ve said that several times.”
| null |
[] |
01-29-2016
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nypost.com
|
2016012919
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/23/hamas-chief-backs-palestinian-international-criminal-court-bid-senior-leader/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014082319id_/http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/23/hamas-chief-backs-palestinian-international-criminal-court-bid-senior-leader/
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Hamas chief backs Palestinian International Criminal Court bid, senior leader says
|
Hamas has signed a pledge to back any Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court, two senior officials in the group said Saturday. Such a step could expose Israel -- as well as Hamas -- to war crimes investigations.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has debated for months whether to join the court, a step that would transform his relations with Israel from tense to openly hostile and could also strain his ties with the United States.
The decision by Hamas to sign a document in support of a court bid removes a major obstacle, though it's not clear if Abbas now will go ahead. A hesitant Abbas has said he would not make any decision without the written backing of all Palestinian factions. Last month, he obtained such support from all factions in the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Hamas, which is not a PLO member, has said it would study the idea. Its decision to support the court option came after almost seven weeks of a deadly cross-border war with Israel and several failed cease-fire efforts.
Since the war erupted July 8, more than 2,090 Palestinians have been killed, including close to 500 children, and about 100,000 Gazans have been left homeless, according to United Nations figures and Palestinian officials. Israel lost 64 soldiers and four civilians, including a 4-year-old boy killed by a mortar shell Friday.
During the war, Gaza militants have fired more than 3,800 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, while Israel launched about 5,000 airstrikes at Gaza, the military said. Israel has said it has targeted sites linked to militants, including rocket launchers and weapons. U.N. and Palestinian officials say three-fourths of those killed in Gaza have been civilians.
On Saturday, an airstrike on a house in central Gaza killed two women, two children and a man, according to medics at the Red Crescent. Six strikes also hit a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza, causing severe damage but no injuries, Gaza police said.
Since the start of the Gaza war, Abbas has come under growing domestic pressure to pave the way for a possible war crimes investigation of Israel. Last month, he told senior PLO officials and leaders of smaller political groups he would only go ahead if Hamas supports the bid.
If Abbas were to turn to the court, Hamas could be investigated for indiscriminate rocket fire at Israel since 2000. Israel could come under scrutiny for its actions in the current Gaza war as well as decades of settlement building on war-won lands the Palestinians seek for a state.
Izzat Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said Saturday that Hamas was not concerned about becoming a target of a war crimes investigation and urged Abbas to act "as soon as possible."
"We are under occupation, under daily attack and our fighters are defending their people," he said in a phone interview from Qatar. "These rockets are meant to stop Israeli attacks and it is well known that Israel initiated this war and previous wars."
However, it is not clear if such arguments would hold up in court. After the last major round of Israel-Hamas fighting more than five years ago, a U.N. fact-finding team said both Israel and Hamas violated the rules of war by targeting civilians -- Hamas by firing rockets at Israel.
Hamas' decision to back a court bid came after meetings on Thursday and Friday in Qatar between Abbas and the top Hamas leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas leader who participated in the meetings, wrote on his Facebook page early Saturday that "Hamas has signed the paper" of support Abbas had requested. Abu Marzouk's post was also reported on Hamas news websites.
There was no comment from Abbas aides.
A senior Palestinian official has said Abbas likely would wait for the findings of a U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry into possible Gaza war crimes -- due by March -- before turning to the court. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations with reporters.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined comment. Israel opposes involving the court, arguing that Israel and the Palestinians should deal with any issues directly.
A former International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, told The Associated Press earlier this week that he believes drawing the court into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be a positive step.
"I think the ICC could contribute to a solution" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.
He noted that the court, established in 2002, would only get involved if it determined that the two sides are not conducting their own credible investigations of alleged war crimes.
Turning to the International Criminal Court became an option for Abbas in 2012, after the U.N. General Assembly recognized "Palestine" in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands captured by Israel in 1967, as a non-member observer state. The upgrade to a state opened the door to requesting the court's jurisdiction in Palestine.
|
Moussa Abu Marzouk wrote on his Facebook page early Saturday that Hamas has signed the paper of support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas requested before joining the court.
|
[] |
08-23-2014
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foxnews.com
|
2014082319
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.geekwire.com/2015/hellotech-raises-12-5m-to-help-you-say-goodbye-to-all-your-home-tech-problems/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/20160809083330id_/http://www.geekwire.com/2015/hellotech-raises-12-5m-to-help-you-say-goodbye-to-all-your-home-tech-problems/
|
HelloTech raises $12.5M to help you say goodbye to all your home tech problems
|
Los Angeles-based HelloTech, which wants to be the Uber of tech support, has raised $12.5 million in a first round of capital.
The company, which was co-founded and led by Richard Wolpert, the former chief strategy officer of RealNetworks, uses college students to help fix common tech problems around the home, ranging from WiFi connectivity issues to sluggish computers.
The round was led by Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group, with participation from all existing institutional investors, including Upfront Ventures, CrossCut Ventures and Accel Partners. To date, the company has raised $17 million in total.
Madrona Venture Group managing director Len Jordan, who will join the company’s board, worked together with Wolpert when they were both at RealNetworks.
After launching in May, HelloTech now serves a population of 3 million people around the Los Angeles area, who can summon a tech support within 24 hours by logging into their computer, a smartphone or making a phone call. In some cases, a person can show up on the same day.
Like many other on-demand companies, HelloTech has a workforce of independent contractors. In this case, it’s leveraging mostly college students who work about 5 to 12 hours a week. The company conducts both criminal and DMV background checks on the students, but also screen them to make sure they are capable of fixing more than 60 different tech issues.
Visits are billed at $79 an hour. In a very small percent of the cases, the company says they’ve had to send in a tech with more experience. No refunds have been requested to date.
With the additional funding HelloTech plans to expand into other major metropolitan markets. First up is Orange County with a list of undisclosed cities coming soon.
“It’s clear that HelloTech has struck a chord with our consumers and investors as technology in the home has become as important as common utilities such as electricity, water and telephone service,” Wolpert said, in a release. “Everyone has had the experience of something new and cool just not working and almost everyone in the technology industry has been called in to help fix tech issues for someone else, usually their parents or grandparents.”
In addition to fixing a customer’s tech problems, HelloTech also wants to sell customers the latest smart devices for the home, including wireless music systems, Internet controlled thermostats, digital door locks, and video surveillance systems. The company already partners with technology companies such as Sonos, Nest, Belkin, Linksys, WeMo, Ring, Lifelock, and iDrive.
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Los Angeles-based HelloTech, which wants to be the Uber of tech support, has raised $12.5 million in a first round of capital. The company, which was co-fo
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[
"Tricia Duryee"
] |
09-16-2015
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geekwire.com
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20160809083330
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success_wayback
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train
|
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/02/21/silver-hoop-earrings-found-among-ancient-treasure-in-biblical-city/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014022119id_/http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/02/21/silver-hoop-earrings-found-among-ancient-treasure-in-biblical-city/
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Silver hoop earrings found among ancient treasure in Biblical city
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The jug with treasure was found just to the north of a "massive structure," as the researchers call it, which may be a tower overlooking a valley.Robert Mullins/Azusa Pacific University
A jug containing silver earrings and ingots has been discovered at the ancient biblical city of Abel Beth Maacah in Israel.
Found to the north of a massive structure that may be a tower, the jug and its treasure appear to date back to about 3,200 years ago, long before minted coins were invented, archaeologists said. Curiously, they found no sign that the treasure was hidden, and no one appears to have gone back for it, they added.
"We found it in a small jug leaning against a wall, apparently on a dirt floor," said researchers Robert Mullins, Nava Panitz-Cohen and Ruhama Bonfil in an email to Live Science. "It didn't seem to have been deliberately hidden in a niche or any other hidey-hole."
Panitz-Cohen and Mullins are co-directors of an excavation at the ancient city in Israel that found the treasure last summer, and Bonfil is the excavation surveyor and researcher. They published their initial findings recently in the journal Strata. [See Photos of Biblical City and Silver Treasure]
Why the treasure was not retrieved, and apparently not even hidden, is a mystery. "Perhaps the family needed to leave their home suddenly and hoped to return to retrieve this jug and its contents, but were unable to," the researchers said. Afterward, "this area was covered by accumulating debris and earth over the centuries, [and] no one knew that the treasure was there," they added.
The "massive structure," as the researchers called it in their journal article, may be a tower that overlooked the Huleh Valley. At some point, the structure fell out of use, and the area to the north of it was used for homes. The treasure may date to that time.
The site, now called Tell Abil el-Qameh,was first identified as Abel Beth Maacah in the 19th century based on its location and historical accounts, although little excavation has been done there until now.
Silver treasure
When the treasure was discovered, the silver was bunched together in what looked like a big ball. After conservator Mimi Lavi, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology, cleaned the ancient silver, the team saw that it consisted of five hoop earrings.
They also found an enigmatic silver object that looks like a twisted knot, as well as several ingots or scrap pieces of silver that would have been used for monetary transactions. At the time, the treasure was abandoned, minted coins had not been invented and the pieces of silver would have been used for trade.
The earrings could have been worn by men as well as women, the researchers noted. "We know from ancient iconography and from burials that men also wore jewelry, so it is possible that these were not just female ornaments," the researchers said.
A period of collapse
The period around 3,200 years ago was a time when many cities were destroyed and some civilizations collapsed. Ancient records indicate an enigmatic group called the "Sea People" descended on the Middle East, leading to chaos in the region, although they do not appear to have settled in the area of Abel Beth Maacah.
Archaeologists are unsure how these events affected Abel Beth Maacah or if they have any bearing on the silver treasure. [Photos: The 7 Ancient Wonders of the World]
"It seems most likely that Canaanites were 'in charge' or at least were the main inhabitants" of Abel Beth Maacah, the researchers said. If the city did suffer any destruction, it could have been abandoned for a time and perhaps repopulated by returning Canaanites or by Israelite tribes. "Hopefully, next season, we will be closer to some answers," the researchers said of their forthcoming dig at the site.
Biblical city
The city was used for a long period of time after the silver treasure was abandoned and is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible.
According to scripture, a Benjaminite named Sheba ben Bichri, who was rebelling against King David, took refuge in the city. A man named Joab pursued him there and laid siege. A "wise woman," as the text calls her, protested this action, saying Abel Beth Maacah is part of Israel.
"We are the peaceful and faithful in Israel. You are trying to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why do you want to swallow up the Lord's inheritance?" (From 2 Samuel 20:14-22, New International Version)
The siege ended when the city's inhabitants killed the rebel and threw his head from the wall. Some scholars believe that King David would have lived about 3,000 years ago, roughly two centuries after the silver treasure was abandoned. While the biblical story doesn't shed light on why the treasure was abandoned, it illustrates the importance of the city in the time to come.
Mullins is also a professor at Azusa Pacific University, and Panitz-Cohen and Bonfil are with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology.
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A jug containing silver earrings and ingots has been discovered at the ancient biblical city of Abel Beth Maacah in Israel
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[
"Owen Jarus"
] |
02-21-2014
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foxnews.com
|
2014022119
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/2423357/pregnant-cheryl-glows-as-she-shows-off-her-growing-bump-while-visiting-a-fans-sick-mother/
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https://web.archive.org/web/2016121719id_/https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/2423357/pregnant-cheryl-glows-as-she-shows-off-her-growing-bump-while-visiting-a-fans-sick-mother/
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Pregnant Cheryl glows as she shows off her growing bump while visiting a fan’s sick mother
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The singer surprised Chris after learning that his mum is ill
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PREGNANT Cheryl looks radiant as she surprised a fan by visiting his sick mum today.
The 33-year-old’s baby bump was well and truly on display as she posed for pictures with Chris and his family after learning that his mum was “poorly.”
I want to say a huge thank you to this lovely & kind woman she came to meet my family today after she heard about my mum being poorly & i can't thank you enough it's really cheered mum up I cannot thank you enough & @iamlil you are the sweetest ❤ A photo posted by Chris (@chris_1987) on Dec 17, 2016 at 6:27am PST
Cheryl’s healthy pregnancy glow meant that there was no need for makeup as she smiled fresh faced, and wore a loose-fitting shirt dress.
Despite wearing a baggy dress and long white jacket, nothing could disguise Cheryl’s blooming bump, and she clearly embraces her pregnancy has given up trying to conceal it.
Cheryl & my Dad 👏🏻❤😂 A photo posted by Chris (@chris_1987) on Dec 17, 2016 at 7:03am PST
Chris was overwhelmed by Cheryl’s kindness and posted a collection of pictures of the singer and his family members on Instagram to explain just how special her gesture had been, and thank her personal assistant Lily England for helping arrange the day.
In the first post he wrote: “I want to say a huge thank you to this lovely & kind woman she came to meet my family today after she heard about my mum being poorly & i can’t thank you enough it’s really cheered mum up I cannot thank you enough & @iamlil you are the sweetest”
An absolute Gem of a human Being ❤ for her to have taken time out of her schedule to come & visit my mum is the kindest most genuine thing ever I'm am forever grateful for today like you wouldn't believe to have supported her for all these years & for her to still appreciate it like she does it's just amazing ❤💪🏻 @cherylofficial A photo posted by Chris (@chris_1987) on Dec 17, 2016 at 7:11am PST
He later added: “An absolute Gem of a human Being ❤ for her to have taken time out of her schedule to come & visit my mum is the kindest most genuine thing ever I’m am forever grateful for today like you wouldn’t believe to have supported her for all these years & for her to still appreciate it like she does it’s just amazing ❤💪🏻 @cherylofficial”
Cheryl is expecting her first child with her One Direction star boyfriend Liam Payne, 23, and today he gave fans a peek inside the home they share as they prepare for the birth.
Taking to Twitter on Saturday afternoon for an #AskLiam session the singer, 23, revealed he was watching TV and posted a picture of the his lounge.
TWITTER / LIAM PAYNE 3 Liam Payne showed fans inside his Christmas themed home that he shares with pregnant girlfriend Cheryl
And judging from the snap of inside their immaculate home Liam and 33-year-old Cheryl are certainly beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.
Standing in the corner of the lounge was a huge Father Christmas carrying a bundle of presents, and by their fireplace were two large toy soldier candle holders.
Their mantelpiece is covered in festive foliage and it looks like they don’t expect their baby to arrive too soon, as they open fire remains unguarded.
Liam’s feet make a guest appearance in the picture, as does his Great Dane Watson who he bought with ex-girlfriend Sophia Smith can be seen by his settee.
Liam and Cheryl are expecting their first child in the upcoming weeks, and while neither has confirmed the news, he did reveal to one fan on Twitter how happy is with life right now.
When one fan asked: “Are you happy honey?”
The soon-to-be-dad replied: “The happiest I could be.”
@xPositive_Girlx the happiest I could be — Liam (@LiamPayne) December 17, 2016
Splash News 3 Liam and Cheryl are expecting their first child in the upcoming weeks
Liam’s joy comes as reports suggest that he is planning to propose to Cheryl after she gives birth.
The One Direction singer is thought to have been inspired by Kimberley Walsh’s partner Justin who proposed to her in the delivery room.
A source told the Daily Star: “Liam got the idea to propose straight after the birth after finding out that Justin popped the question after the delivery of their first child.
“It’s given Liam so many ideas. There will definitely be wedding bells sooner than we expected.”
Justin popped the question to Cheryl’s best mate and former bandmates Kimberley just moments after she gave birth to their son Bobby.
She told Hello magazine at the time: “I’d just handed Bobby to Justin, so he had our gorgeous newborn son in one arm and I remember Bobby had his eyes open.
“Bobby didn’t take his gaze off me as Justin slipped his other hand into his pocket and suddenly the pair of them were sinking down towards the floor. I said, “What are you doing?”, then Justin pulled out this gorgeous ring.”
Related Stories 'We did it in her dress' People who cheated with brides and grooms on their wedding days share their outrageous stories COSTA FLOODS Dramatic moment man is swept away in raging floods as he tries to reach his car after deadly storm hits Costa Blanca and kills at least one MURDER HUNT Cops probe 'Black Eye Friday' murder after man found stabbed on Birmingham street during early hours ‘WHY AM I HEARING VOICES?’ Sunday Brunch viewers left wondering if the studio is haunted after hearing ‘weird’ voices A TALL ORDER? This is why Starbucks' smallest drink it called a 'tall'... and there's more to it than you might think Club World Cup Live Real Madrid 1 Kashima Antlers 1: Gaku Shibasaki cancels out Karim Benzema's early goal in World Club Cup final TEAM NEWS Tottenham vs Burnley team news and predicted line-ups for Premier League clash MAYHEM IN MANCHESTER Reveller left vomiting blood after being viciously stabbed in the head in 4am brawl amid 'Mad Saturday' carnage on streets of Manchester CHINESE CHEQUERED Zlatan Ibrahimovic to snub £120m offer from China to stay at Manchester United TOT TRAGEDY Boy, 3, shot dead in road rage attack on Christmas shopping trip with grandma because car was 'not going fast enough' TEAM NEWS Ilkay Gundogan joins Fernandinho and Sergio Aguero on sidelines for City as Gunners miss defender Shkodran Mustafi Team News Callum Wilson cleared for a place on bench for Cherries as Saints welcome back Cedric Soares
SilverHub 3 Liam is reportedly planning to propose to Cheryl after she gives birth
The Sun first revealed the then-secret relationship between Cheryl and One Direction star Liam, 23, in February after they caught up on The X Factor last December.
And in June, we were first to report that the pair planned to start a family.
But it was only last week that the loved up couple – who first met when Liam was just 14 – confirmed they were expecting.
Letting actions speak louder than words Cheryl debuted her baby bump in a very public manner at a charity event.
And while she hasn’t spoken about it publicly, she has now told her friends and family about their exciting news.
Cheryl Fernandez-Versini charmed by Liam Payne in first X Factor audition
It's thought the star won't make a formal announcement and is instead pouring her heart out in the recording studio as she continues work on her new album.
A source said: “Cheryl isn’t hiding anything — especially not her bump.
“She is very excited because starting a family is something she’s always wanted.
“But she’s going to do things her way.”
| null |
[
"Lauren Franklin",
"Showbiz Reporter"
] |
12-17-2016
|
thesun.co.uk
|
2016121719
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://people.com/babies/nicole-richie-inspiration-daughter-harlow/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016110619id_/http://people.com/babies/nicole-richie-inspiration-daughter-harlow/
|
Nicole Richie: My ‘Actions Are Going to Really Resonate’ with My Daughter
|
Nicole Richie is already a reality TV star, clothing designer, jewelry designer and social media darling, but recently she’s added female empowerer to that list of credentials.
Richie hosted her second annual Pearl xChange at The London in West Hollywood, gathering a group of successful professional women, including her sister in-law, Cameron Diaz, and the founders of SoulCycle, Julia Rice and Elizabeth Cutler, to share their stories and journeys with an audience.
Why did Richie, a 35-year-old successful businesswoman and busy mother want to add something else to her résumé? “To put it simply, the importance of collaboration,” she told PEOPLE at the event. “With millennials and just the way that the world is working, women are shaping who they are, what they want to become, at an earlier age, earlier and earlier.”
“They’re all so capable of understanding with that comes the responsibility of understanding the importance of being open and vulnerable with other women around you to surround yourself with people who have strengths where you have weaknesses, and to not look at that as something intimidating, but as something we need to celebrate and collaborate on,” she continued.
While Richie hopes she inspires the group of women and the many that couldn’t attend with this conference, there’s one particular lady for whom it is so important to lead by example: her 8-year-old daughter, Harlow.
“I think it’s less about my words. It’s more about my actions that are going to really resonate with her,” she shared.
Boys take FOREVER to get ready #aboutlastnight #hurryupandwait #storyofourlives A photo posted by @nicolerichie on Oct 25, 2015 at 11:16am PDT
Richie and husband Joel Madden, 37, who are also parents to 7-year-old son Sparrow, believe it’s important for them to include their children in family decisions and be a part of the process so they can all be one unit.
She said, “I have a huge family. We all chip in to do anything we do. We decide as a family, we decide as a group.”
|
Nicole Richie is already a reality TV star, designer and social media darling, but recently she’s added female empowerer to that list of credentials
|
[] |
11-06-2016
|
people.com
|
2016110619
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/27/denver-county-fair-adds-marijuana-contests/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014012819id_/http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/27/denver-county-fair-adds-marijuana-contests/
|
Denver County Fair adds marijuana contests
|
Jan. 27, 2014: Dana Cain, director of the Denver County Fair, shows a poster advertising the fair at a print shop in Denver.AP
Pot at the county fair? Why not?
Colorado's Denver County is adding cannabis-themed contests to its 2014 summer fair. It's the first time pot plants will stand alongside tomato plants and homemade jam in competition for a blue ribbon.
There won't actually be any marijuana at the fairgrounds. The judging will be done off-site, with photos showing the winning entries. And a live joint-rolling contest will be done with oregano, not pot.
But county fair organizers say the marijuana categories will add a fun twist on Denver's already-quirky county fair, which includes a drag queen pageant and a contest for dioramas made with Peeps candies.
"We thought it was time for us to take that leap and represent one of the things Denver has going on," said Tracy Weil, the fair's marketing and creative director.
The nine marijuana categories include live plants and clones, plus contests for marijuana-infused brownies and savory foods. Homemade bongs, homemade roach clips and clothing and fabric made with hemp round out the categories.
Judges will look only at plant quality, not the potency or quality of the drugs they produce. Other contests — patterned after Amsterdam's famed Cannabis Cup — already gauge drug quality and flavor.
Top prize is $20, plus of course a blue ribbon. The fair already has a green ribbon — awarded for using environmentally conscious methods.
The entries will be shown in a "Pot Pavilion" open only to people over 21. Alongside the pot entrants will be 24 categories of homemade beer, four categories for homemade wine and one category for "spirits and liqueurs."
Prizes will also be given for speedy joint-rolling, though fair organizers insist there won't be any marijuana consumption on-site. Competitors in the live Doritos-eating contest will have to acquire their munchies elsewhere.
Even the photographs of the winning plants will be viewable only by adults 21. Organizers don't want 4-H competitors in the popular rabbit and goat contests wandering by a pot display.
"We have a lot of families and kids at the fair, of course, and we wanted to be respectful of that," Weil said.
Denver's fair is far from traditional, though. Denver County didn't have a county fair until 2011. Organizers wanted an urban, hip element alongside traditional fair favorites like a Ferris wheel and cotton candy.
There's a speed text-messaging contest, and the highlight staple of a Western fair, a rodeo, has been replaced with a bicycle rodeo and a troupe of performing pigs. About 20,000 people attended last year.
The marijuana contests aren't likely to spread to other fairs in Colorado. Officials in Routt County, in western Colorado, voted last year to expressly ban marijuana from its county fair.
And Colorado State Fair organizers have expressed no interest in marijuana competition.
California holds an Emerald Cup at the fairgrounds in Sonoma County, Calif., where guests with medical clearance are able to sample the drug. That contest is held at the fairgrounds but isn't a part of the county fair.
|
Colorado's Denver County is adding cannabis-themed contests to its 2014 summer fair.
|
[] |
01-27-2014
|
foxnews.com
|
2014012819
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/18/greenpeace-trial-winds-tears-sympathy
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2013101819id_/http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/18/greenpeace-trial-winds-tears-sympathy
|
Greenpeace activists await trial among harsh winds, tears and no sympathy
|
Locals call Radishchev Street the "street of tears". On one side is Murmansk's biggest funeral parlour; on the other is pre-trial detention centre No 1, a foreboding facility fronted by rusting metal gates and crumbling walls. It is here that the 28 activists and two freelance journalists detained aboard Greenpeace's ship the Arctic Sunrise are being held pending trial.
Friday marked 30 days since Russian coastguards descended from helicopters to take the Arctic Sunrise by storm, during Greenpeace's protest against the Prirazlomnaya oil rig. The environmentalists were brought to the Arctic port city of Murmansk and have been charged with "piracy as part of an organised group" – an offence which carries a jail sentence of between 10 – 15 years.
Throughout the week, activists have been brought one by one from the detention centre to courtrooms in central Murmansk, asking to be released on bail ahead of the pending trials. On Friday morning, it was the turn of Devon-born Alexandra Harris at the Oktyabrskii district court, which still proudly displays a huge bust of Vladimir Lenin on its exterior.
Harris, wearing a purple sweater and blue jeans, was led into court in handcuffs and then locked inside a cage made of metal bars for the duration of the hearing. "I feel like all my rights have been denied," she told the Guardian during a brief break in the hearing. She said she is kept in solitary confinement and allowed outside "into a concrete block" for one hour per day.
Lawyers for Harris presented the court with a guarantee that Greenpeace would put up bail funds of 1m roubles (£20,000), and book her a hotel room in Murmansk ahead of trial, if the court would agree to release her on bail from the detention facility. A number of character references were also provided, and it was noted that Harris has no previous criminal convictions.
She told the court, through a translator, that she was innocent, and also complained that when she had serious stomach pains, no doctor was sent to her, despite her asking both a Russian human rights official and a visiting British diplomat to tell the prison she required a doctor.
As has been the case in all 18 of the bail hearings that have so far come to court, the judge flatly refused all of the defence's arguments and refused even to allow Harris to be moved to a guarded hotel room, saying she did not have a Russian visa and could also prove a flight risk. She was led away in handcuffs fighting back tears.
In a handwritten letter to her parents, seen by the Guardian, Harris wrote that she is "trying very, very hard not to lose hope" and says she is nervous about having to spend the winter in Murmansk.
Harris said in court that her cell is heated but when the wind blows it is freezing, as there are many gaps in the windows. Already, the temperature is well below zero in this forbidding Arctic town of prefabricated apartment blocks and decaying industrial infrastructure; from now on it will only get colder and darker, as the days become shorter and the round-the-clock blackness of the polar winter draws closer.
The Olympic flame, supposed symbol of peace and harmony among nations, passed through Murmansk this week. It will travel close to where the 30 detainees, nationals of 18 countries, are being held when it returns to the city in a fortnight.
The flame, journeying through Russia ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi next February, has been put aboard a nuclear icebreaker to voyage to the North Pole and back from Murmansk. The mission is led by the same polar explorer who in 2007 planted a Russian flag on the seabed underneath the North Pole, suggesting that the Olympic torch is being used to cement Russia's claim to the Arctic. The tough treatment of the Greenpeace activists has been seen as another sign that Russia will tolerate no interference in what it sees as its interests in the Arctic region.
In the queue outside the centre, there is little sympathy for Greenpeace among relatives of other detainees, as they wait to deliver packages. "We have a saying in Russia: you shouldn't go into someone else's house and try to live by your own rules," said one middle-aged woman who had bought a parcel of food for her 33-year-old daughter, who had been inside for five months on charges she did not want to reveal. She had been waiting in the freezing temperatures since 4am to ensure she was among the lucky few who got to deliver her package.
Another man, waiting to deliver a package to his brother, suggested that the Greenpeace activists were paid by western oil corporations to undermine Russia and should be "shot, or at least sent to a camp". The opinions reflect surveys which show that the majority of Russians support the piracy charges.
Veronika Dmitriyeva, 43, had travelled to Murmansk from Moscow to give a suitcase full of clothes and food to her husband Andrei Allakhverdov, a Greenpeace press officer. She had brought only food and clothes, after a novel that she tried to send to her husband previously, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was rejected by prison authorities as potentially subversive. "He served in the army, so he's used to hard conditions," said Dmitriyeva. "His main problem is boredom. There is nothing to do."
The men are kept in cells with other Russian inmates, while the women are in solitary confinement. Consular visits are limited to two per month, which a Dutch diplomat in Murmansk said possibly violated the Vienna convention.
While Greenpeace has a long history of scuffles with authorities across the globe, it is clear that none of the activists expected it to come to this. Lawyers say that given the number of people involved, it could be months before the case even comes to trial, and authorities are currently preparing applications to extend the detention of the activists beyond the two months initially allotted by the court.
Russia's investigative committee, rather than retreating, has raised the stakes, suggesting it is preparing new charges against some of the activists over drugs it claims were found during a search of the boat, and attempts by some of the Greenpeace activists to damage coastguard boats and put their lives at risk. Greenpeace has called all the accusations a fabrication.
To mark 30 days since the boat was seized, Greenpeace had planned a one-man protest outside the courtroom in Murmansk, with an activist due to stand in a cage to complain about the detention of the 30. However, the picket went ahead without the cage after six masked men broke into the Greenpeace office where the cage was being kept overnight, and stole it.
"I'm worried about what's going to happen," wrote Harris to her parents. "I have moments of feeling panicky but then I try to tell myself there's nothing I can do from in here and what will be will be so it's pointless worrying. But it's hard. Surely my future isn't rotting in a prison in Murmansk?! Well, I really hope it isn't."
|
Brition Alexandra Harris and 29 others face 15 years in jail for Arctic Sunrise protest, but Russians have their own problems Interactive: who are the 30 Greenpeace activists held in Russia
|
[
"Shaun Walker",
"Sam Jones"
] |
10-18-2013
|
theguardian.com
|
2013101819
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://mashable.com/2015/03/19/wet-wipes-uk-beaches/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2015031919id_/http://mashable.com/2015/03/19/wet-wipes-uk-beaches/
|
The UK's beaches are swamped with washed-up wet wipes
|
LONDON — Next time you use a wet wipe, do nature a favour and put it in the bin.
The common tendency to flush wet wipes down the toilet is based in the mistaken belief that they easily disintegrate, but in reality, they are causing an influx of the wipes on Britain's beaches, according to a new report from the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).
In fact, the number discovered on beaches grew by more than 50% in 2014, per the report, and averaged out at more than 35 wipes per kilometre of beach. Pretty rank.
More than 5,000 volunteers combed 301 beaches in the UK between Sept. 12 and Sept. 22 last year, collecting 2,457 bits of litter per kilometre, which was an increase of 6.4% compared to 2013.
They found all sorts of garbage dotted across the beaches, including fishing nets and cigarette butts — as well as a variety of items that started their journeys in toilet bowls, such a sanitary towels and panty liners.
Some of the more bizarre items included a colostomy bag, a plastic hand, a piping gun nozzle and a bra strap.
Image: Marine Conservation Society
The report stated the common misconception that wet wipes, including face wipes and makeup removal wipes, are flushable. But they don't break down like toilet tissue because they're made of tougher fibres. Some even contain plastic such as polyester.
"They can cause blockages in our sewers, and then, everything else that has been flushed down the loo can either back up into people's homes, or overflow into rivers and seas," MCS beach watch officer Charlotte Coombes told the BBC. "Overflows also happen during excessive rainfall or if the plumbing hasn't been connected up properly, meaning the wrong pipes head straight to the sea. That's when we find sewage-related debris, including wet wipes, on the beach."
It's not just Brits who contribute to these sandy trash pits; rubbish was collected from Holland, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and as far afield as Japan, China and Russia.
The report also found that Wales is particularly guilty of waste; the amount of litter per kilometre there is more than 2.5 times that of the UK as a whole, and most of that comes from fishing.
A spokeswoman for Keep Britain Tidy offered a simple guide for anyone struggling to work out what a toilet is for.
“There’s three things that should go into a toilet. Putting it crudely, they are pee, poo and paper."
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
|
The number of wet wipes discovered on beaches grew by more than 50% in 2014 and averaged out at over 35 per kilometre of beach.
|
[
"Tim Chester"
] |
03-19-2015
|
mashable.com
|
2015031919
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1878892/boozed-up-man-who-was-stopped-from-driving-by-a-group-of-hero-mothers-banned-from-the-roads/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016092919id_/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1878892/boozed-up-man-who-was-stopped-from-driving-by-a-group-of-hero-mothers-banned-from-the-roads/
|
Boozed-up man who was stopped from driving by a mob of hero mothers banned from the roads
|
David Stark was banned for three years after CCTV captured the moment a group of mothers grappled him
A BOOZED up man who stopped from driving by a mob of mums who wrestled car keys out of his hands has been banned from the roads.
David Stark, 59, who was was caught on CCTV staggering into his car, received a three-year ban after he was found to be nearly three times the drink driving limit.
SWNS:South West News Service 9 David Stark, 59, has been banned for three years for drink driving after he was found be three times the driving limit
SWNS:South West News Service 9 A group of mothers were caught on CCTV grappling with Stark and wrestling his car keys out of his hands
SWNS:South West News Service 9 A mum who has been watching him walks up to the car, having noticed Clark could be unfit to drive
SWNS:South West News Service 9 She is captured speaking with him as she apparently tries to dissuade him from driving in his alleged state
Stark, of Cleethorpes, North East Lincs, was also fined £350 with costs of £85 and a surcharge of £35.
Grimsby Magistrates’ Court heard that Stark had been to his allotment and drank a can of lager and part of a second can before going to the shop.
A group of quick-thinking mothers were caught on CCTV grappling with Stark.
He is pictured approaching his car and taking his time opening the door - at this point a women who has been watching him walks over and holds the car door open so he cannot close it.
Another woman joins her and they both grab for his keys.
It looks as though they do not manage to obtain the car keys the first time around, as he climbs out of the car, locks the door and walks away.
Moments later he is seen to walk back to the car from the other direction and tries to get in, but is blocked by one of the women.
He eventually opens the door and gets in the car again, but more people join in and can be seen trying to reason with him to get hold of the keys.
SWNS:South West News Service 9 More mums come over to the car to help and they try to get the keys from his hand
SWNS:South West News Service 9
The crowd grows as they decide to force him to give up the keys and be unable to drive
SWNS:South West News Service 9 The scene on Wollaston Rd Cleethorpes where police recovered a car after a group of women stopped the driver who they suspected of being drunk
After grappling with the women, Clark loses his keys and walks off.
This all happened at the same time the nearby Havelock Academy in Cleethorpes, North East Lincs, was closing for the day and children would have been walking home.
Humberside Police were called to the incident and seized the car.
A nearby shopkeeper, who also helped stopped the man from driving off, said: "If he had driven off and hit a child, bearing in mind it was near school closing time - how could you live with your conscience?
"If it had not been for the other mums we would not have stopped him - all I could think of was what could happen if he drove off."
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "I will be getting them some chocolates for what they did."
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Photographer Carl Leslie, who arrived later at the scene, said: "When I first turned up I could see all the women trying to stop him.
"There were some workmen across the road who said the police had been alerted."
Carl added: "The women deserve the credit for trying to stop him - they succeeded in getting the keys."
A Humberside police spokesman said: "We have the public's full support in preventing such incidents, as it puts everyone's life at risk.
SWNS:South West News Service 9 CCTV footage shows a group of concerned women taking action when they suspected a man was trying to drive a vehicle when it appeared he was "unfit" to do so
SWNS:South West News Service 9 Police recover the car after the man accused of drink driving was stopped from being able to use the vehicle
"This incident shows how the public can work with the police to ensure suspected unfit drivers don't drive their vehicles and therefore protect pedestrians, cyclist and other road users."
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368.
| null |
[
"Hannah Crouch"
] |
09-29-2016
|
thesun.co.uk
|
2016092919
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2013/10/14/gartner-top-10-strategic-technology-trends-for-2014/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2013102119id_/http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2013/10/14/gartner-top-10-strategic-technology-trends-for-2014/
|
Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2014
|
Gartner just concluded its Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013 in Orlando, gathering tens of thousands of IT executives. Among the most anticipated aspects of the gathering are the ruminations from the Gartner pontificators regarding IT trends. Among several trends shared were the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014. Here is a summary of those trends:
Mobile Device Diversity and Management
Gartner suggests that now through 2018, a variety of devices, user contexts, and interaction paradigms will make “everything everywhere” strategies unachievable. The unintended consequence of bring your own device (BYOD) programs has been to render much more complex (by two or three times, Gartner estimates) the size of the mobile workforce, straining both the information technology and the finance organizations. It is recommended that companies better define expectations for employee-owned hardware to balance flexibility with confidentiality and privacy requirements.
Mobile Apps and Applications
Gartner predicts that through 2014, improved JavaScript performance will begin to push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream enterprise application development environment. As a consequence, it was suggested that developers focus on expanding user interface models including richer voice and video that can connect people in new and different ways. Apps will grow and applications will shrink, continuing a trend that has been documented for a while now. The market for creating apps continues to be very fragmented (Gartner estimates that there are over 100 potential tool vendors), and consolidation is not likely to happen in earnest for a while. It is suggested that ‘the next evolution in user experience will be to leverage intent, inferred from emotion and actions, to motivate changes in end-user behavior.”
In Pictures: Gartner’s 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2013
The Internet of Everything
The Internet is expanding into enterprise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions. The problem is that most enterprises and technology vendors have yet to explore the possibilities of an expanded Internet and are not operationally or organizationally ready. Gartner identifies four basic usage models that are emerging:
Manage
Monetize
Operate
Extend
These can be applied to people, things, information, and places, and therefore the so called “Internet of Things” will be succeeded by the “Internet of Everything.”
Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service Broker
Gartner suggests that bringing together personal clouds and external private cloud services is essential. Enterprises should design private cloud services with a hybrid future in mind and make sure future integration/interoperability is possible. Early hybrid cloud services will likely be more static, engineered compositions, and Gartner suggests that more deployment compositions will emerge as cloud service brokerages evolve.
Cloud/Client Architecture
As the power and capability of many mobile devices increases, the increased demand on networks, the cost of networks, and the need to manage bandwidth use “creates incentives, in some cases, to minimize the cloud application computing and storage footprint, and to exploit the intelligence and storage of the client device.” Gartner also notes that as mobile users continue to demand more complex uses of their mobile technologies, it will drive a need for higher levels of server-side computing and storage capacity.
The Era of Personal Cloud
The push for more personal cloud technologies will lead to a shift toward services and away from devices. The type of device one has will be less important, as the personal cloud takes over some of the role that the device has traditionally had with multiple devices accessing the personal cloud.
Software Defined Anything
Software-defined anything (SDx) is defined by “improved standards for infrastructure programmability and data center interoperability driven by automation inherent to cloud computing, DevOps and fast infrastructure provisioning.” Dominant vendors in a given sector of an infrastructure-type may elect not to follow standards that increase competition and lower margins, but end-customer will benefit from simplicity, cost reduction opportunities, and the possibility for consolidation.
Web-Scale IT
Large cloud services providers such as Amazon, Google, Salesforce.com, and the like are re-inventing the way in which IT services can be delivered. Gartner points out that the capabilities of these companies exceed the “scale in terms of sheer size to also include scale as it pertains to speed and agility.” The suggestion is that IT organizations should align with and emulate the processes, architectures, and practices of these leading cloud providers. The combination of the aforementioned three among others is how Gartner defines “Web-scale IT.”
Smart Machines
Gartner suggests that the “the smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT.” These will include the proliferation of
contextually aware, intelligent personal assistants
smart advisors (e.g., IBM IBM
advanced global industrial systems
autonomous vehicles
The company also projects that smart machines will strengthen the forces of consumerization after enterprise buying commences in earnest.
3-D Printing
The growth of 3-D printers is projected to be 75 percent in the coming year, and 200 percent in 2015. Gartner suggests that “the consumer market hype has made organizations aware of the fact 3-D printing is a real, viable and cost-effective means to reduce costs through improved designs, streamlined prototyping and short-run manufacturing.”
Also on Forbes: Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Tech Trends For 2013
Peter High is the President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He is also the author of World Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When IT Triumphs, and the moderator of the Forum on World Class IT podcast series. To read his series on CIO-pluses, visit this link. To read his series profiling CIOs who have risen beyond that role, visit this link. Follow him on Twitter @WorldClassIT.
|
Gartner just concluded its Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013 in Orlando, gathering tens of thousands of IT executives. Among the most anticipated aspects of the gathering are the ruminations from the Gartner pontificators regarding IT trends. Among several trends shared were the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014. Here is a summary [...]
|
[
"Peter High"
] |
10-14-2013
|
forbes.com
|
2013102119
|
success_wayback
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train
|
http://people.com/human-interest/germans-evacuated-christmas-morning-wwii-bomb/
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https://web.archive.org/web/20161227100740id_/http://people.com/human-interest/germans-evacuated-christmas-morning-wwii-bomb/?shared=email&msg=fail
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54,000 Germans Evacuated on Christmas Morning After Workers Discover a Massive World War II-era Bomb
|
A relic from the past turned into a modern-day hassle for thousands of Germans on Christmas morning.
About 54,000 residents of the southern city of Augsburg were forced from their homes Sunday morning following the discovery of a 1.8-ton bomb during construction of an underground parking garage, CNN reports.
The antique explosive is believed to be a bomb the British dropped on the city during World War II, the site reports.
Although the bomb was discovered last week, officials chose to detonate it on Christmas morning — a day deemed less difficult than a regular working day — after it was determined that the bomb was not an immediate threat, the BBC reports.
Germans generally celebrate the holiday on Christmas Eve, so Sunday was deemed to be a less disruptive day, according to reports.
About 32,000 households were required to evacuate while the bomb was being detonated, and the city opened local schools and gymnasiums for locals to seek shelter during the disruption.
Residents were reportedly allowed back into the homes just after 7 p.m., with the city announcing on its official Facebook page that the bomb had been successfully detonated.
“Aircraft bomb disarmed — these brave men are the real heroes of this historical day. Thank you deep down from the heart,” Augsburg’s mayor, Kurt Gribl, also wrote in German on his Twitter account.
#Fliegerbombe entschärft – diese mutigen Männer sind die wahren Helden dieses geschichtsträchtigen Tages. Von Herzen: Danke. pic.twitter.com/9mxrWnKHR9 — Kurt Gribl (@politikurt) December 25, 2016
World War II-era bombs have caused problems in Germany for decades. Last year, a construction worker died after his vehicle hit an unexploded bomb in Euskirchen, the BBC reports. Last year, approximately 20,000 people were temporarily forced from their homes after a bomb was discovered in Cologne.
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Approximately 54,000 people were forced from their homes in Augsburg, Germany, on Sunday
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[
"Kathy Ehrich Dowd"
] |
12-26-2016
|
people.com
|
20161227100740
|
success_wayback
|
val
|
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/10/27/why-yahoos-foray-into-original-tv-series-failed/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2015102719id_/http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/10/27/why-yahoos-foray-into-original-tv-series-failed/
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Why Yahoo’s foray into original TV series failed
|
Yahoo has flunked out of Greendale Community College. Its failure to forge a business from the revival of Dan Harmon’s cult comedy “Community” and two other scripted series is emblematic of the once-mighty Internet company’s muddled biz strategy overall.
The botched run at programming at primetime-level costs, which was supposed to draw on marketers’ TV budgets to reach Yahoo’s billion-user global base, is another black eye for CEO Marissa Mayer. While investors aren’t clamoring for her head yet, the clock is ticking for Yahoo to prove its ability to grow profitably.
Mayer and chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt — the lieutenant who oversaw Yahoo’s content efforts until quitting last month to join independent studio STX Entertainment — had ballyhooed “Community” as anchoring a bold new premium-content strategy to round out its live and short-form video pillars.
But viewers, and the ad bucks to support the shows, weren’t materializing at the pace Yahoo had hoped, especially considering the seven-year horizon laid out to recoup the cost of the productions. On its third-quarter earnings call last week, the company revealed that it took a $42 million write-down on “Community,” basketball comedy “Sin City Saints” and “Other Space,” a sci-fi spoof from Paul Feig.
“We thought long and hard about it, and what we concluded is … we couldn’t see a way to make money over time,” chief financial officer Ken Goldman told analysts concerning the three series.
With Yahoo’s change in strategy, it has dropped plans for twentysomething comedy “The Pursuit,” from exec producers Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark, and director-exec producer Beth McCarthy Miller.
Yahoo isn’t officially calling it quits on big-budget originals. But “we are taking a pause on long-form scripted content,” said Lisa Utzschneider, Yahoo’s chief revenue officer, adding that the company has no plans to order additional content for “Community,” produced by Sony Pictures TV.
Yahoo didn’t spend much to market the shows, largely counting on “Community” fans to rally after NBC axed the sitcom. Meanwhile, Yahoo fronted a relatively small lineup amid an intensely crowded market for high-caliber TV content, and it simply doesn’t have a brand people associate with lean-back entertainment. “TV is not their core competency,” said John Blackledge, senior Internet analyst at Cowen & Co. “They don’t have the budget to go after the best content against Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or the networks.”
Ultimately, Yahoo didn’t have the time — or the willingness to make long-term investments — reach the scale to make ad-supported TV shows work, lacking subscription revenue or pay-TV fees the traditional ecosystem relies on. The dilemma is that if Yahoo had acquired additional shows, the endeavor might have been an even costlier debacle.
“On the one hand, Yahoo’s been the only digital-first media company to meaningfully pursue television (advertising) dollars,” said Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal Research Group. “But the reason nobody else has done it is because the economics are terrible.”
If Yahoo’s entertainment woes invoke a sense of deja vu, that’s because this isn’t its first failure in that arena; when former Warner Bros. CEO Terry Semel ran the company 10 years ago, ambitions to be more like TV were similarly thwarted.
And Yahoo appears to have had another money-losing fumble on its hands with the free livestream of the NFL’s Oct. 25 Bills-Jaguars game from London. Yahoo reportedly paid the NFL at least $15 million for streaming rights, and the companies claim to have garnered 15.2 million unique viewers worldwide.
But exactly how long those users watched the game on average was unclear, given that Yahoo auto-played the livestream on several destinations. Factoring in production and streaming costs, “There was no way for them to make back” the investment, said streaming-industry expert Dan Rayburn.
The $42 million charge for the three shows contributed to another disappointing quarter for Yahoo. It reported Q3 revenue of $1.23 billion and adjusted earnings per share of 15¢, vs. Wall Street expectations of $1.26 billion in sales and EPS of 17¢.
Worse, the company cut its fourth-quarter revenue forecast to between $1.16 billion and $1.2 billion, compared with average analyst expectations of $1.33 billion.
“The core business is decaying faster than they think,” Blackledge said.
The poor results and outlook led Mayer to promise that the company will focus on fewer products in 2016. Compounding her headaches, Yahoo has seen several recent high-level exec departures. In addition to Savitt’s exit, last week Jackie Reses, formerly Yahoo’s chief development officer, left to run the business-financing group of Jack Dorsey’s Square, while product senior VP Mike Kerns joined Chernin Group.
The departure of Savitt may have helped prompt Mayer, in triage mode with Yahoo’s larger financial woes and still struggling to prove the value of its $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, to pull the plug on the scripted-originals strategy. Yahoo now has put Martha Nelson, previously a longtime Time Inc. senior editorial executive, in charge of its overall media strategy, including video.
There’s urgency for Mayer to demonstrate a clear and credible path forward. Yahoo’s spinoff of the remaining 15% stake it owns in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, previously expected to close in Q4, may be delayed until January.
Once that happens, investors will fully focus on Yahoo’s business metrics, and the strategy (or lack thereof) to fix them.
It’s unclear just how the fast-growing digital video space will figure in to Yahoo’s business going forward. “We’ll continue to invest in short-form video content, which is strategic for us,” Utzschneider said. Yahoo earlier had hinted it might pick up another season of “Community”; sources said Sony TV still has a film adaptation in play.
“They were sort of dabbling in long-form originals,” said VideoNuze analyst Will Richmond of Yahoo. “They’re dabbling in news with Katie Couric, and dabbling in sports with the NFL game. But it’s hard to do any one of those things well unless you’re all-in.”
|
Yahoo has flunked out of Greendale Community College.
|
[
"Todd Spangler"
] |
10-27-2015
|
foxnews.com
|
2015102719
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/29/whitewashing-savagery-al-jazeera-english-bans-use-terrorist-for-mass-killers/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2015012919id_/http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/29/whitewashing-savagery-al-jazeera-english-bans-use-terrorist-for-mass-killers/
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Whitewashing savagery: Al-Jazeera English bans use of ‘terrorist’ for mass killers
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Al-Jazeera America launched with plenty of lofty rhetoric about covering the world in a deeper way without the ideological baggage of the main channel in Qatar.
The new outfit hired a number of big-name journalists from such outlets as CNN, MSNBC and PBS, and hoped to establish a foothold in America with a global focus.
But the Al-Jazeera enterprise here just lost a chunk of its credibility, in my view, for the way its sister network, al-Jazeera English, has chosen to describe terrorism. Al-Jazeera English is the translated version of the Arab network based in Doha.
National Review has obtained an internal e-mail that speaks volumes about the channel’s approach to the issue. It’s an order to journalists not to use such terms as “terrorist,” “Islamist” and “jihad.”
Carlos Van Meek, a top executive, wrote to the Washington and New York newsrooms about words that trip them up. And I found this sentence chilling in its acceptance of immorality:
“One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.”
I understand the linguistic debate in, say, a civil war, where each side might be accused of killing civilians. But we all know what terrorists are: They are mass murderers who deliberately target innocent people in the service of some cause, often a religious one.
The people who behead journalists on camera are terrorists, not freedom fighters.
The people who killed the staff of Charlie Hedbo are terrorists, not freedom fighters.
The people who slaughtered Americans on 9/11 and Brits on 7/7 are terrorists, not freedom fighters.
But not to al-Jazeera English. Van Meek says the network should use “fighters” and “militants” instead: “For example, we can use the term [militant] to describe Norwegian mass-killer Andres Behring Breivik or Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.”
Got that? McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, but he was just a militant.
Extremist is verboten because al-Jazeera should “avoid characterizing people. Often their actions do the work for the viewer.” I’m sorry, journalists characterize people, and their motives, for a living.
“Do not use” the term Islamist, Van Meek said, because it’s “a simplistic label.”
Oh, and “strictly speaking, jihad means an inner spiritual struggle, not a holy war.”
This is the worst kind of political correctness, an effort to avoid calling out crimes against humanity in the name of linguistic neutrality.
When al-Jazeera America launched in 2013, its biggest challenge were the memories of its parent network appearing to have a cozy relationship with Al Qaeda, back in the days when it was a conduit for those Usama bin Laden videos threatening America. This al-Jazeera English memo reinforces the notion that a channel financed by the Qatari government is not truly independent of the Arab world’s prejudices.
It’s not like the network has been a commercial success since taking over the slot occupied by Al Gore’s Current. Al-Jazeera America has laid off staff and recently canceled its morning programming, to be replaced with canned stuff from Doha. As of last fall, the channel was averaging 14,000 viewers in daytime and 18,000 in primetime—almost a rounding error.
Now the independence of these English-language spinoffs are suspect as well.
Click for more from Media Buzz
|
Al-Jazeera America launched with plenty of lofty rhetoric about covering the world in a deeper way without the ideological baggage of the main channel in Qatar.
|
[
"Howard Kurtz"
] |
01-29-2015
|
foxnews.com
|
2015012919
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
https://www.geekwire.com/2015/these-20-words-show-whats-on-the-mind-of-this-top-amazon-exec/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/20190330095011id_/https://www.geekwire.com/2015/these-20-words-show-whats-on-the-mind-of-this-top-amazon-exec/
|
These 20 words show what’s on the mind of this top Amazon executive
|
Amazon.com senior vice president Jeff Wilke — like all top execs at the online retailing powerhouse — spends a lot of time reading.
As part of the company’s unusual culture, meetings at Amazon start with about 20 people in the room reading 6-page documents known as “narratives.” These documents lay out the details of what’s to come in the meeting, and staffers spend as much as 45 minutes reading them in silence. That style of meeting stands in stark contrast to other companies.
In 2014, Wilke read over 2,000 pages of single-spaced text — including 236 pages of press releases, nearly 800 pages of staff meetings, 707 pages of operating plans and over 500 pages of quarterly business reviews.
That’s a lot of text. So what are the most common terms and words that pop up in the documents that Wilke is reading?
At a talk Tuesday night at Seattle University about Amazon’s peculiar leadership principles, Wilke shared the top words in his “narratives.”
“I didn’t know how it would turn out,” said Wilke, who joined Amazon in 1999 and leads the company’s powerful consumer business. “I was delighted that ‘will’ implies a promise and that ‘customers’ is the second word. Whew!”
You can see all of the words above, which provide a bit of a roadmap of what’s on the minds of Amazon employees. Wilke said he was proud that “Prime” made it in the top 10, and he also noted that many of the words show up throughout the company’s 14 leadership principles.
Interestingly, during the question and answer portion of Wilke’s talk, an Amazon.com shareholder pressed the executive on why the word “mobile” was not higher on the list. Here’s what he said in response to the question:
| null |
[
"John Cook"
] |
05-13-2015
|
geekwire.com
|
20190330095011
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/09/27/defending-holder-legacy-no-easy-task-for-successor-justice-department-now-pit/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014092719id_/http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/09/27/defending-holder-legacy-no-easy-task-for-successor-justice-department-now-pit/
|
Defending Holder's legacy no easy task for successor: Justice Department now pit of politics
|
When Richard Nixon made a show of quitting politics in 1962 he famously taunted his liberal critics in the media saying “you won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”
The question on my mind today is: what are conservatives going to do now that they don’t have Eric Holder to kick around anymore?
Holder announced Thursday that he will step down as the Attorney General of the United States as soon as his successor is confirmed. Given the poisonous politics in Congress these days and the prospect of a Republican takeover of the Senate next year, finding a successor who can win confirmation could take quite a while.
To my eyes Holder’s tenure is the latest episode of a much bigger political nightmare that has been going on for decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Here’s how the first line of The New York Times story about the Holder resignation read: “Replacing Mr. Holder, who provoked the ire of Republicans as President Obama's chief liberal warrior, could be a political nightmare.”
To my eyes Holder’s tenure is the latest episode of a much bigger political nightmare that has been going on for decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
The Justice Department has devolved into the heart of Washington darkness, the absolute pit of modern political polarization in my lifetime.
In the last 20 years there is a direct line of partisan political attacks on the Justice Department from Waco to “Torture Memos” to the “Fast and Furious” episode. The GOP House hit bottom with its historically sad decision to hold this attorney general in contempt of Congress.
The truth is that Holder deserves to be celebrated as the attorney general who rebuilt a broken federal agency and restored its reputation.
Recall that it was the Bush Justice Department that gave us the U.S. Attorney scandals where federal prosecutors were encouraged to go after Democratic officials and political opponents of the president. It was also the Bush-era DOJ that gutted the Civil Rights Division which historically policed violations of civil rights and voting rights.
Holder, with the help of Thomas Perez, the former head of the civil right division and currently the labor secretary, restored that division’s integrity from the wreckage they inherited.
For Holder, civil rights issues were deeply personal. He is the brother-in-law of the late Vivian Malone, one of the African American students blocked from entering the University of Alabama by Governor George Wallace.
Unlike his predecessors, he aggressively pursued violations of Americans’ voting rights and asserted the Department’s power under the preclearance provision of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
When GOP governors and state legislatures tried to disenfranchise, young people, the poor and especially minority voters – central components of the Democratic coalition -- by ending early voting, purging voter rolls and requiring photo identification, Holder pushed back. That was not a political act. He stood up because anyone representing the Constitution has an obligation to defend every American’s right to vote.
As the nation’s first African American Attorney General, Holder gave conservatives heartburn when he said that in many respects, the U.S. had been “a nation of cowards” when it came to race. Holder’s words are important to maintaining trust in the nation’s system of justice among people of all races as the nation reaches new heights of racial diversity.
And note that he won support from conservatives like Senator Rand Paul , R-Ky. and Texas Governor Rick Perry in pushing for changes to mandatory minimums for low-level drug offenses that contribute to high rates of jail time for people of color.
Instead of supporting Holder in those efforts, the Republican House of Representatives took the unprecedented step of voting to hold him in contempt of Congress over the “Fast and Furious” operation. What the Republicans conveniently forgot is that the Justice Department’s first duty is as a law enforcement agency. Republican and Democratic prosecutors agree the documents supposedly being “withheld” were required for prosecution of criminals and would have been useless in court if they became political fodder.
Also, the GOP scandal mongers conveniently forgot that the “gun-walking” program started under the Bush administration and it was Holder who ended the program.
As with so many of the “controversies” Republicans attacked Holder over, the criticism said more about the critics than it did Holder.
But the larger problem for our government – politicization of the attorney general's role – neither began nor ended with Eric Holder.
Democrat President John F. Kennedy famously raised eyebrows by appointing his brother Bobby Kennedy as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. This put RFK in a position to cover JFK’s political back as the two brothers worked to advance what was, at the time, a very progressive agenda - especially on civil rights.
Republican Richard Nixon appointed one of his closest friends and campaign advisors, John Mitchell as Attorney General. Mitchell is widely regarded as the most corrupt Attorney General in U.S. history because of his involvement in the Watergate scandal and CREEP (the Committee to Re-elect the President). Mitchell served 19 months in prison because of the crimes he committed as Nixon’s A.G.
Republican Ronald Reagan was similarly criticized for appointed Edwin Meese as his attorney general. Meese had been one of Reagan’s closest friends and political advisers, having served as his chief of staff when he was governor of California. Meese was said to be instrumental in protecting Reagan from the political fallout of the Iran Contra Affair. Meese resigned as attorney general when he came under investigation from a special prosecutor.
In the modern era, President Clinton’s Attorney General Janet Reno became a lightning rod for controversy and criticism for Republicans in Congress. Reno is best remembered for botched federal raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993 and the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba in 1999.
President George W. Bush appointed John Ashcroft as attorney general, a fierce right-wing partisan who had served as a U.S. Senator from Missouri. Ashcroft and his successor Alberto Gonzalez were instrumental in providing the legal justification for the most extreme anti-terrorism actions of the Bush administration. For Ashcroft, it was the USA PATRIOT ACT. For Gonzalez, it was the so-called “Torture Memos” which the Bush administration relied on for its coerced interrogations and waterboarding of terror suspects.
My point in relaying this abridged history of the recent attorneys generals is to show that the Justice Department was deeply politicized before Holder ever arrived.
It used to be that being an experienced, skilled legal mind was enough for that job. Now, nominees have to be a good politician as well.
Have we forgotten that the attorney general is supposed to be an independent, non-partisan law enforcement officer?
You can bet that the next attorney general – whether he or she is appointed by President Hillary Clinton or President Ted Cruz – will be another lightning rod for all the political hate and division in our country.
History will soon write that Holder’s tenure was a light of hope during a dreadful era of political games at the Department of Justice.
Juan Williams is a co-host of FNC's "The Five," where he is one of seven rotating Fox personalities. Additionally, he serves as FNC's political analyst, a regular panelist on "Fox News Sunday" and "Special Report with Bret Baier" and is a regular substitute host for "The O'Reilly Factor." He joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 1997 as a contributor. Click here for more information on Juan Williams.
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Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation Thursday.
|
[
"Juan Williams"
] |
09-27-2014
|
foxnews.com
|
2014092719
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE49L4WX20081022
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2008102219id_/http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE49L4WX20081022
|
SCENARIOS: How Obama, McCain are faring in key states
|
(Reuters) - With less than two weeks to go before the U.S. presidential election, the campaigns are increasingly focused on battleground states where opinion polls show Democrat Barack Obama with a significant lead on Republican rival John McCain.
Obama leads in all of the states won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004 as well as in several states won by Republican President George W. Bush, recent polls show, maintaining a lead that he opened as the financial crisis moved to center stage in the campaign.
Obama or McCain need 270 electoral votes to win the Electoral College and capture the White House in the November 4 election.
The president is determined not by the most votes nationally, but by a majority of the Electoral College, which has 538 members allotted to all 50 states and the District of Columbia in proportion to their representation in Congress.
Each state, except Maine and Nebraska, awards its votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state. Maine and Nebraska split them by congressional district.
Here are some battleground states with their electoral vote totals, 2004 results and recent details about the contests in each state.
* Colorado -- Nine electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry 52 percent to 47 percent in the state in 2004, but since then, Democrats have won the state Legislature and governor’s office. A poll this week showed Obama up by 5 points.
* Florida -- 27 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry 52 percent to 47 percent in 2004 in a state known for the disputed result that decided the 2000 election. Florida is a classic swing state with a heavy concentration of older voters who could favor McCain. It also has many Jewish voters who are normally Democratic but have been wary of Obama. A Monday poll had McCain ahead by 1 point, although three other recent polls have all given Obama a narrow lead in a state that McCain must win to take the presidency.
* Indiana -- 11 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by 20 points in 2004 in a state that last voted for a Democrat in 1964. But it borders Obama’s native Illinois and he has poured resources into his Indiana campaign after finishing a strong second to Sen. Hillary Clinton in the May Democratic primary. Republicans have begun to advertise there, but polls have shown Obama closing the gap. The two most recent polls gave McCain leads of 5 and 7 points.
* Michigan -- 17 electoral votes. Kerry won by 3 points in 2004. The state’s depressed economy and ailing manufacturing base make it a prime target for competing arguments on the economy, although McCain pulled out of Michigan earlier this month after Obama appeared to have secured an unassailable lead. A poll last week had Obama up by 16 points.
* Missouri -- 11 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry 53 percent to 46 percent in 2004 in a classic battleground with a mix of urban centers in Kansas City and St. Louis and conservative rural areas more aligned culturally with the South. The race looks tight, with two recent polls putting Obama ahead by 5 and 6 points and two others showing McCain ahead by smaller margins.
* New Hampshire -- Four electoral votes. Kerry beat Bush by 1 point in 2004. McCain’s history of big primary wins in New Hampshire in 2000 and this year gives him hope he can take the state in November. Democrats captured both the state’s seats in Congress and gained control of the state Legislature in 2006 in an anti-Republican wave on which Obama hopes to capitalize. Four recent polls show Obama leading by 7 to 13 points.
* New Mexico -- Five electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by fewer than 6,000 votes in 2004. As the senator from neighboring Arizona, McCain is familiar to many New Mexico voters, but he will have to battle Obama for the growing bloc of Hispanics, who make up more than 40 percent of the state’s population. Four recent polls put Obama ahead by 5 to 8 points.
* Nevada -- Five electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by 20,000 votes in 2004 in a state won by Republicans in eight of the past 10 presidential elections. As in New Mexico, the burgeoning Hispanic population will be crucial -- it now makes up nearly a quarter of Nevada’s residents. A poll last week gave Obama a 3-point lead.
* North Carolina -- 15 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by 12 points in 2004, even though the Democratic vice presidential nominee, John Edwards, was from the state. More than one-fifth of the population is black and an influx of transplants to high-tech urban areas like Charlotte and the Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill have given Obama a chance. Two polls this week gave Obama leads of 3 and 7 points, although earlier surveys had the race essentially tied.
* Ohio -- 20 electoral votes. Bush beat Kerry by about 120,000 votes in the state that ultimately decided the 2004 race. No Republican has won the White House without Ohio, and McCain will have a hard time piecing together a win without the state. Polls vary widely, with one survey putting McCain up by 2 points and another awarding Obama a 9-point lead.
* Pennsylvania -- 21 electoral votes. Kerry beat Bush 51 percent to 48 percent in 2004, but Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states won by Kerry where McCain’s camp had seen a chance to reverse the result. The most recent poll showed Obama up by 8 points, while earlier surveys had given him a double-digit lead in the state.
* Virginia -- 13 electoral votes. Bush won fairly easily by 9 points in 2004 in a state that has not gone Democratic in a presidential election since 1964. But Virginia’s trend has been toward Democrats in recent state elections amid dramatic growth in the Democratic-leaning northern suburbs of Washington, D.C. Two polls this week gave Obama leads of 6 and 10 points.
* Wisconsin -- 10 electoral votes. Kerry won by 11,000 votes out of more than 3 million in 2004, but Obama has held a lead for months in a state where he crushed Hillary Clinton in a February Democratic primary showdown. A Monday poll gave Obama an 8-point lead.
|
With less than two weeks to go before the U.S. presidential election, the campaigns are increasingly focused on battleground states where opinion polls show Democrat Barack Obama with a significant lead on Republican rival John McCain.
|
[
"Reuters Editorial",
"Reuters Staff"
] |
10-22-2008
|
reuters.com
|
2008102219
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants-justin-pugh-colin-kaepernick-standing-article-1.2768128
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016082819id_/http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants-justin-pugh-colin-kaepernick-standing-article-1.2768128
|
Giants’ Cruz, Pugh voice disagreement with Colin Kaepernick
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Victor Cruz and Justin Pugh, two of the Giants’ most prominent players, were able on Saturday to appreciate Colin Kaepernick’s right to free speech while simultaneously disagreeing with the 49ers quarterback’s decision to not stand for the national anthem on Friday night.
“Regardless of how you feel about the things that are going on in America today and the things that are going on across the world with gun violence and things of that nature, you’ve got to respect the flag,” Cruz said. “And you’ve got to stand up with your teammates. It’s bigger than just you, in my opinion. I think you go up there, you’re with a team and you go and you pledge your allegiance to the flag and you sing the national anthem with your team. And then you go about your business, whatever your beliefs are.
“On a personal standpoint, I think you have to stand up with your team, and understand that this game and what’s on around the country is bigger than just you,” he added.
Pugh, whose brother is in the military stationed currently at McGuire Air Force Base, tweeted on Saturday in protest “I will be STANDING during the National Anthem Tonight. Thank you to ALL (Gender, Race, Religion) that put your lives on the line for that flag.”
49ers QB Colin Kaepernick sits down during the national anthem
Pugh clarified “I’ve never walked in his shoes either so I don’t know what he goes through.” But Kaepernick’s decision not to stand, and his exclusive comments to Steve Wyche of NFL Media, created a stir in the sports world.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said in the interview. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
Every Giants and Jets player stood for Saturday night’s anthem at MetLife Stadium. Pugh confirmed the Giants strongly stress respect for the flag.
Colin Kaepernick's decision to sit down during the national anthem is leading to big debate. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
“It’s something that we emphasize and making sure all the players have their feet in the white (lines on the sidelines) and everyone’s facing forward,” Pugh said of the organizational emphasis. “It’s our way of paying homage and it’s something that’s important to me … That’s my opinion and I appreciate (Kaepernick) has an opinion, too.”
KING: Why Colin Kaepernick was right not to stand for the anthem
The issue is personal to Pugh, but it’s also important to him that the military isn’t overlooked as a critical element of the Stars and Stripes.
“It’s something that I feel strongly about and it’s something that my brother’s in the military so it’s something that I definitely know there’s people over(seas) putting their lives on the line, and that’s where I see the value in going out there and standing for the pledge,” Pugh said. “Obviously not everyone feels the same way as me, and that’s what this country’s all about. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and he has his opinions so I’m not bashing him whatsoever. He can do out there and do whatever he wants to do, I just wanted to send out something for the veterans and people so that it’s not overlooked.”
Cruz’s first response to Kaepernick’s stand, simply was: “Personally, the flag is the flag.”
“But Colin is his own man, he decided to sit down and sit out and that’s his prerogative,” He added.
Love him or hate him, Colin Kaepernick makes a real statement
Plenty of current and former athletes defended Kaepernick, whether or not they agreed with his stance.
Giants lineman Justin Pugh made it clear he believes in standing up for the American flag. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News)
“Kaep is using his platform & brand to make a compelling & polarizing point, which is his right, even if it’s met with ire! @idontagree,” ex-Giants running back Tiki Barber tweeted.
Former Jets lineman Damien Woody said Kaepernick’s stance “is what comes with a free society.” “Kaep has every right to express his feelings/beliefs and ppl have every right to disagree,” Woody tweeted. “That’s ok folks!”
Dolphins running back Arian Foster supported Kaepernick, as well.
“The flag represents freedom,” Foster wrote. “The freedom to choose to stand or not. That’s what makes this country beautiful. You can’t be selective and dictate what freedoms this country stands for. You’re free to have any religious/political views you feel.”
Two-time Winter Olympian John Daly from Queens, on the other hand, didn’t pull any punches and wrote directly to Kaepernick on Twitter: “You’re an idiot @Kaepernick7.” Daly competed in the skeleton in both Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014.
Kaepernick’s decision to go rogue on the 49ers sideline also seems to stand in stark contrast to how heavily the newest California franchise, the Los Angeles Rams, emphasize unconditional respect for the Anthem.
Steve Weatherford tweets this screenshot to Kaepernick.
Rams coach Jeff Fisher, in the second episode of HBO’s Hard Knocks that originally aired Aug. 17, spent significant time in a team meeting explaining what’s expected of players when the Anthem is played.
“This is important to me. It’s a respect thing, ok?” Fisher tells his team. “It’s a self-respect thing. It’s a respect for your teammates. It’s a respect for this game. It’s a respect for this country. This is important to us. This is what it looks like. Go ahead.”
That cues 10 seconds of silence as a Rams assistant rolls video of the last season’s St. Louis Rams sideline, with the players standing still and upright in a straight line. Fisher explains the “organizational philosophy.” On the Rams’ sideline, the defense stands on the left, the offense stands on the right, and players with helmets must tuck the helmets under their left arms.
“It’s an opportunity to realize how lucky you are and what you’re doing, what you’re about ready to do,” Fisher says. “That’s how you show your opponent that you’re ready to play. That’s how you start a game.”
During the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Jets-Giants game, former Giants punter Steve Weatherford tweeted at Kaepnernick: "I'm just gonna leave this right here, and wait ...”
Below was a link to a 2014 headline that read: "Race Matters: Biracial 49er's QB Colin Kaepernick Fined $11,000 For Using N-Word On The Field During Game."
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In response to Colin Kaepernick, Justin Pugh will be making his own statement during the national anthem.
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[
"Pat Leonard",
"Andy Clayton",
"Seth Walder"
] |
08-27-2016
|
nydailynews.com
|
2016082819
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success_wayback
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train
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/19/nazi-concentration-camp-guard-fights-us-extradition
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014071919id_/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/19/nazi-concentration-camp-guard-fights-us-extradition
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Former Nazi concentration camp guard fights deportation from US
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An 89-year-old man wanted in Germany for working as a concentration camp guard during the second world war said in court filings on Friday that he should not be deported because his service in the Waffen SS was involuntary.
"What can be said with certainty is that Mr Breyer is not a war criminal," lawyers for Johann Breyer said in documents in the US district court in Philadelphia.
The legal papers were filed ahead of a 24 July court hearing to determine if Breyer, a retired tool-and-die maker who emigrated to Philadelphia in 1952, should be extradited to Germany.
German authorities have charged him with aiding and abetting the deaths of 216,000 Jews, a figure arrived at by estimating the survival rate of prisoners packed into 158 trains that arrived at Auschwitz between May and October 1944, according to documents.
Breyer served as an armed guard at Buchenwald before transferring in 1944 to Auschwitz where, according to court documents, he has said he served as a perimeter guard but had deserted his unit in order to help his ailing parents.
Breyer, who was born in Czechoslovakia and joined the Waffen SS at age 17, has argued before that he was not involved in the deaths at the camps.
"All of the evidence presented on behalf of the German government by the US government demonstrates that Johann Breyer was born in the wrong place at the wrong time," the documents filed on Friday said.
"He was forced into a service he did not want to enter as a teenager, and for his trouble, ended up in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp," the court papers said.
The US justice department first accused Breyer of Nazi ties and tried to deport him in 1992, but he was ultimately allowed to stay in the country after a legal fight that hinged on his claims that he was born a US citizen.
Officials say newly discovered evidence has strengthened their case against Breyer. War-era records indicate that he was at Auschwitz earlier in the war than he acknowledged and that he served as a guard in a particularly notorious subcamp, known as Birkenau or "Auschwitz 2," which was used exclusively to kill prisoners.
He has been held in a federal detention facility in Philadelphia since his arrest in June.
|
German authorities seek extradition of Johann Breyer, 89, on charges of aiding and abetting the deaths of 216,000 Jews
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[] |
07-19-2014
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theguardian.com
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2014071919
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success_wayback
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train
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/22/us-warns-china-not-to-challenge-military-flights-over-south-china-sea/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2015052219id_/http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/22/us-warns-china-not-to-challenge-military-flights-over-south-china-sea/
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US warns China not to challenge military flights over South China Sea
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The U.S. warned China Thursday against confronting U.S. aerial patrols over the South China Sea days after a verbal dispute between a Chinese military dispatcher and a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the Navy released two videos and an audio recording of the confrontation, which took place on Wednesday when the Chinese dispatcher demanded eight times that the Navy P8-A Poseidon leave the area as it flew over Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Island chain, where China has conducted extensive reclamation work.
"Foreign military aircraft, this is Chinese navy. You are approaching our military alert zone. Leave immediately," the dispatcher said on the recording. After the American crew responded that it was flying over international waters, the Chinese dispatcher responded "This is the Chinese navy ... You go!"
The incident was the latest example of friction between Washington and Beijing, with China seeking to assert its expansive claims to the South China Sea and the U.S. pushing back and attempting to demonstrate that China's massive land reclamation does not give it territorial rights.
Daniel Russel, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, said the flight of a U.S. reconnaissance plane in international airspace over the South China Sea was a regular and appropriate occurrence. He said the U.S. will seek to preserve the ability of not just the United States but all countries to exercise their rights to freedom of navigation and overflight.
"Nobody in their right mind is going to try to stop the U.S. Navy from operating. That would not be a good step. But it's not enough that a U.S. military plane can overfly international waters, even if there is a challenge or a hail and query" from the Chinese military, he said.
"We believe that every country and all civilian actors also should have unfettered access to international waters and international airspace," he said.
Speaking at a regular daily briefing Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei reiterated Beijing's insistence on its indisputable sovereignty over the islands it has created by piling sand on top of atolls and reefs.
While saying he had no information about the reported exchange, Hong said China was "entitled to the surveillance over related airspace and sea areas so as to maintain national security and avoid any maritime accidents.
"We hope relevant countries respect China's sovereignty over the South China Sea, abandon actions that may intensify controversies and play a constructive role for regional peace and stability," Hong told reporters.
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea as its own, along with its scattered island groups. The area that is home to some of the world's busiest commercial shipping routes is also claimed in part or in whole by the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The U.S. and most of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) want a halt to the projects, which they suspect are aimed at building islands and other land features over which China can claim sovereignty and base military assets.
The U.S. says it takes no position on the sovereignty claims but insists they must be negotiated. Washington also says ensuring maritime safety and access is a U.S. national security priority.
China is also at odds with Japan over ownership of a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are controlled by Tokyo but also claimed by Beijing, leading to increased activity by Chinese planes and ships in the area, which lies between Taiwan and Okinawa.
Both sides have accused the other of operating dangerously, prompting fears of an incident such as the 2001 collision between a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. surveillance plane in which the Chinese pilot was killed and the American crew detained on China's Hainan island.
Also Thursday, the Chinese air force announced its latest offshore training exercises in the western Pacific as part of efforts to boost its combat preparedness.
People's Liberation Army Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke said the exercises were held in international airspace but gave no specifics. In its report on the drills, state broadcaster CCTV showed a video of Xian H-6 twin-engine bombers, a Chinese version of Russia's Tupelov Tu-16, in flight and landing at an air base, although it wasn't clear when the video was shot.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Click for more for The Los Angeles Times.
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The Pentagon warned China against confronting U.S. aerial patrols over the South China Sea days after a verbal confrontation between a Chinese military dispatcher and a U.S. surveillance aircraft.
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[] |
05-22-2015
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foxnews.com
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2015052219
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success_wayback
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train
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http://mashable.com/2014/05/08/explosion-aleppo-syria-carlton-hotel/
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https://web.archive.org/web/2014050819id_/http://mashable.com/2014/05/08/explosion-aleppo-syria-carlton-hotel/
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Massive Explosion Obliterates Luxurious Syrian Hotel
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An enormous bomb leveled a luxury hotel in Aleppo, Syria that government soldiers were using as a base on Thursday, reportedly causing many casualties, though exact numbers are unknown.
The blast demolished the Carlton Hotel, according to the Associated Press. The hotel was located on government-held turf but sat on the dividing line between the area state forces control and territory run by the rebels. A British organization called the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the AP that at least 14 government soldiers died in the explosion, but Syria's largest rebel faction, the Islamic Front, claimed responsibility for the blast and said it killed 50 troops.
Rebels allegedly carved out tunnels underneath the hotel, packed them with explosives and detonated the bomb remotely. A shorter video of the blast is below.
Video: YouTube, The Islamic Front
This is the second time the Syrian Islamic Front has used bomb-stuffed tunnels to attack the Carlton. They first had success in February when they caused the building to partially collapse, and they've used tunnels in assaults on government positions in other regions of the country. Below is the full video of the Aleppo blast.
The blow to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's military comes just a day after they had won a major symbolic victory. Rebel forces had evacuated the city of Homs on Wednesday under a case-fire agreement brokered by the United Nations. Homs is just one of several key battlegrounds in the country, but especially significant because it is known as the "capital of the revolution."
Fighting in Syria's civil war has killed more than 100,000 people and large swaths of several major cities have been reduced to rubble in the three-year-long battle between government forces and several rebel groups.
Despite the brief truce in Homs, citizens and fighters in Aleppo are experiencing no such calm. Syria's largest city, like many others, is split between rebel and government troops and has been that way since rebels first attacked there back in 2012.
Assad's forces and rebel fighters have bombed and launched mortars at each other over the past few months, according to the AP. Rebels have reportedly killed dozens by setting off car bombs in residential districts.
Though the Islamic Front has not been designated a terrorist group by the United States, many Western groups consider it to be an extremist organization. This notion is believed to be why Western nations such as the United States have decided to not support rebel forces.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
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An enormous rebel-claimed bomb leveled a luxury hotel in Aleppo, Syria that government soldiers were using as a base on Thursday.
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[
"Colin"
] |
05-08-2014
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mashable.com
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2014050819
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success_wayback
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train
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http://www.geekwire.com/2013/bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richer-fortunes-rise-2012/
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https://web.archive.org/web/20160506235015id_/http://www.geekwire.com/2013/bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richer-fortunes-rise-2012/
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Billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos got a lot richer in 2012
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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is trying to give away his fortune. But he may have to try a little bit harder.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Gates added $7 billion to his net worth during 2012, making him the second richest person in the world and the richest American tech billionaire.
The rise in Gates’ net worth comes even as Microsoft’s stock, which accounts for less than 20 percent of the billionaire’s fortune, rose just 2.9 percent last year.
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos also saw his net worth rise, driven largely by the 45 percent gains in the online retailer’s stock in 2012. That means Bezos is worth more than the Google co-founders, and ranked 20th on the list.
Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecommunications mogul, was the richest person on the planet with an estimated net worth of $76.4 billion, according to the report. (Full list here). In total, those on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index added $241 billion during 2012, and just 16 of the 100 people on the list saw their net worth decline in 2012.
Previously on GeekWire: The top tech stocks of 2012: Shares of Expedia take off
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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is trying to give away his fortune. But he may have to try a little bit harder.
|
[
"John Cook"
] |
01-02-2013
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geekwire.com
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20160506235015
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success_wayback
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train
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/01/29/at-least-179-sickened-after-apparent-gas-leak-at-texas-middle-school.html
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https://web.archive.org/web/2016012919id_/http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/01/29/at-least-179-sickened-after-apparent-gas-leak-at-texas-middle-school.html
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At least 179 sickened after apparent gas leak at Texas middle school
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At least 179 students and staff members at a southeast Texas middle school received hospital treatment after an apparent carbon monoxide leak, authorities said Thursday.
Beaumont emergency personnel said the children and adults from Marshall Middle School were being treated for non-life threatening injuries. Officials at Baptist Beaumont Hospital, Christus Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth Hospital and Victory Medical Center reported at least 109 patients from the school were treated for exposure to toxic. Officials said none of the patients were admitted.
“I saw it on the news, but at the same time I received a text and call from my daughter,” Amber Johnson told KHOU.com. “She kept me updated that they moved to the gym when they were being observed.”
Beaumont Fire-Rescue officials say paramedics were called around 10 a.m. after a student lost consciousness. Numerous students and faculty reported symptoms including nausea and headaches. Officials told KTRK-TV Houston they worked as fast as they could to evacuate more than 800 students and faculty.
Beaumont school district officials say the initial investigation shows there was a leak in a gas boiler. Officials said they’re unsure where the leak started and that state inspectors are expected to check out the boiler to see when it will be safe for everyone to re-enter the school, according to KHOU.com.
Beaumont school district canceled classes for the middle school on Friday.
“Beaumont ISD will take as much time as needed to ensure the building is safe for students and staff to return. Parents will be notified through all forms of media and the district’s phone messaging system regarding Monday’s school schedule,” school officials said in a statement.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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At least 179 students and staff members at a southeast Texas middle school received hospital treatment after an apparent carbon monoxide leak, authorities said Thursday.
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[] |
01-29-2016
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foxnews.com
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2016012919
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success_wayback
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val
|
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/rhapsody-inks-deal-telefnica-expand-latin-america/
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https://web.archive.org/web/20160313033524id_/http://www.geekwire.com/2013/rhapsody-inks-deal-telefnica-expand-latin-america/
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Rhapsody inks deal with Telefónica to expand Napster into Latin America
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Rhapsody subscribers, get ready to samba.
Through a partnership with Latin American carrier Telefónica, Rhapsody will be extending the reach of its Napster brand to Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Mexico. As a part of the partnership, Telefónica will be shutting down its Sonora streaming service, which is run through a subsidiary, and extending Rhapsody subscription offers to its mobile phone users.
In addition, Telefónica is the first carrier to release a Firefox OS-based smartphone, which means that Rhapsody will have a presence on the Firefox OS in addition to its apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry.
“At Rhapsody, we have a rich history of providing music lovers instant, anywhere, anytime access to an unlimited catalog of music,” Rhapsody senior vice president and global head of product Paul Springer said in a press release. “We value product innovation and partnerships, and you’ll see both through this Telefonica relationship. As global smartphone usage continues to rise, particularly in Latin America, we are thrilled to put more music in the hands of music fans across the globe.”
It’s a big move for Rhapsody, which just last month laid off 15 percent of its staff as president Jon Irwin stepped down from the company’s board, while Columbus Nova Technology partners took up an equity stake in the company.
Previously on GeekWire: Shakeup: Rhapsody cuts 15% of workforce, president out as new investor arrives
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Rhapsody subscribers, get ready to samba.
|
[
"Blair Hanley Frank"
] |
10-16-2013
|
geekwire.com
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20160313033524
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success_wayback
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train
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http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/01/07/kraft-warns-velveeta-shortage/
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https://web.archive.org/web/2014010819id_/http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/01/07/kraft-warns-velveeta-shortage/
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Kraft warns of a Velveeta shortage
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First the Srirachapocalypse. Now the Velveetapocalypse.
Just in time for Super Bowl, fans could be hard pressed to find their favorite gooey dip ingredient.
According to Ad Age, Kraft Foods Group is “grappling with a Velveeta shortage just as the dip season kicks into full gear.” They cite reports of a shortage at a few East Coast grocery stores, although it's unclear if the shortage goes beyond that area.
"Given the incredible popularity of Velveeta this time of year, it is possible consumers may not be able to find their favorite product on store shelves over the next couple of weeks," Kraft spokeswoman Jody Moore told Ad Age. "Our retail customers are aware of the situation and we expect it to be a short-term issue."
Representatives for supermarket chain operators Kroger and Safeway were not immediately available to comment on whether they were having difficulty stocking Velveeta cheeses. The shortage affects only the Velveeta hard cheese products, but was not limited to a specific area.
"It is possible consumers in any part of the country may not be able to find some Velveeta products," Moore said in an email.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Can we live through Super Bowl without it?
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[] |
01-07-2014
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foxnews.com
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2014010819
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success_wayback
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train
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/09/obama-urges-americans-to-be-positive-about-race-relations-saying-weve-got-foundation.html
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016070919id_/http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/09/obama-urges-americans-to-be-positive-about-race-relations-saying-weve-got-foundation.html
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Obama urges Americans to be positive about race relations, saying 'We've got a foundation’
|
President Obama on Saturday urged Americans to remain optimistic about race relations in the immediate aftermath of two black males being fatally shot by police officers, then a gunman apparently retaliating by killing five Dallas law-enforcement officials, saying, “We cannot let the actions of a few define all of us.”
The president spoke two days after a black male killed the five officers, amid several days of protests across the country about a new wave of black males dying at the hands of police.
Still, Obama insisted that race relations in the United States have not reached a new low nor have regressed to the point of 1960’s rioting, as some have argued.
“That’s just not true,” said the president, speaking in Warsaw, Poland, at the end of his final NATO summit.
Obama also said that he has revived the task force formed after a white police officer fatally shot unarmed black teen Michael Brown two years ago in Ferguson, Mo., and that he’ll soon bring members to the White House. (The shooting resulted in weeks of violent and destructive protests.)
The task force will include police officers, community and civil rights activists and others who will talk about next steps.
"So as tough, as hard, as depressing as the loss of life was this week, we've got a foundation to build on," said the president, who argued that violent crime in the U.S. has decreased over the “past five, 10, 15 years.”
In a wide-ranging press conference that included such topics as Brexit, ISIS and NATO, Obama also renewed his commitment to stopping gun violence.
“I am going to keep on talking about the fact that we cannot eliminate all racial tension overnight, but we can make it harder” for people to carry out their anger with weapons, he said.
Obama called the Dallas sniper, Micah Johnson, a black Army veteran, “a demented individual” just like Muslim Omar Mateen, who fatally shot 49 people and wounded 53 others last month inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
“They don’t speak for all of us,” said the president, who mentioned neither by name. “That’s not who we are.”
Officials have said that Johnson, before being killed in a police standoff, said he "wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”
Obama declined to answer a reporter’s question about whether the Dallas sniper attack was a hate crime, saying, “It’s very hard to interpret the motives of this shooter, as we have seen in a host of mass shootings.”
The president spoke sympathetically of police officers in gun-filled communities who have "very little margin of error" when deciding how to engage with people on the street who may well be armed, whether they mean harm or not. "Police have a really difficult time in communities where they know guns are everywhere," he said.
"If you care about the safety of our police officers, then you can't set aside the gun issue and pretend it's irrelevant," he said.
Citing laws allowing the carrying of guns in Texas, he said that even some of the Dallas protesters who staged a peaceful rally before the sniper attack were armed. He also cited the presence of an apparently legally owned gun in the car where motorist Philando Castile was shot dead during a traffic stop in suburban St. Paul, Minnesota.
Obama also tried to calm public anxiety about personal safety, saying violent crime is actually down in the U.S.
Reflecting on the prospect of serving two full terms leading a nation at war, Obama said it's important to recognize that U.S. military operations today are fundamentally different to when he came into office.
He said U.S. military forces are not involved in active combat, but train and assist forces in nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. He said an exception to that rule is direct attacks against the Islamic State group.
Obama acknowledged that confronting what he describes as "non-state actors," such as the Islamic State group is something the United States will have to grapple with for years to come.
He said his goal has been to partner with countries so that they can eliminate terrorist threats, but as seen in Afghanistan, that takes time.
Obama said the United Kingdom and the European Union must make sure that Britain's exit from the 28-nation bloc is as sensible and orderly as possible.
He said he has to assume that Britain's decision "is going to stick," but how the process unfolds is up to both sides, and it's important that neither one harden its position in a way that damages economies at home or worldwide.
The U.S., he said, will continue to be close friends and commercial partners with both. He said: "In good times and in bad, Europe can count on the United States -- always."
Obama said he would not call himself a big booster of globalization, adding it carries a danger of increased inequality in which workers may have less leverage. But, he said, it's here to stay.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
|
President Obama on Saturday urged Americans to remain optimistic about race relations in the immediate aftermath of two black males being fatally shot by police officers, then a gunman apparently retaliating by killing five Dallas law-enforcement officials, saying, “We cannot let the actions of a few define all of us.”
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[] |
07-09-2016
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foxnews.com
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2016070919
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success_wayback
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train
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http://greatideas.people.com/2015/11/05/titanic-theme-park-resort-dubai/
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https://web.archive.org/web/2015110519id_/http://greatideas.people.com/2015/11/05/titanic-theme-park-resort-dubai/
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Book Your Tickets Now: There’s Going to Be a Titanic Amusement Park
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20th Century-Fox/Getty
It’s taken 18 years, but Titanic fans will finally be able to experience the thrill of the movie in real life…in 3 more years.
20th Century Fox has just announced that in 2018, they’ll be opening a themed amusement park and resort called 20th Century Fox World in Dubai. In addition to Titanic, the park will feature attractions and sections dedicated to beloved franchises like Ice Age, Alien, Rio, Planet of the Apes, Predator and The Simpsons. The massive project is expected to cost roughly $850 million, Variety reports.
RELATED: Banksy Opens New Dystopian Theme Park Called “Dismaland”
According to the press release, the park will offer “a broad attraction mix, ranging from media-based dark rides to thrill rides that will tell new stories based on Fox film and television brands.” There will also be shops and dining options based off of the various shows and movies.
“We are working on creating an immersive experience that includes motion theater simulators and will allow you to experience what it was like to be on the Titanic in an exciting way,” President of Fox Consumer Products Jeffrey Godsick told Variety.
Fox is building a Dubai theme park with attractions based on Titanic and #SonsOfAnarchy. https://t.co/IEccuz7oGa pic.twitter.com/vE95P0oGoe — Variety (@Variety) November 4, 2015
Beyond that, we have no idea what to expect — will there be Titanic-themed food in the Titanic section? What is Titanic-themed food? — as it looks like specific details are still under wraps.
What we do know is that if there isn’t a Jack and Rose “I’m flying” ride, we’re going to throw a temper tantrum.
RELATED: Disney World Is Now Selling Edible Poop-Shaped Desserts
—Maria Yagoda
|
20th Century-Fox/Getty It's taken 18 years, but Titanic fans will finally be able to experience the thrill of the movie in real life...in 3 more years.
|
[] |
11-05-2015
|
people.com
|
2015110519
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/12/13/pastor-tells-kids-waiting-to-see-santa-that-doesnt-exist.html
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016121319id_/http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/12/13/pastor-tells-kids-waiting-to-see-santa-that-doesnt-exist.html
|
Pastor tells kids waiting to see Santa that he doesn't exist
|
A pastor is under fire after recording himself telling children waiting in line to meet Santa Claus that the man in red does not exist.
In the video posted to Facebook, pastor David Grisham, who claimed to be with Last Frontier Evangelism, walked up to the line at the Westgate mall in Amarillo, Texas, saying he was planning to tell children that “there is no Santa Claus and that Christmas is about Jesus Christ.”
According to Last Frontier Evangelism, Facebook took down the video; however Grisham’s wife, Tracy, reposted it to her page.
“Kids, I wanted to tell you today that here is no such thing as Santa Claus,” Grisham said in the video. “Santa Claus does not exist. The Christmas season is about Jesus. Jesus was born 2016 years ago, he was born in a manger in a small town called Bethlehem.”
He continued, “Don’t lie and tell your children that there is such a thing as Santa, when you know in reality that there are no flying reindeer... There is (sic) no elves making toys. You buy all of the gifts and put them under the tree, that’s the truth.”
Parents waiting in line quickly interrupted the pastor, telling him to stop “preaching” in front of the children.
“Stop, it’s not about you coming over here preaching. Go on. Quit talking this mess, do you understand me?” one man who confronted Grisham said.
Grisham, who says he lives in Anchorage, Alaska, posted a similar anti-Santa rant video on his Facebook page a few days before the mall incident. He asked others to rebuke parents for “lying to their kids.”
He wrote, “Kids are being diverted from Christ by the lie of Santa. Let's go to the malls this Christmas shopping season and set the record straight with the kids and their lying parents.”
|
A pastor is under fire after recording himself telling children waiting in line to meet Santa Claus that the man in red does not exist.
|
[] |
12-13-2016
|
foxnews.com
|
2016121319
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://mashable.com/2014/08/26/seth-meyers-emmys-host/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014082619id_/http://mashable.com/2014/08/26/seth-meyers-emmys-host/
|
Seth Meyers' Debut Hosting the Emmys Was ... Adequate
|
Seth Meyers told jokes at the Emmys, because Seth Meyers tells jokes.
Meyers did not sing or dance, because he doesn't do either of those things. (Jimmy Fallon does those things). He didn't embarrass celebrities to their faces, because he doesn't do that, either. (Jimmy Kimmel does that.)
See also: 18 Weirdest Moments at the 2014 Emmy Awards
Meyers writes and tells jokes about current events. That's where we set the bar — and on Monday night, he cleared it by telling jokes about the most current event of the moment: the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, held on a Monday night for the first time since 1976.
Come to think of it, Meyers got a lot of mileage out of the Monday thing: "Welcome to the Emmy awards. This year we're doing it on a Monday in August, which if I understand television, means the Emmys are about to get canceled."
If Meyers had attempted a stunty skit or a song-and-dance routine, he would have caught hell for it. So he stuck to the jokes.
Seth Meyers, totally acceptable Emmys host. Image: NBC
Meyers continued:
HBO is like the kid you grew up with who ended up doing way better than you expected. 99 nominations. When I first met HBO all he had was Grease 2 and Fraggle Rock. I wish I was nicer to him. 'You guys want to watch Poltergeist?' 'We watched it yesterday HBO, how many times do you think people want to watch the same movie?' 'One day I’m going to make a show about dragons.' 'OK buddy, best of luck.'
If Meyers had tried to rib Matthew McConaughey in his seat, it would have been really awkward. So he let Kimmel do that instead.
Sure, he's willing to elbow you a little...
I’d like to take a minute to congratulate the writers in the room tonight, but their seats are too far away to hear me.
He's willing to give you a little friendly grief...
Streaming made a huge impact this year with Netflix getting nominated for 31 Emmys. And no one is happier to see streaming services take nominations away from cable than network television. Not very nice when someone younger comes along, is it cable?
And maybe even outright make fun of those he doesn't quite agree with politically.
Game of Thrones was the most pirated show, and Duck Dynasty was the most VHS-taped show.
But most of the time, when Meyers is poking fun at someone, he's balancing it out by poking fun at himself:
We're doing it on a Monday in part because MTV aired the Video Music Awards. Yes, MTV still has an award for music videos, even though they no longer show music videos. That's like networks holding an award show and giving all the trophies to cable and Netflix. That would be crazy! Why would they do that?
Sigh, there's that Monday thing again.
When Meyers does lower the boom on something, it's usually an easy target:
We had comedies that made you laugh and comedies that made you cry, because they were dramas submitted as comedies. There has been some controversy over which category which shows were submitted in. Orange Is the New Black was submitted as a comedy rather than a drama. True Detective was submitted as a drama rather than a miniseries. And Bachelor in Paradise was submitted.
Seth Meyers meeting expectations alongside Billy Eichner at the Emmys. Image: Mark Davis/NBC
There was, however, a really funny bit on the street with Billy Eichner! Of course, that was all Billy Eichner (and the segment had nothing to do with TV, really). Meyers was kind of just a prop.
Back to the jokes — which, come to think of it, aren't quite jokes, per se. More like clever observations and syllogisms:
That’s what I love about television. She doesn’t pay hard to get. She doesn’t demand your full attention. Television has always been the booty-call friend of entertainment. You don’t ever have to ask TV 'You Up?’ TV is always up. She will happily entertain you will you cook dinner or wrap your Christmas presents. She’s not like that high-maintenance diva movies who expects you to put on pants, drive all the way over to her house and buy $40 worth of soda. So thanks anyway movies, I’m sticking with TV.
And look, that's not a bad thing. That's just Seth Meyers being Seth Meyers, and we love him for it. Right down to the last "Monday" crack:
Thank you and goodnight everybody! Have a great evening — only four days until the weekend!
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
|
Seth Meyers met our expectations all night with a richly acceptable turn as host. Nothing more, nothing less.
|
[
"Josh Dickey"
] |
08-26-2014
|
mashable.com
|
2014082619
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2014/08/14/hedge-funds-feasting-on-apple-again/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2014081519id_/http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2014/08/14/hedge-funds-feasting-on-apple-again/
|
Hedge Funds Feasting On Apple Again
|
Robert Citrone and Phillippe Laffont are two of the most prominent Tiger Cubs, hedge fund managers who once worked for legendary money man Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management. Both of them had a rough start to 2014 and sold the bulk of their positions in Apple in the first quarter. Now, they’re back.
There was a time a few years ago that Apple was by far the most popular stock among hedge fund managers. It became less prevalent in hedge fund portfolios in the last year or so, but in the second quarter of 2014 some closely-watched hedge fund manages feasted on Apple’s stock.
Laffont’s Coatue Management hedge fund held a smaller stake in Apple going into the second quarter, but sometime between April and the end of June Laffont’s stake increased to 10.1 million shares, making Apple Coatue’s biggest position, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission fiing. Billionaire Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management, which manages some $14 billion, bought 6.6 million shares of Apple in the second quarter, making it the largest position in his stock portfolio as well.
It is unclear if Coatue and Citrone still own so much Apple stock and when exactly during the second quarter they accumulated it. Like all hedge funds, they had to disclose today their stock portfolio holdings at the end of June, giving observers a look at how their portfolios changed from the first to the second quarter. Apple’s stock rose by 21% between the end of March and the end of June.
Other well-known hedge fund managers returned to Apple’s stock in the second quarter. Billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors bought 1.2 million shares of Apple in the second quarter, an SEC filing shows. At the same time, billionaire David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital hedge fund largely maintained its big position in Apple, although he did lighten up on the shares a little, selling down a bit of his stake.
Of course the biggest Wall Street champion of Apple remains Carl Icahn. He smartly bought another $500 million of Apple’s stock when it fell in the first quarter and has maintained Apple as the biggest trading position in his portfolio—holding nearly $5 billion of Apple stock. That position has fueled the return of Icahn’s investment fund in the first half of this year to 10.2%.
|
Robert Citrone and Phillippe Laffont are two of the most prominent Tiger Cubs, hedge fund managers who once worked for legendary money man Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management. Both of them had a rough start to 2014 and sold the bulk of their positions in Apple in the first quarter. Now, [...]
|
[
"Nathan Vardi",
"The Jungle"
] |
08-14-2014
|
forbes.com
|
2014081519
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/02/25/hewlett-packard-shares-plunge-10/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2015022519id_/http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/02/25/hewlett-packard-shares-plunge-10/
|
Hewlett-Packard shares plunge 10%
|
SAN FRANCISCO — Hewlett-Packard can’t catch a break.
Shares are taking a beating after the company reported quarterly revenue and an earnings outlook Tuesday that were below Wall Street estimates.
A rumored acquisition does not seem to be helping.
Shares are down 10% as a report has surfaced that the tech giant is in talks to buy Aruba Networks, which makes hardware and software used to build wireless networks.
The acquisition which would be the largest in several years for Hewlett-Packard could be announced as soon as next week, according to Bloomberg.
Aruba, which has a market value of about $2 billion, is trading up 20% to $22.04.
HP has been buffeted by gale-force industry shifts: the growing popularity of mobile devices and software delivered over the Internet.
HP Chief Executive Meg Whitman is engineering a turnaround and plans to split the company in two with one company focusing on selling personal computers and printers, the other focused on selling commercial technology.
“We feel good about our turnaround,” Whitman told USA TODAY on Tuesday.
She also said Hewlett-Packard had to step up its game in enterprise.
|
Tech giant is reportedly in talks to buy Aruba Networks, which makes hardware and software used to build wireless networks.
|
[
"Jessica Guynn",
"Chris Woodyard",
"Gary Strauss",
"John Waggoner",
"Adam Shell",
"Matt Krantz"
] |
02-25-2015
|
usatoday.com
|
2015022519
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/erin-andrews-55m-settlement-mockery-pain-suf-article-1.2556525
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016030819id_/http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/erin-andrews-55m-settlement-mockery-pain-suf-article-1.2556525
|
Erin Andrews' $55M award is absurd
|
No disrespect to the jury in the Erin Andrews case, but I can't breathe.
The Fox Sports reporter just got a $55 million award for the pain and suffering of being videotaped naked in a Nashville hotel room in 2008.
ERIN ANDREWS TELLS JURY SHE VOMITED BEFORE SEEING NUDE VIDEO
Fifty five million dollars because people got to see Erin Andrews naked on the Internet.
But Erin Andrews is still alive and, as the defendants in the case argued, is certainly thriving. She's free to go on "Dancing with the Stars" or schmooze with NFL players. But a jury felt her pain — and treated the symptoms with cash. America, what a country.
Saxon/AP ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, with her attorney Marshall Grossman, broke down in tears after facing her convicted stalker Michael Barrett for the first time.
Such a huge jury verdict makes a mockery of real pain and genuine suffering.
Eric Garner, 43, was choked to death by an NYPD cop on a city street. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide. His family got $5.9 million.
ERIN ANDREWS SEEKING $75 MILLION IN NAKED HOTEL VID CASE
The family of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, killed in that "rough ride" in a Baltimore police van in 2015, got $6.4 million.
Cleveland police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice — and his mother had to fight for an apology. And she got hit with an ambulance bill.
I'm not comparing the value of lives taken by the state to a celebrity's embarrassment at being seen naked — because there's simply no comparison. Juries are notorious for reacting with emotion and treating the judicial system like a big cash register — but at least in the recent $72 million ruling against Johnson & Johnson, the jury was reacting to a woman's death, supposedly from the company's talc.
Sam Costanza for New York Daily News Eric Garner died while being arrested by police in Staten Island on Thursday, July 17, 2014. His family recieved $5.9 million for his death. Enlarge Jamiea Speller Freddie Gray, seen here in an image taken by his fiance Jamiea Speller in the summer of 2013, died on April 19th while in police custody in Baltimore, MD. Gray's family recieved $6.4 million. Enlarge No disrespect to the jury in the Erin Andrews case, but the deaths of Eric Garner and Freddie Grey did not recieve nearly as much compensation.
By no means am I saying that Erin Andrews shouldn't be compensated for what happened to her. And we need juries to punish wrongdoing, including Marriott's failure to provide Andrews with a secure room.
But there has to be a better way to put a value on human life — and not mistake it for embarrassment.
|
Erin Andrews gets $55 million because people saw her naked? That makes a mockery of pain and suffering.
|
[
"Gersh Kuntzman"
] |
03-08-2016
|
nydailynews.com
|
2016030819
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://people.com/celebrity/jim-carreys-girlfriends-autopsy-report-reveals-details-from-suicide-note/amp/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/20161231164900id_/http://people.com/celebrity/jim-carreys-girlfriends-autopsy-report-reveals-details-from-suicide-note/amp/
|
Jim Carrey's Girlfriend's Autopsy Report Reveals Details from Suicide Note
|
Nearly a year after her death, new details are emerging about Jim Carrey’s former girlfriend’s suicide.
According to autopsy and toxicology reports obtained by PEOPLE, Cathriona White, 30, who fatally overdosed on prescription medication in Sept. 2015 shortly after breaking up with Carrey, was found with a suicide note addressed to the actor.
“I’ve spent 3 days now in disbelief that you’re not here. I can go on brokenhearted and try to put the pieces back. I could, I just don’t have the will this time,” she wrote in a note found by police. She added, “I’m sorry you felt I wasn’t there for you. I tried to give you my best part.”
White also discusses plans for her funeral, writing, “I don’t really know about burial or that sort of thing. You are my family so whatever you choose will be fine.”
She also requested that her possessions be sold and given to her family.
She adds, “Please forgive me. I’m just not for this world,” before signing off with the “Dewdrop,” presumably a nickname Carrey called her.
The Ireland native and Carrey, 53, first met on a film set in 2012 and had been dating on and off ever since. According to the autopsy report, friends told police the couple had broken up about a week before her suicide. A friend of White’s, Dennis Bradshaw, told officers that she was normally happy and upbeat, but was prone to get “really down.” Bradshaw said that White had mentioned missing her family in Ireland, but added that she was “madly in love with Jim” and called their relationship a “rollercoaster.”
VIDEO: Inside Jim Carrey’s Tragic Loss and Private Anguish
The toxicology report confirms that the death was a suicide and that White had a variety of prescription pills in her system at the time of her death, including propranolol (a beta blocker used to treat high blood pressure), zolpidem (a sleep aid sold as Ambien), and painkillers oxycodone and oxymorphone.
When police discovered White’s body at home on her bed, they found three prescription bottles on a bedside table all prescribed to Arthur King. The report notes that when police checked White’s phone, they found texts from Carrey asking if she “knew where his painkillers went from under his sink.” He also mentioned that a bottle of prescription anti-inflammatories was missing. According to the report, “it appears likely that the bottles for ‘Arthur King’ found on her beside table were the prescriptions [Carrey] was referring to.” Other prescription pills prescribed to White were also found at the scene.
After her death, Carrey issued an emotional note saying he’s “deeply saddened by the passing of my sweet Cathriona.” He added, “She was a truly kind and delicate Irish flower, too sensitive for this soil, to whom loving and being loved was all that sparkled.”
|
Cathriona White’s suicide note referenced her breakup with Jim Carrey
|
[
"Michael Miller"
] |
07-05-2016
|
people.com
|
20161231164900
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2138902/cyber-experts-show-how-easy-it-is-to-hack-into-a-us-voting-machine-with-a-24-memory-card/
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2016110819id_/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2138902/cyber-experts-show-how-easy-it-is-to-hack-into-a-us-voting-machine-with-a-24-memory-card/
|
Edward Snowden shows how easy it is to HACK into a US voting machine with a £24 memory card
|
EDWARD SNOWDEN has demonstrated how easy it is to hack into an electronic voting machine still used in several states where voters go to the polls today.
He showed his 2.4 million Twitter followers a video in which experts were able to change the number of votes for each candidate in the computer memory – and also alter the paper-trail backup.
6 Security experts were easily able to hack into a Sequoia AVC Edge voting machine and change results
YouTube / Cylance Inc. 6 Cylance researchers used a modified flash memory card costing £24 to tamper with the machine
He said hacking individual machines would be easy, but election officials would probably be able to detect fraud after polling day – which could be crucial if the result is contested.
Snowden said: “Researchers just demonstrated how to hack the official vote count with a $30 card.
“Little time to patch this vuln(erability), but can still forbid use of this model, run statistical analysis after polls close on rest to ID outliers.”
He added: “Hacking voting machines: not that difficult. Hiding a secret deviation in votes from after-the-fact statistical analysis: nearly impossible.”
Hacking voting machines: not that difficult. Hiding a secret deviation in votes from after-the-fact statistical analysis: nearly impossible. — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 7, 2016
The revelation comes as millions of Americans vote for their president today after the ugliest campaign in living memory – including claims by Donald Trump that the election is rigged.
In many US states voters record their choice by pressing a button or a computer touchscreen.
Now researchers at security firm Cylance have exploited a shocking vulnerability in one popular model of voting machine, the Sequoia AVC Edge Mk1.
It was widely used in 2008, and this year will still be used to tally votes in 13 states including swing battlegrounds Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
A video shows how the experts were able to hack into the machine using a PC memory card costing £24.
YouTube / Cylance Inc. 6 The cyber experts were able to change voting numbers, candidates details and the location of the polling district
YouTube / Cylance Inc. 6 A printout appears to confirm the forged voting data in the test
In a few steps they were able to make votes for one candidate count as votes for a rival.
They also easily changed names of candidates and other details.
Then they inserted a modified PCMCIA flash memory card into the machine and restarted it.
The altered and false data was retained in the system on relaunch and was also transferred to a printed paper version at the click of a button, making the results appear genuine.
Cylance said: “With access to the physical machine, we were able to produce a forged update with false voting data.”
The company’s chief executive Stuart McClure said it was not only this model that was vulnerable but “anything that uses a touchscreen and compact flash model.”
Asked about the likelihood of such an attack on election day, he said: “We don’t have the threat intelligence to say it is going to happen, but we know it is quite easy and possible to do.”
6 The Sequoia AVC Edge voting machine was widely used in 2008 and is still used in 13 US states
Another security firm, Symantec, has previously revealed similar vulnerabilities in the AccuVote machine, used in Alaska, Utah and Georgia and in precincts in more than 15 other states.
They reprogrammed a PCMCIA flash storage card, the kind used to set up machines by election officials via a slot on the side.
RELATED STORIES 'I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS' Astonishing lines of voters form at polling stations across the US 'EVEN HILLARY WOULDN'T DELETE THIS EMAIL' Ryanair launches US election sale by poking fun at Hillary Clinton HOW AMERICA VOTES How does the US Election 2016 work and when will the new President be announced? TRUMP V CLINTON Who is winning the US Presidential Election 2016? Latest polls and odds as Clinton takes on Trump the incredible sulk What happens if Hillary Clinton wins the election and Donald Trump doesn't accept the result? bots 'sway' election Fake tweets by social media robots could swing US Presidential election
Security expert Brian Varner said he was able to reset the card to allow an individual to vote multiple times, and also managed to program the card itself to cast multiple votes.
He said: “Anyone who knows how to program a chip card and purchases a simple $15 Raspberry Pi-like device, could secretly reactivate their voter card while inside the privacy of a voting booth.
“There is a real issue in play here. The idea that every vote counts is at the heart of our democracy, so relying on outdated technology to count those votes can undermine confidence in the process that is central to our system of government.”
6 In many US states, voters touch a screen to cast their ballot in presidential and local elections and to choose officials such as judges
Republican candidate Donald Trump has been claiming for months the election is “rigged” and warned supporters polling fraud could keep him out of the White House.
Trump has said threatened he will not accept the result unless he wins.
His supporters have vowed to patrol outside polling stations to “check” for fraud – leading to fears of voter intimidation in districts with poor and ethnic minority electorates.
Pollsters have said the race for the White House is on a knife edge with fears of recriminations and even street violence if results are close.
In 2000 the result of the presidential election was delayed for weeks amid legal battles over recounts in the swing state of Florida.
It was finally settled in George W Bush’s favour, and he took the state by 537 votes – giving the majority to become president.
Follow our U.S. election live blog for all the latest news and results.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368
| null |
[
"Felix Allen"
] |
11-08-2016
|
thesun.co.uk
|
2016110819
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/21/three-women-rescued-from-decades-of-slavery-live-coverage
|
https://web.archive.org/web/2013112119id_/http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/21/three-women-rescued-from-decades-of-slavery-live-coverage
|
Three women rescued from 'decades of slavery' – as it happened
|
10.05pm GMT
We're closing this live blog now. But first here's a final recap of today's events:
• Three women have been freed from 30 years of domestic slavery in a house in Lambeth, south London. Police said although they were aware of cases of people being held for up to 10 years, they had never seen a case of this “magnitude” before.
• One of the women, who is 30, may have spent all her life in the house and like the others had only “limited freedom”, the Metropolitan police said. The other women are a 69-year-old from Malaysia and a 57-year-old from Ireland. The three are “highly traumatised” and are currently together at a place of safety, Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland said. They are not thought to be related to one another. There is no evidence of sexual abuse.
• Although the women were rescued on 25 October, police only moved to arrest two suspects this morning after “establishing the facts” and because of the fact the victims are “extremely traumatised”. The suspects are not British and are both 67, police said. Police would not confirm whether they were related.
• The rescue was facilitated by the organisation Freedom Charity after one of the women contacted the charity after seeing its spokeswoman Aneeta Prem on the television. Prem praised her as being “hugely courageous” and called this “a story of great hope”.
|
• Women freed after 30 years of domestic servitude• Worst case Met police have seen• 30-year-old had never seen outside world• Two suspects in their 60s arrested• What we know so far – summary• Read story: Three women rescued after 'decades of slavery'
|
[
"Paul Owen",
"David Batty"
] |
11-21-2013
|
theguardian.com
|
2013112119
|
success_wayback
|
train
|
End of preview. Expand
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