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There is growing fear here now that anyone who opposes the government may be labeled as an Islamist supporter or a terrorist.
The Somali government has ruled out reconciling with leaders with the Islamist movement, whom they say are behind the violent insurgency in the capital that has killed more than 1,000 people and caused nearly 400,000 others to flee.
This Tumblr post about how Zayn and Niall from One Direction are in love is the best American poem written in the past century.
then Zayn turned to ask someone ："Can I hug my baby and pepper kisses his cute little face? or at least let me kiss his cute little button nose,ok?"
FIRST, one Roman Catholic bishop warned Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York that he was in serious danger of going to hell, and the Archbishop of New York didn't disagree. Now, the new bishop of Brooklyn has said that Mr. Cuomo had better watch what he says in his home borough.
It was not the first time Mr. Cuomo and his church have collided. John Cardinal O'Connor of New York has long criticized the Governor's stance on abortion. Last month an auxiliary bishop from Orange County, N.Y., Austin Vaughan, said Mr. Cuomo ''was in serious risk of going to hell'' for his abortion views, and Cardina...
Bishop Daily and Mr. Cuomo have never met, and the Governor, who has been reluctant to respond directly to Bishop Daily's criticisms until they have, said he hoped all this commotion ''is a passing thing.'' Bishop Daily said he hoped Mr. Cuomo would come to the Mass when he is installed as head of the 1.6 million Catho...
Jorge is a News Producer for Region 8 News. He got his Multimedia Journalism degree at Arkansas State University. Hailing from Los Angeles he now resides in Paragould. He was an active student in TECH TV at Greene County Tech. Jorge found his calling in the media business his junior year when he began to shoot, write a...
Just days before Earth Day, dozens of volunteers picked up trash at Crowley's Ridge State Park.
A serious crash sent a Portageville teen to a Memphis hospital.
A Fulton County man died after his vehicle crashed into a tree and overturned on Wednesday.
The deal allows Army enlistees to get job training and qualify for positions at US Ecology after being discharged, or following their military training.
With more recognition of post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries, the needs of soldiers and veterans are changing.
"It wasn't an issue at all. It was quite exciting. I really enjoyed the experience. It was interesting because I never really got to hang out with heterosexual people."
The U.S. military is bigger than ever. But it's becoming dumber and meaner: In 2008, one in five recruits received a "morals waiver" because they had a criminal record, including felonies.
What happens when the military goes from high tech, to super high tech on the battlefield?
We need to help pre-teen boys find a path that’s productive and a million miles removed from becoming lost in drugs, crime or a mass shooter.
"She was hysterical and screaming. I tried to comfort her.” A young girl in Northern Ireland had just witnessed four female prison guards being mowed down by terrorist gunfire in front of her house. One of the grievously wounded women was crawling into the little girl’s yard, eliciting the screams and the efforts of a ...
A Florida high school student’s cellphone footage brought the scream back once again, the shooter poking his gun into a classroom and blasting away while students dove for cover. Now a whole community – if not the nation – tries to comfort those who witnessed such horror and lost friends due to the whims and wickedness...
That’s the most common profiler – a young man who’s either fighting for a cause – think IRA and ISIS (Irish Republican Army, Islamic State) – or because he has no cause to fight for, taking out his frustration of aimlessness on targets tied to his fears and failures. The Oregon college shooter of 2015 wrote, “Here I am...
This latter group of mass shooters might be named the AAYM, “Angry, aimless young men,” the Oregon shooter for one modeling himself after his gun-toting heroes of the IRA. ISIS likewise has drawn AAYM’s into their cult with slick videos that promise purpose for lives otherwise lost to today’s fast-paced world where suc...
A trip to the market or mall, a night out for a concert, a meal at a nice restaurant, even a visit to one’s church – all turned into a bloody nightmare because an AAYM acted out on his own or had joined one of the cults of killers. Dead is dead, and the grieving parents, friends, and relatives may care little to know t...
Each shooting may have its own scenario of cause and effect. But if we’re to intervene before a frustrated or angry young man exacts vengeance, turning his personal cause into chaos for others, we need to strengthen the paths of personal development for young males. Social media, video games, keyboard bullying, and oth...
We need to encourage and help pre-teen boys find a path that’s productive and a million miles removed from becoming lost in a world of drugs and crime, or, heaven forbid, a mass shooter who freezes the world for a few days – even in Florida. I don’t want to wake up to another girl screaming for the horror to go away.
James F. Burns is a Cincinnati native, 1957 graduate of Anderson High School and retired professor at the University of Florida.
"All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter."
Times have sure changed since the 17th century when Joseph Addison penned those words. A "well-regulated" family may be many things to many people and usually nothing quite so simple as Addison's words might imply.
With the advent of the holiday season have come thoughts about family and just what it is — what family means. I know family is not the same for everyone. It doesn't even seem to be the same thing for all within my own clan. Sometimes family seems to a really cohesive, tight thing. In other groups it may be a loose con...
Whatever family may be, there always seem to be stories and roles to be played out in some way or another. I find myself wondering if the stories passed on and the roles played out and preserved serve to obfuscate. Do these premises become a sort of wall, sealing the real persons from view?
Many writers seem to be seeking out the "real" within their own families through their writing. Some find it; some only further muddy the waters. Often, what is found leaves the writer with what appears to be a disquieting mélange of still unanswered questions.
I have had the pleasure several times in the past couple of years of going to gatherings hosted by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett at Scape Gallery in Corona del Mar. Authors come to this delightful small space monthly on a Tuesday evening to speak of their recent works. Most of those in the audience are fiction writers themse...
On an autumn evening a couple of months ago, writers Danzy Senna and Heidi Durrow shared the spotlight. They both spoke in part about how they bring personal experience into their writing. Family and family "story" at times are integral to the writing of fiction.
To make a long story short, while I had read Durrow's wonderful book — "The Girl Who Fell From the Sky" — Senna's work was new to me. Curious about her writing, I purchased two of her books. One was the memoir "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"
What struck me in my reading of the memoir was the wealth of stories a family generates and how these many versions of a life could contradict and confuse. With great tenacity, in this case, the author followed the stories, even when they seemed to deny the previous story told.
Is it any wonder that there are contradictions in stories told in family histories? We are all made of a full array of traits that are often inconsistent. Family stories are thus viewed in differing pieces — like an incident witnessed by five different individuals with five different versions.
In the end, in any family we may find ourselves intimately acquainted with folks to whom we might never have introduced ourselves. Still, they are family. They are what writer Carson McCullers called family — "The we of me." Family links our past to our future and we can never fully escape it, whatever its many contrad...
Holiday season tends to bring family — whether "well-regulated" and sipping tea or not — to the forefront of our thoughts. Family members may not be physically present, but we carry them within. The stories may be crazy and contradictory, but that's just life. Why not love them, faults and all, as we would choose to be...
CHERRIL DOTY is an artist, writer, counselor, and manager of the Sawdust Studio Art Classes in Laguna Beach. Always fascinated, inspired, and titillated by the beauty and the ever-changing mysteries of life, she can be reached at cherril@cherrildoty.com or by phone at (714) 745-9973.
CIO Strategies: Making sure your best staff stick around is about more than just money.
Attracting staff is one thing, keeping them happy is another thing altogether. While career promotions and wage increases can go a long way to ensuring your workers stay motivated, IT professionals will quickly become bored if their roles aren't fulfilling.
With demand for skilled technology workers higher than ever before, businesses must work hard to ensure they retain their top talent. High turnover of staff is expensive, can rob projects of expertise just when they need it, and can hurt morale.
So, how can CIOs keep their workers happy and eager? ZDNet speak to the experts and finds out their best-practice tips for keeping staff motivated.
Julie Dodd, director of digital transformation and communication at Parkinson's UK, admits she wishes she had the "magic answer" to the question of how to keep people motivated. "It's a challenge — especially for charities, where financial reward isn't going to be the answer," she says.
Dodd says running an organisation that embraces digital — as she is at Parkinson's UK — means having to maintain an IT department that also embraces the idea of continual improvement and positive change. That approach brings with it a high risk of change-fatigue, but Dodd says that challenge is surmountable with the ri...
"I think, where we've been successful at bringing our people along with the rapid pace of change in the organisation, it's been through regular communication — particularly about the ultimate benefits for people affected by Parkinson's," says Dodd. "Showing the impact is key, but I'm not sure whether you can do the sam...
In the case of her own organisation, Dodd says the internal communication team plays a crucial role. The team have encouraged staff from across the organisation to post blogs and videos about interesting change projects that are taking place at the charity. That process includes regular updates from the CEO and the lea...
"Hopefully that means people feel they are, and can be, part of the change, rather than it being something that they feel is simply happening to them," she says. "Our organisational development teams — which includes people from HR, facilities, internal communication and volunteering – have really embraced this challen...
Alan Talbot, CIO of Air Malta, says he is lucky to have a loyal and dedicated team. Those motivated workers aren't just long-standing hires. Talbot says one of the first things he did after becoming CIO in October 2016 was to reshape the IT department. His organisation managed to attract motivated talent from a range o...
"We got new blood in from outside the airline industry — these people came from oil and gas, telecommunications, auditing, financial services, and gaming," says Talbot. "That approach brings in a lot of new energy and insight to the organisation."
While gaining new hires has not been too challenging, Talbot recognises that keeping people motivated is more of a challenge when it comes to salaries. He says there is a strong demand for IT talent from the gaming industry in Malta, which is a cash-rich sector that can pay higher wages.
"We try and mitigate this by giving more responsibility and job satisfaction to our people," he says. "It's all about empowerment and making sure everyone is part of the project, from inception through to implementation. We try and give a career to our employees, rather than just giving them a job."
Amitabh Apte, global director of digital integration at Mars, says staff motivation programmes must begin at the very top of the business. Apte reports to Mars' global chief digital officer Sandeep Dadlani, who was appointed in July 2017 and who quickly identified integration as a key component for digital success.
"I owe a lot to Sundeep and the rest of the management team because they've created this programme where we're actively looking to build capability. This is an exciting time to be leading digital integration at Mars," says Apte, who joined the company in May 2018.
A strategic review in 2017 suggested Mars should create a dedicated integration centre led by an experienced executive. Apte now leads this centre, known as Integration Hub. "I'm in a very unique position," he says, explaining how his long-term aim is to build high-skilled data capability across the business.
Apte recognises, however, that not all digital leaders will be in such a fortunate position. Like so many other IT chiefs, he points to the importance of close alignment between technology and line-of-business professionals. Companies with clear business outcomes will be able to develop projects that keep IT workers in...
"The challenge is that in some organisations you don't have such an elaborate programme and you spend too much of your time looking for the next problem to solve," says Apte. "When you create a specially designed programme, it helps keep people focused and they're right behind you. If a project's exciting, then people ...
Barry Libenson, global CIO at financial data company Experian, says he has managed to establish a strong working culture with a high level of motivation. "Everybody is moving in the same direction," he says.
Libenson points to the need for strong governance to create alignment. But while tightly governed policies are important, Experian also creates a structure to ensure fresh ideas are heard and motivations are protected.
"We now have standard development policies and standard architectural policies, but the decision-making is still fairly democratic — but if the democracy breaks down, we have a better process for ultimately working things out," says Libenson.
"We do have a policy and sort of a way of allowing a mechanism for everybody to provide input. That doesn't mean that we're always going to all agree. But it means that we do have a way that people get to share their thoughts. That's kind of how the development and the technology side of Experian tends to operate."
Taking on a new project outside of the day job could have some surprising consequences.
The Chief Data Officer is one of the newest executive roles. Here's what it does and why it matters.
Here are the developer roles that careers service Dice found had high average salaries during 2018.
In an interview with Vice News Tonight on HBO, Apple's CEO also denies that storing customer data in China makes it easier for the Chinese government to access the info.
Inspector General Joe Ferguson wants those records.
If City Hall's inspector general can't get City Hall to cough up the records needed to investigate suspected wrongdoing at City Hall, what recourse does he have? Why, he can take it up with the guy who runs City Hall.
That's the wholly unsatisfactory resolution of a six-year legal battle decided last month by the Illinois Supreme Court — to the great frustration of Inspector General Joe Ferguson, who still wants those documents.
Heeding the court's ruling, Ferguson asked Mayor Rahm Emanuel to order his law department to hand them over. Ferguson's still waiting.
In their ruling, the justices stressed that they were simply applying the city ordinance, which allows the inspector general to subpoena records but doesn't authorize him to go to court to enforce those subpoenas. That's the job of the corporation counsel — the city's top attorney — on whom the subpoenas were served in...
The justices noted that the parties have a legitimate dispute and that the corporation counsel has "an obvious conflict of interest." You can almost hear an apologetic shrug.
"Whether or not the inspector general feels he has the power he needs under law," they wrote, "the fact remains that this is all the power the Chicago City Council has chosen to give him."
So in 2007, when then-Corporation Counsel Mara Georges refused to comply with then-Inspector General David Hoffman's subpoena, the IG should have gone to then-Mayor Richard Daley instead of to court. Hoffman was seeking records about a $100,000-a-year no-bid contract given to a one-time Daley employee. See anything wro...
Daley, Hoffman and Georges had been replaced by Emanuel, Ferguson and Stephen Patton by the time the Supreme Court ruled that the inspector general "should have looked to the mayor for assistance." Ferguson promptly called on Emanuel to deliver the records. He got no response.
Ferguson also asked the mayor to sponsor an ordinance that would ensure the IG's office the independence it needs to do its job. Specifically, he asked for a guaranteed budget, to protect the office from political pressure; for unrestricted access to city records; and for the power to enforce subpoenas.
We don't see how a mayor who styles himself as a reformer could object to any of that. But Emanuel hasn't budged. He says the inspector general has enough authority. "The Supreme Court's opinion, which was unanimous, speaks for itself," he said.
Yes, it does, but what it says is that under current law, the mayor himself has the final word on whether the inspector general can have the records he needs to investigate, for example, the mayor. That's ridiculous, and Emanuel knows it. The law needs to be rewritten.
The court's ruling also suggests the problem is "highly unusual." Ferguson says no, it isn't. And from now on, when an investigation hits the wall because City Hall won't cooperate, he's going to make sure it's publicly reported. Call it Rahmshaming.
Where appropriate, cases also will be reported to the federal monitor overseeing Chicago's compliance with the Shakman accord, which bans most political hires. The city will have a hard time persuading a judge to free it from oversight if it looks like it's withholding information from its inspector general.
The mayor says he considers the inspector general his partner in fighting waste, fraud and mismanagement. The truth is that they are sometimes adversaries, if the inspector general does his job right. Then what? Ferguson is right: "This office has only the authority to do the job the mayor wants it to do, not the job t...
If Emanuel wants to be a partner, he'll put some teeth in the IG ordinance and hustle it through the City Council. In the meantime, he should hand over the records Hoffman asked for six years ago. To engage in a little Rahmshaming ourselves, we'll remind him of his campaign pledge that "any efforts to block the inspect...
Today, the only thing standing between the inspector general and those documents is Emanuel.
The next-generation Apple HomePod is doubtless in development and a new patent, which has been spotted by MacRumors, seems to suggest that version 2 will have some serious upgrades.
The patent does not mention Apple’s smart speaker by name. In fact, at times it seems quite un-speakerish, with references to a visual output device which makes it sound more like a tablet or screen-with-speaker like the Amazon Echo Show.
Here’s what we can glean.
Sure, there will be changes, perhaps in size and proportions, but the “cylindrical” styling of the first HomePod will continue. My guess is it could even be an exact match for the first model, so the changes necessary to the audio speakers are reduced as much as possible.
An “array of light-emitting diodes” can display moving visual information which includes text. Well, that’s a change from the first HomePod. And this isn’t referring to the touch panel on the top in current models, it specifically says that the LEDs will be in the sidewall behind the fabric. There will be at least 100 ...
I mean, it could be used for other stuff but that Apple is being so particular here is revealing.
Other functions will include a visual indication that the speaker has heard the wake words, Hey, Siri. This is a good idea since the elegant visual pattern on the top of the HomePod can only be seen if you have a clear view of the top of the unit.
The patent says it could contain “a sensor that detects three-dimensional hand gestures”. This would be an optical proximity sensor and a capacitive proximity sensor. It’s not clear how this might work, but it could mean you could end music playback by holding your hand up in a stop gesture, for instance. Handy if you’...
An image from the new patent. Not quite a full-on render, I grant you.
The patent specifies it could transmit instructions to a television, heating and lighting controllers. It also could have environmental sensors such as carbon dioxide sensors, which is intriguing.
Could it be a better way to listen to the TV?
If it communicates with a television, maybe it’ll be straightforward to use it to play the audio from your TV through it.
Leaving aside that not everybody wants a microphone on a gadget in the home because of privacy concerns, this will have cameras, too. That will change the look of the HomePod.
The idea is that as well as the song tracks and so on being displayed, it could notify you when you get an email or a calendar reminder, say. For this to work, it needs to know who you are, and have your permission to sign into your account.
In some ways, this is even bigger! First of all, to have emoji showing through the speaker fabric could be pretty cool. But this goes further, promising voice analysis and ways to react, by showing a smiley emoji when you're feeling sad, for instance.
In the patent, it refers to the gadget we're assuming is the next HomePod as Device 10. This is really interesting, so I’ll give you a taste of the patent itself.
Device 10 may analyze a user's voice (e.g., when a user is supplying voice commands such as database queries and/or other commands to device 10). If vocal stress is detected in captured voice information, device 10 may make adjustments to content being presented to the user. For example, if voice loudness or stress pat...
Let’s just take this on board. This is not voice recognition, it’s subtext recognition. Imagine where this might lead. A speaker that knows you’re being sarcastic, a virtual personal assistant that can tell the difference between you sobbing and crying with laughter.
The power to do all this mood analysis will be in the cloud, so it's not impossible, but it will take Apple's exemplary good taste to get the reaction to the mood just right.

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