Recag/C4_13 · Datasets at Hugging Face

text stringlengths 9 72.5k
Aspect and soil: Full sun, light, well-drained. Keep well watered, feed once a fortnight with tomato fertiliser.
Difficulty: Moderate – can be badly affected by poor weather conditions and powdery mildew if damp or crowded, and Cucumber Mosaic Virus.
Recommended varieties: Cavili (pale green); Defender; Black Forest; Venus; British Summertime; Soleil; Partenon, Tuscany (all dark green); Sunstripe (yellow/white stripes); Eclipse (round green, striped); Zephyr (yellow, pale green ends); Parador (yellow).
Spreading and trailing plants such as the annual Lobularia (sweet alyssum), and the perennials Alyssum and Aubrieta, can become tatty. Trimming them back after flowering encourages fresh growth and new flowers.
Sweet peas need training and tying in to their supports to encourage them to climb and make a good display.
Aphids can multiply rapidly. Remove early infestations by hand to prevent the problem getting out of hand. Protect sweet pea plants in particular as they can get sweet pea viruses.
Continue to protect lily, delphinium, hosta and other susceptible plants from slugs and snails.
Prune spring-flowering shrubs such as Japanese quince (Chaenomeles), Choisya and Ribes after flowering. Remove one stem in three from Kerria and Spiraea ‘Arguta’, and shorten the other flowered stems to a suitable sideshoot. Evergreens such as Viburnum tinus can also still be trimmed.
Prune wall-trained pyracanthas, removing any shoots coming out from the wall, and shortening other new growth to about 8cm (3in). This encourages spur formation, and increases flowering.
Remove blanket weed in ponds by twirling around a rough stick. Skim off floating weeds such as duckweed with a net. Leave on pond side for 24 hours to allow trapped creatures to return to the water.
The U.S. economy added only a meager 20,000 jobs in February, according to the latest Employment Situation Summary report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions Chief Economist Curt Long said that one poor report should not set off alarm bells, but given that the labor market is the linchpin for the entire economy, it does add to existing concerns.
The unemployment rate moderately fell to 3.7% in September, according to the latest Employment Situation Summary report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. One expert said although September’s wage increase pales in comparison to growing home prices, any increase is helpful for buyers trying to get in the market.
The unemployment rate in August remained at 3.9%, according to the latest Employment Situation Summary report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. One economist said the 9 year high in wage growth ensures the federal government will raise rates at their meeting later in September.
Jobs increased in December, but far below the increase experts were expecting. Experts predicted the month would show an increase of 190,000, 210,000 or even 250,000. However, all of these predictions came up short.
Letting cities provide Internet service to their residents wasn’t always a partisan issue.
Aug. 26, 2014, 1 a.m.
Government-run Internet service is an abomination, a waste of taxpayer funds, and an assault on private industry. And if states want to ban it, the federal government should get out of their way.
That’s what congressional Republicans are saying now, but just a few years ago, top GOP lawmakers were not only on board with municipal Internet—they were actively working to protect it.
In 2005, Republican Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Norm Coleman—along with Democrats Frank Lautenberg, John Kerry, and Russ Feingold—introduced a bill to block states from restricting local governments’ ability to provide publicly run and funded Internet service. Republican Sens. Ted Stevens, Olympia Snowe, and Gordon Smith joined as cosponsors in 2007 when the bill was reintroduced.
And Republican Rep. Fred Upton, now the head of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, was a lead sponsor of the legislation’s House counterpart in 2007. At the time, the Republicans argued that the municipal Internet projects could boost competition and spur economic growth.
Virtually every House Republican—including Upton—voted in July to block the Federal Communications Commission from striking down state laws that prevent municipalities from setting up their own broadband services. The provision is now attached to the House’s version of a 2015 funding bill for the FCC and other agencies.
The Republican opposition follows FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s announcement earlier this year that he will consider overturning such state limits. And Wheeler’s commission is now reviewing petitions from the cities of Wilson, N.C., and Chattanooga, Tenn., to bypass their states’ laws on municipal broadband.
So what explains the GOP’s change of heart?
Some Republicans argue the debate is not about the virtue of municipal Internet, but rather the question of a federal board intervening against state laws. States should be able to overturn local officials’ decisions, but the FCC shouldn’t overturn the states’ decisions, they argue.
An Upton spokesman claimed there’s nothing inconsistent about supporting a bill to nullify state restrictions and opposing FCC action that would do the same thing.
“Voters and their elected representatives, not bureaucrats at the FCC, should make the decision whether to spend tax dollars on municipal broadband,” the spokesman said in a statement.
Matthew Berry, an aide to Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, argued in a speech last week that the FCC can’t strike down state laws because it doesn’t have clear authorization from Congress.
But it’s hard to ignore the most significant change since the Republicans sponsored the municipal broadband bills a few years ago: The Obama administration has taken a position on the issue.
In February, Wheeler announced he would rewrite net-neutrality regulations that had just been struck down in federal court. As part of the announcement, Wheeler said he also wanted to look for opportunities to “enhance Internet access competition.” Overturning legal restrictions on community broadband would be “one obvious candidate” for boosting competition, Wheeler said.
The statement, which connected municipal broadband to the controversial net-neutrality rules, instantly made the issue more partisan. Wheeler’s push on the issue has polarized Republicans, but it’s also rallied Democrats to his side.
While Republicans are new opponents of municipal broadband, cable and telecom companies have been fighting the projects for years. The companies argue that it’s not fair to have to compete with government-backed providers and they claim the projects drive away commercial investment. Also, like many Republicans, the companies have warned that the projects can sour into multimillion-dollar boondoggles.
Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and other large commercial broadband providers have been lobbying state lawmakers around the country to set up restrictions on local Internet service.
“Virtually every state barrier to community broadband initiatives and public-private partnerships has been the product of heavy lobbying by cable companies, telecom companies, or both,” according to Jim Baller, an attorney who defends municipal broadband projects.
The companies also aren’t shy about donating heavily to Republicans—and Democrats—on the federal level.
This debate would never have happened if the bipartisan coalition supporting municipal broadband had succeeded a few years ago.
In a 2005 Senate floor speech, McCain argued that his legislation to override state restrictions was necessary to meet President Bush’s goal of providing “universal, affordable access” to broadband.
“When private industry does not answer the call because of market failures or other obstacles, it is appropriate and even commendable, for the people acting through their local governments to improve their lives by investing in their own future,” McCain said.
In 2006, their bill was a few short steps away from becoming law, as it was included as a provision in a broader overhaul of telecommunications regulation. That larger bill, authored by Republican Rep. Joe Barton, then chairman of Energy and Commerce, passed the House with 321 votes—including 215 Republicans. Only eight Republicans voted against it.
But fights over net neutrality and other issues bogged the legislation down in the Senate, and it never became law.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCA), world’s seventh-largest automaker, might make it through the year intact as an independent entity.
Sooner or later, the Rube Goldberg enterprise created by Canadian-Italian CEO Sergio Marchionne will be merged out of existence. Or, more likely FCA, which employs 11,335 Canadians, will break itself up and be sold in pieces.
In fiscal 2015, a year of record volume in North American auto sales, FCA eked out a profit of $410 million (U.S.) on record sales of $120 billion. Its profit would have been just $104 million without the contribution of Ferrari, which FCA has recently spun off. If this is the best FCA can do when the notoriously volatile auto industry is at its peak, buckets of red ink are in store, come the inevitable next industry downturn.
That explains why FCA has a modest shareholder value, or market cap, roughly equal to that of the much smaller Mazda Motor Corp., which has about one-third FCA’s vehicle production.
FCA is overly reliant on two gas-guzzling vehicle families, the Jeep SUV and the Ram pickup. Fiat, which makes the decisions for FCA, is gradually exiting passenger cars – Fiat’s traditional strength – in favour of the lucrative big-metal vehicles.
It’s doing so on the dicey assumption that fuel prices will remain relatively low indefinitely.
De-emphasizing entry-level passenger cars and family sedans will also inhibit FCA’s potential in emerging markets, which FCA, like other automakers, has targeted for their high growth potential.
For that matter, he’s out of sync with 21st-century high-tech automaking, dismissing driverless cars and calling electric vehicles “almost obscene” because they lack an internal combustion engine. That engine is 157-year-old technology, and one would think it’s time to move on.
One of the biggest mistakes in business history was the failure of the Detroit Three to take small cars seriously. Paid $170,000 a day, or $60 million per year, Marchionne, too, seems not to relate to people who seek only basic transportation in their vehicles.
Too bad, since the North American success of Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG, Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Hyundai Motor Co. trace back to their first, unassuming Corollas, Bugs, Civics and Ponys, respectively.
Marchionne has set an audacious goal of increasing FCA’s vehicle production by more than 50 per cent in just two years, to 7 million units. To do so will cost, by FCA’s estimate, about $52 billion. That’s a sum FCA won’t easily be able to raise, given that FCA’s current debt load, of $7.5 billion, is already an unusually high level of indebtedness for an automaker of FCA’s size. Hence Marchionne’s urgent search for a sugardaddy merger partner.
By means he hasn’t made clear, Marchionne intends that FCA be debt-free by 2018, just two years from now. And that FCA enter the ranks of the world’s top five automakers, by revenue and unit volume, also by 2018.
That year isn’t a coincidence. Marchionne, 63, says he will retire in 2018, setting his legacy in stone.
That haste accounts in part for FCA’s failure to improve its abysmal reputation for quality. In J.D. Power’s http://www.jdpower.com/ratings/study/Vehicle-Dependability-Study-%28VDS%29-by-Make/846ENG overall dependability ratings for 2015 END , the Chrysler, Fiat, Dodge and Jeep brands are assigned dismal ratings of two or three out of five. And in the U.K. Vehicle Ownership Satisfaction Study for 2014, FCA’s flagship semi-luxury brand Alfa Romeo ranks 25th out of 26 models surveyed.
Fiat, of course, was effectively insolvent just over a decade ago, and Chrysler plunged into bankruptcy protection in 2009. The bigger and better-run Daimler AG lost all of the more than $40 billion it spent over a decade trying to make a go of Chrysler. Marchionne’s effort to do the same, but this time by bashing together two weak companies in the expectation of creating a stronger one, was a shoot-the-moon proposition from the start.
Last year, General Motors gave a flat no to Marchionne’s merger entreaties. Earlier this month, Marchionne spoke hopefully about a merger with Toyota, Ford or Volkswagen. Ford immediately put out a press release rejecting an FCA merger.
The lack of interest is understandable. It’s difficult to regard FCA as a going concern when it is so openly determined to merge itself out of existence.
Marchionne has won the admiration of an auto press that enjoys his candour and sweater-clad lack of formality. So much so that the self-serving contradiction of Marchionne’s constant calls for industry consolidation, with capacity reduction the obvious goal, escapes comment despite Marchionne’s own grandiose plans to boost FCA's production more than 50 per cent.
Every auto executive wishes its competitors would shut plants, or just go out of business, to end the curse of too many vehicles chasing too few buyers. But they generally keep that view under the hood, as it were, while Marchionne practically stops people in the street to say it.
If only he walked the talk.
Marchionne has ambitions to be one of the great auto executives. He’s tried to realize them by acting like other empire-building CEOs. There is another way to earn a savvy reputation.
Given that so many FCA products are made better and cheaper by the firm’s competitors, Marchionne could be an industry hero by dismantling a company the world doesn’t need. The Jeep, Ram pickup, Chrysler minivan and Maserati marque are franchises that, on their own, would make attractive acquisitions for FCA’s peers.
It’s unlikely North Americans will ever embrace the Fiat brand or understand what Alfa Romeo stands for. But those brands still have appeal in Europe and Brazil. They would make a good fit with a Volkswagen AG, Renault S.A. or Peugeot S.A.
When it gets to the point where you have to acknowledge that your industry has largely written you off, along with the bulk of potential customers, it’s probably time to throw in the towel.
Correction- April 29, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Yugo cars were built by Hyundai.
A record snowfall of 27.5 inches was set at Newark, NJ yesterday. This breaks the old record of 4.5 from 2005.
A record snowfall of 12 inches was set at Bridgeport, CT yesterday. This breaks the old record of 7.1 from 1965.
A record all time daily snowfall of 26.6 inches was set at Central Park yesterday. This breaks the old record of 24.1 set on Feb 12 2006.
HUGE shout out to @BaltCoGov transportation workers.. the main roads were awesome & @LynetteFromABC2 and I got to work easily. Thank you!!
Released today (Sept. 27) after an all-night session, the summary document of the UN panel's forthcoming report declares that the proof of climate change is "unequivocal" and that human activity is "extremely likely" to be at fault.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a 36-page summary document ahead of next week's 2,500-page report that, for the first time ever, states in no uncertain terms that "human influence on climate change is clear." Among many dire warnings and predictions, it declares, also for the first time, that there is a link between climate change and extreme weather events, and that world governments must consider some sort of "global carbon budget" if not an outright price on carbon emissions.
The summary document and the report itself represent the strongest statement yet concerning the dangers of climate change. What makes the summary even more powerful is the fact that all IPCC panel members, representing 195 countries, signed off on every word in it after an all-night session. Writer Eric Holthaus puts it simply: "Without jumping up and down on the desks of their computer terminals, this forum of scientists has done about as much as they can do. With this report, they have...confidently projected dire consequences should world governments fail to act immediately."
America is facing a bed bug outbreak of explosive proportions - and the resistance of the blood suckers to commonly used pesticides means there is no magical cure, public health and pest control experts warned today.
Bed bug outbreaks in the US have tripled since 2005, a conference put on by the Environmental Protection Agency was told.
"It's become a trajectory. We are at the point similar to the Aids virus where everyone knows someone who has had bed bugs or have had it themselves," said Dini Miller, the urban pest management specialist for the state of Virginia.
"Right now we are kind of at a loss at what the best answer is," she said. "We didn't realise how tough they would be."
The EPA gathered experts in entomology and pest control as well as government officials to a two-day conference designed to chart a new strategy for dealing with a sudden and bewildering rise in bed bug infestations that has cut across class and region, affecting poor urban neighbourhoods and luxury resort hotels from New York City to Honolulu.
Bed bugs were once thought eliminated in the US. The conference - or summit as billed by the EPA - was told their return after nearly half a century was due to changes in pesticide use and increased resistance to pesticides by the bed bugs, as well as increased travel.
The move away from DDT towards less toxic and more targeted chemicals left America exposed to the return of their scourge. Earlier pesticides killed a broad range of insects. While they might have been marketed for cockroaches, they also wiped out bed bugs and other pests.
That left relatively few available formulations designed specifically for bed bugs. The narrow range made it easier for the bugs to build up resistance.
"Generally I can guarantee that they will be tolerant to at least one or more of the things that are being used against them," said Harold Harlan, the leading bug expert for the US military. "They've been exposed to chemicals so they are more resistant to chemicals."
Bed bugs do not transmit disease, but the bites can become infected – which they do in about 30% of those bitten, leaving them scratching red raised welts.
The tiny reddish-brown insects were once practically unheard of in the US. In the late 60s university entomologists were complaining about the scarcity of research samples. But by 2004, the bed bugs were back.
Since 2005, bed bug outbreaks have tripled across America, according to a survey of 800 pest control firms across the country. Bed bug control now makes up a rapidly rising share of the business.
In the north-eastern United States, especially New York City, pest control companies now make 9% of their earnings from trying to clear out bed bugs, Bob Rosenberg of the National Pest Management Association told the conference.
The scourge has also spawned its own subculture of victims, or more properly hosts.
The bitten, who may once have kept quiet out of shame, are turned activists, setting up tracking outbreaks, and personal accounts of infected bites and other horrors.
The infestations have gone beyond New York, with regular and persistent outbreaks reported in Honolulu, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Chicago, Houston and Miami. They are also concentrated in poor neighbourhoods, where people can not afford to call in the exterminators or to replace or professionally clean bedding and soft furnishing.
Commercial poultry farms, especially those where birds are allowed to roam around the hen house floor, are another newly discovered source.
Pesticides alone are unlikely to wipe the bed bugs out - and it's unrealistic to expect all those affected to treat or destroy infested furnishings. That means Americans can expect to co-habit with bed bugs for some time.
"The fact that we got rid of them for 50 years in the United States is now looking miraculous," she said.
What Is the Most Useless Baby Product of All?
Not long after starting to raise a child (or three), you begin to realize that you don’t need a lot of the stuff baby stores try to convince parents to buy.
The marketing onslaught that new parents face is right up there with the wedding industrial machine targeting brides-to-be. The implicit (sometimes explicit) message presented is: How could you not do everything possible for your baby (or your marriage)? New parents are clueless and weak, easy prey to get suckered into buying even the silliest products that claim to make a baby safer or happier, or in any way make a parent’s job easier.
You walk through the baby stores and there are many, many cute matching bed sets for your baby’s crib. They all come with the cute sheets, bumper pads, dust ruffles and comforter. Everything perfectly coordinated and just gorgeous. You spend a small fortune on your favorite one, only to see on television once you get home that you should not be using a bumper pad in your crib or cover your infant with the comforter. Both of these items can pose a suffucation hazard for little ones. So what’s the point in spending all of that money to buy a whole matching crib set when you can’t even use half of it?
The Zaky is a beanbag doll shaped like a forearm and hand that’s designed to cuddle with your baby when flesh and blood are not available. To make it seem more like a human limb, parents can warm the Zaky in a dryer and scent it by wrapping it around their own necks for several hours.
um, yes, tell me again why this is necessary. are wipes really THAT cold?
Baby powder is on every baby aisle. It smells good, it’s right next to the baby shampoo and you remember hearing your mother talking about putting powder on your little baby behind when you were and infant. So why is it a useless baby product when it seems like the natural thing to buy when shopping for baby supplies? Because it is recommended that parents do not use baby powder on their babies any longer. It’s easily inhaled by your little one if you use it, which can cause respiratory problems. Plus if you do use it on your baby’s bottom then it’s just going to get all clumpy and yucky as soon as they wet their diaper the first time. It’s best to stick to baby lotion and forget about the powder.
At about $50, this is one of the most useless baby products ever. You might as well grab a $50 bill and light it on fire. Sure, you want your baby’s bottles and pacifiers to be clean, but do they need to be steam sterilized? Um, no. Have a dishwasher? How about a sink, Palmolive, and a hot water heater? Then you’re just fine. Take that $50 and buy a $3 bottle brush. Spend the remaining $47 on heavily caffeinated beverages — something you’ll actually need.
So they (by “they,” I mean the evil baby product marketeers) have this product you can buy that looks like a little paper cone. They call it a Pee-Pee Teepee . Its purpose is to prevent a warm stream of your son’s urine from shooting you in the eye like a cruel joke. The ones shown in the picture here are in the style of the “Wild West,” according to the company that makes them, as if this is the OK Corral and your only hope to prevent a gunfight (of pee) is to buy these.
Pee-Pee Teepees come in a pack of five for $12. We use something similar. It’s called a paper towel. You can get a roll of them for about a buck.

Aspect and soil: Full sun, light, well-drained. Keep well watered, feed once a fortnight with tomato fertiliser.

Difficulty: Moderate – can be badly affected by poor weather conditions and powdery mildew if damp or crowded, and Cucumber Mosaic Virus.

Recommended varieties: Cavili (pale green); Defender; Black Forest; Venus; British Summertime; Soleil; Partenon, Tuscany (all dark green); Sunstripe (yellow/white stripes); Eclipse (round green, striped); Zephyr (yellow, pale green ends); Parador (yellow).

Spreading and trailing plants such as the annual Lobularia (sweet alyssum), and the perennials Alyssum and Aubrieta, can become tatty. Trimming them back after flowering encourages fresh growth and new flowers.

Sweet peas need training and tying in to their supports to encourage them to climb and make a good display.

Aphids can multiply rapidly. Remove early infestations by hand to prevent the problem getting out of hand. Protect sweet pea plants in particular as they can get sweet pea viruses.

Continue to protect lily, delphinium, hosta and other susceptible plants from slugs and snails.

Prune spring-flowering shrubs such as Japanese quince (Chaenomeles), Choisya and Ribes after flowering. Remove one stem in three from Kerria and Spiraea ‘Arguta’, and shorten the other flowered stems to a suitable sideshoot. Evergreens such as Viburnum tinus can also still be trimmed.

Prune wall-trained pyracanthas, removing any shoots coming out from the wall, and shortening other new growth to about 8cm (3in). This encourages spur formation, and increases flowering.

Remove blanket weed in ponds by twirling around a rough stick. Skim off floating weeds such as duckweed with a net. Leave on pond side for 24 hours to allow trapped creatures to return to the water.

The U.S. economy added only a meager 20,000 jobs in February, according to the latest Employment Situation Summary report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions Chief Economist Curt Long said that one poor report should not set off alarm bells, but given that the labor market is the linchpin for the entire economy, it does add to existing concerns.

The unemployment rate moderately fell to 3.7% in September, according to the latest Employment Situation Summary report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. One expert said although September’s wage increase pales in comparison to growing home prices, any increase is helpful for buyers trying to get in the market.

The unemployment rate in August remained at 3.9%, according to the latest Employment Situation Summary report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. One economist said the 9 year high in wage growth ensures the federal government will raise rates at their meeting later in September.

Jobs increased in December, but far below the increase experts were expecting. Experts predicted the month would show an increase of 190,000, 210,000 or even 250,000. However, all of these predictions came up short.

Letting cities provide Internet service to their residents wasn’t always a partisan issue.

Aug. 26, 2014, 1 a.m.

Government-run Internet service is an abomination, a waste of taxpayer funds, and an assault on private industry. And if states want to ban it, the federal government should get out of their way.

That’s what congressional Republicans are saying now, but just a few years ago, top GOP lawmakers were not only on board with municipal Internet—they were actively working to protect it.

In 2005, Republican Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Norm Coleman—along with Democrats Frank Lautenberg, John Kerry, and Russ Feingold—introduced a bill to block states from restricting local governments’ ability to provide publicly run and funded Internet service. Republican Sens. Ted Stevens, Olympia Snowe, and Gordon Smith joined as cosponsors in 2007 when the bill was reintroduced.

And Republican Rep. Fred Upton, now the head of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, was a lead sponsor of the legislation’s House counterpart in 2007. At the time, the Republicans argued that the municipal Internet projects could boost competition and spur economic growth.

Virtually every House Republican—including Upton—voted in July to block the Federal Communications Commission from striking down state laws that prevent municipalities from setting up their own broadband services. The provision is now attached to the House’s version of a 2015 funding bill for the FCC and other agencies.

The Republican opposition follows FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s announcement earlier this year that he will consider overturning such state limits. And Wheeler’s commission is now reviewing petitions from the cities of Wilson, N.C., and Chattanooga, Tenn., to bypass their states’ laws on municipal broadband.

So what explains the GOP’s change of heart?

Some Republicans argue the debate is not about the virtue of municipal Internet, but rather the question of a federal board intervening against state laws. States should be able to overturn local officials’ decisions, but the FCC shouldn’t overturn the states’ decisions, they argue.

An Upton spokesman claimed there’s nothing inconsistent about supporting a bill to nullify state restrictions and opposing FCC action that would do the same thing.

“Voters and their elected representatives, not bureaucrats at the FCC, should make the decision whether to spend tax dollars on municipal broadband,” the spokesman said in a statement.

Matthew Berry, an aide to Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, argued in a speech last week that the FCC can’t strike down state laws because it doesn’t have clear authorization from Congress.

But it’s hard to ignore the most significant change since the Republicans sponsored the municipal broadband bills a few years ago: The Obama administration has taken a position on the issue.

In February, Wheeler announced he would rewrite net-neutrality regulations that had just been struck down in federal court. As part of the announcement, Wheeler said he also wanted to look for opportunities to “enhance Internet access competition.” Overturning legal restrictions on community broadband would be “one obvious candidate” for boosting competition, Wheeler said.

The statement, which connected municipal broadband to the controversial net-neutrality rules, instantly made the issue more partisan. Wheeler’s push on the issue has polarized Republicans, but it’s also rallied Democrats to his side.

While Republicans are new opponents of municipal broadband, cable and telecom companies have been fighting the projects for years. The companies argue that it’s not fair to have to compete with government-backed providers and they claim the projects drive away commercial investment. Also, like many Republicans, the companies have warned that the projects can sour into multimillion-dollar boondoggles.

Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and other large commercial broadband providers have been lobbying state lawmakers around the country to set up restrictions on local Internet service.

“Virtually every state barrier to community broadband initiatives and public-private partnerships has been the product of heavy lobbying by cable companies, telecom companies, or both,” according to Jim Baller, an attorney who defends municipal broadband projects.

The companies also aren’t shy about donating heavily to Republicans—and Democrats—on the federal level.

This debate would never have happened if the bipartisan coalition supporting municipal broadband had succeeded a few years ago.

In a 2005 Senate floor speech, McCain argued that his legislation to override state restrictions was necessary to meet President Bush’s goal of providing “universal, affordable access” to broadband.

“When private industry does not answer the call because of market failures or other obstacles, it is appropriate and even commendable, for the people acting through their local governments to improve their lives by investing in their own future,” McCain said.

In 2006, their bill was a few short steps away from becoming law, as it was included as a provision in a broader overhaul of telecommunications regulation. That larger bill, authored by Republican Rep. Joe Barton, then chairman of Energy and Commerce, passed the House with 321 votes—including 215 Republicans. Only eight Republicans voted against it.

But fights over net neutrality and other issues bogged the legislation down in the Senate, and it never became law.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCA), world’s seventh-largest automaker, might make it through the year intact as an independent entity.

Sooner or later, the Rube Goldberg enterprise created by Canadian-Italian CEO Sergio Marchionne will be merged out of existence. Or, more likely FCA, which employs 11,335 Canadians, will break itself up and be sold in pieces.

In fiscal 2015, a year of record volume in North American auto sales, FCA eked out a profit of $410 million (U.S.) on record sales of $120 billion. Its profit would have been just $104 million without the contribution of Ferrari, which FCA has recently spun off. If this is the best FCA can do when the notoriously volatile auto industry is at its peak, buckets of red ink are in store, come the inevitable next industry downturn.

That explains why FCA has a modest shareholder value, or market cap, roughly equal to that of the much smaller Mazda Motor Corp., which has about one-third FCA’s vehicle production.

FCA is overly reliant on two gas-guzzling vehicle families, the Jeep SUV and the Ram pickup. Fiat, which makes the decisions for FCA, is gradually exiting passenger cars – Fiat’s traditional strength – in favour of the lucrative big-metal vehicles.

It’s doing so on the dicey assumption that fuel prices will remain relatively low indefinitely.

De-emphasizing entry-level passenger cars and family sedans will also inhibit FCA’s potential in emerging markets, which FCA, like other automakers, has targeted for their high growth potential.

For that matter, he’s out of sync with 21st-century high-tech automaking, dismissing driverless cars and calling electric vehicles “almost obscene” because they lack an internal combustion engine. That engine is 157-year-old technology, and one would think it’s time to move on.

One of the biggest mistakes in business history was the failure of the Detroit Three to take small cars seriously. Paid $170,000 a day, or $60 million per year, Marchionne, too, seems not to relate to people who seek only basic transportation in their vehicles.

Too bad, since the North American success of Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG, Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Hyundai Motor Co. trace back to their first, unassuming Corollas, Bugs, Civics and Ponys, respectively.

Marchionne has set an audacious goal of increasing FCA’s vehicle production by more than 50 per cent in just two years, to 7 million units. To do so will cost, by FCA’s estimate, about $52 billion. That’s a sum FCA won’t easily be able to raise, given that FCA’s current debt load, of $7.5 billion, is already an unusually high level of indebtedness for an automaker of FCA’s size. Hence Marchionne’s urgent search for a sugardaddy merger partner.

By means he hasn’t made clear, Marchionne intends that FCA be debt-free by 2018, just two years from now. And that FCA enter the ranks of the world’s top five automakers, by revenue and unit volume, also by 2018.

That year isn’t a coincidence. Marchionne, 63, says he will retire in 2018, setting his legacy in stone.

That haste accounts in part for FCA’s failure to improve its abysmal reputation for quality. In J.D. Power’s http://www.jdpower.com/ratings/study/Vehicle-Dependability-Study-%28VDS%29-by-Make/846ENG overall dependability ratings for 2015 END , the Chrysler, Fiat, Dodge and Jeep brands are assigned dismal ratings of two or three out of five. And in the U.K. Vehicle Ownership Satisfaction Study for 2014, FCA’s flagship semi-luxury brand Alfa Romeo ranks 25th out of 26 models surveyed.

Fiat, of course, was effectively insolvent just over a decade ago, and Chrysler plunged into bankruptcy protection in 2009. The bigger and better-run Daimler AG lost all of the more than $40 billion it spent over a decade trying to make a go of Chrysler. Marchionne’s effort to do the same, but this time by bashing together two weak companies in the expectation of creating a stronger one, was a shoot-the-moon proposition from the start.

Last year, General Motors gave a flat no to Marchionne’s merger entreaties. Earlier this month, Marchionne spoke hopefully about a merger with Toyota, Ford or Volkswagen. Ford immediately put out a press release rejecting an FCA merger.

The lack of interest is understandable. It’s difficult to regard FCA as a going concern when it is so openly determined to merge itself out of existence.

Marchionne has won the admiration of an auto press that enjoys his candour and sweater-clad lack of formality. So much so that the self-serving contradiction of Marchionne’s constant calls for industry consolidation, with capacity reduction the obvious goal, escapes comment despite Marchionne’s own grandiose plans to boost FCA's production more than 50 per cent.

Every auto executive wishes its competitors would shut plants, or just go out of business, to end the curse of too many vehicles chasing too few buyers. But they generally keep that view under the hood, as it were, while Marchionne practically stops people in the street to say it.

If only he walked the talk.

Marchionne has ambitions to be one of the great auto executives. He’s tried to realize them by acting like other empire-building CEOs. There is another way to earn a savvy reputation.

Given that so many FCA products are made better and cheaper by the firm’s competitors, Marchionne could be an industry hero by dismantling a company the world doesn’t need. The Jeep, Ram pickup, Chrysler minivan and Maserati marque are franchises that, on their own, would make attractive acquisitions for FCA’s peers.

It’s unlikely North Americans will ever embrace the Fiat brand or understand what Alfa Romeo stands for. But those brands still have appeal in Europe and Brazil. They would make a good fit with a Volkswagen AG, Renault S.A. or Peugeot S.A.

When it gets to the point where you have to acknowledge that your industry has largely written you off, along with the bulk of potential customers, it’s probably time to throw in the towel.

Correction- April 29, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Yugo cars were built by Hyundai.

A record snowfall of 27.5 inches was set at Newark, NJ yesterday. This breaks the old record of 4.5 from 2005.

A record snowfall of 12 inches was set at Bridgeport, CT yesterday. This breaks the old record of 7.1 from 1965.

A record all time daily snowfall of 26.6 inches was set at Central Park yesterday. This breaks the old record of 24.1 set on Feb 12 2006.

HUGE shout out to @BaltCoGov transportation workers.. the main roads were awesome & @LynetteFromABC2 and I got to work easily. Thank you!!

Released today (Sept. 27) after an all-night session, the summary document of the UN panel's forthcoming report declares that the proof of climate change is "unequivocal" and that human activity is "extremely likely" to be at fault.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a 36-page summary document ahead of next week's 2,500-page report that, for the first time ever, states in no uncertain terms that "human influence on climate change is clear." Among many dire warnings and predictions, it declares, also for the first time, that there is a link between climate change and extreme weather events, and that world governments must consider some sort of "global carbon budget" if not an outright price on carbon emissions.

The summary document and the report itself represent the strongest statement yet concerning the dangers of climate change. What makes the summary even more powerful is the fact that all IPCC panel members, representing 195 countries, signed off on every word in it after an all-night session. Writer Eric Holthaus puts it simply: "Without jumping up and down on the desks of their computer terminals, this forum of scientists has done about as much as they can do. With this report, they have...confidently projected dire consequences should world governments fail to act immediately."

America is facing a bed bug outbreak of explosive proportions - and the resistance of the blood suckers to commonly used pesticides means there is no magical cure, public health and pest control experts warned today.

Bed bug outbreaks in the US have tripled since 2005, a conference put on by the Environmental Protection Agency was told.

"It's become a trajectory. We are at the point similar to the Aids virus where everyone knows someone who has had bed bugs or have had it themselves," said Dini Miller, the urban pest management specialist for the state of Virginia.

"Right now we are kind of at a loss at what the best answer is," she said. "We didn't realise how tough they would be."

The EPA gathered experts in entomology and pest control as well as government officials to a two-day conference designed to chart a new strategy for dealing with a sudden and bewildering rise in bed bug infestations that has cut across class and region, affecting poor urban neighbourhoods and luxury resort hotels from New York City to Honolulu.

Bed bugs were once thought eliminated in the US. The conference - or summit as billed by the EPA - was told their return after nearly half a century was due to changes in pesticide use and increased resistance to pesticides by the bed bugs, as well as increased travel.

The move away from DDT towards less toxic and more targeted chemicals left America exposed to the return of their scourge. Earlier pesticides killed a broad range of insects. While they might have been marketed for cockroaches, they also wiped out bed bugs and other pests.

That left relatively few available formulations designed specifically for bed bugs. The narrow range made it easier for the bugs to build up resistance.

"Generally I can guarantee that they will be tolerant to at least one or more of the things that are being used against them," said Harold Harlan, the leading bug expert for the US military. "They've been exposed to chemicals so they are more resistant to chemicals."

Bed bugs do not transmit disease, but the bites can become infected – which they do in about 30% of those bitten, leaving them scratching red raised welts.

The tiny reddish-brown insects were once practically unheard of in the US. In the late 60s university entomologists were complaining about the scarcity of research samples. But by 2004, the bed bugs were back.

Since 2005, bed bug outbreaks have tripled across America, according to a survey of 800 pest control firms across the country. Bed bug control now makes up a rapidly rising share of the business.

In the north-eastern United States, especially New York City, pest control companies now make 9% of their earnings from trying to clear out bed bugs, Bob Rosenberg of the National Pest Management Association told the conference.

The scourge has also spawned its own subculture of victims, or more properly hosts.

The bitten, who may once have kept quiet out of shame, are turned activists, setting up tracking outbreaks, and personal accounts of infected bites and other horrors.

The infestations have gone beyond New York, with regular and persistent outbreaks reported in Honolulu, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Chicago, Houston and Miami. They are also concentrated in poor neighbourhoods, where people can not afford to call in the exterminators or to replace or professionally clean bedding and soft furnishing.

Commercial poultry farms, especially those where birds are allowed to roam around the hen house floor, are another newly discovered source.

Pesticides alone are unlikely to wipe the bed bugs out - and it's unrealistic to expect all those affected to treat or destroy infested furnishings. That means Americans can expect to co-habit with bed bugs for some time.

"The fact that we got rid of them for 50 years in the United States is now looking miraculous," she said.

What Is the Most Useless Baby Product of All?

Not long after starting to raise a child (or three), you begin to realize that you don’t need a lot of the stuff baby stores try to convince parents to buy.

The marketing onslaught that new parents face is right up there with the wedding industrial machine targeting brides-to-be. The implicit (sometimes explicit) message presented is: How could you not do everything possible for your baby (or your marriage)? New parents are clueless and weak, easy prey to get suckered into buying even the silliest products that claim to make a baby safer or happier, or in any way make a parent’s job easier.

You walk through the baby stores and there are many, many cute matching bed sets for your baby’s crib. They all come with the cute sheets, bumper pads, dust ruffles and comforter. Everything perfectly coordinated and just gorgeous. You spend a small fortune on your favorite one, only to see on television once you get home that you should not be using a bumper pad in your crib or cover your infant with the comforter. Both of these items can pose a suffucation hazard for little ones. So what’s the point in spending all of that money to buy a whole matching crib set when you can’t even use half of it?

The Zaky is a beanbag doll shaped like a forearm and hand that’s designed to cuddle with your baby when flesh and blood are not available. To make it seem more like a human limb, parents can warm the Zaky in a dryer and scent it by wrapping it around their own necks for several hours.

um, yes, tell me again why this is necessary. are wipes really THAT cold?

Baby powder is on every baby aisle. It smells good, it’s right next to the baby shampoo and you remember hearing your mother talking about putting powder on your little baby behind when you were and infant. So why is it a useless baby product when it seems like the natural thing to buy when shopping for baby supplies? Because it is recommended that parents do not use baby powder on their babies any longer. It’s easily inhaled by your little one if you use it, which can cause respiratory problems. Plus if you do use it on your baby’s bottom then it’s just going to get all clumpy and yucky as soon as they wet their diaper the first time. It’s best to stick to baby lotion and forget about the powder.

At about $50, this is one of the most useless baby products ever. You might as well grab a $50 bill and light it on fire. Sure, you want your baby’s bottles and pacifiers to be clean, but do they need to be steam sterilized? Um, no. Have a dishwasher? How about a sink, Palmolive, and a hot water heater? Then you’re just fine. Take that $50 and buy a $3 bottle brush. Spend the remaining $47 on heavily caffeinated beverages — something you’ll actually need.

So they (by “they,” I mean the evil baby product marketeers) have this product you can buy that looks like a little paper cone. They call it a Pee-Pee Teepee . Its purpose is to prevent a warm stream of your son’s urine from shooting you in the eye like a cruel joke. The ones shown in the picture here are in the style of the “Wild West,” according to the company that makes them, as if this is the OK Corral and your only hope to prevent a gunfight (of pee) is to buy these.

Pee-Pee Teepees come in a pack of five for $12. We use something similar. It’s called a paper towel. You can get a roll of them for about a buck.