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Since players are only human, and young, it’s understandable that boredom with mid-major opponents would be setting in after seven such games, this one coming at the end of final exam week. “We plan on playing in March,” Christian Vital told reporters. “I do feel like we have time to pick it up until then.” Thankfully, there’s only one left, Drexel on Tuesday, but the Huskies are going to have to do a lot of things better in that game — and beyond.
The Huskies plan to visit Naylor Elementary School on Franklin Ave. in Hartford on Monday, a three-hour holiday party with activities and gift-giving for the fifth-graders. … Later, Jim Calhoun will stage his 20th holiday food drive, with the help of ShopRite, Omar Coffee, and the City of Hartford, and distribute 500 turkeys with fixings to families in need at the Samuel Arroyo Center at Pope Park, 5:30 to 7 p.m. This year, Calhoun will be joined by his new players at St. Joseph, several of whom are from Hartford or nearby towns.
Bring back the McCrory of 2008!
In other words, a law was written secretly in the dead of the night to protect a campaign donor with no public sunlight or input.
Obviously, as occurred with his infamous repudiations of his 2012 promise to approve no further restrictions on access to abortion services, something changed between the 2008 campaign and McCrory becoming Governor in 2013 and it wasn’t good.
It’s too bad. Some of those 2008 promises made a lot of sense.
The actions of David Lewis are consistent with political corruption. His graft scored $5000 in personal gain, but may have cost NC education $250,000. This incident is yet another example that shows that privatization of services does not always benefit the state’s interests, but always lines the pockets of politicians.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Huami (NYSE: HMI), the second largest wearables company globally, announced today the U.S. availability of Amazfit Verge, the futuristic smartwatch that combines voice controlled Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the ability to make phone calls in an ultramodern, sophisticated design. Also launched today is the Amazfit “Giftness of Fitness” initiative, a month-long online program in which certified fitness professionals serve as holiday shopping concierge's to help people find the perfect fitness gift for loved ones.
To take advantage of the free holiday shopping concierge, simply start a chat with Amazfit on Facebook Messenger. The brand will also be sharing gift-giving insights, savings, and giveaways using the hashtag, #GiftnessOfFitness across its social channels throughout the month of December.
The Amazfit Verge smartwatch app, “Amazfit Watch” is available for free on iOS and Android. Amazfit Verge is now available to purchase on Amazfit.com for $159.99 (https://us.amazfit.com/shop/verge) and product will ship by December 18.
Huami is a biometric and activity data-driven company with significant expertise in smart wearable technology. Since its inception in 2013, Huami has quickly established its global market leadership and recognition by shipping millions of units of smart wearable devices. In 2017, Huami shipped 18.1 million units of smart wearable devices. Huami has one of the largest biometric and activity databases in the global smart wearables industry. Huami's mobile apps work hand in hand with its smart wearable devices and provide users with a comprehensive view and analysis of their biometric and activity data. In addition to designing, manufacturing and selling smart bands and watches under its own Amazfit brand, Huami is the sole partner of Xiaomi, a leading mobile internet company and global consumer electronics brand, to design and manufacture Xiaomi-branded smart bands, watches (excluding children watches and quartz watches), scales and associated accessories.
For more information please visit https://us.amazfit.com/ and follow along with #GiftnessofFitness on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amazfit/?hl=en) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/amazfit?lang=en).
A sold sign hangs in front of a home on Sullivan St. in Toronto's Chinatown.
Toronto is in the midst of a housing heat wave, with sales activity and prices both breaking new records in July. But one thing that seems capable of putting the brakes on the market is what the Toronto Real Estate Board has called the "troubling trend" of a shrinking supply of homes for sale, particularly detached homes.
Several new reports out Monday point to just how much the lack of supply – particularly of detached houses, townhouses and other so-called "ground-oriented" housing – has helped drive the region's house prices into the stratosphere.
Frank Clayton, senior research fellow at Ryerson University's Centre for Urban Research and Land Development, examined a handful of recent surveys of consumer housing preferences in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). He found that despite provincial policies that have encouraged a dramatic shift toward building condos rather than houses, most prospective buyers in the region say they prefer a detached house or other low-rise properties, such as townhouses.
Millennial home buyers prefer condos in slightly higher numbers, but most also say they are looking to purchase a low-rise house, according to Mr. Clayton's research.
House sales numbers back up his research. Low-rise houses made up 66 per cent of all homes sold in the region last year, compared to 34 per cent for condos. Detached resale home prices grew 12 per cent last year, even as resale condo prices rose just 5 per cent.
"Many households demand a single-detached house with a yard as their preferred abode," Mr. Clayton wrote, warning that to restrict the supply of low-rise housing and encourage more high-rise condo construction "will lead to even higher house prices … and huge capital gain windfalls for the lucky owners of existing houses and vacant lands on which new ground-related homes could be built."
Detached and semi-detached properties made up less than 27 per cent of new housing starts in the GTA last year, down from nearly 40 per cent in 2009, CIBC World Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal and researcher Katherine Judge point out in a separate report.
While new home construction has picked up steam in Ontario this year, much of the growth has come outside of the GTA, in communities such as Hamilton, St. Catharines and London, says Bank of Nova Scotia senior economist Adrienne Warren.
Both Mr. Clayton and the CIBC economists point the finger at provincial policies aimed at curbing urban sprawl that have restricted the amount of new land available for low-density housing developments and driven up the costs of building new houses. The Ontario government recently proposed even higher density targets for municipalities, which will also add to the shortage of land for detached homes, the CIBC economists say.
At the same time, extended low interest rates have created an "affordability mirage" that has only fuelled demand, enabling more people to stretch themselves financially to buy into the GTA housing market, even in the face of skyrocketing prices.
With little room for new supply of low-rise housing, Mr. Tal and Ms. Judge suggest that financial regulators instead continue to target demand by tightening mortgage lending standards even further. They propose increasing the qualifying rate for borrowers who take on five-year, fixed-rate mortgages. Ottawa should also raise the minimum down payment on insured mortgages between $500,000 and $1-million above the current 10 per cent. Furthermore, regulators should keep a closer eye on the private mortgage industry that targets subprime borrowers, which the economists say has increased its share of the mortgage market to 6 per cent.
RELATED: Find out how long it will take you to save for a down payment here.
They also argue that Toronto should be active about stemming the tide of foreign money into the region's housing market, which they estimate accounts for as much as 15 per cent of home sales, including locals who get money from family members abroad to buy homes. The CIBC economists propose a "flipping tax" on foreigners looking to speculate on GTA home prices, a tax on empty units and higher land transfer taxes for more expensive properties. Governments could also enact rules limiting international buyers to purchasing only newly built homes, similar to Australia.
But the most important changes will come from policies that encourage more people to rent instead of buy, Mr. Tal and Ms. Judge said. Too few people are opting to rent in Toronto's increasingly expensive housing market, they said. A shift toward renting will be critical in easing Toronto's affordability woes and preventing a house price correction when interest rates eventually rise.
"While we all hear about the tight rental market in the GTA, the reality is that the propensity to rent in the GTA did not rise in recent years in a way that is consistent with the rapid pace of house price appreciation," they wrote.
The economists called on municipalities to provide more tax incentives to new rental housing developments, lower development charges for new rental buildings and find ways to encourage developers to build larger, family-friendly rental units.
Micromax's Yu Yuphoria has LTE and an HD screen, but still costs just $110 without a contract.
The Micromax Yu Yuphoria the Xiaomi Mi 4i's combination of impressive specs and aggressive pricing will put pressure on the likes of Samsung Electronics and Motorola Mobility to step up their efforts in the segment for sub-US$200 smartphones.
"It's more pain for the established vendors. These devices have the potential to reset customer expectations," said Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight.
The Yu Yuphoria was launched on Tuesday in India. It's an LTE smartphone that will cost about $110 without a contract in that country. It has a 5-inch, 720 x 1280 pixel screen and a Snapdragon 410 processor. The specification also includes an 8-megapixel main camera and a 5-megapixel front camera, as well as 2GB of RAM and 16GB of integrated storage. While smartphones in this price category used to look as cheap as they were, the Yuphoria has a metal frame to help it look more premium.
The Xiaomi Mi 4i is more expensive at just above $200, but offers better specs. The 5-inch screen has a 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution and the processor is Qualcomm's more powerful Snapdragon 615. The main camera has a 13-megapixel resolution. It, too, has a 5-megapixel front camera, LTE, 16GB of integrated storage and 2GB of RAM.
The two devices share another common feature: They leave competing devices in the dust by offering smartphone buyers a lot more bang for their buck.
The second generation Moto G from Motorola may have a 5-inch, 720 x 1280 pixel screen and an 8-megapixel camera just like the Yuphoria. But the front camera only has a 2-megapixel resolution, the amount of storage and RAM is half of what the Yuphoria has, and the price tag is still $170. There is also an LTE version available in some parts of the world that makes the price difference even larger.
Samsung's midrange smartphones also come off looking expensive, in comparison. The Galaxy A5 is just like the Mi 4i, an LTE smartphone with a 13-megapixel camera, 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. But it has the less powerful Snapdragon 410 under the hood and the 5-inch screen isn't full HD. Instead, users have to make do with 720 x 1280 pixels and still pay about $350.
Even if the newcomers offer great specs for little money, Samsung and Motorola think they have an edge.
"They hope they'll be able to command a premium for their brand, but that margin is being eroded all the time," Wood said.
The Yu Yuphoria and the Mi 4i are unlikely to go on sale in the U.S. and Europe, because Micromax and Xiaomi continue to focus on their respective home markets, along with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Russia for Micromax, and India, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia for Xiaomi.
However, the repercussions will likely result in better products that will go on sale globally. Samsung is dependent on this segment of the market to keep its volumes up, so the company must come up with a competitive response, according to Wood. And Samsung sells its products in as many markets as it possibly can. With the exception of the second generation Moto G with LTE, Motorola has also shipped its affordable smartphones all over the world.
There are several reasons for the ascent of Micromax and Xiaomi. The biggest one is arguably that developing smartphones has become much easier, and companies no longer need a big research and development department.
"Virtually all phones are manufactured in China or Taiwan, and the ecosystem there is so ripe that everyone gets access to the same components and materials," Sanjay Kapoor, chairman at Micromax, said in an interview earlier this year. "So if you manage your overheads right, you can build world-class products."
Samsung and Motorola didn't immediately respond to questions about their future plans.
‘You can work as research assistant to Ralph Miliband.’ Thus my tutor at the London School of Economics gave me the news that he had found a way for me to finance my first year of study for an intended PhD on the Labour party’s housing policy between the world wars.
The idea was that for twelve months between 1964 and 1965 I would help analyse the changing occupational structure of the British workforce by comparing statistics contained in the 1851 census with those in the 1951 census. As a first step, my new boss took me for a drink in the coffee bar next door to the main entrance of the LSE.
Our discussion about the intended project went well. We were both enthusiasts for demographic statistical analysis. But then we got on to politics and the rest of our meeting was a social disaster. The problem was that I had very strong views on the tyranny of mind and body that I had seen the previous year when on a trip to the Communist bloc countries with the LSE chess club.
In the coffee bar I persisted in describing to Ralph my experience of Communist regimes. In Prague I had walked through a dark and shadowy Wenceslas Square with the chairman of the Prague chess club. He had been educated in Brighton and longed for freedom of speech. He was too terrified to speak to us in a building, and even in the deserted square he spoke in whispers.
In Hungary, I had sat in a sidewalk café in front of a wall riddled with bullet holes; holes created when people had been shot during the 1956 uprising.
I went on to describe the train journey from Budapest to Moscow. One of our party had asked our young Intourist guide if the watch towers we could see in the distance belonged to a concentration camp. Our guide, the son of a senior Russian official, had replied, ‘There are no concentration camps in the Soviet Union.’ When asked how he knew this, he said, ‘My father told me.’ The members of the LSE chess club had collapsed into fits of giggles.
And as I told Ralph, things got even worse when we went on to Poland and East Germany. Warsaw seemed freer; but I was none too keen on the soldiers lying on the railway embankments with their guns aimed at the underside of our train looking for escapees to shoot.
As for East Germany: I had been terrified by the sight of military police parading through the streets and training their guns under the bridges so they could shoot anybody who tried to escape to the West by swimming along the river. I could not see how all this authoritarianism benefited people either mentally or physically. Some people seemed to be near starvation, and the streets of East Berlin seemed to have more horses and carts than cars.
When I got to describing my cynicism at seeing a newspaper poster saying ‘Walter Ulbricht 99 per cent certain of being elected’, I realised just how agitated Ralph had become. He sprang to Ulbricht’s defence, and appeared to be blind to the East German dictator’s failings — he even refused to condemn the building of the Berlin Wall. I realised that Ralph was an enthusiast for the very regimes I had come to hate. In my three years at LSE as an undergraduate, I had sat through many a lecture and coffee bar discussion in which Marxists looked forward to the contradictions in capitalism leading to its collapse and to the advent of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But I was appalled by how hardline Ralph Miliband was. He must have known of the hardship suffered by people in Communist countries, but for him, I suppose, the end justified the means. The Communist countries were heading towards a Marxist heaven. There might be teething problems on the way; but things were better in East Germany than in Britain.
Ralph did not hate Britain. He just wanted to make it better by transforming it into a Communist state, and that meant destroying a lot of Britain’s social institutions because they promoted and buttressed social in-equality. The dictatorship of the proletariat would be preferable to Harold Wilson’s Labour government.
Despite our political dispute, I began work on the census volumes, but soon there were problems. The 1851 census volume on which I initially worked was owned by University College London. I used it each day while sitting at a table in a building that belonged to UCL in Flaxman Terrace near Euston station.
One morning I discovered that somebody had stolen the census volume overnight. Ralph was furious. Instead of blaming the security at UCL, he blamed me. The volume was very valuable and I would have to pay for it from my £750-a-year salary, he said. I refused to do so and he did climb down, but our relationship never really recovered.
The LSE also had a copy of the 1851 census, so I moved to work in its library. Unfortunately, the small print and bad lighting affected my eyes and my GP told me I should hand in my notice to preserve my eyesight. Ralph refused to accept it. ‘You undertook to work for me for a year’ was his response to my plight. So I soldiered on, only to be told a few months later that the computer on which my statistics were to be analysed was no longer available. With apologies, Ralph was making me redundant after six months.
I swallowed my pride and feminism and said yes, because I needed the job. But I was learning that those who pontificate most loudly about the rights of the workers en masse are often those who, faced with an individual worker, can be less than perfect in their treatment of that worker. And as for the PhD — it never got written.
The Pac-12 Conference's board of directors unanimously decided to extend the contract of Commissioner Larry Scott on Monday, giving him the opportunity to push forward with his plans to reshape the league through 2016.
All 12 university presidents who make up the board agreed to the extension.
Since taking over on July 1, 2009, Scott has overseen the conference's expansion to include Utah and Colorado. He also negotiated a landmark 12-year television contract last summer with Fox and ESPN worth about $3 billion and helped create the Pac-12 Network and Pac-12 Digital Network.
Manny Pacquiao has agreed to fight Timothy Bradley on June 9 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, promoter Bob Arum said Monday, and final negotiations could spawn an announcement as soon as Tuesday.
Arum huddled with Pacquiao manager Michael Koncz and Bradley manager Cameron Dunkin during the weekend in San Antonio, where 14,000 at the Alamodome watched Arum's middleweight champion, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., and new World Boxing Organization champion Nonito Donaire win bouts.
The 28-year-old Bradley, a 28-0 World Boxing Organization junior-welterweight champion from Cathedral City, has defeated another junior-welterweight champion, Lamont Peterson, along with Devon Alexander and veteran Joel Casamayor.
Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love was suspended two games by the NBA for stomping on Houston Rockets forward Luis Scola's face in their game Saturday.
The incident occurred when Scola fell to the court during the third quarter. As Love headed back to the other end, he stepped on Scola's face and upper body.
Love said after the game that the stomp was not intentional and he went to the Rockets' locker room to apologize to Scola.
The NBA also upgraded it to a flagrant-two foul on Love.
The suspension means the Timberwolves will be without their leading scorer and rebounder for a home game against Sacramento on Tuesday night and a game at Memphis on Wednesday night.
The Colorado Rockies acquired veteran right-hander Jeremy Guthrie from the Baltimore Orioles, a move that bolsters their young rotation.
In exchange, the Rockies sent reliever Matt Lindstrom and right-hander Jason Hammel to the Orioles.
The Seattle Mariners agreed to a $750,000, one-year contract with Shawn Camp and a $500,000, one-year deal with Hong-Chih Kuo in an attempt to add bullpen depth.
Kuo was an All-Star in 2010 with the Dodgers but struggled last season because of a back problem early in the season and missed a month because of anxiety disorder.
During his standout 2010 season, Kuo was 3-2 with 12 saves in 13 chances and a 1.20 earned-run average.
Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby practiced Monday but said he is no closer to returning from a concussion and neck injury that have sidelined him for most of the season.
Oh for crying out loud, LA hipsters, change the bloody record. The last thing music needs right now is more west coast hypnogogic pop, yet here we have Angelino Devon Williams hawking that same old hackneyed sub-Ariel Pink dreck. Worse still, the artist’s 3rd album constitutes the h-pop formula at its most unremarkable. Aside from the formless songwriting (see ‘Games’) and uneasy, no-man’s-land combination of urbane ’80s synthpop and bucolic ’60s twee (particularly on ‘Flowers’), on ‘Around In A Maze’ Williams adds insult to injury by reviving that most dreary of past pop forms: soft-focus ’70s balladry. Though the pretty good ‘Rabbit Hole’ sugars the pill, all told the predominance of Pink-by-numbers retro-bores like ‘Pendulum’ is too much to bare.
Facial recognition software is ‘almost entirely inaccurate’ and UK police forces should stop using it immediately, civil liberties campaigners warned today.
Big Brother Watch, through Freedom of Information requests, revealed 98 per cent of the Metropolitan Police’s ‘matches’ were wrong and in South Wales Police the figure was 91 per cent.
The software is used at the Notting Hill Carnival, sporting fixtures and music concerts to detect people on a watch list, including wanted criminals. Director of Big Brother Watch Silkie Carlo said: ‘We’re seeing ordinary people being asked to produce ID to prove their innocence as police are wrongly identifying thousands of innocent citizens as criminals. ‘It is deeply disturbing and undemocratic that police are using a technology that is almost entirely inaccurate, that they have no legal power for, and that poses a major risk to our freedoms.
‘This has wasted millions in public money and the cost to our civil liberties is too high. It must be dropped.’ Figures released by the Metropolitan Police showed there had been 102 false positives – cases where someone was incorrectly matched to a photo – and only two that were correct.
Neither of those was arrested – one was no longer wanted by police, and the other was classed as a ‘fixated individual’ who attended a Remembrance Day event. For South Wales, 2,451 out of 2,685 matches were found to be incorrect – 91%. Of the remaining 234, there were 110 interventions and 15 arrests. The force used the software at Uefa Champions League 2017 final in Cardiff, international rugby matches and Liam Gallagher and Kasabian concerts.
I seem to recall reading something about this a few weeks back and the Metro were defending it even though it was 90% wrong.
They love being able to spy on people.
They love being able to spy on the wrong people.
Secretary of Education Rod Paige enters his new job with more experience in urban schools than any of his six predecessors.
That's why urban educators are hopeful that the former Houston superintendent and school board member will champion their causes—such as increasing aid to city schools, providing construction funds, and forging a federal policy on urban education—even as he helps lead the charge for President Bush's own extensive set of K-12 proposals.
In an interview last week, Mr. Paige stopped short of saying he would shoulder his former colleagues' agenda, signaling that they may be in for some disappointment.
"I recognize there are things unique to urban settings, and things unique to others," the 67-year-old education secretary said. "Our focus is on the entire nation. The entire system must work."
For now, that stance is not likely to sour the honeymoon between Mr. Paige and urban school leaders.
"We're tickled pink that one of our own has been elevated to such an important office," said Pascal D. Forgione Jr., the superintendent of the Austin, Texas, schools. "The future of America is the future of urban education. If we're going to move America's productivity, we must move teaching and learning in the most complex learning centers."
While there may be small disagreements with the secretary on vouchers, we can share the concern about urban education," said William C. Thompson, the president of the New York City board of education.
Secretary Paige, for his part, promises to nurture his connections with urban educators. "Those guys are a tremendous source of valuable information. Assuming they'll cooperate, they'll be my lifeline," he said. "I'll be calling them."
Urban leaders had reason to hope for a more aggressive commitment to city schools from Mr. Paige, who begins his third week at the Department of Education this week.
After all, his was one of five names on a letter released last fall by the Council of the Great City Schools calling on the next president to make urban education a national priority. At the time, Mr. Paige was the secretary- treasurer of the Washington-based coalition of urban districts.
The document seeks support for increased spending on targeted federal programs and school construction, as well as help improving the climate for discussing urban education policy. "The gratuitous denigration of urban education is neither motivating nor productive," it states.
Clifford B. Janey, the superintendent of the 40,000-student Rochester, N.Y., schools, hopes Mr. Paige will use the document as a compass for federal policy on inner-city schools.
"It was done very thoughtfully," said Mr. Janey, whose name is also on the letter. "It offers opportunities for the federal government to position itself and intervene where appropriate."
But Mr. Paige explained last week that he did not actually sign the letter, and that his name appeared on it because he was an officer in the group.
"It's not a repudiation," he said of his clarification. "I'd simply say that my ideas are contained in the plan that the president has before Congress."
Asked if he would push for federal school construction aid, he said it was too early to make any promises, especially with so much work to do on Mr. Bush's plan.