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To no one’s surprise except, perhaps, the pampered couple, Eldridge lost the race to the Republican incumbent 65 percent to 35 percent. In light of the massive amounts of money Hughes dumped into the race, it was one of the most humiliating defeats in the last election cycle. But Eldridge’s political ambition is not likely to be satiated. Several years ago, before he ever announced his candidacy, a source close to Eldridge told me that he had SKDKnickerbocker draw up a plan for him to become the first openly gay president of the United States (Eldridge was born in Canada and until recently held both Canadian and Israeli citizenship, which would make it difficult to overcome the Constitution’s natural-born citizenship clause). Expect the couple to find another mansion in a safe Democratic district where an aging representative is expected to retire.
One suspects that had this couple been heterosexual and conservative, the initial media attention would not have been quite so toadying. We would have no doubt been treated to endless stories about how a “rapacious” “right-wing” millionaire, who had done nothing to earn his fortune, set out to destroy one of liberalism’s great institutions all the while enabling his power-mad spouse to “buy” a seat in Congress. But everything about the Hughes-Eldridge pairing militated against such a portrayal. The prospect of a fresh-faced, conventionally liberal, gay couple hit every media sweet spot.
Hughes and Eldridge are not “role models for a future generation of… gay people,” as The Advocate absurdly stated. They are little more than entitled brats who, like most fabulously wealthy arrivistes who attain their fortunes through sheer luck rather than hard work, are used to getting everything they want, when they want it, and throw temper tantrums when they don’t.
In their elitism and sense of entitlement, they represent much of what liberals are supposed to despise. Most in the media and gay community were perfectly willing to ignore this imposture when the couple was throwing their money at the right causes and dispensing jobs to their journalist and political consultant friends. Hughes and Eldridge were beneficiaries of a corrupt and compliant media and political establishment that grasped at their filthy lucre. Only now that the fairy tale has come crashing down—a magazine destroyed, a devastating political loss suffered—is the herd willing to admit the obvious.
Fire officials say a fire from a hydrogen fuel tank explosion near the Rochester International Airport is “contained,” but roads remain closed in the area.
Officials say the explosion happened at the Monroe County Green Alternative Fueling Station on Scottsville Road in suburban Gates.
County Executive Maggie Brooks is scheduled to hold a press briefing shortly.
State Rep. Rick Glazier of Fayetteville announced today he will seek a 7th term to the state House of Representatives.
Glazier, a Democrat, serves the 44th state House district and again faces Republican Richard Button,� a retired mechanical engineer from Hope Mills. Glazier defeated Button 56 percent to 44 percent in 2012.
If re-elected, Glazier said, he wants to continue his efforts to better public education, improve the state's infrastructure, advocate for assistance for military families, reduce poverty and lessen income inequality.
He also attacks the Republican majority that has controlled the legislature since 2011.
I am deeply concerned about the dramatic overreach and destructive ideological path the Republican majority has forced upon the State, ripping apart our educational infrastructure, demoralizing teachers and faculty, removing the true safety net for our most vulnerable citizens, and imposing a regressive tax plan that will increase the taxes on most working North Carolinians.
When the Democrats were in power in the General Assembly, Glazier was one of the top-ranked members of the House. Even after the Republicans took control, he remained influential, in 2011 ranking 24th out of 120 in the effectiveness rankings issued by the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research.
A former defense lawyer, Glazier teaches criminal justice at Fayetteville State University and is an adjunct professor at the Campbell University School of Law. Glazier also served six years on the Cumberland County Board of Education.
The new budget deal passed by Congress will make an impact here in Florida. Billions of dollars in disaster relief is on the way.
Senator Bill Nelson and Senator Marco Rubio sent a request to the Army Corps of Engineers, encouraging them to use money in the budget deal to speed up repairs at the Herbert Hoover Dike.
Nelson said if they can get $200 million for the next five years they can finish construction at the dike by 2022 instead of 2025.
“This is a win especially for the folks around Lake Okeechobee,” said Nelson.
The disaster relief will also help citrus farmers with billions of dollars in federal funding to help farmers avoid bankruptcy.
State Representative Lois Frankel voted against the budget deal saying in a statement she didn’t like the fact that immigration reform was not included.
Last night, Trevor Noah broke down CNN’s Town Hall to examine the Democratic candidates’ last-effort appeals to shake things up before the Iowa caucus. While Noah acknowledged that town halls were “like a rap battle against no one,” he expressed appreciation for a chance outside of the debate format for the candidates to elaborate on their positions.
After Noah ribbed at Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley over their respective performances, he turned his attention towards Hillary Clinton turning up the heat, pointing to some of her more awkward moments in the spotlight. When Noah arrived at Clinton being cornered by the question about her honesty, he particularly pointed to how her response was passionate, but also appeared like she was about to boil over on the inside.
“She’s restrained, but you can feel on the inside she’s taking off her earrings,” Noah said. “It’s all in the subtext,” he continued, and from there, he showed the clip again with his take on how Clinton really thought about the question (spoiler alert: its quite catty).
NEWS ANALYSIS: Apple has started a program to fix iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus handsets with so called "touch disease" failures for $149.
When Apple iPhone 6 Plus devices started showing up with a strange failure mode earlier this year, users were mystified at first.
The problem, which soon became known as “touch disease,” emerged when handsets stopped responding to touch commands and a flickering gray bar appeared at the top of the screen. The details of smartphone failures were first described in detail by iFixit, an electronics repair website.
Initially, Apple’s response to iPhone owners who experienced the problem when their phones were out of warranty was an offer to sell them a replacement phone at an out-of-warranty price, usually around $349. Now, Apple has introduced a program to fix phones for a lower price, $149.
The Touch Disease issue with the iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus is a direct result of the light, flexible construction of the handset's case which allowed the phone to bend in normal use, such as when stowing in phone in trouser pockets or handbags. The case's lack of strength and resulting flexibility is the apparent cause of Touch Disease.
The flexing apparently causes two “Touch IC” chips inside the phone to break free from the phone’s system board. Once the connections break, the phone can no longer sense pressure on the screen and it stops responding.
“For quite a long time Apple wasn’t able to repair those phones,” said Julia Bluff, director of advocacy for iFixit. “It requires a board level repair specialist,” Bluff explained. “You had to replace those Touch IC chips. Apple can’t do that. Apple wasn’t giving consumers any options other than buying an out of warranty replacement unit,” something that didn't sit well with many users.
The obvious question for folks with an iPhone 6 Plus or 6s Plus is what to do if your phone hasn’t started giving any trouble. Basically there are three options. One is to sell or trade in your phone now while you still can and buy something else, perhaps an iPhone 7 Plus.
Another option is to wait for the failure to happens, which then gives the owner the choice of going to Apple to fix or exchange your phone or having a repair shop fix it.
Taking it to an independent repair shop likely means that your phone will actually be repaired and made stronger so it won’t break again. But that means paying to fix a phone that you bought only recently. How did Apple let this happen?
Zeichick said that because it was Apple’s poor design, that the company should replace the phones with units that don’t have the flaw. “This should be an out of warranty replacement,” Zeichick said.
Zeichick noted that other iPhones have had similar problems and that in those cases the devices were simply replaced. The original iPhone 5 had a problem where in some cases the batteries would start to swell and lift the screen away from the smartphone's face, he explained, adding that his phone at the time was replaced.
“This should not be at any cost to the customer. It’s a design flaw or a faulty component,” he said.
What concerns several observers is that similar problems keep happening. When the iPhone 6 Plus bending problem appeared, for example, perhaps Apple should have beefed up the design of the case. But there have been a series of such problems.
At this point, it’s not clear why it took Apple so long to recognize that Touch Disease is a real problem. Perhaps it’s because the company didn’t have a good way to fix the failing phones and saw selling replacements as the only options.
It may also be that Apple’s executives really believe that the company has the best products available and didn’t foresee the need for a fix to products that had been bending since day one.
A great white shark lair has been discovered in the Pacific Ocean, providing insight into why the voracious predators have been flocking to a mysterious region that researchers had deemed a barren, empty void.
Researchers from five scientific institutions set out on an expedition last spring, led by Stanford University and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, to determine what was drawing the sharks to the spot between Baja California and Hawaii, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
From the surface, the region appeared to be void of any prey or suitable habitat for great whites, yet each year the sharks made a pilgrimage to the spot.
Researchers now have established that the area is not barren at all, but is home to a plethora of squid and smaller fish that served as prey to the sharks.
The team came to their conclusion after tracking 20 individual tagged sharks to the area, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Ten of these tags were recovered, which contained essential data of the sharks’ migration habits.
The researchers then used various oceanographic instruments and methods to study the ocean conditions and marine life at the location.
“We found a high diversity of deep-sea fish and squids (over 100 species), which in combination with observations made by the ROV and DNA sequencing, demonstrate a viable trophic pathway to support large pelagic organisms such as sharks and tunas,” said lead researcher Barbara Block.
Jorgensen said their research determined that the region was “extremely important for white sharks,” which were "tracking [prey] day and night,” according to Fox News. “It’s a game of hide-and-seek,” he said.
Angelina Jolie Denies Being Fame Hungry Teen: Took Up Acting To Help Mom Marcheline Bertrand To Pay The Bills?
Angelina Jolie recently said that she took up acting as a teen to help her mother Marcheline Bertrand pay the bills, yet many critics don’t believe this claim. The Hollywood actress recently said that she fell into acting as a way to help support her mother during tough times following Marcheline’s divorce from Jon Voight.
In a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Angelina said that she never wanted to be an actress, but it was something she felt she needed to do to help her family. She even said that she’s taken on less roles since her mother’s death just because she wants to pursue other projects in her life instead.
A lot of Angelina Jolie’s critics believe that she might not be telling the entire truth as to why she started angry. Angelina wants the world to believe that she was never a fame hungry teen, yet a lot of critics say it was her father Jon Voight who helped make her the big Hollywood name that she is today. Both of her parents were performers and Jon Voight was in the prime of his career during Angelina’s teenage years.
In the meantime, don’t forget to check back with CDL for all the latest news and updates on Angelina Jolie right here!
Wild fennel is a perennial weed with a penetrating, sweet smell.
Wearing gloves for pulling weeds protects your hands from abrasion and scratches and also from the odors many weeds emit, especially when they're handled or crushed. Often the odors signal the presence of chemicals in the plants that are harmful if the plant is eaten. Sometimes the sap of smelly weeds can be irritating to your skin. A few weeds have pleasant smells, too.
Often growing in large groups, pineapple weed (Chamomilla suaveolens), a 6- to 12-inch-tall annual plant, has finely dissected foliage and pineapple-shaped yellow flowers. It releases a pleasant, sweet fragrance that resembles pineapple when it's walked on or otherwise crushed. Another small weed that resembles pineapple weed, mayweed chamomile (Anthemis cotula) differs in that it has small, white, daisylike flowers, more finely dissected leaves, and an unpleasant odor when crushed.
One of the largest-growing and smelliest weeds, datura (Datura spp.), also known as stinkweed, has two sources of odor. The leaves have an unpleasant smell and the white, trumpet-shaped flowers have a powerful, sweet fragrance. Depending on the species, the plants can reach 2 to 5 feet tall. They grow in waste areas and have round, spiny fruits. All plant parts are poisonous if eaten. Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium) is an annual plant that can reach 4 feet tall. Probably the tallest scented weed, fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a perennial growing from 4 to 10 feet tall. It has a licoricelike sweet odor when crushed. It grows in open, disturbed areas in USDA zones 4 through 9, often in dense stands. Native to the Mediterranean, fennel has feathery leaves and a broad, flat head of yellow flowers.
Distinctive because of the round, flat pods it bears, field pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) is a member of the mustard family, or Cruciferae, and is a winter or summer annual native to Europe. It grows to about 18 inches tall with clusters of small, white flowers at branch tips. It has an unpleasant smell, especially when crushed. The foliage is pungently flavored with a taste between garlic and mustard. Combining a strong odor with a sticky substance produced by glandular hairs on its leaves and stems, clammyweed (Polanisia dodecandra) has conspicuous, long, slender seed pods that follow the showy white flowers, which possess long, pink to purple stamens. This Mediterranean annual weed grows 1 to 3 feet tall.
In areas with moist soils such as meadows, marsh edges and pools in floodplains, pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) can be an invasive weed. The low-growing, spreading plant has a strong, minty odor. This European native grows in USDA zones 6 through 9. Violet, pink or blue flowers bloom in whorls along the upper stem areas. Also native to Europe, common yarrow (Achillea millefolium), which grows in USDA zones 3 through 9, has ferny-looking leaves and clusters of white or yellow flowers at stalk ends. The leaves have a pleasant, sagelike odor that lasts even in dried plants. Besides naturalizing into plant communities, such as salt marshes, grasslands, coastal bluffs and sand dunes, common yarrow is a weed in lawns and landscapes.
Plants for a Future: Mentha Pulegium - L.
Chaney, Cathryn. "Weeds That Emit Odor." Home Guides \| SF Gate, http://homeguides.sfgate.com/weeds-emit-odor-104202.html. Accessed 26 April 2019.
A 53-year-old investigator for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office shot and killed himself yesterday afternoon in a stairwell of the Brooklyn Municipal Building at 210 Joralemon Street, the police said.
He was identified as Anthony C. Alico of 593 East 84th Street in Brooklyn.
A police spokesman, Sgt. Raymond O'Donnell, said that Mr. Alico's body was found on the stairwell between the second and third floors at about 2:30 P.M. He had been assigned to the District Attorney's Supreme Court Bureau, which is on the third floor.
Sergeant O'Donnell said that associates of Mr. Alico said that he had been depressed and lost a lot of weight in recent weeks.
Kyle Busch celebrates after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway on March 17 in Fontana, Calif.
It was yet another spectacular afternoon in Southern California: temperature just above 80 degrees, hardly a cloud in a beautiful blue sky, snow-capped mountains as a backdrop and shimmering palm trees in the foreground. This was a perfect day for soaking in the sun for a few hours.
Apparently, all but about 35,000 people decided to do that somewhere other than Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., where Kyle Busch rolled to an easy NASCAR Monster Energy Cup victory, the 200th national victory of his career. No more than half of the 68,000 red-and-yellow seats appeared to be filled.
Oddly, selling tickets to a stock-car race in a metropolis of 19 million wedded to the automobile has been difficult recently. Auto Club Speedway started in 1997 with only one NASCAR Cup race a year, went to two per year from 2004 to 2010, then dropped back to one race because of a lack of interest.
If NASCAR is really serious about trimming back its too-long 36-race Cup schedule, there should be zero Cup races a year in Southern California. Attendance has been, and should be, much better. Fontana sits about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, but the track sits in the middle of a web of freeways.
But there is another important consideration: the overwhelming majority of NASCAR’s fans -- both the fans who watch races live and on television -- are in the Southeastern United States, in the Eastern time zone. The race at Fontana started at 3:48 p.m. Eastern time.
That is a long time for a majority of any fan base to sit around and wait, especially if those fans are waiting three hours for an event to which a measly 35,000 people show up. If the stands would have been packed, like not too long ago, maybe it would be a different, but the demand was not there.
Part of the problem is that Auto Club Speedway is not an interesting place to watch a NASCAR race. Roger Penske built a two-mile oval at what was then called California Speedway on the site of an old steel mill for both NASCAR and IndyCar races.
The IndyCar Series raced at Fontana only eight times before dropping the site from the schedule in 2016. There was demand for one NASCAR race there a year, but not two, and NASCAR had already ticked off the old-timers by plucking away a second race a year from beloved Darlington to hand to Fontana. Darlington has not gotten its second race back.
The Auto Club Speedway track is showing its age, especially as television cameras caught the cars trying to power down a very bumpy backstretch. Fox ran a side-by-side shot of the Cup cars with old black-and-white footage of jalopies toddling down a dirt road. Haha.
Busch won both race stages and led 132 of 200 laps, winning by a healthy 2.3-second margin over Joey Logano, who drives for Penske and led a parade of four Ford drivers to finish behind Busch’s Toyota, including two other Penske drivers. It was not a very exciting race.
But that was only one of the optics problems with Auto Club Speedway. The Goodyear blimp flew overhead during the race, showing grandstands that were stunningly empty. Only a few hundred fans were in some sections. Those stands were filled three years ago.
NASCAR is generally having a better season in 2019 than in 2018, with modest gains in television ratings and similar attendances at its first four Cup races of the season. This was not a step back, but Auto Club Speedway hardly made an argument for avoiding the cut.
I am just thinking of how many people would have come to a racetrack that has been abandoned by NASCAR that is in NASCAR’s wheelhouse -- a track like, say, Rockingham, or even a second race at Darlington. The stands are smaller there, but they’d be more filled. Better optics.
NASCAR has some interesting decisions about what to do with its national racing series moving into the next decade. It is clear that there are still fans in NASCAR’s cradle, or backwoods still, and NASCAR needs to double down and play to its base.
The places where NASCAR expanded during its great national push just are not as interested anymore, which is OK. Besides, watching a race is a time-tested way of passing a Sunday afternoon, not a late Sunday afternoon turned into early Sunday evening.
West Coast people enjoy NASCAR, too, just not anywhere close to as many as in the East, and, more specifically, the Southeast. Hey, West Coast people get up at 10 a.m. for NFL games. The next race, at Martinsville, Va., starts after 11 a.m. Pacific time, by the way.
Selected companies will have the opportunity to send three people to Apple Park for a 'two-week immersive program' that includes one-one-one coding help from Apple engineers and lessons on design, technology, and App Store marketing.
Apple has a new opportunity aimed squarely at female app developers.
The Cupertino, Calif. tech giant just launched a new Entrepreneur Camp for app-driven organizations founded and led by women. During its pilot session, slated to begin this January, Apple will mentor 10 companies.
Selected companies will have the opportunity to send three people to Apple Park for a "two-week immersive program" that includes one-one-one coding help from Apple engineers and lessons on design, technology, and App Store marketing. Companies will also receive ongoing support and two tickets to Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference.
"Apple is committed to helping more women assume leadership roles across the tech sector and beyond," CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "We're proud to help cultivate female leadership in the app development community with the new Apple Entrepreneur Camp, and we're inspired both by the incredible work that's already happening, and what's sure to come."
To be eligible, companies must be female-founded, co-founded, or led, and have at least one woman on the development team. Apple also wants you to have a working app or prototype to work with.
In its announcement, Apple said female entrepreneurs received $1.9 billion in funding last year while men received $83.1 billion.
"Despite such obstacles, women-owned businesses are growing more than two times faster than the US national average, with women-led tech startups delivering a 35 percent higher return on investment than tech startups led by men," the company wrote.
Following the pilot, Apple will hold its Entrepreneur Camp quarterly with 20 companies selected for each round. Interested in taking part in Apple's Entrepreneur Camp? Head here to apply.
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The Iranian backed Hezbollah militant group denied on Friday that any of its fighters were killed in Yemen after claims by the Saudi-led coalition that it killed eight of its members there.
The coalition battling Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen on Monday said its forces killed eight members of Hezbollah, including a commander, in the northern Maran province.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday dodged the question of whether he had fighters in Yemen but denied any had been killed.
“We’ve recently said that for certain reasons and interests, we do not say whether we have a presence in Yemen,” Nasrallah said during a televised address.
“But whether we’re there or not, I categorically deny that there are Hezbollah martyrs in Yemen — not in the last few days nor in recent years,” he said.
“Is there something else? We do not deny, we do not confirm,” he said on Friday.
The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly accused Hezbollah and its backer Iran of providing help to Huthi rebels, including ballistic missiles from Tehran that have targeted Saudi Arabia.
Monday was the first time the coalition officially announced Hezbollah deaths in Yemen, although its spokesman Colonel Turki al-Maliki said they were not the first Hezbollah fighters killed there.

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