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Paine Field signed a similar agreement in 2017 with Chubu Centrair International Airport in Japan.
This story has been modified to correct the year the county signed an agreement with Chubu Centrair International Airport.
Clinton confidante Ann Lewis promised a more efficient State Department. “Absent accountability,” she said, “there’s no reason State can’t work closely with Congress and the White House.” She added, however, that Mrs. Clinton now reserves the right to tell congressional committees to “pound sand” when they call her to ...
Lewis also revealed that Mrs. Clinton rejected a suggestion by Sandy “Pants” Berger, former National Security Advisor, that she proclaim herself “Secretary for Life,” subject to a show-of-hands ratification by Department careerists-a “Diplomats’ Free Choice Initiative,” Berger called it.
Department sources said Mrs. Clinton’s first foreign trip would be to New York to visit her summer home in Chappaqua.
NEW YORK — Well, finally.
Congress on Tuesday night extended dozens of expired “temporary” tax breaks for 2014.
It took the Senate, by a 76 to 16 vote, until the week after Congress was supposed to adjourn to pass the bill, which the House had already approved.
The bill will now be sent to President Obama, who is expected to sign it.
The majority of tax breaks in the bill pertain to businesses, but a handful will affect individuals.
Among those who will benefit from the retroactive extension to January 1, 2014: Teachers who buy classroom supplies, mass-transit commuters, residents of states with no income tax, parents with kids in college, some homeowners and some retirees with IRAs.
The bill also includes a new provision that will benefit disabled adults.
What’s not clear yet is whether passage of the tax extenders bill so late in the year will force the IRS to delay when you can start filing your 2014 taxes, which typically begins in mid-January.
Deduction for teachers’ expenses: This measure lets school teachers deduct up to $250 for the costs of classroom supplies that they buy with their own money. It’s available to all teachers, whether they itemize or not.
Equal treatment of commuting costs: All commuters may reduce their pre-tax income to account for their commuting costs. Under the law, however, those who drive to work and pay for parking are allowed to exclude more ($250 per month) than those who use mass transit ($130 per month). This measure again provides parity by...
State and local sales tax deduction: If you itemize your taxes, this measure lets you deduct the state and local sales taxes you’ve paid in lieu of state income taxes.
The deduction can be a boon for itemizers who live in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Those are the seven states that don’t impose an income tax but where residents pay sales taxes, either at the state or local levels.
Tuition deduction: Among the many education tax breaks on the books, this one is available to all tax filers, whether you itemize or not. With it, you may deduct up to $4,000 in qualified tuition, fees and related expenses for post-secondary education, such as college and graduate school. The deduction may be taken for...
But there are income limitations, and if you take it you may not take other types of education tax breaks, such as the Lifetime Learning Credit. Your deduction also is reduced by any grants and scholarships received to pay for school, as well as any money withdrawn from tax-advantaged, education savings accounts.
Deduction for mortgage insurance premiums: If you only put down a small amount to buy a home you may be required to pay for mortgage insurance to protect the lender against default. This tax break lets you deduct the cost of your premiums if you itemize your deductions.
Income exclusion for mortgage debt that’s been forgiven: When you sell your home for less than what you owe the bank or your home is foreclosed, the bank may agree to forgive the remaining debt you owe. But the IRS typically treats that forgiven debt as taxable income to you. This tax break lets you exclude it from you...
Tax-free IRA withdrawals for charity: With this measure, anyone over 70-1/2 may take tax-free distributions of up to $100,000 from a traditional IRA if the money is distributed directly to an eligible charity.
While retirees can’t also take a deduction for that contribution, the money won’t count as income. So it won’t hurt when it comes to other taxes, such as those imposed on Social Security benefits when income exceeds a certain level, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst for tax publisher WoltersKluwer, CCH.
Tax-free savings for people with disabilities: Attached to the extender bill is the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act. That act will permit people who were disabled before the age of 26 — as well as their family and friends — to contribute up to a combined total of $14,000 a year to an ABLE account.
Earnings would grow tax free and the money would not disqualify the disabled person from receiving federal assistance benefits such as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income so long as it is used to pay for housing, transportation, education and wellness.
–CNN’s Ted Barrett and Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.
Grand Rapids Drive player Zeke Upshaw has died, according to a statement from his mother.
NBA G League player Zeke Upshaw of the Grand Rapids Drive has died, according to a statement released by the team from Upshaw’s mother.
Upshaw collapsed on the court near the end of Saturday’s game against the Long Island Nets and was taken off the court on a stretcher.
"The Drive family is mourning the tragic loss of Zeke Upshaw," the team said in a statement. "He had a warm personality and was a tremendous representative of our organization both on and off the court. Our thoughts are with all of Zeke's family and friends during this difficult time."
Upshaw, 26, was a standout player from Chicago before attending Illinois State and later transferring to Hofstra. He played for two seasons overseas before he was drafted by the Drive in the 2016 draft.
"The NBA G League family is devastated by the tragic passing of Zeke Upshaw," G League president Malcolm Turner said in a statement. "Zeke was an outstanding young man whose powerful belief in himself and uncommon perseverance led to a successful professional basketball career. A beloved member of the Grand Rapids Driv...
The Drive is the G League affiliate of the Detroit Pistons. Saturday's win over Long Island clinched a playoff berth for the Drive, but that was overshadowed by Upshaw's collapse.
Upshaw was in his second season with the Drive. He played in 41 games averaging 8.5 points in nearly 20 minutes per contest this season.
The case of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was repeatedly shot in the head by police at a London tube station in the wake of the July 7, 2005 bombings, an incident for which no officer was prosecuted, will be heard at the European Court of Human Rights.
De Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, was pinned to a seat by an officer and shot in the head by two other policemen at point blank range, police say, after being mistaken for a terrorist.
The case is to be heard next week in the upper chambers of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
Ten years on from the killing, the court will review the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not to charge any of the officers involved in the killing.
In December 2008, an inquest jury rejected the official version of the shooting, recording an open verdict. No charges were brought against the officers involved.
The case is being brought by Patricia Armani da Silva, De Menezes’ cousin who was living with him at the time.
An application to judicially review the decision not to charge the officers has already been rejected by the UK courts.
De Menezes’ family maintains the use of lethal force was unnecessary, because of a lack of evidence that the victim presented a threat.
“The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, a totally innocent man who was given no chance to surrender before being shot nine times in the head, caused great public concern, as has the fact that no officer was prosecuted or even disciplined for any [offense] arising from the tragic circumstances surrounding his death,” W...
“The failure to hold any individual to account in relation Jean Charles’s killing and the unlawful killings of other members of the public has arguably led to a crisis in confidence that state agents in the UK who abuse their power will not be held to account,” she added.
The killing took place on July 22, 2005, a fortnight after the 7/7 London bombings that killed 52 people.
WhatsApp users on devices with older operating systems were on the receiving end of a New Year’s Eve surprise.
When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people’s use of mobile devices looked very different from today. The Apple iTunes App Store was only a few months old. About 70 percent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia. Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft...
While these mobile devices have been an important part of our story, they don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future.
This was a tough decision for us to make, but the right one in order to give people better ways to keep in touch with friends, family and loved ones using WhatsApp.
Readers: What are your thoughts on these moves by WhatsApp?
The ANC Ekurhuleni region announced that it will back former African Union (AU) Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as their candidate to succeed Jacob Zuma as the next party president.
Briefing journalists in Benoni on Tuesday, ANC regional chairman Mzwandile Masina said the regional general council currently underway, has resolved that Dlamini-Zuma was the best candidate to lead the ANC and the country.
The decision was likely to anger many within the Gauteng provincial executive committee given that ANC provincial chairperson Paul Mashatile had already indicated the province preferred deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa as a suitable candidate to succeed Zuma. But Masina was adamant that more regions including Tshwane w...
“From our experience leading to and after the conference, comrade NDZ [Dlamini Zuma] is clear, instrumental and supportive of the policy positions that we would have pushed. For instance, if you take the commission on economic transformation….
those resolutions are the aspirations that would have canvassed through our regional policy conference. Some resolutions are radical, but we have full confidence that she will be able to do that and that is why there is a view that we must go out officially and lobby for her support in the structures of the ANC in the ...
He said the women’s league in the region persuaded the regional leadership of the ANC to support a woman candidate.
“They [the ANCWL] were quite instrumental to us formulating a view,” Masina said.
Thus far, Dlamini-Zuma has been endorsed by the ANC women’s league, its youth league, and the Umkhonto We Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) as their preferred candidate.
Meanwhile, the Ekurhuleni ANC leadership has called Luthuli House to take action against ANC MP and former Ekurhuleni mayor Mondli Gungubele for criticising president Zuma’s leadership style and for calling to step down.
“With regard to comrade Mondli we do not have the authority as the regional executive committee to call for him to step down as the deputy chair. He is, however, a member of the provincial executive committee. We are making a call to the NEC to subject him to disciplinary processes because he transgressed in the nation...
When asked about his views on the Gupta family and state capture allegations, Masina said: I do hold a very strong view against the Guptas. Where there is any wrongdoing there must be prosecutions. We are anti anyone who seeks to capture the state for individual benefit.
PERRYTON - Frances Marie Fausset McClung, 90, of Perryton died Dec. 29, 2012.
Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in First Baptist Church with the Rev. Richard Laverty officiating. Burial will be in Ochiltree Cemetery. Arrangements are by Boxwell Brothers Funeral Home of Perryton.
Frances was born Sept. 20, 1922 in Bishop, Okla., to Fred Isaac and Elizabeth Magdalene De Smith Fausset. She lived in Glazier, Booker and Darrouzett. During her school years, she was active in basketball and softball and was a graduate of Darrouzett High School. After graduation, she moved to Perryton, where she worke...
Frances always loved sports, and she attended her grandaughters' basketball games and tennis meets whenever possible. She later attended her great-grandchildren's football games, basketball games, soccer games and baseball games as often as she could. When she could no longer, physically attend the games, she would lis...
Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren were the loves of her life. She was very devoted to the family, and loved attending birthdays, concerts, games, graduations and weddings. She was nicknamed "Taw" when her granddaughter, Tina, couldn't say grandma ... thus when she had great-grandchildren, her name became Granny...
Frances was preceded in death by her husband, Carroll, on July 13, 1975; her parents, Fred Isaac Fausset and Elizabeth Magdalene De Smith Fausset; her brothers, Maurice Fausset, Haurice Fausset, Alfred Fausset, Russell Fausset, Loren Fausset and Kenneth Fausset.
Survivors include a son, Dennis Carrol McClung and his wife Marcia of Littleton, Colo.; a daughter, Billie Jean McClung Riggs and her husband Jim of Booker; three sisters, Ruth Terrel of Grants Pass, Ore., Viola Henry of Winfield, Mo., and Bessie Lee Duke of Darrouzett; four grandaughters, Tina Marie Russell and husban...
The family suggests memorials be to Ochiltree General Hospice volunteers, 3101 Garrett, Perryton, TX. 79070.
British environmentalist Mark Lynas was an early advocate against GMOs and, as he tells it, that meant he was an early advocate for demonizing scientists.
While most actual scientists did not give much credence to an offhand claim by researcher Árpád Pusztai in the mid-1990s that a genetically-modified potato damaged the immune system of an animal, because the results were unpublished and unverified, UK media of the scare journalism kind and British activists took off wi...
These fears spread like wildfire, and within a few years GM was essentially banned in Europe, and our worries were exported by NGOs like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to Africa, India and the rest of Asia, where GM is still banned today. This was the most successful campaign I have ever been involved with.
This was also explicitly an anti-science movement. We employed a lot of imagery about scientists in their labs cackling demonically as they tinkered with the very building blocks of life. Hence the Frankenstein food tag – this absolutely was about deep-seated fears of scientific powers being used secretly for unnatural...
Last spring, 55 members of the US Congress finally became as anti-science as the British and asked the FDA to put warning labels on GMOs, but there is hope for those anti-science politicians because Lynas, one of the people who originally set out to cripple biology - and did, including acts of eco-terrorism - has decid...
Some skepticism of new science was warranted, of course, I was concerned in the early days of genetically-modified food also - as I have said many times, given my way, nothing my family eats would be grown, killed, picked, cleaned, processed or cooked by any hands but mine - but an irrational standard for proof that no...
But it's nice to see that some activists can be convinced; we're not going to see anyone at the Union of Concerned Scientists accept science in my lifetime, I predict, but then no one would have predicted Lynas would change his tune either. He said corporations were evil, they were greedy, none of the science breakthro...
"For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.
"As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.
"So I guess you’ll be wondering—what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist."
If that doesn't reaffirm your faith in the power of science outreach, I don't know what can. Science actually won over someone who was anti-science.
Maybe now progressives can embrace progress.
In Science Left Behind, the anti-GMO movement is listed as one of the many ways the left in America is overwhelmingly anti-science but to me it is tied with being anti-vaccination as the most dangerous crackpot problem we face. Climate change is a problem but there are science and technology obstacles involved in repla...
And that is what they do, as Lynas said in his talk.
Politicians listen to their constituents, including the anti-science ones, so in February and March of 2012, a group of politicians tried to promote anti-GMO action at the federal level. Below is the list of those 55 members of Congress who signed a letter to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg i...
“We urge you to fully review the facts, law, and science, and side with the American public by requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods as is done in nearly 50 countries around the world,” they wrote.
Those bans in other countries are the result of what Lynas called "the most successful campaign I have ever been involved with" - successful because science did not matter to the people he wanted to convince, just the claim that it was about science was all that mattered to them. Likewise, those politicians in Congress...
As you might expect if you know anything about the anti-science food demographic, 53 of those 55 politicians are Democrats. But there is hope for them. If Lynas can admit "I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist" then why can't every environmentalist? Why can't those politicia...
Here is the list of people who signed the letter.
Sanders is technically not a Democrat, he just caucuses with them. He instead calls himself an Independent Democrat-Socialist, so he is even more Democrat than Democrats and thus included among them.
What can you do to help bring these people back to the reality-based community? I have argued before that science is a gigantic potential constituency, representing $140 billion annually in the United States. But neither political party cares about science unless it suits their political agenda because scientists and t...
No amount of lobbying by anti-science NGOs will persuade a politician to vote in a way that will cost them a reelection.
Lynas righted a wrong - his downside is that he is now going to be smeared with the 'how much is Monsanto paying him?' allegation the goofy left uses when science disagrees with their beliefs. But for most voters there is no downside in demanding that politicians stop filtering science through their world view.
Biology won a victory against anti-science beliefs this week and it won a victory last month when the Obama administration responded to pressure and stopped irrationally blocking a genetically modified fish I wrote about in 2011 and again in "Science Left Behind". There's no reason to think that trend can't continue th...
(HOST) Commentator Andrea Learned has been thinking about the paths people and organizations take toward more sustainable practices, and she reminds us to engage with the journey.
(LEARNED) T.S. Eliot once said, "The journey not the arrival matters." It’s a quote that demonstrates a truth I’ve come to appreciate in many ways. For one thing, it describes my own meandering career path. And these days, "journey" seems to be a fitting word to describe the paths both businesses and humans take toward...
In the past, I’ve avoided using the word "journey" altogether, thinking it too self-help or touchy-feely. But lately I’ve begun to understand that most positive change in life comes from various steps toward a goal – and rarely from a single dramatic transition.
In my career of marketing to women I’ve learned that buying something tends to be complex for women and more linear for men. The stop & start, turn right or left, or circle back of a woman’s typical purchase process seems very journey-like to me. Along that winding way, both sides of the brain are used – with decisions...
In the case of sustainable practices – I see both men and women walking similar paths.
Any human who is even remotely eco-aware is experiencing a journey toward a more responsible way of living. But, the steps aren’t straightforward – and not all people will take the same ones or arrive on time, if ever. Let’s face it: It is extremely difficult to become the "Perfect Green Human" overnight. We have to se...
But remember – it’s the Journey, Not the Arrival that matters most.

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