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HONG KONG - Kenneth To, a swimmer who won a silver medal for Australia at the 2013 world championships, has died after becoming ill while training in Florida. He was 26.
In December he competed at the world short-course championships in China and placed sixth in the 100-meter medley - his first individual final at a major championships in six years, he wrote on Twitter .
Former Government Information Office (GIO) head Lin Chia-lung, left, and current Minister of the GIO Pasuya Yao both smile after a meeting yesterday to clarify their reports concerning funds collected for tsunami relief on Lin's initiative when he was still in charge if the GIO.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus yesterday called on government agencies to stop infighting and investigate delays in handing out NT$400 million (US$12.4 million) in relief funds raised to help Asian countries devastated by deadly tidal waves in December.
"We understand the main reason for the delay is that it has taken some time for the government to process tax exemption receipts for donors," DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) said. "However, we'd like to see the Government Information Office [GIO], the Ministry of Finance and the Directorate General of Budget, Account...
Lai also called for an end to squabbles between former GIO head Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and current Minister of the GIO Pasuya Yao (姚文智).
Echoing Lai's requests, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said that it does not make sense to stall the allocation of the funds for eight months.
"The government must make an effort to solve the problem because it has seriously sabotaged the nation's credibility and image," he said.
While Lin blamed the legislature for failing to amend certain regulations to make it easier to allocate the funds, Wang said the government should have studied the law more carefully in the first place and let private charity groups take care of the matter.
"It only shows that the government fails to understand the situation it is in," he said. "It is now too late to find excuses for the mess they have made."
Criticizing the government-initiated fundraising scheme as "crudely planned," People First Party (PFP) caucus whip Sun Ta-chien (孫大千) called on Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to mete out punishment to the government officials responsible for the delay.
If Hsieh fails to do so, Sun said his caucus will team up with other opposition parties to establish an investigation task force during the next legislative session to find out the truth.
PFP lawmaker Wu Ching-chih (吳清池) said the government should have let the Ministry of Foreign Affairs take care of the matter in the first place.
Meanwhile, Yao and Lin appeared together yesterday and promised that the NT$400 million in donations will be distributed to local charities before Sept. 5.
The idea to raise NT$400 million for tsunami relief originated with Lin, when he was minister of the GIO.
The plan involved seeking donations from the public and distributing them to victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. The charities were to pay tsunami victims from their own money first, and be reimbursed by the public's donations.
However, since the money is still in GIO's bank account, the agency has come under criticism. Some local media even reported that, "Yao has been cleaning up for Lin, who started the project and then left to campaign to work on his campaign for Taichung City."
Yao, however, denied any ill feeling yesterday.
"There is no argument between us," Yao said.
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Many of today's nursing homes are controlled by thoughtless and greedy business executives whose main objective is pleasing their investors. They are rewarded with generous salaries and bonuses for staff slashing and other cost-cutting prowess. Profits are invested in powerful lobbying groups that enjoy robust influenc...
Eighty percent of the industry's payments come from public funds, Medicare and Medicaid, and we are not getting our money's worth.
Health and Human Services reported that Medicare paid $5.1 billion for substandard nursing home care in 2009. Benign consequences of substandard care have taught this industry that it's more profitable to provide shoddy care and pay an occasional fine than it is to hire and train staff to provide good care. Sequestrati...
Silence and inaction are daily reminders that our public doesn't want to think about old people suffering neglect and abuse in nursing homes. Even associations with "aging" and "health care" in their titles don't want to cross the nursing-home threshold. The realities of life and death in nursing homes are too dark, an...
Accounts of abuse are as neglected as the victims themselves and reform advocates are repeatedly reminded they can't force people to care. There are no children or puppies or kittens to rescue in these stories. They are old people who can no longer protect and defend themselves.
Advocates are nothing more than average citizens who have come to understand that the way we treat our institutionalized elderly is nothing short of a crime against humanity.
Sadly, the number of people willing to push back against this powerful profit-motivated industry remains consistently low. This is why true reform and good care remain out of our grasp. We simply need more people to care and to be counted. If you believe that nursing homes are not good enough for a child of yours, we n...
CAPE CORAL, Fla. – A body was discovered Tuesday around 3 p.m. in the Caloosahatchee River just south of the Midpoint Bridge, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said.
Deputies are on scene. The body was draped in an American flag.
LCSO declined to comment after multiple requests.
Will this season of Survivor ever take off?
At the top of the episode the show lays out that both Mike and Ryan have secret idols and Lauren has a secret voting advantage. These facts and the competing agendas that go along with them are a lot to keep track of.
Production brought out the big camera guns for the reward challenge and it pays off with some truly stunning underwater photography.
Joe shamelessly looking for an idol is amusing because he truly has nothing to lose. Who cares if you’re openly playing the game if everyone is against you?
Ryan is sitting very pretty with his secret idol and the trust of a good portion of his tribe, right up until he decides to tell Ben he has an idol despite promising Devon—his supposed number one ally—that he would keep it just between them. Whether or not Devon’s trust is as broken as he makes it seem here is yet to b...
“What if a balancing competition, but with fire?!” Some challenge producer who immediately got promoted so they could invent even more slightly new balancing challenges, probably.
Ashley’s frustration that they are voting for Cole and Mike, leaving Joe into the game to eventually sneak his way into the end, turns into her leading the cause to essentially remove Ben from the de facto leadership position in their alliance.
“People are starting to feel a little bit steamrolled by you.” “No, no they’re not.” Read the room, Ben!
With the alliance potentiality secretly turning against Ben to vote out Joe, and Mike hinting that he’s willing to play his idol for Joe to shake things up, for once Tribal almost seems like a toss-up.
Once Tribal begins, and Mike accuses everyone of not having high moral character because they hate Joe but refuse to vote him out, that’s when Mike’s desire to be a wild card loses me. What?
In the end, Mike plays his idol (but for himself, and it’s ultimately unnecessary), Ben’s alliance doesn’t turn against him after all, and Cole goes home as was the plan all along.
Like many episodes this season, it’s entertaining at the time but all the internal storytelling ultimately turns to dust the second you examine it. What is the story Survivor is telling this season? And if there is no narrative through line, does it matter? I can’t help but continue to be frustrated that so many player...
British Transport Police have confirmed a person has died after being struck by a train at East Worthing railway station.
British Transport Police were called to East Worthing station after reports that a person was struck by a train this afternoon (October 26), they have confirmed.
Police were alerted immediately after 2pm, British Transport Police confirmed.
British Transport Police released a statement that said: “Officers are on scene alongside the South East Coast Ambulance Service, however a person has sadly been pronounced dead.
“We are now working to identify the person and inform their family.
Southern Rail has confirmed on Twitter that lines are now reopen but delays of up to 60 minutes are expected.
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The Los Angeles Kings are 4-0 in elimination games this year — the "0" goes without saying, otherwise they'd be golfing — and defenceman Drew Doughty is 7-0, three of them with Team Canada at the Sochi Olympics.
So while no one on the Kings is saying "we love playing with our heels hanging over the edge of the cliff," the 2012 Stanley Cup champs do have a certain degree of comfort with their plight.
Not happiness, maybe, but familiarity, and knowledge, and recent experience of what has to be done and not done to come from behind — in this case, to stop a three-game losing streak and avoid being shelved by the Anaheim Ducks, who lead the SoCal Freeway Series 3-2 with Game 6 at Staples Centre on Wednesday evening.
You can hear it in the Kings' voices. They are calm, confident, almost cocky.
"Yeah, you know what, I think I've been through it more than any of them," said head coach Darryl Sutter. "At the end of the day there's probably not many coaches that have been in as many (elimination) games, so that's something I'm comfortable with."
It is nothing to be afraid of, he said.
"Teams are close, and as a coach, you go in expecting to win every game. If you don't, you shouldn't be in this league. And we've been down that road. We go in expecting to win every game. Obviously that doesn't happen, or someone would go 82-0 and someone would go 16-0. But if you have that mindset, it's a good one to...
"Championship blood in their veins, most of them," Anaheim head coach Bruce Boudreau said of the Kings, the other day, and that organizational pluck was very much in evidence again Monday night, late in Game 5, when the Kings put the pedal down and had the home team under siege and almost erased a 4-1 deficit.
It doesn't alter the fact that the Ducks were having their way with the Kings until late in the second period, and have had for stretches of this series — nor does it change the advantage. They are still the ones with the lead, the ones who are a single victory away from going to the conference final.
"We know they've already been through (four) elimination games and been successful. They were down 2-0 to St. Louis the year before.They've got so much pride and championship blood that it's just going to take a perfect game to do it in their building," said Boudreau.
"I would venture to guess that people are still thinking they're the favourites to win the series, because of what they've done in the past."
The Kings, though, lost three straight to San Jose to start the playoffs, then won six in a row, and now have a three-game losing streak again.
It speaks to a consistency problem. They are thin on defence, and especially so when the six healthy bodies they have make mistakes — Jake Muzzin falling in the corner on the first Anaheim goal Monday, Alec Martinez putting a perfect tape-to-tape pass on Anaheim captain Ryan Getzlaf's stick, leading to the third one.
"We're trying to maximize what we've got in the lineup. Maybe we've played as good as we can. Maybe we have," said Sutter.
"The goal last night after the power play (by Devante Smith-Pelly, after the Martinez giveaway), when you talk about consistency, well, you got some guys who are having to play different situations and extra minutes now — and if they weren't playing they'd be bitching and moaning 'cause they weren't.
"So when they do, there's an old rule about skate-pass-shoot: just execute, you know? Just do it. Just maximize your skill set."
The most eager King in the building — unless it's goalie Jonathan Quick — may be Doughty, the cornerstone of the L.A. defence, who relishes the pressure he knows will be on him from here on in.
"I love these opportunities, I love the pressure," said the Olympic tournament all-star. "I know I'm going to be counted upon, and in order for us to win I've got to be at the top of my game. I still don't think I've played my absolute best this series, so I'm going to need to do it at home tomorrow.
"We don't like (the situation), obviously, but it's not like we're panicking. We're not going to play so desperate where, you know, you can actually play too desperate, and run around trying to do too much. So because we're comfortable, we know exactly how desperate to play, and we're just going to show how badly we wa...
"We can't take even one shift off. If you take one shift off against that Getzlaf line they're going to make you pay for it. So, we need to play full 60 minutes, shift by shift, second by second, and that's how we're going to win."
On the other hand, the Ducks have won both their games at Staples Center in this series. But they're aware of the Kings' resourcefulness, and of their own occasional frailties.
"The first round, we're very conscious of what happened, both with them and with us against Dallas," said Anaheim defenceman Ben Lovejoy. "We came out and played maybe our worst game in Game 6. We weren't ready, we were down 3-1 right away and it was a miraculous comeback. We probably didn't deserve to win that game, i...
"We know this Kings team is as resilient as you're going to get. They've all won Stanley Cups, they know what they're doing. They're not going to panic and we need to come out and play our best game tomorrow night."
Each team's best game has had the other on the ropes at times in the series. But only one team is all out of margin for error.
"It's two good hockey clubs," Sutter said. "Basically other than the empty-netter they're all one-goal games. And we need to get the one more tomorrow night."
The Intellectual Renaissance Foundation, within the framework of the "Saroyan House" project, started the construction workս of the well-known novelist, American-Armenian playwright William Saroyan's house-museum in Fresno, the Intellectual Renaissance Foundation told Panorama.am.
To remind, the foundation acquired the writer's house in 2015, and for about a year the foundation was engaged in studying the life and work of W. Saroyan, was searching and collecting the materials about him, as well as working together with the "Storaket" architectural studio was busy to develop a house-museum concep...
The construction work starts with exterior appearance reconstruction, and after getting the corresponding agreements with Fresno City Municipality, interior work also will start. The house-museum is scheduled to open on 31 August 2018, on the 110th anniversary of the writer.
EXCLUSIVE: Black Label Media has set Michael Cuesta to direct Code Name Veil, the Matt Billingsly-scripted hot button drama. Cuesta just directed the Jeremy Renner-scripted Kill The Messenger and directed the pilot of Showtime’s Homeland and is an exec producer. This script, which made the Black List, sounds right in h...
Inspired by true events, Code Name Veil follows a rookie CIA agent who investigates the first terrorist attacks against America—the Embassy and Marine barracks bombings in Beirut in 1983. When his station chief and mentor is taken hostage, he must resort to desperate measures, unwittingly becoming part of the scandal t...
Jon Schumacher, BLM’s Vice President of development brought the project in and will be an Executive Producer on the project. Ellen Schwartz will Exec Produce. Cuesta is WME repped and Billingsly is Paradigm and Industry Entertainment.
Black Label Media’s The Good Lie premiered at Toronto with Reese Witherspoon starring, and next up is the Denis Villenueve-directed Sicario which stars Emily Blunt and Benecio Del Toro, and the Jean Marc Valle-directed Demolition with Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts. Black Label Media also acquired 71 with Unbroken’s J...
LEIGH Centurions maintained their 100 per cent Kingstone Press Championship record, beating Halifax to claim a 14th straight win and go seven points clear of Featherstone at the top of the table.
But it was a close run thing with Paul Rowley’s side seemingly heading for their first league defeat when the visitors scored two second-half tries to lead 24-20 in the closing minutes.
But seven minutes from time Oliver Wilkes crossed for his second try of the night and Martyn Ridyard held his nerve to land the conversion and secure the points.
The Centurions, who came agonisingly close to causing a major upset in the Challenge Cup against Leeds three days earlier, opened up in superb form.
Johnny Pownall was denied a try at the corner but was successful at the second attempt in the sixth minute after being set up Gregg McNally. Ridyard’s successful conversion made it 6-0.
A big 40-20 kick from Ridyard put Leigh on the offensive again and they made it count when Sam Barlow smuggled a superb ball inside for Wilkes to go under the posts.
Halifax roared back into the contest after 17 minutes when Ryan Fieldhouse fired a pass left and wing Gareth Potts went over by the flag.
Steve Tyrer landed a superb conversion, but Leigh again showed their finishing prowess when Barlow and Matty Sarsfield combined through the middle and McNally finished superbly.
The Centurions then had to show their defensive steel as Halifax threw everything at them.
Danny Cowling was put out of play on the right before Chris Hankinson worked hard to deny Tyrer.
Ryan Brierley had a try disallowed for a forward pass and as Leigh laboured, Halifax struck again just before the interval, Tyrer taking Simon Brown's cross-kick to go in on the left. His conversion closed the half with the Centurions ahead 18-12.
Following a niggling start to the second half, when Ridyard was pole-axed by a high tackle, he stepped up to tag on a penalty to stretch their advantage to 20-12.
A series of ugly skirmishes followed with Barlow felled. Dane Manning and Kurt Haggerty were both red-carded and the game roared into action with Leigh laying seige to the Fax line.
Unfortunately for the Centurions they could not make it count and when McNally had the ball stolen by Brown, Luke Ambler forced his way over to cut the deficit.
Halifax took the lead when they claimed another try when Callum Casey ducked beneath two tackles to get the touchdown. Tyrer added his fourth goal to nudge the visitors further in front at 24-20.
Leigh hit back in bizarre fashion when Sean Penkywicz lifted the ball over the head of Fieldhouse who fumbled and Wilkes cashed in to score what turned out to be the decisive try to bring the scores level - and Ridyard did the rest.
Even then it took a magnificent tackle by McNally to save the day for the Centurions after Halifax threatened through Potts.
Having dodgy knees and aching joints is not an automatic byproduct of growing older. Prevention is simple, writes Mark Metherell.
It may come as a jolt to realise that when you or your child falls to the ground with a sport injury, the pain may return decades later in the form of osteoarthritis.
More disturbing is that in many cases the injury could have been prevented with simple training - workouts which remain absent from many school and community level sport activities.

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