Split (1)

train · 2.59M rows

text stringlengths 9 93k
"Listening to TB Joshua is like going to Harvard for free,"wrote Linda Atieno, an American. "Please don't listen to anyone bad mouthing TB Joshua! Come and find for yourself the treasure in Nigeria – someone who will teach you how to grow closer and closer to God."
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton made her fourth Florida campaign stop on Wednesday, and the former first lady had a wide range of topics on her mind as she addressed a crowd of supporters in Orlando.
Speaking to nearly 1,000 people at the Orange County Orlando Magic Recreation Center, she took swipes at Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio, the latter of whom could be a general election foe in 2016.
Clinton has a 30-point lead over in-party rival Bernie Sanders in a new Quinnipiac University poll, while Rubio is second to Donald Trump among the Republicans. The poll suggests Clinton would defeat Trump, or any other Republican, in a general election duel.
Clinton took Scott to task for his failure to acknowledge climate change and blasted Scott, Rubio, and another GOP presidential candidate -- Ted Cruz -- for their stances on building domestic infrastructure.
"Now we have Republican candidates for president who want to slash what we spend by 80 percent," she said.
"Ted Cruz supported legislation to do that. Marco Rubio followed right along to slash funding, and people have said let the states do it. Do you really want to put your infrastructure in the hands of Rick Scott?"
Clinton also made an appeal for tougher gun laws, at nearly the exact moment as another mass shooting incident unfolded in California.
She was unaware of the San Bernardino shooting while she was on stage, but, ironically, she was calling for more comprehensive background checks to prevent firearms from falling into the wrong hands.
"It is time for us to say we're going to have comprehensive background checks," Clinton said. "We're going to close the gun show loophole. We're going to close the Charleston loophole and the immunity for the gun makers and sellers."
Drought: Our homes could be recycling graywater right now—why aren't they?
Southern Californians crowd in for a lesson on laundry-to-landscape graywater systems at the LA Eco-Village.
Greywater Action's Laura Allen shows interested property owners how to recycle water at home without a permit or an inspection.
One goal of Greywater Action workshops is to help homeowners feel like they can pick out the right parts for a water recycling system on their own.
Mark Vallianatos, homeowner and scholar, says he's concerned that public agencies do as much as they can to help people recycle water at their homes. He recycles graywater and rain water at his home.
I love doing laundry at my little house. I can walk out my kitchen door a dozen steps to a stacked washer dryer in a shed round the back. I love the hollow, vibrating sound of the water outside my bedroom window, rushing out at the end of the wash cycle.
That water contains soap, maybe some bacteria, hair, or lint, but it’s good enough to water outdoor plants. Laundry water is the most common type of what's known as "graywater" — basically any used household water that doesn't flow through toilets and kitchen sinks. In most homes, including mine, it disappears down the...
People who’ve lived through California drought before remember the old bucket in the shower trick – a way to save lightly used water for your plants. Graywater plumbing systems can do this better. But while California had the first law on the books permitting home water recycling, homeowners have been slow to adopt it.
A committed network of do-it-yourselfers has worked over 15 years to change that. In that time, some of the former road blocks to recycling water at home have become speed bumps. Smooth out the road to graywater, these conservationists say, and there’s plenty of opportunity to save water fast.
Greywater Action founder Laura Allen has been working on recycling water at home since the days when doing so was basically illegal. Which wasn’t that long ago. The California Plumbing Code has technically allowed graywater reuse since 1994. But until a few years ago, a system was cost prohibitive to install, as much a...
A change in state law five years back allowed people to put in basic graywater capture systems for a few hundred dollars. These laundry-to-landscape systems now require no inspections or permits.
It’s nearly impossible to track how many home water recycling systems exist in California. But in the 2009 UCLA Institute of the Environment regional report card, Yoram Cohen writes that if just 10 percent of Southern California homes reused their graywater, that savings would equal the output of a desalination plant.
Through lobbying and raising public awareness, Greywater Action's Laura Allen says she and her cohorts have seen progress in Northern California. San Francisco’s Municipal Utilities District puts out a handbook for graywater. In Santa Rosa, officials offer rebates and will come to your home to help you plan your own sy...
Now activists have their eyes trained on the thirsty south.
“When your water comes from really far away, there’s no need in people's mind to be aware. And no one's forcing you to be aware of what’s going on with these water sources. It takes more education,” Allen says.
Part of Allen’s workshop requires people to match pieces of plumbing with their proper name – so shopping the aisles of Home Depot can be easier.
RELATED: Does my community have water restrictions?
The Ferraris went home with some sketches and plans for a shower water recycling system. They eventually want to capture all their available graywater, but installing the needed plumbing on bathroom sinks and showers requires a permit. Officials in Upland told her nobody’s ever applied for one before.
"I'm going to take this to our local branch and say, people are doing this," she said.
The Ferraris' story underscores one of the main impediments to wider adoption of graywater systems: the complexity of state rules that govern them and the ability of local building officials to apply them.
Architect and consultant Leigh Jerrard says the state code for graywater was written with the help of the traditional plumbing industry. “Graywater violates the essential plumber’s creed, which is that there’s supply and there’s waste and never the twain shall meet," he said.
The rules are getting easier to follow, and cities, including Los Angeles, are helping. In the L.A. Department of Building and Safety, Osama Younan oversees graywater permits for the Green Building Division. He says he understands that the permit process can seem intimidating. So the city’s trying to help with standard...
One of the people he’s helped is Mount Washington homeowner Mark Vallianatos, who recently showed me the maintenance he has to do for his sizable graywater system.
His house sits atop a steep hill, and Vallianatos uses his graywater on fruit trees below. On his road to recycled water, Vallianatos met with one of the speed bumps to graywater: health concerns.
Health officials, lawmakers and plumbers harbor a fear that do-it-your-selfers and non-traditional plumbers will inadvertently mix graywater with drinkable water. A health inspector made Vallianatos’ contractor redo part of his installation.
"He had to paint on the side of this weird little plastic tank on my hillside, ‘NOT POTABLE WATER – DO NOT DRINK.’ Which seems sort of ridiculous because no one’s looking, snooping around."
L.A. County health officials say they’ve approved 30 or 40 of these more complex graywater systems since the state changed the code. But L.A. County’s director of environmental health, Angelo Bellomo, acknowledges there’s a sea change in thinking underway.
"Our goal in the past has been protect potable water supply," he said. "But we have to keep in mind there are two public health goals here today, in view of the impending water crisis in the future. We have to be concerned not only about water quality but also about water availability."
Vallianatos likes the sound of that. He’s the kind of guy who’s doing everything he can to understand his water supply. He wants state and local agencies to help other people do that also.
"It’s something you can look at, you can touch," he said, surveying his hillside. "It kind of connects you to your surroundings better than if everything is in city pipes. So I like it for that reason too."
LADWP: How much could you save with a grey water system?
The price of gold was on the rise today after Germany’s decision to repatriate its bullion. We explain how you can profit.
Gold enthusiasts were today bouyed today by the decision of Germany’s central bank to pull its gold reserves out of Paris and New York.
It follows warnings from the country’s Court of Auditors that bullion held abroad had "never been verified physically" and was not under proper control.
The Bundesbank is to recall its reserves as leverage against future currency fluctuations, resulting in pulling a chunk of its holdings from New York and all its bullion from Paris.
The price of gold per ounce rose $14.50 to $1,682.60 by mid-morning today.
Demand soared during the financial crisis as investors first sought gold as a safehaven and then because it can be a hedge against inflation. The price rose more than threefold between 2007 and late 2011 - from around $600 to a peak of $1,895.
"Gold bugs" say the world is moving towards a de facto gold standard again as China, Russia and other reserve powers boost their holdings to diversify out of dollars and euros.
But gold's rise was more modest in 2012, up by 8pc in 2012 but gold-related equities did not fare so well. Some investors fear gold assets, such as gold mining companies, may be seized in less stable countries.
Investors in the £1.6bn JPM Natural Resources fund, which largely invests in gold miners, lost 13pc of their money over last year and other gold, mining and commodities funds also suffered: Investec Global Gold fell by more than 10pc and BlackRock Gold & General is down 13.6pc over the past 12 months.
The Carmignac Commodities fund also suffered from its exposure to gold stocks, but the managers are optimistic about the outlook.
Wealth manager Brian Dunnehy of FundExpert.co.uk this week urged investors to sell gold buillion and buy gold mining shares.
“As central banks crank up the printing presses, gold is neither a safe haven or an inflation hedge,' he said. "But central bank largesse could trigger a significant bounce in gold mining shares."
But not everyone is pessimistic about the forecast for bullion. In October BlackRock fund manager Evy Hambro, predicted that the third wave of quantitative easing could result in the gold price hitting US$2,400/oz by the middle of next summer, and the Central Bank in South Korea has doubled its bullion assets over the ...
Aside from gold funds, if you are looking to add the precious commodity to your portfolio, we outline your options below.
Bars come in metric sizes, and are based directly on that day's gold price, plus a premium for manufacture and marketing. The smaller the bar, the bigger the premium.
Twenty-two carat gold sovereigns the favourite of British investors. Sovereigns dating from about 1887 and up to 1982 are currently considered the best investment. Bullion coins recognised as UK legal tender are exempt from capital gains tax.
Another coin option is to buy South African Krugerrands. The smallest is a 0.1oz coin, which costs about £125 at the time of writing.
The specialist website Money Week has a directory of bar and coin dealers.
ETFs are funds, traded on a stock exchange like shares, that allow investors to track the performance of particular indices or a commodity, providing the investor with the same returns as this underlying market.
ETFs are available for gold, silver, platinum and palladium. ETFs can be traded daily – all you pay is the dealing charge of around 0.4pc, or £7 per trade.
ETFs are increasingly the most popular method of gold investment. Research by Source, a provider of exchange traded products, shows that inflows into European gold ETPs reached $6.8bn in 2012, constituting staggering 15.4pc growth.
Gold bullion banks offer two types of gold account – allocated and unallocated. An allocated account is effectively like keeping gold in a safety deposit box and is the most secure form of investment in physical gold. The gold is stored in a vault owned and managed by a recognised bullion dealer or depository.
With an unallocated account, on the other hand, investors do not have specific bars allotted to them. Traditionally, one advantage of unallocated accounts has been the absence of storage or insurance charges, because the bank reserves the right to lease the gold out.
You can of course buy individual shares of companies that either trade or mine gold.
Historically, gold certificates were issued by the US Treasury from the Civil War until 1933. Denominated in dollars, the certificates were used as part of the gold standard and could be exchanged for an equal value of gold.
Nowadays, gold certificates offer investors a method of holding gold without taking physical delivery. Issued by individual banks, particularly in countries such as Germany and Switzerland, they confirm an individual's ownership while the bank holds the metal on the client's behalf.
The investor avoids storage and personal security problems, and gains liquidity by being able to sell portions of the holding by simply telephoning the custodian.
The Perth Mint also runs a certificate programme that is guaranteed by the government of Western Australia and is distributed in a number of countries.
While thousands of items of gold jewellery change hands every year, they are not considered serious investments.
India devours 800 tonnes of bullion, more than 30pc of annual global gold mine production, mostly as jewellery. But although over the long term these jewels should hold their value and rise in line with inflation, manufacturing costs and the jewellers' markup mean they would sell for a fraction of the purchase price fo...
What is the gold standard?
Britain effectively moved to a gold standard in 1717 when the government linked the currency to gold at a fixed rate. All major countries, other than China, switched to the gold standard in the late 19th Century, linking their own currencies to gold.
Britain later dumped the standard during the First World War only to return to it in the 1920s.
The gold standard was further strengthened by the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, which created the International Monetary Fund and an international monetary system linking national currencies to the U.S. dollar that was convertible into gold.
The gold standard abandoned in 1971 by President Richard Nixon. The era of fiat money began at that point, allowing currencies to fluctuate based on confidence and more influenced by domestic monetary policy.
Witnesses in the trial of Meechaiel Criner testified Friday about the abandoned building where evidence connected to both Haruka Weiser and Meechaiel Criner was found.
In the third day of testimony, attorneys asked firefighters, police officers and an Austin Police Department detective about evidence and the individual found at the scene of a small fire at 2911 Medical Arts St. on the morning of April 4, 2016.
Aaron Wernsman, a fire specialist with the Austin Fire Department, testified that he saw an individual inside the abandoned building who had built a small fire. After the individual told Wernsman his name, Wernsman said he collected a red bike from the scene, deposited it at the fire station, and wrote a note on the bi...
John Bass, a firefighter with the AFD, testified that he saw three bicycles, a half-burned black shoe and a notebook with some math problems in the abandoned building. Weiser's friends testified Wednesday that Haruka was wearing all black before her death and was taking a calculus class.
Both Wernsman and Bass testified that they had put some items belonging to Criner, who said he was homeless, in a trash can for him to retrieve later.
Wensman said he then called LifeWorks, a youth homeless shelter, so Criner would have a place to stay. When APD officers Nick Garcia and Marco Gonzalez came to drive the individual to Lifeworks, the individual at the building said his name was Meechaiel Criner and gave the officer his birthdate.
After APD released surveillance video of the person suspected of killing Weiser during a press conference on April 7, 2016, Wernsman said he recognized the suspect as the same person from the abandoned building. Wernsman said multiple other individuals with the AFD also said the bicycle and person from the abandoned bu...
Former APD homicide detective Ray Tynes said he went to the abandoned building on April 8 and found a motorcycle jacket, a green T-shirt and an orange bandana in a trash can. The suspect, who was shown in the surveillance video walking toward Waller Creek in the same direction as another individual, was wearing similar...
The motorcyclist killed in a collision in Great Yarmouth has been named.
He was Alec Bramham, a man in his 20s, who lived in the town.
Mr Bramham was riding his black Lexmoto Arrow motorbike along the stretch at around 10pm when the crash between his bike and a black Peugeot 207 happened. He was treated at the scene and the road was closed for four hours.
Police confirmed this morning that a man had died.
They said a man in his 40s, from the Beccles area, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and drink driving.
Emergency services at the scene of a fatal crash in Great Yarmouth. Picture Kylie Howard.
He was taken to Great Yarmouth Police Investigation Centre for questioning, where he remains.
The scene has been cleared this morning with just a few pieces of police tape tied to surrounding areas.
A resident on Southtown Road who did not want to be named was leaving her house to walk her dog when the incident happened.
She described the sound of the crash as “horrifying”.
“There was an extremely loud crack and it sounded as though something was being crushed. It was horrifying.
“The bike came to rest by a gate nearby but I did not see anything more than that. There was lots of police and ambulance services on the scene and it did not quieten down until after two o’clock this morning,” she said.
Police had tweeted on Tuesday night that the crash, combined with ongoing roadworks, including the closure of the Gapton Hall roundabout, meant the road between Great Yarmouth and Gorleston was closed.
Norfolk police tweeted at just after 2.10am that Southtown Road had re-opened.
Police have appealed for witnesses to the crash, or anyone who saw the manner of driving of the car or the motorcycle before the crash, to get in touch.
Drivers who were in the area at the time are also being asked to check any dashcam footage and provide that to police.

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.