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With Reid closing in, Ramires appeared to lean towards the former Republic of Ireland international and went to ground upon contact.
"The boy went into the box, he went down looking for it and the referee obliged him," argued Clarke.
"The atmosphere at the bigger stadiums when you go away from home can influence decisions, but I think the decision today was particularly galling.
"It is ridiculous to have to take it because it wasn't a penalty. That's five points my team have lost because of late decisions on penalties.
"I'm sad and I'm angry but I'm also very proud because we were magnificent today.
"This is a difficult place to come. Chelsea are one of the teams that are going to fight for the title. We suffered a disappointment losing the goal before half-time and in the second half we were really good and deserved all three points."
Marriner's decision was disputed by West Brom's players before Hazard calmly sent goalkeeper Boaz Myhill the wrong way to keep Mourinho's unbeaten home Premier League run intact.
The Portuguese manager said the goal was just reward for Chelsea's response to West Brom's second goal, which he believed should have been disallowed due to a foul on Branislav Ivanovic in the build-up.
"It should have been a clear free-kick against West Brom when they scored the second goal," he said.
"So I have reason to be very upset with the referee's work. I believe he is a great referee, one of the best in European football, but he had a very unhappy game today.
"It was dramatic because the home team was losing and in the last 15 minutes our reaction was very strong.
"We put everything into the game to try to score and at least not to lose. In the end, it was even more emotional than technical and tactical."
What can you buy for €275,000 in Dublin and Galway?
56 Tory Square, Waterville, Blanchardstown: very close to Connolly Hospital and a 10-minute walk from Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.
Tomany House, Tomanybeg, Abbey, Loughrea, Co Galway: built in the mid-1800s, it has many original features.
Is it safe to visit China now?
Our expert offers info on Vietnam tours, Christmas condos in Hawaii and Puerto Rico's weather patterns.
We are planning a trip to China and Tibet in the summer, crossing from Beijing to Chengdu via Xian, and then flying on to Lhasa if possible. In the wake of the recent bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and demonstrations in Beijing at the U.S. Embassy, as well as the current deterioration in Sino-U.S. relations, do you think it is now safe to travel in China?
The protests at the U.S. Embassy after the Belgrade bombing ended within days, and the U.S. State Department travel caution issued at that time was tempered a few days later. There was evidence that the Chinese government orchestrated those protests, but I've seen nothing since to suggest organized animosity toward individual travelers from the United States or other NATO countries.
As for how deteriorating relations might affect tourism, I would expect the Chinese government to encourage visitors while playing out its diplomatic protests on a separate plane. Indeed, even while the embassy demonstrations were still going on, the Chinese government issued an assurance that visitors would be safe.
While it's impossible to predict the future -- who could have foreseen the Belgrade-bombing twist? -- the record of the past decade is that China encourages tourism as long as visitors don't express their politics too outwardly or head for politically sensitive zones.
You should continue to monitor the State Department's statements about China. One announcement issued May 27 says, in part, "In view of the 10th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, as well as the lingering tension resulting from Chinese reaction to the mistaken May 7 NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, American citizens should exercise caution while living or traveling in China.
where demonstrations are in progress ..."
The May 27 announcement is scheduled to expire on June 18. You can monitor developments through the State Department travel warnings or the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
The China National Tourism Administration has a site, but it avoids such sticky issues, as do the sites of most national tourism bureaus. For opposition sites that might provide coverage of suppression or other hazards, look to the International Campaign for Tibet and Human Rights Watch sites.
In addition to Salon's news coverage, a good site for tracking news stories and other developments in China can be found at The Washington Post.
The movie "Three Seasons," shot in Vietnam, has got me thinking about traveling there. Do you know of tour operators who offer packages?
"Three Seasons," a movie that won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival this year, will no doubt inspire many viewers to consider heading for the verdant, often beautiful nation. Tour companies offering packages to Vietnam are multiplying quickly. Among those that have been around for a while are Geographic Expeditions in San Francisco, phone (800) 777-8183; Asian Pacific Adventures in Los Angeles, (800) 825-1680; and Absolute Asia in New York, (800) 736-8187.
An ace site for locating tour companies offering country-specific tours is Specialty Travel Index Online. Under its "cultural expeditions" in Vietnam heading, for instance, 15 companies were listed when I recently looked, with descriptions and contact information.
which can steer you toward several packages keyed to your interests -- cultural, sightseeing, biking and so forth.
A site with a Vietnam tourism section is Vietnam Online.
I'm looking for a two-bedroom condo in Hawaii for Christmas and New Year's. Any island other than Oahu. Any suggestions?
Hawaii Connection represents more than 140 properties, sortable by island.
Hawaiian Condo Resorts has properties in West Maui and Waikiki.
Homes and Villas in Paradise offers various kinds of rentals, including condos, on five islands.
Royal Hawaii Condos offers condos on Maui, Kauai and Hawaii as well as Oahu.
Lanier Travel Guides has a site listing more than 3,000 condos around the world, including dozens in Hawaii. Its search engine is quite refined -- it lets you narrow your search by city and island.
has information on other accommodation sources, too.
Is August-September a good time to travel to Puerto Rico? How is the weather during this time of year?
Puerto Rico has a stable climate that varies little throughout the year, although August and September are usually among the rainiest months with more than 6 inches falling in San Juan over 18 or 20 days. The north coast, where San Juan is located, is usually wetter than the south coast and, naturally, the average temperature is cooler the higher you get.
Those months fall within hurricane season, and Puerto Rico is sometimes affected by such storms. For a discussion of hurricanes and Puerto Rico's weather, consult the book "Adventure Guide to Puerto Rico," by Harry S. Pariser (Hunter Publishing, 3d edition 1996).
During the winter, Puerto Rico is hot and humid, and that's even truer during the summer months. The trade winds, though, have a cooling effect.
You can find information on Puerto Rico through the Caribbean Tourism Organization site. There's also a weather link there.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, about 200 nurses, technicians and support personnel of Methodist Medical Center stood outside in a driving rainstorm for about two hours advocating for a balanced and fair contract with the hospital's management.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, about 200 nurses, technicians and support personnel of Methodist Medical Center stood outside in a driving rainstorm for about two hours advocating for a balanced and fair contract with the hospital’s management.
Interfaith Worker Justice of East Tennessee, an interfaith and interdenominational coalition devoted to building just and effective relationships among workers and employers, was proud to stand with these dedicated employees, rain notwithstanding, in their fight for a new contract. We believe that achieving human dignity, individual worth, and economic justice in the workplace reflects the core of our respective faith traditions.
The Methodist Medical Center has achieved a well-earned reputation as an essential and highly valued component of the Oak Ridge and East Tennessee communities. It is ranked as a hospital of recognized excellence, not only because of its outstanding medical staff, but just as importantly because of its skilled and caring healthcare professionals who are deeply committed to providing safe and quality care to every patient.
We are deeply concerned that the foundation on which this reputation has been built over the decades is now threatened, and we find ourselves with no alternative but to speak out.
What are the core issues at stake in the ongoing contract negotiations between Methodist Medical Center management and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)?
• Maintaining safe levels of staffing and predictable scheduling is a vital part of preserving the existing level of safety and care. A shortage of staff inevitably leads to excessive overtime and this, in turn, translates into fatigue, lower morale and personal stress. MMC health professionals in all job classifications have demonstrated repeatedly their willingness to go the extra mile in behalf of patients. Management has an equal obligation to create and implement a work environment, including work rules, that fosters and enhances these attitudes of commitment and service.
• Creating a two-tier wage system that penalizes newly-hired RNs, LPNs, and food service workers is a further threat to employee effectiveness and commitment. Penalizing highly-trained technical personnel with a lower hourly wage and no premium pay for being proficient across multiple technical areas further endangers excellence of care.
• A hallmark of successful healthcare centers is investment in the continuing education of its employees. To cut back on such opportunities, as is presently being proposed, not only erodes a positive work environment, but also sends a message of disinterest in maintaining, and enhancing, MMC’s reputation as a first-class medical institution. This proposal is profoundly short-sighted and ill-advised.
• We can only reiterate the critical place MMC occupies in the Oak Ridge community, how it has been blessed through the years with exceptional healthcare workers, and how it is the sacred obligation of both management and workers to guarantee a positive, fair and just resolution of current contract issues.
Good faith bargaining is the pathway to achieving this objective.
Rev. Ralph Hutchison, United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
Rev. Dwyn Mounger, United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
Urban Airship, a Portland startup that specializes in push notifications and in-app transactions, has acquired San Francisco’s SimpleGeo in an all stock deal.
The acquisition will add location-based technologies to the Urban Airship lineup, meaning that a retailer can push coupons to a shopper in a specific aisle in a store or a sports team could send different messages to fans based on their seats in the stadium.
“Companies should not have to rely on a fragmented and unwieldy mix of tools that only deliver part of what is needed to understand how people are interacting with their brand on mobile,” said Urban Airship CEO Scott Kveton in a press release.
Urban Airship — whose more than 20,000 customers include Fox, ESPN, Warner Brothers and Slate– is backed by Founder’s Co-op, Foundry Group and True Ventures. As a result of the deal, Urban Airship will maintain the SimpleGeo offices in San Francisco.
SimpleGeo founders Jay Adelson, Matt Galligan and Joe Stump will continue as advisors.
While most food companies are shifting as fast as they can away from commodities and toward highly profitable packaged foods, the Dean Foods Company has stayed put, sticking largely to that most basic of commodities - milk.
The strategy has paid off handsomely. It has become the leading dairy not only in Chicago, but also in other major markets around the United States, supplying milk sold under private labels at such grocery chains as Super Valu, Jewel and Kroger. It also is a major supplier of ice cream sold though about 425 Baskin-Robbins outlets. And, though not a household name, Dean Foods has become one of the most profitable companies in the food industry.
Dean knows that the key to success in commodity businesses - particularly in the dairy industry, which has been plagued by overcapacity and relatively flat consumption - is to hold down costs. A straightforward, no-nonsense company, it does this in a variety of ways.
It stays close to the markets it serves, maintaining 26 dairies nationwide. It maintains its own fleet of 2,600 refrigerated trucks and makes its own plastic jug containers, which it finds cheaper than paper. It has automated the cleaning and maintenance of dairy equipment, a chore that once necessitated disconnecting every piece by hand every day. And in 1984, it extracted wage concessions from its Illinois workers to compete with nonunion dairies in Wisconsin.
But Dean's soaring earnings are based on more than belt-tightening. Dean has used its profits to finance a nationwide growth formula that has allowed it to acquire 17 other dairies since 1976. It has done only friendly deals, aiming for small, healthy concerns, paying cash, not stock. Half of Dean's growth - it projects 1985 earnings of $31.7 million on sales of $1.05 billion - has come from acquisitions.
''If you don't talk to a dairy all the way along, they tend to forget you and go with whoever is around,'' said Kenneth J. Douglas, 63 years old, the chairman and chief executive of Dean since 1970. A lawyer by training, Mr. Douglas was an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation before joining Dean in 1954.
Dean has long been known for following its own path. In the 1930's, when most dairies sold milk in glass bottles and only through home delivery, for example, Dean packaged milk in paper containers and sold exclusively to grocery stores.
While other food companies trumpet their names, Dean remains pleased to take a back seat to its customers, allowing supermarket chains and others to put their private labels on Dean's dairy products.
This approach serves Dean in another way. While other food companies spend large sums on advertising, Dean avoids most of those expenses.
Dean added yet another major supermarket chain, Jewel Food, to its fold last April, when Hillfarm, the dairy that was Dean's biggest competitor in the Chicago market, closed after its contaminated milk led to more than 17,000 cases of salmonella. The Jewel deal helped raise Dean's profits by 24 percent last year, and now accounts for one-tenth of Dean's sales and profits, analysts say. ''The key is volume,'' said Mr. Douglas, whose company sold 375 million gallons of milk last year.
In recent years, however, there have been obstacles to building volume. Price supports were increased dramatically under the Carter Administration, keeping milk prices artificially high, and soft drinks cut into milk volume. Only within the last year have prices been frozen. Cholesterol-conscious consumers also helped push milk consumption down in the 1970's, although the dairy industry has tried to counter that problem by promoting low-fat and skim milk.
Dean also seems to be showing increasing interest in expanding beyond the dairy base that has served it so well, though it has remained in foods and not tried to move into other businesses. Last month it paid $165 million for the Larsen Company, a Milwaukee-based processor of frozen vegetables with sales of $170 million. Before that, roughly 20 percent of Dean's operations - and somewhat more of its earnings - came from nondairy foods, including pickles, dips and sauces. Its Peter Piper pickle is second in its industry, after Vlassic, a product of the Campbell Soup Company. The Larsen acquisition, however, marked its first move into nondairy frozen foods.
Mr. Douglas said the Larsen acquisition was made to please its supermarket-chain customers. ''Our chain customers like suppliers with a large variety,'' he said. Not coincidentally, the acquisition allows Dean to take advantage of its refrigerated trucks and expertise with frozen food, gained through years of making ice cream.
While Dean is busy seeking out acquisition prospects, Mr. Douglas says he is unperturbed about Dean itself becoming a takeover target. The Dean family owns about 26 percent of the outstanding stock, he said, and, at 19 times earnings, Dean's stock is costly. ''This is not the kind of underperforming company a raider wants,'' he said.
Britney Spears has been cleared of child abuse allegations. The Toxic singer's former bodyguard had accused her of beating her two sons.
American singer Britney Spears has been cleared of child abuse allegations.
A former bodyguard of the 28-year-old singer accused her of beating sons Sean Preston, 4, and Jayden James, 3.
Fernando Flores claimed that Britney asked him for his belt and used it on the children.
He also accused the Toxic hitmaker of giving them food they were allergic to and also said that she sexually harassed him by walking around naked, reports The Sun.
But Los Angeles social workers found there was no credibility of the abuse accusations.
“Flores is an opportunist,” a family source said.
James J. Caserio is Co-Chair of the firm's Chicago Real Estate Practice. He focuses his practice on domestic and cross-border real estate transactions, real estate finance, joint ventures and development. His clients include institutional investors, public and private... Read More.
Michael T. Fishman is Co-Chair of the firm's Chicago Real Estate Practice who focuses his practice on real estate, real estate finance, private equity and real estate fund formation. His clients include institutional investors, investment... Read More.
Dean A. Isaacs focuses his practice on a broad spectrum of issues related to U.S. and international real estate, including construction, acquisition and mezzanine loans. He also focuses on intercreditor agreements, joint ventures, land... Read More.
US President defends decision to withdraw troops from Syria amid reports he made the decision hastily.
US President Donald Trump on Friday defended his decision to withdraw troops from Syria which, he claimed, was done because the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group was defeated.
“I’ve done more damage to ISIS than all recent presidents....not even close!” he tweeted.
The tweet followed a report in The Associated Press which said Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria was made hastily, without consulting his national security team or allies, and over strong objections from virtually everyone involved in the fight against ISIS.
According to US and Turkish officials quoted in the report, Trump stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much of the world with the move by rejecting the advice of his top aides and agreeing to a withdrawal in a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week.
The December 14 call, described by officials who were not authorized to discuss the decision-making process publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, provides insight into a consequential Trump decision that prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. It also set off a frantic, four-day scramble to convince the president either to reverse or delay the decision, according to the report.
The call reportedly came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu agreed to have the two presidents discuss Erdogan’s threats to launch a military operation against US-backed Kurdish rebels in northeast Syria, where American forces are based. The NSC then set up the call.
The State Department and Pentagon declined to comment on the account of the decision to withdraw the troops.
Mainly sunny. High 76F. Winds light and variable..
A mostly clear sky. Low 54F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
It took longer than they would’ve liked, but the Hornets’ moment of jubilation was well worth the wait.
MAGNOLIA — The Bearkats battled through adversity on their way to making history Wednesday at the Southland Conference Women’s Golf Championship.
MAGNOLIA – The Bearkats hold a share of the lead after the first day of play at the Southland Conference Women’s Golf Championship at High Meadow Ranch.
The Bearkats locked up a Southland Conference Tournament berth with a sweep of Abilene Christian over the weekend, and one of the key pieces of the effort was recognized by the league on Monday.
Through the ups and downs of 2019, the Bearkats find themselves where they need to be with just over a month left in the regular season.

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