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The Medical Examiner’s Office was called to the scene to determine the identity of the body as well as the cause of death. The body has not been identified at this time.
The Royal Navy could be stripped of its ability to attack enemy-held beaches under cost-cutting plans, it has been reported.
The navy’s two amphibious assault ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, could be taken out of service in a new round of cuts to the armed forces, the BBC’s Newsnight said on Thursday.
It said such a move, which the Ministry of Defence described as “pure speculation”, would save money and free up crew for the two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.
It comes days after Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, used a speech at the Conservative party conference to call for an increase in defence funding as his ministry announced a £1bn support package for the Royal Navy fleet.
Newsnight reported that the plan, coupled with the loss of 1,000 Royal Marines, had alarmed senior commando officers. If confirmed, the loss of Albion, a former flagship of the Royal Navy, and Bulwark would leave the Navy without a dedicated amphibious assault ship.
Beach landings in countries and areas where the enemy controls the harbours have been used in many modern conflicts, including D-day during the second world war and the Falklands war.
Fallon said in his speech that the armed forces must “modernise” the way they worked “as we grow our defence budget”.
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Amazon, claiming the online retail giant billed parents millions of dollars for unauthorized charges made by children.
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Amazon, claiming the online retail giant billed parents millions of dollars for unauthorized charges made by children in a statement released Thursday. The suit comes as the latest in a string of actions the FTC has taken against tech giants, including a settlement with Apple and a complaint filed against T-Mobile.
In a press conference call, FTC Consumer Protection Director Jessica Rich said the spree targeting tech companies aimed to make clear to retailers that they must ensure authorized purchases.
"We are very concerned about the issue of unauthorized charges," she said. "As you'll note from our complaint last week against T-Mobile and our case against apple, we believe this has been an issue on the mobile platform, and we want to make clear you can't place charges on a bill without getting informed consent... We encourage all companies to follow informed consent."
This "informed consent," Rich said, could include retailers preventing charges until the consumer provides a password, or including features that deter children from tapping on purchase buttons for the apps.
Rich also declined to comment on whether the FTC will pursue Google, as Android smartphone owners have also found unauthorized charges made by children for downloadable apps and games.
Hudson B. Kingston, legal director for online privacy group Center for Digital Democracy, praised the FTC's move and echoed Rich's call.
"Amazon's policies of making it simple for children to accidentally spend hundreds of dollars in a 'kids' app, and it's apparent refusals to refund the money to complaining parents, are irresponsible and unfair," Kingston said in a statement. "Today's FTC action shows that consumers who have been charged for their kids' unauthorized in-app purchases should not have to foot the bill... The FTC's complaint should serve as a wake-up call for better corporate ethics."
According to the FTC, when Amazon introduced in-app charges in November 2011, the company failed to implement password requirements that would normally deter children from purchasing items. Instead, kids purchased games and virtual in-game items, racking up the bill parents would later have to pay.
The FTC is seeking a court order requiring Amazon to refund customers, claiming that Amazon employees were aware of the issues as early as December 2011.
"Even Amazon's own employees recognized the serious problem its process created," FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement. "We are seeking refunds for affected parents and a court order to ensure that Amazon gets parents' consent for in-app purchases."
Amazon updated its in-app charge process in June this year to obtain consent from account holders for purchases on mobile devices. The retailer has not yet commented on the lawsuit, but did release a letter to the FTC earlier this month on in-app purchasing.
Liam Rosenior returned to frustrate Reading and help Roy Keane’s Ipswich side earn a scrappy point.
The Royals’ right-back has joined Ipswich on loan until the end of the season but was granted permission to play in this match, a decision Reading must be kicking themselves about.
The 25-year-old made a number of crucial tackles as the home side were unable to end their home hoodoo by stretching their winless league run at the Madejski Stadium to 16 games.
The point for both sides means they sit in the bottom three, yet Rosenior, who was jeered by some of the home crowd, is still backing them to reach the play-offs.
He said: “I have watched a few of Reading’s games and they should be getting more points than they have.
“It’s rather like at Ipswich, in that we should be turning draws into wins and losses into draws.
“But it will turn in the right direction if you keep playing the right way. I am sure it will for both clubs as they both have good managers.
“This is certainly not a relegation battle. Last season, when I was at Reading, we were 12 points behind Wolves and after five games we were just a point behind.
“That is what this division is like. If you can go on a run you can still get in the play-offs.
“Fifteen points is only five wins and there are 29 games still to go, so I still think promotion is Reading’s and Ipswich’s aim this season.
Reading got off to the worst possible start when they conceded a goal on nine minutes.
David Wright’s long throw was only half-cleared by Ivan Ingimarsson and the unmarked Jon Stead looped the ball over Adam Federici.
The Royals battled back and came close through Gylfi Sigurdsson, Brian Howard and Grzegorz Rasiak in the first-half.
Simon Church finally pulled them level two minutes after the restart when Sigurdsson’s shot cannoned off his knee and into the net.
It was the Wales international’s first goal at home and was unlucky not to add a second when Asmir Begovic tipped his shot on to the bar.
Church added: “I am happy to have scored and I’m glad to be getting more chances in front of goal, but again it was another sloppy goal which has cost us.
“It was a great feeling to finally score my first goal at home. I knew I needed a goal and I didn’t care how it came, so it was that little bit of luck I needed.
Watch the world’s greatest companies and performers dance classic ballets and modern choreography.
Learn about the making of Young Men, a World War I-inspired feature-length dance film.
The choreographer’s dances “Brandenburgs” and “Beloved Renegade” are set to the music of Bach and Poulenc respectively in performances which garnered raves in the City of Light. Paul Taylor is the last living member of the pantheon that created America’s indigenous art of modern dance.
John Neumeier — director and chief choreographer for Hamburg Ballet — blends dance, dramatic storytelling and spectacle into a unique interpretation of a Hans Christian Andersen’s tale. With choreography, sets, costumes, and lighting, all by Neumeier, this ballet—as much theater as it is dance—takes the dancers into deep emotional terrain.
See the company’s critically acclaimed performances of Balanchine’s “Square Dance” (music by Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli) and “Western Symphony” (music by Hershy Kay) and Tharp’s “The Golden Section” (music composed and performed by David Byrne). Miami City Ballet – under the leadership of Artistic Director Edward Villella, celebrated its 25th anniversary season in 2010-11.
For his 38th film in a career spanning more than 40 years, master documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman turns his attention to one of the world’s greatest ballet companies, the Paris Opera Ballet, observing daily classes, rehearsals, and performances.
Shot on-location in NYC, this film adaptation of Jerome Robbins’ groundbreaking choreography dazzles.
The 90-minute program showcases aerial dancers off the cliffs of Yosemite National Park, synchronized swimmers underwater at Coral Reef National Monument, and films dancers at Mammoth Cave, Wright Brothers National Memorial, the remains of a sugar cane plantation at Virgin Islands National Park, and the sacred terrain of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.
The Royal Ballet production features an acclaimed cast, including Ivan Putrov as the Nutcracker, Alina Cojocaru as Clara, Miyako Yoshida as the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Sir Anthony Dowell as the toy- and clockmaker Herr Drosselmeyer.
A groundbreaking luminary in the dance world, Mitchell was known for his grace, charisma, leadership and tenacity both on and off the stage.
Mark Morris and Rudolf Nureyev, both featured in Great Performances programs, have been announced as the 2015 inductees into the Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame at The National Museum of Dance in New York.
▪ Attractions come and go but the butter sculpture is forever. This year, artist Ken Robinson will craft his sculpture around the theme “Celebrating Texas Agriculture” and it will be of last year’s award-winning steer.
▪ Still pining for some Olympics gymnastics? Check out Zulu African Acrobats as they fly through the air with the greatest of ease on the Mattress Firm Stage on the Esplanade.
▪ The Budweiser Clydesdales will be clip-clopping back to the fair in their first appearance at the event since 2005. They are featured in a special exhibit and there will be staff on hand to answer questions about the horses.
▪ Finally, if you can’t get enough of the fair, check out 341, a three-part miniseries airing on KERA/Channel 13 about the people who take part in the fair. The first episode airs 6:30 p.m. Sunday and the remaining episodes air at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 16 and Oct. 30.
Where is it: Fair Park, 1300 Robert B. Cullum Blvd., Dallas, just east of downtown off I-30. Coming from the east on I-30, get off at exit 48B. Coming from the west on I-30, get off at exit 49B.
Days and hours: Sept. 30-Oct. 23. Gates open at 7 a.m. daily. Exhibit buildings, outdoor exhibits and food concessions open at 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday.
Parking: $15, $30 valet. There are several lots in Fair Park. One, at Haskell and Fitzhugh, offers tram service to the entrance. There are many private lots available on surrounding properties but they vary in price and security.
Public transportation: The Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Green Line light rail stops at two stations near Fair Park: Fair Park Station, on Parry Avenue at the main entrance to the park, and MLK Jr. Station, on Robert B. Cullum Blvd. near the MLK fairground entrance (Gate 6).
From Tarrant County, the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) is running special weekend schedules during the fair. Trains stop at Victory Station at Victory Park in Dallas where fairgoers must transfer to DART’s Green Line. From Denton County, the A-Train connects with DART’s Green Line at Trinity Mills Station in Carrollton (note the A Train doesn’t run on Sundays).
Tickets: General admission is $18 at the gate, $16 if purchased online. Children (under 48 inches in height) and seniors (60 and older) are $14 at the gate, $16 in advance. Seniors get free admission every Thursday. Season passes are $39.95 at the gate or in advance. Tickets can also be purchased at Kroger stores. For groups of 20 to 249, admission is $12 per person but must be booked in advance through groupsales@bigtex.com or call 214 565-2917. For groups of more than 250, call for discount pricing. There are also various season pass and family pass combo packages ranging in price from $95 to $189. For more information, go to http://bigtex.com/info/tickets/.
Food and rides: Fairgoers need to purchase coupons for rides and food. Sheets of 20 coupons cost $10 at booths throughout the fairgrounds.
For more information on the fair, go to bigtex.com.
Beck crept on stage on Wednesday night with an impish prance that said "pop", a black leather jacket that said "rock", and delivered a show that – like the artist himself – was neither, nor both, but somewhere in between.
From the wicked riff of opening favourite, Devil's Haircut, through the hip-hop loops of Que Onda Guero and the funk of Mixed Bizness, this little dancing man quickly set about showcasing his range as performer.
"We've got a lot of ground to cover," he said. "Should we play a long show?"
He didn't really – the concert at Margaret Court Arena clocked just under a couple of hours – but within that time it's safe to say that even casual fans understood just how deep his catalogue of familiar tracks runs.
From Think I'm In Love to Up All Night, his hits got the requisite roars. But the 47-year-old musician also knew when to pare things back – firstly with the heartbreak and melancholy of Lost Cause, then with a beautiful short interlude dipping into Morning Phase, the album for which he controversially won a Grammy.
He asked the crowd for requests, and as they screamed back he noted wryly: "Some of those songs are not my songs." He obliged anyway, and promptly had the arena in Prince singalong with an almost mournful Raspberry Beret.
But mostly he played the joker. Winking self-awareness is, after all, his metier. He announced, for instance, that for this one night in Melbourne he would be changing the titular lyric of Debra to "Sheila", while a reference to Hyundai to would switch to Daewoo.
If there were a dominant demographic in the audience, it was probably those who grew up with his early discography: a mass of squirrelly 40-somethings, seemingly all in horn-rimmed glasses; blokes in cargo shorts and close-cropped beards and sheilas in ankle-length skirts, pink highlights amid a few grey hairs. At one point the line for lattes was longer than the one for lagers, but all credit to the Gen-Xers – they were as responsive to tracks from Odelay (1996) as they were from Colours (2017).
From the latter, Seventh Heaven stood out. Wow, too, had everyone in the joint grooving and roiling: heads down, hands up. Dreams energetically hit its mark.
You would never sense that Beck's latest album was a labour-intensive grind, one that was abandoned and trashed and begun anew over several years. Yet it was easy to believe what he has said in the past – that the new songs were inspired by five years of touring alongside younger bands like The Strokes.
Pretty soon the gig veered back into popular and well-trodden ground, the audience na-na-naing through E-Pro before he left stage, only to return for an encore in a flat-brimmed hat and white sports coat, ready to give us all – of course – that 1994 hit, Loser, then Where It's At.
He thanked his big band, giving each member a little music tribute – 30 seconds of Chic or The Rolling Stones or Talking Heads – then he twisted and spun and skipped off stage for good, leaving behind far, far more than two turntables and a microphone.
An Israeli Company Claims That They Will Have A Cure For Cancer In A Year. Don't Believe Them.
An Israeli company has claimed that they will have a universal cure for cancer within a year. This seems highly unlikely. Photo Credit: Getty Royalty Free.
An Israeli biotech company has claimed that it will have the cure for cancer within a year, bringing with it a flurry of viral news articles that seem to have accepted these claims at face-value.
The New York Post and The Jerusalem Post both recently featured articles about Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd (AEBi), a company founded in 2000 from the ITEK Weizmann technology incubator. There are a number of very bold claims in both articles, many which are unsubstantiated with no evidence provided by the company. People can largely say whatever they like, after all, but it is just unusual for biotech/pharma companies to do so without significant evidence to back up their claims.
“Instead of attacking receptors one at a time, we attack receptors three at a time – not even cancer can mutate three receptors at the same time," said Morad.
This is categorically untrue. Cancers can have anywhere from one to tens of thousands of DNA mutations in their genomes, many of these being the "receptors" Morad vaguely refers to. A key principle of using multiple chemotherapy agents at once is to go after cancer cells by several different routes to reduce the chance that they will become resistant. Still, many cancers do become resistant to these treatment protocols, so Morad's logic here is extremely shaky.
Hearing about new "cancer cures," with little-to-no evidence backing this up is not a new scenario for the hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals and researchers all working towards the goal of better treatments for cancer. We are used to fielding questions about everything from baking soda to lemons curing cancer, often from desperate cancer patients or their families. It is frankly, heartbreaking, with cancer patients increasingly turning to crowdfunding to raise money for these unproven cancer cures.
Websites for new drugs are often littered with links to their scientific publications, proudly proving the efficacy of the drug in cells in a dish, in animal models and finally in clinical trials in people. The site for AEBi is less than forthcoming with these publications, possibly because there aren't any. As one cancer research scientist on Twitter put it, "It's basically the Fyre festival of cancer cures."
Delving into what the company does supply, there are two graphs and some pictures taken down a microscope, much less than I provided from a 6-week undergraduate research project a decade ago.
But is there any way the treatment could possibly be proven in a year, even if their approach does work?
"I doubt it, based on what they disclosed to the public. Apparently, the work has only been done in mice. Anything tested in mice has to undergo testing in other animal species, be formulated, and then approved to administration in Phase I clinical trials in humans," said Dr Benjamin G. Neel, M.D., Ph.D. Professor of Medicine at NYU School of Medicine and Director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center.
The Israeli company also claims that their therapy will work for all types of cancer. To those involved in cancer research, this is a huge red flag. There are broadly over 200 different types of cancer and within those, multiple other subtypes. For there to be one, universal "cancer cure," that overcomes all of these differences is highly unlikely.
If it ever comes to fruition, it is unlikely to come from a company whose website offers merely two crudely made graphs to prove this and whose chief scientist appears to have largely published in the botanical sciences, the last paper being 17 years ago. A search of the chief scientist on PubMed, which indexes all papers involving medical research returns no results.
"One should never say never in science, but I think it is quite unlikely that we will see a single magic bullet for cancer. We don't have single magic bullets for infectious disease--different infections require different antibiotics, and even then, antibiotic resistance develops. Cancer is not a single disease--its multiple diseases, each caused by different combinations of genetic changes within different types of target cells. We already know how to cure many forms of cancer, and notably, all of these cures are different," said Neel.
If such a "magic bullet" treatment is ever made, it will surely be considered one of the greatest achievements of humanity to date. It is likely to involve thousands of scientists from all over the world, combining their expertise, experience and funding, but it is not going to be done within a year. Clinical trials for new cancer drugs, from the first time they are tested in patients to when they are approved by regulatory bodies, often take anywhere between 10-15 years, with only a few exceptions.
So, are the claims from AEBi that they will have a cure for cancer within a year reasonable?
"Based on what they released to the media, absolutely not. They haven't provided any details about the approach. They haven't published the data. And yet they make the extraordinary, and in my option, highly irresponsible and even cruel (to cancer patients) that they will cure cancer in a year," said Neel.
The company and some of the coverage has drawn international condemnation from some of the world's largest cancer organizations.
"Unsubstantiated claims that there will be a cure for all cancers in a year are irresponsible and can be misleading for patients. This oversimplifies the fact that cancer is more than 200 different diseases, which behave differently and pose different treatment challenges. This is why finding a single cure for all cancers is unlikely," said Julia Frater, Cancer Research UK’s senior cancer information nurse.
The American Cancer Society yesterday published a blog article from their deputy chief medical officer explaining why the claims are unlikely to be true. Among other valid points, it suggests that the approach by this company isn't that unique and that other similar approaches have failed.
Part of the statement from the American Cancer Society about the claims from the Israeli biotech company that they will have the cure for cancer within a year. Republished with permission of the American Cancer Society.
"It will likely take some time to prove the benefit of this new approach to the treatment of cancer. And unfortunately–based on other similar claims of breakthrough technologies for the treatment of cancer–the odds are that it won’t be successful," said J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, M.D., deputy chief medical officer for the national office of the American Cancer Society.
Cancer patients and those who care for them cannot be blamed for wanting to believe sensationalist stories like this one. The condemnation in this instance should go to both the company for making such bombastic claims about their product with essentially no evidence and also those journalists who have chosen to uncritically report on these unsubstantiated claims. After considerable pressure, The New York Post published a more balanced piece featuring the views of several experts urging caution about the news.
However, the damage has already largely been done. Such awful, unbalanced coverage of cancer research erodes trust in not only health journalists but also everybody genuinely working towards better treatments for people with cancer. Cancer patients and their families deserve far better.
The menu for meals on my Turkish Airlines flight earlier this month assured passengers that food selections "do not contain pork." The menu also offered a serious selection of alcoholic drinks, including champagne, whiskey, gin, vodka, rakı, wine, beer, liqueur, and cognac. This oddity of simultaneously adhering to and ignoring Islamic law, the Shari'a, symbolizes the uniquely complex public role of Islam in today's Turkey, as well as the challenge of understanding the Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish abbreviation, AKP) which has dominated the country's national government since 2002.
Political discussions about Turkey tend to dwell on whether the AKP is Islamist or not: In 2007, for example, I asked "what are the AKP leadership's intentions? Did it ... retain a secret Islamist program and simply learn to disguise its Islamist goals? Or did it actually give up on those goals and accept secularism?"
Applying the Shari'a in full, they say, is not a feasible goal in Turkey because of the country's secular and democratic nature, something distinguishing it from other Muslim-majority countries (except Albania, Kosovo, and Kyrgyzia). Accepting this reality, the AKP wins ever-greater electoral support by softly coercing the population to be more virtuous, traditional, pious, religious, conservative, and moral. Thus, it encourages fasting during Ramadan and female modesty, discourages alcohol consumption, attempted to criminalize adultery, indicted an anti-Islamist artist, increased the number of religious schools, added Islam to the public school curriculum, and introduced questions about Islam to university entrance exams. Put in terms of Turkish Airlines, pork is already gone and it's a matter of time until the alcohol also disappears.
Islamic practice, not Islamic law, is the goal, my interlocutors told me. Hand chopping, burqas, slavery, and jihad are not in the picture, and all the less so after the past decade's economic growth which empowered an Islamically-oriented middle class that rejects Saudi-style Islam. An opposition leader noted that five districts of Istanbul "look like Afghanistan," but these are the exception. I heard that the AKP seeks to reverse the anti-religiousness of Atatürk's state without undermining that state, aspiring to create a post-Atatürk order more than an anti-Atatürk order. It seeks, for example, to dominate the existing legal system rather than create an Islamic one. The columnist Mustafa Akyol even holds the AKP is not trying to abolish secularism but that it "argues for a more liberal interpretation of secularism." The AKP, they say, emulates the 623-year-old Ottoman state Atatürk terminated in 1922, admiring both its Islamic orientation and its dominance of the Balkans and the Middle East.