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There are reports of a second death from the storm. A man was killed trying to clear a tree with a chainsaw in Tipperary, according to the Irish Daily Mirror.
Earlier a woman was killed when a tree landed on her car in county Waterford.
Seán Hassett said he filmed his parents’ wobbly flight landing at Dublin. “My heart was in my mouth,” he tweeted.
The Irish Coast Guard was called out to rescue kite surfers who got into difficulty off the coast of county Louth, north of Dublin.
Police in Ireland are warning people to stay away from the coast.
The Environment Agency has three flood warnings and 13 flood alerts in place for south west and north west England.
More strange light is being reported across the UK.
There are several reports of a strange dark orange light in northern England.
Earlier today a red looking sun was seen in many parts of England. The light is caused by particulates thrown up by the storm, according to experts.
Irish Rail has cancelled all trains for the rest of the day.
All schools in Pembrokeshire on the west of Wales coast have been closed, as disruption from Ophelia spreads to the UK.
At least four downed trees are causing traffic problems in the county, the council said.
Around 200 homes are without power in the Eglwyswrw area, including the school which had to close early. The council decided to close all of its schools at 1pm.
The number of homes and businesses without power has almost doubled to 230,000, according to RTE.
Power cuts are no longer confined to the south-west of Ireland. Around a thousand homes are without power in Cong in County Mayo.
The violent winds caused by Storm Ophelia has affected the filming of Game of Thrones.
Set building for the cult television series, a large part of which is filmed in Northern Ireland, has been suspended due to the storm.
Filming on the new Superman prequel series Krypton, which is also being shot in the region, has also been halted for the day due to safety fears.
If you've been anywhere near a marketing conference, ad-land boardroom or Soho pub lately, you'll have overheard – maybe even had – one of those conversations around native advertising. The chances are you'll have come away underwhelmed by how such a mighty buzzword translates into real, on-the-ground action.
Marketers hit upon "native" as a way of describing brand messaging that moves outside its traditional fenced-off areas – display pages, commercial breaks or banners – and moves among the other content elements. As if it were one of them. Hence: native.
The term gained currency in 2010 at around the same time ad execs – used to buying eyeballs in the hope that they translated into action – realised they were getting the wrong kind of clicks. "Trad ad" was turning into that thing you clicked, swiped and generally batted away in a frantic bid to get back to the thing you came for: the content.
And after Buzzfeed's VP of agency strategy Jonathan Perelman told the Abu Dhabi Media Summit last year that "You are more likely to summit Everest than click on a banner ad", you could have cut yourself on the Google Trends spike.
On the face of it, brands taking their ads further into someone's editorial environment seems sensible enough. There are just two problems. The first is that native advertising knows what it isn't (all those predictable old formats people are fast-forwarding, ignoring, and otherwise abandoning in droves). But it doesn't really know what it is. Take any three marketers and one will tell you it means ads that appear on web pages and articles but are specific in their appeal to the content on that web page or article. (That used to be called targeting.) One that it's brand-sponsored content out in the wild – that is, mingling with non-sponsored content. (Advertorial.) And one will talk about content brought to you by the brands themselves.
The only thing remotely new about any of these approaches is their sudden discovery by the sort of people who would traditionally have bought kettle time during the Cup Final and played a jingle at you. In most cases, they amount to the same old acts of clunky, credibility sapping imposture named and shamed by Naomi Klein in No Logo, written 25 years ago.
No wonder most native advertising strategies are about as truly native as a gap-year student in a sarong. No wonder they feel phoney to the people who live and breathe the values, the world view, the language of the surrounding content. And like banner ads, it will work until people get used to it and filter it out too. Let's not forget, the first ever banner ad got an astonishing 44% click-through rate over four months. At the end of the day, unless you've got an audience that is fundamentally interested in your brand and what it has to say, you can gatecrash any party you like, and it won't mean you take them home with you when you leave.
So what's the alternative? Well, there is one, but it takes work. Instead of turning up at someone else's party with your logo, marketers who really want to communicate persuasively, need to bring people into that brand's own world. This brand messaging has claim over its environment, and speaks its own language. It belongs there. The content arises from the brand in an entirely organic, natural and powerful way. And it's persuasive precisely because it talks about the things in which it has expertise, and those are things in which its customers are interested.
The best content marketing is about just that – creating content that lives and breathes the brand, and speaks from within that brand. And it's effective: readers of Waitrose Kitchen – a whole magazine and online content programme brought to you by Waitrose, that talks about things at the heart of the Waitrose offering – spend five times more in-store than those who don't read it. It's the power of creating and curating a world of content from the brand itself. We call it indigenous brand messaging. Because it's the brand speaking to customers in its own environment, and through its own channels, the brand gets all the benefits, from cost to increased leverage over data.
It might not be that every brand has that depth of interest or expertise. But in my experience, it's often a confidence issue. And the sooner brands wake up to the fact that customers would rather hear them speaking honestly, credibly and in-depth than be doorstepped by glorified advertorials, the more those brands – and ultimately their customers – will benefit.
Andrew Hirsch is CEO of John Brown Media.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Visitors to Brazil for the 2014 soccer World Cup will not be able to use the latest wireless technology operating on a frequency used widely in the United States and Europe, the head of telecom regulator Anatel told Reuters.
Anatel president Jõao Rezende said in an interview that the 700 MHz spectrum won't be ready for the big event. Instead, he said, tourists can buy local 4G chips that will work on Brazil's 2.5 GHz network - or settle for slower service.
Uncertainty about the readiness of Brazil's wireless network has added to concerns among organizers, who have also spoken out about lagging transportation investments and missed deadlines for construction of stadiums.
Last June Brazil auctioned rights to fourth-generation (4G) operations in the 2.5 GHz spectrum, requiring that mobile carriers have the new technology ready in the host cities for the World Cup and this year's Confederations Cup, a dress rehearsal for the big event.
Some in the industry had held out hope that Brazil would also free up the lower 700 MHz frequency for mobile phones in time for fans' arrival. Smartphones designed for one 4G frequency will not always work on another, forcing users to settle for 3G coverage.
"People will end up buying a chip here," Azende said in an interview at his offices. "Aside from corporate transmissions, the average consumer will avoid roaming ... The barrier isn't technological, it's financial."
Brazilian regulators are working to transition television broadcasts out of the 700 MHz spectrum to allow wireless carriers to use lower band, which requires fewer antennas for the same coverage compared with the 2.5 GHz band.
FIFA spokesman Walter de Gregorio told journalists on Wednesday that wireless infrastructure was among the top concerns ahead of the World Cup.
"One of the big challenges I see is telecommunications. We rely on what they say and they say it will be ready," said Gregorio. "Maybe they should fix 3G first. Maybe they will jump from 2G to 4G."
Is that wheat protein in your Whopper? Plant-based meat sales rising.
Homeowners earning between $250,000 to $500,000 a year would get a check back for their STAR rebates to help pay for school taxes.
ALBANY -- Homeowners earning between $250,000 to $500,000 a year would get a check back for their STAR rebates to help pay for school taxes rather than receiving the savings directly in their tax bill, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed Tuesday.
For homeowners who earn under less than $250,000 a year and have owned their houses prior to Aug. 1, 2015, they would continue to get STAR as an upfront savings on their school-tax bills.
The proposal from Cuomo in his 2019-20 state budget is the latest effort by the state to change how the popular $3 billion a year STAR program is administered.
The change was one of several tax policy proposals offered by Cuomo for the fiscal year that starts April 1.
He wants to keep higher income-tax rates on millionaires set to expire at year's end and extend the 8.82 rate through 2024.
The millionaires' tax, first implemented in 2011, brings in about $4.4 billion for the state's coffers.
"To protect the progress that has been made in enhancing progressivity and ensuring tax fairness for New York's middle class, Governor Cuomo is proposing a five-year extension of the current tax rate on millionaires," his budget book states.
Middle-class homeowners will continue to see a decrease in income-tax rates this year.
The rates will drop to 6.21 percent for earners making between $43,000 and $161,550 and goes to 6.49 percent for those earning between $161,550 and $323,200.
The lower rates were first implemented several years ago by the state Legislature and Cuomo and will be fully phased in by 2025, which Cuomo estimated will save middle-class New Yorkers $4.2 billion a year.
Cuomo also, as expected, said he wants to make permanent the property-tax cap first installed in 2011.
He said the cap has lowered annual property-tax growth from 5.3 percent between 2000 and 2010 to about 2 percent a year since the cap took effect.
The Democratic-led Senate has also indicated it wants to make the cap permanent, but it is uncertain whether the Democratic-controlled Assembly will want to do the same.
"Governor Cuomo proposes that New York preserve and make permanent the property tax cap, as he has advocated in the past," his budget book said.
Cuomo also said New York would continue to fight for the full deductibility of state and local taxes from federal income-tax returns. That would require a change by Congress.
Congress in 2017 limited the deductions to $10,000, a blow to households where property taxes alone exceed that amount each year.
The state Legislature would have to approve any changes to the STAR program, first implemented in the mid-1990s.
But Cuomo has made a series of reforms in recent years.
People who bought their homes after Aug. 1, 2015, currently get a check each fall to pay for a portion of their school taxes.
But property owners who have owned their homes prior to that date still get the STAR savings in their tax bills.
The average tax break is about $790 a year, while the average Enhanced STAR was about $1,400 for eligible seniors.
Enhanced STAR is for homeowners age 65 and older with incomes of $86,300 or less.
About 650,000 New Yorkers receive Enhanced STAR every year, while there are 2.6 million Basic STAR recipients.
This year, senior citizens receiving Enhanced STAR have to enroll in an income-verification program to get the lucrative rebate.
The new proposal would not change the income eligibility, just change whether it's received as a check in the fall or a savings directly in a person's school-tax bill.
Budget director Robert Mujica said the goal is to streamline the program and weed out STAR recipients who may be ineligible for the program.
But Westchester County executive George Latimer said the change could be problematic locally where a household's income can easily exceed $250,000.
"That cash layout can impact you. You’re paying high taxes, you have a couple of kids in college," he said.
Also, he added, "When you start changing the program, the administrative adoption of it takes time and there are always mistakes along the way."
More: Live From Albany: What do you want to see Cuomo, lawmakers tackle in 2019?
The ironic part about the Kings getting mathematically eliminated with a 3-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Monday is that they largely held their own for the first half of the game against a team that projects to be playing well into the spring.
Matt Roy is learning on the go. Roy drew a tripping penalty on Patrik Laine, but he was also on the ice for Winnipeg’s first goal. Such are the ups and downs for a rookie defenseman like Roy, who has become a regular in the lineup.
He skates well and has tools that allowed him to play in all situations at lower levels, but of course the learning curve is steeper in the NHL, especially against contending teams. Roy has been a minus player in each of the last three games but that’s partly symbolic of the Kings, who have allowed at least three goals in 16 of their last 18 games and gone 2-12-4 in that stretch.
But perhaps Roy will be better for it in the longer run.
Match ends, Forfar Athletic 2, Arbroath 1.
Second Half ends, Forfar Athletic 2, Arbroath 1.
Dale Hilson (Forfar Athletic) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Ricky Little (Arbroath) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Dale Hilson (Forfar Athletic).
Greig Spence (Arbroath) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Greig Spence (Arbroath).
(Forfar Athletic) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt saved. Michael McKenna (Arbroath) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.
Substitution, Forfar Athletic. Eddie Malone replaces John Baird.
Goal! Forfar Athletic 2, Arbroath 1. Lewis Moore (Forfar Athletic) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner.
Jason Thomson (Arbroath) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt saved. John Baird (Forfar Athletic) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner.
Attempt missed. Adam Eckersley (Forfar Athletic) left footed shot from more than 35 yards misses to the right.
Foul by Danny Denholm (Arbroath).
Ross Meechan (Forfar Athletic) wins a free kick on the right wing.
David Gold (Arbroath) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Adam Eckersley (Forfar Athletic).
Corner, Arbroath. Conceded by Connor Coupe.
Attempt missed. Michael McKenna (Arbroath) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left.
Substitution, Forfar Athletic. Connor Coupe replaces Jamie Bain.
Attempt missed. Danny Denholm (Arbroath) left footed shot from outside the box misses to the right.
Attempt missed. Gary Irvine (Forfar Athletic) right footed shot from outside the box is too high.
Michael McKenna (Arbroath) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Michael McKenna (Arbroath).
Hand ball by Michael McKenna (Arbroath).