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William Lamb Sculpture Studio
24 Market Street, Montrose, DD10 8NB
William Lamb was a man who gave all to his art. Worldly success and the politics of art interested him not at all. He may be revealed now as
William Lamb was a man who gave all to his art. Worldly success and the politics of art interested him not at all. He may be revealed now as one of the few original minds in Scottish art of this century.
The building was William Lamb A.R.S.A.’s studio from 1934 to 1951 and is retained much as it was on his death. It was given to the town on the death of the sculptor, at his specific request, and was opened by the Montrose Town Council as a memorial to Lamb in 1955. The studio then underwent a complete renovation in 1978 by Angus District council.
The artists sculpture, prints and drawings are displayed in the studio. Also featured are his workroom and tools and his living room with self-styled furniture.
Tuesday to Sunday 14.00-17.00 July and August and at other times by arrangement with the Curator of Montrose Museum.
Our Squad Reviews William Lamb Sculpture Studio
DD10 8NB
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“It has been an enormous honor to participate in this project. My team and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with a renowned firm like Emaar Properties,” said Mr. Calatrava. “The building’s design is inspired by the Islamic tradition, evoking the same history that brought the world the Alhambra and the Mosque of Cordoba. These architectural marvels combine elegance and beauty with mathematics and geometry. The design of the tower of Dubai Creek Harbour is rooted in classical art and the culture of Dubai itself. It is also a major technological achievement. Throughout my career I have used technology and engineering as a vehicle for beauty and art. This project is an artistic achievement, inspired by the goal of making this space a meeting point for citizens, not only from Dubai and the UAE but all across the world. It is a symbol of belief in progress.”
“The design by Santiago Calatrava, chosen after a competitive pitch from the world’s top architects, was a perfect fit to our requirement for a landmark that defined our urban core for Dubai Creek Harbour. It integrates not just design excellence but also strong environmental and smart-tech considerations. With the tower, we are delivering a compelling destination that will add long-term economic value to Dubai and the Emirates,” said Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties. “It will also position Dubai Creek Harbour as one of the most desired residential, leisure and touristic attractions, providing tourists and residents with a modern, luxurious and sustainable environment in which to live, work, learn and entertain.”
The iconic structure combines modern, sustainable design with the rich culture and heritage of the United Arab Emirates. The building’s numerous observation decks are part of an elongated, oval-shaped bud at the top of the tower. The slender stem serves as the spine of the structure and the cables linking the building to the ground are reminiscent of the delicate ribbing of the lily’s leaves. The structure also provides a beacon of light at night, with lighting that will emphasize the flower-bud design of the building.
Calatrava designed the tower with a large focus on energy efficiency and sustainability. The tower will use a highly-efficient cooling system and the water collected from this system will clean the structure’s façade. Elegant landscaping and vegetation will encourage solar protection. An integrated shading system and wing doors will also contribute to energy efficiency. The structure will include ten observation decks, including The Pinnacle Room, which offers unprecedented,
360 degree views of the city and beyond. Among the various decks are two VIP observation garden decks, made to recreate the splendor of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The building will also include numerous balconies that rotate outside the façade of the tower.
There will be a café on one of the three public observation decks and numerous spaces throughout the building can be used for events. The tower’s ground-level Central Plaza will serve as a bustling neighborhood center with world-class retail, a museum, educational facilities, and an indoor auditorium.
The tower is located in the center of Dubai Creek Harbour, a six square-kilometer world-class development located on Dubai Creek. Dubai Creek has long been Dubai’s center of history and culture and is in close proximity to the Ras Al Khor National Wildlife Sanctuary.
#طراحی
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Public Release: 28-Jun-2006
Brittle prions are more infectious
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Brittleness is often seen as a sign of fragility. But in the case of infectious proteins called prions, brittleness makes for a tougher, more menacing pathogen. Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher have discovered that brittle prion particles break more readily into new "seeds," which spread infection much more quickly.
The discovery boosts basic understanding of prion infections, and could provide scientists with new ideas for designing drugs that discourage or prevent prion seeding, said the study's senior author Jonathan Weissman, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Weissman and colleagues from UCSF reported their findings on June 28, 2006, in an advance online publication in Nature.
The scientists studied yeast prions, which are similar to mammalian prions in that they act as infectious proteins. In recent years, mammalian prions have gained increasing notoriety for their roles in such fatal brain-destroying human diseases as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and kuru, and in the animal diseases, bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow" disease) and scrapie.
Yeast and mammalian prions are proteins that transmit their unique characteristics via interactions in which an abnormally shaped prion protein influences a normal protein to assume an abnormal shape. In mammalian prion infections, these abnormal shapes trigger protein clumping that can kill brain cells. In yeast cells, the insoluble prion protein is not deadly; it merely alters a cell's metabolism. Prions propagate themselves by division of the insoluble clumps to create "seeds" that can continue to grow by causing aggregation of more proteins.
In earlier studies, Weissman and his colleagues had discovered that the same prion can exist in different strains and have different infectious properties. These strains arise from different misfoldings of the prion protein that result in different conformations. A similar strain phenomenon has been described for mammalian prions. More generally, even in noninfectious diseases involving protein misfolding, like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, the same protein can misfold into more than one shape with some forms being toxic and others benign. However, Weissman said, it was not understood how different conformations cause different physiological effects.
As part of the studies published in Nature, the researchers created a mathematical model that enabled them to describe the growth and replication of prions according to the physical properties of the prion protein. To validate that model in yeast, they then created in a test tube, infectious forms of the prion protein in three different conformations and introduced them into yeast cells. They then correlated the strength of infectivity of each prion with its physical properties and compared their results to those predicted by their mathematical model.
According to Weissman, the researchers found that the slowest-growing conformation seemed to have the strongest effect in producing protein aggregates inside cells. "But we knew from our model that growth was only half of the equation," said Weissman. "The other key feature was how easy it was to break up the prion and create new seeds, and this propensity to seed could be an important determinant of the prion's physiological impact. And that is what we found experimentally -- that the slower growth of that conformation was more than compensated for by an increased brittleness that promotes fragmentation."
According to Weissman, the importance of a prion's brittleness, or "frangibility," to its physiological effects has both basic research and clinical implications. "Investigators trying to develop synthetic prions as a research model for mammalian prions have had a very hard time getting a high degree of activity," he said. "Part of the reason may be that they were trying to create forms that were very stable. But that might have been exactly the wrong thing to do, because prions that are too stable may be the ones that are not very infectious because the aggregates are hard to break up.
"And from a therapeutic point of view, our findings suggest that effective treatment strategies for prion diseases might aim at stabilizing prion aggregates. By preventing the aggregates from being broken up to smaller seeds, their propagation can be reduced. In contrast, most such strategies now aim at preventing the proteins from forming in the first place," he said.
In future studies, Weissman and his colleagues plan to expand their analytical model to describe in more detail how prions' physical properties lead to different physiological effects. They also plan more detailed analyses to examine how the molecular structure of a prion protein gives rise to its physical properties.
Jim Keeley
keeleyj@hhmi.org
@HHMINEWS
http://www.hhmi.org
INFECTIOUS/EMERGING DISEASES
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Public Release: 14-Mar-2019
New research unlocking the secrets of how languages change
RIT/NTID team examines Nicaraguan sign language to determine whether languages change so they are easier to produce or to understand
IMAGE: NTID Assistant Professor Matthew Dye view more
Credit: Mark Benjamin/NTID
New research is helping scientists around the world understand what drives language change, especially when languages are in their infancy. The results will shed light on how the limitations of the human brain change language and provide an understanding of the complex interaction between languages and the human beings who use them.
The project is funded by a $344,000 National Science Foundation grant and is led by principal investigator Matthew Dye, an assistant professor and director of the Deaf x Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology's National Technical Institute for the Deaf.
Dye and his research team are examining Nicaraguan Sign Language, which was "born" in the 1970s. Using machine learning and computer vision techniques, the team is looking at old video recording of the language and measuring how it has changed over the past 40 years. The recent birth and rapid evolution of Nicaraguan Sign Language has allowed them to study language change from the beginning, on a compressed time scale. They are asking whether languages change so they are easier to produce, or whether they change in ways that make them easier for others to understand. Initial results challenge a long-held notion that signs move toward the face in order to be easier to understand.
"Languages change over time, such that the way we speak English now is very different than the speech patterns of elder generations and our distant ancestors," said Dye. "While it is well documented that languages change over time, we're hoping to answer some fundamental theoretical questions about language change that cannot be addressed by simply analyzing historical samples of spoken languages."
Dye explains that by using an existing database of Nicaraguan Sign Language, composed of 2D videos of four generations of Nicaraguan signers, his research team will be able to assess the extent to which linguistic changes occur and why. The team will also create computational tools that allow 3D human body poses to be extracted from the 2D videos.
Ultimately, these tools could be used to aid in the development of automated sign-language recognition, promoting accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, and for developing automated systems for recognizing and classifying human gestures. In addition, Dye says that deaf and hard-of-hearing students will participate in the research, helping to increase the diversity of the nation's scientific workforce.
"We are fortunate that our study enables us to utilize the visual nature of sign language to gain a greater understanding of how all languages may evolve," adds Dye.
Co-principal investigators on the project are Corrine Occhino, research assistant professor at NTID; Andreas Savakis, professor, RIT's Kate Gleason College of Engineering; and Matt Huenerfauth, professor, RIT's Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. The project is a collaboration with Naomi Caselli, assistant professor, Boston University, and Norm Badler, professor, University of Pennsylvania.
For more information, contact Vienna McGrain at 585-475-4952 or Vienna.Carvalho@rit.edu.
Vienna McGrain
vienna.carvalho@rit.edu
@ritnews
http://www.rit.edu
LANGUAGE/LINGUISTICS/SPEECH
LEARNING/LITERACY/READING
NTID Assistant Professor Matthew Dye (IMAGE)
https://www.rit.edu/news/new-research-unlocking-secrets-how-languages-change
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Agroscience Services
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Eurofins >> Investor Relations >> Corporate Governance >> Group Operating Council
Investor Relations >> Corporate Governance >> Group Operating Council
The Group Operating Council carries out the Group's strategy and handles the day-to-day business. As of June 30th, 2018, the Group Operating Council consists of the following members:
Dr. Gilles G. Martin. Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Eurofins Scientific Group. Dr. Martin graduated from Ecole Centrale in Paris, and subsequently obtained a Master of Science from Syracuse University (New York) and a PhD in Statistics and Applied Mathematics. Founding the original Eurofins Scientific Nantes food authenticity testing laboratory in 1987, "Dr. Martin has expanded the company into a global bioanalytical group of more than 800 laboratories employing about 45,000 staff in 47 countries." Dr. Martin is a member of the Board of Directors of Bruker Corp. (NASDAQ: BRKR), serving as an independent director. He is also a past President of the French Association of private analytical laboratories APROLAB, and of the North American Technical Committee for Juice and Juice Products (TCJJP) and of public bodies supporting innovation and entrepreneurship.
Dr. Andreas König. Chief Information Officer (CIO). Prior to joining Eurofins in January 2016, Dr. König was CIO of ProSiebenSat1 Media AG - one of Europe's largest media companies – responsible for IT and Production. Before that he served as CIO and COO with First Data. He started his career in management consulting with Accenture. Dr. König holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Technical University of Vienna.
David Besnault. Group Executive Vice President Environment Testing Europe, and Food & Environment testing Asia Pacific. Prior to joining Eurofins in 2012, Mr. Besnault was Vice-President and General Manager for the Paper & Packaging operations at Imerys. He started his career as a management consultant within A.T. Kearney. He then moved to industry (Solvay/Rhodia, ArjoWiggins, Imerys), where he held several General Manager positions. Mr. Besnault graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and ENSAE in Paris.
Dirk Bontridder. Group Executive Vice President BioPharma Services, and Clinical Diagnostics Services US. Prior to joining Eurofins in 2008, Mr. Bontridder was the General Manager of Port of Singapore Authorities (PSA) – Hesse-Noord Natie, a large diversified stevedore and logistic player in the Port of Antwerp & Zeebrugge. Mr. Bontridder started his career first at Alcatel and later as an IT manager with Getronics and Software AG. He then gained an executive MBA from the Vlerick Business School and joined McKinsey & Company as a management consultant serving customers in banking, high-tech and transport & logistics. Mr. Bontridder obtained a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Brussels.
Laurent Lebras. Group Administration and Finance Director. Mr. Lebras joined Eurofins in 2015 from L’Oreal, where he served as CFO for the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Lebras graduated from HEC Paris and started his career at Energy Trading Corp. in New York as an International Controller and Domestic Business Manager. He then joined L’Oreal Paris as a SAP finance expert and marketing controller, growing into leadership positions as Director of Controlling & Finance for Gemey-Maybelline France, then Director of Finance and Operations (CFO) in South Korea, and became VP for Finance and Operations (CFO) for L’Oreal Japan, before eventually taking over the finance function for L’Oreal Asia-Pacific.
Dr. Markus Brandmeier. Group Executive Vice President Human Resources, Communication and Marketing. Dr. Brandmeier joined the Group in 2005 with extensive management experience in the Food & Retail industries, having worked previously at the Tengelmann Group. He held a variety of senior roles during his 9 years there, notably as Managing Director of Group subsidiaries specialized in food production, sales & distribution and quality management. Dr. Brandmeier has a degree in Economics and a PhD in Industrial Science obtained from the University in Karlsruhe.
Rajesh Saigal. Group Executive Vice President Asia, Middle East and Consumer Product Testing. Rajesh will bring his extensive knowledge in building and developing businesses across multiple countries and cultures to our respective divisions in Asia and Middle East. He has strong experience in the TIC industry and will bring additional and very valuable leadership capacity to our business. His mandate is to develop a leading presence for Eurofins across Asia and the Middle East and to develop internationally the areas of Consumer Product Testing, to which Eurofins aspires to bring its unique innovation and digitalisation capabilities. Rajesh joined Eurofins in July 2019 after twelve years with Intertek, where, as a member of the Group Executive Team, he last served as Executive Vice President - South and Southeast Asia. Prior to this, Rajesh has worked with international American and European corporates, such as Honeywell, Danfoss and Gewiss, primarily in General Management and Strategic roles. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, as well as an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the Institute of Management Technology, India. In addition, he followed an Executive Education Programme from the Indian School of Business as well as a Senior Executive Programme from London Business School.
Brian Williams. Group Senior Vice President - Global Environmental Operational Best Practices (OBP); Environmental Testing (all Americas); and Food Testing (Latin America). Mr. Williams joined Eurofins in 2017 with 30 years’ experience in the Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) sector. The global OBP role is primarily responsible for ensuring that Eurofins Environment Testing businesses share the best practice in technology, efficiency and sensitivity. Prior to joining Eurofins, Mr. Williams was the Group General Manager of the Global Minerals Division at ALS Limited (ASX:ALQ). His 30 year career with ALS extended Global and Divisional Group General Management roles across Minerals testing (Hard rock Geochemistry, Metallurgy, Inspection, Solid Fuels), Environmental, Food, Pharmaceutical, Tribology, Non Destructive Testing and Condition Monitoring. Mr. Williams graduated from Griffith University (Australia) with a Bsc in Environmental Studies, holds a Graduate Diploma in General Management from CQ University (Australia), and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).
Dr. Bruno Poddevin. Group Senior Vice President, Genomic Services and Forensics services. Dr. Poddevin graduated from Ecole Centrale in Paris. He subsequently obtained a PhD in Molecular Biology from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris and an advanced degree in BioMedical Sciences from Institut de Formation Supérieure BioMédicale (Paris) and performed his post-doctoral training at the National Cancer Institue (Bethesda MD, USA). Dr. Poddevin has 25 years of professional experience in the DNA industry holding various research, development and management roles in biotech start-ups as well as large life-science corporations. He took-over the responsibility of the genomics services business at Eurofins in 2005.
David W. Bryant. Group Senior Vice President, Food Testing and Clinical Diagnostics Infectious Disease Testing North America. Mr. Bryant graduated from North Carolina State University in Economics and Industrial Engineering and was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Marines. After serving as an Infantry Officer in Desert Storm, he began his clinical laboratory career with Dianon Systems (NASDAQ:DIAN). After the acquisition by Lab Corp (NYSE:LH), Mr. Bryant co-founded CBLPath, Inc. and capitalized and scaled the business before selling it to Sonic Healthcare (ASX: SHL). Post-merger, he was appointed CEO for Sonic Healthcare USA, the third largest full-service clinical laboratory in the US. In 2014, he left to co-found SeLux Diagnostics, a Cambridge-based diagnostics company with a synthetic laboratory enzyme platform. He has served on the board of the American Clinical Laboratory Association as well as various private equity-backed healthcare services companies. Mr. Bryant is also the Secretary of the Board of the USO of NC.
François Vigneau. Group Senior Vice President Food and Feed Testing Western Europe and Southern Europe. Mr. Vigneau graduated from Institut National Agronomique in Paris. Having started his career within the Danone Group as quality and process manager in several biscuits plants, Mr. Vigneau joined Eurofins in 1996 as Operations Manager for the Nantes Laboratory. He took over the full responsibility of the Food Testing Division for France in 2008, for Southern Europe in 2013 and for Western Europe in 2018. In parallel, Mr. Vigneau is a key leader driving the IT programme initiatives for the Group’s Food Testing division. In addition, he serves as President of the French Association of private analytical laboratories APROLAB.
Gabriel Julia. Group Senior Vice President Clinical Diagnostics Europe. Mr. Julia joined Eurofins in 2011 to take growing responsibilities over the Nordic and Central European regions for Food and Environment Testing, Prior to joining Eurofins, he had an international career in the packaging industry, holding various Business Development and General Manager positions and successfully turning around companies in China (cosmetics packaging) and Spain (flexible packaging). Mr. Julia graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris.
Klaus Kuegler. Group Senior Vice President, Agroscience services. Mr. Kuegler graduated with a degree in Economics from the University of Muenster. He started his career in 1989 at Arthur Andersen (corporate accountancy services), where he spent 9 years working as a CPA and tax advisor. Mr. Kuegler has led various restructurings, mergers & acquisitions; and guided the IPO of a Biotech laboratory as an independent CPA both in Europe and the USA. In 2010, he stepped into a permanent role with Eurofins, taking responsibility for the Agroscience Services division with global accountability for a geographically diverse and dynamic organization.
Dr. Timothy S. Oostdyk. Group Senior Vice President, BioPharma Product Testing. Dr. Oostdyk graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. He subsequently obtained a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Villanova University in Philadelphia. Dr. Oostdyk has extensive and diverse experience in the laboratory testing industry, and has published numerous technical and industry related papers. Over the last 25 years he has served in a variety of senior management roles, including President of Lancaster Laboratories where he led service line diversification and international expansion, and then integration in to Eurofins. Today he leads a geographically diverse and growing portfolio of laboratories serving the pharmaceutical, biologics, and medical device industries.
Yvoine Rémy-McCort. Group Senior Vice President Food and Feed Testing Northern Europe and Food and Environment Testing Central Eastern Europe. Ms. Rémy-McCort joined Eurofins in 2016 to take responsibilities for Food & Environment testing over the Nordic, Central & Eastern European regions. Prior to joining Eurofins, Ms. Rémy-McCort started her career setting up an NGO in the Philippines and then had an international career in healthcare (Air Liquide) and optics (Essilor), in various business development and general management positions, including some 15 years based in the Asia-Pacific region. Of Australian, New Zealand and French citizenships, Ms. Rémy-McCort is a graduate of HEC Paris (MBA), of the University of Otago (marketing), and of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).
Last updated: Friday, July 12, 2019
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Sergio Llull travels to Athens, not ready for Game 3
Sergio Llull has progressed, but isn’t ready to return to action for Real Madrid.
By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Real Madrid is on its way to Greece ahead of Game 3 against Panathinaikos OPAP. The Whites are up 2-0 in the best-of-five EuroLeague playoffs series and can complete a sweep on Tuesday, otherwise will play again in Athens on Thursday. If the team suffers a pair of defeats, the series will return to Madrid for the decisive Game 5.
Injured Sergio Llull won’t be available for Game 3, but traveled to Athens alongside his teammates. Commenting on the 31-year-old Spaniard, Pablo Laso said: “Obviously, tomorrow he won’t play. He is much better within the terms that we thought at the beginning. He is doing work on the court and we are optimistic, but tomorrow he won’t play.”
Also, the 51-year-old coach said he believes Nick Calathes will be in action in spite of his doubtful status. “I’m more worried about Madrid because I don’t believe these stories. We are talking about the playoffs and I am worried about my team. Tomorrow I expect the best Panathinaikos version. Neither was Gist going to play the first one and he played. I try not to be misled by anything that we can’t control.”
Tags Euroleague Nick Calathes Pablo Laso Panathinaikos Real Madrid Sergio Llull
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China trade steps seen as good start but leave core U.S. demands untouched
FILE PHOTO: Chinese and U.S. flags are set up for a meeting during a visit by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao at China's Ministry of Transport in Beijing, China April 27, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo -
Jason Lee(Reuters)
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has welcomed Chinese concessions since the two declared a trade war truce in early December, but trade experts and people familiar with negotiations say Beijing needs to do far more to meet U.S. demands for long-term change in how China does business.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed on Dec. 1 in Buenos Aires to stop escalating tit-for-tat tariffs that have disrupted the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of goods between the world's two biggest economies.
Since then, Beijing has resumed buying U.S. soybeans, the single largest agricultural export between the two countries. China has also cut tariffs on imports of cars from the United States, dialled back on an industrial development plan known as "Made in China 2025," and told its state refiners to buy more U.S. oil.
Trump took those as signs that "China wants to make a big and very comprehensive deal."
But they only start to bring Beijing and Washington back to their pre-trade-war status quo, experts said, and do little to resolve core U.S. demands for structural changes in China to end policies that subsidise large state-owned enterprises and effectively force the transfer of American technology to Chinese firms.
"I think these are goodwill gestures, but they don't go beyond offers that were on the table before Trump launched his trade war," said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
"Much more will have to be offered by China to reach an interim agreement in March 2019," Hufbauer said, adding that structural changes would be far harder to agree on, much less achieve, by then.
Trump and Xi agreed on Dec. 1 to launch new talks while the United States delayed a planned Jan. 1 tariff increase until March 2.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who is leading talks from the American side, did not respond to queries about the significance of China's trade steps.
No schedule for face-to-face talks between U.S. and Chinese officials has been announced since Trump and Xi met, but a person familiar with the discussions said meetings would likely take place in early January and that the two sides were in frequent contact.
NO 'TREMENDOUS' PURCHASES YET
The first signal that China had resumed purchases of U.S. soybeans came in a Reuters interview last week with Trump, who said Beijing was buying "tremendous" amounts of soybeans.. China had stopped importing the oilseed from the United States in July, when the two countries unleashed new tariffs on each other's goods.
But the initial purchases of 1.5 million tonnes disappointed traders and were only a fraction of the 30 million to 35 million tonnes China buys from U.S. farmers in a typical year, with 2017 purchases of $12 billion (9.5 billion pounds).
"We're glad to have it, and we hope there is more," a person familiar with the U.S. negotiating strategy said of China's initial soybean purchases.
"Remember, even with the tariffs, the expectations were still for $7 billion worth of soybeans going to China. And we haven't seen that."
The concession that most captivated Trump was China's suspension of a punitive 25 percent tariff on U.S.-built vehicles, cutting its tariff rate back to the 15 percent global rate it put in place in May..
Derek Scissors, a China scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a business-oriented think tank in Washington, said the move was a "reasonable trade step," but taken years too late. He added China would not likely increase imports from the United States because of a slowing market and excess domestic production capacity.
"Trump is right to say it's a positive move, but in a year he's going to be angry because auto exports to China aren't going to have budged," Scissors added.
China also issued guidance to local governments dropping references to its "Made in China 2025" high-tech industrial development goals amid reports it was looking to replace the program aimed at rivalling U.S. dominance in industries such as aerospace, robotics, semiconductors, new energy vehicles and artificial intelligence.
U.S.-China trade watchers expressed the most scepticism about that move, because state control of China's economy has increased under Xi and few see China agreeing to abandon its industrial policy goals of developing national champions in future industries.
SIGNALS FROM XI
Signals of further concrete steps could come from Xi on Tuesday in a speech marking the 40th anniversary of China's 1978 economic opening under late leader Deng Xiaoping and a major Communist Party conclave on economic policy. Some Chinese government advisers have called for accelerated reforms on the anniversary.
Scott Kennedy, director of China studies at the Center for Strategic and Economic studies in Washington, said it was essential that Xi send "unequivocal signals about the broad direction of greater liberalization."
"The next step would be to see a series of substantial reforms taken on their own, and all of that would lay the groundwork for renewed U.S.-China negotiations early in the new year," Kennedy added.
One of the people familiar with the talks said Lighthizer would insist on commitments and evidence that China is changing laws on competition policy, joint ventures, intellectual property rights and market access and enforcing the changes.
"It would be great if Xi Jinping, in the name of achieving competitive neutrality, pledges to take very concrete steps that would strip immunity and special treatment from state-owned enterprises in Chinese law," the person said.
"They've got to go considerably past the old status quo on a lot of difficult issues to be able to claim that they've done something really significant."
(Reporting by David Lawder; Additional reporting by Chris Prentice in Washington; Editing by Simon Webb and and Peter Cooney)
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Mexico to raise base wage, new leader pledges more hikes to come
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's wage commission said on Monday it planned to hike the country's minimum wage by 16 percent to around $5 (3.96 pounds) a day and new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pledged further rises to keep up with inflation.
The $0.71 (0.56 pounds)-a-day raise, the biggest in percentage terms since 1996, followed two hikes of around 10 percent by the previous government also aimed at boosting the purchasing power of low-income workers.
Persistently low salaries for many Mexicans stoked the frustration that led to the landslide election of leftist Lopez Obrador, who has pledged to raise living standards to reduce crime and discourage migration to the United States.
"During many years the minimum wage has lost its purchasing power. Some say it has lost 70 percent of its purchasing power over the last 30 years," said Lopez Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1.
"We're never going to have wage (increases) below inflation," he pledged at an event with the wage commission, made up of government, business and labour representatives.
Mexico's annual inflation rate is running around 4.7 percent, above the central bank's 3 percent target.
One of the main issues U.S. President Donald Trump had with the U.S.-Canada-Mexico North American Free Trade Agreement was Mexico's lower comparative wages, which help Mexico to attract foreign companies and create jobs but also encourage migration to the United States.
A reworked version of the pact signed in November includes provisions to reduce the wage gap, including a pledge from Mexico to lift auto worker wages and to reform labour laws that have weakened independent unions.
The wage commission said the daily minimum wage would rise to 102.68 pesos (4 pounds) from 88.36 pesos on Jan. 1.
But the Mexican employers' confederation Coparmex said in a statement that within 25 kilometers (16 miles) of the U.S. border, the minimum will be increased to 176.72 pesos.
Lopez Obrador has called for doubling the minimum wage in northern states close to the United States.
Markets welcomed Lopez Obrador's maiden budget, delivered on Saturday, for pledging to stick to fiscal discipline. But the wage policy has raised concerns about its effect on prices and interest rates.
Minimum wage increases have so far not put upward pressure on wage demands overall, but the central bank warned last month that indexing wages to inflation could lead to an upward price spiral.
Benito Berber, chief economist for Latin America at Natixis, said the policy could push the central bank to raise interest rates on Thursday.
"It seems the government is willing to accept higher inflation and perhaps stickier inflation," Berber said. "Banxico has been clear that wage increases above productivity would entail tight monetary policy."
(Reporting by Sheky Espejo, Sharay Angulo and Michael O'Boyle; Editing by Richard Chang and Sonya Hepinstall)
US politicsUSATechnologyScienceUrsula von der LeyenEU ParliamentGermanynews
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Cricket: India beat Australia in third test by 137 runs
India's Ravindra Jadeja (C) celebrates with his teammates after dismissing Australia's captain Tim Paine on day four of the third test match between Australia and India at the MCG in Melbourne, Australia, December 29, 2018. AAP/Hamish Blair/via REUTERS -
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - India completed a 137-run victory over Australia in the third test after a rain-delayed start on day five at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday.
India retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy contested between the nations and take a 2-1 lead in the series into the fourth and final test in Sydney starting on Thursday.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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El Salvador president rules out talks with criminal gangs
FILE PHOTO: New Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele participates in his first cabinet council in San Salvador, El Salvador June 2, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas -
JOSE CABEZAS(Reuters)
SANSALVADOR (Reuters) – El Salvador President Nayib Bukele ruled out negotiations with criminal gangs on Tuesday and vowed to go after their finances in a bid to reduce violence in the Central American country.
Bukele, 37, took office this month pledging to bring down a sky-high murder rate and reduce poverty, corruption and mass migration to the United States.
“We are not open to having a dialogue with criminal groups,” said the political maverick who ended three decades of two-party rule with his election victory in February.
“We have not received communications from the gangs and we don’t expect any either,” Bukele said at a swearing-in ceremony for his deputy justice minister.
El Salvador is one of a trio of countries in Central America, along with Guatemala and Honduras, that has seen thousands of desperate migrants flee raging gangland violence and bleak economic prospects over the past couple years.
Last week, the director of the police force vowed to do more to fight organised crime and said it was raiding dangerous areas to recover territory from the gangs, capture their leaders and confiscate arms, illicit cash and drugs.
“We want the gangs to go without their cash revenue so that it will be very difficult for them to sustain their organizations,” said Bukele, without giving details.
The government blames the gangs for the violence, even as rights groups have accused the police of carrying out extrajudicial killings and other rights violations in confrontations with gang members.
El Salvador remains one of the world’s most violent countries although the police reported that the number of murders in the first half of the year fell by about 12% to just over 1,400.
Last year, the country registered a murder rate of more than 50 homicides per 100,000 residents, one of the highest such rates anywhere in the world, according to United Nations data.
El Salvador’s “maras” gangs – international criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking and extortion that have some 70,000 members – have often been accused of being behind the killings.
Previous governments have tried to negotiate a lasting truce but with little or no success.
El Salvador’s largest gang, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), has in the past floated the possibility of curbing the violence through dialogue, and representatives of the gang have even offered Bukele some public support.
(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Writing by David Alire Garcia; editing by Darren Schuettler)
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Cycling - Australian Ewan eyes dream Tour debut with Brussels win
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Australian speedster Caleb Ewan is aiming to start his Tour de France career with a bang and sprint to victory in Saturday’s opening stage which starts and finishes in Brussels.
The 24-year-old joined Belgian outfit Lotto-Soudal as a replacement for German sprint king Andre Greipel who won 11 Tour de France stages for the team.
He has a lot to live up to but Saturday’s flat 194km opener around the Flemish countryside will almost certainly be decided in a bunch sprint in front of the royal palace.
Which is why the man they call the Pocket Rocket cannot wait to reward the faith of a team which has been put together to offer him the chance for stage wins.
“It is a stage that I can win and I know the team and I really want to win the first stage,” he said at the team’s pre-race media conference at the Brussels Expo on Thursday.
The significance of riding for a Belgian team on the 50th anniversary of Brussels native Eddie Mercx’s first overall Tour victory is not lost on Ewan.
“I’m relaxed now but come Saturday morning I will be nervous,” Ewan, who grew up thinking the Tour de France was the only cycle race because that was all Australian TV showed, said. “I’m just excited to experience what the race is like.
“It’s a massive motivation for me that it’s in Brussels. Obviously it’s never going to start in Australia so the next best thing would be to start in the home country of your team and it’s pretty special my first stage is this one.
“If there was any stage I would pick to win this year, it would be this one, because it means the yellow jersey too.”
With the likes of Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel and Nacer Bouhanni not in this year’s Tour, there is even talk of Ewan being a contender for the sprinters’ green jersey.
“I don’t really think about that,” he said. “I just want to win a lot of rides. If I succeed, I might start thinking about it. But for now the goal is to win stages.
“You never really know until we’ve had a few sprints who the top sprinters are going to be.”
Team mate Tim Wellens, who will concentrate on being in breakaways, says helping Ewan will be the priority.
“He is the rider in our team who has the best chance of a stage win,” he said. “So if a mass sprint arrives, we work 200% for him. He looks good and believes in it.”
Ewan, who has stage wins on both the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta de Espana, says his preparation has been slightly unusual after becoming a father, but hopes that will not slow him down.
“I would say it wasn’t ideal that my wife gave birth in between the Giro and now, but I think I’ve managed it quite well and I’m pretty much in my top shape, although maybe I haven’t been able to rest as much as I would have liked,” he said.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Alison Williams)
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The Iceman (2012) 720p & 1080p Free Movie Watch Online & Download
Screen Resolution : 1280*720 | 1920*1080
In the 1960s, Richard Kuklinski is working as a porn film lab tech until his mob bosses persuade him to change his career into that of a contract killer. For years, Kuklinski gains a reputation for cold blooded professionalism even as he raises a family who are kept in the dark about his true career. Unfortunately, mob politics ultimately forces him to secretly work independently with the psychopathic Robert 'Mr. Freezy' Pronge. As much as Kuklinski tries to keep his lives separate, circumstances and his own weaknesses threaten a terrible collision as the consequences of his choices finally catch up to him.
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Hysterically funny, essentially an updated 70's version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad", etc..., as a troupe of greedy heirs to a millionaire game- magnate's (A comical Vincent Price in a wordless cameo--) fortune compete in the titular activity to receive their inheritances. Some VERY amusing sequences, & the cast is hilariously on point, especially Scatman Crothers (As a mild-mannered Security Guard-), Richard Mulligan (As obtuse cabbie Melvin Dummitz--), Cloris Leachman (Price's predatory Harpy-of-a-sister-), Roddy McDowall as Price's prim-&-proper butler, James Coco (As Price's flamboyantly temperamental cook-), & Richard Masur (As Leachman's gigantic & slobberingly-spoiled Man-Child-). The museum scenes with the clumsily-stumbling suit-of-armor & the rampaging mummy are priceless! Replete with amusing cameos by Meat Loaf, Ruth Gordon, Avery Schreiber, & AH-NOLD before his "Conan" days!
A confusing and very messy film. The plot involves time-travel, alternate universes and possibly reincarnation. I dunno, it was hard to keep track. The film had some unique visuals. Unique in the sense that it was made in the 00's and looks like it came out of the 70/80's. I'm pretty sure this is mostly on purpose. It looks old and even the music sounds like pieces of cheesy piano solo's and synth action beats. The performances come dangerously close to soap opera standards and it all has a thick layer of cheese that is hard to cut through. And as we all know cheese is pretty soft, that's HOW cheesy this film is. It was intriguing at first as I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Then I realised, if the film didn't know what it was doing, then my chances were slim.
Reach Me will likely be remembered for its all-star cast, but not much else. It's another fairly empty entrant into the multi-character/multi-story line/everything-converge-at-the-end style that's been done to death in recent years, particularly around the indie scene, and to varying results. Reach Me might embody the genre through-and-through, but it doesn't go anywhere with its potential or leave the audience feeling any wiser, or better, for having watched it. There's no room for real, tangible character growth, leaving most of the players jumping from points rather than following a better defined arc. It's worth a watch, but most won't reach out for it again.
HD/BluRay
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Follow-on in RDA Microelectronics raises $77.2 million
More than 95% of the shares are sold by Warburg Pincus, which reduces its stake in the US-listed Chinese semiconductor company to 38%.
By Anette Jönsson
A Warburg Pincus-led follow-on in Nasdaq-listed RDA Microelectronics has raised $77.2 million after fixing the price at a 2.1% discount to the latest close. The deal was priced at the end of US trading last Wednesday.
As the second follow-on in a US-listed Chinese chipmaker in less than a month, the deal shows that investors are willing to look at deals by Chinese issuers that are already known to them and that are covered by research analysts. One source said there is no reason why share sales in listed Chinese companies that are offered at a discount shouldn’t get done, but that doesn’t mean that the US market is...
#follow on
#sell down
#warburg pincus
#semiconductors
#barclays
#credit suisse
#morgan stanley
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Tadawul FX Changes to Liquid Markets -FX Brokers Look to Rebranding Amid Turbulent Times
Trading volumes have been a cause for concern for the worlds most liquid asset class since Q4 of 2011, the
Adil Siddiqui | Brokers ( Retail FX ) | Monday, 15/10/2012 | 00:14 GMT+1 2012-10-14 23:14:21
Photo: Adil Siddiqui
Trading volumes have been a cause for concern for the worlds most liquid asset class since Q4 of 2011, the overall trend has continued into 2012 and brokers are looking at alternative strategies to uplift volumes. Tadawul FX a Cypriot FX broker is the 2nd major player to announce a major change in its game plan, fellow broker Trading Point repositioned its firm by changing its name and profile to XE Markets.
Rebranding is a useful strategy that firms use for various reasons, from reigniting their brand to covering up some bad blood, rebranding is a proven strategy used in all sectors. In the coming months the UK regulator will be making changes, again!
Rebranding is a game of chance as the repercussions can be fierce, AXA Insurance rebranded its values (slogans) in 2005 to compete in the insurance sector. The new brand was positioned well and in 2009/2010 it was recognised as the top player in the market. There is light at the end of tunnel and Tadawul a broker whose target market was the middle east (Tadawul means stock exchange in Arabic) when it first established itself is looking to open its doors to the wider community and ensure that traders perceive it as a competitive global player. Forex Broker Tadawul FX announces some major changes to the company, including a new management team and CEO as well as an exciting rebranding project. A key element to the changes also involves recapitalization of the firm, with several millions of dollars of capital raised, which is now in place to allow the broker to carry out a real and comprehensive growth strategy.
As well as plans for additional regional offices, the new direction of the company will see it restructured in a way that allows it to offer far more competitive trading conditions and also to offer services more geared to much larger private and institutional clients, backed up by the experience and support of the talented and skilled new members of the team.
The newly appointed CEO of the company, Nicolas Bang, comes from a strong FX and financial markets background and brings a wealth of experience to the company. Having co-founded Advanced Currency Markets in Switzerland in 2002, Bang went on to grow the company into a leading player in online foreign exchange trading with more than 200 staff in 5 offices and daily transaction volumes exceeding 2.5bn USD.
Speaking about the changes, Bang says: “Among our priorities during this next phase of growth for the company are some key improvements in the trading conditions and innovative features we provide to our traders, and the first part of this will be focused entirely on greatly improved execution. With a very strong team of experienced industry professionals, we are ensuring that our traders get what they need in terms of execution in order to better tackle the task of successfully trading forex markets.” Among the immediate plans for the company will be a new office in London in order to service the growing number of clients in this area, as well as new types of trading accounts.
Several other key industry professionals have also been brought in by Bang, all of whom have many years experience and specialized expertise in FX markets, in order to further strengthen the team, as the company gears up for this next phase of development.
Further to Bang’s arrival, a fast track growth strategy has already been put into place involving the successful recapitalization of the company. The next phase is the upcoming rebranding of the company to the name: Liquid Markets.
Chief Operations Officer, Tamer Eid, says: “At Tadawul FX, we are very excited about our upcoming rebrand to Liquid Markets, which reflects our new vision and the next phase of our development. As we all know, liquidity is key to profitable trading and although there will be no changes to existing accounts for our traders, we will be providing some great new features. Some of these will include more accurate pricing through five decimal trading, vast improvements to our execution and even tighter and more competitive spreads along with numerous new features and further enhancements on the technology side down the line.”
As a key player in online forex and CFDs trading, with a global base of clients in over 100 countries, Tadawul FX has long been recognized for its high levels of customer support and superior service.
Bang says the company will remain extremely focused on providing what traders are looking for and confirms: “Liquid Markets plans to continue to develop and further build on Tadawul FX’s achievements, and aims to differentiate itself in the market, through our corporate culture which aims for excellence. Our vision for the future is to stand out by providing our customers with the tools, liquidity, technology, execution and support they need to give them the highest chances of being part of the winners’ circle in this market.”
In the wholesale market it is widely believed that retail clients and even large private clients are losers in the FX market. However, Bang believes that key structural changes in the last 12 years in the forex sector have now allowed the market to mature and develop.
He says: “I believe the market has now matured to the point that it will soon be possible to turn the business model on its head and challenge the accepted status quo. This will be a challenge, but at Liquid Markets, we will devote ourselves to providing our customers with something very special in this market; a true ally that is constantly working behind the scenes to help them survive and thrive in their everyday trading experience. Our immediate aims at Liquid Markets are to be a new competitive force in forex providing not only superb trading conditions but also improved transparency, vision and innovation.”
Tags: brokers
/ 1 hour ago
Breaking: GAIN Capital Up 23% on Unconfirmed Acquisition Rumor
Monex Boom Securities Launches Global Futures Trading
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NOTIFICATION NO. S.O. 2269(E), DATED: 01-07-2019 S.O. 2269(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 1 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2017 (1 of 2018), the Central Government hereby appoints the 15 August, 2019 as the date on which the provisions of section 81 of the said Act shall come into force...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 466(E), DATED: 01-07-2019 G.S.R. 466(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 469 read with section 90 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Companies (Significant Beneficial Owners) Rules, 2018, namely:- 1...
NOTIFICATION NO. S.O. 2220(E), DATED: 10-06-2019 S.O. 2220(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by section 410 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013) read with the Tribunal, Appellate Tribunal and other Authorities (Qualifications, Experience and other Conditions of Service of Members) Rules, 2017, the Central Government hereby appoints Shri Kanthi Narahari as Technical Member in the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal in the pay scale of rupees 2,25,000/- with effect from the 10th April, 2019, for a period of three years or till he attains the age of sixty-seven years, whichever is earlier...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 413(E), DATED: 10-06-2019 G.S.R. 413(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 22A of the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 (38 of 1949), section 22A of the Cost and Works Accountants Act, 1959 (23 of 1959) and section 22A of the Company Secretaries Act, 1980 (56 of 1980), the Central Government hereby makes the following further amendments in the notification of the Government of India, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, vide number G...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 332(E), DATED: 25-04-2019 G.S.R. 332(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 469 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014, namely: - 1...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 411(E), DATED: 07-06-2019 G.S.R. 411(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 469 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014, namely:— 1...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 390(E), DATED: 30-05-2019 G.S.R. 390(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 467 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following further amendments to Schedule VII of the said Act, namely:- In the said Schedule VII, after item (xi) and the entries relating thereto, the following item and entries shall be inserted, namely:- “(xii) disaster management, including relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction activities...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 369(E), DATED: 16-05-2019 G.S.R. 369(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (11) of section 132 of the Companies Act, 2013, the Central Government hereby makes the following rules, namely:- 1. Short title and commencement. - (1) These rules may be called the National Financial Reporting Authority (Recruitment, Salary, Allowances and Other Terms and Conditions of Service of Secretary, Officers and Other Employees of Authority) Rules, 2019...
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GENERAL CIRCULAR NO. 06/2019, DATED 13.05.2019 Sir/Madam, In continuation of General Circular No. 09/2014 dated 25.04.2014, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has received representation from stakeholders seeking relaxation of fee for filing c-form no.ADT 1, particularly form ADT 1 filed through GNL-2 during the period from 01...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 350(E), DATED: 08-05-2019 G.S.R. 350(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-sections (1), (2) and Sub-section (4) of section 248 read with section 469 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Companies (Removal of Names of Companies from the Register of Companies) Rules, 2016 , namely:- 1...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 351(E), DATED: 08-05-2019 G.S.R. 351(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) and sub-section (2) of section 469 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the National Company Law Tribunal Rules, 2016, namely 1...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 329(E), DATED: 25-04-2019 G.S.R. 329(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sections 396, 398, 399, 403 and 404 read with sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 469 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014, namely:— 1...
GENERAL CIRCULAR NO. 05/2019, DATED 12.04.2019 Sir/Madam, As per Rule 16A(3) of the Companies (Acceptance of deposit) Rules, 2014 "every company other than Government company shall file a onetime return of outstanding receipt of money or loan by a company but not considered as deposits, in terms of clause (c) of sub-ride 1 of rule 2 from the 01s1 April, 2014 to the date of publication of the notification in the Official Gazette, as specified in Form DPT-3 within ninety days from the date of said publication of this notification along with the fee as provided in the Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014"...
NOTIFICATION NO. S.O. 1591(E), DATED: 12-04-2019 S.O. 1591(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 10B of the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 (38 of 1949) and in pursuance of rule 3 of the Chartered Accountants (Election Tribunal) Rules, 2006, the Central Government hereby establishes a Tribunal consisting of the following persons to decide disputes arising under section 10A of the said Act in the matter of election to the Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India held in December, 2018, namely:- 1...
NOTIFICATION NO. G.S.R. 275(E), DATED: 29-03-2019 G.S.R. 275(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 469 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014, namely: — 1...
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Special Features – Top 13 Deaths from the Friday the 13th Franchise
September 13, 2013 by admin 1 Comment
Luke Owen looks at his favourite deaths from the Friday the 13th franchise…
In 1980, Sean S. Cunningham released a low budget slasher movie that would become one of the cornerstones of the slasher sub genre. What stared out life as a script which one its actresses called “a piece of sh*t”, became a global phenomenon that would create a slasher movie icon – the hockey mask wearing psychopath Jason Voorhees.
As with any good slasher movie, the moments people remember are the deaths – and Friday the 13th isn’t short on that. During a marathon of all 12 movies last year, we counted a grand total of 196 kills from all of the movie’s killers. So, with it being Friday the 13th, let’s look at the Top 13 Deaths from the Friday the 13th Franchise.
13. Trey (Freddy vs. Jason, 2003)
There have been many horror movies stuck in Development Hell over the last few decades but none more so famous that Freddy vs. Jason – a film that went through dozens of writers, dozens of drafts and even more directors. What we eventually got was 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason – a movie that is a lot of fun, but can picked apart by fans of each respective franchise for the plethora of character errors. But, if you take it at face value, then there is a lot to enjoy. Unless you’re Kane Hodder of course.
However if you think back to the movie, the majority of the deaths are very forgettable. This is mostly down to Ronny Yu’s focus being on the monsters fighting each other and the teens being nothing more than cannon fodder, but also comes across as lazy script writing from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. That is of course apart from Trey’s death which is fantastic.
Trey is a horribly unlikeable character; he’s really mean to his girlfriend Gibb and just acts like a complete repugnant git. So seeing him stabbed to death repeatedly by Jason Voorhees after treating his girlfriend like dirt and then bent in half by the bed being folded upwards is incredibly satisfying. It’s sad to say, but the movie peaked far too soon with this death.
12. Jack– Friday the 13th (1980)
Before he was the face of a mobile network or the punchline of an Internet Meme, Kevin Bacon was best known for his role in the original Friday the 13th. I say best known for his role, he was more known for his death really.
After having sex with Marcie who then leaves to use the bathroom, Bacon lights up a joint only to have a hand come from under the bed and pin his down. Slowly, an arrow pierces through his throat and blood starts to pour from the open wound, leaving nothing but a gurgling mess of a man.
The reason why Bacon’s death has stood the test of time with Friday the 13th and horror fans alike is because it’s one of the only deaths in the movie that isn’t cut away from. Marcie’s axe to the head is a brilliant make-up job, but the death is actually never really shown – only implied. Make-up and special effects maestro Tom Savini shows just how creative he can be as the camera never cuts away from the arrow piercing Bacon’s neck, or from the blood spurting out. Because of this, it’s one of the most remembered deaths from the whole series. They tried to recreate it a couple of times like in Friday the 13th Part III, but they never quite topped this one.
11. Rick – Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
Speaking of Friday the 13th Part III, the movie used a 3D gimmick and as such they needed to make the use of ‘things poking out to the camera’ shots. There are shots of people moving TV aerials or washing line poles so they point towards the camera in order to make the crowd go, “oooh” and indeed, “ahhh”.
But what’s the point in just doing simple ‘poke things towards the camera’ tricks when you can use this gimmick to make Jason’s kills all the more creative?
Unbeknownst to poor old Rick, Jason creeps up behind him and places his hands on his head. Using his super strength (?), he squeezes so much that Rick’s eye comes popping out of his head – causing the audience to scream with “oooh”s and “ahhhh”s.
It should be noted that Rick’s death, while creative, is an incredibly cheap effect. The prosthetic head is very obviously fake and it’s not helped by having the camera linger on it. Furthermore, the wire that pulls the eye out is clearly in shot which cheapens the effect even more.
Which actually makes it one of the funnier ones…
10. Hitchhiker with a Banana – Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
One of the firm favourites among Friday fans, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is now looked upon as the ironically named entry. However at the time of release, this was intended to be the final Friday the 13th movie. But the demand for more Jason was still high so Paramount put a fifth movie into production shortly after – we’ll come on to that later.
While the film features some classic deaths, the crowing glory comes in the form of the random hitchhiker who gets stabbed in the neck by Jason. It’s not the most adventurous of kills by any stretch of the imagination, but what makes this death stand out from the rest is director Joseph Zito’s decision to include a shot of her squeezing the banana she was eating out of its skin. Slowly.
You didn’t give us much Banana Girl, but you left an impression.
9. Andy – Friday the13th Part III (1982)
Back to the 3D brilliance of Friday the 13th Part III once again – only this time the death has nothing to do with the movie’s gimmick.
It’s established quite early on in the movie that Rick is quite the acrobat and one of his main gifts is the ability to walk on his hands. Well, it works fine for the most part, until Jason decides to chop him in half vertically while he’s doing a handstand.
This death also comes with the bonus of getting a second look at his corpse later on – although for a person chopped vertically, he appears to have split horizontally…
8. Jeff and Sandra – Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
What’s better than Jason killing someone who has just finished having sex? Killing a couple during sex.
Poor old Jeff and Sandra – they thought they were off to have a grand old time of underage fornication, only to have a crazy bag wearing psychopath stab both of them at once with a spear in the middle of their awkward looking sexual encounter.
This was another death scene that was “trimmed” and edited differently to avoid the X rating in the States, but ironically the still (just to your right) was on the back of the box art. Good going censors.
7. Amanda – Friday the 13th (2009)
Unlike A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween, the remake of Friday the 13th didn’t stray too far from what made the series popular. Both the Nightmare and Halloween remakes attempted to go back to the source of their antagonists to discover what made them so evil, essentially “re-imagining” the character for a modern day audience. They both failed miserably at it, but that’s a different story. The Friday the 13th remake essentially takes elements from the first three movies and crams them into one giant body fest that isn’t exactly brilliant, but isn’t horrendous either. It’s just sort of there. But because it’s so average, it’s far and away the best of the slasher remakes. However, it did create one of the more uncomfortable kills from the Friday the 13th back catalogue.
Amanda is tied up in her sleeping bag, hung up over a fire and then left to burn to death. That’s not just brutal, it’s sadistic. This was obviously the movie’s attempt to show that this Jason is “better” than the old one by upping the ante, but from a visual aspect this is so hard to watch – making it one of the most effective kills of the franchise.
6. Vera – Friday the13th Part III (1982)
Our third (and final) appearance from this film brings us another death that panders to the 3D gimmick, but does it better than Rick’s.
One of the movie’s central plot points is the role of Shelley – a fat and rather unfunny man who loves playing pranks on his friends. The plot of the movie states that Shelley has been brought on to this trip in order to be set up with the particularly unimpressed Vera. Later in the movie, Vera is walking along the docks when she spies a man in a hockey mask holding a harpoon gun. Thinking it’s Shelley, she doesn’t scream or run away – that is until a harpoon gets shot towards camera (cue 3D effect “ooh”s and “ahh”s) and lands squarely in her eye.
The 3D effect here is better than the other attempts and, at the time, would have been a great scare for the audience. But this kill is really noteworthy as it’s the first by Jason in the now iconic hockey mask. Plus, the make-up work is awesome.
5. Junior – Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
Despite Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter supposedly bringing a close to the series, Paramount brought us back to the franchise the following year with a movie that is rather hated by Friday the 13th fans. To cut a long story short, the audience was promised Jason and instead was given an impostor (spoilers).
But aside from the bait-and-switch ending, the other thing people hate about the movie is the duo of Ethal Hubbard and her idiot son Junior. These two hicks have one job in the movie – be annoying while trying to be comedy relief. Suffice to say, it doesn’t quite work.
With that said, Junior does have one of the more memorable deaths in the movie as he rides around their trailer screaming at the top of his lungs about Tommy only to ride into the machete of “Jason” – leaving his head to bounce on the floor. Never has the death of a character of an annoying character been celebrated more.
4. Adrienne – Jason X (2001)
While Freddy vs. Jason was stuck in Development Hell, New Line Cinemas figured they needed to make some sort of capital off the franchise they’d paid a lot of money for. What we got was 2001’s Jason X – Friday the 13th in space.
Because it worked so well for Leprechaun didn’t it.
Ignoring the ridiculous plot of this movie, it does feature one of the all-time great deaths of the franchise. In fact, Adrienne’s death is probably the only thing (other than the idiotic plot) that people do remember about Jason X.
Jason’s seemingly dead body is brought up into the spaceship so that Adrienne can perform an autopsy on him. After attempting to remove his mask, she turns her back on the monster to look at something through a microscope. Jason suddenly rises from his slumber, grabs the back of Adrienne’s head and dives it into liquid nitrogen, instantly freezing her face. But that’s not all, he then takes it out and smashes her face against the side into little bloody crystals.
The movie is asinine, but that kill is awesome.
3. Deborah – Jason Goes to Hell (1991)
Another movie that is mostly hated by the fanbase, Jason Goes To Hell was the first movie produced by New Line Cinemas after acquiring the rights from Paramount and was made to serve as a teaser trailer for their upcoming Freddy vs Jason (which would come out 12 years later).
The main reason the movie is hated (aside from the fact it makes no sense) is that, like Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, it doesn’t feature Jason. Instead he passes his soul to various people and treats them like avatars to get back to his house so he can be reborn through a Voorhees or something stupid. This didn’t really go down well with the focus groups who basically said that the movie needed more Crystal Lake killings because it doesn’t feel like a Friday the 13th movie.
So with that, we got the death of Deborah.
What a lot of non-fans don’t realise about the Friday the 13th series is that, for the most part, it was never very gory. Mostly due to budget constraints, deaths were quick with simple practical effects and often were accomplished through editing. Deborah in Jason Goes To Hell on the other hand, gets stabbed in the stomach during sex and then have the sharp object dragged up her, cutting her in half – all of which is done in one-shot so we can see the gory effects.
2. Mark – Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Mark’s death in Friday the 13th Part 2 is harsh, cruel and mean – but absolutely hilarious.
When you first watch the movie and see this poor chap in a wheelchair, your reaction is to assume that he will survive. Not only is he in a wheelchair, but he’s also about to get laid by one of the prettiest girls at the counsellor training camp. And really, what movie could be so cruel as to kill a nice guy in a wheelchair?
Friday the 13th Part 2 it seems.
Not only does Mark get a machete right in the face, his wheelchair is pushed down a long flight of stairs, something which director Steve Miner focuses on as we watch this wheelchair bound man with a machete in his face bounce down some stairs in the rain. It’s harsh, but it’s also kind of funny.
1. Julius – Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Like Mark in Friday the 13th Part 2, our number one spot is taken by a death that isn’t exactly brutal, but is hilariously funny. Sometimes, these movies just go to that edge and produce genius like the death of Julius in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
Once again, this is a movie that isn’t liked by the majority of Friday the 13th fans but, unlike Jason Goes To Hell or Jason X, it’s not because of the movie’s stupid plot (although that doesn’t help). Director Rob Hedden did have a plan in mind when making this movie to have Jason in New York killing people in famous landmarks. But when his budget kept getting slashed (no pun intended), he ended up setting the first 3/4 of the movie on the boat ride to Manhatten – leaving us with a pretty boring film with a couple of scenes shot in New York which looks suspiciously like Vancouver.
And while the film is insanely dull, the crowning moment of the movie is Julius’ death. Thinking himself to be quite the boxer, he takes Jason on in a punching contest. Every hit he lands rocks Jason but never takes him off his feet – and the more punches he throws, the more tied he gets. Before he knows it, he’s out of breath and can’t even land a punch anymore. Realising he’s been beaten, he taunts Jason with “give me your best shot”, leading to Jason literally punching his head clean off his shoulders.
But it gets better – Hedden films the head falling off the building, even giving us a “POV” perspective before the head bounces into a dumpster. It’s not only the most ridiculous death in the movie, but probably the whole series. But it never fails to bring a laugh from its audience and that is why it’s the number one kill from Friday the 13th.
Crazy Ralph – Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
“You’re all doomed” Ralph warned the new counsellors of Crystal Lake back in the first Friday the 13th, but none of them listened to his warnings. He even points this out to the new counsellors in the sequel Friday the 13th Part II, re-iterating their “doom” and that “Camp Blood” has a “death curse”. But for some crazy reason, Ralph visits the camp and ends up getting killed by Jason.
Ralph is a fantastic character and he only gets an honourable mention here because, although his death isn’t that great, it’s such a shame to see him die.
Sheriff Michael Garris – Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986)
Well Garris, this is what you get when you don’t believe the crazy sounding Jarvis kid when he tells you that Jason is alive and killing people. You get bent in half so far back that you literally fold over. Sucks to be you.
Freddy Krueger – Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Only in the honourable mention section because he doesn’t technically get killed, but Freddy’s “death” is one of the movie’s greatest visuals. The one armed Kruger is about to take out Lori and Will with Jason’s machete only to have Jason jump out of the water and with his last once of strength, stab Freddy through the chest with his own arm and glove. It’s a fitting end to their battle and is shot expertly by Ronny Yu. Granted, it was Lori that really finished him off by lopping his head clean off his shoulders – but it Jason that did all the leg (or arm) work…
Plus, it was a better death for him than Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.
So, there you have it – the Top 13 Deaths from the Friday the 13th Franchise. Did we miss your favourite? Let us know in the comments below.
Happy Friday the 13th!
Blasphemy to leave out one of the most memorable deaths..the sleeping bag bashed against the tree..
The Witcher image features Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia and Roach
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Characters: Bud Tribble, Steve Jobs, Jef Raskin, Bill Atkinson, Rod Holt, Burrell Smith, Joanna Hoffman, Brian Howard, Steve Wozniak, Mike Scott, Mike Markkula
Topics: Apple Spirit, Origins, Management, Buildings
Summary: The original Mac team's original office
Nerf balls were a favorite toy
In 1979 and 1980, Jef Raskin's Macintosh project was a four person research effort with a tenuous existence. It wasn't considered to be very important within Apple, and was almost cancelled a couple of times. When Apple had another major reorganization in the fall of 1980, it was terminated again, but Jef pleaded with Mike Scott and Mike Markkula for more time, and was granted three more months to show that he was really onto something. As part of the re-org, the four person Macintosh team (Jef Raskin, Brian Howard, Burrell Smith, Bud Tribble, soon to be joined by Joanna Hoffman) relocated to a small office building a few blocks from the main Apple campus.
The new office, located at 20863 Stevens Creek Boulevard, was called the "Good Earth" building, because it was adjacent to a Good Earth restaurant. In fact, the office used to be Apple's very first office in Cupertino, after they moved out of Steve Jobs' parents' house, and was later used as the first office of the Lisa project, when the Lisa team had fewer than ten employees. The Mac team moved in, outfitting it with lots of bean bag chairs and all kinds of interesting toys.
Jef was very playful and always encouraged his team to express themselves creatively, so the office quickly began to look more like a day care center than an engineering lab, overflowing with playthings. Periodically, work would cease and the entire team, plus any visitors who might be on the premises, would play some organized game, usually led by Jef and Brian.
The favorite game, which was usually played at least once a day, just after lunch, was a form of tag played with Nerf balls. There were dozens of brightly colored Nerf balls scattered around the office. The rules would be improvised, but usually the person who was "it" had to confer it-hood on someone else by hitting them with a Nerf ball. This inspired everyone to surround their work area with barricades made out of cardboard, to provide cover during the game, making part of the office look like a cardboard maze.
Jef and Brian were both serious musicians, so the office was also littered with a variety of musical instruments, sometimes erupting in spontaneous concerts. Another one of Jef's interests was model airplanes and automobiles, especially radio controlled ones. It wasn't unusual to see a radio controlled car dart underneath your desk, and occasionally everyone would go outside to see the maiden voyage of the latest plane.
Jef was writing his "Book of Macintosh" during much of 1979 and all of 1980, articulating his vision in ever finer detail. Burrell's 6809-based prototype came alive in the early part of 1980, but then he went off to work on the low cost Apple II project. Jef hired Marc Lebrun to write software in early 1980, but Marc was more interested in Lisp machines than a limited memory microcomputer like the Mac, so nothing much happened until he was replaced by Bud Tribble in September 1980.
Bud knew Jef from UCSD, and was also good friends with Bill Atkinson. They had a part time, two person consulting company together in Seattle called Synaptic Systems while they were both graduate students. Bill and Jef convinced Bud to take a one year leave of absence from the M.D/Ph.D. program he was pursuing at University of Washington at Seattle. Bud was in the fifth year of a seven M.D/Ph.D. program. Instead of returning to med school, Bud moved into a spare room at Bill Atkinson's house, and started work on the Mac project at Apple. He quickly began to breathe life into Burrell's languishing prototype, writing some graphics routines for the 6809.
So even though the Mac project had been going for more than a year, the move to Good Earth in October 1980 came at an interesting time, with a new but limited lease on life, and software finally starting to happen. But the Good Earth era was rather short lived.
Around two months after the move, Bud convinced Burrell to consider using the 68000 processor instead of the 6809. Burrell came up with a brilliant design, catching the attention of Steve Jobs. Steve took over the project and quickly recruited most of the early Apple II crew that he trusted, including Steve Wozniak and Rod Holt, and moved the project to larger offices a half mile away, in Texaco Towers (see Texaco Towers).
Texaco Towers
• Texaco Towers
• Scrooge McDuck
from furious tiger on January 29, 2004 12:08:44
Never knew that Jef was such a rascal? Every time I see him (on tv) and last on the ScreenSavers he seems so subduded or distant. Those must have been GREAT times during the early stages of the Mac Dev.
from Jef Raskin on January 30, 2004 18:13:08
Efrain: I still play music and fly model planes. See my articles in Fly RC, Model Airplane News, Radio Control Micro Flight and other magazines. We toss around balls, play bocce, and juggle in my present office, too. These continue to be great times. Everybody: The last paragraph of the story is somewhat misleading. I discouraged the 68000 only because it would have made the product too expensive. When the price came down, the only problem was that it could address only 64K bytes of memory. Burrell found a very clever way of allowing it to address 128K of memory, at which point I changed the project from the 6809 to the 68000. I still have my memo stating the rationale for the change. It was before Jobs took over. The legend has it that I opposed the 68000 for various irrational reasons, depending on whose account you read. As it happens, I wanted to use it early on, but could not meet the price point that I had promised management.
HAHAHAHA! Hey Jef. I did not think that you would have replied back. I'm glad to see that you take the time to read the comments and add to them. I hope that you did not take offense to my comments, it was merely my observation from the few times that I have seen you. You sound alot like me in many ways. Hope to meet you one day and mayby fly some RC in Central Park or something (hehehehe). If you are ever in NYC. Well on to read some more.
from Anthony Martin on February 05, 2005 01:25:32
Absolutely amazing. This is the most surreal site on the internet. Great job!
from Scott Stevenson on April 21, 2005 00:46:27
I really enjoyed this story as I worked at Catapult Entertainment in the mid 90s, which was based in the same 20863 building. We went to Good Earth quite a bit, as well as those from the other stories -- Vivis, Ciscero's, etc. Sadly, the Good Earth is no more.
from Drew Page on September 23, 2005 17:03:14
This story and Jef's comments really prove that reality is sometimes much less dramatic than some people's accounts of how things went down. Evidently, Andy remembered things a bit differently based on his point of view. It must have been rather annoying to have the project lead pulled suddenly and replaced by someone who didn't know what was going on (Steve Jobs). Anyways, too bad Good Earth is no longer there. Sounds like it was an interesting restaurant.
from 1billbishop on September 03, 2008 08:15:07
The Good Earth on Stevens Creek served wholesome food, and I ate there a lot in the 80s and 90s after I got off work. Bill Proud late 2007 iMac owner
from frankbalistreri on December 20, 2013 05:00:36
I was hired early (#142) to help get the first few 100 Apple lls in and out of the service department in an organized way. On my first day, Mike Scott saw me waiting at the door to my work area and let me in. I asked what he did there, I had no clue who he was. Then I remember seeing 40 or so Apple IIs that need to be handled. After a while with the help of Burrell we created a small program to handle all these bad Apples. He was a service tech at the time, we had a good little department, 5 guys. The entire parts department was one 4'x6' black cabinet (I had he keys). I remember Burrell being very clever and nice to work with. I eventually left Apple, his parting comment "So let me get this straight, you are leaving Apple to sell forms?" He was right, it was a crazy move but a good path for me, I do miss the old Apple.
from Mary Jane Sesek on September 20, 2017 17:42:27
I installed a 4200 pair telephone cable into one of the Apple buildings in 1979 or 1980. I was among the first women Construction Cable Splicers for PT&T at that time. I am guessing it was on Bandley. A typical large cable was 3600 pair. This 4200 pair required a larger case in manholes and the copper wires were thinner. As far as I know it was the first 4200 pair cable laid in Cupertino, Ca. It required extra training and I know phone company engineers were watching closely. It was built by 2 women. I terminated 8,400 wires on 66 blocks in the middle of the building that only had a roof on it- I drove my PT&T van into the building.
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As summer wanes, August still offers promising films
By Jason Cirone
Summer is starting to come to an end and so is the blockbuster movie season. So far, it has been a relatively busy season for films and August still has some great flicks to offer. Let’s look at some of what is coming out.
Release Date: Aug. 2
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham
The Plot: Spinning straight from the Fast and Furious franchise, Hobbs and Shaw are here to save the day. The two form an unlikely alliance when a cyber-genetically enhanced bad guy threatens of all of humanity. Hobbs and Shaw will have to get hardcore old-school to save the day.
The Scoop: I feel this movie is unnecessary and an obvious money grab. Universal is looking to find a way to milk the Furious franchise after things wrap up with the 10th film. On the flip side, the movie does look action-packed even if it comes off as ridiculous. More than likely it’s going to be a fun movie to watch.
Release Date: Aug. 16
Stars: Kulvinder Ghir, Viveik Karla
The Plot: In 1987, during the austere days of Thatcher’s Britain, a teenager learns to live life, understand his family and find his own voice through the music of Bruce Springsteen.
The Scoop: I’m looking forward to seeing this one. A bit of different flair for the summer, but don’t let that stop you from checking this film out. I believe it’s going to offer a good story presented in an artistic manner that you will enjoy.
Stars: Nia Long, John Corbett
The Plot: Four teen girls diving in a ruined underwater city quickly learn they’ve entered the territory of the deadliest shark species in a claustrophobic labyrinth of submerged caves.
The Scoop: I thought the first film was a mid-level popcorn flick. But because it was made for little cost and made a decent amount at the box office, we now get a sequel. The new film does look mildly entertaining and might be a fun time at the cinema, especially if you like shark movies.
Release Date: August 23
Stars: Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman
The Plot: Secret Service Agent Mike Banning is framed for the attempted assassination of the President and must evade his own agency and the FBI as he tries to uncover the real threat.
The Scoop: The first two films were decent action thrillers and the third film looks promising. I enjoy Butler in this series; he has been perfect for the character of Mike Banning. If you want to finish off the summer with a good action film, this is one you won’t want to miss.
Stars: Dave Bautista, Kristen Schaal, Ken Jeong
The Plot: A hardened CIA operative finds himself at the mercy of a precocious 9-year-old girl, having been sent undercover to surveil her family. They must put their differences aside and work together to make it to the trial on time.
The Scoop: This film looks like it’s going to be a fun and action-packed ride for the whole family. This is a different outing for Bautista, doing a family film. But I think he is up for the challenge since his role as Drax carries a good weight of comedy and he has proven he can do action-comedy. This should be a fun watch.
* Jason Cirone writes a local movie column. Contact: methos413@yahoo.com.
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Lincoln Park man charged with kidnapping attempt after reportedly grabbing 3-year-old
Stevie Hutchins, 30, has been charged in Michigan's 50th District Court with attempted kidnapping and child enticement, a five-year felony.
Lincoln Park man charged with kidnapping attempt after reportedly grabbing 3-year-old Stevie Hutchins, 30, has been charged in Michigan's 50th District Court with attempted kidnapping and child enticement, a five-year felony. Check out this story on Freep.com: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2019/06/19/lincoln-park-man-charged-kidnapping-attempt/1502108001/
Emma Keith, Detroit Free Press Published 4:00 p.m. ET June 19, 2019 | Updated 6:14 p.m. ET June 19, 2019
Stevie Hutchins, 30, is charged with attempted kidnapping and child enticement. (Photo: Oakland County Sheriff's Office)
A Lincoln Park man is charged with attempted kidnapping after allegedly trying to grab a 3-year-old child outside a Pontiac liquor store.
Hutchins was apprehended when deputies from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office responded Saturday to a report of an attempted kidnapping outside of Star Party Store in Pontiac.
There, a mother told police that Hutchins had tried to grab her daughter, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.
After the mother initially told Hutchins to step away, he allegedly backed off, then grabbed the child again and attempted to take her from her mother, according to a report from the sheriff’s office.
Hutchins ran away after the mother’s friend pulled a can of mace on him, and was later apprehended by police in the same area without incident.
Hutchins was positively identified by the mother and interviewed by detectives. A probable cause conference is scheduled for June 27.
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Read or Share this story: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2019/06/19/lincoln-park-man-charged-kidnapping-attempt/1502108001/
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3 Winners in Discount Retail: Costco, TJX, and Amazon.com
Costco, TJX, and Amazon are particularly well positioned to thrive in the discount retail industry. Here's why.
Andrés Cardenal
(TMFacardenal)
The retail business has become remarkably competitive lately, especially for companies operating in the low end of the pricing spectrum. Costco (NASDAQ:COST), TJX (NYSE:TJX), and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) are positioned to win in this environment by delivering spectacularly low prices for their products thanks to their effective business models.
Costco is one of a kind
Costco benefits from a smart and differentiated business model. As opposed to margins on sales, the company makes most of its profits from membership fees, and this means that Costco gets to sell its products at cost, generating big savings for customers.
Source: Costco.
Not only that, but the company implements multiple other strategies to minimize purchase prices, like prioritizing cost savings over inventory variety when making purchasing decisions. Costco buys big amounts from suppliers, and it leverages its scale to obtain better purchasing conditions, which it translates into price savings for customers.
In addition, as the company grows in size, it spreads fixed costs across a bigger amount of products, which reduces the impact of fixed costs per unit.
This business model resonates remarkably well among consumers. In such a dynamic and competitive industry like discount retail, Costco benefits from extraordinary customer loyalty. Retention rates are usually above 85% at the company level, with main markets like the U.S. and Canada delivering retention rates that are consistently above 90%.
Costco announced rock-solid sales figures for March. Comparable-store sales excluding the effect of gasoline prices and exchange rate fluctuations increased by 6% in the U.S. and 9% in international markets, for a total increase of 7% during the month.
This is materially above the performance investors can expect from competitors in the industry, and a sign of continued strength from Costco as the company seems to be smoothly recovering from the negative impact of an unusually harsh winter.
TJX for trendy bargain hunters
TJX is an off-price retailer of apparel and home fashions operating 3,050 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Europe under brands such as T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Winners, and T.K. Maxx, among others.
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Source: TJX.
TJX has a leadership position in off-price retail, and it relies on a buying force of 800 employees sourcing for products from more than 16,000 vendors in over 60 countries. Its scale advantages, global presence, and effective inventory management system mean that TJX is uniquely positioned to purchase and manage large volumes and disperse merchandise across different geographies to target specific markets.
TJX purchases excess inventory from department stores at favorable terms; the company is willing to buy less-than-full assortments of items, it pays promptly, and it usually doesn't ask for typical retail concessions like advertising, promotional, or return allowance.
This gives TJX significant bargaining power with suppliers, which it translates into pricing discounts of between 20% and 60% off traditional retail prices.
Customers seem to really appreciate these bargains; TJX has delivered growing comparable-store sales over the past 17 consecutive years, quite an extraordinary achievement in a such cyclical and challenging business.
Amazon and the power of disruption
If there's a company that's been a powerful disruptive force in the retail industry over the past several years, it's unquestioningly Amazon. The company founded and led by Jeff Bezos has grown from an online bookstore to a global juggernaut making more than $60.9 billion in sales and growing at a 22% annual rate in 2013.
Source: Amazon.com.
Amazon has important cost advantages over brick-and mortar stores in items such as real estate, inventory, and salary expenses. On the other hand, the company is actively investing in areas such as building its distribution network, digital content, and hardware manufacturing, so expenses have been on the rise in recent years.
Importantly, Amazon is willing to price its products at aggressively low levels, even if that means eroding profit margins. In Jeff Bezos' words: "Your margin is my opportunity."
A position in Amazon means investing in a company with razor-thin, or sometimes even negative, profit margins. This is a considerable risk and source of uncertainty for shareholders. On the other hand, Amazon offers a fairly unique opportunity to position your portfolio for growth in one of the most disruptive and innovative companies on the planet.
For many retailers, price competition is the name of the game lately. Costco, TJX, and Amazon are exceptionally well positioned to compete in that area, and that says a lot about these companies and their chances to succeed in the years ahead.
The TJX Companies
NYSE:TJX
NASDAQ:COST
3 Winners in Discount Retail: Costco, TJX, and Amazon.com @themotleyfool #stocks $AMZN $TJX $COST Next Article
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In Pictures: The Top 10 Cities For Billionaires
By Chaniga Vorasarun
© Tatiana Morozova/Shutterstock
These 10 cosmopolitan cities are home to a third of the world's billionaires.
© Lazar Mihai-Bogdan/Shutterstock
10. Tokyo, Japan
Number of billionaires: 15
Average net worth: $2.8 billion
Back in 1987, Tokyo was home to the richest man in the world, real estate baron Yoshiaki Tsutsumi. In 2002, it ranked third among cities with the most billionaires. But more recently, Japanese fortunes have fallen far--and with them, Tokyo's status. It now just makes the top 10. Its most prominent tycoons include such billionaires as Masayoshi Son, founder of Japan's leading Internet service provider SoftBank, and Nobutada Saji, head of drinks giant Suntory.
© Andrew Dean/iStockphoto
9. Dallas, Texas
This southern city is swimming in oil billionaires like T. Boone Pickens and Ray Lee Hunt. But Dallas has room for Texas-sized fortunes from all sectors. Other wealthy Dallas denizens: Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, known more for his courtside antics than his background in technology, and 1992 presidential spoiler H. Ross Perot, whose fortune is derived from data supplier Perot Systems. Where do Dallas' wealthiest dine? World-class chefs like Top Chef's Tom Colicchio and sushi maestro Nobu Matsuhisa have set up lavish outposts in this unlikely gourmet destination.
© iStockphoto
8. San Francisco, Calif.
Though the Internet bubble burst years ago, this northern California city is still home to notable tech tycoons, including Google founder Larry Page (he and co-founder Sergey Brin are the Bay Area's richest); PayPal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel; and audio giant Ray Dolby, head of Dolby Labs. Other tech titans, such as venture capitalist John Doerr and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, live nearby in Silicon Valley.
© Nitin Sanil/iStockphoto
7. Mumbai, India
Mumbai has bragging rights in our roundup as the city with the richest billionaires. India's center of business and culture boasts 20 billionaires with an average net worth of $7.6 billion, far outstripping Moscow's $5.9 billion. Though India's wealthiest citizen Lakshmi Mittal resides in London, two of the richest on our billionaires list--dueling brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani--live in Mumbai. Mukesh, worth $43 billion in March, is richer and wants the world to know it. He is building a 27-story home at a reported cost of $2 billion.
6. Los Angeles, Calif.
Average net worth: $3 billion
The nation's nexus of glitz and glamour, not surprisingly, has billionaires from all corners of the entertainment industry--from Academy-Award-winning director Steven Spielberg to Viacom head Sumner Redstone. But southern California's richest resident invests far from Hollywood these days. Activist shareholder Kirk Kerkorian, known for his attempted shake-ups at General Motors and Chrysler--as well as his forays into the hotel business--is again making headlines for recently increasing his stake in another American automaker, Ford Motor. The bulk of his fortune is in Las Vegas gaming group MGM Mirage.
© TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images
5. Hong Kong
This former British colony has the greatest number of billionaires of any Asian city. The absence of a capital gains tax here makes it a thriving business hub. And plenty of billionaires have benefited. The area's wealthiest, Li Ka-shing (with $26.5 billion), heads Asian telecom giant Hutchison Whampoa. His company sold a stake in an Indian mobile group for $11 billion last year. Son Richard, trying to climb out of Dad's shadow, is making big bets on real estate. In 2006, he sold the most expensive piece of land in Tokyo for $1.7 billion.
4. Istanbul, Turkey
Its waterfront location makes this Turkish city an attractive bet for tourists and billionaires alike. Turkey has 35 billionaire citizens, all but one of whom reside in Istanbul. The wealthiest is communications billionaire Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, with his $4.3 billion fortune. The city's affluent make their money from varying sources, from cellphones to banking. But they don't have to spend much of their fortunes to enjoy the city. The cost of a flat in the posh Bebek neighborhood will only set you back $5,000 a month. Maids and nannies here can be hired for just $50 a day. Being a resident has its benefits. Visiting the city can be far costlier. Two nights at the famed Ciragan Kempinski Istanbul will leave you $10,000 poorer.
© René Mansi/IstockPhoto
3. London, U.K.
Thanks to the strong pound, England's capital is teeming with dollar billionaires. Among them: airline and media magnate Richard Branson, cheap chic clothier Philip Green and the wealthiest resident in Europe, steel baron Lakshmi Mittal. It would take a billionaire-sized bank account to stay solvent in London. An average home in the pricey Belgravia neighborhood can run into the tens of millions. The U.K.'s richest citizen, the Duke of Westminster, is banking on it. Through his property group and trusts, the duke owns huge swaths of the city's most valuable land.
© Diane Diederich/iStockphoto
2. New York, N.Y.
For the first time in nearly a decade, New York falls from the top spot. But many of the 71 billionaires populating New York's high-rises are the biggest names in business--from media mogul Rupert Murdoch to real estate honcho Donald Trump. The city even has a billionaire mayor: no wonder money is everywhere. And in a city like New York, you'll need it. Dinner for two at Michelin star-rated Per Se will cost you $550. A haircut from celebrity stylist Sally Hershberger? A mere $800.
1. Moscow, Russia
While London and New York squabble over bragging rights to the most billionaire residents, it is Moscow that now comes up on top. The Russian capital has more billionaires than any other city in the world. It's a remarkable jump from 2002, when just five billionaires lived there. Now, thanks to a boom in commodities like oil and metal, Moscow counts 74 billionaires among its city dwellers, like Oleg Deripaska and his $28 billion fortune. And compared with other major billionaire cities, Moscow is relatively cheap.
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HOW TO BUILD A CAR THAT GETS 54.5 MPG
Ford Motor Co.
At least on paper, this is the easiest way to boost a car’s fuel economy. That’s because a vehicle’s mass is directly related to how much fuel it consumes. “Reducing a vehicle’s weight is the dominant factor in improving its fuel economy,” explains Marc Ross, a professor of physics at the University of Michigan. “All else being equal, decreasing a vehicle’s weight by 10 percent enables about a three percent increase in fuel economy.” There is a downside to sending the nation’s fleet of vehicles to Jenny Craig, however. For starters, not all American motorists will find it practical or desirable to drive a subcompact car like the Ford Fiesta pictured above, nor will they want to give up desired conveniences. The market will still require models with a full range fo features that can accommodate larger families and/or larger occupants. What’s more, the laws of physics dictate that a larger and heavier vehicle will tend to fare better in a collision than will a smaller and lighter one. Expect tomorrow’s fleet to still come in assorted shapes and sizes, but with extensive use of lighter-weight materials, like plastic, aluminum and even carbon fiber in higher-priced models to help cut precious pounds from a car’s curb weight. Cars will become more crash-worthy by design, and will utilize advanced technology to help drivers avoid getting into accidents in the first place or at least minimize their severity. Many cars already offer systems that warn of other vehicles in a driver’s blind spot or when the car is inadvertently veering across highway lane markers for added safety. Some can sound an alert when the vehicle is closing in too quickly on another car or obstruction, and automatically prime the brakes at full force, pre-tension the seatbelts and perform other functions in anticipation of a collision. A few cars will actually apply the brakes on their own in such situations, and Toyota is working on a system that will take the wheel out of the driver’s hands and help steer the car out of trouble.
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New Research Confirms: No Crisis for Today's Retirees
Andrew Biggs Contributor
I work on retirement policy, public sector pay and other issues.
There’s nothing so classy as a policy wonk reveling in vindication. And I’m nothing if not classy.
But there’s a bigger purpose to be served. What I – and more importantly, my co-author Syl Scheiber – were vindicated about is a 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that perceptions of a “retirement crisis” are in part driven by bad data. Specifically, the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) is very poor at measuring the incomes that Americans derive from private retirement plans, including IRAs, 401(k)s and lump sum distributions from traditional pensions. As a result, retirees look poorer and more dependent on Social Security than they really are, and IRAs and 401(k)s look like they’re failing at providing Americans with retirement income. Once you correct for the CPS's poor measurement of private retirement incomes, retirees are a lot better off than you'd think.
The shortcomings of the CPS are important. It’s the official source of the poverty rate, which according to CPS data stands at 9.1 percent for Americans age 65 and over. The CPS is also used by the Social Security Administration in its “Income of the Aged” publications, which are widely cited by researchers and the media. For instance, if you hear that 61% of retirees receive the majority of their income from Social Security, and 31% receive 90% or more from Social Security, that’s the CPS talking through the SSA’s Income of the Aged publication.
At the time Syl and I published our piece, the response was skeptical. The Economic Policy Institute’s Monique Morrissey called our claims “eye-popping,” and not in a good way. Morrissey argued that our macro point – that “the most commonly cited measure of retirement income ignores at least 60% of the money that seniors receive” – is mistaken, perhaps due to our including 401(k) rollovers in our measure of income. (We didn't.) Likewise, she claimed, even to the degree that the CPS understates retirement plan income, “savings in these accounts are so unequally distributed that they make little difference to most retiree households.”
One legitimate problem we had was that, while we were confident that the CPS was dramatically understating private retirement plan benefits, there weren’t good data available to show how much income was understated for different types of retiree households.
But a new study published by Census Bureau economists Joshua Mitchell and Adam Bee had access to confidential IRS tax data, which aren’t easily available to researchers outside of government. This helped them answer many of these questions in much greater detail.
To start, are the incomes of retirees understated in Current Population Survey data? Bee and Mitchell show the answer is yes, and by even more than I’d guessed. I’d guestimated that at the median, CPS data understated total retirement incomes by around 15 percent. By itself, that’s a very big deal. In fact, Bee and Mitchell show, true incomes for the typical retiree – not the super-rich – are 30 percent higher than is commonly reported, with the vast majority of that difference due to the IRS data better catching income from private retirement plans.
Is poverty in retirement lower than we thought? Far lower. When retirement plan withdrawals are accurately measured, the poverty rate among seniors falls from 9.1 percent to 6.9 percent. By itself, that rebuts Morrissey’s claims that retirement plan income is too unequally distributed to make a difference. Sure, it’s unequally distributed, for perfectly rationale reasons. But not so much that accurately measuring private retirement plan income doesn’t lower the number of retirees in poverty by 24 percent.
In fact, accurately capturing private retirement benefits meaningfully raises retirement incomes across the spectrum. For instance, for retirees without a high school diploma median income rose by 17% when measured using IRS data. For those with only a high school education median incomes rose by 28%, by 29% for those with some college, and by 29% for college graduates.
Accurate measurement raises retirement incomes by nearly 12% even for the poorest 5% of the retiree population, a group that you wouldn’t expect to have anything beyond Social Security benefits. Even the lowest-income retirees, with per capita incomes below $10,000, receive incomes from interest, dividends and retirement plans sufficient to boost their total incomes by over $1,000 per year. I’m not saying that’s a comfortable retirement, but it’s likely very close to what they earned during their working years. It’s also a bigger increase in retirement incomes than these households would likely receive from touted Social Security expansion plans.
Bee and Mitchell also show that retirees are substantially less dependent on Social Security than you’d think from common statistics. For instance, the CPS data used by Social Security in calculating its dependency statistics finds that 64% of retirees in 2012 receive over half their total income from Social Security, with 36% receiving more than 90% of their income from the program. But those figures miss much of the income retirees receive from private plans. Using IRS data to better measure retirement plan income, Bee and Mitchell find that only 50% of retirees receive the majority of their income from Social Security while only 18% -- half the SSA's figure – receive 90% or more their income from the program.
These new figures are helpful, but by themselves don’t say whether retirees are meeting their most important goal, which is to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living. Whether you’re rich or poor, what you’re looking for is a smooth transition from work into retirement. I’ve argued that actual “replacement rates” are higher for today’s retirees than some analysts believe. Bee and Mitchell don’t touch on replacement rates directly, though in a note they express interest in digging further into that issue.
But the authors do provide some data which suggests that most retirees are doing okay. For three spots in the income distribution – the 25% percentile, the median and the 75% percentile – Bee and Mitchell provide a variety of data on which to calculate a pseudo-replacement rate. I’ve chosen to compare incomes at two periods of time to illustrate, but different approaches will produce reasonably similar answers.
I start with Bee and Mitchell’s measures of total income five years following retirement, which I compare to average earnings in the 15 years leading up to retirement. Roughly speaking, if the typical retirement age is 63, we’re comparing incomes at age 68 to average incomes from ages 47 to 62. At the 25th percentile, where the final 15 years of earnings average $28,402, retirees five years past retirement had average incomes of $26,553, equal to 93 percent of their pre-retirement earnings. At the median the pseudo-replacement rate was 94%, and at the 75th percentile it was 96%. These figures are far above the target replacement rates that financial advisors typically set for households planning for retirement. I hope Bee and Mitchell will dig further into replacement rates, but for the typical retiree today at all income levels there just isn’t strong evidence of a retirement crisis.
Pseudo-Replacement Rates for Retirees in 2012
Place in income distribution
Annual incomes 25th 50th 75th
5 years following retirement $26,553 $42,334 $64,346
15 years prior to retirement $28,402 $45,209 $ 66,949
Pseudo-replacement rate 93% 94% 96%
Figures express incomes at a given percentile five years following retirement to real average earnings at the same percentile in the 15 years leading up to retirement. Source: Bee and Mitchell, 2017.
And looking at today's retirees is important, because it's not as if they were held to be paragons of thrift during their working years. Go back to the 1980s and you'll find plenty of references about Americans' low saving rate. If we were truly facing a retirement crisis, I think we'd have hit it by now.
Nevertheless, Bee and Mitchell make clear that just because current retirees are doing well that doesn’t imply that future retirees will be okay. The retirement landscape is changing, as private sector workers have shifted from traditional defined benefit pensions toward defined contribution, 401(k)-type plans. As I’ve pointed out, Americans are saving more in today’s 401(k) world than they ever did under traditional pensions, both because 401(k)s are more widespread and because traditional pensions often were poorly funded. More research is needed projecting future retirement incomes. The SSA, through its MINT model, can play a leading role in that project.
In any event, though, the trend has been going in the right direction: Bee and Mitchell show that in 1990, only 45% of Americans aged 65 and over received income from a private retirement plan. By 2012 that share had risen to 61%. That’s a success we should celebrate.
But at the least, government agencies – in particular, the Social Security Administration – need to stop publishing figures that have clearly been shown to be misleading. SSA has known since the 1960s that the surveys it relies upon capture much less investment income than retirees themselves report to the IRS. SSA has undertaken a number of research papers showing the weaknesses of household surveys in reporting both retirement plan incomes and participation in retirement plans among working-aged households. SSA now needs to take the next step and start publishing the most accurate data it can on retirement incomes. The transition may be hard, and perhaps SSA can’t produce accurate figures quite as regularly as it does inaccurate figures based on Current Population Survey data. And yes, advocacy groups will cry foul, as if accurate data showing some good news on retirement incomes is bad news for groups that tout expanding Social Security while downplaying private retirement saving.
Andrew Biggs
I am a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Before joining AEI, I was the principal deputy commissioner and the deputy commissioner for policy at the S...
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Bitcoin Gets Awareness Boost From Mention On Eminem's New Album "Kamikaze"
Billy Bambrough Contributor
I write about how bitcoin, crypto and blockchain can change the world.
Eminem's latest album comes just months after his last full-length project, Revival. Above, Eminem performs during the 2018 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival on June 9, 2018, in Manchester, Tennessee. (Photo by C Flanigan/WireImage)
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency have taken another step toward mainstream awareness with a mention on U.S. rapper Eminem's new album "Kamikaze" — a sign that bitcoin is slowly penetrating to different levels of society and out of the financial, fintech bubble it's existed in for the last 10 years.
In the ninth track on the album, "Not Alike" — featuring Royce Da 5'9' — Royce claims: "Remember everybody used to bite Nickel, now everybody doing bitcoin."
Public awareness has been a major driver of the bitcoin price, which last year ballooned to almost $20,000 from around $1,000 per coin at the beginning of the year. The bitcoin price has since fallen back, dragging most other major cryptocurrencies with it, and is now trading at around $7,000.
Last year's bull run meant a raft of bitcoin mentions in film, TV, and music as producers both praised and attacked the digital currency — that made many overnight millionaires and brought on the ire of the established financial industry.
On the animated cartoon comedy "Family Guy", the show's main character Peter Griffin suggests bitcoin as a solution to his family’s financial trouble.
In "Dope", a 2015 American comedy-drama movie, the main character begins selling drugs online using bitcoin.
On the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory", the gang search for a lost laptop which held bitcoin that Sheldon and his friends purchased seven years earlier.
The mention on Eminem's album is significant however as it suggests not a get rich quick scheme nor a way to sell illicit goods online, but rather something that "everybody [is] doing" — that it's as common as knowing you bite the metal coin to test its quality.
Meanwhile, new research by economist Joost van der Burgt, a policy advisor at the Dutch National Bank, has found bitcoin price movements align very closely with Google searches — as awareness of bitcoin and cryptocurrency grows, so does the price. And there's still a lot of room for growth.
Van der Burgt told CNBC the correlation between Google searches for bitcoin and the cryptocurrency's price was almost a "perfect match" until the end of 2017.
"If the buzz is everywhere, it doesn't matter exactly what the news is about… nobody wants to miss out and everybody's trying to get a piece of it," Van der Burgt said.
A survey out this week by Coinbase and carried out by researchers Qriously showed some 18% of U.S. students said they own (or have owned) bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency, twice the rate of the general population.
Those survey results chime with a paper from researchers at Imperial College London out in July that said digital currencies are primed for mass adoption.
According to the Imperial College paper bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will hit the mainstream as a way of paying for goods and services within the next decade, as many of those students surveyed by Coinbase become part of the working world.
Van der Burgt found a correlation between Google searches for bitcoin and bitcoin's price.
Joost van der Burgt
Eminem's "Kamikaze", which dropped overnight without any promotion or fanfare, also attacks U.S. president Donald Trump who has been a target of the rapper's before.
On the first track, "The Ringer", Eminem says that the US president “sent the Secret Service to meet in person / To see if I really think of hurtin’ him / Or ask if I’m linked to terrorists” after his freestyles last year in which he attacked Trump.
Eminem announced the new album Kamikaze last night via Twitter.
Twitter / @Eminem
“Tried not 2 overthink this 1 … enjoy,” he wrote on Twitter announcing the release.
I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported ...
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Council OKs final phase of water plan
Forsyth County News
Updated: Sept. 2, 2008, 5:03 a.m.
At a price of nearly $6.4 million, Phase III of Cumming's 1020 raw water plan will be completed.
Cumming Mayor and council approved the project's final phase Tuesday night, awarding project bid to W.L. Hailey, which has also been awarded the first two phases.
"They're a great contractor," said Jon Heard, Cumming Utilities Department director. "We're pleased that we've had a good experience with Hailey and they're going to continue the project to its completion."
By June 2009, the entire project is expected to be completed and will allow the city to pull water from Lake Lanier from as low as 1020 feet below sea level.
When completed, the city will have the capability of pumping 110 million gallons of water per day.
During the design process of the final phase, there was a possibility nearby homeowners would be impacted by the installation of the 42-inch-wide pipe.
After tweaking the plan, however, and talking with area homeowners, there is only one property that would be impacted.
The city is currently in negotiations with the property owner and hopes to purchase an easement for about $4,000.
Between all three phases, the city has spent upward of $15 million, all of which came from the city's reserves, said Heard.
"Once the station is complete, it will supply the city and county's water needs for the next 50 years," he said.
During Tuesday's meeting, the city also approved a condition amendment and variance request for a medical center located between Oakland Drive, Maple Street and Pirkle Ferry Road.
The center is owned by Suresh Gudur, an internal medicine physician, and though it was originally approved to be two stories, the amendment approved by the city will permit the structure to be three stories, increasing its size to 34,200 square feet.
Cumming Mayor H. Ford Gravitt added the conditions that the site work must be done within 60 days and construction of the building must be completed within 18 months. Should the conditions not be met, the city would revert back to the initial plan of two stories.
The city also approved a parking space variance, allowing the facility to have eight less spaces than the previously approved 128 minimum.
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Veterans, active duty honored for service
Speaker salutes the 'real stars'
American flags fill the Cumming Veterans Memorial during Thursday's Veterans Day ceremony. - photo by Jennifer Sami
Updated: Nov. 13, 2010, 10:30 a.m.
Some have been retired for decades, while others are still serving.
They are veterans and active U.S. military personnel, and Thursday they were honored in Cumming and across the nation for Veterans Day.
“The nation owes a great debt to its veterans, whose service to our nation stands every year, every day and every hour through this country’s existence,” said Kyle Howlin, a retired Marine who gave the keynote address during the ceremony.
Howlin, who is now an American Airlines pilot, called veterans the “true heroes of this great nation.”
“In a celebrity-obsessed culture with multimillion dollar athletes ... it is important for us all to remember who the real stars of America are,” he said.
Howlin shared stories of some individual veterans from Cumming. He told of how they stood out among the ranks, the sacrifices they made, and of their brave actions on and off the battlefield.
The stories brought tears to Tricia Syler, whose father-in-law served during the Vietnam War.
“It just really touched me,” she said. “You’ve got people who are up there who have lived long lives and who have done so many wonderful things. It’s just so neat to me to hear individual stories like that.”
Syler attended the event with her three sons, twins Quinton and Zachary, 14, and 11-year-old Joshua.
The Sylers were part of the Forsyth County Christian Home Educators, which helps organize the annual event.
Children with the group performed for veterans and their supporters in attendance. Several stayed afterward to personally thank the veterans for their service.
“I think we need to remind our children, like [Howlin] said, who the stars really are in this country — the people who have given us the rights and freedoms that we have,” Syler said. “I think as parents we have a responsibility to teach that to our children.”
Cumming Mayor H. Ford Gravitt welcomed the crowd and thanked current military personnel, as well as those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
While the city’s Veterans Day ceremony is a popular event, Gravitt said it’s “inadequate for a tribute for our veterans.”
“We owe our veterans a debt that can never be repaid,” he said. “In Afghanistan, there are tens of thousands of military veterans and personnel that are risking their lives every day for the freedoms that we’re sharing here.
"Every single one of them is remembered by somebody that they’ve left at home.”
Before a bagpipe performance of “Amazing Grace,” a 21-gun salute and taps, Howlin reminded the crowd of the importance of teaching children about the soldiers who died in battles long ago.
He also asked to push legislators to continue to support veterans and to keep veterans' memories alive.
“We hope and pray the next generation will never forget the sacrifices our veterans have made,” he said. “[They] are not elderly men and women that march in parades, but the greatest Americans to ever grace our communities.
“Don’t underestimate, ladies and gentleman, the power of simply reaching out your hand and saying ‘thank you’ to each and every veteran you encounter.”
The American Legion Post 307, the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, the Forsyth County Honor Guard, Forsyth Central High School's Flash of Crimson band and North Forsyth High's Marine Corps JROTC also took part in the ceremony.
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The #mycalvins campaign has seen some of the world’s hottest models bare half-naked bods. Kate Moss, Miranda Kerr, Gigi Hadid, Lara Stone and even Biebs. 35 years in, it’s Kendall Jenner’s turn to send the internet into a spin as she fronts the Calvin Klein campaign.
Established in the 70s, Calvin Klein is the purveyor of all that is contemporary, chic and simple. A brand that shot to superstardom and found its permanent place in the mainstream consciousness in the 1980s, it achieved this with a series of campaigns that informed culture. Calvin Klein’s notoriety stemmed not from any season or collection, but from its advertisements – amongst them, one featuring a young Brooke Shields which garnered plenty of attention and controversy but which undeniably boosted the Calvin Klein brand, and allowed its image to grow across America and the rest of the world.
It was in 1982 where the brand changed forever though, with the announcement that Calvin Klein would move into underwear with a $500,000 Bruce Weber-shot campaign with the iconic Calvin Klein branding across the waist. Projected on to Times Square, the brand’s very first underwear campaign was a legitimate success, presenting Olympian Tomás Hintnaus on a roof, an image more about the male form than underwear, but one that would establish the notion that underwear needn’t be just about underwear, and that it can have a far greater reach than that.
Calvin Klein underwear really needs no introduction, with a host of timeless and unforgettable images reaching back to the 80s to this day. A topless Kate Moss, a topless Mark Wahlberg – the brand never really focused on the product, and still doesn’t. Rather, the power is in who is wearing them, which in turn empowers those who buy Calvin Klein underwear. Calvin Klein is the brand that turned underwear from purely functional to a marker of status, which in turn allows each of us to live as Kate Moss, to feel like Mark Wahlberg. Its underwear – men’s and women’s – still sells so strongly to this day because of how it makes us feel. Underwear would not be Calvin Klein’s only pursuit in its history, but it would reach the stage that Calvin Klein and underwear became synonymous, and the line of which meant more to which became blurred. To this day, that’s still a fair argument.
At General Pants we are fully behind the #mycalvins campaign, fronted by today’s most loved: Gigi Hadid, Justin Bieber, Lara Stone, and more. The #mycalvins hashtag is one of the most used, well-documented social media movements in recent times, which is testament to the brand’s longevity. Of course, Calvin Klein is known for more than underwear, and we have a solid range of jeans and other apparel that stays true to the simplicity that the brand has always protected. Across menswear and womenswear, we have selected styles that work for those who identify with Calvin Klein as a name that upholds uncomplicated contemporary wear.
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God Told Me To Call Myself The "Wicked Producer" - Young John Reveals
Published 2 years ago by: kacy lee
kacylee at 07:48 PM, 1/01/2017 (2 years ago)
YBNL producer Young John has revealed the source of his famous name, “Young John The Wicked Producer”. The Akwa Ibom native says God gave him the name.
“The name came from God because I never sat down to form the name or write it down, and that’s why I give all credit to the Almighty,” He said in an interview with journalists.
He also revealed the artistes he wants to work with in 2017. “I want to work with 2face, Wizkid, and other top artistes in the industry,” he said.
softhils at 08:24 PM, 1/01/2017 (2 years ago)
Na you sabi
zobi at 09:13 PM, 1/01/2017 (2 years ago)
If you like bear the DEVILS son...Ko kan Aiye
Dramaking at 09:58 PM, 1/01/2017 (2 years ago)
zoe61 at 10:00 PM, 1/01/2017 (2 years ago)
(15310 | Hero) (f)
kison at 10:49 PM, 1/01/2017 (2 years ago)
cocoeni at 10:57 PM, 1/01/2017 (2 years ago)
for your mind
gogoman at 01:00 AM, 2/01/2017 (2 years ago)
LIAR !!!!!
james987 at 03:19 AM, 2/01/2017 (2 years ago)
Ok ooo.. Even when Highness speaks,it's God.
kacylee at 06:37 AM, 2/01/2017 (2 years ago)
na wa oooo......... God knows all things sha
jeroba1 at 07:52 AM, 2/01/2017 (2 years ago)
better change ur speech.
LegendaryU at 10:58 AM, 2/01/2017 (2 years ago)
Am coming back to say something.
ebuka1983 at 12:18 PM, 2/01/2017 (2 years ago)
(76 | Newbie) (m)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mxTnzmNAY8
BournIdentity at 11:48 PM, 2/01/2017 (2 years ago)
I no understand why some people dey naturally stupid,,,
If God tell ram DT kain wicked stuff why e never become pastor and terry G become bishop by now....??
CHRISETTE at 05:56 AM, 3/01/2017 (2 years ago)
My guy grow up
yawa_don_gas at 02:32 AM, 12/01/2017 (2 years ago)
Please please hold on, why e be say everywhere I take even when I wan hide yawa dey there?
Why why?
Yawa life, yawa goes on
"God Told Me To Marry Her" – 23-Year-Old Man Who Married His 16-year-old Sister Reveals - 11:40 PM, 12/03/2018
I Will Be Running For President Because God Told Me To - Pastor Bakare Reveals - 07:49 AM, 2/01/2018
God Told Me To Reject Big Money Move To China Before, But I Will Go Now - Odion Ighalo - 07:22 PM, 1/02/2017
God Told Me Dangote Will Be The President Of Nigeria - Ex CAN Secr., Archbishop George Amu - 07:15 AM, 1/12/2016
Iyabo Told Me I Was Going To Die In Office - Obasanjo Reveals - 12:29 AM, 11/07/2015
Mama Peace! God Told Me That APC Will Lose The Elections - Patience Jonathan - 07:30 AM, 18/03/2015
God told me to impregnate my church members - Enugu Pastor (Photo) - 10:02 AM, 21/06/2014
I raped my daughter twice because a spirit told me to"-Father reveals - 04:50 PM, 6/03/2014
WHISPERING HOPE: ‘God Told Me To Run For President In 2015′ – Chris Okotie - 09:55 PM, 11/01/2014
Bakare: God Told Me To Run With Buhari - 03:09 PM, 1/02/2011
MISS WORLD PEAGENT: World Largest Annual International Event Returns To London For Its 69th Edition
Teenage Housekeeper Arraigned For Allegedly Stealing Boss International Passport
'Avoid Entering Car At Berger" - Lagosian Raises Alarm Over One Chance Criminals At Berger Bus Stop
Man Criticises Jealous Sex Worker Trying To Stop Him From Picking Another Harlot In Abuja
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Two Guys Making New Sega CD Jewel Cases Are In An Accidental War
Chris Kohler |
To a collector of classic video games, there's no sight sadder than a shattered Sega jewel case.
If you ever owned a Sega CD or a Sega Saturn, you know the packaging those totally '90s CD-ROM games came in: A double-tall, double-thick plastic jewel case, with ample room for a large manual and multiple discs.
They were beautiful. They also broke all the time, at the slightest impact. And since they were only ever produced during the 1990s, you couldn't buy replacement ones - until now.
It's taken decades for anyone to offer a solution. What's surprising is that now there are two. One is coming from the publisher Limited Run Games; the other is from a collector in Alaska.
After personally fretting for years about the lack of Sega CD game cases, both parties thought they'd corner the market on these obscure supplies. Then they found out that, against all odds, they had competition. Now there's a war over who gets to replace everyone's cracked Sonic CD cases.
The infamous fragility of the Sega jewel cases is a product of the evolution of video game packaging - and the way that we make collectibles out of things that were meant to be disposable. These cases weren't built for a decades-long lifespan, lined up on bookshelves, trading hands over and over.
These cases were all supposed to be in the trash by now. They weren't made for a collector's shelf. They were made to help sell copies of games that were released not on silicon chips in sturdy plastic cartridges, but on fragile compact discs.
As the 1980s came to a close, the advent of CD-ROM gaming meant that publishers had to rethink how their products were packaged. In Japan, the land of extreme miniaturisation, it was hardly even a question.
CD games for the PC Engine, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn were simply sold in standard jewel cases, the same as music CDs. Sony had an optional thicker case that could be used for games with larger manuals, but mostly just used standard-sized cases as well.
In the U.S., it was a different story. It was the era of the "big box" PC game, and publishers wanted their game packaging to be large and in charge. Japanese retail stores' narrow aisles and tiny footprints meant shoppers could get up close and personal with the small boxes and look at the minutely detailed art.
Outside Japan, games were often on a shelf behind a counter or locked in a case, so you had to be able to see them from far away, or so the thinking went.
Games for 1990's TurboGrafx-CD, the first CD-ROM system to be released in America, were placed into a standard jewel case that was then placed into a taller cardboard box. When it was released two years later, the Sega CD initially followed suit with the jewel-case-in-cardboard concept. But after its first year, it eliminated the wasteful box-in-a-box packaging and went with a unique design solution, a big plastic jewel case.
(L-R) PlayStation, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn games in the "longbox" jewel cases.Photo: Chris Kohler (Kotaku)
Even though the case design was only ever used to hold video games, the patent for it doesn't mention them at all. Instead, the patent filed on May 14, 1993 by the Digital Audio Disc Corporation simply describes a "storage case for accommodating a plurality of compact discs as well as a relatively thick printed booklet" that was "of relatively simple construction and assembly."
Since the Digital Audio Disc Corporation, the first U.S. manufacturer of CDs, was a subsidiary of Sony, that meant that Sega was buying its jewel cases from the company that would soon become its rival in the gaming space. (In fact, the earliest games for PlayStation also used these cases.)
The cases, and the resultant Sega CD packaging, were impressive things. The tall manuals (which thanks to the clear front of the case pulled double duty as the games' front cover art) could be used to display beautiful packaging art, especially when publishers like Working Designs added foil and embossed text to them. The thickness of the cases meant that the spines could be easily read, so those spines displayed the game's logos.
These games looked good when lined up on a shelf.
The only problem was, sometimes it seemed they'd break if you so much as looked at them. While every part of the cheap styrene cases were subject to cracking, there were two major pain points. The case was so tall that the front cover had little support if it was pressed on.
It was prone to splitting down the middle, leaving a big crack across the pretty cover art. More annoyingly, the hinges that allowed the front cover to swivel open were large and thin and would often shatter, meaning the two halves of the case would no longer stay together.
Over the decades that followed, as classic CD video games transitioned from disposable consumer product to highly valued collectible, the Sega CD cases, now generally referred to as "longboxes," started becoming the collector's bane.
You didn't want your $US500 ($641) copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga displayed in a cracked jewel case, and it was impossible to buy replacements. You could, as many did, swap the case with a game of lesser value, but that still leaves you with a broken case on your shelf.
As collectors started buying and selling games on eBay, putting them into the careful, tender affections of the United States Postal Service, more and more cases broke. Ask any collector, and they will tell you a story of buying a mint case on eBay that was packaged in a bubble mailer and arrived in a hundred jagged shards.
Replacing a longbox case meant buying the cheapest game you could, like Madden 98 for the Sega Saturn, cannibalising it for its case, and then selling it inside the broken one you were replacing.
A common sight for game collectors: a plastic Sega CD jewel case that was shattered in the mail.Photo: Chris Kohler (Kotaku)
Soon, even the "cheap games" started to become expensive, and collectors started looking at what it would cost to produce a new run of cases. Since the original cases were the property of Sony and not available to order, that meant that new molds would have to be made before a single new case could be manufactured.
Up-front costs might run thousands of dollars. That was where almost everyone gave up. In 2013, two Ohio collectors who ran a video game repair company got as far as preparing a draft of a Kickstarter campaign in the hopes of raising $US150,000 ($192,238) to make new cases, and noted at the time that the molds would actually cost them $US170,000 ($217,870) to make.
But after a lukewarm reaction by collectors to the proposed price of $US10 ($13) per case, they never took the campaign live.
Chris, a collector living in Alaska who asked that we not use his last name, was another one of the would-be entrepreneurs who'd looked into doing a run of Sega cases.
"I started collecting probably eight years ago," he said. "Finished my Sega CD collection. I live in Alaska, so I had a bunch of broken hinges on my cases and obviously there was no way to replace them.
I looked into having some made in the U.S. after a couple of years when I had built up a little bit of money and the prices were just way too much to make it economical," he said. The U.S. suppliers were quoting him prices of five to eight dollars per case just for manufacturing.
About two years ago, Chris had a thought: What about China? The Internet was making it possible for even smaller manufacturers, or individuals such as himself, to make contact with Chinese suppliers. When he began to investigate potential vendors, the prices he was being quoted for the molds were vastly lower - about $US8,000 ($10,253) total, he said - and once the moulds were made, he saw that he could get cases made for only a dollar each, and another dollar each to have them shipped from China to the U.S.
That made a lot more sense, and he decided to go for it and invest the money he'd been saving up.
Periodically, Chris would Google search to see if anybody else had the same idea he did. He'd search for "replacement Sega CD cases," but he'd never find anything. So he felt comfortable sending his money to China in the middle of last year.
"They started the run," he recalled. "A couple weeks later, 'Hey, we're sending out samples, let us know what you think and we'll start the run.' OK, fantastic. Just as a habit, I Googled it one more time ... and found this YouTube video."
The video was of a retro gamer talking about how the publisher Limited Run Games had just announced that they'd be making new Sega jewel cases.
"All of a sudden, my stomach just drops."
Josh Fairhurst was also a Sega Saturn collector, and he, too, had been thinking about making some new cases for many years.
"I remember bringing a copy of Guardian Heroes over to a friend's house, and I actually had the case slip out of my hand," he said. The game, made by the acclaimed developer Treasure, was hard to find and worth about $US100 ($128) back in 2012, when he dropped it.
"It fell about one foot to the ground, and the hinge snapped. Just, boom, broke off. And it got me thinking whether there was an option for replacement Saturn cases."
Fairhurst, who was then working at the development studio he co-founded, Mighty Rabbit Studios, found out what all collectors did: There were no replacement cases. He started scooping up the cheapest games he could - NBA Action 98 was his go-to — and swapping out cases.
But as the years went on, even the cheap games started to become more expensive. And there was still no guarantee that they wouldn't get wrecked in the mail.
It's not surprising that Fairhurst co-founded Limited Run Games a few years later. The company is devoted to pressing small-batch physical copies of games that were previously download-only.
It's a concept that could only have been conceived by die-hard game collectors, those for whom a massive shelf full of plastic cases is an accomplishment, not an albatross. As Limited Run found great success with its business model, it accumulated some extra cash that Fairhurst wanted to use to pursue his passion project.
Details from the jewel case patent.
At first, he hoped he wouldn't even have to make his own molds. Once he dug up the patent for the cases and realised that they were originally created by Sony - at the same Terre Haute, Indiana production plant where Sony pressed all of the games that Limited Run sold - he got in touch and asked if they'd just be able to make more cases.
"I couldn't order them," he said. "Sony Interactive Entertainment America actually calls the shots on what those cases are utilised for… they kind of said no. And my dreams of getting the original cases were dashed, at that point."
Fairhurst's failure to work out a deal with Sony didn't kill his dream. The original patent was by then expired, so Limited Run was in the legal clear to copy the design. Fairhurst envisioned making more cases and selling them to collectors, but beyond that, using them for the more expensive collector's edition games that Limited Run's customers loved.
"We actually have a lot of games coming out that are Sega CD-inspired or games that like Night Trap are actually Sega CD games being remastered," he said.
"I wanted to be able to have the longbox cases to package with those collectors' editions. I thought that would be really cool, a nice additional item to include for collectors and enthusiasts. So it gave me an excuse, a business excuse, to pursue this and put that kind of money into it."
He put in a lot of money. Fairhurst says it cost Limited Run $US150,000 ($192,238) to have the molds made, because the company ultimately decided they needed to be manufactured in the U.S., not in China. It was less a question of quality, Fairhurst said, and more about his concerns that China's lax protection of intellectual property would lead to knockoff Sega Saturn cases being produced behind his back.
"If you get something manufactured in China, they might take your mould and use it to supply an Alibaba or Aliexpress [vendor], and then we'd see that overnight, our mould expenses were supplying other people doing this," he said.
"I didn't want to spend that kind of money if I was going to be having those cases sold on the aftermarket and it wasn't coming through me, because then I'd have no way of recouping that expense."
So Limited Run bit the bullet, contracting with a New York-based company called Clear-Vu to produce new molds, painstakingly recreating the Sega cases down to the millimetre, sending samples back and forth.
Fairhurst wanted to do more than just recreate the original cases, since the new versions, made from the same styrene, would still be as fragile as the originals. So he also worked with Clear-Vu to produce cases using acrylic. They'd be about twice as expensive as the lower-end versions, around $US10 ($13) each.
But they'd be much stronger and scratch less easily.
Everything was going swimmingly. Fairhurst talked publicly on Twitter about releasing the cases. Then, late last year, Fairhurst got a Twitter DM from a stranger named Chris, who told him he was also just about to release a batch of replacement Sega CD jewel cases.
From what he was saying, it seemed like Chris was poised to beat Limited Run to market with his cases.
"Josh, when I talked to him, was very emotional, very unhappy," Chris recalled of the exchange.
After learning of Chris' plans, Fairhurst posted some gloomy reactions on Twitter. "I now know what it feels like to have made a terrible and expensive investment.
When people say there is no such thing as a unique idea, they are absolutely right," he wrote on November 29. "I just currently have a hole in the pit of my stomach because I feel so stupid for taking a risk," he wrote in subsequent tweets.
"I need a time machine to go back and stop myself. I feel like I just lit my money on fire."
Chris' replacement cases went live on Amazon, under the business name VGC Online, on March 15, at $US40 ($51) for a set of 10 with free Prime shipping.
Eager collectors (including me) bought a set or two and awaited the results - hoping, at least, that they wouldn't be smashed in transit. They arrived in good shape, individually packaged in bubble sleeves, wrapped up in a large bubble mailer, inside a standard Amazon box. They certainly looked identical to the originals. But as fans started messing around with the cases, some imperfections started to become apparent.
The cases didn't stay shut, for example — there was no "click" that held the front cover in place when it was closed. If you tried to insert the piece of protective foam that originally came inside a Sega CD or a Saturn case, plus a manual and a disc, all those contents wouldn't quite fit inside the case without the front bulging out. The problem that everyone seemed to bring up was that the black inner tray that held the discs sat loosely in the clear outer tray, and if you turned the case over, the tray would likely fall out.
"I've received some very negative feedback because of that issue," said Chris when I spoke to him. Half of the dozen reviews on Amazon were either two- or one-star, although many buyers also left five-star feedback.
"That is something that will be fixed in the next run," Chris says of the inner-tray looseness. "I knew about it when I received the cases originally, the samples. I was fine with that. The only time that's going to be an issue is if you open up the case and hold it upside-down in the air. So who's doing that with their cases, is what I'm wondering… I saw it as a minor issue that I didn't think would affect most people."
One silver lining to Chris' VGC Online cases is that, if you have an original black tray, you can snap that into the replacement case and it locks in very well. Since it's usually the outer, clear trays that get broken or cracked, and not the inner trays, that means that most collectors could Frankenstein a more stable case from a mix of original and replacement parts.
I received my set of cases just before last month's Game Developers Conference, where I met with Josh Fairhurst to discuss Limited Run's cases and get my hands on its latest samples. Limited Run still doesn't have a release date for its cases, since it's tweaking the final design, adjusting the thickness of the case walls by millimetres. The sample cases didn't seem to have any major issues, though; everything clicked shut and stayed shut just like an original case.
I handed Fairhurst one of the cases I'd bought on Amazon, which he immediately inverted in his hand. Not only did the tray fall out, it dragged the front cover off with it. Both pieces clattered to the concrete floor.
"It's a little satisfying, honestly, watching it flop out," he said.
Fairhurst says that his concern over Chris' cases had little to do with the fact that Chris was now competing with him, but that he created the cases in China, which Fairhurst believed could potentially hurt both of their efforts.
"My concern was that they'd just opened Pandora's box," he said. "I feel like the decision to get the mould made in China kind of shot us both in the foot in terms of recouping investment."
Chris isn't as concerned. "His American suppliers basically fed him this story that 'China's gonna rip you off,' and I don't think it's true," he said when I brought up Fairhurst's comments. "I own the molds. We have a contract in place. They can't do anything crazy like that."
He allowed that, actually, it could happen, and he could see other firms in China make bootlegs. "If they choose to do something like that, and they manage to bring a product to Aliexpress for less than what I can sell it for, that's fine. That's fine with me. I'm not trying to get rich off this, I was trying to solve a problem."
Chris' perspective is that more Sega CD cases, no matter where they come from, are a boon to collectors. "If, at the end of the day, the community has access to replacement Sega CD cases for three dollars or two-fifty a case, then that's ok," he said. "If that does happen, I liquidate my inventory, and I move on with my life."
One of VGC Online's newly-manufactured Sega cases.Photo: Chris Kohler (Kotaku)
Chris would rather that not happen, of course. He's hoping to find wholesalers to whom he can start selling his cases, so he can make more money than going directly through Amazon.
When I spoke to Chris, he said it costs him $US2 ($3) per case to get the games into Amazon's warehouse, and then Amazon takes a $US14 ($18) cut off each $US40 ($51) set. Add in miscellaneous overhead expenses, and that means Chris is barely breaking even on his cases.
He has reduced the price to $US30 ($38) per set on Amazon, in hopes of selling through his first run of 10,000 cases and moving on to the next, which he said will fix the tray issue - and cut down on the volume of negative reviews.
Sega collectors can finally rest easy, knowing that they will now be able to get replacements for their shattered cases from multiple sources — whether that's Limited Run, or VGC Online, or from hypothetical bootleggers in China. It still remains to be seen whether the demand for these replacement parts can sustain multiple businesses.
"It's just one guy, and he took the risk before knowing that I was doing it," Fairhurst said of Chris. "He put the same amount of risk forward that I did. Except for me, it's less life or death. For him it might actually be a big deal to make all that back because it's a guy putting his personal savings on the line."
"I thought I'd be coming into this community bringing a solution that people needed and people would be happy for," said Chris.
"Instead, my product came to market and I immediately had enemies."
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Forming a Hong Kong company / Hong Kong Incorporation Advantages
Hong Kong Incorporation Advantages
Today, many investors and entrepreneurs are choosing to set up their businesses overseas – especially in jurisdictions like Hong Kong. The rationale behind this trend is to primarily facilitate entry into an international market and to benefit from tax friendly jurisdictions.
Hong Kong is considered as one of the best cities to establish and run a business, as it scores high on factors that matter to businesses. Strategic location, productive work-force, stable economic and political environment, attractive tax regime, pro-business environment, world-class infrastructure, an effective legal system are some of the factors that continue to contribute to its success.
Detailed below are some of the key benefits of setting up a business in Hong Kong and will serve to provide you with the answers to the question “Why choose Hong Kong to set up a business?”. To learn about how to setup a company in Hong Kong, please refer to Hong Kong Company Setup guide.
Ranking Category Hong Kong's Rank Source
World’s Best Financial System 2 World Economic Forum: The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
World’s Best Global Financial Centre 3 (1 in Asia) The Global Financial Centres Index 25 2019
World’s Leading Investment Hub for FDI inflows in Asia 2 United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD): World Investment Report 2018
Best location for IPO and M&A activity in Asia-Pacific 1 Baker Mckenzie & Oxford Economics: Global Transactions Forecast 2019
Strategic Location
Hong Kong is strategically located at the heart of the Asian continent. A five-eight hour flight will connect you to most markets in the Asia-Pacific region. If you need to tap into the Mainland Chinese market you will find that Hong Kong is perfectly situated on the southeast coast of Mainland China, flanking the mouth of the Pearl River Delta. This facilitates travel to and from Hong Kong to Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese cities within a single day.
The Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) is the eighth busiest international passenger airport with 100 airlines servicing over 180 destinations, including major cities in the Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and the Middle East and to about 40 destinations in mainland China. Cross-boundary ferries provide speedy sea transport to and from six mainland ports and the coach service covers more than 90 PRD cities and towns. The HKIA is often ranked as the ‘Best Airport in the World’ and consistently receives accolades and awards. Hong Kong is also a focal point of all maritime activities in southern China and is one of the major ports of the world in terms of tonnage of shipping using its facilities, cargo handled and the number of passengers carried.
Hong Kong is renowned for being an easy place to set up a business. You can open your company in about two week’s time in Hong Kong. It is noted for its excellent infrastructure facilities and business premises are easily available. Intellectual Property protection is taken seriously, with strict regulations in place. There are various dispute resolution channels that businesses can avail of. The simple and business friendly tax system draws foreign investors to the city. Foreigners who wish to setup business in Hong Kong can easily relocate by applying for an appropriate work visa.
World's easiest place to do business 4 The World Bank's Doing Business 2019 Report
World's Business Environment Rankings 4 The Global Financial Centres Index 25 2019
Best Countries for Business 3 Forbes lists, 2019
World's fastest place to start a business 2 (1.5 days) The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
Global competitiveness 7 (3 in Asia) World Economic Forum: Global Competitiveness Report 2018
Attractive Tax Regime
Taxes are the main concern for any entrepreneur who intends to set up a business in a given jurisdiction. In this regard, Hong Kong boasts of being one of the lowest tax jurisdictions in the world. Personal income tax, or salary tax as it is known, starts at 2% and goes up to 17% for income above HKD 200,000. Corporate tax is set at 16.5% of assessable profits for corporations and 15% for unincorporated businesses. There is no capital gains tax, nor any withholding tax on dividends and interest or collection of social security benefits. Furthermore, there is no sales tax or VAT in Hong Kong.
For more information on taxation in Hong Kong, refer to Hong Kong Tax Guide.
World's Lowest Tax Jurisdictions 1 The World Bank's Doing Business 2019 Report
World's most business-friendly tax system 1 PWC & The World Bank Group: Paying Taxes 2019
World’s freest economy
Hong Kong is one of the world’s most dynamic economies driven by the principles of free enterprise, free trade and free markets open to all. The robust economy over the past two decades has contributed to the GDP growth at an average annual rate of 5% in real terms. There are no restrictions on inward and outward investments, no foreign exchange controls and no foreign ownership restrictions. Factors such as a sound banking system, almost no public debt, a strong legal system, sizable foreign exchange reserves and a strict anti-corruption regimen serve to strengthen Hong Kong’s position as a business friendly region.
Furthermore, businesses that are set up in Hong Kong (i.e. any Hong Kong company regardless of nationality) can now benefit by gaining preferential access to the Mainland China market from the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) – a free trade agreement between the Central People s Government and the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. All goods qualified as Hong Kong origin may be exported to the Mainland tariff free. Moreover, Hong Kong service suppliers in 40 areas are eligible to receive preferential treatment in providing services in the Mainland.
Ranking Category Hong Kong's Rank Score
World's Freest Economy 1 Index of Economic Freedom, 2019
World's Most Competitive Economy 2 Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD): World Competitiveness Yearbook 2018
Business Support & Assistance
A number of programmes have been established by the Hong Kong government and the private sector to help your company grow and improve in every aspect of your business. A number of business support programmes and financial incentives to foster the growth of SMEs have been established. Organisations such as the Hong Kong Trade Development Council help international companies do business in the Mainland and Asia, and also aid Hong Kong companies find new markets. The Hong Kong Productivity Council promotes increased productivity and the use of more efficient methods throughout Hong Kong’s business sectors. The Support and Consultation Centre for SMEs is a comprehensive information and advisory centre for SMEs. Financial assistance is available through a number of Government Funding Schemes.
Liberal Immigration Policy
Hong Kong follows a liberal immigration policy. Nationals of about 170 countries and territories are allowed visa-free visits to Hong Kong for periods ranging from 7 to 180 days. Short-term visitors may conduct business negotiations and sign contracts by entering Hong Kong on a visitor visa or entry permit. The government has introduced appropriate work visa provisions, anticipating the needs of business entrepreneurs who may wish to relocate to Hong Kong to run their business or who may want to hire foreign professionals to work in their company. There are various policies and schemes for the employment of foreign professionals, employment of Mainland talents and professionals, those wishing to enter for investment etc. Dependant visas are issued and allows the holder to undertake almost any type of lawful employment in Hong Kong. For more information, refer to Hong Kong Work and Business Visa Schemes.
World's least restrictive immigration laws for foreign talent 6 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, 2008
World's ease of hiring foreign labour rankings
53(Score: 4.3 [1 = very much limits hiring foreign labour, 7 = does not limit hiring foreign labour at all])
The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
Sound Legal Environment
Noted for its transparency, law and order is central to Hong Kong’s success. All are considered equal before the law. Hong Kong’s legal system is separate from Mainland China’s, and English common law prevails. With the establishment of the International Arbitration Centre in 1985, Hong Kong has become a key centre for arbitration in Asia and arbitration is now a popular method of dispute resolution in Hong Kong. The law is committed to the protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and enforces stringent regulations for patents, copyrights, trademarks and registered designs. The specially set up Intellectual Property Department monitors the IP regime in Hong Kong and is reputed to have extensive experience in handling IP matters. There are distinct rules and regulations concerning trade and commerce, employment, taxation and other business-related areas, making it an attractive place to setup and operate a business.
Judicial Independence in Asia 1 World Economic Forum: Global Competitiveness Report 2018
World's most efficient legal framework in settling disputes 4 World Economic Forum: Global Competitiveness Report 2018
World's Intellectual Property Protection Rankings 9 The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
Clean Governance
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China with a high degree of autonomy in all matters except foreign and defense affairs. According to the Sino-British Joint Declaration (1984) and the Basic Law, Hong Kong retains its political, economic, and judicial systems. This setup is often referred to as “One China, Two Systems”. Most businesses choose to set up operations in Hong Kong as it believed to be politically stable with a pro-business governance and free market principles. It is also cited as one of the most corruption-free economies in the world. Hong Kong has even set up an anti-corruption watch-dog – the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) – mandated to deal with both public and private sector corruption.
Most politically stable country in Asia 8 The World Bank 2017
Perception of Corruption in Asia, the US and Australia 4 Political & Economic Risk Consultancy, 2016
Productive Work Force
Hong Kong consists of a highly trained, well-educated and skilled wok-force. The workforce consists of a local talent pool of experienced and entrepreneurial professionals who are known to be especially well versed with the business culture in the fast-growing Mainland cities. Employees are generally considered to be hard-working, competitive and are constantly seeking to improve themselves. Although English is the language of communication in business settings, bulk of the workforce is also conversant with Cantonese and Mandarin, owing to the country’s link to China.
World's Best Cooperation in Labour-Employer Relations 9 The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
World's Total Workforce Engagement 2 Total Workforce Index Rankings 2017
Easiest Place to Find Skilled Employees 11 The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
World's Best Labour Market 11 The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
Robust Infrastructure
Hong Kong has taken endless measures to continuously upgrade its infrastructure in order to meet the growing demands of businesses. It is said to have one of the Best Airports and Busiest Ports in the world. Transportation services are efficient and cheap connecting all major centres. Hong Kong is also the preferred Exhibition and Convention Centre for most businesses in the region. The Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre has received several awards and accolades. It is often voted as the ‘Best Convention and Exhibition Centre in Asia Pacific’. Hong Kong is home to world-class industrial/business parks like Cyberport and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks. These parks provide integrated infrastructure in one region that help reduce the per-business expense, and also help companies operate in a highly conducive, environment friendly setting.
Hong Kong's telecommunications infrastructure is one of the most technically advanced in the world. Broadband coverage is available to virtually all commercial and residential buildings. Hong Kong's open markets ensures there are several competitive mobile phone and Internet service providers. Broadband Internet connection is available to over 98% of households in Hong Kong.
Infrastructure Competitiveness Rankings 1 The Global Financial Centres Index 25 2019
World's Innovation Capability Rankings 26 (out of 140) The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
World's Water Transport Rankings 2 The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
World's Air Transport Rankings 3 The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
World's Digital Competitiveness Rankings 11 (2 in Asia) IMD: World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2018
World's Best Network Services Rankings 6 The Global Competitiveness Report 2018
Most foreign professionals and entrepreneurs who setup a business in Hong Kong tend to re-locate with their family. Consequently most individuals are concerned about the quality of life in Hong Kong – the social environment, cost of living, accommodation, education etc.
The social and ethnic fabric is a unique blend of cultures and people rendering a cosmopolitan lifestyle.
The city is considered modern and westernised but unfortunately experiences a high level of air pollution and traffic congestion.
In Hong Kong you will find that residential rentals are expensive and are considered in line with those in major international cities such as London and New York.
Hong Kong is commonly cited as the food capital of China with a wide array of Chinese regional cuisines. It also offers equally impressive gastronomical fare to suit international tastes.
The public transportation system is well connected, clean, safe, efficient, reliable and above all affordable. Getting around Hong Kong is easy, given its wide network of buses, trains, ferries and taxis.
Hong Kong is home to several international schools which follow a curriculum identical to those in their home country. Given the impetus to evolve into a knowledge based economy, great emphasis is placed on education in Hong Kong and it provides nine years of free compulsory education for its citizens.
Hong Kong offers world class private and public health services and expert medical practitioners. The health-care environment is clean, efficient, safe and affordable.
There are several recreational activities to indulge in and Hong Kong boasts of a vibrant and exciting Nightlife and is often quoted as the ‘city that never sleeps.’
Hong Kong is said to have one of the lowest crime rates in the world and is often cited as a safe place to live in.
Asia-Pacific Cities of the Future 3 fDi Intelligence Asia-Pacific Cities of the Future, 2017/18
World-wide Quality of Life (Family) Index 20 HSBC: Expat Explorer Survey 2018
World's Most Expensive City for Expats 1 Mercer: Cost of Living Ranking 2018
World's Most Expensive City for Rental Accommodation 2 Deutsche Bank, 2017
Best Security and Personal Safety in Asia 4 (22 in the world) Legatum Institute: Legatum Prosperity Index 2018
Use our range of Hong Kong company formation and incorporation guides to help you understand more about the rules and regulations of the market you will be entering. We also have answered common questions in our Hong Kong Company Formation FAQs.
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Hong Kong Company Registration: The Basic Requirements
Find out how to register a private limited liability company in Hong Kong and the basic incorporation requirements, procedures and timeline.
Foreign Company Registration Options in Hong Kong
Get a comparative overview of the three common Hong Kong business structures - the subsidiary company, branch office and representative office.
Hong Kong Corporation for First Time Entrepreneurs
Get an introduction to the legal personality of a Hong Kong limited liability company and learn the best way for an entrepreneur to incorporate a company.
Forming an offshore company in Hong Kong; An entrepreneurs guide
Although Hong Kong does not have any specific law that governs offshore company formation, it is one of the most popular jurisdictions for setting up an offshore company. Find out more.
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Preview — Blackberry Winter by Sarah Jio
Blackberry Winter
Sarah Jio (Goodreads Author)
3.97 · Rating details · 14,676 ratings · 1,955 reviews
In 2011, Sarah Jio burst onto the fiction scene with two sensational novels--The Violets of March and The Bungalow. With Blackberry Winter--taking its title from a late-season, cold-weather phenomenon--Jio continues her rich exploration of the ways personal connections can transcend the boundaries of time.
Seattle, 1933. Single mother Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son In 2011, Sarah Jio burst onto the fiction scene with two sensational novels--The Violets of March and The Bungalow. With Blackberry Winter--taking its title from a late-season, cold-weather phenomenon--Jio continues her rich exploration of the ways personal connections can transcend the boundaries of time.
Seattle, 1933. Single mother Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, goodnight and departs to work the night-shift at a local hotel. She emerges to discover that a May-Day snow has blanketed the city, and that her son has vanished. Outside, she finds his beloved teddy bear lying face-down on an icy street, the snow covering up any trace of his tracks, or the perpetrator's.
Seattle, 2010. Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge, assigned to cover the May 1 "blackberry winter" storm and its twin, learns of the unsolved abduction and vows to unearth the truth. In the process, she finds that she and Vera may be linked in unexpected ways... ...more
Published September 25th 2012 by Plume (first published September 1st 2012)
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My first book to Sarah Jio. And ı was just reading 54 pages. Please someone say ! why , whıle ı am reading this book, I will feel good ? VERY GOOD TURKISH READER LOVE U
Joan Rooney I say keep reading. It is a good book with surprises.
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Feb 09, 2012 Sarah Jio rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author)
This is a very special novel to me. I dedicated it to my three young sons, and to mothers everywhere who have lost children. I hope you will enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it! xo
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Oct 23, 2012 Jessica rated it it was ok
Hmm - hard to review this book. I liked the story - I read it quickly - and I wanted to know what happened. But the whole thing read to me like a soap opera. The characters all seemed cliched to me, and sort of one note. The dialogue was overblown - people don't really talk like that - especially from the older characters in the book. The actions of the characters didn't always ring true, or seem believable, and sometimes small details didn't track, which was distracting. The whole thing just se Hmm - hard to review this book. I liked the story - I read it quickly - and I wanted to know what happened. But the whole thing read to me like a soap opera. The characters all seemed cliched to me, and sort of one note. The dialogue was overblown - people don't really talk like that - especially from the older characters in the book. The actions of the characters didn't always ring true, or seem believable, and sometimes small details didn't track, which was distracting. The whole thing just seemed overly dramatic, and romanticized.
And the main character has suffered a trauma - to which she alludes in the first few pages, this isn't a spoiler - but she dances around it and hints at it for many chapters. Why not just explain what happened? I found that really annoying. In the book, she's our narrator, and we're experiencing her story. It doesn't make sense that we don't get to know what happened to her until we're halfway in. I don't know if it was supposed to be suspenseful, but to me it was frustrating and made it harder for me to understand her POV - it kept me outside of her and her story for a while.
This reminded me a little of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Actually, my reaction to the writing was similar, but the stories/framework are also kind of similar, too. That was another book that was very well reviewed, which I didn't love. I wasn't sorry I read either of these books, but I found the writing itself to be distracting and a little annoying... which doesn't make for a great reading experience. ...more
Nov 07, 2012 Kait rated it did not like it
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was so frustrated with this novel that I often wonder how I had the drive to finish it. As other astute reviewers have noted, this is no more than a lifetime movie put on paper using high school-level writing. Everything was so conveniently positioned in the "uncovering" of her "mystery" from the people she randomly meets- to the secret briefcase in the secret room that conveniently contains the precise papers she needs. (Side rant: this is an infuriatingly feeble attempt at emulating a case f I was so frustrated with this novel that I often wonder how I had the drive to finish it. As other astute reviewers have noted, this is no more than a lifetime movie put on paper using high school-level writing. Everything was so conveniently positioned in the "uncovering" of her "mystery" from the people she randomly meets- to the secret briefcase in the secret room that conveniently contains the precise papers she needs. (Side rant: this is an infuriatingly feeble attempt at emulating a case file interview). Aside from all the coincidences that are responsible for the plots progression, I have never read the word "said" (ie. "She said," "He said," "I said.") so many times in one story. It's as if she didn't want to waste her time thinking of another word. So where did she spend her time? It certainly wasn't on proofreading her own work. There were so many grammatical and sloppy errors in this book it was actually atrocious. Examples? 1. "Thomas" is said to be younger than Warren (Warren says this himself), this is actually IMPOSSIBLE if "Thomas" was supposed to be Daniel. Daniel was born in 1930. When Daniel went missing in 1933, Warren was just conceived. That would have made Daniel/Thomas 3 YEARS OLDER than Warren. I actually cringed when Claire reflected on this and uttered in amazement, "The dates calculated perfectly." No Sarah, they actually don't. My second example, and my favorite, is on pg. 154. It is a chapter labeled "Vera," making her the first person narrative voice. This must have slipped the author's mind three pages later (when Charles and Vera are in his car): "That came out wrong," he SAID. "I don't mean to imply that she disapproves of you, CLAIRE...." UHHH, I'm sorry but unless Claire conveniently met someone with a time machine and teleported back 80 years to insert herself in that conversation (which is completely possible considering how helpful everyone is in this story), unless that happened, Jio made an outstanding mistake. Although to be fair, I think this entire novel was a mistake. F - ...more
Nov 26, 2013 Jonetta rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: nc-br-digital-library, historical-fiction
This story intricately weaves the events surrounding the disappearance of a 3-year old boy (Daniel Ray) in 1933 with a journalist's (Claire Aldridge) search for answers in present day. There's a somewhat mystical element in how seemingly unrelated situations converge to help unravel the mystery. The transitions were done skillfully, using Claire's journey as a means for her to confront and face her own paralyzing grief.
I really enjoyed how the story was presented as much as the actual tale. The This story intricately weaves the events surrounding the disappearance of a 3-year old boy (Daniel Ray) in 1933 with a journalist's (Claire Aldridge) search for answers in present day. There's a somewhat mystical element in how seemingly unrelated situations converge to help unravel the mystery. The transitions were done skillfully, using Claire's journey as a means for her to confront and face her own paralyzing grief.
I really enjoyed how the story was presented as much as the actual tale. The realities of the divide between the wealthy and poor during the Depression era was realistic and enlightening. It's an interesting story with other very strong themes that give it weight. ...more
Nov 03, 2012 Kelly Roll rated it it was ok
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. While other readers will probably enjoy the story it just wasn't my cup of tea. I felt that the characters were somewhat one dimensional and I felt no rapport with any of them. I think if more back story had been given I might have been more intrigued. In some instances I felt that the characters reactions where unrealistic. One case in point is that Vera is willing to sleep with a gentleman of ill repute but with a certain amount of influence as she hopes he will help her find her son. However, While other readers will probably enjoy the story it just wasn't my cup of tea. I felt that the characters were somewhat one dimensional and I felt no rapport with any of them. I think if more back story had been given I might have been more intrigued. In some instances I felt that the characters reactions where unrealistic. One case in point is that Vera is willing to sleep with a gentleman of ill repute but with a certain amount of influence as she hopes he will help her find her son. However, after a very brief meeting with the father of her son she is unwilling to press her case and have him help her find the boy.While she may have been afraid of ruining his life by telling Charles that the boy was his she could have avoided doing so but still prevailed upon his kindness and their past association. In all likelihood he would have helped her.
I had actually assumed that her lover was dead as the author emphasized how in love he was with Vera and yet he made no attempt to find her or persuade her to stay with him in spite of their differences after Vera tells him she must leave him.
Finally I also felt that clues were presented far too conveniently, drawings and pictures cropped up with seemingly no effort, one individual just happens to know someone who turns out to be the childhood friend of the kidnapped boy, Claire just happens to go to the coffee shop that was the former residence of Vera etc.
Jun 20, 2017 Barbara rated it liked it
Shelves: women-of-mystery-2017
When a late spring snowstorm (called a blackberry winter) hits Seattle in May 2010, Claire Aldridge - a feature writer for the Seattle Herald - is asked to write a story comparing the whiteout to a similar event that occurred in May 1933. After researching the historical storm Claire decides to focus her article on Daniel Ray - a three-year-old boy who disppeared during the depression era snowfall.
Daniel's mother, Vera Ray, barely eked out a living as a maid at Seattle's Olympic Hotel. Unable to
Daniel's mother, Vera Ray, barely eked out a living as a maid at Seattle's Olympic Hotel. Unable to take Daniel along when she worked the night shift, Vera was forced to leave the sleeping child at home. On the night of May 1st, snow blanketed the city and - with public transportation out of commission - Vera trudged all the way home in the morning ---- to find Daniel gone. Distraught, Vera ran through the streets calling for Daniel - and asking pedestrians if they'd seen him - but all she found was the child's teddy bear.
Vera went to the police, but they were dismissive, suggesting that Daniel had run away. (Can you imagine. A three-year-old child?) Poverty-ridden and powerless, Vera had to look for Daniel herself. Things soon went from bad to worse when Vera was evicted from her apartment for inability to pay the rent and lost her job for taking too many days off (looking for Daniel). A wealthy resident of the Olympic Hotel offered to help Vera, but there were strings attached. (Ick!!)
The book has two alternating story lines: Claire's life in the present and Vera's life in the past.
We learn that Claire and her husband Ethan experienced a tragedy a year ago that put an enormous strain on their relationship. Both spouses are suffering but Claire is completely unable to get past the event, which haunts her. To add to the problem, Claire is annoyed that Ethan - the Seattle Herald's editor-in-chief - goes to restaurants with the newspaper's attractive food critic.....presumably as part of his job.
Claire has also become obsessed with discovering what happened to little Daniel, and her investigation takes her to various parts of the city. All this leads the reporter to spend too much time away from home; become overly friendly with a helpful (and handsome) café owner/barista; neglect an important family event; avoid Ethan's phone calls; and generally behave badly (IMO). It seems like Claire is on track to completely wreck her marriage.
In flashbacks to the past, we find that - before Daniel was born - Vera met a dashing blueblood named Charles, who swept her off her feet. Charles' family didn't approve of Vera, and predictable consequences ensued. The author paints a clear picture of Vera's destitute lifestyle: threadbare clothing; holes in her shoes; insufficient food; rough neighborhood; libidinous smelly landlord; and so on. It made me angry for Vera, who worked hard to make a home for herself and her son.... but was disrespected by 'rich people' and blown off by the police.
As Claire is researching young Daniel's disappearance she visits the Rays' old Seattle apartment and talks to people who remember the events of 1933. This leads to a series of serendipitous discoveries - photos, drawings, papers - that eventually reveal what happened to the child. As you might expect, the Claire and Vera story lines converge as the book approaches it climax.
For me this romantic suspense novel is overly contrived. Sarah Jio writes well, and a story about a missing child is always compelling. However, the book has far too many 'happy coincidences' and the fairy tale ending seems more like a Disney movie than real life. Still, fans of 'happily ever after' would probably love this book.
You can follow my reviews at http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com/ ...more
Mar 19, 2013 Sharon rated it really liked it
Shelves: borrowed-from-library
Vera Ray works hard and long hours at her hotel cleaning job in Seattle, but working comes at a cost when she is forced to leave her three year old son, Daniel at home alone. One morning she returns home after a tiring shift to find, Daniel's bed empty. Frantically, Vera searches everywhere for Daniel, but it seems he can't be found anywhere. Has Daniel wandered off or has someone taken him?
Claire is a newsreporter who has a troubled marriage and a past that still haunts her. A strange snowstorm Vera Ray works hard and long hours at her hotel cleaning job in Seattle, but working comes at a cost when she is forced to leave her three year old son, Daniel at home alone. One morning she returns home after a tiring shift to find, Daniel's bed empty. Frantically, Vera searches everywhere for Daniel, but it seems he can't be found anywhere. Has Daniel wandered off or has someone taken him?
Claire is a newsreporter who has a troubled marriage and a past that still haunts her. A strange snowstorm hits Seattle and Claire is assigned to write a story on a similar storm that hit Seattle in the 1930's. Whilst investigating the story, Claire comes across the unsolved case of Vera and her missing son. Claire starts to dedicate a lot of her time to this case in the hope of finding out what really happened to, Daniel. But it seems, Claire may have more in common with this case than she ever imagined.
I really enjoyed this book. This is the first book I've read by Sarah Jio and I'm looking forward to reading more of her books. A captivating story about love and loss. Highly recommended. ...more
Nov 11, 2012 elaynne rated it did not like it
Borrowed from the Pikes Peak Library District
I can NOT remember what compelled me to borrow this book - not just borrow it but I wait-listed it. All I can say is UGH.
I need to stop reading books that I know are NOT in my favorite genres. This is one. Pathetic and predictable. I read some reviews that marveled at the "twist ending" but I saw it coming a mile away.
The main character and her husband are falling apart from each other in a landslide kind of way. She lost her baby while jogging when Borrowed from the Pikes Peak Library District
The main character and her husband are falling apart from each other in a landslide kind of way. She lost her baby while jogging when she was EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT because she was hit by a car. Really? Just REALLY? Anyway, she harbors a lot of guilt about it (damn straight) and pushes her husband toward his former girlfriend while all the while, she's accepting comfort from another man who is interested in her EVEN THOUGH HE KNOWS SHE'S MARRIED!
While all of this is going on, as a reporter, she's trying to get to the bottom of a story about a child who went missing decades earlier when a major snow storm hit Seattle in May. Another similar snowstorm recently hit and her boss (who happens to work for her HUSBAND, who is the BIG boss of the newspaper), wants her to find a story that can tie the two storms together. The missing child angle is intriguing and probably the only redeeming storyline in the book.
Anyway, as you can tell, I didn't really like the book. I wouldn't recommend it unless you had absolutely nothing else to read and were desperate. Even then, I'd hedge. ...more
Dec 19, 2012 Roxanne rated it it was ok
Recommends it for: nobody
Shelves: contemporary, historical-fiction, disappointing
This book was abysmal! The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars instead of one is because I actually read to the end - I'll save the 1 star rating for books I don't finish.
Let's start off with what initially attracted me to "Blackberry Winter". I love the cover, and the blurb on the back sounded interesting. I was expecting an intelligent read with everything I've come to expect from that genre that Amazon calls "Literary Fiction". I guess that's why I shouldn't judge a book by its cover!
What else This book was abysmal! The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars instead of one is because I actually read to the end - I'll save the 1 star rating for books I don't finish.
What else did I like about this book? Not much. I guess I kept reading because I wanted to find out what happened to Daniel Ray, the three year old boy who went missing in 1933. If that was not part of the plot, I probably would have stopped reading after Chapter 7, where we meet Charles, Vera Ray's love interest.
Here's where we get into what I didn't like about this book. (The list is long, so grab a coffee or something!) Charles is so good, he makes me want to puke! At first I thought the author must be yanking my chain. I mean, what young, rich man wants to trade his life with a bus boy during the Great Depression so he can be free? Blech, seriously??? I just did not buy it. And the fact that he fell in love with Vera at first sight? Come on. Why? Was she pretty, or smart? I honestly don't know what her appeal was, except that she was poor and maybe Charles was looking for some variety, but they really didn't have any chemistry. It was basically, "Hi, being rich is overrated, you're poor but cute, let's dance, I love you." For real. If you think I'm exaggerating, pick this book up, flip to chapter seven, and see if you don't gag. I dare you!
I hated, absolutely HATED, all the coincidences and parallel situations between Claire and Vera's lives! This aspect of the book was so overdone, I actually laughed! Out loud!!! Like:
- Vera is poor and working class. Claire is from a working class background.
- Vera's little boy was abducted. Claire lost her baby in a tragic accident.
- Vera falls in love with a rich young man. Claire falls in love with a rich young man.
- Charles gives Vera a sapphire bracelet. Ethan gives Claire a sapphire bracelet.
- Charles's sister is a mega bitch. Ethan's sister is a mega bitch.
- Vera lived in a building where Claire now goes for coffee every day.
- Vera goes for a sandwich at Pike Place Market. And, you got it, Claire goes for the same stinkin' sandwich at the same stinkin' diner! I am not even kidding!
And don't get me started on the blackberry vines!
The whole plot was completely unrealistic. I'm not saying that I have to read books with realistic plots, I've been known to enjoy paranormal books, dystopian books, and even fantasy books where the plot is anything but realistic. But I was expecting that this book would be at least somewhat believable. I'll give you a couple of examples of what I'm talking about:
- Claire gets hit by a car and her unborn child is killed. Believable, yes, it could happen. What I didn't believe is that nobody went after the driver of the car. Seriously? If that happened to me, I'd be after retribution, big time!
- Everybody that Claire interviews about her story is so freakin' nice! Like the elderly lady who invites her over to her million dollar home to snoop around. "Oh, you didn't find anything? Here, dear, let me show you into the top secret compartment! Oh, you want my father's briefcase that he brought to work everyday and probably has extreme sentimental value for me? Okay, just make sure you bring it back, dear." Give me a break!
Argh, just thinking about it pisses me off! I could go on and on about the crap in this book, but to wrap it up, let me just say that if you want a book where you're beat over the head with impossibilities every page, go for it. If not, stay far, far away! ...more
Jul 13, 2018 Ivi rated it it was ok
Shelves: 1002-before-i-die, sakam-knigi
4 stars although the storytelling was almost perfect, I didn't find the characters worthy, they were a total mess... :)
Jun 01, 2012 Kayla Ashley rated it really liked it
Shelves: won-from-first-reads, books-i-own
I won this book from a first reads giveaway here on goodreads!
I was so excited when I found out I won a copy of this book through the first reads program here on goodreads! I was even more excited once I started reading this book and got swept up in the amazing mystery! This book was an amazing read that did not disappoint.
This book alternates between two points of view: Vera in the 1930's and Claire in present day Seattle. Sarah Jio is an excellent storyteller - she weaves together two differe I won this book from a first reads giveaway here on goodreads!
This book alternates between two points of view: Vera in the 1930's and Claire in present day Seattle. Sarah Jio is an excellent storyteller - she weaves together two different stories effortlessly. I loved switching points of view and putting the pieces together; watching the stories connect as each chapter progressed.
Vera's story was absolutely heartbreaking - my poor heart seriously ached for her. I could not imagine ever having to go through such an awful ordeal. Claire, our present day narrator: a journalist who is told to write a story about the recent snow storm in May or the "blackberry winter", is also going through her own tragedy and my heart ached for her as well. I loved watching Claire unravel Vera's mystery and help heal her heart by solving Vera's own heartbreak.
I don't want to give too much away because I always find books better when there's surprises at every corner. Let me just say, this book is no ordinary mystery. This is a great story for mothers who enjoy mysteries, although I would recommend it to anyone. It's heartbreaking though, so you might need some tissues on hand! ...more
Mar 22, 2015 Skip rated it it was amazing
Lovely, evocative writing by Sarah Jio, who weaves together two stories, with a freak Seattle snowstorm in May as the tying element. In 1933, single mom Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, goodnight and goes to work the night-shift at a local hotel. She returns home to find her son missing. In 2010, Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge, is assigned to write about the current storm and learns of the prior storm and the unsolved abduction. Claire doggedly pursues the story despite t Lovely, evocative writing by Sarah Jio, who weaves together two stories, with a freak Seattle snowstorm in May as the tying element. In 1933, single mom Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, goodnight and goes to work the night-shift at a local hotel. She returns home to find her son missing. In 2010, Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge, is assigned to write about the current storm and learns of the prior storm and the unsolved abduction. Claire doggedly pursues the story despite the potential personal loss it may entail.
Jio manages to alternate chapters seamlessly between Vera Ray in 1933 and Claire Aldridge in 2010, portraying each time period quite well, but linking the stories in several ways, not just the two stories of love between a wealthy Seattle man and a woman from lesser means.
Jun 22, 2013 Van Krishna rated it it was amazing
I'm grateful to goodreads, for without it, I don't think I would have discovered this masterpiece. You know how sometimes you find a title so intriguing that you can't help but read the synopsis (even if it's not in your favorite genre) and out of no where, you find yourself reading the book? Wondering if the book would deliver on it's premise because you've done this before...you've tried to assuage your curiosity and you were let down? But when it does deliver, you never look at the genre the I'm grateful to goodreads, for without it, I don't think I would have discovered this masterpiece. You know how sometimes you find a title so intriguing that you can't help but read the synopsis (even if it's not in your favorite genre) and out of no where, you find yourself reading the book? Wondering if the book would deliver on it's premise because you've done this before...you've tried to assuage your curiosity and you were let down? But when it does deliver, you never look at the genre the same way again...never look at life the same way again? Well, this is one of those novels. :)
Being a guy, in his mid-twenties, I didn't think I could relate to this novel as much as say, a mother would, but I was wrong. Sarah laid out so much depth and emotion in both Vera Ray's and Claire Aldridge's characters that it's almost impossible to look at it from an outsider's perspective. You feel their pain.
Now, there weren't a lot of laugh-out-loud moments (I love humor) and the plot was slightly predictable at times. Having said that, I'm inclined to believe that it was more of a conscious decision, considering the complexity of the plot (altering view points and the generation gap).
Bottom line? Great read! Would definitely recommend it. ...more
Feb 15, 2012 Bonnie rated it really liked it
Shelves: contemporary, wintery-christmasy, mystery-historical-fiction, dual-timelines, arcs-edelweiss
Blackberry Winter was kindly provided to me by Netgalley for Penguin Group (USA).
Two stories with years separating them are more intertwined than one might think…
May 1, 1933...
Vera Ray works the nightshift as a maid at a hotel in Seattle. A snow storm has blown in during the night; strange with how late in the year it is. When she kisses her three year old son Daniel goodbye she doesn't know that when she returns he won't be there waiting for her.
'Two snowstorms, sharing one calendar date, sep Blackberry Winter was kindly provided to me by Netgalley for Penguin Group (USA).
'Two snowstorms, sharing one calendar date, separated by nearly a century...'
Claire wakes to find snow is falling in Seattle. Snow this late in the year is known as a Blackberry Winter and it rarely happens, but this happened once before many, many years ago.
Vera's story was one of immense sorrow: the loss of her only child. The obvious pain she suffers as a result was vivid and heartbreaking. The story switches back and forth between past and present but I was most intrigued by this back story, the mystery surrounding it, and how we’re slowly given bits and pieces of the puzzle. The mystery itself may have been a bit coincidental at times but didn't end up diminishing my overall (positive) opinion. Claire is also living her own heartbreak as her relationship with her husband is crumbling and she doesn’t have any idea where to start to fix it. It was hard accepting Claire’s reluctance to work at her relationship at first until you find out the bigger picture regarding why their relationship started to crumble in the first place.
A definite page-turner and one that I enjoyed immensely. Blackberry Winter is a heartwarming story that at first glance appears to be hidden under a mountain of sadness with no hope in sight. As the story continues, the two stories slowly start coming together, questions become answered, and realization dawns at the immensity of what occurred so many years ago. ...more
Oct 23, 2012 Noeleen rated it really liked it
Blackberry Winter has a little bit of everything, historical fiction, mystery and romance. The story is told from two different time periods, that of a young single mother Vera and her son Daniel in Seattle in 1933 during the Great Depression and Claire Aldridge, a reporter in Seattle in 2010. The ‘blackberry winter’ which occurred in both 1933 and 2010 leads Claire to uncover the story of Daniel’s disappearance when he was three years old.
This is a quick and easy read. The prose is light and en Blackberry Winter has a little bit of everything, historical fiction, mystery and romance. The story is told from two different time periods, that of a young single mother Vera and her son Daniel in Seattle in 1933 during the Great Depression and Claire Aldridge, a reporter in Seattle in 2010. The ‘blackberry winter’ which occurred in both 1933 and 2010 leads Claire to uncover the story of Daniel’s disappearance when he was three years old.
This is a quick and easy read. The prose is light and engaging and the plot is one which sucks you in right from the beginning with some twists along the way that I didn’t expect. There were some coincidences in the book which I felt were a little convenient and far-fetched but they didn’t alter my enjoyment of the overall story in any way. I enjoyed the story immensely and could forgive these slight flukes. The format of the book, which alternates between the two time periods is one which I really enjoy in books and it worked particularly well for this book. With this format, I find many times that I enjoy one era of the story over the other, but on this occasion I was interested in both Vera and Claire’s stories equally. It was a very sad book at times with both characters trying to deal with their personal grief after the loss of a child.
This is my first time to read a book by Sarah Jio and I will definitely read more of her novels. I really enjoyed this book and the story kept me interested throughout. If you are looking for a book whereby you can just curl up for a few hours and totally get lost in the story, Blackberry Winter is ideal and I would recommend it. ...more
Sep 10, 2012 Annie-Rose rated it did not like it
Blackberry Winter was recommended to me. I tried Sarah Jio's first book, and didn't care for her writing, but thought I'd give her another try. It was a quick read, and I finished it, which pretty good for how little I actually enjoyed it.
This is a mystery with very little mystery. Every clue or new piece of information seemed to be such a coincidence, but each "twist" and "turn" was really predictable. The characters the protagonist meets are too convenient to helping her in her story - she jum Blackberry Winter was recommended to me. I tried Sarah Jio's first book, and didn't care for her writing, but thought I'd give her another try. It was a quick read, and I finished it, which pretty good for how little I actually enjoyed it.
This is a mystery with very little mystery. Every clue or new piece of information seemed to be such a coincidence, but each "twist" and "turn" was really predictable. The characters the protagonist meets are too convenient to helping her in her story - she jumps from one realization to the next without actually really having to work or think. She just gets referred from one person to the next until all is revealed to her. The book is based on a series of coincidences and a lot of luck. Without either, the protagonist would have been spinning in circles, likely crying.
When she tried to create a scene that was light-hearted, or funny, (which is the role the protagonist's best friend was supposed to play) it came off as cheesy, clunky, and unnatural.
The cliche critique of the wealthy and entire theme of the book being poor vs. rich also got old. There are plenty of well-written books about the plight of the poor that don't spell it out so obviously and simply, citing each time a person with any money does something terrible, or would do something terrible, and contrasting it with a person with little means doing something wonderful or having a good heart. It's as if the author believes the reader is too stupid to pick up on what she is trying to say. Conveying the same point of view is very possible without the dozens of examples of this stereotype sprinkled in each chapter of this book.
The book's only saving grace was that it read quickly. If it was slow-moving, I would never have made it all the way through. ...more
Oct 04, 2012 Raquel rated it it was ok
Shelves: fiction, november
Interesting story, although it tied up a bit too neatly/preciously at the end and the ending seemed quite rushed. (Deadline?) I enjoyed the parallel narratives of the two women and liked the slow unfolding of the mystery and the revelation of how the two women's lives intertwined. I can't give it a higher rating though because the quality of the writing is not great. Phrases along the lines of, "Love oozed from their every fingertip" are pretty bad.
Some of the characters seemed a little flat. C Interesting story, although it tied up a bit too neatly/preciously at the end and the ending seemed quite rushed. (Deadline?) I enjoyed the parallel narratives of the two women and liked the slow unfolding of the mystery and the revelation of how the two women's lives intertwined. I can't give it a higher rating though because the quality of the writing is not great. Phrases along the lines of, "Love oozed from their every fingertip" are pretty bad.
Some of the characters seemed a little flat. Certain coincidences seemed a little too handy. And the long, drawn-out allusion to Claire's tragedy was unnecessary. I guessed almost immediately what had happened to her to cause her such pain and to stress her marriage, so continually alluding to it and drawing it out as a "mystery" instead of just stating from the start was more annoying than enticing. Knowing right away rather than dragging it out would have helped me relate to and like Claire immediately. Instead, I was like, just freakin' tell us what it is already. Her husband's character was absolutely flat. I felt nothing about him at all and wish I could have understood him better. He was painted as so distant and unpleasant I couldn't imagine why they'd bothered marrying in the first place, as she tells us so little about why they fell in love and married. Would have enjoyed more back story to make him more real.
Not a bad way to whittle away a few hours. Entertaining but fluffy; mediocre. ...more
Sep 06, 2012 Britany rated it really liked it
What a quick read!! I became immersed in this book, and finished within a few days. I actually finished reading during lunch at work one day and had to try to control my emotions over frozen ravioli!
Vera Ray is struggling as a single mother to doe eyed baby Daniel. It's the 1930s and she goes to work one snowy night in May leaving Daniel home asleep in his bed, only to come home and find him missing. What happened to Daniel?
Present day- the city of Seattle is having another Blackberry Winter a What a quick read!! I became immersed in this book, and finished within a few days. I actually finished reading during lunch at work one day and had to try to control my emotions over frozen ravioli!
Present day- the city of Seattle is having another Blackberry Winter a late season snowstorm, and Claire Aldridge is coming off her own tragedy. Throwing herself into her job- a reporter for the local newspaper- her boss gives her a story of finding Daniel Ray. The two stories alternate back and forth until they finally converge into one. For some reason, I didn't guess the ending and found it wonderfully satisfying. This was exactly what I needed right now. Perfect time for a wonderful book. ...more
Jan 27, 2017 Ana rated it really liked it
Shelves: read-in-2017, chick-lit-womens-fiction
Somewhere between 4-4.5/5.
Feel like some questions remained unanswered & the mystery part could've been executed better in my opinion. But it's a very emotional book & Ms Jio pulled this off very well, even made me cry at the end.
Sep 13, 2012 Melodie rated it really liked it
Shelves: romance, mystery
First of all, the title and the cover are amazing. Honestly that is what compelled me to add this to my to-read list. Beauty and simplicity go a long way. Of course, reading the synopsis sucked me in the rest of the way.
Spanning an eighty year period, this is the tale of two women who experienced a rare weather phenomenon called a blackberry winter.I had no idea there was such a thing, but basically it is a rare very late spring snow storm. In this story,it occurred in Seattle in late May.
Ver First of all, the title and the cover are amazing. Honestly that is what compelled me to add this to my to-read list. Beauty and simplicity go a long way. Of course, reading the synopsis sucked me in the rest of the way.
Vera Ray tells her story retrospectively, a young woman born into and living in poverty during the Great Depression. A single mother,scraping by working as a maid in the grand Olympic Hotel, she feels invisible to the monied hotel patrons she serves. Faced with the loss of her job if she doesn't show up for a late night shift, she leaves her three year old son asleep in his bed. That act sets off a chain of events with repercussions that span the next eighty years.
Claire Kensington is a reporter for the Seattle Herald. She is also married to the grandson of the paper's owner. Having recovered from a horrible accident the previous year, she struggles with an inertia of emotion that is affecting her marriage and her career. When a freak snowstorm hits, her editor gives her the assignment write a feature article connecting this storm and the storm that hit in 1933.
This was a very nice triangle of mystery, romance and historical/social commentary. The characters were sympathetic, the mystery kept the reader guessing and the stark delineation between the haves and the have-nots serve as a reminder to this reader that over the past eighty years we may have not come so far after all in our society. ...more
Apr 21, 2013 Amy rated it did not like it
**SPOILER ALERT** The story started out well. I like how it was 2 different stories that were merging & it was fun that it was set in Seattle. But it ended up being predictable and too cookie-cutter.
Vera Ray & Daniel's story was interesting and it was easy to fall in love with Daniel. But how their story connected with Claire's was interesting but too corny at the same time.
I personally think it would've been upsetting after all the long hours of research Claire did to then realize tha **SPOILER ALERT** The story started out well. I like how it was 2 different stories that were merging & it was fun that it was set in Seattle. But it ended up being predictable and too cookie-cutter.
I personally think it would've been upsetting after all the long hours of research Claire did to then realize that her grandfather-in-law ends is Daniel, would have been upsetting. Since he was aware of her researching this story and his particular interest in it to not tell her who he was, I would've been frustrated and upset that he didn't tell me. Especially after he says he's paid PI's to search for him. I think if they'd worked as a team, Claire would've been able to connect the stories way earlier.
Plus, how her marital struggles are suddenly all peachy, was lame. I didn't find it realistic. I think all that they both went thru there would need to be some counseling to work thru their emotions and how they each dealt with their own grief.
The ending was the tipping point. When Warren, aka Daniel, buys the coffee shop...too predictable and surface level, unrealistic in how things all perfectly came together at the end. ...more
Oct 29, 2012 Lisa rated it it was ok
I was really looking forward to reading this book; the reviews I read were positive and the "blurbs" I read were enticing. However, once I started reading, I was quickly disenchanted. In my opinion, the writing and dialogue was amateurish. Events fell together too neatly to be believable and plot lines were too neatly wrapped up. When I was approximately one half of the way through the book, I wasn't sure I could finish; however, I did keep going and finished the book. I'm glad I know how everyt I was really looking forward to reading this book; the reviews I read were positive and the "blurbs" I read were enticing. However, once I started reading, I was quickly disenchanted. In my opinion, the writing and dialogue was amateurish. Events fell together too neatly to be believable and plot lines were too neatly wrapped up. When I was approximately one half of the way through the book, I wasn't sure I could finish; however, I did keep going and finished the book. I'm glad I know how everything was resolved, but I would not recommend that you buy this book. Check it out from your local library instead. ...more
Sep 08, 2012 Diane rated it liked it
The author of this book wrote to me to tell me my review was of the wrong book. She is absolutely correct. I am not a seasoned computer user and the review I wrote for this book was really for Whatever Happened to Sophie Wilder? I am so sorry for the confusion. This book - Blackberry Winter -- is on my list to be read.
Well, now I have finally read it. The story has a parallel plot of two women, one who lived in 1933 and one who lives in the present. They both experience a Blackberry Winter. The The author of this book wrote to me to tell me my review was of the wrong book. She is absolutely correct. I am not a seasoned computer user and the review I wrote for this book was really for Whatever Happened to Sophie Wilder? I am so sorry for the confusion. This book - Blackberry Winter -- is on my list to be read.
Well, now I have finally read it. The story has a parallel plot of two women, one who lived in 1933 and one who lives in the present. They both experience a Blackberry Winter. The term refers to unseasonable weather, in this case, snow in Seattle in May. Initially, I found the story a page turner as the unknown connection about the two was slowly revealed. But the plot ultimately was too contrived and lacked character development. I can't say it was a completely satisfying read. A chic beach book at best. ...more
Apr 28, 2012 Laura Kay Bolin rated it it was amazing
http://anovelreview.blogspot.com/2012...
A crazy snowstorm blankets Seattle in May, but it’s not the first time. A fluke snowstorm fell in May of 1933 too and the editor of The Herald wants Claire Aldridge to write a feature article about the May storms—about Blackberry Winter.
During Claire’s research of the storm of ’33, she finds a newspaper article about Vera and her three year old son who went missing. Vera was a young maid at a high end hotel and had left her son home alone at night while sh http://anovelreview.blogspot.com/2012...
During Claire’s research of the storm of ’33, she finds a newspaper article about Vera and her three year old son who went missing. Vera was a young maid at a high end hotel and had left her son home alone at night while she worked. Authorities believed her three year old, Daniel, ran away during the snowstorm. Claire doesn’t believe it for a minute and wonders what happened to Daniel? Were mother and son ever reunited?
Claire’s own life is in shambles, but this story seems to ignite a fire in her she thought was gone. Can she solve the mystery? Can there be a happily ever after? Can Claire find her way again?
Once again Sarah Jio proves she has the amazing ability to transport her readers into not one, but two stories in two different times.
I fell in love with poor Vera. A young mother alone in the world struggling to make ends meet. As I read along, I was cheering Claire on wanting her to hurry and solve the mystery of Daniel. I wanted a happy reunion! It wasn’t just me who wanted the mystery solved, but it was as if Mother Nature herself was demanding resolution with the return of the Blackberry Winter.
Claire too has suffered a devastating loss. Her marriage is on the brink. For the first time in a long while, Emily begins to come alive but it just might be too late for her old life.
If you read Sarah’s first book The Violets of March, you’ll be as thrilled as I was to learn Emily and Jackson make an appearance in Blackberry Winter.
While reading, I had numerous “goosebump” moments! Love those. By the end of Blackberry Winter I wasn’t crying…I was sobbing. I was truly touched. Not only is Blackberry Winter my new favorite book by Sarah Jio, it’s my new all time favorite book. I love how I felt so connected to these characters. I really can’t imagine someone not loving this book. I wish I didn’t have so many other books to read, because I want to sit down and read it again. ...more
Oct 30, 2012 Jen Tucker rated it it was amazing
I was so moved by this brilliantly executed novel by Sarah Jio, that I read it in one setting. Unfortunately for me, this reading session began at 2AM, so if you have insomnia and are trying to relax to find slumber, chose a different book because this one will take you in! Claire, a reporter for a prominent newspaper, is asked to cover the late spring snowfall in Seattle, and any interesting finds from another Blackberry Winter snowfall that occurred in 1933 on the same date. When she uncovers I was so moved by this brilliantly executed novel by Sarah Jio, that I read it in one setting. Unfortunately for me, this reading session began at 2AM, so if you have insomnia and are trying to relax to find slumber, chose a different book because this one will take you in! Claire, a reporter for a prominent newspaper, is asked to cover the late spring snowfall in Seattle, and any interesting finds from another Blackberry Winter snowfall that occurred in 1933 on the same date. When she uncovers a tale of a little boy gone missing, Claire cannot rest until she discovers the truth about his disappearance. She also finds immersing herself in this tragic tale helps her deal with loss in her own life. Run to your Kindle or bookstore to pick this one up. It is definitely one of my favorite books of the year! Beautifully moving and splendidly done, Sarah! ...more
Sep 06, 2012 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it
3.5 What a heartfelt, poignant and bittersweet story. My favorite of hers so far, it is a combination of so many things, a mystery, characters trying to overcome a terrible grief and the horrible times after the great depression. Taking place in 1930 and in 2010 the story lines are related by the horrible and terrifying loss of children. A rather simple, quiet story told in a very relateable manner, the characters tug on your heart strings and although the ending is a bit pat it is fitting in th 3.5 What a heartfelt, poignant and bittersweet story. My favorite of hers so far, it is a combination of so many things, a mystery, characters trying to overcome a terrible grief and the horrible times after the great depression. Taking place in 1930 and in 2010 the story lines are related by the horrible and terrifying loss of children. A rather simple, quiet story told in a very relateable manner, the characters tug on your heart strings and although the ending is a bit pat it is fitting in this story and actually went well with the tone and atmosphere. Look forward to Jio's next book. ...more
Mar 21, 2014 Lesley rated it really liked it
Shelves: library-book
Interesting a suspenseful take of what happened to the missing child all those years ago. At times the dialogue seemed unreal but the actual story pushed me through to the end.
Aug 06, 2012 Book of Secrets rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I know I'm about to read an emotional story when the book's dedication makes me cry. BLACKBERRY WINTER was both heartbreaking and uplifting, so have a box of tissues handy when you read it!
A blackberry winter is an old-fashioned term used to describe a late spring snowfall, which is what happens at the beginning of this book. Reporter Claire Aldridge awakens on May 2nd to find Seattle covered under a blanket of snow. At work, she is assigned to do a story on the storm, and an identical one that I know I'm about to read an emotional story when the book's dedication makes me cry. BLACKBERRY WINTER was both heartbreaking and uplifting, so have a box of tissues handy when you read it!
A blackberry winter is an old-fashioned term used to describe a late spring snowfall, which is what happens at the beginning of this book. Reporter Claire Aldridge awakens on May 2nd to find Seattle covered under a blanket of snow. At work, she is assigned to do a story on the storm, and an identical one that happened on the same day 77 years prior. While researching the story, she discovers the unsolved case of a missing boy. Three-year old Daniel Ray was abducted during the snowstorm in 1933 while his mother Vera was at work.
After being in a terrible accident a year ago, Claire has become a shell of her former self. Her marriage is crumbling, and in spite of counseling, she can not let go of the pain. Claire becomes engrossed in the mystery surrounding Daniel's disappearance, the first thing to spark her interest since that terrible day. As she digs deeper for clues to what happened to Daniel and Vera, some shocking secrets are revealed, ones that touch her on a personal level.
I enjoyed how the story alternated between Claire's point of view in present day and Vera's in the past. I could feel every emotion the women experienced, and I sobbed with them a few times.
BLACKBERRY WINTER may sound like a sorrowful tale, but it was so much more. It was about love and forgiveness. It was an eye-opening look at injustice in the 1930s. It was a puzzling mystery that kept me hooked from beginning to end. It was inspirational too. Solving the mystery of Daniel and Vera gave Claire the strength to save herself.
BLACKBERRY WINTER is a story that will haunt my thoughts for a long time. It makes me want to hug my kids and never let go. 5-stars!
My Thoughts on the Audio: This book was narrated by Tara Sands, and I am so happy I chose to listen to the audio version. I loved the emotion that Tara Sands added to the story. Even her male voices worked for me, mainly because she didn't try to be overly "manly" with them. Beautifully done!
SOURCE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, however I listened to the audio version I borrowed from the library. ...more
May 21, 2014 Jennifer rated it really liked it
Shelves: listened-to-audiobook, historical-fiction, womens-fiction-chicklit, stand-alone-novel, read-2014
I had only read one other book written by author Sarah Jio before this one and I wasn't blown away, but after seeing a goodreads friend's rating/review (Thanks Myrna!), I added Blackberry Winter to my list. I'm so glad I did! This is a mix of women's fiction/chick-lit, mystery, romance, and historical fiction, with two very moving past/present alternating storylines. The "past" storyline takes place in the Depression-era and centers on Vera Ray, a single mother struggling with poverty. The "pres I had only read one other book written by author Sarah Jio before this one and I wasn't blown away, but after seeing a goodreads friend's rating/review (Thanks Myrna!), I added Blackberry Winter to my list. I'm so glad I did! This is a mix of women's fiction/chick-lit, mystery, romance, and historical fiction, with two very moving past/present alternating storylines. The "past" storyline takes place in the Depression-era and centers on Vera Ray, a single mother struggling with poverty. The "present" story takes place in 2010 and centers on Claire Aldridge, a reporter who is given a task to write an article on the Blackberry Winter storm of 1933 that happens to mimic the current weather of the city. Claire stumbles upon the story of Vera and an unsolved tragedy that occurred during the storm. While researching the article, Claire slowly begins to solve the mystery. Blackberry Winter was a well-written standalone novel about two women who's stories mirror each other in so many ways. In many books with alternating storylines, I tend to prefer one story to the other, but I felt engaged in both women's lives equally. I really enjoyed this book, and if you enjoy the various genres listed above I would recommend reading Blackberry Winter.
My favorite quote:
“My aunt Bee has always said that contrary to what most people think, the definition of a true friend is not someone who swoops in when you’re going through a rough patch.” She shook her head. “Anyone can do that. True friendship, she says, is when someone can appreciate your happiness—celebrate your happiness, even—when she’s not necessarily happy herself.” ...more
Oct 25, 2012 Michelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: fiction, mystery, chick-lit, own-ebooks, historical-fiction
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book came highly recommended by many friends of mine. And I have to say they hit the nail on the head with their recommendations - I loved it!
A little history and a little mystery. With a dash of romance. Blackberry Winter tells the story of a hotel maid, Vera Ray, back in 1933 whose son Daniel was abducted during a May snow storm. In the present day part of the story, a reporter, Claire Aldridge, decides to research the child's disappearance when a similarly unusual May snow storm hits Se This book came highly recommended by many friends of mine. And I have to say they hit the nail on the head with their recommendations - I loved it!
A little history and a little mystery. With a dash of romance. Blackberry Winter tells the story of a hotel maid, Vera Ray, back in 1933 whose son Daniel was abducted during a May snow storm. In the present day part of the story, a reporter, Claire Aldridge, decides to research the child's disappearance when a similarly unusual May snow storm hits Seattle again 50+ years later.
Claire, having recently lost a child herself, is determined to find out what happened to Daniel and is surprised to find out in the end how her husband's family actually was behind the abduction and cover-up.
The ending is fabulous! A must-read in my opinion. ...more
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What's the Name o...: SOLVED. Mystery takes place in 2 different time periods. The early time period 1940s I think is about a woman who is a single mom who works as a maid. She has to leave her toddler son home while she goes to work. When she comes home he is gone. [s] 8 42 Apr 24, 2017 08:05PM
Play Book Tag: Blackberry Winter by Sarah Jio 3.5 stars 1 8 Mar 12, 2016 08:58AM
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Did you feel it was predictable? 15 156 Nov 02, 2014 11:59PM
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Womens Fiction > Chick Lit
About Sarah Jio
Sarah Jio is the New York Times bestselling author of ALWAYS, published by Random House (Ballantine), as well as seven other novels from Penguin Books, including, THE VIOLETS OF MARCH, THE BUNGALOW, BLACKBERRY WINTER, THE LAST CAMELLIA, MORNING GLORY, GOODNIGHT JUNE, and THE LOOK OF LOVE. Sarah is also a journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, Glamour, O, The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, Sarah Jio is the New York Times bestselling author of ALWAYS, published by Random House (Ballantine), as well as seven other novels from Penguin Books, including, THE VIOLETS OF MARCH, THE BUNGALOW, BLACKBERRY WINTER, THE LAST CAMELLIA, MORNING GLORY, GOODNIGHT JUNE, and THE LOOK OF LOVE. Sarah is also a journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, Glamour, O, The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, SELF, Real Simple, Fitness, Marie Claire, and many others. She has appeared as a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition. Her novels are translated into more than 25 languages. Sarah lives in Seattle with her three young boys. ...more
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Trivia About Blackberry Winter
Quotes from Blackberry Winter
“It's just old black-and-whites,' she had said, flicking her wrist in the way one might dismiss a pile of junk mail. 'Relatives nobody remembers.' 'No,' I said, running to the box. 'Don't throw them out. I'll keep them.' I may not have known the names of the majority of the ancestors pictured inside, but it felt like a betrayal to send their memories to the landfill. I couldn't bear the thought.” — 5 likes
“Sometimes you just have to take chances, especially when it makes you happy.” — 3 likes
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Gov. Mike Pence Clarifies Stance on Indiana’s Religious Freedom Law as Companies Condemn Passage [Interview]
By Isaiah Narciso ( [email protected] ) Mar 30, 2015 01:56 PM EDT Comment
Despite withering criticism from many businesses and outside interests, Gov. Mike Pence is standing his ground after signing a new religious freedom law in Indiana.
The governor went on ABC's "This Week" to defend the new law as nondiscriminatory and reinforcing the rights enshrined in the First Amendment. He argued to George Stephanopoulos that the media coverage and opposition to the legislation was "shameless rhetoric," noting that a similar law was passed at the federal level under President Bill Clinton.
"The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was signed into federal law by President Bill Clinton more than 20 years ago," Pence said. "It lays out a framework for ensuring that a very high level of scrutiny is given any time government action impinges on the religious liberty of any American. After that, some 19 states followed that, adopted that statute."
Pence contended that there had been a lot of confusion surrounding the new law.
"I'm just determined to clarify this," Pence said. "This is about protecting the religious liberty of people of faith and families of faith across this country, that's what it's been for more than 20 years, and that's what it is now as the law in Indiana."
Stephanopoulos pointed out to the governor that Indiana's civil rights laws did not protect sexual orientation. He asked whether or not LGBT people can be discriminated against without recourse.
"The purpose of this legislation, which is the law in all 50 states in our federal courts and it's the law by either statute or court decisions in some 30 other states, is very simply to empower individuals when they believe that actions of government impinge on their constitutional First Amendment freedom of religion," Pence said. "There's a lot of people across this country who -- you're looking at ObamaCare and the Hobby Lobby decision, looking at other cases, who feel that their religious liberty is being infringed upon."
Pence argued that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act "has never been used to undermine anti-discrimination laws in this country."
"The Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been on the books for more than 20 years," Pence said, citing federal legislation. "It does not apply, George, to disputes between individuals unless government action is involved."
The Indiana governor told Stephanopoulos that "tolerance is a two way street." He thought the protests surrounding the law were a "red herring."
"I think it's deeply troubling to millions of Americans and frankly, people all across the state of Indiana who feel troubled about government overreach," Pence said. "This isn't about disputes between individuals, it's about government overreach."
Stephanopoulos told Pence that various businesses, including the CEO of Angie's List, were withholding expansion of operations in Indiana due to the new law. The journalist proposed fixing the law by adding a clarification that it reinforces current civil rights legislation preventing discrimination.
"We're not going to change the law," Pence said in a stern manner. "But if the general assembly in Indiana sends me a bill that adds a section that reiterates and amplifies and clarifies what the law really is and what it has been for the last 20 years, then I'm open to that."
Pence contended that the law "has been tested in courts for more than two decades on the federal level."
"I stand by this law," Pence said. "It was an important step forward when Bill Clinton signed it in 1993. It's an important step forward to keeping the promises of our Bill of Rights and our First Amendment and our Indiana constitution, and I'm proud that Indiana has adopted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act."
Tags : Gov Mike Pence, Mike Pence, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Indiana, Indiana RFRA, RFRA, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, George Stephanopoulos, anti-discrimination laws, civil rights legislation, sexual orientation, LGBT, LGBT rights, Christians, Indiana RFRA protests, Indiana RFRA blowback, President Bill Clinton, federal RFRA, President Bill Clinton RFRA, This Week
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Letter From The Editor: November 2016 Issue
By Dylan Jones 6 October 2016
Welcome to GQ's exciting November issue, featuring Marvel's Doctor Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch, one writer's campaign to demolish Donald Trump, the style game of Game Of Thrones actor Alfie Allen and Alastair Campbell's takedown of the Daily Mail...
Warning: The unthinkable could still happen...
The first time a US election really had any effect on me was the 1980 battle between Ronald Reagan, the supposed Hollywood lightweight, and Jimmy Carter, the benign Georgia peanut farmer. Considering how accomplished Reagan later became, principally as a global statesman, it’s instructive to think back to how he was initially perceived. There was an assumption that he would be a light hand on the tiller. Looking at the huge effect he had on his country, and the world, during the Eighties – kick-starting the fall of communism, bolstering the US abroad while ushering in divisive economic policies at home – it seems extraordinary that so little was expected of him when he took office.
The anti-Reagan rhetoric was formidable, though, and he became a cartoon figure treated as a joke by alternative comedians, hip-hop artists and TV satirists. Reagan came and went, as did George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and Dubya, all of whom left office with the tarnish that seems to be the only legacy the position guarantees. But never have I felt as worried about the outcome of a US election as I have done this year. Not just because Donald Trump is so very obviously ill-equipped for the job, and not just because his infantile and offensive behaviour has belittled the democratic process, and not just because his petulant, boorish, racially demeaning tendencies lead one to assume that nuance is not something that unduly affects his day-to-day existence, but also – saliently, fundamentally – because he could still win.
In any race with only two competitors, one will always be faster than the other; but if the faster figure falls over, there can only be one winner. Which makes it even more important that anyone in a position of genuine power – and today, in a world of social media, that means everyone – uses that power to diminish Trump as often and as relentlessly as possible. The thing that everyone needs to understand about Trump is that he is as puerile and as ridiculous as he appears to be. A few weeks after the European referendum, I went to a breakfast organised by a friend who has spent most of his career in politics. The theme was obviously how we were all going to cope with the new political landscape, and how Brexit would ultimately affect the US election. One of the speakers, a man I’ve known for 20 years, and who has known Trump for even longer, made an impassioned speech about how the Republican candidate is underestimated. He wasn’t endorsing him, you understand (no one is that bonkers), merely pointing out that the reason Trump talks in soundbites is because they get so much traction in the media, and that his whole public profile is designed to appeal to the largest number of people who don’t actively despise him. We were told that the liberal intelligentsia said he would never get the nomination, and that even if he did, he wouldn’t last a month, being bludgeoned into insignificance by the Clinton machine. Essentially, we were told that we should underestimate Trump at our peril, and that the people braying that he would never get the nomination are the very same people saying he will not become president.
We were also led to believe that Trump is a lot smarter than he is given credit for, which is when our speaker lost me. If this is the case, then how come, whenever he is given the opportunity to espouse his ideologies, he embarrasses himself to such an extent that his advisors tell him to take off his Brioni suit and crawl back into one of the very large buildings that carry his name? Impressing the liberal elite – indeed, impressing anyone who doesn’t drag their knuckles along the pavement when they walk – seems existentially beyond him, as though the whole idea of actually trying to convert those who don’t like him is anathema to his very being. He can’t impress them because a) he doesn’t have the political tool kit, and b) he simply can’t be bothered.
In any race with only two competitors, one will always be faster than the other; but if the faster figure falls over, there can only be one winner
I was in New York during the Republican convention and I have to say I barely left my hotel room. It’s easy to forget that, in an age when we are continually being told that all forms of old-school media are dead, there is no better medium than television rolling news when there is a developing news story. TV beats Twitter, beats Snapchat, beats Instagram, beats everything. As long as there are presidential races, there will be TV. At the convention itself there was a highlight every hour or so, and if it wasn’t Ted Cruz loftily refusing to endorse the man who beat him for the nomination (miraculously managing to make Trump look like a victim), it was Melania giving a speech that appeared to have been given eight years ago by someone else. If this wasn’t enough, you had every network and cable station’s bizarre array of talking heads, which included a smattering of Trump supporters, who had apparently been scooped out of aspic in order to comply with various notions of self-imposed impartiality. It was like watching a carnival of ghouls reformatted as a political version of The X Factor.
But then it’s easy to laugh. While Trump certainly appears to have shot himself in the foot so often in the past few months, it’s a wonder he isn’t hobbling around on crutches, there is still the possibility that he could win. Sure, it’s now only a possibility, and sure, we are all looking forward to Clinton defenestrating him during the forthcoming TV debates, and sure, the polls are saying that it’s now mathematically difficult for him to get the majority he needs (even with the popular vote). And yet, and yet... there is always the danger.
The latest issue of British GQ is available now on newsstands and as a digital edition which you can download on your iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire or Android device
Regardless of what I thought of Ronald Reagan back in 1980, having read substantially more about him since than I did when he was running for office, I have a far more measured view of him now. “In a president, character is everything,” wrote Peggy Noonan, the columnist and Reagan’s former speechwriter. “A president doesn’t have to be brilliant; Harry Truman wasn’t brilliant, and he helped save Western Europe from Stalin. He doesn’t have to be clever; you can hire clever. But you can’t buy courage and decency.”
If we assume that all political careers end in failure, then we can safely assume that a Donald Trump presidency would start with disaster. Deftness, and the art of saying nothing when nothing is the appropriate thing to say, appear to have eluded him. Eighteen years ago, I found myself in the same room, somewhere deep in the United Arab Emirates, as George Bush Sr. I asked him several questions about current US foreign policy (obviously not his own), and he was perfectly civil and gave me enough anecdotes to send me on my way. But nothing he said had any great bearing on the world as it was, or indeed as it was becoming, because he knew that it wasn’t the right time or place. I know too many people who have said that meeting Trump is like meeting a hyperactive child with not just an overinflated sense of their own importance, but also an almost pathological need to impress.
There is an old joke involving a particularly unpleasant politician who exposes himself to his new secretary. When asked to describe what she saw, the secretary says, in the most withering of put-downs, “Well, it was like a penis. But smaller.”
Donald Trump is like a statesman, only smaller. “Mr Trump is not going to get serious about running for president,” said Peggy Noonan recently, this time in The Wall Street Journal. “He does not have a second act, there are no hidden depths, there will be no ‘pivot’. He doesn’t have the skill set needed now – discretion, carefulness, generosity, judgement. There’s a clueless quality about him.” And so say all of us.
The Editor's Hit List
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
When Ben Fountain’s powerful novel about US soldiers returning from Iraq was published in 2012, it was a literary hit, winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. It has now been filmed by Ang Lee, starring Kristen Stewart, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin and Chris Tucker, plus newcomer Joe Alwyn as Billy Lynn. Advanced word is good, as can be proved by the trailer.
The Society Club
Based smack-bang in the middle of old Soho, The Society Club is one of my favourite shops in London, a bookshop masquerading as a bar, a den of iniquity masquerading as a library. It has the genuine air of a salon, as you never know who you might bump into, nor indeed what condition they might be in. The Club has a fabulous, ever-changing collection of first editions and out-of-print books, and it is impossible to visit without leaving with a manbag full of goodies. thesocietyclub.com
Jigsaw jeans
Do men ever find the perfect pair of jeans? I’ve wrestled with this problem for years, and have had various allegiances, most of which have involved Levi’s. My current default jeans come from Jigsaw, for no other reason than they appear to fit perfectly. Right cut, right length, right waist, right weight, right now! I’m on my third pair, and have no reason to think I’m going to swap brands any time soon. From £79. jigsaw-online.com
Iain Alexander
Using the ALTR:EGO pseudonym, this former DJ and designer produces specially commissioned works based on modern icons, including beautiful pictures of David Bowie. Swiss art auctioneer and collector Simon de Pury (who some have called “the Mick Jagger of art auctions”) says: “Iain’s vision and style are very relevant to what the world of art needs now.” Check out his Instagram feed: @altr_ego_art
I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir
by Brian Wilson with Ben Greenman (Coronet, £13)
This is the famous Beach Boy’s second attempt at an autobiography, and it is fascinating, telling the real story about his partial deafness and extraordinary family relationships. Don’t make the mistake of buying instead Mike Love’s awful Good Vibrations: My Life As A Beach Boy, a terribly self-aggrandising affair that tries to put Love on a creative par with Wilson. These books reinforce what we all know: Wilson is a genius and Love was lucky to have him as a cousin.
Alternatively, subscribe to 6 issues of GQ for only £15, including free access to our iPad & iPhone editions on your Apple devices.
MagazinesUS Election 2016Donald TrumpHillary ClintonMagazineNovember 2016 Issue
The Open 2019: best odds and top tips
By GQ.CO.UK 17 July 2019
Kanye West just teased new Yeezys
Get to know Gérald Genta, the man who designed the Royal Oak and Nautilus
By Cam Wolf 17 July 2019
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We have heard thousands of questions, and chosen to provide you with the answers to some of the more common questions relating to a funeral, a funeral service and funeral homes.
- What is a funeral?
The funeral is a ceremony of proven worth and value for those who mourn. It provides an opportunity for the survivors and others who share in the loss to express their love, respect and grief. It permits facing openly and realistically the crisis that death may present. Through the funeral, the bereaved take that first step towards emotional adjustment to their loss.
- What type of service should I have?
Only you can answer that question. The type of service conducted for the deceased, if not noted in a pre-plan, is decided by the family. The service is usually held at a place of worship or at the funeral home. The service may vary in ritual according to religious denomination or the wishes of the family. The presence of friends at this time is an acknowledgment of friendship and support. A private service is by invitation only where selected relatives and a few close friends attend the funeral service. A memorial service is usually a service without the body present and can vary in ceremony and procedures according to the family's community and religious affiliations.
- Can I personalize my funeral service?
Absolutely, in fact, we recommend it. After all, the funeral is a celebration of life. Funeral directors are happy to discuss all options and ensure your funeral is tailored to your wishes. It may be personalized in many unique ways. Contact us at (865) 982-3730 to explore the possibilities.
- Why should we have a public viewing?
There are many reasons to view the deceased. It is part of many cultural and ethnic traditions, and many grief specialists believe that viewing aids the grief process, by helping the bereaved recognize the reality of death. Viewing is even encouraged for children, as long as it is their desire to do so, and the process is explained well.
- Why do we need an obituary notice?
It is helpful to friends and the community to have an obituary notice published announcing the death and type of service to be held. A notice can be placed in a local newspaper, or on the Internet.
- What do funeral directors do?
Funeral directors are both caregivers and administrators. In their administrative duties, they make the arrangements for transportation of the body, complete all necessary paperwork, and implement the choices made by the family regarding the funeral and final disposition of the body. As caregivers, funeral directors are listeners, advisors and supporters. They have experience assisting the bereaved in coping with death. Funeral directors are trained to answer questions about grief, recognize when a person is having difficulty coping, and recommend sources of professional help. Funeral directors also link survivors with support groups at the funeral home or in the community.
- What should I do if the death occurs in the middle of the night or on the weekend?
We are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All you need to do is place a call to us at (865) 982-3730. If you request immediate assistance, one of our professionals will be there within the hour. If the family wishes to spend a short time with the deceased to say good bye, it's acceptable. Then they will come when your time is right.
- What should I do if a death occurs while away from home?
Your funeral director can assist you if a death occurs anywhere on the globe. Contact your hometown funeral director of choice immediately. They will assume responsibility and coordinate the arrangements for the return of the deceased person to their community. They may engage the services of a funeral director in the place of death who will act as their agent.
- What is the purpose of embalming?
Embalming sanitizes and preserves the body, retards the decomposition process, and enhances the appearance of a body disfigured by traumatic death or illness. It makes it possible to lengthen the time between death and the final disposition, thus allowing family members time to arrange and participate in the type of service most comforting to them. Embalming the body enables mourners to view the deceased if they wish. The emotional benefits of viewing the deceased are enormous, particularly to those having difficulty dealing with the death.
- Is embalming mandatory by law?
No. But, certain factors of time, health and possible legal requirements might make embalming either appropriate or necessary. Please note that embalming may be required if the deceased is being transported by air to another country where local laws need be observed.
- Is cremation a substitute for a funeral?
No, cremation is an alternative to earth burial or entombment for the body's final disposition and often follows a traditional funeral service. We can assist you with the necessary information for a funeral with a cremation following or a memorial service.
- Can I have a visitation period and a funeral service if cremation is chosen?
Yes. Cremation does not preclude having a visitation period and a funeral service. Cremation is simply one option for final disposition of the body.
- Is cremation as a means of disposition increasing?
Yes, but not dramatically.
- Is it possible to have a traditional funeral if someone dies of AIDS?
Yes, a person who dies of an AIDS-related illness is entitled to the same service options afforded to anyone else. If public viewing is consistent with local or personal customs, that option is encouraged. Touching the deceased's face or hands is perfectly safe. Because the grief experienced by survivors may include a variety of feelings, survivors may need even more support than survivors of non-AIDS-related deaths.
- How much does a funeral cost?
Funerals can cost as little as $1000 for a direct disposition. (Direct disposition includes registering the death, a basic casket or container, and transporting the deceased to a cemetery or crematorium) For an adult, full-service funeral, consumers choose to spend an average of $5000. This includes all professional services, including transfer-of remains, embalming, and other preparation; use of viewing facilities and the facilities for the ceremony; hearse, limousine, and the purchase of a casket.
- Has this cost increased significantly?
Funeral costs have increased no faster than the consumer price index for other consumer items.
- Why are funerals so expensive?
In some respects, funerals are a lot like weddings or birthday celebrations. The type and cost will vary according to the tastes and budget of the consumer. Not only that, a funeral home is a 24-hour, labor-intensive business, with extensive facilities (viewing rooms, chapels, limousines, hearses, etc.), these expenses must be factored into the cost of a funeral. Moreover, the cost of a funeral includes not only merchandise, like caskets, but the services of a funeral director in making arrangements; filing appropriate forms; dealing with doctors, ministers, florists, newspapers and others; and seeing to all the necessary details. Contrary to popular belief, funeral homes are largely family-owned with a modest profit margin.
- What recourse does a consumer have for poor service or overcharging?
While most funeral homes provide outstanding services, sometimes things can go wrong. Funeral service is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and state licensing boards. In most cases, the consumer should discuss problems with the funeral director first. If the dispute cannot be solved by talking with the funeral director, the consumer may wish to contact the FTC by contacting the Consumer Response Center by phone, toll-free, at 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357); TDD: 1-866-653-4261; by mail: Consumer Response Center, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580; or on the Internet at www.ftc.gov, using the online complaint form. You may also choose to contact the local Better Business Bureau, or your state consumer protection office.
- Who pays for funerals for the indigent?
Other than the family, there are veteran, union, and other organizational benefits to help pay for funerals. Most funeral directors are aware of the various benefits and know how to obtain them for the indigent. However, funeral directors often absorb costs above and beyond what is provided by agencies to insure the deceased a respectable burial.
Cemetery Common Questions
The answers below are here because these are the most commonly-asked questions. If yours isn't listed, we invite you to call us 865-982-3730. We're here to provide the information you need, when you need it.
- Are cemeteries running out of space?
Just like other open spaces, cemeteries are impacted by increased population density in both urban and rural areas. Cemetery spaces are a finite resource, and as such, are at a premium in some regions.
- What is Perpetual Care?
"Perpetual Care" usually refers to the correct terms Permanent Care or Endowment Care. These Care funds are collected with each Interment Space sale to maintain the grounds, roads, and buildings of the cemetery.
- Can the vault be personalized?
Yes, we can show you the wide range of personalization choices, including customized nameplates and military insignias.
- Are there vaults for cremated remains?
Yes, we offer urn vaults, designed for in-ground burial of cremated remains.
- Can two cremations be performed at once?
Never. Not only is it illegal to do so, most modern cremation chambers are not of sufficient size to accommodate more than one adult. Thus it would be a practical impossibility to conduct multiple cremations simultaneously.
- Can the family witness the cremation?
Yes, for a nominal fee. Our state-of-the-art cremation facility is set up to allow family members to be present when the body is placed into the cremation chamber. In fact, some religious groups include this as part of their funeral custom.
- Does a body have to be embalmed before it is buried?
No, embalming is not required for burial. It is always your choice. Your decision may depend on such factors as whether the family selected a service with a public viewing of the body with an open casket; or to enhance the deceased's appearance for a private family viewing; or if the body is going to be transported by air or rail, or because of the length of time prior to the burial.
- Must I purchase a burial vault?
In most areas of the country, state or local laws do not require that you buy a container to surround the casket in the grave. However, many cemeteries require that you have such a container so that the ground will not sink. Either a grave liner or a burial vault will satisfy these requirements.
- What are the advantages of a mausoleum burial?
Mausoleum crypts are both clean and dry. They offer a viable alternative for those who simply have an aversion of being interred in the ground. Furthermore, with the growing shortage of available land for cemetery use, mausoleums will allow for a maximum number of entombments in a minimum amount of space.
- What is a columbarium?
A columbarium, often located within a mausoleum, chapel or in a garden setting, is constructed with numerous small compartments (niches) designed to hold urns containing cremated remains.
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Photo/HB.Grandi.
‘These winds have been prevalent for so long that the sea never gets a chance to settle,’ said Lundey NS’s skipper Arnthór Hjörleifsson when we spoke to him last week and he commented sourly on the westerly and south-westerly winds that have made this winter such a hard one for everyone.
Fishermen are more at the mercy of the weather than most and the weather has to be genuinely bad for a good while before they start to complain. But Arnthór Hjörleifsson and his colleagues have seen more than enough of the endless storms that have plagued all fishing grounds around Iceland since the New Year began.
We spoke to Vedurvaktin meteorologist Einar Sveinbjörnsson to give us an overview of this year’s weather so far and to compare it with previous years. He told us that he had examined records for wind strength and direction for comparison purposes, using data from Gardsskagi going back to 1995 to 18th February this year. Gardsskagi was chosen as it lies on the coast with no shelter from mountains in any direction.
‘I collated weather data back to the beginning of last December. There were a few quiet days around Christmas so December was not an unusual month for weather. That doesn’t apply to the period from 1st January to 18th February. The results are that these first fifty days of the year have been some of the stormiest since 1995 with an average wind speed of more than 10 m/sec. This is a high average wind speed and over the period since 1995, only 2008 comes close,’ Einar Sveinbjörnsson said, adding that he set a threshold wind speed at 8 m/sec, reckoning that anything over 8 m/sec is considered windy while days with lower wind speeds are categorised as ‘good’ days.
‘Comparisons show that 78% of those 50 days are windy ones, according to the threshold wind speed, against an average of 55-60% over the entire reference period. What is unmistakeable is the overwhelmingly prevalent southerly and south-westerly wind direction. The winter of 2000 is still talked about as a winter of endless westerly and south-westerly winds, but those winds were noticeably less strong, according to the data from Gardsskagi.’
He said that what has also been noticeable about this year’s weather is how short the distances have been between depressions. These have also been rather fast-moving and steep, with all the turmoil that can cause. There are few days when the wind speed has been under 8m/sec’ only 20th, 28th and 31st January, as well as 1st, 3rd and 13th February, while 10th January stands out as the only properly mild day since New Year.
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Henry County Medical Center Board of Trustees
Scholarship & Capital Projects
Delta Rural Health Initiative
Current Projects & Fundraisers
Past Foundation Events
History of Henry County Medical Center
In 1948, the Henry County Court appointed a four-man committee to make a study of the need for a new county hospital.
1950-1960s
On April 1, 1950, Henry County voters passed the bond issue 5 to 1 to build a new hospital.
Henry County General Hospital was dedicated on August 28, 1953, serving the counties of Henry, Carroll, Benton, Weakley and Gibson. The administrator was Joe Kreycik. Hospital Auxillians served as tour guides for opening day.
The hospital, at a cost of $2.04 per cubic foot, was constructed under Public Law 725, commonly known as the Hill-Burton Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946, whereby over 1000 hospitals were built in the US. The act allowed the Federal government to contribute 52 percent of the cost of construction and the State of Tennessee would contribute 24 percent, leaving the county to provide the remaining 24 percent. The law allowed community ownership of the hospitals.
The 71-bed hospital was one of the first hospitals in the nation to use the double corridor, single-center service island concept to reduce nurse travel and put nurses closer to patients. The hospital had ultra-modern communication/paging system, automatic elevators, x-ray lab, laboratory and pathologist test rooms, self-sustaining pharmacy, revolutionary type food service and coffee shop, laundry, two emergency rooms with an ambulance entrance and a power plant that had two immense 100-horsepower boilers, two hot water heaters, oil furnace and an emergency power unit, all on the first floor.
Second floor was dedicated to surgical recovery. There were seven private rooms with tub or shower, 14 private rooms without bath and 25 semi-private rooms.
Third floor had two isolation rooms and housed the pediatrics department as well. Fourth floor was the maternity floor containing three nurseries with 15 bassinets. Piped oxygen was available to every room.
By 1956, it was evident that more beds and additional services were needed. A new patient wing was completed July 26, 1959. Air conditioning throughout the hospital was added at this time as well. The hospital then had a capacity for 128 beds.
The next addition came in 1971 adding a new nursing unit of 38 beds, bringing the total bed count to 166. Many ancillary departments were upgraded too.
In 1972, a Cardiac Intensive Care Unit opened with four beds and a basic heart monitor. The unit was moved to the second floor giving them six beds and better quality monitors. The unit was updated dramatically in 1990.
By 1985, the medical center had the latest in state-of-the art technology and emergency services, offering such services as;
Laparoscopic surgical procedures
A Lake Haven Behavioral Center
Other diagnostic services
A mammoth $6 million renovation/expansion project was completed during 1989. This was the two-story Medical Arts Building and a high-tech radiation therapy department. Obstetrics and surgery departments were enlarged, the emergency room was enlarged and an outpatient treatment department was formed.
The hospital, called Henry County Medical Center since 1985, celebrated 40 years in 1993. HCMC has always been a teaching hospital for Jackson State’s Radiological and Laboratory Technicians as well as Nursing students from UT Martin, Murray State University, Union University and Austin Peay University.
In January 2004, the Patient Tower addition opened. This expansion included a new cafeteria and allowed a Sleep Disorders Center to open and a new space for Cardiac Rehabilitation. The radiology area was renovated as a result of the new building and a new space was temporarily made ready for Outpatient Surgery, which has already been utilized. Shell space was allowed for a new Pharmacy, which has since opened and the Women’s Center on the second floor opened with birthing rooms and operating rooms for C-sections.
The new third floor allowed for 16 new beds, creating private rooms throughout the hospital.
Henry County Medical Center is still a community-owned medical center dedicated to providing the highest quality, affordable healthcare services and education to Henry County and surrounding regions.
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Help Net Security June 18, 2019
Researchers develop app to detect Twitter bots in any language
Thanks to fruitful collaboration between language scholars and machine learning specialists, a new application that can detect Twitter bots independent of the language used was developed by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland and Linnaeus University in Sweden.
In recent years, big data from various social media applications have turned the web into a user-generated repository of information in ever-increasing number of areas. Because of the relatively easy access to tweets and their metadata, Twitter has become a popular source of data for investigations of a number of phenomena.
These include, for instance, various political campaigns, social and political upheavals, Twitter as a tool for emergency communication, and using social media data to predict stock market prices.
However, research using data from social media data is often skewed by the presence of bots. Bots are non-personal and automated accounts that post content to online social networks. The popularity of Twitter as an instrument in public debate has led to a situation in which it has become an ideal target of spammers and automated scripts.
It has been estimated that around 5-10% of all users are bots, and that these accounts generate about 20-25% of all tweets posted.
Researchers of the digital humanities at the University of Eastern Finland and Linnaeus University in Sweden have developed a new application that relies on machine learning to detect Twitter bots. The application is able to detect autogenerated tweets independent of the language used.
The researchers captured for analysis a total of 15,000 tweets in Finnish, Swedish and English. Finnish and Swedish were mainly used for training, whereas tweets in English were used to evaluate the language independence of the application. The application is light, making it possible to classify vast amounts of data quickly and relatively efficiently.
“This enhances the quality of data – and paints a more accurate picture of the reality,” Professor of English Mikko Laitinen from the University of Eastern Finland notes.
According to Professor Laitinen, bots are relatively harmless, whereas trolls do harm as they spread fake news and come up with made-up stories. This is why there’s a need for increasingly advanced tools for social media monitoring.
“This is a complex issue and requires interdisciplinary approaches. For instance, we linguists are working together with machine learning specialists. This type of work also calls for determination and investments in research infrastructures that serve as a platform for researchers from different fields to collaborate on.”
According to Professor Laitinen, it is essential for researchers to have access to social media data.
“Currently, data are the property of American technology conglomerates, and a source of their income. In order for researchers to gain access to this data, cooperation at the national and international levels, and especially the involvement of the EU are needed.”
How employees and their organizations are prioritizing data privacy
One year of GDPR application: Europeans well aware of their digital rights
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Mirko Zorz, Editor in Chief July 1, 2019
Bringing more talented individuals into the security industry
In this interview, Tony Vizza, Director of Cybersecurity Advocacy, Asia-Pacific, (ISC)2, talks about the growing information security skills shortage, the importance of education, and the upcoming gathering of industry leaders at (ISC)2 Security Congress in Orlando, Florida.
Why do you think (ISC)2 membership and advocating for the cybersecurity profession is so important in your region of Asia-Pacific?
As we learned in our 2018 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, the overwhelming majority (2.14 million out of 2.93 million needed professionals) of the global skills shortage exists in the Asia-Pacific region, so we have significantly more work to do in terms of filling cybersecurity roles in our region than in any other part of the world.
Achieving (ISC)2 certifications is certainly one way to demonstrate and validate broad-based skills and knowledge of the fundamentals of cybersecurity, as well as serving as a marker that hiring managers can look for in order to feel confident in the individuals they are bringing into their teams. Certification demonstrates the applicant’s commitment in continually improving their skills to stay up-to-date on the latest threats and technologies, and that’s essential in an environment where change is constant.
The reason that I consider advocating for the profession to be such a massive responsibility is that we’re at an inflection point where the need to find and cultivate the next generation of talent is fundamental to our global security, across many and all economies. What we do now to nurture and grow a diverse workforce will have repercussions for years to come.
As a part-time instructor, what impact do you believe education can have on bringing more talented individuals into the security industry?
There are two major prongs to education that can impact cybersecurity staffing. First, our profession is definitely challenged by a lack of understanding or appreciation of what it is we actually do, particularly at the earlier stages of formal education systems. When young people are exposed to this field, able to break down many of the perceptions that exist about cybersecurity and recognize that it could be an achievable career path, we’ll open the industry up to a greater volume and diversity of talent, particularly if our primary and secondary schools offer more practical learning paths and coursework.
Second, as I alluded to before, even certified professionals with lots of experience need to continue to train and improve their skillsets. That’s why (ISC)2 developed the Professional Development Institute, which is a robust portfolio of online self-paced courses that serve as a go-to resource for timely and relevant continuing education opportunities to help keep skills sharp and curiosity piqued. These courses are free to our members and by the end of this year we’ll have a portfolio of roughly 30 available, covering a vast range of topic areas.
We’re also very excited about this year’s (ISC)2 Security Congress taking place from October 28-30 in Orlando, Florida. While this has traditionally been a North American conference in the past, the 2019 iteration will be a truly global event, with 4,000 attendees expected from all across the globe, and more than 175 sessions planned on a range of topics that will be educational and actionable. Having attended the conference myself last year, I can say with great confidence that attending such events and networking with others in the industry is a great way to keep abreast of the latest trends in cybersecurity.
What do you see as the most important steps organizations of all sizes can take in order to address the growing cybersecurity skills shortage?
I don’t think it comes as any surprise that companies are essentially in competition for the best talent, and as such, should take an inward look at how they market themselves and appear to candidates. Part of this was covered in (ISC)2’s 2018 research Building a Resilient Cybersecurity Culture, which found that those companies whose executive teams prioritized cybersecurity and reinforced good practices were much more successful in hiring and retaining enough talent to make them feel confident in their defenses.
Organizations should also look at opportunities such as mentorship programs, cross-training from different departments and subsidizing continued training for their IT and cybersecurity staffs in order to develop new talent.
What have been the major security developments in the past year, and how have these informed the (ISC)2 Security Congress agenda for 2019?
To a large extent, the topic submissions we receive from our speakers, many of whom are our members, really drive the content for the agenda each year. As such, for 2019 we established a Security Automation track to deal with machine learning and artificial intelligence, which was a particular area of interest for our applicants.
Additionally, we expanded our Privacy track based on interest and demand, particularly with the attention that the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is generating, as well as the increasing prevalence of mandatory breach reporting directives in economies across the world, including Asia-Pacific.
And on a slightly different note, this year we’re introducing a “Student Experience” program to offer sessions aimed at students and newcomers to the cybersecurity practice. This is an effort to build that awareness around what a great profession and career path it is and encourage students to seek out education, training and ultimately, opportunities.
What trends or sessions do you think will be of particular interest?
We’re all very excited to hear our keynote speakers this year, including Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, Admiral William H. McRaven, Catherine Price and Erik Wahl. We have received some outstanding submissions in the area of ICS and Critical Infrastructure that I feel are compelling to attend. This is an area that affects all people around the world, and to understand the impact of cybersecurity on these areas and make this meaningful to those outside of our industry who are reliant on these services will go some way to helping break down misconceptions.
I also have a close affinity for the Governance, Risk and Compliance realm and will be looking to learn new ideas and concepts in relation to this space, particularly with the regulatory changes that are ever-constant. On a personal level and as a student of law, the Privacy track will guarantee my attendance at many of the sessions there.
Finally, having recently gained my CCSP certification, cloud computing and the rapid changes in this space will necessitate that I attend some of the sessions within the Cloud track. The full conference schedule can be found here.
Priorities IT pros follow to ensure ingrained privacy and compliance
How the healthcare industry can improve online trust
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The 1985 Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord
The 1985 Atlantic Accord is an agreement between the province and Ottawa concerning the management of the oil and gas reserves off the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. It determines how the two governments share revenues, and how that income affects the equalization payments received by the province. It also established the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board (today the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board).
The Accord is widely considered to be a watershed in the province's economic development. It ended years of negotiations and allowed Hibernia and subsequent offshore fields to enter production. However, despite the Accord's goal to "make the province the principal beneficiary" of oil resources, the 2003 Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada found that Newfoundland and Labrador would be "the net beneficiary of only 20 to 25 per cent of total government revenues." The Accord was modified in the province's favour two years later, allowing it to achieve 'have' status in 2008.
Mobil Oil carried out the first seismic surveys on the Grand Banks in the 1960s, and exploratory drilling continued during the 1970s. Chevron Standard Limited discovered the first commercial oilfield, Hibernia, in 1979, but development could not proceed until the provincial and federal governments resolved the ownership and management disputes, which continued from 1967 until 1985.
The federal government took the position that offshore resources fell under its jurisdiction. A 1967 Supreme Court of Canada decision had awarded seabed resources off the British Columbia coast to the federal government and Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau suggested the decision applied to the east coast as well. After years of unsuccessful negotiations with Newfoundland and Labrador, Trudeau asked the Supreme Court to settle the question in 1982.
The provincial government countered that international law granted Newfoundland ownership of mineral resources on the continental shelf before 1949, which was not transferred to Canada upon Confederation. Section 37 of the Terms of Union stated: "All lands mines, minerals, and royalties belonging to Newfoundland at the date of Union, and all sums then due or payable for such lands, mines, minerals, or royalties, shall belong to the Province of Newfoundland, subject to any trusts existing in respect thereof, and to any interest other than that of the Province in the same."
Brian Peckford, first as Newfoundland's minister of mines and energy (1976-1979) and then as premier (1979-1989), worked vigorously to protect the province's interests. He argued that oil could make Newfoundland and Labrador economically self-sufficient, but only if the province managed its development and received most of the revenues.
This was in keeping with the provincial government's larger goal of acquiring greater control over resource development in general. Confederation passed fisheries management to Ottawa, while the Churchill Falls agreement benefited Quebec far more than the province. Offshore oil provided a blank slate - an opportunity for the province to gain control of a lucrative new industry. That the resource was non-renewable made it even more crucial to secure a favourable deal before production began.
The province suffered a setback in March 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled in Ottawa's favour. Peckford then shifted his efforts to gaining joint management and most of the revenues. The timing worked in his favour; 1984 was a federal election year and the Progressive Conservative leader, Brian Mulroney, made a written promise that, if elected, he would give the province equal say over offshore management and make it the "principal beneficiary" of the oil and gas industry.
A September election returned a Conservative majority to the House of Commons. The new administration began talks with the province, which resulted in the signing of a Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord on 11 February 1985. The signatories were Mulroney, Peckford, the federal and provincial energy ministers (Pat Carney and William Marshall, respectively), and the federal minister of justice, John Crosbie.
The Atlantic Accord
The Accord granted the province significant decision-making powers and financial benefits. It made the federal and provincial governments equal partners in the management of offshore developments through the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board. A $300-million offshore development fund was established to help prepare the province for industrial growth, to which Ottawa contributed $225 million.
The Accord ensured that residents of Newfoundland and Labrador would benefit from jobs and training opportunities. Developers had to hire qualified local workers before considering outside applicants and help pay for local research and education programs. They also had to give first priority to local businesses able to provide the goods and services needed for offshore projects.
A major component of the Accord dealt with revenue distribution. It allowed the province to collect taxes and royalties from petroleum resources as if it owned them. This income was protected from a dollar-for-dollar loss of equalization payments for the first 12 years of oil production. (Equalization payments distribute money from Canada's richer provinces to its poorer ones. Provinces that earn more than the national average pay into the equalization program each year, while those that fall below the average receive money.)
For the first five years of production, the province could keep 90 per cent of what it would have otherwise lost to equalization due to oil revenues. The percentage dropped by another 10 per cent for each subsequent year of the Accord's 12-year life. Protection from clawbacks was critical because it allowed the province's income to grow, instead of losing as much to equalization as it earned from the oil industry
The Accord was widely hailed as a success for the Peckford administration and a turning point for the provincial economy. At the signing, Peckford predicted it would allow "this province to catch up socially and economically to the rest of Canada," while Mulroney famously stated "I am not afraid to inflict prosperity on Newfoundland and Labrador."
In the following years, however, critics argued the Accord did not achieve its fundamental purpose of making the province the principal beneficiary of the oil industry. Production developed more slowly than anticipated and resulted in low revenues during the critical early years of the Accord, when equalization protection was at its greatest. By 2003, the province received only 12 cents for every dollar of offshore revenues, while the remaining 88 went to Canada and the other provinces.
The Accord was amended in 2005 to give the province 100 per cent protection from equalization clawbacks arising from offshore revenues. The protection was guaranteed for an eight-year period, beginning in the 2004-05 fiscal year. The province received an up-front payment of $2 billion from Ottawa, which equaled about 75 per cent of the total benefits it was expected to receive by the time the agreement expired in 2012. As a result, Newfoundland and Labrador became a 'have' province in 2008, meaning it paid into the equalization program instead of receiving money from it.
Article by Jenny Higgins. ©2012, Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web Site
Atlantic Accord
Hibernia Oil
Churchill Falls
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Home>Music> Why Does Rap Idolize Pablo Escobar?
Why Does Rap Idolize Pablo Escobar?
By Luke Hinz
RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP/Getty Images
The deceased Colombian drug kingpin continues to have a commanding presence in hip hop.
On the cover of Reasonable Doubt, the tilted brim of Jay-Z’s hat hides his features, cloaking the intentions of Marcy Houses’ famous son. But the carefully clenched cigar, sharp silver screen suit, and pronounced pinkie ring tell the story of a sophisticated street hustler. The iconic image paints a picture of grit and determination, one bathed in the black and white intricacies of transforming street drama into crime story epics, full of high class and expensive taste. Hip hop’s love for Mafioso embellishments is no secret; the pseudo-mafia tendencies of the East Coast’s hardcore rap movement during the 80s and 90s was an energizing force that spawned some of the genre’s most compelling records. Jay Z has invoked his stint as a teenage drug dealer throughout his discography, particularly on early tracks such as “Can’t Knock The Hustle” and “Dead Presidents II.” Kool G Rap’s innovative narratives found a home on “Fast Life” featuring Nas (“A team from Queens plottin’ up a scheme to get the seven-figure cream”) and influenced albums such as Reasonable Doubt and Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Nas’ tales of urban warfare on tracks like “N.Y. State of Mind” and “Street Dreams” solicited the far-reaching extremes peddled by other artists such as The Notorious B.I.G. (“Last Day”), Big Pun & Fat Joe (“Twinz”), Raekwon (“Wu-Gambinos,” “Incarcerated Scarfaces”), and The Firm & Dr. Dre (“Phone Tap”).
Although artists are prone to dramatic renderings, their stories more often than not stem from a real place, and are not simply the product of some fictional script. Establishing criminal bonafides as a means to build street credibility was once a required move from every prospective emcee. At its core, the music is still designed to be a form of entertainment. However, beneath the inscrutable wordplay and euphemisms lie songs that simultaneously boast their underlying ventures while hiding the explicit meaning. It’s a tactic that carried the “crime family, well-connected, Jay-Z” and his Mafioso rap brethren to the luxurious heights espoused by the criminals that they sought to emulate: Frank Costello, Al Capone, John Gotti, and even Hollywood’s Michael Corleone and Tony Montana.
But as the genre evolved to reflect the growing regional disparities of the mid to late 2000s, archetypal Mafioso rap was transported south to Atlanta and Miami where the stylistic characteristics took on a life of their own under a new guise. Rick Ross built his entire 2006 debut album Port of Miami around the idea of being the biggest coke dealer in town. The work of Clipse offered a forensic eye for detail, while Jeezy’s skill as a “salesman” prompted critics to christen a new subgenre of "cocaine rap." Ultimately, the cinematic nature of the Mafioso rap canon was recontextualized to portray the ominous underbelly of the flourishing narco lifestyle. And when it came to incomprehensible wealth, aesthetic of grandeur, and charismatic swagger, no one better embodied the narco mindset than Pablo Escobar.
In 1989, Forbes magazine estimated that Escobar had a personal net worth of close to U.S. $3 billion, while his Medellín Cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine market. For many who lived under Escobar’s bloody reign of terror and managed to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, he was a hero, popularized and adored for his charity work that contributed to the of building of schools, hospitals, a housing project, and even a soccer stadium. Yet at his peak, Escobar was one of the most wanted criminals in the world: according to some estimates, he was responsible for more than 4,000 deaths, a horrifying figure that continues to haunt Colombia. Wiz Khalifa’s 2017 visit to Escobar’s grave sparked outrage after the rapper posted pictures to his Instagram apparently paying tribute to the famed drug lord. Medellín’s mayor, Frederico Gutierrez, was not pleased with Khalifa’s Escobar-themed photo tour, calling the rapper a “scoundrel" and demanding that he "offer an apology to the city." In a recent interview with Ebro on Beats 1, native Colombian J. Balvin made clear his distaste for hip hop’s reverence for the divisive figure: “He stopped people’s dreams. And now we’re trying to erase that past, and make people believe in dreams again.”
Since Escobar’s death in 1993 in a rooftop shootout with U.S. Navy Seals and a Colombian military unit, he has been the subject of numerous movies, TV shows, documentaries, and songs. Even if some voice their disapproval, most have come to accept the tendency of hip hop to idolize drug culture and thus the violence that often drives it. Escobar, who rose from the impoverished streets of Medellín, Colombia to create one of the largest drug empires the world has ever seen, is now one of hip hop’s favorite controversial name drops. Dating back to Wu-Tang Clan’s “Break Ya Neck” in 1992, the mythos of Escobar is potent. Nas first introduced his “Escobar” moniker in 1995 on Mobb Deep’s “Eye for a Eye"; Jay-Z would later dispute the provocative surname on his “Super Ugly” diss track aimed at the Queensbridge rapper. In recent years, hip hop’s obsession with the tale of the cocaine “Robin Hood” has become nothing short of extraordinary. The vast majority of Escobar’s mentions in rap lyrics are inevitably drug-related: Migos’ “Narcos,” Jeezy’s “Escobar,” Tory Lanez’ “Old Friends x New Foes,” Gunplay’s “Bogota,” Pusha T’s “Untouchable,” The Game’s “El Chapo,” and Rick Ross’ “Hustlin’” are all fueled in part by the memory of Escobar’s heyday. But it was his ambition, lawlessness, and lust for power that are the stuff of hip hop legend: Kanye West’s “No More Parties In LA,” Jadakiss’ “Shoot Outs,” Gucci Mane’s “Pablo,” Big Pun’s “I’m Not a Player,” Rich the Kid & Migos’ “Trap,” Future & Young Thug’s “Group Home,” and Lil Wayne’s “Vizine” are but a few notable examples celebrating Escobar’s calculated accumulation of the rewards of the fast life.
The scope of Escobar’s infamy led to hip hop’s eventual embrace of narco tropes, as the glitz and glamor of the Mafioso past were hastily carved away and discarded in favor of the more grave and exacting flavors of kingpin fancy. His careful cultivation of a ruthless public image and persona allowed him to become a distinguished part of hip hop’s modern vernacular, and has granted him a wide-ranging appeal that has been captured throughout the entertainment industry. Escobar exuded an air of brutality and hubris that would lead to his demise and the unraveling of his violent enterprise, but his now rampant pop culture legacy offers enticing morsels that are the very lifeblood of hip hop's quest for immortalization.
Music News Features pablo escobar mafioso mafioso rap Jay Z Kool G Rap Nas Raekwon The Notorious B.I.G. Dr. Dre The Godfather Scarface Mafia rap cocaine rap Rick Ross Jeezy Clipse drug lord drug kingpin Drug culture Migos Wu-Tang Clan Gucci Mane Future Young Thug Lil Wayne editorial thought piece thinkpiece
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MUSIC Why Does Rap Idolize Pablo Escobar?
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'Cloud Atlas’ is laughably self-serious
By CHRISTY LEMIREAP Movie Critic
Maybe if you’re 20 years old and high in your dorm room with your friends, the platitudes presented in “Cloud Atlas” might seem profound.
Anyone else in his or her right mind should recognize it for what it is: a bloated, pseudo-intellectual, self-indulgent slog through some notions that are really rather facile.
Ooh, we’re all interconnected and our souls keep meeting up with each other over the centuries, regardless of race, gender or geography. We’re individual drops of water but we’re all part of the same ocean. That is deep, man.
Perhaps it all worked better on the page. “Cloud Atlas” comes from the best-selling novel of the same name by David Mitchell which, in theory, might have seemed unfilmable, encompassing six stories over a span of 500 years and including some primitive dialogue in a far-away future. Sibling directors Lana and Andy Wachowski — who actually have come up with some original, provocative ideas of their own in the “Matrix” movies (well, at least the first one) — working with “Run Lola Run” director Tom Tykwer, have chopped up the various narratives and intercut between them out of order. The A-list actors who comprise the cast play multiple parts across the various stories and in elaborate makeup that’s often laughable.
Tom Hanks is a scheming doctor on a voyage across the South Pacific in 1849, a trash-talking novelist in present-day London and a peaceful goatherd who’s part of a post-apocalyptic tribe in the 2300s. Halle Berry is a composer’s white trophy wife in 1936 Scotland, an investigative reporter in 1973 San Francisco and a member of an elite society of prescients in the farthest future. Hugh Grant is often the least recognizable of all beneath layers of prosthetics and goop: at one point, he’s a vengeful old man; at another, he’s the raging leader of a band of cannibals.
One easy rule of thumb: If you see Hugo Weaving, you know he’s a bad guy. Except for the story line in which he plays a woman, that is: an oppressive Nurse Ratched figure in a psychiatric hospital.
Maybe the concept of transformation and of connectedness despite the physical vessels we occupy felt especially resonant for the transgender Lana Wachowski, formerly Larry Wachowski. But rather than serving as a satisfying, cohesive device, the multiple-parts strategy feels like a distracting gimmick. Instead of seamlessly melding with the film’s philosophy of continuity, it keeps you constantly wondering: “Who is that actor made up to look Asian? Who is that beneath the henna tattoos and macrame? Is that... Susan Sarandon?” It takes you out of the heart of the stories and holds you at arm’s length.
“Cloud Atlas” is ambitious in its scope, for sure — edited fluidly and often wondrous to look at, but totally ineffective from an emotional perspective. As you’re watching it you may ponder as I did whether any of these six stories across disparate genres would be more compelling as its own, stand-alone film. Possibly the one set in pre-World War II, starring Ben Whishaw as an up-and-coming composer who flees London when he’s exposed as a homosexual and goes to work for an aging musical master (Jim Broadbent), all the while writing letters to his lover (James D’Arcy) full of humor and longing. (This is one of the Tykwer segments, by the way. He also directed the tales set in 1973 and 2012, while the Wachowskis took on 1849, 2144 and the 24th century.)
The most ridiculous is the one that takes place “After the Fall” in Hawaii in the mid-2300s. It requires Hanks and Berry to yammer at each other in a disjointed, stripped-down version of English that’s as indecipherable as it is laughable. Even more unintentionally hilarious is the sight of Weaving hopping around in green makeup like some subversive leprechaun, whispering naughty things in Hanks’ ear.
On the other end of the spectrum, the most engaging tale of all is set in the gleaming, futuristic city of Neo Seoul, a place of detailed, totalitarian precision built atop the remnants of a flood. Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae) is one of countless fabricated restaurant workers locked in a daily routine of servitude and sleep. But she longs to think for herself and dares to escape with the help of a young revolutionary played by Jim Sturgess. Sure, it’s hugely derivative with its garish, dystopian aesthetic and themes of machines turning on the people who invented them, but it’s also the only one that comes close to capturing any real sense of humanity.
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Manic Street Preachers Talk Ownership In the Digital Era, Share Remix From Warm Digits: Premiere
By Brandon Kelly On 25 May 2018
Welsh rockers Manic Street Preachers released their Resistance is Futile single “Hold Me Like a Heaven” last month (May 4). Today, Newcastle electronic act Warm Digits has revealed its remix the tune, which adds a powerful new context to the rocker in a facilitative way.
Manic Street Preachers and Warm Digits have never met to this day, being a few hours’ drive away from each other; a drive from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Blackwood in Wales will set you back about five hours. No matter -- the remix is a testament to how the Internet has utterly demolished time and space as to who can collaborate with whom. While platforms like Soundcloud can act as a slippery slope as to quantity over quality in music, Warm Digits’ remix hits the Goldilocks zone between those two extremes: it’s simply a second set hands in service the song.
We caught up with Manic Street Preachers’ drummer Sean Moore to discuss the remix “Hold Me Like a Heaven” and how social media’s ability to break down barriers made it possible.
How did you end up working with Warm Digits on the remix? In what way did that collaboration come about?
Basically, I was a fan Warm Digits' latest record, and I liked them on Twitter. They contacted me and said “If we could do a remix for you, we’d gladly do it.” The opportunity came up and it was just easy. I’ve never even met the lads yet, but with the Internet, it’s a relationship I totally enjoy. Maybe in the future, I’ll be able to thank them for it. I’ve thanked them over Twitter and emails and texts, but we haven’t actually physically met as human beings. That’s the digital world for you.
How much physical distance is there between the two groups?
They live up in the North East England, so that’s a good four, five hour drive.
Is this the first sort online collaboration you’ve done, or have there been others?
The remixes we’ve done have pretty much all been like that over the last decade or so, but we’ve actually met the people in passing at festival sites or in hotel rooms. Sometimes bands have supported us. But the remix really changed how it happened in that way. The convenience the Internet and everything. You’re not lugging around huge tapes and all that.
I would imagine our globalized world would be such a boon to musical collaboration. You can collaborate with someone you’ve never met!
Exactly. People, through technology, have remixed a lot our records, going back to Send Away The Tigers, but again, we’ve never really met. That’s just the way it is now. Going all the way back to Generation Terrorists, that was remixed for an American audience. These days, people are using laptops and it’s a lot more convenient. But there’s so much content now that it’s very difficult for people to wade through to get to the really good stuff. It’s hard to get to the real sustenance.
Do you feel like that excess content is a positive thing for music? Because decades ago, I imagine you didn’t just go out and join a rock band; there simply were the rock bands, like The Doors, and that was it.
I think it’s become so homogenized that I think it’s a lot harder to rise above and become individual. It’s gotten to the point where bands have to be more like personalities. Not that Jim Morrison wasn’t a personality, but they were far more unique than they are now. I think it’s almost like a checklist things to do to become famous. Whether it comes from the soul or not, I don’t think so, personally.
Wouldn’t the advent Soundcloud, et al, provide too many choices? Do you think there would need be some form “filtering” in the future to sift through all it?
That is the bane the future. My biggest fear is that they’re going to start asking record companies for payment to place their products at the front the streaming queue. It would be beyond merit. It would be a product placement, like in advertising. You pay a fee and your item gets the premium push there. It’s like payola with radio in America back in the day! I can see that happening if it isn’t regulated properly. How do you address the balance? iTunes hasn’t been able to do it. Amazon hasn’t been able to do it. And Tidal with their problems there. It goes back to the days payola. Streaming serves a purpose, but there’s something within me that doesn’t feel comfortable with not owning something. The fact that I’m just leasing music and then not being able to pass that down. You can’t pass down a record collection streaming. That’s the only thing that doesn’t sit right with me, is the fact that those memories and moments in life that we map onto something that’s physical and being cherished as a legacy, passed down. We’re losing ownership that.
This remix, particularly, feels so musical rather than arbitrary. There’s a connection between the two artists.
It’s great because they’re sort working-class and they’re pursuing more the organics making music. Despite being electronic, they’re still rock n' roll. They took the song in its entirety, rather than just taking a little section and looping it. They used the structure the song to give it a foundation. Some people don’t. They just take out the bits and cherry-pick. They just totally transform it.
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Why Did Benedict Arnold Betray America?
Historians offer up many explanations, including that the Revolutionary War general may have had some self-esteem issues as a child and young man.
John Seven
Benedict Arnold was once a patriotic war hero valued by George Washington and admired by his men. But now his name is synonymous with traitor. What could have led Arnold to ruin his legacy by betraying his fellow Americans during the Revolutionary War?
Analysis of Arnold’s actions have been simplified over the years to serve a narrative of right and wrong. While Arnold’s betrayal was clear—he offered the British seizure of the military fortress at West Point, NY, in exchange for 10,000 pounds and a British military commission—what led up to that moment of betrayal is more complicated and less political than is often taught.
Arnold was the victim of a smear campaign.
Some would say the catalyst was Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council President Joseph Reed.
He took a personal dislike to Arnold and, in 1779, attempted to prosecute him on a series of treason charges ranging from buying illegal goods to preferring the company of British loyalists. In the build-up of his case, Reed was known to spread rumors about Arnold without offering proof of his allegations.
Arnold’s wife encouraged his treason.
Arnold was also deeply in debt and newly married to an ambitious woman. His wife, Peggy, was the daughter of a prominent Philadelphia family with loyalist leanings that had fared better under the British.
Peggy was accustomed to a certain level of living and some historians believe that Peggy steered Arnold to the British in order to maintain that lifestyle. Becoming a traitor to his country could fetch him a handsome payment from the British.
Letters suggest Arnold had character issues.
But there were plenty of other reasons, too. Eric D. Lehman, author of Homegrown Terror: Benedict Arnold and the Burning of New London, notes that others at the time had similar circumstances and did not betray their country. Lehman spent time looking over Arnold’s letters and other first-hand accounts.
“Some seemed to point to him ‘lacking feeling,’ i.e. sociopathic, but others showed him having too much feeling—he couldn’t control his temper. The number one thing I found across all of them was his selfish ambition, which came from a profound lack of self-esteem as a child and young man,” Lehman says.
Benedict Arnold, seated at the table, as he hands papers to British officer John Andre during the American Revolutionary War. (Credit: Stock Montage/Getty Images)
Traditionally Arnold’s story has been taught with a good-versus-evil simplicity. More recently, Lehman points out, the tendency has been to portray Arnold as a misunderstood heroic figure.
“Both simplifications are a mistake in my view,” says Lehman. “He was certainly misunderstood, and he was a hero in the early years of the war. That should always be part of the story.
“But he also betrayed his close friends, was willing to allow the death of and actually kill former comrades, and earned the name ‘traitor’ from both friend and foe. If we leave that out, we simplify the story by omission. If we can’t hold those two ideas in our head at the same time, we are in good company. People like [Marquis de] Lafayette and [George] Washington couldn’t either.”
Even the British disparaged Arnold for his turncoat ways.
Lehman thinks it’s important to remember the whole story of Arnold—his betrayal wasn’t just treason. The British, who had much to gain from Arnold switching sides, found him dishonorable and untrustworthy.
“One thing that has been left out of so many tellings of Arnold’s story is that he didn’t stop after his West Point treason was discovered,” Lehman points out. “He went on to attack Virginia—almost capturing Thomas Jefferson—and then attacking Connecticut, his home state.
“Spying was one thing, but his willingness to switch sides in the middle of an armed conflict, and fight against the men who had a year earlier been fighting by his side, was something that people of that time and maybe ours could simply not understand.”
https://www.history.com/news/why-did-benedict-arnold-betray-america
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Jupiter Asian Income - a different way to invest in Asia
Kate Marshall | Wed 21 March 2018
2017 was a tough year for funds investing in Asia for income
Many investors favoured higher-growth companies that tend not to pay dividends
We are confident in Jason Pidcock's ability to deliver long-term income and capital growth
Jupiter Asian Income combines exposure to the exciting growth potential of Asian markets with a regular income.
A focus on dividend-paying companies located in developed Asian economies, such as Australia and Singapore, differentiates the fund from many of its peers that focus on capital growth and are biased to emerging Asian markets, such as China and India.
We believe this fund could provide diversification to an income portfolio, or the Asian portion of a wider portfolio. It has the flexibility to invest in emerging markets though, which can increase risk.
We recently met Jason Pidcock for an update on the fund. The past year has been tougher for Asian income funds, but we're encouraged by the manager's longer-term experience and track record. We view him as a sensible investor and remain optimistic about the fund's potential for both income and capital growth. The fund features on the Wealth 150+ list of our favourite funds.
Performance and portfolio review
Most funds investing in Asia for income underperformed the broader Asian stock market over the past year. Investors favoured companies in higher-growth areas, such as technology, which tend to reinvest their earnings to finance new projects or enhance future growth potential. Funds such as Jupiter Asian Income tend to avoid these companies as they don't often pay high or regular dividends to shareholders.
The fund still delivered a positive return of 4.8%* over the past 12 months, but lagged the performance of the FTSE AW Asia Pacific ex Japan Index. Please remember this isn't a guide to how the fund will perform in future.
Feb 2013 -
Feb 2014 Feb 2014 -
Jupiter Asian Income N/A** N/A** N/A** 31.4% 4.8%
FTSE AW Asia Pacific ex Japan -10.5% 18.7% -11.8% 44.6% 13.4%
Past performance is not a guide to the future. Source: Lipper IM* to 28/02/2018.
**Full year performance data is unavailable.
A lack of exposure to banks and miners, which performed well, also held back returns. Companies in these sectors tend to lack the sustainability of earnings growth that Jason Pidcock seeks. He instead focuses on more cash-generative companies that he believes have greater growth prospects and are in better financial health.
A few other individual stocks also weighed on returns. For example, GT Capital Holdings, which invests in businesses related to areas such as banking, property and insurance, was weak. The manager reduced the size of this investment after the company cut its dividend in order to reinvest more of its earnings back into the business. Overall he invests in a relatively small number of companies, which means each one can have a significant impact on performance and can increase risk.
Over the longer term we expect Jason Pidcock to invest in some of the region's best performing companies. In the meantime, the fund provides investors with an attractive income. It currently yields 4.0%, although yields are variable and not guaranteed or an indicator of future income.
One of the main changes made to the fund since its launch in March 2016 is a reduction in its exposure to Australia from 35% to 26%. The manager believes Australia remains a great place to invest, especially as many companies pay attractive dividends. However, he thinks some companies have too much debt and prefers to focus on companies with lower debt and stronger cash flows.
Jason Pidcock remains optimistic about the longer-term potential for both growth and income from the Asia Pacific region. Company earnings growth has picked up and he expects this to continue over the coming year. This leaves companies in a strong position to pay dividends to shareholders, while it could also be supportive of share prices.
Periods of market volatility should not be ruled out though. The prospect of higher interest rates could put pressure on share prices, partly because the returns from cash start to look relatively more attractive. Higher interest rates could also increase the cost of borrowing and makes debt more expensive to pay back, which could put pressure on highly-indebted companies.
Jason Pidcock invests in companies he believes will remain stable even during tougher market conditions. His investment style means we think the fund is less likely to keep up with a rapidly rising market, as we have seen over the past year, but it should provide some resilience when markets are weaker. This could put the fund on a solid footing to achieve its aims over the long term.
Please note charges can be taken from capital, which can increase the yield but reduces the potential for capital growth.
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Comcast CFO Outlines DreamWorks Animation's Financial Upside Inside NBCU
11:56 AM PDT 5/23/2016 by Georg Szalai
Michael Cavanagh cites distributing the animation studio's films in-house after 2017 when a $75 million-a-year Fox deal ends, cuts to the $250 million selling, general and administrative costs and revenue opportunities.
NBCUniversal's ability to distribute films from DreamWorks Animation itself once DWA's distribution pact with Fox ends will be among the financial benefits of the $3.8 billion deal, Comcast CFO Michael Cavanagh said Monday at an investor conference.
Speaking at the 44th annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston, the exec said that based on "most analyst reports," DWA "should earn close to $200 million" in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization a year when releasing two movies plus producing TV shows. But integrating it into NBCUniversal can improve those financials, he said.
Outlining the sources of cost upside for DWA under NBCUniversal, Cavanagh mentioned the animation studio's current distribution deal with Fox, which runs through 2017, saying it costs about $75 million a year. "In about two years' time, we'll take that in and immediately add that to the core earnings power of the company," he said.
As "the other big cost driver," Cavanagh cited DWA's $250 million a year in selling, general and administrative expenses. "It really doesn't make sense to have a public company that makes only two movies a year, so we will be able to do quite a good job over a period of time to capture synergies there," he said, but didn't provide further specifics.
In terms of revenue opportunities, DWA adds to Universal a TV animation studio, Cavanagh highlighted. "So we will be able to take, subject to it making sense, our intellectual property, like Jurassic World or other properties, and, as DreamWorks has done, create kids animation for TV, largely distributed over SVOD and drive more value through that," he said.
Explaining how the deal will boost animated output, Cavanagh said Universal and DWA will each continue to make about two animated movies a year, with each releasing one new film and one sequel. He added: "The characteristics of an animated film, profit-wise and risk-wise, volatility[-wise], is much better for animation than Iive-action movies. So we have long wanted to tilt the business more in the direction of animated films at the margin."
Overall, Cavanagh called DWA a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" and said that NBCU is "very confident" that the long-term film unit financial trajectory was "going in the right direction." He reiterated past management guidance that after a record $1.2 billion in film unit operating cash flow in 2015, this year will have a "much smaller" slate, and "we expected this to be a down year relative to a record." In 2017, such big franchises as Fast & Furious and Fifty Shades will return though, followed in 2018 by Jurassic World, said Cavanagh.
Adding attractions to NBCU's theme parks based on DWA franchises are an additional opportunity, the Comcast CFO said. "Out over the horizon [of several years], to have internally children's intellectual property that is both in the library of DW as well as newly created ... is great for the parks business," he said.
Cavanagh on Monday also lauded Universal's management team of Jeff Shell, Donna Langley, Ron Meyer and Chris Meledandri for having done an “unbelievable job" and earning the right to do a major acquisition. He said about DWA that "this business has been on [the team's] wish list for a long period of time."
Georg Szalai
THRnews@thr.com georgszalai
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Isabella County car collision injures four
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. posted in car accidents on Thursday, June 20, 2019.
On the afternoon of June 13, 2019, in Nottawa Township west of Mount Pleasant, Michigan, a Dodge Charger ran a stop sign and collided with a GMC pickup. The accident took place at the intersection of Weidman and Meridian Roads and injured four people.
It appears that the Charger failed to yield to traffic that had the right of way. The occupants of the Charger were composed of two men, the 18-year-old driver and a 23-year-old passenger, and a 42-year-old woman. All three suffered life-threatening injuries with Isabella County police finding one unconscious upon arrival at the scene. The woman was treated at a local emergency room before being airlifted, while the other two were immediately airlifted.
Continue reading Isabella County car collision injures four...
Do you know how to avoid underriding a semitruck?
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. on Friday, June 14, 2019.
When a semitruck collides with a passenger vehicle, the occupants of the passenger vehicle are usually severely injured or killed. Semitrucks can cause significant damage in a collision because they weigh 20 to 30 times more than passenger vehicles weigh, and they have a greater ground clearance.
The greater ground clearance contributes to a particularly devastating type of crash called underriding. Underriding involves a passenger vehicle sliding or being pushed underneath a semitruck. This type of collision can occur on any side of the semitruck, but is often associated with a car sliding under the back end of the trailer.
Continue reading Do you know how to avoid underriding a semitruck?...
What parents can do to keep teen drivers safe in summer
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. posted in car accidents on Thursday, June 6, 2019.
Teen drivers, being inexperienced, can pose a danger to themselves and others on the roads of Michigan. This is especially true in the summer since teens tend to spend more time out when school is out. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety even said that the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day constitutes the "100 deadliest days" for teen drivers. Fatal car crashes involving teens go up an average of 15% during that time.
For this reason, AAA encourages parents to teach their teens about safe driving practices. First of all, teens should be able to check certain vehicle components, such as tire pressure. Under-inflated tires will increase the risk for a blowout. Before heading out, teens should plan their routes. Being lost raises the risk for inattentive driving.
Continue reading What parents can do to keep teen drivers safe in summer...
How to avoid drowsy driving
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. posted in car accidents on Wednesday, May 22, 2019.
Drowsy driving continues to be a major hazard in Michigan and across the U.S., according to a survey by AAA. In fact, the auto club found that nearly one-third of drivers admit that they've been so sleepy they had difficulty keeping their eyes open behind the wheel in the previous 30 days.
Part of the problem is that many drivers don't understand how dangerous drowsy driving is. A study by the National Sleep Foundation found that drivers who stay awake for 24 straight hours are as impaired as drivers who have a blood alcohol content level of .10, which is higher than the legal limit. Meanwhile, prescription sleep aids aren't helping. While most sleep medications advise that users get a minimum of seven or eight hours of sleep after taking them, a Consumer Reports survey found that one in five users drive within seven hours of consuming the drugs.
Continue reading How to avoid drowsy driving...
Improving truck safety with speed limiter use, other safety tech
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. posted in truck accidents on Thursday, May 9, 2019.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration says that in collisions between trucks and passenger vehicles, 72% of the fatalities are occupants of the latter. It is imperative, then, that trucking companies in Michigan and across the U.S. do all they can to prevent crashes. Unfortunately, truck crashes continue to rise in many states.
Florida is one example: in 2014, it saw 23,515 truck crashes, but that number was 32,513 in 2018. The Florida Department of Transportation states that the number one driver-related factor in these crashes was speeding.
Continue reading Improving truck safety with speed limiter use, other safety tech...
Tags: Truck Accidents
Survey examines distracted driving on U.S. roads
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. posted in car accidents on Tuesday, April 23, 2019.
Michigan residents might like to know about a distracted driving study regarding the use of mobile devices while driving. According to the researchers, who worked on behalf of Root Insurance, 47% of those surveyed reported that distracted driving was their biggest safety concern while on the road. However, many respondents also admitted to driving while distracted despite their reservations about the risks.
This is the second year Root Insurance conducted the study. The collected behavioral data indicated that drivers between the ages of 18-24-years-old used their cellphones an average of 20 times for every 100 miles driven. Incentivizing motorists to avoid distracted driving is one way to turn around this dangerous trend, according to Root Insurance.
Continue reading Survey examines distracted driving on U.S. roads...
Weather Channel faces lawsuit over fatal crash with storm chasers
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. posted in fatal accidents on Tuesday, April 9, 2019.
Michigan residents may know that the two stars of the Weather Channel's "Storm Wranglers" were killed in a car crash back in March 2017. In addition, another life was taken in that crash, that of a 25-year-old storm spotter employed by the National Weather Service. Now, the mother of the victim has filed a wrongful death suit against the Weather Channel. She is seeking $125 million in damages.
The show's two stars were speeding down a highway near the city of Spur, Texas, in pursuit of a tornado when they ran a stop sign and collided with the jeep driven by the 25-year-old. All three were killed on impact. The chase had been live streamed on the Weather Channel's Facebook page right up until the crash put an end to the broadcast.
Continue reading Weather Channel faces lawsuit over fatal crash with storm chasers...
Tags: Fatal Accidents
Fatal semi-truck accidents still rising
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. posted in fatal accidents on Wednesday, March 27, 2019.
In 2017, more than 4,000 people died in fatal large truck accidents on America's roadways. Truck occupants made up 17 percent of these fatalities, and car drivers and passengers made up 68 percent; pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists made up the rest. Unfortunately, these rates of fatalities are 28 percent higher than they were in 2009. Despite this problem in Michigan and other states, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has yet to implement changes that might improve safety on the road.
Highway safety advocates as well as representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board have urged the NHTSA to do something about the increase in fatal semi-truck accidents. Specifically, the have requested that some type of mitigation features be required in large trucks to prevent rear-end accidents. These types of incidents account for an alarming amount of fatalities.
Continue reading Fatal semi-truck accidents still rising...
Michigan truck accident kills 1 and injures 4
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. posted in truck accidents on Thursday, March 14, 2019.
The Michigan State Police have reported that a tractor-trailer accident on the westbound lanes of Interstate 94 in Macomb County on the afternoon of March 6 claimed the life of a 55-year-old woman and left four other road users injured. The Detroit resident was killed when a large truck struck the rear of her Ford Taurus sedan. Emergency services workers pronounced her dead at the scene.
Police at the accident scene near the 10 Mile Road exit say that the truck driver may have failed to reduce his speed sufficiently when the traffic around him began to slow down at about 1:30 p.m. After striking the Ford Taurus, the tractor-trailer toppled onto its side and came to a rest on top of a Chrysler sedan and Chevrolet SUV. First responders say that they were surprised and pleased to discover that the 19-year-old woman behind the wheel of the Chrysler suffered only minor injuries. Photographs taken at the scene reveal that her car was crushed almost beyond recognition. The drivers of the tractor trailer and Cadillac also suffered minor injuries in the crash.
Continue reading Michigan truck accident kills 1 and injures 4...
Substance abuse in the trucking industry
On behalf of Holmes & Wiseley, P.C. on Wednesday, March 13, 2019.
The semi-trucks that carry the freight we need to live our daily lives are huge, massively powerful machines. Even a minor accident with a commercial truck can easily result in serious injury, a totaled vehicle and much worse. It is an unfortunate reality that alcohol and substance abuse by the trucks’ drivers is increasingly the cause of these accidents.
This is evidenced in a report released by USA Mobile Drug Test (USAMDT). In their recent statistical breakdown of substance abuse in the trucking industry, half of the drivers interviewed admitted to drinking and driving. A shocking 30 percent confessed to using amphetamines while on the road.
Continue reading Substance abuse in the trucking industry...
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Normal First UMC celebrates 150 years of ministry
By William M. Hammitt
Normal First UMC
NORMAL -- The motto of Normal First UMC for many years was “Serving Christ: Community and Campus.” The church’s history has demonstrated that the words, “and Beyond” could have been added as individuals have gone on from here to serve Jesus Christ all over the world.
Members and guests will celebrate that 150 years of history in September as we take a look at total span of history and how visions and dreams were planted for others to harvest.
The intertwining of campus and community was very apparent from the earliest days. The City of Bloomington was chartered by the Illinois General Assembly in 1850. In May 1853, the Illinois Central Railroad ran its north-south line from Galena to Cairo straight through the community.
In October 1853, the Chicago and Mississippi Railroad built its diagonal line from Chicago to Alton crossing the Illinois Central 2 ½ miles north of Bloomington in what is now called “uptown” Normal. This was the drawing card for what later became Normal.
Illinois State Normal University was established by legislation signed by Gov. William H. Bissell on Feb. 18, 1957. With the help of Jesse Fell and his friend Abraham Lincoln, the University was located on a high point in North Bloomington or “The Junction.” The population of North Bloomington was 847 in the 1860 census.
Once the Old Main Building was completed in 1860, an interdenominational service was held on the top floor of Normal Hall on Sunday afternoons. The Protestant ministers in Bloomington took turns conducting these services. Also during this time various denominations of Normal residents held prayer meetings or classes in the various homes of their members or in individual classrooms in Old Main. In Spring 1865, the Congregational Class voted to organize as a Congregational Church. They continued to meet in Old Main.
Illinois State’s second president, Dr. Richard Edwards, became concerned that there was no church building developing in the new town. He felt strongly that the spiritual needsof the students were as important as their educational needs. Being a Presbyterian, Edwards realized that there were more residents with Methodist leanings than there were of his own church, so he approached them voicing his concern that there was no church building in town. On Sept. 5, 1865, Rev. J.W. Van Pelt, Rev. C. D. James, Dr. T. M. Taylor, Andrew Mason, M. Rallins and Robert Fell, brother of Jesse Fell, met at the Mason’s home at 309 North St. (the east end of the parking lot closest to Watterson Food Service today) and voted to organize a church with 23 members.
Dr. Edwards attended the Illinois Annual Conference of The Methodist Episcopal Church on Sept. 20 and made a personal appeal, noting “the village is increasing in population with astonishing rapidity. Its present population is more than five times what it was three years ago. And the prospect is that the future rate of increase will be still greater.”
The Annual Conference gave its warm approval and support for the construction of a Methodist Church in Normal. Normal and Twin Grove were made into a circuit with the Rev. C.D. James appointed as the first pastor. James’ son, Edward J. James, was president of Northwestern University and later of the University of Illinois.
A building committee was formed. A lot at Ash Street and Fell Avenue was donated to the church by philanthropist Daniel Sill. Construction was far enough along for worship to be held in the basement of the unfinished church by September 1866. The completed church was dedicated June 7, 1867.
Early sacrifices
A writer of the early history of the church says, “More than one Methodist family ate poor fare and wore scant clothing that money might be given to the church. The woman planned and labored and sacrificed that the building might be erected. The Trustees, after giving all they could, borrowed large sums for which they did not hesitate to give their personal notes. God’s house was dearer than their own and God’s house grew apace, until when Conference met in Bloomington in September 1866, the new church was rapidly approaching completion.”
In 1880, the church was struggling to pay off the original debt to build the church building and parsonage. Rev. R.D. Russell was appointed to Normal First in September 1880. The debt was represented by two notes – one for $800 and the other for $1,300. Rev. Russell proposed to the Official Board that if they would raise the $1,300 locally, he would raise the $800 from outside the area. The Board felt Russell would be jeopardizing his own personal funds, but he insisted and the Board gave its approval. On March 15, 1881, the two notes were paid off the church was debt-free.
By 1895, the church was extensively remodeled and enlarged. The baptistery was removed from the sanctuary and placed in the basement. Water in the baptistery was heated by hot irons put in the water. Early records indicate that 20 percent of the baptisms were by immersion. By 1938, the baptistery was completely removed from the church.
Lightning hit the spire of the southeast steeple in 1908. The first was quickly put out but the spires were torn off both of the towers.
In the early 1920, the Official Board, in an attempt to improve giving, authorized the publishing of how much each member pledged and how much they paid. It was not only revealing, but its popularity was probably indicated by the fact there is no record that indicates it was ever done again.
In September 1933, the Official Board thanked the janitor, the music staff and Dr. Arthur Cates, the pastor, each for donating one month’s salary to the church. At the same time they ordered the phone removed from the church.
During Dr. Cates’ pastorate, he arranged with Rev. Vance of the Presbyterian church for a period of union services in the summer to allow each pastor time for a vacation. In the 1960’s this was enlarged to include all four downtown churchs: Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and Christian. These union services continued until the late 20th century.
Growth and expansion
Space became an issue and in September 1951, at the request of pastor Dr. Gordon B. white, the Official Board approved two Sunday worship services – at 8:45 and 10:45 a.m. – the first local Protestant church to take such action.
Ground was broken for a new church July 1, 1956. The cornerstone was laid April 7, 1957. A leave taking service was held during the 10:45 a.m. service on Dec. 22, 1957, moving from the old church to the present location.
Shortly after moving the church to its new location, the attendance increased to the point of needing three worship services – 8:15, 9:30 and 10:45 a.m. Soon, capacity saw the church experiment with a fourth worship service at noon, but was later abandoned due to low attendance. Beginning on April 24, 1965, the 10:45 a.m. service was moved to 11 a.m. and began broadcasting over the local radio station. Between 1957 and 1985, membership grew from 1,692 to 2,361; average attendance grew from 512 to 901 and Sunday School grew from 307 to 512.
A Saturday worship service began in December 1991 and continues today. Additional staff was added to accommodate the growth with an associate pastor’s position being inaugurated in 1965.
Three additional building fund drives have made additional changes in recent years.
Wesley Foundation
One of the strongest partnerships has been the serving of the campus community and its students. In 1920, the first funds were allocated for student work, namely the Wesley Foundation. The University of Illinois established the first Wesley Foundation in 1913.
Although it would be 1943 before a full-time director would be hired, the ministry shared space and facilities with the church on Fell Avenue. When a new site was discussed, a priority was given that the Foundation could have an area of its own.
The final plans for the School Street facility included an office, lounge, recreation area, dining room, full kitchen and restrooms on the lower level for the Wesley Foundation. The Central Illinois Conference provided $100,000 toward the construction of the church building to house the Wesley Foundation, with other areas of the church available on a reservation basis.
From 1986 to 2006, at least 30 young people from the ISU Wesley Foundation answered the call to ministry by attending seminary following graduation from ISU. From 2006 to 2014, another eight have followed.
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'The time is now' - Final plea for £100k Suffolk pub saviour share scheme
Andrew Hirst
People in Wickham Market gathered to launch the share scheme to save The George pub Picture: JULIAN EVANS
The team campaigning to save a fire-damaged Suffolk village pub has made an impassioned plea for financial backers to help it reach the finishing line.
The George, Wickham Market which was destroyed by fire in 2013 Picture: THE GEORGE COMMUNITY PUB PROJECT
Supporters of The George Community Pub project have already raised around £65,000 to buy the derelict inn after a much publicised share scheme launch in Wickham Market last month.
Villagers want to buy the pub, which was devastated by a major fire more than five years ago, and reopen it under community ownership.
Project leaders say they have been impressed by the response to the campaign so far – but need a “final push” to reach the £100,000 minimum target before the deadline of Tuesday, June 26.
Committee member Bill Wolff Evans said the target was “frustratingly close” and it would be a huge shame if it failed at the final hurdle.
The George pictured in 2006 Picture: GEORGE HERING
“We’re two thirds of the way and with one final push we can do it,” he added.
“Many people have already bought shares and for that we’re very grateful.
“However we also know that many other supporters are planning to invest but haven’t got around to it.
“The time is now - please don’t leave it until it’s too late.”
More than 200 people attended the launch of the scheme on Saturday, May 12, when villagers gathered in the village’s market square for a photo shoot as a show of support for the project.
MORE: Hundreds turn out in show of support for Suffolk pub’s £1.6m restoration project
It is hoped the shares can raise £300,000 towards the estimated £1.6million cost of restoring the historic building – but the minimum amount to qualify for the scheme, which provides match funding, is £100,000.
Mr Wolff Evans said the committee was particularly keen to hear from potential “super-backers” – businesses or individuals prepared to make a significant investment to reach the target.
Once the financial goal has been achieved, the team will buy the team and move on to the next stage of the project using additional grant funding.
The committee has met with other community run pubs, including The Sorrel Horse in Shottisham, the Case is Altered in Bentley and the Duke of Marlborough in Somersham, and believes Wickham Market can follow in their footsteps.
Visit The George to find out more about the scheme and how to buy shares.
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LR App 1
LR App 1.1.1 23/10/2015 RP
1 Note: The following definitions relevant to the listing rules are extracted from the Glossary.
The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
admission or admission to listing
admission of securities to the official list .
admission to trading
admission of securities to trading on an RIE's market for listedsecurities.
(as defined in the PD Regulation) announcements:
relating to a specific offer to the public of securities or to an admission to trading on a regulated market; and
aiming to specifically promote the potential subscription or acquisition of securities.
an issuer which is applying for admission of securities.
asset backed security
(as defined in the PD Regulation) securities which:
represent an interest in assets, including any rights intended to assure servicing, or the receipt or timeliness of receipts by holders of assets of amounts payable there under; or
are secured by assets and the terms of which provide for payments which relate to payments or reasonable projections of payments calculated by reference to identified or identifiable assets.
(A)36 in relation to a director, substantial shareholder, or person exercising significant influence, who is an individual:
that individual's spouse , civil partner 2or child (together "the individual's family");
the trustees (acting as such) of any trust of which the individual or any of the individual's family is a beneficiary or discretionary object (other than a trust which is either an occupational pension scheme or an employees' share scheme which does not, in either case, have the effect of conferring benefits on persons all or most of whom are related parties;
any company in whose equity securities the individual or any member or members (taken together) of the individual's family or the individual and any such member or members (taken together) are directly or indirectly interested (or have a conditional or contingent entitlement to become interested) so that they are (or would on the fulfilment of the condition or the occurrence of the contingency be) able:
(a) to exercise or control the exercise of 30% or more of the votes able to be cast at general meetings on all, or substantially all, matters; or
(b) to appoint or remove directors33 holding a majority of voting rights at board meetings on all, or substantially all, matters;29
any partnership whether a limited partnership or limited liability partnership in which the individual or any member or members (taken together) of the individual’s family are directly or indirectly interested (or have a conditional or contingent entitlement to become interested) so that they hold or control or would on the fulfilment of the condition or the occurrence of the contingency be able to hold or control:
(a) a voting interest greater than 30% in the partnership; or
(b) at least 30% of the partnership.
For the purpose of paragraph (3), if more than one director of the listedcompany, its parent undertaking or any of its subsidiary undertakings is interested in the equity securities of another company, then the interests of those directors and their associates will be aggregated when determining whether that company is an associate of the director.
(B)36
in relation to a substantial shareholder or person exercising significant influence, which is a company:
any other company which is its subsidiary undertaking or parent undertaking or fellow subsidiary undertaking of the parent undertaking;
any company whose directors are accustomed to act in accordance with the substantial shareholder's or person exercising significant influence's directions or instructions;6
any company in the capital of which the substantial shareholder or person exercising significant influence and any other companyunder paragraph (1) or (2) taken together, is (or would on the fulfilment of a condition or the occurrence of a contingency be) able to exercise power of the type described in paragraph (3)(a) or (b) above of this definition.6
36(C) when used in the context of a controlling shareholder who is an individual:
that individual's spouse, civil partner or child (together "the individual's family");
the trustees (acting as such) of any trust of which the individual or any of the individual's family is a beneficiary or discretionary object (other than a trust which is either an occupational pension scheme or an employees' share scheme which does not, in either case, have the effect of conferring benefits on persons all or most of whom are controlling shareholders);
(b) to appoint or remove directors holding a majority of voting rights at board meetings on all, or substantially all, matters;
any partnership whether a limited partnership or limited liability partnership in which the individual or any member or members (taken together) of the individual's family are directly or indirectly interested (or have a conditional or contingent entitlement to become interested) so that they hold or control or would on the fulfilment of the condition or the occurrence of the contingency be able to hold or control:
36For the purpose of paragraph (3), if more than one controlling shareholder of the listed company, its parent undertaking or any of its subsidiary undertakings is interested in the equity securities of another company, then the interests of those controlling shareholders and their associates will be aggregated when determining whether that company is an associate of the controlling shareholder.
36(D) when used in the context of a controlling shareholder which is a company:
any company whose directors are accustomed to act in accordance with the controlling shareholder's directions or instructions;
any company in the capital of which the controlling shareholder and any other company under paragraph (1) or (2) taken together, is (or would on the fulfilment of a condition or the occurrence of a contingency be) able to exercise power of the type described in paragraph (C)(3)(a) or (b) of this definition.
authorised person
(in accordance with section 31 of the Act (Authorised persons)) one of the following:
a person who has a Part 4A permission to carry on one or more regulated activities;
an incoming EEA firm;
an incoming Treaty firm;
a UCITS qualifier;
an ICVC;
the Society of Lloyd's.13
a firm with a Part 4A permission which includes accepting deposits, and:
(i) which is a credit institution; or
(ii) whosePart 4A permission includes a requirement that it comply with 4the rules in GENPRU and BIPRU relating to banks4;
but which is not a building society, a friendly society or a credit union;
an EEA bank which is a full credit institution.
a base prospectus referred to in PR 2.2.7 R29
29 body corporate
(in accordance with section 417(1) of the Act (Definitions)) any body corporate, including a body corporate constituted under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom.
book value of property
(in relation to a property company) the value of a property (which is not classified as a net current asset) before the deduction of mortgages or borrowings as shown in the company's latest annual report and accounts.
29 break fee arrangement
an arrangement falling within the description in LR 10.2.6A R.
(as defined in the PD Regulation) a list of additional information requirements, not included in one of the schedules, to be added to one or more schedules, as the case may be, depending on the type of instrument and/or transaction for which a prospectus or base prospectus is drawn up.
(in relation to anything done or to be done in (including to be submitted to a place in) any part of the United Kingdom), any day which is not a Saturday or Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday in that part of the United Kingdom;
(in relation to anything done or to be done by reference to a market outside the United Kingdom) any day on which that market is normally open for business.
Buy-back and Stabilisation Regulation
Commission Regulation (EC) of 22 December 2003 implementing the Market Abuse Directive as regards exemptions for buy-back programmes and stabilisation of financial instruments (No 2273/2003).
Consolidated Admissions and Reporting Directive.
certificate representing certain securities
the investment specified in article 80 of the Regulated Activities Order (Certificates representing certain securities), which is in summary: a certificate or other instrument which confers contractual or property rights (other than rights consisting of options):
in respect of any share, debenture, alternative debenture,19government and public security or warrant held by a person other than the person on whom the rights are conferred by the certificate or instrument; and
the transfer of which may be effected without requiring the consent of that person;
but excluding any certificate or other instrument which confers rights in respect of two or more investments issued by different persons or in respect of two or more different government and public securities issued by the same person.
certificate representing debt securities
a certificate representing certain securities where the certificate or other instrument confers rights in respect of debentures, alternative debentures,19 or government and public securities.
certificate representing equity securities
a certificate representing certain securities where the certificate or other instrument confers rights in respect of equity securities.
certificate representing shares
a certificate representing certain securities where the certificate or other instrument confers rights in respect of equity shares.30
(in relation to securitised derivatives) means any payment identified under the terms and conditions of the securitised derivatives.
Chinese wall
an arrangement that requires information held by a person in the course of carrying on one part of its business to be withheld from, or not to be used for, persons with or for whom it acts in the course of carrying on another part of its business.
any document issued to holders of listed securities including notices of meetings but excluding prospectuses, listing particulars, annual reports and accounts, interim reports, proxy cards and dividend or interest vouchers.
securities the rights attaching to which are or will be identical and which form a single issue or issues.
class 1 acquisition
a class 1 transaction that involves an acquisition by the relevant listed company or its subsidiary undertaking.
class 1 circular
a circular relating to a class 1 transaction or a transaction which must comply with the requirements of a class 1 transaction38.
class 1 disposal
a class 1 transaction that consists of a disposal by the relevant listed company or its subsidiary undertaking.
class 1 transaction
a transaction classified as a class 1 transaction under LR 10.
a transaction classified as a class 2 transaction under LR 10 .29
class tests
the tests set out in LR 10 Annex 1(and for certain specialist companies, those tests as modified or added to by LR 10.7), which are used to determine how a transaction is to be classified for the purposes of the listing rules.
closed-ended
(in relation to investment entities) an investment company which is not an open-ended investment company.
5 closed-ended investment fund
an entity:
which is an undertaking with limited liability, including a company, limited partnership, or limited liability partnership; and
whose primary object is investing and managing its assets (including pooled funds contributed by holders of its listed securities):
(i) in property of any description; and
(ii) with a view to spreading investment risk.
close period
as defined in paragraph 1(a) of the Model Code.
COBS 9
the Conduct of Business sourcebook, from 1 November 20079.
3 Combined Code
in relation to an issuerthe Combined Code on Corporate Governance published in June 2008 by the Financial Reporting Council.18
any body corporate.
competent authority
(in relation to the functions referred to in Part VI of the Act):
the authority designated under Schedule 8 to the Act (transfer of functions under Part VI (Official listing)) as responsible for performing those functions under the Act; for the time being the FCA in its capacity as such; or
an authority exercising functions corresponding to those functions under the laws of another EEA State.
connected client
in relation to a sponsor or securities house, any client of the sponsor or securities house who is:
a partner, director, employee or controller (as defined in section 422 of the Act) of the sponsor or securities house or of an undertaking described in paragraph (d);
the spouse , civil partner 2or child of any individual described in paragraph (a);
a person in his capacity as trustee of a private trust (other than a pension scheme or an employees' share scheme) the beneficiaries of which include any person described in paragraph (a) or (b); or
an undertaking which in relation to the sponsor or securities house is a group undertaking.
connected person
as defined in section 96B(2) of the Act.
Consolidated Admissions and Reporting Directive
Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the admission of securities to official stock exchange listing and on information to be published on those securities (No 2001/34/EC).
memorandum and articles of association or equivalent constitutional document.
contingent liability investment
a derivative under the terms of which the client will or may be liable to make further payments (other than charges, and whether or not secured by margin) when the transaction falls to be completed or upon the earlier closing out of his position.
contract of significance
a contract which represents in amount or value (or annual amount or value) a sum equal to 1% or more, calculated on a group basis where relevant, of:
in the case of a capital transaction or a transaction of which the principal purpose or effect is the granting of credit, the aggregate of the group's share capital and reserves; or
in other cases, the total annual purchases, sales, payments or receipts, as the case may be, of the group.
36 controlling shareholder
as defined in LR 6.1.2A R.
convertible securities
a security which is:
convertible into, or exchangeable for, other securities; or
accompanied by a warrant33 or option33 to subscribe for or purchase other securities.
a dealing transaction;
(in accordance with paragraph 2 of Schedule 2 to the Act (Regulated activities)) buying, selling, subscribing for or underwriting investments or offering or agreeing to do so, either as principal or as agent, including, in the case of an investment which is a contract of insurance, carrying out the contract.
debt security
debentures, alternative debentures,19 debenture stock, loan stock, bonds, certificates of deposit or any other instrument creating or acknowledging indebtedness.7
6 deferred bonus
any arrangement pursuant to the terms of which an employee or director may receive a bonus (including cash or any security) in respect of service and/or performance in a period not exceeding the length of the relevant financial year notwithstanding that the bonus may, subject only to the person remaining a director or employee of the group, be receivable by the person after the end of the period to which the award relates.
6 defined benefit scheme
in relation to a director, means a pension scheme which is not a money purchase scheme.
a person that issues certificates representing certain securities that have been admitted to listing33 or are the subject of an application for admission to listing.
7 DEPP
the Decision Procedure and Penalties manual
designated professional body
a professional body designated by the Treasury under section 326 of the Act (Designation of professional bodies) for the purposes of Part XX of the Act (Provision of Financial Services by Members of the Professions); as at 21 June 2001 the following professional bodies have been designated in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Designated Professional Bodies) Order 2001 (SI 2001/1226):
(a) The Law Society (England and Wales);
(b) The Law Society of Scotland;
(c) The Law Society of Northern Ireland;
(d) The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales;
(e) The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland;
(f) The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland;
(g) The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants;
(h) The Institute of Actuaries.
(in accordance with section 417(1)(a) of the Act) a person occupying in relation to it the position of a director (by whatever name called) and, in relation to an issuer which is not a body corporate, a person with corresponding powers and duties.
disclosure rules 16
(in accordance with sections 73A(1) and 1673A(3) of the Act) rules relating to the disclosure of information in respect of financial instruments which have been admitted to trading on a regulated market or for which a request for admission to trading on such a market has been made.
any piece of recorded information, including (in accordance with section 417(1) of the Act (Interpretation)) information recorded in any form; in relation to information recorded otherwise than in legible form, references to its production include references to producing a copy of the information in legible form.
document viewing facility
a location identified on the FCA website where the public can inspect documents referred to in the listing rules as being documents to be made available at the document viewing facility.
the Disclosure Rules and Transparency Rules39 sourcebook containing the disclosure rules, transparency rules,39corporate governance rules and the rules relating to primary information providers.1639
39 E-Commerce Directive
the Council Directive of 8 June 2002 on legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (No 2000/31/EC).
EEA State
(in accordance with paragraph 8 of Schedule 3 to the Act (EEA Passport Rights)) a State which is a contracting party to the agreement on the European Economic Area signed at Oporto on 2 May 1992, as it has effect for the time being; as at 1 May 2004, the following are the EEA States: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
7 EG
the Enforcement Guide
an individual:
who is employed or appointed by a person in connection with that person's business, whether under a contract of service or for services or otherwise; or
whose services, under an arrangement between that person and a third party, are placed at the disposal and under the control of that person;
but excluding an appointed representative or, where applicable, a tied agent9 of that person.
employees' share scheme
has the same meaning as in section 116615 of the Companies Act 200615.7
equity security
equity shares and securities convertible into equity shares.
equity share 20
shares comprised in a company's equity share capital.
(for a company), its issued share capital excluding any part of that capital which, neither as respects dividends nor as respects capital, carries any right to participate beyond a specified amount in a distribution.
6 equivalent document
a document containing information equivalent to a prospectus for the purposes of PR 1.2.2R (2) or (3) or PR 1.2.3R (3) or (4).38
38ESMA
European Securities and Markets Authority.
ESMA Prospectus Recommendations 40
the ESMA update of the CESR recommendations: The consistent implementation of Commission Regulation (EC) No 809/2004 implementing the Prospectus Directive (ESMA/2013/319).40
exercise notice
(in relation to securitised derivatives), a document that notifies the issuer of a holder's intention to exercise its rights under the securitised derivative.
exercise price
(in relation to securitised derivatives), the price stipulated by the issuer at which the holder can buy or sell the underlying instrument from or to the issuer.
exercise time
(in relation to securitised derivatives), the time stipulated by the issuer by which the holder must exercise their rights.
(in relation to securitised derivatives), the date stipulated by the issuer on which the holder's rights in respect of the securitised derivative ends.
27 external management company
has the meaning in PR 5.5.3A R (i.e., in relation to an issuer that is a company which is not a collective investment undertaking, a person who is appointed by the issuer (whether under a contract of service, a contract for services or any other commercial arrangement) to perform functions that would ordinarily be performed by officers of the issuer and to make recommendations in relation to strategic matters).
(in relation to mineral companies), includes mining, quarrying or similar activities and the reworking of mine tailings or waste dumps.
the Financial Conduct Authority.
the document containing the final terms of each issue which is intended to be listed.
financial information table
financial information presented in a tabular form that covers the reporting period set out in LR 13.5.13 R in relation to the entities set out in LR 13.5.14 R, and to the extent relevant LR 13.5.17A R30.
except in LR 6.1.4A G, 36LR 6.1.19 R ,LR 6.1.20B G, 36LR 8.7.8R (10),LR 14.2.2 R, LR 14.2.3A G, LR 18.2.8 R and LR 18.2.9A G36, 6an issuer and its subsidiary undertakings (if any); and
in LR 6.1.4A G, 36LR 6.1.19 R, ,LR 6.1.20B G, 36LR 8.7.8R (10), 6LR 14.2.2 R, LR 14.2.3A G, LR 18.2.8 R and LR 18.2.9A G36as defined in section 421 of the Act.
(in relation to securitised derivatives), either:
a guarantee given in accordance with LR 19.2.2 R (3)(if any); or
any other guarantee of the issue of securitised derivatives.
guidance given by the FCA under the Act.
the FCA's Handbook of rules and guidance.28
28 holding company
(as defined in section 1159(1) of the Companies Act 2006 (Meaning of "subsidiary" etc) (in relation to another body corporate ("S")) a body corporate which:
holds a majority of the voting rights in S; or
is a member of S and has the right to appoint or remove a majority of its board of directors; or
is a member of S and controls alone, under an agreement with other shareholders and members, a majority of the voting rights in S.
Home Member State or Home State
(as defined in section 102C of the Act) in relation to an issuer of transferable securities, the EEA State which is the "home Member State" for the purposes of the prospectus directive (which is to be determined in accordance with Article 2.1(m) of that directive.
Host Member State or Host State
(as defined in Article 2.1(n) of the prospectus directive) the State where an offer to the public is made or admission to trading is sought, when different from the home Member State.
International Accounting Standards.39
36 independent director
a director whom a new applicant or listed company has determined to be independent under the UK Corporate Governance Code.
36 independent shareholder
any person entitled to vote on the election of directors of a listed company that is not a controlling shareholder of the listed company.
39 information society service
an information society service, as defined by article 2(a) of the E-Commerce Directive and article 1(2) of the Technical Standards and Regulations Directive (98/34/EC), which is in summary any service normally provided for remuneration, at a distance, by means of electronic equipment for the processing (including the digital compression) and storage of data at the individual request of a service recipient.
inside information
as defined in section 118C of the Act.
insider list
a list of persons with access to inside information as required by DTR 2.8.1 R.
intermediaries offer
a marketing of securities already or not yet in issue, by means of an offer by, or on behalf of, the issuer to intermediaries for them to allocate to their own clients.
international accounting standards within the meaning of EC Regulation No 1606/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 July 2002 as adopted from time to time by the European Commission in accordance with that Regulation.
(in relation to securitised derivatives):
where the holder has the right to buy the underlying instrument or instruments from the issuer, when the settlement price is greater than the exercise price; or
where the holder has the right to sell the underlying instrument or instruments to the issuer, when the exercise price is greater than the settlement price.5
10 investment entity
an entity whose primary object is investing and managing its assets with a view to spreading or otherwise managing investment risk.
a person who, on behalf of a client, manages investments and is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the client.5
investment trust
a company which:
is approved by the Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs33 under sections 1158 and 1159 of the Corporation Tax Act 201040 (or, in the case of a newly formed company, has declared its intention to conduct its affairs so as to obtain such approval); or
is resident in an EEA State other than the United Kingdom and would qualify for such approval if resident in the United Kingdom.
any company or other legal person or undertaking (including a public sector issuer), any class of whose securities has been admitted to listing33 or is the subject of an application for admission to listing33.
29 limited liability partnership
(a) a body corporate incorporated under the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000;
(b) a body corporate incorporated under legislation having the equivalent effect to the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000.
the list of sponsors maintained by theFCA in accordance with section 88(3)(a) of the Act.
admitted to the official list maintained by the FCA in accordance with section 74 of the Act.
a company that has any class of its securitieslisted.
listing particulars
(in accordance with section 79(2) of the Act), a document in such form and containing such information as may be specified in listing rules.
listing rules
(in accordance with sections 73A(1) and 1673A(2) of the Act) rules16relating to admission to the official list.
London Stock Exchange Plc.
long-term incentive scheme
any arrangement (other than a retirement benefit plan, a deferred bonus or any other arrangement that is an element of an executive director's remuneration package) which may involve the receipt of any asset (including cash or any security) by a director or employee of the group:
which includes one or more conditions in respect of service and/or performance to be satisfied over more than one financial year; and
pursuant to which the group may incur (other than in relation to the establishment and administration of the arrangement) either cost or a liability, whether actual or contingent.
the sourcebook containing the listing rules.29
Market Abuse Directive.
major subsidiary undertaking
a subsidiary undertaking that represents 25% or more of the aggregate of the gross assets or profits (after deducting all charges except taxation) of the group.
Market Abuse Directive
Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2003 on insider dealing and market manipulation (market abuse) (No 2003/6/EC).
(in relation to a profession) a person who is entitled to practise that profession and, in practising it, is subject to the rules of the relevant designated professional body, whether or not he is a member of that body.
mineral company
a company or group, whose principal activity is, or is planned to be, the extraction of mineral resources (which may or may not include exploration for mineral resources).
mineral expert's report
a competent person's36 report prepared in accordance with paragraph 133 of36 the ESMA Prospectus Recommendations.40
include metallic and non-metallic ores, mineral concentrates, industrial minerals, construction aggregates, mineral oils, natural gases, hydrocarbons and solid fuels including coal.
miscellaneous securities 20
securities which are not:
shares; or
debt securities; or
asset backed securities; or
certificates representing debt securities; or
convertible securities which convert to debt securities; or
convertible securities which convert to equity securities; or
convertible securities which are exchangeable for securities of another company; or
certificates representing certain securities; or
securitised derivatives.
the Model Code on directors' dealings in securities set out in LR 9 Annex 1.
30 modified report
an accountant's or 30auditor's report:
in which the opinion is modified; or30
which contains an emphasis-of-matter paragraph.30
6 money purchase scheme
in relation to a director, means a pension scheme under which all of the benefits that may become payable to or in respect of the director are money purchase benefits.
net annual rent
(in relation to a property) the current income or income estimated by the valuer:
ignoring any special receipts or deductions arising from the property;
excluding Value Added Tax and before taxation (including tax on profits and any allowances for interest on capital or loans); and
after making deductions for superior rents (but not for amortisation) and any disbursements including, if appropriate, expenses of managing the property and allowances to maintain it in a condition to command its rent.
new applicant
an applicant that does not have any class of its securities already listed.
non-EEA State
a country or state that is not an EEA State.
OECD state guaranteed issuer
an issuer of debt securities whose obligations in relation to those securities33 have been guaranteed by a member state of the OECD.
an offer of transferable securities to the public.
an invitation to the public by, or on behalf of, a third party to purchase securities of the issuer already in issue or allotted (and may be in the form of an invitation to tender at or above a stated minimum price).
offer for subscription
an invitation to the public by, or on behalf of, an issuer to subscribe for securities of the issuer not yet in issue or allotted (and may be in the form of an invitation to tender at or above a stated minimum price).
offer of transferable securities to the public
(as defined in section 102B of the Act), in summary:
a communication to any person which presents sufficient information on:
(i) the transferable securities to be offered, and
(ii) the terms on which they are offered,
to enable an investor to decide to buy or subscribe for the securities in question;
which is made in any form or by any means;
including the placing of securities through a financial intermediary;
but not including a communication in connection with trading on:
(i) a regulated market;
(ii) a multilateral trading facility; or
(iii) any market prescribed by an order under section 130A of the Act.
Note: This is only a summary, to see the full text of the definition, readers should consult section 102B of the Act.
offeror
in LR 5.2.10 R to LR 5.2.11D R36, an offeror as defined in the Takeover Code; and
elsewhere in LR, a person36who makes an offer of transferable securities to the public.
official list
the list maintained by the FCA in accordance with section 74(1) of the Act for the purposes of Part VI of the Act.
open-ended investment company 33
as defined in section 236 of the Act (Open-ended investment companies).
open offer
an invitation to existing securities holders to subscribe or purchase securities in proportion to their holdings, which is not made by means of a renounceable letter (or other negotiable document).31
31 operational objectives
as defined in section 1B(3) of the Act.
the investment, specified in article 83 of the Regulated Activities Order (Options), which is an option to acquire or dispose of:
(a) a designated investment (other than a P2P agreement,37 an option); or
(b) currency of the United Kingdom or of any other country or territory; or
(c) palladium, platinum, gold or silver; or
(d) an option to acquire or dispose of an option specified in (a), (b) or (c).
outside the United Kingdom.
overseas company
a company incorporated outside the United Kingdom.
overseas investment exchange
an investment exchange which has neither its head office nor its registered office in the United Kingdom.
parent undertaking
as defined in section 116215 of the Companies Act 200615.
Part 6 rules
(in accordance with section 73A(1) of the Act) rules made for the purposes of Part 6 of the Act.
prospectus directive.
PD Regulation
Regulation number 809/2004 of the European Commission
percentage ratio
(in relation to a transaction) the figure, expressed as a percentage, that results from applying a calculation under a class test22 to the transaction.
(in accordance with the Interpretation Act 1978) any person, including a body of persons corporate or unincorporate (that is, a natural person, a legal person and, for example, a partnership).
person discharging managerial responsibilities
person exercising significant influence
in relation to a listed company, a person or entity which exercises significant influence over that listed company.
a marketing of securities already in issue but not listed or not yet in issue, to specified persons or clients of the sponsor or any securities house assisting in the placing, which does not involve an offer to the public or to existing holders of the issuer'ssecurities generally.
the sourcebook containing the Prospectus Rules.
a share conferring preference as to income or return of capital which does not form part of the equity share capital of a company.
16 premium listing
in relation to equity shares20 (other those of a closed-ended investment fund or of an open-ended investment company), means a listing where the issuer is required to comply with those requirements in LR 6 (Additional requirements for premium listing (commercial company)) and the20 other requirements in the listing rules that are expressed to apply to such securities with a premium listing;
in relation to equity shares20 of a closed-ended investment fund, means a listing where the issuer is required to comply with the requirements in LR 15 (Closed-Ended Investment Funds: Premium listing) and other requirements in the listing rules that are expressed to apply to such securities with a premium listing;
in relation to equity shares20 of an open-ended investment company, means a listing where the issuer is required to comply with LR 16 (Open-ended investment companies: Premium listing) and other requirements in the listing rules that are expressed to apply to such securities with a premium listing.
premium listing (commercial company)
a premium listing of equity shares21 (other than those of a closed-ended investment fund or of an open-ended investment company).
premium listing (investment company)
a premium listing of equity shares21 of a closed-ended investment fund or of an open-ended investment company.39
39 primary information provider
a person approved by the FCA under section 89P of the Act.
probable reserves
in respect of mineral companies primarily involved in the extraction of oil and gas resources, those reserves which are not yet proven but which, on the available evidence and taking into account technical and economic factors, have a better than 50% chance of being produced; and
in respect of mineral companies other than those primarily involved in the extraction of oil and gas resources, those measured and/or indicated mineral resources, which are not yet proven but of which detailed technical and economic studies have demonstrated that extraction can be justified at the time of the determination and under specified economic conditions.
profit estimate
(as defined in the PD Regulation) a profit forecast for a financial period which has expired and for which results have not yet been published.
profit forecast
(as defined in the PD Regulation) a form of words which expressly states or by implication indicates a figure or a minimum or maximum figure for the likely level of profits or losses for the current financial period and/or financial periods subsequent to that period, or contains data from which a calculation of such a figure for future profits or losses may be made, even if no particular figure is mentioned and the word "profit" is not used.
prohibited period
as defined by paragraph 1(e) of33the Model Code.
freehold, heritable or leasehold property.
property company
a company primarily engaged in property33 activities including:
the holding of properties (directly or indirectly) for letting and retention as investments;
the development of properties for letting and retention as investments;
the purchase and development of properties for subsequent sale; or
the purchase of land for development properties for retention as investments.5
property valuation report
a property valuation report prepared by an independent expert in accordance with:6
for an issuer incorporated in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, the Appraisal and Valuation Standards (5th edition) issued by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors; or6
for an issuer incorporated in any other place, either the standards referred to in paragraph (1) of this definition or the International Valuation Standards (7th edition) issued by the International Valuation Standards Committee.6
a prospectus required under the prospectus directive.
prospectus directive
the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading (No 2003/71/EC).
prospectus rules
(as defined in section 73A(4) of the Act) rules expressed to relate to transferable securities.33
proven reserves
in respect of mineral companies primarily involved in the extraction of oil and gas resources, those reserves which, on the available evidence and taking into account technical and economic factors, have a better than 90% chance of being produced; and
in respect of mineral companies other than those primarily involved in the extraction of oil and gas resources, those measured mineral resources of which detailed technical and economic studies have demonstrated that extraction can be justified at the time of the determination, and under specified economic conditions.
public international body
the African Development bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, the Council of Europe Development Bank6, the European Atomic Energy Community, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Company for the Financing of Railroad Stock, the EU,17 the European Investment Bank, the Inter-American Development bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation, the International Monetary Fund, the Nordic Investment bank.
public sector issuer
states and their regional and local authorities, state monopolies, state finance organisations, public international bodies, statutory bodies and OECD state guaranteed issuers.
recognised scheme
a scheme recognised under:
section 264 of the Act (Schemes constituted in other EEA States); or
[deleted]35
section 272 of the Act (Individually recognised overseas schemes).
registration document
a registration document referred to in PR 2.2.2 R.
Regulated Activities Order
the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities)
Order 2001 (SI 2001/544).9
regulated market
a multilateral system operated and/or managed by a market operator, which brings together or facilitates the bringing together of multiple third-party buying and selling interests in financial instruments -33 in the system and in accordance with its non-discretionary rules -33in a way that results in a contract, in respect of the financial instruments admitted to trading under its rules and/or systems, and which is authorised and functions regularly and in accordance with the provisions of Title III of MiFID.9
[Note: article 4(1)(14) of MiFID]33
regulatory information service or RIS
(a) a primary information provider; or
(b) an incoming information society service that has its establishment in an EEA State other than the United Kingdom and that disseminates regulated information in accordance with the minimum standards set out in article 12 of the TD implementing Directive.41
(c) [deleted]41
related party
as defined in LR 11.1.4 R.
related party circular
a circular relating to a related party transaction.
related party transaction
retail securitised derivative
a securitised derivative which is not a specialist securitised derivative; in this definition, a "specialist securitised derivative" is a securitisedderivative which, in accordance with the listing rules, is required to be admitted to listing with a clear statement on any disclosure document that the issue is intended for a purchase by only investors who are particularly knowledgeable in investment matters.
reverse takeover
a transaction classified as a reverse takeover under LR 5.6.28
recognised investment exchange.
an offer to existing security holders to subscribe or purchase further securities in proportion to their holdings made by means of the issue of a renounceable letter (or other negotiable document) which may be traded (as “nil paid” rights) for a period before payment for the securities is due.
(in accordance with section 417(1) of the Act (Definitions)) a rule made by the FCA under the Act, including:
(a) a Principle; and
(b) an evidential provision.
schedule 33
(as defined in the PD Regulation) a list of minimum information requirements adapted to the particular nature of the different types of issuers and/or the different securities involved.
scientific research based company
a company primarily involved in the laboratory research and development of chemical or biological products or processes or any other similar innovative science based company.
securities note
a securities note referred to in PR 2.2.2 R.
securitised derivative
an option or contract for differences which, in either case, is listed under LR 19 (including such an option or contract for differences33 which is also a debenture).
(in accordance with section 102A of the Act) anything which has been, or may be admitted to the official list.
(in relation to securitised derivatives), the reference price or prices of the underlying instrument or instruments stipulated by the issuer for the purposes of calculating its obligations to the holder.
as in sub-paragraph (b) of the definition of director in section 417(1) of the Act.
(in accordance with section 540(1)15 of the Companies Act 200615) a share in the share capital of a company, and includes:
6 6 8 15 6 6 8 15
stock (except where a distinction between shares and stock is express or implied); and
preference shares.
specialist investor
an investor who is particularly knowledgeable in investment matters.
specialist securities
securities which, because of their nature, are normally bought and traded by a limited number of investors who are particularly knowledgeable in investment matters.
specialist securitised derivative
a securitised derivative which because of its nature is normally bought and traded by a limited number of investors who are particularly knowledgeable in investment matters.
specified investment
any of the following investments specified in Part III of the Regulated Activities Order (Specified Investments):
deposit (article 74);
electronic money (article 74A);
contract of insurance (article 75); for the purposes of the permission regime, this is sub-divided into:
(i) general insurance contract;
(ii) long-term insurance contract;
and then further sub-divided into classes of contract of insurance;
share (article 76);
debenture (article 77);19
(da)
alternative debenture (article 77A);19
government and public security (article 78);
warrant (article 79);
certificate representing certain securities (article 80);
unit (article 81);
stakeholder pension scheme (article 82);24
24(ia)
emissions auction product (article 82A);
option (article 83); for the purposes of the permission regime, this is sub-divided into:
(i) option (excluding a commodity option and an option on a commodity future);
(ii) commodity option and an option on a commodity future;
future (article 84); for the purposes of the permission regime, this is sub-divided into:
(i) future (excluding a commodity future and a rolling spot forex contract);
(ii) commodity future;
(iii) rolling spot forex contract;
contract for differences (article 85); for the purposes of the permission regime, this is sub-divided into:
(i) contract for differences (excluding a spread bet and a rolling spot forex contract);
(ii) spread bet;
underwriting capacity of a Lloyd's syndicate (article 86(1));
membership of a Lloyd's syndicate (article 86(2));
funeral plan contract (article 87);
(oa)
regulated mortgage contract (article 61(3);
(ob)
home reversion plan (article 63B(3));
(oc)
home purchase plan (article 63F(3));
regulated sale and rent back agreement (article 63J(3));
rights to or interests in investments (article 89).
a person approved, under section 88 of the Act by the FCA, as a sponsor.38
38sponsor declaration
a declaration submitted by a sponsor to the FCA as required under LR 8.4.3 R (Application for listing), LR 8.4.9 R (Further application for listing), LR 8.4.13 R (Production of circular) or LR 8.4.14 R (Transfer between listing category).
12 sponsor service
a service relating to a matter referred to in LR 8.2 that a sponsor provides or is requested or appointed to provide including32 preparatory work that a sponsor may undertake before a decision is taken as to whether or not it will act as sponsor for a listed32company or applicant33 or in relation to a particular transaction, and including all the sponsor's communications with the FCA33 in connection with the service32. But nothing in this definition is to be taken as requiring a sponsor when requested32 to agree to act as a sponsor for a company or in relation to a transaction.
in relation to securities, means a listing that is not a premium listing.
20 standard listing (shares)
a standard listing of shares other than preference shares that are specialist securities.
state finance organisation
a legal person other than a company:
which is a national of an EEA State;
which is set up by or pursuant to a special law;
whose activities are governed by that law and consist solely of raising funds under state control through the issue of debt securities;
which is financed by means of the resources they have raised and resources provided by the EEA State; and
the debt securities issued by it are considered by the law of the relevant EEA State as securities issued or guaranteed by that state.
state monopoly
a company or other legal person which is a national of an EEA State and which:
in carrying on its business benefits from a monopoly right granted by an EEA state; and
is set up by or pursuant to a special law or whose borrowings are unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by an EEA state or one of the federated states of an EEA state.
subsidiary undertaking
substantial shareholder
as defined in LR 11.1.4A R.256
(in relation to a prospectus) the summary included in the prospectus.
the Supervision manual.
supplementary listing particulars
(in accordance with section 81(1) of the Act), supplementary listing particulars containing details of the change or new matter.
supplementary prospectus
a supplementary prospectus containing details of a new factor, mistake or inaccuracy.
Takeover Code
the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers issued by the TakeoverPanel.
the subject of a class 1 transaction or reverse takeover28.
tender offer
an offer by a company to purchase all or some of a class of its listedequity securities at a maximum or fixed price (that may be established by means of a formula) that is:
communicated to all holders of that class by means of a circular or advertisement in two national newspapers;
open to all holders of that class on the same terms for at least 7 days; and
open for acceptance by all holders of that class pro rata to their existing holdings.25
25 trading day
a day included in the calendar of trading days published by the FCA at www.fca.org.uk.33
14 trading plan
a written plan between a restricted person and an independent third party which sets out a strategy for the acquisition and/or disposal of securities by a specified person and:
(a) specifies the amount of securities to be dealt in and the price at which and the date on which the securities are to be dealt in; or
(b) gives discretion to that independent third party to make trading decisions about the amount of securities to be dealt in and the price at which and the date on which the securities are to be dealt in; or
(c) includes a written formula or algorithm, or computer program, for determining the amount of securities to be dealt in and the price at which and the date on which the securities are to be dealt in.
transferable security
(as defined in section 102A of the Act) anything which is a transferable security for the purposes of MiFID9, other than money-market instruments for the purposes of that directive which have a maturity of less than 12 months.
26 transparency rules
in accordance with sections 73A(1) and 89A of the Act, rules relating to the notification and dissemination of information in respect of issuers of transferable securities and relating to major shareholdings.
shares which meet the conditions set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection 724(5) of the Companies Act 2006.15
a trust deed or equivalent document securing or constituting debt securities.
18 UK Corporate Governance Code
the UK Corporate Governance Code published in September 201442 by the Financial Reporting Council.
underlying instrument
(in relation to securitised derivatives) means either:
if the securitised derivative is an option or debt security with the characteristics of an option, any of the underlying investments listed in article 83 of the Regulated Activities Order; or
if the securitised derivative is a contract for differences or debt security with the characteristics of a contract for differences, any factor by reference to which a profit or loss under article 85 of the Regulated Activities Order can be calculated.
unrecognised scheme
a collective investment scheme which is neither a recognised scheme nor a scheme that is constituted as an authorised unit trust scheme or an authorised contractual scheme.34
vendor consideration placing
a marketing, by or on behalf of vendors, of securities that have been allotted as consideration for an acquisition.
venture capital trust
a company which is, or which is seeking to become, approved as a venture capital trust under section 842AA of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988.
the investment, specified in article 79 of the Regulated Activities Order (Instruments giving entitlements to investments), which is in summary: a warrant or other instrument entitling the holder to subscribe for a share, debenture, alternative debenture19 or government and public security.
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overseas firm
(1) (in relation to MAR 5 and MAR 5A86) a firm which has its registered office (or, if it has no registered office, its head office) outside the United Kingdom excluding an incoming EEA firm.30
(2) (in any other case) 30a firm which has its registered office (or, if it has no registered office, its head office) outside the United Kingdom.4
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INSIGHTS > New Articles > INSIGHTS REVISION TESTS 2018 > INSIGHTS REVISION TEST for Preliminary Exam 2018: Test – 66 (Geography)
INSIGHTS REVISION TEST for Preliminary Exam 2018: Test – 66 (Geography)
Category: INSIGHTS REVISION TESTS 2018 UPDATES UPSC 2018 UPSC IAS GS strategy
INSIGHTS REVISION TEST for Preliminary Exam 2018:
(Geography)
Detailed Revision Timetable
INSIGHTS IAS REVISION PLAN FOR PRELIMS 2018 - DAILY REVISION TESTS
Welcome to Insights IAS Revision Plan for UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Exam – 2018.
If you are wondering why these questions are posted, please refer to the detailed Timetable provided HERE.
These questions serve TWO purposes: One to test your revision skills; Second is to give you a glimpse into topics that you might have missed during revision.
If you score ow marks, please don’t feel bad. Revise more effectively and try to learn from mistakes. Wish you all the best.
Which of the following explains why one side of a mountain usually has more precipitation than the other side?
(a) Mountains force air to rise, and air cools and releases moisture as it rises
(b) The atmosphere gets denser as elevation increases
(c) Temperatures are higher on one side of a mountain than on the other
(d)The land on one side is more green and lush than the other
Answer: (a)
Justification:
Mountains also cause air to rise. As the wind blows across a mountain range, air rises and cools and clouds can form on the windward side. This is why windward sides of mountain ranges tend to get heavy precipitation.
When the air sinks on the leeward side of the mountain range, it is usually much drier and warmer than it was to begin with
Which of the following statements describes an anticyclone?
(a) It is an area of low pressure
(b) It is an area of high pressure
(c) It has air masses that meet and rise
(d) It moves in the direction of the Earth’s rotation
Answer: (b)
An anticyclone (that is, opposite to a cyclone) is a weather phenomenon defined by the United States National Weather Service’s glossary as “a large-scale circulation of winds around a central region of high atmospheric pressure, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere”. Effects of surface-based anticyclones include clearing skies as well as cooler, drier air.
“They are the largest and deepest intrusive features. They are often the magma chambers of volcanoes.” To which intrusive volcanic landform is the above statement referring?
(a) Batholith
(b) Lopolith
(c) Phacolith
(d) Laccolith
A batholith is a very large mass of intrusive igneous rock that forms and cools deep in the Earth’s crust. An igneous rock is a type of rock formed through the cooling of lava or magma. The term ‘batholith’ comes from the Greek words bathos, meaning ‘depth,’ and lithos, meaning ‘rock.’ In order for an intrusion to be called a batholith, the exposed area showing at the Earth’s surface should be at least 100 square kilometers, though some of these formations are much larger than that.
A batholith is a very large mass of intrusive igneous rock that forms and cools deep in the Earth’s crust. An igneous rock is a type of rock formed through the cooling of lava or magma. The term ‘batholith’ comes from the Greek words bathos, meaning ‘depth,’ and lithos, meaning ‘rock.’ In order for an intrusion to be called a batholith, the exposed area showing at the Earth’s surface should be at least 100 square kilometers, though ssome of these formations are much larger than that.
The type of soil called loam is made up of
(a) Purely humus
(b) Mostly clayey
(c) Nearly equal amount of sand, silt and clay
(d) Sand and gravel
Answer: (c)
Loam is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > 63 µm), silt (particle size > 2 µm), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < 2 µm). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand-silt-clay, respectively. These proportions can vary to a degree, however, and result in different types of loam soils: sandy loam, silty loam, clay loam, sandy clay loam, silty clay loam, and loam. Loam soils generally contain more nutrients, moisture, and humus than sandy soils, have better drainage and infiltration of water and air than silt and clay-rich soils, and are easier to till than clay soils.
The most prominent feature in the oceans, forming an almost continuous mountain range, is the
(a) Abyssal plain
(b) Deep ocean trench
(c) Seamount
(d) Mid-ocean ridge
Answer: (d)
A mid-ocean ridge or mid-oceanic ridge is an underwater mountain range, formed by plate tectonics.
This uplifting of the ocean floor occurs when convection currents rise in the mantle beneath the oceanic crust and create magma where two tectonic plates meet at a divergent boundary.
The mid-ocean ridges of the world are connected and form a single global mid-oceanic ridge system that is part of every ocean, making the mid-oceanic ridge system the longest mountain range in the world, with a total length of about 60,000 km.
The California Ocean current, which flows along the west coast of North America, is a
(a) Cold current, flowing south
(b) Cold current, flowing north
(c) Warm current, flowing north
(d) Warm current, flowing south
The California Current is a Pacific Ocean current that moves southward along the western coast of North America, beginning off southern British Columbia and ending off southern Baja California Peninsula. It is considered an Eastern boundary current due to the influence of the North American coastline on its course. It is also one of five major coastal currents affiliated with strong upwelling zones, the others being the Humboldt Current, the Canary Current, the Benguela Current, and the Somali Current. The California Current is part of the North Pacific Gyre, a large swirling current that occupies the northern basin of the Pacific.
‘Syntaxial Bend’ is a feature of which one of the following?
(a) Himalayas
(b) Aravallis
(c) Satpuras
(d) Vindhyas
The general east-west trend of the Himalayas terminates suddenly at its western and eastern extremities and the ranges are sharply bent southward in deep knee-bend flextures which are called syntaxial bends. Western syntaxial bend is near Nanga Parbat and eastern syntaxial bend is near Namcha Barwa
Which one of the following is the junction point of the Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats
(a) Javadi hills
(b) Anaimalai hills
(c) Nilgiri hills
(d) Shevaroy hills
The Nilgiri, far south in Tamil Nadu is the meeting place of the Western Ghats, the Eastern Ghats and the Southern hills, rising abruptly from the surrounding areas, it has the highest peak of Doddabeta ( 2,637 m ) and Udagammdulam (Ooty) hill station.
Bhabar belt is found in the
(a) Chota Nagpur plateau
(b) Himalayan Piedmont zone
(c) Western Ghats
(d) Coastal Orissa
The Bhabar belt is a narrow belt about 8-16 km wide running in east-west direction along the foot of the Shivaliks with a remarkable continuity from the Indus to the Teesta. Rivers descending from the Himalayas deposit their load along the foothills in the form of alluvial fans.
During winter, north-western part of India gets rainfall from
(a) Thunderstroms
(b) Retreating monsoon
(c) Tropical cyclones
(d) Western disturbances
A Western Disturbance is an extratropical storm originating in the Mediterranean region that brings sudden winter rain to the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent. It is a non-monsoonal precipitation pattern driven by the westerlies. The moisture in these storms usually originates over the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.Extratropical storms are a global phenomena with moisture usually carried in the upper atmosphere, unlike their tropical counterparts where the moisture is carried in the lower atmosphere.
Which one of the following pairs of lands is separated from each other by the ‘Ten Degree Channel’
(a) Andaman and Nicobar
(b) Nicobar and Sumatra
(c) Maldives and Lakshadweep
(d) Sumatra and Java
The Ten Degree Channel is a channel that separates the Andaman Islands and Nicobar Islands from each other in the Bay of Bengal. Ten degrees Channel which lies between Little Andaman Island and the Car Nicobar.
Which one of the following places is located at the confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi
(a) Vishnuprayag
(b) Devaprayag
(c) Rudrapravag
(d) Karnaprayag
Devaprayag – Confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi
Vishnuprayag – Confluence of Alaknanda and Dhauliganga
Rudraprayag – Confluence of Alaknanda and Mandakini
Karanprayag – Confluence of Alaknanda and Pindar
Consider the following
1 . Coal – Raniganj
2 . Diamond – Panna
Which of the following is/are correctly matched
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) None of the above
As per 2011 census which amongst of the following states has already achieved the replacement level of fertility
(a) Assam
(b) Andhra Pradesh
(c) Madhya Pradesh
(d) Jammu Kashmir
Replacement level fertility is the number of children a woman should have to replace herself and her mate for a stable population, and [it] has been fixed at 2.1 globally due to child mortality. A stable population is that where fertility and mortality are constant. The provisional Census 2011 figures suggest that two contrasting demographic “nations” are emerging in the country with all four south Indian States — Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu — already having achieved the replacement level fertility of 2.1 children per women required to initiate the process of population stabilisation, while the four large north Indian States — Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — have still a long way to go before they achieve the required level.
Consider the following statements
1.After Arunachal Pradesh, Assam is the Eastern most state in India
Tripura shares international boundary with Myanmar
Which of the following statements is/are correct
River Wainganga is a tributary of
(a) Krishna
(b) Narmada
(c) Godavari
(d) Kaveri
Great Nicobar , the southernmost island of Nicobar islands is nearest to which of the following country
(a) Myanmar
(b) Malaysia
(c) Thailand
(d) Indonesia
Silent valley National Park is located in
(a) Anaimalai hills
(b) Palani hills
(d) Cardamom hills
Which of the following lake is NOT part of Great Lakes region of North America
(a) Lake Superior
(b) Great Slave Lake
(c) Michigan Lake
(d) Lake Huron
Which of the following is the longest river of Asia
(a) Brahmaputra
(b) Indus
(c) Yangtze
(d) Mekong
Wish you all the best!.
IAS ias exams insights revision tests upsc
Next story QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz,26 May 2018
Previous story IMPORTANT: 100 MCQs on INDIA YEAR BOOK-2018 for UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Exam – 2018 by Insights Team
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Agreement on "Saint Pedro Poveda" Chair is renewed
LOS NEGRALES, MADRID. Spain.
The agreement on “Saint Pedro Poveda" Chair, established at the Pontifical University of Salamanca (UPSA) fifteen years ago, has been renewed.
In the morning of July 28, the renewal of the agreement on "Saint Pedro Poveda" Chair took place at Santa Maria de Los Negrales. Very early, the President of the Pontifical University, Fr. Ángel Galindo García, wanted to be present at the signing ceremony on the feast day of Poveda. The agreement, signed by the University President and the President of the Teresian Association, Ms. Maite Uribe Bilbao, extends activities associated with it for another five years. Other participants were Ms. Loreto Ballester and Ms. Elisa Estevez, institutional representative and member of General Council, respectively, who have the task of supporting the Chair.
Fifteen years working together, UPSA-TA
Saint Pedro Poveda Chair was established in 2000. Professors from the Theology Department of UPSA and the Teresian Association wanted to give visibility to the life and work of Pedro Poveda at UPSA, the Pontifical University the Spanish Episcopal Conference. The first agreement, signed by the then President, Ms. Arantxa Aguado Arrese, on July 28, 2000 is under the Dean of the Theology Department.
The aim of the Chair is to "promote the study of the person and the writings of the Poveda, other studies about him and his time, as well as research, teaching and dissemination of the two great themes that sustained his life and mission: the priestly ministry in the Church and dialogue between faith and contemporary culture."
The Chair Council to plan and implement activities is made up of faculty appointed by the Pontifical University and by the Teresian Association.
Activities in Salamanca and Madrid
In the 15 years of its existence, the Department has developed several programs for faculty and students of UPSA in Salamanca and Madrid, and has established partnerships with other universities and organizations. It counts on a collection of annual publications on various issues that are part of UPSA ‘sown collection.
The renewal of this agreement for a further period of five years is "a major challenge for UPSA and the Teresian Association to create new formative proposals,” said the President of the Teresian Association.
Info. IT
Published in Pedro Poveda UPSA
Copyright © 2019 Teresian Association.
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Nicki Minaj to voice character in 'Angry Birds 2'
Movies / 28 December 2018, 11:45am / Bang Showbiz
Nicki Minaj performs on stage during the MTV EMA's 2018 at Bilbao Exhibition Centre on Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018, in Bilbao, Spain. (Stuart C. Wilson, pool photo via AP)
Nicki Minaj is set to voice a character in 'The Angry Birds Movie 2', though her role is currently unknown.
The 36-year-old rapper made her acting debut six years ago with a voice role in the 2012 animation 'Ice Age: Continental Drift', and she's now set to take on another creature's voice, as she's landed a role in the upcoming sequel to the 2016 Sony animation 'The Angry Birds Movie'.
According to Variety, Nicki's role is currently unknown, but she'll join returning stars Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, and Peter Dinklage, as well as new voices from the likes of Leslie Jones, Rachel Bloom, Awkwafina, Sterling K. Brown, Eugenio Derbez, Lil Rel Howery, Dove Cameron, and Zach Woods.
'The Angry Birds Movie 2' is directed by Thurop Van Orman and co-directed by John Rice, and follows on from the first movie, which was based on the hit mobile video game franchise.
The movie is set for release on August 16 2019, which coincides with the 10th anniversary of the start of the franchise, which has seen its games downloaded a whopping 4 billion times.
The first movie grossed $350 million worldwide, including $107.5 million domestically, and was set on an island populated entirely by happy, flightless birds - with the exception of Red (voiced by Sudeikis), speedy Chuck (Gad), and Bomb (McBride).
In the games, players must use the birds to defeat structures built by pigs, and in the movies, Bill Hader voices Leonard, king of the pigs, whilst Peter Dinklage is the Mighty Eagle.
Previously, Nicki has also had roles in 'The Other Woman, and 'Barbershop: The Next Cut'.
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Apple’s Direct X: What is Metal and Why is it Important?
Matt Klein @howtogeek
September 16, 2015, 12:34pm EDT
You might have heard Apple mention Metal in recent keynote addresses, so we thought we might take a moment to explain what Metal is, and what it will do for graphics rendering on Apple computers.
RELATED: What is Direct X 12 and Why is it Important?
The best way to describe Metal is to compare it to Microsoft’s DirectX. Like DirectX, Metal is intended to provide games and applications, direct access to your Mac’s GPU, allowing improved rendering, frame rates, and other benefits.
Metal was actually introduced in iOS 8, but with the recent announcement that it will be rolled into OS X, 10.11, El Capitan, graphic performance on Macs, particularly with regard to gaming, is likely to improve by leaps and bounds.
Much like DirectX or more accurately, Direct3D, Metal is an application programming interface or API, which grants a programmer with low-level, low overhead access to hardware graphics acceleration.
Thus, Metal will extend gains across the board, not simply to games, but to general graphics performance as well. El Capitan users should experience a faster, smoother, more responsive system.
So Why is This Important?
If you don’t use Apple computers, then you probably don’t care about Metal. If you do use an Apple computer, then this is an important development.
The graphics processing units that Apple packs into its computers aren’t necessarily slouches, and because Metal has already been available on iOS for a year, Apple can rely on its considerable army of developers to create new, improved titles for its flagship operating system. Using the MetalKit framework, developers will be able to integrate Metal into “apps by providing essential APIs for controlling drawing and loading graphic assets.”
As we pointed out the most obvious benefit will be improvements to gaming. Metal will be able to take advantage of the full power of a Mac’s GPU, giving games and 3D applications more visual pop and speed.
In a demo shown off at WWDC 2015, Epic games revealed a first-person, free-to-play zombie shooter that will take advantage of its new Metal underpinnings. In it, the game Fortnite runs on the Unreal Engine 4, which has the Metal API integrated into it, meaning the game’s code can directly access the GPU.
Overall, Mac users should expect to see better, faster, more polished gaming titles in the future, with greater visual effects due to improved access to the GPU.
The benefits won’t stop there however, you should also see improvements to desktop apps from the likes of Adobe, which will now be able to produce titles built on Metal. Additionally, powerful 3D rendering app-makers like The Foundry and Autodesk, will be developing their titles to work on top of Metal as well.
The Path Forward is Bright Though a Bit Unclear
The hope with Metal then is simple. It’s not to revolutionize graphics performance on OS X but to simply bring it up to par with the likes of Windows.
Windows with its DirectX APIs basically has a 20-year head start, but if there’s one thing that Apple’s history teaches, it’s that they move quickly and the most valuable company in the world will have little problem throwing its considerable weight (and money) behind it and attracting big-name titles. It’s not a matter of if, but simply how soon.
That said, even with the promise of Metal-centric gaming titles, there’s always going to be that niche crowd of hardcore gamers who will want to pack their boxes with the most bleeding edge gaming hardware possible. A Mac will probably never appeal to them, but if popular gaming titles running equally well on OS X as on Windows actually do materialize, then that line between Windows and OS X gaming will become that much more faded.
Nevertheless, for now we can only speculate what the full ramifications will be. Until we have clear-cut comparisons with how Metal stacks up against the likes of DirectX, the only thing we can really say is for certain is that graphics performance will be vastly improved for a Mac, when compared to older Macs running previous OS X versions that don’t have Metal integrated into it.
Got a question of comment you want to weigh in with on the future of OS X gaming or the new Metal APIs? We welcome your feedback in our discussion forum.
Matt Klein
Matt Klein has nearly two decades of technical writing experience. He's covered Windows, Android, macOS, Microsoft Office, and everything in between. He's even written a book, The How-To Geek Guide to Windows 8.
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Home › Our programmes › Mortality Review Committees › Perinatal & Maternal Mortality Review Committee › About us › Terms of reference
Maternal morbidity and mortality information
Perinatal morbidity and mortality information
Information about deaths of babies and mothers in 2016
Information for Parents & Families
The Terms of Reference for the Committee can be viewed below or downloaded in either Word or pdf formats:
Terms of Reference (MS Word)
Terms of Reference (PDF)
1. The Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee (the Committee) is a Mortality Review Committee, appointed under section 59E of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 (the Act) by the Health Quality and Safety Commission (HQSC).
2. A Mortality Review Committee is a ‘statutory advisor ’ to the Commission. The role of such a committee is to independently perform its functions, within the scope set by the Commission. These terms of reference constitute notice under section 59E (1) of the Act.
3. The functions of Mortality Review Committees are set out in section 59E (1) (a) and (b) of the Act.
4. The Committee is required to work within their agreed work plans and budgets to:
4.a. review and report to the HQSC on deaths that are within the Committee’s scope, with a view to reducing deaths and to supporting continuous quality improvement through the promotion of on-going quality assurance programmes
4.b. advise on any other matter related to mortality that the HQSC specifies in writing
4.c. develop strategic plans and methodologies that are designed to reduce morbidity and mortality and are relevant to the Committee’s functions.
Applicable provisions
The provisions of Schedule 5 to the Act apply in relation to a Mortality Review Committee (s59E of the Act).
5. The Committee will be required to consider Perinatal and Maternal mortality on an ongoing basis, and other mortality and morbidity as directed by the Commission in writing, or as specified within the Committee’s agreed Work Plan.
6. For the purposes of the Terms of Reference of the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee:
6.a. perinatal is defined as the age range from 20 weeks gestation to 28 completed days after birth or weighing at least 400 grams (if gestation is unknown).
6.b. maternal deaths are defined as deaths directly related to pregnancy or childbirth, up to within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management.
Expected Activities
7. The Committee is expected to oversee mortality review to ensure that relevant, evidence-based advice is provided to the HQSC as quickly as practicable.
8. The Committee is expected to support the development and enhancement of systems to reduce mortality and morbidity by:
8.a. collecting data for national reporting
8.b. facilitating national and local review, as appropriate
8.c. facilitating quality improvement initiatives, for system and practice improvements to reduce morbidity and mortality within local communities and the health system
8.d. monitoring the number, categories and demographics of mortality and morbidity relevant to its functions, to identify patterns over time
8.e. analysing and using data collected to develop effective recommendations that are useful for policy development
8.f. ensuring the security of personal information referred to in clause 3 of Schedule 5 of the Act
8.g. providing the HQSC with advance notice of media statements, public comment or publications
9. The Committee is expected to support the development and enhancement of positive working relationships, with:
9.a. existing Mortality Review Committees and the HQSC, to ensure coordination and integration of functions and to minimise duplication, to improve efficiency and sustainability.
9.b. relevant government bodies
9.c. relevant stakeholder organisations.
10. In carrying out its functions the Committee is expected to ensure that:
10.a. appropriate consultation when developing methodologies to carry out its functions and disseminating its findings
10.b. any advice and recommendations comply with the laws of New Zealand
10.c. a plan for recommendation dissemination is made with the Commission (including publication), within agreed budgets.
11. The Committee is expected to submit a proposed three-year rolling Work Plan to the HQSC by December of each year, for the following three financial years.
11.a. If approved, budget will be assigned to the Work Plan. The Committee is required to achieve the Work Plan within the assigned budget.
12. The Committee is expected to submit an Annual Report to the HQSC, which will include:
12.a. a summary of the Committee’s work
12.b. the Committee’s advice and recommendations
12.c. the Committee’s rationale for its advice and any relevant evidence and/or documentation.
13. The Committee will have a maximum of 8 members.
13.a. One member will have relevant consumer experience and will provide a consumer perspective and be well networked to consumer groups.
13.b. The other 7 members will have expertise that includes the following:
13.b.i. knowledge of quality improvement and risk management, in particular quality assurance in the health sector
13.b.ii. knowledge of data and information gathering systems and analysis
13.b.iii. knowledge and experience of clinical epidemiology
13.b.iv. knowledge of DHB service provision and management
13.b.v. clinical experience in neonatal paediatrics, perinatal pathology, obstetrics, midwifery and other clinical expertise relevant to the Committee’s function
13.b.vi. knowledge of Maori health
13.b.vii. knowledge of the health of other ethnicities, particularly those at higher risk
14. The Committee is expected to self-determine its operations, with the advice of the Secretariat and within budget.
14.a. Co-option of additional expertise can be made within budget (to the committee or to working groups of the committee), but co-opted members will not have voting rights and will not be entitled to membership fees.
15. Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson
15.a. The HQSC will appoint a Chairperson and a Deputy Chairperson to the Committee. The Chairperson is expected to preside at every meeting of the Committee at which they are present, unless they deputise their responsibilities to the Deputy Chair.
15.b. The Chair of the Committee (or Deputy Chair) is expected to attend regular meetings of all the Mortality Review Committees’ Chairs (“Chairs’ Meetings”) to ensure cooperation and integration across Committees wherever possible, and the best allocation of limited resources.
15.c. The Chair of the Committee (or Deputy Chair) will be required to meet with the HQSC, on request.
15.d. The Chair of the Committee (or Deputy Chair) may be required to attend other Committee meetings at the request of the HQSC.
16. Management of Conflicts of Interest
16.a. Members must perform their functions in good faith, honestly and impartially and avoid situations that might compromise their integrity or otherwise lead to conflicts of interest. Proper observation of these principles will protect the Committee and its members and will ensure that it retains public confidence.
16.b. When members believe they have a potential conflict of interest on a subject that will prevent them from reaching an impartial decision or undertaking an activity consistent with the Committee’s functions, they must declare that conflict of interest and withdraw themselves from the discussion and/or activity.
17.a. The maintenance of confidentiality is crucial to the functioning of the Committee.
17.b. Members must note the statutory requirements in section 59E (6) of the Act, which prevents disclosure of information of the kind described in clause 3 of Schedule 5 of the Act.
17.c. Under this clause, information means any information that is personal information within the meaning of section 2(1) of the Privacy Act 1993; and that became known to any member or executive officer or agent of a Mortality Review Committee only because of the Committee’s functions being carried out (for example, because it is contained in a document created, and made available to the member or executive officer or agent, only because of those functions being carried out), whether or not the carrying out of those functions is completed.
17.d. Members must note that the disclosure of information contrary to Schedule 5 of the Act is an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000 (s 59E(6)).
18. Meetings will usually be held in Wellington. Actual and reasonable expenses for activities required by the Committee of its members (e.g., travel, accommodation, literature searches) will be met from the Committee’s budget provided prior approval is received.
19. The timing and frequency of meetings is to be coordinated with the Secretariat to fit within the allocated budget.
20. The Committee will regulate its own procedures, according to State Services Commission requirements and guidelines and ensure that a record of decisions is maintained.
21. The HQSC employs staff to assist the Committee out of the Committee’s allocated budget.
22. The Secretariat provides:
22.a. policy analysis and analytical support (as directed by the Committee)
22.b. guidance on governmental and ministerial processes
22.c. budget management, contract management and service procurement support to assist the Committee to achieve its Work Plan within its allocated budget
22.d. central communications systems support for correspondence and public relations purposes, including secure communication between Committee Members and Agents
22.e. liaison on behalf of the Committee within and across government and non-government organisations
22.f. administrative support to organise, minute and follow up on committee meetings and/ or working groups as agreed within the Work plan and within the budget set.
22.g. additional support for the Committee to carry out its functions, as agreed and budgeted for in the Work plans.
23. These terms of reference will be reviewed three years from the date at which they are approved by the Commission.
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The Chemical Weapons Convention
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is an international arms control treaty, administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based in The Hague, Netherlands, which aims to prohibit the development, production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons.
One of the ways the CWC aims to achieve this is by monitoring the peaceful and legitimate use of industrial chemicals in order to prevent the possibility of their diversion into weapons.
The CWC’s provisions extend to all activities involving a large number of toxic and non-toxic chemicals. Ireland is a party to the CWC.
The Chemical Weapons Act, 1997 transposed the provisions of the CWC into Irish law, covering not only acts done in Ireland but also acts performed elsewhere by Irish Nationals and companies.
Storage of quantities of materials specified in the 3 schedules to the Act imposes duties, including licensing, annual declarations, and potential for inspection by the OPCW.
National Authority
Each State is obliged to designate or establish a National Authority. In Ireland this is the Health and Safety Authority. The National Authority escorts OPCW inspections of relevant industrial sites and submits initial and annual declarations. The National Authority acts as the focal point with regard to interaction with the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW.
It is a requirement in the Chemical Weapons Convention that on an annual basis, declarations are submitted to the OPCW by specified timelines. To facilitate the preparation of these Declarations chemical information is submitted by the chemical industry to the National Authority. A summary of the activities which are declarable is given in Section B; page 2 of the OPCW Declarations Handbook.
It is important that the information submitted by industry to the National Authority is accurate, as it is these declarations that decide whether a site is inspectable by the OPCW or not. Only sites above the declaration thresholds will be inspected by the OPCW. Some of the common errors with regard to declarations are summarised in Section B; Page 28 of the OPCW Declarations Handbook.
The OPCW have created a database of scheduled chemicals which will assist Industry with regard to identifying declarable scheduled chemicals. A link to the OPCW Chemicals Database can be accessed here.
Notification of an inspection
Companies will be notified by the National Authority (i.e. HSA) that they have been selected for inspection by the OPCW between one to five days (or perhaps more) in advance. The length of notice will vary, depending on whether the inspection relates to a declaration of a Schedule 2, Schedule 3 or a DOC/PSF* site, and on the timing of notifications by the OPCW.
*DOC/PSF refers to sites producing by synthesis more than 200 tonnes of unscheduled discrete organic chemicals (DOC) or more than 30 tonnes of unscheduled discrete organic chemicals containing phosphorus, sulphur or fluorine (PSF) in any year.
Duration of Inspections
The inspection of a Schedule 2 site may last up to 96 hours, and inspections of Schedule 3 or DOC sites up to 24 hours. Once an inspection starts, activities can continue around the clock, although Inspectors tend not to work this way for routine inspections. The inspection period may be extended by agreement.
Frequency of Inspections
The frequency of routine inspections is determined by the OPCW, taking into account the perceived risk that the particular site presents to the purpose and objective of the CWC - subject to such sites receiving not more than 2 routine inspections per year.
The Inspectors
The Inspectors are full-time, qualified and trained members of the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW. They are nationals of countries that have ratified the CWC and each inspector will have been accepted by the Irish Government, to undertake inspections in Ireland. The size of an Inspection Team will be determined by the Technical Secretariat, based upon its assessment of the requirements of a particular inspection. A team will usually comprise about 3 Inspectors.
Inspector activities during the Inspection
During the inspection, the Inspectors will observe all the site’s rules and regulations on health and safety. They will have rights of access to areas of the site sufficient to enable them to undertake their duties. The Team will be entitled to interview site staff as necessary about their duties. They will also have the right to inspect relevant documents and records, and to have photographs and samples taken for analysis, as necessary. Unless agreed by the company, the Inspectors will not operate any of the site’s equipment, but they can require particular operations to be performed by the site’s staff. The Inspectors will require to visit the manufacturing and storage locations, including waste treatment facilities. Explanations of stock control systems, batch yield variations and failures may be required. The Inspectors follow a ‘no-touch’ policy during the inspection
Safeguarding of confidential information
The CWC, and internal OPCW policy, provide that the Inspectors should seek only information that is strictly necessary for the conduct of the inspection, and that access within the OPCW to commercially sensitive information will be allowed solely on a need-to-know basis.
The Chemical Weapons Act, 1997 makes the unauthorised disclosure of information obtained under the Act - with exceptions in certain clearly defined circumstances - a criminal offence. Companies have the right to take measures to protect commercially confidential information and data not relevant to the purposes of the CWC. They may do so by means of Managed Access.
National Authority Assistance
If necessary, after an inspection has been notified by the OPCW, the National Authority will send a representative to the site to take management and others through the processes involved.
The National Authority will seek clarification on the company’s behalf on any matter, at any time, during the inspection. It will also help to address any problem that may arise in the course of efforts to protect commercial confidentiality and the implementation of Managed Access Procedures.
For further information about any aspect of the Chemical Weapons Convention, please contact: the Health and Safety Authority (CCPS Unit), 1A South Mall, Cork or chemicals@hsa.ie – (put ‘Chemical Weapons’ in the message header).
The OPCW site (http://www.opcw.org/) contains detailed information on the Convention.
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19/01/2019 9:58 AM IST
Trump To Meet Kim Jong-Un Again In February: White House
The two leaders had met on June 12 last year in Singapore for the first summit
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during their summit at the Capella Hotel on the resort island of Sentosa, Singapore in June 2018
US President Donald Trump will hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in late February on Pyongyang dismantling its nuclear and missile programmes, the White House has announced.
The two leaders had met on June 12 last year in Singapore for the first summit.
While the White House did not identify a location for the second summit between the two leaders, according to media reports preparations were under way to host the summit, most likely in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi or coastal city of Danang.
The announcement came after Trump met with North Korean envoy, Kim Yong Chol, on Friday for a discussion that included talk about Kim Jong-un’s unfulfilled pledge to dismantle his country’s nuclear weapons programmes.
President Trump sat down with Kim Yong Chol, a high-level official in North Korea’s Communist government, in the Oval Office, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.
“President Donald J Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February.
“The president looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date,” she said in a statement.
The press secretary told reporters: “We continue to make progress, we continue to have conversations.”
The US is going to continue to keep “pressure and sanctions” on North Korea until “we see fully and verifiable denuclearization”, she said.
“We had very good steps and very good faith from the North Koreans with the release of hostages and other moves and so we’ll continue this conversation. And the President looks forward to it next February,” Sanders told reporters.
The North Korean envoy arrived at the White House after a closed-door meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US special envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun at a hotel here.
Following the White House meeting the North Korean official and a delegation he was leading were invited to lunch by Pompeo at Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department.
The Secretary, Special Representative Biegun, and Vice Chairman Kim discussed efforts to make progress on the commitments President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un made at their summit in Singapore. At the conclusion of the Secretary’s meeting with Vice Chairman Kim, the two sides held a productive first meeting at the working level, State Department Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino said.
Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman said that in Singapore, Trump capitulated to Kim Jong-un handing North Korea a propaganda coup in exchange for empty words.
During a second summit, he must deliver concrete, verifiable commitments from Pyongyang, he demanded.
Last year in Singapore, Trump had described his first-ever historic meeting with Kim Jong-un as “really fantastic” and said they had agreed to “sign” an unspecified document after their “very positive” summit, aimed at normalising ties and complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
The US president had said he believed he and Kim Jong-un will “solve a big problem, a big dilemma” and that by working together, “we will get it taken care of”.
The summit at Singapore’s Sentosa island - the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader - had marked a turnaround of relations between Trump, 72, and Kim, 36, after a long-running exchange of threats and insults.
The US insists it will accept nothing less than complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
MORE: donald trump us president Kim Jong Un North Korea
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Michelle Obama 'most admired woman in US'
Published : 28 Dec 2018, 13:05
Former US first lady Michelle Obama has ended Hillary Clinton's 17-year run as America's most admired woman.
Mrs Clinton, ex-presidential candidate, secretary of state and first lady, came third in the annual Gallup poll, with talk-show host Oprah Winfrey in second.
The Queen finished in the top 10 for the 50th time, Gallup said.
Former President Barack Obama was most admired man for the 11th year in a row. President Donald Trump finished second for the fourth consecutive year.
The poll has been carried out every year since 1946, with the exception of 1976.
The 1,025 adults surveyed were asked to name the man and woman living anywhere in the world whom they admire the most.
Most Admired Woman
Michelle Obama - 15%
Oprah Winfrey - 5%
Hillary Clinton - 4%
Melania Trump - 4%
Queen Elizabeth II - 2%
Most Admired Man
Barack Obama - 19%
Donald Trump - 13%
George W Bush - 2%
Pope Francis - 2%
Bill Gates 1%
Mrs Clinton, a former US Democratic senator and secretary of state who ran for the White House in 2016, has come top of the list 22 times including the past 17 years in a row.
Although Oprah Winfrey has never finished top she has been second on 14 occasions.
If Mr Obama comes top again next year he will tie with the record holder - former president Dwight Eisenhower who won the most admired man title 12 times, Gallup said.
Mr Trump is, so far, one of only two presidents not to have won the title while in office, the other being Gerald Ford.
Gallup said the survey, which was carried out between 3-12 December, had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
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Michelle Obama: uber-mom, style icon, political force
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Marcilynn Burke Named the Next Dean of the University of Oregon School of Law
Filed in Breaking News, Professional Schools on March 27, 2017
Marcilynn Burke was named dean of the University of Oregon School of Law, effective July 1. She currently serves as associate dean and associate professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center. In 2009, Burke was named deputy director for programs and policy at the Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Later, she was acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management.
Burke’s teaching and research are in property law, land use law, and federal natural resources law. In accepting the appointment as dean, she stated that “my government work and academic focus have given me many reasons to watch what is happening at the University of Oregon School of Law. Being able to join the school in this role is exhilarating for many reasons, with working alongside such great peers topping that list. With highly ranked programs in environmental law, legal writing and dispute resolution, UO feels like a natural fit for me.”
Burke is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she majored in international studies. She earned a juris doctorate at Yale Law School.
Related: University of Houston • University of North Carolina Chapel Hill • University of Oregon • Yale University
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President donald j. trump declares war on opioids
President Donald J. Trump, and First Lady Melania Trump (CREDIT: The White House).
WASHINGTON, D.C - Opioids are natural or synthetic chemicals that travel through the bloodstream and attach to receptors in the brain, therefore, inhibiting pain. Opiods are available in different forms, such as skin patches, liquids, capsules, tablets, suppositories, etc., and are commonly abused nationwide by being swallowed or injected. Common opioids include heroin, and brand-name prescription drugs like Vicodin®, OxyContin®, Percodan®, methadone, and fentanyl. In 2016, over two million Americans as young as 12, reported having an addiction, and dependence to illicit or prescription opioids. Approximately 175 people die every day across the country as a result of drug overdoses, 91 specifically due to opioids.
On October 26, 2017 invited families touched by the nation's opioid crisis to sit in the East Room of the White House during the signing of a Presidential Memorandum ordering the Acting Secretary of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid crisis a national public health emergency. Over $1 billion has been distributed, and spent on addressing the opioid crisis as a national public health emergency. Beyond $800 million has been allocated towards the prevention and treatment of opioid dependency. “The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place. If they don’t start, they won't have a problem," stated President Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump, and Vice President Mike Pence (CREDIT: The White House).
“President Trump has made this national crisis a top priority since he took office in January, and we are proud to be leading in this effort at HHS. His call to action today brings a new level of urgency to the comprehensive strategy HHS unveiled under President Trump, which empowers the real heroes of this fight: the communities on the front lines of the epidemic,” remarked Eric D. Hargan, Acting Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary.
Since the President took office, the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Department of Defense have collaborated on an $81 million joint research project, consisting of the centralization of non-drug treatment approaches for service members and veterans with chronic pain. The State Department locked in an agreement with the United Nations, adding two ingredients used to produce fentanyl to the international list of controlled substances, making it difficult for transnational criminal organizations to import them into the United States. The Department of Justice began indicting Chinese fentanyl manufacturers, and ended up seizing AlphaBay, an online market for opioid ingredients. The Food and Drug Administration created an action plan to curb opioid abuse, and dwindle the number of drugs being prescribed every year by 160 million.
President Donald Trump, and Staff Secretary Rob Porter (CREDIT: The White House).
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Photo by: AP
Dallas Mavericks center Dirk Nowitzki (41), of Germany, poses for a photo during the NBA basketball team's media day in Dallas, Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Jim Cowsert)
Mavs icon Dirk Nowitzki delivers throwback performance in final home game of his career
In front of NBA legends, former teammates and thousands of teary-eyed fans, Dirk Nowitzki scored 30 points in his final home game with the Dallas Mavericks.
Author: Jonah Javad
Published: 12:25 AM CDT April 10, 2019
DALLAS — It was the unlikeliest of performances from the likeliest of heroes.
It was emotional. It was beautiful. It was perfect.
It was Dirk Nowitzki's final home game with the Dallas Mavericks.
It was unforgettable.
"Thank you for all the memories," NBA legend Larry Bird told Nowitzki after the game. "God bless you, brother."
Before the retirement announcement, before the dunk, before scoring the first 10 points of the game, Nowitzki entered the American Airlines Center to a throng of Mavs employees greeting him with open arms.
Outside the American Airlines Center, fans hit the blue carpet for #DirkDay.
Inside, they roared as Nowitzki was introduced one final time in Dallas.
Once the game began, the arena transported back to 2007.
Nowitzki scored. He scored again. And again. And again.
Nowitzki scored the Mavericks' first 10 points of the game, as decibel levels climbed through the rafters and past the 2011 NBA Finals Championship banner.
Nowitzki kept his emotions in check until the second quarter, when the jumbotron played a tribute video highlighting his tireless behind-the-scenes work in the community.
Nowitzki caught fire again in the second quarter and went into halftime with 19 points.
At halftime, the Mavericks revealed the meaning behind each number in their 41.21.1 campaign.
The second half was highlighted by #41 throwing down a two-handed slam for his second dunk of the season.
"M-V-P" chants rang throughout the arena on multiple occasions, as did the "One More Year" chant.
After a few missed shot attempts in the final minute, Nowitzki corralled the ball and tossed it to the referee.
Mavs 120, Suns 109.
Nowitzki finished with 30 points — his highest total since March 20, 2016 — to become the oldest player in NBA history to score more than 30 points in a game.
The previous record-holder was Michael Jordan.
"You want him to have one of those nights...and he did," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. "He scored 30 points tonight, which is amazing.”
(Overshadowed by Dirk's big night: 39-year-old Suns guard Jamal Crawford dropped 51 points, becoming the NBA's oldest player to score more than 50 points in a game.)
After the clock hit 00.0 and the hugs were given, thousands of fans stayed in the arena to witness one of the great tributes in NBA history.
Five NBA legends (and five of Nowitzki's idols) walked onto the hardwood to surprise Dirk: Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Shawn Kemp and Detlef Schrempf.
"It's been an honor and privilege to watch you," Barkley said. "Enjoy the rest of your life."
"You played the game the right way," added Pippen. "You've inspired people all over the world, not just Germany. You're one of the best. We appreciate you."
Then, it was Nowitzki's turn to speak from the heart.
After a year's worth of speculation, he confirmed his plan to retire and said this will be his final season.
“As you might expect, this was my last home game,” Dirk announced. “It’s been an amazing ride, thank you so much for coming out.”
“I’ll never be gone," Nowitzki said to the crowd. "This is my home, with my wife and kids. I left Germany 20 years ago and I became a Texan. See you soon."
Nowitzki exited the court the same way he entered — immersed in a sea of Mavs fans hoping this night would never come.
Alas, it did.
But, it was unforgettable to the very end.
WANT MORE DIRK NEWS? CLICK HERE.
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What are Dáil debates?
Cannabis Regulation: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]
Derek Keating (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source
I am grateful for the opportunity to address this proposal by Deputy Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan for a cannabis regulation Bill. The opening line of the proposed Bill reveals the true reckless and insidious nature of his proposal. It states that the purpose of the Bill is "to provide for the regulation of cannabis for ... recreational use". I have publicly gone on record with my objection to this reckless motion. Last year I stated in this House that if it were adopted, Ireland would become an even bigger gateway for the importation of illegal drugs, as has been seen over the past two years, during which massive amounts of cannabis, heroin, cocaine and other illicit substances, including tobacco, have been made available by the gangster underworld in every street, community, village, parish, town and city.
The light-touch policy being proposed should be rejected. I am calling on those who proposed this Private Members' motion, as well as those who support it, to think again, to look at the evidence and to consider the points most recently made by Professor Jim Lucey of Trinity College Dublin. He gave unquestionable evidence that cannabis harms the brain. It is one of the most toxic substances available. It rests in the body for up to 90 days, damaging the brain and impairing the capacity of the user. It is evident to me that it is a gateway drug.
As the elected Member for a community blighted by drug barons, including those in the IRA and other such organisations who hide behind their political agenda, I am only too familiar with the facts that have been presented to us in the media. I have seen at first hand many hundreds of individuals with zombie-like personalities walking around in some areas of my constituency. I am sure most if not all other Members have had similar experiences. Colloquial expressions heard in the series "Love/Hate" come to mind, such as "goofing off", or "strung out" individuals waiting for their next fix, contemplating their next crime and considering their next opportunistic attack on society to feed their habit. Deputy Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan is proposing to make this drug available to beat the drug barons and address the serious crime that goes with illicit drugs. The Deputy is looking too much at his close friend Nidge of "Love/Hate" fame.
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WhatsApp flags vulnerability to sophisticated voice call attack
Originally Published: 14 MAY 19 02:02 ET
By Donie O'Sullivan, CNN Business
(CNN) -- WhatsApp has revealed a vulnerability in its system that could have allowed hackers access to its users' phones, with a London-based human rights lawyer possibly among the targets.
The encrypted messaging service, owned by Facebook, said Monday that it had discovered and fixed the vulnerability the attackers had sought to exploit.
The hackers could implant malicious code on a victim's phone by placing a voice call to the victim on WhatsApp.
"The attack has all the hallmarks of a private company reportedly that works with governments to deliver spyware that takes over the functions of mobile phone operating systems," a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.
While WhatsApp did not name the private company, a source familiar with the investigation into the attack said that company is NSO Group, an Israeli cyber company that has developed a powerful piece of malware designed to spy on its victims .
In a statement provided to CNN on Monday, NSO said, "Under no circumstances would NSO be involved in the operating or identifying of targets of its technology, which is solely operated by intelligence and law enforcement agencies."
NSO said its technology was licensed to government agencies "for the sole purpose of fighting crime and terror," adding that those agencies determine how the technology is used without any involvement from the company.
The Financial Times first reported details of the vulnerability .
Among those believe to have been targeted via WhatsApp is a London-based human rights lawyer.
On Sunday, the lawyer received two calls that John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab believes were part of the attack. Citizen Lab is an academic security research group that investigates digital threats to civil society groups and online freedom of expression.
The apparent attempt to breach the lawyer's phone was not successful, Scott-Railton said, as WhatsApp had patched the vulnerability by Sunday.
WhatsApp had reached out to Citizen Lab and a number of other groups that work with human rights defenders before publicly acknowledging the attack.
The collaboration between WhatsApp and Citizen Lab helped identify the attempted attack on the London-based lawyer. The lawyer does not want to be named, Scott-Railton told CNN.
Responding specifically to the apparent targeting of the lawyer, NSO Group said in a statement, "NSO would not or could not use its technology in its own right to target any person or organization, including this individual."
WhatsApp said while it has fixed the vulnerability the attackers were exploiting, it is also encouraging users to update to the latest version of the WhatsApp app "out of an abundance of caution." The company said it has also contacted US law enforcement.
Scott-Railton praised WhatsApp for reaching out to human rights groups to identify the attack, adding, "It's creepy to think that someone with an unknown number could give you a call and your device would be compromised."
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1 In books
1.1 Novels
1.2 Comic books
2 In movies, television, and stage
3 In music
4 Alternate history
Assassination of John F. Kennedy in popular culture
The John F. Kennedy assassination and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding it have been discussed, referenced, or recreated in popular culture numerous times.
The fictional novel Gideon's March by J. J. Marric, was published in 1962 by Hodder and Stoughton in London, the year before the Kennedy assassination. Inspector George Gideon learns of a plot to assassinate President Kennedy during a state visit to London. The assassination is to take place during a parade, by means of a bomb; the assassin, called O'Hara, is a Southern bigot who hates the President for his Roman Catholic faith and his civil-rights initiatives.
J. G. Ballard wrote a 1967 short-short story titled "The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy considered as a downhill motor race."
The Illuminatus! Trilogy first published in 1975 by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson depicts the assassination scene, with several would-be assassins trying to kill Kennedy simultaneously.
Sherlock Holmes in Dallas (Dodd, Mead 1980) by Edmund Aubrey, brings the renowned consulting detective out of his Sussex retirement to investigate the Kennedy assassination.
Don DeLillo's 1988 novel Libra is a fictional imagining of the assassination, with Lee Harvey Oswald as the protagonist.
James Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy, particularly the 1995 novel American Tabloid, constructs a fictional narrative involving several characters who have part in the Kennedy assassination.
In William Harrington's 1994 novel Columbo: The Grassy Knoll Lieutenant Columbo solves the Kennedy Assassination after a talk-show host is murdered before an exposé.[1][2]
The 1996 Doctor Who spin-off novel Who Killed Kennedy features the Doctor's enemy the Master attempting to kill Oswald before the assassination as Kennedy's survival would trigger a chain reaction in history that could wipe the Doctor from existence, requiring journalist James Stevens to go back in time and kill Kennedy himself (acting as both gunmen at different points in his life, as Oswald's rifle had a misaligned targeting scope that prevented him delivering the fatal shot from the Book Depository on the first trip).
District Attorney Jim Garrison's fictional novel, The Star Spangled Contract (1976), and Taylor Caldwell's Captains and the Kings are both based in part on a conspiratorial view of the Kennedy assassination.
In the first album of Jean van Hamme and William Vance's comic book series XIII the title character XIII is shown to be the alleged assassin of U.S. President William B. Sheridan, who was murdered in his car during an official presidential visit to a city. The events are clearly based on JFK's assassination. [3]
In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Kennedy's true assassin is the Red Skull, the son of Captain America. Nick Fury muses that the assassination of Kennedy was the Skull's way of showing that he would no longer take orders from America.
In the 2008-2009 series The Umbrella Academy: Dallas by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, the Kennedy assassination is a central plot element. The series initially takes place in a timeline where the assassination never happened, until an organisation of time-travelling assassins go back to 1963 to kill Kennedy. When the Umbrella Academy intercept the gunmen, The Rumour, disguised as Jacqueline Kennedy, uses her powers to make Kennedy's head explode.
In Superman: Red Son in this world Superman's space pod crash lands in the Soviet Union instead of the United States Richard Nixon wins the 1960 Presidential Election, and he is the one who is assassinated in Dallas instead of Kennedy, who in this timeline marries Marilyn Monroe, and doesn't become President until decades later, in this timeline he's President in 1998. In 2004 he is succeeded by Lex Luthor, who with Jimmy Olsen as his Vice President, finally wins this extended version of the Cold War.
In movies, television, and stage
The 1966 Emile de Antonio documentary Rush to Judgment, based on Mark Lane's book, shows Lane interviewing witnesses who claim the shots came from the grassy knoll instead of the Texas School Book Depository.
Andy Warhol's 1966 film Since recreated the assassination from multiple perspectives with participants from The Factory.[4] Since is heavily improvised and explores the media portrayal of the assassination.[4]
The 1967 satirical play MacBird! by Barbara Garson superimposes the events of the assassination on the general plot structure of Shakespeare's Macbeth, with Kennedy becoming murdered king "Ken O'Dunc" and Lyndon Johnson the treacherous title character. The mockery of the play's name is derived from Johnson's propensity to refer to his wife Claudia as "Lady Bird" and his elder daughter as "Lynda Bird." Garson insisted that her play was a satire and not intended to suggest seriously that Johnson had had a hand in the assassination.[5]
Tonino Valerii's 1969 Spaghetti Western film The Price of Power, starring Giuliano Gemma and Van Johnson, was the first filmed drama to present a critical perspective on the Kennedy assassination; although it dramatises the assassination of James A. Garfield, it reflects the events and conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy's death.[6]
David Miller's 1973 film Executive Action is the first conspiracy theory-based Hollywood-made dramatization of the Kennedy assassination.[6]
In 1975, a San Francisco-based group of artists called Ant Farm reenacted the Kennedy assassination in Dealey Plaza, and documented it in a video called The Eternal Frame.
The 1978 made-for-television movie, Ruby and Oswald, generally followed the official record as presented by the Warren Commission of the actions of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby on the weekend of the assassination.
French director Henri Verneuil's 1979 movie I as in Icarus (the story is based in a fictional country with fictional characters but the events are clearly linked with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, including amateur footage similar to the Zapruder film)
The 1983 NBC TV mini series Kennedy, which focuses on the Kennedy Presidency, showed the assassination in graphic detail.
In the 1984 movie Flashpoint, a United States Border Patrol agent finds a car containing the body of a man he believed participated in a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy and was murdered and robbed of the money he received for doing so.
The 1985 Twilight Zone episode "Profile in Silver" depicts a time traveler who is a descendant of Kennedy attend and meddle in the timeline continuum by accident.
Nigel Turner's 1988, 1991, 1995 and 2003 continuing documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy explores conspiracy theories of the assassination.
Oliver Stone's 1991 dramatic film JFK,[7] based in part upon the book On the Trail of the Assassins by former Orleans Parish (Louisiana) District Attorney Jim Garrison, who unsuccessfully prosecuted Clay Shaw for conspiracy relating to the assassination in 1969.
The 1991 TV mini-series A Woman Named Jackie showed the assassination from Jackie Kennedy's perspective.
The 1992 drama film Love Field features Michelle Pfeiffer as Lurene Hallett, a Dallas hairdresser, attempting to travel to Washington to attend John F. Kennedy's funeral. Though the movie encompasses other issues besides the assassination, it portrays one facet of the public reaction to the event.[8]
The 1992 film Ruby is an exploration of certain conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination from Jack Ruby's perspective.
The Boyfriend (Seinfeld): This 1992 episode of the series featured a pastiche of the assassination featuring the "single bullet theory" made famous in JFK and an essential part of the assassination. In the episode Kramer and Newman accuse former Mets player Keith Hernandez of spitting on them following a 1988 loss at home.
The 1993 thriller film In the Line of Fire, starring Clint Eastwood, hinges around the JFK assassination. Set in present-day 1993, the film is about a psychopath who plans to assassinate the current President of the United States. Eastwood's character is Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, the last remaining active agent who was on duty in November 1963, guarding Kennedy in Dallas. Horrigan is consumed with guilt over his failure to react quickly enough to the first shot in Dallas, and becomes obsessed with defeating a young man who has resolved to become a new assassin on the same level as Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth.
The 1993 TV movie Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald is a biopic about Marina Oswald Porter, the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald.
The X-Files episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" (1996) places a young cigarette smoking man as the assassin, shooting from a sewer drain located near the grassy knoll after setting up Oswald as his patsy. He also assassinates Martin Luther King Jr. while framing James Earl Ray in the episode.
The two-part 1997 Early Edition episode "The Wall" has Gary Hobson involved in trying to prevent a presidential assassination plot that bears much resemblance to President Kennedy's assassination. During the course of the episode, Gary (who receives tomorrow's newspaper today) finds information about the murder of JFK that has a tie to the current day plot he is trying to stop through finding a copy of the November 23, 1963 newspaper that belonged to his predecessor.
The 1997 comedic short film My Dinner With Oswald, directed by Paul Duane and written by Donald Clarke, focuses on a re-creation of the assassination at a Dublin dinner party.
The 1997 dark-comedy dramatic film The House of Yes stars Parker Posey and Josh Hamilton as twins Jacqueline, nicknamed "Jackie-O", and Marty. She has the same old mental health issues and he brings home a new fiancée for Thanksgiving. Mayhem ensues including adding incest to their favorite childhood "game" of obsessively re-enacting the John F. Kennedy assassination.
In The Simpsons episode Mayored to the Mob, the character Leavelle who trains Homer Simpson at "Leavelle's Bodyguard Academy," is based on Texan detective Jim Leavelle, as he appeared when escorting Lee Harvey Oswald when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby.[9] Leavelle trains the bodyguards by pretending to shoot their protectee from a grassy knoll on a cart. This is a reference to the grassy knoll at the site of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Dealey Plaza and a scene from the Kennedy assassination film Executive Action (1973).[9] In the episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife", Homer and Marge Simpson decide to make their own novel: "Who Really Killed JFK", with Homer's theory being that Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to steal "the Jack Ruby", but then refutes his own idea when Marge tells him that Jack Ruby was a man, not a jewel.
The 2002 comedy horror film Bubba Ho-tep (based on the 1994 novella of the same name) features Ossie Davis playing an assassination-obsessed character with a scale model of Dealey Plaza, and photos of the various players on his wall who claims he is Kennedy. He also claimed that after he recovered from the assassination attempt, his skin was dyed black and was abandoned by Lyndon B. Johnson in a nursing home.
The 2002 mockumentary film Interview With the Assassin presents the assassination and resultant conspiracy theories with a terminally ill former Marine named Walter Ohlinger who claims that he was the second gunman behind the fence on the grassy knoll and was paid by unidentified government agents for doing so, who are now attempting to silence him for exposing the truth. His ex-wife then tells the interviewer he was also mentally ill and was nowhere near Dallas on the day of the assassination.
Kennedy's assassination is briefly referenced, in the 2007 Disney film National Treasure: Book of Secrets. The title refers to a book supposedly written and maintained by every American President, containing hidden knowledge from U.S. history. Upon being found, a brief section of the book contains photos and handwritten notes, hinting at a government conspiracy.
The 2007 film Shooter, features Levon Helm's character Mr. Rate talking to Mark Wahlberg and Michael Pena about conspiracies and says "Them boys on the grassy knoll, they were dead within three hours. Buried in the damn desert. Unmarked graves out past Terlingua.", referencing the Kennedy assassination. When asked how he knows this, he replies, "Still got the shovel!"
Zack Snyder's 2009 movie Watchmen, based on the 1986–87 DC Comics limited series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, during the opening credits sequence portrays The Comedian, one of the members of the Watchmen, as Kennedy's assassin; he's shown firing the fatal headshot from the grassy knoll behind Abraham Zapruder.
The 2009 Mad Men episode "The Grownups" focused on the characters' reaction to JFK’s assassination and the subsequent events in their personal lives.
The 2010 Bones episode "The Proof in the Pudding" has the characters being forced by the Secret Service to identify cause of death on a highly classified skeleton they later identify as JFK. They determine that JFK was shot twice in the head from two different angles suggesting a second shooter. This causes Booth to question his trust in the government until Bones performs another test that determines this skeleton suffered from a bone disorder JFK didn't suffer from, meaning this wasn't JFK. After the skeleton was returned Bones admits in private that JFK had Scarlet Fever as a child and that could have created a false-positive on her test but they were all better off not knowing for certain if that really was JFK.
The 2013 docudrama Parkland follows the actions of several people closely related to the assassination from November 22–25, 1963, including the Presidential limousine, the staff of Parkland Memorial Hospital's trauma room, the Secret Service and FBI agents, Abraham Zapruder, and Lee Harvey Oswald's family.
The 2013 TV movie Killing Kennedy, an adaptation of the Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard book Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot, dramatizes the presidency and assassination of Kennedy, as well as the life of Lee Harvey Oswald in the years leading up to the assassination.
The 2014 movie X-Men: Days of Future Past featured some scenes set in 1973 which reveal that Magneto has been in prison beneath the Pentagon since 1963 for his apparent role in the Kennedy assassination. Magneto maintains his innocence by claiming he was trying to save Kennedy's life because he claims that Kennedy was one of them (mutants) but his efforts were interrupted by the police who arrested him. Xavier held his assassination against Magneto for a while due to a similar incident involving the loss of his legs back in X-Men: First Class and even claimed to Logan that Erik always had a way with guns.
The 2016 film Jackie follows the aftermath of the assassination from Jaqueline Kennedy's (played by Natalie Portman) perspective.
"The Suspicious Assassination of JFK", released September 29, 2017, was episode 10 of season 2 of BuzzFeed web series, BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime in which the various theories surrounding the assassination were discussed.
The 1968 Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil" references both John and brother Robert's assassinations with the lyric, "I shouted out / Who killed the Kennedys? / When after all / It was you and me."
The 1978 Misfits single "Bullet" describes the events around the assassination, stating that "Texas is the reason" for his death in lyrics directed towards Jacqueline Kennedy, in addition to sexual demands.
The English rock duo Godley & Creme song "Lonnie" is the 7th track on the 1980 album Ismism featuring lyrics about a man named Lonnie Garamond who kills Kennedy with a camera gun.[10]
The Human League song ""Seconds"" from their 1981 album Dare deals directly with the Kennedy assassination and is directed at Lee Harvey Oswald.[11] When playing live, the group regularly projected slides onto the background of the stage, and would play this song in front of images of Kennedy and the assassination in Dallas.[11]
Paul Simon's 1983 song "The Late Great Johnny Ace" references Kennedy's assassination among other famous deaths.
The Was (Not Was) songs "11 Miles An Hour" and "11 MPH (Abe Zapp Ruder Version)" on respective International and US-Japan releases of their 1988 album What Up, Dog? is about the JFK assassination and the speed the car was going, as well as referencing Abraham Zapruder and the Zapruder film of the event.
The 1990 Broadway musical Assassins, written by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, climaxes as the ghosts of John Wilkes Booth, Leon Czolgosz, Charles Guiteau, and other "would be" assassins including John Hinckley, appear before a suicidally depressed Lee Harvey Oswald, and convince him that the only way for him to truly connect with his country is to share his pain and disillusionment with it.[12]
The music video for "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" by Alternative Rock group XTC on their 1992 album Nonsuch reenacts some events of the day of Kennedy's assassination drawing parallels with the death of Jesus Christ.
The 1998 Steve Gillette song "Two Men in the Building" on his album Texas & Tennessee is mostly about the assassination, in fact presenting Steve's own theory about it.[13] Steve is a well-known songwriter, best known as the co-writer of the song Darcy Farrow.
The 1999 music video "Coma White" on the 1998 album Mechanical Animals by American gothic rock band Marilyn Manson shows a darker bloodless representation of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, including his then-fiancée Rose McGowan as Jacqueline Kennedy. Furthermore, their 2000 album Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) by Marilyn Manson contains numerous references to the Kennedy assassination.
The 2012 music video "National Anthem" by singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey depicts her as Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy and shows re-enactments of home videos with ASAP Rocky as John F. Kennedy and re-enacting the assassination of the president.
The assassination has been the subject of many time travel and alternate history stories in science fiction film, television and literature, many with Kennedy and/or Oswald surviving or other people in the Presidential limousine dead. Some of these have Governor John Connally or Jacqueline Kennedy killed in place of President Kennedy.
A pair of alternate history films called The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald made in 1964 and 1977 have the accused assassin not being killed by Jack Ruby and standing trial for the murder of President Kennedy. Neither film ends in a verdict: the earlier movie ends after jury instructions, imploring viewers to debate among themselves; while the latter one has him being shot to death while being escorted from his jail cell to the courtroom just after the jury came back from deliberating.
In the 1980 novel Timescape by Gregory Benford, Kennedy's assassination was averted by a high school student who interrupted Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository, attacking the shooter and sending the would-be fatal third shot awry. Although seriously injured, Kennedy survived. This interference created an alternate timeline in which William Scranton was the US President in 1974, having defeated Robert F. Kennedy due to a telephone tapping scandal.
The 1990 TV movie, Running Against Time, depicts a contemporary schoolteacher (Robert Hays) who continues to lament the 1966 death of his brother in Vietnam. He's given the chance to go back in time and seeks to prevent the November 1963 assassination, based on the belief that it would prevent Lyndon Johnson from beginning an escalation of the conflict. However, his attempt results in him being accused of the crime and the subject of a nationwide manhunt. The film is based on the 1986 Stanley Shapiro book.
"Lee Harvey Oswald", the 1992 season opener for the TV series Quantum Leap, finds Sam Beckett leaping into Oswald's body. At a critical moment, Al Calavicci prompts him to leap into Secret Service Agent Clint Hill. Hill attempts to reach the President's car before the shots are fired, but he fails to prevent Kennedy's death. Calavicci later reveals that he and Beckett have saved one life – that of Jackie Kennedy, whom Oswald had killed along with the President in the original timeline. This episode was written by series creator Donald P. Bellisario, in response to the Oliver Stone film JFK. Bellisario (who served with Oswald in the Marine Corps) doesn't believe in a conspiracy; he used supporting evidence from the Warren Commission Report, and had Calavicci speculate that people find it comfortable to believe in a conspiracy, reasoning that if any one person can kill the President of the United States then nobody is safe.
The 1997 episode "Tikka to Ride" of the Red Dwarf comedy TV series, the characters accidentally knock Lee Harvey Oswald out of the fifth-floor window of the Book Depository when they travel back in time to 1963 by mistake, creating an alternate timeline where Kennedy is impeached in 1965 for sharing a mistress with a mafia boss. As a result, J. Edgar Hoover is blackmailed into running for President by the mob and allows Russia to establish nuclear missiles in Cuba, Kennedy's impeachment traumatising the nation and allowing the USSR to win the space race while the southern states flee due to the fear of missiles from Cuba. Fearing the repercussions of this timeline, but unwilling to kill Kennedy themselves - and with their attempt to redirect Oswald up to the sixth floor before their past selves arrive failing because his trajectory is now too steep for him to do more than wound Kennedy - the characters convince the alternate John F. Kennedy to go back in time and shoot his past self from the grassy knoll, arguing that this action will restore his historical position as a liberal icon ("Timeslides", an earlier episode of Red Dwarf, also jokingly mentions the possibility of preventing the assassination).
In the 2002 film Timequest, a time-traveler prevents Kennedy's assassination and history takes an alternate course, including the birth of a second son, James Kennedy, who was conceived on the night of November 22, 1963, when Kennedy and his wife return from Dallas. It also has Robert F. Kennedy becoming President in the late 1970s, with Martin Luther King Jr. as his Vice President, after both men were saved from their assassinations in 1968 by the same time traveler.
In Stephen Baxter's novel Voyage (1996), the Dallas assassination attempt only succeeds in crippling Kennedy, but Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy is killed. Kennedy is re-elected in 1964 and commits the United States to landing a manned vessel on Mars, which occurs in 1986. The novel uses the assassination attempt only as the impetus for an alternate history US space program.
Jeff Golden's 2008 novel Unafraid: A Novel of the Possible speculates on what would have happened had the assassination attempt been unsuccessful, with Kennedy serving two full terms as President. (ISBN 0595471927) Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle jams during the assassination attempt, leaving Kennedy wounded and Governor Connally dead.
In the Space: 1999 graphic novel, Aftershock and Awe (2013), the events of the television series are set within an alternate history. That history diverged from our own when Kennedy escaped assassination by visiting Cape Canaveral instead of Dallas. His survival led to an accelerated space race and diminished Cold War tensions, although a limited nuclear exchange occurred between the United States and North Korea in 1987.[14]
In the 2010 book, TimeRiders, a training mission involves going back to November 22, 1963, to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing JFK. This results in a new timeline in which a large space program sends a mission to Mars on September 10, 2001. The trainees learn that history corrects itself, and Oswald, who was originally a lone gunman, was no longer alone when he shot the President but was part of a conspiracy, thanks to their interference with the timestream.
Stephen King's novel 11/22/63, published in 2011, tells about a time traveler trying to stop the assassination. The novel was adapted into a TV series, 11.22.63, in 2016. In both versions, the protagonist succeeds in saving Kennedy and kills Oswald with his own rifle in the Texas Schoolbook Depository after distracting him on the day of the would-be assassination after Oswald fired the first shot at the motorcade, but returns to a dystopian future brought about by his actions, prompting him to return to the past to "reset" the results of his intervention. The protagonist also attempts to prove Oswald was assisted by a Soviet agent when he attempted to kill Kennedy and General Edwin Walker.
In the 2012 book The Man from 2063, written by Jack Duffy, a lawyer living in 2063 travels back in time prior to November 22, 1963 to prevent the assassination. Unlike Stephen King’s novel which has Lee Harvey Oswald killing JFK alone, The Man from 2063 portrays the assassination as a conspiracy.
In the 1992 anthology Alternate Kennedys, edited by Mike Resnick, 25 science fiction authors imagine alternate histories involving the Kennedys, including speculating upon different outcomes of November 22, 1963.
In American Heroes Channel's What if? Armageddon 1962, Richard Pavlick succeeds in assassinating President-elect Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson is sworn in on January 20, 1961. While the Bay of Pigs invasion goes as it historically did, the Cuban Missile Crisis is different. Having more confidence in his military advisers than Kennedy did, Johnson authorizes military air strikes to take out the missile sites. However, some missiles were hidden from sight and the United States, Cuba and the Soviet Union engage in a nuclear war.
In Ken Davenport's 2017 novel The Two Gates, Kennedy survives the Dallas shooting with the back-to-throat wound he actually received, but First Lady Jackie is killed by the fatal third shot. The novel deals with speculation as to how Kennedy would have dealt with the Vietnam War had he lived.
In a 2018 episode of the TV series Timeless, a young Kennedy is transported to 2018, and before he can be returned to 1934, he is warned not to go to Dallas in 1963. When the time travelers return to 2018, they are told he was killed in Austin, Texas after two years as president.
The card game Chrononauts, which simulates the cause-and-effects of changing history through time-travel, features Kennedy's assassination as a Linchpin card. When flipped (and Kennedy is injured rather than killed), it affects three later Ripple Points: the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), the Apollo 11 moon landing (1969), and Richard Nixon's resignation (1974).
Reelect JFK, in which Kennedy is a playable character, set in an alternative timeline, where he survives his assassination attempt, and attempts to seek reelection in 1964, while confronting key political issues such as Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement, and discovering who was responsible for the assassination attempt on his life.http://www.giantbomb.com/reelect-jfk/3030-5633/
The 2004 video game JFK Reloaded puts the player in the role of Lee Harvey Oswald, where the player is then scored on how closely one's version of the assassination matches the report of the Warren Commission: first shot missed, second hit JFK and Governor Connally and third on JFK's head. According to the company, the primary aim of the game was "to establish the most likely facts of what happened on 1963-11-22 by running the world’s first mass-participation forensic construction", the theory being that a player could help prove that Lee Harvey Oswald had the "means and the opportunity to commit the crime", and thus help prove the Warren Commission's findings.[15]
The 2010 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops gives hints that the main player character Alex Mason (Sam Worthington) is brainwashed by the Soviet Union into assassinating Kennedy within the context of the video game. An ending cutscene shows Mason was in the crowd of onlookers who watched Kennedy disembark from Air Force One in Lovefield.
In the post-credits scene of the 2016 video game Mafia III, Lincoln Clay's former CIA handler in Vietnam and Lincoln's intelligence provider in order to take down the Marcano Crime Family, John Donovan, has been invited to a Senate Committee hearing in 1971 to testify his participation in Lincoln's revenge against the Marcanos, Donovan explains that he helped Lincoln was due to evidence that he uncovered that Sal, the boss of the Marcano Crime family, has been one of the conspirators of the assassination of Kennedy, and further evidence states that one of the senators presiding over the hearing as another conspirator, Donovan then later pulls his silenced pistol and kills the senator, stating that he will hunt down those responsible for the death of Kennedy.
Assassinations in fiction
Cultural depictions of John F. Kennedy
Cultural depictions of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Robert F. Kennedy assassination
Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination
^ "The Grassy Knoll (Columbo)". Amazon. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
^ "The Grassy Knoll". Goodreads. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
^ https://www.lambiek.net/artists/v/vance.htm
^ a b J.J. Murphy (March 4, 2012). The Black Hole of the Camera: The Films of Andy Warhol. University of California Press. pp. 141–. ISBN 978-0-520-27187-6.
^ Horwitz, Jane (September 5, 2006). "She Hopes 'MacBird' Flies in a New Era". The Washington Post.
^ a b Cox, Alex (2009). 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director's Take on the Spaghetti Western. Oldcastle Books. ISBN 978-1842433041.
^ Nicholas Cullather has discussed "The Movie Version" of John F. Kennedy's assassination in Nicholas Cullather, "History, Conspiracy, and the Kennedy Assassination," Retrieving the American Past, ed. Marc Horger (New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2005), 301-330.
^ Maslin, Janet (December 11, 1992). "Review/Film; Michelle Pfeiffer in a Tale of a 1960's Interracial Friendship". The New York Times.
^ a b Hauge, Ron (2007). The Simpsons The Complete Tenth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Mayored to the Mob" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
^ "Lonnie Lyrics". MetroLyrics. EMI. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
^ a b Pemberton, Pat (November 19, 2013). "16 Inspiring Songs That Honor JFK: The Human League, 'Seconds'". rollingstone.com. Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 15, 2014.
^ "Theater: Sondheim's 'Assassins': Insane Realities of History". The New York Times.
^ "Two Men in the Building". Retrieved November 22, 2014.
^ Andrew Gasska et al: Space 1999: Aftershock and Awe: Fort Lee, NJ: Archaia: 2013: ISBN 1936393883
^ "JFK shooting game 'despicable'". The Guardian.com. November 23, 2004. Retrieved 2018-11-09.
U.S. Senator from Massachusetts (1953–1960)
U.S. Representative for MA-11 (1947–1953)
(timeline)
Presidential office: Inauguration
Presidential pardons
Domestic policy: Clean Air Act
Community Mental Health Act
Federal affirmative action
Federal housing segregation ban
Fifty-mile hikes
Pilot Food Stamp Program
Status of Women (Presidential Commission)
University of Alabama integration
Voter Education Project
Foreign policy: Alliance for Progress
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Flexible response
Kennedy Doctrine
Cuba: Bay of Pigs Invasion
Cuban Project
ExComm
Soviet Union: Berlin Crisis
Moscow–Washington hotline
White House: Presidential limousine
Presidential yacht
Inaugural address
American University speech
"We choose to go to the Moon"
Report to the American People on Civil Rights
"Ich bin ein Berliner"
"A rising tide lifts all boats"
U.S. States House of Representatives elections: 1946
U.S. Senate elections in Massachusetts: 1952
1960 presidential primaries
Democratic National Conventions: 1956
U.S. presidential election 1960
Birthplace and childhood home
Kennedy Compound
Navy service: PT-109
Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana
Arthur Evans
Castle Hot Springs
Hammersmith Farm
Coretta Scott King phone call
"Happy Birthday, Mr. President"
Why England Slept (1940)
Profiles in Courage (1956)
A Nation of Immigrants (1958)
State funeral
Riderless horse
attending dignitaries
Gravesite and Eternal Flame
Apollo 11 Moon landing
Kennedy Round
Kennedy half dollar
U.S. postage stamps
U.S. five cent stamp
Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences
Operation Sail
Memorials,
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy London Memorial
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Dallas Memorial
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Portland Memorial
John F. Kennedy Runnymede Memorial
John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge
John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School
John F. Kennedy University
John Kennedy College
Kennedy Expressway
MV John F. Kennedy
USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67)
USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79)
Yad Kennedy
Jacqueline Bouvier (wife)
Caroline Kennedy (daughter)
John F. Kennedy Jr. (son)
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (son)
Jack Schlossberg (grandson)
Rose Schlossberg (granddaughter)
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. (father)
Rose Fitzgerald (mother)
Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (brother)
Rosemary Kennedy (sister)
Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington (sister)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver (sister)
Patricia Kennedy Lawford (sister)
Robert F. Kennedy (brother)
Jean Kennedy Smith (sister)
Ted Kennedy (brother)
P. J. Kennedy (grandfather)
John F. Fitzgerald (grandfather)
← Dwight D. Eisenhower
Lyndon B. Johnson →
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Assassination rifle
J. D. Tippit
John Connally
Nellie Connally
Pink Chanel suit
James Tague
William Greer
Roy Kellerman
Clint Hill
Zapruder film
Abraham Zapruder
Dealey Plaza
Texas School Book Depository
Sixth Floor Museum
Presidential limousine
Parkland Hospital
Johnson inauguration
Ruby v. Texas
Dictabelt recording
Single-bullet theory
1992 Assassination Records Act
Foreign dignitaries
Burial site and Eternal Flame
Jim Garrison investigation
House Select Committee on Assassinations
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Grand Canyon National Park’s 1st female leader is resigning
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – The first female superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park is resigning after less than three years at the helm of one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations.
Christine Lehnertz is the park’s first openly gay, female superintendent and the second consecutive Grand Canyon chief to leave under pressure.
She started the job in August 2016, tasked with changing what investigators said was a pervasive culture of sexual harassment in the now-defunct river district.
Christine Lehnertz notified the National Park Service on Thursday of her resignation.
It comes after she was cleared of allegations she created a hostile work environment and wasted park resources.
Attorney Kevin Evans says he was concerned about Lehnertz’s safety over what he called “baseless and defamatory accusations.”
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E-cigarette battery explodes in Las Vegas man's pocket at Walmart
By: Analise Ortiz
An e-cigarette battery exploded in a Las Vegas man's pants
A Las Vegas man is recovering from second and third degree burns caused by the explosion of an e-cigarette battery.
Matthew Beard was walking through Walmart near Fort Apache Road and Tropicana Avenue on Sunday when he heard a strange noise.
"It sounded like somebody had taken a soda pop can and threw it on the ground," Beard said. "Next thing I know I see a flame coming from my shorts."
Beard was forced to take off his clothes to get the flames under control, but the fire had already scorched his leg and hand.
"It feels like literally someone just has a lighter on my leg and they won't take it off," Beard said.
Beard was carrying two lithium ion batteries designed for an e-cigarette, or vape, in his pocket when the explosion happened.
Similar explosions have happened all over the country, including one at McCarran International Airport just last week.
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to specifically discuss the safety concerns surrounding e-cigarette batteries.
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Indiana man arrested after recording himself dumping bag of flour on woman in Walmart
By: Katie Cox
BEECH GROVE, Ind. — A man has been arrested after he recorded himself dumping a bag of flour onto the head of a 68-year-old woman at a Beech Grove, Indiana Walmart on Wednesday.
An off-duty IMPD officer working at the Walmart on Emerson Avenue just after 10 a.m. when he was informed of the incident. The 68-year-old woman was shopping in the store when a man she didn't know snuck up behind her and dumped an entire bag of flour on her head.
The suspect, Phillip Weaver, 22, recorded the incident on Facebook Live and shared it on his social media page. Weaver was arrested Thursday afternoon.
He's been preliminarily charged with battery, theft, theft of a firearm and criminal mischief in reference to that incident.
Final charges will be determined by the Marion County Prosecutor's office. The incident remains under investigation.
A quick view at Weaver's social media pages shows that he regularly records himself doing what he calls "pranks" to other people in public places and shares them with his followers. Some people commenting on this posts find his "pranks" funny, but others have called him out for what he has done.
WRTV has chosen not to share these posts or pranks because of the nature of the content and to protect the victims involved.
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V.S. Naipaul, Nobel-winning novelist, dies at 85
<p>Nobel Prize-winning novelist V.S. Naipaul, who was born in Trinidad but lived most of his life in England, died in his London home Saturday, August 11, 2018.</p>
Nobel Prize-winning novelist V.S. Naipaul, who was born in Trinidad but lived most of his life in England, died in his London home Saturday, Britain's Press Association reported, citing Naipaul's wife.
He was 85.
In awarding him the $1 million Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001, the Swedish Academy praised Naipaul for combining genres into his own style that compels readers "to see the presence of suppressed histories. ... In a vigilant style, (he) transforms rage into precision and allows events to speak with their own inherent irony."
The Nobel judges singled out as his "masterpiece" the 1987 work "The Enigma of Arrival."
His first book was a novel, "The Mystic Masseur" in 1957. Other titles include "Miguel Street;" "A House for Mr. Biswas," with a protagonist based on Naipaul's father; "The Loss of El Dorado," a colonial history of Trinidad; and "Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples," on the eastern regions of the Islamic world.
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born in 1932, near Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, descended from Hindu immigrants from India. He went to England at 18 to study at Oxford University.
"He is to a very high degree a cosmopolitan writer, a fact that he himself considers to stem from his lack of roots: he is unhappy about the cultural and spiritual poverty of Trinidad, he feels alienated from India, and in England he is incapable of relating to and identifying with the traditional values of what was once a colonial power," the Nobel judges said.
Naipaul is recognized in India for his writings on Hindu civilization.
"Sad to learn of the passing of V.S. Naipaul whose books are an penetrative exploration of faith, colonialism and the human condition, in his home in the Caribbean and beyond. A loss for the world of letters and for the broader school of Indo-Anglian literature," tweeted Ram Nath Kovind, the President of India.
Naipaul also won the Booker Prize in 1971, among other literary honors. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1990.
"When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day," he told Reuters in 2010.
Many of his novels are semi-autobiographical, with "A House for Mr. Biswas" clearly modeled on the author, his father and the house in which his family lived. The house was turned into the Naipaul House and Literary Museum in St. James, Port of Spain, in Trinidad.
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Labor & Collective Bargaining
NLRB Reminds Employers: ‘Fighting’ During Union Organizing May Be Protected Activity
By Adam C. Doerr, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on July 11, 2019
The National Labor Relations Board has reminded employers that they must tolerate a certain degree of heated discourse during a union organizing campaign before discipline or termination may be warranted.
On June 27, 2019, the Board, in Pacific Green Trucking, Inc., 368 NLRB No. 14, ruled that a union organizer was unlawfully terminated for his union support and organizing activity, not, as the company asserted, for “fighting” with coworkers.
Although the employment “at will” doctrine generally allows employers to terminate an employee (and allows an employee to quit) for any reason, or even for no reason at all, the National Labor Relations Act protects most private-sector employees from discrimination or retaliation for engaging in protected concerted activity under Section 7 of the NLRA, such as engaging in union organizing.
The employee allegedly was spearheading an organizing effort. He alleged that he was interrogated, treated less favorably, and ultimately terminated because of his union activity, in violation of the NLRA.
The Board invoked its familiar Wright Line doctrine to examine whether the employer’s legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for terminating the union organizer (“fighting”) was a mere pretext for anti-union animus.
After the Board found that the company’s manager knew of the employee’s union organizing activity, it inferred anti-union animus from the manager’s statement that he “knew [the employee] was with the Union” and that the employee “shouldn’t do that” because the company “was giving [the employee] work” – comments the Board considered an implicit threat of job loss. It also found the statement to constitute an unlawful interrogation because it implicitly called for the employee to confirm or deny the statement.
The Board also found the manager’s reference to “fighting” an unlawful “euphemism for discussing or debating the union,” citing several other Board cases referring to similar euphemisms for union activity, including referring to an employee as a “problem person” or an “instigator.”
Thus, absent specific evidence of physical violence, and considering what it already had found to be unlawfully threatening and coercive statements toward the employee, the Board found the employee’s termination unlawful. The Board found further support for its decision in the fact that the company did not contest the employee’s unemployment claim. This suggested to the Board that the company did not sincerely believe the employee was terminated for cause, or that he had quit.
This case provides valuable lessons for employers experiencing union organizing, including:
A statement by a manager to an employee that the manager “knows” the employee supports the union may be unlawful interrogation, because the statement implicitly call for the employee to confirm or deny it;
Enforcement of workplace civility rules and policies against “fighting” with coworkers, without reliable evidence of actual (or credible threats of) physical violence, may be found to be evidence of unlawful “code” for anti-union discrimination;
Failure to oppose an employee’s unemployment compensation claim may give rise to an inference by the NLRB that the employee did not quit or was not terminated “for cause.”
Regardless of an employee’s “at-will” employment status, employers must be cautious before disciplining or terminating an employee during any stage of a union organizing effort. Consult your experienced labor and employment attorney for guidance.
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB Tags: National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB, Protected Concerted Activity
Labor Board: Employee Conduct in Response to Employer’s Unlawful Actions Not Grounds for Discharge
By Jessica M. Marsh, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on July 11, 2019
An employer violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when it discharged an employee who refused to participate in a performance evaluation scheduled for discriminatory reasons, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled, reversing the decision of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). United States Postal Service, 367 NLRB No. 142 (June 4, 2019).
In this case, an employee was reinstated by a labor arbitrator who ruled in his favor on a grievance challenging his termination. On the employee’s first day back at work, which was still within the employee’s 90-day probationary period, his manager told him he would be given a performance evaluation. The employer did not have a prior practice of doing so for probationary employees.
The supervisor told the employee his “work quality” and “dependability” were “unacceptable.” The employee argued with the supervisor. The employee eventually stated he “could not take this” and left. The next day, the employer discharged the employee for “improper conduct” at his evaluation.
The employee filed an unfair labor practice charge. After a trial, an ALJ found the employer had violated the NLRA because it discriminatorily had given the employee the performance evaluation in retaliation for the employee’s grievance. Nonetheless, the ALJ recommended dismissal of the employee’s charge. The ALJ reasoned that the employee could not refuse to cooperate in the evaluation, and none of the evidence indicated the employer’s assessment of the employee’s performance was discriminatory.
The NLRB’s General Counsel appealed the decision to the NLRB, and the NLRB reversed the ALJ. The NLRB noted that the employer did not file exceptions (appeal) the ALJ’s finding that conducting the performance evaluation was unlawful. The NLRB found the employee “would not have been at that meeting but for [the employer]’s unlawful actions—specifically ordering the evaluation as retaliation for [the employee]’s protected activity.” Although the NLRB acknowledged “that there could be circumstances where an employee’s misconduct at an unlawful meeting could be so extreme as to [justify the termination],” it determined the facts in this case fell short of that standard.
The NLRB’s decision re-confirms that employee conduct — even if otherwise inappropriate (up to a point) — cannot result in discipline if it arose in response to the employer’s unlawful conduct. Employers should carefully evaluate all of the circumstances leading to an employee’s alleged insubordination or inappropriate conduct before deciding whether to discipline the employee.
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB Tags: National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB, NLRB General Counsel
Ride-Hail Drivers Are Independent Contractors, Not Employees, NLRB GC Concludes
By Patrick L. Egan, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on July 8, 2019
UberX and UberBLACK drivers are independent contractors, not employees, of Uber, the General Counsel (GC) of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has determined in a recently released Advice Memorandum.
The drivers therefore are not employees within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and are not eligible for NLRB-certified union representation or the protections of the NLRA.
The Memorandum applies the NLRB’s decision in SuperShuttle DFW, Inc., 367 NLRB No. 75 (Jan. 25, 2019), in which the NLRB overruled a 2014 Board decision that had made it harder to prove an individual was an independent contractor. In SuperShuttle, the Board held that, in deciding whether an individual is an independent contractor or an employee, it will return to focusing on the extent to which the arrangement between the ostensible employer and the alleged employee provided an “entrepreneurial opportunity” to the individual, a factor downplayed in the 2014 decision.
NLRA Definition of Employee
Section 2(3) of the NLRA defines an “employee.” That definition expressly excludes “independent contractors.”
To determine whether an individual is an employee or independent contractor, the Board looks to the 10-factor common law test of agency in the Restatement (Second) of Agency. No single factor is controlling, and the chief focus is on the individual’s risks and opportunities from entrepreneurial activity. In the ride-hail and taxicab industry the NLRB gives significant weight to two factors: (1) the degree of control the company has over the amount and manner of the work performed; and (2) the relationship between the individual’s compensation and the revenue collected.
Control of the Work
The GC found that UberX drivers had significant entrepreneurial opportunities, because drivers had “near complete control of their cars and work schedules” and log-in (i.e., work) location, and they were completely free to work for competitors at any time. Drivers had complete discretion to work or not, any day or any time, as long as they provided at least one ride per month. Drivers may increase their earnings by working during periods of high demand, when Uber triggered “surge” pricing, logging in in certain areas and at certain times and accepting a minimum number of riders when Uber provided incentives to do so.
The GC noted that Uber exercised little control over the drivers. Uber requires certain minimum service standards, such as the cleanliness, condition, and comfort of cars, professional appearance, cordial behavior, safe driving, and efficient navigation. However, the GC noted that none of the standards demonstrated significant control by Uber or affected the drivers’ entrepreneurial opportunities.
The GC explained that the method of payment for individuals is important because it can influence the incentive the company has to control the individual’s work. If the individual is paid by a flat fee, the company has little incentive to control the work because its cost and profit are not affected by how the work is performed. However, if the individual is compensated by commission, the company has a distinct incentive to control the work to increase the amount of commission as it shares in the increased fees. The GC stressed that the actual control exercised by the company is more important than the incentive for control a particular manner of pay may provide.
While noting Uber keeps a portion of the fee received for each ride, and it, therefore, has an incentive to control the drivers’ work, Uber actually exercised minimum control over the work of the drivers. Consequently, although the manner of payment suggests the drivers are employees, the limited control Uber exercised over the work of the drivers negated the importance of the incentive the manner of payment created.
Other Factors Favoring Independent Contractor Status
The GC discussed three additional factors that militated toward a finding of independent contractor status. First, the drivers were in control of “the principal instrumentality of the work” — the car — and they paid the chief operating expenses associated with the work: fueling, cleaning, and maintaining the vehicle. Second, the drivers received no supervision of their work from Uber. Finally, both the drivers and Uber understood their relationship was one of independent contractor, reflected by the facts that Uber issued the drivers with a Form 1099, not a Form W-2, and did not provide them any fringe benefits.
Factors Favoring Employee Status
The GC noted two factors that favored finding employee status: (1) the drivers needed no special skills to perform their work; and (2) the drivers were not working in a distinct business, but were working to fulfil Uber’s business purpose. However, the GC concluded those factors did not overcome the strong facts favoring independent contractor status.
UberBLACK
The GC found that UberBLACK drivers shared nearly all the characteristics of UberX drivers, and that the differences between the two even more strongly supported a finding of independent contractor status. The GC noted four facts: (1) UberBLACK drivers made a more significant capital investment, as their vehicles were more expensive; (2) they could hire other drivers to take a fare; (3) they could accept UberX riders in addition to UberBLACK riders; and (4) Uber contracts with UberBLACK drivers as a business, rather than as an individual.
Employers should expect the release of other Advice Memoranda from the GC dealing with this issue in other industries. As those are released, it will become clearer what the GC believes are the parameters of the SuperShuttle decision.
Jackson Lewis attorneys are available to answer questions about the Uber and SuperShuttle decisions and other developments from the Board.
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB, Unions and Organizing Tags: National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB, NLRB General Counsel
Representation-Case Procedures, Students as Employees, Access to Private Property on NLRB Rulemaking Agenda
By Linda R. Carlozzi, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on July 1, 2019
Among the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) rulemaking priorities under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) are its representation-case procedures, “blocking charge” and voluntary recognition standards, student status as employees, and access to employer private property.
The priorities are included in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Long Term Actions/Short Term Actions), a semiannual compilation of information about regulations under development by federal agencies, published in the spring and fall, that detail the most significant regulatory actions agencies expect to take in the coming year. The Board did not set forth expected rulemaking dates, but short-term actions likely will occur during 2019.
Representation-Case Procedures – Long-Term Action
It appears the Board has its sights squarely set on making substantial changes to the union-friendly amendments made by the Obama-era Board to representation election procedures. In the summary that accompanies this action item, the Board has written: “The . . . NLRB will be revising the representation election regulations located at 29 CFR part 102 (the Election Regulations), with a specific focus on amendments to the Board’s representation case procedures adopted by the Board’s final rule published on December 15, 2014 (the Election Rule or Rule).” (Emphasis added.) Those amendments have been effective since April 14, 2015. They allow union organizing to move at an accelerated pace by, among other things, significantly reducing the time between the filing of a representation petition and the election from an average of approximately six weeks to an average of 23 days. Other provisions create substantial burdens on employers by requiring, within seven days, submission of a Statement of Position addressing all potential bargaining unit issues, the provision of copious amounts of information regarding potential voters, and deferring critical election issues, such as supervisory status issues, until after the election is held. The conventional wisdom is that the NLRB will make employer-friendly changes to the procedures.
Blocking Charges and Voluntary Recognition – Short-Term Action
The Board has carved out items from its representation-case procedures review and included them in its short-term action list. The Board expects to reconsider the standards for blocking charges and the voluntary recognition bar.
The Board’s current practice is to suspend the processing of an NLRB representation petition if a “blocking charge” is filed by the union. (A “blocking charge” is an unfair labor practice charge alleging unlawful conduct which, if true, might interfere with employees’ ability to make a free and uncoerced choice of representative.) In rulemaking, the Board could eliminate blocking charges altogether.
The NLRB’s “voluntary recognition bar” policy requires workers to wait at least six months before seeking to oust a union that had been voluntarily recognized as their bargaining representative (as opposed to having been selected by a majority of the employees voting in an NLRB representation election). In rulemaking, the Board could shorten the bar to less than six months.
Students as Employees – Short Term Action
The NLRB also will consider rulemaking regarding the standard for determining whether students who perform services at private colleges or universities in connection with their studies are “employees” within the meaning of Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. Sec. 153(3)). For more information, see our article, Labor Board to Revisit Right of Graduate Students to Unionize.
Access to Employer Private Property – Short-Term Action
The NLRB will consider rulemaking regarding the standards for access to an employer’s private property. Conflicts between employer property rights and federal labor law have long been complicated and controversial, often leading to litigation. The case law in this area can be complex and interpretations of the NLRA by the Board have been subject to change. To provide clarity, the NLRB will consider rulemaking about the standards for access (by employees and unions) to an employer’s private property.
Access rules also have been front and center for change on the agenda of the NLRB’s General Counsel, Peter Robb. Robb directed the NLRB’s Regional Directors to submit to his Division of Advice unfair labor practice cases filed in the Regional Offices related to “off-duty employee access to property.” (See “Mandatory Submissions to Advice” Memorandum GC 18-02.) The Memorandum included examples of NLRB decisions and situations when the GC was interested in potentially asking the NLRB to change existing case law. Two of those decisions were Capital Medical Center, 364 NLRB No. 69 (2016), and Piedmont Gardens, 360 NLRB No. 100 (2014).
Joint Employer – Long-Term Action
In addition to the priorities included in the unified agenda, the NLRB also is in the process of rulemaking on the joint employer issue. The NLRB Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding the standard for determining joint employers received more than 7,000 comments. (See our article, Labor Board Seeks Public Comments on Proposed Rule for Determining Joint-Employer Status.) They are now being reviewed by a contractor hired by the NLRB to categorize the comments. No timetable has been set for issuance of the rule.
The NLRB’s published agenda is ambitious and significant. According to Chairman John F. Ring, the Board majority has a strong interest in continued rulemaking and “addressing these important topics through rulemaking allows the Board to consider and issue guidance in a clear and more comprehensive manner.”
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB, Uncategorized, Unions and Organizing Tags: National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB, Proposed Rule, Rulemaking
Labor Board Upholds Employers’ Right to Provide Truthful Information about Right to Work Laws
By Daniel D. Barker, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on May 17, 2019
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has dismissed a complaint against a Wisconsin employer that published a document informing employees of their right to stop paying union dues under Wisconsin’s right to work law. Metalcraft of Mayville, 367 NLRB No. 116 (Apr. 17, 2019).
Employers in states with new right-to-work laws have questions about what they can and cannot say to employees about employees’ right to decide not to pay union dues. In 2015, Wisconsin enacted a right-to-work law that prohibited employers and unions from agreeing to contract clauses that force employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Wisconsin’s law also gave employees the right to revoke dues checkoff authorizations on 30 days’ notice. While this provision was held invalid by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2018, one Wisconsin employer seized upon the new Wisconsin law to inform employees of their right to stop paying dues to their union.
After negotiating a new labor agreement with the Machinists’ union, the employer, Metalcraft of Mayville, took the position that the dues checkoff authorizations employees had previously signed were invalid because they did not permit revocation on 30 days’ notice, but, instead, only allowed employees to cancel the authorization during a short window each year. The company then sent a series of letters to employees informing them of their right not to pay union dues.
Its first letter said:
If you want to pay Union dues, it is now your decision and it’s entirely voluntary. Currently you pay $59.30 per month or $711.60 per year in Union dues. All together our employees’ payments of Union dues are about $255,000 per year. Based on the signed authorization for Union dues, we believe it is a violation of the Right-to-Work law. Therefore, effective after June 4, we will no longer deduct the $59.30 from your paycheck per month.
The company sent a second letter to employees listing several questions and answers:
Q: Look at the yearly total we pay the union, where is all that money going?
A: Much of the information about the distribution of union dues is publicly accessible. For example you can Google IAM and find answers to your questions directly from the source or other sources if you want to find out more.
Q: Why should I pay them anything after they screwed up the contract negotiations?
A: This is a personal choice that every individual has to decide on their own and how they will handle their money.
Q: Can I still work here if I don’t join the union?
A: Yes. By state law, being a member of the union is no longer a condition of employment.
Q: What happens if we decide not to pay union dues?
A: Then you don’t pay union dues.
The Machinists union filed unfair labor practice charges under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) over the company’s failure to withhold dues and its communications to employees. The union claimed the company illegally stopped withholding union dues, arguing that the Wisconsin law relating to dues checkoffs was preempted by federal law. It also claimed the company’s letters unlawfully undermined the union.
After a hearing, an NLRB administrative law judge (ALJ) agreed with the union, ruling the company violated the law on all counts. Metalcraft appealed to the NLRB.
The NLRB overruled the ALJ, writing that the company had a “sound arguable basis” for asserting the checkoffs were invalid. The Board pointed out that although Wisconsin’s law on checkoff revocations ultimately was found invalid in 2018, Metalcraft’s actions occurred before that court decision was issued. Thus, at the time Metalcraft stopped the dues checkoff, the law was unsettled and Metalcraft had a reasonable argument that it was complying with Wisconsin’s law as written.
The NLRB also dismissed the “undermine” allegation, pointing out that an employer may lawfully criticize, disparage, or denigrate a union, provided its expression of opinion does not threaten employees or otherwise interfere with their rights. While the ALJ had said the employer disparaged the union, the NLRB stated that “it is perfectly lawful for an employer to criticize a union.” Key to the NLRB’s decision was the fact that the employer expressly stated the decision not to pay union dues was the employee’s alone. The employer did not tell employees what they should do.
The NLRB’s decision shows that the current Board is committed to respecting employer rights to free speech even where the employer’s action may be perceived as aggressive. Taking an aggressive approach might not be appropriate for every company or for every situation. Employers should consult with counsel about the strategic and practical pros and cons of any course of action.
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB, Right-To-Work Tags: National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB, Right-To-Work
NLRB: Employer Lawfully Took Control of Investigatory Interview
By James A. Mills, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on April 25, 2019
The NLRB has ruled that, under the particular circumstances, an employer representative lawfully barred a union representative from asking questions during an investigatory interview while the employer representative was questioning the employee to get his version of events. PAE Applied Technologies, LLC, 367 NLRB No. 105 (Mar. 8, 2019). NLRB Chairman John Ring and Member William Emanuel joined in the decision. Member Lauren McFerran dissented.
Union-represented employees have a right, upon request, to have a representative present during an investigatory interview the employee reasonably believes may result in his discipline (called “Weingarten rights,” after the decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the right), but the union representative does not have the right to “interfere” with the investigation. NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251, 267 (1975). A Weingarten representative must be allowed to “provide advice and active assistance” and may not be required to “sit silently like a mere observer.” Although a representative may assist the employee or try to clarify the facts or suggest other employees who may have knowledge of them, the employer representative may insist that he is interested, at that time, only in hearing the employee’s own account.
After PAE Applied Technologies received a customer’s complaint about employee John Poulos’ behavior, PAE notified Poulos that he was under investigation and scheduled an interview to get his side of the story. Two union officers attended the meeting, along with four employer representatives. PAE’s investigator, James Rutledge, was in charge of the interview. At the outset, one of the union representatives began asking Rutledge questions, instead of permitting Rutledge to question Poulos. Soon, a number of the union and employer representatives in attendance began talking over one another. Rutledge told everyone to stop talking and that he alone would ask questions.
Rutledge then instructed Poulos to write out his version of the incident under investigation and refused to allow any questions while Poulos completed the statement, although a union representative was allowed to leave the room with a PAE representative to ask a question. Rutledge also allowed Poulos private time with his representatives while Rutledge reviewed the statement. Rutledge then asked Poulos questions, to which Poulos answered in writing and read aloud to everyone in the room. Rutledge continued to prohibit the union representatives from asking questions or otherwise participating, but questions and answers were allowed after he had finished.
The NLRB ruled that PAE’s limitations on the union’s participation in the meeting were lawful and consistent with the legal principles set forth in Weingarten and Board cases applying it. It emphasized that PAE had the right to get Poulos’ version of the incident without disruption and noted that, when he heard “a cacophony of voices,” Rutledge determined that the meeting was out of control and keeping him from being able to get Poulos’ side of the story. The Board found significant that Rutledge’s instruction to everyone to stop talking began “precisely when he sought to elicit Poulos’ written statement about the February 16 incident — i.e., at a time when he was free to insist that no one disrupt Poulos from providing his own account of the matter under investigation.” The Board also found significant that, after Poulos had prepared his written statement, but before questioning him about it, Rutledge permitted Poulos to speak with the union representatives, and that Rutledge allowed the representatives to ask questions later.
This case shows how employers with union-represented employees may conduct and control Weingarten meetings when faced with disruptive behavior by a union representative.
Please contact Jackson Lewis with any questions about this case.
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB Tags: National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB, Protected Concerted Activity, Weingarten
NLRB General Counsel Seeks to Limit Use of Investigative Subpoenas in Unfair Labor Practice Investigations
By Kathryn J. Barry, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on April 5, 2019
The National Labor Relations Board’s Office of General Counsel is urging Regional Directors to limit their use of investigative subpoenas and instead issue complaints “based on the evidence available,” according to a March 13, 2019, memorandum obtained by Bloomberg Law.
The memo is General Counsel Peter Robb’s latest effort to reduce case processing time. It reiterates that charged parties are expected and encouraged to participate fully in a Region’s unfair labor practice investigation. While Regional Directors historically have issued investigative subpoenas to charged parties who refuse to cooperate, such subpoenas, according to the memo, can “unnecessarily prolong the investigation and impede the prompt resolution of the underlying dispute.”
Following Robb’s instructions, in cases where a charged party’s lack of cooperation is “significant,” Regional Directors are permitted and encouraged to issue unfair labor practice complaints based on the evidence available (provided the evidence supports the issuance of a complaint), rather than pursue additional evidence through an investigative subpoena. Whether a lack of cooperation is significant will be left to the Regional Director’s discretion and “dictated by the particular facts and circumstances of the case.” However, the memo notes a lack of cooperation could arise where the charged party fails to respond to a charge, or provides a written statement but refuses to “provide key information” requested by the Region. Although the memo does not clearly restrict a Regional Director’s determination of whether a failure to cooperate is significant, it notes that typically “failures to produce a witness or witnesses where credibility disputes may dictate issuance of complaint” will not rise to that level. Typically, these situations would not include failures to produce a witness or witnesses where credibility disputes may dictate issuance of complaint.
The Regional Director also has discretion to note the lack of cooperation in the complaint in this footnote language:
On (DATE(S)), the Region requested that Respondent cooperate in the administrative investigation of the ULP charge(s) conducted prior to issuance of the instant complaint. Respondent failed to fully cooperate in the investigation by refusing to furnish certain documents relevant to the disposition of the charge(s).
This latest memorandum highlights the importance of a party strategically considering the submission of a timely response to a Region’s request for information regarding an unfair labor practice charge. While responding may lower the risk that the Region will issue a complaint for failure to cooperate, it may result in providing too much information because, for example, the information request is overbroad. An employer that receives notification that an unfair labor practice charge has been filed against it should consult with counsel about appropriate next steps.
Labor Board: Is Union’s Inclusion of Weingarten Rights Statement in Collective Bargaining Agreement Coercive?
By Henry S. Shapiro, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on April 5, 2019
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has remanded a 2013 decision to an administrative law judge to determine whether the Board’s landmark 2017 decision on work rules and policies affects its 2013 determination that a union did not violate National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) Section 8(b)(1)(A) by unilaterally including a Weingarten rights statement on the back cover of a collective bargaining agreement and distributing that agreement to employees. California Nurses Association, National Nurses Organizing Committee, 31-CB-012913 (Mar. 4, 2019).
In the 2013 decision, California Nurses Association, 359 NLRB 1391, the NLRB also decided the union’s unilateral action ran afoul of the NLRA’s requirement under Section 8(b)(3) of the NLRA. The Board did so based on the parties’ “clear understanding that the printed contract would not contain the Weingarten statement.”
The Weingarten Rights Statement
The Weingarten rights statement in dispute read as follows:
The Weingarten Rights
The Supreme Court has ruled that an employee is entitled to have a CNA Representative present during any interview which may result in discipline. These rights are called your Weingarten Rights.
You must request that a CNA rep be called into the meeting.
You must have a reasonable belief that discipline will result from the meeting.
You have the right to know the subject of the meeting and the right to consult your CNA rep prior to the meeting to get advice.
Do not refuse to attend the meeting if a rep is requested but denied. We suggest you attend the meeting and repeatedly insist upon your right to have a CNA rep present. If this fails, we suggest that you not answer questions and take notes.
The Section 8(b)(1)(A) issue focused on the language “You must request that a CNA rep be called into the meeting.”
Original Decision Vacated
This case has a complicated history. In 2014, the Board vacated and retained for “further action as appropriate” its 2013 California Nurses Association decision following the U.S. Supreme Court invalidating numerous Board decisions because the composition of the Board at the time of the decision included two persons whose appointments were constitutionally infirm.
In 2018, the Board reconsidered and affirmed its 2013 decision that the union’s unilateral action ran afoul of NLRA Section 8(b)(3) bargaining requirements as contrary to the parties’ clear understanding. California Nurses Association, 31-CB-012913 (Nov. 14, 2018) (unpublished). (The Board left the door open to finding, in a future case, that a union’s unilateral inclusion of a Weingarten rights statement in a collective bargaining agreement violates Section 8(b)(3) on an additional basis. In the 2018 decision, the Board stated that “it [is] unnecessary to pass on . . . the additional rationale that the [union] also unlawfully modified the contractual disciplinary procedure in the parties’ collective-bargaining agreement.”) The Board required the union — at its own expense — to reprint and redistribute the collective bargaining agreement without the Weingarten language. It also decided to retain “for further consideration” the Section 8(b)(1)(A) allegation.
The Section 8(b)(1)(A) Issue
Section 8(b)(1)(A) makes it unlawful for a labor union to restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights. Section 7 protects the right of represented employees to refrain from exercising their Weingarten right to union representation. In 2013, deciding the union had not violated Section 8(b)(1)(A), the Board applied its then-existing test for determining whether a work rule is lawful. According to the 2013 Board, under that test, provisions must be read in their context and improper interference with employee rights should not be presumed. The Board decided that employees would not reasonably understand “The Weingarten Rights” statement to restrain their right to forgo union representation at a disciplinary interview.
In 2017, in The Boeing Co., 365 NLRB No. 154, the NLRB created a new, employer-friendly standard for determining whether a work rule or policy has been unlawfully maintained that applies retroactively to all pending cases. That standard requires balancing the “the nature and extent of the potential impact on NLRA rights” against the “legitimate justifications associated with [a] rule.” An administrative law judge must now issue a decision addressing whether and to what extent the 2013 decision is affected by Boeing.
This case is another example of the Trump Board and NLRB General Counsel taking a close look at possible union misconduct. The General Counsel, for example, has directed field office staff to prosecute a broader array of cases than previously against unions that engage in negligent behavior toward their members.
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB, Unions and Organizing Tags: National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB, Noel Canning, Union Representation
Labor Board: Nonmembers Cannot Be Compelled to Pay Union Lobbying Expenses
By Andrew Baskin, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on March 6, 2019
Unions no longer can require objectors to contribute toward union lobbying costs, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled in a 3-1 decision. United Nurses & Allied Professional (Kent Hospital), 367 NLRB No. 94 (Mar. 1, 2019).
The NLRB said lobbying costs of all kinds are not considered part of a union’s statutory collective-bargaining obligations under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and, therefore, unions cannot compel support. This decision represents the latest setback to efforts by public and private sector unions to collect and make use of nonmembers’ contributions.
The facts of Kent Hospital date back nearly a decade. In 2009, Jeanette Geary, a nurse working at Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island, resigned her union membership with United Nurse and Allied Professionals (UNAP). As a nonmember where the collective bargaining agreement contained a union-security provision requiring all new unit members to join the Union by their 30th day of employment, Geary was still obligated to contribute certain fees to UNAP. As established by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988), a union may compel nonmembers to contribute fees deemed necessary to “performing the duties of an exclusive representative of the employees in dealing with the employer on labor-management issues.” Duties deemed necessary include collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.
In 2009, UNAP spent $22,650 from its general operating fund to contribute to its lobbying efforts in the Rhode Island and Vermont state legislatures. Those funds went directed toward lobbying on seven bills. The bills related to health care institutions, and they ranged in purpose from increasing funding for mental healthcare services at UNAP-represented facilities to increasing state monitoring of certain hospitals.
Geary challenged the lobbying expenditure as outside the scope of UNAP’s statutorily required functions and as unrelated to collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment. The NLRB agreed. It found that lobbying expenses, at best, can serve only indirectly a union’s representative functions. Political functions, such as lobbying, are “too attenuated to justify compelled support,” according to the NLRB.
This is the opposite of the conclusion the NLRB came to when it first reached a decision in this case in 2012, under a more union-friendly NLRB. At that time, a majority of the Board endorsed a potential balancing test whereby lobbying for certain bills considered “germane” to statutorily-related union activities (such as bills increasing the minimum wage) would be permitted with nonmember contributions. However, the Supreme Court vacated that ruling when it held that three recess appointments to the Board in January 2012 were invalid. (For more on the Court’s decision, see our article, Supreme Court Issues Historic Decision on President’s Recess Appointment Power.) Member Lauren McFerran endorsed a similar balancing test in her dissent to this latest NLRB ruling.
The United Nurses ruling highlights two trends. First, the NLRB continues to reject the Obama-Board balancing tests in favor of bright-line rules on what is and is not permitted under the NLRA. Second, the decision demonstrates the continued limitations unions face in conducting political activity. The Supreme Court in 2018 disallowed public sector unions from collecting fees from nonmembers altogether. (See our article, Supreme Court Rules Unconstitutional Mandatory Fees Imposed on Non-Union, Public Sector Employees.) It appears that may apply to the private sector.
Please contact Jackson Lewis with any questions about this case or the NLRB.
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB, Right-To-Work, Unions and Organizing Tags: Beck, National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB, Noel Canning
NLRB Chairman Fires Back at Request to Withdraw Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Joint Employment
By Chad P. Richter, Howard M. Bloom and Philip B. Rosen on January 31, 2019
John Ring, NLRB Chairman, has sent a five-page letter to several members of Congress in response to their request for the NLRB to withdraw its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the joint-employer standard.
In the January 17, 2019 letter recently released to the public, the Board Chairman spent considerable time defending the Board’s position and clarifying a recent appellate decision in Browning-Ferris by the D.C. Circuit. For a detailed description of the decision, please see Joint Employment under NLRA: Interpreting D.C. Circuit Court’s Browning-Ferris. The Chairman stressed the need for more clarity in this area of the law and that determining joint-employer status continues to be one of the most difficult and debated subjects in labor law.
In support of his position, the Chairman stated that the Board has received more than 26,000 comments in response to the NPRM with two weeks remaining for additional comments at the time he prepared the letter. Ring further stressed that nothing in the D.C. Circuit’s decision “forecloses” the Board’s joint-employer rulemaking or otherwise requires the Board to suspend or withdraw its NPRM. He quoted various aspects of the D.C. Circuit’s decision in an effort to clarify the Court’s ruling and correct the interpretation articulated by several members of Congress. Ring remained steadfast in the decision to use the NPRM to obtain clarity and direction in formulating the final rule. He concluded as follows:
For all of these reasons, a majority of the Board continues to believe that Notice-and-Comment rulemaking offers the best vehicle to address the uncertainty surrounding the joint employer standard. Rulemaking provides an opportunity for input by tens of thousands of public commenters, including those who may not be able to afford an attorney to participate in our case adjudication process. Withdrawing the NPRM at this time certainly would be unfair to the thousands of individuals and groups that have expressed such a strong desire to be heard on this important topic.
In light of the recent D.C. Circuit Court’s decision, the Board extended the comment period deadline from January 14 to January 28, 2019, to provide an opportunity for the public to weigh in following the decision.
Jackson Lewis attorneys are available to address any questions about the joint-employer rulemaking and the current standard.
Posted in: NLRA, NLRB, On The Hill, Unions and Organizing Tags: Browning-Ferris Industries, joint employer, National Labor Relations Act, National Labor Relations Board, NLRA, NLRB
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About Jackson Lewis
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Carousel February 21, 2019
Overview February 21, 2019
The Art History program at Long Beach City College surveys the multifaceted world of visual artifacts from the earliest human history to the present in diverse cultures around the globe. Art History is a key humanities course that fulfills a General Education requirement for AA degrees and transfer to 4-year universities. If you want to major in Art History, LBCC offers the Associate Degree for Transfer in Art History. In the 21st century, which is saturated with visual images and demands the skills of creative and critical thinking, the ability to analyze visual culture is imperative. Art History classes provide students the opportunity to learn these important skills and to explore cultures different than their own.
Art History focuses on the creativity and innovation of human societies to gain unique insights into the historical, political, religious, economic and aesthetic circumstances that led to the production of many famous masterpieces and iconic monuments. Art is a testament to our shared culture and it enables us to better understand the past and the present. It is a lens through which to examine issues from mythology to monotheism, political leadership, scientific advances, race, gender roles, the environment, and much more.
Full-time faculty are Ph.D. trained art historians Dr. Wendy Koenig and Dr. Sarah Vure. Professors Koenig and Vure are committed to student centered learning and facilitating students’ academic and career goals.
The AA-T in Art History degree provides lower division major and general education preparation for students interested in transferring to a baccalaureate degree in this field. Students who pursue the B.A. in art history may continue to graduate school for M.A. or Ph.D. degrees, or find careers in museums, auction houses, art galleries, art publications, libraries, and universities.
Contact August 8, 2017 LAC, K-102E
Wendy Koenig
Professor, Art History
wkoenig[remove-this-and-replace-with-at]lbcc.edu
Contact August 8, 2017 LAC, K-101
Sarah Vure
Associate Professor, Art History
svure[remove-this-and-replace-with-at]lbcc.edu
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George H. Smith was formerly Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Humane Studies, a lecturer on American History for Cato Summer Seminars, and Executive Editor of Knowledge Products. Smith's fourth and most recent book, The System of Liberty, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.
Ludwig von Mises and Economic Calculation Under Socialism, Part 1
by George H. Smith on Apr 2, 2013
Smith discusses the theory of value that provided the foundation for the argument that rational economic calculation is impossible in a socialistic economy.
Smith explains why Mises predicted that “planned chaos” would emerge in a socialist economy and how F.A. Hayek elaborated on that insight.
Defending the Non-Aggression Principle: A Reply to Matt Zwolinski, Part 1
by George H. Smith on Apr 16, 2013
George H. Smith examines the claim that the non-aggression principle should be viewed as a defeasible presumption.
Defending the Non-Aggression Principle: A Reply to Matt Zwolinski Part 2
Smith examines the argument that minor acts of aggression are morally permissible if they result in good consequences that offset an unjust act.
George H. Smith criticizes Zwolinski’s discussions of risk, fraud, and the relationship between aggression and property rights.
by George H. Smith on May 7, 2013
George H. Smith presents the rudiments of a theory of children’s rights.
by George H. Smith on May 14, 2013
George H. Smith discusses various formulations of the non-aggression principle and concludes with some remarks about the problem of pollution.
Among My Favorites: History of Civilization in England, by H. T. Buckle, Part 1
Smith begins his discussion of one of the most libertarian works on history ever written.
Natural Rights and the Moral Foundations of Libertarianism, Part 1
George H. Smith discusses the meaning of “natural rights” and some historical aspects of this theory.
The Cato Home Study Course, Vol. 2: John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government
featuring George H. Smith in 1987
The Cato Home Study Course, Vol. 3 Part 1: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
The Cato Home Study Course, Vol. 3 Part 2: Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence
by George H. Smith on Jun 4, 2013
After discussing some implications of early works on international law for libertarian theory, Smith concludes with a defense of Ayn Rand’s theory of rights.
The Cato Home Study Course, Vol. 6: The Constitution of the United States of America
by George H. Smith on Jun 11, 2013
George H. Smith discusses Buckle’s stress on the importance of ideas in the progress of civilization.
Smith explores Buckle’s claim that the “protective spirit” of governments has hindered the progress of civilization.
Smith discusses Buckle’s claim that Adam Smith was one of the most brilliant and influential thinkers in the history of the modern world.
Herbert Spencer, Henry George, and the Land Question, Part 1
by George H. Smith on Jul 2, 2013
Smith discusses Henry George’s allegation that Spencer’s later views on land ownership were intellectually dishonest.
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A History with Future –...
A History with Future – The Lindau Meetings
Posted on 01/07/2012 11/06/2015 by Beatrice Lugger
Does anyone, who joins the Lindau Meeting know, why 20 to 30 Nobel Laureates meet at this beautiful spot with young researchers every year since 1951? Did Alfred Nobel live in Lindau? Not at all.
In 1951 two physicians in Lindau, six years after the end of World War II, thought of how to overcome the scientific isolation – Germany had been excluded from most of the worldwide scientific exchange. Franz Karl Hein and his colleague Gustav Parade had the idea of a congress to encourage international scientific exchanges with Nobel Laureates and they found an open–minded and enthusiastic advocate and patron in Count Lennart Bernadotte af Wisborg (†). Count Lennart Bernadotte was a member of the Swedish royal family, who lived at the other end of Lake Constance on the island of Mainau – as his family still does today. After all, his great-grandfather, the Swedish King Oscar II, had awarded the very first Nobel prizes.
Franz Karl Hein, Count Lennart Bernadotte, Gustav Parade during the first meeting in 1951
On June 11th 1951 the first ‘European Meeting of Nobel Laureates in medicine’ was openend by Count Bernadotte. Seven Laureates and 400 physicians had come to Lindau from Germany and neighbouring countries. In 1952 the number of attending Nobel Laureates rose up to ten. And in 1953 for the first time the meeting was dedicated to physics and students have been an integral part the meeting. With their presence the event got a new ambition and meaning. From there on the number of attending Nobel Laureates grew with every year (first meeting dedicated to chemistry in 1954), aswell as the number of students*.
In the first decade of the meeting the main part of the young researchers naturally came from Germany and its close neighbours at Lake Constance Austria and Switzerland. But also students from France or the Netherlands soon started to join the meeting (in the beginning it was open to everybody who made it to Lindau). It is a brilliant and timeless concept and not at least the atmosphere in Lindau at lake Constance makes it someway like talking with friends on holidays. A perfect relaxed and informal atmosphere for an intensive dialogue!
Today the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting has a global network of around 300 partner institutions. It comprises academies of sciences, national ministries, university faculties and departments, research organizations, foundations, companies, international associations of organizations. They together with Nobel Laureates are involved in the nomination process of the young researchers from all over the world.
Participants in 2012
This year 592 young talents travel to Lindau. They come fro 69 countries. The biggest group are students and PhDs from Germany (167), followed by the USA (90), China (32), India (31), Italy (21), Japan (16) and Spain (16)… And it will be Countess Bettina Bernadotte, the daughter of Count Lennart Bernadotte, who will welcome them all in the opening ceremony this Sunday afternoon, July 1st.
More about the history of the meetings in the Mediatheque.
* Since 1970, Laureates in economic sciences have sporadically attended. The first Meeting of Winners of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was held in 2004 and is organized every three years since 2008.
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Mao Guh
There's nothing we like more at Lodestars Anthology than a fascinating story from a far-flung corner of the world. Mao Guh, the first Taiwanese surfer, has had his story captured in images by London-based photographer Jorge Luis Dieguez, and we are delighted to share it here. During the 50s and 60s, Mao Gu's father (Jeff being his English name) worked with the US Army based in the north of Taiwan. Mao used to follow his father on business travels, giving him an extra hand and during one of those trips he saw US soldiers surfing off the north coast of Taiwan. He had never seen anything like it, and, recalling his first sighting, he remembered the surprise he felt all those years ago:
'Woowww...what is that? I'd never seen that before. It was a very long time ago, I was 13 years old, it was around, I forget, 1960...and one of the soldiers asked me if I wanted to try. My father asked me 'You want to try? Ok, come on!' he said to me.
No leash, a little bit of wax (on the board) nothing you know, those boards were pretty heavy for a beginner and really big.
One wipeout, come in again, another wipeout, come in again. I tried several times and I told my father 'I got one stand up! One stand up!' and he said: 'OK, OK, come on!'
Mao continued surfing for five years in the same place, using a board that his father had purchased from one of the soldiers that he first began surfing with. During those five years Mao only surfed with American soldiers.
Although his health has now deteriorated, Mao still remembers the reluctant attitudes towards the sea and the reactions towards surfing that Taiwanese and Chinese societies held at the time.
'Chinese people thought I was crazy, the sea is really strong in Taiwan you know, and there used to be sharks in the water, but not anymore. No people in the water, only me. For a few years I used to surf alone until I moved to Ylan county (in the northeast of Taiwan), where I brought my family and taught them how to surf and we started travelling and surfing throughout Taiwan. In the winters we went to the southeast and in the summers we would come back north.'
In 1969, after 10 years of surfing, Mao founded his surf shop (the first in Taiwan) and started shaping boards, a technique he learnt from his Japanese master. Mao has travelled the world in search of the most renowned waves and has lived in Hawaii for three years, but, due to an operation, no longer surfs or shapes boards. Along with his wife and son, he still runs the Jeff Surf Shop, and, taking after his father, Mao's son is now a well respected surf instructor. As for Mao, he continues to be a living legend of surfing in Taiwan, and is admired across the country.
Tagged: Jorge Luis Dieguez, Mao Guh
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Leopold "Leo" James FitzLeo Fitz
Leopold Fitz’s exceptional intelligence makes engineering look so easy, a monkey could do it.
In Comics Profile
In Comics Full Report
Brilliant Leo Fitz applies his skills in gadgetry and thirst for adventure to his job as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., America’s top spy organization.
Bright Boy
Much of Leopold Fitz’s personal background remains confidential and undisclosed, but some evidence exists to suggest a Scottish heritage and a knack for science and invention at an early age. As an adult, he became an agent of the United States’ top intelligence organization, S.H.I.E.L.D., and quickly made an impression on his superiors with his gadget-building, as well as his ability to apply his work in the field with excellent results.
For some reason, Fitz has also developed a fixation on acquiring a monkey as an assistant, a request that usually annoys his direct boss, Agent Phil Coulson.
Fitz Skillz
Fitz has undergone and qualified in all the standard S.H.I.E.L.D. training for field operations, personal combat, and weapon handling. His above-average IQ and keen interest in science and engineering has placed him on the path of becoming one of the organization’s brightest and cleverest gadgeteers and earned him a Level 5 security clearance as an agent.
Despite his exceptional intelligence, Fitz can also seem naïve at times and perhaps over-exuberant in his dealings with others, especially where his inventions are concerned.
Once fully trained and ready for field work, Fitz developed a working relationship with several fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, including Phil Coulson, Melinda May, Daisy Johnson. He’s closer with Jemma Simmons, his lab partner. Like many others in the organization, he appears to hold little love for Maria Hill, the intermittent director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
In addition, Fitz’s missions have also brought him into contact with several of the world’s Super Heroes and other larger-than-life personalities, such as the Scarlet Witch, Elektra, and Howard the Duck.
Universe, Other Aliases, Identity
Fitz, Fitz-Simmons, Turbo
No dual identity
If the Shoe Fitz…
Not all of Leo Fitz’s missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. have been declassified, most interestingly his earliest ones, but he first came to some prominence working as part of Phil Coulson’s investigation of a sword, belonging to the Asgardian Heimdall, that appeared on Earth in the hands of a terrestrial terrorist. With the help of the android Vision, the young inventor proved instrumental in helping Heimdall break free of the influence of a strange, other-worldly mineral. Following the mission, Fitz began his own investigation into the alien stone.
Fitz, fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Melinda May, and the Scarlet Witch followed the trail of an assassin targeting sorcerers to Antarctica and confronted the culprit behind the series of shootings. During this time, Dormammu, a powerful being from another dimension, spread a sickness on Earth called the Mindless Plague which swept Fitz up into its grasp. Under the influence of Dormammu’s plague, Fitz shot the Scarlet Witch, though she survived.
Fitz was cured by his teammates, who were able to stop Dormammu, and he returned to duty soon after.
Perhaps one of Leo Fitz’s most challenging assignments took the form of an undercover mission to investigate a U.S. Department of Defense general and secure a highly secretive computer drive. During this time, Fitz’s allegiance was questioned by then-S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill due to his superior Phil Coulson’s dismissal. When the assassin Elektra was hired by Hill to delve into the mystery, she deduced Fitz’s duplicity and he was forced to retreat with the help of Coulson and Daisy Johnson. His active status was not restored until he and Johnson arrested the wayward general and secured the man’s confession of wrongdoing.
It is rumored that Fitz has created and put into operation an artificial intelligence codenamed with the acronym H.E.N.R.Y.
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Life lessons from Mrs Howard - Part One
A long time ago I knew a lady I'll call Mrs Howard (not her real name - and as she was in her mid 80s then I very much doubt she's still with us).
Mrs Howard lived in quite a large, three bedroomed semi-detached Victorian villa, on a narrow, semi-rural road about 2 miles from the nearest town. Apart from the other half to her semi, there were only a few houses near to hers as well as - slightly bizarrely - a care home on the other side of the road, opposite Mrs Howard's house.
On Sundays, Mrs Howard used to go over the road and play the piano "for the old dears" as she put it, although she was older than most of the residents. Lesson number one: other people might be old, but you never are.
One of her sons and his girlfriend lived with her - or rather, the son lived in the house and his girlfriend lived in a caravan in the back garden. Their story comes under Part Two of this blog.
Mrs Howard's house was the dampest place I've ever been in - before or since. Upstairs, in the bedrooms, the wallpaper was peeling off the walls in great clumps. You could smell the damp in every room, and there was a lot of mould. Most of the sash windows had been either nailed shut, or were so badly warped that they no longer opened. The house had last been rewired in 1935, Mrs Howard thought, and many of the sockets either didn't work or could only be used for appliances with 'round pin' plugs. It had been her husband's family's home, and she'd lived there since she got married in 1929.
The only form of heating was the open fireplaces - and the fire brigade had banned Mrs Howard from using two of these fireplaces because she'd had so many chimney fires, and they'd been called out so many times, that these weren't safe. This left her with one working fireplace for the whole house, in what she called "the back kitchen."
She pretty much lived in the back kitchen, which spanned the width of the house. It had a small scullery to one side, with an electric cooker, a sink and a cupboard. In the back kitchen was a fireplace with a small range, a large dark wood round table with a thick blanket covering it, some dark wooden dining chairs, several very old easy chairs covered with bright, multi-coloured crocheted blankets, and other furniture - and the oldest dog, with the rheumiest eyes you've ever seen. She had a very low income.
Mrs Howard wore a blue nylon overall which buttoned all the way up, skirt, thick tights, and lace-up shoes. She'd had breast cancer - and a mastectomy, and she frequently showed the scar to visitors. One of the local council housing officials who was involved in the application to get her house renovated - a small man, with what appeared to be a bit of a power complex - would ring me every time he had to visit so I would be there to be shown the scar instead of him, and so save his blushes. I would to say to her, please don't feel you have to show everyone your scar, but she said she was proud of her 'war wound' and didn't think anyone should be afraid of it.
She also had the most ill-fitting dentures I've ever seen, and it was hard when talking to her not to stare as they rolled around her mouth. How they didn't fall out was a total mystery. I asked her once about her dentist and she beamed at me, dentures loose and gleaming, and said the old dears at the care home often complained that their dentures hurt them whereas hers were fine. I left it at that.
Mrs Howard took a liking to me, and I to her. So, because it was me, and because she wanted to give me a treat, every time I visited she would offer me a cup of tea. In those days - more than now - I drank tea that looked as if you'd crept up behind a cup of hot water with some milk in and frightened it by shouting 'boo' (very, very weak, in other words). In contrast, Mrs Howard made the strongest tea ever - almost orange in its concentration. And because it was me, and because it was a treat, she wouldn't add milk, she would instead put in a huge dollop of condensed milk and then - sticking in her finger and flicking out any stray dog hairs that were floating on top - she would proudly present to me the strongest, sweetest cup of tea on the planet.
It was so bad I couldn't always face it, so I would occasionally arrange to call in just after lunch so I could legitimately thank her and turn down the offer because I'd just had a drink. But she took such pleasure in making this tea for me that I didn't do that very often.
She was a very kind, very interesting woman, and one of the lessons she taught me was the importance of being able to receive that kindness. Many of us are good at being kind to others - but receiving it is an art form in its own right, and it's an important contribution that many very ill people make to life that goes unremarked. She made me the sort of tea she thought was the best treat she could possibly give me. And so she also taught me a little about what it's like to be on the receiving end of something another person thinks is best for you, when you haven't been asked. Both these lessons have served me well, in my professional life and personally.
But that wasn't the end of Mrs Howard's life lessons - there was an even more important lesson to be learned, and that's the subject of Part Two of this blog.
Lorna Easterbrook has been listening to - and sharing - people's stories about their lives for a very long time.
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Archaelogy and world cultures
Over 9,640 objects
Level 2 Museum Collection: Islamic and Asian Art
Level 1 Museum Collection: Mediterranean Archaeology and Pre-Columbian Art
Level S1 Maxwell Cummings Auditorium
Learn more about this Collection
Exhibition Layout
The new galleries of Asian and Islamic art were installed in 2012. They feature objects from our reserves, some recent acquisitions and major loans. This new layout examines certain topics in art history through its material culture and recognizes the cross-culturality inherent in every artistic tradition and testifies to a more globalized approach.
The growth of the collection made it necessary to build again. This time, the Council of the Art Association chose to move to Sherbrooke Street, in the Square Mile, the neighbourhood of the anglophone elite. The new museum, designed by architects Edward and William S. Maxwell, was sober and imposing with its white marble facade, tall colonnaded portico and monumental staircase. It included spacious exhibition galleries, a lecture hall, a library and studios for the art school.
The next challenge for the Art Association, which at the turn of the century had some eight hundred members, again involved space: The building on Phillips Square was no longer big enough. More often than not, the classrooms were used as unofficial storerooms stacked with paintings and sculptures from the permanent collection. The square, once a haven of peace and greenery, had become a busy urban area. The tall trees shading it had been cut down. An electric tramway now ran along St. Catherine Street, which each year pushed ever farther into the woods, orchards, and fields to the west of the city.
The abandoned Holton house on Sherbrooke Street belonged to Senator Robert Mackay. It had been built in 1856 for Luther H. Holton, who had been Minister of Finance in John S. Macdonald’s government and then president of the Montreal City and District Savings Bank (now the Laurentian Bank). Holton was the father-in-law of J. B. Learmont, whose children, William John and Agnes, made a large bequest to the Art Association in 1909. It was David Morrice, the father of the painter James Wilson Morrice, who had the idea of purchasing this property and who persuaded Senator Mackay to transfer it to the Art Association for the magnanimous price of $70,000. Building lots in Montreal’s Square Mile, particularly those on the very prestigious Sherbrooke Street, were selling for the highest prices ever seen in Canada at that time. However, the extremely wealthy members of the Art Association were not afraid to spend money and enthusiastically welcomed Morrice’s suggestion. The deed was signed on March 31, 1910.
James Ross personally oversaw the project. The engineer in charge of building much of the Canadian Pacific Railway, he was considered a brilliant businessman and the richest man in Canada. So as not to waste time (and probably also because a number of the councillors already knew who they wanted), the Art Association decided to hold a limited competition. Three architectural firms were invited to submit proposals: the Maxwell brothers, Percy Nobbs, and Brown & Vallance. As a private institution, the Art Association was under no obligation to issue a call for proposals. On Wheelwright’s advice, it therefore selected the design submitted by the Maxwell brothers. Both of them had studied the Beaux-Arts style of architecture, and the building that they proposed reflected this new French taste—a fine, dignified, somewhat austere presence that added to the refined elegance of Sherbrooke Street.
In the spring of 1910, the old building on Phillips Square was sold to contractor James H. Maher for $275,000, although the Art Association would continue to rent space there during construction of its new premises. That summer, the Holton house was demolished, and in the fall the Art Association granted the George A. Fuller Company of New York the contract to build the new Art Gallery. It was to cost $300,000. A year and a half later, work was progressing well, but the cost had risen to $595,800, almost double the original estimate, so the Art Association appealed to the generosity of its many friends, and the building was completed without aid from the federal, provincial, or municipal governments.
The interior layout was similar to that of most museums built in North America between the 1890s and the 1920s. Opening off the lobby were galleries, administrative offices, the library, a lecture hall, and a large court in which plaster casts were displayed. Facing the great doors, a monumental staircase led up to the main exhibition galleries, which had natural overhead lighting from the skylights.
People were just as impressed by the new art gallery itself, a stately and sober building, with its rigorously symmetrical white marble facade and its monumental portico supported by four monolithic Ionic columns. Columns of this size were usually constructed in sections. Despite the exorbitant cost, the Maxwell brothers, encouraged by James Ross, had nevertheless insisted that they be carved in one piece. The rough blocks of marble had been shipped on special railway flatcars from the Norcross-West Marble Company quarries in Vermont to Iberville, Quebec, where it took six men three months to cut and shape each column using pneumatic hammers.
The completed fluted columns, almost ten metres long and a metre in diameter, narrower at the top, and weighing over twenty-six tons each, were transported by train to Windsor Station in Montreal. Then the columns had to be hauled to the construction site on horse-drawn wagons. It was a spectacular operation, very slow and made all the more arduous by the fact that Sherbrooke Street was only half its normal width, having been dug up for major reconstruction by the City.
The Museum starred in several films including:
The Assignment (1997) by Christian Duguay
Dangerous Liaisons (2003). Part 2 by Josée Dayan
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Jellyfish sting treatment
Last reviewed Tue 29 August 2017 Last reviewed Tue 29 Aug 2017
By Zawn Villines
Reviewed by Andrew Gonzalez, MD, JD, MPH
First aid for jellyfish stings
What to avoid after a jellyfish sting
Most people who are stung by a jellyfish only realize a jellyfish was nearby after the sting has happened. In this way, a sting might seem to come out of nowhere.
Most jellyfish stings are painful but not dangerous. A few jellyfish, however, release powerful venom into the skin. The stings of these species, if left untreated, can be dangerous or even deadly.
Prompt jellyfish sting treatment can quickly alleviate pain and prevent a sting from getting worse.
Fast facts on jellyfish sting treatment:
More than 2,000 species of jellyfish populate the world's oceans. Not all of them sting, and most are not dangerous.
Jellyfish sting treatment begins with assessing whether the sting is potentially dangerous.
People stung by potentially lethal jellyfish require immediate emergency treatment.
People stung by jellyfish with mild stings can usually administer first aid themselves.
Jellyfish can be tiny or enormous, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Some have tiny stinging cells called nematocysts in their tentacles. A sting from a nematocyst can be mildly annoying, extremely painful, or even life-threatening.
Signs of a dangerous jellyfish sting
The majority of jellyfish stings are not serious, but some species may have potentially fatal stings.
Most jellyfish stings are painful, but not dangerous. But for people with jellyfish allergies, individuals with compromised immune systems, the very old, or the very young, a sting can be dangerous.
Any signs of shock or an allergic reaction warrant prompt emergency care. Warning signs include:
a rapidly spreading rash
changes in consciousness
Anyone experiencing these symptoms should call 911 or go to an emergency room right away.
A handful of jellyfish and animals that resemble jellyfish are potentially lethal, particularly after multiple stings.
However, deaths from the jellyfish are extremely rare. For example, the most dangerous jellyfish variety, the Australian box jellyfish, only kills a few people each year. If you are concerned about a sting, it is important to leave the water, as fast as possible. Many deaths associated with jellyfish are actually a result of drowning following the muscular spasms that occur after a sting.
A jellyfish's tentacles contain venom that, at worst, can destroy the cardiovascular system in just a few minutes. Poisonous jellyfish are most prevalent in waters off the coast of Australia, so swimmers stung by jellyfish in this region should consider seeking prompt emergency care.
People with other allergies, particularly to insect stings, may be more vulnerable to an allergic reaction to jellyfish. People with allergies should always carry an adrenaline injection pen, and any other allergy medication a doctor has prescribed.
When sting victims do not see the jellyfish, it is not possible to immediately determine whether the source of the sting was harmless or potentially deadly.
Someone should seek immediate medical care if:
Jellyfish stings that are accompanied by symptoms such as nausea, breathing problems, or loss of consciousness, will require immediate medical attention.
there have been reports of highly venomous jellyfish in the area
the jellyfish was very large
there are numerous tentacles at the site of the sting, as this means more venom might have been delivered
the sting was to the eye or mouth
there are signs of a severe reaction, such as difficulty breathing, a rapid heart rate, loss of consciousness, or muscle spasms
a rash appears on any area of the body, even if it is not near the location of the sting
What to do if you're stung by a bee
Jellyfish are not the only creatures that can sting while picnicking at the beach. Watch out too for insects, including wasps.
First aid for minor jellyfish stings
A 2017 study found that a simple process can reduce the pain of jellyfish stings. The study looked specifically at lion's mane jellyfish, which have large tentacles, causing very painful stings. However, the research is probably applicable to most jellyfish stings.
The following steps should be followed, as quickly as possible, following the sting:
Thoroughly rinse the affected area with vinegar or with a commercial spray if available.
Remove the tentacles while still rinsing. The tentacles can keep stinging as long as they are in contact with skin, so wear gloves or put plastic bags on the hands.
Apply a heat pack or immerse the affected area in water of a temperature at least 113 °F for 40 minutes.
If vinegar and hot water are unavailable, carefully remove the tentacles.
After being stung by a jellyfish, stay out of the water for the rest of the day, as salt water may make the pain worse. More importantly, there are likely other jellyfish in the area.
When a jellyfish tentacle punctures the skin and draws blood, the wound can become infected. People who are not up-to-date on their vaccinations may also need a tetanus shot. It is important to see a doctor within a few hours if there is an open wound.
Some jellyfish stings cause pain and itching for a few days. Some home remedies can help. These include:
Hot packs to reduce swelling and inflammation.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen.
A topical antibiotic cream, such as Neosporin to reduce the risk of infection.
If the area becomes very painful, starts swelling, or there are streaks coming out of the wound, there could be an infection. In this case, a person should see a doctor within 24 hours.
Some popular home remedies for jellyfish stings include urinating on the sting, or using lemon juice. These may potentially worsen symptoms, and are best avoided.
A popular myth is that urinating on a jellyfish sting can neutralize the venom. In fact, urine can make the pain worse. In some cases, urine may even make the venom more potent.
Other folk remedies, such as lemon juice and shaving cream, are also ineffective.
A Cochrane Review looked at other purported jellyfish sting treatments. It confirmed that hot water could help with pain. Some studies included in the review found that cold packs might also help, but heat was most effective.
Do not rinse the area with cold water while stingers are still in the skin since this can cause them to release more venom.
Some people use baking soda to neutralize the venom of a jellyfish sting. A 2007 study found no benefits to this approach. There is no evidence that baking soda is dangerous but other treatments are more effective.
In cases of severe stings, causing cardiovascular symptoms, an injection of magnesium sulfate may be given by a doctor in a monitored setting.
The easiest way to avoid jellyfish stings is to stay out of ocean water.
Some beaches with a jellyfish problem will post jellyfish warnings during the most dangerous times of the year. When swimming in areas where venomous jellyfish may live, people should follow these warnings and stay out of the water.
Wearing a wetsuit can protect against jellyfish stings. Foot-scuffing in shallow water may scare off jellyfish and some other stinging sea creatures.
A new jellyfish deterrent cream may also help. Called Safe Sea, the product mimics chemicals the clown fish produces. These chemicals deter jellyfish stings. The manufacturers also claim that the product can disarm jellyfish tentacles in the event of a sting.
Though this lotion may reduce the risk of a surprise jellyfish attack, it is still a good idea to avoid water where jellyfish are visible or where dangerous jellyfish have been seen.
Rattlesnake bite: What you should know Snakes usually avoid humans, but if they do bite, it can be dangerous. Rattlesnake bites are venomous. The person will experience pain and possibly bleeding, drooping eyelids, and low blood pressure. Without correct treatment, it can be fatal. Find out more about the do's and don'ts when giving first aid for a bite. Read now
Stinging nettles: A new approach to cancer A new drug that specifically targets cancer cell metabolism has been discovered. It is 'switched on' by a chemical found in stinging nettles and ants. Read now
How to treat and prevent chigger bites A chigger is a form of mite that feeds on human skin cells. Although they are so small that the naked eye cannot see them, chiggers can inflict extremely itchy bites that can last up to a week without treatment. Here we look at how to avoid getting bitten as well as how to recognize and treat any existing bites. Read now
Why do mosquito bites itch and swell up? In this article we look at why mosquito bites itch, evidence-backed ways to reduce itching and swelling, and discuss when to see a doctor. Read now
How to treat a yellow-jacket sting Yellow jackets sting when threatened, and it can be painful or cause an allergic reaction. There are other things people should be aware of if they come across a yellow jacket, too. As well as treatments for a sting, find out here why you should not kill one outdoors and why one sting may not be the end of your ordeal. Read now
Article last reviewed by Tue 29 August 2017.
Visit our Bites and Stings category page for the latest news on this subject, or sign up to our newsletter to receive the latest updates on Bites and Stings.
All references are available in the References tab.
Best first aid treatment of jellyfish stings. (2017, July 27). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170727103021.htm
Curtin, C. (2007, January 4). Fact or fiction? Urinating on a jellyfish sting is an effective treatment. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-urinating/
Doyle, T., Headlam, J., Wilcox, C., Macloughlin, E., & Yanagihara, A. (2017). Evaluation of Cyanea capillata sting management protocol using ex vivo and in vitro envenomation models. Toxins, 9(7), 215. Retrieved from http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/9/7/215
Frost, E. (2013, August 30). What's behind that jellyfish sting? Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/whats-behind-that-jellyfish-sting-2844876/
Haas, D. (August 21). New cream protects against jellyfish sting. ABC News. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=120017&page=1
Jellyfish and other sea creature stings. (2015, May 5). Retrieved from http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Stings-marine-creatures/Pages/Treatment.aspx
Jellyfish stings. (2017, March). Retrieved from http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/jellyfish.html
Lakkis N. A., Maalouf G. J., & Mahmassani D. M. (2015, September). Jellyfish Stings: A Practical Approach [Abstract]. Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, 26(3), 422-429. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25935311
Li, L., Mcgee, R. G., Isbister, G. K., & Webster, A. C. (2015). Interventions for the symptoms and signs resulting from jellyfish stings. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2013, 12. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0061274/
Most dangerous jellyfish. (2013, November 27). Retrieved from https://www.planetdeadly.com/animals/dangerous-jellyfish
Prestwich, H., & Jenner, R. (2007, September). Treatment of jellyfish stings in UK coastal waters: Vinegar or sodium bicarbonate? Emergency Medicine Journal, 24(9), 664-664. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2464643/
Safe Sea stops stings from jellyfish & sea lice! (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.buysafesea.com/how_safesea_works.php
Villines, Zawn. "Jellyfish sting treatment." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 29 Aug. 2017. Web.
Villines, Z. (2017, August 29). "Jellyfish sting treatment." Medical News Today. Retrieved from
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Real Haunts in Massachusetts- Paranormal MA
Did you know Massachusetts is home to dozens of REAL Haunted Places? From haunted roadways and buildings where the dearly departed still lurk among us, to burial grounds and sacred places that are haunted by spirits who seemingly want to stay in this world, Massachusetts has some truly eerie landmarks and historical sites that are hot spots for paranormal activity. Massachusetts's Real Haunts are home to ghosts and spirits year-round - they're not your average Halloween Haunt. Find out all about Massachusetts's Haunted History, and learn all about haunted places across the state that are plagued with REAL ghosts, ghouls, apparitions, and things that go bump in the night!
Filter: Show All Categories Real Haunted HousesReal Haunted Hotels & LodgingReal Haunted CemeteriesReal Haunted Bridges & OverpassesReal Haunted Hospitals & AsylumsReal Haunted CollegesReal Haunted TheatersReal Haunted MuseumsReal Haunted Restaurants & BarsReal Haunted Nature & Outdoors (ie. Haunted Woods)
Belchertown State School Belchertown, MA
Exp.:
Dating back to 1922, the original name of this school was Belchertown State School for the Feeble-Minded. At certain times in its history it had been known for the treatment of its charges. Witnesses say the location is haunted because of its dark past and have reported apparitions, running footsteps, screams, crying, temperature fluctuations, breaking windows, doors that slam and lock,... Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Colleges
Concord's Colonial Inn Concord, MA
Room 24 at this inn is said to be haunted by a ghost and the location has been featured on an episode of TV's Ghost Hunters. Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Restaurants & Bars
The Wauwinet Hotel Nantucket, MA
The Wauwinet Hotel is believed to have been built on Native American burial grounds, which some say have led to its being haunted. Eerie reports here include lights that turn on by themselves, footsteps, a woman's apparition and a ghostly unexplained sound of running water in the lobby. The woman's apparition has been seen out of the corner of the eye and comes with a scent of flowers,... Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Hotels & Lodging
Samuel Onion House Westwood, MA
This location was originally a schoolhouse, and the residents have reported seeing the apparition of a female teacher, as well as hearing children playing. Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Houses
Endicott Family Cemetery Danvers, MA
This cemetery is rumored to have three ghosts that reside in it, so the locals say. Their identities are thought to be the spirits of the only three gravestones in the cemetery that haven’t toppled over: Margaret and her two sons, Jeremy and Alex. Please note: the public is not allowed on these grounds. No Trespassing signs are posted because of an arsenic and dioxin soil hazard. Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Cemeteries
The Village Inn Dracut, MA
This restaurant is believed to be haunted by a young boy and a small girl. The boy has been known to hangout in the lounge area, but he supposedly runs away whenever anyone tries to approach him. The girl has been seen wandering through a tunnel that runs between the restaurant and the barn building where conventions are held. Read More
Pine Manor College Brookline, MA
Students at this college claim that the lights along the pathway near the Main House (the administration building) turn off as they get close, then turn on again as they pass by. Mists have been seen in the nwoods nearby and people have reported a disconcerting feeling that something was watching them. Read More
Longfellow's Wayside Inn Sudbury, MA
This inn dates back to 1716 and it is believed to be haunted by a woman named Jerusha Howe. She is said to linger the most in Rooms 7 and 9. Rumor says she was unlucky when it came to love, and that is why she likes to touch the men that visit here. A book was written about the inn in the 1860s, titled "Tales of a Wayside Inn" by Author Henry W. Longfellow. Read More
Boston University - Charlesgate Hotel Boston, MA
This building dates back to 1901 and was purchased by Boston University in 1947 to use as a dorm. It was also then used as a dorm by Emerson College through the late 1990s before being converted to a condo building. Some believe the hauntings that occur here have to do with séances held by college kids or a suicide by an architect in one of the closets. Read More
USS Salem Quincy, MA
The USS Salem is a former Navy cruiser that is now a museum ship. The ship is open to the public for those who are interested in taking a look around. The ship once served as a hospital after the 1953 Ionian Earthquake and there are many spirits that are believed to linger. Ghost tours are offered regularly and there's even a paranormal society that has its headquarters on-board the... Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Museums
St. Mary's Cemetery Salem, MA
This cemetery is rumored to be haunted by a ghostly gray figure that walks beside people. The forest down the hill has been know to create an unpleasant vibe and there have been sounds of claws on the path and a waist-high light that appeared near the top of the hill. Read More
The Charlemont Inn Charlemont, MA
This inn is said to have a bunch of friendly ghosts that reside in the 1787 building. A Civil War soldier's spirit has been seen in the hall upstairs and a former innkeeper has been seen in the tavern. A ghost named Elizabeth is said to slam doors, throw things, and stomp around in the halls. She has been known to show herself to and have conversations with young children. Read More
Bramble Inn and Restaurant Brewster, MA
This inn dates back to 1861 and according to its owner, Ruth Manchester, it is quite haunted. Her family purchased the inn in April of 1985, and was renovated in 1987, which is when the ghostly activity began. Guests report seeing and feeling presences in the home. A threatening female spirit is said to bang on doors and moan and scream during the night. Read More
Eunice Williams Covered Bridge - Pumping Station Bridge Greenfield, MA
This bridge is rumored to be haunted by Eunice Williams, the reverend's wife who lived nearby in the 1600s. Indians and French Soldiers raided the area and hacked Eunice until she died, just hours after she had given birth. The story is told on a nearby plaque set in stone. Although the bridge is currently closed to vehicles, people claim that when it was open to cars, if you stopped on... Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Bridges & Overpasses
S.K. Pierce Mansion - Haunted Victorian Mansion Gardner, MA
This mansion was once owned by Sylvester Knowlton Pierce, the wealthy founder of the SK Pierce & Son Chair Company. It dates back to 1875 and was originally located at 21 Union Street, but was moved to where it now stands shortly thereafter. The home has had several famous guests including P.T. Barnum, Norman Rockwell, Bette Davis and President Calvin Coolidge. There are several spirits... Read More
Anna Maria College Paxton, MA
This college is rumored to be haunted. According to reports, the Zecco Performing Arts Center has two seats that are kept open for ghostly visitors at each performance. Read More
Old Centre - Old Royalston Cemetery Royalston, MA
This small cemetery is believed to be haunted. People have reported seeing a misty woman with long blonde hair and a black shadowy figure that is said to move very quickly. Cold spots and unasy feelings of being watched or touched have also been reported here. Read More
Penny House Inn Eastham, MA
There is an "old side" to this house, that many believe is haunted by a ghost. They call her the Goodnight Ghost because she appears mostly at night, touching guests while they sleep or whispering to them. She has also been known to move their personal items in the middle of the night. Read More
Van Horn Park Springfield, MA
Legend says that two boys died here after drowning in the pond sometime in the 1920s. Their spirits are said to linger the area. Park visitors in the summertime have reported hearing them laughing and splashing and seeing the water move, even though there was nothing visible making it move. Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Nature & Outdoors (ie. Haunted Woods)
George C. Gardner House Nantucket, MA
Former residents of this home have reported hearing disembodied footsteps and seeing silverware move around on its own. Read More
Morning Glory Bed and Breakfast Salem, MA
This location is reportedly haunted by the ghost of a young woman wearing turn-of-the-century clothing. Ghostly children are also said to reside here. Read More
Salem State University Salem, MA
This university is believed to be haunted by a number of spirits. They include that of a student who hanged herself, a man wearing black who lingers Gramley Hall, two girls who were electrocuted at Gramley Library, a young girl who died in the elevator shadft at Clewell Hall, and a haunted photo that is located in Babcock Hall. Read More
The New Boston Inn Sandisfield, MA
This inn dates back to 1737 and is believed to be haunted, mostly in Room #4. People have reported seeing the ghost of a young girl who likes to move objects or "borrows" them and returns them later. Voices have also been heard throughout the place. The place may be haunted because of a murder that occurred in the game room back in 1805. Read More
Houghton Mansion North Adams, MA
Mayor A.C. Houghton and his family once lived in this mansion and it is said to be haunted by a ghost chauffeur. Reports say he killed himself after getting into a car accident that killed Mrs. Houghton and their only daughter. The home has been converted into a Masonic temple and has been featured on an episode of TV's Ghost Adventures. Ghost tours are also available for those... Read More
The Mount Lenox, MA
The Mount was built in 1902 and has been the home of renowned writer Edith Wharton. It is also said to be quite haunted, ghost tours are even offered here. In 1911, the Whartons sold the home and it was used for the Foxhollow School for Girls, and later a theater. Once it was converted into a theater is when people started reporting strange things such as odd noises, eerie sensations,... Read More
Point Breeze Club and Hotel Nantucket, MA
This location is said to be haunted by a ghostly man wearing period clothing who has been in various rooms of this hotel. Other eerie activity has been reported as well. Read More
Smith College - Sessions House Northampton, MA
This dorm dates back to 1710 when it was built with a secret passageway inside. The owners used the passageway to hide from attacking Native Americans. This historic location is said to be haunted by original owner, Captain Jonathan Hunt's granddaughter Lucy and her lover, Johnny Burgoyne. Johnny was a British general who Lucy met when he was being held captive in the house during the... Read More
Deerfield Inn Deerfield, MA
This inn dates back to 1884, and has since then been restored and renovated. Both staff members and guests have reported experiencing paranormal activity here. Lights have turned on and off on their own, strange knocking noises have been heard and furniture has moved on its own. A bossy spirit has been reported who is known as Cora, the wife of a former inn keeper. She has been seen by... Read More
Old Dudley Road Billerica, MA
Old Dudley Oxford Road still exists for about a mile, even though the New Dudley Oxford Road is in use today. A spectral horseback rider wearing Colonial clothing has been seen patroling the remains of the old road. Read More
The Sun Tavern Duxbury, MA
This tavern is well-known for its casual fine dining inside a pre-Revolutionary War farmhouse, and for having a ghost named Lysander Walker. Walker is said to create cold spots and has even been known for tiping tables over. Lysander's story is told on the restaurant's placemats. Read More
Bridgewater State University Bridgewater, MA
This university is believed to be haunted by a former headmaster who likes to linger in Tillinghast (Tily) Hall. Legend says the headmaster fell off the roof after climbing up to discipline some residents who were up there making noises in the middle of the night. The campus center is also believed to be haunted by a ghost named George. He likes to play instruments, lock doors and play... Read More
Lizzie Borden House Fall River, MA
This home is now a bed and breakfast but was once where Lizzie Borden lived, and where her parents were famously murdered by an axe. The house is believed to be haunted and witnesses have reported apparitions and unexplained sounds. Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Houses | Real Haunted Hotels & Lodging
Ventfort Hall Lenox, MA
Ventford Hall is believed to be haunted by a few ghosts, and some say they even try to touch people. One report is that of a woman's face that hovers as it descends at a staircase, a whispering voice, screams and doors that open and close on their own. People believe the spirits are those of former owners, George and Sarah Morgan. This location has been featured on an episode of TV's... Read More
Everett Square Theatre Boston, MA
This theatre is rumored to be haunted and people have reported blinking lights, unexplained noises and feelings of uneasiness, as if someone or something is present inside the building. Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Theaters
Framingham State University Framingham, MA
This university is believed to be haunted. There have been reports of cold spots and orbs that appeared in photos at Horace Mann Hall. In Pierce Hall, residents said they have awoken to find all the mirrors in the rooms stacked outside in the halls, piled with the reflective sides facing the walls. Read More
Yarmouth Resort Yarmouth, MA
There have been some strange occurrences here at this resort, including sounds of slamming doors, items that move on their own, and a ghost that the staff believes to be a young girl. She has supposedly left behind a small hair barrette on the counter and one housekeeper claimed to see the apparition of a small dog in one of the hallways. Read More
Berklee College of Music Boston, MA
This college was established in 1945 and has been attended by many famous musicians. It is also believed to have a haunted dorm, which was once an apartment building in the 1900s before it was remodeled into the Sherry Biltmore Hotel. A boy was playing with matches here and the hotel caught fire in 1963, killing many. Some of the spirits are said to linger here in the building, which... Read More
Higgins Armory Museum Worcester, MA
This museum has been featured on an episode of TV's Ghost Hunters. Witnesses have reported apparitions, black shadows, unexplained footsteps, clanging and music, as well as being touched by something unseen. This location is no longer the Higgins Armory Museum. Read More
Boston University - Shelton Hall Boston, MA
The fourth floor at this hall is believed to be haunted by playwright Eugene O'Neill, who spent his last years here. The building dates back to 1923 and was originally a Sheraton Hotel that had been renamed the Shelton. In 1954, the university purchased it. Eerie occurrences here include the elevator operating on its own, wind gusts that come out of nowhere, lights that strangely become... Read More
Bainbridge’s - Aprile's European Restaurant North Chelmsford, MA
This restaurant was once known as Bainbridge's and is believed to be haunted. Reports have included pictures that move, a woman's ghost that cries, and ghostly children who play during the night. Read More
Hope Cemetery Worcester, MA
At this cemetery, reports of children laughing near the statue of Jesus holding an angel. The children have been seen and heard. Read More
Oak Grove Cemetery Fall River, MA
This cemetery dates back to 1855 and is known for being the burial place of Lizzie Borden and her family. People have reportedly heard screaming from the Borden plot and have experienced feelings of uneasiness while in its vicinity. Some have also claimed to see unexplained lights. Read More
Knox Trail Inn Otis, MA
The restaurant at this inn is believed to be haunted by a soldier from the Revolutionary or Civil War. He is said to be in his late teens or early 20s and is nicknamed Jake. His apparition is known to appear, but for a brief amount of time. He has also been known to mess with the electrical systems and may tug on your shirt as you walk by. But if you go looking for him, it has been said... Read More
Thaddeus Clapp House Pittsfield, MA
Legend says that playwright Peter Bergman had an encounter with a ghost while visiting here. Read More
Pine Grove Cemetery Spencer, MA
There is an entity that is said to haunt this cemetery, and he was given the name "Dark Hunter." He is said to be keeping an eye on those who visit. Read More
Village Green Inn Falmouth, MA
This building dates back to 1804 and is believed to be haunted by its original owners, the Dimmick family. Their teenage daughter Sarah died in the room in 1823 and she has been seen in some of the rooms wearing an olf-fashioned white nightgown. She has been known to hover over guests as they sleep, looking at them strangely, as if she is wondering why they are in her bed! Other female... Read More
Hawthorne Hotel Salem, MA
There is an elevator at this hotel that is believed to be haunted, along with the sixth floor. Legend says that a double murder took place here, because of a lovers' quarrel. Cold spots have been felt and chandeliers are said to sway by themselves. Read More
Stone's Public House Ashland, MA
This building dates back to 1834 and is believed to be haunted by spirits and apparitions who throw glasses off the shelves. The portraits have reportedly watched employees and guests as they go about their business, and doors have opened and closed on their own. One spirit here is believed to be a “drunkard” named Burt Philips, who may have died here in the 1890s. Others, according to... Read More
Melrose Cemetery Brockton, MA
This cemetery is believed to be haunted and has had reports of disembodied laughter and running foosteps. Witnesses say the laughter most often comes from the back corner of the cemetery on the left side. Read More
Saint Stephens Cemetery Attleboro, MA
Witnesses say that the apparitions of Albertine and Eugene and their 2 year old daughter, Doris, have been seen here. Childlike footsteps on the paved paths have also been heard. Read More
Regis College Weston, MA
This hall dates back to the late 1920s and is believed to have a number of ghosts, including a cold spot that roams around. A former piano teacher is blamed for opening and closing doors, and occasionally plays the piano. Students have also said that the fourth floor is haunted by spectral nuns. Read More
The Blue Door Bed and Breakfast Middleton, MA
There have been a number of ghosts who are rumored to haunt this building that was built in 1692. One of the ghosts is said to be the builder, Philip Knight and another is Rebecca Towne, who is seen wearing a blue dress while floating through the dining room. A third spirit that lingers the premises is Captain Henry Quiver, who died here in the 1850s. Read More
Holiday Inn Taunton Taunton, MA
The stairway near the 28 rooms at this inn are said to be haunted by voices that can be heard ordering guests to "Leave here now." Read More
Captain Freeman Perry House Brewster, MA
Roberta is the ghost that is believed to reside here. She dates back to the early 1900s and has been seen in the guest rooms and in the halls. Read More
Joshua Ward House Salem, MA
This historic home dates back to 1784 and is said to be haunted by the spirits of Sheriff George Corwin and Giles Cory. Both men were associated with the Salem Witch Trials. Tours are now available for those interested in checking the place out for themselves. Read More
New Boston Cemetery Winchendon, MA
This cemetery is located within the Otter River State Forest and it is just about all that is left of the town. People say it is haunted and that if you back up to a specific tree, you can witness an angry figure hanging from it. Read More
The Witch House - Jonathan Corwin House Salem, MA
This location was once the home of Judge Jonathan Corwin and it is well known for being the only structure still standing in Salem with direct ties to the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Corwin was the one to investigate the claims of witchcraft, which resulted in sending 19 people to death. This house museum is open seasonally and has been featured on an episode of TV's Ghost Adventures.... Read More
Holiday Inn Tewksbury Tewksbury, MA
This inn is said to have an apparition that moves from the ballroom to the hall and it can only be seen out of the corner of the eye. When you turn around to look at it, it disappears. Read More
Quequechan Club Fall River, MA
This club was founded back in 1894 and was housed in an 1861 private residence. People have reported seeing the apparition of a woman wearing a Victorian dress and even captured some EVP's as well. Orbs have also appeared in photos, reflected in a mirror. Read More
Old Plymouth County Hospital Hanson, MA
This hospital was once known as Hanson Tuberculosis Hospital and it is believed to be haunted by those who died here back in the day. People have reported laughter and screaming coming from inside the empty building. Others have said they felt like someone was watching them. Please note: There is no trespassing allowed here. Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Hospitals & Asylums
Omni Parker House Hotel Boston, MA
This hotel is rumored to be haunted and people have claimed that doors here open and close on their own, lights turn on and off by themselves, and apparitions of people wearing old-time clothing have been seen. Voices have also been heard in the restaurants, halls and lobby of the hotel. Read More
Hammond Castle Gloucester, MA
This castle dates back to the 1920s and was built by John Hays Hammond Jr. The castle has different sections that were built in varying architectural styles: Gothic, Renaissance French and Medieval. The property also has some strange features including raining rooms and passageways. The castle is believed to be haunted by Mr. Hammond himself, who passed away in 1965. There are other... Read More
Plaza Guest House Provincetown, MA
This guest house is rumored to be haunted by a number of apparitions. Witnesses have reported figures wearing period clothing wandering around the home, especially in Room #006. There are bloodstains on the floor of this room that never go away, no matter how many times the floor is polished. People have also reported objects that were thrown at them by unseen forces and being chased... Read More
Blood Town Forest Lancaster, MA
Legend says that a young man and woman were camping in this forest when they were killed. There is said to be a rock near the entrance that tells the story, but this may or may not be true. Some believe the forest really got its name because the donor of the land in 1946 was named Arthur W. Blood. Another rumor states that Blood was a mentally unstable killer who hanged bodies from the... Read More
The Mount Estate Lenox, MA
The Mount Estate is where the artifacts relating to novelist Edith Wharton are held and the location is said to be haunted by Wharton herself. Along with her spirit, that of her husband Teddy Wharton has been seen, along with a servant girl and old-fashioned man believed to be Wharton's lover, who lived at the home briefly. The estate has beenf featured on an episode of TV's Ghost... Read More
Categories: Real Haunted Houses | Real Haunted Museums
Camp Titicut Bridgewater, MA
Camp Titicut was an old summertime campsite for Native Americans, complete with a burial ground, which is why many believe it is haunted. The grounds are said to be haunted by King Phillip, whose body reportedly was drawn and quartered here. Local tales say the sound of rustling leaves are his body parts trying to get back together. The area was a boys’ camp from the 1930s to 1950s,... Read More
Endicott College Beverly, MA
At Endicott College, there is Brindle Hall, which is believed to be the site of some mysterious occurrences. They include unexplained noises, like hissing or marbles rolling on the roof, shades that go up on their own, and trees that are seen outside that bend to form the name Julie. Most believe this is because there was a girl named Julie who disappeared from the 4th floor, never to... Read More
Harold Parker State Forest North Andover, MA
This forest now features 35 miles of woodsy trails, swamps, ponds, roads and rocky outcroppings, but evidence of its 18th-century farming and milling operations may be seen here as well. Unmarked graves and ruins of houses can be seen on the grounds and some say that beyond the stone walls at around 3 AM, a strange green light can be seen, along with the sound of phantom foosteps. Read More
Tewksbury Cemetery Tewksbury, MA
This cemetery is rumored to be haunted by a ghostly white lady who wanders around. A dark, leather-skinned creature as also been seen here, following guests through the graveyard. Read More
Beechwood Inn Barnstable, MA
Reports say there is a ghostly woman who haunts the Rose Room at this inn. Read More
Fort Revere Hull, MA
Fort Revere used to be known as Fort Independence but was renamed to honor patriot Paul Revere. It has been used from the American Revolution through World War II and had stopped being used in 1947. There have been a number of strange occurrences here, including whispers, unexplained sounds and shadowy figures that rush by or hangout in the doorways. Read More
The Lyceum - Turner's Seafood Salem, MA
This location was once the Lyceum and is now Turner's Seafood. The location is rumored to be haunted by a woman wearing a long, white period dress who appears on the staircase. She has also been seen as a reflection in mirrors. Some say that the land where this restaurant sits was once an apple orchased that belonged to accused witch Bridget Bishop. Apparitions and issues with electrial... Read More
Bellingham-Cary House Chelsea, MA
This home dates back to the Civil War era and is believed to be haunted. The daughter who lived here had two lovers on opposing sides of the war, and they ended up killing one another on the staircase inside the home. Rumor says you can hear phantom sounds of laugher, voices and clinking glasses on Mr. and Mrs. Cary's wedding anniversary. Please note: this house is on private property. Read More
Theodore's and Smith's Billiards Springfield, MA
This location has been featured on an episode of TV's Ghost Hunters and it has been reported that there are some eerie occurrences that go on. There have been reports of balls rolling across the floors (in the same spot that there was a bowling alley many years ago), footsteps, whispers, cold spots and a ghostly young boy who appears and sits on the pool table. Read More
Dean Hill Revolutionary Cemetery - The Rev Fitchburg, MA
This cemetery is known to locals as The Rev. and it is believed to be haunted. It is unknown whether it is soldiers or more sinister entities that haunt the grounds, but there have been rumors of satanic practives and strange feelings that come over visitors. Some have also claimed to hear loud screams at night. A local story says a man was killed and burned along the road and a teenage... Read More
Windward Grille Essex, MA
This restaurant is housed inside a very old building and locals say it is haunted by a couple whose apparitions have been seen floating near the walls. Other ghosts have also been seen here, along with reports of cold spots, toilets that flush on their own and lights that flicker. One of the apparitions is said to have come outside and wave her arms at drivers to try and protect a... Read More
Colonial House Inn Yarmouth, MA
Room 224 is the room at this inn that is believed to be haunted by three different ghosts: Dr. John Minot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a Native American girl. A customer’s credit card disappeared while a waiter was trying to run it through the machine in the dining room and the card was later found in one of the cabinets. The front office is also said to be haunted by a ghostly monk, and... Read More
Old Yarmouth Inn Yarmouth, MA
This inn dates back to 1696 and is the oldest on Cape Cod. Many believe the property is haunted and one witnesses claimed they saw an apparition that appeared at the foot of their bed in 1999. The ghost was described as a jowly man wearing a flounced white blouse. In 2002, another witness claimed that a ghost sat on his bed and shook the bedposts. Appliances and lights have turned on by... Read More
Bucksteep Manor Washington, MA
This manor is famous for being haunted by the apparition of a monk who wanders the grounds. People have reported hearing voices, feeling someone touch them, and finding objects moved during the night. The location has been explored by TV’s Ghost Hunters. Read More
Bradford College - Northpoint Bible College Haverhill, MA
Urban Legend says that this location that stored H.P. Lovecraft's famed evil book Necronomicon, buried deep underground. Even though the Lovecraft book is said to be a work of fiction, its fans believe the book of spells actually exists at Northpoint Bible College. Locals believe the site is haunted due to this popular school legend. Read More
Riverside Theater Works Hyde Park, MA
This location used to be French's Opera House and is believed to be haunted by Esmeralda, who died here during a fire. Also known as "Essie," she is said to haunt the children who perform in plays, and has even been seen floating above the stage. Flowers are placed in a purple chair before performances, the location where Essie died. But it is said that if the flowers aren’t in full... Read More
Cutler Majestic Theatre Boston, MA
Built in 1903, the historic theater is said to be haunted by a former mayor of Boston who died during a performance, a little girl, and a married couple wearing turn-of-the-20th-century clothing. Read More
Orleans Waterfront Inn Orleans, MA
This location is believed to be haunted and has had reports of unexplained wind gusts, footsteps, slamming doors, and a ghost the owners nicknamed Hannah. She is believed to be the spirit of a 1920s brothel worker who was murdered. Her ghost has been seen naked walking through the inn or dancing in the windows. At least two other ghosts reside here as well. Read More
Know of a Real Haunt that we don't already have listed? Please Let Us know
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Living with Fire I: The evolution of wildfire suppression began in Missoula
By Amanda EggertJuly 5, 2019
July 5, 2019 By Missoula Current
Smoke from burnout operations rises above the Madison River during the Maple Fire in Yellowstone National Park, September 10, 2016. (Neal Herbert/National Park Service)
Editor’s Note: As the West enters another fire season, where, how and why federal land management agencies decide to suppress wildfires and implement fuel reduction projects will be hotly debated, as residents, environmentalists, agency heads, and politicians tangle with how much, if any, thinning, logging, and prescribed burning is appropriate to mitigate fire risk.
Three trends play an important role in the discussion: hotter and drier conditions wrought by climate change, which have led to an extended burning season and a spike in fires deemed “historically significant ” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency; a near doubling of the number of homes built in areas of Montana with high wildfire risk since 1990; and nearly 900 structures lost to Montana wildfires in the past decade, despite ever-growing spending on suppression, to the tune of $397 million spent suppressing Montana fires in 2017, including an all-time high of $68.2 million from state of Montana coffers, which contributed to a significant state budget shortfall in 2018.
In this three-part series, Montana Free Press examines how federal land management agencies have approached wildfire in the past and highlights key public and private sector developments that could change how we engage with it in the future. This first installment outlines a handful of events and policies that have shaped the wildfire narrative in the last century.
(Montana Free Press) Shortly after its establishment in 1905, the U.S. Forest Service underwent a literal trial by fire when a conflagration of fires in Montana and Idaho known as the Big Burn of 1910 consumed 3 million acres, killing 86 people (mostly firefighters) and nearly reducing the town of Wallace, Idaho, to ash.
Most of those acres burned in a two-day period, August 20-21, fueled by hurricane-force winds that sucked entire trees from the ground and turned them into airborne blowtorches. Impacts were felt far and wide. Smoke turned the sun an eerie copper color in Boston, and soot fell on the ice in Greenland. “Not ever before had a forest fire been given headlines so big or so black,” popular historian Stuart Holbrook wrote a decade later.
“It [was] literally seared into [the Forest Service’s memory] — in large part because many of the subsequent chiefs came out of Missoula and fought that fire,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College and author of Public Lands, Public Debates: A Century of Controversy.
Damage sustained in the 1910 fires helped the fledgling Forest Service, Montana’s largest federal land manager, rally public and political support to invest in more personnel, equipment and infrastructure (roads, lookout towers, and ranger stations) to help spot and fight wildfires in the ensuing decades. Through the war years, fire was largely regarded by the Forest Service and American public as a destructive force to be subdued.
In 1935, the Forest Service instituted a “10 a.m. policy” directing fire managers to contain all human-caused fires by 10 a.m. the following day. Even in the 1930s, the blanket suppression strategy had staunch opponents, including Elers Koch, a forester and former Lolo National Forest chief who’d fought the 1910 fires and found full suppression to be expensive, ineffective, and unmerited in some steep, dangerous landscapes of northern Idaho lacking high-quality timber.
“After years of experience, I have come to the considered conclusion that control of fire in the backcountry of the Selway and Lochsa drainages is a practical impossibility. I firmly believe that if the Forest Service had never expended a dollar in this country since 1900 there would have been no appreciable difference in the area burned over,” he wrote in a 1935 issue of Journal of Forestry. Miller said Koch’s position was so controversial that the editor of the Journal of Forestry felt compelled to write an editorial opposing Koch’s views.
The Forest Service largely stayed the course of the 10 a.m. policy, but it wasn’t until the agency began employing emerging technologies including dozers, aircraft, and flame retardant in the 1950s that it found greater success meeting that objective, Miller said.
By the 1960s, the ecological role of wildfire in fire-adapted landscapes had gained greater recognition among land managers. In 1968, the National Park Service began allowing natural ignitions sparked in favorable conditions to run their course, and used prescribed fires to meet management objectives.
Glacier National Park was inundated with smoke the last two summers. (Martin Kidston/Missoula Current)
The more hands-off fire management that Elers Koch supported was vindicatedin 1972 when the chief of the Forest Service approved the agency’s first wilderness fire management plan, which gave fire managers authority to let lightning-sparked fires burn in a portion of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, typically under predetermined conditions and within a specified geographic area.
The National Park Service policy faced a political test in 1988, when 1.2 million acres burned in and around Yellowstone National Park during an exceptionally hot and dry summer, leading some frustrated residents in nearby communities to petition park administrators to scrap the park’s 1972 policy allowing some natural ignitions to burn.
Efforts to reframe the narrative about those fires, including a February 1989 cover story in National Geographic documenting the regeneration that followed the flames, met with some success, Miller said, catalyzing a sea change that took about a decade to soak into public consciousness.
“There was this much more ecological view of fire — that fire was a good thing. It’s not destructive, but actually it was regenerative,” he said.
Even with evolving attitudes, much of the West’s forested landscape is still subject to what ecologists call a fire deficit. Fewer acres have burned than would be historically expected, likely due to decades of human activity, i.e., wildfire suppression, logging, grazing, and the conversion of landscapes for agricultural use, according to a 2015 article in the journal Ecosphere. Given how many acres of the West have been gobbled up by wildfire in recent years, the idea of a fire deficit might come as a surprise, but long-standing policies geared toward extinguishing fires have led to higher fuel loads, amplifying fires. Researchers working with the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station cite aggressive wildfire suppression as “one of the major factors that drive the increased extent, intensity, and damage associated with the small number of large wildfires that are unable to be suppressed.”
A 2001 update to the multi-agency Federal Wildland Fire Management Policyrecognized that Fire Management Plans should be “based upon the best available science,” and lists ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, pinyon/juniper woodlands, and tallgrass prairie as fire-adapted ecosystems where over-suppression of wildfire has been a “destabilizing influence.” The report describes the challenge of reintroducing fire to these landscapes as “both urgent and enormous,” while also recognizing that suppression has benefited humans by reducing air quality impacts, for example.
Almost 20 years later, managers and policymakers still struggle to balance theecological benefits of fire with unwanted human impacts, particularly given development in the Wildland-Urban Interface. Miller stresses that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach that will work across diverse landscapes, but says there’s plenty of thoughtful science supporting less suppression in favor of planning measures to prevent home losses and better human adaptation to wildfire.
Missoula County Commissioner David Strohmaier is one elected official in Montana trying to move the needle on wildfire preparedness with more comprehensive land-use planning.
“Fire is here, and it’s here to stay,” said Strohmaier, who authored Drift Smoke: Loss and Renewal in a Land of Fire after spending 15 years in fire management. “I’m confident [that in Missoula] we can make some meaningful difference in resetting the narrative related to how we live with fire.”
Coming Saturday: Part 2 of Living with Fire will look at the challenges and benefits of land-use planning policies in Missoula County aimed at minimizing losses in the Wildland-Urban Interface. This story originally appeared online at Montana Free Press.
Living with Fire II: Missoula among communities working to become ‘fire-resilient’
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Home > CALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 65
Proposition 65 requires businesses to provide warnings to Californians about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm. These chemicals can be in the products that Californians purchase, in their homes or workplaces, or that are released into the environment. By requiring that this information be provided, Proposition 65 enables Californians to make informed decisions about their exposures to these chemicals.
Proposition 65 also prohibits California businesses from knowingly discharging significant amounts of listed chemicals into sources of drinking water.
Proposition 65 requires California to publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm. This list, which must be updated at least once a year, has grown to include approximately 900 chemicals since it was first published in 1987.
Proposition 65 became law in November 1986, when California voters approved it by a 63-37 percent margin. The official name of Proposition 65 is the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986.
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Judy Huth Lawsuit Could Have Bill Cosby Testifying Under Oath
By Philip Ross
Bill Cosby couldn't dodge his demons forever.
The controversial comedian may soon have to testify in court over recent sexual battery allegations after his lawyers failed to get thrown out a lawsuit brought against him. In the suit, a woman named Judy Huth says the comedian forced her to perform a sex act on him 41 years ago, when she was 15, at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, CBS Los Angeles reported.
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a plea by Cosby's lawyers to have the lawsuit dismissed for "procedural irregularities" according toe CBS Los Angeles. This means Cosby, 78, who has faced allegations of rape from dozens of women but has so far not been criminally charged, could have to testify under oath.
If Cosby ultimately testifies, it would be the first time the comedian has spoken under oath about past alleged sexual assaults since the 2005 deposition in which he admitted he gave at least one woman sedatives before having sex with her.
"We are looking forward to Mr. Cosby answering questions under oath at his deposition and we will continue to seek justice for our courageous client, Judy Huth," Huth's lawyer, Gloria Allred, said in a statement, according to People. "We believe we have a right to take his deposition in this civil lawsuit."
Attorney Gloria Allred, left, speaks about excerpts released from Bill Cosby's 2005 deposition in the Andrea Constand lawsuit on July 13 in Los Angeles.Source: Frederic J. Brown/Getty Images
Allred told NBC News she hopes to question Cosby within the next 30 days.
Huth sued Cosby in California last year for allegedly molesting her in 1974, but the entertainer has since evaded a deposition. CNN reports that in the lawsuit, Huth recalled how she met Cosby and how he invited her to sit next to him on a bed at the Playboy Mansion. "He then proceeded to sexually molest her by attempting to put his hand down her pants, and then taking her hand in his hand and performing a sex act on himself without her consent," court documents said.
Huth is one of more than three dozen women who have stepped forward to demand justice for alleged sexual assault at the hands of Cosby, for encounters dating back to the 1960s. About two dozen have filed formal suits against the entertainer.
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Access to IUDs Can Help Poor Women Break the Poverty Cycle, Says Inspiring New Study
By Leigh Cuen
A new study by graduate students at the University of Wisconsin reveals a surprising truth about contraceptives: Apparently, if they're made cheap and accessible, they can go a long way toward reducing poverty.
The report analyzed demographic data and public policy in Wisconsin, as well as several areas across the country where pilot programs provided local women and girls with affordable contraceptives like Intra-Uterine Devices, a birth control category also known as long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs).
From Colorado to Missouri, wherever LARCs were made accessible the teen pregnancy rate dropped dramatically. For example, the birth rate for teens in the St. Louis CHOICE program dropped 58% between 2008 and 2013, compared to the overall city average of 19%.
"We weren't looking to see how it [LARCs] would affect poverty," university researcher Amanda Ward said in a phone interview. "But unintended pregnancies and poverty rates are intrinsically connected."
The study originally aimed to explore diverse birth control methods and public policy, focusing on how they could affect families in Wisconsin, a state that spends over $5.5 million a year on public services for new mothers with unexpected pregnancies. The annual price tag jumped to $21 billion when researchers factored in postnatal healthcare and subsidized childcare. The deeper these researchers dug into the facts about unexpected pregnancy, which make up a whopping 46% of annual pregnancies in Wisconsin, the clearer it became that reproductive health is an economic issue.
"It's tricky to talk about poverty and unexpected pregnancy. It's not that poor women are getting pregnant more," Ward explained. "It's nothing other than routine access to overall health services and contraception."
According to the report's policy brief, women who raise children resulting from unintended pregnancies are 32% more likely to require public assistance. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy estimated that 48% of mothers aged 15 to 19 lived below the poverty line from 2009 to 2010, with the vast majority requiring public assistance beyond minimal healthcare needs.
From publicly funded health services to food stamps and local schools, every aspect of public spending was influenced by low-income families struggling after unexpected pregnancies.
"The big take-away from our paper is...it's cheaper to avoid unexpected pregnancies and their associative costs," Ward said. Providing LARCs saves communities money in the long run because, unlike birth control pills or condoms, people don't need regular access and resources to keep it up.
Countless studies have already proven that access to birth control allows women to receive a better education and get higher-paying jobs. But affordable contraception doesn't just influence women's earning potential. "When you support women in their choices about when to have children and how many children they want to have, you open up so many opportunities," Ward said. "It also impacts the life of the child and expands into future generations...The impact on the child's upward mobility is huge."
Ward now believes that healthcare and sex education should be considered key components of economic policy. "Wisconsin is an abstinence-only education state. You're not doing anybody any favors by avoiding sex education," she said. "Economic barriers are something policy makers need to consider."
• Good News: Teens Are Using IUDs. Bad News: They're Not Using Condoms
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Amber Rose Says Ian Connor Has Raped 21 Women, Not Just 7
By Claire Lampen
As rape allegations continue to stack up against stylist and friend-to-Kanye-West Ian Connor, Amber Rose has big news. Some seven women have so far accused Connor of sexual assault, but in an interview with the Daily Beast, Rose corrected that figure. There are about three times as many victims as have currently come forward in the media, she said.
"Honestly, seven came out and I'm pretty sure 21 women have reached out to me so far. So I'm assuming there are more [stories] coming out. It's innocent until proven guilty, but when you have 21 women from all over the world that do not know each other but have similar stories, it gets to the point where it's like ... enough."
Amber RoseSource: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
During the interview, Rose talked misogyny in hip-hop and her feminist evolution. Rose's Slut Walks — large-scale demonstrations in which women gather, dressed in their skimpiest garments, to protest the sexualization of women and the violence against them it engenders — offer a platform for victims to discuss abuse. Many of Connor's victims want to share their stories on her stage, she explained.
"I'm not a lawyer," Rose said. "I can't prosecute anyone or say, 'What she's saying is exactly the truth.'" What she can do is give Connor's victims a place to talk.
Connor was part of the A$AP Mob before April's rape allegations; since then, many of its members — including Theophilus London, A$AP Bari and Kerwin Frost — have hit back against him. West, another of Rose's exes, has so far remained silent. But when Rose speaks up, a West Twitter tantrum is almost assured to follow.
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Scientists just found a lost continent underneath the island of Mauritius
By Brianna Provenzano
Scientists have long theorized that about 200 million years ago, a giant stretch of land connected what are now India and Madagascar to form an ancient supercontinent called Gondwana.
In a new paper published on Jan. 31 in the journal Nature Communications, geoscientist Lewis Ashwal, of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, finally concluded that not only was the supercontinent real, fragments of it still exist — sunken leagues beneath the tiny isle of Mauritius.
"Our findings confirm the existence of continental crust beneath Mauritius," the paper says.
Researchers were first tipped off to the continental crust's presence because of a strange feature that's unique to Mauritius: The pull of gravity is particularly strong on the island, according to Time.
That strong gravity, combined with 2 billion-year-old samples of the mineral zircon that have been found on the island's beaches, caused scientists to wonder if there wasn't something hidden out of sight beneath the island.
Using uranium-lead dating techniques, Ashwal and his colleagues were able to determine that there was no way the billions-of-years-old zircon could have been created around the same time as the other geological components of Mauritius, which point to the island being around eight million years old.
Instead, they reasoned, undersea volcanoes likely rocketed the sediment from the subsurface continental crust to the shores of Mauritius.
It might not be the lost city of Atlantis, but it's something.
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'Zelda: Breath of the Wild' Cooking Guide: How to cook food and use a cooking pot
Zelda: Breath of the Wild is rife with several different ingredients for Link to use to create new materials, weapons, potions and elixirs. While the mechanic itself isn't new, it's been improved upon tenfold. Cooking in Breath of the Wild is a cinch, and while the game doesn't spell it out for you entirely, we're here to make sure you know how to put together delicious (or not so delicious) meals.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild cooking guide: How to use a cooking pot
In order to cook in Breath of the Wild, you'll want to find a cooking pot, which looks like a big cauldron of sorts. You'll also need a fire beneath it. If you're near a fire, carry the bowl to a fire so you can get it good and ready for cooking. Then it's time to add your ingredients.
Cooking is a key activity in 'Zelda: Breath of the Wild.'Source: Mic
Press the + button on your Joy-Con controller and look at your inventory to gather ingredients. You can pick them all up to throw them in the bowl. When you've chosen your ingredients you'll want to walk up to the black bowl and press the A button to start cooking. It's that simple.
The game may also give you some audio feedback to rate your cooking skills. According to The Guardian, you'll hear a few musical notes if you cook a particularly effective dish.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild cooking guide: Cooking food
For the most part, you'll probably be cooking different types of food. Cooking food will ensure the ingredients you utilize have added benefits. For instance, cooking things like apples will add to their restorative power. This holds true for a good portion of the ingredients you'll happen upon throughout Breath of the Wild.
You can cook multiple items together at once.Source: Mic
Simply put, if you can cook something, do so to improve upon what you already have at your disposal. If you have multiple items to cook together, you can do so as well. Adding herbs to meat can offer additional stamina-restoring and health-restoring effects. It's all about experimentation, which you'll want to do plenty of when you first start cooking. If food items sound like they could logically work well together, go ahead and put them in the cooking pot to create a meal.
Make sure you don't mix food and monster parts, and always check the descriptions on the ingredients you're using to ensure you don't end up with wasted food or supplies.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild cooking guide: Creating elixirs
In addition to food, you can create elixirs. You need both critters and monster parts to put them together, and not food ingredients. Monsters are essentially any enemy you fight out in the world, and critters are smaller animals like frogs, lizards, rabbits and others found out in the Hyrule plains. You'll need to use both parts to cook up elixirs, which will offer various status effects. These are cooked in the very same way you put cooked food together, only you need different types of ingredients.
Those are the basics when it comes to cooking. Good luck, and don't put together anything too gross for Link to eat or drink.
Check out more Nintendo Switch news and coverage
Check out our comparison photos sizing up the Switch to the Wii U GamePad, along with details on the console's price, release date, pre-orders, battery life and our hands-on review. If you're interested in the Nintendo Switch's games, here's info on the new Super Mario Odyssey, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 2, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, 1-2-Switch and the goofy boxing game Arms.
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Broker heads to Hong Kong as majors shun deals
A Sydney-based broker has started securing funding from Asian investors after seeing the big four banks turn down “perfectly good” deals.
Speaking at the Vow Financial commercial conference in Hobart last week, Delany Financial director and mortgage broker Michael Delany said he has had his most successful year in construction finance without any help from Australia’s major lenders.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve had a very positive experience with the major banks this year,” Mr Delany said. “My biggest complaint would be that they tend to say ‘no’ to perfectly good deals. You can either get peeved with that or do something about it.”
Unable to secure funding for his commercial clients locally, Mr Delany – a former Olympic swimmer and a gold medallist – has started looking overseas for private funding.
“There are billions of dollars streaming in from funds out of Hong Kong, China and Singapore that are very willing and able and looking to do construction deals,” he said. “They might be more expensive than the banks, but at least you get them done. It allows the clients, the developers, to get on and complete their projects and get the development finished quicker."
He added: “I’ve had my best year in construction finance and I haven’t put one deal with a major bank.”
Mr Delany is not alone. HoldenCAPITAL broker and three-time Australian Broking Award–winner Dan Holden has been making regular trips up north to source finance for developers.
From 2015 to the first quarter of 2017, the proportion of loans HoldenCAPITAL directed to the major banks plummeted from 67 per cent to 20 per cent. Mr Holden attributed the sharp decline to regulatory controls on investment and real estate development lending put in place in 2015.
The Brisbane-based broker has seen a significant increase in volumes by bringing in a wide range of private capital, including mortgage trusts, private lenders, high-net-worth individuals and syndicates of high-net-worth families.
[Related: Hong Kong hit with mortgage curbs as property booms]
Last Updated: 24 July 2017 Published: 25 July 2017
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Women & Wellness May 25, 2018 May 25, 2018
Greenville Technical Charter High School valedictorian earns nearly $1 million in scholarships
Roann Abdeladl, a first-generation Muslim-American, has a 5.26 GPA
GREENVILLE, S.C. —
The valedictorian of Greenville Technical Charter High School has a lot to be proud of.
Roann Abdeladl, a first-generation Muslim-American, has a 5.26 GPA, earned an Associate’s Degree of science from Greenville Technical College, received the SC Academic Honors Award, and is a National Merit Scholar, Palmetto Fellow, and graduate of MedEx Academy Tier 1.
She has also earned nearly $1 million in scholarships. Roann will attend Clemson University on a full ride through the National Scholars Program. She had many choices, as she had also been named a Furman Hollingsworth Scholar and was offered direct admission to The University of South Carolina Medical School through Furman's Early Admission to Medical School program.
In addition, she was offered full rides to the UNC Chapel Hill Honors College, Emory University and The University of South Carolina Honors College. Roann was named a U.S. Presidential Scholar semifinalist. She was also the only student in South Carolina to be named a 2018 Coca-Cola Scholar.
Roann is the founder and executive director of Youth Interfaith Greenville, a youth-led organization that promotes interreligious dialogue and cooperation through events and community service.
In 2016 she was named Ann Power Vital Voices Fellow and went on to be a Global Delegate at their San Francisco Leadership Conference. She is the Co-Captain of her school’s Speech and Debate Team, and will be attending the National Competition this summer, competing in Extemporaneous Speech, which she has won at the state level four consecutive years. Roann founded and leads her mosque’s youth group, Young Muslims Greenville, teaches Sunday School at the Islamic Society of Greenville, volunteers through her school’s Students in Action Team and serves as the secretary of Greenville Health System’s Health Careers Club.
Roann Abdeladl
Muslim World Today posted about Greenville Technical Charter High School valedictorian earns nearly $1 million in scholarships on Muslim World Today's Facebook page 2018-05-25 14:12:58 -0400
Greenville Technical Charter High School valedictorian earns nearly $1 million in scholarships https://www.muslimworldtoday.org/greenville_technical_charter_high_school_valedictorian_earns_nearly_1_million_in_scholarships?recruiter_id=9388
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The Angel, a Grade II listed Hayes pub 'of national importance' sold after 150 years
The Uxbridge Road pub has closed its doors forever following a private sale by Fullers
Qasim Peracha
A historic Grade II listed pub in Hayes - which had been run for more than 150 years - has been sold.
The Angel, in Uxbridge Road, has been a cornerstone of the local community since the reign of Queen Victoria, but a controversial decision has been made to sell the pub.
The most recent Angel was rebuilt in its original site in 1926 by Fuller's, who had been running the pub for more than 150 years.
The local even earned a spot on the National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors, and was Grade II listed by Historic England in 2015.
The sizeable pub stands on the corner of Angel Lane and Uxbridge Road in Hayes End . Prior to the redevelopment, Hayes End was changing from a hamlet on the road between London and Uxbridge to becoming a metropolitan area in its own right.
The Angel in Uxbridge Road, Hayes (Image: Google)
The remodel was considered a perfect example of the inter-war pubs, designed by TH Parr, which were aimed at attracting new, fancier clientele, by incorporating more rooms, including a huge luncheon room.
The Angel sprawled across five rooms, all with their own entrance. The pub even had to be expanded in the 1930s and 1970s.
There was even a Mason's Room on the first floor, used by the local Masonic Lodge.
The pub's Facebook page even alluded to its interior in its 'About section', reading: "Home for the Angel pub in Hayes, the pub time forgot. We may be shabby inside but there's always a warm welcome and something for everyone."
File photo: Barstaff at an event to raise money for a new wheelchair for a disabled local boy, 2012 (Image: TMS)
Commenting on the sale of The Angel at Hayes, a spokesperson for Fuller, Smith & Turner, said: “The Angel at Hayes has been a Fuller’s pub for over 150 years, so this has not been an easy decision.
"Fuller’s has nearly 200 tenanted pubs and going forwards, we will be looking to help our tenants to open, develop and promote pubs that deliver the distinctive Fuller’s experience, including freshly cooked food, customers expect when the see the Fuller’s name.
The best pubs in west London according to the new Good Beer Guide
"As part of that plan there are a number of sites, including The Angel, that we feel no longer fit with our future vision and that, as a result, were earmarked for sale.
“We do realise that this isn’t going to make us popular with the regulars at The Angel, but sometimes we have to make some tough decisions to allow us to invest in other parts of our estate.
"It is a private sale and we wish the vendor every success going forwards.”
Hayes End
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Home / Eric Hutchinson Raises Funds for Care and a Cure
Eric Hutchinson Raises Funds for Care and a Cure
The myotonic dystrophy (DM) community has a strong champion in singer-songwriter Eric Hutchinson. As part of his long-time efforts to support Care and a Cure for myotonic dystrophy, Eric is offering one-of-a-kind fan activities and memorabilia in a new pledge campaign, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation (MDF). Eric is offering private concerts for you and your guests as part of the pledge campaign, a deluxe edition of his album Easy Street, a signed and personalized acoustic guitar, framed lyrics and the opportunity to have a private tour of New York City with him, among other items. The pledge campaign ends on December 31, 2016.
"I’m thrilled to announce the Deluxe Edition of my latest album, Easy Street!" said Eric. "I recently learned about PledgeMusic.com and thought it sounded like a fantastic way to share some of my time, new music and some special memorabilia with all of you. Plus, for the first time ever, ‘Easy Street’ is available on VINYL, the first time ANY of my albums has been on wax. I’ve spent a lot of 2016 educating people about myotonic dystrophy, a condition that has affected my dad and my family for a long time. Part of the proceeds from this PledgeMusic campaign will go to support the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation and myotonic dystrophy research.
"I know firsthand what living with myotonic dystrophy looks like for a loved one and his or her caregivers. I'm committed to helping to find care and a cure for DM and I hope you'll join me. I want to thank the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation for helping my family better understand myotonic dystrophy and letting us know that we’re not alone in living with this disease. I’m donating to MDF because it’s important to provide resources and support to families, and accelerate efforts to find a therapy."
Eric’s commitment to support the DM community is driven by his own personal connection to the disease: His father has DM, and for years Eric lived with fear and uncertainty about his own status. Eric wrote about his family connection to myotonic dystrophy this year in a heartfelt personal essay.
Eric released his fantastic new album, Easy Street, earlier this year. Support Eric’s pledge campaign today.
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The Last Indigenous Tasmanian
By Lulu Morris 08 May 2017
Truganini lived through the mass killing of Indigenous Tasmanians
In her lifetime she watched her people massacred, her mother killed by sailors, her uncle shot by soldiers, her sister abducted by sealers and her fiancé brutally murdered by timber cutters.
She was raped and exiled with one hundred other indigenous Tasmanians.
On this day in 1876 Truganini, the last full-blooded speaker of the Tasmanian language died. Born in 1812, she was witness to British invasion and colonisation. She watched her home cleared and farmed by the invading settlers.
Image: Truganini in 1870, Wikipedia
Daughter of an elder, she was just seventeen when her family was killed in the 1830s ‘Black War’. The Black War claimed the lives 900 Indigenous Australians, all but annihilating the island’s indigenous population.
The fighting was so widespread and brutal that George Augustus Robinson a builder and untrained preacher was appointed to find the 300 remaining indigenous Tasmanians and relocate them to a nearby island for their “protection.”
He feigned friendship with Truganini and her father, convincing them that he could protect them.
Robinson promised the indigenous people food, housing, blankets and most importantly that they could return to their home occasionally. Truganini recognised that this may be the only chance for her people’s survival and so agreed to help Robinson move the remaining indigenous Tasmania’s to the island.
Truganini also saved Robinson from being speared and from drowning.
In 1835, nearly all the indigenous Australians agreed to move to the Wybalenna settlement on Flinders Island. They trusted this would be their temporary home but the island turned into a prison. Many died from sickness. Truganini saw that her people were slowly dying and actively tried to stop anyone else from migrating to the Island.
The Indigenous Tasmanians were forced to live in their Flinders Island prison, until 1847 when the last 45 Indigenous Australians were moved to an abandoned settlement in Oyster Cove, Tasmania. Conditions were even worse for the surviving indigenous Australians. The Times covered the story in 1861:
“14 persons, all adults, aboriginals of Tasmania, who are the sole surviving remnant of ten tribes. Nine of these persons are women and five are men. There are among them four married couples, and four of the men and five of the women are under 45 years of age, but no children have been born to them for years. It is considered difficult to account for this... Besides these 14 persons, there is a native woman who is married to a white man, and who has a son, a fine healthy-looking child..."
The article: The ‘Decay of Race’, tells of how the remaining 14 were housed, fed and "much addicted to drinking.”
Truganini died in 1876 aged 64. Before her death she pleaded with authorities to let her be cremated, so her body would not exhumed for scientific purposes. Against her wishes, she was buried and her body was exhumed two years later by the Royal Society of Tasmania and placed on display.
It wasn’t till 1976, a century after her death that she was taken down and cremated. Truganini is remembered as a gentle spirit in a brutal time. Her courage and perseverance during Australia’s darkest and most violent history is a testament to her and she deserves to be remembered.
Header: Truganini, seated right, Wikipedia
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08 June 2016 Millions of Spiders Coat Tasmanian Town With Silk
Major flooding in Tasmania has forced spiders to evacuate—by using silken threads as hot-air balloons.
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Man Who Lost Hand Sausage-Making Forced to Cut Off Own Arm
"I went through Vietnam. I can handle this"
Published Sep 26, 2018 at 10:28 AM
AP/Jim Monk
Myron Schlafman, a 69-year-old Vietnam War veteran, made the gruesome decision to cut off his own arm on August 17 in order to save his life after his hand was caught in an electric meat grinder.
A 69-year-old Vietnam vet who lost a hand after it got stuck in a meat mixer while he was making sausage at his North Dakota home says he had to slice off his left arm above the wrist with a butcher knife or risk bleeding to death.
In his first public comments since the Aug. 17 accident, Myron Schlafman said he credits two police officers with saving his life by quickly applying a tourniquet before ambulance crews took him to the hospital.
"I've always appreciated life, but not as much as I do now," he told KFGO radio.
Schlafman said he was taking a chunk of meat out of the mixer in the garage of his Jamestown home when he accidentally stepped on a pedal to activate the machine.
"I just looked and knew I was in big trouble," said Schlafman, who is right-handed.
The bone was severed, but his arm was still caught by muscle, nerves and skin. He grabbed the knife, which was mercifully within reach, and cut himself free.
"If I would have hesitated, I would have stood right there and bled to death," he said.
Schlafman spent nine days in the hospital and underwent three surgeries. He will be fitted with a prosthetic in a few months, after the stump on his left arm has fully healed.
"It would be very easy to sit back, feel sorry for myself and get depressed," he said. "I went through Vietnam. I can handle this."
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2018 Anti-Environmental Budget Riders
Once again the Republican leadership, especially in the House, is advancing a Big Polluter Agenda to undermine just about every basic environmental protection current law provides to the American people. It appears no environmental law is safe from the demands of corporate polluters and their cheerleaders in the Republican Party.
The Republican Leadership is trying to force this Big Polluter Agenda on the public through provisions in must-pass spending bills. These provisions are called "riders" because they ride along on unrelated legislation. Riders that are typically tacked onto a spending bill, for example, would not change federal spending by one cent. Instead, riders are used to sneak through legislative changes that would be difficult to pass on their own in open congressional debate. Riders often result in the measures getting less scrutiny and enable their sponsors to avoid responsibility for pushing them. In the past, spending riders have led to government shutdowns when intransigent Republicans were unwilling to fund the government without restricting environmental protection.
But polling clearly shows strong public support for environmental protection. That’s why the Republican leadership uses riders—they know how hard it would be to prevail on a clean yes-or-no vote directly on environmental and public health protections. Republican leaders have learned little after forcing a government shutdown that Standard & Poor's says cost the nation $24 billion. They are again threatening damage to America's families, communities, and economy as they strive to reverse many years of progress.
These are the riders that have been added so far to the spending bills for fiscal year 2019, which begins October 1. We include section numbers to indicate where these riders are found in the corresponding legislation. In some cases, we include amendment numbers for riders that were voted into legislation but have not yet been assigned section numbers. This page will be updated as the appropriations process plays out in the House and Senate.
Clean Air & Climate Change
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 416) permanently prevents the EPA from limiting pollution from livestock production under the Clean Air Act. A similar provision was included in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 416).
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 417) prevents the EPA from requiring the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from manure management systems. A similar provision was included in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 417).
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 429) requires all biomass burned for electricity production to be considered to have zero carbon pollution despite the fact that emissions from wood biomass are often higher than those from coal. This language threatens the long-term health of forests by encouraging the burning of trees to generate electricity, and worsens climate change by pretending climate-changing emissions don't exist. A similar provision was included in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 428).
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (sec. 432) delays EPA’s latest health standards for ground-level ozone (smog) pollution for ten years, preventing Americans from even having the right to know if the air they breathe is unhealthy for ten years and severely delaying cleanup steps. The rider also would let corporations that apply for air pollution permits pollute at levels that are unsafe under national health standards.
A rider added to the House Interior and Environment Appropriation by Rep Long (H. Amdt 349) prevents EPA from requiring industrial animal production facilities to report the quantities of even extremely dangerous substances that they release into air, even in emergencies, and even when such releases endanger neighbors. The amendment also prevents EPA from enforcing the law with respect to these facilities. People who live near these facilities deserve the same protections as people who live near other sources of dangerous industrial pollution.
A rider added to the House Energy and Water appropriation by Rep. Gohmert (H. Amdt. 757) would block any consideration of the costs of carbon pollution. This would require the Department of Energy (DoE) to blind itself to the economic costs of climate change. These costs, which affect businesses, families, governments, and taxpayers, could reach hundreds of billions of dollars through rising healthcare costs, destruction of property, increased food prices, and more.
A rider in the House State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriation (Sec. 7034 (j)) would prohibit contributions, grants or any other payments to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which spurs developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The United States has pledged to contribute $3 billion to the GCF, but has only contributed $1 billion so far.
A rider in the House State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriation (Sec. 7062(4)) would bar climate safeguards put in place for America’s international finance under the guise of preventing American job loss. The bill prohibits funding for enforcement of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) Environmental and Social Policy Statement provisions relating to coal, and enforcement of the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank’s Supplemental Guidelines for High Carbon Intensity Projects that limit support for coal plants overseas. These rules eliminate gains made in previous years that were designed to limit the negative climate impacts of projects funded by OPIC and Ex-Im overseas, by allowing highly polluting projects to be eligible for U.S. government support. A similar rider was included in the Senate State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriation (Sec. 7073(4)).
A rider in the House Financial Services and General Government appropriation (Sec. 746) would prevent implementation of new measures to protect public infrastructure from flooding. The federal flood protection standard is meant to increase our resilience to future flooding, protecting lives and reducing taxpayer dollars spent to rebuild after a disaster. The rider only serves to harm the American public.
Clean Energy & Energy Efficiency
A rider in the House Energy and Water appropriation (Sec. 508) would prevent the government from shutting down the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
A rider in the Senate Energy and Water appropriation (Sec. 304) would allow nuclear waste to be stored in private interim facilities. The rider severs any meaningful linkage between the storage and disposal of nuclear waste by exploring storage as a viable option for dealing with nuclear waste from the nation’s weapons programs and nuclear power plants. This dangerous precedent breaks with over 50 years of scientific consensus that supports permanent isolation in deep geological repositories as the only technically, economically, and ethically viable waste disposal option. The substantial distinction between nuclear waste storage and nuclear waste disposal must be preserved and never be blurred.
A rider in the House Energy and Water appropriation (Sec. 107) exempts certain discharges of dredged or fill material from environmental review, overruling a Clean Water Act directive that discharges that would cause specified harms must be permitted. A similar rider was included in the House Interior and Environment Appropriation (Sec. 430).
A rider in the House Energy and Water appropriation (Sec. 507) would limit options for properly managing rivers by preventing federal dam removals to occur without express Congressional authorization. Dams can have severe impacts on water quality and wildlife but beyond that as dams age and decay, they can also become public safety hazards, presenting a failure risk and a dangerous nuisance.
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 431) legislatively repeals the landmark Clean Water Rule without legislative hearings, deliberation, and debate, and without regard to the broad public support for clear and effective clean water safeguards for the nation’s streams and wetlands. In doing so, it also returns protection against water pollution to their prior state of disarray. The Clean Water Rule protects water bodies that help supply one third of Americans with clean drinking water. This broadly supported rule is the product of extensive public engagement and scientific analysis. Repealing the rule and returning clean water enforcement to a state of uncertainty will harm all those to depend on clean water for business, recreation and health. A similar rider was included in the House Energy and Water appropriation (Sec. 108).
A rider in the House Energy and Water appropriation (Sec. 205) prohibits implementation of the San Joaquin River Restoration settlement between the United States, Friant Water Authority, and conservation and fishing groups to restore the river as required under state and federal law. This would prevent funding for water supply and flood control projects that benefit local farmers, and likely lead the parties back to court because it would allow some 60 miles of California’s second longest river to remain completely dry in violation of state law.
A rider added to the House Energy and Water appropriation by Rep. LaMalfa (H. Amdt. 756) would weaken existing Clean Water Act Requirements. Although certain wetlands on agricultural land are ordinarily exempt from the Act’s protection, they lose their exemption if they are “abandoned” and no longer used for agricultural production.
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 407) allows the Secretary of Agriculture to rely on outdated forest plans, ignoring the reality that national forests are not being managed sustainably, nor taking into account additional considerations such as the increasing impacts from climate change. A similar provision was included in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 407).
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 421) exempts livestock grazing permit renewals from environmental review. A similar provision was included in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 420).
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 433) forbids federal land management agencies from placing reasonable limits via the normal land use planning process on fishing, shooting activities for hunting, or recreational shooting if those activities were allowed as of January 1, 2013.
A rider in the House Energy and Water appropriation (Sec. 505) would undermine work happening under the National Ocean Policy, which improves coordination among the dozens of government agencies that oversee marine health and development. It would prevent states from accessing the federal assistance they need to advance best practices on key issues, including offshore wind projects that will power our cities, sand mining to rebuild our beaches, and aquaculture that adds to coastal economies. The rider, which takes aim at good governance and hinders agreements hammered out over several years by states from Maine to Virginia, regional fisheries managers, tribes, and federal agencies—and with extensive industry and public involvement—won’t help us make better development decisions and has no place in Congress’ final budget bills.
Toxics and Public Health
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 418) permanently prevents the EPA from regulating toxic lead in ammunition, ammunition components, or fishing tackle under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) or any other law. A similar rider was included in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 418).
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 432) would prohibit EPA from writing any rule that would require the largest industrial animal farms (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs) to properly store, transport, or dispose of their wastes, including the hundreds of millions of tons of manure they generate annually. CAFO wastes contain dangerous pollutants that can increase the risk of birth defects, infant deaths, diabetes, and cancer. When not handled properly, CAFO wastes endanger drinking water sources and pose a particularly severe risk to rural communities reliant on well water.
A rider in the House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriation (Sec. 229) would interfere with the work of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The rider would defund IARC unless it complies with a list of politically motivated demands designed to undermine its work. IARC is the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization and supplies vital information on the cancer risks of chemicals that people are exposed to. Its lifesaving work has been repeatedly targeted by the chemical industry. The terms and conditions of researching whether chemicals cause cancer should not be set by toxic chemical manufacturers.
A rider in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation Committee Report (Committee Report Pg. 73) is part of an effort to legislatively and administratively overturn a judicial ruling finding that a Bush-Administration rule illegally created a loophole for large agribusinesses releasing significant amounts of hazardous substances into the air. The DC Circuit found that exemption illegal, but stayed the vacatur of the rule for 90 days to give EPA time to “develop guidance for farms on how to measure or estimate their emissions in order to come into compliance with the reporting requirements” of these statutes. To evade the goals of the statute and court ruling, the Trump Administration proposed a new exemption that shields thousands of facilities from reporting requirements, even when they are hurting the health of rural communities. The facilities that this rider would shield emit massive amounts of dangerous substances like hydrogen sulfide and ammonia linked to diseases and significant reductions in quality of life for neighbors. The emissions of these substances are no less harmful to neighbors than the emissions of the same substances from other industrial facilities subject to CERCLA/EPCRA; neighbors deserve to know what’s in their air.
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 115) prevents the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) from fulfilling its obligations under the Endangered Species Act by disallowing FWS to issue or propose a rule to protect the greater sage grouse, Columbia basin sage grouse, or bi-state sage grouse. A similar provision was included in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 115).
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 116) blocks federal Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the Great Lakes and Wyoming and prevents judicial review of this action. In doing so, this rider not only ignores the Endangered Species Act’s science-based decision-making process, but also undermines the rule of law and citizens’ access to the courts more broadly.
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation (Sec. 117) blocks efforts to protect endangered gray wolves in the continental United States under the Endangered Species Act. This species is currently listed as endangered in most of the lower 48 states. The rider would mandate a delisting, which would reverse the remarkable progress the ESA has achieved for this species and once again put the gray wolf at risk of extinction. The provision goes on to tamper with the judicial system by blocking court access in relation to this issue.
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriations (Sec. 437) would preclude judicial review of the California WaterFix project under federal law, and attempts to preclude judicial review of this project under state law, preempting state law. More than 20 lawsuits have been filed by farmers, fishermen, water districts, local governments, and conservation groups challenging the permitting and financing for this $17 billion project, which proposes to construct two massive tunnels under the Bay-Delta estuary that threaten native fish and wildlife including salmon, water quality and local communities.
A rider added to the House Interior and Environment appropriation by Rep. Valadao (Sec. 441) seeks to preclude judicial review regarding the federal Central Valley Project and California’s State Water Project. In the past, courts have concluded that these two massive water projects jeopardized the continued existence of salmon and other species listed under the Endangered Species Act, resulting in litigation filed by water districts, farms, fishing groups, the state of California, and conservation groups. The amendment appears to attempt to preclude State law as applied to the State Water Project, raising significant constitutional concerns. Precluding judicial review of these massive water projects is inconsistent with American values and would prevent all stakeholders from challenging actions of the federal government.
A rider added to the House Interior and Environment appropriation by Rep. Amodei (Sec. 122) would prohibit any land management agency from placing any limit on the exercise of water rights as a condition for issuing a permit or other approval to use public lands or a waterway. This could result in preventing federal agencies from implementing reasonable requirements for hydropower intended to keep water in rivers for aquatic species and recreation, protect water quality, and effective fish passage.
A rider added to the House Interior and Environment appropriation by Rep. Newhouse (Sec. 438) would prevent the restoration of grizzly bears to the North Cascades ecosystem, where fewer than 10 bears remain. This rider would thwart a science-based public process currently underway to recover this population of bears into its historic habitat.
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation by Rep. Herrera Beutler (Sec. 440) would block a recovery plan for the marbled murrelet, a unique seabird that is currently listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act and endangered under Washington State’s ESA. The rider would impede on a Habitat Conservation Plan and related conservation strategy currently under development in Washington State. In doing so, this amendment would interfere with science-based decision-making under the ESA and inappropriately interfere with a state-controlled process designed to protect a federally-listed species.
A rider in the House Interior and Environment appropriation Committee Report (Pg. 13) directs the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove federal Endangered Species Act protections for red wolves and Mexican gray wolves if the agency concludes that those species are not “taxonomically valid.” Today, fewer than 45 red wolves exist in the wild; the Mexican gray wolf is the most endangered gray wolf in the world, with only 97 in the wild in the United States. Furthermore, decisions about whether a species is deserving of protection should be made by scientists at the expert wildlife agencies—not politicians in Congress.
Language in the Senate Interior and Environment appropriation Committee Report (Pg. 21) acknowledges issues raised by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission regarding the Red Wolf Recovery Program, and urges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to work closely with the Commission to avoid negative impacts to landowners and other native species during fiscal year 2019. In expressing views about the status of the Red Wolf, this language undermines the regulatory process established to protect and recover imperiled species.
A rider in the House Energy and Water appropriation (Sec. 506), known as the “Salmon Extinction Rider,” would jeopardize the continued existence of thirteen imperiled wild salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River Basin. Hundreds of communities, businesses, tribes, and other wildlife species from California to Alaska depend on Columbia Basin salmon. This rider would roll back protections for the fish (specifically, increased water over the dams), and it would freeze in place a woefully inadequate plan of operation for the Basin’s dams that violates the Endangered Species Act and risks extinction.
Report language in the House Energy and Water appropriation (Pgs. 62-63) seeks to alter the purpose of reinitiated consultations under the ESA regarding the effects of massive state and federal water projects on salmon and other endangered species in California’s Bay-Delta. The existing biological opinions were failing to prevent the water projects from jeopardizing the continued existence of these listed species, and more protective measures are needed. However, this report language seeks to validate the Trump Administration’s objective of increasing water diversions from the Bay-Delta estuary as the purpose of this reinitiation of consultation, which is inconsistent with the best available science and requirements of the Endangered Species Act.
A rider in the House Commerce, Justice and Science appropriation (Sec. 541) seeks to prohibit the National Marine Fisheries Service from exercising the agency’s existing statutory authority to propose recommendations and mandatory conditions on the FERC license for a hydropower dam on the Tuolumne River, which are necessary to protect native salmon runs and other native fish species. This rider is strongly opposed by commercial and recreational fishing organizations and conservation groups because it attempts to prevent the expert agency from providing advice to FERC and mandatory conditions necessary to prevent this dam from continuing to harm native salmon runs in the river.
A rider in the House Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriation Committee Report (Pg. 18) would increase pressure on the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to implement anti-environmental provisions of a 2016 rider to the WIIN Act that authorizes, and in some instances mandates, overriding existing protections for salmon and other endangered species in California’s Bay-Delta estuary. These provisions are inconsistent with state law and would harm fishing jobs. Additional report language pressures the National Marine Fisheries Service to weaken protections for endangered salmon below Shasta dam. NMFS has determined that stronger temperature protections for salmon are needed below the dam as a result of new scientific information and the near complete mortality of endangered salmon below the dam in 2014 and 2015 due to lethal water temperatures.
A rider in the House Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriation Committee Report (Pgs. 18-19) seeks to alter the purpose of reinitiated consultations under the ESA regarding the effects of massive state and federal water projects on salmon and other endangered species in California’s Bay-Delta. The existing biological opinions were failing to prevent the water projects from jeopardizing the continued existence of these listed species, and more protective measures are needed. However, this report language seeks to validate the Trump Administration’s objective of increasing water diversions from the Bay-Delta estuary as the purpose of this reinitiation of consultation, which is inconsistent with the best available science and requirements of the Endangered Species Act.
Related Policy Resources
2018 Anti-Environmental Budget Riders by Bill
2018 Anti-Environmental Budget Riders by Appropriations Bill
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Archives|U.S. Has Closed the Soccer Gap With England
U.S. Has Closed the Soccer Gap With England
By JOHN ELIGON MAY 28, 2005
CHICAGO, May 27 - In 1950, they were hoping only to avoid humiliation.
In 1993, they merely wanted to prove that they could hang with the world's elite.
Those two United States men's soccer teams had humble objectives entering matches against England, one of the world's powerhouses. So it is easy to understand why their victories in those games were heralded as major upsets.
But if the United States beats England on Saturday in a friendly match here at Soldier Field, the victory will not be as stunning as those two were.
The increasing prominence of American players in Europe, the United States team's run to the quarterfinals in the 2002 World Cup and its recent victories over some of the world's top squads have helped elevate the status of United States soccer on the international stage.
With that status comes increased confidence and increased expectations.
"The mind-set 10 years ago versus today is miles apart," said Landon Donovan, a midfielder for the United States. "It's not like we're going in to defend the game for 90 minutes and pray for a point. We're definitely going to play and try to win the game."
Such confidence is delivered in stark contrast to what the United States players said in 1950, before they defeated England, 1-0, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. That victory is widely regarded as the greatest upset in World Cup history.
The Americans, who trained only about twice a week to leave time for full-time professions, had knocked off England, which was the favorite to reach the final against Brazil and had many of the world's best players.
"We were hoping, at best, to go out there and not be embarrassed," Walter Bahr, who played on the 1950 team, said Thursday in a telephone interview from his home in State College, Pa.
Despite the magnitude of the victory, Bahr and his teammates received no fanfare when they returned home. There was no parade, no visit to the White House, and barely a mention in the newspapers.
Bahr, now 78, went back to his $50-a-week job as a junior high and high school physical education teacher. He later went on to a successful collegiate coaching career.
He said he could not recall receiving a single interview request about the game in the 20 years afterward.
Jack Huckel, the director of communications at the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, N.Y., said in a telephone interview Friday that the 1950 game had no impact on American soccer.
"That's not to denigrate the achievement of those players," he said. "That was a tremendous achievement. Unfortunately, it didn't change the American soccer landscape in any significant way. Part of that was soccer wasn't a mass-market thing it is growing into today."
Having played only six times since 1950, the United States and England have failed to build a consistent rivalry. The former United States player Tab Ramos said a rivalry would be good for the game in America.
"Our young soccer players, who are watching all the English Premier players week in and week out, they watch these guys all the time and it gives our guys credibility when they match up against them and play well," Ramos, who was on the 1993 team that beat England, 2-0, in a U.S. Cup match in Foxboro, Mass., said Friday from his home in Holmdel, N.J.
The United States is 2-5 against England, which holds a 31-7 advantage in goal differential in the series. The 1993 game gave the Americans confidence, Ramos said, heading into the 1994 World Cup, the only one held in the United States.
Saturday's match comes a year before the next World Cup, in Germany. But even more pressing for the United States, it comes before two World Cup qualifiers, against Costa Rica next Saturday in Salt Lake City, and June 8 at Panama.
The United States coach, Bruce Arena, made it clear Friday that Saturday's game was preparation for the qualifiers.
But with the release last month of "The Game of Their Lives," a movie chronicling the 1950 United States-England match, based on the 1996 book by Geoffrey Douglas, it seems appropriate that the United States and England will square off for the first time in almost 11 years. England won, 2-0, in a friendly in September 1994 in London.
"I think anytime we have a game that's well supported, both in the stands and in the media, it's good for the game in the United States," Arena said. "However, in the big picture, the most important thing for the U.S. team to do to help the game in this country is to qualify for the next World Cup."
A version of this article appears in print on May 28, 2005, on Page D00007 of the National edition with the headline: SOCCER; United States Closes The Gap With England. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Americas|A Weaker Storm Devastated El Salvador
A Weaker Storm Devastated El Salvador
By MARC LACEY and ELISABETH MALKIN NOV. 9, 2009
MEXICO CITY — A devastating storm that struck El Salvador over the weekend was not the hurricane that roared through the region at the same time and, in fact, it did not even merit a name — which meant little after at least 140 people were killed when rivers burst their banks and hillsides collapsed under a siege of relentless rain.
As Hurricane Ida churned along the Atlantic coast of Central America late last week, first as a tropical storm, Nicaragua and Honduras took glancing blows and El Salvador was untouched, hurricane experts said.
But another weather pattern that forecasters described as a relatively small low-pressure cell then struck El Salvador, which was in the midst of its rainy season, from the west. It hovered over the mountainous countryside from Saturday evening until late Sunday, bringing with it enormous quantities of rain and destruction far worse than the disaster-prone country had seen in more than a decade.
“Ida had nothing to do with it,” said Lt. Cmdr. Dave Roberts, the United States Navy liaison at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
That was no consolation for a nation that found many of its villages and roads covered in a thick layer of mud.
At least 1,500 houses have been destroyed and damaged, said Edin Martínez, vice minister of housing. Many of the dead were children, according to local news reports.
Mauricio Martínez, a taxi driver, lost his wife, Lolita; their 14-year-old son, Benjamín; and his wife’s two nieces, Emilia, 9, and Gabriela, 6; after a wave of mud cascaded from a hillside onto the family’s home in San Martín, a suburb of San Salvador.
“It was like an explosion,” said Abraham Hernández, a neighbor, who saw the house’s cinderblock walls fall and Benjamín, buried up to his neck, calling out for help.
A street was covered with rocks from a landslide in Verapaz, east of San Salvador, on Monday. Credit Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press
The widespread destruction made clear one of the vulnerabilities of Central America, where villages are often built at the bases of mountains and on the banks of flood-prone rivers.
Even after the skies calmed, reaching some of the devastated regions proved to be a challenge, with rescue workers using helicopters and boats to get to the village of Verapaz, where 16 people were reported dead and another 47 missing after part of the Chichontepec volcano collapsed on top of homes, news agencies reported.
President Mauricio Funes said the storm poured almost as much rain on central El Salvador as Hurricane Mitch did over four days in 1998.
“The images speak clearly,” Mr. Funes told reporters as he toured the streets of Verapaz on Monday. “This is a disaster.”
He said repeated postponements of public works projects by previous governments had a role in the destruction. “It is a story that repeats itself every winter but which must have, once and for all, a full stop, a definitive and total response,” he said.
At the National Hurricane Center, forecasters said they had noticed the storm yet issued no warning about it. “It was a very, very weak area of disturbed weather,” Commander Roberts said. “We were monitoring it. You could see it in the satellite imagery. But we dropped it because it was so weak and it didn’t have the potential to become a tropical cyclone.”
Salvadoran forecasters did put out a warning for Ida and the unnamed storm late last week, advising residents that mudslides and sudden surges along river channels were possible. Still, the intensity of the rains seemed to catch everybody by surprise.
“There’s a gloomy, sad air,” said Laura Mata, a relief worker at World Vision, who described in a telephone interview how roads were blocked by debris and homes were obliterated on the way to San Vicente, where the damage was the worst.
“A lot of the homes are made of aluminum or mud. They are now gone,” she said.
Gene Palumbo contributed reporting from San Martín, El Salvador.
A version of this article appears in print on November 10, 2009, on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Weaker Storm Devastated El Salvador. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Times Insider|How We Got to a Colombian Guerrilla Camp
How We Got to a Colombian Guerrilla Camp
By Nicholas Casey
Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. In this piece, Nicholas Casey describes the path he took to meet the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Nicholas Casey, on a motorcycle, heading to a Latin American guerrilla camp.CreditNicholas Casey for The New York Times
The message came over WhatsApp, a picture of a handwritten note with the names of two remote towns in the Colombian mountains.
“Read and erase,” the next message said.
The messages were from the photographer Federico Ríos, and they marked the start of a long journey to see the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the secretive Marxist rebels known as FARC who have fought a 50-year war against the Colombian government, during which thousands of civilians were killed, and that could soon be coming to an end if a peace deal is signed.
It was an assignment that took us through those two towns and deep into the rebel-controlled jungles in the Colombian highlands. Our destination: a hide-out of 150 fighters where for four days we would document life in one of Latin America’s last remaining guerrilla camps.
We hired a pilot who took us to a remote airstrip and then hopped on motorcycles to ride for hours over gnarly dirt roads that few cars dare to travel. The way out was on horseback, with a dozen guerrilla fighters armed with Kalashnikov rifles, machetes and grenades.
The whole escapade seemed scripted for film — though what film, I can’t quite say. It all felt so serious, and yet it also felt a bit like the Woody Allen film “Bananas.”
IT BEGAN one night at a bar in Bogotá with Federico. Twice before he had gone to photograph the rebel fighters; I’d been taken by the pictures of life among the region’s last guerrillas. I proposed a third trip. This time it would be the two of us, visiting FARC with The Times for a story published today about life inside a Guerrilla Camp in Colombia.
“Let’s see what they say,” Federico said.
Two weeks later he was in Havana, where the rebel and government negotiators spent the last three years negotiating a peace agreement that was meant to be signed March 23. Federico approached the guerrilla leaders on the sidelines and proposed the trip. They agreed and gave us a date: March 7.
The invitation sounded sincere. But we had to remember this was FARC, an organization, like Al Qaeda, listed by the United States as a group that sponsors terror. FARC made a name for itself by kidnapping civilians for decades and holding them captive, for years.
FARC, of course, had its own concerns about our scheduled meeting.
It was scheduled to take place just a couple of months after the Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, or “El Chapo,” met his downfall after he agreed to an interview with Sean Penn. The Colombian government had agreed to talks with FARC — but not to a cease-fire — and it was, of course, possible the rebels would be attacked during our visit.
Hence Federico’s instructions: “Read and erase” the names of the two towns we would pass through on the journey. The second town would be our meeting point. It was so remote that it was not on any of our maps. Our instructions were to head there and wait.
“For them,” said Federico. “They’ll know when we’re there.”
From what we could tell, FARC, which rules much of the countryside, was in control of the second town.
Our plane, a three-seat Cessna, revved up on the tarmac before dawn. Colombia’s population is scattered across cities and a countryside with few working roads. Many villages are reachable only by river. Tiny planes can be a godsend in a country that can feel like an archipelago on land.
We took off just as the sun was rising over the Andes Mountains. The city spread below like a vast carpet that abruptly stopped at the edge of giant green forests.
Traces of state control disappeared as we crossed city limits. Ahead was a jigsaw puzzle of competing powers — guerrillas, paramilitary groups, drug traffickers and the military. Each struggles against the others, each group has its own (often competing) goals.
We landed on an airstrip outside the first town on the WhatsApp message; there was but a small runway in the forest. And no control tower.
The paramilitaries seemed to hold sway in the gold-mining town where we spent the night. Graffiti on the walls praising paramilitary groups. If anyone asked, we were not there to write about FARC. The writing was, after all, on the wall: The town appeared to be aligned with the very groups that wanted to kill guerrillas.
But no one asked. Hauling our backpacks and wearing Timberland boots, we probably looked like the gold miners who were wandering between the region’s open-air pits, looking for work in a town that looked like a Wild West outpost. As we traversed the dusty roads, we passed general stores where you could buy pickaxes and headlamps and where two calves — for sale — napped under the shade of pickup truck.
We consulted a few people on the way out. We were told that no cars could navigate these roads.
We had two options. We could hire a jeep, a line of which were parked near the plaza. They looked military grade and like they had been through war on these roads. But they occasionally got stuck in the mud.
Our other option was to hire motorcycles. The ride would be much bumpier, but there was less risk of getting trapped somewhere. And so, at 5 a.m, we headed out for the last leg of the journey, a four-hour ride through a sparsely populated area.
Some hours into our ride we saw a sign hanging off a home.
“FARC-Ejército del Pueblo,” it said. “FARC – People’s Army.” We were getting close.
We came across the second town, a small outpost of a few dozen homes where we were to meet the guerrillas. A cowboy whipped a team of mules hauling cut timber when we passed. The cowboy didn’t look up at us. No one did.
What now? Who would come to show us the way?
Federico and I settled into a small restaurant and waited.
Plates of beans, eggs and rice arrived. A couple of miners walked in and said hello. They ordered, too. The waitress — who was also the cook — mixed some instant coffee for herself. I felt drowsiness settling in, and after a few minutes I was fast asleep in a plastic chair.
I don’t know how long passed before I felt Federico nudging me awake.
There was the roar of motorcycles, a flash of dull green camouflage and the glint of rifles outside the door.
They were here.
Correction: March 18, 2016
An earlier version of a home page headline for this article misspelled the adjectival name of the country where reporter Nicholas Casey traveled to report on life in a guerrilla camp. As the article correctly notes, it is a Colombian guerrilla camp, not a Columbian guerrilla camp.
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Broadway Musical Wicked To Become Film
Marc Platt, the producer behind Broadway shows and films (e.g. Legally Blonde on screen, the new Nine movie, the upcoming Broadway revival of Pal Joey), has made it known that he is looking forward to making his Broadway smash Wicked into a feature film. The Wicked movie is still in the very early planning stages, but the Broadway show's bookwriter, Winnie Holzman, is expected to write the screenplay. Platt is also interested in doing a new film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's musical Jesus Christ Superstar.
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Global Select>
Oakmark Global Select Fund - Fund Letters
Oakmark Global Select Fund: Fourth Quarter 2018
The Oakmark Global Select Fund declined 18.1% for the quarter ended December 31, 2018, underperforming the MSCI World Index’s 13.4% decline. For the calendar year, the Fund declined 21.2%, underperforming the MSCI World Index’s decline of 8.7%. However, the Fund has returned an average of 6.3% per year since its inception in October 2006, outperforming the MSCI World Index’s annualized gain of 4.7% over the same period.
Willis Towers Watson, headquartered in the U.K. and the third-largest insurance broker in the world, was the top contributor for the quarter. The company delivered strong third-quarter earnings results and its organic growth reached 5%. Management now believes full-year organic growth will be closer to 4% after originally projecting a range of 3-4%. In addition, Willis lowered is fiscal-year tax rate guidance and increased earnings per share estimates for the full-year period. In our view, the company is also compelling because of its presence in the insurance brokerage industry, which is an attractive market because it does not bear underwriting risk, requires little capital and generates significant free cash flow. As a result, we continue to believe that Willis is significantly undervalued relative to its normalized earnings power.
Apache, a U.S.-based oil and gas exploration and production company, was the largest detractor for the quarter. Despite exceeding third-quarter production and EBITDA estimates, the company’s share price declined due to falling energy and oil prices. Although commodity prices are intrinsically prone to short-term volatility, the normalized earnings power of individual companies is much more stable. We believe that the decline in Apache’s stock price is purely the result of cyclical factors and will not affect the company’s long-term progress and business value. Management reiterated 2019 guidance and at current price levels plans to return capital to shareholders via stock repurchases. Our investment thesis for Apache remains intact as we believe it is trading at a significant discount to our estimate of intrinsic value.
As of December 31, 43.6% of the Fund’s holdings were invested in U.S.-domiciled companies, while approximately 53.6% were invested in European and U.K. equities and 2.9% were invested in Asian equities.
We continue to find the Swiss franc overvalued versus the U.S. dollar. As a result, we defensively hedged a portion of the Fund’s exposure. Approximately 27% of our Swiss franc exposure was hedged at quarter end.
While 2018 was disappointing in both absolute and relative terms, we like to remind our shareholders during these volatile times that we are long-term investors who remain committed to our investment philosophy. While our performance may lag in the short term, we continue to focus on providing positive, long-term results. We wish you a happy and prosperous 2019!
oakwx@oakmark.com
David G. Herro, CFA
Anthony P. Coniaris, CFA
Eric Liu, CFA
Oakmark Global Select Fund - Investor Class
Since Inception (10/02/06) 6.26%
10–year 11.31%
1–year -21.19%
3–month -18.14%
Gross Expense Ratio as of 09/30/18 was 1.19%
Net Expense Ratio as of 09/30/18 was 1.12%
The securities mentioned above comprise the following percentages of the Oakmark Global Select Fund’s total net assets as of 12/31/18: Apache 3.2% and Willis Towers Watson 2.8%. Portfolio holdings are subject to change without notice and are not intended as recommendations of individual stocks.
Access the full list of holdings for the Oakmark Global Select Fund as of the most recent quarter-end.
The net expense ratio reflects a contractual advisory fee waiver agreement through January 27, 2020.
EBITDA refers to Earnings Before the deduction of payments for Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization which is a measure of operating income.
The MSCI World Index (Net) is a free float-adjusted, market capitalization-weighted index that is designed to measure the global equity market performance of developed markets. The index covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country. This benchmark calculates reinvested dividends net of withholding taxes. This index is unmanaged and investors cannot invest directly in this index.
Because the Oakmark Global Select Fund is non-diversified, the performance of each holding will have a greater impact on the Fund's total return, and may make the Fund's returns more volatile than a more diversified fund.
The percentages of hedge exposure for each foreign currency are calculated by dividing the market value of all same-currency forward contracts by the market value of the underlying equity exposure to that currency.
Investing in foreign securities presents risks that in some ways may be greater than U.S. investments. Those risks include: currency fluctuation; different regulation, accounting standards, trading practices and levels of available information; generally higher transaction costs; and political risks.
All information provided is as of 12/31/2018 unless otherwise specified.
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Alternate Route Preparation: Wyoming
The state should ensure that its alternate routes provide efficient preparation that is relevant to the immediate needs of new teachers, as well as adequate mentoring and support.
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2013). Alternate Route Preparation: Wyoming results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/WY-Alternate-Route-Preparation-21
Analysis of Wyoming's policies
The state uses a single specific out-of-state program. Candidates in the Northern Plains alternate route program must complete a total of 24 credit hours. Courses are offered one at a time, and each course is eight to twelve weeks in length. Courses are also offered during the summer following the first year so as not to overload new teachers during their first year. Coursework includes human development, psychology of learning, diversity, special needs, classroom discipline, curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment.
Candidates do not have the opportunity to practice teach, but they do participate in a year-long internship that includes mentoring from an on-site master teacher and a university supervisor who makes periodic visits. The program runs for two years, and candidates are eligible for full licensure upon completion.
Program Structure http://www.montana.edu/nptt/about/structure.shtml
Recommendations for Wyoming
Ensure that new teachers are not burdened by excessive requirements.
While Wyoming is commended for ensuring that new teachers are not required to take multiple courses simultaneously during the school year, the total amount of coursework required is rather high, and not all of it is geared to the immediate needs of new teachers. Coursework that provides the greatest benefit with the least burden to new teachers includes grade-level or subject-level seminars, methodology in the content area, classroom management, assessment and scientifically based early reading instruction.
Ensure that new teachers are supported in the first year of teaching.
Wyoming should provide more detailed induction guidelines to ensure that new teachers will receive the support they need to facilitate their success in the classroom. Effective strategies include practice teaching prior to teaching in the classroom, intensive mentoring with full classroom support in the first few weeks or months of school, a reduced teaching load and release time to allow new teachers to observe experienced teachers during each school day.
Wyoming had no comment on this goal.
Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science
Performance Pay
Evaluation Timelines
Alternate route programs must provide practical, meaningful preparation that is sensitive to a new teacher's stress level.
Too many states have policies requiring alternate route programs to "backload" large amounts of traditional education coursework, thereby preventing the emergence of real alternatives to traditional preparation. This issue is especially important given the large proportion of alternate route teachers who complete this coursework while teaching. Alternate route teachers often have to deal with the stresses of beginning to teach while also completing required coursework in the evenings and on weekends. States need to be careful to require participants only to meet standards or complete coursework that is practical and immediately helpful to a new teacher.
Induction support is especially important for alternate route teachers.
Most new teachers—regardless of their preparation—find themselves overwhelmed on taking responsibility for their own classrooms. This is especially true for alternate route teachers, who may have had considerably less classroom exposure or pedagogy training than traditionally prepared teachers. While alternate route programs will ideally have provided at least a brief student teaching experience, not all programs can incorporate this into their models. States must ensure that alternate route programs do not leave new teachers to "sink or swim" on their own when they begin teaching.
Alternate Route Preparation: Supporting Research
For a general, quantitative review of the research supporting the need for states to offer an alternate route license, and why alternate routes should not be treated as programs of "last resort," one need simply to look at the numbers of uncertified and out of field teachers in classrooms today, readily available from the National Center for Education Statistics. In addition, with U.S. schools facing the need to hire more than 3.5 million new teachers each year, the need for alternate routes to certification cannot be underestimated. See also E.R. Ducharme and M.K. Ducharme, "Quantity and quality: Not enough to go around." Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 49, No. 3, May 1998, pp. 163-164.
Further, scientific and market research demonstrates that there is a willing and able pool of candidates for alternate certification programs—and many of these individuals are highly educated and intelligent. In fact, the nationally respected polling firm, The Tarrance Group, recently conducted a scientific poll in the State of Florida, identifying that more than 20 percent of Floridians would consider changing careers to become teachers through alternate routes to certification.
We base our argument that alternative-route teachers should be able to earn full licensure after two years on research indicating that teacher effectiveness does not improve dramatically after the third year of teaching. One study (frequently cited on both sides of the alternate route debate) identified that after three years, traditional and alternatively-certified teachers demonstrate the same level of effectiveness, see J.W. Miller, M.C. McKenna, and B.A. McKenna, "A comparison of alternatively and traditionally prepared teachers". Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 49, No. 3, May 1998, pp. 165-176. This finding is supported by D. Boyd, D. Goldhaber, H. Lankford, and J. Wyckoff, "The Effect of Certification and Preparation on Teacher Quality." The Future of Children, Volume 17, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 45-68.
Project MUSE (http://muse.jhu.edu/), found that student achievement was similar for alternatively-certified teachers as long as the program they came from was "highly selective."
The need for a cap on education coursework and the need for intensive mentoring are also backed by research, as well as common sense. In 2004, Education Commission of the States reviewed more than 150 empirical studies and determined that there is evidence "for the claim that assistance for new teachers, and, in particular, mentoring [have] a positive impact on teachers and their retention." The 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher validates these conclusions. In addition, Mathematica (2009) found that student achievement suffers when alternate route teachers are required to take excessive amounts of coursework. See An Evaluation of Teachers Trained Through Different Routes to Certification: Final Report at: http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/pdfs/education/teacherstrained09.pdf
See also Alternative Certification Isn't Alternative (NCTQ, 2007) at: http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/Alternative_Certification_Isnt_Alternative_20071124023109.pdf.
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Manchester Pitch Report: Australia and South Africa Batsmen Likely to Have a Good Day
Cricketnext Staff |July 6, 2019, 11:11 AM IST
Defending champions Australia will hope to carry on their winning streak when they meet a below par South Africa in Manchester in the final game of the 2019 ICC World Cup.
Australia have had a brilliant tournament so far, while the same cannot be said about the Proteas who have failed to trouble any of the teams they have faced. Faf du Plessis and his men however will want to end on a high and beating Australia, given the history between the two sides will make it even more sweet.
Expect the match on Saturday to be a run-fest with the pitch offering very little assistance for the bowlers. Some early movement is likely but after that initial phase, expect nothing less than a flat track.
Australia have played like a champion team and barring the game against India, which they lost while chasing a total in excess of 350, they have dominated all the games and have looked in great touch.
South Africa's batting, which relies highly on the likes of Faf du Plessis, Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock, has not been consistent, leading to them being knocked out of the competition in the group stage itself. South Africa's bowling has also not been up to the mark with leading pacer Kagiso Rabada failing to live up to the expectations.
Australia vs South Africaicc world cup 2019Manchester Pitch Report
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