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http://nypost.com/2014/07/05/rick-james-reveled-in-super-freaky-autobiography-i-was-caligula/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160711055853id_/http://nypost.com:80/2014/07/05/rick-james-reveled-in-super-freaky-autobiography-i-was-caligula/ | Rick James’ insane life of sex, drugs and music | 20160711055853 | Rick James was crashing on Stephen Stills’ couch sometime in the late ’60s when he “awoke to see a young dude sitting on the floor in the lotus position, stoned as a motherf–ker,” with “blood dripping from his wrist. He seemed hypnotized by the flow of his own blood, saying things like, ‘Isn’t the blood beautiful? Isn’t that the deepest red you’ve ever seen?’”
James, fearing the mystery man would bleed to death, woke Stills, who responded, “Oh, f–k. He’s doing it again.”
Stills “gathered up bandages and gauze and took care of the guy, who remained passive throughout the ordeal. When he was through,” James recalled, “he said to me, ‘Ricky, meet Jim Morrison.’”
In short, Rick James lived a super freaky life, as detailed in his new, posthumously published autobiography, “Glow” (Atria Books).
James and his seven siblings were raised by his single mom, who ran numbers for the mob in Buffalo.
She would take young James on her collecting route, and there, at the bars she worked, he got to watch the likes of Etta James, Miles Davis and John Coltrane.
He grew up fast, losing his virginity at age 9 or 10 to a 14-year-old local girl. His “kinky nature was there early,” he wrote.
A pot smoker, heroin user and burglar by his early teens, he joined the Navy Reserve at 14 or 15 — he lied and said he was 18 — to preemptively avoid the draft, and began drumming for local jazz groups.
But between drugs, women and music, he couldn’t remember to attend his twice-monthly Reserve sessions and found himself ordered to Vietnam.
He fled to Toronto, where he became friends with hot local musicians including then-unknowns Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.
James and Mitchell developed a close friendship. “It wasn’t sexual but musical as a motherf–ker,” he wrote. “She and I [would sit] up all night listening to Miles’ ‘Sketches of Spain.’”
James, whose real name was James Johnson, went by Ricky James Matthews to avoid military authorities.
He formed a band called the Mynah Birds and, seeking to take them in a folk-rock direction, reached out to Young, who was staying at Mitchell’s apartment.
“Neil was cool. He had a quirky sense of humor and a quick mind,” James wrote. “His singing was a little strange, but his facility on the guitar was crazy.”
The Mynah Birds were signed to Motown Records and, while in the label’s home city of Detroit, James met Stevie Wonder, then 16 and already a star. James nervously sang Wonder’s “Fingertips” for him. Wonder loved it and asked James his name.
“Ricky James Matthews,” he replied.
“That’s too long,” said Wonder. “Ricky James sounds more like it.”
Photo: WireImageBack in Canada, James had a dispute with a financial backer that ended with him beating the man — stupid, because that man was the only person in Toronto who knew James was AWOL and he ratted him out.
The band lost its deal. James turned himself in and spent a year in jail.
Afterward, James took off to Los Angeles to reconnect with his since-relocated Toronto crew. But he was crushed when, after forming a promising duo with a musician named Greg Reeves, Reeves was invited to join Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young instead of him.
Stills and Graham Nash, understanding the sensitivity of the situation, had asked James’ permission first, which he granted, and Stills tossed him a vial of pharmaceutical cocaine for his trouble.
James was eventually hired as a staff writer for Motown, soon learning that certain personnel had a seedy way of earning extra money.
Jimmy Ruffin was a Motown artist who had a hit with “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.” Ruffin and James, as James told it, both had girlfriends who wanted to “bring” them money.
“So many of the big-name men at Motown had worked as pimps,” James wrote, “that it was practically the norm.”
The two brought their girlfriends to Toronto to have them “work the clubs,” and James’ stable expanded to three or four women. But James felt he wasn’t ruthless enough for the gig.
“I lacked the hard-edged discipline and cold-blooded attitude a good pimp requires,” he wrote. “If my bitch said she was too tired to work, I said go home. If she said some john had beat her, I’d find the john and beat his ass. Pimping was too inhuman for me. I let the girls go and went back to my music.”
He returned to LA with Jay Sebring, “a cat who’d made millions selling hair products,” who agreed to invest in James’ music.
One night, Sebring invited James and his girlfriend, Seville, to a party he was attending at Roman Polanski’s house, which was being thrown by the director’s wife, Sharon Tate.
“There was gonna be a big party,” James wrote, “and Jay didn’t want us to miss it.”
Unfortunately — or so he thought at the time — James was nursing a horrible hangover that left him barely mobile.
The hangover saved James’ and Seville’s lives, as Sebring, Tate and the other guests were brutally murdered that night by Charles Manson’s clan.
After his song “My Mama” hit it big in Europe, James toured clubs there. He met a tall, 19-year-old Swedish girl and found her to be “freedom herself.”
But James’ notions of freedom were tested when “her mother walked in her room and joined us in bed. This was my real introduction to fully realized freakery.”
In 1978, James released what became his first Top 20 hit, “You and I,” off his “Come Get It!” album for Motown.
The album took off, as did the next, and soon James received a royalty check for almost $2 million and bought a mansion once owned by William Randolph Hearst.
His 1981 release “Street Songs” took him to another level, as it featured the hits “Give It To Me Baby” — which concerned his difficulties having sex when he was on cocaine — and “Super Freak.”
Photo: Getty ImagesAs he wrote the latter hit, James thought it sounded “cheesy” and “a little dumb” and almost scrapped it, but his band members convinced him otherwise.
The song spent 10 weeks in the Top 40 and has been widely covered and sampled ever since.
But just as he reached the heights to which he had long aspired, James discovered the wonder of freebasing cocaine.
“When I hit it that first time, sirens went off. Rockets were launched. I was sent reeling through space,” he wrote. “At the time, the physical exhilaration of smoking coke in pure form overpowered any semblance of sense I ever possessed.”
His life became an odd mix of superstar thrills and bottoming out. He spent Christmas with Diana Ross, began an affair with Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia and produced a hit for Eddie Murphy called “Party All the Time.”
He accused Prince of ripping off his act and got revenge by grabbing him by his hair and pouring cognac down his throat until “he started crying like a baby. I laughed.”
He was also putting aluminum foil over the windows to keep out all the light.
James reached out to Ray Charles, who had a long history of addiction, for advice on how to stay clean. But Charles had nothing to offer, admitting, “I cut all my big hits when I was high.”
James also discovered that Charles was drinking a large mug full of coffee and gin every 90 minutes.
His album sales tapered off, and James alternated between rehab stints and drug binges. His star and his life were fading fast.
“I still got invited to high-profile parties and the occasional orgy,” he wrote, “but the invitations weren’t what they used to be. My power was definitely on the decline.”
He wound up with a financial windfall after suing MC Hammer for using “Super Freak” as the basis for his massive hit, “U Can’t Touch This,” but fell further than ever when his beloved mother died of cancer.
“With Mom gone, there was nothing to keep me from descending into the lowest level of hell,” he wrote. “That meant orgies. That meant sadomasochism. That even meant bestiality. I was the Roman emperor Caligula. I was the Marquis de Sade.”
James had sex with strange women on the floors of crack dens, and he and a girlfriend named Tanya were arrested for beating two different women in separate incidents. One of the women accused James of keeping her as a sex slave.
Tanya served two years in prison, James a bit longer, and they married upon release.
James’ final album, 1997’s “Urban Rapsody,” stalled at No. 170 on the Billboard charts. James’ final years saw no real accomplishments.
He suffered a minor stroke in 1998 and died on Aug. 6, 2004, at age 56, with “nine drugs in his body, including cocaine, Valium, Vicodin and methamphetamine.”
During his funeral, writes journalist David Ritz, who helped with the autobiography, “a giant joint was placed atop one of the speakers facing the mourners. Someone lit it. The smell of weed began drifting over the hall. A few turned their heads to avoid the smoke; others opened their mouths and inhaled.”
As his autobiography, “Glow,” proves, Rick James was a Forrest Gump of popular music.
1964: Helps found an R&B-and-folk band, the Mynah Birds, which eventually includes Neil Young.
1966: Gets his stage name from Stevie Wonder.
Late 1960s: Wakes in Stephen Stills’ apartment to find a bleeding Jim Morrison seated before him.
1969: Misses out on a chance to be in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — is given cocaine instead.
Aug. 8, 1969: Because of a hangover, skips a party at Sharon Tate’s house — and avoids being killed by Charles Manson’s followers.
1980: At a dinner party, a guest asks to sketch him on a napkin. It’s Salvador Dalí. James forgets the napkin is in his pocket, goes swimming, and ruins it.
1981: His biggest hits, “Give It to Me Baby” and “Super Freak,” are released. He accuses opening act Prince of ripping off his moves.
1982: Linda Blair of “The Exorcist” calls him “the sexiest man in the world” in an interview. James calls her up, offers to prove it; they have a passionate affair.
1985: Writes and produces a hit single for comedian Eddie Murphy, “Party All the Time.”
1990: “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer uses “Super Freak” as its core, earning James millions in royalties.
2004: Comedian Dave Chappelle makes him famous again, featuring stories of his ’80s antics and the catchphrase, “I’m Rick James, bitch!” | Rick James was crashing on Stephen Stills’ couch sometime in the late ’60s when he “awoke to see a young dude sitting on the floor in the lotus position, stoned as a motherf–ker,” with “blood… | 52.906977 | 0.976744 | 41.023256 | high | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/07/p-f-changs-recall/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160711063717id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/07/p-f-changs-recall/ | P.F. Chang's Recalls Frozen Entrees Because of Metal Fragments | 20160711063717 | Conagra Foods cag is recalling two of its P.F. Chang’s entrees that may contain pieces of metal.
The issue was discovered by a Conagra employee at one of the company’s processing plants. According to the Food Safety Inspection Service recall notice, he noticed the metal fragments when dispensing sugar to make the sauce. Subsequently, the metal fragments may be embedded in the sauce of the frozen entree.
This is a Class I recall, meaning that there is “reasonable probability” that consuming these products is a serious health hazard, though Conagra has not yet received any reports of injuries. The metal fragments have been described as “curled, malleable, and shiny” and range between 2 and 9 millimeters in diameter.
Conagra is recalling 3,808 pounds of chicken and beef entrees. The products that have been affected are 22-ounce plastic bagged meal packages of P.F. Chang’s Home Menu Brand Signature Spicy Chicken and P.F. Chang’s Home Menu Brand Mongolian Style Beef. The frozen foods had been produced on June 13 and June 22, 2016, and they are marked with use by dates of June 8 and June 17, 2017.
The frozen chicken and beef entrees had been shipped to retailers and distributors in seven states: Arkansas, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Consumers are urged to either return or discard the product.
“We are confident that we have identified all of the food potentially impacted,” a Conagra Foods spokesperson told Fortune. “We’ve communicated with our customers to ensure that the products are removed from shelves.” | They were shipped to seven states. | 43.142857 | 0.857143 | 1.428571 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/08/top-1-not-as-rich-as-they-used-to-be/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160711064305id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/08/top-1-not-as-rich-as-they-used-to-be/ | The Top 1% Aren't As Rich As They Used to Be, Data Shows | 20160711064305 | Tiny violins ready: The recovery hasn’t been kind even to Americas top 1%.
Data from Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, shows that the average income of the top 1% is 12% less than it was in 2007, falling to $1.36 million in 2015, from $1.56 million before the financial crisis, according to CNNMoney.
The stock market collapse during the great recession hit the top 1% hard, resulting in a drop of their average income, which includes annual gains and losses from investments, of nearly $600,000 to $992,892 in 2009. However, the economic recovery has grown their income 7.7% in 2015, CNNMoney reports.
However, the rest of America may have a hard time finding any sympathy for this elite group, as their average income is still only 5% lower than pre-recession levels. The rest of us—the 99%—had an average income of $48,768 in 2015, which is down from $51,280 in 2007.
Fortune previously reported on a study from Credit Suisse that found that the top 1% owns half of the world’s wealth.
Thirty-four million people around the world, or roughly 0.5% of the earth’s population, have a U.S. dollar net worth of at least $1 million, and they account for 45% of global wealth. On the other hand, 71% of the world’s population have a net worth of less than $10,000, the study found. | Their average income is 12% less than it was pre-recession. | 20.785714 | 1 | 4.428571 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-isu-crime-lab-mass-spectrometer-bsi-20160706-story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160711080005id_/http://www.chicagotribune.com:80/bluesky/originals/ct-isu-crime-lab-mass-spectrometer-bsi-20160706-story.html | This box could analyze crime scene evidence in two minutes | 20160711080005 | Crime scene evidence testing could one day be a whole lot easier, thanks to an Illinois-developed device the size of a desktop printer.
Illinois State University researchers are working on a smaller, more portable version of a mass spectrometer — an instrument used in forensic analysis.
Three Illinois State University researchers received a new $300,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice earlier this year to explore the viability and the potential legal implications of the new technology. The Institute is the scientific research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.
ISU analytical chemistry associate professor Christopher Mulligan, who had previously received a nearly $400,000 grant from National Institute of Justice to start the project, said he wanted to build a faster and simpler way to analyze evidence.
“The current way that any state or any local police force investigates forensic evidence is by collecting it at the scene of the crime or at a traffic control stop — they document it rigorously so that they know exactly when they got it, who they got it off of, who handled that sample — and they ship it to the crime lab,” he said.
But crime labs are notoriously slow, he said.
“There’s this backlog of evidence, because of the shipping process, because of the sheer magnitude” of evidence samples, he said.
Police departments in Illinois often face long wait times to process evidence. North suburban Skokie's police department decided to hire a private crime lab in May because the Illinois State Police's crime lab took hundreds of days to test some of its evidence.
Mulligan hoped the use of a new method might ease those problems. His mass spectrometer would weigh 100 pounds and be roughly the size of a desktop laser printer.
The instrument is still a prototype, but Mulligan says it's close to what the final version will look like. He estimates the technology could be sold to police departments within five years.
At a crime scene, an officer would be able to swab a substance, then the spectrometer would analyze the sample and say — in plain English — what the substance was.
The analysis would typically take less than two minutes. And it would be able to get specific: In a rape case, the device could potentially help scientists determine the chemical makeup of the lubrication if a condom was used, which could lead investigators to the brand of condom.
For the research for this current grant, Mulligan enlisted the help of assistant technology professor Jamie Wieland and associate criminal justice professor Michael Gizzi to research the financial and legal concerns associated with device like this.
Wieland is exploring the potential cost savings of such a device. The team estimates the spectrometer could top out at $100,000, but might help police save on the costs of bagging up evidence and sending it out to the lab.
The team is also examining how much of a benefit it would be to have quick turnaround on evidence testing. Wieland said speedy results could potentially be helpful for a homicide or a missing person case, where information could be crucial in the hours after an incident.
Gizzi is examining whether the technology is used to gather evidence in a manner that complies with a Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable search and seizure.
“When a dog sniffs contraband, it fails half the time,” he said. “This thing is incredibly accurate, but the question is, is it legal? Could an officer use this as a means to establish probable cause to make an arrest? To be perfectly honest, the answer to that question is up in the air.”
Though smaller mass spectrometers have been built, Mulligan said those typically require a well-trained technician to operate them. A few minutes of training would suffice for someone to learn to use Mulligan's device, but he said additional training would be needed to operate it in a way that would comply with legal requirements of forensic analysis.
The three plan to continue research through the duration of the grant, which ends in December 2017. Gizzi will write a report detailing how courts might view evidence processed through the device, Wieland will write a cost-benefit analysis, and Mulligan is completing studies about the reliability and accuracy of the spectrometer.
Once the grant is up, the three will develop a training plan for first-time users and improving the software user interface, which would display the actual name of a material being tested instead of its numerical mass.
Raymond Foster, a retired Los Angeles Police Department Lieutenant and California-based police policy and practice consultant, said he wasn’t sure how practical the new spectrometer could be for the average police agency today, but said the science could be a step in the right direction.
He described what he sees as the future of this sort of technology: A device that would be able to vacuum in skin cells and use DNA analysis to determine who had been in a room.
“This may be an interim step toward that kind of all-in-one collection and analysis that, in the future, is going to happen,” he said. | Crime scene evidence testing could one day be a whole lot easier, thanks to an Illinois-developed device the size of a desktop printer. | 35.178571 | 0.964286 | 15.178571 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Downtown-Oakland-rush-hour-shooting-sends-8157911.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20160711221706id_/http://www.sfgate.com:80/bayarea/article/Downtown-Oakland-rush-hour-shooting-sends-8157911.php | Teen girl killed, 3 others hurt in downtown Oakland shooting | 20160711221706 | By Jill Tucker and Jenna Lyons
A broad-daylight shooting in downtown Oakland on Tuesday killed a teen girl and injured three others as multiple gunshots rang out during the evening commute.
Police described a chaotic scene at 13th and Franklin streets, where the shooting occurred.
Witnesses reported two gunmen on foot who hit victims along half of a city block, said Lt. Carlos Gonzalez. Windows of businesses in the area were blown out by the gunfire.
The surviving victims, male and female ranging in age from mid-teens to early 20s, were all reportedly in stable condition, police said.
Photo: Jenna Lyons, The Chronicle
The scene near 13th and Franklin streets in Oakland following a shooting on Tuesday, June 14, 2016.
The scene near 13th and Franklin streets in Oakland following a shooting on Tuesday, June 14, 2016.
There were reports of multiple shots fired in downtown Oakland on Tuesday, June 14, 2016.
There were reports of multiple shots fired in downtown Oakland on Tuesday, June 14, 2016.
Teen girl killed, 3 others hurt in downtown Oakland shooting
Witnesses said the 16-year-old girl who died had been shot in the neck.
The shooting happened near a large family gathering at an entertainment facility, Venue, on 14th Street. Dozens of people inside and outside the facility were there after attending a funeral for two Oakland teens who drowned in a Stanislaus County reservoir over Memorial Day weekend.
At least some of the victims were connected to the memorial event.
One witness was walking down 14th Street about a block away when he heard multiple gunshots fired in rapid succession at 5:41 p.m.
“And then basically there were people running every which way,” said Mason Stone, 39.
The Oakland resident ducked behind a car until the shots stopped.
People started running toward the corner where it appeared someone was hit, he said. He immediately left the area.
“The really scary thing, coming on the heels of the shooting in Orlando, you wonder is it gang related or is it a crazy gunman,” he said. “I guess you figure sooner or later if you live in a city like that you ... realize anything can happen at any time.”
Another witness, who didn’t want to be identified for safety reasons, said he watched the shooting unfold after an argument among a group of men playing a dice game along the street and said the vigil participants were caught in the crossfire.
A security guard at Venue, Oscar Edwards, said he was inside when the shooting occurred and shocked at the timing and location.
“This is very strange,” he said. “Downtown Oakland has changed a lot. Downtown is one of the safest places now. This was an isolated incident.”
Streets around the shooting scene were blocked to traffic into the evening as police investigated the incident.
Jill Tucker and Jenna Lyons are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: jilltucker, @jennajourno | A broad-daylight shooting in downtown Oakland on Tuesday killed a teen girl and injured three others as multiple gunshots rang out during the evening commute. The surviving victims, male and female ranging in age from mid-teens to early 20s, were all reportedly in stable condition, police said. Dozens of people inside and outside the facility were there after attending a funeral for two Oakland teens who drowned in a Stanislaus County reservoir over Memorial Day weekend. People started running toward the corner where it appeared someone was hit, he said. “The really scary thing, coming on the heels of the shooting in Orlando, you wonder is it gang related or is it a crazy gunman,” he said. Another witness, who didn’t want to be identified for safety reasons, said he watched the shooting unfold after an argument among a group of men playing a dice game along the street and said the vigil participants were caught in the crossfire. Streets around the shooting scene were blocked to traffic into the evening as police investigated the incident. | 2.873171 | 0.970732 | 30.502439 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/people/mobile/article/0%2C%2C21017061%2C00.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712025241id_/http://www.people.com:80/people/mobile/article/0,,21017061,00.html | Can You Spot All the Famous Faces with Princess Kate at Wimbledon? (Hint: Look for Sansa Stark!) | 20160712025241 | Princess Kate meets former tennis player Greg Rusedski
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Princess Kate chats with Gill Brook (wife of Philip Brook, chairman of the AELTC).
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Princess Kate meets ball boys and girls
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Don't miss a single story from PEOPLE! | ate had the best seat in the house as she attended the ladies semi-finals at the world's most prestigious tennis championships on Thursday | 3.461538 | 0.192308 | 0.192308 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/06/most-expensive-wine-cx_np_0307feat_ls.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712031942id_/http://www.forbes.com:80/2006/03/06/most-expensive-wine-cx_np_0307feat_ls.html | $100 Wines That Are Worth It | 20160712031942 | This sort of story wouldn’t have been worth doing 20 years ago. Back then, there just weren’t that many wines that fetched $100 or more. And those that did were so rare that they were practically impossible to find.
The list might have been a wine geek’s delight. But it would have been a total bore to the casual wine lover and consisted of nothing more than a handful of First Growth Bordeaux Chateaux and an endless list of the same top Burgundies from different producers. And, with one or two exceptions, like Vega Sicillia, which is a world unto itself, that would have been it. California Cabs? You’re kidding! Australian Shiraz? It was still the stuff of Monty Python jokes. Italian wines? A $100 for a wine in a straw-covered bottle? Pull the other one.
Actually, I exaggerate a bit, as by the 1980s, the revolutionary changes that have turned the world’s wine business on its head were well under way. But you get my point.
These days, there are first-class wines being made all over the globe–and it’s not just inflation that has lifted so many of them into the $100-plus category. Not only has there been a real and genuine improvement in quality all over the globe, but new wines have been invented literally from scratch–California Cabs and Super-Tuscans, for example–that have shot to the top of the ratings game, and, consequently, the price scale.
But what makes these superstars so special? Why are they different from “ordinary,” more modestly priced wines?
When I am assessing $20 wines, all I look for is something that’s pleasant to drink and not much more. Soft tannins, nothing too tongue-curlingly dry and above all, the taste of real, fresh fruit–not some jammy, over-cooked concoction. In short, I am looking for a wine that doesn’t have anything wrong with it.
But when I get into this stratospheric price range, everything changes. Here all the wines are good, and what I’m seeking is something special–depth and complexity of flavor, yes, but more importantly, a wine that makes me think. Big, rich, creamy, international-style reds are a delight to drink, but they don’t have those nuanced layers of complexity that make every sip different.
Another thing that distinguishes these superstar wines is the intensity of flavor. There just seems to be more of it–sometimes so much that you wonder how the winemakers managed to pack so much flavor into one glass. This applies as much to the delicate-but-intense Nebbiolos and Pinot Noirs as it does to the muscular, in-your-face Australian Shirazes.
One of the most interesting aspects of drinking super-expensive wines like those in the accompanying slide show is that they are all so distinctive. The difference between the different grape types becomes glaringly obvious at these prices; each one has so much Cab flavor or Shiraz flavor or Chardonnay flavor that they proudly stand apart, as if daring you to mistake them for their rivals.
It is important to remember that none of the wines in this slide show is ready to drink now. OK, yes, some can be drunk after a few hours breathing. But with wines of this caliber, why waste them like this? Why pay for all that complexity and depth of flavor if it’s still hidden beneath harsh tannins and stinging acidity?
No, these are quintessential vin de garde, wines to keep. So buy them, store them in an appropriately cool place and then wait…and wait…and wait–in most cases for 20 years–for their true majesty to reveal itself.
Comments are turned off for this post. | Forget the Two Buck Chuck. Here are 20 wines for the ages. But, be prepared to spend big and wait until they're ready. | 26.535714 | 0.714286 | 1 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trump-meets-gop-leaders-capitol-hill/story | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712041032id_/http://abcnews.go.com:80/amp/Politics/trump-meets-gop-leaders-capitol-hill/story?id=40401803 | Trump Meets With Former Rival Ted Cruz, GOP Leaders on Capitol Hill | 20160712041032 | Donald Trump met with Sen. Ted Cruz on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning — the first meeting between the two former bitter campaign rivals since Cruz suspended his presidential campaign.
Cruz described the meeting as “positive and productive” and said he accepted Trump’s invitation to speak at the convention.
“I said I’d be very glad to do so,” Cruz told reporters that afternoon.
Cruz, who has withheld throwing his support behind Trump since dropping out of the race, said a possible endorsement was not discussed. Sources said the one time rivals agreed to stop working against each other.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was also at the meeting, as were Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; daughter Ivanka Trump; and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to senior sources in the Trump campaign.
The sources said that Donald Trump and Cruz decided to come together to “work on several policy issues they agree on,” specifically judicial nominations.
This was Trump’s second trip to Capitol Hill in two months.
With less than two weeks before the Republican National Convention begins in Cleveland, Trump is looking to shore up support with GOP representatives and senators even as he faces backlash from some members of the party. Trump spoke with Republican members of Congress in two meetings. The House meeting was attended by some 200 representatives. Still, some Republicans facing tough re-election battles declined to meet with Trump this morning, and some plan to skip the convention.
Trump’s social media director tweeted a photo from the meeting with House Republicans.
House Speaker Paul Ryan called the meeting “great.”
“It was an important opportunity for our members to get additional information about Mr. Trump’s campaign and ask questions about the issues that matter to Americans,” he said in a statement. “It’s clear that our party is committed to defeating Hillary Clinton and Democrats this fall.”
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., echoed Ryan’s sentiment, telling ABC News it was an “extremely positive” meeting. “If you didn’t know what had gone on before, you would have thought it was a lovefest,” he said.
King said Ivanka Trump’s star power was evident from the meeting.
“Almost as many people were asking for pictures with Ivanka as with Trump,” King said, joking that maybe she should run for president someday. “She’s going to be something someday for sure if she wants it.”
But some Republicans left the meeting still feeling unsure about Donald Trump.
“I heard nothing new,” Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., said afterward. He has not publicly endorsed Trump and will not attend the GOP convention.
“I’ve been concerned about the incendiary comments and the lack of policy specificity. That’s where I have been. That’s where I continue to be,” he added.
Trump’s meeting with Senate Republicans included some tense moments, particularly with Jeff Flake, who introduced himself to Trump by saying, “I’m the other senator from Arizona — the one that wasn’t captured — and I want to talk to you about statements like that.” Flake was referring to Trump’s comments last year about Arizona Sen. John McCain’s being held captive in the Vietnam War.
“When he attacks the other senator from Arizona, John McCain, and attacks his war record by saying, ‘I don’t respect people who get captured’ ... what an awful, awful thing to say about a war hero, a true war hero,” Flake said.
Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., was surprised Trump didn’t get any tough questions about his rhetoric or campaign. Most members gave him advice and suggested issues on which he should focus.
“It’s awkward,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., told reporters, describing the atmosphere at the meeting he attended. “There is a lack of enthusiasm. You can feel it."
Asked about his outreach to minorities, Trump told Republicans, “Hispanics love me,” according to Dent.
At one meeting Trump defended his comments about Saddam Hussein, accusing the media of misconstruing his comments, according to sources who were in the room.
He also told Republicans he plans to help them be competitive in Connecticut and other states that traditionally vote Democratic in presidential years.
Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer, who attended the House GOP meeting, noted that it was the first opportunity for many members to meet with Trump and that they are making progress toward party unity.
“We’re moving in the right direction every day,” Spicer said. “Bernie Sanders still hasn’t endorsed Hillary Clinton. I like where we are better than where they are.”
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders contributed to this report. | Donald Trump met with Sen. Ted Cruz on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning — the first meeting between the two former bitter campaign rivals since Cruz suspended his presidential campaign.Cruz described the meeting as “positive and productive” and said he accepted Trump’s invitation to speak at the... | 17.811321 | 1 | 26.471698 | medium | high | extractive |
http://time.com/4089310/sugar-effects/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712074403id_/http://time.com:80/4089310/sugar-effects/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter | This Is What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Sugar | 20160712074403 | Here’s a quick question: How many spoonfuls of high-fructose corn syrup did you eat yesterday?
Oh, you don’t recall slurping down any of the hyper-sweet corn extract? Well, you did—about eight teaspoons’ worth, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In fact, the average American consumed 27 pounds of the stuff last year.
But while 8 teaspoons of artificially manufactured syrup may seem like an awful lot, it’s only a drop in the sugar bucket. The USDA’s most recent figures find that Americans consume, on average, about 32 teaspoons of added sugar every single day. That sugar comes to us in the form of candies, ice cream and other desserts, yes. But the most troubling sugar of all isn’t the added sugar we consume on purpose; it’s the stuff we don’t even know we’re eating.
In recent years, the medical community has begun to coalesce around a powerful new way of looking at added sugar: as perhaps the number one most significant health threat in America. But what exactly is “added sugar,” and why do experts suddenly believe that it’s the ISIS of nutrition?
When they talk about “added sugar,” health experts aren’t talking about the stuff that we consume from eating whole foods. “Added sugars are sugars that are contributed during the processing or preparation of foods and beverages,” says Rachel K. Johnson, PhD, RD, professor of nutrition at The University of Vermont. So lactose, the sugar naturally found in milk and dairy products, and naturally occurring fructose, the sugar that appears in fruit, don’t count. But ingredients that are used in foods to provide added sweetness and calories, from the much-maligned high fructose corn syrup to healthier-sounding ones like agave, date syrup, cane sugar, and honey, are all considered added sugars.
That’s because naturally occurring sugars, like what you find in an apple, come with their own health posse—fiber, which slows the digestion of the sugar and prevents it from spiking insulin response and damaging your liver, two serious side effects of added sugar. “It’s almost impossible to over consume fructose by eating too much fruit,” says Johnson. Consider this: You’d need to eat six cups of strawberries to get the same amount of fructose as in one can of Coke.
Fortunately, giving up added sugar has been shown to have several dramatic and rapid impacts on your health. In a newly released study, children who cut added sugars from their diets for just 9 days showed dramatic improvements in cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
On the flip side, adding sugar to your diet can quickly put your health into a spiral: People who consumed beverages containing high fructose corn syrup for two weeks significantly increased their levels of triglycerides and LDL cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterols), plus two proteins associated with elevated cholesterols and another compound, uric acid, that’s associated with diabetes and gout. So found a 2015 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
In fact, in a 2014 editorial in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, the authors made a bold statement: “Too much sugar does not just make us fat; it can also make us sick.”
The editors of Eat This, Not That! took a look at the most recent research and discovered just how much harm added sugars are doing to us:
The more added sugar that sneaks its way into your diet, the less healthy food you’ll eat the rest of the day. That’s the finding of a 2015 article in Nutrition Review, which looked at dozens of studies conducted between 1972 and 2012. The researchers found that a higher intake of added sugar was associated with poorer diet and a lower intake of micronutrients.
That’s in part because of how sugary foods retrain our taste buds and mess with our bodily systems. When even tomato sauce is laced with sweetener, we then need greater and greater doses of sugar in order for the flavor to register. That leads us to seek out candies and baked goods at the expense of real food.
But it’s not just a matter of taste. A sugar rush creates an overflow of insulin into the system to try to manage the toxic substance. Because it can create an overreaction within the body—too much insulin pulling too much sugar out of the bloodstream—it can lead to crash that sends us seeking another immediate sugar rush, the kind that no whole food can satisfy.
The most powerful effects, however, aren’t on our bodies. They’re on our brains. In one study, researchers measured the levels of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that helps us feel satiated, in the brains of rats. When rats that ate a low-sugar diet were given a meal high in sugar, their oxytocin levels didn’t change. But when they were given the high-sugar diet regularly, their brains began to show lower levels of oxytocin activity. In other words, the more we’re bombarded with added sugars, the more chronically unsatisfied we feel, and the more we need to eat. An editorial in JAMA Internal Medicine asked, “Why are we consuming so much sugar despite knowing too much can harm us?” The answer: “The high prevalence of added-sugar consumption…is very likely influenced by and a result of addictive behaviors incited by reward system activation after overeating highly palatable foods.”
Within 24 hours of eating fructose, your body is flooded with elevated levels of triglycerides. Does that sound bad? It is.
Triglycerides are the fatty deposits in your blood. Your liver makes them, because they’re essential for building and repairing the tissues in your body.
But when it’s hit with high doses of fructose, the liver responds by pumping out more triglycerides; that’s a signal to your body that it’s time to store some abdominal fat. In one study, researchers fed subjects beverages sweetened with either glucose or fructose. Both gained the same amount of weight over the next 8 weeks, but the fructose group gained its weight primarily as belly fat, thanks to the way this type of sugar is processed in the liver.
What’s unique to fructose is that it seems to be a universal obesogen—in other words, every creature that eats it gains weight. Princeton researchers recently found that high-fructose corn syrup seemed to have a unique impact on weight in their animal studies.
“When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they’re becoming obese—every single one, across the board,” psychology professor Bart Hoebel, a specialist in appetite and sugar addiction, said in a report from the university.
“Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don’t see this; they don’t all gain weight.” Fructose is the freak show of fat.
There are a lot of ways that added sugar can make you gain weight, but the most bizarre may be the way it reduces actual physical activity. In one study at the University of Illinois, mice that were fed a diet that mimicked the standard American diet–i.e., one that was about 18 percent added sugars—gained more body fat even though they weren’t fed more calories. One of the reasons was that the sugar-addled mice traveled about 20 percent less in their little cages than mice that weren’t fed the sugary diet. They just naturally…slowed…down.
The link between increased sugar and diabetes risk is right up there with “smoking causes lung cancer” on the list of immutable medical truths— despite what soda manufacturers are trying to tell us. (You’ll read more about sugar-based hocus-pocus in the next chapter.) But researchers at the Mayo Clinic have come right out and said that added fructose—either as a constituent of table sugar or as the main component of high-fructose corn syrup—may be the number one cause of diabetes, and that cutting sugar alone could translate into a reduced number of diabetes deaths the world over.
“Reduce fructose in your diet if you want to protect your brain,” announced Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, professor at the University of California Los Angeles.
He and his team tested how well rats recovering from brain injury learned new ways to get through a maze. They found that animals that drank HFCS took 30 percent more time to find the exit. “Our findings suggest that fructose disrupts plasticity—the creation of fresh pathways between brain cells that occurs when we learn or experience something new,” he says.
In an earlier study, researchers found that a combination of sugar and fat could actually change one’s brain chemistry. The brains of animals on a high-fat, high-sugar diet had decreased levels of BDNF, a compound that helps brain cells communicate with one another, build memories, and learn new things; decreased levels of BDNF have been linked to both Alzheimer’s and depression.
One of the recent mysteries of science is why depression, diabetes and dementia seem to cluster in epidemiological studies, and why having one of these health issues seems to increase your risk for the others. The answer: In a study in the journal Diabetologia, researchers found that when blood glucose levels are elevated, BDNF levels drop. That means that the simple act of eating sugar makes you instantly dumber; the more you do it, the greater your risk of diabetes, and the greater your risk of depression and dementia as well. In a 2015 study of post-menopausal women, higher levels of added sugars and refined carbs were associated with an increased likelihood of depression, while higher consumption of fiber, dairy, fruit and vegetables was associated with a lower risk.
And, in a study of nearly 1,000 seniors (median age: 79.5), researchers found that eating a diet high in simple carbs significantly increased the risk of developing dementia. All of the subjects were cognitively normal at the beginning of the study, and about 200 developed signs of dementia over the next 3.7 years. The risk of mental decline was higher in those who ate high-carb diets, and lower in those whose diets were higher in fat and/or protein.
People who get 25 percent of more of their calories from added sugar are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those who eat less than 10 percent, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
One out of ten of us fall into that category.
Now, if you’re an average American, your daily sugar consumption is about 17 percent of calories, according to the study.
But that’s hardly a laurel to rest on. People who ate between 17 and 21 percent of their calories from added sugar had a 38 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease, compared with people who consumed 8 percent or less of their calories from added sugar.
At first, the researchers figured that since those who ingest more sugar have poorer diets, that might be a main cause. But even after making adjustments for the quality of one’s diet, the link between sweets and cardiovascular risk remained the same.
The study found that the major sources of added sugar in the American diet were:
And sodas and other sweet drinks are a major red flag: The researchers found that a higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages was directly tied to an increased risk of dying from heart disease. The impact is so great that you don’t need to be meandering through middle age to see the impact: Even teenagers who consume food and beverages high in added sugars show evidence of risk factors for heart disease and diabetes in their blood, according to a second study in The Journal of Nutrition.
In fact, sugar may be worse for your blood pressure than salt, according to a paper published in the journal Open Heart.
Just a few weeks on a high-sucrose diet can increase both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Another study found that for every sugar-sweetened beverage, risk of developing hypertension increased 8 percent. Too much sugar leads to higher insulin levels, which in turn activate the sympathetic nervous system and lead to increased blood pressure, according to James J. DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D., cardiovascular research scientist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri. “It may also cause sodium to accumulate within the cell, causing calcium to build up within the cell, leading to vasoconstriction and hypertension,” he says.
Your skin has its own support system in the form of collagen and elastin, two compounds that keep your skin tight and pump. But when elevated levels of glucose and fructose enter the body, they link to the amino acids present in the collagen and elastin, producing advanced glycation end products, or “AGEs.” That damages these two critical compounds and makes it hard for the body to repair them. This process is accelerated in the skin when sugar is elevated, and further stimulated by ultraviolet light, according to a study in Clinical Dermatology.
In other words, eating lots of sugar poolside is the worst thing you can do for your skin.
This article originally appeared on Eat This, Not That!
More from Eat This, Not That! | Sugar affects your brain as well as your body | 288.111111 | 0.888889 | 1.555556 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.tmz.com/2014/05/02/aaron-hernandez-charged-for-jailhouse-fight-and-threatening-guard | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712091423id_/http://www.tmz.com:80/2014/05/02/aaron-hernandez-charged-for-jailhouse-fight-and-threatening-guard | Aaron Hernandez CHARGED for Jailhouse Fight ... and Threatening Guard | 20160712091423 | was finally hit with charges stemming from a jailhouse attack in February ... AND for allegedly threatening a guard back in November, officials say.
broke the story ... Hernandez laid a
at Bristol County Jail on February 25. The victim was in handcuffs when Aaron allegedly rushed him and struck.
... Hernandez allegedly threatened to kill a guard and shoot his family after the guy blew the whistle on a food scheme Aaron was pulling inside the jail.
Oh, and he's still facing a murder charge in the death of Odin Lloyd.
So, don't draft him in your fantasy league this year. | Aaron Hernandez was finally hit with charges stemming from a jailhouse attack in February ... AND for allegedly threatening a guard back in November,… | 4.538462 | 0.961538 | 20.423077 | low | high | extractive |
http://nypost.com/2016/03/09/gawkers-reasoning-for-showing-the-world-hulk-hogans-penis/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712164534id_/http://nypost.com:80/2016/03/09/gawkers-reasoning-for-showing-the-world-hulk-hogans-penis/ | Gawker’s reasoning for showing the world Hulk Hogan’s penis | 20160712164534 | Gawker posted the Hulk Hogan sex tape without blurring his private parts — as it did with nude footage of actor Eric Danes in a previous posting — because while the “Gray’s Anatomy” star was “flaccid,” Hogan was ready for action, jurors heard publisher Nick Denton say.
Denton was confronted about the disparate treatment for the two celebs during a videotaped deposition in 2013, when he claimed it was because “different stories vary in their treatment.”
“Is Hulk Hogan’s penis more newsworthy than Eric Dane’s?” Hogan lawyer Douglas Mirell asked.
“I wouldn’t say so,” Denton said. “I guess the situation was Eric’s was, if I remember, flaccid. That was the major distinction.”
At another point in the video, Denton admitted that the Hogan video was “pornographic” after being asked why it was headlined “Even for a Minute, Watching Hulk Hogan Have Sex in a Canopy Bed is Not Safe For Work but Watch it Anyway.”
“Why were you not supposed to see it?” Mirell asked.
“Because the reader would be watching a pornographic video and the reader would get fired,” Denton answered.
But Denton — who trashed old-school “journalistic standards” as “irrelevant, even damaging, in the Internet era” — said he would personally be embarrassed if anyone published a recording of him having sex.
“What is the difference between you and [Hogan] in that case?” Mirell asked. “Very little,” Denton answered.
His testimony clashed with that of former Gawker Editor in Chief A.J. Daulerio, who, asked the same question, was recorded saying: “I somewhat expect that to happen at some point.” | Gawker posted the Hulk Hogan sex tape without blurring his private parts — as it did with nude footage of actor Eric Danes in a previous posting — because while the “Gray’s Anatomy” star was “flacc… | 8.317073 | 0.95122 | 37.097561 | low | high | extractive |
http://nypost.com/2016/05/11/school-wont-let-autistic-kid-bring-his-sister-to-prom/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712164951id_/http://nypost.com:80/2016/05/11/school-wont-let-autistic-kid-bring-his-sister-to-prom/ | School won’t let autistic kid bring his sister to prom | 20160712164951 | CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – An autistic student left his high school prom in tears Saturday because officials insisted that his date — his 24-year-old sister — was too old to enter.
The two were unaware of a rule that students could not bring dates who are older than 20, said their father, Tone Whisenhunt. He said an exception should have been made for his special-needs son, who wanted his older sister by his side to protect him from bullying at Montgomery Central High School in Tennessee.
“Your kids have one prom and he didn’t even get to go to it,” Whisenhunt told WSMV-TV. “That’s what upsets me the most.”
The school’s principal, Christy Houston, told Jayce Whisenhunt he could stay, but said his sister, Jessica Helling, would not be allowed to enter, according to Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools spokeswoman Elise Shelton.
The situation caught school administrators by surprise, as the siblings had not signed up to attend the event, Shelton said.
“If there had been a request for an exception to the rules, we certainly would have entertained that and worked with the family, but at no time was there a request,” Shelton said.
The community wants to turn their outrage into something positive, family friend Michelle Gordon said. They’re raising funds now for an all-ages prom for the siblings and their supporters next month at the same location.
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than $1,300 had been raised online. | CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – An autistic student left his high school prom in tears Saturday because officials insisted that his date — his 24-year-old sister — was too old to enter. The two were unaware o… | 7.375 | 0.95 | 29.3 | low | high | extractive |
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/07/11/state-high-court-rejects-bank-america-call-for-tax-refunds-for-its-trusts/aOCen28y166f5p4cjiGkeK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712191239id_/https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/07/11/state-high-court-rejects-bank-america-call-for-tax-refunds-for-its-trusts/aOCen28y166f5p4cjiGkeK/story.html | State high court rejects Bank of America’s call for tax refunds for its trusts | 20160712191239 | When is a $2.3 million tax bill a relief? When it could have been worse.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Monday ruled that trusts managed by Bank of America Corp. on behalf of state residents could not avoid state taxes, especially if the bank’s local branches handled much of the administrative work.
The state’s highest court rejected an appeal by the Charlotte-based bank seeking tax refunds on behalf of some 34 trusts that it manages for Massachusetts residents. The bank had argued that since it was based in North Carolina, the trusts it managed didn’t have to pay Massachusetts taxes.
Yet the ruling clarified a previous decision by a state agency, finding that the taxes might eventually apply to a smaller number of trusts.
Big banks that do business in Massachusetts were concerned about the initial decision by the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board, said Brad Papalardo, the director of government affairs and trust services for the Massachusetts Bankers Association.
The otherwise archaic tax refund case drew the attention of the state and national bankers’ associations. The tax board determined last year that as long as a bank had significant operations in the state, the trusts it managed could be taxed.
Bank of America, “is pleased that the court has narrowed the prior ruling, clarifying that this tax can be imposed on a trust only if a material amount of trust administration occurs in Massachusetts for the trust in question,” said Bill Halldin, a bank spokesman.
The case arose in 2011 when Bank of America asked the state’s Commissioner of Revenue for a $2.3 million refund for the taxes paid by 34 trusts in 2007.
Papalardo said the state high court decision means that the Massachusetts tax commissioner will have to look at each trust being taxed and where the administrative work is done individually.
“We’re pleased with the decision,” he said. “The main thing is that we get clarity.” | Bank officials and associations, however, say they are pleased ruling clarified which ones may be subject to state taxes. | 16.772727 | 0.590909 | 0.772727 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.cbsnews.com/media/15-new-netflix-original-series-debuting-in-2016/9/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160712233447id_/http://www.cbsnews.com:80/media/15-new-netflix-original-series-debuting-in-2016/9/ | 15 new Netflix original series debuting in 2016 | 20160712233447 | Netflix is undoubtedly hoping to replicate the runaway success of "Marvel's Jessica Jones" with this new superhero series.
Mike Colter, who played unbreakable bartender Luke Cage in "Jessica Jones," will reprise his role in "Marvel's Luke Cage," but he promised IGN that the upcoming series, which centers on Marvel's first black superhero, will be "completely different."
He said the show will have a strong soundtrack and described it as "urban."
"It will be urban, it will be soulful, and it will be a stark contrast to the music you heard for the first two prior series," he said. "We are in Harlem, so you want to feel like you are around that kind of culture. Harlem has a long, rich culture of music and we want to pay homage to that."
The series airs in 2016. | Get ready for lots of binge-watching and "Fuller House" | 13.384615 | 0.384615 | 0.384615 | low | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4070307/bridge-of-spies-history/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160713024008id_/http://time.com:80/4070307/bridge-of-spies-history/ | Bridge of Spies Takes Place in the Past But Speaks to Today | 20160713024008 | Warning: Contains spoilers for the film Bridge of Spies
The new movie Bridge of Spies is based on a true story: New York lawyer James Donovan, his client Soviet spy Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, and American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers were the key players in a Cold War historical drama. After unsuccessfully defending Abel in U.S. court in 1957, Donovan in 1962 went to Berlin to arrange an exchange of prisoners. Abel could go home, and so could Powers, who had been shot down over the USSR in 1960, and another young American who had just been arrested behind the Wall in East Berlin. The main source for the film was Donovan’s own memoir of the case, Strangers on a Bridge, which appeared in 1964.
In order to understand our own times, we need to be able to understand earlier periods as well. Bridge of Spies provides a reasonably accurate portrayal of the case, but its portrayal of the late 1950s—designed by Spielberg and a team of writers who include the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan—appeals more to the prejudices of our own time than it would the reality of the world back then. The image of an intolerant anti-Communist citizenry and a hopelessly evil U.S. government has been popular for decades, and we seem eager to believe it. Perhaps that makes sense: in a post-9/11, post-PATRIOT Act, post-Snowden world, the idea that the CIA might be out to trample American ideals in order to track an upstanding citizen, supposedly in the service of keeping us safe, is completely feasible. But a half-century ago, despite the very real excesses of the CIA abroad, Americans believed more deeply in the Constitution and the American criminal justice system than they do today.
Donovan, a well-off insurance lawyer in New York who had worked with the OSS during the Second World War and took part in the Nuremberg prosecutions, represented much of what was best about the 1950s. We all know that they were the peak of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, but today we forget all too easily how deeply Americans like him believed not only in the justice of our cause, but in the need to rely on our principles as perhaps our most important weapon in the struggle. From the moment that Donovan took Abel’s case, he was determined to give his client the best defense he could to prove that the American legal system was fair to everyone, even its enemies. Donovan made this point bluntly again and again during the case, and never more so than in his argument on appeal before the Supreme Court. Donovan argued that Abel’s conviction should be reversed because the FBI, in violation of the Constitution, had searched his hotel room without a warrant, failed to arraign him, and held him incommunicado at military bases for more than a week in an effort to get him to “turn” against the USSR. “By the use of the evidence obtained through this illegal search and seizure,” he told the court, “this man has been convicted of a capital crime. The only place criminal proceedings based on such practices occur is in police states like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.” In the end, he lost the appeal by a single vote, 5-4.
That vote was no random accident. By 1959, when Donovan argued the appeal, the Supreme Court had already undone some of the worst excesses of the McCarthy era, which really ended with the Senator’s fall in 1954. There had been a parallel thaw within the Soviet Union, where Stalin’s successors had amnestied hundreds of thousands of political prisoners and Khrushchev had denounced Stalin’s crimes. The Soviets signaled a willingness to ease relations with a new President, John F. Kennedy, in early 1961, when they released two crewmembers from another reconnaissance flight that had been shot down near their borders. It was only shortly thereafter that the Soviets, acting through operatives in East Germany, signaled Donovan that they would be willing to exchange Francis Gary Powers for Abel.
Because many Americans shared Donovan’s dedication to American principles, he received plenty of support for his determined defense of his client from his firm, other colleagues and some newspaper editorials. Although he and his family did endure some critical remarks from colleagues, neighbors, and strangers, according to the account Donovan left in his memoir, they never felt personally threatened. Even jurors let him know after the trial that although they believed his client guilty, they had come to respect his determined defense.
Bridge of Spies paints a different picture, in which Donovan faces almost nothing but hostility because of his role. In the movie, he and his family are subjected to an unending round of insults from acquaintances and strangers. His senior law partner even turns against him. Sometime later, his daughter is watching television in their living room when several shots are fired into the house. These episodes do not appear in Donovan’s book. Neither does a major character in the film, a CIA man who initially tails Donovan and tries to persuade him to inform on his client, and later cynically tries to leave an innocent young American in an East German prison.
The portrayal of an America blinded by anti-Communism and terror of nuclear war is overdrawn in other ways as well. In one scene, for example, a young girl begins to cry in her elementary school classroom after the teacher shows a famous film explaining to children how to respond to a nuclear attack. Every person of mine and Spielberg’s age remembers classes like that one—but no one I know ever saw them reduce any students to tears. That is the part of the 1950s that the film entirely misses: that people of all ages were taught to cope with tragedy, remain calm and do their jobs. That was what Donovan was doing when he took the case. We young Boomers got the message that the possibility of nuclear war was simply something we had to live with, and we behaved accordingly. We didn’t get trigger warnings, and we didn’t seem to need them. Meanwhile, our parents included a great many men and women sincerely devoted to American freedoms and the ideal of fair play. Donovan was one of them, but it is a disservice to a whole generation to pretend that he was practically the only one.
Historians explain how the past informs the present
David Kaiser, a historian, has taught at Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Williams College, and the Naval War College. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently, No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation into War. He lives in Watertown, Mass. | The new Cold War movie appeals to a post-Snowden world | 106.833333 | 1 | 2.5 | high | high | mixed |
http://nypost.com/2015/10/27/ucla-stud-qb-loses-hot-tub-after-co-eds-photo-surfaces/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160713073938id_/http://nypost.com:80/2015/10/27/ucla-stud-qb-loses-hot-tub-after-co-eds-photo-surfaces/ | UCLA stud QB loses hot tub after co-ed’s photo surfaces | 20160713073938 | October 27, 2015 | 1:53pm
The party’s over officially over in Josh Rosen’s dorm room.
After an Arizona co-ed posted a photo of her canoodling with UCLA’s freshman quarterback in an inflatable hot tub on Instagram, the school asked him to remove it from his room.
Rosen’s splish-splash shenanigans have become something of a viral sensation. The freshman gunslinger posted a video oh himself enjoying a bit of R&R in the Jacuzzi with some food.
A UCLA spokesman said it was in violation of the housing code as “furnishing which are not officially designated as part of a residential room’s accessories.”
A video posted by Josh Rosen (@josh3rosen) on Oct 17, 2015 at 12:15pm PDT
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{* #tradAuthenticateMergeForm *} {* traditionalSignIn_emailAddress *} {* mergePassword *} | The party’s over officially over in Josh Rosen’s dorm room. After an Arizona co-ed posted a photo of her canoodling with UCLA’s freshman quarterback in an inflatable hot tub on In… | 7.7 | 0.925 | 9.275 | low | medium | extractive |
http://nypost.com/2016/05/04/pep-guardiola-had-one-aim-at-bayern-munich-and-he-failed/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160713104918id_/http://nypost.com:80/2016/05/04/pep-guardiola-had-one-aim-at-bayern-munich-and-he-failed/ | Pep Guardiola had one aim at Bayern Munich, and he failed | 20160713104918 | After Bayern Munich’s elimination from the Champions League on Tuesday, Pep Guardiola’s stint at the helm of Germany’s biggest soccer team is all but up. In three seasons, the manager will have won six trophies with the club (with a chance for a seventh on May 21 with the German Cup), but to some his time in Munich will be viewed as a failure.
The Spaniard, set to take over Manchester City on July 1, seemed to acknowledge as much after the game, launching a preemptive attack against anyone who would deign to criticize him for failing to bring the club its sixth Champions League title.
“It was my aim to achieve this,” he said after the game, according to the Guardian. “At Barcelona, everyone asked me this question, and it has been the same thing here. We have tried our best, but it hasn’t worked out. In terms of my period here, it’s up to you what you want to think.”
Guardiola has won the league each of his three seasons at Bayern, which — congrats — is the bare minimum expected of a manager at the club. Since the start of the Bundesliga in the 1963-64 season, Bayern have won a record 25 titles (15 more than their nearest rival), and they have 10 of the last 15. League titles were not why he was hired, Champions League titles were.
In four seasons in his previous gig at Barcelona, Guardiola won European soccer’s biggest prize twice (beating the legendary Alex Ferguson both times) and made it to the semifinals the other two years. It was this reason why Bayern approached him to succeed Jupp Heynckes following the 2012-13 season. The club had won four Champions League titles (known as the European Cup prior to 1992), but they’d lost in the finals five times, a ledger that was not good enough for the club’s notoriously demanding board of directors. That Bayern squad ended up winning the 2013 tournament, bringing their total to five wins.
The fact that he was taking over the title-holders, combined with his past record, is why so much was expected of Guardiola at Bayern. And he came close to delivering. Though Bayern never reached a Champions League final under his watch, they reached the semifinals three times, ironically falling to a Spanish side each time – Real Madrid, Barcelona and, now, Atletico Madrid. When the expectation, however unreasonable, is that you’ll win, that’s unacceptable.
Is it fair that some will view Guardiola’s time at the club as a failure? Of course not. All he did was win outside of the Champions League. Perhaps most importantly, he turned a club that always seemed more concerned with results than style into beautifully efficient side capable of playing some of the most entertaining soccer in the world. Not lovable – something Bayern will never be – but definitely admirable. Of course, the ambivalence surrounding his time at Bayern could turn out to be a very good thing for Manchester City. Now Pep has something to prove. | The manager’s club failed to make it past the Champions League semi-finals for the third straight season on Tuesday. | 26.086957 | 0.782609 | 1.304348 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/07/nyregion/naked-man-disarms-officer-killing-him-with-his-gun.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160713112726id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1986/11/07/nyregion/naked-man-disarms-officer-killing-him-with-his-gun.html | NAKED MAN DISARMS OFFICER, KILLING HIM WITH HIS GUN | 20160713112726 | JERSEY CITY, Nov. 6— A 53-year-old police sergeant was shot to death with his service revolver early today after a naked and apparently deranged man disarmed him in a struggle on a run-down street corner.
Bleeding from a head wound, the sergeant, Donald Carroll, sought refuge in a late-night grocery store. As Sergeant Carroll pushed against the store's plate-glass front door to keep the man out and yelled for the counter clerk to call police, the man fired five bullets through the door, striking Sergeant Carroll several times in the chest.
Moments later, the man, who the authorities said had a history of mental illness, was killed in a fusillade of police bullets after crashing Sergeant Carroll's patrol cruiser into a parked car.
Ran Out Into the Rain
Shortly before the fatal confrontation, neighbors said, the man, identified as William Mitchell, 33, had run naked from his apartment building, yelling: ''Mommy, Mommy.'' The authorities said today that they were investigating reports that Mr. Mitchell may have been sexually assaulted in his apartment before he ran out into a chilly rain.
''It's such a tragedy,'' said Jersey City's Chief of Patrol, Raymond Blasczak. ''We weren't working here against a holdup man or a man who had committed a crime.''
Chief Blasczak said for reasons not yet clear, Mr. Mitchell went ''berserk'' and started confronting people - apparently with a broken bottle - about midnight at the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive and Wegman Parkway in the Greenville section of Jersey City. The shootings occurred minutes later. Close to Retirement
Sergeant Carroll joined the police force in 1961 and was scheduled to retire next year after 25 years of duty. He and his wife, Lola, planned to move to Hawaii, authorities said. Until he and all other sergeants in the department were shifted to road patrol duty in July to heighten police visibility, Sergeant Carroll had worked in a administrative post in the detective bureau, officials said.
Mr. Mitchell, who was unemployed, lived at 162 Bergen Avenue in an apartment furnished only with a sofa covered with a sheet. Neighbors said today that he was mentally unstable and required medication, but never intimidated people in the street.
''He has a 10-year-old history of mental illness,'' said Carmen LaBruno, chief of detectives in the Hudson County Prosecutor's office. In the early 1980's, Mr. LaBruno said, Mr. Mitchell was treated in a psychiatric ward at Trenton State Hospital. More recently, he said, Mr. Mitchell was a psychiatric outpatient at the Jersey Center Medical Center.
Chief Blasczak said Mr. Mitchell had undergone treatment there as recently as Monday.
Neither could provide details on Mr. Mitchell's disorders and his required treatment.
One resident of 162 Bergen Avenue, Evelyn Watson, said she had heard 15 minutes of screaming in Mr. Mitchell's apartment shortly before midnight. Banging on Windshield
''Over and over and over, he kept saying, 'Somebody help me. Get them off me,' '' Ms. Watson said.
About the same time, several residents of the building said, Mr. Mitchell ran down Bergen Avenue without clothes, kicking off his sneakers.
He ran about three blocks toward Martin Luther King Drive and Wegman Parkway and accosted a man on the way, Mr. LaBruno said. The man, he said, flagged down Sergeant Carroll in the intersection.
Then, Mr. LaBruno said, Mr. Mitchell began banging on the windshield of the sergeant's car.
Sergeant Carroll was attacked as he tried to leave his car, Mr. LaBruno said. Somehow, Mr. Mitchell got control of the sergeant's nightstick and hit him on the head. He also seized his revolver, which was holstered, according to Chief Blasczak.
Sergeant Carroll and five other people ran into the C. J. Grocery Store at the intersection and the sergeant tried to barricade the door with his body, the chief said.
''He was yelling 'Get down, get down, We have a madman with a gun,' '' the chief said. Then the shots came through the door, he said.
photo of Sergeant Donald Carroll; photo of bullet holes in glass door of Jersey City grocery store (NYT/Larry C. Morris) | A 53-year-old police sergeant was shot to death with his service revolver early today after a naked and apparently deranged man disarmed him in a struggle on a run-down street corner. Bleeding from a head wound, the sergeant, Donald Carroll, sought refuge in a late-night grocery store. As Sergeant Carroll pushed against the store's plate-glass front door to keep the man out and yelled for the counter clerk to call police, the man fired five bullets through the door, striking Sergeant Carroll several times in the chest. Moments later, the man, who the authorities said had a history of mental illness, was killed in a fusillade of police bullets after crashing Sergeant Carroll's patrol cruiser into a parked car. | 5.86014 | 0.986014 | 50.972028 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/22/forbes-celebrity-billionaires-business-billionaires-celebrity-billionaires.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160713140335id_/http://www.forbes.com:80/2010/03/22/forbes-celebrity-billionaires-business-billionaires-celebrity-billionaires.html | The Celebrity Billionaires | 20160713140335 | By our count, there are 1,011 billionaires in the world, but thanks to media exposure, if not overexposure, some are far more recognizable than others. They’re the celebrity billionaires–more than rich, they’re rich and famous–among the most well-known people on the planet.
Others may be wealthier or more influential atop the worlds of technology, media, fashion and finance, but these 10 not only reap billions from their holdings but also shape our tastes–what we wear, watch, read, invest in and, increasingly, how we communicate with each other.
On this last point no one trumps teen titan turned household name Mark Zuckerberg. With the exploding interest in Facebook, the former Harvard student is now a billionaire (net worth $4 billion) and one of the most recognizable people among millions of social-media obsessed Americans, who have put his company at the center of their daily lives.
In Pictures: The Celebrity Billionaires
Celebrity Billionaires: Winfrey, Buffett, Zuckerberg
Expect his profile to grow now that Hollywood has taken interest. David Fincher (Seven, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) is directing a film starring Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake about the early days at the company.
Apple founder and media favorite Steve Jobs (net worth $5.5 billion) is even more influential and well-known. While fellow technology titans like Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison ($28 billion) and Michael Dell ($13.5 billion) may be worth far more, Jobs is unquestionably the face of Silicon Valley. A lifetime creating groundbreaking consumer technology products is part of the reason, but he’s also the best showman in the business. Earlier this year he somehow turned the release of a tablet computer free of any radical computing advances into a media event that garnered front-page headlines around the world.
This kind of bewitching star power is ripe for parody. A comedy series inspired by a fictional Steve Jobs blog and follow-up book written by former Forbes staffer Dan Lyons is being developed for pay cable channel Epix.
Oprah Winfrey doesn’t need anymore media hype–and may actually profit from less. Over the last 25 years Winfrey turned her syndicated talk show into America’s town square and built a $2.4 billion fortune along the way. The upcoming season will be the last for Winfreys eponymous talk show, an announcement that brought the Queen of All Media to tears late last year. While spin-offs from Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray will continue, Winfrey has her eyes set on something bigger: the Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable network jointly owned by Discovery Communications poised to bow in January 2011.
Steven Spielberg ($3 billion) has a similar story of universal appeal. For two generations he has been Hollywood’s pre-eminent storyteller, the man behind a library of seminal films including Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park and Schindlers List. Recent moves, including the release a fourth installment of Indiana Jones (the movie grossed $786 million globally) and a $1.5 billion agreement with Indias Reliance ADA Group to start a new film company, added still more fame and fortune.
Another storyteller, Harry Potter creator Joanne (J.K.) Rowling ($1 billion), is expecting a big 2010: Universal Studios will open its “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” in Orlando and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1 will debut in theaters (Part II is due out in 2011). Potter films have grossed more than $5 billion, and the books have been translated into 65 languages. Her personal story is nearly as magical as the fiction she writes: While a single mother living on welfare in Edinburgh, Scotland, she completed the first story of the teenage wizard in 1997. A year later her first Harry Potter adventure was published in the U.S. and became a literary sensation.
Ralph Lauren ($4.6 billion) has had a magical year as well. The tailored tastemaker has defied the chill in retail. He opened stores in China as U.S. and European sales slowed. Sales exceeded $5 billion, and the value of shares in Polo Ralph Lauren doubled during past year. The Bronx native worked his first job at Brooks Brothers, leaving business school to design ties for Beau Brummel in 1967. Later that year he launched Polo later with $50,000 and sold 28% of the company to Goldman Sachs in 1994 for $138 million. Three years later the company went public and Lauren became not only fashionable but also very wealthy.
Perhaps the most unlikely Celebrity Billionaire is 79-year-old Warren Buffett. While he’s long been known on Wall Street as the rumpled “Oracle of Omaha,” his fame increased considerably during the last two years as everyone from the president to everyday 401(k) holders tuned in to hear his fireside chats on the imploding economy.
Savvy, high-profile moves, including his decision to plow $5 billion into Goldman Sachs and another $3 billion into General Electric amid 2008s market collapse, were seen by the media and investors as glimmers of optimism in a dark time. He was just chasing a sale.
“We’ve put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years,” he wrote in this year’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. “When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble.” Works for him. With a net worth of $47 billion, Buffett is the third richest man in the world, thanks to surging Berkshire Hathaway shares, up $10 billion over the last 12 months.
In Pictures: The Celebrity Billionaires
Comments are turned off for this post. | Sure, every billionaire is wealthy and powerful. But these 10 are also household names. | 65.117647 | 0.764706 | 1.235294 | high | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/10/us-air-force-mideast-jet-sales/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160713193853id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/10/us-air-force-mideast-jet-sales/ | U.S. Air Force Urges Decision on Delayed Mideast Fighter Jet Sales | 20160713193853 | A top U.S. Air Force official on Sunday urged the U.S. government to speed up consideration of long-standing bids by Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain to buy U.S. fighter jets, citing growing frustration among the key U.S. allies in the Gulf about delays in the process.
Air Force Deputy Undersecretary Heidi Grant said she was trying to reassure those countries that Washington’s failure to approve billions of dollars of U.S. arms sales to them would not alter their strong bilateral air force-to-air force relationships with the United States.
“I would like to see a decision soon,” Grant told Reuters in an interview on the eve of the Farnborough Airshow in southern England. Grant said she “absolutely” saw growing frustration among officials in the three countries, which have asked to buy a variety of U.S. fighter planes.
“It’s caused us to do more to reassure them that this one transaction should not impact the larger relationship … that they are very valued partners,” she said. “Hopefully the delay in this decision to move forward isn’t going to have any impact.”
Three Countries Urge Caution Traveling to U.S. Amid Protests, Violence
Grant said the three requests were still being worked on “at the highest levels of our government.” She declined to comment on what was holding up the decisions.
All three arms sales have stalled amid concerns raised by Israel that equipment sent to Gulf states could fall into the wrong hands and be used against it, and by the Obama administration’s desire to integrate arms sales decisions into its broader decision-making on military aid to the Gulf.
The Pentagon and State Department have both have signed off on the sale of 36 F-15 fighter jets to Qatar for about $4 billion, and 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to Kuwait for about $3 billion, both built by Boeing BA , according to sources familiar with the matter. A third deal would sell about 16 Lockheed Martin LMT F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain in a deal valued at just under $1 billion.
The White House has not yet approved the sales, although the Kuwait sale at least is expected to see approval before the Obama administration leaves office, the sources said.
For more on the military, watch:
Leanne Caret, chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, told reporters the approval process was clearly taking longer than the company would like, but Boeing’s Middle East customers were “hanging in there with us” despite the delays.
“I believe we have a bright future on it, and we look forward to resolving it soon,” she said.
Grant joins other military officials and lawmakers who have urged the Obama administration to move forward on the arms sales requests, some of which have been in work for years.
David Melcher, president of the U.S.-based Aerospace Industries Association trade group, said the delays could be particularly hard on smaller firms in the weapons supply chain to manage, and gave U.S. competitors a big advantage.
Military Contractor Formerly Known As Blackwater May Be for Sale for up to $1 Billion
“Whole markets have been created out of the lag, and that to me, is something that is not in the interest of the U.S. or U.S. industry,” he told Reuters in an interview.
Melcher said Vice Admiral Joe Rixey, who heads the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, was working to help streamline the approval process for foreign arms sales. He said Rixey explored bottlenecks in the process with about two dozen industry executives during a tabletop exercise in May.
U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus last month warned the U.S. Navy could see the cost of new F/A-18E/F Super Hornets rise unless the government approves foreign sales of the jets soon.
Mabus said he was frustrated by delays in approving the sale of the Boeing jets to a close U.S. ally.
Senior U.S. officials have said they are keen to see the Boeing F-15 and F/A-18 production lines in St. Louis, and the Lockheed F-16 line in Fort Worth, Texas, continue, and do not want to foreclose options on fourth-generation aircraft. | One hitch is Israel's concerns that U.S. equipment could end up in enemy hands. | 49.9375 | 0.75 | 0.75 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/04/wine-food-pairing-forbeslife-cx_pl_0304wine_slide_2.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160714024408id_/http://www.forbes.com:80/2008/03/04/wine-food-pairing-forbeslife-cx_pl_0304wine_slide_2.html? | In Depth: 10 Perfect Food & Wine Pairings | 20160714024408 | Le Bernardin, New York, N.Y.
The famous seafood chef says he rarely has pairing epiphanies, because when it comes to wine, he’s “terribly stubborn and set in my ways: I drink only bordeaux.” But on a recent visit to the Wolffer Estate Vineyards in East Hampton, he tasted the wine maker’s 2007 rose and was so blown away he had some delivered to the midtown restaurant so he could pair it with a dish. He matched it with a tartare of black bass made with a tangy olive tapenade, he says, and the combination of flavors “made me fall to my knees.”
Comments are turned off for this post. | Top chefs reveal the dinner-and-drink combos they're most excited about. | 8.0625 | 0.25 | 0.25 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.cbsnews.com/media/9-most-popular-ceos-in-us/9/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160714075256id_/http://www.cbsnews.com:80/media/9-most-popular-ceos-in-us/9/ | 9 most popular CEOs in America | 20160714075256 | When Americans think of CEOs, they often focus on the negatives, such as the perception that they're overpaid or have made strategic mistakes. Yet, many CEOs are outperforming on the job, providing strong leadership and inspiration to their employees.
Some of these highly ranked bosses are household names, thanks to high-profile charitable endeavors or the public's fascination with their accomplishments, according to a new survey from employment site Glassdoor. But many others are virtual unknowns. Despite that, they all share some common strengths, such as accessibility and dedication.
"These are CEOs who communicate and are available for their employees," said Scott Dobroski, associate director of communications at Glassdoor. One of the top three factors that keep employees satisfied is trust in senior leadership, he added.
The top CEOs spanned many industries, including consulting, technology and consumer goods. While all of the top nine are men, a longer list of the top 50 most popular corporate leaders includes four women, compared with no female CEOs in the year-earlier poll.
The top-ranked women CEOs are In-N-Out Burger's Lynsi Snyder, who was ranked 17th; Staffmark's Lesa Francis, who was 28th; Enterprise Holdings' Pamela Nicholson, who was 31st; and Deloitte's Cathy Engelbert, in 41st place.
The survey was based on employee reviews posted by workers on Glassdoor between May 2, 2015 and May 1, 2016. Companies needed at least 100 CEO rankings to be considered.
Read on to learn about the country's nine most popular CEOs. | These chief executives earn the highest marks for leadership from their employees | 25.333333 | 0.583333 | 0.75 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://nypost.com/2016/03/10/richard-gere-finally-rents-his-downtown-pad/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160715030248id_/http://nypost.com:80/2016/03/10/richard-gere-finally-rents-his-downtown-pad/ | Richard Gere finally rents his downtown pad | 20160715030248 | On Tuesday, Richard Gere’s former live/work apartment in the Silk Building finally rented.
The corner loft unit at 14 E. 4th St. was asking $20,000 a month.
The sprawling 3,570-square-foot condo is a live/work space with five bedrooms and three bathrooms.
Newly gut renovated, it spans half a city block and comes with original oak wood floors, 10.6-foot beamed ceilings and “extra-large” windows, according to the listing.
There’s also a chef’s kitchen, a master suite with a spa-like master bathroom and an office, which was used by the former occupant as a “creative studio,” that also has a bathroom, kitchenette and its own private entrance.
“Small” pets are allowed on a “case by case” basis. Paul Gavriani of The Corcoran Group had the listing. | It took eight months. On Tuesday, Richard Gere’s former live/work apartment in the Silk Building finally rented. The corner loft unit at 14 E. 4th St. was asking $20,000 a month. The sprawling 3,57… | 3.860465 | 0.883721 | 13.627907 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/112-a-foot-Tony-Blackhawk-Plaza-sells-for-2808661.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20160715152636id_/http://www.sfgate.com:80/bayarea/article/112-a-foot-Tony-Blackhawk-Plaza-sells-for-2808661.php | $112 a foot / Tony Blackhawk Plaza sells for surprisingly low price | 20160715152636 | Blackhawk Plaza, the upscale mall on the outskirts of Danville, has sold for $23 million to a Sacramento investment group.
Cambridge Oxford Investors LLC bought the 205,000-square-foot center from a fund headed by Koll Bren Schreiber Realty Advisors of Newport Beach.
Built in 1988 and renovated in 1999, the exclusive center includes Gottschalks department store, dozens of shops, a seven-screen cinema, restaurants, a lagoon and fountains, and lots of outdoor space.
But brokers said the surprisingly low sale price - $112 per square foot - was due to the lack of a major retail draw and the mall's relatively isolated location off Tassajara Road.
By comparison, the middle-of-the-road Bridgepointe Shopping Center in San Mateo recently sold for $217 per square foot.
"There's an old saying that you -don't sell in a hill or in a hole," said Mike Federle, a senior vice president with Grubb & Ellis in San Francisco. "Blackhawk Plaza is not level with Tassajara Road, it's on a hill, so there's an access issue. And there's no major anchor, so shops have never proliferated in the center the way you might expect, considering the demographics."
The shopping center sale does not include the Blackhawk Museum, located on the grounds and known for its vintage car collection.
Tiffany & Co. is building its first store in the East Bay, a 5,000-square- foot boutique in the Corners development at South Main Street and Mount Diablo Boulevard in Walnut Creek.
"They're a landmark tenant and a great anchor for the project," said Brian Hirahara of Lamorinda Development & Investment, which is building the high-end 33,000-square-foot center.
A 200-year-old oak tree, which was originally going to be removed, will be incorporated into the project, set to open in the spring.
Tiffany has two stores on the Peninsula - at the Stanford and Valley Fair shopping centers - and the flagship Bay Area store on Post Street in Union Square.
The 10-year lease in Walnut Creek was signed at a rental rate of $75 per square foot, plus a $30 per square foot tenant improvement allowance, a real estate source said.
A bottom in Silicon Valley
Nortel Networks Corp., the struggling telcom gearmaker that recently laid off 40 percent of its workforce, has sold its huge but empty Santa Clara office building for about $23 million.
Silicon Valley real estate observers think the rock-bottom price - Nortel originally put the building on the market for $50 million - might be a sign of things to come.
"This may be a lead deal," said Mark Ritchie of Ritchie Commercial in San Jose. "We -haven't seen the adjustment in valuations (in the valley), even though rents have plunged."
If so, buyers South Bay Development Co. and Pacific Coast Capital Partners got a sweet deal. The price works out to about $65 per square foot, the lowest since the Internet boom of the mid-'90s.
The office vacancy rate is nearing 25 percent and downtown development plans are in serious trouble, but the folks in go-go San Jose - the self- styled "Capital of Silicon Valley" - only look forward.
The city council recently voted to put a bond measure on the November ballot that would hike the hotel tax to 14 percent. The measure is supposed to raise $370 million for an expansion of McEnery Convention Center.
Currently, San Jose ranks 82nd among the top 100 U.S. convention cities. With the McEnery expansion, officials say they would join the likes of Salt Lake City, Long Beach and Seattle.
Also in San Jose, SJW Land Co. - a subsidiary of the San Jose Water Co. - has proposed a zoning change for nine prime acres the company owns near Compaq Center (soon to be HP Pavilion).
If the zoning change is approved by the city, up to 1.2 million square feet of commercial space and 325 units of housing could be built on the land. Thompson Residential Partners LLC of Sausalito and SRM Associates of Oakland have signed on with the water company as consultants.
In a weak leasing year, Bedford Property Investors Inc. of Lafayette says it has signed up a Canadian insurance company in its Carneros Commons office park in Napa - making the project 93 percent leased.
TIG Specialty Insurance Solutions, part of Toronto's Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., will take 21,000 square feet. A source said the seven-year deal was signed at a rate of about $16 per square foot.
Napa has one of the healthiest Class A office markets in the Bay Area, although there's only about 700,000 square feet in the entire county. The office vacancy rate is about 8 percent. | Built in 1988 and renovated in 1999, the exclusive center includes Gottschalks department store, dozens of shops, a seven-screen cinema, restaurants, a lagoon and fountains, and lots of outdoor space. The shopping center sale does not include the Blackhawk Museum, located on the grounds and known for its vintage car collection. The 10-year lease in Walnut Creek was signed at a rental rate of $75 per square foot, plus a $30 per square foot tenant improvement allowance, a real estate source said. Silicon Valley real estate observers think the rock-bottom price - Nortel originally put the building on the market for $50 million - might be a sign of things to come. The office vacancy rate is nearing 25 percent and downtown development plans are in serious trouble, but the folks in go-go San Jose - the self- styled "Capital of Silicon Valley" - only look forward. In a weak leasing year, Bedford Property Investors Inc. of Lafayette says it has signed up a Canadian insurance company in its Carneros Commons office park in Napa - making the project 93 percent leased. | 4.293023 | 0.976744 | 35.125581 | low | high | extractive |
http://nypost.com/2014/02/15/barack-obama-makes-up-his-own-rules/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160715181331id_/http://nypost.com:80/2014/02/15/barack-obama-makes-up-his-own-rules/ | ‘Obama makes up his own rules’ | 20160715181331 | Last month, President Obama declared he’ll “act on my own,” that he doesn’t need Congress to exercise his power.
“We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation. I’ve got a pen . . . and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions,” he asserted. “One of the things that I’m going to be talking to my Cabinet about is how do we use all the tools available to us.”
He’s already made good on his promise to act unilaterally — delaying the ObamaCare mandate on businesses again last week and changing the rules for immigration enforcement.
But what Obama didn’t say is that, behind the scenes, he’s radically increasing the government’s reach. His tools aren’t laws or even executive orders — it’s thousands of new pages of new rules in the Federal Register, the nation’s official book of regulations, controlling everything from home finance to car deals to city zoning.
An unelected, unappointed shadowy network of leftie advocates are rewriting these rules — posing a direct threat to Congress’ legislative authority. Yet alarmingly few lawmakers are aware of its clout. Likewise, few in the private sector know about its unchecked power and influence over business and finance — or even local housing and school policies.
One troubling new area of regulation: rules for discipline at your children’s schools, so that teachers can no longer kick students who misbehave out of the classroom. They’re relaxing the protocols for punishing even violent kids, compounding fears about classroom safety in a post-Newtown world.
New school-discipline guidelines issued last month by Education Secretary Arne Duncan are based on a “framework” recently formulated by the New York-based Dignity in Schools Campaign.
Following Dignity’s recommendations, the administration is pressuring schools to keep disruptive minority students in the classroom. The new federal guidelines call for a moratorium on suspensions, now demonized as “racist” because they have a “disparate impact” on black students. They also discourage school authorities from bringing police onto campuses even in some violent cases.
“Racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem today,” Duncan claimed in announcing the new policy. But chances are he outsourced this “solution.”
“I doubt he had anything to do with the actual drafting of these guidelines,” said former Education Department official Hans Bader, maintaining he gave the job to “left-wing radicals.”
Indeed, Duncan’s guidelines adopt Dignity’s recommendation that schools enroll troubled kids in “restorative circles” and other culturally sensitive programs instead of suspending them.
Under this “positive approach,” offenders are allowed to negotiate the consequences for their bad behavior, which usually involves anger-management counseling and “dialogue sessions,” in which teachers join unruly students in “talking circles” to foster greater “cultural understanding.” Talk invariably turns to racism and “white bias.”
Dignity says the powwows “combat bias that contributes to disproportionate discipline.”
Of course, they also provide rowdy minorities an excuse for continued bad behavior.
New York City public schools recently adopted “restorative counseling” as an alternative to suspensions, now banned as a punishment for one-time minor infractions.
“Taking a restorative approach to discipline changes the fundamental questions that are asked when a behavioral incident occurs,” the department’s new discipline code states. Instead of asking who’s to blame and how they should be punished, it addresses “underlying factors” that lead youth to act out.
The administration is tying school funding to compliance with its discipline guidelines, while at the same time threatening discrimination lawsuits.
But relaxed discipline policies threaten to undo the benefits of zero tolerance policies started in 2004. Under the Impact School initiative, New York schools partnered with the NYPD to crack down on campus crime, resulting in a 55% plunge in violent school incidents, according to city data.
The fingerprints of radical social engineers are all over housing policy as well.
Affordable-housing zealots helped craft a sweeping new federal regulation that created a controversial “housing-discrimination database,” which the administration hopes to use to reshape the demographics of every neighborhood in America.
It’s part of an ambitious agenda to eliminate “racial segregation,” ZIP code-by-ZIP code, through the systematic dismantling of “exclusionary” building ordinances across America.
It’s started here in New York’s Westchester County, where HUD is withholding millions of dollars in funding until the area relaxes restrictions on subsidized housing.
But that’s just the beginning of a nationwide campaign to force suburbs to accept Section 8 and other low-income residents.
“The battle for zoning in Westchester County [will be] the battle everywhere,” warned Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino. “This is about changing every block, every neighborhood to the viewpoint of federal bureaucrats at HUD.”
The agency’s 34-page “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” mandate, soon to be codified as law in the Federal Register, is the brainchild of the National Fair Housing Alliance, a radical leftist group based in Washington.
NFHA helped draft the legal and technical language in the regulation, and coached other activists to propose ways to strengthen the rule in public comments solicited by HUD. NFHA even prepared letter-writing templates using the same language for other activist groups.
NFHA worked closely with Sara K. Pratt, HUD’s chief of fair-housing enforcement. HUD officially lists NFHA, which happens to be Pratt’s old shop, as a “partner.” The two recently announced a joint media campaign “to fight housing discrimination,” for which Pratt’s office awarded NFHA more than $2 million in grants. Pratt worked several years for NFHA as a director, trainer and consultant.
“HUD uses a network of crony advocates to help create, improve and finalize new rules,” said Cornelia Mrose, a housing analyst who recently prepared a study examining the development of HUD’s suburban integration rule for the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank in Washington. “And it uses this same network of crony advocates to execute and enforce rules.”
NFHA conducts discrimination investigations for HUD using “testers” to pose as renters and homebuyers in minority communities across the country.
Added Mrose, “There’s no division of power here — it’s all rolled into one.”
She warns the close collaboration between activists and federal agencies within the Obama administration has “corrupted” the otherwise public rules-making process and created a powerful “crony advocacy empire” impervious to influence from average citizens.
While citizen opposition was passionate — decrying the regulation as “forced integration” and “affirmative action on a ZIP code level,” while warning of Section 8 housing crime and lower property values — HUD disregarded them as “low-quality comments.”
As if that weren’t enough, Obama’s new credit cop, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is out to recreate the conditions that caused the 2008 mortgage collapse by pressuring banks to make loans to people who can’t afford them in the name of racial “fairness.” And it’s happening behind closed doors.
CFPB won’t let private citizens or reporters into meetings with its 25 paid advisers, the Consumer Advisory Board, whose taxpayer-compensated members include trial lawyers who make a living suing banks, former ACORN activists, and even a member of the Democratic National Committee. Some have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grant money to ferret out discrimination in housing and lending.
“They want input from liberal activists and Democratic partisans without public scrutiny,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute official John Berlau, who last year represented a Mississippi businessman barred from a Consumer Advisory Board meeting in what Berlau says was a “clear violation” of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
One influential CFPB adviser, Ellen Seidman, happens to be one of the architects of the disastrous housing policies that caused the mortgage crisis. Seidman encouraged subprime lending in “underserved” communities as a top Clinton bank regulator enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). “Growth in the subprime credit market indicates that credit needs in many low- and moderate-income areas are being met,” she said in 1999. She also cheered the relaxation of credit standards and the development of the subprime securities market.
“Without CRA as an impetus,” Seidman said, “this market would likely not have developed.”
Now Seidman is helping rewrite the rules for home lending. CFPB recently released new mortgage rules that, despite claims of tightening standards, require no minimum credit scores or down payments and even count payments from “government assistance programs” as qualifying income for low-income borrowers.
Radical advisers also have opened up a new “fair lending” front — car loans.
CFPB has sued the nation’s largest car lender, Ally Bank, for $100 million over discrimination charges.
Ally denies the allegations, arguing it prices for risk, not race. Indeed, the administration failed to take credit scores and other key risk factors into account in its investigation — just as it failed to take them into account shaking down almost three dozen mortgage lenders — including Bank of America and Wells Fargo — for a combined $810 million over alleged lending discrimination.
Discriminating against minority borrowers would be a deplorable crime if true. But investigators have no direct evidence it’s occurring. Cases are based exclusively on statistics showing “disparities” in loan outcomes by race. For the first time, federal civil-rights enforcers are relying on stats, rather than actual acts or intent, to prove racism.
They assume “statistically significant” disparities in loan rates between whites and minorities proves lenders are discriminating against minorities. But there’s a fundamental flaw: They’re not comparing whites and minorities with the same credit backgrounds.
They’re missing their credit scores, debt-to-income ratios and other key information that influences lending decisions (like down payments and trade-ins) in their computer screens. In short, they’re making reckless allegations.
Though investigators argue crunching the raw data is sufficient to prove racism if it shows “significant” racial gaps in loan pricing, they won’t define “significant” — despite repeated bipartisan requests by Congress.
Critics complain even the dubious statistical threshold they’re using to trigger discrimination investigations is arbitrary and capricious.
“CFPB refuses to release any sort of analysis or methodology as to how they reached their conclusions,” National Auto Dealers Association spokesman Baily Wood said.
In the 1970s, Saul Alinsky, the Chicago socialist, father of community organizing and Obama idol, wrote “Rules for Radicals” as a training manual for stealth “revolution.” He advised activists to cut their hair and clean up their mouths so they could “work in the system” and change it from the “inside.”
Only by operating inside the establishment, he said, could this new “vanguard” of leftists really hope to redistribute power and wealth “from the Haves to the Have-Nots.”
The strategy has worked beyond his wildest dreams.
It took a few decades, but Alinsky’s coat-and-tie radicals are fully deployed inside the power corridors of Washington — including, of course, the West Wing, where Alinsky’s star pupil controls the show. And they’re collaborating with the most militant elements of the nonprofit sector.
Together, both the washed and unwashed of Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” gang are now writing the rules regulating industry and society.
Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “The Great American Bank Robbery.” | Last month, President Obama declared he’ll “act on my own,” that he doesn’t need Congress to exercise his power. “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation. I’ve got a pen . . . and I can … | 45.36 | 0.98 | 24.1 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-Lynch-suspended-four-games-8380915.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20160715213457id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-Lynch-suspended-four-games-8380915.php | 49ers’ Lynch suspended four games | 20160715213457 | Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Aaron Lynch (59) celebrates sacking Russell Wilson (3) in the second half of the 49ers game against the Seattle Seahawks at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Thursday, October 22, 2015.
Aaron Lynch (59) celebrates sacking Russell Wilson (3) in the second half of the 49ers game against the Seattle Seahawks at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Thursday, October 22, 2015.
49ers’ Lynch suspended four games
49ers outside linebacker Aaron Lynch has been suspended without pay for the first four games of the upcoming season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.
The type of drug was not disclosed, but the four-game suspension means that this was not Lynch’s first violation of the policy.
“While disappointed to hear the news regarding Aaron today, we support and respect the league’s decision,” 49ers general manager Trent Baalke said in a statement. “We are confident that he will learn from this matter and that he understands what is expected of him moving forward.”
The 49ers open the season with a Monday night home game against the Rams on Sept. 12. Lynch will miss that game as well as ones at Carolina and Seattle and a home game against the Cowboys. He would be eligible to return for a Thursday night game, Oct. 6, against the Cardinals.
Lynch, 23, recorded 38 tackles and tied for the team lead with 6.5 sacks last season, his second in the NFL. Lynch will be allowed to participate in training camp and preseason games, but then Eli Harold will be asked to step in for the season-opener.
Lynch, a fifth-round draft pick in 2014, signed a four-year, $2.4 million deal before his rookie season and was scheduled to make $600,000 this year. With the suspension covering the first quarter of the season, Lynch will forfeit approximately $150,000 in pay.
Vic Tafur is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vtafur@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VicTafur | 49ers outside linebacker Aaron Lynch has been suspended without pay for the first four games of the upcoming season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. “While disappointed to hear the news regarding Aaron today, we support and respect the league’s decision,” 49ers general manager Trent Baalke said in a statement. Lynch, 23, recorded 38 tackles and tied for the team lead with 6.5 sacks last season, his second in the NFL. Lynch, a fifth-round draft pick in 2014, signed a four-year, $2.4 million deal before his rookie season and was scheduled to make $600,000 this year. | 3.278689 | 0.97541 | 29.467213 | low | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/13/pizza-hut-chatbot-twitter-facebook/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160716010205id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/13/pizza-hut-chatbot-twitter-facebook/ | Pizza Hut Chatbot Allows Ordering on Twitter and Facebook | 20160716010205 | The list of restaurant chains jumping on the social media-ordering bandwagon continues to grow.
Pizza Hut is the latest high-profile brand to enlist a “chatbot” to launch a social ordering platform that will allow the restaurants customers to place orders for pizza and other products using their Twitter accounts or Facebook Messenger. Yum! Brands’ Pizza Hut announced the new service on Tuesday, revealing a partnership with chatbot startup Conversable, which also recently added Whole Foods Market and fast-casual food chain Wingstop to its list of clients.
Pizza Hut will make the social ordering platform available starting in August, at which point customers will be able to reorder favorite or saved orders from any U.S. location of the restaurant chain by chatting directly with the Pizza Hut accounts on either Twitter or Facebook. There will be no extra charge to order through the chatbot and customers can also get answers to frequently asked questions and access info on recent Pizza Hut promotions.
“The new Pizza Hut social ordering platform is another example of making it easy for our customer to order their favorites from Pizza Hut,” Baron Concors, Pizza Hut’s Chief Digital Officer, said in a statement. “We are constantly pursuing ways to simplify our ordering experience. This platform allows our consumers to quickly order or get information where they are already spending a great deal of their time.
In addition to joining Wingstop and Whole Foods in the social ordering space, Pizza Hut will also be competing for ravenous social media users with Taco Bell’s TacoBot, while Burger King also recently launched a bot that allows ordering through Facebook Messenger. And, it’s likely we’ll only see more and more businesses enabling social ordering, especially through Facebook, which opened its Messenger chat app to businesses last year and began allowing companies to build bots for the service earlier this year.
Of course, one of Pizza Hut’s biggest rivals, Domino’s, has been a pioneer in the areas of social media and mobile ordering, having introduced an ordering system through Twitter more than a year ago. Domino’s was also the first pizza chain to introduce an Apple Watch app to allow customers to order pies from their wrists, earlier this year. | Tell the chatbot you want pepperoni on that. | 46.666667 | 0.555556 | 0.777778 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/07/14/consumer-reports-says-tesla-should-drop-autopilot-name/WKPlrAIqcafKXuZizW1YoN/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160716132501id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/07/14/consumer-reports-says-tesla-should-drop-autopilot-name/WKPlrAIqcafKXuZizW1YoN/story.html | Consumer Reports says Tesla should drop ‘Autopilot’ name | 20160716132501 | A Tesla is driven using its Autopilot mode.
DETROIT — Consumer Reports said Thursday that Tesla Motors is misleading car owners by calling its semi-autonomous driving system “Autopilot,” potentially giving them too much trust in their car’s ability to drive itself.
The influential magazine said Tesla should drop the Autopilot name and disconnect the automatic steering system until it’s updated to make sure a driver’s hands stay on the wheel at all times. The system currently warns drivers after a few minutes of their hands being off the wheel.
In an e-mail, a Tesla spokeswoman said the company has no plans to change the name, and that data it collects show drivers who use Autopilot are safer than those who don’t.
With its statement, Consumer Reports joined a debate over autonomous driving technology that escalated after authorities revealed that Joshua Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, died in a May crash in Florida with the Autopilot on in his 2015 Model S. The system didn’t detect a tractor-trailer that had turned in front of the car in bright sunshine, and Brown also failed to react.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the wreck and the functioning of the Autopilot system. After the Brown crash, critics accused Tesla of giving drivers access to a system that wasn’t ready, while supporters contended the company was improving automotive safety.
Tesla’s Autopilot system uses cameras, radar, and computers to detect objects and automatically brake if the car is about to hit something. It also can steer the car to keep it centered in its lane. The company says that before Autopilot can be used, drivers must acknowledge that it’s an ‘‘assist feature’’ that requires both hands on the wheel at all times. Drivers also must be prepared to take over at any time, Tesla has said.
Yet Laura MacCleery, Consumer Reports’ vice president of consumer policy, said naming the system Autopilot gives drivers a false sense of security.
Autopilot, she wrote, can’t actually drive the car, but it lets consumers keep their hands off the steering wheel for minutes at a time.
Earlier this week Tesla disclosed that a Model X SUV crashed early Saturday in Montana while the driver was using the autosteer feature on a two-lane road, which is not recommended by the company. Tesla, which gets information from its cars over the Internet, said the car warned the driver at least once to place his hands on the steering wheel before it crashed.
Tesla said Autopilot underwent millions of miles of internal testing and is updated constantly. ‘‘We will continue to develop, validate, and release those enhancements as the technology grows,’’ the spokeswoman said.
The Florida crash also is drawing attention from Congress. On Thursday, Senate Commerce Committee chairman John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, sent a letter to Musk asking Tesla to brief committee staff by no later than July 29 on details of the incident. | The magazine says the name potentially gives Tesla drivers too much trust in their car’s ability to drive itself. | 27.238095 | 1 | 7.380952 | medium | high | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/14/apocalypse-pokemon-go/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160717133846id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/14/apocalypse-pokemon-go/ | Welcome to the Apocalypse, Brought to You by Pokémon Go | 20160717133846 | This essay originally appeared in Data Sheet, Fortune’sdaily tech newsletter. Sign up here.
Rarely have we seen a digital obsession take hold of millions of people so completely—and so rapidly—as we have with Pokémon Go, the “augmented reality” app that only came out a week ago, and has now eclipsed Twitter twtr , Instagram, and even Facebook fb in the amount of time users are spending with it.
Not since the days of Farmville and Angry Birds has such a massive flash crowd formed so quickly around a game. But Pokémon Go is significantly different from those other obsessions.
The difference, of course, is that this game isn’t played by moms and kids on their phones, sitting at home anonymously in their living rooms or in their cars. It’s played by people you can see, stumbling around Central Park and their neighbor’s back yard and other unlikely places, looking for virtual characters to add to their collections.
Already, officials from both the Holocaust Museum and the Arlington National Cemetery have appealed to players to respect the solemnity of their institutions by not running around in them trying to catch virtual monsters with their phones. Whether that will stop anyone remains to be seen.
There have been reports of violence involving Pokémon players, although some of that is fictitious. At least one man was injured when he smashed into an illegally parked car that a player had abandoned. Police have felt it necessary to warn drivers not to play the game while they are behind the wheel.
Reading all these news stories, it feels as though it’s just a matter of time before one player shoots another for stealing their Charmander or for beating them in one of the head-to-head combat features. The game has already been involved in several robberies.
As apocalyptic as things might feel right now, however, entertaining obsessions like Pokémon Go have a tendency to burn very brightly and then subside. For the moment the game seems like the most important thing in the world, but other priorities will almost certainly come to the fore in time—perhaps even other augmented reality games. Does anyone remember Farmville?
In the meantime, it’s a fairly delicious irony that a twist on a 20-year-old game is responsible for getting tens of thousands or even millions of people to leave their computers and homes and wander around in the actual world, even if some of them are behaving like idiots. Thanks, Pokémon! | It has caused everything from robberies to car crashes, but there is a bright side. | 27.882353 | 0.705882 | 0.823529 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/15/stubhub-ticket-utils/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160717150653id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/15/stubhub-ticket-utils/ | StubHub Just Bought a Ticket Software Company | 20160717150653 | eBay owned online ticketing site StubHub continues on its acquisition spree by buying Ticket Utils, a software company that helps large ticket sellers manage their inventories and online distribution.
Ticket Utils allows major sellers sell directly through StubHub, eBay, and Ticketmaster using software that automates some of the process. For example, sellers can automatically remove a ticket that has been sold on one marketplace from another where it is also listed. It also lets sellers list tickets in different currencies so that they can sell tickets in different countries.
StubHub said that the software will be integrated into its own software for ticket sellers. The acquisition price was not disclosed.
StubHub has replaced recently spun off payments company PayPal as eBay’s new crown jewel. In the most recent quarter, StubHub, which was acquired by eBay nine years ago, the site’s revenue rose 34% to $177 million, far faster than eBay’s overall revenue growth of 4%, to $2.1 billion.
The ticket marketplace has also recently got new leadership. Last year, Scott Cutler, former head of global listings at the New York Stock Exchange, joined eBay to head StubHub.
For more on eBay, watch:
StubHub is now taking on Ticketmaster more directly by starting to partner with primary ticket holders like sports teams to sell tickets directly to buyers rather than through third-party sellers. StubHub is already partnering with the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers to power ticket sales for the 2016-2017 season, and recently inked a $100 million deal to become the ticket seller for the New York Yankees.
StubHub has also been acquisitive. In May, the company bought TicketBis for over $100 million, to help expand its presence in Latin America, Europe and Asia. | StubHub made its second public acquisition of the year. | 33.5 | 0.7 | 0.9 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/03/15/live-the-vampire-lifestyle-in-draculas-castle-for-a-bloody-66m/21328013/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160718145334id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/03/15/live-the-vampire-lifestyle-in-draculas-castle-for-a-bloody-66m/21328013/ | Live the vampire lifestyle in Dracula's castle for a bloody $66M | 20160718145334 | Though there's been debate in the past on whether or not the famed Bran Castle is in fact the actual castle that Dracula was based around, one thing is for certain: If we were Romanian royalty with a sweet tooth for blood of the innocent, we'd definitely be choosing to live here.
In fact, we'd realistically like to live here as a 21st century humans. And now it's possible, as the estate is on the market for the cheap and affordable price of $66M.
SEE ALSO: You can live in this 78th floor penthouse that defines Manhattan luxury for $32.5M
Bram Stoker, the author of perhaps one of the most famous stories all time, describes the castle in his book as:
"...on the very edge of a terrific precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests."
Sounds like a very persuasive real estate pitch if we've ever heard one.
The castle is a little tight on space to sleep, as it only has 57 bedrooms. Oh, and there's no indoor plumbing. So enjoy.
At just under 800 years old, the castle has been under ownership from everyone between knights and royalty. Since 2009, the castle has been under the ownership of descendants of the royal Romanian Habsburg family, who have graciously opened it as a popular tourist destination.
Take a moving tour of the castle below:
Though there's no official real estate listing for the home quite yet, the castle was reportedly offered to the Romanian government for the $66M price and was graciously declined.
There are rumors that the owners are willing to drop down to $13.4M, as they are getting older and are in need of someone to takeover the upkeep and renovation of the castle.
We're just banking on winning the next Powerball and buying it off ourselves.
RELATED: Gorgeous castles you can rent around the world
Live the vampire lifestyle in Dracula's castle for a bloody $66M
More on AOL.com: 18 money-saving tips for experienced homebuyers 5 home upgrades that won't add enough value 5 questions first-time homebuyers forget to ask | If we were Romanian royalty with a sweet tooth for blood of the innocent, we'd definitely be choosing to live here--and now it's possible. | 15.566667 | 0.966667 | 18.5 | medium | high | extractive |
http://time.com/3960519/how-blood-tests-are-changing-medicine/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160719120115id_/http://time.com:80/3960519/how-blood-tests-are-changing-medicine/ | How Blood Tests Are Changing Medicine | 20160719120115 | Along with the hiss of a blood-pressure cuff and sticking out your tongue, the needle stick of a blood draw is a familiar part of a doctor visit. And for good reason: a vial of blood can give your physician a real-time look at how much cholesterol you have circulating in your blood vessels, for instance, or which vitamins and hormones you have in good or not-so-good supply. But now it turns out that that’s just a sliver of the volumes of medical information hidden in human blood. Researchers are discovering that each of us walks around with 1.5 gal. (5.7 L) of what may be the most sophisticated and revealing diagnostic available. Each drop teems with data, not just about your current state of health but also about what your future might hold.
The breadth of blood-detectable conditions is exploding thanks to the latest technologies. As doctors get better at understanding what goes wrong at the molecular level when we get sick, they can better pick out specific compounds in human plasma–the component that holds all the blood cells–that signal the first stages of trouble.
[The following text appears within a diagram. Please see your hard copy for actual diagram.]
The sex of your fetus
These are some of the many conditions and characteristics that may soon be detected with a simple blood test
“There’s a data set in blood that is 10 times–even 100 times–more interesting than that in the genome,” says Dr. Eugene Chan, CEO and founder of DNA Medicine Institute, a biomedical product-development company that is creating a one-drop-tells-all blood test that will scan for everything from Alzheimer’s to multiple sclerosis and cancer.
Chan’s work is part of an effort that is under way by scientists and entrepreneurs across the country to tap blood’s huge potential for indicating what illnesses may be lurking in the body. In the near future, Chan thinks, a blood test may be able to detect early breast cancer more reliably than a mammogram; it might even alert doctors to the first signs of Alzheimer’s, making it possible to intervene before toxic changes ravage the brain.
Success will mean a transformation in medicine as blood tests reveal things that have until now required invasive surgery or radiation imaging. Blood’s advantages are obvious: it’s easy to access, it’s inexpensive to test, and nearly every doctor’s office or clinic can draw a tube of it. It’s no surprise that the market for immediate-gratification diagnostic tests, including blood-based ones, could grow by nearly 10% each year, to reach an estimated $27.5 billion by 2018. Health care entrepreneurs are jumping on the bandwagon, developing commercial tests that promise–with limited proof so far–a tell-all diagnostic blood scan.
There are challenges to overcome before that payoff. The same qualities that make blood’s information so promising also make it challenging to exploit. It’s a case of almost too much information. Teasing out specific markers for illness–let alone interpreting them with any accuracy–is a tedious and, until recently, nearly impossible task.
But a growing database of the molecular fingerprints of diseases’ proteins, enzymes and other compounds is making it easier to sort the more significant data from less useful information. In June, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital announced that they had found a way to detect thousands of viruses–and every viral infection a person had–from a drop of blood in just seconds.
“It’s both the best fluid to work with and also one of the more complicated ones to study,” says Dr. Robert Siman, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Which means the big questions now are: How quickly can science unlock the secrets of our blood? And once that happens, what’s the best way to make use of everything those tests can tell us?
Cancer testing is providing some of the most enticing hope for decoding blood. As it stands, detecting cancerous tumors relies on rather crude methods–people are supposed to literally feel or look for lumps or lesions in the case of breast and skin cancers, for example. By the time the cancer is visible or detectable to the touch, the disease is often far along and harder to treat.
Scans, meanwhile, can pick up smaller growths, but they require regular follow-ups and aren’t completely reliable either. A spate of new studies about mammography found that women who undergo routine screening are not less likely to die of the disease than those who forgo the scans. And though the most common kind of prostate-cancer test already relies on a blood sample, this older technology measures levels of a protein that often rise when either tumors or benign growths take hold in the organ–so it is not sophisticated enough to pick out markers for aggressive cancers from the kind that don’t require treatment.
New blood tests, in contrast, would function more as a liquid biopsy. One approach is to home in on genetic fragments that are overactive in tumor cells and shed into the blood, and connect them to molecules of silver, similar to the way that images in a photograph are developed. Doctors would then be alerted to the presence of malignant cells. In the case of prostate cancer, only the genetic signatures associated with aggressive, need-to-treat tumors would be flagged.
Sounds simple, but in practice, it’s incredibly intricate. Cancer cells arise from normal cells that have developed mutations, so these aberrant snippets of tumor DNA aren’t easy to distinguish from normal genetic material. “You’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” says Dr. Max Diehn, a radiation oncologist at Stanford University who is mining blood for early signs of lung cancer.
These strategies also depend on knowing what you’re looking for. And that is where blood testing can benefit from an explosion of research that’s uncovering both gene- and protein-based markers linked to diseases that go beyond cancer.
At Stanford, researchers have narrowed down Alzheimer’s markers to a half-dozen blood proteins that signal a buildup of the disease’s hallmark amyloid plaques in the brain, while at the University of California, Los Angeles, Dr. Liana Apostolova is developing a similar test. “This blood test is less invasive than a lumbar puncture to study spinal fluid. And it doesn’t have radiation like PET scans, which are the only other ways to look for the disease,” she says.
There are currently no therapies to halt the gradual decline in cognitive functions from Alzheimer’s, but knowing that the disease has taken hold can help patients plan for when they will be more debilitated by the condition, Apostolova says. It’s also important to be ready with a reliable and sensitive blood test for when treatment breakthroughs do occur, since blood can be a useful way to monitor how well patients respond to those therapies.
Blood testing holds similar potential for people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an immune-triggered disorder that causes painful inflammation in the joints and can severely restrict movement. Traditional blood tests for inflammation–a hallmark characteristic of RA and other autoimmune diseases–aren’t especially helpful, since inflammatory markers can also be a sign that the patient has a cold or some other condition the immune system is fighting.
Scientists at Crescendo Bioscience, a San Francisco company developing a number of blood-based diagnostics for such diseases, have developed a test that looks at a dozen blood markers for RA and can rank patients’ inflammation as mild, moderate or severe. This is critical because treating early inflammation is key to preserving joints and preventing more serious damage, which can result in disability and a lifelong reliance on side-effect-heavy prescription drugs or multiple surgeries or both.
Brain Trauma is another promising area of research. Researchers foresee a day when an athletic coach could assess a player’s head injury in real time. Team doctors could draw blood to determine if it’s safe for the player to get back in the game. Experts are looking at total tau and SNTF, for example–two proteins that tend to spike in the hour or so after a concussion. Studies show that peak levels of total tau correlate with how many days the person experiences symptoms such as dizziness, nausea and memory problems. And SNTF may be a good barometer for serious structural damage to the brain. It was tested in a small number of head-injury patients at Houston hospitals in 2013. Compared with a healthy group of controls, the patients who had elevated SNTF had cognitive issues that persisted for months after the blow.
About 20% of patients with brain injuries experience continual deficits in thinking and other functions. If blood tests can help identify this minority, it could mean the difference between early treatment and serious problems that develop and worsen over time.
All of this begs the question: How much do you really want to know? This is something patients will soon confront as they are offered the option of knowing their future risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s or other conditions. For some it may be welcome information, while for others it may bring only uncertainty and anxiety.
Most researchers say the prospects for better care make the growth of blood testing both inevitable and worthwhile. It isn’t just the benefit to individual patients. If a blood test can help reveal whether a drug is working, for instance, it can lead to more effective care for everyone. “We can start to understand why some patients don’t respond to conventional treatments,” says Dr. Chad Mirkin, a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University who developed the so-called liquid biopsy that lights up when cancer cells are present.
There’s no question our blood has a lot to tell us about our health–we just have to get better at reading what it has to say. | New advances have scientists banking on the idea that the most revealing medical test might be a single drop of your own blood | 83.130435 | 0.782609 | 1.130435 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/18/money-saving-tips-for-thanksgiving-dinner/21268271/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160719175758id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2015/11/18/money-saving-tips-for-thanksgiving-dinner/21268271/ | Money saving tips for Thanksgiving dinner | 20160719175758 | Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
These tips to save money on
dinner are sure to keep your wallet full for Christmas shopping! We have the details on how to carve costs on Turkey Day.
And, while you're at it ... is someone else hosting Thanksgiving this year? Check out our
Money saving tips for Thanksgiving dinner
A simple sprig of Rosemary or Thyme and a ribbon will bring a rustic elegance to your table. Using the same herb in your floral centerpiece will really pull together your table.
Think outside the box for napkin placement. Layer your chargers and plates with napkins beneath for a fun and dynamic look. This works for a simple and elegant china set, or even mixing plates and patterns to jazz things up.
Incorporating natural elements like flowers on each place setting provides an elegance that your guests will cherish. Try adding some conversation starters to the stem as an option for a drama-free dinner.
These mini artichoke placecard holders are just too adorable. They bring greenery and a purpose all in one!
No one said Thanksgiving has to be formal and traditional. Use pinks, feathers and enjoy your own style, like these bohemian touches.
Change it up! Instead of a bread bowl, provide your guests with a baguette to start the meal, you can also use the wrapping as their name card. Check out the post on this DIY.
Simple herbs provide a lovely scent as well as decor. Tie the napkin and sage with nice piece of neutral twine or ribbon for an elegant addition. | These tips to save money on Thanksgiving dinner are sure to keep your wallet full for Christmas shopping! We have the details on how to carve cost | 10.964286 | 0.964286 | 14.321429 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/article/donald-trump-ghost-writer-art-deal-tony-schwartz-end-civilization | http://web.archive.org/web/20160719210348id_/http://www.people.com/article/donald-trump-ghost-writer-art-deal-tony-schwartz-end-civilization | Donald Trump's Co-Author Says He Wrote Candidate's Book, The Art of The Deal : People.com | 20160719210348 | 07/18/2016 AT 10:55 AM EDT
's co-author is speaking out about Trump's
(he says he wrote it entirely, which Trump denies) – and why a Trump administration would "end civilization."
During a Monday appearance on
, Tony Schwartz said he regrets writing the
best-seller for the now GOP candidate and called Trump, 70, an "insecure" man with a short attention span.
"I wrote every word of it," Schwartz said of the memoir and business advice book. "Donald Trump made a few red marks when I handed him the manuscript but that was it ... I do regret writing the book."
that he kept silent about his personal feelings about Trump for so long because he and the businessman "had a successful experience together."
"I never in a million years thought he would run for president," Schwartz said. "Had I thought that 30 years ago, I wouldn't have written the book. But for 29 years I didn't think he would and it didn't seem like it was important to speak out. I now feel it's my civic duty. I have nothing to gain from this."
Thos Robinson / Getty Images
Schwartz added that he has donated all royalties he's earned from the book since
for the presidency to non-profit organizations.
"It's a terrifying thing," he said of Trump's presidential run. "I haven't slept a night through since Donald Trump announced for president because I believe he is so insecure. So easily provoked and not particularly, nearly as smart as people might imagine he is."
He added: "I do worry that with the nuclear codes he would end civilization as we know it."
Schwartz recently spoke out about his part in the book in an article published by
. Although he boasts a joint byline on the successful memoir, Schwartz now holds that he wrote it all – but this isn't the first time Schwartz has tried to tell his story.
"I wrote the Art of the Deal. Donald Trump read it," Schwartz
last September, a few months after Trump announced his run for the presidency.
that he spent 18 months with Trump in 1985 to write the book. It was then, he said, that he learned of Trump's "short attention span" – one trait, Schwartz said, makes Trump incapable of being a good president.
"He was unable to do interviews with me past 10 or 15 minutes. Finally, I had to sit in his office and pick up a phone eight feet away from his desk to listen in on his calls so I could turn this into a book," Schwartz told
"The idea that we'd have somebody with a tiny attention span – my 2-year-old grandson has a longer attention span than Donald Trump – is itself terrifying."
Trump responded to Schwartz's comments, telling
: "He didn't write the book. I wrote the book. I wrote the book. It was my book." | Tony Schwartz said the thought of a Donald Trump administration is a "terrifying thing" | 37.6875 | 1 | 1.625 | high | high | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/17/europe-google-antitrust/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160720164649id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/17/europe-google-antitrust/ | What Google Can Learn From Microsoft’s Antitrust Problems | 20160720164649 | Nicholas Economides is a professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business.
The European Commission’s antitrust lawsuits against Google, which has recently made headlines, threaten to impose an up to $7 billion fine on the tech giant for forcing Android phone manufacturers (OEMs) to use Google Search, among other alleged violations. This comes on top of the EC’s suit against Google for favoring its affiliates in Internet search, and the EC suit on Google’s dominance and exclusive dealing in online advertising. On Android, Google does not allow Android OEMs, such as Samsung, to install “Google Play” unless they also install “Google Search” as the default application for search.
You might ask what’s wrong with Google goog bundling its applications? And after all, McDonalds mcd sells bundles (“meals”) of a big Mac with fries and Coke. The big difference is that McDonalds allows you to buy all parts of the bundle separately. It does not force you to buy the Big Mac if you buy fries (assuming that fries is the best part of the “meal”). Because the parts of the McDonald’s bundle are available a-la-carte, no law is broken when they are also sold as a bundle.
Google’s type of bundling, called “tying” in the law, is exactly what got Microsoft in deep trouble starting in 1998 when the company was bundling Internet Explorer with Windows and later its Media Player with Windows. The United States sued Microsoft and won in 2001, precipitating billions of losses in class action suits against Microsoft msft . The EU sued Microsoft twice, won both times, and imposed fines totaling $3.4 billion. It even forced Microsoft to create a special version of Windows for European consumers without Windows Media Player!
“Tying” deprives consumers of choice in their search provider. It also harms innovation since other search companies are deprived of their chance to reach this market. “Tying” of Google Play with Google Search is illegal under antitrust law in the US, EU, Japan, Korea, Brazil, and many other jurisdictions.
Google Play is an extremely desirable, almost indispensable, application for phone manufacturers because it facilitates downloading and updating Android applications. So OEMs are in a bind. They have to have Google Play, but they are forced to install Google Search as default. Additionally, Google demands uniformity. That is, if Samsung installs Google Play in one line of phones, Google requires it to install Google Search in all its phones!
It’s been widely reported that Google refuses to discontinue tying and will not settle the cases. This strategy may look good from Mountain View, as it did from Redmond over a decade ago. To some extent, it is a result of the arrogance of being a top technology company.
Additionally, technology leaders, especially those that started small like Microsoft and Google, tend to think that whatever they did when they were small, they can keep doing now that they are giants. This is a huge strategic error. Giants have special obligations under the law not to use their market power to crush rivals. It took Microsoft over a decade to learn that.
Microsoft switched, from paying no attention to antitrust problems before it was sued, to obsessing over antitrust a few years after it was sued. Microsoft lost its focus and missed emerging threats to it, such as from a startup called Google.
Another significant antitrust suit filed by the EU against Google is for tweaking its algorithm to place its affiliates on top in search pages, even though they are not the most popular. If you search for “New Orleans New York” in Google, you get a result from “Google flights,” a Google affiliate, at the top of the page and not from Orbitz, Expedia or Kayak. If you make the same search in Bing or Yahoo, you get Orbitz, Expedia or Kayak on top.
Last Thursday, the EU added another suit against Google for exclusive dealing with large websites that were coerced into using Google for advertising on their sites rather than competitors. In total, the EU has three antitrust suits against Google: on Android tying, on comparison shopping and on advertising.
The longer the EU’s cases against Google last, the more the damage to Google. Can Google learn from Microsoft’s experience, settle quickly, and, as an adult giant, avoid squashing its rivals?
If Google does not learn the lessons of adulthood, it will make it more likely that it will be overtaken faster by the next Google (or should I say Facebook?). And Facebook has not promised “to do no evil” … But of course, even for Google, theory and practice can diverge. | The European Commission is not playing. | 131.285714 | 0.857143 | 1.714286 | high | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/17/startups-employee-benefits-business/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160720181005id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/17/startups-employee-benefits-business/ | The Employee Benefits That Will Help Startups | 20160720181005 | The Entrepreneur Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question “How important are employee perks when first launching your startup?” is written by Stav Vaisman, co-founder and CEO of OurPlan.
Perks certainly represent a heralded role in startups, but they aren’t the key to attracting and retaining talent.
Therefore, while perks appear to be particularly attractive to employees who place a high value on the workplace environment, their value to the firm is difficult to measure.
Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind when considering the importance of perks at your startup:
Perks are supplemental, not fundamental Startup employees must be intrinsically motivated. They will be asked to work long, hard hours for an enterprise whose future is uncertain. Prospective employees who take a job with you because of the perks are less likely to have that fire. You want employees who respond to the challenge that is inherent to a startup because of their innate desire to perform and succeed. If your perks are a major reason for a potential recruit signing on, you’re emphasizing the wrong qualities of your firm. Perks should always be presented as a supplemental—not a fundamental—attribute of the startup to new and existing employees.
See also: The One Thing That Matters More Than Perks to Attract the Best Talent
Not all perks are created equal Just because a perk might be something an employee enjoys doesn’t mean the perk actually provides value to the employee. Perks should directly improve the employee’s quality of work life. Games to play during work might be fun, but do these frivolous types of perks really provide the mental and physical relief necessary for startup employees to avoid burnout?
Provide perks that actually deliver measurable benefits to employees, and therefore, the firm. Simple perks like allowing employees to bring their pets to work, dress casually, and work outside will add value to their work experience and still be cost-efficient for you.
Let the people decide Your people know best what they want. The perks you offer should respond directly to the expressed desires of the team. Ask everyone about their workplace and quality of life needs. Certainly, you’ll need to design perks that respond to their desires in ways that are practical and cost-efficient. But the nature of the perk should be driven by explicit requests from employees.
I’m certain that no one actually came to work for my company because of the perks. Startups sustain themselves based on keeping employees motivated by the company’s potential, their future stake, and personal pride. Perks are icing on the cake, but they cannot nourish the individual or the firm. | Or at least start offering different ones | 76.571429 | 0.285714 | 0.285714 | high | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/1600/muting-marijuanas-high-pot-without-the-impairment/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160720193229id_/http://time.com:80/1600/muting-marijuanas-high-pot-without-the-impairment/ | Muting Marijuana's High: Pot Without the Impairment | 20160720193229 | As legal sales of marijuana begin in Colorado, researchers have discovered a natural hormone that can block the drug’s high.
The hormone, known as pregnenolone, is already sold over the counter as an anti-aging supplement, since it is a precursor to steroid hormones like estrogen and testosterone, which decline with age. The new research suggests it could treat people with marijuana use disorders — as well as alleviate symptoms related to accidental or over-doses of the drug.
In the study, which was published in Science, the researchers found that pregnenolone is part of a feedback loop that regulates the the brain’s cannabinoid receptors, which bind to marijuana’s main active ingredient, THC. Mice given high doses of THC produced more pregnenolone, and this ultimately blunted the response of the cannabinoid receptors, preventing them from producing a high. Because pregnenolone affects cannabinoid receptors indirectly, it did not block all of the effects of THC. But it may inhibit all of the known effects associated with misuse of the drug— like memory problems and craving for more.
“The parts that are shut down are the ones that mediate many of the effects of cannabis that you may want to get rid of,” says Pier Vincenzo Piazza, one of the study’s authors and lab director of the Magendie Neurocenter at France’s INSERM research institute, “One is memory loss, another is [reduced] motivation and the third is seeking for the drug.”
The researchers tested whether pregnenolone levels rise with use of other drugs—but while they do increase slightly, the rise is nothing compared to the change seen with marijuana, so they think the effect is probably specific to THC. They also wondered whether pregnenolone contributed to the tolerance— or the need for more drug to get the same effect— linked to THC, but the doses of THC needed to make pregnenolone rise naturally were far higher than those that marijuana smokers typically ingest.
“It’s an intriguing study and the data look very convincing,” says Daniele Piomelli, professor of anatomy, neurobiology, pharmacology and biological chemistry at the University of California in Irvine, who was not associated with the research.
MORE: Marijuana Compound Treats Schizophrenia with Few Side Effects: Clinical Trial
While the findings might also suggest a way to maximize the benefits of marijuana for medicinal purposes, the researchers say that because pregnenolone also blocks THC’s pain relieving activities and food cravings, it’s not likely to be useful for medical marijuana patients with cancer or other conditions in which the drug might be used to alleviate pain or increase appetite. However, it might help those who use marijuana to benefit from its other active ingredient, cannabidiol (CBD), which has anti-seizure and anti-psychotic properties. By blocking the THC high, it could potentially allow these patients to use natural marijuana without entering states of of altered consciousness.
The agent might also be useful in treating users who become anxious or paranoid from THC. “This drug could be used as treatment of a cannabis ‘bad trip,’” says Piazza, “Some people, even without [taking a high dose] have very bad effects and find themselves in the ER with very strong paranoia and anxiety. This compound could help get rid of this.”
Pregnenolone does not actually prevent THC or the brain’s own cannabinoids from reaching their receptors by physically blocking them— instead it changes the way the receptors react. This is a new mechanism that might also make it useful for people with marijuana addiction.
Drugs that currently completely block receptors often have distressing side effects because they prevent both marijuana and the body’s natural neurotransmitters from acting, meaning that they can eliminate everyday pleasures, as well as those from drugs. For example, a drug that blocks cannabinoid receptors called rimonabant, which was briefly sold in Europe as a diet pill, turned out to cause depression, anxiety and other psychiatric side effects and had be withdrawn from the market.
When Piazza and his colleagues compared pregnenolone to rimonabant in mice, they found that while rimonabant increased anxiety, pregnenolone did not, suggesting that it might be useful in preventing unwanted effects of THC, but not the desirable effects of the natural neurotransmitters. That might help cut craving for marijuana while preserving other pleasures and motivations.
MORE: Viewpoint: How Marijuana Decision May Signal End of Drug War
While marijuana is less addictive than drugs like alcohol, cocaine and heroin, it is the world’s most popular illegal drug— so the roughly 8% of users who do develop problems with compulsive use are a tempting market for drug developers. As a natural hormone, pregnenolone is de-activated by the gut as well as rapidly transformed into chemicals like estrogen and testosterone when it does get to the brain, so it would probably need to be injected, not taken orally, in order to be effective against THC.
Piazza and his colleagues have formed a company, Aelis Farma, in order to develop an oral version of the compound that would not be metabolized into steroid hormones. Like rimonabant, it might also have potential uses for metabolic disorders like diabetes.
He is also aware that if he’s successful, there might be more controversial uses for his drug, such as neutralizing marijuana’s effects in order to get behind the wheel of a car after a hit. Such DIY uses may not be as reliable, he says, since the drug may not work completely in suppressing marijuana’s cognitive impairment if people don’t wait long enough for the treatment to take effect.
Still, such a rapid “buzzkill” could be incredibly useful. And while it’s a long way from mice to men, pregnenolone suggests the idea of marijuana without the high is not just a pipe dream. | As legal sales of marijuana begin in Colorado, researchers have discovered a natural hormone that can block the drug’s high. The hormone, known as pregnenolone,… | 35.483871 | 0.967742 | 18.645161 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2016/05/16/juice-invasion-starts-chestnut-hill/PRmgMypECi8LGuc3pkqaWI/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160720221952id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/lifestyle/food-dining/2016/05/16/juice-invasion-starts-chestnut-hill/PRmgMypECi8LGuc3pkqaWI/story.html | A juice invasion starts in Chestnut Hill | 20160720221952 | Deep purple, luscious, and cold, crowned with granola chunks and toasted coconut flakes, the acai blueberry bowl from Juice Press in Chestnut Hill is most delicious with sweetness and crunch. The popular New York-based chain recently opened a sleek and airy store at The Street, with two more planned for Back Bay and the Seaport District. It’s not just a place for juices and smoothies. There’s a menu of breakfast choices, soups, salads, and raw desserts. Everything is organic, vegan, kosher, and non-GMO. An expansive cooler brims with 60 choices of brightly colored cold-pressed juices (11 and 16 ounces for $6 to $11), some with zany names like Love at First Sight (apple, kale, spinach, lemon) and Pink Punk (pineapple, strawberry, ginger, beet), and waters infused with cinnamon, ginger, or rose ($2.75 for 16 ounces). You hear the hum of blenders whipping up rich smoothies: Almond Butter Cup ($9 for 16 ounces) has house-made almond milk, banana, raw almond butter, cacao powder, and more; Fountain of Youth includes coconut water, berries, banana, and hemp protein ($10 for 16 ounces). Proceeds from the fuchsia-colored Commonhealth Avenue smoothie, tart from raspberries, benefits One Fund Boston. Grab a meal to go, or sit on a stool in the 35-seat cafe at the long wooden table. The shop is “the talk of the campus,” says Boston College freshman Julie Murphy, 19, who came after a hot yoga class to refuel with a Hawaiian Healer, a blend of coconut water, banana, pineapple, ginger pulp, agave nectar, mint, and cinnamon. “It makes you feel so good,” she says. Juice Press, 33 Boylston St., The Street, Chestnut Hill, www.juicepress.com ANN TRIEGER KURLAND | Welcome to Juice Press, where everything is organic, vegan, kosher and non-GMO | 21.588235 | 0.882353 | 4.411765 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://time.com/79572/more-innocent-people-on-death-row-than-estimated-study/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160721011626id_/http://time.com:80/79572/more-innocent-people-on-death-row-than-estimated-study/ | US Death Penalty Wrongful Convictions Executions | 20160721011626 | The United States may be putting more innocent people to death than previously thought. According to a sweeping new statistical analysis made public today, the rate of wrongful death sentences in the U.S. is probably much higher than experts have estimated.
Authors of the study say that their “conservative estimate of the proportion of erroneous convictions” is 4.1 percent, or approximately twice the number actually exonerated and set free from death row. This could mean that approximately 120 of the roughly 3,000 inmates on death row in America might not be guilty, while additional scores of wrongfully convicted inmates are serving life in prison after their death sentences were reduced over technical legal errors.
“False convictions … are extremely difficult to detect after the fact,” law professors Samuel R. Gross of the University of Michigan and Barbara O’Brien of Michigan State write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious peer-reviewed journal. “As a result, the great majority of innocent defendants remain undetected. The rate of such errors is often described as a ‘dark figure’.”
But by applying statistical models derived from the study of medicine and mortality, the authors assert that “it possible to use data on death row exonerations to estimate the overall rate of false conviction among death sentences.” Two experts in biostatistics, Chen Hu of the American College of Radiology and Edward H. Kennedy of the University of Pennsylvania, crunched the data with that goal in mind.
“This study provides the first rigorous estimate of the rate of conviction of innocent criminal defendants in any context,” said Bruce Levin, a Columbia University professor who is a leading authority on statistics and the law. It could add fuel to the slowly rising misgivings of Americans about the practice and flaws of capital punishment in the U.S. A recent Pew Research survey found that 37% of U.S. adults oppose the death penalty for convicted murderers — up from 31% in 2011 and 18% in 1996. Since 2007, six states have abolished the ultimate sanction, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, though a recent attempt to repeal it in New Hampshire failed after the state legislature deadlocked.
To calculate the rate of wrongful convictions, the new study applied an analytical framework from the world of medical statistics to a set of data comprising all prisoners sentenced to death between 1976 and 2004. Strap on your thinking caps, because this gets a bit topsy-turvy for us non-statisticians.
“Survival analysis” is the mechanism that Gross and his colleagues employed. In a medical context, this is a method for estimating the likelihood that patients who contract a certain disease or injury will survive. Variables like the treatment method or the amount of time lost before treatment can be fed into the analysis to squeeze more information from the data.
An analyst who wants to know how likely a man with Lyme disease is to die of the infection arranges the variables to isolate the number of fatal cases. Gross and company turned the analysis on its head: the fatal event they were looking for was not death, but exoneration. Their overall population was the number of prisoners originally “infected,” if you will, with death sentences, and the slice they were trying to find was the number of patients likely to pass away into freedom.
It gets trickier. The likelihood of an innocent prisoner being exonerated depends very much on whether the government is actively trying to kill him. As the authors of the study observed: “Death sentences represent less than one-tenth of 1% of prison sentences in the United States, but they accounted for about 12% of known exonerations of innocent defendants.” This “extraordinary exoneration rate” for prisoners facing execution—more than 130-to-1 compared to the background population of prisoners—is evidence of the reality that “far more attention and resources are devoted to death penalty cases than to other criminal prosecutions, before and after conviction.”
But a large proportion (more than one-third) of death row inmates have their sentences reduced at some point to life in prison. And when that happens, typically the “attention and resources” dry up as lawyers and investigators shift their focus to other prisoners on death row. Something similar happens in the cases of prisoners who die by suicide or natural cases while waiting on death row. The authors believe that the true rate of wrongful capital convictions must include those prisoners who leave the intense scrutiny of the capital appeals process before their potential innocence is revealed.
To model that, Gross and his associates dial up the so-called “Kaplan-Meier estimator,” at which point the math gets chewier. I can say from my experience covering capital punishment in the U.S. that the authors bring a deep understanding of the labyrinthine system to their model. But I can also say that scholars have been using sophisticated statistical modeling to analyze this topic for at least half a century, and for every conclusion there are sure to be detractors with their own set of numbers.
Each quest for mathematical clarity only serves to underline the troubling paradox at the heart of the modern death penalty. We want the option of execution (every poll confirms this, even as the percentages in favor of capital punishment appear to be trending downward). But we also want certainty. Countless hours and mountains of money have been spent trying to perfect the process, and they have given us only the confusion and waste of the seemingly endless appeals process.
At some point, we will realize that, when it comes to capital punishment, the most important thing to know is how much we can never know for certain.
Von Drehle, editor-at-large for TIME, is the author of Among the Lowest of the Dead: The Culture of Capital Punishment. | New numbers shine light on capital punishment | 158.285714 | 0.714286 | 1 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/reviews/11174265/Garmin-vivosmart-review-just-smart-enough.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160721015907id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/technology/reviews/11174265/Garmin-vivosmart-review-just-smart-enough.html | Garmin vívosmart review: 'just smart enough' | 20160721015907 | That’s important, because when you have to take these things on and off regularly, you soon start forgetting to wear them.
Connect it to the Garmin smartphone app – which is the same one you already use if you have one of the Garmin GPS running watches or the vívofit – and you will see how many steps you walk each day and how long you sleep each night. In the app you can set personalised daily goals and look back at previous days.
All this is fairly standard for fitness trackers, but it goes one further.
It also has a smattering of smartwatch features, pared down to fit the small screen. The OLED display is subtle, but readable. Two lines of white text peer out from beneath the smooth bracelet.
When you receive a text message, email, Facebook comment, Twitter mention or anything else that prompts a notification on your smartphone, you’ll see it appear on your bracelet. If that is a text message, you’ll be able to scroll through it by tapping the touch-sensitive screen.
You can’t reply to any of these messages, but it keeps you abreast of what’s going on – you know if that buzz in your pocket needs to be answered now, or can be ignored. These genuinely useful “smart features” give you another reason to wear it, better justifying a space on your wrist than a single-purpose fitness tracker.
The “move bar” from the previous version is still there, nudging you to go for a short walk if you sit still at your desk too long – it does a good job of keeping you active, but you won’t always thank it for it.
And data from the motion sensor is interpreted well by clever software: as you can see in this quick video I shot at my desk, the vívosmart is pretty clever at ignoring random movements and not counting steps when you're shampooing your hair, scribbling with a biro or using a mouse.
As we’ve reported before, this does confuse some fitness trackers, leading to wildly inaccurate readings. Garmin seem to have this covered.
All of that comes in a well-formed product. It’s comfortable to wear and unobtrusive. The clasp is the same as the vívofit, which some users complained came undone with vigorous activity, prompting Garmin to offer free loops of rubber which held it shut. You get the same fix, to the same built-in problem, with the vívosmart – it seems ungainly at first, but it actually works well. You may find that you don’t even need to use it.
With this latest product Garmin have hit a sweet spot of wearable technology: cheap enough to wear anywhere, accurate enough to track your movement, a practical battery life and just enough features to make it useful, but not overly-technical. | Useful "smart features" give another reason to wear the vívosmart, aside from simply counting steps, better justifying a space on your wrist than a single-purpose tracker | 16.294118 | 0.794118 | 3.5 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-to-buy-u-s-cloud-services-firm-1466046014 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160721021125id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/samsung-to-buy-u-s-cloud-services-firm-1466046014? | Samsung to Buy U.S. Cloud Services Firm | 20160721021125 | SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday that it would buy U.S. cloud services company Joyent Inc. for an undisclosed sum, underscoring its willingness to snap up outside companies as it beefs up the software and services around its core mobile-phone business.
Samsung’s acquisition of San Francisco-based Joyent signals the South Korean technology giant’s burgeoning interest in “big data,” part of a broader effort to use powerful... | Samsung Electronics said it would buy U.S. cloud services company Joyent for an undisclosed sum, underscoring its willingness to snap up outside companies as it beefs up the software and services around its core mobile-phone business. | 2 | 1 | 22.75 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.tmz.com/person/will-i-am/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160721054920id_/http://www.tmz.com:80/person/will-i-am/ | Will.i.am News, Pictures, and Videos | 20160721054920 | William James Adams (born March 15, 1975), professionally known by his stage name will.i.am, is an American rapper, musician, songwriter, singer, entrepreneur, actor, DJ and producer. He came to prominence in the late 1990s as a member of the hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas. will.i.am has also released four solo albums. The first, Lost Change was released in 2001 on Atlantic Records. The album itself is the original soundtrack to the movie of the same name. A music video was made for the song, "I Am", however, no singles were released from the album. The second solo album Must B 21, was released on September 23, 2003. Track seventeen on the release, "Go!", was regularly used as the theme for the NBA Live 2005 and Madden NFL 2005 seasons. A video for the track was also recorded for use within the sports, however, no singles were released from the album. The third album, Songs About Girls', was released on September 25, 2007. The first single released from the album was a club track titled "I Got It from My Mama" which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at #31 on the 17th of August 2007. The album also featured singles "Heartbreaker" and "One More Chance". will.i.am is also a music | Will.i.am on TMZ, your go-to source for celebrity news, photos, & videos. Latest Story: Will.i.am, Snoop Dogg -- The Time Is Right ... We're Bringing Back 'The Love' | 6.692308 | 0.410256 | 0.461538 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/worldwide-trends/how-create-perfect-japanese-garden/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160721132914id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/gardening/worldwide-trends/how-create-perfect-japanese-garden/ | Tips to help you create a Japanese garden | 20160721132914 | At its heart, the perfect Japanese garden is all about using form and structure to create a serene environment. And restraint, of course, so it can be a bit of a challenge for the herbaceous border-loving British gardener
That includes me, because I love playing around with colour and planting combinations. But it’s about thinking in another way - and that can be incredibly satisfying.
You don’t have to be an expert. Even beginners can have a go. The key is not to try to replicate what you see on the internet because, unless you spend time studying and visiting a lot of temples in Japan, you won’t be able to. Try to draw inspiration from the style of gardening instead, and play with the methods and techniques. In my own work, rather than creating like for like, I try to use some of the theories that are behind Japanese gardening.
Restraint - there it is again - is key, especially when it comes to colour and planting schemes. In a recent design, we worked with a number of plants and trees that only have one show a year. So in spring, a beautiful flowering magnolia. Then nothing, except some bold evergreen hedging. In early summer a flash of blue from the first irises. Then nothing again until autumn, when the eyes are drawn to the liquid amber of the season’s changing leaves.
Trees are often the focus of Japanese gardens. Acers are fairly typical and will ring Japanese bells with many people, but I recommend pines too. Then it’s all about keeping it simple. Planting a single Scots pine, or Pinus sylvestris, for example, in a terrace or gravel courtyard will bring out the beauty of the tree - the texture of the trunk and structure of the branches. Or, if you have a bigger plot, you can repeat a particular tree throughout the space, keeping the Japanese style if not the exact execution.
In my own work, rather than creating like for like, I try to use some of the theories that are behind Japanese gardeningMatt Keightley
I would suggest accessorising the garden with pots. Containers instantly add height and can be really effective, especially in smaller gardens, courtyards and London plots. In terms of colour and finish I like to be quite bold, especially if your hard landscaping is the typically muted Japanese style.
Dark red pots and garden furniture work well. Or if you want to go for a more classic look, choose containers with a rough render finish and furniture made out of composite material. You can get really beautiful composite tables and benches now. We’ve used ones with cedar battens on the underside for a warmer look and feel.
Moving water within a Japanese space needs to be very slow with minimal turbulence so the noise is low, almost seductive. Still sheets of water create wonderful reflections, which are, of course, another feature of Japanese gardens.
In fact, one of the best ways to show off a tree that’s architectural in structure is to reflect it in water. And then, on a grander scale, if you have an estate, you can work with reflections in a lake. But, although it is lovely to have that kind of work, not many of us are lucky enough to own that sort of space.
One of the most famous – and extreme – Japanese gardens is the Ryoan-ji stone temple garden in Kyoto in northwest Japan. But if you can’t get there, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, designed by Charles Jencks just over the border in Dumfries, is another really good one to visit. The design was inspired by Japanese theories. And I love the way that rather than masses of planting, it relies on all sorts of wonderful land forming and ground shaping and the beautiful bright red, Japanese-style bridges. I just find it really interesting.
It’s surprising just how interesting it is to design a Japanese garden and to create a space that requires a huge amount of patience to be properly enjoyed. I have been taken aback by how much pleasure it has given me. It’s a different way of thinking about things and those are the kinds of challenges that keep you motivated. You should give it a go.
Acers (pictured above) Distinctive foliage - also known as the Japanese Maple - variety of colours to create a striking look. Prices from £4 to £58 (12 in range). Limited availability in some stores.
Bamboo (pictured above) A giant woody grass for year round oriental charm. Prices from £20 to £42 (9 in range). Limited availability in some stores.
Rowlinson Oriental wooden Pagoda (pictured above) Bring a touch of the far east to your garden and create a stunning focal point. Available for Home delivery from diy.com, not Click and Collect or stocked in store.
Find more great ideas at diy.com/great-outdoors | Matt Keightley and Chloe Bryan-Brown give us the inside track on how to create a little piece of Japan in your back garden | 38.12 | 0.64 | 0.88 | high | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/19/twitter-allows-verified-applications/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160721162844id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/19/twitter-allows-verified-applications/ | Twitter Unveils 'Verified' Application Process For Its Users | 20160721162844 | Move over Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.
There’s more to being famous on Twitter than actually being famous now that the social media site is allowing users to apply for “verified” status.
Verified Twitter accounts are profiles Twitter administrators deem “accounts of public interest,” – typically related to music, news, entertainment, or business – the most popular conversation starters and trendsetters on the site who usually have many followers.
The company opened up its verified application process in the U.S. today. It will rollout worldwide next week.
Previously, users had no say in whether or not Twitter’s employee administrators “verified” their accounts, signified with a blue, highlighted checkmark next to users’ names letting others know the account is indeed the official account of the user indicated rather than a copy-cat or fan user profile.
Now Twitter users can apply for verification, giving them more power than ever.
“We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification,” Twitter User Services VP Tina Bhatnagar said in a press release Tuesday. “We hope opening up this application process results in more people finding great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for these creators and influencers to connect with a broader audience.”
Becoming verified on Twitter became a right of passage and internet fame after the process was introduced in 2009. Today there are more than 187,000 verified Twitter accounts, according to the company. | Watch out Kim and Kanye, we're coming for you. | 24.5 | 0.416667 | 0.416667 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/fashion/my-trainer-my-coxswain.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160722021853id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2013/09/08/fashion/my-trainer-my-coxswain.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1378568088-YQNQjm4xEo+M8fs2cA9yng& | Rowing Revives in the Gym | 20160722021853 | Like many group fitness workouts, at first this one sounds like a ridiculous idea: Take what is by far the least popular cardio machine in the gym — one that involves sitting down, endlessly sliding back and forth — and devote an entire class to it.
Yes, the dusty old rowing machine has been plucked from the far corner, emerging in group workouts and boutique studios across the nation, and drawing a crowd of fierce loyalists, many of whom never have and never will pick up an oar.
Ericka Sullivan, a fan of barre-method toning classes, resisted her advertising-executive husband’s pitch for a year that they try a class at the 18-month-old GoRow Training Studio in Hoboken, N.J.
“There’s just nothing enticing about being bored, and rowing sounded kind of boring,” said Ms. Sullivan, 35, who gave in as bathing-suit season neared. “But the intervals go by so fast.” Her fears of “huge rower shoulders” also haven’t materialized: “I’m longer and leaner,” she said.
At the fast-growing Greenville Indoor Rowing in Greenville, S.C., run by Lowell Caylor, 72, a former Cleveland Browns defensive back, a membership of mostly women older than 45 has embraced rowing. They have logged 137 million meters (that’s around the globe about 3.5 times), topping the rankings among health clubs for the rowing-machine maker Concept 2 for the fourth year in a row, Mr. Caylor said. “All these people come in who don’t think they have an athletic, competitive bone in their body really do,” said Mr. Caylor, who makes mimosas for each million-meter milestone.
His “crew,” as he calls his clients, includes former runners who’ve destroyed ankles and knees and like that rowing is hard-core but non-weight-bearing. Because it uses nearly every muscle group, rowing at 5 miles an hour offers the same calorie burn as running at 6.7 m.p.h., said Michele Olson, 52, an Auburn University professor of exercise science. Yes, she said, it burns more calories than spinning.
Still, rowing on the erg, as the machine is called, can be a hard sell. Music doesn’t help or distract much, since it’s impossible to row to the beat. And, unlike with other cardio machines, the rower isn’t intuitive. Proper technique has to be taught, but many trainers don’t know it.
Charles Anderson, 30, a former Georgia Tech rower who opened Rowbot Fitness in suburban Atlanta in 2012, plays Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It” to jokingly remind clients of form. “Most people think of rowing as an arms exercise, and they think of it as pulling,” he said. “But it’s primarily a pushing workout. You’re pushing with your legs.”
Why the surge in popularity? Thank CrossFit — and nearly everybody selling indoor rowing does. That craze’s high-intensity strength and conditioning workouts sometimes require ergs, and CrossFit offers rowing certification for instructors. Some CrossFit boxes, as the gyms are called, offer temporary homes for group indoor rowing start-ups as they already have the machines and the space. Indoorance, a tiny row-centric studio, holds a weekly class at Reebok CrossFit in Midtown.
Indoor rowers also appear on “The Biggest Loser,” though the competitors’ form makes some crew coaches cringe.
Terry Smythe, 56, a longtime rower who travels the country certifying group indoor rowing instructors, said her business has more than doubled in the last three years.
Shockwave and Indo-Row, workouts created in part by the former world champion rower Josh Crosby, 39, have spread to some 200 fitness centers, including at the Mayo Clinic, Harvard and the Equinox chain. And on a steamy recent Tuesday at the West Side Y.M.C.A. in Manhattan, Michael Ives, 55, a former Yale rower (toting the gold medal he and his team had recently won at the Henley Masters Regatta in England) had to turn away some 10 hopefuls from one of his evening classes.
“I don’t think it’s a case of misery loves company,” Mr. Ives said. “It feels good, and it sounds good,” he added, referring to the rhythmic, almost meditative, whooshing of all of the ergs moving in unison. His class — pioneered by his younger brother Chris, widely credited with being the first to offer indoor group rowing, in 1995 — is a polished version of what crew teams might do off-season. There is no music, only the sound of Mr. Ives’s preternaturally calm voice offering pacing instructions.
There’s also a wave of new rowing workouts hitting New York. Brooklyn Crew, the city’s first dedicated indoor-rowing studio, had its debut in Williamsburg in April, with 45-minute classes taught by former crew coaches. The Upper East Side fitness playground Exceed began a 50-minute Just Row class this summer in its East Hampton, N.Y., outpost and will add two rowing classes to its Manhattan roster this month.
And in June, using a temporary space in Chelsea, two finance guys (and CrossFitters) who call themselves Throwback Fitness, began offering competitive, nostalgia-inspired classes to an under-35 crowd. One row-centric workout was modeled on the flip-cup drinking game, but instead of chugging beer, slowpokes did extra 100-meter sprints. (Fun, eh?) Brian Gallagher, 33, one of Throwback’s founders, said: “A lot of people can get intimidated by CrossFit. It can be tough to master. So we’re trying to go back to basics.”
More competitors in New York’s indoor regatta are on their way. CityRow, whose three workouts will alternate rowing intervals with body sculpturing, yoga or Pilates, will open near Union Square in October. And GoRow’s owner, Garrett Roberts, 38, a former college crew coach who’s on instant-nickname terms with clients, said that he is looking to open a branch of that studio on the West Side of Manhattan.
Juliana Garofalo, 28, an English teacher, is hooked on Brooklyn Crew after losing 10 pounds in a month of four-times-a-week classes. “For years, I couldn’t find the right thing that I could do consistently that was going to give me the results I wanted,” said Ms. Garofalo, who had tried spinning, yoga and Jillian Michaels DVDs.
Her recent (lack of) exercise history includes joining a gym two blocks from her home that she went to once in eight months, so she feared the six blocks to Brooklyn Crew “would be pushing it.”
On a Sunday in July, she left a wedding weekend in North Carolina at 6 a.m. to drive back to Williamsburg for a 5:30 p.m. class she was determined to make.
A version of this article appears in print on September 8, 2013, on page ST8 of the New York edition with the headline: My Trainer, My Coxswain. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | The rowing machine, plucked from the recesses of the gym, is suddenly a crowd favorite, even to those who have never picked up an oar. | 47.62069 | 0.793103 | 1.689655 | high | medium | mixed |
http://time.com/4415598/republican-father-lgbt-rights/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160722035155id_/http://time.com:80/4415598/republican-father-lgbt-rights/ | I Left the GOP for My Daughter's Sake | 20160722035155 | Throughout most of my adult life, I’ve been a Republican. I consider myself to be an honest American who believes in family, honor, hard work and the country I love. I volunteered to serve my country not long after the Vietnam War, a time when many young people were not ready to do so.
Family is everything to me. I’m blessed to be married to a wonderful woman and, together, we share the joy of two children. Our son, Jonas, is a compassionate young man just starting college. Our daughter, Nicole, is a strong, smart and beautiful young woman who just started college as well. She is also transgender. Transgender children and adults are the strongest and most courageous people I have ever met. But I worry about my daughter’s future every day. I worry because, to this day, transgender people are denied the same rights as their peers. I worry because transgender people face significant fear and discrimination. And I worry because—despite the fact that transgender Americans also believe in family, honor, hard work and the country I love—some Republican politicians have decided that it’s good politics to target a vulnerable group of people that includes my daughter.
This struggle was on my mind when I saw that this week that the Republican Convention delegates adopted the most anti-LGBTQ platform in the party’s history. For the first time, they included a plank endorsing discrimination against people like my daughter. After years of Republican politicians mocking the dignity and humanity of transgender people, I have had enough. Four months ago, I left the Republican Party and registered as a Democrat for first time. I stood in line for hours with my 18-year-old transgender daughter as she registered, too.
This has not been a popular decision with some of my conservative friends, but they respect me because they know me. They know that my wife was forced to quit her job because to protect our children we had to live somewhere else, in hiding. I’ve asked them what they would do if their child faced a 50-percent chance of attempting suicide because adults were uncomfortable being around their baby. I cannot share these stories without tears running down my face. I have lost thousands of hours of sleep because I feel that too often I failed to protect my daughter from bullying, harassment and discrimination from adults, from peers and, yes, from politicians.
It saddens me that anyone might support a platform that hurts any family. If I was in Cleveland, I would tell them that even when my family had nowhere to turn, my wife and I encouraged our children to be proud of who they are. We promised them that we would do everything in our power to make sure they have the same rights as their classmates. And we fought for them in the courts—for years—until Maine’s highest court said that my daughter had the right to be treated by her school as the young woman we all know she is.
But I remain heartbroken that my child had to spend her teenage years worrying about her safety, pleading for her dignity, and fighting for her rights in court.
That is why I stood with the Human Rights Campaign and other fathers of transgender children to be part of a new video released this week that highlights our stories.
All we’re seeking is kindness and respect everybody deserves. We spoke up in this video so that our children—and other children like them—know they aren’t alone. And neither are other dads out there. Those whose instinct is to ridicule and bully my child—in schools or in party platforms—must realize that transgender people, and their families, feel the pain and hurt.
I know there are many Americans who are still learning about transgender people and their identities. But as we continue to learn, we must not let our ignorance or misunderstanding lead us to discriminate or hurt real people.
Unfortunately, that is what the GOP is endorsing in Cleveland. It is too much for me. Until the Republican Party and conservative politicians open their hearts to the humanity of my precious daughter and others feeling marginalized and unsafe in the country we love, they will not be able to count on support from this proud dad. | The Republican Party's platform is an assault on my family's happiness | 63.615385 | 0.692308 | 1.307692 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/world/asia/qandeel-baloch-pakistan-murder-social-media.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160722100011id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/20/world/asia/qandeel-baloch-pakistan-murder-social-media.html | In Death, Qandeel Baloch, Pakistani Social Media Star, Is Celebrated as a Feminist Hero | 20160722100011 | The killing of Qandeel Baloch, a social media star some called the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan, provoked an outcry on social media from Pakistani feminists and others who saw the 26-year-old as a symbol of women’s empowerment.
Ms. Baloch had attracted a huge following, and no shortage of controversy, on social media with provocative photos and videos. But on Friday night, she was drugged and strangled by her brother as she slept at her parents’ home in Muzaffarabad, a town on the outskirts of Multan in Punjab Province, the police said.
After he was arrested on Saturday, the brother, Waseem Ahmed Azeem, said he had killed her because of the “shameful” pictures she had posted to Facebook.
Rafia Zakaria, a columnist for the newspaper Dawn and the author of “The Upstairs Wife,” a book about the place of women in Pakistani culture, said that in a young and increasingly urban society, Ms. Baloch had represented a generation of women who were increasingly independent and who used technology to express themselves.
“This is a new weapon in the hands of Pakistani women,” she said in a phone interview on Monday.
Reem Wasay wrote of Ms. Baloch in Dawn: “She had questionable taste and she openly mocked our outrage, but she made a lot of us root for her because she was so unbelievable we almost thought she was invincible.”
Come and join us. Condemn #Qandeel murder at all levels. #LibertyChok pic.twitter.com/UeDn1YN1Vb
As of Tuesday morning, more than 3,000 people had signed an online petition, posted by a feminist collective, that condemned Ms. Baloch’s death, called her “a rebel, an artist, and a gutsy feminist provocateur,” and mourned her, along with victims of domestic violence in the United States and elsewhere.
But while many people lauded Ms. Baloch, others celebrated her death on social media.
There are hundreds of “honor killings” in Pakistan each year, and the assailants often go free because a legal loophole in the country allows the authorities not to prosecute a murder case if the victim’s family forgives the killer.
After a public outcry over Ms. Baloch’s death, however, officials announced on Monday that the Azeem family would be barred from pardoning her killer. Women’s rights advocates welcomed the move but said Pakistan should change the law to ban such pardons in all cases.
The authorities also said they were investigating a high-ranking cleric, Mufti Abdul Qavi, who had appeared with Ms. Baloch in selfies taken in a hotel room last month. The photos prompted Mr. Qavi’s removal from a religious committee that determines when Ramadan starts and ends based on the moon’s sighting.
Pakistani religious scholar under fire because of selfies with Qandeel Baloch https://t.co/PhiEYsOLNR pic.twitter.com/9eSconSi8v
In remarks to GeoTV, Ms. Baloch’s mother accused Mr. Qavi of provoking Mr. Azeem into killing her daughter. But Mr. Qavi said that he had met with her only to discuss the teachings of Islam and that it was ridiculous that he was included in the investigation after her brother’s public confession.
Born Fauzia Azeem into a poor family in a small town in Punjab Province, Ms. Baloch said she was forced into marriage at age 17. According to new reports, she had a child who lives with her former husband. Her first foray into the public eye was a disastrous audition on “Pakistan Idol.” She was escorted offstage by one of the hosts and ended the segment in tears.
Her rejection from the mainstream entertainment industry spurred her to cultivate a following on social media with a mix of campy, sexy videos and messages about female empowerment. Speaking mostly in Urdu, she discussed topics like her crush on Imran Khan, the cricket star turned politician.
She called herself a “one-woman army,” often recording herself alone in her bedroom or sometimes pulling stunts like promising to striptease if Pakistan won a cricket match. After her death, her father said she had been supporting her family — including the brother who killed her.
“She’s so self-made,” said Ms. Zakaria. “She’s taking bits and pieces she’s seen in social media, in magazines. She’s very much like the internet phenomenon anywhere. And people found her entertaining and liked her.”
“She was very titillating and the Pakistani men who found her titillating would not admit it,” she added. “And that’s the bluff that she was calling out: You think I’m so bad but you want me.”
That also made her a lightning rod for criticism in a conservative society.
“Everybody was talking about her,” said Malik Siraj Akbar, a Pakistani journalist now based in Washington, where he leads a think tank called the Balochistan Institute. He is Baloch, an ethnic minority in Pakistan. Ms. Baloch was, too, and that apparently inspired her stage name. But many Baloch people were upset because she was seen as bringing disrepute to the community, Mr. Akbar said by phone.
“Men would condemn her, but I’m sure they were all secretly following her stuff on Instagram,” he added.
Ms. Baloch did not talk about her family or personal life in public. She had no handlers and no notable show business gigs.
Nighat Dad, the Lahore-based executive director of the Digital Rights Foundation and a member of the feminist collective that posted the petition celebrating Ms. Baloch, said that after writing on Twitter about the case, she had received an unprecedented backlash. “I have never heard this kind of hate,” she said in an interview.
The petition rebuts the notion that Ms. Baloch was the country’s Kim Kardashian: “She was our Qandeel: a working-class woman, a Third World feminist, a disrupter and a firebrand who dared to do as she pleased, despite threats to her life.”
After the scandal over the photos with Mr. Qavi, Ms. Baloch had revealed that she was receiving threats, and she appealed to Pakistan’s Interior Ministry for protection.
“They’ve silenced her in a very public way to function as a deterrent,” Ms. Zakaria said. “But when you consider the fact that there are millions of Qandeels out there sitting on their computers at night, in Karachi and Lahore and Multan, it’s only a matter of time before there’s going to be more and more of this.”
Follow Karen Zraick on Twitter @karenzraick.
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A version of this article appears in print on July 20, 2016, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: In Death, a Pakistani Social Media Star Is Celebrated as a Feminist Hero. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | Authorities arrested Ms. Baloch’s brother, who said he killed her because of “shameful” pictures she had posted to Facebook. | 55.208333 | 1 | 5.666667 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/matt-damon-remembers-meeting-prince-working-heath-ledger-article-1.2716981 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160722123303id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/entertainment/matt-damon-remembers-meeting-prince-working-heath-ledger-article-1.2716981 | Matt Damon remembers meeting Prince, working with Heath Ledger | 20160722123303 | Over the course of his decades-long career in the entertainment industry, Matt Damon has met a ton of celebrities — and some have proven a bit quirkier than others.
In a recent interview with GQ, the “Jason Bourne” star remembered meeting musical legend Prince for the first time.
Julia Stiles, who starred alongside Damon in the “Bourne” franchise, told the magazine the “Purple Rain” singer, who passed away this spring, hoped to meet the series' cast after a screening.
“After ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ came out, there was a premiere in London,” she said. “Prince actually came to it, then got tickets for the cast to come see him perform.
Matt Damon says Jason Bourne would beat James Bond in a fight
“We were summoned into a room, to meet him (after the show.) Matt said, ‘So you live in Minnesota? I hear you live in Minnesota.’”
And that’s where things got a little kooky, Damon explained.
“Prince said, ‘I live inside my own heart, Matt Damon,’”the Oscar winner recalled.
The 45-year-old actor also remembered working with the late Heath Ledger on the set of the 2005 film, “The Brothers Grimm.”
Matt Damon roasted by Affleck, Clooney and other celeb pals
“He was too bright for this world. Coming off (‘The Brothers Grimm’), I was telling everybody I just worked with the best actor I’ve ever seen,” Damon said. “And people were like, ‘What are you talking about? The guy from ‘A Knight’s Tale?’ And I was like, ‘You just wait. And wait until you see what kind of director he’s gonna be.’
“There were things he did where I couldn’t have got there in three lifetimes.” | Over the course of his decades-long career, Matt Damon has met a ton of celebrities — and some have proven a bit quirkier than others. | 12.517241 | 1 | 16.586207 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/20/vw-surprises-markets-with-better-than-expected-profits-after-die/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723041342id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/business/2016/07/20/vw-surprises-markets-with-better-than-expected-profits-after-die/ | VW surprises markets with better than expected profits after diesel scandal | 20160723041342 | The car maker attributed the rise in profits to “improvements in the result of the VW brand in the second quarter, especially in comparison to the weak first three months”.
Seasonal demand, Europe’s strengthening car market, and orders from corporate customers of large fleets of vehicles also helped, along with a newly introduced efficiency programme. The company has long been criticised for its high R&D spending, which has lowered its profit margins when compared with global rivals such as Toyota.
Before dieselgate broke last September, VW had edged ahead of the Japanese car-maker to become the world’s biggest car company, but a fall in demand resulting from the scandal saw the German company drop back into second place. | Volkswagen has surprised the markets with an unscheduled announcement that its profits would be “ | 9.133333 | 0.4 | 0.4 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/05/16/ryan-seacrest-live-with-kelly-ripa/21378306/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723042230id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/05/16/ryan-seacrest-live-with-kelly-ripa/21378306/? | EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Seacrest will guest co-host 'Live! With Kelly': 'It's a blessing' | 20160723042230 | Ryan Seacrest has yet another high-profile gig on his hands.
ET caught up with the busy 41-year-old television personality at 102.7 KIIS FM's Wango Tango in Carson, California, on Saturday, where he revealed that he'll be one of Kelly Ripa's guest co-hosts on Live! next month.
"I'm sitting there for one day in June and can't wait to do that," Seacrest exclusively told ET's Katie Krause. "She's asked me to come on for a day right at the beginning of June, and so I'm looking forward to hugging her and seeing her."
WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Seacrest Reflects on His Moving University of Georgia Commencement Speech: 'I Was Scared to Death!
"I've known Kelly forever," he added. "She's phenomenal, so to get a chance to sit by her for a day is a blessing."
See photos of Ryan Seacrest through the years:
EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Seacrest will guest co-host 'Live! With Kelly': 'It's a blessing'
ATLANTA, GA - AUGUST 30: (EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE) Radio personality Ryan Seacrest poses for a portrait on August 30, 1993 in Atlanta, Georgia. Seacrest is Atlanta's WSTR-FM, Star 94 night DJ. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest (Photo by Barry King/WireImage)
(EXCLUSIVE, Premium Rates Apply) Ryan Seacrest (Photo by Barry King/WireImage)
(EXCLUSIVE, Premium Rates Apply) Ryan Seacrest (Photo by Barry King/WireImage)
NBC SATURDAY NIGHT MOVIE -- Pictured: Ryan Seacrest as Himself/Host (Photo by NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest (STAR 98.7 Afternoon DJ) & Alanis Morissette (Photo by L. Cohen/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest & Eric McCormack (Photo by L. Cohen/WireImage)
Jim Verraros, with hosts Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman, reacts to being selected to move on to the finals at the live broadcast of FOX-TV's 'American Idol' in Los Angeles, Ca. Wednesday, June 19, 2002. Photo by Kevin Winter/ImageDirect/FOX*** Please Call For Usage ***
Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell at the Fox Network's TCA Summer Tour Party at The Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, Ca. Monday, July 22, 2002. Photo by Kevin Winter/ImageDirect.
Brian Dunkleman, Kelly Clarkson and Ryan Seacrest at FOX-TV's 'American Idol' in Los Angeles, Ca. Wednesday, August 28, 2002. Photo by Kevin Winter/ImageDirect/FOX.*** Please Call For Usage ***
Ryan Seacrest, Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, Justin Guarini, Paula Abdul, and Kelly Clarkson of American Idol backstage at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, August 29, 2002. Photo by Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect.
Hosts Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman with Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini before the announcement of the winner of American Idol at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Ca., Sept. 4, 2002. (photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest wearing (Photo by Ray Mickshaw/WireImage)
Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest of 'American Idol' at the FOX 2003 Winter TCA Press Tour held at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles, CA on January 18, 2003. Photo by Barbara Binstein/ImageDirect.
Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest during 2003-2004 FOX Upfront - After Party at Grand Central Terminal in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest at the Universal Amphitheatre in Universial City, Ca (Photo by Ray Mickshaw/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest during 2003 Teen Choice Awards - Arrivals at Universal Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, United States. (Photo by SGranitz/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest & Paris Hilton during 2003 Teen Choice Awards - Arrivals at Universal Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, United States. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest, Ellen DeGeneres, Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, and Paula Abdul (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
LAS VEGAS - OCTOBER 26: Radio DJ, Ryan Seacrest and actress Brooke Burns pose with a Neutrogena gift bag at the 2003 Tall Pony Radio Music Awards gift lounge, outside the Aladdin Hotel and Casino, October 26, 2003 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest and Clay Aiken at the 2003 Billboard Music Awards (Photo by KMazur/WireImage)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - JANUARY 16: 'American Idol' Host Ryan Seacrest during the FOX Television Critics Association Press Tour on January 16, 2004 at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, CA. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest during 'American Idol' Season 3 - Top 12 Finalists Party - Arrivals at Pearl in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by SGranitz/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest during Barry Manilow and Jennifer Hudson Perform 'On Air with Ryan Seacrest' at Hollywood and Highland in Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by Chris Polk/FilmMagic)
Jessica Simpson and Ryan Seacrest during Jessica Simpson Performs On Air with Ryan Seacrest at Hollywood and Highland in Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Ryan Seacrest and Randy Jackson during Los Angeles Launch Party Hosted by Ryan Seacrest for The New Evite and Silent Auction to Benefit Rock The Vote at Smashbox Studios in Culver City, California, United States. (Photo by Rebecca Sapp/WireImage for Evit
Randy Jackson, Ryan Seacrest, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell **EXCLUSIVE** ***Exclusive*** (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Ryan Seacrest during Marg Helgenberger and Ryan Seacrest Appear at Late Show with David Letterman - January 13, 2005 at Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, New York, United States. (Photo by Lawrence Lucier/FilmMagic)
Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell during 2005 Fox's 'White Hot Winter' at Meson G Restaurant in Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)
LOS ANGELES - JANUARY 17: American Idol's Ryan Seacrest (L), Randy Jackson and actress Paris Hilton pose at the 'White Hot Winter on Fox' TCA Party at Meson G on January 17, 2005 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON - JANUARY 19: Ryan Seacrest speaks on stage during the pre-inaugural Celebration of Freedom event on the Ellipse January 19, 2005 in Washington, DC. Bush will be sworn into serve his second term as President of the United States January 20. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest, Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul during Nickelodeon's 18th Annual Kids Choice Awards - Press Room at Pauley Pavillion in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest during US Weekly & Jessica Simpson Celebrate The Young Hot Hollywood Style Awards at Element Hollywood in Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)
Ryan Seacrest during 'America's Top 40 Live' with Ryan Seacrest at CBS Studios Stage 46 in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc)
Lindsay Lohan and Ryan Seacrest (Photo by J. Merritt/FilmMagic for Us Weekly Magazine)
THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO -- Episode 2935 -- Pictured: (l-r) Radio personality Ryan Seacrest during an interview with host Jay Leno on May 16, 2005 -- (Photo by: Margaret Norton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest, host with 'American Idol' Season 4 - Top 3 Finalist, Carrie Underwood, 21, from Checotah, Oklahoma (Photo by Ray Mickshaw/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell at the Central Park - The Boat House in New York City, New York (Photo by James Devaney/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest and Shana Wall during Entertainment Tonight and People Magazine Celebrate The 57th Annual Emmy Awards at Mondrian in West Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage)
Ryan Seacrest during 2005 West Hollywood Halloween Parade and Carnivale in West Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by Michael Tran/FilmMagic)
Ryan Seacrest introduces a performance by the Eurythmics at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
'American Idol' Season 5 -Top 20 Finalist, Chris Daughtry, 26, from McLeansville, North Carolina and Ryan Seacrest, host *EXCLUSIVE* ***Exclusive*** (Photo by Jason Merritt/FilmMagic for Fox Television Network)
Ryan Seacrest and Randy Jackson wearing Tommy Hilfiger (Photo by M. Caulfield/WireImage for PMK/HBH)
(EXCLUSIVE, Premium Rates Apply) 'American Idol' Season 5 - Ryan Seacrest, host and Zac Efron *EXCLUSIVE* (Photo by Ray Mickshaw/WireImage for Fox Television Network)
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 24: American Idol host Ryan Seacrest performs onstage during the American Idol Season 5 Finale on May 24, 2006 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest during 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards - Backstage at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Chris Polk/FilmMagic)
Leeza Gibbons, guest, Ryan Seacrest, Eva Longoria and Marla Maples (Photo by Alexandra Wyman/WireImage)
THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO -- Episode 3313 -- Pictured: (l-r) 'American Idol' judge Randy Jackson, host Ryan Seacrest and judge Simon Cowell during an interview with host Jay Leno on February 19, 2007 (Photo by Paul Drinkwater/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
Ryan Seacrest during 'Knocked Up' Los Angeles Premiere- Arrivals at Mann Village Theater in Westwood, California, United States. (Photo by Jason Merritt/FilmMagic)
Top 2 Finalists Jordin Sparks, 17, from Glendale, AZ and Blake Lewis, 25, from Bothell, WA as Ryan Seacrest, host, announcing the 'American Idol' Season 6 winner (Photo by Lester Cohen/WireImage)
LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 19: Singer Katharine McPhee (L) and television personality Ryan Seacrest perform at the 53rd Annual Young Musicians Foundation Gala, celebrating Merv Griffin, at the Beverly Hilton hotel on October 19, 2007 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD - APRIL 06: Actor Robin Williams (L) and host Ryan Seacrest speak onstage during the taping of Idol Gives Back held at the Kodak Theatre on April 6, 2008 in Hollywood, California. Idol Gives Back will air April 9, 2008 (7:30-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 21: Radio Host Ryan Seacrest arrives at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theater on September 21, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/FilmMagic)
LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 02: Ryan Seacrest arrives at the 'Road To A Cure' Gala at Hyatt Regency Century Plaza on December 2, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Bezjian/WireImage)
NEW YORK - DECEMBER 31: Host Ryan Seacrest in Times Square during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2009 With Ryan Seacrest on December 31, 2008 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for DCPNYE)
NEW YORK - DECEMBER 31: **Exclusive Coverage** (L-R) Hosts Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark pose during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2009 With Ryan Seacrest on December 31, 2008 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for DCPNYE)
LOS ANGELES - APRIL 19: Television hosts Jeff Probst and Ryan Seacrest sit court side in Game One of the Western Conference Quarterfinals between the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2009 NBA Playoffs on April 19, 2009 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The Lakers won 113-100. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2009 NBAE (Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 17: ***EXCLUSIVE ACCESS*** (L-R) Host Ryan Seacrest and contestant Adam Lambert live on American Idol March 17, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. The top 11 perform in front of the American Idol judges on Fox. (Photo by M Becker/American Idol 2009/Getty Images for Fox)
ATLANTA - OCTOBER 24: (L-R) Ronald McDonald, Ryan Seacrest of American Idol and the Coca-Cola Polar Bear attend a toast to the Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities at World Of Coca-Cola Pop Culture Room on October 24, 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Moses Robinson/WireImage)
NEW YORK - DECEMBER 31: Host Ryan Seacrest celebrates onstage during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2010 in Times Square on December 31, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Jason Kempin/DCNYRE2010/Getty Images for DCP)
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 15: TV/Radio host Ryan Seacrest arrives at KIIS FM's Wango Tango 2010 at the Staples Center on May 15, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Angela Weiss/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 31: Julianne Hough (L) and Ryan Seacrest attend a game between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center on October 31, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Noel Vasquez/Getty Images)
INGLEWOOD, CA - SEPTEMBER 22: Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez, Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest attend the 'American Idol' Season 10 Press Conference at The Forum on September 22, 2010 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)
NEW YORK - DECEMBER 31: Ryan Seacrest speaks at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2011 in Times Square on December 31, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew Walker/ DCNYRE2011/Getty Images for DCP)
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - FEBRUARY 24: Ryan Seacrest arrives at Treats! 2011 Pre-Oscar Magazine Launch Party at Goldstein Residence on February 24, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/FilmMagic)
ARLINGTON, TX - FEBRUARY 06: (EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE) Dancer Julianne Hough and TV personality Ryan Seacrest attend Fox's Super Bowl XLV Pregame Show at Dallas Cowboys Stadium on February 6, 2011 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
(L-R) Jonathan Cheban, Ryan Seacrest and Khloe Kardashian pose at the iHeartRadio iPad App Launch Event at The Standard Hotel on June 6, 2011 in New York City.
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 25: (NO BOOK PUBLISHING) Singer Scotty McCreery (R) is announced the American Idol for 2011 onstage with Ryan Seacrest during Fox's 'American Idol 2011' finale results show held at Nokia Theatre LA Live on May 25, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/American Idol 2011/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 09: Host Ryan Seacrest onstage before introducing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for his keynote address at CES 2012 during the annual Consumer Electronics Show on January 9, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by David Becker/WireImage)
PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 08: Host Ryan Seacrest speaks onstage during the 'American Idol' panel during the FOX Broadcasting Company portion of the 2012 Winter TCA Tour at The Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa on January 8, 2012 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - FEBRUARY 28: (L-R) Hana Hwang and host Ryan Seacrest backstage at FOX's 'American Idol' Season 11 Top 12 Guys Live Performance Show on February 28, 2012 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by FOX via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 12: Julianne Hough and Ryan Seacrest attend The 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on February 12, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 04: TV and radio personality Ryan Seacrest leaves the 'Today Show' taping at the NBC Rockefeller Center Studios on April 4, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)
TODAY -- Pictured: Ryan Seacrest appears on NBC News' 'Today' show -- (Photo by: Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - MAY 10: Host Ryan Seacrest onstage at FOX's American Idol Season 11 Top 4 To 3 Live Elimination Show on May 10, 2012 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by FOX via Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - MAY 10: Ellen K and Ryan Seacrest attend the ceremony honoring radio personality Ellen K with a Star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame held on May 10, 2012 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Michael Tran/FilmMagic)
TODAY -- Pictured: Ryan Seacrest -- (Photo by: Dave Hogan/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
NEWARK, NJ - JUNE 23: American Idol host Ryan Seacrest attends'American Idol' Season 12 Auditions on June 23, 2012 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bobby Bank/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 18: TV personality Ryan Seacrest leaves the 'Today Show' taping at NBC Rockefeller Center Studios on September 18, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 18: TV personality Ryan Seacrest attends the 40th Anniversary American Music Awards held at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 18, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImage)
NEW YORK CITY, NY - DECEMBER 31: Ryan Seacrest host at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2013 in Times Square on December 31, 2012 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/DCNYRE2013/Getty Images for DCP)
NEW YORK CITY, NY - DECEMBER 31: Ryan Seacrest, Mc Hammer and Psy speak onstage at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2013 in Times Square on December 31, 2012 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/DCNYRE2013/Getty Images for DCP)
LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 26: TV Personality Ryan Seacrest and singer John Legend attend the 56th GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on January 26, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images)
AMERICAN IDOL XIII: (L-R) Judges Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez, host Ryan Seacrest and judge Harry Connick Jr. arrive at the AMERICAN IDOL XIII Premiere Screening and Q & A Event at UCLA's Royce Hall in West Los Angeles, CA on Tuesday, January 14, 2014. (Photo by FOX via Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 02: TV personality Ryan Seacrest attends the Oscars held at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - FEBRUARY 20: Musician Randy Jackson (L) and host Ryan Seacrest arrive at Fox's 'American Idol XIII' finalists party held at Fig & Olive Melrose Place on February 20, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 29: Ryan Seacrest attends the MOCA 35th anniversary gala celebration at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA on March 29, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 01: iHEARTRADIO MUSIC AWARDS -- Pictured: (l-r) Recording artist Jennifer Lopez and tv personality Ryan Seacrest present the award for Artist of the Year onstage during the iHeartRadio Music Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on May 1, 2014. (Photo by Mark Davis/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank)
LAS VEGAS, NV - SEPTEMBER 19: Radio personality Ryan Seacrest attends the 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 19, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)
DIAMOND BAR, CA - NOVEMBER 11: Tv personality Ryan Seacrest at the Ford Drive 4UR School Event with Ryan Seacrest, The Recording Academy and GRAMMY Foundation at Diamond Bar High School on November 11, 2014 in Diamond Bar, California. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Ford)
LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 05: TV personality Ryan Seacrest (L) and singer Ed Sheeran attend KIIS FM's Jingle Ball 2014 powered by LINE at Staples Center on December 5, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 09: Ryan Seacrest poses for a portrait backstage at 102.7 KIIS FM's 2015 Wango Tango at StubHub Center on May 9, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Gabriel Olsen/Getty Images For 102.7 KIIS FM's Wango Tango)
LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS -- Episode 232 -- Pictured: (l-r) TV personality, Ryan Seacrest during an interview with host Seth Meyers on July 20, 2015 -- (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 28: Ryan Seacrest and girlfriend Hilary Cruz is seen out and about leaving LAX on June 28, 2015 in Los Angeles, CA. in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by HEV/BuzzFoto via Getty Images)
AMERICAN IDOL: (L-R) AMERICAN IDOL judges Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick. Jr. and Ryan Seacrest. AMERICAN IDOL PREMIERES IN January on FOX. (Photo by FOX via Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 29: Ryan Seacrest poses at the Sound Strategy: Why Millennials and Gen Z Are Listening More panel presented by iHeartMedia during Advertising Week 2015 AWXII at the Times Center Stage on September 29, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by D Dipasupil/Getty Images for AWXII)
NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 11: Ryan Seacrest attends Z100's iHeartRadio Jingle Ball 2015 arrivals at Madison Square Garden on December 11, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew Toth/FilmMagic)
NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 31: Host Ryan Seacrest speaks on camera at the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2016 on December 31, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/DCNYRE2016/Getty Images for dcp)
Although, the experienced host doesn't think there's a chance for the stint to become permanent, given his already full plate.
"I think that would be impossible since I have to work here every day," he said, referring to his daily radio show, On Air With Ryan Seacrest. "That decision isn't mine to make. I think I have to get up here every day and go on the air!"
Other upcoming Live! guest co-hosts include Empire's Jussie Smollett on Tuesday, comedian Cedric the Entertainer on Wednesday, ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir on Thursday, and Hawaii Five-O actor Daniel Dae Kim on Friday. On Monday, Jimmy Kimmel got the honor of being the first guest co-host since Michael Strahan's drama-filled exit, and he wasted no time grilling Ripa about his very last Live! episode this past Friday.
"Everything on Friday's show was hugging and kissing. Was that genuine hugging and kissing?" Kimmel bluntly asked.
"Yes, we don't fake hug and kiss," Ripa, 45, assured Kimmel. "It wasn't air kissing."
WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan Found 'Peace' Before His Controversial 'Live!' Exit | Ryan Seacrest has yet another high-profile gig on his hands, announcing that he'll be joining Kelly Ripa on 'Live! With Kelly' as a guest co-host. | 136.371429 | 0.971429 | 6.4 | high | high | mixed |
http://time.com/4342088/leicester-city-bangkok-celebration/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723064621id_/http://time.com:80/4342088/leicester-city-bangkok-celebration/ | Leicester City Brings an Excited Bangkok to a Standstill | 20160723064621 | Thailand rolled out the red carpet—though perhaps a better color would be royal blue—for the players and staff of Leicester City, the newly crowned champions of English soccer.
In an open-top bus tour of the Thai capital, Bangkok, on a baking hot Thursday evening, tens of thousands of people waited patiently in the heavy air for a passing glimpse of the country’s new heroes, the conquering team owned by the Thai company King Power. Police closed roads in the bustling city center to allow an open-top bus—an old London double-decker—to squeeze through the throngs of emotional crowds.
Read More: All the Emotions of Leicester Winning the Premier League, as Shown By 3 Guys in a Pub
At times the Leicester players looked startled by the outpouring; at other moments amused. The faces of goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and manager Claudio Ranieri looked particularly amazed. For this is “Amazing Thailand”, as the travel slogan goes, and what would pass in other cities as chaos, calamity or civil strife, in Bangkok just feels like another day.
Noise levels reached fever pitch as the bus toured past some of the city’s affluent shopping malls, surrounded by teams of screaming teenage girls, fist-pumping lads, babies held on fathers’ shoulders. Like Leicester’s miracle season itself, this was an emotional ride, a cavalcade of acclaim for this team of underdogs that a country on the other side of the world has suddenly adopted.
Read More: Leicester’s Historic Victory Has Stunned World Soccer
On the top deck of the bus stood the glittering Premier League Trophy, and beside it the Leicester club chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, posed like Leonardo DiCaprio on the bow of the Titanic. The Thai billionaire wai-ed in thanks, smiling beatifically. More than anyone—even more than the players who had led their team to the most improbable championship run in sport’s history—today was his moment in the sun.
The Thai business tycoon has been lauded for his running of the club, and he seems to be genuinely admired and respected by the players and fans alike—something of an anomaly in the world of professional soccer, where chairmen and club owners are frequently reviled as self-motivated tycoons.
Read More: A Buddhist Temple in Bangkok Is Now a Venerated Site for Leicester City Fans
The club chairman is hosting the Leicester players at the Pullman Hotel, which lies within the King Power Center, the centerpiece of his own business fiefdom. King Power owns a near-monopoly on duty-free goods at Bangkok’s two international airports. It is also Leicester’s shirt sponsor and lends its name to the team’s stadium.
Fifty-five year old Busbakovn Samolluck offers a magnificent smile as she tells a reporter that her love affair for Leicester began as soon as she heard it was owned by a Thai person. “They played so well this season. And they are just a small humble team; that’s why I love them.”
Leicester-born Peter Ellis and his wife Susan were on holiday in Thailand when they heard about the visit of the team, which is known affectionately in this country as Jingjawk Siam, meaning “Siamese Foxes”. Speaking to TIME at the King Power Center, where he was waiting in line to buy one of the official new jerseys, the 69-year-old Ellis said that he could not believe his luck to be in Bangkok at the same time this celebration was going on.
“As a lifelong Leicester fan, I have watched the team through years of disappointment, including losing cup finals in 1961, 63 and 69,” he told TIME. “I just never believed this [winning the league] was ever going to happen.”
Outside in the street, two young Thai women, Salila and Poonsuk, say they are waiting for the chance to see Christian Fuchs, the club’s star left back, “because he is so handsome,” they giggle. (They add that the Danish goalkeeper Schmeichel runs a close second.)
The waving, smiling, screaming, photo-snapping Bangkok pedestrians were not a far cry from the jubilant scenes the Leicester players witnessed on May 16, when they held a victory parade in Leicester in front of a quarter million revelers.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday at the King Power Center, team chairman Vichai said he had two dreams: to see Leicester “stay at the top”; and for Thailand to qualify for the World Cup. The latter is a tall order: the Thai national team has made it to the final stage of the Asian qualifiers, but faces an uphill task in a group that includes Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabia.
As for the Siamese Foxes, the Premier League Trophy will remain in their hands—and the hands of their proud Thai chairman—for at least another year. | Thais adore their 'Siamese Foxes' | 135.142857 | 0.428571 | 0.714286 | high | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4116967/dubai-hunger-games-theme-park/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723065315id_/http://time.com:80/4116967/dubai-hunger-games-theme-park/ | Dubai Unveils New Rides for | 20160723065315 | Jennifer Lawrence’s Panem story may come to an end when The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 debuts in theaters this weekend. But fans lucky enough to score a visit to Dubai, can still have the opportunity to explore Suzanne Collins’ world, thanks to motiongate Dubai.
The website unveiled new information on two new attractions that will open in 2016, as part of Dubai Parks and Resorts. One ride includes taking guests on a journey through Panem via a hovercraft, where they’ll be treated to some of the most iconic landmarks during the ride… before the Peacekeepers arrive to stir things up. Another ride will be a roller coaster that will let guests transport themselves from District 12 to the Capitol, as if they’re riding one of the Capitol’s high speed trains.
In an announcement from the motiongate Dubai website, Stanford Pinto, Chief Parks Operating Officer for Dubai Parks and Resorts, said “the creative resources, spirit of innovation and vision of the entertainment experience of Lionsgate are extremely well-aligned with our own and we are delighted to be working with the Lionsgate team to bring to life The Hunger Games franchise for the first time globally in a theme park environment. Our united goal is to position motiongate Dubai as one of the most visionary new theme parks in the world.”
The debut of Lionsgate theme parks, including The Hunger Gamesand Divergent was first reported a few months ago. According to the website, motiongate Dubai will eventually become one of the region’s biggest theme parks, featuring attractions from Sony Pictures Studios, DreamWorks, Lionsgate, Smurf’s Village and Studio Central.
This article originally appeared on EW.com. | Ride hoverboards and tour Panem at the new theme park. | 28.636364 | 0.727273 | 0.909091 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/money/4337746/secrets-career-advancement-recruiter/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723065331id_/http://time.com:80/money/4337746/secrets-career-advancement-recruiter/? | Secrets From a Job Recruiter | 20160723065331 | To grab an employer’s attention with your resume, you need it keep things short, quantify your accomplishments with numbers or percentages, and mirror the language or skills the company uses in its own job ad, says Jaime Klein, who launched her HR consulting firm in 2007.
Avoid self-sabotage by cleaning up your online presence before applying. Get rid of anything on your social media, professional pages, or other sites that could be seen as inappropriate or questionable.
Hoping to move up to a bigger role or your dream job within a company? Klein recommends stepping up and taking on assignments that reflect the job you want to be doing. Try filling in for someone who has the role you want but is out on parental leave, or joining a task force working on an assignment you aspire to do. “Play the role for the job you want to get,” Klein says.
To truly move up into a dream role, you’ll also need to network and connect with people already in those positions. Ask them how they go to where they are, learn about the requirements of their job, says Klein, and then create a five- or 10-year plan for how to get there. | Solid advice for nabbing your dream job. | 29.25 | 0.625 | 1.375 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2015/08/21/jon-stewart-debate/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723095146id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/08/21/jon-stewart-debate/ | Change.org Petition For Jon Stewart To Moderate Debate Has Over 150,000 Signatures | 20160723095146 | Jon Stewart may have just left his post at the Daily Show, but the people of America want him back in the spotlight. That is, for a 2016 presidential debate.
In two weeks, a change.org petition has collected over 150,000 signatures in favor of a Stewart-moderated debate, with a goal of 200,000.
“Over the last 16 years, Jon Stewart has played an influential and iconic role in covering US politics and media. We believe he should continue that tradition as a moderator at one of the 2016 Presidential Debates,” the petition begins.
“Jon Stewart is more than qualified to tackle the moderating job. Mr. Stewart has interviewed 15 heads of state, 22 members of the United States Cabinet, 32 members of the United States Senate, 7 members of the United States House of Representatives, and scores of other political leaders from this country and around the world while establishing himself as the most trusted person in (satirical) news,” it continues.
But this isn’t the first time that people have banded together online to have their voices heard about a debate. In fact, high school students requested that a woman moderate a debate in 2012. It ultimately received over 180,000 signatures and a female moderator was selected. CNN’s Candy Crowley moderated the October 2012 debate.
For more on Stewart, here’s commentary on what his show’s end means for millennials. Meanwhile, the show’s set is going to the Newseum in Washington, D.C. | A moment of zen for the 2016 race? | 31.666667 | 0.555556 | 0.777778 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/11669800/Gorgeous-elderflower-drinks-to-make-this-summer.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723142353id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/foodanddrink/recipes/11669800/Gorgeous-elderflower-drinks-to-make-this-summer.html | Gorgeous elderflower drinks to make this summer | 20160723142353 | Classic summer drink: elderflower cordial (MARTIN POPE)
Pour the sugar into a preserving pan and pour on the hot water, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Cool for 15 mins. Immerse the flowers in the semi-warm syrup and add the citric acid. Stir. Pare one-third of the zest from the lemons and limes and add the strips to the pan, then cut the fruit into slices and add that too. Stir again, cover tightly and keep in a cool, dark place for 24 hours. Strain finely then bottle. This makes about 2 litres of concentrated cordial; dilute with cold water to serve, or use as the base for a sparkling wine cocktail. Fresh cordial keeps in the fridge for one month. You can freeze it in plastic bottles, but don’t fill them right up or they might burst once frozen.
Make a stronger, stickier version of the above simply by using more sugar - 2.5kg - and much less water - 1 litre. Otherwise, follow above. The syrup is useful in cooking. I add a slug of this to the warm cream for lemon possets, or drizzle it over plain sponge cakes and pancakes, add to stewed gooseberries and dollop the mix over meringues or make a trifle with gooseberries, elderflower syrup, sweet muscat wine, trifle sponges and whipped cream. Keeps for one month in the fridge or freeze in small portions.
Mildly alcoholic, lightly fizzy elderflower ‘bubbly’. Be very careful as the pressure from the carbon dioxide is unpredictable, and bottles can explode, especially if kept somewhere hot. Keep in a cool, dark place, and check stored bottles from time to time, perhaps releasing then resealing stoppers to let out gas, as a precaution!
Put the flowers in a very clean bucket and add the zest of the lemons, then their juice. Add the sugar, vinegar and water and stir to dissolve sugar. Cover tightly with tied-on muslin or tea towels and leave for several days, somewhere reasonably warm indoors, checking regularly to see if natural fermentation has started. If not, add a pinch of yeast, stir and wait . Once the liquid is fermenting, strain and bottle. Note the spritz will be slightly cloudy and may throw a sediment on the base, which is harmless but should be left behind when serving.
Makes about 4 litres and best enjoyed chilled and fresh, within two weeks of making.
A delicate and fragrant combination of early summer flowers. Do make sure the roses you use are unsprayed. The very best roses for this are Damask, as they are so perfumed.
Cover the flowers with water in pan, add lemon juice and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for a few minutes, then strain into cups (this makes 5-6) and add honey to taste, if you like it sweetened.
You need a bit of time and some basic kit to make this - two demi-johns with bungs and airlocks, siphon and muslin - but there’s nothing too technical, and the result is a light, grapey, floral-scented white wine. If you have never made wine from scratch before, this is a very good way to start!
Put the flowers in a preserving pan and pour on the boiling water. Add the sugar, and grated rind and juice of the lemons. Stir. Allow to cool until under 30C then add yeast and nutrient. Stir gently. Cover tightly with muslin and leave to start fermenting in a warm spot for 4 days or so. Strain through muslin into a sterilised demi-john, add bung and airlock and leave to ferment completely. When no more bubbles rise and the wine is clear, rack off the blanket of sediment using a siphon into another sterilised demi-john, add bung and airlock again and leave for 6 weeks. Rack again into sterilised bottles and close them. Chill to serve
Makes 4.5 litres and will keep for up to one year. | The fragrant elderflower makes delicious cordial, refreshing teas and unforgettable cocktails. What are you waiting for? | 38.45 | 0.55 | 0.55 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-uberization-of-banking-1461967266 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723155417id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/the-uberization-of-banking-1461967266 | The Uberization of Banking | 20160723155417 | In this city’s crowded financial district you’ll find a Wells Fargo Bank branch with an antique stagecoach inside. But I was interested in talking with a former Wells Fargo employee, so I headed elsewhere, to SoFi, a “fintech”—financial technology—company doing its best to turn the banking system upside down. I wound my way out to the Presidio, a former military base now commercialized, with beautiful views of the... | Andy Kessler writes about the Uberization of banking: Mike Cagney, he fintech entrepreneur behind SoFi wants to move lending away from the big banks and onto your smartphone. | 2.612903 | 0.258065 | 0.258065 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2016/04/22/its-a-golden-age-for-rugby-fathers-and-sons---and-theres-nothing/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723160609id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/rugby-union/2016/04/22/its-a-golden-age-for-rugby-fathers-and-sons---and-theres-nothing/ | It's a golden age for rugby fathers and sons - there's nothing like having your old man by your side | 20160723160609 | The next match for Preston against Vale of Lune brought my favourite memory. Knee deep in mud, the fly half opposite me smelled fresh young blood.
He got his first tackle in early even if it was very very late and ran off laughing. Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on my dad. Wrapped up in bandages like a mummy - to keep him in one piece - he set off after his son's bully.
After a short chase, which reminded me of a Benny Hill sketch, he caught up with the offending fly half at the centre spot, where he was cowering and hoping to avoid this aged nemesis.
My old man stuck two fingers up the guy's nostrils, dragged him to his feet, told him to "stand up and take your punishment", and then hit him a few times as I looked on with pride.
The rest of the day I played as if sitting in an armchair, untouched by the opposition bruisers, my personal bodyguard always lurking just yards away. | It is an extraordinary rich time for father and son combinations at the highest level of English club rugby. | 9.9 | 0.45 | 0.55 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/06/don-afraid-populism-160616090628001.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723160912id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/indepth/opinion/2016/06/don-afraid-populism-160616090628001.html | Don't be afraid of populism | 20160723160912 | There are two important electoral events in Britain and Spain in the coming weeks that show how afraid we are of "populism".
While these elections concern very different matters - the British are voting on whether to stay in the European Union and the Spaniards for the national elections - the accusations of populism are common to both. Conservatives, socialists, and liberals in both countries accuse Nigel Farage, of UKIP, and Pablo Iglesias, of Podemos, of being dangerous demagogues appealing to popular sentiments instead of rational arguments.
The problem for the political establishment is not that the former is a racist nationalist politician or the latter a leftist progressive leader, but rather that both will probably do well at the polls.
Britain's EU referendum: Counting the cost of 'Brexit'
This ongoing panic over the so-called return of populism in Europe is an indication not only that something has ceased to work among traditional parties but also that their strategy is to generalise a political phenomenon that spans different stances.
What we should fear most today is not populism but rather this drive towards generalisation, which harms the very essence of democracy.
There is an overall consensus among Europeans that we are now framed within a union run by technocrats who are indifferent to our needs. Europeans, as Pepe Escobar recently explained, "are increasingly keen on ditching the political EU, whose only functioning trait remains its status as a giant market".
ALSO READ:Â Brexit and the UK's geopolitical destiny
This failure is particularly evident in Britain and Spain, where the EU is seen either as a threat to the national interest or the source of the technocratic imposition of austerity measures.
The centre-right and centre-left parties have intensified the neoliberal policies of the EU, leaving its citizens without a real alternative.
These measures, together with a number of trade-liberalisation policies enacted since the economic crisis began in 2007, have not only ruined domestic manufacturing bases by sending low-skilled jobs to the developing world but also lowered Europeans standards of living.
These standards are again seen as threatened by the ongoing refugee crisis, which the EU is unable to confront.
But the traditional parties in Britain (Conservative Party and Labor Party) and in Spain (Popular Party and Socialist Party) have all proved incapable of tackling the economic, social, and political concerns of their voters.
But democracy depends on political leaders' understanding that these concerns are vital, interpreted carefully to regenerate the collective will when necessary.
Instead, the centre-right and centre-left parties have intensified the neoliberal policies of the EU, leaving its citizens without a real alternative.
Only the so-called populist leaders offer anything that sounds different, but this perilous moment offers an opportunity not only for those searching for political change but also for democracy itself.
According to the political philosophers Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, who dedicated a number of significant studies to populism's negative reputation, if democracy wants to preserve its superiority to other political systems it must always remain close to the people.
And this is what populism does. It brings together different demands in opposition to a common enemy.
Laclau and Mouffe do not consider populism an ideology but a political form that is able to articulate popular identities. Populism, in Laclau's words is "a way of constructing the political on the basis of interpellating the underdog to mobilise against the existing status quo".
ALSO READ:Â Far-left Podemos has already changed Spain
If populism is now the only available political form able to deepen the central value of equality that governs modern democratic societies, we must remember that there is a substantial difference between right-wing and left-wing populism in Europe.
We must remember that there is a substantial difference between right-wing and left-wing populism in Europe.
The rhetoric of the former seeks to secure power for the politicians who espouse it by demanding that the definition of a national people be restricted to a certain category, from which immigrants are always excluded. The left-wing populist parties include both immigrants and general workers.
As Mouffe explains, the "adversaries of the people for the left are not the immigrants, but the big transnational corporations and all the forces of neoliberal globalisation".
This is evident in the announced platforms of Farage and Iglesias: Farage's enemies are the EU and immigrants; Iglesias opposes the establishment "elites" and corporations.
These differences, evident in the discourse of not only Farage and Iglesias but also other populist politicians, such as Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders in the United States, cannot be ignored; they speak directly to the correct functioning of democratic global societies.
The xenophobic discourse of Farage and Trump, which rejects refugees, Mexicans, Muslims, and any other of convenience, is not compatible with a pluralist conception of democracy in the 21st century.
Their use of fear to mobilise their voters instead stimulates hate and increases inequality as it tacitly rejects any alternative to neoliberal globalisation.
Iglesias and Sanders, whose notion of a "people" includes foreigners, instead hope for an alternative to neoliberalism through the improvement of the welfare state.
When these differences are generalised, as the political scientist Takis Pappas says, populism becomes "a big basket to throw into things we don't like".
And this rhetoric, to which the traditional political parties and the media outlets that have grown rich covering them are the main contributors, leads to more and more things being thrown into the basket, more mobilisation by rejection, a stance that harms democracy and cripples the possibility of change.
Santiago Zabala is ICREA research professor of philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. | Panic over the return of populism in Europe is a sign that something has stopped working among traditional parties. | 56.55 | 0.85 | 3.25 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/tortured-saudi-pleads-transfer-guantanamo-160616101941396.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723163210id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/news/2016/06/tortured-saudi-pleads-transfer-guantanamo-160616101941396.html | Tortured Saudi pleads for transfer from Guantanamo | 20160723163210 | A Saudi national accused of trying to take part in the September 11 attacks who has been repeatedly tortured gets a chance to plead his case in front of a Guantanamo parole-like board on Thursday.
The United States government has admitted that prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured, including severe sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, violence and other sadistic interrogation methods carried out for weeks, which were detailed in a log about the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Currently not charged with a crime, Qahtani's torture and time at Guantanamo is said to have "caused psychotic symptoms that included repeated hallucinations involving ghosts and a talking bird".
The prisoner "also often soiled himself, cried uncontrollably, and conversed with himself and with others who were not present", according to his legal team.
Qahtani tried to enter the US on August 4, 2001, "almost certainly" to be a 20th 9/11 hijacker, according to American officials. Mustafa al-Hawsawi, an alleged organiser and financier, is said to have provided him with money and a ticket to Orlando, Florida. Â
However, Immigration and Naturalization Service officers denied Qahtani, now 40 years old, entry because officers thought he seemed suspicious and they sent him back to the United Arab Emirates.
Qahtani later returned to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was captured and then transferred to Guantanamo in February 2002.
Qahtani, who has been described as short and skinny, "wasn't very intelligent" and did not have a "well-thought-out cover story" about his reason for being in Afghanistan, and about why he had arrived in Florida via a one-way ticket "with almost non-existent English", according to an account by former FBI special agent Ali Soufan, who interrogated Qahtani and wrote about it in his book, The Black Banners.
Qahtani, who Soufan wrote "evidence indicated" was an intended "muscle" hijacker, would likely only have known about his specific role in a plot, but not other plans. However, the abusive techniques used on Qahtani by others "did not manage to get any valuable information"Â - let alone "the basic stuff", according to Soufan.
Mark Fallon, a former special agent in charge of the Criminal Investigation Task Force, told Al Jazeera he too was concerned that the abusive techniques were not going to be effective. Equally important he said he thought they would also be illegal, and "would make Qahtani un-prosecutable after [they] had done things that were tantamount to torture".
The Saudi prisoner, who wants to return to his family in the Gulf kingdom, has been "mostly compliant," but has "not cooperated with his interrogators", according to the US military.
Qahtani suffered from "severe psychiatric disabilities" prior to his alleged criminal acts, according to his lawyers.
Qahtani's first traumatic brain injury occurred because of a car accident when he was an eight-year-old, a review board was told. Later he had shown "extreme behavioral dyscontrol," including an episode when he was found naked by Riyadh police in a dumpster.
The legal team cites expert witness Dr Emily Keram, who reviewed Qahtani's 2,000 records of "involuntary psychiatric hospitalization" in Mecca, and concluded his "pre-existing mental illnesses likely impaired his capacity for independent and voluntary decision-making well before the United States took him into custody, and left him 'profoundly susceptible to manipulation by others'".
The "severity and long standing of his psychiatric problems" give Qahtani's lawyers "good reason to doubt the accuracy of the government's factual account of his past actions", Shane Kadidal, a senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer representing Qahtani, told Al Jazeera in an email.
Today, Qahtani is said to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and he would receive the best care if returned to Saudi Arabia, according to Keram.
The Saudi Ministry of Interior is said to have offered "security and humane treatment guarantees", and expressed a "readiness to welcome him in its rehabilitation and aftercare programme".
Qahtani "can't realistically be charged - too much of what they would need to show in his case relates to intent, and there is nothing but torture evidence going to intent", Kadidal said.
Regarding any potential threat concerns the prisoner may pose if released a "psychiatric commitment in a country with a modern psychiatric resources and an all-seeing secret police ought to satisfy anyone's concerns", he added.
There are 80 men left in Guantanamo, which US President Barack Obama has consistently promised to close. In addition to 10 men in various stages of military commission proceedings, some 30 prisoners are cleared for transfer while 40 men are not. But they have also not been charged with a crime - it is these later men who are appearing before the Periodic Review Board, compromised of senior officials with a stake in national security, to plead their cases.
Expected later this year is the PRB hearing of Abu Zubaydah, the first "black-site" prisoner who was also subjected to waterboarding 83 times in one month.
On Tuesday, the CIAÂ released documents, some heavily redacted, regarding its torture and rendition programme. In the documents, it is apparent there was awareness that Zubaydah's interrogation could kill him.
"If subject dies, we plan on seeking assistance for the cremation of subject," states one of the documents, which were released after lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and reporter Jason Leopold.
Further, the waterboarding was pointless. "In any event, there was no evidence that the waterboard produced time-perishable information which would have been otherwise unobtainable," another document stated.
"In the end it confirms what everyone already knows, and there will be no strong justice handed to those who ordered the 'enhanced interrogation'," his sister-in-law Jody Abu Zubaydah told Al Jazeera.
"The CIA felt like they were above all laws," she said, adding she believed it could happen again as there has been no accountability.
Meanwhile, Qahtani should know in about a month if the review board will recommend he be transferred. Â
"Perhaps more than any other prisoner, Mohammed al-Qahtani's continuing imprisonment at Guantanamo represents everything about the prison that is inconsistent with our proclaimed national values," his lawyers said.
"To begin to turn the page on this ugly chapter in our country's recent history, surely our government must release from its custody the one man whose torture it has officially acknowledged."
23 November 2002: The detainee arrives at the interrogation booth at Camp X-Ray. His hood is removed and he is bolted to the floorâ¦
07 December 2002: Corpsman checks vitals and finds the detainee's pulse is unusually slow. Doctor arrives and decides to perform an EKGâ¦
19 December 2002: Began teaching the detainee lessons such as stay, come, and bark to elevate his social status up to that of a dog.
Follow Jenifer Fenton on Twitter: @jeniferfenton | Alleged 20th September 11 attacks hijacker asks review board for freedom as the US admits his torture at naval prison. | 66 | 0.809524 | 1.285714 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.thepostgame.com/robinson-cano-not-doing-home-run-derby-again | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723163211id_/http://www.thepostgame.com/robinson-cano-not-doing-home-run-derby-again | Robinson Cano Says He's Done With Home Run Derby | 20160723163211 | It is hard to watch a former champion struggle at his craft. For Robinson Cano fans, watching the 2011 Home Run Derby champion fade away in the first round of this year's competition was frustrating. Cano, the No. 4 seed, was blasted 24-7 in his head-to-head matchup with eventual champion Giancarlo Stanton.
When Cano won in 2011, the Home Run Derby featured a three-round, ten outs-per-round format. Cano's 2016 campaign was his fourth Derby appearance (2011-2013, 2016), but first in the new timed format. Cano, known for his nonchalance, had the lowest total of any player in any round in the two years of the new rules.
"It is more difficult," he says. "You got a time now. You got to swing. You've got to hit the most you can because you know the guy behind you, the guy in front of you, are going to get the same amount of minutes."
Cano is 33 and still among the best players in the game. His .304 average, 22 home runs, 23 doubles and 66 runs all rank in the top 11 in the American League.
But his Home Run Derby prime may be exhausted. And Cano wants to put that side of his career to bed.
"No, I'm not going back again," Cano says when asked about how he will improve for future years. "I just [did] this year because of my son. I'm not doing it again."
Cano's son, also named Robinson, lives in the Dominican Republic, but he was in the United States for this year's All-Star Game, accompanying Robinson and Robinson's father, Jose, a former MLB player known for his pitching to Cano and other players in the Home Run Derby.
"That's one of the reasons I want to do it, too," Cano told The Seattle Times on July 7. "It will be my dad, myself and my son. So us three there is something that’s going to be pretty special."
During that interview, the Mariner also said of the Home Run Derby, "I want to go back." A few weeks later, his opinion has reversed.
Cano spoke to ThePostGame at the Roc Nation Summer Classic Charity Basketball Tournament. His RC22 Foundation was a beneficiary of the event, along with CC Sabathia's PitCCh In Foundation, Miguel Cotto's Fundacion El Angel and Nick Jonas' Beyond Type 1.
Also, a side note, the younger Robinson is already developing a nice swing:
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-- Follow Jeffrey Eisenband on Twitter @JeffEisenband.
Baseball, Home Run Derby, MLB, MLB All-Star Game, Robinson Cano, Seattle Mariners | Robinson Cano says this year was his last Home Run Derby, due in part to the new format of the contest. | 25.478261 | 0.826087 | 1.782609 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11633745/Fossil-industry-faces-a-perfect-political-and-technological-storm.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723164612id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/finance/economics/11633745/Fossil-industry-faces-a-perfect-political-and-technological-storm.html | Fossil industry faces a perfect political and technological storm | 20160723164612 | This is a deeply-threatening line of attack for those accustomed to arguing that solar or wind are a prohibitive luxury, while coal, oil, and gas remain the only realistic way to power the world economy. The annual subsidy bill for renewables is just $77bn, trivial by comparison.
The British electricity group SSE (ex Scottish and Southern Energy) is already adapting to the new mood. It will close its Ferrybridge coal-powered plant next year, citing the emerging political consensus that coal "has a limited role in the future".
The IMF bases its analysis on the work Arthur Pigou, the early 20th Century economist who advocated taxes to stop investors keeping all the profit while dumping the costs on the rest of society.
The Fund has set off a storm of protest. Subsidies are not quite the same as costs. Oil veterans retort that they have been paying 'social' taxes for a long time.
But whether or not you agree with the IMF’s forensic accounting the publication of such claims by the world's premier financial body is itself a striking fact. The IMF is political to its fingertips. It rarely deviates far from the thinking of the US Treasury.
It is becoming clearer that last year's sweeping deal on climate change between the US and China was an historical inflexion point, the beginning of the end for a century of fossil dominance. At a single stroke it defused the 'North-South' conflict that has bedevilled climate policy and that caused the collapse of the Copenhagen talks in 2009.
Todd Stern, the chief US climate negotiator, said the chemistry is radically different today as sherpas prepare for the COPS 21 summit in Paris this December. "The two 800-pound gorillas are working together," he said.
Mr Stern claims that a constellation of states responsible for 60pc of global CO2 emissions are "already on board" for a binding deal, aimed at limiting the rise in carbon to 450 particles per million (ppm) and capping the rise in temperature to 2C degrees above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Climate scientists warn that we are currently on course for 4C degrees.
Some countries have been startlingly bold. Mexico has vowed to cut gases by 40pc within fifteen years - and Black Carbon by 70pc - if there is a binding accord. Gabon has promised to cut emissions to 62pc below the current trend path within a decade. The hold-outs are a diminishing alliance, struggling to make a moral counter-argument.
China has of course gone green with the zeal of the converted. "We are going to punish any violators who destroy the environment with an iron hand," said president Xi Jinping in March.
Two coal-powered stations were shut down in Beijing that month. The last will be mothballed next year. Deutsche Bank expects China's coal use to peak as soon as 2016, an unthinkable prospect five years ago.
The Communist Party knows its own survival is at stake. Anti-smog protests are spreading in the big cities, a political mass movement in waiting. "Under the Dome", a documentary on the country's toxic air and water, racked up over 100 million views on the internet within 24 hours two months ago. Beijing's censors suppressed it in panic.
Mr Xi promises to cap total CO2 emission by 2030, building 1000 gigawatts (GW) of solar, wind, and nuclear power in fifteen years. His country already has more wind power (115 GW) installed than Britain's entire energy system. It plans to add another 22 GW this year - equal to 15 nuclear reactors - building hundreds of miles of turbines across the North China steppe.
The International Energy Agency says that two-thirds of all fossil fuel reserves booked by global companies can never be burned if the world reaches a 2C accord in Paris. The assets will be worthless.
The carbon pricing regime that must ineluctably follow any such accord - even if phased in gradually - would surely call into question a raft of deep-water drilling projects, and as well as the vast Kashagan filed in the Caspian where break-even costs have risen to $100 a barrel. The North Sea industry would go into run-off.
A report by University College London said the Arctic would never be developed under a 2C degree policy. Over 75pc of Canada's oil would have to stay in the ground, as would 95pc of coal reserves in the US, Russia, and the Middle East, unless there are radical advances in carbon capture and storage.
The Bank of England has launched an enquiry to determine how much of the $5.5 trillion invested in fossil fuel exploration and development over the last six years is really viable, and whether it could become the new ‘subprime’ for the global financial system. This probe has now spread to the whole G20.
Carbon Tracker estimates that $1.1 trillion of investment has gone on ventures that will require oil prices above $95 a barrel over the next decade to break even.
The big oil producers deny that they will be sitting on "stranded assets" under a 2C degree policy. Exxon insists that all its reserves will be needed - and much more besides - to meet rising global energy demand. Yet these companies cannot all be right. It is mathematically impossible.
Jeremy Leggett, the chairman of Carbon Tracker, said Exxon is "placing a bet" that there will be no change in CO2 policy. "It asks its investors to be assured that there is zero risk – precisely zero risk," he said.
A far-reaching climate deal would have been impossible a decade ago. There was little on the horizon to replace fossil fuel. This has suddenly changed.
The advances in the cost and efficiency solar power are by now well-known. The US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says the average prices of photovoltaic modules dropped from $8 a watt in 2007 to $2.70 last year.
The new generation of cells cost around $0.80 a watt. First Solar is already producing modules for $0.40. Its commercial technology can capture 21.5pc of the sun's energy.
In China, Wuxi Suntech Power claims the 'levelized' cost of electricity from solar modules will match the country's coal-powered stations as soon as next year.
A new report by the IEA says utility-scale solar is already operating at plants in Chile and Mexico, selling into the spot market without subsidies. Developers in the United Arab Emirates have signed contracts to deliver electricity from solar projects for as little as $59 per megawatt hour, matching the cheapest hydropower.
Less known is that the cost of battery storage is also falling fast. We are moving much closer to the day when it will be cheaper for those in low or mid latitudes to store energy when the sun is shining and release it later, than to draw power from the grid.
The IEA estimates that the cost of a lithium-ion battery for grid-scale storage has fallen by more than three-quarters since 2008. The batteries last over three times as long.
Tesla's Elon Musk is jumping in with his usual bravado, vowing to liberate consumers from the grid and transform the "entire energy infrastructure of the world".
His Powerwall rechargeable battery can clip on a garage wall and will retail for $3,000 to $3,500 (before installation costs), far lower than anything on the market.
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This is surely just the beginning. The world's scientific superpower is now throwing itself into the fight with gusto, conducting over 220 research projects into various forms of battery storage. Harvard University is working on an organic flow-battery - using quinones from rhubarb - that aims to cut costs by two thirds in three years and end reliance on rare earth minerals.
With luck, we will overcome the curse of solar intermittency before the end of the decade. Mass production will follow by the mid-2020s. The switch to solar will by then be unstoppable.
Fossils fuels are caught in a pincer squeeze, threatened with a 'Pigouvian' climate tax just at the moment when the upstart technologies are coming of age.
Advocates of green energy must restrain their Schadenfreude. Coal drove the industrial revolution. Cheap energy from oil and gas has lifted billions of people out of poverty.
Shell, BP, Exxon, Chevron, and their earlier incarnations, have done mankind a service, carrying out their work diligently in broad accord with the political consensus of an earlier time.
The industry deserves a 'prosperity medal', and an honourable valediction | The IMF says we can no longer afford the economic wastage of fossil fuels, turning the green energy debate upside down as world leaders plan a binding climate deal in Paris | 49.676471 | 0.676471 | 1.029412 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10276917/The-shares-that-pay-the-safest-dividends.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723164708id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/finance/personalfinance/investing/10276917/The-shares-that-pay-the-safest-dividends.html | The shares that pay the safest dividends | 20160723164708 | • Get Twitter alerts for all our investing stories: follow @telegraphinvest
• Delve into the dividend – or get an expert to do it for you
If we use this yardstick, one stock stands out by a mile as Britain's safest dividend payer: GlaxoSmithKline.
The drugs maker, which yields 4.5pc net of basic-rate tax, is held by every one of the 19 UK equity income funds that have been rated Gold, Silver or Bronze under Morningstar's highly regarded grading scheme. And some of the holdings are very large – almost 9pc of Neil Woodford's Invesco Perpetual Income fund, for example, consists of Glaxo shares. On average, the top 19 equity income funds have 5pc of their money in the company.
All but one of the 19 invest in BT, while 16 of them own shares in Vodafone and 15 have holdings in AstraZeneca. Royal Dutch Shell and British American Tobacco are each owned by 14 of the funds, while 12 have shares in BP, according to Morningstar.
Private investors could do a lot worse than buying shares in these companies – and so avoid fund management fees – although they should keep an eye out for any of them being dropped from the top portfolios. But these firms are not the only candidates for "safe dividend payer" status, other top fund managers say. Many of their favourite companies are much smaller than the household names listed above.
One stands out for its enormous yield – one more normally associated with a market that fears an imminent dividend cut.
But the 7pc net income enjoyed by investors in Admiral, Britain's largest motor insurer, is safe, according to Adam Avigdori, manager of the BlackRock UK Income fund.
"In the past eight years, Admiral has set up operations in Spain, Italy, France and the US. We believe that at some stage those businesses will start contributing to growth, as well as it maintaining a very healthy position in the UK market," he said.
Mr Avigdori also sees Reed Elsevier and Spectris as among the safest dividend payers on the London market. Reed, the media conglomerate, yields roughly 3pc net. "We think it can comfortably and consistently grow ahead of inflation for the foreseeable future," he said. "The business only pays out about 40pc of its earnings as dividends, so there is a lot of headroom for this to increase and for the company to grow its dividend."
Spectris, which makes instrumentation systems, has a net yield of only 1.8pc but has "consistently grown its dividend by double digits over the past five years", Mr Avigdori said. "We think it will continue to do this over the next five years. It is very cash-generative."
Carl Stick, who manages Rathbone's Income fund, said defence and aerospace firms could be reliable dividend payers. "In a recent meeting with US giant Lockheed Martin, it became clear to us how cash-generative these businesses can be, because a large proportion of their funding is paid for by their clients, especially the US Department of Defense," he said. "In the UK, we like BAE Systems, which yields 4.4pc net and has good long-term growth prospect for its dividends." He also tipped two smaller British firms in the same sector, Ultra Electronics and Senior, as well as the Restaurant Group. "The company has almost too much cash. The yield is low at 2.2pc net but it is very safe indeed," he said.
James Henderson, who runs the Lowland and Henderson Opportunities investment trusts, picked Hiscox, the insurer, Elementis, the speciality chemical company, and loans company Provident Financial as his safest dividend payers.
Dividends are vital for investors who use them to provide an income, as many pensioners do, but the payments are also important when they are reinvested, typically when people are in work and saving for the future. Studies have shown that dividends, not capital growth, provide the majority of the overall gains for long-term investors. How can you find companies that you can rely on to keep paying you?
The key thing to check is how much of a company's profits it gives to shareholders. A high percentage will mean the dividend is vulnerable to any fall in profits. Look for profits of at least double the dividend. This ratio is called "dividend cover". To work it out, first calculate the "earnings yield" by inverting the price-to-earnings ratio, which, along with the dividend yield itself, is widely published. The ratio of the earnings yield to the dividend yield gives you the dividend cover.
Jamie Forbes-Wilson, manager of Axa Framlington's Blue Chip Equity Income fund, said three of his choices for the safest dividend payers – ITV, Marston's, the brewer, and Direct Line – had payouts more than twice covered by earnings. Jonathan Jackson of Killik, the stockbroker, added: "We choose companies with low debts relative to profits and dividends well covered by earnings and free cash flow."
Is there a dividend policy?
Some companies make public their policy on dividends, giving shareholders reassurance that their income needs are taken seriously. Carl Stick, manager of the Rathbone Income fund, said shareholder return was "central" to GlaxoSmithKline's strategy, for example. Elementis, the speciality chemical company, will pay shareholders half its cash balance at the end of each year, said James Henderson, who holds the shares in his Lowland and Henderson UK Equity Income funds.
High yields can mean a company is going nowhere. Adam Avigdori, manager of the BlackRock UK Income fund, said: "What dividend a company is paying is important, but what they will be doing in future is crucial. Many companies have high yields which don't grow; what we look for are companies that can return capital and grow their dividends."
Some companies have remarkable records for paying uninterrupted dividends. Mr Jackson said Shell had maintained or grown its dividend every year since the end of the Second World War, while Pearson, the publisher, had increased its payout by more than the rate of inflation for 21 years and Halma, which makes health and safety devices for workplaces, had delivered annual dividend growth of 5pc or more for 34 years.
Companies that provide life's essentials are a good source of reliable dividends. "People will always need to eat, require energy to heat homes and need medical care as we grow from the cradle to the grave," said Carl Lamb of Almary Green, an advisory firm.
"Companies in these sectors will always manage to pull through, irrespective of what is going on in the world around them."
If an ordinary dividend is like your salary, special dividends are the Christmas bonus. They tend to be paid when a company has unexpectedly amassed extra money and have been common this year. Many firms have large cash balances and low debt, and are reluctant to embark on big new capital spending projects, Mr Henderson said. "The financial crisis led to a very disciplined approach to capital management," he added. "Now companies are keen to retain their discipline and to return capital to investors rather than undertake lavish expenditure. This will be good for shareholders."
Watch: Henderson's Ben Lofthouse picks out three of the stocks he's been buying recently for his Global Equity Income Fund.
• Investment tips every week by email – sign up here | We name some of the income-paying shares favoured by stock-pickers – starting with the maker of Lucozade. | 57.96 | 0.68 | 1 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/11992479/How-Sweden-the-most-open-country-in-the-world-was-overwhelmed-by-migrants.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723171753id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/11992479/How-Sweden-the-most-open-country-in-the-world-was-overwhelmed-by-migrants.html | How Sweden, the most open country in the world, was overwhelmed by migrants | 20160723171753 | "Adjust for population size, and it’s like Britain finding space for a refugee population the size of Birmingham each year"
The headlines now suggest a country that is coming apart. Just last month, an asylum centre in the picturesque town of Munkedal was set alight, the latest in a series of arson attacks against refugees. Anti-Semitic incidents in Malmö have raised such concern that Swedes have now started “kippa walks”, gathering in their hundreds to accompany Jews home from the synagogue in a show of solidarity. The Sweden Democrats, a party routinely denounced by Swedish media as “neo-fascist”, is now leading in the national opinion polls. Economically, Sweden remains strong. But politically, it’s in crisis.
The problem stems from its famous openness. Swedes have long seen their country as a humanitarian superpower – one that may avoid military conflict, but stands in the front line of helping the world’s dispossessed. In the late Sixties, it welcomed Eastern Europeans who fled the Soviets, my wife’s parents among them. They were given everything by this wonderful country – food, accommodation, lessons in Swedish and even help to make sure their Stockholm-born daughters could still speak Czech. My family is one of many with reason to be grateful for Sweden’s habit of treating its openness as an article of faith.
But this became the problem. When the migration situation changed, Swedish policy did not. The numbers now arriving were never envisaged: this year alone, almost 200,000 are expected to arrive in this sparsely populated country. Adjust for population size, and it’s like Britain finding space for a refugee population the size of Birmingham each year. Sweden’s immigration agency has already run out of beds, and has been accommodating asylum-seekers at its head office.
The problem of professional Romanian and Bulgarian beggars is, for visitors, the most striking. They sit outside Stockholm’s underground stations and coffee shops, often piling their belongings in plastic bags on the street. This seems to advertise that the authorities have lost control. A violinist friend of mine who lives in one of Stockholm’s main shopping streets complains that, if she’d start busking, she’d be removed by police very quickly. But the beggars literally camped outside her front door are undisturbed. It doesn’t take a xenophobe to feel a sense of injustice – and yet, right now, the only party articulating the injustice is the Sweden Democrats.
A man ascends on an escalator as signs put up by the Sweden Democrats political party are seen at Ostermalmstorg subway station in Stockholm Photo: REUTERS
If the finest political minds in Sweden had set out to incubate a far-Right backlash in the world’s most tolerant country, they could not have done better than what has happened over the last few years. First, run an open-door immigration policy making your country the top destination in the middle of a global migration crisis. Next denounce as “neo-fascist” anyone who raises objections. All of this has handed entire sections of the electorate on a plate to the Sweden Democrats. Its leader, Jimmie Åkesson, was on sick leave for five months – he need not have returned. His rivals have been doing all his work for him.
"Britain is a country that is unsure of immigration, but loves immigrants. In Sweden, sadly, it’s the other way around"
During the summer, I spent a few days at the Swedish political festival in Almedalen, in the island of Gotland. It was, itself, an advert for openness: an open-air party conference with no security checks. The Prime Minister wanders around, addressing anyone who pulls up a chair. At the time, David Cameron’s election victory was being much discussed. The Swedes were taken aback, some even appalled, at the language used: stopping migrants from claiming benefits for four years? Pulling out of the European Union? How can a globally minded nation like Britain have such dirty-sounding politics?
The explanation is simple: Britain is a country that is unsure about immigration, but loves immigrants. In Sweden, sadly, it’s the other way around. Britons fret about border controls, but we don’t hesitate to hire immigrants when they arrive. In Sweden, immigrants are twice as likely to be unemployed as natives, one of the worst ratios in the developed world. Accepting immigration at such a level, while being unable to integrate it, is the recipe not just for a political crisis but a national identity crisis.
A few weeks ago, a nursery near my wife’s family’s home announced that it would do its bit, by accommodating some asylum-seekers. The next night, it was set ablaze. Such stories would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. A surfeit of compassion is not the worst vice for a country to have – yet this has, now, ended up roiling far darker forces which it is struggling to contain. Sweden has spent almost 20 years being admired and imitated for reasons that are still valid. But in misjudging the immigration crisis, it now stands as a tragic example of what not to do. | Sweden used to pride itself on giving a warm welcome to outsiders. But as the refugee crisis grows, so too does its sense of injustice | 35.785714 | 0.678571 | 0.964286 | high | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/20/ted-cruz-rnc/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723172147id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/20/ted-cruz-rnc/ | Ted Cruz to Address RNC Wednesday Night | 20160723172147 | For Ted Cruz, Wednesday night was not the night he wanted to be speaking at the Republican National Convention. Not by a long shot.
Cruz wanted to be speaking at the end of the convention on Thursday, accepting the presidential nomination of his party. But he could not overcome Donald Trump, and his Wednesday address could go one of a few ways.
The Texas Senator is not expected to endorse Trump from the stage. Given the long and heated nature of the rivalry between the two, it would come off as disingenuous at best. Instead, Cruz will likely focus on the state of conservatism and will certainly throw a few barbs for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Based on the first two days of the convention, that is more likely to get a big response inside the Quicken Loans Arena than anything he could say about Trump.
But there is another element to Cruz’s address that is impossible to ignore — how might the Texas senator use his speech to set up a comeback in 2020? Donald Trump’s chances of winning the general election are still fairly slim. Cruz knows this. While he can’t outright say it, his speech is surely being written with that in mind.
And there is precedent for such a move. Ronald Reagan lost the 1976 Republican primary to Gerald Ford, but gave a powerful speech at that year’s GOP Convention. Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. Four years later, Reagan was the nominee and crushed Carter, paving the way for eight years in the White House.
Cruz is not Ronald Reagan 2.0. But he and his supporters are surely hoping that Wednesday evening will be his Reagan moment. | Is this is Reagan moment? | 53.166667 | 1 | 1.333333 | high | high | abstractive |
http://time.com/money/4412768/marilyn-monroe-hair-auction/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723181023id_/http://time.com:80/money/4412768/marilyn-monroe-hair-auction/ | You Can Buy Tresses Of Marilyn Monroe's Hair For $8,000 | 20160723181023 | A few precious locks from America’s most famous blonde could sell for as much as $8,000 when they are put up for auction this fall, the Associated Press reports.
The hair of the pop-culture icon who immortalized the allure of the blonde-haired beauty in the 1953 film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, comes from the estate of a friend, Frieda Hull, who got the tresses from actress’s hairdresser. Hull asked for them before Monroe’s death in 1962, and the actress gave her blessing. The two women reportedly had a long-standing friendship, which allowed Hull great access into the life of the actress, who rose to prominence in the 1950s as a Hollywood pop culture and sex icon.
Read More: This Purse Sold for $300,000 in a Record-Setting Auction
Monroe’s tresses — encased in an ultra-violet protected box — aren’t the first hairs of a late celebrity to hit the auction block. Elvis Presley’s locks sold for $115,000 in 2002, while someone bought a lock of David Bowie’s hair for $18,750 in June.
Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles will start bidding for the items on November 19 and 20.
The auction will also feature other memorabilia from the actress, ranging in price from a mere $3,000 all the way up to $600,000. They include a black beaded and sequined dress from the 1959 movie Some Like It Hot, as well as a pink linen halter dress the actress wore in the 1953 film noir Niagara.
Auction-goers can also bid for a collection of photos of Monroe from the 1955 premiere of “East of Eden.” Additionally, the event will feature Monroe memorabilia from the collections of Actors Studio artistic director Lee Strasberg and from David Gainsborough-Roberts, a British collector who’s thought to own the largest private collection of the actress’s outfits.
Auctions of unusual items that once belonged to celebrities can reach astronomically high bidding prices. A mouthguard used by basketball star Steph Curry, set for August 3, is expected to go for more than $5,000, and Princess Leia’s bikini, worn by actress Carrie Fisher in the sixth Star Wars installment, sold for $96,000 in 2015. | Bidders prefer blondes, apparently. | 71 | 0.666667 | 1.666667 | high | low | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/sports-teams-score-a-piece-of-the-ticket-scalping-business-1465931185 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723191459id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/sports-teams-score-a-piece-of-the-ticket-scalping-business-1465931185? | Sports Teams Score a Piece of the Ticket-Scalping Business | 20160723191459 | Sports teams are getting into a business that they used to both envy and scorn: ticket scalping.
The National Hockey League’s Los Angeles Kings last month emailed a letter to ticket brokers about the team’s new resale policy: Brokers who want to buy season tickets must pay slightly more than fans do for the seats; can buy only a limited number; and can resell them electronically only through a platform run by AXS. That’s the... | Sports teams like the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings are getting into a business that they used to both envy and scorn: ticket scalping. | 3.307692 | 0.923077 | 11.923077 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/3319812/Keep-it-simple.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723194927id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/foodanddrink/3319812/Keep-it-simple.html | Keep it simple - Telegraph | 20160723194927 | It just so happens that this is a great time of year for this type of lunch, especially if you want the best of British produce. Asparagus and Jersey Royals (people in the know never call them potatoes) are flavours of the month and they work well as a duo.
For a number of years, I have been making sure that my salmon and sea trout are wild - you hardly need me to tell you how bad the farmed stuff is - and, as long as something this pricey is also a seasonal treat, it is worth the extra pennies.
Here is my "non-interventionist" lunch for June. Bearing in mind how unpredictable the weather is, I have left you the scope to serve it at whatever temperature you like. All dishes work well hot or cold.
You could split this meal into a more formal three courses by serving the roast asparagus as a starter. Well, more of a canapé. I would let people help themselves and eat the spears with their fingers. If you do this, add a leaf salad (such as watercress) to the main course.
Roast asparagus Sea trout with Jersey Royals and salad cream Cherry pie
Roasting asparagus really intensifies the bittersweet flavour. Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Trim about half an inch (or just over a centimetre) from the cut end of the stalks, then peel them gently (up to roughly the second of the little "chevron" marks from the base).
Toss the asparagus with olive oil and a pinch of salt before roasting the spears for 20 minutes. If you like, you could dress them with more olive oil and freshly grated Parmesan just before serving.
I am giving you a choice of methods here. You may want to buy a whole sea trout and cook it "as is". Lots of people I know would love to poach salmon whole but are intimidated by the size: sea trout often comes in at a weight more suited to domestic ovens and fish kettles. A 3lb/1.3kg sea trout (roughly) is plenty for four, and there will be leftovers (more on those later).
Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Line a roasting tray with tinfoil, with a lot of it hanging spare over the sides. Rub the fish with a scant amount of olive oil and lay it in the middle of the foil.
Add the juice of a lemon, a scattering of salt and about 4 fl oz/100ml (a wine glass) of water. Now bring the foil up to make a loose tent over the fish and bake it in the oven for 10 minutes per 1lb/450g.
Take it out of the oven and rest it in its tent for at least 10 minutes before serving. But if you prefer the fish "pink" (medium rare), lift it out of the foil before the resting time. Cooked this way, sea trout is best eaten at room temperature.
If you are buying fish from a supermarket, it is likely to be portioned. Steaks (cut through the bone) will poach well (a steak 1in/2.5cm thick will simmer in about 10 minutes), but fillets are best seared. You will need fillets weighing about 6oz/170g per person.
Heat a non-stick frying-pan until tiny wisps of smoke appear. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil and fry the fish, skin side down, for about three minutes. Turn over the fish and lower the heat of the pan ever so slightly. Cook the fish for another 3 minutes. Then rest it for another 3 minutes before seasoning it to your liking and serving.
If you have forked out for Jersey Royals (or any other decent potato, for that matter) don't mess about with them. Bring a pan of salted water to a rolling boil. Scrub, but don't peel, the spuds. Cook them in the water until just tender.
As soon as they are done to your liking (usually in 15 to 20 minutes), drain them. Do not cool them with water: it ruins their texture. (If you want them to cool quickly, spread them on a roasting tray.) While they are still slightly warm, halve them, or break them open with your fingers.
Toss them with either oil or butter, salt and a little pepper. This makes the little crumbly bits emulsify the dressing.
This is a revelation to me, because I never understood the appeal of the bottled stuff, which is sweet and vinegary. The real thing is much subtler. Make this before everyone arrives. It will keep in the fridge for a week.
5 tbsp milk 1 level tsp mustard powder 1 level tsp runny honey 1 level tbsp butter 2 eggs Juice of 1 lemon 1 generous tbsp double cream Salt to taste (keep pepper well away from salad cream)
Heat the milk, mustard powder, honey and butter in a small saucepan. Bring to a scalding point and make sure everything is mixed together. If it looks as if it might curdle, lower the heat. Add the eggs bit by bit, stirring constantly.
When it starts to coat the back of the spoon like custard, take it off the heat. Now add the lemon juice and double cream and keep stirring until it thickens a little more and starts to look like salad cream. Season with salt. Allow to cool before using.
I am a firm believer in hoarding fruit in tins and jars, ready for easy entertaining. The same goes for puff pastry: I buy it in and keep it in the freezer. You could use fresh cherries for this recipe, but you would have to cook them first. In fact, if you have fresh cherries I would plonk them on the table in a bowl and let people dig in.
1lb/450g puff pastry 2 tins (425g) of cherries in syrup 2oz/50g soft butter 1 level tbsp plain flour 1 beaten egg
This couldn't be easier. Divide the pastry in two. Roll half out to line the base and sides of an 8in/20cm pie dish. Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. If you have one, pop in a baking sheet or roasting tray large enough to hold the pie dish.
Drain the cherries, reserving the syrup. Beat the butter and flour to a paste. Add just enough (2 to 3 tbsp) of the cherry syrup to make it looser, then spread it over the pastry base.
Now roll out the remaining pastry as thinly as possible, then fold it back on itself. Repeat this twice. You just made it a bit "puffier". Now roll it into a disc and make the pie lid. Tidy up the edges if you like. Slash the middle of the lid a couple of times to let steam escape.
Bake the pie on the hot sheet or tray for about half an hour or until the top is crispy, puffy and golden brown. Serve hot or cold with cream. Ice cream would be good, too, but be warned - the pie is very sweet.
The last thing the world needs is another recipe for fish cakes. If you find yourself with leftover salmon or sea trout, this is a different way to use it up.
2oz/50g butter About 4oz/110g cooked salmon or sea trout, flaked Juice of half a lemon 4 tsp salt 2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 1 bay leaf Twist of black pepper (optional)
Heat the butter until it fizzes and the milk solids appear at the top as white flecks in the foam. As soon as the flecks start to go golden brown, remove from the heat and strain the butter through a sieve lined with kitchen towel.
Now mash the fish and all the other ingredients into the butter. Pack tightly into a sterilised jar, making sure all the fish is submerged in butter.
Spread the potted salmon or trout on toast or, as odd as it sounds, toss it with pasta for a light meal. It will keep in the fridge for a week or so. | The key to serving no-sweat lunches that still provide lots of homely good food is 'non-interventional' cooking - buy the best of what's in season and then don't mess about with it, says Tom Norrington-Davies. | 33.574468 | 0.638298 | 1.276596 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4130679/millennials-mtv-generation/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160723213338id_/http://time.com:80/4130679/millennials-mtv-generation/? | MTV to Call Post-Millennials the Founders | 20160723213338 | Griffin Picciani, 14, doesn’t feel like a millennial. The New York City teenager looks at his early-20s cousins and easily recognizes the differences between his teenage years and theirs. Griffin only knows a black president. The video games he plays are miles away from the 8-bit consoles his cousins can remember. And perhaps most important, he and his friends can’t remember a time before Instagram and Snapchat.
“My age group has grown up with all of this social media at a much younger age,” Griffin says. “I think that’s given us a different perspective.”
Griffin is part of a generation that hasn’t been fully defined but appears to break from millennials—and one that doesn’t yet have a widely accepted name. MTV is looking to change that, and the network will announce a new name Wednesday: the Founders.
MTV President Sean Atkins says the name acknowledges that while millennials have disrupted society, it’s this new generation’s job to rebuild it. “They have this self-awareness that systems have been broken,” he told TIME ahead of the announcement. “But they can’t be the generation that says we’ll break it even more.”
There are, it turns out, a plethora of monikers for this new generation: Gen Z, iGen, Posts, Homeland Generation, ReGen, Plurals. But for MTV, the cable and satellite network which has been studying this generation for the last few years, none of those names represented what its researchers were seeing in surveys and data they’d been collecting. So in March 2015, the network asked more than 1,000 kids who were born after December 2000 what they should be called, generating 544 names including the Navigators, the Regenerators, the Builders, the Bridge Generation, and the winner, the Founders.
MTV is part of a growing number of media companies and marketers that have been trying to figure out what drives this group. Research is beginning to show that teenagers today are more pragmatic and independent than their millennial predecessors. They’re more likely to stand out than fit in. They’re digital natives who don’t know a time before being constantly plugged in. And they’re part of the most diverse generation in history, a generation that will soon be as coveted among marketers as millennials.
For MTV, which has seen significant ratings declines over the last couple years and recently named a new president to oversee new programming, the network plans to use the information it has gathered to tweak its shows to better reflect this group, which in the next few years will begin displacing millennials as it enters the network’s core demographic of 12 to 34 years old. MTV says its research shows that younger teens today see a world drastically disrupted. Facebook and Google have upended the news business. YouTube has disrupted television. Airbnb and Uber have unsettled long-established industries like hotels and taxis. The economy itself was disrupted by the Great Recession, creating a world in which their parents may have lost their jobs and family budgets are tight.
“They’re slightly more risk-averse,” says Jane Gould, MTV senior vice president of consumer insights and research. “They’ve grown up without a safety net.”
Generational experts and marketers have only just begun studying this generation, and most are finding similar traits. It will be the first generation parented largely by Generation X, often called latch-key kids thanks to the hands-off parenting style of the Greatest Generation. Those often-cynical Gen X parents appear to be imparting a realism onto their kids as opposed to a more optimistic, you-can-do-anything parenting style of their Baby Boomer parents.
Still, there’s no hard break between any generation, and some experts see this new group as merely the ultimate extension of millennials.
“We do not expect that this next generation is going to be anti-millennial,” says Neil Howe, a generational theorist and author of Generations and Millennials Rising, who has also coined the term “homelanders” for those coming after millennials. “You have a whole generation that is going to represent the extreme endpoint of where millennials were going in many respects: risk-averse, team-oriented, well-behaved.”
This fall, MTV started introducing new shows that are beginning to reflect these younger consumers, including Todrick starring Todrick Hall, who was cut from American Idol but has reinvented himself on YouTube and Broadway. Last year the network launched Faking It, which focuses on high schoolers who become popular by standing out, a character trait MTV researchers say this generation values. The biggest shift will show up next year in the ambitious scripted series The Shannara Chronicles, a fantasy series set inside a post-apocalyptic dystopian world.
“The Founders” generation is still in its early stages, and the perceptions being formed may change over time. MTV executives say they realize that and may rethink the name in the future. But for now, they’re sticking with Founders, a name Griffin, the New York City teenager, endorses.
“It definitely describes our generation,” he says. “And considering the other names out there, it’s a lot easier to remember.” | It joins a growing list of monikers for post-millennial teens | 84.416667 | 0.833333 | 1.666667 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/06/rose-mcgowan-pens-response-to-critic-of-renee-zellwegers-face/21425227/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160724043501id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/07/06/rose-mcgowan-pens-response-to-critic-of-renee-zellwegers-face/21425227/ | Rose McGowan pens response to critic of Renee Zellweger's face: 'Vile, damaging, stupid and cruel' (Guest Column) | 20160724043501 | On June 30, Variety published a column by its new film critic, Owen Gleiberman, titled "Renee Zellweger: If She No Longer Looks Like Herself Has She Become a Different Actress?" The critical piece offered Gleiberman's take on plastic surgery in Hollywood, an issue he wrote about after watching a trailer for Zellweger's new film, Bridget Jones's Baby. Rose McGowan, who worked as an actress (Charmed, Scream) before turning her attention toward filmmaking, music and social activism especially focused on women's rights issues, has written a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, published below, in response to Gleiberman (he declined to comment on her piece). McGowan's full essay appears below ...
Owen Gleiberman, this is not a counterpoint. There is no counterpoint, there is no defense for the indefensible.
Renee Zellweger is a human being, with feelings, with a life, with love and with triumphs and struggles, just like the rest of us. How dare you use her as a punching bag in your mistaken attempt to make a mark at your new job. How dare you bully a woman who has done nothing but try to entertain people like you. Her crime, according to you, is growing older in a way you don't approve of. Who are you to approve of anything? What you are doing is vile, damaging, stupid and cruel. It also reeks of status quo white-male privilege. So assured are you in your place in the firmament that is Hollywood, you felt it was OK to do this. And your editors at Variety felt this was more than OK to run.
You are an active endorser of what is tantamount to harassment and abuse of actresses and women. I speak as someone who was abused by Hollywood and by people like you in the media, but I'm a different breed, one they didn't count on. I refuse and reject this bullshit on behalf of those who feel they can't speak. I am someone who was forced by a studio to go on Howard Stern where he asked me to show him my labia while my grinning male and female publicists stood to the side and did nothing to protect me. I am someone who has withstood death threats from fanboys, had fat sites devoted to me. I've withstood harassment on a level you can't comprehend, Owen.
I was so confused by the heaping tons of abuse, I actually forgot what I looked like. Which is awesome because I rose up from some serious ashes to finally have my say. Here's some truth: Men like you and the women who sit idly by and say nothing should know that aiding and abetting is a moral crime, and if it were punished in Hollywood, most of you would be in some form of jail.
Any studio that Renee Zellweger has made money for, any co-star she's supported or anyone who takes a percentage of her income should be doing what's right; they should be calling this harassment out.
READ MORE: 'Bridget Jones' Baby' Trailer: Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey Compete to Become a Father
As a woman who has been bullied for years by a vicious pack of lower beings, I can relate to this. Many are probably silent because they do not wish for the proverbial pen to be pointed at them; I say point away. Short of killing me, you can't possibly do more than what was done to me in my tenure as an actress. I don't care if you're afraid. Be brave. Do what's right, for once. I loathe fear. And this town is built on fear. Fear was instilled in me by the men and women of this town, just as I'm sure it was instilled in Ms. Zellweger. Fear of being blacklisted, fear of being branded difficult, fear of ... fear of ... fear of.
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson during 15th Annual MTV Video Music Awards at Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson during 15th Annual MTV Video Music Awards at Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson during 15th Annual MTV Video Music Awards at Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson during 15th Annual MTV Video Music Awards at Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 10: (L-R) Singer Marilyn Manson with girlfriend, actress Rose McGowan at MTV Video Music Awards. (Photo by Mirek Towski/DMI/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Ke.Mazur/WireImage)
Rose McGowan (Photo by Barry King/WireImage)
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Ke.Mazur/WireImage)
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Ke.Mazur/WireImage)
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Ke.Mazur/WireImage)
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Rose McGowan (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Rose McGowan (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Marilyn Manson & Rose McGowan (Photo by Barry King/WireImage)
Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Well, guess what, Owen? I am not afraid of you or anyone. It is a small, small, myopic, self-fellating town that loves to love itself. I am here to ask you all to put the mirror down and look out at society, because whether you're aware of it or not, you too are part of society and by retreating to the standard go-to — silence — you are hurting all of us. Look at what you're doing and where you bear responsibility and culpability. Who are you all protecting and why? Who are you helping and why?
To illustrate what women in the public eye go through ad nauseam, I have replaced Renee Zellweger's name in your article with those of male actors.
The movie's star, LEONARDO DICAPRIO, already had his "Did he or didn't he?" moment back in 2014, and I had followed the round-the-world scrutinizing of his image that went along with it, but this was different. Watching the trailer, I didn't stare at the actor and think: He doesn't look like LEONARDO DICAPRIO. I thought: He doesn't look like JAY GATSBY!
In the case of MATT DAMON, it may look to a great many people like something more than an elaborate makeup job has taken place, but we can't say for sure. What we can say is that if that happened, it reflects something indescribably sad about our culture. For in addition to being a great actor, DAMON as much or more than any star of his era, has been a poster guy for the notion that each and every one of us is beautiful in just the way God made us.
"You complete me" is one of the great lines in modern romantic movies because of the way it takes its inner meaning from who TOM CRUISE is. This is what completes you: someone who looks just like this. What completes you is reality.
RYAN GOSLING had won the lottery, had been plucked from semi-obscurity by the movie gods (or, actually, by the daring of Cameron Crowe), but not because it was so unusual to see a non-famous actor starring in a major movie.
He worked with costars who reinforced his supernova status, through their fame or their beauty or both. ROB LOWE, with pillowy cheeks and quizzically pursed lips and that singular squint, was beautiful, but not in the way that a BRAD PITT or GEORGE CLOONEY was.
JOHNNY DEPP was no flash in the pan, but after 'Edward Scissorhands', he struggled to find roles that could complete him. It wasn't until 'Pirates of the Carribean,' five years later, that he hit his stride by finding a role that jelled with his image as an extraordinary ordinary guy.
A spirit reflected, at least in the first two movies, in the slightly slovenly doughy-cuddly perfection of ANSEL ELGORT's face. Yes, he gained weight for the role, but the added weight was still him. I'm one of the few critics who loved even the second film (the ANSEL-goes-to-Thai-prison plot might have seemed absurd, except that ELGORT grounded it), and the third chapter is long overdue. I just hope it turns out to be a movie that stars ANSEL ELGORT rather than a victim of Invasion of the Face Snatchers.
Actress Renee Zellweger attends the 2001 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards on October 19, 2001 at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Actress Renee Zellweger attends the 58th Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 21, 2001 at Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)
Actress Renee Zellweger attends the Nurse Betty New York City Premiere on September 6, 2000 at Loews East Cinemas in New York City. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Actor Jay Mohr and actress Renee Zellweger attend the 16th Annual MTV Video Music Awards on September 9, 1999 at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center in New York City. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)
Actress Renee Zellweger attends The Bachelor Hollywood Premiere on November 3, 1999 at Pacific's Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)
Actress Renee Zellweger attends the One True Thing Century City Premiere on September 16, 1998 at Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas in Century City, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)
Actress Renee Zellweger attends the One True Thing New York City Premiere on September 13, 1998 at Sony Theatres Lincoln Square in New York City. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)
Actress Renee Zellweger attends the Jerry Maguire New York City Premiere on December 6, 1996 at Pier 88 in New York City. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)
Actress Renee Zellweger attends the Jerry Maguire Westwood Premiere on December 11, 1996 at Mann Village Theatre in Westwood, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)
American actress Renée Zellweger and Japanese artist, singer, and peace activist Yoko Ono attend the preview for the Matt Nye Spring 2000 collection, New York City, USA, 1999. (Photo by Rose Hartman/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
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HOLLYWOOD - DECEMBER 20: Actor Jim Carrey and actress Renee Zellweger attends the 'Man on the Moon' Hollywood Premiere on December 20, 1999 at the Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)
UNITED STATES - CIRCA 2000: Renee Zellweger is on hand for the New York premiere of the movie 'Nurse Betty' at the Loews Cineplex 19th St. East Theater. She stars in the film. (Photo by Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Jim Carrey & Renee Zellweger (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)
Greg Kinnear and Renee Zellweger at the photo call for the film 'Nurse Betty' at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, 5/12/00.Photo: Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect
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Renee Zellweger and director Neil Labute at the premiere for the film 'Nurse Betty' at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, 5/12/00.Photo by Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect
Jim Carrey and Renee Zellweger at the premiere of 'Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas' at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles Ca. 11/8/00. Photo by Kevin Winter/ImageDirect
383127 11: Actress Renee Zellweger arrives at the 10th Annual Fire & Ice Ball December 11, 2000 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, CA. (Photo by Chris Weeks/Liaison)
Renee Zellweger (Photo by SGranitz/WireImage)
LONDON - MARCH 10: American actress Renee Zellweger, British actor Hugh Grant and British pop star Geri Halliwell arrive at the UK premiere of the film 'Bridget Jones' Diary' at the Empire Cinema Leicester Square on March 10, 2001 in London. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images)
UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 19: Renee Zellweger is on hand for the 2001 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards at the Manhattan Center's Hammerstein Ballroom. (Photo by Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, : US actress Renee Zellweger arrives at the 74th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, CA, 24 March 2002. Zellweger is nominated for Best Actress for her role in 'Bridget Jones's Diary.' AFP PHOTO/Lucy NICHOLSON (Photo credit should read LUCY NICHOLSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Renee Zellweger relaxes after her 22-minute run during 5th Annual New York Revlon Run/Walk for Women - to Raise Funds for Women's Cancer Research, Awareness & Prevention at Time Square & East Meadow of Central Park in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage)
Renee Zellweger during Chicago Press Conference with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly, Bill Condon and Rob Marshall at The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, United States. (Photo by Vera Anderson/WireImage)
Renee Zellweger wearing Jil Sander during Anna Wintour and Harvey Weinstein Co-host Screening of Chicago at Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by James Devaney/WireImage)
Renee Zellweger during Sundance Film Festival Archives by Randall Michelson in Park City, Utah, United States. (Photo by Randall Michelson/WireImage)
Renee Zellweger during Chicago Special Screening to Benefit GLAAD and Broadway Cares - Outside Arrivals at The Ziegfeld Theater in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage)
LONDON - DECEMBER 19: American actress Renee Zellweger poses at Cafe Royal in London in occasion of the UK 'Chicago' Premierr on December 19, 2002. (Photo by Jon Furniss/Getty Images)
NEW YORK - JANUARY 10: *** EXCLUSIVE *** (ITALY OUT) Actress Renee Zellweger carries bottled water as she leaves her hotel January 10, 2003 in New York City. (Photo by Arnaldo Magnani/Getty Images)
Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger (wearing Chanel) at the 2002 National Board Of Review Of Motion Pictures Annual Awards Gala at Tavern-On-The-Green in New York City. January 14, 2003. Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Renee Zellweger at the 60th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, Ca., 1/19/03. Zellweger won 'Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy' for Chicago. (Photo by Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect)
ITALY - FEBRUARY 10: Renee Zellweger in Rome, Italy on February 10th, 2003. (Photo by Eric VANDEVILLE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
UNITED STATES - MARCH 01: Renee Zellweger in the press room at the 55th Annual Directors Guild Awards at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, CA 03/01/03 (Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES - MARCH 9: Actress Renee Zellweger poses backstage with her Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role and Outstanding Performance by A Cast In A Theatrical Motion Picture awards for 'Chicago' during the 9th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on March 9, 2003 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Renee Zellweger during Miramax 2003 MAX Awards - Inside at St. Regis Hotel in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by KMazur/WireImage)
Renee Zellweger wearing a Neil Lane ring at the The Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)
Renee Zellweger during Renee Zellweger Promotes 'Down with Love'Boutique at Bloomingdales at Bloomingdale's in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by James Devaney/WireImage)
Renee Zellweger during 2003 Tribeca Film Festival - 'Down With Love' World Premiere at Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street in New York City, New York, United States. (Photo by KMazur/WireImage)
Owen, the last line in your article, "I hope it turns out to be a movie about a gloriously ordinary person rather than someone who looks like she no longer wants to be who she is" is quite the mind f---.
Guess what? It is time to stop f—ing with women's minds.
Do you know what my interests are, Owen?
My interests are bigger than pondering a stranger's face. My interest is destroying the status quo. My interest as a card-carrying member of society is to STOP the brainwashing Hollywood and the media have for too long gotten away with. The brainwashing that you have long been a friend to and a supporter of.
Let's talk about Hollywood writers: Joan Didion, John Fante, Raymond Chandler, Robert Towne, Dorothy Parker, John Gregory Dunne, Preston Sturges, I.A.L. Diamond, Pauline Kael and Billy Wilder. These were writers on Hollywood.
You, Owen Gleiberman, are not they.
You are simply a bully on semi-glossy paper.
READ MORE: Rose McGowan Calls Out 'X-Men' Billboard That Shows Mystique Being Strangled
More on AOL Entertainment: EXCLUSIVE: Aly & AJ on finally getting to grow up, on screen and in their new music Bryan Cranston compares 'Power Rangers' movie to 'Dark Knight' Stop what you're doing because Nickelodeon is reviving 'Double Dare'! | Rose McGowan goes on the defense for Renee Zellweger's face in new editorial piece for The Hollywood Reporter. | 182.95 | 0.95 | 2.25 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-exclusive-cast-interview-being/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160724074618id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/theatre/what-to-see/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-exclusive-cast-interview-being/ | Harry Potter and the Cursed Child exclusive cast interview: 'Being a wizard is the best job ever' | 20160724074618 | © Telegraph Media Group Limited 2016 | For 10 weeks, the wizards and their offspring were holed up in an aircraft hangar in Bromley-by-Bow, practising the sort of theatrical magic that is best perfected in private. | 0.166667 | 0 | 0 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-abandons-one-child-policy-1446116462 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160724091609id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/china-abandons-one-child-policy-1446116462?tesla=y | China Abandons One-Child Policy | 20160724091609 | BEIJING—China will abandon its one-child policy, perhaps the most notorious of the Communist Party’s intrusions into Chinese lives, amid a looming demographic crunch that threatens the long-term health of the world’s second-largest economy.
All Chinese couples will be allowed to have two children, Chinese official media said, showing Beijing isn’t ready to totally relinquish its grip on the homes and bedrooms of its people.... | The Communist Party will allow Chinese couples to have two children, ending a notorious 35-year-old limit on reproduction that has created myriad problems and threatened the country’s long-term economic health. | 2.216216 | 0.648649 | 1.567568 | low | low | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/21/facebooks-solar-power-drone-flight/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160724132307id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/21/facebooks-solar-power-drone-flight/ | Facebook's Solar-Powered Drone Just Hit a Big Milestone | 20160724132307 | Facebook’s solar-powered, Internet-beaming drone is one step closer to bringing the web to earth.
The social networking giant said on Thursday that its unmanned aircraft, named Aquila, successfully passed its first test flight on June 28 in Yuma, Ariz. Although Facebook fb has been flying a smaller version of the drone over the past several months, the social network touted this test flight in late June was the first time it flew the actual drone.
The Aquila drone is part of Facebook’s ambitious plans to bring the web to regions in the world where Internet connectivity is bad or non-existent. Facebook is looking for ways to beam the Internet down from the sky to these regions and has been working over the past few years on a custom-designed drone to help it do so.
The Facebook drone project is similar in idea to Google and its Project Loon Internet project. But whereas Google goog wants to use giant balloons that would hover in high altitudes to establish an aerial wireless network, Facebook wants to use a fleet of drones outfitted with solar panels, batteries, and an electric motor that could remain in the sky for three months.
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Aquila has the wingspan of a Boeing 737 and weighs about a third of a Toyota Prius car. When it flies in the air at cruising speed, it consumes roughly 5,000 watts, which is “the same amount as three hair dryers, or a high-end microwave,” wrote Facebook vice president of infrastructure engineering Jay Parikh in a blog post about the flight.
Facebook noted it originally planned on flying the drone for 30 minutes for the Yuma test flight, but the project went so well that operators extended the flight to 96 minutes.
Still, Facebook has a long ways to go before it can start beaming the web to the ground from the Aquila drone. Aquila only flew to around 2,150 feet above the ground—far from the 60,000 to 90,000 feet altitude in which it wants its yet-to-be developed drone fleet to hover.
The drone must also be able to stay up in the air at night, which could be difficult during the winter when there is less daylight, according to a Facebook engineering post on some of the challenges the social networks is trying to address. The solar panels need to collect “enough energy during the short days to keep the batteries charged over the long night, up to 14 hours at a time,” the post elaborated.
Facebook said that batteries “account for roughly half the mass of the airplane,” and it is “pushing the edge of high energy-density batteries,” which hints that Facebook is possibly researching new battery technologies or designs. Additionally, building such an elaborate research drone costs a lot of money, and Facebook stressed it is “working with the industry” to more quickly and cheaply develop the kinds of technologies required to build more of these drones.
Then there’s the actual capability of the drone to continuously transmit wireless signals between other drones as well as stations down on the ground. Pulling that off successfully, “will require continued advances in science, engineering, and design,” according to the Facebook blog post.
For more about Facebook, watch:
Still, the fact that Facebook was able to launch the drone up in the air and have it fly around is a first step.
“Put simple, this has not been done before,” Facebook boasted. | The drone made its first successful test flight. | 75.111111 | 0.777778 | 1.444444 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/21/prince-harry-continues-princess-dianas-fight-against-hiv-and-ai/21436612/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160724145506id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/07/21/prince-harry-continues-princess-dianas-fight-against-hiv-and-ai/21436612/? | Prince Harry continues Princess Diana's fight against HIV and AIDS | 20160724145506 | "When my mother held the hand of a man dying of AIDS in an east London hospital, no one would have imagined that just over a quarter of century later, treatment would exist that could see HIV positive people live full, healthy, loving lives," Prince Harry said at the International AIDS Conference.
Prince Harry is taking on the fight against AIDS and HIV, a cause his mother, the late Princess Diana, also championed.
SEE ALSO: Pippa Middleton's fiance James Matthews spotted running ... with the royal dog? The British royal spoke at the International AIDS Conference in South Africa on Thursday.
His speech comes just one week after he took an HIV test and live-streamed it on Facebook.
UNAIDS says the fights against new HIV infections is making good progress for children, but new adult HIV infection rates have remained steady for the past five years.
See photos of Princess Diana throughout her life:
Princess Diana's life in photos
Princess Diana wearing a tiara and diamond necklace on an official visit to Australia, April 12th 1983. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Family album picture of Lady Diana Spencer at Itchenor, West Sussex, during the summer of 1970. (AP Photo)
Lady Diana Spencer, 21, Prince Charles's girlfriend, is pictured in 1980 at the Kindergarten in St. Georges Square, Pimlico, London, where she works as a teacher. Diana, youngest of 56-year-old Lord Spencer's five children, would not talk about her friendship with Prince Charles, although it is known they have been on dates and she has stayed with the Royal Family at Balmoral. (AP-Photo)
This is a Feb. 24, 1981 file photo of Britain's Prince Charles and the then-Lady Diana Spencer on the grounds of Buckingham Palace after announcing their engagement. According to the British news agency, Diana, Princess of Wales has died following a car accident in Paris, France, Sunday Aug. 31, 1997. (AP Photo/Ron Bell/Pool)
Prince Charles and his bride-to-be, Lady Diana Spencer, driving down the course in an open carriage before Royal Ascot in England meeting on June 19, 1981. (AP Photo/Press Association)
UNITED KINGDOM - JULY 01: An informal study of Prince CHARLES, the Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana SPENCER, whose wedding will take place at Saint-Paul's Cathedral, London on 29th July 1981. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
Prince Charles looks at his beaming bride, the Princess of Wales, at the top of St. Paulâs steps after their marriage in London on July 29, 1981. (AP Photo/Press Association) UK Out
LONDON - JULY 29: (FILE PHOTO) Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales leave St. Paul's Cathedral following their wedding July 29, 1981 in London, England. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
FILE - In this July 29, 1981 file photo, Britain's Prince Charles kisses his bride, the former Diana Spencer, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in London, after their wedding. Sony Electronics and the Nielsen television research company collaborated on a survey ranking TV's most memorable moments. Other TV events include, the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict in 1995 and the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. (AP Photo, file)
LONDON - JULY 29: Diana, Princess of Wales and Prince Charles ride in a carriage after their wedding at St. Paul's Cathedral July 29, 1981 in London, England. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/WireImage)
The Princess of Wales (formerly Lady Diana Spencer) smiles as she talks with the Commander of her Household Cavalry escort, Andrew Parker-Bowles, as she and the Prince of Wales leave Buckingham Palace in London for Waterloo Station to begin their honeymoon on July 29, 1981. (Press Association via AP Images)
Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales (1961 - 1997) pose together during their honeymoon in Balmoral, Scotland, 19th August 1981. (Photo by Serge Lemoine/Getty Images)
Princess Diana wearing a Jasper Conran suit during a visit to a community centre in Brixton, October 1983. (Photo by Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
PARIS, FRANCE: Britain's Princess Diana arrived in Paris Friday, 13 November, 1992, on a private three day visit she is making without her husband, Prince Charles. (Photo credit should read JOEL ROBINE/AFP/Getty Images)
HONG KONG, HONG KONG: Britain's Princess Diana stands with tennis players Michael Chang of the US (L) and Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman during the awards ceremony at the Hong Kong Open 23 April. Princess Diana, on a private visit to Hong Kong, watched as Chang defeated Bjorkman 6-3, 6-1 to win the tournament. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales visits Chinatown in Liverpool, April 1982. She is pregnant with Prince William, and wearing a pink wool maternity coat by Bellville Sassoon and a hat by John Boyd. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
WINDSOR, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 06: Princess Diana At Polo, Just Two Weeks Before The Birth Of Her First Child, Prince William. Wearing A Maternity Dress Designed By Fashion Designer Catherine Walker She Is Walking With Sarah Ferguson. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
LONDON - JUNE 22: New born Prince William with Diana, Princess of Wales and Prince Charles leave St. Mary's hospital on June 22, 1982 in Paddington, London, England,. He was born in the Lindo Wing of the hospital on June 21. (Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - FEBRUARY 01: Princess Diana Holding Her Baby Son, Prince William, At Kensington Palace. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
NEW ZEALAND - APRIL 18: Princess Diana And Prince William In New Zealand. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
(FILES) This picture taken 17 June 1997 shows Diana, Princess of Wales, a key volunteer of the British Red Cross Landmine Campaign at Red Cross headquarters in Washington DC. Princess Diana may have survived her fatal Paris car crash in 1997 if French medical staff had not wasted precious time, a leading British surgeon indicated at her inquest 19 November 2007. AFP PHOTO/FILES/Jamal (Photo credit should read JAMAL A. WILSON/AFP/Getty Images)
The Prince and Princess of Wales visit Barmouth in Wales, November 1982. She wears a suede beret by John Boyd and a coatdress by Arabella Pollen. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales visits University College Hospital in London, December 1982. She wears a John Boyd hat and a velvet suit by Caroline Charles. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - FEBRUARY 01: Princess Diana And Prince Charles With Prince William And His Koala Bear Toy At Kensington Palace (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Princess Diana (1961 - 1997) at the School of the Air, in Alice Springs, Australia, 30th March 1983. She is wearing a dress by Jan van Velden. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
AYERS ROCK, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 21: Prince Charles, The Prince Of Wales And Diana, Princess Of Wales Standing In Front Of Ayers Rock During Their Official Tour Of Australia (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
NEW ZEALAND - APRIL 18: Princess Diana During A Visit To New Zealand Wearing A Dress Designed By Fashion Designer Donald Campbell (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
MANUKAU - APRIL 19: Diana Princess of Wales meets firemen during a visit to Manukau, near Auckland, New Zealand during the Royal Tour of New Zealand on April 19, 1983. Princess Diana wore a suit designed by Jan Van Velden, with a hat by John Boyd. (Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)
CANADA - JUNE 23: Princess Diana in Edmonton during an official visit of Canada (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Princess Diana (1961 - 1997) leaving St Mary's Hospital, London with her new-born son Prince Harry, September 1984. She is wearing a red coat by Jan van Velden. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
VENICE, ITALY - MAY 5: (FILE PHOTO) (L-R) Diana the Princess of Wales holds her son Harry, whilst looking at Prince William held by his father Prince Charles on May 5, 1985 in Venice, Italy. Prince William will celebrate his 21st birthday on June 21, 2003. (Photo by Georges de Keerle/Getty Images) On July 1st Diana, Princess Of Wales would have celebrated her 50th Birthday Please refer to the following profile on Getty Images Archival for further imagery. http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Search/Search.aspx?EventId=107811125&EditorialProduct=Archival For further images see also: Princess Diana: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Account/MediaBin/LightboxDetail.aspx?Id=17267941&MediaBinUserId=5317233 Following Diana's Death: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Account/MediaBin/LightboxDetail.aspx?Id=18894787&MediaBinUserId=5317233 Princess Diana - A Style Icon: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Account/MediaBin/LightboxDetail.aspx?Id=18253159&MediaBinUserId=5317233
LA SPEZIA, ITALY - APRIL 20: The Prince and Princess of Wales in La Spezia during a tour of Italy. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
TWERTON ON AVON - MAY 31: Diana Princess of Wales meets girl guides outside the Poolemead centre for the Deaf on May 31, 1985 in Twerton on Avon, Bath, Avon. (Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)
CANADA - JULY 01: Diana Princess of Wales celebrates her birthday in Canada (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Princess Diana (1961 - 1997) inspects a guard of honour during a two-day visit to the 1st Battalion, the Royal Hampshire Regiment in Berlin, October 1985. She is wearing a pink and black suit by Victor Edelstein and a hat by Frederick Fox. (Photo by Lucy Levenson/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 04: Diana, Princess of Wales with her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, at the piano in Kensington Palace (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
KLOSTERS, SWITZERLAND - FEBRUARY 06: Prince Charles With Princess Diana On A Ski-ing Holiday Together. The Princess Is Wearing A Red 'head' Ski Suit And A Headband And She Is Holding A Pair Of 'dynamic' Skis. The Prince Is Wearing A Blue Ski Suit And Carrying A Pair Of 'k2' Skis. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
VIENNA - APRIL 16: Diana, Princess of Wales, wearing a sapphire diamond and pearl necklace, attends a banquet on April 16, 1986 in Vienna, Austria (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
TETBURY, UNITED KINGDOM - JULY 18: Princess Diana Carries Prince Henry (harry) On Her Shoulders At Highgrove. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
UNITED KINGDOM - AUGUST 22: PRINCESS DIANA ON BOARD HMS TRAFALGAR NUCLEAR SUBMARINE MEETING THE CREW DURING A VISIT TO THE NAVAL SUBMARINE BASE IN FASLANE IN THE FIRTH OF CLYDE, SCOTLAND (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
SANDHURST - APRIL 10: Diana, Princess of Wales wears a Catherine Walker white suit with drum majorette gold frogging and epaulettes and a graham smith hat for her visit to the Sandhurst Military Academy on April 10, 1987 in Sandhurst, England (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
Princess Diana and Prince Charles of Wales attending a Lionel Richie concert at Wembley Arena, London, November 7th 1987. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images)
The Prince And Princess Of Wales At A Prizegiving, At Polo, Smiths Lawn, Windsor. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
Diana, The Princess Of Wales, And Prince William, At A Polo Match, Smiths Lawn, Windsor. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND - AUGUST 14: Princess Diana With Her Sons Prince William And Prince Harry At Aberdeen Airport. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
MAJORCA, SPAIN - AUGUST 10: Diana, Princess of Wales with Prince Harry on holiday in Majorca, Spain on August 10, 1987. (Photo by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images)
Princess Diana (1961 - 1997) driving an armoured vehicle with the Royal Hampshire Regiment at Tidworth, Hampshire, 23rd June 1988. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
CHAMBORD, FRANCE - NOVEMBER 09: Diana, Princess of Wales, wearing a white and blue lace and sequin evening coat-dress designed by Catherine Walker for a dinner at the Chateau de Chambord during her official visit to France. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales at the museum in Kuwait City, March 1989. She is wearing a gold embroidered bedouin gown that was presented to her with a silver tea set to mark the occasion of her visit. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales with her sons William and Harry on the chair lift during a skiing holiday in Lech, Austria, April 1991. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 7 Diana, Princess of Wales attends the Premiere of Dangerous Liaisons, in London's West End, on March 7, 1989 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - MARCH 15: The Prince And Princess Of Wales attend a desert picnic on March 15, 1989 in Adu Dhab, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images)
BATH - MAY 30: (FILE PHOTO) Prince William, Diana, Princess of Wales, Prince Harry and Charles, Prince of Wales, attend the wedding of the Duke of Hussey's daughter in May, 1989 in Bath, England. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - SEPTEMBER 11: Princess Diana With Her Sons Prince William And Prince Harry Standing On The Steps Of Wetherby School On The First Day For Prince Harry. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
INDONESIA - NOVEMBER 05: The Princess Of Wales Playing Bowls At Sitanalia Leprosy Hospital In Indonesia (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
NIGERIA - JUNE 3: (FILE PHOTO) (PRINCESS DIANA RETROSPECTIVE 17 OF 22) The Princess of Wales speaks with Nigerians circa 1990 during a visit to Nigeria. Princess Diana, 36-years-old, died with her companion Dodi Fayed, 41-years-old, in a car crash August 31, 1997 in Paris, France. Fayed was the son of an Egyptian billionaire. (Photo by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother in an open-topped landau on their way to the Royal Ascot race meeting, June 1990. The Princess wears a Catherine Walker suit and a Philip Somerville hat. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales walks amongst crowds of children waving flags during her visit to Cullompton in Devon, September 1990. She is wearing a Catherine Walker dress. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 05: Princess Diana With Mrs Barbara Bush At The White House (Photo by TIM GRAHAM/Getty Images)
Diana, The Princess Of Wales Takes Her Sons, Prince'S William, And Harry Out On The Boat ' Maid Of The Mist ' To View Niagara Falls. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - NOVEMBER 18: Diana Princess of Wales attends the Premiere of Hot Shots, in London's West End, on November 18, 1991 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales (1961 - 1997) talks to children at the British school in Seoul during a visit to Korea, 1992. (Photo by Linda Grove/Getty Images)
INDIA - FEBRUARY 11: Diana Princess of Wales sits in front of the Taj Mahal during a visit to India (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
CALCUTTA;INDIA - FEBRUARY: Princess Diana the Princess of Wales holds hands with a nun at Mother Teresa's Hospice in Calcutta during her visit to India in February of 1992. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
GIZA, EGYPT - MAY 12: Diana Princess of Wales visiting the Pyramids in Giza during an official tour of Egypt. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
EGYPT - MAY 13: Diana, Princess of Wales in teh Alazhar Mosque, Cairo, Egypt (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 13: Diana, Princess of Wales, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, and Prince Harry, attend the Trooping The Colour Ceremony on June 13, 1992 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
Princess Diana (1961 - 1997) on a skiing holiday in Lech, Austria, March 1993. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Getty Images)
Princess Diana (1961 - 1997) meets local people during a field visit to Red Cross projects in the remote mountain villages of Nepal, 3rd March 1993. (Photo by Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
Diana Princess Of Wales, Prince William & Prince Harry Visit The 'Thorpe Park' Amusement Park. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
Princess Diana (1961 - 1997) during a visit to the Red Cross borehole project for refugees in Zimbabwe, July 1993. She is wearing a safari suit by Catherine Walker. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Getty Images)
Princess Diana (1961 - 1997), Prince Harry, Prince William and Prince Charles at a parade in the Mall, London, during V.J. Day commemorations, August 1994. Diana is wearing a Tomasz Starzewski suit and a hat by Philip Somerville. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Getty Images)
UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 20: Princess Diana Reviewing The Troops Of The Princess Of Wales Regiment In Kent. The Princess Is Wearing A Pink Suit Designed By Versace. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Diana, Princess Of Wales Attends The Serpentine Gallery Summer Party. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
LONDON -OCTOBER 08: Diana, Princess of Wales laughs as she visits the London Lighthouse, the HIV/Aids charity, to help launch it's £1.5 million Capital Appeal on October 08, 1996 in London, England . (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
Diana, Princess of Wales at Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art for a benefit ball. (Photo By: Richard Corkery/NY Daily News via Getty Images)
ANGOLA - JANUARY 15: Diana, Princess of Wales wearing protective body armour, visits a minefield being cleared by the chirty Halo in Huambo, Angola (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
WINDSOR, UNITED KINGDOM - MARCH 09: Official Portrait Of The Royal Family On The Day Of Prince William's Confirmation. Front Left To Right - Prince William, Princess Diana, Prince William, Prince Charles And The Queen. Back Left To Right - King Constantine, Lady Susan Hussey, Princess Alexandra, Duchess Of Westminster And Lord Romsey (Photo by Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images)
GREAT BRITAIN - JUNE 06: Diana, Princess of Wales crouching down to embrace a pupil at the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Diana, The Princess Of Wales Visits Washington, Usa.Gala Dinner Held By The American Red Cross, To Raise Funds For Landmine Victims Around The World. . (Photo by Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images)
Prince Harry said the new risk in the fights against the disease is complacency. "As people with HIV live longer, AIDS is a topic that has drifted from the headlines. And with that drift of attention, we risk a real drift of funding and of action to beat the virus," he said.
In 2006, Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of the African nation Lesotho founded Sentebale. Their organization helps children who suffer from extreme poverty and combats Lesotho's HIV/AIDS epidemic. On the organization's website, Prince Harry writes, "This charity is a way in which Prince Seeiso and I can remember our mothers, who both worked with vulnerable children and people affected by AIDS."
UNAIDS estimates more than 36 million people worldwide were living with HIV in 2015 and just 17 million of them were being treated for the disease.
The five-day International AIDS Conference featured presentations and speeches from experts and celebrities from around the world.
This video includes clips from Facebook / The Royal Family and the International AIDS Society and images from the International AIDS Society and Twitter / @UNAIDS. Music provided courtesy of APM Music.
RELATED: Prince Harry opened up about his future girlfriend:
More from AOL.com: Crystal Hefner shares racy bikini pic after removing her breast implants Carrie Underwood shares rare photo of her adorable son, Isaiah Cara Delevingne, aspiring hairdresser, shaves woman's head on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' | Prince Harry is taking on the fight against AIDS and HIV, a cause his mother, the late Princess Diana, also championed. | 166.56 | 1 | 25 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/italy/rome/articles/36-hours-in-rome/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725052802id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/travel/destinations/europe/italy/rome/articles/36-hours-in-rome/ | 36 hours in... Rome | 20160725052802 | Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you shouldn’t even think of trying to do it in a day. You’ll get much more out of this fascinating urban village, which still seems bemused at times by having founded an empire, if you enter into its laid-back rhythms. The itinerary suggested here is actually quite energetic – but it still leaves out several key sights, like the Vatican Museums, which need a half day to themselves.
Rome has two airports, Fiumicino (Aeroporto Leonardo da Vinci) and Ciampino, both of which cover flights from British airports. BA, easyJet and Ryanair are among the operators. See telegraph.co.uk/rome for details, or download our free app (see box, right).
Close to the Borghese Gardens, the Lord Byron Hotel (1) has elegant interiors and a restaurant with an award-winning wine list. From £234. Read the full review here
The Del Senato (2) has one of Rome’s most romantic locations, fabulous roof terrace and easy access to the Pantheon. From £139. Read the full review here
The Modigliani (3) is a clean, good-value hotel, close to the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. From £81. Read the full review here
These last two hotels, and my other recommendations of where to stay, can be booked at telegraph.co.uk/romehotels, which offers a best price guarantee. Prices are for room only.
Head for the down-to-earth Testaccio district to see a Roman pizzeria at its most lively. Overlooking a small park, Remo (4) (Piazza Santa Maria Liberatrice 44; 0039 06 574 6270) serves up good Roman-style, thin and crispy pizzas. The tomato and basil bruschettas are also excellent. Come early as they don’t take bookings.
Start the day with a Roman breakfast of cappuccino and cornetto (sweet croissant) at elegant Bar Rosati (Piazza del Popolo 5a; 0039 06 322 5859), which at this morning hour still has a relaxed vibe. Then cross the square to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo (5) (Piazza del Popolo 12; www.santamariadelpopolo.it; free), an artistic treasure trove in which two strickingly dramatic canvases by Caravaggio stand out.
Head for the Ara Pacis (6) (Lungotevere in Augusta; £7), where Richard Meier’s boxy museum-container houses a graceful marble altar that honoured Emperor Augustus’s pacification of the Roman provinces. It’s a short stroll to the churches of Sant’Agostino and San Luigi dei Francesi in the piazzas of the same names, with more splendid Caravaggios.
From Piazza del Collegio Romano, where you may want to see the Old Masters in the Doria Pamphilj family’s private picture gallery, head along Via Pie’ di Marmo, stopping to admire the venerable Ditta G Poggi arts-and-crafts shop (7) (Via del Gesu 74/75; poggi1825.it). After absorbing the grandeur of the Pantheon, stroll to Piazza Sant’Eustachio, where the coffee shop of the same name provides Rome’s ultimate caffeine fix.
After meandering through Piazza Navona and browsing the bohemian frock and accessory boutiques of Via del Governo Vecchio, backtrack to Armando al Pantheon (8) (Salita dei Crescenzi 31; 0039 06 6880 3034;www.armandoalpantheon.it; £33) for one of Rome’s best trattoria lunches. I love the tasty tagliolini in baccalà (salt-cod) sauce and, in spring, the puntarelle salad.
Give your feet a rest by taking up the ‘110open’ open-top bus from Piazza Venezia (9) (trambusopen.com; hop-on, hop-off day ticket €20; full circuit €15). The full two-hour tour takes in St Peter’s, Castel Sant’Angelo, Palazzo del Quirinale (jumping off point for the Trevi Fountain), the Colosseum and Forum, and Circo Massimo. Bale out at this last stop to taste some of Rome’s best gelato at Gelato Fantasia in Viale Aventino (10) – the salted peanut flavour is particularly fine.
Back in Piazza Venezia, head up the steps of the Capitoline hill to admire the harmonious square laid out by Michelangelo and the equestrian statue of emperor Marcus Aurelius on a site that bristled with Roman temples. Walk behind the Palazzo dei Senatori to see surviving ones in a view of the Forum (11). After dark, illuminations by Oscar-winning Vittorio Storaro are better still.
Time for a restorative glass of new-generation Frascati at Terre e Domus in Largo del Foro Traiano, a bright contemporary wine bar and restaurant dedicated to the wines and produce of the countryside around Rome. The front seats provide a ringside view of Trajan’s Column.
Head into Monti, the chic boho district of cobbled lanes and alternative fashion and vintage shops between Via Nazionale and Via Cavour. Best hunting ground for funky togs, shoes and jewellery is Via del Boschetto, where you’ll find good-value restaurant Asino d’Oro (13) (Via del Boschetto 73; 0039 06 4891 3832; dinner £25) serving up gourmet dishes (lamb innards in vin santo with melon and goat’s cheese, anyone?) at non-gourmet prices.
Stop in for a nightcap at cool neo-speakeasy the Jerry Thomas Project (14)(Vicolo Cellini 30; 0039 370 1146 287; www.thejerrythomasproject.it; cocktails £8). You may be asked for a password at the door. It helps if you have a hipster beard, moustache or hat – with all three, they’ll take you on as a barman. | Read our guide to the best things to do on a short break in Rome, as recommended by Telegraph Travel. Find great photos, expert advice and insider's tips. | 32.242424 | 0.606061 | 0.787879 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/22/global-500-in-6-charts/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725092557id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/22/global-500-in-6-charts/ | The Fortune Global 500 in Six Charts | 20160725092557 | The Fortune Global 500, our annual list of the world’s largest corporations, represent the best in global business. In 2015, revenue for the Global 500 declined 11.5% to $27.6 trillion, and total profit declined 11.2% to $1.5 trillion. The decreases are largely the result of the oil glut and all-time lows for crude prices—last year, mining, oil producers, and metal companies lost a combined $70 billion on $1.3 trillion in revenue. And a strong U.S. dollar also cut into the revenues for U.S.-based corporations operating abroad. For more about the economic impact of the almighty buck, read How a Spike in the Value of the Dollar is Hurting the U.S. Economy.
In the meantime, here’s everything you need to know about the Global 500 in six handy charts.
For the second year in a row, total shareholder equity shrank for the Global 500, by 2.6% to $14.7 billion. The last time it grew was 2013, when it climbed 6.4% to $14.5 billion.
For the entire Global 500, profits were down again last year, by 11.2%, with a combined total net income of $1.5 trillion. Last year, 65 companies in the Global 500 reported combined losses of $184 billion. The median loss was $1.1 billion.
Fortune Global 500 companies had revenues that equaled 37.8% of World GDP—down from 40.1% last year. Over the past 20 years, the 500 largest companies in the world have grown at a slower rate than World GDP.
In 2015, revenue for the 500 largest global corporations dropped 11.5% to $27.6 trillion, owing to falling oil prices and in part by the surge in value of the U.S. dollar, which has stalled economic growth worldwide. Last year, 360 companies in the Global 500 saw a decline in revenue from the previous year.
There are 12 women CEOs in the Fortune Global 500 this year, down from 14 last year. Carol Meyrowitz stepped down but as CEO of American retailer TJX, but will stay on as executive chairman for three more years. DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman retired last October as the result of the impending merger with Dow Chemical, and Hindustan Petroleum CEO Nishi Vasudeva retired in March of this year. The one new female executive in the Global 500 is Isabelle Kocher, CEO of French energy giant Engie (No. 89), which was formerly known as GDF Suez before being rebranded last year.
The Fortune Global 500 companies employ 67 million people worldwide. The industry with the most employees is commercial and savings banks, which employ more than 6.8 million people, or roughly 10.3% of the Global 500. The automotive industry is the second largest, with 5.3 million workers worldwide.
To see which 23 companies are new to the Global 500 list this year, check out the full list at fortune.com/global 500, where you can also find interactive graphics, more charts, company profiles, and much more. | Everything you need to know about the world's biggest companies. | 47.916667 | 0.833333 | 4.333333 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/10/31/shop-this-video-the-must-have-crossbody-mini-bag/21256599/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725111845id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2015/10/31/shop-this-video-the-must-have-crossbody-mini-bag/21256599/ | Shop this video: The must-have crossbody mini bag | 20160725111845 | Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
Fashion is a study in contrasts: hard and soft, leather and lace, super-sized and micro-mini. While massive, structured totes are in every store right now, mini-bags are also having a moment. We're in love with
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11072682/Ben-Glover-Atlantic-album-review.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725144750id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11072682/Ben-Glover-Atlantic-album-review.html | Ben Glover, Atlantic, album review | 20160725144750 | Ben Glover's fifth solo album, Atlantic, opens with a short and sharp treat called This World is a Dangerous Place, a song co-written with the talented Rod Picott. It sets the tone for a classy ride on all 11 tracks.
I enjoyed Glover's previous album, Do We Burn the Boats?, but there is a maturity and conviction to this album that makes it a step up.
The songs were written in America but recorded on the Donegal coast (the picture on the album cover is of Ballyliffin beach) and Glover, a former law student from Glenarm in Antrim, achieves his aim of bridging his two homes – his birthplace of Northern Ireland and Nashville, where he has lived since 2009 – and bringing together two musical worlds. Atlantic blends blues and soul with folk and country, and there is a good variety to the songs, from the mournful How Much Longer Can We Bend? to the joyful Sing a Song Boys.
Glover sings with real spark and there are a pair of fine duets with Gretchen Peters (Blackbirds and the co-written Mississippi Turns Blue) and a song written with Mary Gauthier. Oh Soul, a superb song of redemption, was on Gauthier's recent album Trouble & Love. "Mary and Gretchen are High Priestesses of songwriting," said Glover, who has made a very good album. | Ben Glover blends Irish music with Americana, in a lovely album that features songs written with Mary Gauthier and Gretchen Peters | 11.434783 | 0.73913 | 1.521739 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/05/04/lisa-rinna-changes-hair-first-time-in-20-years-wwhl/21370279/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725185452id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/05/04/lisa-rinna-changes-hair-first-time-in-20-years-wwhl/21370279/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_1015552&ncid=txtlnkusaolp00001361%23slide=3280942 | Lisa Rinna changes her hair for first time in 20 years, shows off new look on 'Watch What Happens Live' | 20160725185452 | Lisa Rinna has finally changed up her signature 'do.
The 52-year-old Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star debuted her new look on Watch What Happens Live!, sporting noticeably darker locks and ditching her famous bangs.
WATCH: Lisa Rinna Says She Received 'Terrifying' Phone Call Claiming Her Daughter Would Be Killed
"I mean, I wanted to try something new, and you know, I've had the same hairdo," she told host Andy Cohen, also acknowledging that criticism about her hair bothers her. "For 20 years I've had the same hairdo and I thought, 'Why not?,' you know?"
"I like my hairdo though," she added. I really do."
Rinna said she actually dyed her hair herself, and was inspired by this year's Met Gala theme, "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology."
"[It's] just styled differently," she explained about the cut. "I darkened it a little bit. I went to the drugstore last night, and I got this fanciful -- I don't know what it is."
"It'll wash out," she continued. "Because my highlights were all crazy all over the place and I thought, I'll just darken it a little bit. I had a vision. It was sort of, like, for the Met Ball, the 'Manus Machina' look for the Met Ball."
WATCH: EXCLUSIVE -- Lisa Rinna Says Harry Hamlin Threatened Divorce If She Joined 'Real Housewives'
ET recently chatted with Rinna's RHOBH cast-mate, Lisa Vanderpump, who dished about all the drama between herself and Rinna during the latest season.
"It was just such an awful season. I felt like I was under attack," Vanderpump told ET exclusively. "She [Rinna] might as well have hit me with a baseball bat on the head." | Lisa Rinna debuted her new look on Watch What Happens Live!, sporting noticeably darker locks and ditching her famous bangs. | 16.608696 | 1 | 19.347826 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/05/23/christopher-nolans-dunkirk-first-set-photos-reveal-directors-vis/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725190149id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/films/2016/05/23/christopher-nolans-dunkirk-first-set-photos-reveal-directors-vis/ | Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk: first set photos reveal director's vision of wartime France | 20160725190149 | Warner Brothers confirmed today that filming has started on Nolan’s movie, which is simply titled “Dunkirk”.
“Principal photography on the epic action thriller Dunkirk is underway in Dunkirk, France,” reads the official press release.
“Christopher Nolan (Interstellar, Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy) is directing Dunkirk from his own original screenplay, utilizing a mixture of IMAX® and 65mm film to bring the story to the screen. The production will shoot in France, Holland, the UK and Los Angeles.
“Dunkirk opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in.”
Other images from the film set, taken today, show actors in military costume, standing in front of a wall of sandbags. | Christopher Nolan is a famously secretive man. | 21 | 0.625 | 0.875 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/30/has-boris-johnson-been-a-good-mayor-of-london | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725214023id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2016/apr/30/has-boris-johnson-been-a-good-mayor-of-london | Has Boris Johnson been a good mayor of London? | 20160725214023 | Boris Johnson will cease to be London mayor when a successor is elected on 5 May. What exactly has he done?
Less than he could have. Some dismiss the mayor’s job as fiddling with bus fares and doing lots of showing off, but there’s more to it than that. Johnson himself recently listed “a spending budget far bigger than many Whitehall departments,” command of a vast transport network, setting the priorities of the Metropolitan Police and exercising strategic planning powers. The mayor can also affect a range of environmental issues, along with health and education in the capital – and, yes, use the job’s platform for sounding off. The problem with Johnson is that there has been more noise than achievement.
So is he wrong to claim that the Underground is more efficient and that a “cycling revolution” is taking place?
Fair play, there has been progress. Tube upgrades have continued and Crossrail is on its way. Johnson has introduced new cycling infrastructure and a hire scheme. But how much praise does he deserve? Transport for London is formally under mayoral control, but has long enjoyed an autonomous relationship with central government. Though some insist that credit for “Boris bikes” belongs to Ken Livingstone, it was Johnson who brought the project to life. However, his belief that it would all be paid for by sponsorship proved false. And it is too early to say if his “cycle superhighways” and other provisions will really revolutionise cycling in London.
The bus is the London public transport workhorse. What has he done for that?
He’s been complacent. And his bespoke “Boris bus”, AKA the New Routemaster, will soon have no open rear platform, no conductors and be no cleaner than off-the-peg green vehicles – the very features he claimed would make it special.
Has he “smoothed traffic flow” on London’s streets as promised?
No. Last summer London was found to be the most congested city in Europe. Population growth and large construction projects contribute to this, but Johnson’s early decision to halve London’s congestion charge zone demonstrated his eagerness to keep motorists sweet. Cracking the congestion problem would have taken far bolder road space management measures. No chance.
What about policing and crime?
Johnson showed he could be ruthless when he effectively forced the resignation of Sir Ian Blair as Met commissioner in his first term. But his policing policies have been marked by the usual Tory deference to authority in uniform and clichés about “bobbies on the beat”. His first police and crime plan was damned by one criminologist as “designed to grab headlines”. Knife crime remains the problem it was when he came to power pledging to solve it. Doing that is about more than policing, but politicians should be judged on their record– even “good old Boris”.
He had a good Olympics, didn’t he?
The 2012 Games enabled Johnson to demonstrate his greatest strength as mayor – an ability to generate laughter and a mood of upbeat bonhomie. It also showcased his “Teflon” quality. As David Cameron remarked, any other politician getting stuck on a zipwire would never recover, but for Johnson it proved “an absolute triumph”. Still, the hard graft of making the Olympics a triumph was, of course, done by others.
Could he have done more to improve London’s dire air quality?
Yes. Some progress has been made, albeit under pressure from the EU. But critics say he has dragged his feet in order to avoid penalising drivers of dirty vehicles. His plans for an ultra-low emission zone in central London have been criticised as too little, too late.
Is the London housing crisis his fault?
Not really. London’s relentlessly inflating property market is largely the result of decades of national policy, and the city’s success in attracting people to it. But Johnson hasn’t tried hard enough, not least because he’s gone along with fellow Tories in national government far more than he’s sought to challenge them. Which brings us to …
Has he been a thorn in the side of David Cameron?
Only in superficial ways that have generated media coverage out of all proportion to their importance.
Is the London mayoralty a stronger institution than it was?
It is. But that’s as much in spite of Johnson as because of him. More powers have been devolved to City Hall and his gift for self-publicity has kept the mayoralty in the public eye. But his administration has lacked focus. A senior colleague once remarked that he didn’t run a team so much as let a bunch of chums do as they like. He has perpetuated the myth that the mayoralty is an unimportant bauble hung around the neck of a celebrity. It will be for his successor – probably Labour’s Sadiq Khan – to show that the job is worth far more. | As his second term draws to a close, we look at Boris’ record at City Hall – on transport, policing, housing, the Olympics and the legitimacy of the mayoralty itself | 27.970588 | 0.676471 | 0.970588 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/19/how-the-uk-civil-service-has-changed-in-10-charts | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725224754id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2015/nov/19/how-the-uk-civil-service-has-changed-in-10-charts? | How the UK civil service has changed in 10 charts | 20160725224754 | The civil service is at its smallest since the second world war – and since 2010 its workforce has become older and more concentrated in London.
Ahead of the 2010 spending review, there were nearly 480,000 full-time civil servants, while in March 2015 there were just more than 406,000, according to the Institute for Government’s annual Whitehall Monitor report released on Thursday.
To put these figures in context, percentage-wise the reductions in the civil service since 2010 have been deeper than in other parts of the public sector (such as the police), but not as deep as in the armed forces or local government.
However, despite the 15% reduction in numbers, the government had expected the civil service to be operating with even fewer staff by now, a stark illustration of how difficult any further cuts are likely to be.
Some departments have undergone deeper reductions than others. Communities and local government, work and pensions (DWP), and culture, media and sport have had the biggest staff reductions, of more than 30%. Three departments – energy and climate change, international development, and the Cabinet Office – have actually grown since 2010.
Five departments – work and pensions, the Ministry of Justice, revenue and customs, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Home Office – employ nearly three-quarters of all civil servants.
Staff reductions mean the civil service is now older than it was five years ago – 40% of civil servants are more than 50 years old.
The civil service is now more concentrated in senior grades as junior roles have seen the biggest cuts.
Just less than 40% of the senior civil service is now female, compared with 34% in 2010. However, this does not reflect the greater number of women than men at more junior grades.
In the department for communities and local government, and the culture department, 50% of the senior civil servants are women, up from 38% and 40% respectively in 2010. The Foreign Office and the MoD have the smallest proportion of women (26% and 27%), although both have increased since 2010 (when they were at 21% and 20% respectively).
In terms of ethnic diversity, 11% of civil servants are from a minority ethnic background, compared with 9% in 2010 and just 4% in 1988. This is still less than the ethnic diversity of the general UK population though, which was 14% at the 2011 census.
According to research by the National Audit Office, the cost of annualised civil service staff salaries fell by £2.49bn (or 18%) between 2010 and 2014.
However, at the same time as most departments are reducing salary costs and the number of civil servants, some have increased the number of non-payroll staff they employ.
It should also be noted that the number of special advisers rose from 63 to 107 over the course of the last parliament.
As part of its savings, the government has also reduced its office space, which has meant that civil servants in nearly all departments had less space in 2014 than in 2011, despite the headcount reductions.
On average, departments had just more than one workstation for each member of staff in 2014. Ten departments had fewer than one workstation per employee.
More civil servants are based in London than in any other UK region – 18% of the total, an increase from 16% in 2010. The east Midlands hosts the fewest. In both Scotland and Wales, UK government departments employ more civil servants than the devolved administrations.
The greatest reduction in staff numbers has been in the north-west, which has seen its workforce fall by more than 13,000 in the past five years. The DWP alone employs 8,500 fewer staff in the region in 2015 compared with 2010. | The civil service is at its smallest since the second world war. Since 2010 it has become more senior, older, slightly more diverse and more concentrated in London | 24.064516 | 0.935484 | 5.967742 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/realestate/affordability-in-danbury-conn-just-over-the-border.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160725234203id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2014/10/26/realestate/affordability-in-danbury-conn-just-over-the-border.html?_r=0 | Affordability in Danbury, Conn., Just Over the Border | 20160725234203 | Corporations are drawn by competitive office lease rates and proximity to a major interstate, a municipal airport, a regional hospital and two golf courses, Mr. Tuomala said.
Danbury’s housing market is still recovering from the market collapse. According to Zillow, about 30 percent of homes in Danbury had negative equity as of June 30. Short sales are common, and because of strong rental demand, investors are paying cash for properties to convert to rentals, said Lisa Bowman, an agent with Keller Williams, based in Ridgefield.
Danbury’s tree-lined Main Street downtown retains many historic buildings, but, as Mr. Howerton noted, has the tired look of a place “getting left behind.” What activity there is derives from the restaurants, travel agencies and hair salons catering to the city’s many Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking immigrants.
Though the 42-square-mile city is densely developed, parks and lakes unlock the landscape. The largest body of water is Candlewood Lake, which is surrounded by homes and extends into four other towns.
Danbury is something of a hub for upper Fairfield County, where people go for work, shopping and cultural events and to visit inmates at the low-security federal correctional institution on Route 37. (Piper Kerman, whose memoir was the basis for the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” served her sentence at a satellite camp adjacent to the prison.)
A downtown special services district known as CityCenter Danbury has been trying to revitalize the area around Main Street for years. Progress is slow, largely because, despite efforts to rally “stakeholders,” as yet “there is no plan,” said Andrea Gartner, the executive director of CityCenter, who added, “We should be trying to create a community of urban enthusiasts and creatives.”
Plans for a new apartment building downtown may inspire more action. Greystar, a national manager of multifamily housing, will soon break ground on a 375-unit market-rate apartment building near the bus station, Ms. Gartner said.
In October, the median sales price for a single-family home was $265,000, according to Mary Foley, a broker with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty. The median for a condominium was $217,000. The roughly 200 single-family homes listed ranged from $114,900 for an 1893 colonial with two bedrooms to $3.2 million for a five-bedroom Cape on Candlewood Lake. The 165 condos listed started at $59,500 for an efficiency and topped out at $729,000 for a new three-bedroom three-bath townhome at Rivington by Toll Brothers, a development near the New York border. About 200 of more than 1,000 units planned have sold so far, according to Andrea Lastella, an assistant marketing manager for Toll Brothers.
There is strong demand for rentals, according to Ms. Bowman of Keller Williams. Monthly rents at several fairly new apartment complexes range from about $1,500 to $1,800 for a one-bedroom to more than $2,000 for a three-bedroom, she said.
The Westside Campus of Western Connecticut State University just opened a new Visual and Performing Arts Center with an art gallery, concert hall and 350-seat theater. The campus amphitheater, the Ives Concert Park, hosts a summer musical lineup.
Tarrywile Park’s 700-plus acres are crisscrossed by more than 21 miles of trails used by hikers, horseback riders and mountain bikers. A shingled mansion that belonged to the former owner of this onetime estate can be rented for weddings and other events.
The gently rolling fairways of Richter Park Golf Course, flanked by stone walls, woods and a reservoir, are open to the public.
The Portuguese Cultural Center has fitness facilities and a soccer field, as well as musical programs and a restaurant.
The Stew Leonard’s group of food stores, known for its mechanical singing animals and seasonal outdoor “Little Farm,” attracts the usual crowd of shoppers to its location on Federal Road.
With an enrollment of just under 11,000, the Danbury school district serves a highly diverse student population in 13 elementary schools, three middle schools and two high schools (one of them a small alternative school), said Sal V. Pascarella, the superintendent.
A new intradistrict magnet school, Westside Middle School Academy, opened this year for grades 6 to 8. The school’s themes are global studies and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The district’s kindergarten-to-Grade 5 magnet school, the Western Connecticut Academy for International Studies, was recently named Elementary School of the Year by the Connecticut Association of Schools. About 3,000 students attend Danbury High School, Dr. Pascarella said. The mean SAT scores for 2014 were 486 in reading, 482 in math, and 486 in writing, compared with 499, 500 and 500 for all state public schools.
Metro-North trains run from Danbury to Grand Central Terminal, but generally require a transfer in South Norwalk. The ride takes two hours or more. Bought online, a monthly pass is $350.84; a round-trip peak ticket is $31.36.
Many commuters drive over the border to Brewster, N.Y. (a 10- to 15-minute ride from the western side of town) and take the train direct to Grand Central. The ride is around 85 minutes. A monthly pass is $392; the round-trip peak fare is $35.50.
As the city’s hat-making industry took off in the mid-19th century, factory workers were afflicted with tremors known as the “Danbury Shakes,” and other effects, including slurred speech, caused by exposure to mercury, which was used to convert animal fur to felt. According to a Connecticut Humanities website, local unions protested the working conditions for years, and finally won a statewide ban on mercury use in 1941. | A smallish city of around 80,000, Danbury, Conn., just across from the New York border, is less expensive than most surrounding towns and far more diverse. | 36.096774 | 0.741935 | 1 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/dena-larsen-gazeley-eating-disorder-through-four-pregnancies | http://web.archive.org/web/20160726143938id_/http://www.people.com/article/dena-larsen-gazeley-eating-disorder-through-four-pregnancies | Woman Battled Eating Disorder for 30 Years, Four Pregnancies | 20160726143938 | From the time she was 8 years old, Dena Larsen-Gazeley struggled with disordered eating.
"It began as a habit of
," Larsen-Gazeley, now 44, tells PEOPLE. "At 8 years old, I realized I was bigger and taller than all the other girls my age, and I began to feel uncomfortable in my body. There was this emptiness inside me that I would attempt to fill with food."
Larsen-Gazeley binged on bowls of cereal, entire packages of cookies and cartons of ice cream, and continued to have compulsive eating habits until she was 21.
"Food was my drug," says the Arizona-based mother of four. "The habit of overeating eventually became an addiction. I was using food to try and control the emptiness that I had inside me, and it turned where the food had control of me. It was something that I couldn't stop."
By the time Larsen-Gazeley graduated from the University of Southern California, she was obese.
"I hated it," she says. "I could control everything else – my academics were great, my friends were great. I had everything I ever wanted, but I could not control my body."
After college, Larsen-Gazeley moved to Mexico as a Rotary scholar, and with no one keeping tabs on her eating, she began restricting herself to 700 calories a day to lose weight. She also began over-exercising.
"The weight continued to come off until I had lost 100 lbs.," she says. "I swung from one end of the pendulum – compulsive eating and binging – to the other extreme – anorexia. The fear of food and of calories and of gaining weight was so extreme."
When she moved back home, Larsen-Gazeley got back into her binge eating habits, but began to purge through vomiting and exercise to prevent weight gain. She even became a fitness instructor so that she could work out all day.
"It was never good enough, and it was never going to be good enough," she says. "It was a constant, unattainable pursuit of perfection."
Larsen-Gazeley and her then-husband had their first son in 2001. She continued to binge and purge throughout the pregnancy.
"When I got pregnant I told myself, I am not going to hurt myself, I am not going to restrict," she says. "In my mind, if I didn't diet, then I wasn't going to hurt my baby. I allowed myself to compulsive eat and binge. I exercised as much as I could."
"I didn't realize until nine years later in treatment that purging and vomiting through my pregnancy was an abnormal behavior," she says. "I was in that
through all four of my pregnancies. I am extremely blessed that I had four pregnancies and four healthy births, even though I was acting out in behaviors that could definitely have impacted both my health and the health of my babies."
, clinical director at the Rosewood Centers for Eating Disorders and author of
, says that women with
can indeed harm themselves and their children if they continue with their unhealthy behaviors during pregnancy.
"Every body is different, but it definitely could be putting the pregnancy at risk," says Cabrera. "Those that are pregnant with eating disorders have a higher rate of miscarriages and there are more medical complications with the pregnancy."
Fortunately, Larsen-Gazeley did not have any complications with any of her pregnancies. As soon as she was able to get back into the gym after each baby, she was back to her compulsive behaviors.
"I was a stay-at-home mom and never put my children in daycare, but I would leave them for the maximum amount of hours at the gym daycare," she says. "My kids were being cheated out of having a mom who was available to them mentally, emotionally and physically."
Dena Larsen-Gazeley, age 32, and son Carson, 2 months, in 2003
In 2008, after having her fourth child, Larsen-Gazeley landed in the hospital with damage to her liver and kidneys. (It was unclear what caused her health issues, as she was mixing weight loss pills with high amounts of caffeine, was over-exercising, and not consuming enough calories, all which may have been a factor.)
After speaking to the hospital psychiatrist, she was diagnosed with a severe eating disorder and told to enter inpatient treatment immediately.
"I had been treated for anxiety and depression, but no one had ever questioned or mentioned eating disorders," she says.
Larsen-Gazeley did not think she had an eating disorder, but her husband told her if she did not go to treatment, there would be no hope for their marriage.
"That was the ultimate ultimatum," she says. "In my mind I wasn't sick, but when he said that, I knew that I had to go to save my marriage."
The substitute teacher entered the
for treatment in January 2011.
"It was in that first week that I realized that I not only had an eating disorder since I was 8 years old, but that there were so many other personality qualities that I had – my obsessive nature, my compulsion, my need for control, my rage – I started to understand that those traits are not normal, and that I didn't have to live like that for the rest of my life," she says.
Two weeks into her treatment, Larsen-Gazeley's husband filed for divorce.
"He was the last one on my list," admits Larsen-Gazeley. "My eating disorder came first, my children came second, and he came last. Ed, my eating disorder, was my number one love.
Despite the emotional setback, Larsen-Gazeley remained in treatment for 10 weeks.
"It's hard when they've been entrenched in their eating disorder for so long because it becomes habitual," explains Cabrera. "In treatment, we try to break that cycle by giving them other coping mechanisms, and try to separate them from their triggers. We also try to get to the underlying issues to give them relief and treat them particularly."
Courtesy of Rosewood Centers for Eating Disorders
Now five-and-a-half years out of treatment, Larsen-Gazeley remains committed to her recovery.
"I see my dietitian every two weeks. I need that support, and I recognize that," she says. "The changes that are taking place, I could never have imagined five years ago." | "It was a constant, unattainable pursuit of perfection," says Dena Larsen-Gazeley | 77.647059 | 1 | 7.352941 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/magazine/the-creative-life-in-manila.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160727031842id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/24/magazine/the-creative-life-in-manila.html? | The Creative Life in Manila | 20160727031842 | I was 21 when I decided to quit university and help my boyfriend create an eco-village community on the island of Palawan. It was truly heartbreaking news for my parents. I grew up in a modest city called Cagayan de Oro, on the island Mindanao in the Philippines. When I was young, every night before bed my father would read to me a chapter of whatever book he was reading, and both my parents taught me to speak English at an early age. My dad used to say that because he didn’t have property or wealth to pass on to me, my education was the one thing he and mom could give me. So after I left school, I knew I was on my own.
But soon after having made what seemed like the most difficult decision of my life, finally free of school and family, I was sad: It became clear that cocreating this eco-village was not my calling. I was interested in art. So I traveled around backpacking for a while until I moved on to explore the capital, Manila.
I thought of Manila as a gateway to a whole new world, a place that would expand my mind. I wanted to meet other creatives and see what was happening on the art scene. A friend told me to check out Green Papaya, a contemporary art space in Quezon City, one of the most populated parts of the whole capital region. I was happy to find out about it, but I also felt like the equivalent of a hick: nervous and excited to meet the artists of the big city.
After a long commute through dense traffic by jeepney and motorized tricycle, I finally made it to this place. It was nice and chill, with a good bunch of folk around. There was a comic-book artist, back from a trip abroad, who wanted to celebrate. Drinks were passed around, and finally he pulled out a big chunk of weed and started rolling a joint. I was next to him, and he started smoking and insisting I take a hit. I didn’t feel like getting high, especially because I had a long way back to where I was staying, and it was all new and exciting enough to me just the way it was. So I told him, “No, thanks,” but the guy was already a bit drunk, and he replied emphatically in his American accent, “You’re square, you’re so square.”
For someone coming fresh from the “province,” that’s the last thing you ever want to hear. But the night went on, and I ended up meeting a lesbian couple who were great company. We had a really fun chat, they invited me over for tea at their place and I ended up sleeping on their couch. They became my first good friends in the city, and their apartment would host many dinners with other new friends, sharing music, laughs and long conversations. We were like a big family, and their place was like a second home to me.
Pretty soon I found the perfect job doing video and design in an art school. My boss lived right next to my friends’ apartment. The world felt even smaller when I met another of their neighbors, who turned out to be a good friend of my ex-boyfriend. I started talking to her boyfriend, an American-raised half-Filipino who came back to the Philippines to reconnect with his roots.
He was an attractive California-type free spirit who camped with his hammock, played the flute and walked in bare feet whenever possible. He had himself tattooed by a tribal elder in the traditional method, and his biggest satisfaction was learning how to speak Tagalog during this trip. He spoke it exclusively in our conversation, while I responded to him in English. It didn’t take long before he finally expressed his disappointment. With his thick American accent, he told me how odd it was that he had to travel all the way back to truly appreciate and value our culture, while I, born and raised in the homeland, seemed so detached from my “roots.” My Tagalog was crooked and yet my English was perfect? I was failing.
I tried to explain that where I’m from, we speak Bisaya, so Tagalog was almost as foreign to me as it was to him. There are dozens of languages in the Philippines, and the vast majority of Filipinos aren’t exposed to them. But to him I was an embarrassment, a gringo in my own land. It was apparent that he had already decided about me, and it wasn’t worth bursting his bubble to make my point.
I had thought that it was brave and radical of me to leave home without money or a degree. These guys challenged all of that, how I thought about myself and what I had done, and reduced me to a couple of clichés.
But looking back, I think that experience was good, because it pushed me onward. It taught me that my achievements could never protect me from being judged by others. And that made me feel freer, freer to think and be any way I wished.
Katrina Tan, 30, has worked as a visual artist, performer and musician, video maker, photographer and designer. She spoke with Laura Bauerlein in English.
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A version of this article appears in print on July 24, 2016, on page MM25 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: To the Big City. Today's Paper|Subscribe | Trying to find yourself in the big city. | 121.555556 | 0.777778 | 1.888889 | high | low | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/probes-test-de-blasios-re-election-bid-1462579734 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160727113949id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/probes-test-de-blasios-re-election-bid-1462579734 | Probes Test de Blasio’s Re-Election Bid | 20160727113949 | As federal and state investigations swirl around New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, potential challengers to his 2017 re-election bid have started assessing the political climate and gauging the odds of unseating the incumbent.
Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has hit one of the rockiest patches of his tenure at City Hall, with an array of investigations into his administration and fundraising activities prompting would-be rivals to take... | As investigations swirl around New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, potential challengers to his 2017 re-election bid have started assessing the political climate and gauging the odds of unseating the incumbent. | 2.222222 | 1 | 34.055556 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/07/26/18/58/2-knifemen-take-hostages-in-french-church | http://web.archive.org/web/20160727131744id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/07/26/18/58/2-knifemen-take-hostages-in-french-church | IS claims attack on church in France | 20160727131744 | French President Francois Hollande said two "terrorists claiming to be followers of Islamic State" have entered a church in northern France, killing an 84-year-old priest and seriously wounding another person.
French officials said the two assailants were killed by police, who had surrounded the area when they left the church.
Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said that a search for explosives around the perimeter began shortly thereafter.
The hostage-taking began at the time that Mass was being said in the church, located in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in the north-eastern region of Upper Normandy, French media reported. The archbishop of nearby Rouen identified the priest as Jacques Hamel.
Soon after Hollande's statement, the Islamic State extremist group claimed that the killers were two of its "soldiers".
They made the claim in a statement released via its Aamaq Agency's channels on the Telegram messaging app, similar to recent claims of responsibility by the group.
The attack came in response to Islamic State's calls for attacks on states taking part in the international coalition fighting it, Aamaq said.
In France, the attack prompted condemnation and calls not to allow the latest in a string of Islamist-motivated attacks to divide the French people.
"We are confronted by Islamic State, which has declared war on us," Hollande said.
"We must conduct this war by all means, respecting the rights that make us a democracy. What the terrorists want is to divide us."
He said that he would receive the archbishop of Normandy on Tuesday evening, followed by a meeting with leaders from all the religions in France.
"It is all French who have been touched. This is why we must remain together, within a unified group, in a bloc that no one is able to break apart."
Pope Francis shared the pain caused by the murder, the Vatican said in a statement.
"The Pope is informed and shares the pain and horror for this absurd violence, most radically condemns all forms of hatred and prays for people hurt," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in a statement.
"We are particularly struck because this horrible violence has taken place in a church, a sacred place where the love of God is announced, with the brutal killing of a priest," Lombardi added. | Between four and six people are being held hostage by two men armed with knives in a French church. | 22.9 | 0.65 | 0.85 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4418682/moana-comic-con-2016-movies/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160727135302id_/http://time.com:80/4418682/moana-comic-con-2016-movies/? | 'Moana' Heroine Won't Have a Love Interest in the Film | 20160727135302 | Disney’s Moana doesn’t hit theaters until November but Comic-Con attendees not only learned the plot of the animated film, they also got to see several clips at the Thursday panel moderated by EW’s own Marc Snetiker.
Set 2,000 years ago in the South Pacific, Moana is the story of the titular 16-year-old girl, voiced by newcomer Auli’i Cravalho, who goes in search of a banished demi god named Maui (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) in order to, naturally, save the world.
Directors John Musker and Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid) gave the audience a surprise by showing the first three minutes of the film which features Moana’s grandmother telling her the legend of Maui. Fans also got to see young Moana’s first experience with the ocean and a grown up Moana meeting Maui for the first time. The footage was vibrant, colorful, funny and surprisingly moving (Hint: Moana and the ocean have a magical relationship).
Musker and Clements made a point to say that Moana doesn’t have a love interest in this story and that it’s a film about the heroine finding herself.
The pair also revealed that Johnson sings in the film with a song specifically written for him by one of Moana’s composers, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton).
This article originally appeared on ew.com | Disney's 'Moana' is one of this year's highly anticipated animated movies | 17.266667 | 0.466667 | 0.6 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/three-met-museum-leaders-depart-1466206079 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160727160943id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/three-met-museum-leaders-depart-1466206079 | Three Met Museum Leaders Depart | 20160727160943 | The cost-cutting has begun at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The museum said Friday that its chief digital officer, Sree Sreenivasan, would step down at the end of June, three years after his appointment to the then-new post.
Daniel Weiss, the Met’s president, said two other executives hired in 2013 are also leaving the museum: Cynthia Round, the Met’s senior vice president for marketing and external relations, and Susan Sellers, its head of design.
The resignations come two months after Met officials said the museum would embark on a financial overhaul, citing a projected $9 million to $10 million deficit that they said could balloon to as much as $40 million if no action was taken.
“We are dialing back,” Mr. Weiss said on Friday.
Ms. Round and Ms. Sellers worked on the rebranding campaign that resulted in the Met’s new red logo, which drew howls from some critics earlier this year. Mr. Weiss said their departures weren’t related to the campaign.
The exits come “in the context of our recentering,” he said, adding that those leaving were “people who had accomplished a lot, and could see our direction was changing.”
Under Mr. Sreenivasan, for example, the museum revamped its website and launched its flagship smartphone app. Mr. Weiss called Mr. Sreenivasan “a superstar” and said he decided to step down after it became clear that the Met wasn’t going to be able to reinvest in digital initiatives in the way museum officials had anticipated when he was hired.
“I am so proud that everything we’ve done here—every single thing—has been in service of the art,” Mr. Sreenivasan said in an email Friday afternoon.
Both Ms. Round and Mr. Sreenivasan are among the Met’s 22 top-paid employees, according to its most recent tax filing. Ms. Round’s total compensation for fiscal 2015 was $427,563, while Mr. Sreenivasan’s was $328,900.
Ms. Round will work at the Met until the end of June, and Ms. Sellers will leave in July, a museum spokeswoman said.
Mr. Sreenivasan and Ms. Round will consult for the museum for six months after they step down. Loic Tallon, its deputy chief of digital, will serve as interim chief digital officer.
Whether the three posts will be filled remains unclear. “We are in the process of restructuring the organization to be leaner,” Mr. Weiss said.
Write to Jennifer Smith at jennifer.smith@wsj.com | The Metropolitan Museum of Art said Friday that its chief digital officer, Sree Sreenivasan, would step down at the end of June. | 19.36 | 1 | 15.48 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/us/politics/tim-kaine-death-penalty.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160727184108id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/24/us/politics/tim-kaine-death-penalty.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news | On Death Penalty Cases, Tim Kaine Revealed Inner Conflict | 20160727184108 | It was “not a sympathetic case,” but Mr. Kaine, driven by his faith, “was extremely passionate about it,” said his co-counsel, Tom Wolf, later Mr. Kaine’s law partner and close friend. “He said there were a lot of people on death row who hadn’t had a fair trial, and there were not nearly enough lawyers willing to take those cases.”
Virginia’s Supreme Court declined to block the execution, so Mr. Kaine turned to the federal courts. He argued that Mr. Whitley had not received a fair trial, because his court-appointed lawyer had failed to investigate or introduce evidence of the psychological damage Mr. Whitley had suffered as a child.
The judges, Mr. Wolf said, “didn’t buy it.”
Neither did the Supreme Court, which rejected Mr. Kaine’s request for a stay after Virginia’s governor, Gerald L. Baliles, refused a petition for clemency. On July 6, 1987, Mr. Whitley was executed in the electric chair. Mr. Kaine did not witness it — Mr. Whitley did not want him to, a Kaine aide said — but was intent on being with him in the hours before his death. Along with a priest, they shared Mass and the condemned man’s last meal.
“I’m certain that Tim felt very close to him,” Mr. Wolf said. “It was important to him to let Richard know that he was there for him, no matter what, and that he wasn’t just filing papers for him, but that he regarded Richard as a valuable human being.”
In 2005, when he was the lieutenant governor and running for governor against Jerry Kilgore, a former state attorney general, he was fighting the perception that he was too liberal to lead the state. Issue No. 1 was the death penalty; Virginia was second only to Texas in executions since 1976.
Last week in Cleveland, New York Times photographers covered the Republican National Convention at — and outside of — Quicken Loans Arena.
“People thought it was almost disqualifying to be against the death penalty in Virginia,” said Bob Holsworth, a longtime political analyst in the state. Candidates who held the stance were routinely dismissed, he said, as being “soft on crime.”
So Mr. Kaine’s team prepared, developing a message that cast the issue in terms of his faith, pointing out his work as a Jesuit missionary in Honduras. Then, in October, Mr. Kilgore ran an advertisement featuring the father of a murder victim whose killer had been represented by Mr. Kaine. “Tim Kaine says that Adolf Hitler doesn’t qualify for the death penalty,” the grieving father said.
The Hitler reference drew condemnation, and the Kaine team responded with its own ad, featuring a serious Mr. Kaine staring straight into the camera and telling voters that he wanted to “set the record straight,” and explaining that despite his religious objections, “as governor I’ll carry out death sentences handed down by Virginia juries because that’s the law.”
The ads and religious-themed messaging proved a turning point, said David Eichenbaum, Mr. Kaine’s media strategist. “Once many of these voters learned he was a man of deep faith and actually was a missionary,” Mr. Eichenbaum said, “all of a sudden he wasn’t so liberal anymore.”
The first big test of Mr. Kaine’s promise came in April 2006, three months after he took office.
Dexter Lee Vinson, 43, was set to be executed for abducting and killing his former girlfriend, whose mutilated body was found in a vacant house. A Vatican representative and Roman Catholic bishops in Arlington, Va., and Richmond asked Mr. Kaine to spare him.
One of Mr. Vinson’s sisters, Jewel Bailey, expressed hope that Mr. Kaine’s religious convictions would win out.
“My thing is, ‘Why did you take the position that you have when you don’t believe yourself in the death penalty?’” she said at the time. “The Bible says, ‘Thou shall not kill,’ and that’s what I’m going to stand by. Thou shall not kill.”
Inside the governor’s office, Mr. Kaine and his lawyers were following a careful protocol devised by an aide to a previous Democratic governor of Virginia, L. Douglas Wilder.
The governor would have no direct contact with family members or inmates’ lawyers. Instead, the governor’s staff lawyers would prepare for him a detailed memo with competing arguments — the most aggressive case for clemency and the most aggressive case for execution.
Mr. Kaine would pepper the lawyers with questions, including whether an inmate might be innocent, or mentally incompetent to face execution, or whether there had been gross procedural irregularities. But he almost always deferred to the findings of courts; in the one case in which he granted clemency, he concluded that the inmate’s mental status had changed since he had been convicted, said Mr. Roberts, his former chief counsel.
Mr. Kaine took comfort, Mr. Roberts said, in the fact that as the governor, he did not have to actually sign death warrants. It was simply up to him to decide whether to intervene.
“I think he viewed himself as the final decision maker, with a caveat,” Mr. Roberts said, “that it was death unless we stepped in, so he was never deciding whether to impose the penalty.”
Mr. Vinson’s was the first execution of Mr. Kaine’s term as governor. Ten more would be put to death, including one of the “D.C. snipers,” John Allen Muhammad, and Mr. Green, whose clemency petition to Mr. Kaine said he was a “mentally retarded man by every reliable scientific measure.”
“This was a case that he could have intervened on, and it wouldn’t have taken much to say, ‘I’m concerned enough to not let the execution go forward,’” said Robert Lee, who worked on Mr. Green’s clemency petition, which asked Mr. Kaine to “err on the side of mercy and life.”
In a statement on his decision, Mr. Kaine said Mr. Green’s sentence had been upheld by several courts, and that the Supreme Court had declined to hear it.
“Having carefully reviewed the Petition for Clemency and judicial opinions regarding this case, I find no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was recommended by the jury, and then imposed and affirmed by the courts,” he wrote.
“Accordingly, I decline to intervene.” | Hillary Clinton’s running mate fervently opposed capital punishment, but carried it out 11 times as governor of Virginia, while granting clemency only once. | 47 | 0.592593 | 0.962963 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/berniesoblack-becomes-trending-topic-wake-netroots/amp | http://web.archive.org/web/20160727214647id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/msnbc/berniesoblack-becomes-trending-topic-wake-netroots/amp | #BernieSoBlack becomes trending topic in wake of Netroots | 20160727214647 | The tension sparked by Democratic 2016 candidates' discussions of race at this year's Netroots Nation conference has spilled over into the world of social media. On Sunday, Social media users took to Twitter to both voice either their disappointment or support for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by briefly turning the satirical hashtag #BernieSoBlack into a nationwide trending topic.
Both Sanders and fellow Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley on Saturday were confronted by protesters while they attempted to address audiences at the progressive forum. Activists pressured both men to say the name of Sandra Bland, the Chicago woman who recently died while in a Texas prison under controversial circumstances, and to speak more specifically about people of color who “have been killed by a powerful system.”
RELATED: Protesters shout candidates off stage: ‘Black lives matter!’
“Black lives of course matter but I have spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and if you don’t want me to be here, that’s OK,” Sanders told the hecklers. Meanwhile, O'Malley was booed for insisting that "white lives matter," while making the case for "all lives." However on Sunday, it was Sanders, who hails from the country's whitest state, who became the topic du jour.
“#BernieSoBlack is legit criticism, and the angry/dismissive response by white Bernie supporters is shamefully familiar progressive racism,” one Twitter user who identifies himself as Joshua David explained. While another social media user, Joshua Jackson, tweeted:“#DearWhiteProgressives Our voices will be heard and we will achieve our goals. Whether you're comfortable with it or not. #BernieSoBlack.”
However, Sanders was not without his defenders, some of whom acknowledged his long standing history of challenging Congress to recognize issues which disproportionately affect African-Americans.
Meanwhile, others within the progressive movement have taken a humorous approach by using the 140-character social platform to mock cultural references associated with the black community. | The tension sparked by Democratic 2016 candidates' discussions of race at this year's Netroots Nation conference has spilled over into the world of social | 14.269231 | 1 | 26 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/02/2013216235124227319.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160728004753id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/news/africa/2013/02/2013216235124227319.html | Libya arrests foreign 'missionaries' | 20160728004753 | Four foreigners have been arrested in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on suspicion of being Christian missionaries and printing books about Christianity, a security official has said.
The arrests were announced on Saturday as thousands of people gathered in Tripoli, the capital city, and Benghazi to celebrate two years since the start of the revolution that ousted long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi.
"They were arrested on Tuesday at a publishing house where they were printing thousands of books that called for conversion to Christianity," security official Hussein Bin Hmeid said.
"Proselytising is forbidden in Libya. We are a 100 percent Muslim country and this kind of action affects our national security."
Hmeid said the government-affiliated security apparatus called the Preventative Security, for which he is a spokesman, had arrested an Egyptian, a South African, a Korean and a Swede who was travelling on a US passport.
"We are still holding interrogations and will hand them over to the Libyan intelligence authorities in a couple of days," Hmeid said, without giving further details.
The Preventative Security apparatus is a parallel security body created during the 2011 war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi and made up of several rebel brigades which fought in the conflict.
Libya's central government has yet to impose its authority on a myriad of armed groups who have yet to lay down their arms, and with skeletal national security forces, often relies on them for security. | Spokesman says police arrested an Egyptian, a South African, a Korean and a Swede who was travelling on a US passport. | 11.541667 | 0.916667 | 18.416667 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.msnbc.com/slideshow/msnbcs-throwback-thursday | http://web.archive.org/web/20160728034447id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/slideshow/msnbcs-throwback-thursday | MSNBC's Throwback Thursday | 20160728034447 | Take a look back at moments in history with MSNBC’s “Throwback Thursday.” From politics to pop culture, and everything in between, we’ll share images that tell the story of our times. Every Thursday we’ll add something new, so join us each week as we reflect on some of the key events that have shaped our world. It’s the ultimate photo journey #TBT, MSNBC style.
For more feature photography, go to msnbc.com/photography | Take a look back at moments in history with MSNBC's "Throwback Thursdays" a photo journey from politics to pop culture, and everything in between. | 3.034483 | 0.862069 | 7.137931 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-university-case-who-federal-judge-gonzalo-curiel | http://web.archive.org/web/20160728052610id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/msnbc/trump-university-case-who-federal-judge-gonzalo-curiel | Trump University case: Who is Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel? | 20160728052610 | U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who’s presiding over two of the three lawsuits against Trump University in San Diego, is clearly now in the cross hairs of the bombastic presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
MSNBC Live with José Díaz-Balart, 6/1/16, 10:08 AM ET
Did Trump University mislead and unfairly lure students with overly aggressive marketing techniques? MSNBC’s Ari Melber weighs in on the allegations at play.
But Curiel is no stranger to being targeted — and in the 1990s he was even reportedly on the hit list of a Mexican drug cartel.
“The judge was appointed by Barack Obama,” Trump told a campaign rallyon the same day as a hearing in the case. “I mean frankly, he should recuse himself because he’s given us ruling after ruling after ruling, negative, negative, negative.”On the campaign trail last Friday, Trump lobbed a number of verbal assaults against Curiel, whom Trump slammed for his handling of the case in which his namesake online school is accused of defrauding students.
The judge appeared to take a swipe at Trump that same day by ordering internal Trump University documents to be released as part of a class-action lawsuit. (He is prevented by a judicial code of conduct from responding publicly to the verbal attacks.)
In deciding to release the documents, Curiel simply noted that Trump “has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.”
RELATED: Democrats look to succeed with Trump University attack
It’s a move that will likely keep Curiel at odds with Trump. Here’s what else is known about the veteran jurist:
He’s the son of immigrants.
Curiel was born in East Chicago, Indiana, in 1953, according to the Federal Judicial Center.
During a Senate confirmation hearing in 2012 regarding his appointment as a U.S. District judge, Curiel was described as the son of Mexican immigrants, whose parents came to the United States with an elementary school education.
Trump had referred to Curiel as “Mexican” on Friday — a description that some Latinos say was meant to be disparaging.
Morning Joe, 6/1/16, 7:09 AM ET
Donald Trump addressed the Trump University lawsuit, and specifically the judge, at his news conference yesterday. Willie Geist reviews the testimony of the case and the candidate’s efforts to discredit the judge.
He worked his way up to a judgeship.
After earning his law degree from Indiana University in 1979, Curiel spent the next 10 years in private practice in Indiana and California.
He then served as an assistant U.S. attorney in California’s Southern District, and worked in the Narcotics Enforcement Section before he was appointed in 2006 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a San Diego Superior Court judge.
He oversaw domestic violence cases as well as family court and civil cases.
In 2011, Obama first nominated him to a district judgeship representing the Southern California district in San Diego. He was confirmed the following year by the Senate. He tried over 300 cases at that point, mostly in front of a federal criminal jury.
Before his nomination, he was lauded for his years on the bench.
“He comes to us, in short, as a nominee with impressive — indeed, extraordinary — record of experience, public service, and I look forward to his swift confirmation,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D.-Conn., said at the confirmation hearing.
RELATED: The Trump University train wreck jolts presidential race
He was targeted by the Tijuana drug cartel.
When Curiel was part of Narcotics Enforcement, he helped to bring down the Mexican criminal organization run by Benjamín Arellano Félix, who was arrested in 2002 and convicted of running a violent and deadly drug cartel between the U.S. and Mexico.
Before Félix’s arrest, the Los Angeles Times reported that Curiel had been a possible target by the cartel when a top lieutenant was arrested and claimed in a bugged conversation that he was given the go-ahead to assassinate the U.S. prosecutor.
Curiel, who was involved in the extradition of cartel henchmen, was reportedly placed under tight security.
In discussing the case with The New York Times in 2002, Curiel didn’t mention the threats against him, and said that it was useful that he and other prosecutors were of Mexican descent and could speak Spanish.
“When it comes down to it, this involves the country of our parents,” Curiel told the newspaper.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com. | U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is no stranger to being targeted — and in the 1990s, was reportedly on the hit list of a Mexican drug cartel. | 29.758621 | 1 | 8.793103 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-doubles-down-blames-cruz-ad-he-didnt-make | http://web.archive.org/web/20160728053203id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/msnbc/trump-doubles-down-blames-cruz-ad-he-didnt-make? | Trump doubles down, blames Cruz for ad he didn’t make | 20160728053203 | The battle between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is getting personal, with the Texas senator coming out swinging after the Republican front-runner threatened to “spill the beans” on his wife, Heidi, on Tuesday night. 3/23/16, 1:06 PM ET Cruz: No involvement in Melania Ad GOP contender Ted Cruz addresses reporters about an ad from the group, Make America Awesome, that featured GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s wife, Melania Trump.
GOP contender Ted Cruz addresses reporters about an ad from the group, Make America Awesome, that featured GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s wife, Melania Trump.
While the candidates spent months playing nice early in the election cycle, their sparring has intensified as the race has whittled down — increasingly, both talk like it’s a two man race.
Cruz told reporters on Wednesday that Trump’s attack stemmed from his anxiety about the race.
“He recognizes that if Republicans unite, 65 to 70 percent of Republicans understand that Donald is a disaster, that Donald is a gift to Hillary Clinton,” he said, boasting of his big win in Utah. “He did this attack to try and change the subject.”
Wife Heidi Cruz downplayed Trump’s threat, too, Wednesday.
“Most of the things that Donald Trump says have no basis in reality, so we are not worried,” she said.
But the Republican front-runner shows no sign of relenting, doubling down in a tweet on Wednesday morning in which he continues to blame Cruz for the ad.
Lyin’ Ted Cruz denied that he had anything to do with the G.Q. model photo post of Melania. That’s why we call him Lyin’ Ted!
The ad was created by the anti-Trump super PAC Make America Awesome Again:
, with the caption “meet Melania Trump. Your next first lady. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.”
It was a small-dollar ad campaign online, targeting Mormon women in hopes of getting out the vote for Cruz in a state where winning more than 50 percent of the vote was key to the senator’s hopes of garnering all of the state’s 40 delegates. But the ad exploded online on Tuesday night as polls were closing, when Trump started blaming Cruz.
Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016
Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!
On Wednesday, in an interview with NBC News’ TODAY, Cruz said that threat “speaks volumes about character” and “is the epitome of classlessness.”
“If Donald is trying to mess with my wife, he’s way out of his league,” he continued.
But that’s not stopping the Trump team. The presidential candidate’s son Eric Trump also blamed the ad on Cruz in an interview on Fox News.
“His super PAC, it’s him. It’s the same thing, right? I think it’s disgusting to tell you the truth, just to be completely honest. Here’s a man who praises, who’s always talking about morality, ‘I’m going to take the high road. I’m going to do this,’ and he does that,” Eric Trump said.
Mair said she has no ties to Cruz, other than supporting his Senate bid in 2010, and knowing some of his past and present supporters. She believes Trump is blaming Cruz for it in order to attack his wife, and said it’s surprising so many are up in arms about an image that’s widely available.
Mair said when conceiving of the ad, she recalled the 2000 photoshoot for the British edition of GQ and ran a Google search.
“The first image that came up was this,” she said. | "Most of the things that Donald Trump says have no basis in reality, so we are not worried," Heidi Cruz said in response to Trump's threat to "spill the beans." | 20.5 | 0.842105 | 11.052632 | medium | medium | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/latitude-festival-new-order-bring-the-party-to-a-close-with-a-ba/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160728111623id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/music/what-to-listen-to/latitude-festival-new-order-bring-the-party-to-a-close-with-a-ba/ | Latitude Festival: New Order bring the party to a close with a bang - review | 20160728111623 | This was a proper knees-up, made all the more glorious because, not all that long ago, after line-up changes, long hiatuses and so-so album releases, New Order looked to be history. Now, they sound very much like the future.
There was, though, still space amid all the wide-eyed dance euphoria for classic New Order tracks Bizarre Love Triangle, Temptation and Blue Monday, all of which were greeted with predictable reverence. Here were reminders of how effectively this band have re-invented themselves time and again in a career that stretches back 36 years.
Poignantly, the set closed with a version of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division, the band from which New Order emerged after the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis in 1980.
Curtis would have been 60 this weekend. Perhaps it was this knowledge, or perhaps people were simply coming to terms with the fact that this magnificent festival was finally at an end, but there were plenty of eyes misting up as the closing chord echoed out around Henham Park. | Last year, New Order released Music Complete, their first album of new material in a decade. | 10.947368 | 0.526316 | 0.947368 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/07/27/14/01/39-dead-as-landslides-hit-nepal | http://web.archive.org/web/20160728145621id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/07/27/14/01/39-dead-as-landslides-hit-nepal | 39 dead as landslides hit Nepal | 20160728145621 | At least 39 people were killed as flooding led to landslides in Nepal.
The heaviest casualties occurred in the Pyuthan district in central Nepal, where 15 bodies were recovered from areas affected by landslides on Wednesday, district authorities said.
In the Palpa district three members of the same family were killed by a landslide and in the Jhapa district in eastern Nepal, five people were killed when they drowned in a flooded river.
The most recent death was that of an infant who was buried by a landslide in the Myagdi district on Tuesday night.
The Nepalese Home Ministry expects the death toll will rise.
Monsoon season in Nepal, which lasts from July to September, causes disasters in the form of landslides and flooding every year.
Nepal's mountains have been more prone to landslides after heavy rainfall due to the earthquake of 2015, which claimed the lives of more than 8,000 people. | Nepal has once again been hit by disaster, landslides claiming the lives of 39 people, with more casualties expected. | 7.818182 | 0.636364 | 1 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/07/28/07/58/townsville-stabbings-man-to-be-charged | http://web.archive.org/web/20160728164009id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/07/28/07/58/townsville-stabbings-man-to-be-charged | Qld police to charge man over stabbings | 20160728164009 | Detectives are preparing to charge a man over a stabbing rampage in Townsville that left two people injured and an 81-year-old woman dead.
The alleged 32-year-old attacker has been under police guard in hospital due to wounds self-inflicted during Tuesday night's rampage but is yet to be charged.
Police say they received about 15 calls for help from residents about a man who was damaging fences and cars in the street.
He was allegedly armed with a knife and fence paling and wandering the street naked when police arrived on the scene.
A 26-year-old woman, whom the attacker allegedly knew, and a 28-year-old man were also stabbed and police only learned of the elderly woman's death during a media conference on Wednesday.
Detective Inspector Kelly Harvey was speaking about the incident to the media on Wednesday morning when she was interrupted by cries of "she's dead" by an elderly man.
"Who?" Det Insp Harvey asked.
"My neighbour," the man replied.
The man had discovered the body of the 81-year-old when he decided to check on her because her newspaper hadn't been collected.
Police say the man is expected to be charged with multiple offences on Thursday but could not say if he would be charged with murder over the woman's death. | Queensland police expect to charge a man following a stabbing rampage in Townsville that left an 81-year-old woman dead. | 11.681818 | 0.863636 | 5.227273 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/debunked-the-harvard-study-republicans | http://web.archive.org/web/20160728212416id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/the-last-word/debunked-the-harvard-study-republicans | Debunked: The Harvard study that Republicans used to push austerity | 20160728212416 | A 28-year-old economics graduate student has rewritten a study led by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff that has been widely cited as the intellectual basis for worldwide government austerity measures. The Harvard study argues that higher public debt slows down economic growth when the GDP rises above a 90% threshold. But after an attempt to duplicate the Harvard study’s findings, Thomas Herndon, a Ph.D student at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, ended up debunking Reinhart and Rogoff’s economic theory and found that the Reinhart-Rogoff study was incorrect due to spreadsheet coding errors and selective data. Herndon did not attribute motive; he focused only on the statistical and computational inaccuracies of the influential paper.
Released April 17 by University of Massachusetts researchers, Thomas Herndon and his two economics professors, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin, published a paper pointing out several inaccuracies in Reinhart and Rogoff’s paper. The “RR” study has been repeatedly used as an argument for pushing austerity and for the view that government deficits are economically threatening.
Herndon’s study finds that their “results are not consistent with and do not confirm their findings” after uncovering flaws in their data analysis and computing method. Herndon clarified the Harvard study’s “selective omissions and unconventional weighting” on Monday.
“We did use the terms ‘selective’ and ‘unconventional’ to describe the problems we saw with their paper, and we believe these are accurate characterizations. ‘Selective’ is an appropriate description because the data were ‘selected’ for exclusion,” Herndon writes.
In terms of Reinhart and Rogoff’s “unconventional” weighting system, Herndon points to a Excel spreadsheet error that compounds the growth-rate error. Herndon says, “It was the combination of the weighting system with the exclusion–for whatever reason–that combined to cause the most significant fall in average GDP growth. There is nothing inherently wrong with their weighting system. However it is unusual and it is their obligation to be open and clear in explaining why they used this unusual methodology.”
Additionally, Herndon also uncovered a transcription error with Spain’s average GDP growth. In one of Reinhart and Rogoff’s tables, Spain’s average GDP growth was entered at 2.8% instead of 2.2%. Two other samples showed five countries–Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and Canada–were removed, adding to the amount of computational errors in the Harvard report.
Herndon concluded, “Contrary to RR, average GDP growth at public debt/GDP ratios over 90 percent is not dramatically different than when debt/GDP ratios are lower.”
An addendum to Herndon’s paper also defines a stronger causal relationship between economic and public debt. A contribution by his professor Arin Dube provides evidence that the causality runs the other way around – from slow growth to high debt.
Reinhart and Rogoff responded to Herndon’s claim, acknowledging several mistakes, but both economists contended that their study’s general argument that high debt leads to slower economic growth could still be corroborated.
“It is sobering that such an error slipped into one of our papers despite our best efforts to be consistently careful. We will redouble our efforts to avoid such errors in the future. We do not, however, believe this regrettable slip affects in any significant way the central message of the paper or that in our subsequent work,” Reinhart and Rogoff wrote.
msnbc’s Lawrence O’Donnell said in his program Wednesday evening, “No matter how many times academics try to tell politicians that they cannot base policy action on any one study in any area of social sciences or natural sciences politicians refuse to learn that lesson. Republicans loved the 90% number. Because for once they had some science behind what they were saying.”
Herndon, along with the economics department at UMass-Amherst, have undercut the austerity argument that there is no definitive threshold for the debt/GDP ratio relationship and that public debt holds a pivotal role in overcoming a financial recession–a topic that has been on the mind of every American.
Watch Stephen Colbert’s interview with Thomas Herndon below. | A 28-year-old economics graduate student has rewritten a study led by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff that has been widely cited as the in | 28.142857 | 1 | 26.071429 | medium | high | extractive |
http://time.com/4399177/us-diplomat-russia-moscow/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160729001458id_/http://time.com:80/4399177/us-diplomat-russia-moscow/?xid=newsletter-brief | U.S. Expels 2 Russians in Response to Attack on Diplomat | 20160729001458 | (WASHINGTON) — The State Department says the U.S. has expelled two Russian officials in response to an attack on an American diplomat by a Russian policeman in Moscow last month.
Department spokesman John Kirby isn’t immediately providing additional information about the U.S. move to kick out the Russians.
Kirby says the American was attacked on June 6 by a Russian guard outside the U.S. Embassy compound. Kirby says the attack was “unprovoked and it endangered the safety of our employee.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry claims that American was a CIA agent and that he refused to provide his identification documents.
Moscow says the policeman was fulfilling his duties defending the embassy. | The Russian Foreign Ministry claims that the American was a CIA agent | 10.5 | 1 | 4.5 | low | high | mixed |
http://time.com/4160026/iphone-camera-lens-review/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160729003415id_/http://time.com:80/4160026/iphone-camera-lens-review/ | Camera Lenses Tested | 20160729003415 | The iPhone’s camera is plenty powerful, but it does have limitations. Because it has a fixed focal length, it can’t produce images that are truly telephoto or wide-angle, for instance. Luckily for iPhone photographers, a wide variety of third-party lens attachments are now on the market. They make it possible to get all sorts of unique photos with the iPhone’s camera, expanding shooters’ creative potential. TIME tested a number of these lens attachments to see which stand out from the pack. Each was tested on an iPhone 6s. Here’s what we found:
This lens connector and three-lens set comes with an E-Z Installation guide, but there was nothing easy about actually attaching the gear. The Iris works with some cases thanks to a small piece of plastic inserted between the phone and the case. Once installed, the lenses worked well, though the mount keeping them attached to an iPhone is bulky and uncomfortable to use. ($109)
The Olloclip packs a lens on either side, meaning both your landscapes and your selfies can be improved. They don’t always fit snugly on the iPhone 6s, but an accompanying case helps. A diverse set of lens options means there’s glass for every kind of photography, ranging from close-up macro images to funky fisheye photos. ($80)
These clip-on lenses aren’t much to look at, but they’re tons of fun to look through. The fisheye lens offers a full 180-degree view with plenty of curvature, while another option offers a more normal wide-angle result. The Mobi lenses are easy to attach and remove, and can work with many thin iPhone cases. ($70)
Lensbaby’s tiny lenses are easy to use and relatively inexpensive. The glass provides varying zoom magnifications, including a 2x extender. The company’s most fun lens to use is the LM-30, which creates a prism effect around the edges of your images. The lime green plastic mount isn’t the nicest-looking, but it does allow for each magnetic lens to be snapped on and off with ease. ($120)
While most photography equipment strives to be low weight, the ALM mCAMLITE is intentionally heavy. This lens is actually a mount intended for taking video; the weight provides increased stabilization. The lens’ size imitates the look and feel of a professional camera—and weighs almost as much, coming in at 1.2 pounds. The stabilizer includes mounts for tripods, an external microphone, an external flash, and interchangeable lenses.
The ALM might be overkill for amateur photographers, but it could be ideal for serious shooters out there. ($100)
With a little commitment, the Moment Lenses are extremely easy to use. To use them, a .3mm thick adhesive mounting plate has to be stuck onto the back of the phone. It is not easily removable, but relatively unobtrusive. A wide array of magnetic lenses can then be connected to the plate and plucked off with ease. The stainless steel lenses are top quality and work with only minimal lens distortion. ($100/lens)
Now for something completely different: The FLIR One lets you take Predator-style thermal images with your iPhone, bringing military-style tech to your photography arsenal. The FLIR One connects to the iPhone’s charging port, while a dedicated app controls its functionality. The heat-seeking camera is so sensitive that it picks up warmth through a person’s clothes and even from buildings and trees, as seen in the video below. ($249) | And they're not that expensive | 114.833333 | 0.666667 | 0.666667 | high | low | abstractive |
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