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http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160726-the-mystery-of-why-you-cant-remember-being-a-baby | http://web.archive.org/web/20160729045059id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/future/story/20160726-the-mystery-of-why-you-cant-remember-being-a-baby | The mystery of why you can't remember being a baby | 20160729045059 | You’re out to lunch with someone you’ve known for a few years. Together you’ve held parties, celebrated birthdays, visited parks and bonded over your mutual love of ice cream. You’ve even been on holiday together. In all, they’ve spent quite a lot of money on you – roughly £63,224. The thing is: you can’t remember any of it.
From the most dramatic moment in life – the day of your birth – to first steps, first words, first food, right up to nursery school, most of us can’t remember anything of our first few years. Even after our precious first memory, the recollections tend to be few and far between until well into our childhood. How come?
This gaping hole in the record of our lives has been frustrating parents and baffling psychologists, neuroscientists and linguists for decades. It was a minor obsession of the father of psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, who coined the phrase ‘infant amnesia’ over 100 years ago.
Probing that mental blank throws up some intriguing questions. Did your earliest memories actually happen, or are they simply made up? Can we remember events without the words to describe them? And might it one day be possible to claim your missing memories back?
Part of the puzzle comes from the fact that babies are, in other ways, sponges for new information, forming 700 new neural connections every second and wielding language-learning skills to make the most accomplished polyglot green with envy. The latest research suggests they begin training their minds before they’ve even left the womb.
But even as adults, information is lost over time if there’s no attempt to retain it. So one explanation is that infant amnesia is simply a result of the natural process of forgetting the things we experience throughout our lives.
An answer comes from the work of the 19th Century German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, who conducted a series of pioneering experiments on himself to test the limits of human memory. To ensure his mind was a completely blank slate to begin with, he invented the “nonsense syllable” – a made-up word of random letters, such as “kag” or “slans” – and set to work memorising thousands of them.
His forgetting curve charts the disconcertingly rapid decline of our ability to recall the things we’ve learnt: left alone, our brains throw away half of all new material within an hour. By Day 30, we’ve retained about 2-3%.
Crucially, Ebbinghaus discovered that the way we forget is entirely predictable. To find out if babies’ memories are any different, all we have to do is compare the charts. When they did the maths in the 1980s, scientists discovered we recall far fewer memories between birth and the age of six or seven than you would expect. Clearly something very different was going on.
Some people can remember events from when they were just two years old, while others may have no recollection of anything until they were seven or eight.
Intriguingly, the veil lifts earlier for some than for others. Some people can remember events from when they were just two years old, while others may have no recollection of anything that has happened to them for seven or eight years. On average, patchy footage appears from about three-and-a-half. More intriguingly still, discrepancies in forgetting have also been observed from country to country, where the average onset of our earliest memories can vary by up to two years.
Could this offer some clues to explain the blank beforehand? To find out, psychologist Qi Wang at Cornell University collected hundreds of memories from Chinese and American college students. As the national stereotypes would predict, American stories were longer, more elaborate and conspicuously egocentric. Chinese stories, on the other hand, were briefer and more factual; on average, they also began six months later.
It’s a pattern backed up by numerous other studies. Those with more detailed, self-focused memories seem to find them easier to recall. It’s thought that a dash of self-interest can be helpful, since developing your own perspective infuses events with meaning. “It is the difference between thinking ‘There were tigers at the zoo’ and ‘I saw tigers at the zoo and even though they were scary, I had a lot of fun’,” says Robyn Fivush, a psychologist at Emory University.
When Wang performed the same experiment again, this time asking the children’s mothers, she found the same pattern. In other words, those with hazy memories: blame your parents.
Wang’s first memory is of hiking in the mountains around her family home in Chongqing, China, with her mother and her sister. She was about six. The thing is, until she moved to the US, she’d never been asked. “In Eastern cultures childhood memories aren’t important. People are like ‘why do you care?’” she says.
“If society is telling you those memories are important to you, you’ll hold on to them,” says Wang. The record for the earliest memories goes to Maori New Zealanders, whose culture includes a strong emphasis on the past. Many can recall events which happened when they were just two-and-a-half.
Our culture may also determine the way we talk about our memories, with some psychologists arguing that they only come once we have mastered the power of speech. “Language helps provide a structure, or organisation, for our memories, that is a narrative. By creating a story, the experience becomes more organised, and therefore easier to remember over time,” says Fivush. Some psychologists are sceptical that this plays much of a role, however. There’s no difference between the age at which children who are born deaf and grow up without sign language report their earliest memories, for instance.
After a botched operation to cure his epilepsy damaged his hippocampus, HM was unable to recall any new events
This leads us to the theory that we can’t remember our first years simply because our brains hadn’t developed the necessary equipment. The explanation emerges from the most famous man in the history of neuroscience, known simply as patient HM. After a botched operation to cure his epilepsy damaged his hippocampus, HM was unable to recall any new events. “It’s the centre of our ability to learn and remember. If it weren’t for the hippocampus I wouldn’t be able to remember this conversation now,” says Jeffrey Fagen, who studies memory and learning at St John's University.
Intriguingly, however, he was still able to learn other kinds of information – just like babies. When scientists asked him to copy a drawing of a five-pointed star by looking at it in a mirror (harder than it sounds), he improved with each round of practise – despite the fact the experience itself felt completely new to him.
Perhaps, when we’re very young, the hippocampus simply isn’t developed enough to build a rich memory of an event. Baby rats, monkeys and humans all continue to add new neurons to the hippocampus for the first few years of life and we all are all unable to form lasting memories as infants – and it seems that the moment we stop creating new neurons, we‘re suddenly able to form long-term memories. “For young babies and infants the hippocampus is very undeveloped,” says Fagen.
But is the under-formed hippocampus losing our long-term memories, or are they never formed in the first place? Since childhood events can continue to affect our behaviour long after we’ve forgotten them, some psychologists think they must be lingering somewhere. “The memories are probably stored someplace that’s inaccessible now, but it’s very difficult to demonstrate that empirically,” says Fagen.
We should be very wary about what we do recall from that time, though – our childhood is probably full of false memories for events that never occurred.
Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, has devoted her career to the phenomenon. “People can pick up suggestions and begin to visualise them – they become like memories,” she says.
Loftus knows first-hand how easily this happens. Her mother drowned in a swimming pool when she was just 16. Years later, a relative convinced her that she had discovered her floating body. It all came flooding back, until a week later the same relative called and explained she’d got it wrong – it was someone else.
Of course, no one likes to be told their memories aren’t real. To convince the sceptics, Loftus knew she’d need unequivocal proof. Back in the 1980s, she recruited volunteers for a study and planted the memories herself.
Loftus spun an elaborate lie about a traumatic trip to a shopping mall when they got lost, before being rescued by a kindly elderly woman and reunited. To make the event more plausible, she even roped in their families. “We basically said to our research participants ‘we’ve talked to your mother, your mother has told us some things that happened to you.’” Nearly a third of her victims fell for it, with some apparently recalling the event in vivid detail. In fact, we’re often more confident in our imaginary memories than we are in those which actually happened.
Even if your memories are based on real events, they have probably been moulded and refashioned in hindsight – memories planted by conversations rather than first-person memories of the actual events. That time you thought it would be funny to turn your sister into a zebra with permanent marker? You saw it in a family video. The incredible third birthday cake your mother made you? Your older brother told you about it.
Perhaps the biggest mystery is not why we can’t remember our childhood – but whether we can believe any of our memories at all.
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If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday. | Babies are sponges for new information – so why does it take so long for us to form your first memory? BBC Future investigates. | 76.923077 | 0.884615 | 1.653846 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10337460/Ion-Jinga-Guilty-of-being-Romanians-in-the-UK.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160729171451id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/uknews/immigration/10337460/Ion-Jinga-Guilty-of-being-Romanians-in-the-UK.html | Ion Jinga: Guilty of being Romanians in the UK | 20160729171451 | She wrote to me: “It is increasingly more difficult to live as a Romanian citizen and Romanian professional in the UK. The UK is a country totally against racism and cultural blame. Unfortunately, this is what we are facing since January 2013 thanks to a part of the mass media and to some politicians. Romanians and Bulgarians are feeding mass media every day and this is not without consequences. I had never faced racism in this country until 2013. Now, almost on a daily basis I am asked where I am originally from, and I have to face a racist attitude following my answer. Some people do not say anything, the majority of them express a surprise only, some of them tell me that I do not look like a Romanian and some others start negative comments against us. I had to deal with this attitude from both patients and unfortunately senior colleagues at the work place. The blaming culture and racist attitude against us are damaging our lives and reputation. The vast majority of Romanians here are hard workers, honest, committed, paying taxes, contributing to the growth of this country, in the end of the day.”
When, during the by-election campaign for Eastleigh, the candidate of a political party that expects to win the next European elections using xenophobic slogans linked Romanians with “a natural propensity towards crime”, I expressed concern that inflammatory rhetoric could have long term negative consequences and even lead to acts of racially assaults. Unfortunately, I was right because soon after, in Brighton, two young Romanian workers were attacked only because they were speaking in a language identified by their aggressors as being “East European”.
. How such attitude is possible to flourish in the UK, the country which gave to the mankind Magna Charta Libertatum, spread its culture and civilization all over the world and – for good reasons – is one of the most admired modern democracies? The answer was given by the Business Secretary Vince Cable, when addressing his party’s conference in Glasgow: “Britain is developing an absolutely toxic public opinion on immigration”.
Certainly, a large majority of Britons rejects any xenophobic behaviour and outstanding British personalities have expressed their appreciation for the valuable contribution Romanians living in the UK bring to this country: the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Europe Minister, the Crime Prevention Minister, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee in the House of Commons – to name only a few. Most encouraging for me are also opinions coming from the ordinary people.
No one is able to say how many people might come to the UK next year from Romania. Romanians, as citizens of the European Union, are able to move freely within the EU - just like Britons. We have no idea how many Britons might go to Spain or France next year – and the same applies as regards Romanians coming here. As Minister Jeremy Browne pointed out, “they are only complying with the same rules as British people who live in Spain or have holiday houses in France, or who work in Germany”.
I think what rankles with the British public is not the fact that other EU citizens come to the UK. Personally, I would be proud of the fact that many Europeans like Britain and want to come here. It shows you are a country brimming with opportunity. No, what bothers the British, in my mind, is that EU citizens could come here and claim welfare and benefits without first contributing to the economy. I have a lot of sympathy with that, but it could hardly be linked with Romanians because their presence here is mainly the result of the demand of the British market. They do not put a strain on the social and health systems because most of them are aged 18 – 35, with few requiring health care or claiming social assistance. 62% have no dependants and 32% have only one child. From the total number of 40,171 child benefit claims last year in respect of children living in another EU country, only 324 went to Romanian children – it’s negligible. In short, they are net contributors to the public purse, not a drain. A recent study found that migrants from new EU Member States paid in through taxes 30% more than they cost the British public services.
Therefore my compatriots have no reason to feel guilty of being Romanians in the UK. Reason must prevail over emotional approaches. | I have received a letter from a Romanian doctor working in a London hospital. She came to Britain in 2005 after graduating in Bucharest and is one of the 2000 Romanian doctors educated in our universities who have been convinced by British recruiting agencies to come and work here because there is a shortage of doctors in the UK. | 13.918033 | 0.655738 | 1.213115 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/8492599/Panda-turns-nasty-as-it-hunts-down-peacock.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160729175918id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/8492599/Panda-turns-nasty-as-it-hunts-down-peacock.html | Panda turns nasty as it hunts down peacock | 20160729175918 | Chen Jun, zoo keeper, said: "In spite of the general impression of being docile, panda is after all an animal. As an omnivorous animal though, giant panda sometimes eats meat.
Giant pandas are a highly endangered species, only around 1,590 giant pandas still live in the wild, all in China, of which about 1,400 are in Sichuan. | A panda at a zoo in China turns carnivore after it chases down a peacock that had strayed into its pen. | 3.043478 | 0.391304 | 0.478261 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/world/americas/peru-illegal-gold-mining-latin-america.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160729220620id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/26/world/americas/peru-illegal-gold-mining-latin-america.html | Peru Scrambles to Drive Out Illegal Gold Mining and Save Precious Land | 20160729220620 | ON THE BORDER OF THE TAMBOPATA RESERVE, Peru — The raid began at dawn. In four small wooden boats, the forest rangers and Peruvian marines, checking and rechecking their automatic weapons, headed silently downriver toward the illegal gold miners.
They didn’t have to go far. Around the first bend was a ramshackle mining settlement, tarps stretched over tree poles. Soon, the marines were firing into the air, the miners and their families were on the run, and the rangers were moving in with machetes.
They speared bags of rice and plastic barrels of drinking water, kicked aside toys and smashed tools before setting everything on fire. High above the Amazon rain forest, home to trees that are more than 1,000 years old, heavy plumes of black smoke spiraled toward the clouds.
Trying to protect one of the most biologically diverse places on earth from an army of illegal miners that has carved a toxic path through the rain forest, the Peruvian government is setting up outposts and stepping up raids along the Malinowski River in the Tambopata Nature Reserve.
But some experts wonder whether it is far too little too late.
To get here, a remote front line in Latin America’s battle against illegal mining, I hiked nine and a half hours through the jungle, at times in water up to my armpits. But any sense of being in a pristine wilderness was lost at the river’s edge. Already, the miners had done so much damage that the water ran the color of milky coffee. The landscape was worthy of a “Mad Max” movie. Huge sandy craters, mounds of pebbles and poisoned waterways were everywhere. Garbage — rags, plastic bags, plastic foam food containers — clung to the freshly cut tree branches piled up in the river’s nooks and crannies. | A force of marines and rangers is outnumbered as it tries to protect the area anchored by the Tambopata reserve, one of the most biologically diverse places on earth. | 11.129032 | 0.774194 | 3.548387 | low | low | mixed |
http://time.com/4381753/play-halo-5-free/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160730022749id_/http://time.com:80/4381753/play-halo-5-free/ | How to Play Halo 5 For Free | 20160730022749 | It will be playable from June 29 until July 5 as part of the Xbox Live Free Play Days program.
Halo 5’s new Warzone Firefight mode is set to launch on June 29 as a free downloadable update.
Newcomers will have an entire week to try out the game so long as they hold a valid Xbox Live gold membership.
You can check out the new content to be included in Warzone Firefight below:
New Game Mode – Warzone Firefight: Warzone Firefight is, by far, the biggest content release since the launch of Halo 5: Guardians! As a result of the beta in April, 343 Industries has taken player feedback to improve the game mode for launch, such as increasing the difficulty each round and adding brand new bosses and vehicles – including the hilarious (and deadly) Grunt Goblin boss and the powerful UNSC VTOL, AV-49 Wasp, deployable as a REQ vehicle in all Warzone modes and available to use in Forge. Check out Polygon and IGN to get a sneak peek at both of these new additions to Halo 5: Guardians.
New Campaign Feature – Score Attack: As detailed on Halo Waypoint, the Warzone Firefight content release will include a new way to play Halo 5: Guardians’ campaign – Score Attack! Campaign scoring makes a return to Halo 5: Guardians, enabling players to compete against their friends for points and medals in online co-op play or solo. Remember – in Score Attack, the points do matter so be sure to defeat enemies with style and flourish!
New Maps – Attack on Sanctum, Prospect and Molten: The free Warzone Firefight release brings three new maps across multiple game modes: Attack on Sanctum, Prospect and Molten. In the Attack on Sanctum map for Warzone, revisit the Covenant homeworld of Sanghelios, or take it to the rocky roads of Prospect for Warzone Assault. For Arena players, Molten will be a hot new Arena map – be sure not to fall into the stream of lava!
New Forge Canvas – Tidal: Since the release of a new super-charged Forge mode for Halo 5: Guardians in December, Forgers have been hard at work creating some of the most unique, creative and innovative maps ever seen in Halo. The Warzone Firefight release brings a fan-requested canvas, the ocean-themed Tidal. No longer will players have to struggle to find water to Forge on – it’s literally everywhere on Tidal!
New REQs Items – Warzone Firefight adds several new REQ items, including the Cinder and Cyclops armor sets, Covenant vehicle and weapon variants, HCS Pro League weapon skins and additional customization sets.
This article originally appeared on TrustedReviews.com | Suit up | 254.5 | 0 | 0 | high | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4427786/dnc-barack-obama-hillary-clinton/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160730133406id_/http://time.com:80/4427786/dnc-barack-obama-hillary-clinton/ | Democrats Harness Optimism in Philadelphia Amid Gloom | 20160730133406 | The first night of the Republican convention last week began with a clear message: Americans are in peril. “The vast majority of Americans today do not feel safe,” former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said July 18, setting the tone in Cleveland.
A week later, Democrats in Philadelphia agreed about the peril. Where they differed, though, was the cause. “Donald Trump, with all his rhetoric, will literally make us less safe,” said Vice President Joe Biden. “No major party nominee in the history of the station has ever known less or been less prepared to deal with our national security.”
In parallel conventions, Republicans and Democrats spoke of the dangers facing the country in starkly different terms. While Republicans opened with fire and brimstone, the Democratic convention at times seemed impervious to the growing sense of unease outside the convention hall. When Democrats did speak of fear, the focus was on the prospect of a Trump presidency.
President Barack Obama listed accomplishments and promised a sunny future. Biden previewed an American 21st century. Vice-presidential nominee Senator Tim Kaine spoke of “the next chapter” in “our proud story.”
“America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump,” Obama told the convention.
If there was unease in the Wells Fargo Arena, it was less about terrorism and more about Trump’s rising poll numbers. The Republican nominee has bumped up in swing-state polls after his convention last week and captured the news cycle on Wednesday by remarking that Russian hackers should release Hillary Clinton’s emails.
“Donald Trump is a walking, talking recruiting poster for terrorists,” said Rear Admiral John Hutson. “The real disaster would be to elect Donald Trump to be the face of the country that we love.”
“Trump is a risky reckless and radical choice and we can’t afford to make that choice,” said former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. “We must unite around a Democratic candidate and defeat a dangerous demagogue.”
Democrats find themselves in a difficult position: after seven-and-a-half years under Obama, anything less than confidence in the country’s safety would be an indirect affront to the party’s leadership. But they also feel the need to be sensitive to unease over the presence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq and the threat of attacks in the U.S.
Americans are more afraid of a terrorist attack at home than at any point since 2003, according to a CNN/ORC poll conducted in June that showed 71% of Americans believe an act of terrorism is very or somewhat likely in the very near future. Terrorist attacks in Orlando and San Bernardino as well as gun violence between police officers and black men, have shaken public confidence. Fear of attacks abroad has helped fuel the rise of Trump.
The trick for Democrats has been to acknowledge the dangers of terrorism without letting it overwhelm their message. If the theme of the first night of the Republican convention was “Make America safe again,” in Philadelphia, it was the less catchy, “America is safe enough but let’s make it safer.”
When Democrats on Wednesday did talk of danger, it was of gun violence at home, an impasse that Democrats have blamed on Republicans in Congress. The mother of Christopher Leinonen, a young man who was killed in the Orlando attack at the nightclub, spoke tearfully of her son’s death. Rep. Chris Murphy recalled the shooting at Sandy Hook. The daughter of the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary school remembered her mother. Charles Ramsay, the former Philadelphia police commissioner, remembered police officers killed by gun violence.
But at the end, it was President Barack Obama’s call to reject Trump’s gloom that defined the night. “I’m asking you to reject cynicism and reject fear, and to summon what is best in us and to elect Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States,” said Obama.
And Kaine, Clinton’s running mate, made the choice a stark one. “I trust Hillary Clinton with our son’s life,” he said. “You know who I don’t trust? Donald Trump.” | A battle for the sentiment of the American people | 92 | 0.666667 | 0.888889 | high | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/hillary-clinton-women-underrepresented-politics/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160730144015id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/25/hillary-clinton-women-underrepresented-politics/ | Hillary Clinton's Candidacy Shows Women Underrepresented In Politics | 20160730144015 | Hillary Clinton and Mary Thomas have little in common, except for this: They both hope to add to the meager ranks of America’s female elected officials come January.
You know about Clinton, but probably not Thomas — a conservative Republican, opponent of abortion and Obamacare, former general counsel of Florida’s Department of Elder Affairs. She’s running in Florida’s 2nd District to become the first Indian-American woman in Congress. It’s no easy task.
“There is still a good ol’ boys network that is in place,” she says, though she insists that “A lot of people see the value in having different types of people in Washington.”
Even as Clinton attempts to shatter what she has called “the highest, hardest glass ceiling,” other women like Thomas are testing other, lower ceilings. There are many: Women in the U.S. remain significantly underrepresented at all levels of elected office.
“Historically, we have centuries of catching up to do,” says Missy Shorey, executive director of the conservative-leaning Maggie’s List, one of a number of groups supporting female candidates.
Though women are more than half of the American population, they now account for just a fifth of all U.S. representatives and senators, and one in four state lawmakers. They serve as governors of only six states and are mayors in roughly 19 percent of the nation’s largest cities.
There has been progress; as recently as 1978, there were no women U.S. senators, and now there are 20. Still, there has been little headway since a surge of women won office in the 1980s and early 1990s. Sixteen states have fewer women serving in legislatures than in 2005, and five others have shown no improvement, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Advocates say the dearth of women officeholders has had consequences. They say women’s voices have been muted in local, state and national discussions of all issues, from climate change to foreign policy, but particularly of concerns important to women and working mothers: family leave, child care and abortion, for example. They point to instances where women in office have made a difference.
Kim McMillan was first elected as a Democrat to her seat in Tennessee’s House of Representatives in 1994 when she was 32 years old, a working mother of two children under the age of 3. More than once, she was told she couldn’t win because she was a woman. She eventually served six terms, rising to become the first woman majority leader. A major accomplishment: expansion of pre-kindergarten education around the state.
“I felt like I represented people who didn’t have any representation, working mothers like me,” says McMillan, now the first female mayor of Clarkesville, the fifth largest city in Tennessee.
Whether a Clinton win in November will inspire a new generation of female politicians remains to be seen. While the election of a woman as U.S. president would be unprecedented, at least 52 other countries around the world have had a female head of state in the last 50 years.
Female representation varies significantly around the U.S. Six states have never elected or appointed a woman to the U.S. House of Representatives, and 22 have never had a woman represent them in the U.S. Senate.
A major problem, activists say, is convincing women to run.
“We know that when women run for office, they win as often as men do,” says Debbie Walsh, executive director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “The number of women running isn’t going up, and so the number of women in office isn’t going up.”
A support network has been instrumental throughout Ellen Rosenblum’s career, beginning as a lawyer in Oregon and continuing as she was appointed a state court judge and later during her successful bid for state attorney general. Two of her early mentors were former Oregon Supreme Court Justice Betty Roberts and Barbara Roberts, the first woman elected governor of Oregon.
Rosenblum says she worked to pay it forward, helping to build up a statewide group of women lawyers. When it came to deciding in late 2011 whether to launch her first bid for statewide office, that same network was instrumental.
“I needed women to talk to, to make sure I was not completely out of my mind to do this,” says Rosenblum, who at the time had just retired as a judge.
In California, Hannah-Beth Jackson had long been active in her community beyond her work as a lawyer and former prosecutor, but it took the encouragement of one of her mentors to convince her to run for state Assembly in 1998.
“Women tend to ask permission, and we’re never quite sure we are good enough or ready enough,” she says.
Now in the state Senate, she is chairwoman of the powerful judiciary committee. Despite her influence and tenure, the Democratic lawmaker does not always succeed. Earlier this year, a bill she sponsored extending California’s family leave protections to small-business employees died in an all-male committee amid concerns of regulatory burdens.
“Let’s see what happens when I bring the bill back,” Jackson says. “Hopefully, that committee will have some women members.” | "Historically, we have centuries of catching up to do." | 79.615385 | 0.846154 | 7.769231 | high | medium | mixed |
http://time.com/3746046/eagle-dubai-camera/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160731090908id_/http://time.com:80/3746046/eagle-dubai-camera/?iid=time_readnext | Here's Dubai's Skyline From the Back of an Eagle | 20160731090908 | An eagle flew 2,722 feet from the top of the world’s tallest building in Dubai on Saturday with a camera strapped to its back, and the video is amazing.
The eagle, named Darshan, flew from the top of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai to its trainer on the ground as part of a public awareness campaign for endangered species led by the Freedom Conservation group. Freedom Conservation has publicized other videos with eagles flying from famous locations like the Eiffel Tower and St. Paul’s Cathedral in Paris. The flight in Dubai now holds the record for “highest-ever recorded bird flight from a man-made structure,” the group says.
“We know that people love these types of videos. It’s a great way for us to attract the public’s attention to endangered animals and to the fact that humans need to learn how to share their space with these animals,” Freedom Conservation Director Ronald Menzel told NBC News.
Read next: So This Baby Weasel Decided to Hitch a Ride on a Flying Woodpecker’s Back
Listen to the most important stories of the day. | That's a 2,722 feet drop captured on video | 23.333333 | 0.666667 | 0.888889 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4431176/jay-z-dj-khaled-major-key/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160731100422id_/http://time.com:80/4431176/jay-z-dj-khaled-major-key/ | DJ Khaled Explains How He Recruited Jay Z For His New Album | 20160731100422 | DJ Khaled‘s new album, Major Key, dropped Friday, with a track list chock-full of guest features that reads like a hip hop roll call. Among the talent featured (running the gamut from Nas to Kendrick Lamar), Khaled recruited one of hip hop’s most notable figures, Jay Z, who appears on the track and in the video for “I Got the Keys,” alongside Future.
Enlisting Jigga was no walk in the park however, which the Snapchat star and producer relayed to Rap Radar‘s Elliott Wilson and Brian “B-Dot” Miller on their podcast Friday morning.
“It’s hard to get Jay Z on a verse,” Khaled said, while noting that he was willing to wait. “I ain’t going nowhere, bro. If he getting something to eat, I’ll be right next door.”
Once Khaled got Jay Z’s ear, however, he knew that the hip hop mogul would be interested.
“I play him the record and I’m vibing, you know, I got that eye so I’m looking to the side, I don’t want him to know I’m looking, and I see him vibing,” Khaled said. “The first part is an instrumental so that’s when I’m really looking because, the great ones, that’s when they really just start going so I look and I just see him start rhyming in his head and mumbling…when the beat stopped, he’s just like, ‘Leave that for me.’”
The next day, Jay Z not only had his verse ready, but told Khaled that he would be supplying another one.
Khaled, however, knew that the pathway to more success involved more than just the track, so asked Hov to appear in the video. Although Jay Z didn’t respond to him initially, Khaled persisted and held off releasing the song until he knew that the video with Jay was on its way.
“When he started throwing ideas out, I knew we was getting close,” he said. “When he confirmed, we shot the video like two days after the confirmation – that’s how quick we shot the video.”
This isn’t the first time that DJ Khaled and Jay Z have worked together. Khaled was signed to Roc Nation nearly a decade ago and just finished touring nationally with Hov’s better half, Beyoncé, on her Formation World Tour.
Listen to the full interview below. | Bless up. | 160.333333 | 0.333333 | 0.333333 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/29/this-pineapple-welcome-mat-is-a-summer-diy-win/21441660/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160731103336id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/07/29/this-pineapple-welcome-mat-is-a-summer-diy-win/21441660/ | This pineapple welcome mat is a summer DIY win | 20160731103336 | Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
If there are two things we associate with summer, it's fresh fruit and summer entertaining. What's a summer weekend without heading over to your family's backyard for a BBQ? Or having your friends over for a nice boozy brunch?
In that case, it would probably be a good idea to ramp up your welcome doormat. This DIY tutorial is the way to go because it combines all the things we love about summer. Plus, it's simple, adorable, and super easy to make.
See more fun DIY projects below:
DIY home decor: 7 projects that are worth the (minimal) effort
Okay, so I don’t have a guest bedroom, and definitely won’t anytime soon, but when I do, I think this mid century daybed is definitely the way to go. To sum it up: 1. Cover your box spring with a cute cover or sheet. 2. Attach mid century legs. 3. You’re done. There are no more steps.
This would also be a great solution for a studio apartment, just sayin’
Image via Sugar & Cloth
Desks always seem to collect knick-knacks, so whether you just need a place to house all your loose items, or you need a mechanism to store your office supplies, these little gold catch-alls are the perfect solution.
(Cough. I don’t actually have a desk yet, but when I DO, these are going to be high on my priority list!)
LEATHER & WOOD COAT RACK
This DIY coat rack is something I’m pretty sure Dot & Bo would sell for like $400. Except the pieces of wood are basically broomsticks you can buy at the hardware store, with a bit of leather wrapping. I mean, really? Please be easier. DIY home decor at it’s finest, guys. I’m determined to find a place for this to go in my apartment.
Image via A Pair and a Spare
I’m not even sure this can be considered a DIY seeing as it doesn’t require any steps, but isn’t that the best kind anyway!?
I love the idea of using wooden crates as shelves on a desk. You could also hang them on the wall! I’m secretly thinking of doing this in our bathroom, but I haven’t shared this with Neal yet. (Shhhh.)
Image via A Pair and a Spare
This dipped flatware DIY is an amazing solution for that old second set of silverware you’ve got lying around. Wouldn’t it be cute for entertaining, or a BBQ? And so easy too–just dip, hang, and dry!
I can’t get over how easy this is, and why I had never thought of this previously! Who knew making your own neon word light would be such a snap.
Although I’m afraid I wouldn’t know which word to use. I think “hello” is a safe bet though, don’t you think? Which word would you go with?
Image via I Spy DIY
And finally, the little beauties you saw above–gold leaf clipboards! I think this is such a fun way to hang art on your walls, and a great example of how something super simple can make a huge impact! (OR it would make a great little gift, don’t you think?)
More in lifestyle: DIY hack: Turn a beach towel into a beach bag You can now have the dream living room you've always wanted Get Pinterest worthy bedrooms just like these | If you want to ramp up your welcome doormat, this is the way to go. Plus, it's simple, adorable, and super easy to make. | 22.741935 | 0.967742 | 8.516129 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/will-obama-look-west-replace-scalia | http://web.archive.org/web/20160731185337id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/msnbc/will-obama-look-west-replace-scalia | Will Obama look to California for Supreme Court nominee? | 20160731185337 | Dissenting in the same-sex marriage opinion last spring, the late Justice Antonin Scalia criticized his own court for being unrepresentative of America.
“Four of the nine are natives of New York City,” he wrote, and Scalia was one of them. The court, he moaned, had “not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count).”
The home state of majority opinion writer Justice Anthony Kennedy promptly protested that it did so count, as Western and otherwise. These days, judging by the names being floated as a possible replacement for Scalia, the country’s most populous state does indeed count – as a fount of judicial talent.
RELATED: How Obama could win Supreme Court battle
Though President Obama has dropped no hints, California’s state and federal judiciary is prominently represented among the rumored shortlist. Those names include young Ninth Circuit judges like Paul Watford and Jacqueline Nguyen, state Supreme Court justices like Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Leondra Kruger, and Goodwin Liu, and even California state attorney general and Senate candidate Kamala Harris.
“As California goes, the country eventually follows,” said UCLA law professor Adam Winkler. “As much as people like Scalia like to diss California, we’ve seen the state really be at the cutting edge of so many social changes and movements.”
David A. Carrillo, executive director of the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law, agreed: “California is the tail that wags the dog on so many issues.”
All of these judges are all relatively young and pedigreed. Some are very young: Kruger, the first black woman to edit the Yale Law Journal, is only 39. None is white. Of the 112 justices who have served on the Supreme Court, only three have been people of color, something Obama would know as well as anyone. MTP Daily, 2/16/16, 5:34 PM ET Obama: 'I Intend To Do My Job' President Obama promises to nominate an “indisputably” qualified candidate to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, urging the Republican Senate to rise above “venom and rancor” and give that nominee a vote.
MTP Daily, 2/16/16, 5:34 PM ET
President Obama promises to nominate an “indisputably” qualified candidate to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, urging the Republican Senate to rise above “venom and rancor” and give that nominee a vote.
All of the current justices previously served as appeals court judges, except Justice Elena Kagan, who never got a vote on her nomination to the D.C. Circuit by President Clinton. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers a vast territory that includes Alaska, Hawaii, and a swath of western states, is both large and prestigious, pointed out Melissa Murray, a Berkeley Law professor. She said California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein’s input on lower-court appointments made a difference, too. “They’ve made a concerted effort to make sure that the Ninth Circuit reflects the diversity of the state,” she said.
Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown’s most recent appointments to the California Supreme Court have stood out for their national profiles. Cuéllar and Kruger, who each joined the court in January 2015, both worked in high-level legal positions in the Obama administration. Liu, who is a long shot due to the Republican-led Senate’s long-running refusal to bring to a vote his nomination to the Ninth Circuit by Obama, was a prominent voice on progressive issues as a professor at Berkeley Law.
“Jerry Brown has appointed a crop of young intellectuals,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “These are people who have not necessarily had any trial experience. They’re people who look like they’re federal court-ready. And it’s a group that are progressives, but there’s no indication that they’re as far to the left as Scalia is to the right. It makes sense that when you are thinking about how to diversify the court, you’re potentially tapping into California’s Supreme Court.”
No current justice served as a state court judge, though several from the last generation did: Justice William Brennan in New Jersey, his successor Justice David Souter in New Hampshire, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (whom Scalia might have considered a genuine Westerner) in Arizona.
RELATED: Tom Brokaw remembers Scalia’s life and legacy
Carrillo, for one, would like to see it happen again. “Speaking as someone who studies state constitutional law, it’s also important for the court to remember federalism,” he said. “The states are separate sovereigns in our system. If you have a bunch of federal law experts on the court and no one knows anything about state constitutions, it’s easy to lose that.”
Some legal experts have traced Kennedy’s libertarian views to his upbringing in Sacramento. “He is the most libertarian of justices, the most likely to vote against the government,” pointed out Winkler. But since the 79-year-old Kennedy left the state, Winkler argues, “The California mentality has changed a lot. It has moved away from the traditional western mentality. Californians tend to think more highly of big government than many other western states do.”
Still, maybe the famous swing justice would have extra sympathy for a Californian. As Murray put it wryly, “We are always thinking about how to resonate with Justice Kennedy.” | Scalia famously said "California doesn't count," but when it comes to his replacement, it just might. | 48.363636 | 0.727273 | 1.090909 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/syria-war-women-risk-death-give-birth-aleppo-160627081422982.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160731235542id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/news/2016/06/syria-war-women-risk-death-give-birth-aleppo-160627081422982.html | Syria's war: Women risk death to give birth in Aleppo | 20160731235542 | On June 8, the second day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Fatma* took her newborn baby to Aleppo's Children's Hospital. Days after she gave birth, her baby boy began to experience problems breathing.
"He was turning blue," said the 29-year-old mother of five. The doctors placed the baby in one of Aleppo's 20 remaining incubators and Fatma exited the facilities. Moments later, inside her parked vehicle, she watched as a missile hit the hospital.
Government air strikes across rebel-held Aleppo and the deliberate targeting of medical facilities present yet another deadly challenge for pregnant women and newborn infants in the besieged city.
There were seven nurses and two doctors in the children's hospital at 10:05 am that Wednesday, at the time of the air strike. After the attack, amid clouds of dust and broken glass, the doctors rushed nine newborn infants to the basement and carried roughly 30 children and infants to a section of the hospital that had been spared.
All nine babies survived and stayed in incubators underground for two days. While the children's hospital closed partially, its medical staff never evacuated. Volunteers joined the hospital's staff to help with repairs. After only two days, the hospital reopened and was back on its regular work schedule of receiving between 15 and 20 newborns every day for paediatric check-ups.
The aerial attacks across rebel-held Aleppo have decimated the obstetric care infrastructure that was once available to pregnant women in Syria. Al-Zahra Hospital, the last remaining obstetric clinic in Aleppo, and the Children's Hospital are both supported by the Independent Doctors Association, a Syrian medical NGO based in Gaziantep that runs medical facilities in Aleppo province.Â
Of the two remaining general hospitals, Omar Bin Abdulaziz Hospital and Al-Quds Hospital, the former has a small obstetric department but has come under attack in the month of June, and the latter closed down after the air strike on April 28 which killed approximately 30 people.
READ MORE:Â Syria Civil War: Aleppo patients 'have nowhere to go'
Today, Al-Zahra Hospital specialises in obstetric care, assisting in the majority of births in eastern Aleppo. It is the last of its kind. The small clinic has only one operating room, nine medical beds, and one delivery room with three beds. About 100 pregnant women visit the clinic every day and 30 births take place.
"The hospital is very small and we have to reduce recovery time," explained Dr Malek, one of the last three gynecologists in eastern Aleppo, in a phone interview. "Normally, women who undergo C-sections need between 12 and 24 hours of recovery time," he continued, "but here we discharge them in three hours."
The lack of healthcare facilities and medical staff in eastern Aleppo has created a void in prenatal and postnatal care. The small supply of doctors makes it impossible for the three gynecologists working in Al-Zahra to take appointments.
"Before the war, pregnant women would see their doctors nine to 10 times," said Dr Malek.
The gynecologists all work 24-hour shifts for 10 consecutive days and rotate, but it is not enough. Furthermore, patients must still wait on average around four hours before they see a doctor. "It is exhausting work and there is a serious need for another hospital in Aleppo for pregnant women and deliveries."
The hospital is very small and we have to reduce recovery time. Normally, women who undergo C-sections need between 12 and 24 hours of recovery time but here we discharge them in three hours.
Dr Malek, one of the last three gynaecologists in eastern Aleppo
In the meantime, most women visit the clinic only to give birth to their children.
Access to the seven hospitals operating in eastern Aleppo is also a great impediment when women seek obstetric care. A visit to Al-Zahra can prove to be a life-threatening endeavour.
Public transportation and taxis stop running at night for fear of attacks and pregnant women in need of urgent care must wait until the next morning to reach the clinic. "Sometimes women give birth at the hospital's door,â said Dr Malek.
According to Dr Malek, the lack of medical facilities, doctors and unsafe access to hospitals has led to an upsurge of clandestine clinics run by "inexperienced and uncertified midwives".
"These are very dangerous and have negative effects on the newborn babies," explained Dr Hatem, the director of the Children's Hospital. "Sometimes they bring the newborns to our hospital after two to three hours from birth and we find them in terrible health. Many of them are dead before they reach our hospital."
The five years of Syria's civil war have killed more than 400,000 people, according to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research and pushed thousands to the brink of starvation.
Stress, poverty, poor health and malnutrition in pregnant women are all leading causes for prematurity and miscarriages. Any given month, Al-Zahra Hospital assists on the birth of 20 premature infants, according to Dr Malek.
Dr Malek treats one or two cases of anaemia in pregnant women who, depending on the severity of the case, may require blood transfusions. Malnutrition in pregnant women is harder to treat. "They need a dietary programme and this depends on the financial state of the family," Dr Malek told Al Jazeera. "They are not supported by any NGO."
The price of baby milk in eastern Aleppo, for instance, is around 3,200 Syrian pounds ($6.6 USD).
"Mothers prefer to breastfeed, but a lot of them can't access their babies," explained Dr Mustafa, a paediatrician working at the Children's Hospital, 300 metres away from Al-Zahra. "They send their husbands to check up on their children."
Indeed, for women who have children at home, paying a visit to their children in the hospital is not always a sensible choice. Ruaa, also a mother of one of the nine babies inside the hospital on the day of the air strike, chose to return home to her three children after witnessing the attack on the children's hospital. For a whole hour, Ruaa remained uncertain about the fate of her baby.
In eastern Aleppo, a kilo of diapers stands at 1,200 Syrian pounds ($2.5), a hefty sum for most families. According to Dr Malek, some women ask to be sterilised after they give birth. There are still others who ask for contraception, which al-Zahraa offers despite its shortage of birth control.
"There are some cases of women that ask for an abortion," said Dr Malek. But the hospital does not perform an abortion unless there is a medical reason that makes it necessary. In these cases, continued Dr Malek, women opt for dangerous and alternative methods with the aid of clandestine midwives.
Pregnancy in Aleppo is plagued with precariousness and uncertainty. Women lack the necessary access to prenatal and postnatal care, and even when scarce medical care is available, patients are made into targets. "This is where we live," said one of the doctors working in Al-Zahra. "We don't have a choice but to keep fighting."
*All the names in this article have been changed at the subjects' requests, except for Dr. Malek, who agreed to use his name for the purposes of this article. | As air strikes continue to rain down on the besieged city's hospitals, pregnant women lack proper medical care. | 69.238095 | 0.857143 | 1.428571 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/05/26/obama-trump-candidacy-has-rattled-world-leaders/21384115/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160801032834id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/05/26/obama-trump-candidacy-has-rattled-world-leaders/21384115/ | Obama: Trump candidacy has 'rattled' world leaders | 20160801032834 | Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
President Barack Obama said Thursday that world leaders are "rattled" by Donald Trump — and "for good reason."
During a press conference in Japan, Obama said the American presidential election is being "very" closely watched overseas. He told reporters that "it's fair to say" world leaders are "surprised" Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.
"They are not sure how seriously to take some of this pronouncements but they're rattled by him — and for good reason, because a lot of the proposals that he's made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude," Obama added.
PHOTOS: Donald Trump's 2016 campaign
Obama: Trump candidacy has 'rattled' world leaders
CHARLESTON, WV - MAY 05: Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during his rally at the Charleston Civic Center on May 5, 2016 in Charleston, West Virginia. Trump became the Republican presumptive nominee following his landslide win in indiana on Tuesday.(Photo by Mark Lyons/Getty Images)
Donald Trump, president and chief executive of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, gestures to attendees during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, U.S., on Thursday, April 28, 2016. Trump said he's campaigning hard to win Tuesday's presidential primary in Indiana and that if he prevails, his party's nomination contest will be 'over.' Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images
TAMPA, FL - MARCH 14: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a town hall meeting on March 14, 2016 at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa , Florida. Trump is campaigning ahead of the Florida primary on March 15. (Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images)
CINCINNATI, OH- MARCH 13: Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses his campaign supporters during a campaign rally at the Savannah Center March 13, 2016, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Trump continue to campaign before Ohio March 15th primary day. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images)
PALM BEACH, FL - MARCH 15: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a primary night event at the Mar-A-Lago Club's Donald J. Trump Ballroom March 15, 2016 in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump won the state of Florida and Ohio Gov. John Kasich won the state of Ohio. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
HICKORY, NC - MARCH 14: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, talks with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, right, during a campaign rally at Lenoir-Rhyne University March 14, 2016 in Hickory, North Carolina. The North Carolina Republican primary will be held March 15. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
BLOOMINGTON, IL - MARCH 13: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pulls Alex Stypik from a crowd of supporters to show off his shirt during a rally at the Central Illinois Regional Airport on March 13, 2016 in Bloomington, Illinois. The Trump campaign cancelled a recent rally in Chicago after learning hundreds of demonstrators were ticketed for the event. Illinois voters go to the polls on March 15. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
JUPITER, FL - MARCH 08: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds up his book after holding a press conference at the Trump National Golf Club Jupiter on March 8, 2016 in Jupiter, Florida. Trump is projected to win the Republican Presidential primaries in Mississippi and Michigan. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
GREENVILLE, SC - FEBRUARY 15: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally held in the TD Convention Center in Greenville, SC on Monday Feb. 15, 2016. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, NH - FEBRUARY 09: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets people as he visits a polling station as voters cast their primary day ballots on February 9, 2016 in Manchester, New Hampshire. The process to select the next Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates continues. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks to the crowd during a rally February 8, 2016 in Manchester, NH. US presidential candidates, including billionaire Donald Trump and under-pressure Democrat Hillary Clinton, criss-crossed snowy New Hampshire in a final frantic bit to win over undecided voters before Tuesday's crucial primary. / AFP / Don EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)
HOLDERNESS, NH - FEBRUARY 7: Patrons reach out for photos and signatures from republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as he greets people after speaking at a campaign rally at Plymouth State University in Holderness, NH on Sunday Feb. 07, 2016. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop at Farmington High School, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, in Farmington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
MARSHALLTOWN, IA - JANUARY 26: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally on January 26, 2016 in Marshalltown, Iowa. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the anti-immigration sheriff from Maricopa County, Arizona, today announced his support for Trump's presidential bid. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, left, endorses Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a rally at the Iowa State University, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016, in Ames, Iowa. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
WINTERSET, IA - JANUARY 19: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the John Wayne Birthplace Museum on January 19, 2016 in Winterset, Iowa. Trump received the endorsement of Aissa Wayne, John Wayne's daughter. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves to supporters after meeting with volunteers at the local Pizza Ranch restaurant, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016, in Waukee, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump stands on the stage before the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - JANUARY 14: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump participates in the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center on January 14, 2016 in North Charleston, South Carolina. The sixth Republican debate is held in two parts, one main debate for the top seven candidates, and another for three other candidates lower in the current polls. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop at the Flynn Center of the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vt., Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE - Emmy Award-nominated 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' airs every weeknight (11:35 p.m. - 12:41 a.m., ET), packed with hilarious comedy bits and features a diverse lineup of guests including celebrities, athletes, musicians, comedians and humorous human interest subjects. The guests for Wednesday, December 16 included Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump and musical guest Gary Clark Jr. (Photo by Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images) DONALD TRUMP, JIMMY KIMMEL
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - DECEMBER 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to guests at a campaign rally on December 21, 2015 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The full-house event was repeatedly interrupted by protestors. Trump continues to lead the most polls in the race for the Republican nomination for president. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
MESA, AZ - DECEMBER 16: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to guest gathered during a campaign event at the International Air Response facility on December 16, 2015 in Mesa, Arizona. Trump is in Arizona the day after the Republican Presidential Debate hosted by CNN in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images)
ORLANDO, FL - NOVEMBER 13: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves as he is introduced during the Sunshine Summit conference being held at the Rosen Shingle Creek on November 13, 2015 in Orlando, Florida. The summit brought Republican presidential candidates in front of the Republican voters. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reacts to a reporter's question in the spin room following the Republican Presidential Debate hosted by Fox Business and The Wall Street Journal November 10, 2015 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. AFP PHOTO / JOSHUA LOTT (Photo credit should read Joshua LOTT/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 03: Donald Trump attends a press conference for the release of his new book 'Crippled America' at Trump Tower on November 3, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/WireImage)
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a press conference during a event to launch his new book 'Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again' at Trump Tower on November 3, 2015 in New York. Donald Trump published a book about the ills of America to another media frenzy Tuesday, signing copies for fans, insulting his rivals on the campaign trail and telling Americans to elect him president. 'Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again,' offers the everyday reader his take on the problems facing the country and why they should elect him to the White House to fix them. AFP PHOTO/Kena Betancur (Photo credit should read KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets supporters during a rally, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015 in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Jason Hirschfeld)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks out from his car window as he leaves after speaking at a town hall meeting at the Atkinson Country Club in Atkinson, N.H., Monday, Oct. 26, 2015. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)
RICHMOND, VA - OCTOBER 14: Republican presidential candidate and front-runner Donald Trump walks out on stage during a campaign rally at the Richmond International Raceway October 14, 2015 in Richmond, Virginia. A New York real estate mogul and reality television star, Trump is now in a statistical tie with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in a Fox News survey of likely Republican voters released Tuesday. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds up a cap that he signed for a supporter during a rally at the Expo Hall of the Richmond International Raceway on October 14, 2015 in Richmond, Virginia. AFP PHOTO/MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
RICHMOND, VA - OCTOBER 14: Republican presidential candidate and front-runner Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at the Richmond International Raceway October 14, 2015 in Richmond, Virginia. A New York real estate mogul and reality television star, Trump is now in a statistical tie with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in a Fox News survey of likely Republican voters released Tuesday. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 28: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to give a speech outlining his vision for tax reform at his skyscraper on Fifth Avenue on September 28, 2015 in New York City. Under the plan there would be four tax categories, with people earning less than $25,000 per year paying 0% tax. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
COLUMBIA, SC - SEPTEMBER 23: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to the media before a campaign event September 23, 2015 in Columbia, South Carolina. Earlier today, Trump tweeted 'FoxNews has been treating me very unfairly & I have therefore decided that I won't be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future.' (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
DALLAS, TX - SEPTEMBER 14: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets supporters during a campaign rally at the American Airlines Center on September 14, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. More than 20,000 tickets had been distributed for the event. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives a national security speech aboard the World War II Battleship USS Iowa, September 15, 2015, in San Pedro, California. AFP PHOTO /ROBYN BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
DALLAS, TX - SEPTEMBER 14: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the American Airlines Center on September 14, 2015 in Dallas, Texas. More than 20,000 tickets have been distributed for the event. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds his pledge during a news conference, at Trump Tower in New York, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015. Trump ruled out the prospect of a third-party White House bid and vowed to support the Republican Party's nominee, whoever it may be. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, center, stops to take a photograph with Jim Tranz, of Port Charlotte, Fla., as he walks with a crowd during the final round of play at The Barclays golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 30, 2015, in Edison, N.J. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, second left, applauds play as he walks with a crowd during the final round of play at The Barclays golf tournament Sunday, Aug. 30, 2015, in Edison, N.J. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Donald Trump, president and chief executive of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, greets attendees during a rally at Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, U.S., on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015. President Barack Obama's top business ambassador dismissed Trump's call for a wall along the Mexico border, saying the U.S. is focused instead on expanding business with one of its biggest trade partners. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A woman with her baby shows excitement when the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets them after he speaks at a campaign pep rally, Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, in Mobile, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
MOBILE, AL- AUGUST 21: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump introduces Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions (R) Mobile during his rally at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on August 21, 2015 in Mobile, Alabama. The Donald Trump campaign moved tonight's rally to a larger stadium to accommodate demand. (Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump speaks during a campaign pep rally, Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, in Mobile, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
UNITED STATES - August 15: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets fairgoers as he visits the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, August 15, 2015. (Photo By Al Drago/CQ Roll Call)
DES MOINES, IA - AUGUST 15: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets fairgoers while campaigning at the Iowa State Fair on August 15, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. Presidential candidates are addressing attendees at the Iowa State Fair on the Des Moines Register Presidential Soapbox stage and touring the fairgrounds. The State Fair runs through August 23. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets the crowd at the Iowa State Fair Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015, in Des Moines. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks to the media after arriving by helicopter at a nearby ballpark before Trump attended the Iowa State Fair Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015, in Des Moines. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears before addressing a GOP fundraising event, Tuesday, Aug, 11, 2015, in Birch Run, Mich. Trump attended the Lincoln Day Dinner of the Genesee and Saginaw county Republican parties. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Real estate tycoon Donald Trump flashes the thumbs-up as he arrives on stage for the start of the prime time Republican presidential debate on August 6, 2015 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. AFP PHOTO/MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
AYR, SCOTLAND - JULY 30: Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visits his Scottish golf course Turnberry on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland. Donald Trump will answer questions from the media at a press conference where reporters will be limited to questions just about golf. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
Presidential contender Donald Trump poses for the media during the third day of the Women's British Open golf championship on the Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Saturday, Aug. 01, 2015. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)
Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump drives a golf buggy during his visits to his Scottish golf course Turnberry on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland. Donald Trump answered questions from the media at a press conference held in his hotel. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Presidential contender Donald Trump, right, does a high five with Jonathan Lynch, during the second day of the Women's British Open golf championship on the Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Friday, July 31, 2015. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell)
FILE - In this July 25, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Trump, widely believed to the be the wealthiest American ever to run for president, is nowhere among the ranks of the countryâs most generous citizens, according to an Associated Press review of his financial records and other government filings. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
NEW YORK, NY - JULY 22: Donald Trump greets supporters, tourists and the curious after taping an interview with Anderson Cooper at a Trump owned building in mid-town Manhattan on July 22, 2015 in New York City. Trump, who is running for president on a Republican ticket, has come under intensifying criticism for his behavior on the campaign trail. The billionaire's most recent comments on Senator John McCain's war record in Vietnam have resulted in almost universal criticism from fellow candidates. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
LAREDO, TEXAS - JULY 23: Republican Presidential candidate and business mogul Donald Trump talks to media from his car wearing a, 'Make America Great Again,' hat during his trip to the border on July 23, 2015 in Laredo, Texas. Trump's recent comments, calling some immigrants from Mexico as drug traffickers and rapists, have stirred up reactions on both sides of the aisle. Although fellow Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has denounced Trump's comments and his campaign in general, U.S. Senator from Texas Ted-Cruz has so far refused to bash his fellow Republican nominee. (Photo by Matthew Busch/Getty Images)
LAREDO, TEXAS - JULY 23: Republican Presidential candidate and business mogul Donald Trump talks to the media at a press conference during his trip to the border on July 23, 2015 in Laredo, Texas. Trump's recent comments, calling some immigrants from Mexico as drug traffickers and rapists, have stirred up reactions on both sides of the aisle. Although fellow Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has denounced Trump's comments and his campaign in general, U.S. Senator from Texas Ted-Cruz has so far refused to bash his fellow Republican nominee. (Photo by Matthew Busch/Getty Images)
AMES, IA - JULY 18: Republican presidential hopeful businessman Donald Trump fields questions at The Family Leadership Summit at Stephens Auditorium on July 18, 2015 in Ames, Iowa. According to the organizers the purpose of The Family Leadership Summit is to inspire, motivate, and educate conservatives. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks before a crowd of 3,500 Saturday, July 11, 2015, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
PHOENIX, AZ - JULY 11: Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses supporters during a political rally at the Phoenix Convention Center on July 11, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. Trump spoke about illegal immigration and other topics in front of an estimated crowd of 4,200. (Photo by Charlie Leight/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pauses as he speaks before a crowd of 3,500 Saturday, July 11, 2015, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves to the crowd as he arrives to speak at a rally before a crowd of 3,500 Saturday, July 11, 2015, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Donald Trump gestures while speaking surrounded by people whose families were victims of illegal immigrants on July 10, 2015 while meeting with the press at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where some shared their stories of the loss of a loved one. The US business magnate Trump, who is running for president in the 2016 presidential elections, angered members of the Latino community with recent comments but says he will win the Latino vote. AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWN (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump smiles as he leaves after speaking at a news conference about immigration, Friday, July 10, 2015, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Donald Trump gestures while speaking surrounded by people who's families were victims of illegal immigrants on July 10, 2015 while meeting with the press at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where some shared their stories of the loss of a loved one. The US business magnate Trump, who is running forpPresident in the 2016 presidential elections, angered members of the Latino community with recent comments but says he will win the Latino vote. AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWN (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JULY 06: Donald Trump attends the 2015 Hank's Yanks Golf Classic at Trump Golf Links Ferry Point on July 6, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks with reporters after speaking to members of the City Club of Chicago, Monday, June 29, 2015, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Real estate mogul Donald Trump announces his bid for the presidency in the 2016 presidential race during an event at the Trump Tower on the Fifth Avenue in New York City on June 16, 2015. Trump, one of America's most flamboyant and outspoken billionaires, threw his hat into the race Tuesday for the White House, promising to make America great again. The 69-year-old long-shot candidate ridiculed the country's current crop of politicians and vowed to take on the growing might of China in a speech launching his run for the presidency in 2016. 'I am officially running for president of the United States and we are going to make our country great again,' he said from a podium bedecked in US flags at Trump Tower on New York's Fifth Avenue. The tycoon strode onto the stage after sailing down an escalator to the strains of 'Rockin' In The Free World' by Canadian singer Neil Young after being introduced by daughter Ivanka. His announcement follows years of speculation that the man known to millions as the bouffant-haired host of American reality TV game show 'The Apprentice' would one day enter politics. Trump identifies himself as a Republican, and has supported Republican candidates in the past. But in his announcement speech he did not explicitly say if he was running for the party's nomination or as an independent.AFP PHOTO/ KENA BETANCUR (Photo credit should read KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 16: (L-R) Eric Trump, Lara Yunaska Trump, Donald Trump, Barron Trump, Melania Trump, Vanessa Haydon Trump, Kai Madison Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Donald John Trump III, and Ivanka Trump pose for photos on stage after Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015 in New York City. Trump is the 12th Republican who has announced running for the White House. (Photo by Christopher Gregory/Getty Images)
Photo by: Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx 6/16/15 Donald Trump announces his Candidacy for President of The United States of America at Trump Tower. (NYC)
PHOENIX, AZ - JULY 11: Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses supporters during a political rally at the Phoenix Convention Center on July 11, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. Trump spoke about illegal immigration and other topics in front of an estimated crowd of 4,200. (Photo by Charlie Leight/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 16: Business mogul Donald Trump gives a speech as he announces his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015 in New York City. Trump is the 12th Republican who has announced running for the White House. (Photo by Christopher Gregory/Getty Images)
DES MOINES, IA - MAY 16: Businessman Donald Trump speaks to guests gathered for the Republican Party of Iowa's Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center on May 16, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. The event sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa gave several Republican presidential hopefuls an opportunity to strengthen their support among Iowa Republicans ahead of the 2016 Iowa caucus. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
DES MOINES, IA - MAY 16: Businessman Donald Trump speaks to guests gathered for the Republican Party of Iowa's Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center on May 16, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. The event sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa gave several Republican presidential hopefuls an opportunity to strengthen their support among Iowa Republicans ahead of the 2016 Iowa caucus. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 16: Business mogul Donald Trump arrives at a press event where he announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015 in New York City. Trump is the 12th Republican who has announced running for the White House. (Photo by Christopher Gregory/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 16: Business mogul Donald Trump arrives at a press event where he announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015 in New York City. Trump is the 12th Republican who has announced running for the White House. (Photo by Christopher Gregory/Getty Images)
He suggested Trump's controversial proposals were more about "getting tweets and headlines" than "actually thinking through" what's needed to keep America safe or the "world on an even keel."
Obama spoke to reporters in Japan, where he later Thursday will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park Memorial.
While he addressed the historic event in his opening remarks, questions quickly shifted to the U.S. election race.
Obama acknowledged the challenges of the long-running battle for the Democratic candidacy.
"During primaries people get grumpy with each other," Obama said.
He told reporters that he's sure the contenders wish the fight was over.
"It's a grind," he added.
More from NBC News: Obama: U.S. to Cooperate in Okinawa Murder Investigation Obama: Hiroshima Visit Will Underscore the 'Job's Not Done' Donald Trump Has a Surrogate Problem | During a press conference in Japan, Obama said the American presidential election is being "very" closely watched overseas. | 241.863636 | 1 | 22 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/economic-growth-remains-sluggish-2nd-quarter | http://web.archive.org/web/20160801063258id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/rachel-maddow-show/economic-growth-remains-sluggish-2nd-quarter | Economic growth remains sluggish in 2nd quarter | 20160801063258 | The U.S. economy grew far less than expected in the second quarter as inventories fell for the first time since 2011, but a surge in consumer spending pointed to underlying strength.
Gross domestic product increased at a 1.2 percent annual rate after rising by a downwardly revised 0.8 percent pace in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said on Friday. The economy was previously reported to have grown at a 1.1 percent pace in the first quarter.
While GDP growth of 1.2% can charitably be described as lackluster, the disappointment is compounded by the fact that economists has projected growth twice as strong.
The news, however, wasn’t all bad. As CNBC’s report added, “Consumer spending was responsible for almost all of the rebound in GDP growth in the second quarter. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 4.2 percent rate. That was the fastest pace since the fourth quarter of 2014.”
As for the image above, the chart shows GDP numbers by quarter since the Great Recession began. The red columns show the economy under the Bush administration; the blue columns show the economy under the Obama administration.
[Correction: Some of the revised data from 2013 was off in my original chart. The above image has been corrected.] | The good news is, the U.S. economy is still growing. The bad news is, it's just not growing very quickly. | 10.12 | 0.6 | 0.84 | low | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/money/4385765/ways-save-on-netflix/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160801103747id_/http://time.com:80/money/4385765/ways-save-on-netflix/? | 5 Ways to Save on Netflix | 20160801103747 | Whether it’s shows on other networks or their own originals, Netflix is one of my favorite services for cutting the cord. If you’re a fan, too, with some creativity you could save money on your Netflix subscription.
Here are just a few of my favorite Netflix hacks.
Wait a minute — Netflix lets you share? CEO Reed Hastings has said in the past that account sharing was a positive thing, so they must be.
In fact, the company’s different packages are set up with sharing in mind. Their Standard Package allows you to watch Netflix on two screens, and their Premium Package lets you watch on up to four screens. You can also create up to five profiles on each account, so you could easily share one Netflix account with four people, each with their own profile, and never notice a thing. (Keep in mind, though, depending on your subscription package, you may find it frustrating to share if you can’t get on Netflix because everyone else is watching at the same time.)
While you won’t be able to split the bill, one solution is to have everyone buy gift cards and put them toward the account.
Read More: 7 Signs You’re Living Beyond Your Means
Expecting not to use your Netflix account for a few weeks or a few months? You can “pause” your membership. In the past, you could put an actual Hold on your account, effectively pausing it and the billing for a period of time.
Netflix has done away with that feature, but you can still “pause” an account by canceling it. (To do so, just go to your Account information, and click the Cancel Membership button under Membership & Billing.)
Netflix will save your account information for 10 months. To restart your membership, log back in and update your payment information. It’s a few extra steps, but if you aren’t going to use your account for a while, why pay for it?
Read More: 5 Easy Ways to Start Making More Money
If you’re willing to jump through a few hoops, you can search gift card marketplaces for discounted gift cards to stores that sell Netflix gift cards, like Target.
Target gift cards are often available for 4% to 5% off, and Target sells Netflix gift cards. Four percent to 5% off a Netflix subscription may or may not be worth your time — but hey, every penny counts.
When researching marketplaces to buy gift cards, be sure to review their buyer protections. Buying gift cards online can be tricky, but many marketplaces are mature and offer protections such as 100-day guarantees. Be sure those are in place before making a purchase. For more info on how to play it safe online, you can check out our tips here.
In previous years, Netflix had a whole litany of packages, and many members paid for plans they weren’t using. Nowadays, Netflix has streamlined everything. However, you still could be on a plan that’s more than you need.
Netflix offers three plans — Basic, Standard and Premium. Basic is the cheapest and lets you watch on one screen in Standard Definition. If you aren’t sharing your account and don’t care about picture quality, you might want to get the Basic package and not pay for HD. On the flip side, if you’re on Premium and don’t need four simultaneous screens and Ultra HD, why pay $2 more for Premium?
Review the different packages and make sure you’re paying for the one that’s right for you.
Read More: How to Break the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Cycle
This last tip is less about saving money on a subscription and more about getting the most value out of your account. Use third-party sites to help you find what’s new and what’s about the expire on Netflix. One site for finding the best in new-to-Netflix shows is Instantwatcher.com — their Expiring+Upcoming section is great for (as you’d expect) titles that are leaving or coming to Netflix. | Try 'pausing' your account. | 114.142857 | 0.571429 | 1.428571 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/10775085/Record-numbers-on-happy-pills.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160801112031id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/nhs/10775085/Record-numbers-on-happy-pills.html | Record numbers on 'happy pills' | 20160801112031 | NHS guidance says anti-depressants should not be offered as the first resort for people with mild to moderate depression, and says that such cases should instead be referred for “talking therapy” such as cognitive behavioural therapy.
Even when the drugs are prescribed, it is supposed to be in conjunction with counselling.
However, despite the Government’s investment in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme, in some parts of the country people wait months for access to counsellors.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) also recommends that anti-depressant prescriptions are reviewed every six months - but doctors warn that many patients now end up taking the drugs for years, and even for whole life times.
Dr Joanna Moncrieff, an author on mental health drugs, and consultant psychiatrist at North East London NHS foundation trust, said she was concerned that society was becoming “dependent” on medication.
“Being depressed from time to time is a universal human experience. Diagnosing people with a medical disorder and prescribing a pill may appear to offer an easy answer, but in reality it stores up more problems than it solves,” she said.
“By encouraging people to view their difficulties as a disease, which is outside their control, antidepressants may make people less confident to manage their problems in the long-run.”
“As a society, our dependence on antidepressants makes us less resilient and less resourceful in the face of the everyday challenges of modern living,” she added.
Last week the World Health Organisation warned that prescription levels in many countries have “gone through the roof”.
Dr Matt Muijen, head of mental health at WHO Europe, said: “On the demand side, people know antidepressants work. I would even argue there’s a degree of fashion about antidepressants. On the supply side, antidepressants have become cheaper and more easily available.”
“My worry is that we are medicalising all forms of sadness in the belief that antidepressants are a safe drug that you just prescribe,” the psychiatrist said.
Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation show that in the past decade, use of antidepressants has doubled in the UK, with 71 daily doses for every 1,000 people - compared with 38 daily doses per 1,000 people a decade ago.
In France and Germany the current figure is 50 doses a day, and in Italy it is 42 doses a day.
There has been a particular rise in the use of a family of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which include Prozac and Seroxat.
There have been concerns that some of these drugs may be linked to suicide attempts among younger users.
Ten years ago medical watchdogs ruled that Seroxat should not be prescribed to those under the age of 18, although the drug fluoxtine, best known by its brand name Prozac, can be prescribed to children and teenagers.
MP Jim Dobbin, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on tranquiliser addiction, said: "I am really concerned about this trend, there are serious problems with addiction to antidepressants. We need closer regulation of this - the pharmaceutical industry is very powerful and puts too much pressure on the medical profession to prescribe them."
Last year, a report by The Health and Social Care Information Centre revealed that in some parts of the UK – including Barnsley, Durham, Middlesbrough, Redcar, Salford and Sunderland – approximately one in six adults are prescribed antidepressants.
Doctors said busy GPs often felt “cornered” into providing the drugs because waiting times to see a counsellor were too long.
Sophie Corlett, from the mental health charity Mind, said: “The number of prescriptions for antidepressants issued in the UK has been rising steeply for many years. These new figures show no sign of this trend slowing and we need to know why we are seeing persistent year-on-year increases.
“If more people feel able to come forward and ask for help then this is, of course, a positive sign but it is unlikely to be the only reason.”
She said more research was needed to understand exactly how many people are taking antidepressants, for how long and whether they are receiving other treatment alongside, as is recommended.
“We know that people are more aware of other treatment options, such as talking therapies, and many do not want to be treated with drugs – but cannot, and should not have to, wait months for therapy,” she said. | Psychiatrists warning over soaring use of pills in 'depressed Britain' | 72.666667 | 0.333333 | 0.5 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/business/dealbook/carlyle-names-sandra-horbach-co-leader-of-buyout-arm.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160801151546id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/28/business/dealbook/carlyle-names-sandra-horbach-co-leader-of-buyout-arm.html?_r=0 | Carlyle Names First Woman as Co-Leader of Buyout Arm | 20160801151546 | Early in her career, Sandra J. Horbach earned the distinction of being the first woman to be named a partner at a major American private equity firm when she ascended to that role at Forstmann Little & Company.
Twenty-four years later, Ms. Horbach has broken through another barrier at an even bigger investment giant.
The Carlyle Group plans to announce on Thursday that it has appointed Ms. Horbach one of two co-heads of its main United States buyout arm, a sprawling business with nearly $40 billion in capital under management.
“I couldn’t be more excited and honored to take on this new role for Carlyle,” she said in an interview. “This is one of the top-performing buyout businesses in the private equity universe.”
The move will make Ms. Horbach one of the most senior women in private equity, a world that for decades had been best known as the province of white men often happy to be called barbarians and corporate raiders.
Since the peak of the RJR Nabisco buyout in 1988, however, private equity firms have worked to add women to their senior ranks. At the Blackstone Group, Joan Solotar leads multiasset investing and external relations and is a member of that behemoth’s management committee.
At Carlyle, Adena T. Friedman was chief financial officer for three years before she returned to the Nasdaq stock market in 2014 as its president and potential next chief executive.
Among the biggest buyout firms, women make up 15.3 percent of senior employees this year, up from 11.9 percent in 2013, according to data from the research firm Preqin. Across all of private equity, however, women make up 12.6 percent of top executives.
“This continues to be a work in progress,” Nancy Sims, the chief executive of the Robert Toigo Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at improving diversity in financial services companies, said. “Examples like Sandra are a way to refresh and energize the movement. But we cannot wipe our hands and say the job is done.”
Since her arrival at Carlyle in 2005 from Forstmann Little, Ms. Horbach has become one of the investment titan’s bigger stars.
She helped lead deals for the likes of Dunkin’ Brands and Philosophy cosmetics. More recently, she led investments in Beats, the popular headphone maker that was eventually sold to Apple for $3 billion, and in Vogue International, a hair care manufacturer that was sold to Johnson & Johnson for $3.3 billion.
“Sandra Horbach got this job because she’s an outstanding investor, and she was the best person to get it,” William E. Conway Jr., Carlyle’s co-chief executive and chief investment officer, said in a telephone interview.
As her star rose, Ms. Horbach became a natural candidate to eventually become a co-head of Carlyle’s most prominent arm. Of its current co-heads, one, Allan M. Holt, is 64. He wanted a smooth transition of leadership for the investment of the company’s next United States buyout fund when that is raised over the next several years.
Ms. Horbach will take his role, joining Peter J. Clare, while Mr. Holt will be chairman of the team.
Asked about the significance of her hiring, she said: “It further demonstrates that women can be effective investors in the private equity space. I’m hoping we’ll see a lot more diversity in the future.”
Carlyle said roughly 46 percent of its permanent hires over the last three years were women or minorities. About 67 percent of its postbusiness-school associate hires for corporate private equity this year were women as well.
A version of this article appears in print on July 28, 2016, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Woman Joins Top Ranks in a Mostly Male Field. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | The woman, Sandra J. Horbach, will be among the most senior women in private equity, a world long known as the province of white men. | 25.586207 | 0.965517 | 5.448276 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/world/europe/pope-francis-poland.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160801162904id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/29/world/europe/pope-francis-poland.html? | Pope Francis, at Shrine in Poland, Urges Embrace of ‘Humble Love’ | 20160801162904 | Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Thursday at the Jasna Gora monastery, Poland's most revered pilgrimage site, on the second day of his visit to the country.
KRAKOW, Poland — Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Thursday at one of Poland’s most renowned shrines, urging Catholics to embrace “the humble love that brings freedom” and to shun the lust for wealth and power.
“To be attracted by power, by grandeur, by appearances, is tragically human,” Francis said at the 14th-century monastery of Jasna Gora, a pilgrimage site in the city of Czestochowa known for its painting of the Virgin Mary. “It is a great temptation that tries to insinuate itself everywhere. But to give oneself to others, eliminating distances, dwelling in littleness and living the reality of one’s everyday life: This is exquisitely divine.”
Later in the day, before an international crowd of 600,000 gathered in Krakow for the World Youth Day celebration, the pope urged people to welcome migrants and refugees, a stance resisted by the Polish government.
“A merciful heart is able to be a place of refuge for those who are without a home or have lost their home,” Francis said. “It is able to build a home and a family for those forced to emigrate; it knows the meaning of tenderness and compassion. A merciful heart can share its bread with the hungry and welcome refugees and migrants.”
Pope Francis has frequently tried to draw attention to the plight of migrants. Several days before the pope began his trip, his office admonished countries in Eastern Europe that have “artificially created fear of Muslims,” urging them to be more open to refugees and asylum seekers from places that have been torn apart by conflict.
Jorge Carrasco, 25, a volunteer from Spain at the Krakow event, said after listening to the pope: “I think I could share my home with one or two refugees. I mean I have the space, so why not?”
The pope also talked about finding meaning in life and expressed his concern for “young people who waste their lives looking for thrills or a feeling of being alive by taking dark paths and in the end having to pay for it, and pay dearly.”
The message touched Arturo Sánchez, 21, one of a group of 31 pilgrims from Chile, who called the pope “a superhero.”
“I heard of these terrifying attacks in Europe, and we are all afraid of the future,” Mr. Sánchez said. “But I believe that the Holy Father has super powers and can change people’s hearts, even bad people’s hearts, with his unconditional love for everyone.”
At the start of the Mass in Czestochowa, as the pope walked around the altar of the monastery and blessed it with incense, he stumbled to the ground, drawing gasps from the assembled pilgrims, who numbered in the thousands. Priests rushed to help him, grabbing his arm and helping him to his feet. The pope was not hurt.
En route to the Mass, which commemorated the 1,050th anniversary of Poland’s conversion to Christianity, Francis stopped to greet enthusiastic pilgrims who had come from around the world. Francis, who has made a point of avoiding conspicuous manifestations of power and wealth, has been traveling around Krakow and Czestochowa in a modest dark blue Volkswagen. At one point, he stopped to bless a sick girl who was in a stroller.
Poland is an overwhelmingly Catholic country; 92 percent of the population identifies itself as Catholic and 40 percent attend church on Sundays. The visit by Francis, his first to Poland as pope, had been eagerly awaited, in part because of his connection to one of his predecessors.
Pope John Paul II, who was canonized in 2014, is the only pope to have been born in Poland, and he remains one of the nation’s most revered and cherished figures.
“Pope Francis is incredibly close to my heart; he was the one who elevated our John Paul II to sainthood,” said Dorota Wisniowska, 24, who came to Krakow from Wloclawek, a town in central Poland. “John Paul II was the first pope to become a bridge between Catholicism and other religions. And I hope Pope Francis, just like our pope, will continue to break the walls instead of making new ones.”
On Friday, the pope plans to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp site.
Follow Joanna Berendt on Twitter @JoannaBerendt.
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A version of this article appears in print on July 29, 2016, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Pope, in Poland, Urges Acceptance of Refugees. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | The pope addressed the World Youth Day celebration ahead of a planned visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp on Friday. | 40.956522 | 0.869565 | 3.130435 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/realestate/noise-complaints-artists-and-musicians.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802024609id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/05/22/realestate/noise-complaints-artists-and-musicians.html?_r=0 | Noise Complaints: Artists and Musicians | 20160802024609 | I live in a private house directly behind a public elementary school. Once a week, beginning at 4 p.m., the windows of the school music room are thrown open and a very mediocre pop/rock band plays for hours. The musicians are adults, not schoolchildren. As a teacher, I wholeheartedly support arts in schools. But I don’t feel any obligation to endure this noise just so some adults can have free or cheap rehearsal space in a residential neighborhood. What are my options?
Musical abilities aside, I can understand why you would not want to listen to hours of band practice. The administrators who rented out the space might not be aware of the disturbance, particularly if they are not in the building when the band takes the stage. But obliviousness does not absolve them of responsibility.
“A school should be particularly cognizant of the fact that sound can be intrusive on other people, because noise is intrusive on children’s learning,” said Arline L. Bronzaft, the chairwoman of the noise activities department of Grow NYC, a nonprofit group.
Tell the school about the ruckus. That might put an end to this. If it continues, talk to your neighbors. (For added effect, knock on their doors during one of the jam sessions.) See if any might be willing to sign your letter or call the school. A chorus of complaints could get the amplifiers turned down.
If your calls fall on deaf ears, hire an acoustical engineer to measure the noise. See if you can share the cost — usually a few thousand dollars — with disgruntled neighbors. If the noise violates the city noise code, send the results to the school, said Steven D. Sladkus, a Manhattan real estate lawyer.
And if all else fails, you could sue the school for creating a nuisance, filing an expedited motion for an injunction against the school. “That should wake them up,” Mr. Sladkus said.
My wife and I rent a ninth-floor apartment in a condominium. We just learned that the building’s only elevator is going to be out of service for replacement for eight to 12 weeks this summer. We have a toddler, so this is a significant imposition. What can we do? Are we allowed to withhold rent or reduce rent because of the inconvenience or unavailable building services?
After about 20 years, an elevator’s mechanical parts need to be replaced, a process that can take 12 weeks, or sometimes longer, said Robert Cuzzi, the executive vice president of VDA, an elevator consultancy.
Such a repair can wreak havoc on a building with only one elevator, particularly among residents with physical limitations, like the very young and the very old.
It “creates a very tough situation for all residents,” Mr. Cuzzi said. “Most people do not like to walk the stairs, and some are not capable of doing so.”
While the work may be necessary, it should not be conducted in a manner that violates the warranty of habitability, a state law that protects tenants. You could argue that removing the elevator service and forcing a tenant to walk up eight flights of stairs with a toddler on her hip violates the statute.
Submit your questions, share your stories and tell us what topics interest you most. Post a comment or email us at realestateqa@nytimes.com.
“The bottom line is that if the work interferes with a tenant’s ability to enjoy their home, it’s a violation,” said Jennifer Addonizio Rozen, a Manhattan lawyer who represents tenants. “And the tenant may be entitled to compensation.”
You have the right to withhold rent, and if your landlord takes you to housing court for nonpayment, you could ask for a rent abatement from the judge. That strategy, however, could land you on the tenant blacklist.
“Simply being named in a housing court proceeding makes it more difficult for the tenant to rent in the future,” Ms. Rozen said.
To avoid the blacklist, write to your landlord and ask for a rent reduction, explaining the stress this causes your family.
While a cut in the rent might help your pocketbook, it will do nothing to lessen the misery of climbing those stairs. Ask the landlord to contact the condo association or the managing agent to find ways to ease the burden. Management could place chairs on landings, assuming there is space to do so safely, so weary tenants can take a break as they walk. Management could reserve space on the ground floor to store strollers and carts. It could also temporarily hire extra staff to help residents carry bags up stairs and assist those who need help.
I live in a condo apartment with a small backyard that adjoins the yard of a neighboring property. Whenever the weather is nice, my neighbor is outside for hours creating metal sculptures, using grinders and other noisy equipment. I like him and don’t want to alienate him, but I also want to enjoy my outdoor space on sunny days. Are there any rules about this kind of use in a backyard?
Nothing puts a damper on a glorious day like the sound of metal grinding. Next time you happen upon your neighbor, strike up a conversation. Ask him about his work, the garden, the neighborhood. “People like to talk about stuff that they’re passionate about,” said Brad Heckman, the chief executive of the New York Peace Institute, a mediation service. “This could be priming for a conversation about the challenges.”
After you break the ice, tell him how the noise affects you. Be polite, but firm and direct. “Don’t sugarcoat it,” Mr. Heckman said.
Rather than telling him, “I need you to stop making noise,” put the onus on him to find a solution. Ask him, “What can we do to work this out?”
If he shrugs you off, you do have leverage. The city noise code prohibits unreasonable noise. “The use of power tools intended for construction is specifically regulated,” said Howard Schechter, a Manhattan real estate lawyer.
Call 311 to file a complaint with the Department of Environmental Protection. And if your neighbor sells his work, creating it would be considered a commercial activity, which might be prohibited in your residential neighborhood, Mr. Schechter said. Call 311 to report the activity to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Division of Code Enforcement.
With any luck, it will not come to that. “More often than not, if someone is coming from a genuine place,” Mr. Heckman said, “they’ll find a way to work it out.” | Dealing with grinding metal sounds, loud rehearsals, and an out-of-order elevator. | 72.055556 | 0.722222 | 0.833333 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/business/a-worrisome-pileup-of-100-million-homes.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802024800id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/05/29/business/a-worrisome-pileup-of-100-million-homes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0 | A Worrisome Pileup of $100 Million Homes | 20160802024800 | One of the latest symbols of the overinflated luxury housing market is a pink mansion perched above the Mediterranean on the French Riviera.
The 13,000-square-foot property, built and owned by the fashion magnate Pierre Cardin, is composed of giant terra cotta orbs arranged in a sprawling hive. The home’s name befits its price. “Le Palais Bulles,” or “the Bubble Palace,” is being offered for sale at approximately $450 million.
The listing is part of a global pileup of homes listed for $100 million or more. A record 27 properties with nine-figure prices are officially for sale, according to Christie’s International Real Estate. That is up from 19 last year and about a dozen in 2014.
If you add in high-priced “whisper listings” that are offered privately, brokers say the actual number of nine-figure listings worldwide could easily top 40 or 50.
“It’s a bumper crop,” said Dan Conn, chief executive of Christie’s International Real Estate. “It’s just a new world in terms of what people are building and offering for sale.”
The rise in nine-figure real estate listings comes just as sales of luxury real estate have cooled. Many say the sudden surge in hyperprice homes — often built and sold by speculative investors — is the ultimate bubble signal.
“When you have a record number of homes for sale at a price point of $100 million or more, that tells you these homes aren’t selling,” said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc., a real estate appraisal and research firm. “It’s not as deep a market as some might hope.”
Last year, only two homes in the world sold for over $100 million, according to Christie’s. One was a 9,455-square-foot house in Hong Kong purchased for $193 million by Jack Ma, the chief of Alibaba. The other was a townhouse in London that sold for $132 million. This year, a ranch in Texas went on the market for $700 million and a home in Dallas listed for $100 million. Both sold, but the actual sale prices have not been disclosed.
The last time a sudden pop in $100 million-plus listings occurred was in 2007 and 2008, just before the housing crash. In 2008, at least four homes in the world listed for nine figures. Only one ended up selling for close to that. A mansion in Palm Beach owned by Donald Trump and listed for $100 million sold for $95 million. (Mr. Trump says it sold for $100 million.) A 103-room mansion in Surrey, England, called Updown Court, was listed for $138 million, but sold in 2011 for about $50 million. A log mansion planned for the Yellowstone Club in Montana, with a promised price of $155 million, was never built, and the land sold for $10 million.
Of course, anyone can slap a $100 million price tag on a home to get attention. Yet actual sales of nine-figure homes are rare, even in good times. Between 2011 and 2016, only 15 homes in the world have sold for $100 million or more, according to Christies, and five of those were in 2014.
“The era of aspirational pricing is over, and I’m not sure it ever really worked,” Mr. Miller said. “These prices get headlines, but the properties just don’t sell.”
Brokers promoting the listings say their properties are one-of-a-kind masterpieces — like Picassos or Modiglianis — that rarely come on the market. They add that the more than 1,800 billionaires in the world see property as a safer store of wealth than stocks or art. Mr. Conn estimates that of the 27 nine-figure listings, a third will sell for under $100 million, a third will sell for around $100 million and a third for far more.
“I don’t think it’s a sign of a bubble,” Mr. Conn said. “It’s a sign of growing wealth in the world and the quality of some of the new construction.”
Yet the market for megamansions and penthouses has cooled significantly in the last year. Prices for homes in the top 5 percent of the real estate market fell 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2016, according to Redfin. Prices for the rest of the housing market increased 4.7 percent.
Brokers say the very top of the market — consisting of eight- and nine-figure homes — is faring the worst as slowing economies overseas and volatile stock markets have spooked buyers. The supply of homes for the rich exploded as builders aimed at the high end after the financial crisis.
Of the 10 most expensive listings in the world, seven are in the United States and four of these are in Los Angeles. The most expensive listing in the world is the $500 million compound being built in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles by Nile Niami, a film producer and speculative builder. The property will have a 74,000-square-foot main house, a 30-car garage and a “Monaco-style casino.”
In nearby Holmby Hills, a more modest 38,000-square-foot mansion, built by the investor and developer Gala Asher, came on the market in April for $150 million. The ultramodern house, on the prestigious Carolwood Drive, has a 5,300-square-foot master suite and a club level with bar, dance floor, wine room, lap pool, theater complex, beauty parlor and massage rooms. The property also includes several guesthouses and staff housing. The broker, Ginger Glass, said the price of the property was justified.
“Buyers today want new construction,” she said. “And there isn’t anything that’s new like this in such a great location.”
Still more nine-figure homes are on the way. Real estate agents and developers say a home under construction in Bel Air is likely to have more than 50,000 square feet of living space, with finishes rivaling a superyacht’s. The price will be yacht-like, too, at around $300 million. Among the home’s amenities: the world’s largest safe.
ROBERT FRANK is the CNBC wealth editor and the author of “Richistan.”
A version of this article appears in print on May 29, 2016, on page BU5 of the New York edition with the headline: A Worrisome Pileup of $100 Million Homes. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | Nine-figure real estate listings rise even as sales of luxury real estate cool. Some see the “ultimate bubble signal” in hyperpriced homes. | 45.285714 | 0.928571 | 3.357143 | high | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2015/12/08/entrepreneur-drop-out-college/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802092621id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/12/08/entrepreneur-drop-out-college/ | Drop out of College to Succeed, Entrepreneur Says | 20160802092621 | The Entrepreneur Insider 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 “What can every aspiring entrepreneur do before college graduation to be more successful?” is written by Patrick Bet-David, founder of PHP Agency.
Before you graduate college, drop out. Unless you are studying to become a lawyer, an engineer, a doctor, or any other career that actually requires a specific degree to practice, there is, in my opinion, no need for a college degree.
Prior to my enrollment in college, I had led a pretty interesting life. My family had fled a war-torn Iran, which meant we would live in a refugee camp in Germany for two years. My first job was picking up empty beer bottles on the streets, and a man paid me 10 pennies per bottle. I brought him 2,500 bottles and he gave me 250 marks, enough to by the Super Nintendo I’d been wanting (I was the only kid in the refugee camp with a Super Nintendo). With my shiny new game system in tow, I was able to distract the brother of the girl I’d been eyeing and spend some quality time with her. (Yes, I will forever be indebted to the Super Mario Brothers.)
Later, my family came to America, where I soon joined the military. There, I learned quickly (and painfully) there would always be someone tougher and better than me. To succeed, I had to learn the art of war because capitalism favors those who have a clear strategy—“winging it” is not an option. I traveled to many different countries and met people from a myriad of cultures. And it wasn’t until after all of that that I went to college—because, isn’t that what you are supposed to do? Well, I can safely say that during that brief stint at university, the only true experience I acquired was found outside of the classroom.
See also: Proof a High GPA Won’t Guarantee Success
I was majoring in nutrition because I was interested in bodybuilding at the time. On the side, I worked at Bally Total Fitness selling memberships. One day, my friend came in and was raving about how he’d just graduated college and how, with his fancy new degree in hand, he’d landed this awesome job—for $30,000 a year. My life as a college graduate with a degree in nutrition suddenly flashed before my eyes: I wasn’t going to become the Middle Eastern Arnold Schwarzenegger. Instead, I was going to become a personal trainer and join my friend in a $30,000 annual salary. I was already making $40,000 in my sales position. Needless to say, I dropped out the next day.
Instead of focusing on knowledge in the traditional sense, I focused on experience, which I knew would lead to something far more profound: wisdom. Additionally, I became a major advocate for self-education, reading thousands of texts on business, philosophy, and economics. I kept my job in sales and channeled my early life experiences. See, most people think that to be a successful entrepreneur, you must have a certain personality type, but that isn’t the case. It’s about choices, about seizing opportunity, and about perseverance. I was a very shy child, but soon enough, I had no choice but to come out of my shell. I needed to become more like my father, and I needed to protect my sister and mother. I started interviewing the people who were buying memberships from me at Bally’s. I noticed that the majority of people who were making six figures did not have college degrees either. What mattered most was clarity, forming relationships, and experience.
I made everyone I met a mentor, from my military drill sergeants to successful CEOs. I made the choice to hustle and work hard (and sometimes for free) in order to gain the experience and relationships I needed to get where I wanted to be. By the time I was 30, I had founded and was running one of the country’s fastest–growing financial services marketing organizations. And I did it all without a college degree.
Now, I’m not saying this path is for everyone. However, I do firmly believe the value of experience—of wisdom—will almost always outweigh a college degree. And so, from one entrepreneur to another, I say drop out—at least for a few years. College will always be there. Let it be your backup plan, rather than your main focus. If your experience is anything like mine, you will be in a position to hire your friends for an entry-level position by the time they graduate college and (finally) enter the workforce.
Patrick Bet-David is an American entrepreneur, author and CEO. He founded PHP Agency, Inc., a financial services marketing organization and one of the fastest-growing companies in the nation.
Read all responses to the Entrepreneur Insider question: What can every aspiring entrepreneur do before college graduation to be more successful?
College students, here’s what you need to do before launching a startup by Aaron Price, founder of the NJ Tech Meetup and rocketfuel.cc. | It will always be there. | 172.333333 | 1 | 4.333333 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/jul/16/david-willetts-graduates-job-expectations | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802145407id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2010/jul/16/david-willetts-graduates-job-expectations | Willetts warns graduates: if you can't get a job start a business | 20160802145407 | Students leaving university this summer should cast off "old-fashioned" ideas about what constitutes a graduate job and instead consider starting a business, a government minister has said.
David Willetts, the universities minister, told the Guardian that thousands of young people leaving higher education this summer to compete for jobs should rethink what they consider to be a graduate career. He said: "I think one of the interesting pieces of evidence is that, although graduates don't always start in a so-called graduate job, they then have a good chance of moving on to one.
"The other point I'd make is that we have some odd definitions of what constitutes a graduate job. The most vivid example of that is that setting up your own business does not constitute a graduate job.
"The way in which the statistics define a graduate job is very old-fashioned ... it is out of touch with people's aspirations – a lot of people do want to run their own business."
He gave the example of a group designers from an art college who set up in business, but were not counted as going on to graduate jobs.
Mike Hill, chief executive of Graduate Prospects, which offers careers advice to students, graduates and universities, said that Willetts was right, and "getting any job is better than no job at all". University leavers had to be more flexible in the current climate, Hill said, even if that meant starting on the shopfloor.
"If you have the wherewithal, the capacity and the curiosity for hard work, and are pushy, you can be promoted very quickly indeed. You might start off as a waitress in a cocktail bar, and find yourself with a career in hospitality."
Willetts's comments come as a Guardian survey of 50 of Britain's top universities found a boom in numbers applying for postgraduate courses this year.
Universities said graduates were enrolling on masters and PhD programmes as they waited for the jobs market to improve, and to try to make themselves more employable.
Royal Holloway, Edinburgh, City and Leicester universities all reported sharp rises in applications for postgraduate courses. City said its postgraduate programmes in arts and law had received twice the number of applicants as last year.
King's College London and Goldsmiths, University of London, also reported steep increases in postgraduate applications of 32% and 28% respectively, while Strathclyde, Britain's biggest provider of postgraduate education, saw a 28% rise.
A spokeswoman from Keele University said increasing numbers of graduates were staying on and doing a higher degree "to give the job market time to improve, and in the hope that a higher qualification will make them more employable". Some students were "burying their heads in the sand, so that they don't have to deal with the reality [of the jobs market]", the spokeswoman from Keele said.
The picture is not entirely gloomy. Universities reported a modest revival of interest in banking, and more jobs on offer in finance than last year.
Elspeth Farrar, director of Imperial's careers advisory service, said the banks were "back on campus and recruiting". Nottingham also reported that major banks were attracting students again.
There has been a surge of interest in teaching at some of the most prestigious universities, such as Exeter and Bristol. Ian Hodges, Exeter's careers and employment service head, said that teaching was being seen as a safer option than other careers, and teacher training courses had filled earlier than in previous years.
Universities have reported huge demand for careers services, with Cambridge saying record numbers had approached its service for help this year.
Careers services at Glasgow University and the University of East Anglia have seen more than 50% rises in the number of students making appointments with advisers.
Universities have been asked to publish employability statements by the end of August, spelling out what help they give students to find work.
Last week, a poll of leading employers revealed graduates are facing the fiercest competition in a decade to get a job this summer, with nearly 70 applications for each vacancy.
The survey, by the Association of Graduate Recruiters, found graduate salaries are static, at an average of £25,000pa – the first time in the survey's history that starting salaries have remained stagnant for two consecutive years. Apprenticeships, which are likely to expand under the coalition government, might provide an alternative career path for some students, the survey noted. | Universities minister says students leaving higher education should rethink what they consider to be a graduate career | 51.117647 | 0.941176 | 6.588235 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/oct/30/houseofcommons.uk2 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802152533id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2001/oct/30/houseofcommons.uk2 | Glossary of parliamentary terms | 20160802152533 | Adjournment debate - usually a half-hour debate introduced by a backbencher at the end of business for the day. The subjects raised are often local or personal issues. There is also a series of short adjournment debates on Wednesday mornings.
Allocation of time motion (guillotine) - a means by which time for one or more stages of a bill is restricted, and the question is put on outstanding business, even though members may still wish to speak on that business (see Programme order).
Ballot (for Private Members' Bills) - drawn on the second Thursday that the House sits in each session. The 20 successful members put their bills down for discussion on particular days (Fridays).
Closure - the question "that the question be now put", i.e. that, although there are still members speaking or wishing to speak, the debate should be ended and the House proceed immediately to a decision. The Speaker has discretion as to whether to accept the closure and, if opposed, it requires not just a majority but also at least 100 members voting in favour; otherwise, the original debate is resumed. If the closure is agreed to, the question is then put immediately on the matter previously under debate.
Committee of the whole House - when the entire House sits as a committee in the Chamber. It is presided over by the chairman of ways and means or one of his deputies (sitting at the clerk's table), and the mace is placed under the table instead of upon it.The committee stages of bills of constitutional importance, urgent bills, and parts of the finance bill are usually taken in committee of the whole House instead of in standing committee.
Consolidated fund bill - a bill to authorise issue of sums to maintain government service. In the Commons, the second and third readings are taken without debate.
Consolidation bill - a bill that seeks to draw together several previous enactments on a subject. In the Commons, the second and third readings are taken without debate.
Deferred divisions - for certain types of business, after 10pm (or 7pm on a Thursday), any division is deferred until the following Wednesday at 3.30pm. In such cases, the questions to be decided are listed on a ballot paper in the vote bundle, and members may vote in the "no" lobby at any time from 3.30pm to 5pm (with extra time, if such voting is interrupted by ordinary divisions). The result is then announced in the House.
Delegated legislation - legislation made by ministers under powers granted to them in acts of parliament, usually by means of a statutory instrument.
Deregulation order - an order to amend or repeal a provision in primary legislation that is considered to impose a burden on business or others.
Dissolution - parliament is dissolved by a royal proclamation issued when a general election is to be called or when five years has expired (the maximum life of a parliament is five years).
Early day motion - a colloquial term for notices of motions given by a member for debate "on an early day" but for which no date has been fixed. Few are actually debated. Generally, EDMs are a way by which members can put on record their opinion on a subject and canvass support for it from fellow-members.
General synod measure - a measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England under the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919. These measures, once considered by the Ecclesiastical Committee, and a report having been made by it are considered by both Houses and, if approved, sent for the royal assent. These are noted at the end of the public bill list.
Hansard - a full report of what was said in parliament (including written questions and their answers) is published in the official report. Hansard is normally published daily when the house is sitting. It is also published weekly, and in bound volumes.
Hybrid bill - a public bill which, though general in its application, affects the private interests of particular individuals or organisations differently from those of the population at large.
Official report - see Hansard.
Opposition days - 20 days are allotted in each session for proceedings on opposition business, of which 17 are at the disposal of the leader of the opposition, and three are at the disposal of the leader of the second-largest opposition party.
Oral questions - questions must be tabled by a member in person or by another member acting on his or her behalf. A member may table only one oral question on behalf of another for each minister each day.
Parliament Acts 1911, 1949 - restrict the powers of the Lords to amend money bills or delay other bills agreed by the Commons.
Parliamentary agent - promotes private bills on behalf of organisations or acts for petitioners opposing a private bill. Agents must be registered with the private bill office.
Parliamentary counsel - are responsible for drafting government bills and amendments to bills, and advising government departments on all aspects of parliamentary procedure.
Points of order - a method whereby members bring supposed breaches of the House's rules of order to the Speaker's attention. Members may seek to raise them at any time, but the Speaker has discretion as to when to hear them, and will not normally do so during Question Time.
Presentation bill - motion for leave to bring in a bill made under standing order No 57. Member presents the bill for first reading; there is no debate.
Private bill - a bill promoted by a body or an individual to give powers additional to, or in conflict with, the general law, and to which a separate procedure applies.
Private member's bill - a public bill promoted by a member or peer who is not a member of the government.
Private notice question - a question adjudged to be of urgent importance on submission to the Speaker, answered at the end of oral questions - usually at 3.30pm.
Programme orders - a motion restricting time for one or more stages of a bill.
Prorogation - event that marks the end of a parliamentary session.
Royal assent - the monarch's assent to make the bill an act of parliament.
Select committees (departmental) - appointed for the duration of a parliament to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the main government departments and amendments to bills.
SO (standing order) No 24 application - a means whereby a member may attempt to initiate an emergency debate, by interrupting business to discuss a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration. If the Speaker is satisfied that the matter is proper to be so discussed, a motion is put to the House. If the House gives leave, the business is discussed, usually on the following day.
Standing committee - constituted to consider public bills in detail, clause by clause. Membership is determined by the selection committee, and is established for each bill.
Standing order - an order made by the House (Commons or Lords) for the regulation of its proceedings.
Swearing of members - at the start of a new parliament or after a byelection, members take the oath holding the New Testament (or in the case of a Jew or Muslim, the Old Testament or Koran) and say the words of the oath (which are on a card held by a clerk). Members may also take the oath in the Scottish manner - take an alternative form of oath or make a solemn affirmation instead of an oath.
Ten-minute rule bill - colloquial term for standing order No 23, under which backbenchers have an opportunity on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to introduce a bill and speak in its favour for about ten minutes. Time is also available for a short opposing speech.
Vote bundle - includes the order paper, giving the agenda for the current day's sitting, lists of parliamentary proceedings, notices of meetings of standing and select committees, amendments tabled to public bills, a summary of the proceedings of standing committees that sat the previous day.
Votes and proceedings - the record of the proceedings of the House of Commons on the previous day.
Westminster Hall - sittings in "Westminster Hall" (actually in the room up the staircase in the north-west corner of Westminster Hall) constitute sittings of the House (effectively a parallel Chamber), and any member may take part. Debates are held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Writ - form of written command in the name of the monarch. | October 30: Do you know your vote bundles from your early day motions? Brush up on your parliamentary language with our exclusive guide. | 63.538462 | 0.423077 | 0.5 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36922763 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802162906id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/news/business-36922763 | Weekend tax credit and tax payment deadlines alert | 20160802162906 | Thousands of people face a deadline of the end of Sunday to renew tax credits and pay tax owed, or face losing payments or being hit with penalties.
Up to a million people still needed to complete their tax credit renewals in the final week before the deadline.
They would have received information about their annual review notice in a white A4-size envelope, but they can renew online up until Sunday night.
Separately, many of those in the self-assessment system must pay a tax bill.
This so-called payment on account is the equivalent of half the previous year's tax bill, as an advance payment on their next bill. The other half is paid on 31 January.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) warned that anyone who failed to renew their tax credits could be in danger of having payments stopped, or find themselves paying more than they needed to.
"It is great that millions of people have renewed their tax credits or reported changes so far, but anyone who has not done so yet should take action now - it only takes a few minutes to renew online," said Nick Lodge, of HMRC.
Renewals can now also be completed via smartphone apps. The tax credit helpline - 0345 3003900 - is open until 20:00 BST on Saturday and Sunday.
To renew, they will need their renewal pack, their National Insurance number, their and their partners total income for the tax year to April 2016, the 15-digit number on their renewal pack, and details of any changes to their circumstances, such as working hours and children.
Claimants who received notices in a brown A5-size envelope will see their tax credits renewed automatically and are only required to contact HMRC if they need to make any corrections or notify HMRC of any changes to household circumstances.
Those whose notices came in a white A4-size envelope must renew, even if their circumstances have not changed.
The tax payment deadline affects everyone in the self-assessment system unless:
There are various ways of paying but those leaving it to the weekend are likely to be limited to paying via online or telephone banking, or via the HMRC website using a debit or credit card.
Interest is charged if the payment deadline is missed. After 28 days without payment, following the deadline, a surcharge is 5% of any unpaid tax is levied. This surcharge is repeated after six months.
"This is a massive amount given the era of near zero interest rates," said Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at ACCA accountancy body.
An HMRC spokesman pointed out that there was some wriggle room for those who contact HMRC if they are struggling to pay the tax owed.
"If a taxpayer can't pay and calls us before the due date and we agree a time to pay arrangement, they will not incur a surcharge," he said.
"Our reasoning being the taxpayer is making an effort and it would not be fair to hit them with a surcharge, where a time to pay arrangement is in place."
HMRC has been criticised by MPs and the National Audit Office for waiting times for those trying to call at key times, but the tax authority said the service had now improved. | Thousands of people face a deadline of the end of Sunday to renew tax credits and pay tax owed, or face losing payments or being hit with penalties. | 20.866667 | 1 | 30 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36921346.Nothing | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802180510id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/news/world-asia-india-36921346.Nothing | India Dalit couple hacked to death over minuscule debt | 20160802180510 | A man from India's Dalit community has been beheaded and his wife hacked to death after a row over a 15 rupees (22 cents; 16 pence) debt in Uttar Pradesh state.
Police said the couple were murdered by an upper caste grocer on Thursday when they told him they needed time to pay for biscuits they had bought from him.
The grocer has been arrested.
Dalits, formerly known as untouchables, form the lowest rung of India's caste hierarchy.
Police told the Press Trust of India news agency the incident took place in Mainpuri district early on Thursday as the couple were on their way to work.
They were stopped by Ashok Mishra, the owner of a village grocery, who demanded that the couple pay the money for three packets of biscuits that they had bought for their three children a few days ago, reports say.
The couple reportedly told him they would pay after they received their daily wages later in the evening.
"While Mishra kept shouting for the money, the couple started walking towards the fields. Mishra then ran to his house nearby and returned with an axe. He hacked Bharat repeatedly and then attacked Mamta who was trying to rescue her husband. The couple died on the spot," Nadeem, a local villager, told The Indian Express newspaper.
The Dalit community in the village have blocked roads and protested over the incident.
Earlier this month four low-caste Dalit men were assaulted by cow protection vigilantes while trying to skin a dead cow in western Gujarat state.
Many Hindus consider cows sacred and the slaughter of the animal is banned in many Indian states.
In March, a Dalit man was murdered for marrying a woman from a higher caste in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
The woman's father handed himself in and admitted to carrying out the attack on a busy road in daylight, police said. | A couple from India's Dalit community is hacked to death after a row over a 15-rupee debt in Uttar Pradesh state. | 15.913043 | 0.956522 | 5.565217 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/well/guides/how-to-run-a-race | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802202612id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/well/guides/how-to-run-a-race | Race Day Planner for Runners | 20160802202612 | Walk: It’s not cheating. It’s not giving up. It’s giving your body a bit of a breather before you start up again. If you are determined to finish, and walking helps, then use it to get you there. You can make it a game: run nine minutes, walk one. Or walk the aid stations. Or walk for a minute after you reach each mile marker. Every step gets you closer to the finish. Make sure you’ve moved out of the way of other runners while doing this, or signal that you’re about to slow down by putting your hand up. Note: Some races have a sweeper truck or bus that will pick up racers along the course if they are going too slowly. Make sure you know what the slowest pace allowed is for the race before you start — whether you think you’ll be worried about it or not. Because in a race… you never know.
Stretch: It’s O.K. to sit down. It’s O.K. to use a curb. If it hurts, stretch it. It may not help, but it’s worth a shot, and it can give you a bit of a break before moving forward. Again, make sure you’ve moved out of the way of other runners to do so.
Salt: A lot of the time, cramps come from a lack of salt in your body. If you have salt pills, take one. If not, drink sports drink at the next aid station. That should help loosen things up and get your muscles moving again.
Drop Out: If you are just having a bad race and want to take a stab at another race in a few weeks, you may choose not to finish. This will allow you to preserve your legs for another try.
Get Help: If you are in severe distress and just can’t move anymore, find a race volunteer to get you medical attention immediately.
If you’ve blown your goal — for whatever reason — but still want to cross the finish line — soak up the experience. Stop to dance with the band on the sidelines or give a high five to all the children cheering. It makes the agony of trying to finish when you don’t want to go anymore that much more of a treasured memory. | You’ve spent the last several months training, logging mile after mile to get your mind and body ready for the big event. And, now — finally — the day is here! Whether you’re running a 5K or a marathon, don’t let the logistics of race day leave you stumbling before you get to the starting line. We’ll tell you what you need, what you don’t and how to prepare for race day. | 5.22093 | 0.639535 | 0.872093 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-16700833 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802202648id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/news/health-16700833 | Experts review vitamin D advice | 20160802202648 | The chief medical officer for England, Dame Sally Davies, is to contact medical staff about concerns young children and some adults are not getting enough vitamin D.
Government guidelines recommend some groups, including the under-fives, should take a daily supplement.
However, recent research found that many parents and health professionals were unaware of the advice.
There has been an increase in childhood rickets over the past 15 years.
According to Dr Benjamin Jacobs, from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, links to heart disease and some cancers are also being investigated.
The consultant paediatrician told BBC Breakfast that the hospital saw about one severe case a month of rickets - softening of bones through lack of vitamin D in childhood.
He said: "There are many other children who have less severe problems - muscle weakness, delay in walking, bone pains - and research indicates that in many parts of the country the majority of children have a low level of vitamin D."
The Feeding for Life Foundation report, published in October last year, suggested one in four toddlers in the UK is vitamin D deficient.
However, this may be an underestimate as only vitamin D from food was included, and not any vitamin D obtained through sun exposure.
Vitamin D supplements are recommended for all people at risk of a deficiency, including all pregnant and breastfeeding women, children under five years old, people aged over 65, and people at risk of not getting enough exposure to sunlight.
Vitamin D is mainly obtained from sunlight. However, too much sun exposure increases the risk of skin cancer.
According to one recent study, nearly three-quarters of parents and more than half of health professionals are unaware of the recommendations.
The Department of Health has asked the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition to review the issue of current dietary recommendations on vitamin D.
Dame Sally Davies: "We know a significant proportion of people in the UK probably have inadequate levels of vitamin D in their blood. People at risk of vitamin D deficiency, including pregnant women and children under five, are already advised to take daily supplements.
"Our experts are clear - low levels of vitamin D can increase the risk of poor bone health, including rickets in young children.
"Many health professionals such as midwives, GPs and nurses give advice on supplements, and it is crucial they continue to offer this advice as part of routine consultations and ensure disadvantaged families have access to free vitamin supplements through our Healthy Start scheme.
"It is important to raise awareness of this issue, and I will be contacting health professionals on the need to prescribe and recommend vitamin D supplements to at-risk groups."
It has long been known that vitamin D prevents rickets and children were once given food supplements like cod liver oil.
However, this practice was stopped in the 1950s because it was thought unnecessary.
In the last 10 years, doctors have been seeing more cases of vitamin D deficiency, leading to a debate over the use of food supplements and concern that many medical staff are unaware of the problem. | The chief medical officer for England, Dame Sally Davies, is to contact doctors, nurses, and midwives about concerns young children and some adults are deficient in vitamin D. | 18.6875 | 1 | 8.5625 | medium | high | extractive |
http://time.com/money/4235298/fast-food-hot-dog-wars/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160802214122id_/http://time.com:80/money/4235298/fast-food-hot-dog-wars/?iid=sr-link3 | Hot Dog Price Wars Launched by Burger King, 7-Eleven, Checkers | 20160802214122 | Every dog has its day, and U.S. fast food chains are battling one another to make sure it’s their dog that takes home top honors. In some cases, both the prices and the maturity level of competitors are going straight downhill.
On Tuesday, Burger King released its Grilled Dogs, priced at $1.99 each or $2.39 with chili. Competitors who have been hawking hot dogs long before BK entered the fray have responded with a wide range of wiener deals. Checkers & Rally’s fired back by dropping the price of its hot dogs to only $0.79 and its chili dogs to $0.99. On Wednesday, the Florida-based burger chain also placed a full-page ad in USA Today challenging Burger King to “compare wieners.”
“We’re engaged in a fun, aggressive and provocative Wiener War with Burger King,” said Terri Snyder, chief marketing officer of Checkers & Rally’s, in a news release.
West coast chain Wienerschnitzel went one step further: It will offer a coupon for a free all-beef hot dog with chili with any purchase through the end of February.
Meanwhile, 7-Eleven has eagerly jumped into the mix by promoting its own dogs with a series of provocative, trash-talking tweets:
Burger King hasn’t yet responded to the jabs from its competitors. Burger King simply promoted its new menu item Tuesday with the tweet, “#GrilledDogs are now available at Burger King. What a time to be alive.” The burger chain’s nationwide hot dog roll-out follows a test last year in five U.S. cities: Salt Lake City, Memphis, Baltimore, Detroit, and Kansas City.
This is not the first time this year the chain has found itself embroiled in a price war with other fast food joints. In January, responding to $4 value meal promotion from Wendy’s, Burger King launched a special featuring a five-item meal for $4. | Fast food chains are trying to outdo each other to market the cheapest hot dog | 25 | 0.733333 | 1.666667 | medium | low | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/05/31/north-koreas-facebook-hacked-by-scottish-teenager/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160803064747id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/technology/2016/05/31/north-koreas-facebook-hacked-by-scottish-teenager/ | North Korea's 'Facebook' hacked by Scottish teenager | 20160803064747 | McKean said he had guessed the security credentials for the website after discovering that the default ones for phpDolphin – the particular Facebook clone used – were the predictable “admin” and “password”.
They had not been changed when setting up the website, allowing him to gain control of the service. McKean subsequently took over the advertising slots on the website with the message: “Uh, I didn’t create this site just found the login,” and a link to his Twitter page.
He told technology website Motherboard that he would possibly redirect the website to an anti-North Korean one, although on Tuesday the website was simply offline. The site was already hosting joke profiles depicting Kim Jong-Un, with several Westerners signing up. | A North Korean imitation of Facebook has been hacked into by a Scottish teenager just hours after it was discovered. | 6.857143 | 0.52381 | 0.619048 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/06/10/where-to-invade-next-is-michael-moore-at-his-most-audacious---re/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160803135720id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/films/2016/06/10/where-to-invade-next-is-michael-moore-at-his-most-audacious---re/ | Where to Invade Next is Michael Moore at his most audacious - review | 20160803135720 | The prisons in Norway, meanwhile, look nicer than your average New England hostelry. Rhetorically, it’s not important for Moore to give us more nuance – he’s picking and choosing the best of what each country has to offer, ignoring the bigger picture, and exposing America’s social deficiencies with gleefully unrestrained fervour.
Healthcare gets left out, perhaps because Moore covered that topic quite extensively in his decent 2007 effort Sicko, and the public provision in America has made steps in the right direction since then.
There’s a ballsy switch of tack in Germany, where he explores the way a generation of schoolchildren willingly take on board the legacy of the Holocaust without excusing themselves from their grandparents’ actions – the parallel he makes with slavery is audacious, and lets Moore indulge in one of several montages about historic abuse of black people in America, leading all the way up to Ferguson.
In Portugal, with its decriminalisation of drug use, he finds a solution to what he calls “21st century slavery” – the use of America’s overcrowded prison population as a cheap workforce. Even the drug czar he’s interviewing baulks at proposing it as an instant cure-all for America’s race problems – it’s very much Moore’s style to get carried away with his one-size-fits-all panaceas, rather than wrestling to analyse his country’s specific crises in detail. | If superhero franchises are only as good as their presiding villain, you could argue Michael Moore’s career as a tub-thumping celluloid vigilante essentially ceased with the end of the Bush era. | 7.388889 | 0.388889 | 0.555556 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/line-raises-ipo-price-range-to-meet-strong-demand-1467621614 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160803164441id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/line-raises-ipo-price-range-to-meet-strong-demand-1467621614 | Line Raises IPO Price Range to Meet Strong Demand | 20160803164441 | TOKYO—Japanese messaging-app operator Line Corp. on Monday revised up its price range for an upcoming initial public offering to raise as much as 115.5 billion yen ($1.12 billion), citing strong demand.
Line raised its price range to ¥2,900 to ¥3,300 ($28.50-$32.50) a share, from ¥2,700 to ¥3,200 previously. Line is aiming for a dual listing in Tokyo and New York on July 14 and 15 in what is expected to be the largest technology... | An IPO by Japanese messaging-app operator Line Corp. could raise as much as $1.12 billion, the largest tech listing so far this year. | 3.357143 | 0.714286 | 2.928571 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/business/media/as-ticket-prices-rise-theater-audiences-shrink.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160805063003id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2011/08/01/business/media/as-ticket-prices-rise-theater-audiences-shrink.html?_r=0 | The New York Times | 20160805063003 | At the Comic-Con International fantasy convention in San Diego last month, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, two of Hollywood’s most prominent directors, voiced a strong hope that ticket prices for 3-D films would ultimately fall into line with the lower charge for 2-D movies. Consumers are being charged an extra $5 to see a movie only to find out it is “as bad as the one you saw in 2-D,” Mr. Jackson said.
Their plea brought a sharp response last week from Jeffrey Katzenberg, the DreamWorks Animation chief executive, who has been an advocate of 3-D and the increased price that comes with it.
“They’re not getting complaints at the box office about pricing, it’s just not happening,” said Mr. Katzenberg, who spoke by telephone on Thursday. Mr. Katzenberg said his own company’s recent experience with “Kung Fu Panda 2,” which took in about 45 percent of $161 million in domestic ticket sales from the higher priced 3-D tickets, showed that a substantial number of consumers would still pay a premium for good films.
“Whatever Peter and Steven are talking to, maybe they’re following their instincts,” Mr. Katzenberg said of the Spielberg-Jackson pricing critique. “But there’s actually no factual data.”
Asked whether 3-D pricing had been too aggressive, David Passman, the chief executive of Carmike Cinemas, said by e-mail: “Perhaps in some markets, but generally, no.”
Historically, the big theater chains like Regal, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark Theatres and Carmike or their predecessors have been reluctant to raise ticket prices because their profit margins were higher on the sale of popcorn and other concessions than from tickets. Thus, they had an interest in raising the number of attendees, rather than maximizing film revenue that would be shared with studios. (The studios and exhibitors typically split the proceeds from each ticket sale, although the exhibitors alone set the price to consumers.) Patrick Corcoran, the director of media and research for the National Association of Theatre Owners, points out that a ticket purchased for the average price of $1.65 in 1971 would cost $9.20 today — higher than the actual industry average, if adjusted according to the general inflation rate.
More recently, though, theater chains turned to price increases, and especially to premium prices for 3-D and big-screen formats like Imax, for added cash that sometimes has been used to pay large dividends to shareholders or to pay down debt.
Cinemark Holdings, though generally more restrained than some of its peers when it comes to pricing, raised its quarterly dividend 17 percent, to 21 cents a share from 18 cents, an amount that nearly equaled its earnings in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Carmike, which operates many small-town theaters with relatively low ticket prices, has paid down a substantial $100 million in debt in just over three years.
Regal, of which Philip Anschutz is a major shareholder, has an average ticket price of about $8.75, nearly 9 percent higher than the industry average of $8.06. And, like Cinemark, it recently raised its quarterly dividend to 21 cents from 18 cents, after declaring a special dividend of $1.40 a share, or $216 million, in December.
Speaking privately to avoid conflict with their business partners, some studio executives contend that such payouts are draining the chains of money that could be used to upgrade or replace theaters that are charging higher prices but offering a less-than-premium experience, beyond the investment in the digital projectors required for 3-D.
Theater owners say otherwise. “The dividend payments were not at the expense of reinvestment,” Amy E. Miles, Regal’s chief executive, said in an e-mail on Friday. Movie-going remains relatively inexpensive, and two-thirds of Regal’s customers continue to pay $10 or less for a ticket, Ms. Miles added.
Mr. Corcoran said the theater owners association did not compile publicly available statistics on the average surcharge for 3-D tickets. But the average add-on appears to be about $3, rather than the $5 sometimes seen at big-city theaters. Of a $3 surcharge, the theater owner and the studio would each receive about $1.50, but each would typically pay about 50 cents to a technology provider like RealD — the theater owner for licensing, the studio for glasses.
From its share, the studio must cover the incremental cost of making a 3-D film, while the theater owner’s remaining stake moves more directly to the bottom line, since technology firms like RealD cover the cost of maintaining their equipment.
The industrywide average ticket price — which factors in low-price small-town theaters, second-run houses and discount sales through outlets like Costco — can appear impossibly low to urban dwellers, who are accustomed to paying far more at theaters in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, where real estate is expensive and zoning laws can require, for instance, a lobby as large as the auditorium, to avoid lines on the street.
In some markets, too, pricing changes have caused surprising distortions. In Santa Monica, for instance, the price of a regular adult ticket at AMC Loews Broadway 4 theater, also owned by AMC, has risen by 47 percent since 2001, to $11.75 from $8 — only a little more than the 41 percent increase in the average ticket price for the same years. But children’s tickets rose 67 percent for the period, to $8.75 from $5.25, while senior tickets are up 95 percent, to $10.75 from $5.50. Add 3-D, and a child’s ticket goes to $12.75, while a senior pays $14.75, two to three times the cost of a ticket 10 years ago.
At AMC, whose average price tops the industry average, the added cash contributed since December to $263.1 million in dividends, which the privately held firm’s parent used to pay down debt, according to a recent company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AMC executives declined to be interviewed, citing restrictions on their ability to speak publicly pending a planned stock offering.
Plans for new theater construction in Santa Monica have been held back by a regulatory review and the need to resolve zoning issues.
Though generally well tended, the Santa Monica 7 theater is showing its age. Here and there, the wallpaper is cracked or a piece of trim is missing, and the basement level, where “Captain America” was showing on Wednesday in a large 3-D auditorium, had a distinctly musty smell.
As for Ms. Galvin, she just wished the tickets were a little cheaper.
“I’d bring my husband,” she said.
A version of this article appears in print on August 1, 2011, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Charging a Premium, at a Cost. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | High-priced tickets and premiums for 3-D are rewarding shareholders but may be driving away moviegoers. | 74.722222 | 0.611111 | 0.722222 | high | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/money/4384460/brexit-stock-investing-how-to-stay-calm/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160805105354id_/http://time.com:80/money/4384460/brexit-stock-investing-how-to-stay-calm/? | How to Stay Calm When the Stock Market Is Going Mad | 20160805105354 | The seismic decision by the United Kingdom to exit the European Union continues to shake up global markets. After plunging 610 points on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped another 260 points on Monday. All of which may be tempting investors to make their own exit from the stock market.
Resist the urge. Making a dramatic shift in your investments in the midst of a market crisis is unlikely to end well. If you have a well-diversified portfolio—one that is geared to your goals and risk tolerance—you’re probably better off staying put. In any case, you should avoid overreacting to the fears of the moment. To help you take a more measured view of today’s global turmoil, here are four rules to keep in mind based on behavioral finance research.
“My lodestar is the knowledge that no one can forecast the future, especially six months to one year out,” says investment adviser William Bernstein, author of The Four Pillars of Investing. There’s no better recent example than the Brexit vote itself, which most forecasters expected would affirm Britain’s continued membership in the European Union. Looking over longer periods, Wharton professor Philip Tetlock has found that most expert forecasters are wrong far more often than they are right.
Why are so many forecasters so wrong? One key reason is overconfidence. Studies have shown that many people overestimate their ability to invest, which leads them to trade more often, to their detriment.
Another behavioral mistake is hindsight bias, which leads people to believe, when looking back at an event, that they “knew it would happen.” That only encourages future misunderstandings about the probability of forecasting the future and the likely outcomes of events. This isn’t just true for so-called experts—average investors are equally likely to mistake their beliefs for reality.
Think back to prepare for the future.
Fear of losses is one of the biggest drivers of investing behavior, and it’s also one that leads to big mistakes. That’s because the pain of losing money far outweighs the pleasure of profits, as Nobel-prize-winning research by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky proved. That fear typically leads investors to remain too conservative in their investments or to sell when they see the market falling.
Getting a bit of historical perspective can go a long way toward alleviating panic, however. Think back to how you reacted during the depths of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Anyone who bailed out of stocks back then missed out on one of the biggest and longest bull market rallies in U.S. history—since early 2009, the S&P has climbed 172%. “Instead of fear of loss today, think about the risk of future loss by not being in the market, ” says Hal Hershfield, assistant professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Those future losses are likely to far outweigh any short-term drop in your portfolio. According to calculations by J.P. Morgan, if you were invested in the S&P 500 between 1996 and 2015, you would have earned an average annual 8.2% return. But if you missed the 10 best days, your return would be only 4.5%. Six of the 10 best days, by the way, occurred within two weeks of the 10 worst days. And for the truly risk averse, if you stayed out of stocks for a month after big market declines, your average annual return drops to zero.
Opt for a self-driving portfolio
A great way stay on course is to automate your portfolio, which insulates your money from any tendencies to make poor decisions. By funneling regular contributions from your paycheck into a target-date fund, balanced portfolio, or some other kind of managed account, you can be assured that your asset mix will be rebalanced automatically, which ensures that you’ll be buying stocks low when the market drops and selling high when prices rebound. Most crucially, automation will also take the decision-making out of your hands, which will ensure that you stick to your plan.
Studies have shown that, on average, managed accounts tend to deliver similar or even better returns than do-it-yourself investors, but with far less dispersion in returns—a narrower range of highs and lows, in other words. Sure, you may not shoot out the lights, but you’re less likely to suffer huge losses.
For those who prefer a do-it-yourself investing approach, consider setting up your own guardrails. Make a commitment never to act until at least 10 days after developing an investment idea. By that point, the market may have moved on to other concerns, and you may have, too. After all, most investors have already forgotten the big market slides in January, which occasioned plenty of panic at the time.
If you’re still tempted to sell, “ask yourself, ‘who’s the fool on the other wide of the trade?'” says behavioral finance expert Meir Statman of Santa Clara University. Sure, the buyer may be a misguided speculator, but just as likely it’s someone in the know who has better information than you do, Statman says.
Or take a lesson from Warren Buffett, who prefers to buy quality stocks when they’re selling at a discount and holding for the long term. For the rest of us, who may not match his skills, just holding on is the next best thing. | After Brexit, a bit of perspective helps. | 116.333333 | 0.888889 | 1.555556 | high | medium | mixed |
http://time.com/money/4388437/how-money-worries-keep-us-awake/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160805105402id_/http://time.com:80/money/4388437/how-money-worries-keep-us-awake/ | How Money Worries Keep Half of Us Awake at Night | 20160805105402 | Half of people ages 35 and older stay awake at night worried about their finances, a new study shows. That’s more than those kept up by concerns over their health, relationships, or career. And while the money concerns are mostly immediate, they threaten to deepen the retirement savings crisis in the long-term.
That’s because financial worries can be debilitating, putting pressure on other important aspects of your life. Stressing over money has been shown to cause health issues, sap productivity at work, and lead to discord at home. This is a big reason that companies are investing in financial wellness programs and policymakers are looking for better ways to beef up retirement saving.
At some level, individuals understand the broad reach of financial difficulty. The study, from AARP’s Life Reimagined division, finds that more than half of those surveyed dread having health problems; a third believes their health will be the most important challenge they face in the next five years. One in five stays awake thinking about their relationships or their job.
With money concerns as the backdrop, these lesser worries may build and become self-fulfilling. In their groundbreaking book Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives, Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir and Harvard University economist Sendhil Mullainathan argue that people with money worries are so preoccupied with them that their brain overloads. They become dumber and make poorer decisions that feed a downward financial spiral. The authors demonstrate a significant drop and rise in IQ among certain farmers who are poor before harvest and wealthy afterward.
Financial worries seem to be a common part of each day for many, the AARP study finds. Paying for basic needs easily tops the list of financial concerns among every generation. Perhaps surprisingly, baby boomers—closer to retirement and a fixed income—are less concerned in this area than those who are younger. That may speak to younger generations’ difficulty saving. Being able to pay for an emergency is another big concern among all ages, followed by saving for retirement.
If money issues keep us up at night, the prospect of spending time with family and friends is what gets us out of bed in the morning, AARP found. A third of those 35-plus say these relationships are their chief motivation. This echoes other studies that have found that relationships and experiences are more important than material things as we grow older. More than half say that if money were not an issue they would volunteer, donate to a cause, or travel the world, again echoing earlier research about preferences in retirement.
Recognizing their money issues, and the prospect of living much longer, 73% expect a more extended stage of middle life that includes working longer, AARP finds. Just 16% of those still at work say they will be able to retire younger than their parents did and about half said they will be older—possible much older. Nearly one in three said they would retire between the ages of 70 and 79, nearly as many who expect to retire between 60 and 65. | Near-term money issues outflank even health, career and relationship worries | 45.076923 | 0.692308 | 1.153846 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-a-power-brokers-homes-1461252457 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160805115714id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/inside-a-power-brokers-homes-1461252457?mod=e2fb | Inside a Power Broker’s Homes | 20160805115714 | Michael Shvo is living the lifestyle he sells.
The luxury real-estate developer owns a home in the Time Warner Center in Manhattan and another in New York’s Hamptons, where he keeps his red Ferrari. A third home is in the works on a private island Mr. Shvo owns in the Bahamas. His wife is a former model, and celebrity chef Daniel Boulud, his close friend, sometimes cooks spur-of-the moment brunches for Mr. Shvo’s intimate... | A look inside the homes of Michael Shvo, a New York real-estate developer whose slogan is “Let’s Shvo.” | 3.64 | 0.68 | 1.32 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/05/07/45/flesh-eating-ulcer-bacteria-spreading-through-victoria | http://web.archive.org/web/20160805230030id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/05/07/45/flesh-eating-ulcer-bacteria-spreading-through-victoria | Flesh-eating ulcer bacteria spreading through Victoria | 20160805230030 | Jan Smith almost lost her leg after being misdiagnosed. (Source: Twitter)
A flesh-eating ulcer transmitted by mosquitos is on the rise in Victoria.
Buruli ulcers, which were first recorded in East Gippsland in the 1930s, can lead to limb amputation if not property treated.
Buruli ulcer expert Paul Johnson told the Age the number of cases has spiked from 32 in 2010 to 106 in 2015.
It has also spread from coastal regions to as far inland as Melbourne's south-east suburbs.
"It's moved, for reasons we don't understand, and it's setting up shop in Melbourne," Professor Johnson said.
Jan Smith contracted the bacterial ulcer while she was preparing to climb Mount Denali in Alaska.
In May this year she was sent to hospital and put on an antibiotic drip after being misdiagnosed by a GP.
"My husband said 'I want to throw up because I see your bone'. It's a very devastating thing," she told the newspaper.
The ulcer continued to get worse until she was eventually given the correct does of antibiotics.
Prof Johnson said if the ulcer is diagnosed early it is relatively easy to treat.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016 | A flesh eating ulcer transmitted by mosquitos is on the rise in Victoria. | 17.214286 | 1 | 10.571429 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-36967884 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160806023301id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/turkce/haberler-turkiye-36967884 | Ezidi katliamının yıldönümü: 'Kız kardeşimi IŞİD'den parayla geri aldık' | 20160806023301 | IŞİD'in (Irak Şam İslam Devleti) 3 Ağustos 2014'te, Kuzey Irak'taki Şengal'i işgal etmesinin ve binlerce Ezidi'yi öldürmesinin üzerinden iki yıl geçti.
Şengal, 13 Kasım 2014'te Kürt güçlerin ortak operasyonuyla IŞİD'den kurtarıldı ancak binlerce Ezidi kadın ve çocuğun esir olarak halen IŞİD'in elinde olduğu biliniyor.
Şengal Ezidi Kadın Meclisi, hem Ezidi katliamının soykırım olarak kabul edilmesi hem de IŞİD'in elindeki esir Ezidi kadınların durumuna dikkat çekmek için 3 Ağustos günü saat 11:00'de dünyanın birçok ülkesinde bir dakikalık 'sessiz eylem' gerçekleştirme çağrısı yaptı.
IŞİD'in elinde bulunan Ezidi kadınların kurtarılması için Diyarbakır'da geçen yıl kurulan Zorla Alıkonulan Kadınlar İçin Mücadele Platformu bu çağrı üzerine Koşuyolu Parkı'nda bir eylem gerçekleştirdi.
Kendisi de Ezidi olan HDP'nin Diyarbakır milletvekili Feleknaz Uca platform adına basın açıklamasını okudu ve tüm Orta Doğu'da olduğu gibi Ezidi halkı üzerinde de IŞİD tehdidinin devam ettiğini hatırlattı.
Bu tehdit ortadan tamamen kaldırılana kadar mücadele etmenin kadınların tarihi sorumluluğu olduğunu ifade eden Uca, "Biz kadınlar diyoruz ki, soykırım ve kadın kırımı bir insanlık suçudur, suçlular hesap verene kadar adalet arayışımız son bulmayacaktır" dedi.
HDP Ezidi katliamının soykırım olarak kabul edilmesi için TBMM'ye kanun teklifi vermişti.
Anma etkinliği Yenişehir Fidanlık Kampı'nda devam etti.
Şengal Bölgesi'nde katliamdan kaçan on binlerce Ezidi Türkiye'ye gelmiş, 5 bin kişi Diyarbakır Büyükşehir Belediyesi'ne ait Yenişehir Fidanlık alanında kurulan kampa yerleştirilmişti.
İki yıl zarfında Şengal ve Zaho'ya dönenler ve Avrupa'ya gidenler de oldu. Avrupa'ya gitmeye çalışanların bir bölümü Ege Denizi'nde boğularak yaşamını yitirdi.
Ezidilerin mülteci statüsünde olmadığı için çok zor koşullarda yaşadığını söyleyen kamp yöneticilerinden Ali Seçik, koşulların iyileştirilmesi ve mülteci statüsünün verilmesi için resmi makamlara yaptıkları girişimlerden sonuç alamadıklarını belirtti.
Çoğunluğu kadın ve çocuklardan oluşan kamp
Şu anda Yenişehir Fidanlık kampında yaklaşık 1500 Ezidi kalıyor ve bu nüfusun çoğunluğunu kadınlar ve çocuklar oluşturuyor.
Burada kalan ailelerin çoğu hiçbir yere gidemeyecek durumda olanlar.
Kamp sakinlerinin çoğu hâlâ çadırlarda yaşıyor. Fiziki koşullar kamp sakinlerini zorlasa da görüştüğüm birçok kişi Şengal'e geri dönme taraftarı değil.
Futbol sahasında gerçekleştirilen anma etkinliğine katılan genç kadınlar, IŞİD'in elinde esir olan kadınları temsilen ağızlarına siyah bant çekmişler.
Sahanın etrafında Şengal'den kaçanların fotoğrafları ve katliam karşıtı yazılar yazıları asılmış durumda.
Aradan iki yıl geçmiş olmasına rağmen ortamda büyük bir yas havası var ama hemen herkes beyaz giyinmiş.
Kadınların çoğu hem ağıt yakıyor hem de ağlıyor.
'Şengal'de kaçırıldı Rakka'dan geri alındı'
Sare Hame Biro da ağıt yakanlardan biri.
22 yaşındaki kız kardeşi Rihan Biro da IŞİD'in kaçırdığı kadınlar arasındaymış.
İki çocuk annesi olan kardeşi örgütün elinde iki yıl esir kaldıktan sonra 35 bin dolara para karşılığında Rakka'dan geri alınmış.
"Kız kardeşimi parayla satın aldık" diyor ve ekliyor:
"IŞİD'in saldırdığı gün kız kardeşim Nure Ahmed Biro, karşı koyunca örgüt tarafından katledildi.
"Diğer kız kardeşim Rihan da ailesinden 13 kişiyle birlikte IŞİD tarafından Digure'den kaçırıldı. 14 kişinin biri erkek, üçü kadın, gerisi çocuk ve genç kız. Kardeşim kaçırıldığında telefonla bizi aradı ve esir alındığını söyledi.
"Bir IŞİD emiri tüm telefonları alıyor ama kardeşimin saçları kıvırcık ve telefonu saçının içine saklıyor. Aradığında Telafer'e götürüldüğünü söyledi ama altı ay önce 36 bin dolar para karşılığında onu aldığımızda Rakka'daydı.
"Aileden şu an altı kişi daha esir. Kardeşim kurtulduğu gün beş kurban kestik. Şimdi Zaho'da kocasıyla birlikte ve onlar da Avrupa'ya gitmeye çalışıyor".
Şirin adındaki kadın da eşinin Dekhil ve Halid adındaki iki yeğeninin örgüt tarafından öldürüldüğünü söylüyor:
"Dün Facebook'ta Şengal şehitlerinin fotoğrafı paylaşılmıştı ve Halid'in fotoğrafının da ölenler listesinde yayınlandığını gördük. Dakhil alnından vurularak öldürülmüş ama Halid kaçırılmıştı. Dakhil'in dört, Halid'in iki çocuğu var ve hepsi de dokuz yaşından küçük."
Tawar da Şengal adını her duyduğunda ağlamaya başlıyor. Onun arkadaşı Aliya da IŞİD'in elinde şu an esirmiş. Üzerine giydiği beyaz tişörte gözlerinden kan damlayan ve ağzında siyah bant olan bir resmi çizmiş.
Tişörtü göstererek "Aliye'yi resmettim" diyor. O da çok konuşamıyor.
Avrupa Parlamentosu, Ezidi katliamını 3 Ağustos 2014 Şengal - Ezidi soykırımı olarak tanıma kararı aldı.
16 Haziran 2016 tarihinde Birleşmiş Milletler İnsan Hakları Konseyi tarafından yayınlanan bir raporda ise IŞİD'in Ezidiler ve diğer azınlıklara yönelik soykırım işlediğini açıklandı.
Ancak kamp sakinlerinin çoğu, IŞİD'in yaptığı katliamın uluslararası örgütler tarafından soykırım olarak kabul edilmesini talep ediyor. | Diyarbakır'dan Hatice Kamer IŞİD'in Kuzey Irak'ta gerçekleştirdiği Ezidi katliamının yıl dönümünde Diyarbakır'da kampta kalan Ezidilerle görüştü. | 45.588235 | 0.470588 | 0.588235 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/technology/personaltech/how-to-protect-privacy-while-using-pokemon-go-and-other-apps.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160807131324id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/14/technology/personaltech/how-to-protect-privacy-while-using-pokemon-go-and-other-apps.html?ref=technology&_r=0 | How to Protect Privacy While Using Pokémon Go and Other Apps | 20160807131324 | Pokémon Go has attracted hordes of players within days of its release. The mobile game has also attracted concerns about just how vulnerable our personal data can be in the hands of seemingly benign applications.
In the last few days, security bloggers noticed that the game, which is free to download and made by Niantic Inc. in partnership with the Pokémon Company and Nintendo, requested permission not only to use a player’s smartphone camera and location data but also to gain full access to the user’s Google accounts — including email, calendars, photos, stored documents and any other data associated with the login.
Critics quickly called the game a “huge security risk” that was invading people’s privacy, and Senator Al Franken, a Democrat, on Tuesday expressed concerns about the issue. Niantic has said the expansive permission requests were “erroneous” and that Pokémon Go did not use anything from players’ accounts other than basic Google profile information. Niantic also said it was working on a fix to change the permissions to a level that would be “in line with the data that we actually access.”
The flap highlights how clicking “yes” to whatever requests pop up when installing an app on a mobile device can compromise privacy, sometimes in insidious ways. In disclosures, some apps say they will hand over data to law enforcement officials or other private parties to respond to legal requests, for example, or even on their own volition.
“A number of these games are not only making money on the front end by selling you the game or things within the game, they’re also collecting data about your habits and what you’re doing on your phone, and selling that to third-party marketers,” said Andrew Storms, vice president of security services at the security company New Context. “You’re pretty much giving the rights to all your information to this company.”
So what can be done to minimize the security risks that come with some apps? Here’s a refresher on how to safeguard private information.
Ari Rubinstein, a Silicon Valley security engineer, recommends paying close attention to the scope of access that apps request during installation — or to look up the details online — and say “no” if the demands make you uncomfortable.
If you are unsure about the permissions you have already granted, check them on iOS by clicking on Settings and scrolling down for a list of apps that you can examine and change individually. On Android, click Settings and click Apps under the Device Settings, then choose an app and select Permissions.
Permissions are not the only things to worry about; you also need to know what kinds of data an app is collecting from your phone. Information about those is typically contained in an app’s privacy policies, which are often available within the settings of an app, or searchable online. If you cannot find the disclosures, or you are unable to understand their legalese, consider holding off until you learn more.
As for Pokémon Go, while the game may not be digging through emails, it is capable of tracking your location. And like those of many apps, its privacy policy allows it to give any data it has about you to law enforcement officials or private parties in response to legal requests or even to whatever it may deem an unethical or legally actionable activity. It can also share nonidentifying information about you with other companies for what it says are “research and analysis, demographic profiling, and other similar purposes.”
Because apps often use platforms like Facebook and Google to authenticate accounts, Mr. Rubinstein suggests regularly checking the access you have granted through the settings of these systems.
With Facebook, go to your account settings and click on Apps to examine and revoke access. With Google, go to Privacy and Security Settings and click on Connected Apps and Sites to see or change the apps connected to your account.
“Most likely users have apps that they never use that put them at a similar risk” to that from the Pokémon app, he said.
A version of this article appears in print on July 14, 2016, on page B7 of the New York edition with the headline: How to Shield Data From Apps Like Pokémon Go. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | The game’s developer made expansive permission requests — in error, it says, and it uses only basic data — but many apps make similar requests. | 28.37931 | 0.896552 | 1.37931 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/opinion/campaign-stops/why-cant-the-gop-get-real-with-black-voters.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160807131828id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/08/04/opinion/campaign-stops/why-cant-the-gop-get-real-with-black-voters.html?partner=msft_msn | Why Can’t the G.O.P. Get Real With Black Voters? | 20160807131828 | Cambridge, Mass. — With every news cycle focused on Donald J. Trump’s latest misstep, it’s easy to overlook the fact that his campaign has drawn record low support from African-Americans — and that this achievement, as it were, illuminates something worrisome within the Republican Party itself.
As usual, this year’s convention featured African-Americans playing highly specific public roles: as speakers, surrogates, attendees and delegation leaders; they delivered sermons in praise of God and Mr. Trump; spoke of black poverty, unemployment and jobs; and berated the Black Lives Matter movement, offering stringent promises of a swift return to “law and order.”
This black hyper-visibility was intentional, a symbolic corrective for the convention’s astonishing lack of diversity: Of the 2,472 delegates, only 18 were black. It is the lowest percentage on record, lower even than 1964, the year the party selected Barry Goldwater as its presidential nominee.
Since that disastrous campaign, the Republicans have at least talked about reconnecting with African-Americans. In 2013, the Republican National Committee rolled out its “Growth and Opportunity Project,” a critical self-assessment intended to prevent the party’s share of minority votes from slipping further.
The rise of Mr. Trump and his brand of racial populism has undermined nearly all the report’s recommendations on minority outreach. Among black voters, 90 to 94 percent hold unfavorable views of the nominee. By current polling accounts, he is winning between 4 to 9 percent of the black vote. Sally Bradshaw, one of Jeb Bush’s top advisers and a co-author of the 2013 report, recently announced that she was leaving the party, citing Republicans’ decision to nominate “a bigot.”
And yet, when you look beyond such glossy items like that 2013 report, the damage done by Mr. Trump feels of a piece with the party’s history, however much people like Ms. Bradshaw protest. Set aside the instances of racial demagogy; even at its best moments, for decades the party has been unable to move beyond broad assessments and platitudes to advocate substantive change.
The party has had no shortage of analyses devoted to fixing its “race problem.” In 1939, the future Nobel Prize winner Ralph Bunche created a blueprint for winning over black voters. Dozens of reports followed, usually in the aftermath of a disastrous presidential loss. After the 1964 presidential election, when the Republicans garnered only 6 percent of the black vote, a group of former Goldwater supporters concluded that the party could no longer rely on “racist appeals, overt or covert.”
But as with the past four years, whenever the party begins to make incremental gains in its relationship with African-Americans, it finds itself pulled to the right, often at the expense of black needs and interests. In 1960, Richard M. Nixon won 32 percent of the black vote; in 1962, he told Ebony that it would be foolish and a “violation of G.O.P. principles” to give up on black voters. By 1968, as the Republican presidential nominee, he had alienated African-Americans with his racially charged language of “law and order.”
When paired with his back-room dealings with South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, Nixon’s “law and order” stance ultimately destabilized the R.N.C.’s initiatives to support black communities. Jackie Robinson, who had campaigned tirelessly for Nixon eight years earlier, quit the G.O.P. in 1968 for exactly this reason. Two years later, black R.N.C. officials would follow Robinson’s lead, pointing the finger at Nixon’s lack of “moral leadership” on race. “We don’t want the black vote,” one former staffer lamented.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and well into the 1990s and 2000s, the story remains the same. Black Republicans regularly sued the G.O.P. for racial discrimination, formed protest organizations and accused party leaders of sabotaging black outreach efforts and pitting the interests of white voters against those of black voters. Frustrated black Republicans, from Clarence Thomas to Colin Powell, have all at some point or another called for the G.O.P. to address its “race problem.” And like clockwork, Republican leaders and officials produced reports designed to broaden the racial demographics of the party tent.
There have been moments of success. Jack Kemp comes to mind; in 1986, he seemed to have won a consensus among Republicans with his plan to turn it into the “party of civil rights and of human rights and voting rights and legal rights and economic opportunities.” In 2016, moments such as these have all but disappeared. The occasional glimpse of substantive Republican political and policy considerations of African-Americans is almost immediately undercut by the alienating behavior and rhetoric of Mr. Trump.
As we move into the final months of the campaign cycle, the Republican Party will once again find itself at a racial crossroads. If the presidential nominee loses in the general election, leaders will once again engage in a measure of soul searching on matters of race and inclusion. And perhaps this time, instead of saying “farewell” to African-Americans, the G.O.P. will say “welcome” — and actually mean it.
Leah Wright Rigueur, an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is the author of “The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power.”
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 4, 2016, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Why the G.O.P. Can’t Win Black Votes. Today's Paper|Subscribe | The party often promises to change, and then it nominates people like Trump. | 73.333333 | 0.866667 | 1.4 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11460088/Why-a-European-army-couldnt-work.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160807173005id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/uknews/defence/11460088/Why-a-European-army-couldnt-work.html | Why a European army couldn't work | 20160807173005 | While it remains official British policy that defence should remain a national, not an EU, responsibility, the notion of pooling Europe’s declining defence resources no doubt has many secret admirers in Whitehall — particularly at the Treasury — who believe a more integrated approach would save billions from the defence budget.
The fundamental problem with this proposition is that, without full political union, it has no chance of becoming a credible force. So long as fierce national rivalries exist at the heart of policy-making, a common army would quickly find itself reduced to a state of impotence if required to deal with any threat to an EU state.
Any EU initiative to establish its own defence capability would also undermine the Nato alliance. Nato leaders have already approved a number of measures designed to improve Europe’s defences against any further acts of Russian aggression, such as establishing a new “spearhead” force to protect Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. In times of crisis, Nato can also rely on the overwhelming military firepower of the US. By setting up its own defence structure, the EU would have to rely on its own meagre resources, which are hardly sufficient to deter further acts of aggression by the Kremlin. | Whenever Europe has been required to deal with a major security issue, member states have adopted conflicting policies | 11.55 | 0.5 | 1.1 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/8810045/Steve-Jobs-timeline.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160807182512id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/technology/steve-jobs/8810045/Steve-Jobs-timeline.html | Steve Jobs: timeline | 20160807182512 | 1977: Apple is incorporated by its founders and a group of venture capitalists. It unveils Apple II, the first personal computer to generate color graphics. Revenue reaches $1 million.
1978: Jobs' daughter Lisa is born to girlfriend Chrisann Brennan.
1979: Jobs visits Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, and is inspired by a computer with a graphical user interface.
1980: Apple goes public, raising $110 million in one of the biggest initial public offerings to date.
1982: Annual revenue climbs to $1 billion.
1983: The Lisa computer goes on sale with much fanfare, only to be pulled two years later. Jobs lures John Sculley away from Pepsico Inc. to serve as Apple's CEO.
1984: Iconic "1984" Macintosh commercial directed by Ridley Scott airs during the Super Bowl. The Macintosh computer goes on sale.
1985: Jobs and Sculley clash, leading to Jobs' resignation. Wozniak also resigns from Apple this year.
1986: Jobs starts Next Inc., a new computer company making high-end machines for universities. He also buys Pixar from "Star Wars" creator George Lucas for $10 million.
1989: First NeXT computer goes on sale with a $6,500 price tag.
1991: Apple and IBM Corp. announce an alliance to develop new PC microprocessors and software. Apple unveils portable Macs called PowerBook.
1993: Apple introduces the Newton, a hand-held, pen-based computer. The company reports quarterly loss of $188 million in July. Sculley is replaced as CEO by Apple president Michael Spindler. Apple restructures, and Sculley resigns as chairman. At Next, Jobs decides to focus on software instead of whole computers.
1994: Apple introduces Power Macintosh computers based on the PowerPC chip it developed with IBM and Motorola. Apple decides to license its operating software and allow other companies to "clone" the Mac, adopting the model championed by Microsoft Corp.
1995: The first Mac clones go on sale. Microsoft releases Windows 95, which is easier to use than previous versions and is more like the Mac system. Apple struggles with competition, parts shortages and mistakes predicting customer demand. Pixar's "Toy Story," the first commercial computer-animated feature, hits theaters. Pixar goes to Wall Street with an IPO that raises $140 million.
1996: Apple announces plans to buy Next for $430 million for the operating system Jobs' team developed. Jobs is appointed an adviser to Apple. Gil Amelio replaces Spindler as CEO.
1997: Jobs becomes "interim" CEO after Amelio is pushed out. He foreshadows the marketing hook for a new product line by calling himself "iCEO." Jobs puts an end to Mac clones.
1998: Apple returns to profitability. It shakes up personal computer industry in 1998 with the candy-colored, all-in-one iMac desktop, the original models shaped like a futuristic TV. Apple discontinues the Newton.
2000: Apple removes "interim" label from Jobs' CEO title.
2001: The first iPod goes on sale, as do computers with OS X, the modern Mac operating system based on Next software. Apple also releases iTunes software.
2003: Apple launches the iTunes Music Store with 200,000 songs at 99 cents each, giving people a convenient way to buy music legally online. It sells 1 million songs in the first week.
2004: Jobs undergoes surgery for a rare but curable form of pancreatic cancer. Apple discloses his illness after the fact.
2005: Apple expands the iPod line with the tiny Nano and an iPod that can play video. The company also announces that future Macs will use Intel chips.
2006: Disney buys Pixar for $7.4 billion. Jobs becomes Disney's largest individual shareholder, and much of his wealth is derived from this sale.
2007: Apple releases its first smartphone, the iPhone. Crowds camp overnight at stores to be one of the first to own the new device.
2008: Speculation mounts that Jobs is ill, given weight loss. In September he kicks off an Apple event and says, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," making a play off a famous Mark Twain quote after Bloomberg News accidentally publishes, then retracts, an obituary that it had prepared in advance.
2009: Jobs explains severe weight loss by saying he has a treatable hormone imbalance and that he will continue to run Apple. Days later he backtracks and announces he will be on medical leave. He returns to work in June. Later it is learned that he received a liver transplant.
2010: Apple sells 15 million of its newest gadget, the iPad, in nine months, giving rise to a new category of modern touch-screen tablet computers.
Jan. 17, 2011: In a memo to Apple employees, Jobs announces a second medical leave with no set duration. Cook again steps in to run day-to-day operations. Jobs retains CEO title and remains involved in major decisions.
Aug. 24, 2011: Apple announces that Jobs is resigning as CEO. Cook takes the CEO title, and Apple names Jobs chairman.
Oct. 5, 2011: Jobs dies at 56. Apple announces his death without giving a specific cause. | Steve Jobs, the co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc, has died aged 56. Here are some key dates from his life and work: | 35.37931 | 0.62069 | 0.758621 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/money/4102312/colleges-low-income-cheap-affordable/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160807195534id_/http://time.com:80/money/4102312/colleges-low-income-cheap-affordable/ | The 40 Most Affordable Colleges for Low-Income Students | 20160807195534 | Nearly every college claims to be “affordable,” but which ones really are?
A new benchmark indicates that comparatively few good colleges are fully affordable for the approximately 15 million families earning less than about $48,000. That group makes up more than one-third of all families with children under the age of 18.
The Lumina Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving higher education access and success, recently proposed that a college be called “affordable” if the cost of a bachelor’s degree for a student is no more than the total of:
For families who don’t have much discretionary income, that means a college is “affordable” only if it charges no more per year than a student can earn working part-time, which Lumina estimates at $3,625 a year.
MONEY tested this new definition of affordability against the net prices that colleges report to the government for different income groups.
Using this measure, we found only 40 “affordable” colleges for low-income students that met our standard for acceptable graduation rates (either significantly above what would be expected for their student population or at least the median for their type of school). All of the colleges on this list appear to provide enough scholarships so that a typical low-income student who works part-time should be able to graduate debt-free.
We also found dozens of top-notch colleges, including the University of Michigan, Yale, and Georgia Tech that were just a few hundred dollars above this threshold. This list highlights only the 40 most affordable ones.
To measure affordability, we looked only at the net prices colleges charged families earning less than $48,000, per year, in part because those numbers are the most reliable. We assumed that families earning less than $48,000 a year had no discretionary income, and thus could not contribute any savings to their child’s college costs.
The U.S. Department of Education’s financial aid formula does assume that many families earning more than about $30,000 can contribute to their children’s college costs. But the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators says that for many families, that formula is unrealistic. The federal formula “no longer produces a reasonable estimate of what many families can be expected to contribute,” says NASFAA senior policy analyst Karen McCarthy.
Instead, other analysts say that families earning less than $48,000, which is about twice the federal poverty line for a family of four, typically have no discretionary income. The Economic Policy Institute, for example, estimates the minimal family budget for a family of four “to secure an adequate but modest living standard” is at a least $49,000, but in high-cost cities such as Washington, D.C. can exceed $100,000. )
So here are the most affordable colleges for students from families earning $48,000 a year or less.
Read next: MONEY’s 50 Most Affordable Private Colleges | At these schools, students from families earning less than $48,000 can typically graduate debt-free. | 29.631579 | 0.894737 | 3.210526 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/racial-divide-over-oj-has-relaxed-the-conversation-continues | http://web.archive.org/web/20160807230023id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/msnbc/racial-divide-over-oj-has-relaxed-the-conversation-continues | Racial divide over O.J. has relaxed, but the conversation continues | 20160807230023 | As the reviews roll in for Ryan Murphy’s new “American Crime Story” series, the first season of which re-examines the O.J. Simpson trial and the media circus around it, there has been renewed interest in the case that infamously highlighted America’s racial divide.
More than twenty years after Simpson’s acquittal in the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman polarized the country, public opinion has evolved dramatically, particularly along racial lines. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll published last fall, by the time the African-American NFL Hall of Famer was found liable for the crime by a civil court jury in 1997, a whopping 82 percent of white Americans were convinced of his guilt, while only 31 percent of black Americans concurred. Today, the percentage of whites who believe Simpson was guilty has held steady at 83 percent, but the number has consistently risen in the black community, hitting an all-time high majority of 57 percent last year.
The racial evolution of thought on the O.J. Simpson case may be one of the most striking aspects of the story as it begins to be retold in the form of an FX miniseries. The film, which has earned rave reviews for its attention to detail and engaging performances, reportedly puts an emphasis on how race, for better or worse, shaped the trial and its outcome from almost the very beginning.
RELATED: Watergate becomes the latest national scandal recreated for TV
Coming on the heels of a controversial crime bill signed into law by former president Bill Clinton, which was viewed as disproportionately detrimental to communities of color, as well as the Rodney King beating and subsequent Los Angeles riots in 1992, the Simpson trial, as far as many African-Americans were concerned, was the culmination of decades of disrespect.
“The O.J. Simpson trial was for many black people less about O.J. Simpson, but instead the frustration we were having with the criminal justice system,” David A. Wilson, the co-founder and editor in chief of the African-American news website theGrio told MSNBC on Monday. “We sort of mobilized behind O.J. Simpson, not for his sake, but for ourselves and our communities. It wasn’t about the facts of the case, it was about the system that they felt demonized and persecuted black men disproportionately.”
Simpson, with his considerable wealth and wholehearted embrace of the white community, was viewed as somewhat detached from his roots within black America (the miniseries’ trailer features Simpson, played by Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr., arguing, “I’m not black … I’m O.J.”). And yet, when accused of double murder, he sought refuge and redemption among his people and in turn became a proxy for an aggrieved population to strike back at a power structure they believed never had their best interests at heart.
According to Wilson, when Simpson was found not guilty, there was an feeling of schadenfreude among many African-Americans. “I remember when I was in college and the verdict was read. I remember the frustration and befuddlement of so many of my white peers. And I remember a feeling of contentment about that. Now they finally understand what it feels like,” Wilson said.
Wilson argues that the Simpson case, played out on the national stage, represented one of the first times where the justice system did not deliver the result the majority of white Americans wanted, becoming a teachable moment for the country.
Today, the black community has other, more relatable figures – Trayvon Martin, the unarmed African-American teenager whose killer was acquitted, is one – who are perceived as victims of police misconduct or judicial railroading. Simpson’s status as a vessel for retribution has faded. And his willingness to participate in an “If I Did It” book project, his oft-promised “search for the real killers” that never seemed to materialize and various run-ins with the law since his acquittal – one of which has landed him in prison, where he is currently serving a 33-year sentence – have not helped his image, either.
When BET entertainment editor Clay Cane watched the trial unfold as a youth in Philadelphia, he found that most of his black peers didn’t necessarily believe in Simpson’s innocence, but did see his trial as an “example of a black man who got one over on the criminal justice system – more of a comeuppance.”
“So many African-Americans had been beat down, they were OK with him getting away, even it if was murder, ” he told MSNBC on Monday. Cane says that while people must not forget that two people tragically and brutally lost their lives, that the black community’s reaction to the trial was complex and should not be easily dismissed. “Part of why folks were celebrating O.J. being found innocent was because so many of their brothers, fathers, cousins and uncles were locked up in jail,” he said.
Frustration with police practices and racial disparity in sentencing has not dissipated since the Simpson trial. In fact, some could argue that in the age of the Black Lives Matter movement, tensions grown even more pronounced. But, one could also make the case that the water cooler conversations the trial inspired, which predated social media, laid the groundwork for the more frank discussions on race that would follow in its wake.
The myriad lingering issues surrounding the Simpson case – not just celebrity, but the subject of black fame that also factors into the Bill Cosby allegations– should make the “American Crime Story” series, and other planned Simpson projects, especially relevant.
“In many ways the O.J. Simpson trial is not really about O.J.,” said Cane. “It really is a time capsule for the way we looked at race in this country – the way we ignored it and the way it couldn’t be ignored. It was a collision of all these intersections [of race, fame and wealth] and twenty years later we still haven’t managed to connect those intersections.” | One of the most striking aspects to the decades-old controversy is the racial evolution of thought. | 61.526316 | 0.894737 | 3.631579 | high | medium | mixed |
http://time.com/4353218/jay-z-drug-dealers-anonymous-pusha-t/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808014837id_/http://time.com:80/4353218/jay-z-drug-dealers-anonymous-pusha-t/?xid=time_socialflow_facebook | Jay-Z Responds to Conservative Pundit in New Track | 20160808014837 | Earlier this year, after Beyoncé’s arguably political performance during the Super Bowl halftime show, the outspoken conservative pundit Tomi Lahren tore into the singer for apparently “perpetuating the great battle of the races.” Lahren concluded her remarks with a curious attack on Beyonce’s husband, Jay-Z. “Your husband was a drug dealer,” she said. “For fourteen years, he sold crack cocaine.”
The recording of Lahren’s comments went semi-viral, and now Jay-Z has responded on a new track he made with Pusha T, “Drug Dealers Anonymous.” The track features a snippet of Lahren’s remarks, followed by Jay-Z’s tongue-in-cheek verse: “Fourteen-year drug dealer and still counting / Who deserves the Medal of Freedom? My accountant.”
He continues: “Life made me ambidextrous / Countin’ with my right, whipping white with my left wrist / Damn Daniel / FBI keep bringing them all white vans through.”
The track initially went up on Tidal, but it’s since been posted to Soundcloud: | Jay-Z and Pusha T just dropped 'Drug Dealers Anonymous' | 16.153846 | 0.692308 | 1.769231 | medium | low | mixed |
http://time.com/4393454/dominika-cibulkova-wedding-cancel-wimbledon/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808030829id_/http://time.com:80/4393454/dominika-cibulkova-wedding-cancel-wimbledon/? | Dominika Cibulkova Almost Canceled Her Wedding For Wimbledon | 20160808030829 | Slovakian tennis star Dominika Cibulkova almost called off her wedding to play in the finals at Wimbledon, thanks to her winning streak in the competition.
The 27-year-old, 19th seeded player will tie the knot with fiancée of four years, Miso Navara, on Saturday in her home town of Bratislava, which happens to be the same day as the Wimbledon singles final. Cibulkova was considering canceling her wedding if she progressed to the final; however Russia’s Elena Vesnina took the slot in today’s match.
Cibulkova hadn’t anticipated making it this far into competition when planning her nuptials, but took the possibility and loss in stride.
“We planned this [the wedding] nine months ago,” Cibulkova said to the Daily Mail. “You never know what can happen.”
While Cibulkova celebrates her wedding, Vesnina will face Serena Williams in the final. | The ladies finals was on the same day as her planned nuptials | 14 | 0.916667 | 1.916667 | low | medium | mixed |
http://time.com/4388027/the-devil-wears-prada-at-10/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808032346id_/http://time.com:80/4388027/the-devil-wears-prada-at-10/?xid=homepage | A Fashion Movie That Hates Fashion | 20160808032346 | The Devil Wears Prada, released in June 2006, is now the age of a grade-schooler: If it were a human, it would be a 10-year-old scuffling along in her mother’s Manolo Blahniks or seeing her future inheritance reflected in the subtle calfskin gleam of a Birkin bag. The picture was a hit upon its release—it was the 17th-highest grossing movie that year, which isn’t bad for a PG-13-rated comedy of little interest to ticket-buying teenage boys—and in the years since, it has become a comfort-food movie, the kind of thing women (and surely some men) like to watch over and over again.
That’s partly because the appeal of watching put-upon underlings triumph over haughty higher-ups never loses its gloss. In this case, it’s Anne Hathaway’s Andy, personal assistant to tyrannical fashion-magazine czarina Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), who emerges, slightly scarred but undaunted, from the battleground of her first magazine job. (The movie, directed by David Frankel, was based on Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel, which drew from her real-life experience as the assistant to Vogue magazine’s notoriously demanding editor Anna Wintour.) The movie’s pleasures are hardly negligible: A montage showing Streep’s Priestly heedlessly tossing her coat-and-handbag combo onto Andy’s desk, morning after morning after morning, is partly a clever pantomime of the monotony of being a wage slave and partly a grand eye-roll at the sort of person who has so much great stuff to wear that she can just fling it around without a thought.
But even though The Devil Wears Prada is set at a fashion magazine, and hits hard at the foibles of fashion people, it isn’t really a fashion movie—if anything, it’s a movie that hates fashion. Over and over again, Andy laments that what she really wants to be is a journalist—the subtext, so hamfisted it barely qualifies as a subtext—is that she’s too good for fashion, with all its idiocy and frivolity. Streep’s Priestly has the movie’s smartest line—one that the film, ultimately, betrays. Surveying one of Andy’s impossibly dowdy, pre-makeover work outfits, she says, in a cool and level voice, “You’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care what you put on your back.”
In the end, this movie is the ultimate fuel for people who think that not caring about fashion automatically grants them superior intelligence. With the exception of two terrific characters—Stanley Tucci’s wry art director and Emily Blunt’s perennial assistant, who cares about fashion so much that it fills her with an almost desperate hunger—the movie never rises above the level of “Look at all these silly people who care about this ridiculous, overpriced stuff. They must be really stupid.”
It doesn’t help that the clothes in The Devil Wears Prada are—let’s just say it—terrible. With the exception of a few of Priestly’s work outfits (like a trim jacket scattered with matte bronze paillettes that shouldn’t work for day, but does), almost everything the “fashionable” people wear in The Devil Wears Prada is either comically overaccessorized or slapped together in combinations that the truly chic would never attempt. The movie’s costume designer is Patricia Field, who also, famously, dressed the actresses for Sex and the City, a brilliant and beautiful show (for at least five of its six seasons) that honored the ghost of comedy-of-manners virtuoso Anita Loos in the best way. Field’s work on that show (Kristen Davis’s pussycat-bow blouses, Kim Cattrall’s free-flowing jersey separates) was terrific—when she was dressing everyone but Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw. Carrie’s supposedly cool, fashion-forward outfits grew more horrific and overstimulated with each passing season, a melange of tutus and unflattering headdresses that had less to do with fashion, or even eccentric taste, than with seeing how much weird, wretched stuff could be piled on the back of one rather small-boned actress. The critic Laura Miller once lamented that Carrie’s outfits made her look like “an organ grinder’s monkey.”
That’s the spirit Fields brings, more or less, to The Devil Wears Prada: In her view, nearly every woman working at Runway magazine (a thinly veiled Vogue) expresses her individuality and style by wearing lots of necklaces plus big earrings, and maybe a superfluous bracelet or two. Nearly everyone is strutting around in cluttered, fashion-victim combos and high, high heels. Andy’s post-makeover outfits—most of them consisting of pieces by Chanel—are jumbled together in a way that’s supposed to signify youthful creativity but which really just scream, “I have no idea what I’m doing, and I don’t care.” Every fashion workplace has its crazy magpies, but there’s always at least one sleek, understated doe, usually dressed in head-to-toe taupe, running with the pack. She’s nowhere to be seen in The Devil Wears Prada, because that wouldn’t fit the absurd spectacle people generally hope to see in a movie about the fashion world.
In Field’s defense, movie costuming isn’t the same as choosing fashion for a photo spread or, heaven forbid, for real life: Things that are a little extreme tend to read better on camera. And with the exception of great 1970s splash-outs like Mahogany and Eyes of Laura Mars, movies about the fashion world rarely capture what’s so compelling about fashion anyway. But The Devil Wears Prada falls way too short of the mark. There isn’t enough variety among the Runway workers—they’re all playing by the “more is more” rulebook, without ever knowing when to quit.
And that does the language of fashion—and the world of people who truly care about it—a disservice. It’s true that fashion can be the province of stupid, shallow people. But that can be said of the world of movies and books and music, too, and even of fine art: Not everyone who makes or enjoys these things is as intelligent as he or she is cracked up to be, or would like to be.
Fashion, at its purest, is both a means of personal expression and a way of reaching toward beauty. To love it—to really love it—has nothing to do with loading up on the latest from Dior or Balmain, or with coveting this or that It bag, or with throwing runway looks on your Instagram, tagged with the words “I’m obsessed!” It’s not just about learning how to look, but learning how to see: Why does one sleeve follow the curve of the human arm perfectly, while another hangs stiff, like an awkward soldier? Why do certain color combinations (tangerine and turquoise, marigold and cobalt) please the eye, even when you think they shouldn’t work?
If The Devil Wears Prada, 10 years old this week, represents the wrong way to look and think about fashion, this week has also given us a reminder of the right way, although it’s a sad one: Bill Cunningham, the New York Times’ longtime on-the-street photographer—and the subject of the superb 2010 documentary Bill Cunningham New York—died on June 25, at age 87. Cunningham had actually made fashion himself (he was a milliner in the 1950s), and was a cofounder of Details magazine. But for some 40 years—almost right up to the day of his death—he could be found, dressed in his trademark blue workman’s smock, pedaling the streets of New York on his bike, camera around his neck, at the ready to capture fashion in the wild. His subjects included socialites wrapped in plush furs and club kids in improvised outfits that might have cost a nickel.
The things that would stop him—the swooping cut of a jacket, a weird, vibrant color combination, a small accessory that had somehow turned drab outfit into one of pure delight—were not necessarily things you could list or even adequately describe in words. But Cunningham was always alive to the telling detail. That’s a world apart from just piling on the details. The Devil Wears Prada, on the other hand, gives us everything to look at, but nothing to see. | The film has been the subject of much celebration. Here's why I'm not joining | 96.764706 | 0.647059 | 1.117647 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/14/sadiq-khan-question-to-be-asked-about-hijabs-veils-london | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808050339id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2016/apr/14/sadiq-khan-question-to-be-asked-about-hijabs-veils-london | Sadiq Khan says there is 'question to be asked' about use of hijabs in London | 20160808050339 | Sadiq Khan, the Labour candidate for London mayor, has said there is “a question to be asked” about why some Muslim women in the capital wear hijabs and niqabs.
Khan, who became the first Muslim cabinet minister in Gordon Brown’s government in 2009, warned of an “insidious” development if people thought it was right to treat women differently to men.
In an interview with the London Evening Standard, the frontrunner in next month’s mayoral contest contrasted the way Muslim women dressed when he was growing up in London in the 1970s and 80s with the way many women dressed today.
Related: London mayor: Goldsmith embarrassed as ‘repellent’ imam’s Tory links emerge
Khan, 45, said: “When I was younger you didn’t see people in hijabs and niqabs, not even in Pakistan when I visited my family. In London we got on. People dressed the same. What you see now are people born and raised here who are choosing to wear the jilbab [a loose gown] or niqab.
“There is a question to be asked about what is going on in those homes. What’s insidious is if people are starting to think it is appropriate to treat women differently or that it has been forced on them. What worries me is children being forced to adopt a lifestyle.”
Khan suggested Muslim women should think about whether to wear the niqab, which covers the face, when they interacted with providers of public services. Asked whether women should be allowed to cover their faces, he said: “It’s not for me to tell women what to wear. But I do think that in public service we should be able to see each other’s faces. Eye contact matters. You should be able to see the face.”
He added: “There is no other city in the world where I would want to raise my daughters than London. They have rights, they have protection, the right to wear what they like, think what they like, to meet who they like, to study what they like, more than they would in any other country.”
During the interview Khan sought to answer critics who say that his record as a human rights lawyer means he would be soft on terrorism.
Zac Goldsmith, Khan’s Tory opponent, has been criticised after his campaign distributed leaflets describing the Labour candidate as “radical and divisive”. Khan tweeted this week: “Hey @ZacGoldsmith. There’s no need to keep pointing at me & shouting ‘he’s a Muslim’. I put it on my own leaflets.”
Khan said he would never apologise for his work as a human rights lawyer. But he pledged to place London on a “war footing” to tackle terrorist threats. “On day one I am going to put us on a war footing with these terrorists,” he said. “That will mean having a major review of our capabilities to deal with this.”
Khan said he was the best-qualified candidate to deal with terrorism because he was the only one with security clearance as a privy councillor. “Do you think I’d have been invited to weekly security meetings where there were MI5 and MI6, representatives from the police service and chaired by the home secretary if there were any concerns about me?”
He said he had been singled out by extremists – and been given police advice on protection – because of his liberal views, particularly on same-sex marriage. “There are people in Tooting who no longer talk to me because of it. When I was first elected I had all sorts of problems from these extremists. There was a fatwa put out against me. I’m the person with the plan in relation to fighting extremism.”
Goldsmith told the Evening Standard this week that Khan had been “giving platform, oxygen and cover” to extremists, and highlighted Khan’s decision to share a platform with Suliman Gani, an imam whom he described as “repellent”. His attack backfired when it emerged that Goldsmith had posed for a photo with Gani. | Mayoral candidate says Muslim women should consider whether to remain veiled when interacting with public service providers | 46.470588 | 0.705882 | 1.294118 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ending-the-corporate-welfare-circus-1465163602 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808051218id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/ending-the-corporate-welfare-circus-1465163602 | Ending the Corporate-Welfare Circus | 20160808051218 | Competition is at the heart of America’s economic success, but not every type of contest benefits society. Consider the growing trend of businesses cajoling states and politicians to compete for who can dole out the most corporate welfare. It’s especially frustrating because there are already plenty of ways to promote job growth without robbing taxpayers.
General Electric is one of the latest companies to shamelessly demand taxpayer-funded goodies from government. The company’s senior tax counsel Bobby Burgner spoke... | Brent Gardner writes that state gifts to the likes of Boeing, Ford, Google and Apple are unnecessary and unfair. Better to cut the tax rate and reduce regulation. | 2.8125 | 0.4375 | 0.4375 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-opens-door-to-knockoffs-1399852852 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808052614id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-opens-door-to-knockoffs-1399852852 | Do You Know What's Going in Your Amazon Shopping Cart? | 20160808052614 | Every now and then Matthew Frank, whose company makes Tovolo-brand ice-cube molds and trays, will slow down shipments of his kitchenware to Amazon.com Inc. and then conduct test buys as the Internet retailer's stock runs low.
What he finds after cutting back the flow of his products: Knockoff products rise to the top, said Mr. Frank, chief executive of ICI USA LLC, which owns Tovolo.
The phenomenon doesn't just reflect a... | A system of pooling supposedly identical merchandise at Amazon.com's warehouses provides flexibility for faster shipping. But in some cases it has led to mix-ups between counterfeit and authentic products. | 2.588235 | 0.294118 | 0.294118 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/mad-max-fury-road/review/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808053849id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/film/mad-max-fury-road/review/ | Mad Max: Fury Road | 20160808053849 | Mad Max: Fury Road is the first film from George Miller since 2011’s dancing penguins cartoon Happy Feet Two, and his first live-action project since 1998’s Babe: Pig in the City. Two words spring to mind: "pent up".
Miller's long-delayed return to the Mad Max series, which has its European premiere at the Cannes Film Festival later this week, is nothing less than a Krakatoan eruption of craziness. The director last visited this world in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome in 1985, but this feels more like a spiritual sequel to The Road Warrior, the far superior 1981 instalment.
That film was a western from hell, in which Mel Gibson’s Max Rockatansky, scrabbling for survival in a future world blighted by drought and fuel shortages, helps defend a remote oil refinery from a band of marauders. Its climactic 20-minute chase scene – a still-perfect symphony of fireballs, barrel rolls and severed heads – plays like a gonzo rehash of the Native American pursuit that closes John Ford’s Stagecoach.
Fury Road goes even further: the film is almost nothing but chase, with each high-octane action sequence shunting into the next at breakneck speed. The result is less John Ford than Buster Keaton – specifically, the comedian's 1926 masterpiece The General, with its madcap there-and-back-again pursuit up and down 150 miles of railway track. With its spare dialogue and dazzlingly choreographed and edited stunts, Miller’s film often feels like a great silent movie – albeit a very loud one.
The film begins with Max, who’s now played by Tom Hardy, becoming mixed up in a jailbreak from a desert citadel. Its ruler, Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, whom Mad Max fans may just about recognise, behind the make-up and skull mask, as the original film’s Toecutter), has five "wives" locked in a tower with whom he hopes to conceive, by force, a healthy son and heir.
Understandably, the wives aren’t keen, so they escape in the belly of a petrol tanker on a routine supply run. Enraged, Immortan leads the charge to bring them back. And that’s all there is to it. The first point at which Fury Road draws breath – an eerily beautiful wide shot of a flare spluttering out in the desert darkness – comes after half an hour of virtually continuous chaos. Most films aren’t built this way for all kinds of sensible reasons. But when they are, and it works – what a rush.
What compounds the fun is Fury Road’s wholesale rejection of the generally accepted blockbuster code of conduct, which dictates that expensive films have to be marketable to teenagers but still watchable by eight-year-olds in order to maximise box-office returns. Whether or not Miller was aware of these unspoken conventions, he has ploughed a blazing petrol tanker right through the middle of them. Fury Road takes a Rabelaisian delight in grotesque bodies, and the various ways in which they can be made to splatter, burn and pop.
Enormous, naked women are milked like cattle, dwarfs are hoisted on palanquins, and men as pale and gaunt as Méliès aliens are knocked out, gnawed on, sawn up and catapulted through explosions. Imagine if Cirque du Soleil reenacted a Hieronymus Bosch painting and someone set the theatre on fire. This is more or less what Miller has come up with.
But the film is transgressive in smarter, subtler ways too. Hardy is totally commanding on screen, and brings a certain camp detachment to the lead role, almost as if he had dragged up as himself to play it. There’s a connection between his work here and his performance as Charles Bronson for Nicolas Winding Refn, but he isn’t really the film’s leading man – and nor is Nicholas Hoult, who’s fabulously unhinged as Nux, a twitchy stowaway on the trip.
Fury Road’s alpha male is, in fact, a woman: the rogue soldier Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, who masterminds the escape while Max rides shotgun. Furiosa is one of the toughest, most resilient action heroes in years, with a metal prosthetic arm that hints at past trauma and a steely gaze that sees more on the way. Like Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the Alien films, the character is informed by her sex but not defined by it, and Theron superbly embodies her stoicism, nerve and resolve.
Few people, surely, were expecting robust feminism from the new Mad Max film – yet here we are, and Theron’s character is far from the only instance of it. See also Immortan’s escaping wives, who may be young and sylphlike, but are the opposite of damsels in distress, and play an instrumental part in their own dash for freedom.
One of them, called The Splendid Angharad, is played by the model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley – and while the part is of course glamorous, it’s also spiky and odd; long-overdue compensation for her excruciating non-role in Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon. (Other wives include Zoë Kravitz as Toast the Knowing: Miller and his co-writers deserve a special, gurning, bondage-gear-clad Oscar for coming up with these names.)
This is unusually progressive stuff, but it all stirs into the cocktail nicely – just as the painterly computer graphics, which provide the film’s backdrop of whirlwinds and dust-storms, marry surprisingly well with the predominantly practical stunt work. The world of Mad Max has always been welded together from bits of whatever was lying around, and the films’ brilliance has always been in their welding – the ingenious ways in which their scrap-metal parts were combined to create something unthinkable, hilarious or obscene, and often all three. | Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy command the screen in this nitro-injected juggernaut of a film | 66.235294 | 0.764706 | 1.117647 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11319553/Aurora-moves-closer-to-break-up-as-Karen-Millen-boss-departs.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808065644id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11319553/Aurora-moves-closer-to-break-up-as-Karen-Millen-boss-departs.html | Aurora moves closer to break-up as Karen Millen boss departs | 20160808065644 | Mike Shearwood, the Karen Millen boss, has stepped down from the board of Aurora Fashions, pushing the high street clothing group closer to a break-up and sale of its brands.
Aurora is majority owned by Icelandic bank Kaupthing, but it is in the process of breaking up the group, making it easier to sell the individual brands to new investors.
Filings at Companies House show that Mr Shearwood stepped down as a director of Aurora Fashions Group Limited in late November.
The news that the break-up of Aurora is in its final stages could spark interest in the brands from potential buyers.
However, Aurora’s brands are likely to have endured a challenging run-up to Christmas after mild weather in September and October dampened demand for winter clothing, leaving clothing retailers with piles of unsold stock. | Mike Shearwood steps down from Aurora board as potential sale of Oasis, Coast and Warehouse looms | 8.777778 | 0.666667 | 1 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/27/diane-krugers-instagram-snap-raises-eyebrows-following-joshua-j/21440324/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808093713id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/07/27/diane-krugers-instagram-snap-raises-eyebrows-following-joshua-j/21440324/ | Diane Kruger's Instagram snap raises eyebrows following Joshua Jackson split | 20160808093713 | Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
Diane Kruger is raising eyebrows right after her shocking split with longtime beau Joshua Jackson.
The 40-year-old actress looked alarmingly skinny in a recent Instagram photo, leading many to believe she's not taking the breakup well. Kruger posted a photo from behind as she donned a skimpy bikini in a tropical location she chose not to disclose.
Many were quick to point out how frail she looked.
One user commented: "Sorry but this doesn't look healthy!!!"
"Dear god... You need cake," another wrote.
Earlier this week, she also shared a makeup-free selfie while on a train, which she posted without a caption.
And it seems like it hasn't been easy for Jackson either. The actor was
near his West Hollywood home looking especially down as he went on a quick coffee run.
The "Inglorious Bastards" star announced her breakup from Jackson on July 15 after 10 years together -- coming as a surprise to most considering she recently moved in with him back in March.
Kruger met the 38-year-old "Dawson's Creek" actor after she divorced from her husband of five years, French director Guillaume Canet.
While we can only hope reconciliation is on the way for these love birds, at least we have "Dawson's Creek" re-runs to mend our broken hearts.
See images of the former couple:
Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson
JERSEY CITY, NJ - MAY 30: Joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger attend the Eighth-Annual Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic at Liberty State Park on May 30, 2015 in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Veuve Clicquot)
Joshua Jackson (L) and Diane Kruger arrive at the Costume Institute Gala Benefit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art May 5, 2015 in New York. AFP PHOTO / TIMOTHY A. CLARY (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 02: Actress Diane Kruger (L) and actor Joshua Jackson attend the SHOWTIME And HBO VIP Pre-Fight Party for 'Mayweather VS Pacquiao' at MGM Grand Hotel & Casino on May 2, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images for SHOWTIME)
Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson arrive to the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, California on February 22, 2015. AFP PHOTO/ADRIAN SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ (Photo credit should read ADRIAN SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - MAY 04: Joshua Jackson (L) and Diane Kruger attend the 'China: Through The Looking Glass' Costume Institute Benefit Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - FEBRUARY 22: Actors Joshua Jackson (L) and Diane Kruger attend the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - MAY 02: Actress Diane Kruger (L) and actor Joshua Jackson attend the SHOWTIME And HBO VIP Pre-Fight Party for 'Mayweather VS Pacquiao' at MGM Grand Hotel & Casino on May 2, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images for SHOWTIME)
LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 08: Actors Joshua Jackson (L) and Diane Kruger attend the W Magazine celebration of the 'Best Performances' Portfolio and The Golden Globes with Cadillac and Dom Perignon at Chateau Marmont on January 8, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for W Magazine)
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JANUARY 11: Actors Joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger attend the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
Actors Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson arrive at a cocktail reception to celebrate the opening of the multimedia exhibition 'Hollywood Costume,' October 1, 2014 at the historic Wilshire May Company Building, the future location of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, in Los Angeles, California. 'Hollywood Costume' runs from October 2 to March 2 and features over 100 famous cinematic costumes, including the original red ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy's blue and white gingham pinafore dress. AFP PHOTO / Robyn Beck (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 06: Actors Diane Kruger (L) and Joshua Jackson attend premiere of SHOWTIME drama 'The Affair' held at North River Lobster Company on October 6, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Showtime)
BERLIN, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 04: Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson attend the IFA 2014 Consumer Technology Trade Fair Opening Gala at Messe Berlin on September 4, 2014 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Clemens Bilan/Getty Images)
CULVER CITY, CA - JANUARY 28: Actors Diane Kruger (L) and Joshua Jackson attend Hollywood Stands Up To Cancer Event with contributors American Cancer Society and Bristol Myers Squibb hosted by Jim Toth and Reese Witherspoon and the Entertainment Industry Foundation on Tuesday, January 28, 2014 in Culver City, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Entertainment Industry Foundation)
Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson arrive at the Costume Institute Benefit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art May 5, 2014 in New York. AFP PHOTO/Timothy A. CLARY (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - MAY 05: Joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger attend the 'Charles James: Beyond Fashion' Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 24: Actors Joshua Jackson (L) and Diane Kruger arrive at Autism Speaks' Blue Jean Ball at Boulevard 3 on October 24, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 02: Actors Diane Kruger (L) and Joshua Jackson attend the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter on March 2, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
VENICE, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 02: Actors Joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger (R) wearing a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch attend a gala dinner hosted by Jaeger-LeCoultre celebrating its 180th Anniversary at Teatro La Fenice during the 70th Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2013 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images for Jaeger-LeCoultre)
LOS ANGELES, CA - JULY 08: Actors Diane Kruger (L) and Joshua Jackson arrive at the series premiere of FX's 'The Bridge' at the Directors Guild of America on July 8, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 19: Actors Diane Kruger (L) and Joshua Jackson attend the premiere of Open Road Films 'The Host' at ArcLight Cinemas Cinerama Dome on March 19, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - JULY 08: Actors Diane Kruger (L) and Joshua Jackson arrive at the series premiere of FX's 'The Bridge' at the Directors Guild of America on July 8, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 19: Actors Diane Kruger (L) and Joshua Jackson attend the premiere of Open Road Films 'The Host' at ArcLight Cinemas Cinerama Dome on March 19, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - FEBRUARY 24: Actress Diane Kruger(L) and actor Joshua Jackson arrive at the 2013 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Sunset Tower on February 24, 2013 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - SEPTEMBER 11: Actors Diane Kruger (L) and Joshua Jackson arrive at the 'Inescapable' Premiere during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall on September 11, 2012 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
PARIS, FRANCE - JULY 03: Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson attend the Chanel Haute-Couture show as part of Paris Fashion Week Fall / Winter 2012/13 at the Grand Palais on July 3, 2012 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
More from AOL.com: Katy Perry releases teaser video for Olympics anthem 'Rise' Rita Ora to host VH1's 'America's Next Top Model' EXCLUSIVE: Vanessa Hudgens talks new series 'Powerless' and whether she'll ever do another musical | The 40-year-old actress looked skinnier than usual in a recent Instagram photo, leading many to believe she’s not taking the breakup well. | 65.592593 | 0.851852 | 7.148148 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2016/03/10/heather-watson-turns-to-mum-for-change-in-fortunes/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808110208id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/tennis/2016/03/10/heather-watson-turns-to-mum-for-change-in-fortunes/ | Heather Watson turns to mum for change in fortunes | 20160808110208 | Between 2012 and 2015, Watson was so sensitive about her parents attending matches that she asked them to stay away from Wimbledon in case they jinxed her. Now she has not only signed up her mum for another couple of tournaments, but has also asked her father Ian to join the bandwagon in April.
“Mum will be with me in Indian Wells and also Miami,” Watson explained. “I’ve also got my dad coming with me to Poland after that, so the parents are in demand. It’s early days, but for the next month we’re pretty much sorted. I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. They’ve been around the game for a long time.”
The sense of being on a roll again must be a welcome one, for Watson has endured a rocky spell since last year’s Wimbledon. The ghost of her near-miss against Serena Williams appeared to haunt her, as she lost more matches than she won over the rest of 2015, and saw her reign as British No. 1 ended by Johanna Konta. | How do you turn around a poor sequence of results? | 19 | 0.363636 | 0.363636 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/nasa-watchdog-criticizes-handling-of-probe-into-failed-2015-spacex-rocket-launch-1467157561 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808121314id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/nasa-watchdog-criticizes-handling-of-probe-into-failed-2015-spacex-rocket-launch-1467157561? | NASA Watchdog Criticizes Handling of Probe Into Failed 2015 SpaceX Rocket Launch | 20160808121314 | NASA failed to follow its general policies and opened the door to “questions about inherent conflicts of interest” by allowing Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to lead the main investigation into a failed 2015 rocket launch by the company, according to the agency’s inspector general.
A report issued Tuesday by Paul Martin, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s internal watchdog, faults agency officials for... | NASA failed to follow its own policies and opened the door to “questions about inherent conflicts of interest” by allowing Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to lead the primary probe of a failed 2015 company rocket launch, according to the agency’s inspector general. | 1.553191 | 0.93617 | 13.829787 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/of-trumpkins-and-brexiteers-1467069555 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808121537id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/of-trumpkins-and-brexiteers-1467069555 | Of Trumpkins and Brexiteers | 20160808121537 | Ever since the U.K. voted Thursday to leave the European Union, there’s been no end of commentary, favorable and invidious, comparing the Leave campaign to the anti-establishment wave that swept the GOP this spring. In one respect the comparison is apt. Both the Trumpkins and the Brexiteers aimed their fire at a toothless opponent—and the wrong one to boot.
I lived in Brussels at the turn of the century and wrote about European politics for this newspaper. That the EU can be meddlesome, unhelpful, self-important and... | Bret Stephens writes of Trumpkins and Brexiteers: Get what you thought you wanted. Get the opposite of what you really want. | 4.333333 | 0.333333 | 0.416667 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/vannie-higgins-runner-article-1.848598 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808153011id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/archives/news/vannie-higgins-runner-article-1.848598 | VANNIE HIGGINS THE RUNNER | 20160808153011 | IF THERE WAS one thing he insisted upon, it was proper respect in court. It isnt Vannie, he shouted at the start of his Brooklyn booze smuggling trial in January 1932. Its Charles R. Mr. Charles R. That was okay with the judge. And so rum runner Vannie Higgins was addressed as Mr. Charles R. Higgins throughout the proceedings, which ended in acquittal for him and most of the police force of Long Beach, L.
I. Six months later, when he was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, his widow thoughtfully left his gangland nickname off his tombstone. But to his pals there and thereafter he was always just plain Vannie. FROM HIS first arrest at age 17, for assault, to his final police grilling on suspicion of murder, Vannie Higgins never stayed in jail longer than it took for his lawyer to pony up bail or get a writ of habeas corpus. Eight times he was pulled in for one homicide or another, and one phone call later his lawyer would show and Vannie would walk. After he was dead, nobody could recall how he got away with it so often. He was the secretive sort - the only thing he ever revealed about himself was that he had once done a hitch in the Navy - but he was known to be pals with the likes of Frankie Yale, Legs Diamond and Owney Madden, all very big-timers in the New York underworld of the late 1920s, and the general feeling was that he was the direct inheritor of the King of the Rum Runners throne left vacant after Big Bill Dwyer went to federal prison in 1927. Another friend was one Joseph Wilson, who happened to be the warden of the Great Meadow state prison at Comstock. In fact, Higgins spent his next-to-last-night on Earth visiting Wilson at the prison, which prompted Gov. Franklin Roosevelt to call for a probe of the warden's behavior. Just a social call, Wilson insisted. That was three years after the public first started hearing about Vannie Higgins. One night in 1929 there was a shooting spree at a tavern in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. Some 50 shots were fired, and one of them killed a Daniel Maloney, who was not only Higgins' personal bodyguard but also a moonlighting New York policeman. That raised some eyebrows. At the time, Higgins was described as the owner of several trucks and taxicabs, not to mention a boat that the Coast Guard called the fastest rum runner on the Eastern Seaboard. Actually, Higgins explained, he was just a simple lobster fisherman by trade. Then, in May 1931, Higgins and some pals went to the Blossom Health Club on W. 77th St. in Manhattan, which was owned by the brother of the man who had been tried and acquitted in the 1928 murder of gambler Arnold Rothstein. An hour or so later, Higgins showed up at the hospital with four knife wounds. He declined to name his attacker, but it was widely believed that a petty hood named Bob Benson was the man who had cut him. Cops, though, never got a chance to ask Benson about it, because shortly after that he was shot to death outside a Little Italy restaurant. Higgins, coincidentally enough, was dining inside at the time. Later that year, federal agents arrested Higgins on a Long Beach sandbar and charged him with smuggling bootleg hootch. Arrested with him were Long Beach Police Chief Morris Grossman and eight more members of Long Beach's finest. The government said they faithfully stood guard as Higgins and a crew unloaded the booze. ONE WITNESS in Brooklyn Federal Court, where Vannie Higigns insisted that lawyers call him mister, was Charles von Elm, a policeman from the neighboring village of Hempstead who also had been at the scene in Long Beach that night. He admitted accepting cash and liquor from Higgins but insisted it wasn't graft because he was off duty at the time. Other witnesses testified that Higgins had moved ashore at least $10 million worth of whisky over a four-month period. Somehow Higgins and the policemen went free. In May, Higgins was arrested again, by the Coast Guard, as he bobbed in his cruiser off Asbury Park, N.
J., near a schooner carrying $180,000 worth of whisky. He'd only been lobstering, he insisted, and he went free one more time. But his luck was about to run out. MR. CHARLES R. HIGGINS' charmed life was brought to an end on Sunday morning the 19th of June 1932, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, as he left the Knights of Columbus building on Prospect Park West with his mother, his wife and his 7-year-old daughter, who had just performed in the Retta Dancing Academy's graduation recital. Higgins' wife claimed he'd been ambushed by four men in a passing black sedan. Police contended otherwise, that he'd stepped into a parked car for a brief discussion with someone and been shot inside the vehicle. In any case, Higgins had four slugs in him. At Methodist Episcopal Hospital, cops asked the dying man who had shot him. "Lousy rats," he replied, in the best gangland tradition. The grapevine had it that Vannie had lost all his money and sold all his cars and boats, even his seaplane, in a series of bungled bootlegging deals. His murder, it was said, was the result of his attempt to recoup by hijacking some of a Long Island gang's whisky shipments. Police pulled in the usual suspects, questioned them and turned them loose. EIGHT YEARS later, when Brooklyn District Attorney William O'Dwyer spectacularly blew the lid off the criminal assassination squad called Murder Inc., O'Dwyer let it be known that Vannie Higgins had been one of the group's victims. He offered no further details. For the record, though, a lot of old homicides were immediately solved and O'Dwyer went on to become mayor of the city on the strength of his crimebusting record. By that time, Higgins was just another footnote in the bloody history of the Prohibition era. Notes: BIG TOWN BIOGRAPHY: Lives and Times of the Century's Classic New Yorkers | IF THERE WAS one thing he insisted upon, it was proper respect in court. It isnt Vannie, he shouted at the start of his Brooklyn booze smuggling trial in January 1932. Its Charles R. Mr. Charles R.
That was okay with the judge. And so rum runner Vannie Higgins was addressed as Mr. Charles R. Higgins throughout the proceedings, which ended in acquittal for him and most of the police force of Long Beach, L.I. | 14.192771 | 0.975904 | 39.53012 | low | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/08/04/power-sheet-roger-ailes-exit-shows-imbalance-of-punishment/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808180004id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/08/04/power-sheet-roger-ailes-exit-shows-imbalance-of-punishment/ | Power Sheet: Roger Ailes' Exit Shows Imbalance of Punishment | 20160808180004 | Editor-at-Large Jennifer Reingold (@jennrein) is filling in for Geoff Colvin this week.
On Aug. 3, Saatchi & Saatchi chairman Kevin Roberts announced he was retiring earlier than planned for remarks he made to Business Insider about women, including the contention that the diversity debate is “all over,” and that many women opt out of leadership roles rather than being passed over for them.
But his boss, Maurice Levy, head of Saatchi & Saatchi’s corporate parent, Publicis, said something similar in an interview at the 4A’s Transformation conference in March. Levy referred to the allegations of discrimination in a suit filed against the head of a rival agency, JWT—which include charges that the CEO joked in public about raping a female executive—as an aberration in the advertising industry. (JWT’s CEO, Gustavo Martinez, resigned but has denied any harassment.) Levy was criticized and later “clarified” his comments, but never had to fall on his sword as Roberts apparently did.
Then there is Roger Ailes, former head of Fox News, whose alleged serial sexual harassment of women was seemingly tolerated for decades, until former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson sued him.
I am not comparing Ailes to Roberts or Levy in terms of behavior—what Ailes is accused of is despicable, whereas Roberts and Levy are guilty only of tin-eared remarks. But I bring these three men together to point out that business still has no consistent idea how to deal with diversity issues.
How is it that Ailes’ alleged actions were apparently never even investigated by Fox, even after many of them were brought to light in Gabriel Sherman’s 2014 book, The Loudest Voice in the Room? It took a high-profile lawsuit, a seemingly belated corporate investigation—The New York Times and other publications have cited sources asserting 20 or more women have told investigators that Ailes behaved inappropriately with them—and weeks of bad press before the Fox News chief was pushed out—with some $40 million in severance. (Ailes has denied misconduct.)
Compare that process to the rapid departure of a longtime ad agency CEO for making comments about diversity. And here’s the tricky part. Part of what got Roberts in trouble is a statement that many women have made themselves. I’m referring to Roberts’ view that women’s ambitions often don’t consist solely of a desire to make it further up the hierarchy. (I certainly disagree with Roberts’ view that what he called “the fucking [diversity] debate is all over.” I found that offensive, particularly coming from a man.)
What I have trouble with is the arbitrary nature of the punishment. Ailes seemingly engages in a pattern of offensive behavior for decades and leaves only after a struggle (and with $40 million); a few remarks seemed to cost Roberts his job. (Indeed, his swift departure seemed as much a reaction to Levy’s previous misstep as to Roberts’ current one.)
We need to root out deep-seated discrimination against woman at its core. People who do the things that Ailes is accused of have no place in business (or anywhere else, for that matter). But we also need to have open discussions about how to address the lack of diversity in business. That means listening to a wide range of opinions—not all of which we may agree with.
You can share Power Sheet with friends and followers here. | Power Sheet - August 4, 2016 | 95.142857 | 0.571429 | 0.857143 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/opinion/sunday/could-women-be-trusted-with-their-own-pregnancy-tests.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160808202920id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/31/opinion/sunday/could-women-be-trusted-with-their-own-pregnancy-tests.html?hpw&rref=sunday-review&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0 | Could Women Be Trusted With Their Own Pregnancy Tests? | 20160808202920 | Happily, her work on the application had required that she meet with Mr. Sturtevant. When he asked her out for drinks at the Barclay Hotel bar in Midtown Manhattan, she wore a little navy dress from Ohrbach’s, with her hair in a bun. After a few martinis, she walked him back to her apartment.
A few months later, they were living together and running their own advertising consultancy. The business partners were — to use the language of the time — living in sin. They did their best to hide the scandalous arrangement from clients. The subterfuge included two phone lines in their tiny apartment: Ms. Crane’s line went to her side of the sofa bed and Mr. Sturtevant’s to his. One night, Ms. Crane remembers, she was chatting with a client who decided he wanted to bring Mr. Sturtevant into the conversation, and the phone on the other side of the bed began ringing. She desperately tried to muffle her receiver. Afterward, she and Mr. Sturtevant “couldn’t stop laughing.”
In 1970, as Organon prepared to introduce a home pregnancy test in Canada, the company hired the partners to oversee the process. A year later, the Predictor test appeared with the slogan “Every woman has the right to know whether or not she is pregnant,” and Ms. Crane had the satisfaction of seeing the test on store shelves in Montreal.
But it stirred up a lot of debate. “I was shocked, frankly,” she said, especially by the fears that the product unleashed in the United States. When a mail-order New York firm tried to sell Organon test kits to American consumers in 1971, it faced opposition from the United States Public Health Service. In 1973, a New Jersey drugstore bought kits made by the drug company Roche and offered fast and private tests to their customers, and though the technology was similar to that available in medical clinics, the state medical examiner questioned the legality of the service.
Why so much opposition? Some regulators worried that “frightened 13-year-olds” would be the main users of the test kits. But after the product did become available in the United States in 1977, it appealed instead to college-age and married women — many of whom desperately hoped for children.
Even so, the Texas Medical Association warned that women who used a home test might neglect prenatal care. An article in this newspaper in 1978 quoted a doctor who said customers “have a hard time following even relatively simple instructions,” and questioned their ability to accurately administer home tests. The next year, an article in The Indiana Evening Gazette in Pennsylvania made almost the same claim: Women use the products “in a state of emotional anxiety” that prevents them from following “the simplest instructions.”
The tale of the home pregnancy test is not unique. Breakthroughs that give patients control over their bodies are often resisted. Again and again, the same questions come up: Are patients smart enough? Can they handle bad news? And do they have the right to private information about their bodies?
When home H.I.V. tests were being developed in the 1980s, they inspired the same kind of fears as the pregnancy test — including unfounded dread that if people learned bad news alone at home, many of them would kill themselves. The Food and Drug Administration approved the first home H.I.V. testing kit only in 1996. Customers would take a blood sample at home, mail it to a lab and hear results over the phone, often from a counselor. The first rapid, truly private H.I.V. home test didn’t reach drugstores until 2012.
Meanwhile, in most areas of the United States, women still need permission from a doctor to buy birth control pills, even though they are arguably safer than a lot of other drugs now sold over the counter and there are very few health risks involved. It’s true that some women with conditions like liver disease, breast cancer and hypertension may be at risk of developing complications from the pill, but labels can warn them against using it. We can trust women to figure this out.
Indeed, dozens of other countries make birth-control medications available to women without a prescription. According to a recent Reason-Rupe poll, 70 percent of Americans believe that we should follow their example.
“I think that the medical profession grossly underrates human abilities,” said Eric Topol, a cardiologist and professor at Scripps Research Institute. “Doctors often don’t feel consumers have the wherewithal to make a diagnosis, even if they’re using validated strategies like the pregnancy test.” Numerous studies have shown that when a test is reliable, people prefer to use it at home rather than trek to a doctor’s office, and patients can be quite skilled at doing this, he said.
Dr. Topol encourages his own patients to use their smartphones to keep track of their heart rate, blood pressure and glucose levels, and even to do electrocardiograms to detect heart arrhythmias at home. Not all patients want to monitor themselves, but those who do can often uncover problems that would be invisible to their doctors. “The patients know what’s going on in their life, and can put the information into context,” he said.
Smartphone cameras can detect problems like jaundice, ear infections and melanomas. Some of these tools are already performing as well as doctors when it comes to making the right diagnostic calls — and every year, the tools get better.
Consumers do need to be protected from false advertising and faulty devices. But they don’t need or want to be protected from accurate information about their own bodies. The popularity of these products proves this.
Despite all the fear-mongering about home pregnancy tests, American women embraced them. By 1978 home testing was a $40 million market, and today it no longer seems the least bit controversial.
What happened to Margaret Crane? If her life were a typical romantic comedy, she would have married Ira Sturtevant and used her own invention to find out that she was going to have his baby. But she invented her own kind of Hollywood ending. She and Mr. Sturtevant lived happily for 41 years in a series of enviable Manhattan apartments — without ever marrying or having children — until his death in 2008. “I was so lucky,” Ms. Crane said, summing it up.
In 2012, I became part of her story when I wrote a short article for The New York Times Magazine about the history of home pregnancy testing, and didn’t mention Ms. Crane. At that point, she had yet to claim her due as a pioneer, and even some of her friends had no idea of the role she had played.
“Frankly, your story in The New York Times made me sit up pretty straight,” she told me. She realized that if she stayed silent, her memories might be lost forever. So she dug the original Predictor prototype out of a closet and auctioned it off as the first of its kind; its purchase by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History attracted a flurry of attention.
Now, because the Smithsonian sale helped to establish her as a groundbreaking American inventor, “people come up to me, women and a surprising number of men, to thank me,” Ms. Crane said. “I’m very pleased about that.” | Unmarried teenagers would jump off bridges, and other crazy reasons at-home kits weren’t approved until the late 1970s. | 61.913043 | 0.652174 | 0.73913 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/christmas-videos/10527902/Christmas-leftovers-how-to-create-a-Spanish-tortilla-from-leftover-roast-potatoes.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160809031425id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/topics/christmas/christmas-videos/10527902/Christmas-leftovers-how-to-create-a-Spanish-tortilla-from-leftover-roast-potatoes.html | Christmas leftovers: how to create a Spanish tortilla from leftover roast potatoes | 20160809031425 | 2) Add the onions to the potatoes and allow to cool. Then add the eggs and mix.
3) Heat a small deep 6-8 inch frying pan with a good splash of light olive oil.
4) When the oil begins to smoke, pour the egg mixture into the pan. Be careful, it may spit.
5) As the mixture enters the pan, swivel it from side to side using the handle so the egg doesn’t stick. You should see the egg moving independently from the pan itself. Turn the heat down low, to stop it burning.
6) Cook for 4-5 minutes. Place your finger in the middle and feel where the egg is cooked too. When it is cooked halfway through it is ready to turn.
7) So this is the fun bit. Place a plate on top of the tortilla and flip onto the plate.
8) Return the pan to the heat. Scrape off any bits that may have stuck and add a little more oil. When hot, slide the tortilla back into the pan, raw side down. Shake from side to side again to make sure its not stuck. Turn the heat down.
9) Using a wooden spoon, tuck the rough edges underneath to make them rounded. Cook for a further 5 minutes. Slide onto a plate and allow to cool. | Watch how to repurpose your leftover roast potatoes into a spanish tortilla with chef Tom Hunt | 15.764706 | 0.411765 | 0.411765 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/yorkshire/york/articles/My-York-our-experts-favourite-places/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160809032349id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/yorkshire/york/articles/My-York-our-experts-favourite-places/ | My York: our expert's favourite places | 20160809032349 | Lunch at Grape Lane’s ‘El Piano’ (01904 10676; el-piano.com) is delicious and different. It’s Arab-Spanish vegan food; the ‘tinas’, vegetables rolled in rice flour and fried, are particularly good. Then it’s a short stroll to the grand dame herself, York Minster (yorkminster.org), to see the restored panels from John Thornton’s majestic Great East Window in the Orb exhibition; if you’re lucky you might catch a recital or concert rehearsal while you’re there.
A late afternoon stroll along the banks of the Ouse always gives a fresh perspective on the city (yorkshirewalks.org/diary11/maps/map383.htm). Then it’s evening drinks at either The Blue Bell (01904 654904), 53 Fossgate, for authentic ales and a fire, or a cocktail in the Art Deco elegance of Biltmore Bar & Grill (01904 610075; thebiltmorebarandgrill.com) on Swinegate. I follow this with dinner at Il Paradiso Del Cibo (01904 611444; ilparadisodelcibo.com) on Walmgate. The Sardinian treats like cozze e vongole, (mussels and clams cooked in wine with chilli and garlic), are excellent and inexpensive.
Where I tell my friends to stay
For a treat, it’s Gray’s Court (01904 612613, grayscourtyork.com). Flanked by York Minster to one side and an acre of garden on the other, this historic house hotel has a wood-panelled long gallery and grand formal rooms; other features include a collection of rare painted glass by Henry Gyles, and handsome limestone or marble fireplaces. Carpets are deep, wallpapers expensive, furniture period — and there are Clarins toiletries in the bathrooms. Its new restaurant Duel is excellent, and breakfasting in the garden with birdsong and the sound of the Minster’s bells is unforgettable. Doubles from £152 a night.
A cheaper option is The Bloomsbury b&b (01904 634031; bloomsburyhotel.co.uk), a lovely family-run guesthouse in the fashionable Clifton area. Modern amenities fit well with Victorian period features. Stay in the Orchid room with its bold wallpapers and elegant décor. Steve’s wonder breakfasts keep you full all day. Doubles from £70.
York’s ring of defensive walls is the longest and best preserved in England and walking around its elevated two and a half miles always provides an illuminating view of the city’s architectural history. Start at any point and follow the signs along this elevated limestone ribbon, stopping at the various museums or watering holes en route (try the Lamb & Lion Inn, lambandlionyork.com). Micklegate Bar is the most impressive and atmospheric of the city’s ancient gateways; its battlements were once adorned with the heads of celebrity traitors like William Wallace. Make time for the tiny Richard III museum (richardiiimuseum.co.uk), which has enjoying a renaissance since the remains of this son of York were found in a Leicester car park.
I love Meltons (01904 634341; meltonsrestaurant.co.uk) for relaxed but affordable fine dining with inventive starters like home-smoked ox tongue with kohlrabi remoulade and interesting ways with roast meats. Cooking is overseen by Michael Hjort, a veteran of Le Gavroche.
The Hairy Fig on Fossgate (01904 677074; thehairyfig.co.uk) is a favourite cheaper choice, though it only opens for lunch and you have to book ahead. The food is prepared in the world’s smallest kitchen and dishes are served in a cosy backroom (or on the lawns of the Merchant Adventurer’s Hall on a sunny day), and include smoked eel with potato, beetroot and horseradish and a ‘Yorkshire Platter’ of York ham, pork pies, chutneys and show-stopping local cheeses.
Take my advice and …
Use Park & Ride. Central York is largely free from traffic and you can cross it on foot in about 20 minutes, making it an ideal destination to visit by public transport. Leave the car in one of the five free and secure Park & Ride spots just outside the city. Locals swear by the regular 10-minute buses (£2.50 return/£0.60 for concessions) which will whip you into town and back. Better still; arrive by train and hire a bike at the station (cycle-heaven.co.uk). See itravelyork.info for cycle-friendly routes.
I have a huge soft spot for Betty’s tea rooms in St Helen’s Square (bettys.co.uk). It’s always excellent, with smart waiting staff, fine crockery, outrageously good cakes and a charming Art Deco interior. Try the signature Fat Rascal cake.
The York Tap (01904 659009; yorktap.com), a refurbished platform pub in York station, has vast windows, a big glass Victorian ceiling dome, wood panelling and sanded floors, which create an airy but warm feel. The 32 beers are top quality and expertly served.
For a touch of theatrical York atmosphere, the 500 year-old Golden Fleece (01904 625171;thegoldenfleeceyork.co.uk) has skew-whiff door frames, uneven floors and bulging walls — as well as excellent local beers.
The panorama from the top of York Minster’s 233ft Central Tower. On the way up the 275 steps enjoy the elaborate stonemasonry, and take in the pinnacles, buttresses and gargoyles. The view over the burnt umber rooftops, ancient butter-coloured churches and dark snickelways extends to the green humpback of the Yorkshire Wolds and to the North York Moors.
I love the drama and storytelling of the Original Ghost Walk of York (01904 764222; theoriginalghostwalkofyork.co.uk), adults £5, children £3. It meets at The King’s Arms pub on the river, so you always start in high spirits. I follow this with a curry at Mumbai Lounge (01904 654155; mumbailoungeyork.co.uk) and perhaps one of the many eclectic shows at York’s Grand Opera House (atgtickets.com).
What I’ll be doing this year ...
I never miss the York Book Fair, this year on September 20 and 21, for the wonderful collection of rare and out-of-print antiquarian books, maps and collectables (yorkbookfair.com). This year it coincides with the brilliant York Food & Drink Festival from September 20-29 (yorkfoodfestival.com), showcasing the best of the area’s produce.
York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling (Oxford World’s Classics, £8.99) features 22 of the medieval mystery plays that form the York Cycle. | Our resident York expert shares tips and recommendations on his favourite spots in this ancient city | 74.875 | 0.5625 | 0.5625 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/netanyahu-supports-idfs-full-fair-probe-1464294178 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160809080315id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/netanyahu-supports-idfs-full-fair-probe-1464294178 | Netanyahu Supports IDF’s Full, Fair Probe | 20160809080315 | Bret Stephens’s column “ Netanyahu Against the Generals” (Global View, May 24) raises important points about civilian oversight of the military and the essence of Israel’s democracy.
However, the description that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered “expressions of support” to the family of Elor Azariah, a soldier who shot and killed a Palestinian who was wounded after he had stabbed another soldier, may leave readers with the... | Benjamin Netanyahu, Bret Stephens, investigation of shooting of surrendered Palestinian terrorist, IDF, Elor Azariah, Israel, Palestine | 3.681818 | 0.727273 | 1.181818 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/04/theresa-may-pulled-in-21000-a-day-in-donations-to-her-successful/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160809113220id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/2016/08/04/theresa-may-pulled-in-21000-a-day-in-donations-to-her-successful/ | Theresa May drawn into David Cameron honours row after she accepted £35,000 from Tory donors whose names were taken off list | 20160809113220 | The donations continued to come in until July 13, two days after main rival Andrea Leadsom, now the Environment secretary, withdrew from the contest.
More than half of the money was handed to her campaign after Liam Fox and Stephen Crabb dropped out of the race on July 5.
The largest donation - £30,000 – came from Michael Davis, while Lord Lupton - the party's millionaire co-treasurer - and a firm called Sunmark donated £25,000 each to her campaign.
A source close to Mrs May said that any additional cash will go into Tory party coffers, as agreed under rules set out by its ruling 1922 committee of MPs.
The source said: “Surplus money raised but not spent will be donated to Conservative Campaign headquarters, as per the rules set out by the 1922 committee.”
In contrast none of Mrs May’s rivals Mrs Leadsom, Michael Gove, Mr Crabb or Dr Fox declared any donations to her campaign.
Tory MPs such as Steve Baker and Tim Loughton declared “unremunerated” positions on the board of Mrs Leadsom’s company which ran her campaign, Leadsom 4 Leader Ltd.
Companies House records show both MPs were appointed on July 6 and quit the board on July 12.
Leadsom 4 Leader Ltd is in existence despite Mrs Leadsom withdrawing from the leadership contest and has one director William Norton, who serves as its secretary. | Two Tory millionaire donors whose names were taken off David Cameron’ | 24.181818 | 0.363636 | 0.363636 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/3980421/hiroshima-nagasaki-operations-orders/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160809132615id_/http://time.com:80/3980421/hiroshima-nagasaki-operations-orders/ | See the Original Atomic Bombing Orders for Hiroshima and Nagasaki | 20160809132615 | The piece of paper seen above (hover over to zoom; on mobile, click to zoom) was given to Jacob Beser on Aug. 8, 1945. The next day, the electronics specialist boarded a plane bound for Nagasaki. His job was to make sure no radio waves interfered with the mechanisms of the flight’s most important passenger: an atomic bomb. Just days before, Beser had fulfilled the same mission on board the Enola Gay on its trip to Hiroshima; the operations order for that flight is below.
Many years later, Beser—the only man to fly both atomic-bomb missions—met Kenneth Rendell, the founder and director of the Museum of World War II in Natick, Mass., whose collection includes Beser’s operations orders. Both bear the faint, handwritten notes where Beser marked which document belonged to which city.
“[These documents] are a real window into what went on,” Rendell tells TIME. The mentions of prayer, of weather ships going out early to see how the cloud cover was, of what time participants had to wake up (“out of sacks”)—these details bring a human touch to a series of events that forever changed the world. “You get a sense of a snapshot of what was happening with these people,” he says. | These were the real military documents that changed the world 70 years ago | 19.230769 | 0.692308 | 1.153846 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/opinion/the-stranger-things-school-of-parenting.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160809164139id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/08/06/opinion/the-stranger-things-school-of-parenting.html | The ‘Stranger Things’ School of Parenting | 20160809164139 | When the middle-schoolers on the Netflix show “Stranger Things” ride their bikes through the woods around their small town, it’s a clear nod to “E.T.” But those scenes are also reminders of something else: unsupervised childhood.
Set in 1983, “Stranger Things” — spoilers follow — begins with the disappearance of 12-year-old Will Byers and the appearance of a mysterious young girl, Eleven. Will’s friends Mike, Lucas and Dustin team up with Eleven (El for short) to find him and fight a monster that puts the whole town at risk.
In the process, the boys don’t just go on unsupervised bike trips. They also manage to hide El in Mike’s basement for days without his parents finding out. Though the parents are loving and generally responsible, this is the ’80s, and they just aren’t watching their son that closely.
There is only one character who could be called a helicopter parent, and he’s the nightmarish Dr. Martin Brenner, the scientist who raised El. He kept her hidden deep within his lab and forced her to take part in sometimes violent experiments to hone her supernatural powers. After her escape, he sends a small army of G-men to search for her.
The boys have their problems, too. Will disappears after he bikes home from Mike’s house and finds his own home empty. But the kids also manage to help save their town, thanks to El’s special powers.
Permissiveness has always been a luxury — parents in violent neighborhoods have good reason to keep their kids close. And lack of supervision can be frightening — when Will came home that fateful night, he needed his mom.
Still, “Stranger Things” is a reminder of a kind of unstructured childhood wandering that — because of all the cellphones, the fear of child molesters, a move toward more involved parenting or a combination of all three — seems less possible than it once was.
The show’s references to beloved films of the ’80s have been much remarked upon, but “Stranger Things” also calls to mind all those books and TV shows — from “The Chronicles of Narnia” to “Muppet Babies” — where parents are either absent or pushed into the background.
These stories let children imagine breaking the rules, but they also allow them to picture themselves solving mysteries or hunting down monsters all on their own. Often it’s only when the parents aren’t watching that a child can become a hero.
America may be especially ripe for such stories just now. As mass shootings and terrorist attacks dominate the news — and as Donald Trump makes dire pronouncements about crime and crises — the world can seem more dangerous than ever. And yet from the free-range kids movement to parenting books that promote more freedom, there’s a dawning acknowledgment that something is lost when parents try too hard to protect their children. A show like “Stranger Things” doesn’t tell us that the world is safe, because it isn’t, but it’s a reminder that bravery needs its own space to grow. | Remembering the days when kids were free to roam. | 59.9 | 0.7 | 0.7 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/mara-abbotts-beautiful-ride-in-rio-1470615782 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160810053534id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/mara-abbotts-beautiful-ride-in-rio-1470615782 | Mara Abbott’s Beautiful Ride in Rio | 20160810053534 | Mara Abbott kept pedaling her bicycle because, as she would say later, it was the only thing that made sense.
The Olympic women’s cycling road race in Rio on Sunday had been touted as a madcap race—possibly too madcap—and it had been a madcap race, the world’s best riders falling off, one by one, as a grueling course made a final ascent into the jungle. The U.S. team—Abbott, Evelyn Stevens, Megan Guarnier and Kristin Armstrong—was an experienced outfit with multiple contenders, but it was Abbott, a 30-year-old from Boulder, Colo., Stevens called “the best climber in the world,” who was the strongest late in the race, fluttering her legs at the front of the pack.
Abbott was now Team USA’s best shot. She and the Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten were the first to reach the top of the climb, and the pair began a plunging descent toward the beachside finish in Copacabana.
On the downhill, with a gold medal on the line, van Vleuten began to escape. “I wasn’t comfortable holding her wheel,” Abbott said. “I had to back off and go my own pace.”
A day before, the same descent had produced a crash that took out the leaders of the men’s race. Suddenly, it happened again. On a turn, van Vleuten’s brakes locked up and her front wheel hit a curbstone, flipping her and the bike off the road, her body falling limp.
It was a terrifying wreck.
Abbott said that when she began racing her bike in college, a teammate had crashed and separated her shoulder, and it had shaken her. “Someone told me, ‘You’ll get used to it,’” she said. “And I was like, ‘I’ll never get used to it.’ But you do. And you have to hope that they’re going to be OK, but we’ve all crashed and gotten injured, and somehow the injuries heal. It’s really scary to think that as an athlete you can maintain that focus—you can see something like that and just refocus—but that is something crazy about cycling.”
Shocking things happen, she said.
Abbott would pass van Vleuten and her bike on the side of the road, so fast it was hard to register. Suddenly she was at the front of the race, heading for Copacabana, and potentially, gold—if she could stay away from a trio of riders chasing furiously behind her.
She assumed nothing. “There is no result yet,” she said. “The thing about cycling is, you never know until you finish what it’s going to be. You can’t say at the base of the climb, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got 45 seconds, I’ve got this.’ Because you might not.”
“You just keep going,” she continued. “That’s what you’ve been trained to do. There is nothing else that makes sense.”
So Abbott pedaled. She went as hard and fast as she could. Turning yourself inside out, is how cyclists describe it. On the beach, the crowd thickened around video screens, the announcers dictating the action with gusto. A TV helicopter could be heard in the distance, a signal that Abbott and her chasers were approaching.
There were only a few miles left.
In cycling, one is often a condemned number. A racer on his or her own is usually no match for a group of riders working together, who can share the effort, take hiding from the wind and gasp of breath of relief. Trailing Abbott were three talented racers: Sweden’s Emma Johansson, Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini and Anna van der Breggen of the Netherlands, the latter of whom had seen her teammate, van Vleuten, crumpled on the road.
“Win it for Annemiek,” van der Breggen said Johansson told her.
This was what was coming for Abbott: three riders, raw emotion, and the laws of aerodynamics. Not exactly a fair fight.
Abbott’s lead trickled down. Thirty-five seconds. Thirty. Twenty.
Abbott pushed on. She turned herself inside out, over and over. She’d been so thrilled to be on this gifted United States team with Stevens, Guarnier, and especially Armstrong, a two-time Olympic champion in the time trial who, despite a third shot at time trial gold this Wednesday, pushed herself to the limit helping out her road race teammates.
“She’s already got two gold medals and as much as she gave to this race?” Abbott said with wonderment. “I can’t say enough for the experience of being able to ride with her.”
Women’s bike racing is a tough sport where even the best professionals can be challenged to make a living of it. Sponsors and teams come and go, and in the U.S., races are seldom shown on TV. Parents, siblings and spouses follow their loved ones on fickle Internet streams. Media attention is scant. Abbott has won the Giro Rosa two times, in 2010 and 2013—the Giro Rosa, the freakin’ premier women’s stage race in the world. But unless you’re a bike lunatic, you probably didn’t know any of that.
Now Abbott had audiences back in the United States—people who didn’t know a damn thing about bike racing—on their feet, screaming at their televisions.
The TV helicopter dramatically appeared above the beach. Abbott was tantalizingly close, but fading. Her lead kept coming down. Ten seconds. Seven seconds.
Anna van der Breggen won the Olympic gold medal in the women’s cycling road race, a tearful victory taken in the name of her teammate, Annemiek, whom Dutch officials said was now conscious and stable at a local hospital, after suffering a concussion and “three minor fractures in her lumbar spine.” (Van Vleuten Tweeted later that she had some “injuries and fractures” but “will be fine.”) Johansson finished second for silver. Borghini was third for bronze.
Abbott, caught less than 200 meters from the line, finished fourth.
“I knew it was probably going to come right down to the wire,” she said. “I just didn’t know which side of the wire.”
It’s been said many times that cycling is a beautiful sport that can be outrageously cruel. And you could say that happened here, in Rio, first and far more frighteningly, to van Vleuten, and now, to Abbott. Barely minutes after the finish, reporters wanted to ask Abbott how it felt, if she saw her chasers, if she could process what had occurred. It seemed almost rude. Still, Abbott was thoughtful, funny, and most of all, proud of being on this American team. “I was really humbled to be a part of it today,” she said.
Then Abbott’s teammate, Kristin Armstrong, Olympic legend, came up behind her and, without saying anything, wrapped her in a hug. There were tears from both. Mara Abbott had given everything she could possibly give on Sunday, to her team, to her sport and to herself. Nothing further could be asked.
It had been a beautiful ride.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com | Mara Abbott kept pedaling her bicycle because, as she would say later, it was the only thing that made sense. But with a gold medal in sight, the 30-year-old American cyclist was caught less than 200 meters from the finish line. | 29.9375 | 0.958333 | 12.791667 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/falling-rates-create-bond-call-frenzy-1470671759 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160810062025id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/falling-rates-create-bond-call-frenzy-1470671759 | Falling Rates Create Bond-Call Frenzy | 20160810062025 | Bond issuers are heeding the call of tumbling interest rates.
Companies and government agencies are “calling” bonds at the fastest pace in four years, taking advantage of provisions that let them redeem securities under certain circumstances and save money by reissuing at lower rates.
Redemptions hand investors their money back at a time... | Bond issuers are heeding the call of tumbling interest rates, redeeming bonds at the fastest pace in four years to save money by reissuing debt at lower rates. | 2.033333 | 0.9 | 6.566667 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.thepostgame.com/ibtihaj-muhammad-first-american-olympic-hijab | http://web.archive.org/web/20160810161225id_/http://www.thepostgame.com/ibtihaj-muhammad-first-american-olympic-hijab | Ibtihaj Muhammad First U.S. Olympian With Hijab | 20160810161225 | Michael Phelps. Simone Biles. Katie Ledecky. Gabby Douglas. Kerri Walsh-Jennings.
The 30-year-old fencer's name is featured right there with the elite U.S. Olympians in Rio. These names are synonymous with celebrity status, success and inspiration.
But Muhammad's Olympic profile goes beyond her athletic skill. She is the first U.S. Olympian to wear a hijab in competition.
Generations of black children can now unconsciously graft their aspirations. Thank you @BarackObama pic.twitter.com/BbmUTG8oYX
— Ibtihaj Muhammad (@IbtihajMuhammad) July 27, 2016
After meeting with President Obama, the first lady, Stephen Colbert, Ellen DeGeneres and more, Muhammad cemented her status as a public figure and household name.
A three-time All-American at Duke and a five-time world championship medalist, Muhammad tasted her first Olympics on Monday. Taming the hype of her wearing the hijab, Muhammad stayed composed and won her first-round sabre match against Ukranian Olena Kravarska, 15-13.
Muhammad was eliminated in her second-round match against Cecilia Berder of France. But Muhammad will also compete in the team event, which takes place Saturday.
The right-handed sabre specialist is now an icon of perseverance and acceptance. Muhammad, a New Jersey native, has been outspoken against Donald Trump, telling CNN she believes Donald Trump's rhetoric is "very dangerous."
The lifelong American continued: “When these types of comments are made, no one thinks about how they really affect people. I'm African-American. I don't have another home to go to. My family was born here. I was born here. I've grown up in Jersey. All my family’s from Jersey. It's like, well, where do we go?"
Practice during Ramadan be like.. pic.twitter.com/N4KVuz9A1G
— Ibtihaj Muhammad (@IbtihajMuhammad) June 11, 2016
Muhammad hopes her presence in Rio will help mend race relations in the United States, and change the global perception of Muslim women. She says she prays five times every day in Rio in accordance with her religious tradition, and she told Rolling Stone she is immensely proud to be black, female, and Muslim. Muhammad calls it an "honor" to act as a standard bearer to the world for each identity. She is a sports ambassador for the U.S. Department of State's Empowering Women and Girls Through Sport Initiative.
Fans back home will be cheering for Muhammad, as will her fellow teammates in Rio.
Phelps. Biles. Ledecky. Douglas. Walsh-Jennings. Muhammad.
She's one of them -- now and forever. And away from the venues, she's even more than that.
More Olympic Games: -- Carmelo Anthony: Why He's Better Player In Olympics Than NBA -- Ghostbusters, SNL Star Leslie Jones Tweets Her Way To Olympics -- Lilly King Calls Out Russian: 'You've Been Caught For Drug Cheating'
Follow Jack Minton on Twitter @jackminton95.
2016 Olympics, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Ellen DeGeneres, Fencing, hijab, Hillary Clinton, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Michelle Obama, Muslim, Muslim-American, Olympics, Rio Olympics, Team USA, USA Fencing | Ibtihaj Muhammad is the first U.S. Olympian to wear a hijab in competition. | 43.857143 | 1 | 10.571429 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-36985697 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160810184700id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/news/blogs-trending-36985697 | The puppy rescuers of Alexandria | 20160810184700 | "No one can tell you that we are a nation without hope."
Words from a viral Facebook post in praise of Egyptian animal lovers who acted to save a puppy that was trapped under large stone boulders for more than three weeks.
The puppy had reportedly been abandoned to a slow lingering death by its owners. But a group of volunteers banded together to mobilise a rescue mission which hundreds of thousands followed on social media.
The story begins in early July when Mariem Taha, a 36-year-old resident of Egypt's port city Alexandria, began to hear the unsettling sound of whimpering when she was at a cafe on the famous sea front corniche.
"It was very upsetting sound so I asked the cafe owner what it was, " Taha told BBC Trending, "He said that on the previous day some people had a come with a puppy and the puppy had fallen in between the gaps of the of some stone boulders. The people then abandoned the puppy. The whimpering was very upsetting so I decided to go in search of the puppy.
"The first three days I could hear the puppy but I couldn't see her. So I wasn't sure where to throw food for her, and she may have been scared. By the third day, she was familiar with my voice so she appeared in the gaps. I couldn't reach for her but I could feed her. I decided to name her Babsy Rock."
Taha returned daily to feed Babsy Rock but couldn't work out a way to rescue her. So she turned to a Facebook group called 'Save Innocent Souls'. The group was known to be frequented by animal welfare activists. A post requesting aid was met with several people offering to help.
The progress of the rescue was documented on social media and this gallery has been viewed more than 300,000 times online on the photo sharing site IMGUR.
After persistent lobbying, the local authority sent a crane to aid the rescue.
And Babsy Rock was finally freed having spent a total of around 25 days under the rocks.
The rescuers told Mariem of Dr Mahmoud Abdelmaksoud, a local vet known to animal rescuers, who did a check-up on Babsy Rock.
"Dr Abdelmaksoud is an incredible man, a hero. Many volunteers call him to check up on the animals they have rescued and he offers his services for free," says Mau Hamada, who is the founder of one of the animal rescue groups in Alexandria. Hers is called Animal Zone and she says that they are completely volunteer based, and accept no donations.
"Social media was crucial in the rescue of Babsy Rock. Mariem's posts on Facebook mobilised a lot of us volunteers and many people pitched in with the rescue. A lot of information is shared on digital platforms so that we can do our work," Hamada told Trending, "There are dozens of people in Alexandria helping to rescue animals, they either work in self-organised groups like us or individually."
Campaigners have often been critical of Egypt's record on animal welfare. Mau Hamada says that there a range of factors which can result in the mistreatment of animals; "the fear of stray animals, sadistic individuals and some people that say that dogs are not a welcome part of Islam, although they are in the minority."
But there was a happy ending for Babsy Rock who has been adopted by Mariem Taha. And how is she doing now?
"She's very naughty," laughs Taha.
Blog by Megha Mohan and additional reporting by Abdirahim Saeed
NEXT STORY: The Nigerian man making Africans laugh
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending. | Egyptian animal lovers rescue an abandoned puppy trapped under rocks for more than three weeks. | 45.625 | 1 | 3.375 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-on-the-economy-1470697643 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160810205050id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/trump-on-the-economy-1470697643 | Trump on the Economy | 20160810205050 | Is it possible that his post-convention plunge in the polls has scared Donald Trump straight? Probably not, but it is progress that the Republican presidential nominee has decided to join the debate over how to increase U.S. growth and incomes.
The plan Mr. Trump laid out at the Detroit Economic Club on Monday is his most detailed so far and marks a step forward on regulation, taxes and energy. He pitched his program as a path out of the slow-growth status quo, which is a debate the country needs and is an issue on which the polls show Mr. Trump has credibility with voters.
Mr. Trump’s biggest news was a proposal for a tax cut aimed at kick-starting the slow business investment that is hobbling growth. He’d cut the corporate income-tax rate to 15%, from the current uncompetitive 35%, and he’d also do the same for so-called pass-through businesses that pay taxes at the individual rate of 39.6% (closer to 44% if you include the Obama bells and whistles).
At a stroke the 15% rate would make the U.S. competitive again with the rest of the industrialized world, and even with Ireland, Singapore and the United Kingdom as a destination for capital. The 15% rate is low enough to end the tax incentive for companies to move their headquarters overseas—so-called inversions.
Mr. Trump also proposed a 10% special tax rate if companies repatriate the $2 trillion they have previously earned overseas. If half that amount came back, the feds would take in $100 billion in new revenue at a 10% rate. That’s better than 35% of zero.
Business investment has lagged for most of this seven-year recovery and it has subtracted from GDP the past nine months. This often occurs in the later stages of economic expansions, and Mr. Trump’s business tax cut is thus a form of recession insurance.
Mr. Trump said he is paring back his individual income-tax proposal, no doubt to improve the fiscal math. Last year he proposed four tax brackets with a top rate of 25%, and he’s changing that to 12%, 25% and 33%. That’s higher than we’d prefer, but those are the same three rates that House Republicans have proposed. If Mr. Trump is listening to the people he’d have to work with next year, that’s progress.
Mr. Trump also contradicted himself by proposing a new tax deduction for child care even as he promised a simpler tax code. This sounds like the Ivanka Trump deduction, after her plea to help working mothers at the GOP convention. Democrats are already saying the proposal won’t help women who don’t pay taxes, so it isn’t even clear how much political benefit Mr. Trump will get from the idea.
Mr. Trump didn’t reveal many other details, which he said will come later. In particular he’ll have to be more specific about the deductions he would be willing to give up to finance his tax cut. The Tax Foundation scored his original plan at a revenue loss of $10 trillion over 10 years, and Mr. Trump’s advisers say he is trying to get it closer to $3 trillion.
Critics say this is still too large, but that is over 10 years when the feds would rake in more than $40 trillion in revenue. Faster growth would make up some of that $3 trillion. By contrast, Hillary Clinton wants trillions in new spending financed by $1.3 trillion in tax increases that would reduce growth and yield less tax revenue.
The Republican proposed a moratorium on regulation and easing barriers to domestic energy production. These are both good ideas, and he’ll need them because as always Mr. Trump’s economic agenda includes the poison pill of trade protectionism.
Mr. Trump believes that a trade deficit equals lost American jobs, when there is no such connection. The U.S. tends to run bigger trade deficits when the economy is strong, and vice versa. By that logic the fastest way to cut the trade deficit is to have a recession, but that would only cost more jobs.
Raising taxes at the border—aka tariffs—wouldn’t keep jobs in the U.S. but would reduce the standard of living for U.S. consumers. His promise to punish U.S. companies for investing overseas could end up costing more jobs if it caused companies to relocate more of their operations overseas to avoid the punishment. Global supply chains are crucial to preserving U.S. manufacturing jobs.
The question with Mr. Trump is how much his trade agenda would interfere with his pro-growth domestic policies. If Republicans in Congress blocked his worst trade instincts, the damage could be small. If he used executive powers to wage a trade war, look out. With the mercurial New Yorker, you never know.
Which is the same doubt that applies to his overall candidacy. One economic speech won’t persuade Americans who have doubts about President Trump. To revive his campaign, he’ll need to carry the economic growth theme every day from here to November. | Progress on regulation and taxes but Donald Trump’s trade policy is a jobs killer. | 61.1875 | 0.875 | 1.5 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.thepostgame.com/andy-roddick-olympic-tennis-athletes-are-adults | http://web.archive.org/web/20160811230019id_/http://www.thepostgame.com/andy-roddick-olympic-tennis-athletes-are-adults | Andy Roddick: Olympic Tennis Athletes Are Adults | 20160811230019 | Every four years, the Olympics throw a wrench in the ATP and WTA Tour schedules. August is usually the heart of "hard court season," when players descend on North America for a series of tune-ups for the U.S. Open.
Olympic years are the exception. Right now, the best players in the world are settled near the equator in Rio. It's a long detour on the path to Flushing Meadows.
Andy Roddick has experienced both sides of the predicament. In 2004 and 2012, Roddick popped back to Europe post-Wimbledon, for Olympic tennis in Athens and London. However, in 2008, he chose not to travel to Beijing, preparing for the U.S. Open in America instead. From 2004-2012, Olympic results contributed toward ATP and WTA rankings points, although this was changed for the 2016 Games.
"As far as your level of tennis and logistics, it's difficult," Roddick says. "You know, I'm going to be selfish and be able to say it doesn't fit into the context of a tennis year, and say I'm also very honored and very proud to have been an Olympian. You can have it both ways. And it's not a matter of convenience, but I think the athletes can make the decisions for themselves, they're adults.
"I don't think there's [one] right answer for everybody."
Players had that decision, and some indeed did not travel to Rio. Americans John Isner and Sam Querrey were among those healthy players who opted not to break up their schedule and go to Brazil. Milos Raonic, Tomas Berdych, Simona Halep and Karolina Pliskova -- all top 20 players -- were originally scheduled to go to Rio, but cited health concerns as reasoning for backing out.
Roddick never had to worry about Zika, but he did set an example for exercising one's decision to not travel to the Olympics in 2008.
In terms of there being no right answer, Roddick reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals in 2004 and 2008, one year when he played in the Olympics and one year when he did not. In 2012, Roddick closed out his singles career with a fourth round exit in Queens after playing on grass in London.
Both 2012 U.S. Open champions, Serena Williams and Andy Murray, came off gold medals in London.
"I think some guys have done well doing it all and some guys do better when they kind of compartmentalize and are able to focus on different segments of schedules," Roddick says. "It's tough in a calendar [season] that without the Olympics, it's tough to find enough weeks in the year for all the events. So when you add a huge event like [the Olympics] that far away, it's hard."
We can be sure of one thing: the World No. 1 players will not win singles gold medals. Williams lost in the third round and Novak Djokovic could not make it out of the first round. Both will get extra rest for their hard court schedule.
Roddick commented on the Olympics from Forest Hills Stadium, where he suited up for the New York Empire, a first-year team in Mylan World TeamTennis. Roddick, a marquee player for the squad, played men's doubles and men's singles during the team's 22-13 loss to the Washington Kastles.
The Empire play at the West Side Tennis Club, home of the U.S. Open from 1915-1920 and 1924-1977. Although Roddick has played in nearly every notable venue in the sport, Tuesday was his first crack at Forest Hills.
"I'm a big tennis historian and huge sports fan," Roddick said from the grounds. "In the last month, I've had two kinds of bucket list things in tennis. I don't have a lot of firsts left as far as playing certain places and seeing certain things, but I got to play at Newport at the Tennis Hall of Fame for the first time last month, and then to play here a month later is a big deal to me.
"I know the last time they played here was 1977. You think of the people who paved the way for that gigantic stadium [Arthur Ashe Stadium] not too far from here. The foundation was laid at this place. So it's certainly fun to see, fun to be a part of, and at least I can say I played here once."
Roddick played his second match with New York on Wednesday night in Philadelphia, a 17-16 loss to the Freedoms.
More Olympics: -- How Simone Biles Got Started In Gymnastics -- It Was By Accident -- Lolo Jones: I'm Not Hope Solo -- The NFL Can Learn From Rugby's Tackling
-- Follow Jeffrey Eisenband on Twitter @JeffEisenband.
2004 Olympics, 2008 Olympics, 2012 Olympics, 2016 Olympics, Andy Murray, Andy Roddick, ATP Tour, Forest Hills Stadium, Hard Court Season, New York Empire, Novak Djokovic, Olympics, Patrick McEnroe, Rio Olympics, Serena Williams, Tennis, US Open, West Side Tennis Club, World TeamTennis, WTA Tour | Andy Roddick, who played in two Olympics, talks about how the Games affect the tennis schedule. | 52.684211 | 0.894737 | 1.631579 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8474364/The-English-girl-who-won-Chinas-X-Factor.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160811233303id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/culture/8474364/The-English-girl-who-won-Chinas-X-Factor.html | The English girl who won China's X Factor | 20160811233303 | At the Opposite House Hotel she shows me her suite with its balcony, vast flat-screen televisions, automatic blinds and shower with piped-in telly. Back in England she is staying with her uncle and his family, south of Watford, sleeping on a sofa bed next to a chest freezer. Such is the topsy-turvy life of a singer on the brink of her first album release.
'Quite a lot of people have said to me, "That's it, you've hit the big time now, you're going to be loaded." But I'm not,' she says. 'I've got to pay my manager and my lawyer. I could never go wild. I've got my first car; she's a Mini One called Minim. But that's the only thing I've splashed out on.'
So how did Mary-Jess get here? A second-year Chinese and music student at Sheffield University, she was a few weeks into her language studies in Nanjing when a friend took her along for moral support when he was entering a television talent show. They passed a studio where auditions were taking place for a singing contest. Mary-Jess sang for the producer and was asked to enter, but came down with flu and had to pull out.
The story might have ended there, had she not spotted a poster for what she took to be a university singing contest, but which turned out to be the same show. 'The way it happened it was as if it had been planned. You can only say that with a few things in life,' she recalls. She went on to win a special foreigners-only edition before beating five rivals in the final of the main contest, with her rendition of Sarah Brightman's song Time to Say Goodbye and Mariah Carey's When You Believe.
Her prize money was 10,000 yuan, about £950, enough to fly back to England for Christmas, where no one knew a thing about her story, until her mum, Liz, contacted her local newspaper. 'I just thought it would be something nice that I could keep and say, "Look, I was in the Citizen." I had no idea that it was going to blow up,' she says.
Little did she know. She hit the national press and then found herself flown out to New York and courted by two major record companies, Universal Music and Sony. Universal won out, signing her to its Decca label, the champagne was popped and, back in London, she was taken on by Jonathan Shalit, Myleene Klass's agent. No wonder friends now nickname Mary-Jess and her boyfriend, Britain's number-one in-line skater, Rich Parker, the new Posh and Becks.
After an initial wave of interviews – including some faultless live singing on the BBC Breakfast sofa (the presenter Charlie Stayt asked, 'Did they know you weren't Chinese?'), she settled down to write and record her album. And here we are. I'm surprised to discover that Mary-Jess isn't in China to woo the public.
Despite a booming demand for bubblegum pop and a growing festival scene, illegal downloading means there isn't a viable market for CDs here. No, this is Chinese-themed music for the British market, and beyond. We are here, one, to add authenticity to the album by having Mary-Jess sing with traditional Chinese instruments and, two, to shoot her in front of iconic architecture – because nothing says China like the Great Wall.
Our four-day schedule is tight, but Mary-Jess displays reserves of get-up-and-go befitting a member of Mao's Red Army. This is a girl who will say, 'I got 10 As and a B for GCSE. Stupid B!' or talk earnestly of her love of Celine Dion – not your average cooler-than-thou student.
But first things first, the music. We head to a recording studio, where a young Mongolian musician is tuning a traditional horse-head fiddle and sporting the height of Chinese geek chic: glasses frames minus any lenses. Mary-Jess instantly commands the space. Gone are any traces of girlishness as she opens her mouth to sing Yue Guang Ai Ren (A Love Before Time), the theme tune from the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Her voice spans four octaves and is so pure and, at times, so high, it really does give you goose bumps.
Looking on proudly is Tom Lewis, head of A&R at Decca. I ask him at whom the finished album will be aimed and he talks about a plumber who was working in Mary-Jess's kitchen and overheard some of her music. 'He came in, obviously just moved by the music, and he went, "What's that?" So we had this idea that we want the record to make plumbers cry. I quite like the idea that it is an emotional thing, rather than a cerebral thing.'
Don't engage your brain? There is a sniffiness attached to so-called crossover music but Lewis knows his stuff when it comes to this lucrative market. He and Decca have scoured the globe for unusual signings such as a group of Benedictine nuns near Avignon who sing Gregorian chants and the Gondoliers, a trio of Venetian crooners for the 'Just one Cornetto' crowd. He sees Mary-Jess appealing to fans of Enya and Katherine Jenkins but also Sigur Rós – ambient Icelandic experimentalists popular with yoga types.
For her part, Mary-Jess describes her sound as 'New Age classical crossover'. You could say that she was born to sing it. 'My grandmother was a semi-professional classical singer, my mum's a more rocky popular-music singer – I was surrounded by both as I grew up and so I'm able to switch my voice to sing both,' she says.
The next day it's time for some photos, and this is where things start to get surreal. We take the underground and alight at Tiananmen Square. For all of five minutes. Mary-Jess poses jauntily in front of the official portrait of Chairman Mao, before a mad dash to a hilltop pavilion, in Jingshan Park, where she poses jauntily on a wall, overlooking the smog-shrouded Forbidden City, before a mad dash to Ghost Street and its rows of luminous red paper lanterns, where … well, you get the picture.
I'm beginning to realise that far from being the young innocent who lacked out, Mary-Jess is an ambitious artist who has planned her career from an early age. Singing was always her main goal, and studying Chinese her backup plan. 'My plan B led to my plan A,' she says. 'I've always wanted to be a recording artist. I've never wanted to be anything else ever. Somehow it worked out.'
She would have liked to learn the piano but the family couldn't afford lessons. Her mum, a seamstress and leather-worker, and her father, a carpenter, divorced when she was two. Her 18-year-old sister, Cheri, works as his apprentice. When Mary-Jess was nine her grandmother encouraged her to join the Gloucester Cathedral Youth Choir. Despite being two years under the age limit, Mary-Jess was accepted. Meanwhile her mother, who sings in a covers band, was furthering her musical education in other ways.
To raise extra money before Mary-Jess went to university, the pair toured the Gloucestershire pub circuit as a duo. 'I'm a little more classical but our voices really complement each other. My mum's really good at belting out Barbra Streisand or Whitney Houston or Tina Turner,' she says.
They even auditioned for The X Factor, singing Sarah Brightman's Time to Say Goodbye and Kelly Clarkson's Because of You, after being advised in the first audition to enter as a double act.
'On the third audition there was this quite posh guy and he looked down his nose at us and said, "What on earth made you think that a mother and daughter duo act would actually work?" And we were like, "We were told to do that!" I look back on it and laugh now. I don't know what would have happened if we'd entered as solo artists.'
Simon Cowell's loss was China's gain. Back in the hotel, on her laptop, Mary-Jess shows me the only clip she has of I Want to Sing to the Stars, filmed by a friend who pointed her camera at the television set. It's low-budget stuff. Mary-Jess belts out the Sam Brown song Stop! ('All that I have is all that you've given me …') while a male dancer in a stripy shirt shimmies distractingly around her. 'I don't think I was ever actually introduced to him. They were like, "This is your dancer, this is what you're doing,"' she says with a giggle.
Aside from her voice, why does she think Chinese viewers connected with her, a foreigner? Was it her ingénue looks? 'Chinese people often buy whitening products to make themselves look more western – it boggles me why they want to do it,' she says. 'All the posters of leading brands tend to use Western women – that's something they aspire to look like. So, yes, they could have liked me because of that, or they might have liked me because I was really making an effort to speak the language.'
She started studying Mandarin at 13, as an after-school class, staying the night at her dad's every Tuesday rather than going back to her mum's in Stroud. 'I look back and I think it's quite li hai,' she says, of all the hefting back and forth of heavy textbooks. Quite what? 'Sorry, that's Chinese. When I was in Nanjing we used to substitute words, all the foreign students used to. Li hai means hard-core; it's like if somebody goes out into the cold without a coat, then that's pretty li hai.'
The tracks are in the bag, the photos are taken, it's time to get back to England and the life of a diva-in-waiting. Mary-Jess returns to her sofa bed near Watford, but something tells me she won't be there much longer. After we get back, she is announced as the support act for Russell Watson's 23-date British tour, which culminates next Sunday. On her 21st birthday he presents her with a cake, on stage. If that's not an anointment into the crossover hall of fame I don't know what is.
Is the world ready for a new Enya? Will li hai ever pass into youth-speak? Will plumbers – and Nick Clegg – erupt into tears when they hear Mary-Jess Leaverland sing? Over to the public vote …
Mary-Jess’s debut single, 'Are You the Way Home?', out now, is taken from her debut album, released on 8 August on Decca Records | Meet Mary-Jess Leaverland, an exchange student from Gloucester who stumbled into the audition for the Chinese version of 'The X Factor' – and went on to win the whole contest | 56.538462 | 0.769231 | 1.435897 | high | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4362440/larry-page-google-flying-cars-zee-aero-kitty-hawk/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160812010230id_/http://time.com:80/4362440/larry-page-google-flying-cars-zee-aero-kitty-hawk/ | Google Co-Founder Larry Page Secretly Funding Flying Cars | 20160812010230 | Google co-founder Larry Page has been secretly bankrolling companies working on flying cars, according to a new report.
Page, now CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, has contributed over $100 million on secretive personal aviation startup Zee.Aero, Bloomberg reports. He has separately funded another similar startup, called Kitty Hawk, an apparent reference to the site of the Wright brothers’ first flight.
Page did not return Bloomberg’s requests for comment. Google did not immediately return TIME’s request for comment.
Flying cars have been little more than a dream for decades. While several companies have gotten close to bringing models to market, costs and regulatory hurdles have proved insurmountable hurdles. Personal aircraft that could, say, take off from an owner’s driveway might sound cool, but in practice the idea has so far proven impractical. Increasingly sophisticated automation systems may help by reducing the amount of training time needed on the part of new pilots, though those systems give rise to safety questions of their own. | They've been a dream for decades | 27.714286 | 0.714286 | 2.428571 | medium | low | mixed |
http://www.aol.com/article/2011/08/03/in-honor-of-planet-of-the-apes-the-top-3-monkey-stock-pickers/20006929/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160812073100id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2011/08/03/in-honor-of-planet-of-the-apes-the-top-3-monkey-stock-pickers/20006929/ | In Honor of 'Planet of the Apes': The Top 3 Monkey Stock Pickers | 20160812073100 | , we think it's a good time to consider the man vs. primate war on another front: stock picking. The financial meltdown convinced many of us that human brokers have not evolved as much as we'd like. But some monkeys -- the actual mammals that swing from vines -- have mastered the market.
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told
. "It's like playing roulette."
Sure, we can listen to the Darwinian voice of reason, but why? Let's revisit the glory of stock-picking monkeys in the past decade or so.
In January 2010, as man could barely walk upright through the tail-end of the recession,
thrived. Her portfolio topped 94% of Russia's mutual funds, nearly tripling her initial capital of 1 million rubles ($35,884), the
reported. Lusha selected eight cubes among 30 that represented different investments.
The chimp made her homo sapien counterparts look like chumps by mixing equities that were private and state-run. The one move that turbocharged her returns was putting her money on banks that received a Kremlin bailout. Those rose 600%, according to the tabloid.
"It shows that financial knowledge does not play a great role in giving forecasts to how the market will change," Pavel Trunin, the head of monetary policy at the Institute for the Economy in Transition, said in the article.
beat the market's average every year from 2003 to 2006.
The abyss of 2008 provided a moral victory. His portfolio dropped 14%, but he didn't take as big a hit as the national average (thanks to heavy investing in Marvel). He also outperformed
's alpha gorilla, Jim Cramer, on a few occasions.
Adam Monk picked his stocks by circling them in the newspaper with a red pen. You got a better way?
In 1999, a chimp in L.A. burst on to the scene, posting a 79% gain in her portfolio -- then boosting that to a whopping 213% gain the next year.
, built her fortune by throwing darts at a board of 133 Internet-related stocks. She would have ranked as the 22nd most profitable money manager in the country if she actually had been managing money in 2000.
Alas, the dot-com bust at the dawn of the 21st century made a monkey of Raven, who hasn't been heard of in some time. Her portfolio began to underperform, and
We asked Porter, the zoologist, if stock-picking monkey stunts might teach us anything about playing the market. "Not unless you can repeat the experiment several times and find one [monkey] that is really good at it while randomizing [the choices] each time," he replied.
Thanks for the reality check, professor. Even without monkeys, it's still a jungle out there. | With%20Friday%27s%20opening%20of%20Rise%20of%20the%20Planet%20of%20the%20Apes%2C%20we%20think%20it%27s%20a%20good%20time%20to%20consider%20the%20man%20vs.%20primate%20war%20on%20another%20front%3A%20stock%20picking.%20Here%27s%20a%20look%20at%20some%20of%20the%20best%20primate%20stock%20pickers%20in%20recent%20history.%20 | 557 | 0 | 0 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324789504578380810502357772 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160812091931id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/SB10001424127887324789504578380810502357772 | Training Veterans for Their Next Mission | 20160812091931 | Since 2001, two million men and women have completed tours of service in the U.S. military and returned to civilian life. An additional million will leave the armed forces over the next five years.
Millions of veterans looking for employment prompt us to ask what we can do to help. The obvious response is to get them into the civilian workforce as quickly as possible. But simply providing a job may not be the optimal solution—because... | In The Wall Street Journal, David Petraeus and Sidney Goodfriend write that the issue for many returning soldiers is not just a job—it's a career. | 2.833333 | 0.433333 | 0.566667 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/alex-cornells-unusual-iceberg-in-photographs-1424456786 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160812093906id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/alex-cornells-unusual-iceberg-in-photographs-1424456786 | Alex Cornell’s Unusual Iceberg, in Photographs | 20160812093906 | Designer and filmmaker Alex Cornell was vacationing in the Antarctic Peninsula in December when he came upon an unusual sight: a bright blue flipped iceberg. So he hopped on a small rubber boat from his passenger cruiser to take pictures of it up close. On the trip, he had intended to shoot a short video set in the area but ended up focusing on photographs. His blue iceberg encounter stands out. “In the next couple days, the water and snow would cover it back up again and camouflage it back into the landscape, like all the other icebergs,” he says. | A series of photos taken by Alex Cornell in Antarctica captures an unusual sight: a bright blue iceberg that had recently flipped over. | 4.48 | 0.64 | 2.4 | low | low | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2016/08/10/marijuana-medical-research-dea/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160812122817id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/08/10/marijuana-medical-research-dea/ | Report: The Government Is About to Open Up Research on Marijuana | 20160812122817 | The U.S. government will announce on Thursday that it will allow more research into marijuana but has rejected requests to relax the classification of the substance as a dangerous, highly addictive drug with no medical use, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The decision is the Drug Enforcement Administration’s response to a 2011 petition by two former state governors who had urged federal agencies to re-classify marijuana as a drug with accepted medical uses, the two sources said on Wednesday. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The DEA declined to comment. However earlier on Wednesday, the agency had sent emails, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, to parties that had expressed an interest in the matter, saying it would be making “important announcements regarding marijuana related topics” on Thursday.
See also: Here’s How You Can Watch the Pot Industry’s ‘Shark Tank’
The Food and Drug Administration did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
For decades, marijuana has been classified as a “Schedule I” drug with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” on par with heroin. The government has repeatedly rejected appeals over the years to reclassify marijuana. Loosening that definition could encourage scientific study of a drug that is being used to treat diseases in several U.S. states despite little proof of its effectiveness.
Twenty-five states have sanctioned some forms of marijuana use for medical purposes. Four states – Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Colorado – and the District of Columbia have gone even further, allowing its recreational use for adults.
California and eight other states have recreational or medical marijuana proposals headed for their 2016 ballots.
See also: Valeant Executives May Be Facing Criminal Prosecution
A drug can be reclassified through congressional legislation or a formal scheduling petition process that involves medical and scientific evaluation by the FDA and DEA.
The DEA only allows marijuana for federally sanctioned research to be cultivated at a garden at the University of Mississippi, an operation overseen by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Cannabis advocates have long argued that this arrangement, and the labeling of marijuana as among “the most dangerous drugs” under the Controlled Substances Act, has sharply limited the supply available for research.
The sources said the federal government would pave the way on Thursday for increased research, possibly with marijuana supplies from outside the University of Mississippi.
“This is a good day for science,” said Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a group that opposes legalization. “This shows that the federal government is flexible on legitimate research but is nowhere near wanting to legalize marijuana.” | But it's not reclassifying the drug, sources said. | 47 | 0.818182 | 1.363636 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/08/10/wikileaks-reward-DNC-staffer-seth-rich-killer/21448884/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160812124155id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/08/10/wikileaks-reward-DNC-staffer-seth-rich-killer/21448884/ | WikiLeaks offers $20,000 reward in connection with DNC staffer's death as conspiracy theories fly | 20160812124155 | The conspiracy theorists who believe former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich's July death was somehow linked to corruption within the agency received new ammunition this week when WikiLeaks announced the group would offer $20,000 reward for information about the man's death.
"Whistle-blowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said during an interview on Dutch television on Tuesday. "As a 27-year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington."
SEE MORE: Wikileaks denies it's trying to hack Trump's tax documents
D.C. Police have reported that evidence suggests Rich's July 10 shooting death was part of a botched robbery. Internet comment threads have run wild in recent weeks with speculation that he may have played a role in the DNC's leak and paid for that role with his live.
RELATED: See photos of Rich and his memorial
Seth Rich, former DNC staffer shot dead in D.C.
WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 4: Mary Rich, the mother of slain DNC staffer Seth Rich, gives a press conference in Bloomingdale on August 1, 2016. Seth Rich was gunned down in the DC neighborhood a month ago and the Rich's were imploring people for any information they may have about his killer. (Photo by Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Photo of Seth Rich, from his memorial Facebook page.
Photo of Seth Rich, from his memorial Facebook page.
Growing memorial on the corner where #SethConradRich was murdered. Neighbors paying their respects. https://t.co/yHTeKopxv7
When pressed, Assange reiterated that WikiLeaks never reveals sources, saying that there was "no finding," but that the groups' sources "take risks."
Police have said there is no evidence that links the murder to Rich's position at the DNC, where he served as director of voter expansion. Joel Rich, Seth Rich's father, has said the killing did not appear to be a robbery, since his son was found with both his wallet and watch.
WikiLeaks released thousands of emails from the DNC less than two weeks after Rich's death, creating chaos at the convention in Philadelphia and adding to fervent speculation that the party rigged the election to favor Hillary Clinton and hinder Bernie Sanders.
SEE MORE: FBI probes hacking of Democratic congressional group
But Rich's family shied away from the speculation on Tuesday.
"We're grieving the death of our 27-year-old son," Joel Rich, Seth's father, told The Omaha World-Herald. "The police are trying to investigate what's happening."
"The family is in constant contact with authorities and thank them for their extremely thorough investigation," Rich family spokesman Brad Bauman added. "The family believes this matter is being handled professionally and with the seriousness that it requires."
"That said, some are attempting to politicize this horrible tragedy, and in their attempts to do so are actually causing more harm than good and impeding on the ability for law enforcement to properly do their job," Bauman continued. "For the sake of finding Seth's killer, and for the sake of giving the family the space they need at this terrible time, they are asking for the public to refrain from pushing unproven and harmful theories about Seth's murder."
D.C. Police have already offered a $25,000 reward in connection with the case.
Update: A spokesman from the Rich family provided the following statement:
"The entire Rich family is so heartened by the outpouring of support and love that they have felt over the past few weeks as they continue to come to terms with this terrible tragedy. The family is in constant contact with authorities and thank them for their extremely thorough investigation. The family believes this matter is being handled professionally and with the seriousness that it requires.
The family welcomes any and all information that could lead to the identification of the individuals responsible, and certainly welcomes contributions that could lead to new avenues of investigation. That said, some are attempting to politicize this horrible tragedy, and in their attempts to do so, are actually causing more harm than good and impeding on the ability for law enforcement to properly do their job. For the sake of finding Seth's killer, and for the sake of giving the family the space they need at this terrible time, they are asking for the public to refrain from pushing unproven and harmful theories about Seth's murder."
More from AOL.com: Wikileaks denies it's trying to hack Trump's tax documents 'It's time': Edward Snowden just issued a cryptic message on Twitter Democratic National Convention continues in Philadelphia | Police have said evidence suggests his death was a botched robbery -- but a new statement from Wikileaks calls that into question | 41.954545 | 0.818182 | 1.545455 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204394804577007950027500904 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160813111528id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/SB10001424052970204394804577007950027500904 | How to Check Out a Charity's Financial Health | 20160813111528 | Judging a charity by its efficiency gets a lot of attention. But in today's uncertain economy, potential donors sometimes have to make a much more basic assessment: Is this charity going bust?
A lot of charities are "really strapped" and will be "for the foreseeable future," says Elizabeth Keating, a lecturer in accounting at Boston College who focuses on nonprofit issues. After plunging in 2008 and 2009, charitable giving isn't expected to return to pre-crisis levels for five to six more years,... | Philanthropists sometimes need to act more like fund managers and perform due diligence on a charity. Dig into its financials, visit the organization, meet with management and talk to third-party observers. Some tips on how to gauge a charity's financial health. | 2.061224 | 0.44898 | 0.530612 | low | low | abstractive |
http://dating.telegraph.co.uk/s/view/706918/s/0 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160813111715id_/http://dating.telegraph.co.uk:80/s/view/706918/s/0 | Telegraph Dating | 20160813111715 | Very happy with life's journey so far but still seeking that bohemian, free sprited, lady to share everything that this big, wide world has to offer.
My ideal partner will be an emotionally well balanced lady who takes pride in her appearance and combines a well developed sense of humour with spontaneity and passion. Somebody who enjoys connecting with nature's wilderness, embraces sport and is able to recognise the balance between the physical and spiritual aspects of a relationship will hold a particular resonance for me. | Telegraph Dating Member Profile: fly2work - Sense of Adventure?. Very happy with life's journey so far but still seeking that bohemian, free sprited, lady to... | 3 | 0.6875 | 11.4375 | low | low | extractive |
http://time.com/4397192/donald-trump-utah-gary-johnson/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160813112001id_/http://time.com:80/4397192/donald-trump-utah-gary-johnson/? | Why Utah Doesn't Like Him | 20160813112001 | If there is a heart to the scattershot Never Trump movement, it is probably in Utah.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has been the spokesman for Republicans who reject Donald Trump, while Sen. Mike Lee is one of the more vocal critics of his campaign in Congress. Trump had one of his worst showings in the Beehive State primary, while a June poll by the Salt Lake Tribune had him basically tied with Hillary Clinton in a place that hasn’t gone for a Democrat since 1964.
Experts say that Trump’s troubles in Utah stem from the religious values of the state’s Mormon population and the candidate’s personal style.
“What is making Donald Trump popular in other states is exactly what’s making him somewhat unpopular here in the state of Utah,” said Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute at the University of Utah. “That straight-talking brashness that has made Donald Trump popular in many parts of the states … is not the kind of politician we usually see in the state of Utah.”
Trump’s problems date back to at least December, when he called for banning the entrance of Muslims into the U.S. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints responded with a statement reaffirming its support for religious freedom.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is neutral in regard to party politics and election campaigns,” the statement said. “However, it is not neutral in relation to religious freedom.”
For now, it seems unlikely that Trump could actually lose Utah. The Tribune poll showed 13 percent support for former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who is running on the Libertarian ticket, but pollsters are wary of surveys showing strong third-party support, as voters often stand by their party in the privacy of the ballot booth.
Johnson’s campaign is based in Salt Lake City, but he told TIME that was largely because his Ron Nielson, who ran his gubernatorial campaigns, set up shop there. For now, he hasn’t made a serious effort to target the state, though he said that may change.
“I think that that will be a strategy that unfolds going forward, but so far there is no strategy,” Johnson told TIME during a recent visit to Washington. “That will change. … I have no doubt that there will be a Utah strategy.”
Two of the three major presidential forecasters, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report have downgraded the state from a sure-fire Republican win to a likely one, though the Cook Political Report still lists it as solid red state. Neither the Clinton or Trump campaigns are putting resources into organizing the state right now.
Perry said that Johnson has the potential to disrupt the Utah vote in November, though it’s not yet clear how that could tilt the outcome.
“Every vote that Gary Johnson starts to get hurts both of those candidates,” he said. “It’s not completely clear at this stage whether that helps Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump the most.” | State voters don't like the candidate's style. | 59.4 | 0.6 | 1 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/12/11/47/be-clearer-on-investment-rules-shorten | http://web.archive.org/web/20160813131018id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/12/11/47/be-clearer-on-investment-rules-shorten | Be clearer on investment rules: Shorten | 20160813131018 | Labor leader Bill Shorten says the federal government needs to be clearer on what assets are not to be sold to foreign state-owned enterprises.
Treasurer Scott Morrison says national security reasons are behind a preliminary decision to block the 99-year lease of NSW electricity distributor Ausgrid to two Chinese bidders.
Mr Shorten, who has been offered a briefing on the decision, said on Friday the government should have been up front a lot earlier in the process about what assets are sensitive. | Labor is calling for greater clarity on foreign investment rules in the wake of the Ausgrid decision. | 5.055556 | 0.555556 | 0.666667 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/us/orlando-pulse-gunman-autopsy.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160813205413id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/08/06/us/orlando-pulse-gunman-autopsy.html?mabReward=CTM&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine | Orlando Gunman Was Shot at Least 8 Times, Autopsy Finds | 20160813205413 | The authorities in Florida said Friday that Omar Mateen, whose June 12 rampage at an Orlando nightclub left 49 other people dead, was shot at least eight times by police officers who responded to the deadly mass shooting.
The Orange County medical examiner’s office released its report of Mr. Mateen’s autopsy on Friday, the same day local officials began to distribute their post-mortem findings about the victims of the attack, during which Mr. Mateen pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State.
The 32 death reports released on Friday were the first time that the authorities so publicly cataloged and detailed the injuries of the dead. The medical examiner’s office said in a statement that it had begun notifying family members on Thursday that the reports would be released under the state’s public records law. The office said it expected to publish all of its assessments by Wednesday night.
Officials reported their findings about the deaths of 28 men, including Mr. Mateen, and four women. The youngest victim whose autopsy was published was an 18-year-old woman; the oldest was a 41-year-old man.
Most of those who were killed died of multiple gunshot wounds, the autopsies showed. The placing of the shots varied; some people were wounded in the head, while others were shot in the torso, and still others were struck in their arms, neck or lower extremities.
It was not clear on Friday whether anyone besides Mr. Mateen had been killed from police gunfire. Citing the continuing inquiry, a spokeswoman for the Orlando police referred a request for comment to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which did not respond to a message.
But Orlando’s police chief, John Mina, left open the possibility in June, when he said, “That’s part of the investigation, but here’s what I will tell you: Those killings are on the suspect.”
The reports had a certain uniformity — each person’s death, for instance, was declared a homicide — but the scores of pages also carried small hints about individual lives. One man had been wearing two beaded bracelets when he was gunned down, while another young woman had worn “an elaborate yellow metal necklace” to Pulse. Another person had carried his photo identification from the Y.M.C.A.
Mr. Mateen, his autopsy report noted, had been dressed in tan pants, a holster attached to a black belt. He was struck by gunfire in several places, including the chest, the abdomen and the foot.
Mr. Mateen died after a protracted standoff with the police, who feared that he would set off explosives, as he had threatened to do. Once the authorities gained access to the nightclub with the aid of an armored vehicle, officials traded gunfire with Mr. Mateen, who was 29.
The medical examiner’s office said Friday that it would not discuss individual cases. But in an interview in June, the county’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Joshua D. Stephany, said it appeared that all of the victims had died quickly.
“It doesn’t appear anyone suffered,” he said. “Everyone went down where they were. I don’t think anyone had prolonged suffering.”
A version of this article appears in print on August 6, 2016, on page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Officials Say Pulse Gunman Was Shot at Least 8 Times. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | Omar Mateen, whose June 12 shooting at an Orlando nightclub left 49 dead, was shot at least eight times by responding police officers. | 25.038462 | 0.961538 | 6.115385 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/business/dealbook/life-in-the-miasma-of-puerto-ricos-debt.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160813210820id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/08/07/business/dealbook/life-in-the-miasma-of-puerto-ricos-debt.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=0 | A Surreal Life on the Precipice in Puerto Rico | 20160813210820 | Seen through local eyes, it’s all about outsiders imposing their will on Puerto Rico, to its lasting detriment. Spain brought disease and African slaves and built a plantation economy. The French, the British and the Dutch all wanted what Spain had and mounted attack after futile attack on the slave-built fortifications. Then the Americans attacked, took possession and muscled their way into the sugar business, crowding many local farmers off their land.
Even America’s big development push in the 1950s, Operation Bootstrap, is viewed as suspect. With tax incentives for United States manufacturers, it prompted Puerto Ricans to leave the hinterland by the thousands. As they flocked to San Juan to seek factory jobs, Washington responded with new public housing, paved roads and schools.
Living standards rose, but Puerto Ricans see a big downside: A whole generation learned that life in the country was backward and miserable, something to escape. Farming, once the island’s mainstay, fell to less than 1 percent of its economic output. Today the island imports 82 percent of its food.
“Agriculture died, and with that, all of the local markets died,” says Ms. Muriel, pausing to point out a tree she ate tangerines from as a girl. Today, she says, it’s a thrill to see her own daughters, Emma and Ceiba, eating fruit from that same tree.
But you can’t bring the fruit to market if the market no longer exists.
Today, Puerto Ricans shop in supermarkets. Go into one and you’re apt to find oranges from California, bananas from the Dominican Republic, avocados from Mexico and no local produce. Even staples like rice, beans and coffee are imported.
They certainly aren’t cheap. A 1917 law requires Puerto Rico to import everything on American ships with American crews. That adds to retail prices.
Ms. Muriel isn’t the only one turning her back on all this. Here and there, other young Puerto Ricans are moving back to the land that their parents and grandparents abandoned, trying to revive farming and a sense of self.
And there are signs they are getting a toehold. For the last two or three years, fresh local produce has been turning up on public school lunch menus. Rice is now being grown on the island for the first time in around 30 years.
“It’s incredibly uphill,” says Ms. Muriel. She shuns government assistance but gets help from a nonprofit group, the Boricuá Ecological Agriculture Organization. Three years ago it sent a building brigade to her farm to make a terracing system, so she can plant corn, kale, bok choi and flowers.
Back when all those thousands of Puerto Ricans were abandoning the countryside, Ms. Muriel’s parents bucked the trend. Her mother, Veeta Mohan, spotted a “Land for Sale” sign on a bulletin board at the coin laundry. She and her husband, now deceased, decided to take the plunge.
When they bought the 30 acres, it was planted entirely in coffee, and struggling. The seller made ends meet by running a bar by the side of the road. For the first few years, Ms. Mohan says, all she seemed to do was dig up the empty bottles people had thrown. But she persisted and ended up raising six children here.
There were government programs to help coffee planters, but Ms. Mohan saw them as a ploy to hook Puerto Rico’s farmers on herbicides from the United States. Out went the coffee bushes. In went fruit trees, bamboo, orchids and herbs, all organically grown.
“Around here, we’re the only organic farm,” Ms. Muriel says.
Today, all that’s left of the coffee plantation is an old system of roads, now used as footpaths. The family plants nothing in rows, preferring groves that combine plants they think will benefit one another — citrus near guavas, for example. The result is a farm that looks more like a forest.
Her farm isn’t profitable, but perhaps self-sufficiency is its own reward.
“We’ve been taught to depend on the United States,” Ms. Muriel says. “They taught us in school that Puerto Rico was too small, and it had to depend on a bigger country.” She shakes her head, then bends to smell the orchid that Ceiba has picked.
“The valves, sutures, tissues for repairing the heart all get more expensive every day, and the hospital cannot get any more money.”
Dr. Enrique Márquez Grau, 81, is one of just two pediatric heart surgeons in Puerto Rico. Many people slow down in their 80s, but he says he can keep up.
“Actually, there has been an exodus of young people,” he says.
Dr. Márquez Grau exemplifies a peculiar side effect of Puerto Rico’s financial crisis: the graying of its doctors. It’s most extreme in the pediatric specialties. There is only one pediatric anesthesiologist on the whole island, serving a population of about 900,000 people under 18.
There are just six pediatric surgeons of any kind. Dr. Márquez Grau himself trained four of them. All are over 50.
Even for adults, surgeons are in short supply. There are 180, for a population of about 3.5 million. The average age is 58.
Puerto Rico’s financial troubles are driven, to a remarkable degree, by health care. In 1993, Puerto Rico set up an islandwide health plan for people lacking coverage at work — but it didn’t establish a way to pay for it.
Today the program, known as Mi Salud, or My Health, provides generous coverage to 45 percent of the population. For now, federal money covers much of the cost, but much of that money is scheduled to run out in a year or two. Meanwhile, Mi Salud has been scrimping by delaying payments to doctors. It is about $200 million behind.
“This hospital has a big deficit, which increases every year,” says Dr. Márquez Grau, taking time between patients to answer questions. “The valves, sutures, tissues for repairing the heart all get more expensive every day, and the hospital cannot get any more money.”
About 500 doctors voted with their feet last year, moving off the island. Ten years ago there were 14,000 doctors, according to the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Now there are 9,000.
Dr. Márquez Grau has no intention of leaving. He has been working at Puerto Rico’s sophisticated Centro Médico since it was built, in better times.
“It’s a very good hospital,” he said. “It’s a pity that it doesn’t have money.”
“There are 28,000 people on the street on this island.”
Doctors aren’t the only ones hurting as the government tries to stretch health care dollars. Patients say it can now take weeks or months to be seen by a specialist. Hospitals have fewer beds, and insurers drag their feet when asked to approve even lifesaving treatments, like chemotherapy.
But for all that, the safety net still holds. People can get care if they’re in the system and can bear to wait. Not so the indigent — the people who have fallen through the holes in the net.
“There are 28,000 people on the street on this island,” says José A. Vargas Vidot, the founder of Iniciativa Comunitaria, which delivers food, basic health care and clothing to them.
Iniciativa Comunitaria has mapped Puerto Rico’s comunas, or informal homeless camps, and set up delivery routes to them. On a recent night, volunteers packed a guitar with their other supplies, just in case the mood seemed right for music. Some of the homeless said they wanted to sleep, but others sang.
In the parking lot of a gun club in the San Juan metropolitan area, the volunteers came upon a man they knew only as Don Luis. He had a walking stick, a crucifix and big open sores on his legs. Heroin users who sleep in the rough are prone to soft-tissue infections where they shoot up.
“We don’t force anyone to go into any treatment,” said Kamille Camacho, a public health student with the group. But if people say they want to go into rehab, or to enroll in Mi Salud, then Iniciativa Comunitaria helps with the paperwork.
But not Don Luis. Once he went to a hospital, but the staff made it clear, he says, that he and his ilk were unwelcome. They yanked off his dirty bandages, slapped on some new ones and gave him the bum’s rush. The treatment made his sores worse, he says. He won’t go back.
Now the volunteers lead him into the pool of light from a streetlight and seat him on the gun club’s front steps. They wet his dirty gauze with a spray bottle and pull it off gently, layer by layer. Don Luis groans in pain.
“There’s no rush,” one says reassuringly. Another massages his shoulders.
Don Luis says he doesn’t want ointment. He’s afraid it will make the gauze stick. The volunteers wash his calves and wrap them in layers of fresh gauze, tape them, then give him a new pair of socks. Then, after a cheese sandwich, a cup of coffee and a few jokes, Don Luis disappears into the night.
A version of this article appears in print on August 7, 2016, on page BU1 of the New York edition with the headline: Life on the Precipice in Puerto Rico. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | Swimming pools pop up in slums, horses graze in schoolhouses, and public housing tenants pay negative rent on an island whose government has effectively gone broke. | 64.862069 | 0.517241 | 0.655172 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/08/08/pence-grilled-by-conservative-host-on-trumps-temperament/21447514/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160814000946id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/08/08/pence-grilled-by-conservative-host-on-trumps-temperament/21447514/ | Pence grilled by conservative host on Trump's temperament | 20160814000946 | DETROIT — Conservative radio host Charlie Sykes challenged Mike Pence in an interview Monday to persuade his running mate to "stop saying crazy and offensive things" over the remainder of the presidential campaign, prompting a five-second pause by the GOP vice presidential nominee as he formulated a response for Trump's incessant use of offensive names and insinuations.
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"Last week was a rocky week — there was talk, you know, of suicidal campaign staffers, [and] the possibility of a so-called intervention in the campaign after a lot of self-inflicted wounds," the Wisconsin-based WTMJ radio host said. "So I'll ask this as bluntly as I can — can you or anyone else get Mr. Trump to stop saying crazy and offensive things for the next three months?"
Pence, reluctant to answer for several seconds, eventually responded to the stories of campaign disarray. "You always hear these rumors," Pence said. "It just, you know, I guess it makes for good fodder on the internet. I tell you, this campaign is head down, going after it hard."
he Indiana governor went on to encourage Sykes -- a frequent Trump critic -- and his listeners to "just get ready" and read Trump's economic policy plan, which the nominee unveiled in Detroit Monday. But Sykes interjected, asking if Trump would be able to focus his attention on issues like the economy.
Pence demurred, saying the campaign is "now moving in the direction of the fall campaign" and that more "very specific policies" should be expected.
See images from Pence's acceptance speech:
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump (L) greets vice presidential nominee Mike Pence after Pence spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) and vice presidential candidate Mike Pence at the end of the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio on July 20, 2016. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 20: Indiana Governor Mike Pence speaks on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of prostesters and members of the media. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/WireImage)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 20: Indiana Governor Mike Pence speaks on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of prostesters and members of the media. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/WireImage)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 20: Indiana Governor Mike Pence and his family great supporters on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of prostesters and members of the media. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/WireImage)
UNITED STATES - JULY 20: Donald Trump joins Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on stage at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday July 20, 2016. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
UNITED STATES - JULY 20: Presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, and his running mate Mike Pence appear on stage at the Republican National Convention held at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, July 20, 2016. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
UNITED STATES - JULY 20: Mike Pence, running mate of Presidential candidate Donald Trump, addresses the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, July 20, 2016. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 20: Republican Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence prepares to address the crowd, during the third day of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 20: Republican Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence is greeted by House Speaker Paul Ryan before he addresses the crowd, during the third day of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. (Photo by Michael Robinson-Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets vice presidential candidate Mike Pence after his speech on day three of the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 20, 2016. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, USA - JULY 20: Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump points to Indiana Governor Mike Pence after he officially accepted the Republican nomination of Vice President during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, USA on July 20, 2016. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, USA - JULY 20: Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump attempts to kiss Indiana Governor Mike Pence after he officially accepted the Republican nomination of Vice President during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, USA on July 20, 2016. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump (L) greets vice presidential nominee Mike Pence after Pence spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump (L) greets vice presidential nominee Mike Pence after Pence spoke during the third day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump (L) greets vice presidential nominee Mike Pence after Pence spoke during the third day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
But when pressed on whether that indicated a "pivot" by Trump into a "new, presidential, on-message" candidate, Pence suggested "people can characterize it" how they like.
Sykes also questioned Pence over Trump's remarks about the parents of fallen Captain Humayun Khan, asking the VP candidate twice whether Trump should apologize to the Khan family.
Pence did not answer the question but responded: "I think he's made it clear that Captain Khan is an American hero. And I think he's, I think he's think he's demonstrated his heart about this man."
Sykes pushed Pence to square his own advocacy for religious liberties with Trump's proposed ban on Muslim entering the United States. Pence said that he does not see the plan as a ban on a particular religion, telling Sykes he "made my position clear" at the time of Trump's initial proposal in December when he called it "offensive and unconstitutional."
Instead, Pence on Monday clarified what, according to him, the ticket's position is on new immigration and refugee control measures.
"What I can tell you the position that Donald Trump is advocating today is that we should temporarily suspend immigration from countries that have been compromised by terrorism," Pence said, calling that proposal "altogether fitting and appropriate."
Sykes' interview with Donald Trump ahead of the Wisconsin primary in early April gained great attention when the Wisconsinite called into question the then-frontrunner's personal conduct on the campaign trail after he tweeted an unflattering photo of Ted Cruz's wife, Heidi Cruz.
"I didn't start it — he started it. Again, if he didn't start it, nothing like this would have happened," Trump told Sykes in the March 28 interview.
Sykes rebuked Trump directly in the interview: "I expect that from a 12-year-old bully on the playground. Not somebody who wants the office held by Abraham Lincoln."
Trump, days later, called Sykes "a dope."
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"We have these dopey guys. This one guy — he's such a dope. I talked him, a radio guy, some guy named Sykes," Trump said. "What a dope. The guy doesn't — no, he doesn't have a clue."
On Monday during their interview exchange, Sykes played the clip of Trump's name calling for Pence to listen to.
Pence, who, Sykes said, reached out to him to appear on the show, lightly laughed at the audio and responded: "Well, Charlie, I've been a fan of yours for many, many years. I appreciate your common sense, conservative voice across the airwaves." | Conservative radio host Charlie Sykes challenged Mike Pence in an interview Monday to persuade his running mate to 'stop saying crazy and offensive things.' | 56.933333 | 0.9 | 4.966667 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/08/08/serena-williams-stays-alive-in-second-round-singles/21447546/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160814000950id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/08/08/serena-williams-stays-alive-in-second-round-singles/21447546/ | Serena Williams stays alive in second-round singles | 20160814000950 | U.S. tennis powerhouse Serena Williams dispatched France's Alize Cornet in two sets on Monday, ending a streak of weak family performances that saw older sister Venus eliminated from singles on Saturday and the pair knocked out in doubles on Sunday.
The younger Williams, a 34-year-old four-time Olympic gold medalist, had a slow and frustrating start against Cornet before turning the momentum to win 7-6 (5), 6-2, picking up the pace in the second set after the first ran over an hour long.
SEE MORE: Everything you need to know about the Summer Olympics
"I just needed to relax. I was missing shots by literally centimeters," Williams said, adding that she "tried to add a little more spin" in the second set, after a long series of unforced errors in the first.
Spain's Garbine Muguruza topped Japan's Nao Hibino 6-1 6-1.
Earlier, Czech Republic's Petra Kvitova knocked out former world number one Caroline Wozniacki in the second round of the Rio Olympics on Monday, in another poorly attended tennis match on center court.
Twice Wimbledon champion Kvitova overpowered Wozniacki 6-2 6-4 to progress to the third round, where she will face either Russia's Ekaterina Makarova or Slovakia's Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
"It was a tough draw for me. Petra played well today, really played aggressively and got me on my heels a little bit," said Wozniacki, ranked 53 in the world after an injury-ravaged season.
Wozniacki's participation had been in doubt as injury prevented her from fulfilling the minimum number of Davis and Fed Cup appearances required in a four-year Olympic cycle to qualify for the Games.
But she made it to Rio, where she was Denmark's flag bearer in the opening ceremony.
Germany's Angelique Kerber, ranked second in the world, faced stubborn resistance from Canada's Eugenie Bouchard but won 6-4 6-2.
United States' Madison Keys, seeded seventh in the tournament, also progressed to the third round after a nail-biting 7-5 6-7(4) 7-6(5) win against France's Kristina Mladenovic on court one.
On the men's side, Gilles Muller of Luxembourg beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France 6-4 6-3.
Monday's matches, like most of the other contests in the first three days of the tennis tournament, were played in stadiums that were more than half empty.
Olympics organizers say about 82 percent of all Olympic tickets have been sold out, but for tennis, which boasts some of the world's most recognizable sports stars, attendance has been far below that level.
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More from AOL.com: Serena Williams is teaching people how to twerk The highest-paid Olympic athletes Namibian boxer reportedly arrested for alleged sexual assault in Olympic Village | U.S. tennis powerhouse Serena Williams dispatched France's Alize Cornet in two sets on Monday, the third day of competition in Rio. | 23.5 | 0.916667 | 11 | medium | medium | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/12076580/Todd-Burchanowski-Dying-dog-taken-on-ultimate-bucket-list-adventure.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160814004451id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/12076580/Todd-Burchanowski-Dying-dog-taken-on-ultimate-bucket-list-adventure.html | Dying dog goes on ultimate bucket list adventure with heartbroken owner | 20160814004451 | When dog owner Todd Burchanowski found out his beloved pet was dying of cancer he decided to make sure their final few weeks together were truly memorable.
The heartbroken resident from Pennsylvania is taking his female poodle beagle mix named Reyes on the ultimate bucket list adventure.
Vets diagnosed the eight-year-old dog with terminal lymphoma and gave her just two months to live back in November.
“I was absolutely devastated,” the 36-year-old teacher told ABC News. “I love her to death and she’s my best friend. I count on her for a lot of things, not just companionship. To hear she’s not going to be around, that really took its toll on me.”
He added: “Reyes is so important in my life, in my family life, [to] the kids at school … I always have a Reyes story to tell.
“I thought it would be a good idea if all the people in her life came up with an item for the list.”
The list of 81 adventures includes a trip to Niagara Falls, a swimming lesson, running at the beach and even getting married.
“I want to thank everyone who has made this journey possible for Rey and I,” he explained in a Facebook post.
“All of your prayers, comments and likes on the list items, really give us motivation to keep moving on to complete the list.
“I really cannot tell you how much it means to get all of this support and kind words daily. We are truly blessed to have all of you in our lives!”
In November, a devoted dog stood guard over a dying friend for hours on the side of a road. | A dog diagnosed with cancer and just a few months to live is enjoying the adventure of a lifetime with her owner | 14.73913 | 0.869565 | 1.217391 | low | medium | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/central-america/mexico/articles/Mexico-a-date-with-mystical-Mayan-time-lords/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160814010134id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/travel/destinations/central-america/mexico/articles/Mexico-a-date-with-mystical-Mayan-time-lords/ | Mexico: a date with mystical Mayan time lords | 20160814010134 | My journey back through the time cycles began in one of the world’s great portals to the past, the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Here you learn that the Maya were the greatest civilisation of Mesoamerica, the term for the cultures of Central America before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.
Their heyday of power and influence, known as the Classic Period, was from AD300 to 900 and it was in this time that they developed great cities such as Palenque and Chichén Itzá and became brilliant astronomers and mathematicians. In the old lands of the Maya – the south-eastern Mexican states of Chiapas and Yucatán, and across Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador – the indigenous people are nominally Christian these days. But the old belief systems remain as intoxicating to them as the cane liquor they drink.
To experience this living history for myself I flew south-east to Chiapas, a region of rainforest and exotic birds, of fiestas and political radicalism, where a quarter of the population of four million is indigenous, mostly of Mayan origin.
In the colonial town of San Cristóbal de las Casas I wandered the elevated pavements through streets of brightly painted houses and crossed a plaza with a café hidden in the bandstand like a rabbit in a hat. When the conquistadors arrived in this hilly region in the 1520s, the glories of Mayan civilisation were long past. The Spanish found a hostile people steeped in heretical beliefs, and promptly imposed Roman Catholicism on them, destroying temples and icons and punishing the old ways, often brutally.
“They concentrated the Maya in reducciones – mission villages – gave them a patron saint and showed them how to worship,” explained my guide, Hector Mejia (like all my guides in Mexico, he was a mestizo, of mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry).
The Maya took on the outward forms of Catholic observance and, today, many remain deeply religious. In the church of Santo Domingo in San Cristóbal, the devoutness of a huddled old couple was palpable – but their expressions of devotion were strange.
“He is 'pulsing’ her,” whispered Hector, indicating the man’s fingers on the woman’s wrist. “He is a healer. The Maya believe that blood is the path to the spirit world. They can tell what is wrong with you by feeling your pulse, and make you feel better.”
The healers are the priests of the old belief system. To witness them at work we drove six miles north-west to the Mayan village of San Juan Chamula, where the Day of San Sebastian was being celebrated with music, revels and devotion.
In a church strewn with pine needles, festooned with white flowers and heady with copal incense, a band played – deafening drums and trumpets – kneeling shamans healed pilgrims by holding sacrificial chickens above their bodies, then wringing the fowls’ necks, and intoxicated men swigged posh (cane liquor) from old soda bottles. They didn’t keep it all to themselves – every second mouthful they blew over worshippers in a mist of clear alcohol.
As we watched – strictly no photographs, or even note-taking – a healer lit two small candles and placed them at our feet. This is to ward off fear, according to Mayan ritual, but the healer had slightly misread our expressions. It was amazement, not fear, we felt. For a moment, we had felt transported to pre-Hispanic times.
The following day we took that journey for real, driving north-east across the Chiapas highlands into a nexus of Classic Period sites. Our first stop was Palenque, a complex of limestone pyramid tombs and temples that seems to hover among the jungled hills. It wasn’t until the late 18th century that Europeans came across Palenque, and initial accounts were fanciful and romantic, likening it to the Lost City of Atlantis and ascribing to it all sorts of fantastical origins.
In slanting afternoon sunlight, it was easy to imagine those early explorers getting carried away. Toucans flew overhead. Iguanas slithered metallically across the old stones. In the Tomb of the Red Queen two grungy young Americans – no doubt the advance guard of the apocalypse followers – were meditating in front of the Red Queen’s sarcophagus (they broke off to glare at me as I bumbled along taking photographs).
This is the stuff of Rider Haggard novels or Indiana Jones movies, and the ruins of Yaxchilán, 80 miles south-east, are even more suggestive. The only way to reach them is on a 40-minute motorboat ride along the Usumacinta River, which forms the border with Guatemala. The site appears abruptly on the southern river bank – a tangle of vegetation and stone terraces like a skeleton in its rotting shroud.
Here, where rulers such as Shield Jaguar I and Bird Jaguar IV once presided over a powerful city state, the light is green and brooding, filtered through vast rainforest trees with serpent-like surface roots. Parrots and howler monkeys screeched and bellowed through the tree canopy, while bats hung in the clammy tunnels of the labyrinth. Apart from a brief flurry of noise and movement produced by an Italian tour group, we had the stelae, altars, hilltop temples and subterranean passageways of Yaxchilán to ourselves.
For many years, scholars had an idealised view of the culture that had produced such places. My guide in Yucatán, Pepe Gonzalez, likened early interpretations of the Maya to the fictional land envisaged by Thomas More in Utopia. But there was another side, summed up in two words: human sacrifice. It was the discovery of the next site on our itinerary, Bonampak, that shed new light on the nature and extent of sacrificial practices, darkening history’s view of the Mayan civilisation.
I had a personal interest in Bonampak because I know the daughter of the man who “discovered” it, an American photographer and adventurer called Giles Healey. Bonampak is buried deep in the jungle in the lands of the Lacandon Indians, a Mayan group, near what is now the Guatemalan border. This region is so remote it was not colonised by the Spanish, and the Lacandon were never converted to Catholicism.
In 1946 Healey – an Indiana Jones figure if ever there was one – was led to the overgrown site by two Lacandon who had stumbled on it while hunting with bows and arrows. Nowadays Lacandon taxi drivers, distinctively long-haired and wearing white robes, ferry visitors the last few miles to the site. Our driver said matter-of-factly, “Giles Healey? Oh yes. My mother’s brother was Pepe Chambor. He was the one who showed Healey the murals.”
Bonampak is relatively small and unremarkable – except for one unique feature. In a temple on a hill there are three chambers covered in paintings, of a graphicness and sophistication found nowhere else in the Mayan world.
They depict a battle and its aftermath. A band plays. Prisoners plead for their lives as they are tortured by having their fingernails pulled out. A severed head rolls down steps. White-robed women practise auto-sacrifice by piercing their tongues and birdmen bleed their penises. The world portrayed and celebrated here is bizarre and unsettling.
Murals at the grandest Mayan site of all, Chichén Itzá in Yucatán, tell a similarly brutal story, and it is thought that the sacrifice of humans at Chichén Itzá’s sacred cenote, a well of some 200ft in diameter, continued into colonial times – which is a bit too close for comfort, I thought, as I stood on the limestone lip of the cenote gazing down on its green waters.
The day after visiting Chichén Itzá we dropped in on the church of Santa Elena, the red church on the hill that is haunted by the mythical goatsucker. In 1980, during restoration work, the bodies of 12 children were found buried beneath the church. The part-mummified remains of four of them lie in little wooden coffins in a museum next door.
These children died probably no more than 200 years ago, in what circumstances no one knows. But, having just heard about the chupacabra, and mindful of the sacrificial well at Chichén Itzá, I was struck by a thought. It is possible the children were sacrificed, following pre-Hispanic Mayan tradition, and that the time lords of the Classic Period were still pulling strings long after their demise.
My trip across south-eastern Mexico threw up several such moments, when it felt as if the Maya were reaching forward from their past into our future. This December they will finally let time go, having reminded us of a truth that T S Eliot understood: “Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future / And time future contained in time past.”
Nigel Richardson's tour of Mayan Mexico was arranged by Journey Latin America (020 8747 8315; journeylatin america.co.uk). A 15-day trip costs from £2,061 per person, visiting Chiapas and Yucatán and taking in Mexico City and a beach stay in Tulum on the Caribbean coast, at the S & S Hip Hotel.
The price includes private excursions to the sites, land transport, breakfast and three domestic flights. International flights cost extra. British Airways (0844 493 0787; ba.com) operates four non-stop flights a week to Mexico City; returns from £845.79. | New archaeological finds are quickening interest in the Maya, a people whose history is shrouded in myths. Nigel Richardson, touring their former lands, found old beliefs as potent as ever. | 51.514286 | 0.742857 | 0.971429 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/08/warren-buffett-reveals-his-number-one-piece-of-advice-to-anyone/21391584/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160814045757id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/06/08/warren-buffett-reveals-his-number-one-piece-of-advice-to-anyone/21391584/? | Warren Buffett reveals his number one piece of advice to anyone starting a new business | 20160814045757 | Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
Warren Buffett has one piece of advice to anyone starting a new business.
He gave that advice to a group of small business entrepreneurs at the 20th graduation of the Goldman Sachs "10,000 Small Businesses" program:
"Tomorrow morning when you look in the mirror after you've gotten up, just write — in lipstick or whatever you want, on the mirror — just put: Delight my customer," Buffett said.
He pointed to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as a "classic example" of an entrepreneur who has always focused on delighting customers.
"Any business that has delighted customers has a salesforce out there that you don't have to pay, you don't see them, but they're talking to people all the time," Buffett said.
"Whenever I bought my last car — a few years ago — I don't remember how much I paid, but I remember the experience I had."
Buffett's own Berkshire Hathaway started as a small company and over the course of the last five decades has grown to a market capitalization of $350 billion.
Now check out 10 inspirational business books by top CEOs:
Warren Buffett reveals his number one piece of advice to anyone starting a new business
“Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time” by Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks)
“Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman” by Yvon Chouinard (Founder and former CEO of Patagonia)
“Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy” by Bill Gates (Co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft)
“The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz (Co-Founder of Opsware and Andreessen Horowitz)
“Winning: The Ultimate Business How-To-Book” by Jack Welch (Former CEO of General Electric)
“#GIRLBOSS” by Sophia Amoruso (Founder of Nasty Gal)
“My Years with General Motors” by Alfred Sloan (Former CEO of General Motors)
“Sam Walton: Made in America” by Sam Walton (Founder of WalMart)
“Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” by Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos)
“Direct From Dell: Strategies that Revolutionized an Industry” by (Founder and CEO of Dell)
NOW WATCH: Why this Instagram star withdrew $1.2 million in cash — then deposited it the next day
See Also: Warren Buffett said he may back a bid to buy Yahoo — here's what he thinks about the company One of the oldest banks in the world just made a move on Wall Street A throwaway line from Jamie Dimon shows why the fintech hype has gone too far
SEE ALSO: This is how much you can hope to earn on Wall Street based on your degree | Buffett has one piece of advice to anyone starting a new business -- and pointed to Jeff Bezos as a "classic example" of an entrepreneur who follows this. | 18.193548 | 0.935484 | 9.516129 | medium | medium | extractive |
http://time.com/3107510/ice-bucket-challenge-als-we-need-to-do-better/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160814224433id_/http://time.com:80/3107510/ice-bucket-challenge-als-we-need-to-do-better/ | We Need To Do Better Than This | 20160814224433 | I remember the first time I heard about the Ice Bucket Challenge. It was a few weeks ago when photos and videos of people dumping water on their heads began appearing on Facebook. Soon, I started to see headlines on twitter mentioning one famous person jokingly challenging another. It sounded fun.
I also remember when I found out the Ice Bucket Challenge was started to combat ALS, the neurodegenerative disease my father died from 18 years ago. That was last Saturday. Initially, I was overjoyed all this attention was now focused on ending a disease that had caused me so much pain. My favorite hockey stars were participating, and Ethel Kennedy even challenged the president to douse himself.
But when I looked closer, I became uneasy. No wonder it took me weeks to learn the Ice Bucket Challenge was linked to ALS. Most of its participants, including Kennedy and Today’s Matt Lauer didn’t mention the disease at all. The chance to jump on the latest trend was an end in itself. In fact, the challenge’s structure seems almost inherently offensive to those touched by ALS. Here’s how the ALS Association describes the rules:
The challenge involves people getting doused with buckets of ice water on video, posting that video to social media, then nominating others to do the same, all in an effort to raise ALS awareness. Those who refuse to take the challenge are asked to make a donation to the ALS charity of their choice.
That means everyone you’ve ever seen dump water on themselves, per the rules, is not asked to donate. They may choose to, but the viral nature of this fad appears centered around an aversion to giving to money. “Want to help fight this disease? No? Well, then you better dump some cold water on your head.” The challenge even seems to be suggesting that being cold, wet, and uncomfortable is preferable to fighting ALS.
Ice Bucket defenders would argue this is all just meant to “raise awareness,” meaning those who participate are still doing good without donating. ALS needs all the awareness it can get, but somehow I doubt many learned a whole lot from contextless tweets of wet celebs smiling and laughing.
But here’s where my argument breaks down. Problematic elements aside, the Ice Bucket Challenge has raised $2.3 million since July 29th. That money will go towards treating people just like my father, and maybe one day, finding a cure. So do the ends justify the means?
After thinking long and hard about it, my short, reluctant answer is yes. I’m not going to stand here and try to stop a trend that is doing so much good. I’m also encouraged by an increase in the number of participants who I’ve seen at least mention ALS alongside their tweets and Facebook posts. I plan on participating myself, and I urge everyone reading this to join me. You can donate to ALS research here.
But at the same time, I can’t help but feel this challenge could have done so much more good if it were structured differently. Maybe people could dump ice water on friends who haven’t donated as goofy way of encouraging others to give, or dump water on themselves before promising to donate. Maybe helping ALS could at least have been presented as something other than a consolation prize.
Articles like this one, reductively titled “Stop hating on the ice bucket challenge — it’s raised millions of dollars for charity,” miss the point. In an age where hashtag activism and information-free awareness campaigns are becoming more and more common, we should be very conscious of how to make viral trends as useful as possible.
The Ice Bucket Challenge has done a lot of good. Let’s make sure the next one is even better. | The Ice Bucket Challenge is problematic in almost every way. It's also raised millions for charity. How can we reconcile those two facts? | 27.222222 | 0.814815 | 1.481481 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://time.com/money/4071452/jennifer-lawrence-wage-gap-lenny/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160814224610id_/http://time.com:80/money/4071452/jennifer-lawrence-wage-gap-lenny/?xid=tcoshare | 'I Failed As A Negotiator' | 20160814224610 | You’d think once an actress made it to the top of the Hollywood firmament, she wouldn’t need to worry about standing up for herself in salary negotiations. You’d be wrong. In an open letter published Tuesday in Lena Dunham’s digital newsletter, Lenny, Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence detailed the frustration she felt when she learned, in the midst of last year’s Sony hack, that she was being paid less than her male costars.
Lawrence explained that she was angry with herself after learning about the pay discrepancy because she “failed as a negotiator.” Having made a (very) comfortable living as the lead in two huge movie franchises, she didn’t push for a higher salary because she didn’t need it. But beneath the surface-level justifications, Lawrence knew there was a more insidious reason she ducked out of salary discussions earlier than her male peers.
“I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn’t want to seem ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled,’” Lawrence wrote.
The actress takes responsibility for not caring enough to stand up for herself in negotiations, a feeling many women can relate to. According to Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation—and Positive Strategies for Change, by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, just 30% of women negotiate a salary offer, compared with 46% of men.
A few weeks ago at work, I spoke my mind and gave my opinion in a clear and no-bullshit way; no aggression, just blunt. The man I was working with (actually, he was working for me) said, “Whoa! We’re all on the same team here!” As if I was yelling at him. I was so shocked because nothing that I said was personal, offensive, or, to be honest, wrong. All I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive.
We’ve all heard the tired refrain: To close the wage gap, women need to be more aggressive and stand up for themselves. But if we’re constantly policing our own tones and attitudes so men remain comfortable, that hardly screams “equality.” So what can we do to actually combat the wage gap? Here are three strategies.
As MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski told Fortune earlier this year, women need to stop “apologizing themselves into the room.”
“[Women] tend to worry about everyone being comfortable in the room, that has no place in a negotiation. They are supposed to feel uncomfortable and that is really unnatural for us,” Brzezinski said. “We want no bad feelings when we leave the room and we also want the money. That doesn’t compute.”
Read next: MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski: What Women Do Wrong When Negotiating Their Salary
“Negotiating your salary is about knowing yourself, knowing your skills and talents, and knowing and believing in who you are and what you are worth. It is not about being difficult or spoiled – those characteristics should never be associated with negotiating one’s salary,” Nancy Mellard, the national leader of CBIZ Women’s Advantage, told MONEY via email.
Eileen McDonnell, CEO of Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, seconded Mellard, saying that any person who believes in herself will be empowered to control her own destiny.
“Call me naïve, but when people brought gender to my attention, I didn’t buy into it,” McDonnell said. “I really bemoan the fact that business schools still lecture on pay differential. That teaches girls to expect to earn less, and boys to make it happen. The conversation should be about how recognizing the value of each other can help us all achieve success.”
Read next: 5 Salary Negotiation Tips From Amy Schumer
One of Lawrence’s larger points was that her male costars— rightfully—negotiated for a salary they knew they were worth. “Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale, and Bradley Cooper all fought and succeeded in negotiating powerful deals for themselves,” she wrote. “If anything, I’m sure they were commended for being fierce and tactical, while I was busy worrying about coming across as a brat and not getting my fair share.”
“If I told you you could make an extra $5,000 by being uncomfortable for 20 minutes, would you do it?” asks Bridget Eastgaard, a startup consultant and personal finance blogger. “If you’re a good employee and you bring a lot of value to the business, they will always pay for you.”
Eastgaard says many women feel that to be aggressive and get their fair share, they need to “negotiate like a man” instead of being themselves. But “you don’t have to pound your fists on the table.” Instead, calmly tell your boss what you deserve and why.
“It’s not aggressive, it’s assertive,” she says. And who could fault you for that?
Read Next: 5 Ways Women Can Close the Pay Gap for Themselves | And non-Hollywood stars, too | 145.571429 | 0.571429 | 0.571429 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/13/10-children-killed-in-their-classroom-by-saudi-coalition-airstri/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160814233157id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/2016/08/13/10-children-killed-in-their-classroom-by-saudi-coalition-airstri/ | Saudi coalition kills 10 children in their classroom in Yemen air strike | 20160814233157 | Photographs from the scene showed rows of small bodies lined up on tarpaulin. Other pictures showed showed wounded and bloodied children being treated in hospital.
A coalition of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in 2015 in support of the country's government against a Houthi rebel group aligned with Iran.
The coalition has been accused of bombing indiscriminately and the UN says it has around killed 2,000 civilians with its air strikes.
Saudi Arabia denied responsibility for the latest incident. General Ahmed Assiri, a spokesman for the coalition, said that warplanes had bombed a Houthi training camp, killing rebel fighters including a commander named as Yehya Munassar Abu Rabua.
He added that Yemen’s government had confirmed "there is no school in this area”.
Both the US and UK sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and other Arab members of the coalition.
Hisham al-Omeisy, a political analyst, said the air strike took place at around 9.15am in the village of Juma'at Bin Fadel in the Sa'ada governorate in northwest Yemen.
The area is far from the front lines of the fighting but is a power base for the Houthi rebels.
"There's no active ground fighting near area attacked but Sa'ada is Houthi's home governorate and stronghold, and has been relentlessly and aerially bombarded by the Saudi-led coalition since the beginning of the war in March of 2015," Mr al-Omeisy said. | Ten children have been killed and more than 20 injured by an air strike on a school in Yemen carried out by the Saudi-led military coalition, residents and aid agencies said on Saturday. | 7.324324 | 0.621622 | 1.324324 | low | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4215073/transgender-man-mens-health-cover-ben-melzer/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160815214655id_/http://time.com:80/4215073/transgender-man-mens-health-cover-ben-melzer/ | Transgender Man First to Appear on Cover of European Magazine | 20160815214655 | In groundbreaking move, the April cover of Germany’s edition of Men’s Health will feature a transgender man.
Transgender fitness model Ben Melzer won the magazine’s cover model contest, earning him the cover honors.
Born as Yvonne, Melzer started transitioning at age 23.
“I was never a typical girl. As soon as I started thinking, pink was a no-go,” Melzer told NowThis in a video.
Now he’s finally comfortable in his body.
“This is me and I’m very happy with the person I became,” he says. “My inside and my outside finally fit and that’s why I’m not at all ashamed to talk about it.”
Which is how he gained the courage to share his story and enter the cover contest.
Read Next: Meet the Transgender Man Leading the Men’s Health Cover Contest
“Many ask me, ‘Why do you do this, why did you go public and tell your story?’ ” Melzer explains. “But that’s easy to answer. When I was in that situation, I had nobody to talk to, nobody to ask all this questions. That’s what I want to do. I want to give the community a face, stand up and answer those questions for people.
“If there is one person out there I can help, I will succeed.”
The American edition of Men’s Health almost had its first transgender cover model in 2015, when Aydian Dowling, a transgender bodybuilder, entered the Men’s Health Ultimate Guy Cover Contest.
Though he lost out on the editor’s choice, he took home the reader’s choice category with over 72,000 votes and was on a special edition cover with the four other finalists. The runner-up had just 23,000 in comparison.
“Life’s been crazy,” Dowling told PEOPLE in September. “I’ve been getting a lot more attention, and it’s a lot more responsibility, actually, being a highlighted voice for the transgender community in the media right now.”
“There’s pressures that come along with that, but I’ve been trying to keep educating as much as possible, and staying true to what I’ve been trying to do for the community since I started advocating four or five years ago.”
This article originally appeared on People.com | Ben Melzer will appear on the cover of the German edition of 'Men's Health' | 26.882353 | 0.705882 | 1.176471 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4311162/girls-change-history-world-influential/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160815221208id_/http://time.com:80/4311162/girls-change-history-world-influential/?xid=newsletter-brief | 5 Little Girls Who Changed History | 20160815221208 | If you ask these influential little girls, all it takes to change the world is a hint of curiosity and a will to spark action. These youngsters have made waves, armed with nothing but their small voices and, in most cases, paper and a pen.
Here are some of the pint-sized pioneers who have made history simply by calling for a change:
Amariyanna Copeny A short-but-powerful written plea from 8-year-old Amariyanna Copeny was one of the driving forces that convinced President Obama to visit Flint, her hometown in Michigan plagued by lead-contaminated water. The little girl, who goes by Mari, wrote the commander-in-chief a letter, saying she would like to meet him or his wife, adding that their presence “would really lift people’s spirits.” He responded, confirming he would come into town to hear more about the public health crisis from voices like hers. “Letters from kids like you are what make me so optimistic for the future,” Obama wrote back.
Mari told TIME on Wednesday that she was moved to send the note to make sure the President understood what was happening to her neighbors. “I’m going to tell him that the water’s bad,” the third-grader said. “I wanted him to know what was going on.”
Sofia Americans have little Sofia of Massachusetts to thank for inspiring the government to put a woman on U.S. currency. She wrote President Obama a letter, asking him why she didn’t see any female faces on American coins or bills, and later left a note with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, asking him to consider putting a woman on paper bills. Obama last year called it a “pretty good idea.” The Treasury would later announce that Harriet Tubman would be featured on the $20 bill.
Sofia, then 10, told TIME last June that she hopes her role in the movement will encourage more children with good ideas to speak up. “They can do a lot of things, even if they’re kids,” she said.
Grace Bedell Grace Bedell may be the reason Abraham Lincoln won his presidential election. The little girl was 11 when she wrote the candidate a letter in 1860, suggesting he grow a beard to gain more votes. “I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you,” she wrote. “You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.” Lincoln, who took her advice, later shook her hand and said, “You see? I let these whiskers grow for you.”
Venetia Phair Venetia Phair is credited with naming Pluto in 1930, when she was just 11 and the then-ninth planet was newly discovered, the BBC reports. Phair had told her grandfather that the planet should be named after the Roman god of the Underworld, and he alerted a friend who happened to be an astronomy professor at Oxford University, TIME previously reported.
Alexandra “Alex” Scott Alexandra “Alex” Scott is the inspiration behind Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, a national charity that has raised more than $120 million toward finding a cure for cancer, according to the organization. Alex, who was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood cancer called neuroblastoma before she turned 1, decided she wanted to start a lemonade stand in her front yard to help other children with cancer. She died in 2004 at age 8, but her legacy remains. The foundation has funded more than 550 research projects nationally, and thousands of supporters across the country continue to start lemonade stands to fund her cause to this day. | From naming Pluto to helping to cure cancer | 93.5 | 0.875 | 1.125 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/24349274 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160816120200id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/sport/football/24349274 | Brighton & Hove Albion 1-3 Nottingham Forest | 20160816120200 | Henri Lansbury scored twice as part of a stirring second-half comeback that gave Nottingham Forest victory over Brighton.
Forest trailed at half-time following Andrew Crofts' close-range header.
But Lansbury headed the visitors level from Radoslaw Majewski's cross within a minute of the restart and Darius Henderson's sweet low shot made it 2-1.
Lansbury added a third from the penalty spot and the Reds held on despite having Nathaniel Chalobah sent off.
The on-loan Chelsea midfielder was dismissed for picking up two yellow cards.
Nottingham Forest are unbeaten in six Championship games, having won three and drawn three since losing to Wigan on 31 August.
However, Forest defended stubbornly with 10 men for the remaining 23 minutes and seven minutes of injury-time to go back up to fourth in the Championship, one point behind third-place Leicester.
Brighton had started strongly and Kazenga LuaLua twice went went close to putting the hosts ahead while Ashley Barnes forced a fine save from goalkeeper Karl Darlow.
At the other end Brighton keeper Tomasz Kuszczak made good saves from Henderson and Majewski.
But Brighton deservedly went ahead after a deep cross by Stephen Ward was mis-hit into Crofts' path by Ashley Barnes.
The hosts failed to build on that lead though, and Forest were good value for their victory after the interval.
Lansbury grabbed his first goal with a superb header from eight yards.
Darlow prevented Brighton from regaining the lead only three minutes later when he pushed a Barnes shot onto the post.
And two goals in the space of two minutes as good as won the game for the visitors.
Henderson put his side ahead with a left-foot shot into the bottom corner on after Matthew Upson could only half clear a Danny Collins cross.
Lansbury's second was blasted home from the spot following a foul by Gordon Greer on Simon Cox.
And Chalobah's sending off, which came about for a second yellow card when he shoved LuaLua, could not inspire a late Brighton rally.
Brighton head coach Oscar Garcia: "Sometimes this kind of thing happens. It's a game that everybody wants to win and we tried to play against them face to face.
"I'm proud of how we are playing. It's significant that the ground is full and I'm proud of the fans and the way they supported the team all the time despite the bad result.
"I'm also proud to be the coach of Brighton. The fans support the players and the team. They know we play attractive football but the black point is we don't score."
Nottingham Forest boss Billy Davies on Henri Lansbury: "He is a great character, you can see the spirit he plays with. He has a great work ethic and fully deserved his two goals.
"This team never say die, never, and it was a great three points. It wasn't one of our most emphatic wins but away from home we've done very well.
"The Brighton keeper made three or four great saves in the first half and we were disappointed to go in one nil down.
"At the interval I felt confident we would get the three points and we did so by showing tremendous resilience and wonderful character." | Henri Lansbury scores twice as part of a stirring second-half comeback that gives Nottingham Forest victory over Brighton. | 30.428571 | 0.904762 | 7.666667 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/adelson-to-take-ceo-job-at-sands-china-1422015518 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817024319id_/http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/adelson-to-take-ceo-job-at-sands-china-1422015518 | Adelson to Take CEO Job at Sands China | 20160817024319 | Sheldon Adelson, the 81-year-old billionaire behind the world’s largest gambling company, has a new job. The Las Vegas Sands Corp. chief executive will in March also take on that title at the company’s Macau unit, according to a Friday statement from Sands China Ltd.
The news, which comes as the once-booming Chinese gambling hub experiences its worst downturn to date, underscores the octogenarian’s unwavering focus on his casino empire and solidifies the control the Las Vegas parent wields over its Macau unit.
Mr. Adelson, who controls Las Vegas Sands, is currently the Las Vegas company’s chairman and CEO. He is also the chairman of Sands China, which is controlled by its Las Vegas parent. On March 6 Mr. Adelson will also become Sands China’s CEO, the Hong Kong-listed unit said in its Friday statement. He will succeed Ed Tracy, Sands China’s 62-year-old current CEO, who told staff in a Jan. 17 letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that he would in March return to the U.S. to focus on family and health.
Sands China will also appoint Las Vegas Sands’ 59-year-old president, Rob Goldstein, as its interim president effective March 6, the company said in its statement.
The management changes follow a string of recent departures of top executives at Sands China. The Macau unit’s general counsel is set to retire in April, while its No. 2 executive left in September 2013 and a successor hasn’t been appointed. Senior executives in finance and international marketing have also recently left the company, according to people familiar with the matter.
Deutsche Bank analyst Karen Tang said in a Friday note after the company’s announcement: “We are concerned that the frequent senior management re-shuffle could lead to another round of mid-level management departures from the company.” This could be a problem given the shortage of talented mid-level managers in Macau, Ms. Tang suggested.
The management changes come at a critical time in Macau, which has suffered a seven-month losing streak. Last year, the territory recorded its first annual drop in gambling revenue since data became available in 2002.
Executives and analysts attribute the sharp reversal of fortunes in Macau, which rakes in seven times more gambling revenue than the Las Vegas Strip, primarily to China’s crackdown on corruption. In addition to bringing down many top mainland officials, the sweeping campaign has led high rollers to shy away from Macau’s baccarat tables, they say.
Las Vegas Sands discussed Mr. Adelson’s role at the company last year while it was looking for a successor to its former president, Mike Leven, who retired in December. Before deciding on Mr. Goldstein, who has been with the company for about 20 years, the company told people involved with the search that the president role could possibly be upgraded to CEO because Mr. Adelson had said he would be willing to cede the title for the right candidate, according to people familiar with the matter. But shortly after the company had given those instructions, Mr. Adelson changed his mind, the people said.
Company spokesman Ron Reese in May told the Journal, which had contacted Las Vegas Sands for comment about the search, that Mr. Adelson wouldn’t cede the title.
To a degree, the question of title is academic because of Mr. Adelson’s tight control over the company. Still, investors and analysts have said they are eager for answers regarding the company’s plans for its leadership after a strong run by Mr. Adelson, who built Las Vegas Sands into a powerhouse by moving more quickly than his rivals to cash in on the gambling boom in Asia.
Two former executives who had been seen by people inside the company as potential successors to Mr. Adelson left Sands under acrimonious circumstances. Bill Weidner, a former president and chief operating officer at Sands, left the casino operator in March 2009 after almost 14 years. He had said he disagreed with Mr. Adelson over what course to take after the company’s debt piled up and its shares plunged during the financial crisis.
Sands fired a previous Macau chief executive, Steve Jacobs, in July 2010. The former executive’s subsequent wrongful-termination lawsuit spawned U.S. bribery investigations into Sands’ operations, the company has said. Sands has denied the claims in Mr. Jacobs’s continuing suit and said it is cooperating with federal investigators.
Mr. Adelson has sued Wall Street Journal reporter Kate O’Keeffe for libel. A spokeswoman for the Journal, which wasn’t named in the suit, has said the newspaper will “vigorously defend” Ms. O’Keeffe.
—Chester Yung contributed to this article.
Write to Kate OKeeffe at kathryn.okeeffe@wsj.com | Las Vegas Sands Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson will also take on that title at the company’s Macau unit, underscoring the billionaire’s unwavering focus on his gambling empire. | 28.83871 | 0.967742 | 5.548387 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123985205744324009 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817103535id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/SB123985205744324009 | Major League Baseball's Worst Ideas | 20160817103535 | For all its staid traditions, baseball does evolve. If you have an idea, no matter how preposterous, chances are it will eventually get a hearing. (See the Chicago White Sox's brief experiment with Bermuda shorts).
Some of these ideas are probably not going to be adopted. Longtime designated hitter Jim Thome, for instance, believes the rules should be changed "to give the hitters four strikes." Other ideas, like the world's... | For as much progress as there has been in baseball, there are still some old notions and orthodoxies that ought to be reexamined. Here are a few baseball ideas that are dubious, wrongheaded or just downright illogical. | 2.170732 | 0.365854 | 0.414634 | low | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4052691/new-york-city-flood-risk-rising/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817105833id_/http://time.com:80/4052691/new-york-city-flood-risk-rising/ | New York at Greater Risk of Flooding | 20160817105833 | Flood risk in New York City has increased in recent decades due to human-caused sea level rise and the related storm surge that occurs during cyclones, according to a new study. Climate change threatens to exacerbate the risk storms pose to the largest city in the United States.
Researchers, writing in the journal PNAS, evaluated sediment at different points along the shore in New Jersey to compare sea levels between 1970 and 2005 and sea levels between 850 and 1800. Prior to 1800, a flood that was 2.25 m (7.4 ft) above sea level occurred once every 500 years. Since 1970, a storm of that size occurs approximately every 24 years.
“This is going from something you probably won’t see in your lifetime to something you may see several times in your lifetime,” said Andra Reed, a researcher at Penn State University.
Sea levels rose slightly between 850 and 1800 due to natural causes that include melting glaciers, according to Reed. Scientists have shown such changes to be part of the natural variation in sea levels. But the rate of rise pales in comparison to recent decades, when sea levels have risen by 2 millimeters (.08 inches) per year on average. Nearly 90% of that rise has been the result of human activity, research has shown.
Read More: These Are the Cities Most Vulnerable to the Next Katrina
Potential for disaster increases when rising sea levels combine with stronger storm surges, also a product of human caused climate change. Storm surge occurs when water levels temporarily rise during a storm and weather conditions push that water ashore.
The study, which comes just a month before the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, adds to evidence showing the importance of investments in disaster preparedness. Sandy killed more than 200 and caused $75 billion in damage. That storm would have been a once-in-3,000 year event a few centuries ago, but today it’s once in 130-year storm, according to Reed.
“These flood heights are recurring more frequently,” said Reed. “That really does call for advanced risk management strategies.” | Climate change threatens to exacerbate the risk storms pose to the city | 33.75 | 1 | 10.166667 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/theater-arts/phantom-opera-debuts-digital-lottery-article-1.2508975 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817114128id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/entertainment/theater-arts/phantom-opera-debuts-digital-lottery-article-1.2508975 | 'The Phantom of the Opera' debuts digital lottery | 20160817114128 | Time to click with the angel of music.
“The Phantom of the Opera,” Broadway’s longest-running show, turns 28 on Tuesday and celebrates by launching a daily digital ticket lottery.
In honor of the 28th anniversary of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical about a masked figure and a soprano he falls in love with, seats for the lottery will be $28.
Entries can be submitted each day at PhantomBroadwayLottery.com.
Submit entries for matinees by 11 a.m., and evening performances by 3 p.m. Winners will be notified via email or text by 11:30 a.m. or 3:30 p.m. respectively. | “The Phantom of the Opera,” Broadway’s longest-running show, celebrates its 28th anniversary with the launch of a digital ticket lottery. | 4.107143 | 0.928571 | 9 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-37057483 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817121617id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/news/uk-northern-ireland-37057483 | Rio 2016: County Cork silver medallists making a splash on and off the water | 20160817121617 | What's the secret to Olympic success? Practice? Dedication? Raw talent?
It is: "From A to B as fast as you can go. Hope for the best. Close your eyes, and pull like a dog."
That's the view of Gary and Paul O'Donovan, the County Cork rowing brothers who won silver in Rio on Friday.
It was Ireland's first medal of this Olympics and first ever medal for rowing.
Afterwards, the Skibbereen siblings, who have become a hit both on and off the water, told Irish national broadcaster RTÉ they were "dreading going home now".
Why? Because Belfast boxer and Ireland teammate Mick Conlan said "he'd box the head off us if we didn't get the gold".
Their interviews with RTÉ have attracted an army of fans, particularly online.
So far this week they have extolled the virtues of steak and spuds.
They also jokingly complained about a decision to cancel racing due to high winds, because going out on the water would have been a "bit of craic".
Their laid-back interview style and rowing success has been a bright spot for Team Ireland in what has so far been a disappointing Olympics, overshadowed by shock defeats and a boxer's failed drug test.
Find out how to get into rowing with our special guide.
On Thursday, the pair qualified for the final after coming third in their heat, edging out Team GB - including County Antrim rower Richard Chambers - and they could not resist a cheeky nod towards their British neighbours.
"We had a cracker of race there, I think that race there had anything you could want from any race," said Gary.
"I suppose, with the year that's in it, it's great to beat the Brits as well," he laughed.
If the pair were feeling any pressure ahead of the final, they did not show it.
"We go home now, get ourselves into an ice bath - maybe get a bit of steak.
"The food is fantastic - you could have steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner with spuds if you want," Gary said.
"No Kerr's Pinks though," Paul interjected.
He added that their coach was "going mad" because the Irish potato is not available in Rio.
And what about making the weight with all that steak on board?
"Sure we're only small boys," Paul said.
Back at home, the whole of Skibbereen was backing the boys.
The town's credit union halted transactions for half-an-hour to show the final on a big screen.
Donal O'Driscoll, the credit union's manager, said the staff wanted to create a "Rio-type atmosphere" for the people of Skibbereen to watch the race.
But in spite of the Brazilian carnival fever, there simply had to be some steak and spuds on the menu.
"We had over 400 people in to watch it and we had to turn another couple of hundred away," he said.
"We like to enjoy the craic but we're serious about our sport.
"And sure, we're all about the spuds and steak here!"
Donal has a personal connection the the brothers - his son has been rowing with them since they were 10 years old and his wife taught them at primary school.
Their small corner of Cork is beaming with pride at the achievement, he added.
"We're just a small, little area but the boys have made history for us, they've put Skibbereen on the map," he said.
"They're just ordinary guys achieving an extraordinary thing on the biggest stage in the world.
"They're still very young, still four years away from their peak, so we'll go again at the next Olympics!"
No doubt Skibbereen's silver heroes will take it all in their stride. | The Irish Olympic silver medallists making a splash on and off the water | 60.076923 | 0.846154 | 2.538462 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/36689345 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817131100id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/sport/olympics/36689345? | Rio Olympics 2016: Justin Rose beats Henrik Stenson to Olympic gold in tense finale | 20160817131100 | Great Britain's Justin Rose became golf's first Olympic champion since 1904 by seeing off Henrik Stenson in a thrilling final round at Rio 2016.
Rose, 36, was level with Stenson on 15 under par after 17 holes but the Swede bogeyed the last while Rose sank a birdie putt to win by two shots.
The 2013 US Open champion hit a four-under-par 67 to win on 16 under.
Open champion Stenson took silver with a 68, while American Matt Kuchar carded a 63 to claim bronze on 13 under.
"That felt better than anything I've ever won," said Rose.
"It was the best tournament I've ever done. Hopefully we've shown Brazil what golf is about. I'm glad it was close. Not for my nerves, for golf."
While several other high-profile golfers had decided not to compete at the Olympics, Rose had relished the prospect of becoming an Olympian since the moment the sport's return to the Games was confirmed in 2009.
Such was his eagerness to be part of the experience, he arrived the week before the Olympics officially started to ensure he was part of the opening ceremony.
The Englishman made history by hitting Olympic golf's first hole-in-one in the opening round and started Sunday with a one-shot lead, before shooting four birdies and just one bogey on his outward nine.
Stenson carded birdies in four of his first 10 holes and drew level with Rose when the leader dropped a shot on the 13th.
It looked like a play-off would be needed to separate them but Rose held his nerve on the par-five last, chipping his approach to two feet from the hole, while Stenson's spun away to around 20 feet.
The Swede then raced his birdie putt eight feet past the hole and missed the return to allow Rose the luxury of two putts for victory. He needed just the one.
Former world number one Tiger Woods: "Thrilled for Rosie, Henrik & Kuch, but all golfers in Rio this week should be proud."
Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker on Twitter: "A Golden Rose. Brilliant from Justin Rose. Could not happen to a nicer guy. Marvellous!"
Wales and Real Madrid footballer Gareth Bale tweeted: "Class Justin Rose."
British golfer Ian Poulter: "Congrats to Justin Rose winning gold for Team GB. Great performance."
Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney: "Congratulations to Justin Rose. Gold medal, absolutely brilliant."
British former Formula 1 world champion Nigel Mansell: "Great gold medal win for Justin Rose, chased by Stenson and Kuchar, many congratulations to the GB Team." | Great Britain's Justin Rose is golf's first Olympic champion since 1904 after beating Sweden's Henrik Stenson to gold at Rio 2016. | 21.32 | 0.92 | 3.96 | medium | medium | mixed |
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