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http://www.wsj.com/articles/south-africas-gold-miners-begin-wage-talks-1434969880 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817140920id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/south-africas-gold-miners-begin-wage-talks-1434969880 | South Africa’s Gold Miners Begin Wage Talks | 20160817140920 | JOHANNESBURG—Wage negotiations in South Africa’s gold mining sector have got under way, an intractable process expected to drag on for weeks, if not months, while any strike action could further dent the bottom lines of the country’s already-struggling mining companies.
Major gold miners including AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. AU -2.97 % , Harmony Gold Mining Co. HMY -1.11 % Ltd. and Sibanye Gold Ltd. SBGL -0.59 % met Monday with labor unions in Johannesburg to discuss wage increases and other employment conditions. The gold companies, which bargain collectively under the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, employ 94,000 workers, according to the Chamber.
The companies are already battling low prices for the coveted, yellow metal and soaring electricity costs amid power outages, but unions that represent more than 80% of the country’s gold workers are demanding as much as double current wages.
The average wage for an entry-level gold miner who works as deep as 4 kilometers underground is just under 6,000 rand ($495) a month, but with benefits like housing, medical and a pension, that figure rises to about 12,000 rand, according to industry participants.
Industry watchers predict the unions will settle for much less. But even a relatively small increase in wages could result in job losses, companies have said.
The aggressive wage demands reflect a violent power struggle between the established National Union of Mineworkers and the more militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, which is growing rapidly in the gold mining sector. Last year, a wage battle between the unions and platinum producers led to a five-month strike and platinum output plummeted 15%. Gold producers hope to avoid such an outcome by tying wages to profits, so that they rise and fall in unison.
“We want to start a conversation with the leaders of organised labour and our employees that will lead to the sustainability of the gold industry for decades to come,” Graham Briggs, chief executive at Harmony Gold, said in a statement released by the Chamber of Mines.
“As leaders we need to place the viability and sustainability of our industry and the jobs it provides at the centre of our discussions,” he said.
Write to Alexandra Wexler at alexandra.wexler@wsj.com<mailto:alexandra.wexler@wsj.com> | Wage negotiations in South Africa’s gold mining sector have got under way, with unions demanding as much as double workers’ current wages. | 17.08 | 0.96 | 9.28 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/10600126/Chicken-with-anchovies-lemon-and-rosemary-recipe.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817144521id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/foodanddrink/recipes/10600126/Chicken-with-anchovies-lemon-and-rosemary-recipe.html | Chicken with anchovies, lemon and rosemary recipe | 20160817144521 | 6 large chicken thighs, bone in 8 banana shallots, peeled 1 tbsp olive oil 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped good pinch chilli flakes 5 anchovies, drained of oil and roughly chopped 3 sprigs rosemary 75ml (2¾fl oz) dry white wine juice and grated zest of ½ lemon
Trim the chicken thighs of any scraggy bits of fat to make them neat. Quarter the shallots lengthways.
Heat the oil in a shallow ovenproof pan that is large enough to hold the thighs snugly in a single layer. Quickly brown the chicken on both sides over a medium-high heat – you don’t want to cook them through, just get some colour. Remove the thighs and put them on to a plate. Pour off all but 1 tbsp of the fat from the pan (I use the excess to sauté onions for an accompanying pilaff). Add the shallots to the pan and cook for about three minutes to colour these as well, then add three of the garlic cloves, the chilli flakes and the anchovies. Turn the heat right down and cook for a further four minutes or so, pressing the anchovies with the back of a wooden spoon to help them “melt” (they just disintegrate).
Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F/gas mark 4. Add the rosemary, wine and lemon juice to the pan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat. Lay the chicken thighs skin-side up on top of the shallots, adding any juices that have come out of the chicken, and cook uncovered for 25 minutes. To check that the chicken is cooked through, pierce one of the pieces
near the bone – the juice that runs out should be clear, not pink. Taste for seasoning. The chilli and anchovies should provide enough, but just make sure. Chop the reserved garlic with the lemon zest and sprinkle over the top.
See here for more chicken recipes
Lamb chops with anchovy and olive aioli recipe
Jerusalem artichokes, anchovy, walnut and parsley relish recipe | Anchovies 'melt' into this shallot and lemon sauce to season roast chicken thighs | 24.4375 | 0.4375 | 0.5625 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/pioneering-barnes-noble-leader-to-step-down-1461729663 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817145836id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/pioneering-barnes-noble-leader-to-step-down-1461729663 | Pioneering Barnes & Noble Leader to Step Down | 20160817145836 | Book retailer Leonard Riggio said in an interview Tuesday that he will step down as executive chairman of Barnes & Noble Inc., BKS -10.54 % following the company’s annual meeting scheduled for September.
“I’m no longer going to be in charge,” Mr. Riggio said. “I’m done with that. I’m done with being top banana.”
Mr. Riggio, who built Barnes & Noble into the nation’s largest bookstore chain, said he played an active role last fall in the hiring of the company’s current chief executive, Ronald Boire.
The 75-year-old Mr. Riggio began to pull back in January. “I found peace with my decision,” he said. “The whole identity crisis comes in. ‘Who am I? How do I leave here?’ All that stuff comes into your head after you spend so many years in one place.”
Mr. Riggio is the company’s largest individual shareholder with a 17.5% stake. He says he has no plans to sell or add to his stockholdings. Mr. Riggio, who resigned as the company’s CEO in 2002, will remain on the board after stepping down as executive chairman.
The move by Mr. Riggio comes after a career in retail spanning more than half a century—one that made his name synonymous with superstores with huge offerings of titles, popular cafes and inviting magazine newsstands.
Barnes & Noble, however, never duplicated its success with its online bookstore or its offering of Nook digital devices and e-books. Instead, rival Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.51 % today dominates the sale of physical books online as well as the sale of digital e-books. Most recently, Amazon opened a retail store in Seattle and is planning a second for La Jolla.
As Amazon’s share of the book business increased, Barnes & Noble’s store count decreased to 640 today from a peak of 726 for the fiscal year ended January 2009.
Sales at the retail segment, which includes the consumer stores and BN.com, have fallen 20% to $4.11 billion for the fiscal year ended May 2015 compared with the fiscal year ended January 2009, in part because of the impact of digital books.
Barnes & Noble’s big bet that it could compete as a high-powered technology company head-to-head with Amazon and Apple Inc. AAPL -0.69 % also proved a disappointment. Through the first nine months ended Jan. 31, Nook revenue fell 29% to $150 million.
Paul Guenther, a board member since 2015, will serve as Barnes & Noble’s nonexecutive chairman. Mr. Boire, Barnes & Noble’s chief executive, will report to the full board.
Mr. Riggio, a philanthropist and art collector, said he has many outside interests that will occupy him after he steps down. “I still dream about stuff,” he said during the interview.
Mr. Riggio opened a college bookstore in Greenwich Village in 1965 and acquired Barnes & Noble, then a single store in Manhattan, in 1971. After buying the B. Dalton Bookseller mall chain, Mr. Riggio later committed Barnes & Noble to a strategy of opening superstores, helping to drive the growth of the country’s largest book publishers.
Mr. Riggio took Barnes & Noble public in 1993 but continued to own and operate the college-bookstore group as a separate private business.
That changed in 2009, when Barnes & Noble bought the college group, a move intended to provide some additional financial cushioning for the retail stores. The college business was spun off as an independent publicly traded company called Barnes & Noble Education Inc. BNED -3.26 % in 2015.
Barnes & Noble is expected to open a new prototype store later this summer, one of four that the chain will launch open during the fiscal year ended April 2017. | Book retailer Leonard Riggio said in an interview Tuesday that he will step down as executive chairman of Barnes & Noble, following the company’s annual meeting scheduled for September. | 22.78125 | 1 | 16.9375 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/fameandfortune/11019842/Jo-Whiley-I-cut-up-my-credit-cards.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817154750id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/finance/personalfinance/fameandfortune/11019842/Jo-Whiley-I-cut-up-my-credit-cards.html | Jo Whiley: 'I cut up my credit cards' | 20160817154750 | We never discussed money. It wasn’t something we talked about and there was never any instruction on how to spend or save money or what to do with it. It was never part of my parents’ life.
It was just the generation they came from, their whole upbringing, growing up in Northampton. My dad was an electrician.
My mum had a variety of jobs working in shops and she used to clean a church. Money was just never a big thing for us.
The only time we had a proper conversation about money was when I was a student. I spent too much and had an overdraft so they sat me down and said: “OK, we’re going to help you, we’re going to pay back some of this overdraft. But really you’ve got to take responsibility.”
Can you remember your first paid work and how much you earned?
My first job was as a waitress in somewhere like a Wimpey in Northampton.
That was the first time I had any money and the second I finished work I would have walked up to Spinner Discs, the local record shop, and would have spent the money on records like Blondie’s Parallel Lines.
All my money would have gone on buying music because there was nothing else I needed to buy. I wasn’t massively into fashion. I just wanted music.
Jo Whiley and American rapper Jay-Z
What was your first paid media work?
My first proper pay cheque was when I was a researcher at Planet 24 on a TV show called Club X.
I remember getting my first wages and for me it was a sizeable amount of money and I just remember sitting at my desk and blinking at it. “Seriously, I’ve earned this much money? That’s amazing.”
That was a really good feeling as I was doing a job that I absolutely enjoyed and would have done for free. It was all I ever wanted to do, to work in music and the media, so the notion that I was getting paid for it was just thrilling.
Apart from your broadcasting work you’re involved in the 'let there be beer’ campaign. Why are you so passionate about it?
It’s such an important campaign as the British pub is a huge part of our heritage and community. We need to bring Britain back to beer.
I grew up in a pub environment where our local was key to the community and ensuring everyone knew each other, I love that and would hate for Britain to lose this vital part of our heritage.
Pubs are definitely at the heart of the community.
Does money make you happy?
Yes, money definitely makes me happy because it means I can go to the garden centre and I can buy magnificent flowers and do up my garden.
If I’ve got money I can feed my gardening habit or my wardrobe habit so that makes me happy.
And if you haven’t got money that can make people very, very unhappy. So I completely understand the importance of going out there and grafting hard so you earn money to live a nice life.
I’ve got experience of not being in that situation. I can see friends and family who are really struggling at the moment so money can make a big difference to people’s quality of life and their happiness.
Do you have a financial adviser?
Yes, we have a great financial adviser who has been very helpful in advising where to store and invest money.
Our house is the best investment we’ve ever made. We live in a lovely house and I treasure every day that we’re there and that’s the best money we’ve ever spent. We don’t have a property portfolio though.
What has been your most extravagant purchase?
We half own a speedboat with a friend of ours. It’s brilliant and it gives us such happiness.
Do you spend money on music memorabilia or rare records?
I spend most money on sound systems and headphones, actually.
I always want to have good quality headphones but then one of my kids will nick mine so I have to go out and buy another pair. We haven’t got music wired up in every room but we certainly spent money on getting a good sound system and speakers.
Jo Whiley presented Radio 1 for the last time in 2011
How much is your record collection worth?
I have no idea. I have got some rare records in there but we’ve actually downsized a lot of our music over the years. We have these weekends where we get rid of loads to cut down on storage.
I think a lot of people have done that: everything is on computers and laptops now. So I don’t think I could give you a figure but it’s probably not as valuable as you think.
Do you give to charity?
I do a lot of charity work for Mencap. We do try to give money to charity as when you’re earning a decent amount of money it’s only fair.
Do you pay by cash, credit card or cheque?
I try to use cheques but nobody accepts them these days.
I use cards all the time. My husband and friends joke that I’m like the Queen in that I never carry cash and I’m always borrowing from other people.
I allow myself a certain amount of money each week and normally by about day three or four I’m out of that money and I’m begging my husband to pay for things.
I don’t have credit cards because I don’t trust myself. I’ve just got one debit card.
Have you been tempted by credit cards in the past?
There was certainly a time when I was doing more television work and I used to walk into shops that had very, very pricey labels and I’d buy things.
It means I’ve got a great vintage wardrobe now. I’ve got some amazing clothes that I bought from the likes of Miu Miu or Stella McCartney.
But these days I don’t spend that sort of money. That was when the credit cards had to stop. I wasn’t safe with a credit card. I have no will power to say no.
You have that thing where you walk into the shop and you get super excited because you’re about to buy something, then you buy it and you feel fantastic and you get the massive adrenaline rush and you think “this is amazing”. Then you get the financial hangover about six hours later, and you feel awful and guilty. And I just don’t like that feeling any more so I don’t do that.
Are you a generous tipper?
Yes I am, as I’ve been in that situation before when I was a waitress. I take a lot of taxis too and I think it’s important to recognise that this is people’s livelihoods and you’re paying them for service and it’s a nice goodwill thing to do.
What is the biggest drain on your finances?
Probably having four children; just affording their habits.
My boys are really good and they don’t want for too much but computer games are quite expensive. We’ve cut back on a lot of things. I used to have people in to help me do the garden and now I’m trying to do all that stuff myself.
What is your financial plan for the future?
When you have four children you don’t want them to be struggling throughout their lives and paying for your mistakes, so we try to be as prudent as we possibly can and invest in the right things and take advice from people who know more than we do.
There is a plan in place but I’m not particularly au fait with the finer details. I know that we’re being very sensible.
Jo Whiley is part of the Let There Be Beer campaign 'A Beer With . . .’, which sees three celebrities being interviewed by pub landlords (lettherebebeer.com) | Fame & Fortune: With four children and a passion for gardening, DJ Jo Whiley has turned her back on credit cards and economises at home | 52.233333 | 0.633333 | 0.9 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/07/margot-robbie-profile-in-vanity-fair-calls-australians-throwback/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817162219id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/2016/07/07/margot-robbie-profile-in-vanity-fair-calls-australians-throwback/ | Margot Robbie profile in Vanity Fair calls Australians 'throwback people' | 20160817162219 | Liliana Molina, who writes for the main newspaper in Miss Robbie’s home state of Queensland, published a comment piece addressed to the journalist.
“Perhaps it’s time you got in your time machine and flitted over the Pacific to Australia to have a good look at a normal society,” she wrote in The Courier Mail. “Your piece has only shown that you, instead of Australians, are from another era, because your writing deserves to be published 50 years ago instead of today.”
Mr Cohen was also taken to task for apparent sexism in his article. In the opening paragraph Robbie is described as “blonde but dark at the roots. She is tall but only with the help of certain shoes. She can be sexy and composed even while naked but only in character.”
Elsewhere, the article says she is “beautiful, not in that otherworldly, catwalk way but in a minor knock-around key, a blue mood, a slow dance”.
The article has caused outrage on social media, where it was condemned as creepy, voyeuristic, sexist and the “worst writing ever”. “That is the biggest piece of sexist c--- introductory paragraph I’ve ever seen,” said a comment on Twitter. | They pride themselves on being a youthful, vigorous nation who have thrown off their colonial past to embrace the modern world. | 10.521739 | 0.347826 | 0.347826 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704268104576107823888846928 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817165336id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/SB10001424052748704268104576107823888846928 | The Politics of Bloodlust | 20160817165336 | (Best of the tube tonight: We'll be on Fox News Channel's "Hannity" tonight as part of the "Great American Panel." The program starts at 9 p.m. ET, and we'll be on in the latter half hour. A repeat airs at midnight ET.)
America's liberal left is preoccupied with salacious fantasies of political violence. These take two forms: dreams of leftist insurrection, and nightmares of reactionary bloodshed. The "mainstream" media ignore or suppress the former type of fantasy and treat the latter as if it reflected reality. This produces a distorted narrative that further feeds the left's fantasies and disserves those who expect the media to provide truthful information.
In a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, socialist author Barbara Ehrenreich defends socialist sociologist Frances Fox Piven, who has recently been criticized, most prominently by Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck, for advocating violence in the service of left-wing aims.
Ehrenreich claims that Piven was merely urging "economically hard-pressed Americans" to "organize a protest at the local unemployment office." In fact, as we noted Monday, what Piven urged in the pages of The Nation was--these are her words--"something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece."
Glenn Reynolds has repeatedly reminded us what those Greek riots looked like, quoting a Wall Street Journal account from last May:
Ehrenreich was writing for the L.A. Times's opinion page, and she is entitled to her opinion, but she is not entitled to her own facts. The heading "opinion" is not a license to tell outright lies.
The dishonesty of Ehrenreich's piece is shocking, but it isn't even the most bizarre thing about it. She begins by bemoaning the absence of grass-roots activism in America:
Ehrenreich's explanation is America has become "a tyranny of the heavily armed." Americans don't get politically involved because they're afraid of getting shot. The implication is that if only the government would take away Americans' guns, Americans would be able to grab their Molotov cocktails and rise up against the government, or for the government, or something.
But wait. How has it escaped Ehrenreich's notice that the past two years have seen the greatest flowering of grass-roots democracy in America since the civil rights movement? We refer, of course, to the Tea Party movement. To be sure, you won't see any Molotov cocktails at a Tea Party gathering. You may see some guns--a normal part of life in most of America--but they will be borne lawfully and not used violently.
Since the Tea Party advocates individualism and not socialism, we may assume that Ehrenreich strongly disapproves of it (as does her pal Piven). But to bemoan the dearth of grass-roots activism in America without even acknowledging the Tea Party's existence suggests a detachment from reality bordering on the clinical.
Even odder, many on the left have advanced a false narrative in which the Tea Party is violent. The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg did so in a column last week, in which he was still trying to justify the media's falsely blaming the right for the attempted murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Hertzberg claims that the shooting "took place amid a two-year eruption of shocking vituperation and hatred, virtually all of it coming from people who call themselves conservatives," and that "these realities, and not the malevolence of liberal opportunists, were why, in the immediate aftermath of the crime, the 'national conversation' focussed on the nation's poisonous political and rhetorical climate."
This is bunk. The "two-year eruption of shocking vituperation and hatred" is a media myth, promulgated in two primary ways:
The first is by seeking out the most extreme expressions by Tea Party activists and sympathetic politicians and portraying them as if they were typical. This is in sharp contrast to the way left-wing political rallies are covered. Extreme and violent rhetoric is at least as easy to find there if you look--Michael Bowers has put together a photo gallery of "Left-Wing Hatred"--but the mainstreamers seldom look. During the Bush years, "antiwar" rallies were routinely depicted as nothing more than forums for wholesome, patriotic dissent.
The second is by presenting innocuous rhetoric from the right as if it were something sinister or dangerous. The most famous example--cited by Hertzberg, naturally--is the SarahPAC map of targeted districts, including Giffords's, which many on the left hoped had incited the man who shot her. Palinoiacs denounced the map as "violent" when it first came out last March, notwithstanding that the visual metaphor of a target is about as common in political campaigns of both parties as cartoons on the pages of Hertzberg's magazine.
Similarly, as we noted Jan. 12, Paul Krugman, the New York Times's most dishonest columnist, characterized as "eliminationist rhetoric" Rep. Michele Bachmann's comment that she wanted her constituents to be "armed and dangerous." In context, it turned out that she wanted them to be "armed" with information--a poor choice of words, but no more eliminationist than Barack Obama's comment in June 2008: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." At the time, the New York Times characterized this as part of "Mr. Obama's efforts to show he can do more than give a good speech."
Hertzberg is saying no more than that liberal journalists like himself are justified in perpetuating the myth of conservative violence because they promulgated it in the first place.
Perhaps he is right that it is not the product of opportunism but rather of sincerely held prejudice. But would it be a defense of, say, Theodore Bilbo or Joseph McCarthy to say that they sincerely believed the prejudices and falsehoods they espoused? What's more, Bilbo and McCarthy were politicians. Why is it so hard for journalists to remember that their job is to tell the truth?
Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Bull The Center for Politics, Larry Sabato's shop down at the University of Virginia, puts out some good analyses. Today they put out one that is completely worthless, titled "The Early Line: 2012 House Races."
Here is how author Isaac Wood sums up the state of play in House races:
Actually, only two new Republican congressmen hail from districts where Democrats can wage any kind of contest at all: Rick Berg of North Dakota and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, and neither of them show up in Wood's list of 20 "vulnerable House Republicans." There's another list of 19 "vulnerable House Democrats."
These lists are meaningless, because, as Wood finally gets around to mentioning at the end of the eighth paragraph, "the districts have yet to be drawn." Of the 435 House districts, only seven--the at-large districts from states with populations too small to merit multiple representatives--will be the same next year as they were last year.
Just how ludicrous is this exercise? The list of vulnerable Democrats includes not one from Massachusetts, even though the Bay State has already lost a House seat through reapportionment, has an all-Democratic delegation, and therefore is assured of losing one Democratic member. The list of vulnerable Republicans includes not one from Louisiana, even though the Bayou State has lost a seat and has an all-GOP delegation except for a black-majority district that will have to be preserved to conform to the Voting Rights Act, and therefore is all but assured of losing one Republican member.
C'mon, Sabato, get your staff in line. It's never too early to speculate about the next election, but this effort is just amateurish.
If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Is Dennis Kucinich Doing in the Pits? One congressman who may be in danger of losing his seat to redistricting--and who does make it onto the silly Sabato list--is Dennis Kucinich. Ohio lost two seats in reapportionment, and Republicans will control the redistricting process, so the kooky Clevelander is "actively shopping around for a new district," the Washington Examiner reports.
That's not all he's doing, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer notes:
He should have ordered the freedom fries.
Fog in Potomac, Rest of Country Cut Off "Heavy snow and icy roads Wednesday night created hazardous condition for President Barack Obama as he returned to the White House from a trip to Wisconsin," the Associated Press reports:
Seems to us an awful lot of people were inconvenienced by the weather, and most of us don't have motorcades that are privileged to "weave through rush hour traffic." Isn't it a bit creepy for the press to give this sort of solicitous treatment to an elected politician in a democracy?
Out on a Limb "Public Unions Don't Have Our Interests at Heart"--headline, News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.), Jan. 26
Would You Buy a Used Czar From This Man? "Obama Tries to Sell Agenda, Presidency"--headline, Roll Call, Jan. 27
Ralph Hall Sat Next to Louise Slaughter "Dating Sheds New Light on Dawn of the Dinosaurs"--headline, RedOrbit.com, Jan. 25
With DNC in Mind, City Bans Carrying Urine, Feces "Floor Pooper Sentenced to Jail"--headline, United Press International, Jan. 26
If He Has Wheels, He's a Wagon "Giuliani Is Leading GOP Contender if Front-Runners Drop Out"--headline, RasmussenReports.com, Jan. 25
The Vice President Does His Part
Don't They Use Obscene Euros Now? "Vandals Leave $30,000 Worth of Obscene Marks at High School . . . Video"--headline, South Florida Sun Sentinel website, Jan. 27
CSUN Has a Very Prestigious Pee HD Program "Cal State Northridge Professor Charged With Allegedly Urinating on Colleague's Office Door"--headline, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 26
Questions Nobody Is Asking "Are Skyscrapers Evil?"--headline, EconomicPolicyJournal.com, Jan. 26
Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking
Climate Change Cancels Winter Weather Event--Now That Would Be News "Winter Weather Cancels Climate Change Event"--headline, Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.), Jan. 26
Restaurant to Open Dogs--Now That Would Be Chinese "MadDogs to Open Six D-FW Restaurants"--headline, Dallas Business Journal, Jan. 26
Too Much Information "New Seats but No Spats on Congressional Date Night Despite Hoopla"--headline, TheHill.com, Jan. 26
Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control "Whoopi Goldberg Defends Michele Bachmann on 'The View' "--headline, DailyCaller.com, Jan. 26
News of the Tautological "Super Bowl Ticket Supply Drives Cost"--headline, Dallas Business Journal, Jan. 26
Breaking News From Genesis 6:11-21 "Noah Getting Closer to Action"--headline, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 27
Breaking News From 1953 "School Divides Students Based on Race, Gender"--headline, WGAL-TV website (Lancaster, Pa.), Jan. 25
Breaking News From 1979 "Why Today Is 1979, Not 1995"--headline, The American Spectator website, Jan. 26
News You Can Use "The Thyroid Is That Butterfly Gland Just Below the Adam's Apple"--headline, Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.), Jan. 26
Bottom Stories of the Day
The State of the Union Is Bored Conor Friedersdorf, filling in for the awful Andrew Sullivan, opens a blog post with this sad story:
This turns out to be an analogy leading up to the point that journalists should not write "obligatory pieces" about the State of the Union Address.
We don't really disagree with that. Indeed, we don't care enough to have an opinion. And we don't know Friedersdorf, but we hope he's gay like Sullivan, because it sounds as though he has a really bad attitude toward women.
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(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Kenneth Killiany, Ethel Fenig, Jeff Percifield, Karl Ahnell, Michele Schiesser, Steve Prestegard, John Bobek, Zack Russ, Kyle Kyllan, John Sanders, T. Young, David Clark, David Schlosser, Andy Pulley, Glade Roper, Jack Archer, Don Stewart, Kenny Alwes, Rod Pennington, John Barnes, Tim Willis, Jarret Peritzman, Rebecca Billings, J.L. Wolter, Mark King, Evan Slatis, Jeff Bliss, Sarah Childress, Steven James, Leonard Peirce, Marion Dreyfus and Hillel Markowitz. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.) | James Taranto on Barbara Ehrenreich, Hendrik Hertzberg and the left's disturbing preoccupation with violence. | 144.764706 | 0.823529 | 1.529412 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703730804576315273059353648 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817185543id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/SB10001424052748703730804576315273059353648 | The Dastardly 'Dead-Arm Syndrome' | 20160817185543 | Jim Abbott neither sought nor received a medical explanation for why he couldn't throw a baseball with as much speed and snap as he once did.
During his 10-year major-league career, he never heard anyone use the term "dead-arm syndrome," and he never felt any pain when he pitched. There was just a gradual, inexorable decline in the velocity and effectiveness of his fastball, a development that Abbott chalked up to the... | This mysterious, hard-to-cure ailment robs pitchers of their fastballs. "It's hard to know the right treament.'' | 3.346154 | 0.384615 | 0.384615 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-startup-scene-blooms-1468018328 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817190129id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/a-startup-scene-blooms-1468018328 | A Startup Scene Blooms | 20160817190129 | STAMFORD, Conn.—Ahmed Khattak started an ecommerce business in New Haven, eventually moving it to Seattle. By 2014, he decided he was ready for a new opportunity and a new location.
Friends advised him to start his next company in San Francisco. Instead he choose Stamford.
“We looked around and said, Connecticut is home,” said Mr.... | Connecticut’s tech sector, long in the shadow of New York and Boston, is gaining local support and funding, with some executives working on bringing the state’s entrepreneurs together. | 2.088235 | 0.294118 | 0.294118 | low | low | abstractive |
https://www.thesun.co.uk/2016/08/15/dalian-atkinson-man-dies-after-being-tasered-by-police-in-telford/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817225637id_/https://www.thesun.co.uk/2016/08/15/dalian-atkinson-man-dies-after-being-tasered-by-police-in-telford/ | Dalian Atkinson dead after being Tasered by police in Telford | 20160817225637 | FORMER Premier League star Dalian Atkinson was Tasered up to six times and was kicked repeatedly by police before he died, a witness has claimed.
The ex Aston Villa and Manchester City star, 48, was zapped by officers who were called to a row at his dad’s home in Telford, Shrops, in the early hours of this morning.
A neighbour described seeing him being Tasered a number of times and kicked by police after "stumbling towards" officers at around 1.30am.
Paula Quinn said: "They were shouting and kicking so much all I could hear were the boots hitting him.
"And then the officer who released the Taser stepped back while the other officer still continued to kick.
"I could hear him shout to the other officer that was still kicking, 'Back off, back off, back off.'
"And then the officer with the Taser asked the gentleman to put his hands behind his back and did so probably two or three times and reactivated the Taser another four or five times after that. "
Atkinson, who scored 38 goals in 114 appearances for Villa, died in the early hours of this morning
Paramedics said Mr Atkinson went into cardiac arrest on his way to hospital. He was pronounced dead at 3am.
Police said they were called to his family home after reports that people were concerned for a person's safety.
The incident has now been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
The 48-year-old striker - who also played for Real Sociedad - grew up on Meadow Road with his parents Ernest and Gloria.
Today Ernest, 85, told how his son flew into booze-fuelled rage shortly before he was tasered by police.
He said: "He was in a real state. I don't know if he was drunk or on drugs but he was very agitated and his mind was upset.
"The last thing he said to me was 'don't move' when the police came to the door.
"He was threatening and very upset. I didn't call the police but someone else did.
"He got tasered in the street outside in the road. I didn't see him but I saw a flash. I haven't had any sleep and cannot take it in.
"The police are dealing with this now."
Next door neighbour Lascelles Rose, 73, said: "I spoke to his dad this morning, he phoned me to tell me the sad news.
"He was so upset, he just kept telling me 'he's gone' and 'my boy is dead' - he is just so heartbroken.
"Dalian had been in hospital recently for a couple of months, he had been poorly but I don't know what with.
"He went to school with my three children and I've known him his whole life, he was a good man who would always be friendly and say hello.
"I used to watch him playing football in the street and you could tell then he had something special.
"He was one hell of a football player and a top man.
"I am just in complete shock trying to process what had happened.
"He was never a trouble-maker or anything like that and the police had never been round there before - I just can't understand why this has happened.
"Dalian didn't live there anymore but he did visit quite a bit, he always kept in touch with his parents and would come and see them whoever he played for.
"It is such a tragedy. He was such a talent and such a lovely man."
A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: "I had known him since he was a little boy, he was a famous footballer at one time.
"He was friendly, he had no trouble that I know of."
Forensic officers were at the scene this morning, as Meadow Close remained cordoned off.
Neighbours described "a lot of shouting and police" at the scene.
Neighbour and eyewitness Paula Quinn said: “Police officers warned him they would Taser him but he just seemed perhaps inebriated.
“And because he continued to step forward once or twice – non threatening – they deployed the Taser. As the Taser hit him in the stomach he just went down like a lead balloon.”
It was also claimed that the former striker had been trying to kick in the door of his former family home as his dad remained barricaded inside - moments before he was Tasered by cops.
Neighbours said the 48-year-old was banging of the door of his dad Ernest's house, claiming that he was homeless - but his father refused to let him inside.
It is believed his mum "died some years ago".
A neighbour, who didn't want to be named, said: "I found out what had happened last night, when I heard the commotion outside - it was frightening.
"There was a lot of banging and shouting, and doors being kicked in.
"Dalian was shouting about being homeless, he wanted his dad to let him in - but his dad wouldn't so he was kicking the door."
Matthew Bothwell, 43, who lives on Meadow Close with his wife Tina, 41, said: "They are a really nice family. It's just heartbreaking."
Atkinson, who scored 36 goals in 114 appearances for Villa, scored in the League Cup final win over Manchester United in 1994.
The retired striker, who drove a Porsche, had spells with Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester City and joined Villa for £1.6million in July 1991.
He scored a wonder goal against Wimbledon in the 1992-93 season after picking the ball up well inside his own half before gliding past a stream of Dons defenders and chipping goalkeeper Hans Segers from 25 yards.
The goal - and the celebration with a member of the crowd holding an umbrella - became the stuff of Villa legend.
Today Ipswich Town paid tribute on its Twitter feed, saying: "Terribly sad news about our former striker. Our thoughts are with Dalian's family and friends at this tragic time."
Sheffield Wednesday said on the social media site: "The thoughts of everyone at Wednesday are with the friends and family of Dalian Atkinson this morning. RIP".
Today a man who claimed to be Dalian's nephew, Fabian Atkinson, alleged police failed to call his uncle an ambulance immediately after tasering them.
Eyewitnesses allege cops waited about 20 minutes before calling for medical backup.
Fabian, 31, said: "If the police are turning up to a scene where someone is having an argument, they have to be prepared to calm that person and not just go straight for the taser.
"As soon as you deploy the taser they have to call an ambulance straight away, and try to find out the person's medical history.
"My uncle was having kidney dialysis, which would have made his heart weaker. The police knew nothing about that.
"How can they taser someone without calling an ambulance first?"
In a statement the force said: "Upon arrival Taser was deployed and a 48-year-old man, who subsequently received medical attention, was pronounced dead at approximately 3am.
"West Mercia Police are unable to comment any further as the incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) as is normal procedure and will assist the IPCC with their enquiries."
A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: "We were called by West Mercia Police to an address in Meadow Close in the Trench area of Telford at about 1.45am this morning.
"An ambulance was dispatched and upon arrival found a man who had been Tasered.
"As he was being conveyed to Princess Royal Hospital, his condition deteriorated and he went into cardiac arrest.
"Despite the efforts of the crew and hospital staff, it was not possible to save him and he was confirmed dead at hospital, shortly after arrival."
It follows the death of ex-soldier Spencer Beynon in June, after he was Tasered by police in Llanelli, South Wales, after stabbing a dog and then himself.
Friends said he had suffered mental health problems after leaving the military.
Last year police use of Tasers, which are intended as a non-lethal weapon, went up slightly towards the end of 2015 with 10,329 uses by forces in England and Wales, a two per cent rise on the previous year.
However, of those, 19 per cent (1,921) were discharges; a decrease of three per cent from the previous year.
The 48-year-old ex striker is probably best remembered for his time at Aston Villa where he won goal of the season in the first year of the Premier League which saw the Villains finish second in the table. He also helped Villa win the 1994 League Cup final against Manchester United. A career spanning 16 years saw him play in England, Spain, Turkey, France, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Born in Telford, Shropshire in 1968 he first burst on to the scene as a teenager at Ipswich Town in 1985. One of his earliest moments of brilliance saw him bang in a hat trick against Middlesbrough when he was just 20-years-old. After an ill-fated move to Sheffield Wednesday in 1989 which saw the side relegated he went on to make history by being the first black player to play for Spanish side Real Sociedad. Nicknamed "el txipiron" (the squid) by fans in Spain he formed part of an English trio at the club with John Aldridge and Kevin Richardson. Despite scoring 12 goals in La Liga club bosses disapproved of his off field behaviour and sold him to Aston Villa at a loss. Atkinson would go on to score 38 goals in 114 appearances for the Midlands club smashing in a total of 23 goals including a wonder strike against Wimbledon in the first season of the new Premier League. The striker took the ball from deep in his own half skipping past several Wimbledon defenders before chipping the goalkeeper from the edge of the penalty area. Atkinson would go on to win Match of the Day's goal of the season for that year as well as take Villa to their highest finish in Premier League history. In 1995 the striker was sold to Turkish side Fenerbahce but failed to settle at the side going on loan to FC Metz in France and back to England with a spell at Manchester City. After City Atkinson's career began to wind down seeing him travel further afield to Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia in 1997 before playing his last professional games in South Korea and retiring in 2001. Following his retirement from football Atkinson set up a sports consultancy for clubs, players and agents called Players Come First.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 | FORMER Premier League star Dalian Atkinson was Tasered up to six times and was kicked repeatedly by police before he died, a witness has claimed. The ex Aston Villa and Manchester City star, 48, wa… | 52.365854 | 0.926829 | 20.243902 | high | medium | extractive |
https://www.thesun.co.uk/2016/08/15/rio-olympics-2016-wayde-van-niekerk-smashes-michael-johnsons-17-year-old-400-metre-world-record-to-stop-clock-at-staggering-43-03-seconds/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160817230004id_/https://www.thesun.co.uk/2016/08/15/rio-olympics-2016-wayde-van-niekerk-smashes-michael-johnsons-17-year-old-400-metre-world-record-to-stop-clock-at-staggering-43-03-seconds/ | Wayde van Niekerk smashes Michael Johnson's 400m world record | 20160817230004 | The Liverpool-supporting South African left his rivals for dust in the OIympic stadium as he crossed the line and jaws dropped with greatest ever mark over one lap
SOUTH AFRICA’S Wayde van Niekerk made jaws hit the floor in Rio as he smashed Michael Johnson’s 400-metre world record and took gold in 43.03 seconds.
And he delighted his white-haired 74-year-old great grandmother coach in the most breathtaking performance of the entire Olympics so far.
Van Niekerk was neck-and-neck with rivals Grenada’s Kirani James and USA’s Lashawn Merritt going into the final 200m.
But in the last 150 metres he put in an almighty surge to pull clear as all his rivals fell back.
And the gap just grew and grew as Van Niekerk held strong – before the scoreboard flashed up 43.03 seconds – a world record by 0.15sec.
Van Niekerk – a humble South African – is coached by 74-year-old great-grandmother Ans Botha.
The 24-year-old also became the first man to ever break ten seconds in the 100m, 20sec in the 200m and 44sec in the 400m – although he nearly even broke 43sec in Rio!
And Botha was delighted in the crowd as she witnessed history, seeing the world mark set in 1999 toppled for the first time.
BBC commentator said on the TV: “I have never seen anything from 200m to 400m like that.
“He may well have run faster in the second 200m than in the first.
“Well done to this youngster, a world record. That was a massacre – he just put those guys away.
“He is so young, what else can he do? Can he go under 43 seconds?
“It is something I thought I could do, but never did. Usain Bolt will be retiring soon, this could be the next star of the sport.”
And in the football club stakes – Van Niekerk can give Liverpool one up on Manchester United when the Jamaican retires.
If he becomes the next biggest name in the sport, he will be lending his support to the Anfield club – like Bolt, who supports the Red Devils.
Van Niekerk showed off his Liverpool jersey, signed by Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho. | SOUTH AFRICA’S Wayde van Niekerk made jaws hit the floor in Rio as he smashed Michael Johnson’s 400-metre world record and took gold in 43.03 seconds. And he delighted his white-haired … | 11.631579 | 0.947368 | 15.315789 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/08/15/how-to-reduce-the-pay-gap-between-men-and-women/women-need-equal-opportunities-for-job-advancement | http://web.archive.org/web/20160818045822id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/roomfordebate/2016/08/15/how-to-reduce-the-pay-gap-between-men-and-women/women-need-equal-opportunities-for-job-advancement | Women Need Equal Opportunities for Job Advancement | 20160818045822 | The new Act to Establish Pay Equity in Massachusetts is similar to voluntary moves by Google and other companies that have changed their hiring policies to base a salary offer on the market rate of the job, not on previous compensation.
The Massachusetts law also improves pay transparency by forbidding employers from discouraging workers to compare notes on their salaries.
Both of these requirements should help equalize pay for women and men doing similar work, but while this effort is both needed and welcome, don’t expect it to end the gender wage gap on its own.
Across the economy, despite decades of female progress in entering higher-paying jobs formerly done almost exclusively by men, about 40 percent of women and 50 percent of men still work in occupations that are dominated by their own gender. Typically, in smaller segments of the economy — such as within a single firm or field — sex segregation among occupations is even greater. Different entry level jobs go disproportionately to men and women. For example, a Home Depot in Southern California settled with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance in 2015, including a back pay award, because it had typically assigned women to roles as cashiers and men to roles as sales associates — a higher paying job with more upward mobility.
More broadly, it is too often forgotten that hiring managers can choose where new entrants are assigned. While Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is designed to prevent such stereotypical hiring, much of it remains. When examining pay distribution in their businesses, employers should look beyond equal pay for similar work, to whether women have equal opportunity to work in the highest paid jobs and are able to advance up the ranks. | Men still get better jobs that lead to more promotion opportunities. | 26.833333 | 0.583333 | 0.75 | medium | low | abstractive |
https://www.thesun.co.uk/2016/08/17/wladimir-klitschko-ready-to-take-tyson-fury-to-court-to-force-title-rematch/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160818051930id_/https://www.thesun.co.uk/2016/08/17/wladimir-klitschko-ready-to-take-tyson-fury-to-court-to-force-title-rematch/ | Wladimir Klitschko ready to take Tyson Fury to court to force world title rematch | 20160818051930 | World champ's team are trying to 'change the terms of an already signed contract' claims Ukrainian
WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO is ready to take Tyson Fury to court to force through their world heavyweight title rematch.
Klitschko, 40, was originally due to face Fury for the second time on July 9 having been dethroned by the undefeated Gypsy King in Germany last November.
The showdown at the Manchester Arena was scrapped when the WBA Super and WBO champion suffered an ankle injury and a rescheduled date was pencilled in for October 29 at the same venue.
But Team Klitschko claim contractual disputes have put the fight in doubt once again.
Addressing his fans on social media, Dr Steelhammer said: “I just want to keep you updated on the status quo of my rematch against Fury.
“Unfortunately, Team Fury is trying to change the terms of an already signed contract multiple times.
“To protect my own rights, and eventually see the rematch, I’m forced to go to court.”
Fury insists he wants to record back-to-back victories over Klitschko before tackling IBF champ Anthony Joshua and WBC kingpin Deontay Wilder.
But Klitschko’s manager Bernd Boente fears the Ukrainian may not get the opportunity to share the ring with Fury again.
Boente said: “I don’t know if it will happen, I have no idea.
“I have never seen a champion being inactive for so long, especially after just winning the title.” | WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO is ready to take Tyson Fury to court to force through their world heavyweight title rematch. Klitschko, 40, was originally due to face Fury for the second time on July 9 having b… | 7.307692 | 0.948718 | 17.564103 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/arts/design/21tele.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160818061405id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2008/05/21/arts/design/21tele.html? | The New York Times | 20160818061405 | But Mr. St George realized the project was too big for him to undertake alone. Two years ago he was introduced to the British arts organization Artichoke, known for bringing the Sultan’s Elephant, a 42-ton mechanical animal, for a walkabout in London in May 2006.
“Many, many people were knocking our door down after the elephant,” said Nicky Webb, a co-founder of Artichoke. Though the organization didn’t know Mr. St George’s work, the theatricality and playfulness of the idea appealed to its members immediately, Ms. Webb said. “Hilariously,” she added, “we thought it would be quite easy to do.”
It wasn’t. The project, which was underwritten by British government grants and private sponsorship, cost £400,000 (about $787,000). As a memento and to help offset the costs, Mr. St George designed a $320 limited-edition “minumental” Telectroscope, complete with a Stanhope lens. (Using the real Telectroscope is free in New York, £1 in London.)
Mr. St George visited the United States for the first time last fall. The waterfront sites were chosen for their iconic vistas of the cities; that the project could be timed to coincide with the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge this week was icing. (“We’re looking forward to seeing whether we can see the fireworks down the Telectroscope from London,” Ms. Webb said.)
Katie Dixon, the director of planning and development in arts and culture at the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which helped facilitate the installation, has already made an appointment to wave to London friends via the Telectroscope. “Projects like this give people the opportunity to experience their everyday paths in different ways,” she said. “It’s just the kind of public art we want to see more of in the area.”
On Monday night and Tuesday morning, Peter Kohlmann, an event producer whose credits include the Millennium celebration in Times Square, supervised a crew of 15 as they assembled the drill; by 4 a.m. on Tuesday they were “dressing it,” as Mr. Kohlmann said — piling rocks and dirt around the base to make it appear as if the drill had just burst forth from below. For the time being, the site is surrounded by metal gates and yellow caution tape; when the Telectroscope finally takes its place, by dawn on Thursday, it will be watched 24 hours a day by a security guard and a staff member to explain how it works and give the invented back story.
“The interesting thing about it is, it’s almost true,” Mr. St George said. “There are many tunnels underneath London. It’s totally imaginable — at least to me it is — that one could find a number of tunnels and connect them to Brooklyn.”
In this case (spoiler time!) technology supplanted imagination: the Telectroscope, whose frame of vision is about six feet in diameter, is linked into existing fiber-optic networks. Mr. St George hopes that people will use his device in surprising ways — to hold dance-offs, say, or propose marriage via placards. (The Telectroscope has no audio component “because I thought then people would just stand still and use it like a telephone,” he said.)
Mostly, though, Mr. St George is charmed by the circuitous nature of public imagination. Much the same way that comic book tales of space travel helped people accept Sputnik, he said, the Twain story and other accounts of the Telectroscope helped spur an appetite for technology that didn’t exist yet, like TV and the Internet.
Now, he said, “I’m hoping people will find other inventions that could’ve been, or were almost, and think about completing those.”
The Telectroscope will be in place at the Fulton Ferry Landing in Dumbo, Brooklyn, from Thursday morning until June 15.
A version of this article appears in print on , on page E1 of the New York edition with the headline: Telescope Takes a Long View, to London. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | A fanciful device born equally of history and imagination, the Telectroscope will visually connect New Yorkers to people in London. | 36.090909 | 0.727273 | 1.181818 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-18877877 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160818120812id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/news/world-us-canada-18877877 | HSBC compliance executive steps down | 20160818120812 | David Bagley, head of group compliance at HSBC, has announced in front of a US Senate committee hearing that he will step down and help the bank work "towards an orderly transition".
The committee has found that HSBC provided a conduit for "drug kingpins and rogue nations", as the panel investigated money laundering claims at the bank. | David Bagley, head of group compliance at HSBC, tells a US Senate hearing investigating money laundering claims against the bank that he will step down. | 2.392857 | 0.892857 | 5.321429 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.wsj.com/articles/health-care-reaches-homeless-on-streets-1471224118 | http://web.archive.org/web/20160818171039id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/health-care-reaches-homeless-on-streets-1471224118? | Health Care Reaches Homeless on Streets | 20160818171039 | In the shadow of a Metro-North Railroad overpass in Harlem, Richard Thomas keeps his right leg propped up on an old stationary exercise bike. Two white medical bands on his wrist hint at his latest hospital stint.
Mr. Thomas is one of an estimated 200 homeless New Yorkers who will receive an unconventional form of health care over the next year: immediate professional medical treatment wherever they can be found, including street corners, underpasses or park benches. The care is delivered by a medical team that makes... | An estimated 200 homeless New Yorkers will receive an unconventional form of health care over the next year: immediate professional medical treatment wherever they can be found, including street corners, underpasses or park benches. | 2.578947 | 1 | 27.894737 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/will-women-voters-balk-trump | http://web.archive.org/web/20160818171646id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/msnbc/will-women-voters-balk-trump | Will women voters balk at Trump? | 20160818171646 | A certain macho swagger has always been an undercurrent in mainstream politics, particularly among Republicans, who style themselves as the daddy party. But what about a literal penis-measuring contest, spearheaded by at least two major Republican candidates? A front-runner who brags that he could have made the party’s last nominee “drop to his knees,” as Donald Trump did this week when discussing Mitt Romney’s past acceptance of his endorsement? A man whose go-to way to talk about women, including his own daughter, is whether he’s sexually attracted to them?
RELATED: The larger implications of Donald Trump’s p**sy comment
“Given Republican candidates’ obsession with talking about the female anatomy, I guess we should take it as a sign of progress that they’re talking about their own,” said Marcy Stech, communications director at EMILY’s List, which works to elect pro-choice Democratic women.
We are past the point at which it can be reasonably expected that Trump’s antics will make a dent with conservative women, who make up a good chunk of his support, if a slightly smaller piece of the Republican electorate overall. They have stuck by Trump through “schlonged” and through suggestions that Megyn Kelly asked tough questions because she was menstruating.
The presidential campaign: Donald Trump “Make America Great Again.” But four years after the support of women re-elected Barack Obama, the general electorate may be different. Women voters, who are, as a whole, slightly less likely to pick Republicans in a presidential election, could be motivated to turn out for Hillary Clinton, particularly if they are women of color, the backbone of the Democratic party. Trump’s sexist remarks, compounded with his demands for Obama’s birth certificate and desire to build a wall between Mexico and the United States, could be motivation enough.
The presidential campaign: Donald Trump
Though national polls only give a limited picture in a country that doesn’t elect presidents by a popular vote, recent surveys that pit Clinton against Trump show a marked gender gap – the difference in the percentage of women and men voting for a given candidate. A national Quinnipiac poll conducted in early February found that women were likelier to support Clinton over Trump by 11 points, creating a 9 point gender gap overall. A survey of Ohio voters by the same group found a 17 point gender gap in Clinton’s favor.
Trump certainly gives groups that seek to rally women voters a lot to run with during a general election. EMILY’s List helped Sen. Claire McCaskill eke out a victory against then-Rep. Todd Akin in 2012, partly on the strength of his comments about “legitimate rape” and the attention Akin’s words drew to his no-exceptions stance on abortion.
RELATED: Only the voters can judge Trump’s horror show of a debate
Trump’s pronouncements make Akin look like a diplomat. But the very audacity and vulgarity that seems to delight Republican voters could disgust in a national race. “This may have been amusing with Republican base voters,” Stech said, ”but it’s the exact behavior that prevents women being part of the Republican party.”
Conversely, Trump’s conditional support of Planned Parenthood – which he has repeatedly said is good for women but should not get federal funding because its affiliates also provide abortions – may be an attempt to reach those same general election female voters. Even after a sting-video campaign that accused Planned Parenthood of criminal trafficking in fetal organs (and so far has resulted in no charges except against the video makers), the organization remains very popular.
Planned Parenthood, whose PAC has endorsed Hillary Clinton, has flatly resisted Trump’s advances.
“Women would lose access to birth control, could be charged more than men for health insurance, could have domestic violence and pregnancy disqualify them from health insurance coverage, would no longer be able to turn to Planned Parenthood for care, and would be banned from accessing abortion safely or legally,” Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund said earlier this week in a statement. “In short, Donald Trump’s health care plan would be a disaster for women.”
Trump, of course, sees it differently. “I’m going to be really good for women,” he said in his Super Tuesday speech. But will women be good to him?
'Winning, winning, winning': Trump's big night in Nevada
Donald Trump won the Nevada Republican caucuses by a near-landslide early Wednesday, his third straight victory. | Republican women seem undaunted by Trump. Women in the general election may be another story. | 52.117647 | 0.764706 | 1.352941 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/opinion/pieces-of-silver.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160818220927id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/08/12/opinion/pieces-of-silver.html?action=click&contentCollection=opinion&module=NextInCollection®ion=Footer&pgtype=article&version=column&rref=collection/column/paul-krugman | The New York Times | 20160818220927 | By now, it’s obvious to everyone with open eyes that Donald Trump is an ignorant, wildly dishonest, erratic, immature, bullying egomaniac. On the other hand, he’s a terrible person. But despite some high-profile defections, most senior figures in the Republican Party — very much including Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader — are still supporting him, threats of violence and all. Why?
One answer is that these were never men and women of principle. I know that many in the news media are still determined to portray Mr. Ryan, in particular, as an honest man serious about policy, but his actual policy proposals have always been transparent con jobs.
Another answer is that in an era of intense partisanship, the greatest risk facing many Republican politicians isn’t that of losing in the general election, it’s that of losing to an extremist primary challenger. This makes them afraid to cross Mr. Trump, whose ugliness channels the true feelings of the party’s base.
But there’s a third answer, which can be summarized in one number: 34.
What’s that? It’s the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the average federal tax rate for the top 1 percent in 2013, the latest year available. And it’s up from just 28.2 in 2008, because President Obama allowed the high-end Bush tax cuts to expire and imposed new taxes to pay for a dramatic expansion of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Taxes on the really, really rich have gone up even more.
If Hillary Clinton wins, taxes on the elite will at minimum stay at this level, and may even go up significantly if Democrats do well enough in congressional races to enable her to pass new legislation. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that her tax plan would raise the average tax rate for the top 1 percent by another 3.4 percentage points, and the rate for the top 0.1 percent by five points.
But if “populist” Donald Trump wins, taxes on the wealthy will go way down; in particular, Mr. Trump is calling for elimination of the inheritance tax, which these days hits only a tiny number of really yuuuge estates (a married couple doesn’t pay any tax unless its estate is worth more than $10.9 million).
So if you’re wealthy, or you’re someone who has built a career by reliably serving the interests of the wealthy, the choice is clear — as long as you don’t care too much about stuff like shunning racism, preserving democracy and freedom of religion, or for that matter avoiding nuclear war, Mr. Trump is your guy.
And that’s pretty much how the Republican establishment still sees it. Getting rid of the estate tax is “the linchpin of the conservative movement,” one major donor told Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur. Gotta get those priorities straight.
Should we be shocked at the willingness of leading Republicans to make this bargain? Well, we should be shocked — we should never, ever start accepting this sort of thing as normal politics. But we shouldn’t be surprised, because it’s just an extension of the devil’s bargain the economic right has been making for decades, going all the way back to Nixon’s “Southern strategy.”
Don’t take my word for it; listen to the conservatives who have reached their limit. Recently Avik Roy, a leading Republican health-policy expert, had the personal and moral courage to admit what liberals (and political scientists) have been saying for years: “In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.”
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that top Republicans were or are personally bigoted — but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they were willing to curry favor with bigots in the service of tax cuts for the rich and financial deregulation. Remember, Mitt Romney eagerly accepted a Trump endorsement in 2012, knowing full well that he was welcoming a racist conspiracy theorist into his camp.
All that has happened this year is a move of those white nationalists from part of the supporting cast to a starring role. So when Republicans who went along with the earlier strategy draw the line at Mr. Trump, they’re not really taking a stand on principle; they’re just complaining about the price. And the party’s top leadership isn’t even willing to do that.
If this election goes the way it probably will, a few months from now those leading Republicans will be trying to pretend that they never really supported their party’s nominee, that in their hearts they always knew he was the wrong man.
But whatever doubts they may be feeling don’t excuse their actions, and in fact make them even less forgivable. For the fact is that right now, when it matters, they have decided that lower tax rates on the rich are sufficient payment for betraying American ideals and putting the republic as we know it in danger. | Why the G.O.P. establishment still backs Trump. | 121.625 | 0.75 | 1 | high | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4296733/hillary-clinton-and-stephen-colbert-team-up-to-address-americas-smallest-issues/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160818222217id_/http://time.com:80/4296733/hillary-clinton-and-stephen-colbert-team-up-to-address-americas-smallest-issues/ | Hillary Clinton and Stephen Colbert Talk 'Smallest Issues' | 20160818222217 | Hillary Clinton and Stephen Colbert shed light on the underrated “smallest issues facing Americans” in a video released Friday ahead of Clinton’s appearance on Monday’s episode of The Late Show.
“Cupholders in cars should be bigger,” Clinton says in the video. “And also, what about sandwich holders?”
The former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate has been campaigning in New York, discussing some bigger issues ahead of the state’s competitive primary on Tuesday. But she teamed up with Colbert to sweat the small stuff as well.
“If there’s a sign in the break room fridge that says, ‘Deb’s yogurt—do not eat,’ then for Pete’s sake, don’t eat. It’s Deb’s yogurt,” Clinton says in the video.
“We’ve got your back, Deb,” Colbert adds.
The pair also addressed issues related to dry cleaning and Taylor Swift’s surprised award acceptances, among other things.
“And all Americans should have access to healthcare, ideally whatever Rob Lowe is getting,” Clinton says. “That guy looks amazing.”
The former West Wing actor—whose real-life political affiliation isn’t clear—seemed surprised by the shoutout. | "Cupholders in cars should be bigger, and also, what about sandwich holders?" | 14.117647 | 0.882353 | 6.647059 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/technology/personaltech/personalized-traffic-alerts-from-google.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160819014756id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/08/10/technology/personaltech/personalized-traffic-alerts-from-google.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-4&action=click&contentCollection=Personal+Tech®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article | Personalized Traffic Alerts From Google | 20160819014756 | Q. How does the Google Maps app know there is a car stopped by the side of the highway or a jam up ahead?
A. Google pulls in traffic data from multiple sources for its Maps app, including information from police and local transportation departments. Many reports concerning real-time events — like cars stopped on the highway shoulder, debris on the road, construction, congestion and accidents — come from the users of its Waze service.
Waze, a company Google acquired in 2013, has mobile apps for Android and iOS devices. Waze members can use the app for navigation to a destination and to report traffic observations and incidents along the route. One screen within the Waze app provides a set of icons for users — typically passengers in the car — to update the app’s maps with new information, including stopped vehicles. These Waze reports are then incorporated into the Google Maps navigation, too.
Google has been collecting traffic and map data for more than a decade and gathering crowdsourced congestion reports since at least 2009, and the collection has given the company a long history of patterns and trends for its software to analyze. Google Maps users contribute to the traffic database, too, as speed and location information from devices using the app (inside the moving cars) is shared with the company.
The app uses a color code on routes to indicate current traffic conditions, including green for no delays, orange for a moderate amount of traffic and deepening shades of red as road congestion becomes worse and progress slows to a crawl. Last year, Google Maps added new traffic alerts that preview the conditions between you and your destination — and suggest alternate roads to get you there faster if an accident or other incident has occurred on your original route.
Personal Tech invites questions about computer-based technology to techtip@nytimes.com. This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually.
A version of this article appears in print on August 11, 2016, on page B5 of the New York edition with the headline: Google’s Source of Traffic Data. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | Google Maps pulls in data from several places, including crowd-sourced highway reports from its Waze service, to warn you what’s up the road. | 14 | 0.793103 | 1.344828 | low | medium | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/arts/design/the-artist-nick-cave-gets-personal-about-race-and-gun-violence.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160819020347id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/08/14/arts/design/the-artist-nick-cave-gets-personal-about-race-and-gun-violence.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 | The Artist Nick Cave Gets Personal About Race and Gun Violence | 20160819020347 | Mr. Cave, 57, is best known for his “Soundsuits,” the wearable, noise-making costumes that entertain while they raise questions about race, gender and identity.
Although “Until” is unusual in its lack of an aural component, the work is a next-level amalgamation of everything he knows about sculpture, performance and audience engagement.
Asked how fans of his “Soundsuits” should think about this new work, Mr. Cave, a graceful and powerful sort who once studied with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, mimed the motion of scooping out his own stomach and raising it up as an offering.
“This is me putting you into the belly of a ‘Soundsuit,’” he said. “It’s me grabbing you by the hand and saying, ‘Let’s jump into the ‘Soundsuit.’”
Mr. Cave talks with his arms — not in the way of a point-making politician, but as if he were trying to sculpt the very air around him.
Visitors are meant to be included — and implicated — in the work, as they will be able to see one another in peekaboo vistas across the vast installation. “It’s about being able to face one another,” Mr. Cave said. “We can no longer hide behind the surface.”
Nor will Mr. Cave hide. He will do a single performance as part of a once-a-month activation of the installation, although details are still being worked out.
It’s been long-planned, but there’s an improvisational element in “Until” at this stage, because its size allows for endless fine-tuning.
“I sort of water the garden,” Mr. Cave said of his evening sessions. “When they come in in the mornings, there’s something new.”
He pointed to a several small fake Christmas trees that he had attached to metal rings and topped with a cartoonish crown, the product of a recent weekend visit to the workroom. A couple of days later, Mr. Cave started to arrange colorful marbles on the back of a 10-foot fiberglass crocodile but realized bigger marbles worked better. An intern was dispatched to a local antiques market to buy more.
He admitted that the scale and scope were daunting — Building 5 stretches over nearly 18,000 square feet — as was the institution’s reputation.
“People are traveling from all over the world to come to Mass MoCA,” Mr. Cave said. “You better be damn sure you have something worth coming to.”
Many hands are involved to make “Until,” including the 10 or so assistants working in Mr. Cave’s Chicago studio, and Mass MoCA’s staff.
Denise Markonish, the Mass MoCA curator who has been coordinating with Mr. Cave on the exhibition for more than three years, said that it was a “beautiful nightmare.”
She added, “It seduces you and then punches you in the gut.”
For Mass MoCA’s director, Joseph C. Thompson, the comparison was a decadent, superabundant scene in a Dutch still-life painting.
“There’s something a little rotten,” Mr. Thompson said. “There’s a pot of honey, but there are some flies on it.”
The installation will be on view for nearly a year, until September 2017, and then travels to Carriageworks, an art center in Sydney, Australia. It may visit additional venues in the United States, too. Carriageworks is partnering to fund the piece because it is “a heavy, heavy lift by Mass MoCA standards,” Mr. Thompson said.
“Until” got its start in 2012. Ms. Markonish saw a previous piece of Mr. Cave’s at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York that involved a lawn jockey — the first time he had ever used one — and she requested a meeting with him.
At their sit-down, she pulled out a plan of Building 5 and said, “2016. It’s as big as a football field, and I don’t want you to make any ‘Soundsuits.’”
The “Soundsuits” do make an appearance in a video at the far end of “Until.” Mr. Cave wears one, made with a vintage chicken mask covering his head, as he runs around frantically. “It’s about feeling trapped,” he said of the video. “Time is running out.”
For her part, Ms. Markonish has been involved in the project in ways that go beyond her official job description, including finding a lawn jockey on eBay and going to pick it up personally.
“It was within 45 minutes of my family’s house, so I thought I’d go get it and save money on shipping,” Ms. Markonish said.
When she arrived, the house had a sign saying “white trash,” and she had to tell the owner, “I’m here to pick up the lawn jockey.”
The errand gave her pause. “Even those words coming out of my mouth was just really intense,” Ms. Markonish said.
The paradisiacal landscape where the jockeys appear — made from the crystals that would normally go into chandeliers, on a raised platform accessible via four ladders — is the heart of “Until.”
“I had been thinking about gun violence and racism colliding,” Mr. Cave said. “And then I wondered: Is there racism in heaven? That’s how this piece came about.”
The jockeys appear to have a special symbolism for Mr. Cave, though he said he did not see a lot of them on lawns when he was growing up in Missouri in the 1960s — “thank god,” he added.
He recounted the possibly apocryphal origin of the figures: On a cold winter night, an African-American boy who served George Washington during the Revolutionary War was asked to keep watch on the horses and light the way until Washington returned. But the boy froze to death, in the familiar pose holding a lantern.
“It’s such a repressive image,” Mr. Cave said, adding that it was the element of fruitless loyalty that bothered him the most.
In his installation, however, the jockeys will be holding elaborately beaded butterfly nets, which Mr. Cave also called “dream catchers,” giving “Until” a hopeful aspect.
“There’s a lightness to them,” he said. “It’s about this state of enlightenment, and living with a sense of uncertainty in the most magnificent way.”
And with that, Mr. Cave went back to work for an evening session amid his bric-a-brac — there were still miles to go to get “Until” up and running.
A version of this article appears in print on August 14, 2016, on page AR13 of the New York edition with the headline: Getting Personal About Race and Guns. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | With 18,000 square feet to work with at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, he is tackling the largest show of his career. | 53.76 | 0.72 | 1.2 | high | low | abstractive |
http://time.com/4396589/michael-phelps-son-boomer-swimming/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160819082753id_/http://time.com:80/4396589/michael-phelps-son-boomer-swimming/?iid=sr-link2 | Michael Phelps' Baby Son Boomer Is Already Learning To Swim | 20160819082753 | Michael Phelps’ 2-month-old son, Boomer, might only be 2 months old, but he’s already following in his Olympic champ dad’s footsteps.
The baby (Phelps’ son with fiancee Nicole Johnson) joined his father in the pool for the first time on Wednesday, according to a deluge of Instagram posts shared on Phelps’ and Johnson’s accounts, as well as Boomer’s personal account, which has an astounding 40,000 followers.
According to Phelp’s post, Boomer “loved the water;” this isn’t the baby’s first time near a pool, however. Johnson and Boomer were on deck in June to congratulate Phelps at the USA swimming trials, where Phelps qualified for this year’s games. Phelps is currently the most decorated Olympian of all time and looks to bring home even more medals this summer in Rio.
See Boomer’s first experience in the pool below. | Like father, like son | 34.2 | 0.6 | 0.6 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/08/18/11/52/top-london-based-north-korea-diplomat-defects-to-south | http://web.archive.org/web/20160819213926id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/08/18/11/52/top-london-based-north-korea-diplomat-defects-to-south | Top London-based North Korea diplomat defects to South | 20160819213926 | Screen shot of Thae Yong Ho taken from video back in April 5, 2004. (AAP)
North Korea's deputy ambassador to Britain has defected to Seoul, in a rare and damaging loss of diplomatic face for Pyongyang.
The Unification Ministry said Thae Yong-Ho - the number-two at the North's mission in London - had defected together with his family and they were now in the South Korean capital.
"They are under government protection and are going through necessary procedures with related institutions," ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee told reporters.
Jeong declined to reveal Thae's defection route, citing the diplomatic sensitivities involved for the concerned countries.
"On his reasons for defection, Minister Thae cited disgust with (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-Un's regime, admiration for South Korea's free, democratic system and the future of his family," Jeong said.
Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee confirms that a North Korean diplomat and his family are in South Korea after defecting from North Korea. (AAP)
Increasingly isolated internationally because of its nuclear weapons program, North Korea maintains relatively few overseas embassies, and defections by diplomats of Thae's stature are extremely rare.
The last such case was that of the North Korean ambassador to Egypt who defected to the United States in 1997.
Jeong said Thae's defection reflected the loss of faith among North Korea's elite in Kim Jong-Un's leadership.
"Awareness that the North Korean regime has reached its limit is spreading and the solidarity of its ruling class is weakening," Jeong said.
Since Kim succeeded his late father Kim Jong-Il as supreme leader in 2011, he has carried out a series of high-level purges aimed at consolidating power and surrounding himself with loyalists.
North Korean defectors have been making headlines recently, largely due to an unusual group defection in April by a dozen waitresses and their manager who were working at a North Korean-run restaurant in China.
A North Korean army colonel who had handled spying operations on South Korea was announced to have defected last year.
And, in July, an 18-year-old student, who was in Hong Kong for an international maths contest, reportedly sought asylum in the South Korean consulate in the city.
A file picture dated 06 April 2013 shows the North Korean embassy in London, Britain. (AAP)
Thae was believed to have worked at the embassy in London for 10 years, with one of his main tasks being to counter the image of North Korea as a nuclear pariah state and notorious human rights abuser.
All North Korean defectors who make it to Seoul undergo an intense, months-long de-briefing at the hands of South Korean intelligence - largely in an effort to root out any potential spies.
In Thae's case, the interrogation will be a lengthy one and he and his family will likely remain in a sort of protective custody for some time to guarantee their safety.
Over the years, nearly 30,000 North Koreans have fled poverty and repression in their country and settled in the South. | North Korea's deputy ambassador to Britain has defected to Seoul, in a rare and damaging loss of diplomatic face for Pyongyang. | 25.125 | 1 | 24 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/19/06/45/man-charged-over-sydney-shooting | http://web.archive.org/web/20160819233132id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/19/06/45/man-charged-over-sydney-shooting | Man charged over Sydney shooting | 20160819233132 | A man has been charged over a shooting in Sydney's southwest last month that left a man with a gunshot wound to his arm.
The 21-year-old victim was shot on the night of July 9 at Miller but has since been released from hospital.
Police say that at 8.30pm on July 22 officers attempted to stop a car believed to have been stolen in the Miller area but the 32-year-old driver failed to stop before hitting another vehicle and driving off.
Further investigations led police to arrest the man at Bonnyrigg on Thursday.
He's been charged with discharging a firearm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, possessing ammunition, breach of bail and driving offences and is to appear at Liverpool Local Court on Friday. | A man has been charged with discharging a firearm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after a man was shot in the arm in Sydney's southwest. | 4.896552 | 0.965517 | 6.068966 | low | high | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/20/03/45/candles-cause-unit-blaze-in-melbourne | http://web.archive.org/web/20160820182510id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/20/03/45/candles-cause-unit-blaze-in-melbourne | Candles cause unit blaze in Melbourne | 20160820182510 | Unattended candles have caused a fire in a unit in Melbourne's northeast.
Firefighters were called to the blaze in the two-storey block in Heidelberg West at 10.18pm on Friday.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade said in a statement that the occupants evacuated safely but one was treated by paramedics for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus attacked the ground floor fire and declared it under control in 34 minutes.
The brigade statement said the fire appeared to have been started by unattended candles.
"When using candles ensure they are on a non-combustible surface and are well clear of any curtains or other combustible materials," it warned. | Melbourne's fire brigade has warned of leaving candles burning near curtains and other flammable materials after a blaze in a unit in Heidelberg West. | 4.769231 | 0.769231 | 1.307692 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/oklahoma-dentist-allegedly-caught-on-tape-abusing-toddler | http://web.archive.org/web/20160820183758id_/http://www.people.com/article/oklahoma-dentist-allegedly-caught-on-tape-abusing-toddler | Oklahoma Dentist Allegedly Caught on Tape Abusing 19-Month-Old Boy : People.com | 20160820183758 | 08/18/2016 AT 10:00 PM EDT
A dentist in Tulsa, Oklahoma has been allegedly caught on camera abusing his girlfriend's 19-month-old son, resulting in injuries that led to the boy's death, according to a report.
Prosecutors presented the video as evidence on Wednesday, as they alleged that Bert Franklin, 35, dropped Lincoln Lewis on his head and then kicked him in the footage,
, a local NBC, affiliate reports.
Although prosecutors believe the video is incriminating, Franklin's lawyer Scott Adams reportedly disagrees.
"There's really nothing on the video that surprised me," he told the station. "I mean it is what it is. And again, Dr. Franklin has told us there was a dog in there and any actions he had was towards the dog and I believe him."
The clip obtained by KFOR does not show exactly what happened as the camera is in the kitchen and the July incident occurred in the living room, but a prosecutor reportedly said that despite the angle of the camera, she believes that Franklin dropped Lincoln on his head and started kicking him. In the same footage, Franklin then allegedly carries the toddler back into the kitchen.
According to KFOR, Lincoln sustained a skull fracture and brain bleed consistent with abuse. He was taken from the home to Mercy Hospital, before reportedly being flown to Tulsa Hospital where he died.
Lincoln's mother Roxanne Randall was home at the time of the alleged incident, but reportedly stated she was upstairs when she heard a loud thud. When she ran down to see what the sound was, Franklin told her he was throwing a ball to the dog and that the baby was asleep, KFOR reports.
Around 2 a.m. the next morning Lincoln's mother reportedly noticed something was wrong when she went to wake him for his bottle, but his eyes were already open and he was struggling to breath.
According to the news station, prosecutors are considering the fact that Randall had been spending time with Lincoln's father as motive for the alleged crime.
Franklin was reportedly denied bail as the judge called him a "danger to the community."
It is not yet clear how Franklin has plead. | Franklin was denied bail. | 85.4 | 1 | 1.8 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/11/southwest-technical-issues-delay-hundreds-flights/tIoZG2Pp7EOZaeEpN0kIiP/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160825172200id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/11/southwest-technical-issues-delay-hundreds-flights/tIoZG2Pp7EOZaeEpN0kIiP/story.html | Southwest: Technical issues delay hundreds of flights | 20160825172200 | DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines says hundreds of flights have been delayed by technical issues that are forcing it to check in some customers manually at airports and causing long lines.
The Dallas-based company asked travelers to arrive at least two hours before their scheduled departures as the problems that began Sunday morning continued into the evening. It is also asking customers to use airport kiosks to print boarding passes and tags for luggage.
Representatives for Southwest did not say what caused the problem or how long it would take to resolve. Spokesman Brad Hawkins said there was ‘‘absolutely no indication now’’ that the problems were the result of hack.
At Los Angeles International Airport earlier in the day, several dozen people crowded the Southwest terminal waiting to be issued hand-written tickets. By late afternoon, Southwest said about 450 of the 3,600 flights scheduled for the day had been delayed.
E.J. Schultz, a reporter for Ad Age who was taking a Southwest flight from Chicago’s Midway International Airport, said the airline was telling people at the gate that travelers with paper boarding passes were fine. But those who had downloaded their tickets onto their mobile phones were told they had to stand in line, he said.
Schultz said he didn’t understand why Southwest didn’t announce that people should print out their boarding passes at home before getting to the airport.
‘‘If everyone had done that, it would've saved so much time,’’ he said.
Schultz said there was a line of about 50 people at the Southwest gate. His flight took off roughly 15 minutes after its scheduled departure time of 4:30.
The long lines at check-in may mean some passengers didn’t make their flights.
Emily Mitnick, who was flying to Detroit from Denver International Airport, said she missed her 10 a.m. flight, even though she parked her car around 8 a.m. She estimated that about 1,000 people were on line at the check-in for a boarding pass. When she went downstairs to the curb-side check-in, she said there were about a couple hundred people in line there as well.
By the time she got on line to go through security, it was around 10:15 a.m.
‘‘The clock was ticking and the flight took off,’’ said Mitnick, who was trying to get to Detroit through a different flight to Chicago.
In a statement, Southwest said it was still having ‘‘intermittent’’ technical issues on its website, mobile app and in its phone centers and airports check-in systems. It said that while it is working on the issues, workers at airports are helping customers with their itineraries.
Last month, American Airlines experienced computer problems that prevented passengers from checking in and briefly halted flights on select routes. Airline officials said at the time that they fixed the problem after less than two hours, and that there was no indication that its system had been hacked.
In July, hundreds of United Airlines flights were delayed after the airline experienced computer problems for the second time in just over a month. A United representative said at the time that the glitch was caused by an internal technology issue, and not an outside threat or hacker. | Southwest Airlines says hundreds of flights have been delayed by technical issues that are forcing it to check in some customers manually at airports and are causing long lines. | 20.666667 | 1 | 21.4 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/24/12/03/morrison-opposes-proposed-wa-mining-tax | http://web.archive.org/web/20160825183422id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/24/12/03/morrison-opposes-proposed-wa-mining-tax | Morrison opposes proposed WA mining tax | 20160825183422 | Treasurer Scott Morrison opposes the WA Nationals' proposed mining tax on Rio Tinto and BHP Biliton, saying more tax isn't the answer.
He said he doesn't believe increasing taxes to pump up revenue helps the economy, particularly when the economy is weak.
"Taxing is not the answer, what's important is you have to make sure the people who have to pay tax, pay tax, that's why we've cracked down on multinational tax avoidance," he told 6PR radio.
"That's one of the key reasons we're making changes to superannuation, to make sure that system's sustainable into the future."
WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls proposes increasing the charge from 25 cents to $5 per tonne of iron ore for the two major mining companies, to help fix the ailing WA budget. | Treasurer Scott Morrison says he doesn't support the WA Nationals' mining tax because increasing taxes won't help the economy. | 6.956522 | 0.826087 | 2.130435 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/fitness-trainers-weight-gain | http://web.archive.org/web/20160831145743id_/http://www.people.com/article/fitness-trainers-weight-gain | Fitness Trainer Couple Gained 60 Lbs. to Lose It : People.com | 20160831145743 | Gaining 60 lbs. on purpose may sound a little crazy – but fitness trainers
wanted to show that they could lose it again, and that losing weight is tough for anyone.
The Queensland, Australia-based fitness experts had already packed on a couple of pounds after the birth of their fifth child, "We just let go with our eating. Let the food take us wherever it wanted to go," Sharny, 36, tells PEOPLE of their weeks post-delivery.
By May, about three months after Magnus' birth, the couple had started the slow process of
they'd gained, but had a late-night revelation.
"We were scrolling through Facebook and looking at all the fitness people and thinking, 'What do they know about being fat, about being parents, about being addicted to food.' " she says. "We were just about to start losing weight quietly again, so our followers didn't know we'd gotten to this state. Then we remembered why we had gotten into fitness in the first place. We wanted to be completely transparent."
"We are not fitness models, we are just a mum and a dad who use fitness as a way to connect with each other and spend time with our kids. By hiding the fact that we were getting fat, we were being dishonest. We were perpetrating a myth that fitness is a permanent state and is easy."
So rather than resisting, they let the floodgates open and fully committed not to exercise, but
. Two and half months later, on Aug. 15, they had added about 30 pounds each – Sharny was at 69 kg., or 152 lbs., and Julius, 35, had hit 109 kg., or 240 lbs.
Now, along with their followers, the Kiesers are
programs. They set up a private Facebook group where other moms and dads can share their weight loss progress, and each week the Kiesers film a live weigh-in.
"We all keep each other accountable," Sharny says. "It's really inspiring to see the hundreds of old faces, and the new ones, all with one goal in mind."
for their kids, after spending months hiding away stashes of chocolate and late-night pizza deliveries.
"We want to inspire our kids by showing them a love of exercise, of pushing oneself," she says. "We also wanted to show them that we can say no to junk food."
Still, even as fitness trainers, Sharny emphasizes that their experience doesn't make
"We're nearly finished week two, and as we expected it hasn't been easy," she says. "Addictive eating is really hard to stop. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, trying to sell you something, or both. But after the first week, it tends to become habit."
Plus, they know there's five little kids looking up to them.
"Our future really does depend on our kids, and for them to look after us, we need to look after them, and give them a strong grounding," Sharny says. | Fitness trainers Sharny and Julius Kieser are publicly working off the weight after gaining a combined 60 lbs. | 32.684211 | 0.736842 | 1.263158 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/99-year-old-grandma-secretary-80-years | http://web.archive.org/web/20160901152246id_/http://www.people.com/article/99-year-old-grandma-secretary-80-years | Elisabeth Davis Celebrates 80 Years as Secretary at Culver Academy : People.com | 20160901152246 | 08/31/2016 AT 12:55 PM EDT
Happy 80th "workiversary," Mrs. Davis!
This year marks Elisabeth Davis' 80th year as a secretary for Culver Academies, the famed prep school in Culver, Indiana.
"I just like it!" Davis, 99, tells PEOPLE of her historic employment at the boarding school. "Everybody over here is so good to me."
Davis, who began working for Culver in 1936, started off assisting the school's dean by transcribing, taking shorthand notes and using a typewriter. And to this day, the 99-year-old foregoes a computer in favor of her beloved typewriter.
"Even though they have a computer and Internet and all that stuff, you still need one hard copy!" explains Davis. "You may lose it if you don't have a hard copy, so that's what I do."
Elisabeth Davis still uses a typewriter at work
Courtesy Elisabeth Davis / Culver Academies
Davis, who grew up on a farm in Culver, studied shorthand after graduating from Culver High in 1935 and quickly applied for a secretarial gig at Culver Academies.
"I got the job!" she says. "We didn't have much money so I had to have a job, it was a matter of money."
Mrs. Davis started working at Culver in 1936
Courtesy Elisabeth Davis / Culver Academies
In 1945, Davis married the love of her life, a dairy farmer named Eldon, and the two quickly started a family.
Davis took a leave of absence from Culver to take care of her kids, but once they finished school she returned back to work.
Courtesy Elisabeth Davis / Culver Academies
Davis says when Eldon died in 2004, she decided to stay on at Culver as a secretary, to keep her mind occupied.
"It's better to sit here and do what I can do [for the school] instead of being home all by myself since my husband is gone," she says. "I'm so happy I can be of help!"
Mrs. Davis with Head of Schools Jim Power
Courtesy Elisabeth Davis / Culver Academies
Current head of schools, Jim Power, says Davis – who now keeps track of the school's historical records – is an essential part of his staff.
"Mrs. Davis embodies the values of work ethic, determination, and regard for tradition which make Culver Academies great," Power tells PEOPLE. "She is a treasure."
And Davis is just as thankful for her warm and welcoming coworkers (who drive her to work and bring her lunch) as they are for her.
"The good Lord has blessed me!" she says. | "Everybody over here is so good to me," Davis, 99, tells PEOPLE | 31 | 1 | 7.117647 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/09/01/want-job-british-banking-you-may-have-ditch-brown-shoes/0a873oXoZNBGIM6wM1WdmI/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20160902045826id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/09/01/want-job-british-banking-you-may-have-ditch-brown-shoes/0a873oXoZNBGIM6wM1WdmI/story.html | Want a Job in British Banking? You May Have to Ditch the Brown Shoes | 20160902045826 | LONDON — The right pair of oxfords can make or break a potential job candidate in staid investment banking circles in Britain, according to a report released Thursday.
Candidates from less-affluent backgrounds in Britain are being shut out of investment banking jobs, particularly those involving meeting clients in corporate finance, because of their dress, their accent, and their manner of speech, according to the report released by the Social Mobility Commission, an advisory body created by the British government in 2010.
Researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of Birmingham found that some managers placed as much importance on whether a potential hire fit the traditional, polished image of an investment banker as on their skills and qualifications.
The report, “Socio-Economic Diversity in Life Sciences and Investment Banking,” also found that managers who hired people for corporate finance jobs tended to recruit from a small pool of elite universities, such as the Cambridge, Oxford, and the London School of Economics.
Investment banks, the report found, are making an effort to open front-office roles to applicants from nonprivileged backgrounds through outreach programs and other initiatives that focus on work experience, internships, and skills training, but these remain “relatively small scale.”
Bankers in Britain are expected to be much more technically savvy than ever, but image remains a barrier if a job involves meeting clients on a regular basis, the report said.
An ill-fitting suit, the wrong haircut, or a lower-class accent can quickly eliminate a potential hire from corporate finance roles, according to the findings.
As an example, the researchers found that wearing brown shoes with a business suit was generally considered unacceptable among British investment bankers, but a similar judgment did not apply to bankers from Continental Europe, where the shoes were more commonplace.
“A further qualification is that some bankers in corporate finance may ‘get away’ with wearing brown shoes perhaps, for example, if they are sufficiently senior,” the report said.
Questions of dress code almost always concerned only male business attire, “underlining the strong association between investment banking and masculinity,” the report said.
It indicated that these subtle messages in dress are a way for individuals to signal their allegiance to “tribes” in the City of London, the traditional financial center of Britain, and to reassure colleagues of their willingness to fit in.
Such hurdles can be disheartening to jobseekers.
One candidate told researchers that his mentor had said that, while he had done well in an interview and was “clearly quite sharp,” he was not the right “fit” for the bank because he was not polished enough.
“He looked at me and said: ‘See that tie you’re wearing? It’s too loud. Like you can’t wear that tie with the suit that you’re wearing,’ ” the unidentified candidate is quoted in the report as saying. He added, “What kind of industry is this where I can be told that I’m a good candidate, I’m sharp, but I’m not polished enough?”
Social mobility is an important issue in Britain, where class and economic background can still play a part in how far a person advances.
Prime Minister Theresa May, when taking office in July, said that improving the opportunities for people from all walks of life would be a priority in her government. | LONDON — The right pair of oxfords can make or break a potential job candidate in staid investment banking circles in Britain, according to a report released Thursday. | 22.033333 | 1 | 30 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/online-auctions/hayden-kays-profile/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20160903054127id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/online-auctions/hayden-kays-profile/ | Profile of an extraordinary artist: Hayden Kays | 20160903054127 | London-based artist Hayden Kays has launched a real four-pronged assault on the art world at just 30 years of age.
In doing so, he uses Catawiki online auctions as a means of selling his artworks to previously unattainable audiences.
Drawing from pop culture and art history, his quirky takes on capitalist culture are borderline risky and provocative. Although sometimes uncomfortable, they consistently continue to shed new light on hard-hitting messages thanks to his deadpan humour.
Q: Have you always been passionate about becoming an artist and what was the catalyst that sparked your interest?
A: Drawing and making things have always been an intrinsic part of my life. One of my earliest memories of receiving praise for my work was when I was about six years old. I woke up early and hurried downstairs to watch some cartoons. I love cartoons, but it was so early that the TV wasn’t broadcasting yet (in those days the transmission was turned off overnight). So to get my colour fix I reached for my colouring pencils and drew a fruit bowl, incorporating all the colours that I owned for this kaleidoscopic masterpiece. When my parents came downstairs in the morning they were so impressed that they gave me my first solo exhibition, on the fridge door. All visitors were subjected to eulogies about their son’s talent. I loved the attention.
Q: How would you describe your art? Are there any particular themes/styles you stick to?
A: I never think it’s up to the artist to describe their work. It’s up to artists to produce work for people to discuss, describe and define. When it comes to stylistically boxing my work, I’m aiming for it to be a difficult, if not impossible, task. I don’t want to be restricted or confined to the boundaries of a particular material or style and therefore categorised within that frame. I just want to be known as an artist. Tattoo, con, trapeze, make-up, I don't mind. As long as artist is in there somewhere.
Q: Can you describe your creative process?
A: It generally takes me a long time to prepare to physically make the work. Tidy the space, clear the desk, do the washing, have a shower, eat a second breakfast, go on Instagram, make a cup of tea, go on Instagram, get out the materials needed, go on Instagram, panic about having not made anything, work, work, work.
Q: How did you wind up selling you artworks through Catawiki?
A: It was actually a friend who sent me a link to someone else selling my work through Catawiki. I am always exploring new avenues to get my work out there and be seen by as wide an audience as possible. The global stage that Catawiki provides is extremely attractive as it cuts out the astronomical costs associated with traditional auction houses and art galleries and helps me promote and sell my work on a large scale.
Q: Why do you feel Catawiki is a good platform to sell your artworks?
A: The balance that many artists find tough is that you need to sell enough to live on. The age of the penniless artist just isn’t viable. The popularity of online auction houses is growing fast and opening up new possibilities for artists to get their work seen by lots more people. It allows more people to access and bid on original artworks, making it a win for artists and the people buying it – I’m a big advocate of the democratisation of art in general. Catawiki’s curated auctions in particular attract visitors who have the intention of viewing and purchasing high-quality goods. This differentiates it from other online auction sites.
Q: What would your advice be to young artists unsure how to sell their works?
A: Concentrate on making the best art you can. The selling part should follow on fairly naturally if you’ve made something good.
Q: If you could be remembered for one of your works, which would it be?
A: Cold Turkey (main image) is my favourite image of my works.
Sell modern art at auction on catawiki.com | Hayden Kays is a young, provocative artistic chameleon, whose talents span across painting, sculpture, photography and printmaking | 38.761905 | 0.52381 | 0.714286 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/04/15/26/nsw-shopping-complex-ablaze | http://web.archive.org/web/20160905141920id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/04/15/26/nsw-shopping-complex-ablaze | NSW shopping complex ablaze | 20160905141920 | Fire is tearing through a shopping complex in NSW's Illawarra region and threatening a nearby furniture store.
Emergency services were called to a shopping complex at Warrawong, near Wollongong, just before 2pm on Sunday.
Around 40 firefighter are battling the blaze which has torn through the roof of the complex, a spokesman from Fire and Rescue NSW said.
At least 18 people have been evacuated from Fantastic Furniture, a neighbouring furniture and bedding store. | Firefighters are working to extinguish a blaze at a shopping complex in NSW's Illawarra region after it caught fire on Sunday afternoon. | 3.625 | 0.708333 | 3.125 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/06/05/26/police-chase-ends-in-crash | http://web.archive.org/web/20160906154549id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/06/05/26/police-chase-ends-in-crash | Man fights for life after Qld police chase | 20160906154549 | An investigation is underway into an alleged 70 kilometre police chase through Queensland's Darling Downs that ended with a driver critically injured after he hit a tree and had to be cut from his car.
Queensland Police deny Monday night's incident was a "pursuit", instead saying officers tailed the car at a considerable distance before a failed attempt at using road tyre spikes to stop it.
Police first spotted the car driving dangerously on the Warrego Highway at Dinmore near Ipswich at around 8.20pm.
They then followed the vehicle until it ploughed into a tree east of Helidon twenty minutes later.
The driver had to be cut free from the wreckage and remains in a critical condition in hospital.
The Forensic Crash Unit and Ethical Standards Command are investigating. | A Queensland police chase has left a driver in hospital fighting for his life. | 9.666667 | 0.666667 | 1.066667 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/kate-upton-weight-loss | http://web.archive.org/web/20160907013848id_/http://www.people.com/article/kate-upton-weight-loss | 'This Is Just the Shape of My Body' : People.com | 20160907013848 | 09/06/2016 AT 12:05 PM EDT
After years of people telling her to lose weight,
learned to stand her ground.
The actress and model says she was constantly told by modeling agents
"At first I tried to diet to become their image, but eventually I realized that it wasn't realistic," Upton, 24, explains in the October issue of
, on newsstands Sept. 13. "This is just the shape of my body. So I had to block them out."
"I think that the people who are the loudest about wanting to change you are the people with the least amount of vision and creativity."
But she sees that the modeling world is finally starting to
as someone who's leading the charge.
"Things have definitely changed in the industry, mostly for the positive," Upton says. "We're more accepting now. For me, someone like Ashley Graham, who loves her body and is always talking about it, is inspiring."
to Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander at the Met Gala in May, is
– but her soon-to-be-hubby is still the pro in the relationship.
"This is probably bad to say, but I'm going to say it anyway: I always thought that baseball players were kind of fat and not athletic," Upton says. "I was really surprised by how athletic Justin was."
"I wanted to learn tennis, and he goes out and he's never played before and just beats me. I'm thinking, 'This is the worst. Who invited you?' "
Upton says she'll stick to fashion.
"I love what I do – I love fashion. Whatever you wear, it really sets the tone for the day. If I'm in sweatpants, I fully become that person – I'm lazy and kind of a mess. The opposite is also true; fashion can give you confidence." | Kate Upton says modeling agents constantly told her she needed to lose weight to make it in the industry, but she learned to refuse | 15.36 | 0.84 | 1.96 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/10/16/33/firefighting-trucks-to-be-equipped-with-hitech-tablets-in-south-australia | http://web.archive.org/web/20160911173538id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/10/16/33/firefighting-trucks-to-be-equipped-with-hitech-tablets-in-south-australia | Firefighting trucks to be equipped with hi-tech tablets in South Australia | 20160911173538 | South Australia’s government will roll out new state-of-the art tablets in fire trucks across the state by the end of the year.
The new heat resistant and drop-proof devices will replace analogue fire truck communication systems which have been offline since December last year.
“We believe we’ve got it as cutting edge as we can at the moment,” South Australia’s Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) Assistant Chief Fire Officer Paul Fletcher told 9NEWS.
Live tracking of fire trucks and improved GPS, allowing crews to see what other incidents are happening nearby, will be key features of the removable tablets, the SA government said.
“The crews are genuinely excited about getting this capability,” Mr Fletcher said.
South Australia's fire trucks are set to receive cutting-edge tablets to assist with communication. (MFS/Twitter)
The devices can also receive potentially life-saving advice on anything form hazardous chemicals to car accidents.
It is hoped the tablets will vastly improve communication back to stations.
“We want to make sure our fire fighters have all the technology they can get their hands on… when responding to events,” Mr Fletcher said.
The tablets will be tested in fire trucks over the next five weeks, and all vehicles are expected to have the devices on board by the end of this year.
Until then, firefighters will continue to use two-way radios and older paging systems to communicate.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016 | South Australia’s government will roll out new state-of-the art tablets in fire trucks across the state by the end of the year. | 10.814815 | 0.888889 | 19.62963 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/11/08/08/man-charged-with-terrorist-attack-in-syd | http://web.archive.org/web/20160912164823id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/11/08/08/man-charged-with-terrorist-attack-in-syd | Sydney stabbing attack 'inspired by ISIS' | 20160912164823 | A 22-year-old man charged with committing a terrorist act following a stabbing in Sydney's west was inspired by Islamic State, police say.
Wayne Greenhalg, 39, was stabbed several times while walking through a reserve in Minto, around 4pm on Saturday. He made it to a nearby hair salon to seek help and a bystander fended off the alleged attacker, Ihsas Khan, until police arrived.
Mr Greenhalg suffered injuries to his body and hands and was treated by paramedics and flown by helicopter to Liverpool Hospital, where his condition on Sunday was described as serious.
When a police officer arrived at the scene, Khan allegedly tried to stab the officer before being arrested. A photo published by Fairfax Media shows three officers pointing Tasers at him.
Khan was later charged by the joint counter terrorism team with committing a terrorist act and attempted murder.
Police say the attack was "planned" and "deliberate" despite the victim and Khan being unknown to one another.
"This was clearly a very volatile, a very violent situation that police and the members of the community were confronted with," Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn told reporters on Sunday.
The accused allegedly shouted words at the scene, which led police to believe he was inspired by ISIS.
"We know that this person has strong religious beliefs inspired by ISIS. What made him act yesterday we don't know."
"It was deliberate and it was violent."
Federal Attorney-General George Brandis said police would allege that material related to the terrorist organisation had been recovered in a search warrant of Khan's home.
"It is ISIL-related material but beyond that I'd prefer, given this matter is still an ongoing investigation, not to be more specific," he told reporters in Brisbane.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, noting the stabbing occurred on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US, said the events were connected by "violent Islamic ideology" and "heroism".
He told reporters in Canberra that an owner of some Minto premises had sheltered the victim and a bystander confronted the assailant and managed to keep him at bay until police arrived.
"We honour those heroes of today just as we honour the heroes of 9/11," he said.
Ms Burn confirmed Khan was previously known to police but not in connection with any terrorist group.
"He has had a couple of interactions with local police over matters where we might say his behaviour was odd or unusual.
"He has been of concern, he is a person of concern.
"There may have been some behaviours in the past which might be concerning behaviours but not be linked to any of the matters that we are following or any of the people on our radar," she said.
"This really highlights the challenge that this is the new face of terrorism, this is the new face of what we have to deal with."
A large knife was found at the scene and is under forensic examination.
Khan did not seek and was formally refused bail when his case came up at Parramatta Bail Court on Sunday. He was remanded to appear in Sydney's Central Court on Wednesday. | A man has been charged by a joint counter terrorism team after a stabbing in Sydney's west that left a man in a critical condition. | 23.222222 | 0.888889 | 2.666667 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/09/13/02/13/syria-ceasefire-comes-into-effect | http://web.archive.org/web/20160913154631id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/09/13/02/13/syria-ceasefire-comes-into-effect | Syria ceasefire holds, minor violations | 20160913154631 | The cease-fire in Syria appears to be holding despite sporadic and minor violations, with observers saying most of the country is calm amid the latest attempt by the US and Russia to bring some quiet in the country's devastating civil war.
The deal, hammered out by US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov last week in Geneva officially came into effect at sunset on Monday.
The Syrian army says it will abide by the cease-fire until midnight on Sunday, while maintaining its right to defend itself against any violations.
It's the second attempt this year to try reduce violence in war-torn Syria where the 5-year conflict has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced half the country's population of 11 million. A truce in late February collapsed just days later.
If calm holds for seven days, the US and Russia will set up a new centre to jointly develop strategies to combat the al-Qaeda-linked group formerly called the Nusra Front and now known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
In the northern city of Aleppo, where the fighting has concentrated over the past few months, opposition activists said rebel-held parts of the city were calm on Tuesday morning but many people were still hunkering down in their homes, fearful of going out.
Syrian state news agency SANA said rebels fired three shells at the government-held neighbourhood of Mallah in Aleppo.
Rami Abdurrahman from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there was "calm'' in most of the country on Tuesday, with minor violations in central Hama province.
Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, reported some shelling in Aleppo and the southern region of Quneitra, while state media said there were "breaches'' of the truce by rebels in the contested city of Aleppo.
In other developments, the Syrian military announced its forces had shot down two Israeli aircraft - a warplane and a drone - near the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights. The Israeli military quickly denied the Syrian claim.
The Israeli military said "two surface-to-air missiles were launched from Syria after the mission overnight to target Syrian artillery positions'' but that the safety of Israeli planes was not compromised. | A ceasefire in Syria has come into effect with both sides in the conflict agreeing to it. | 24.055556 | 0.722222 | 1.055556 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/13/03/35/harriet-wran-due-to-walk-free-from-jail | http://web.archive.org/web/20160913170202id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/13/03/35/harriet-wran-due-to-walk-free-from-jail | 'I'm still in recovery': Wran out of jail | 20160913170202 | Harriet Wran, the daughter of former NSW premier Neville Wran, has addressed the media before being driven away from Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre saying she is "still very much in recovery".
Wran, 28, was released on parole from the western Sydney prison just after 7am on Tuesday, seven weeks after she was jailed over her role in an ice-fuelled deadly robbery.
"I've really just come to implore you to understand that I'm still very much in recovery," she told the waiting media pack before she was driven from the complex in a silver Audi by her mother Jill Hickson .
"It's going to be a long process and it's going to be hard and I ask you to understand please, let me do what I have to do in private."
The 28-year-old was sentenced in July to a four-year prison term for robbery in company, and a one-year jail term for acting as an accessory after the fact to the murder of Redfern drug dealer Daniel McNulty.
Her parole period will last until August 2018.
She had already spent almost two years in custody on remand.
The heiress has previously spoken of her battles with mental illness and the crippling drug addiction that took her from Sydney's moneyed eastern suburbs to the scene of a grisly killing in a Redfern housing commission drug den in 2014.
She has told how she was "hanging out" for a hit on the night Mr McNulty was killed, and that she was the one who showed her face at his window and gave a name - "Sarah" - so as to get inside his ground-floor flat.
Mr McNulty told his housemate Mr Fitzgerald: "Don't worry, it's just a girl."
But he did not see the two men standing behind Wran - her boyfriend of two weeks, heroin addict Michael Lee, and his friend Lloyd Edward Haines.
The three had arrived planning to take more drugs than they had money to pay for.
But in the seconds after Mr McNulty unlocked his front door, the robbery turned deadly.
Wran told a sentencing hearing earlier this year that she thought about the death of Mr McNulty, and the critical injuries sustained by his housemate Brett Fitzgerald, multiple times every day.
"I regret every step I took that night," she told the NSW Supreme Court then.
She told the court she would never return to drugs and that being locked up following countless failed stints in rehabilitation centres had saved her life.
"But I also know that I have to be vigilant," she said then.
Wran's co-offenders are awaiting sentence for murder. | Harriet Wran is due to walk free from jail on Tuesday, almost two months after she was sentenced over her role in the robbery and murder of a Sydney man. | 16.40625 | 0.84375 | 1.84375 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/13/13/18/perth-rental-market-rebounds-as-prices-dip | http://web.archive.org/web/20160914160658id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/13/13/18/perth-rental-market-rebounds-as-prices-dip | Perth rental market rebounds as prices dip | 20160914160658 | Leasing across Perth's rental market increased by 17 per cent in August, according to new data from the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia.
All five sub-regions had a rise in leased properties last month and the biggest increases were in the Central and North West areas, which were up 19 and 17.4 per cent, respectively.
REIWA president Hayden Groves said the surge in activity was coupled with a three per cent drop in properties available to rent.
"Although WA's population growth has slowed in recent times, there has been a small lift in overseas migration into the state," he said.
Cheaper rentals were allowing share-house tenants to move out on their own, Mr Groves said.
Perth's overall median rent price dropped $5 to $375 in the three months to August.
"The median house price rent in Perth came in at $380 for the three months to August, while the median rent price for units was $350 per week," Mr Groves said.
"Perth tenants continue to have plenty of choice in the market and are in a good position to secure a rental lease at a more affordable price." | Leasing across the Perth rental market jumped by 17 per cent in August, while properties available to rent dropped by three per cent, the REIWA says. | 7.896552 | 0.931034 | 3.137931 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/burke-ramsey-dr-phil-interview-5-things-to-know | http://web.archive.org/web/20160915171042id_/http://www.people.com/article/burke-ramsey-dr-phil-interview-5-things-to-know | 5 Revelations So Far : People.com | 20160915171042 | Dr. Phil speaks with Burke Ramsey, the brother of JonBenét Ramsey
After nearly two decades of silence,
, the older brother of
, has spoken out about what happened to her in December 1996.
During the first and second installments this week of the
three-part special, Burke discussed and dismissed many of the long-standing theories surrounding 6-year-old JonBenét's mysterious death.
Burke, who was 9 at the time of the slaying, explained how he learned that the child beauty queen's body was found in the family's basement with a cord around her neck and duct tape over her mouth. Burke also revealed his mother Patsy's demeanor at the time.
Here are the five biggest revelations from the interview – so far.
Burke infamously didn't leave his room the morning of JonBenét's death on Dec. 26, 1996 – even as family, friends and police traipsed around the spacious Boulder, Colorado, home.
Asked why he wasn't curious about what was happening downstairs, Burke
, "I guess I kind of like to avoid conflict or, I don't know, I guess I just felt safer there."
"I'm not the worried type," Burke explained, chuckling. "I guess part of me doesn't want to know what's going on."
From left: John Ramsey, Burke Ramsey and Dr. Phil
Courtesy Dr. Phil / Peteski Productions
While father John, Burke and the late Patsy
in JonBenét's killing – nor has anyone else – suspicion long surrounded the family matriarch. They have always maintained their innocence in the case.
Of the accusations that Patsy was involved in JonBenét's strangling death,
, "It doesn't make sense."
"Not to say she never got upset, but nothing near laying a finger on us, let alone killing her child," he explained. He added that Patsy never even spanked them, noting, "nothing of the sort, not even close."
Burke also assured McGraw that he, too, was never violent toward his sister. Burke said that he was "absolutely not" the one who hit JonBenét with an unknown object the night of her death.
After hours in his room, Burke said his father
finally break the news of the homicide.
"My dad told me JonBenét is in heaven now, and he started crying, then I started crying. I was kind of like, 'How is this possible?' " Burke recalled. "I started crying. I don't think I said anything. I didn't believe it at first."
In fact, until then, Burke said he thought his little sister was "probably hiding somewhere."
Part of the reason Burke chose to speak out after years of silence is because, he said, "I know people think I did it;
JonBenét Ramsey in April 1996
He said the media circus that surrounded his family in the years after JonBenét's murder made him suspsicious of the media and caused him to turn inward.
"Seeing that as a little kid is just kind of a chaotic nightmare, so I was pretty skeptical of any sort of media, it just made me a very private person," Burke said. "As to what I'm doing now, it's the 20th anniversary and apparently still a lot of tension around it, I guess I kind of wanted to make it about remembering her and not just another news story."
Patsy placed after discovering the two-and-a-half-page ransom note demanding $118,000 for JonBenét, has been analyzed thoroughly.
According to the 911 operator who answered the frantic call, there was a "third distinct, different voice" on the line. The voice, some believe, was Burke, asking, "What did you find?"
Burke said he "would remember" if he was present for the call, and John added that Burke was in his bed asleep at the time. Theories otherwise, he insisted, were "pure fiction."
The third and final part of Burke's
interview will air Monday. Check local listings for times. | Burke Ramsey spoke with Dr. Phil for a three-part special – his first interview since sister JonBenét's 1996 death | 37.136364 | 0.909091 | 1.727273 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/19/11/24/melbourne-port-leased-for-9-7-billion | http://web.archive.org/web/20160920184922id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/19/11/24/melbourne-port-leased-for-9-7-billion | Melbourne 'lucky' over $9.7b port sale | 20160920184922 | Some "lucky" timing has handed Victoria a windfall $9.7 billion for the Melbourne port lease and ensured money can be poured into more infrastructure projects.
The 50-year lease price was significantly higher than the government's $7 billion estimate, and Treasurer Tim Pallas put it down to a lack of other good options in equity markets.
"I think we've been very lucky in terms of timing, let me be frank. Couldn't have picked a better time to go to the market," Mr Pallas told reporters on Monday.
"To be honest, we had a lower number ourselves in terms of what we expected.
"To say that this is a good day and this was a pleasant surprise I think would be a mild understatement."
The Lonsdale consortium bid, which includes the Future Fund, QIC and international investors, has passed competition and foreign investment checks.
"This is a massive vote of confidence ... every Victorian should take great pride in the price that has been paid for this asset," Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters.
More than $970 million of the purchase price will be spent on regional and rural infrastructure projects.
Victoria will also push to get the bonus 15 per cent of the sale price it is due under the federal government's asset recycling scheme.
Mr Andrews said next year's budget would reveal how the money would be spent, but building infrastructure was the key to creating jobs and pushing momentum in the economy.
The previous government had booked about $5 billion for the sale of the port lease, but estimates of the final price had ranged as high as $7 billion before Monday's announcement.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said his hard-fought negotiations over the port lease legislation had done nothing to drive the price down, and said the cash should improve the government's current projects.
"There's no excuse to do things on the cheap any more," Mr Guy said.
The legislation includes a 15-year compensation period if a competing government-funded port is built - the government originally wanted a 50-year compensation period.
Greens leader Greg Barber said the sale would hurt Victorian businesses.
"These new owners will want a return on investment and that will come from squeezing Victorian exporters," he said.
Mr Pallas signed the contracts on Monday morning, with commercial close expected on October 31.
Victoria is highly unlikely get the 15 per cent of the sale price it is was hoping for under the federal government's asset recycling scheme.
A spokesman for Treasurer Scott Morrison says the scheme closed to new deals on June 30 and uncommitted funds were returned to the budget.
"An agreement was not finalised with Victoria, despite them having the time to do so," the spokesman said in a statement.
He says the federal government will still work with Victoria to determine how $877.5 million of ARI funds that were set aside for Victoria could be allocated.
Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas said the prime minister was breaking his commitments and "shortchanging Victoria".
"This money is owed to Victorian taxpayers and must go to Victorian projects," Mr Pallas told AAP in a statement. | Melbourne's port will be leased to the Lonsdale consortium for $9.7 billion. | 41.266667 | 0.933333 | 1.733333 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/barack-obama-george-bush-national-museum-african-american-history | http://web.archive.org/web/20160925134906id_/http://www.people.com/article/barack-obama-george-bush-national-museum-african-american-history | Barack Obama Opens National Museum of African American History : People.com | 20160925134906 | George W. Bush and Michelle Obama
09/24/2016 AT 02:45 PM EDT
united at the National Mall on Saturday for the dedication for the Smithsonianâs National Museum of African-American History.
The legislation for the establishment of the museum – which is the first national museum devoted exclusively to the history and culture of African-Americans – was first authorized by Bush in December 2003. It's the 19th and the newest of the Smithsonians.
by their sides, each spoke out about the progress the museum encompasses and the importance it has on our society today.
"We're not a burden on America or a stain on America or an object of shame and pity for America – We are America," Obama said. "And thatâs what this museum explains. Hopefully, this museum makes us talk to each other and listen to each other and see each other."
"By knowing this other story, we better understand ourselves and each other" â@POTUS on the @NMAAHC #APeoplesJourney https://t.co/EWVy1UduiU
More than 100 years in the making, the museum was first proposed in 1915 when African-American veterans of the Civil War asked for a way to commemorate Americaâs black experience.
Its location on the National Mall is only steps away from a monument dedicated to slaveholder president Andrew Jackson – fitting, as the museum addresses the complex relationship between the United States and African-Americans.
My favorite little moment today: @FLOTUS greets former President George W. Bush at @NMAAHC Opening. https://t.co/CGcQubCL2z #APeoplesJourney
The president opened the museum by ringing of the historic Freedom Bell from the First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, Virginia – which was organized in 1776 by slaves.
The bell from one of the oldest black churches in America rings in the official opening of @NMAAHC! #APeoplesJourney https://t.co/0je8MHEH7G
"This National Museum helps us understand a greater picture of who we are," Obama continued. "It helps us better understand the lives, yes, of a president – but also the slave. The industrialist, but also the worker. The teacher or the cook, alongside the story of the statesman. By knowing this other story, we better understand ourselves and each other. It binds us together.
"It reaffirms that all of us are America," he added.
"This museum provides context for the debates of our time." â@POTUS on @NMAAHC #APeoplesJourney https://t.co/jzfYXmMNAu
George W. Bush made similar statements ahead of OBama.
"The lesson of this museum is that all Americans share a past – and a future," he said, Pointing to how the museum showcases America's commitment to truth, capacity for change and talent of some of its finest Americans.
"By staying true to our principles, righting injustice, and encouraging the empowerment of all, we will be an even greater nation for generations to come," he added.
Laura Bush – who also sits on the board of the museum – was quick to praise its director, Dr. Lonnie Bunch.
"I'm thrilled to be here today, this is such a really terrific day," she said. "Lonnie, look what youâve done! You and your team have truly achieved a monumental achievement. Congratulations."
Off to celebrate @NMAAHC ! What a mighty powerful day. pic.twitter.com/dUABVxXhjD
The president's remarks on Saturday were similar to those he said on Friday, while hosting a reception for the museum's opening at the White House attended by nearly 750 elite community members including
Proud to help open @NMAAHC with so many heroes. African American history is a central part of our glorious American history.
There, he also addressed how the museum provides context for the racial debates happening in our current racial climate.
"You know, the timing of this is fascinating," Obama explained. "Because in so many ways, it is the best of times – but in many ways these are also troubled times. History doesn't always move in a straight line. And without vigilance, we can go backwards as well as forwards."
"My hope is that black folks watching those same images on television and then seeing the history represented in this museum can say to themselves the struggles weâre going through today is connected to the past," he said. "And yet all that progress tells me that I cannot and will not sink into despair. Because if we join hands and we do things right, if we maintain our dignity and continue to appeal to the better angels of this nation, progress will be made." | President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush united on Saturday for the dedication for the Smithsonianâs National Museum of African American History | 36.333333 | 0.958333 | 7.375 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/25/15/03/wa-denies-meth-help-line-dob-in-rumour | http://web.archive.org/web/20160926162826id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/25/15/03/wa-denies-meth-help-line-dob-in-rumour | WA denies meth help line 'dob in' rumour | 20160926162826 | Western Australia's mental health minister has moved to quell concerns about the confidentiality of a helpline for methylamphetamine users.
Andrea Mitchell said a radio report suggesting callers were being asked to "name their dealer" were incorrect.
"Let me assure you that is not the case. This is a confidential service," she told reporters on Sunday.
"They're counsellors - they're not police and detectives."
Ms Mitchell said 160 people, mainly users, called the line in its first week of operation. | A helpline for methylamphetamine users is strictly confidential and callers are not being asked to "name their dealer", WA's mental health minister insists. | 3.607143 | 0.857143 | 4 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/26/17/41/woman-stabs-man-in-nsw-domestic-dispute | http://web.archive.org/web/20160927124530id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/26/17/41/woman-stabs-man-in-nsw-domestic-dispute | Woman stabs man in NSW domestic dispute | 20160927124530 | A woman has been charged with the stabbing of a man that has left him in a critical condition in northern NSW.
The alleged domestic dispute broke out at a home in Casino just before 6am on Monday, when a verbal spat turned violent.
Police will allege a 29-year-old woman stabbed the 23-year-old man multiple times.
She has been charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. | A man's in a critical condition after being stabbed multiple times and a woman has been charged in what police in northern NSW believe to be a domestic dispute. | 2.645161 | 0.774194 | 2.193548 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/27/09/45/convicted-reveals-personal-toll-meagher-investigation-took-on-police | http://web.archive.org/web/20160928165657id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/27/09/45/convicted-reveals-personal-toll-meagher-investigation-took-on-police | 'Convicted' reveals toll Meagher investigation took on police | 20160928165657 | The 2012 rape and murder of ABC staffer Jill Meagher appalled the nation, exposed grievous flaws in Victoria's parole system and almost broke the detectives who worked the case.
Some of Melbourne's grittiest cops speak with unprecedented frankness about hunting down Adrian Earnest Bayley down in a new documentary set to air tonight on the ABC.
Convicted delves into the nuts and bolts of the capture of Bayley, whose mobile phone provided police with a map showing that he had travelled from Brunswick to Gisborne on September 22. It also reveals the personal toll the investigation took on police.
When his phone was traced back to Melbourne but Jill's remained, there was little doubt among police that they had their man. But at first detectives were forced to treat Jill's husband, Tom Meagher, as a suspect – and this treatment still haunts Detective Senior Sergeant David Butler, who headed the investigation.
Jill Meagher was accosted by Bayley in inner Melbourne in the early hours of September 22, 2012. Bayley raped and strangled the ABC worker, who had been out for drinks with colleagues, in an alley in Brunswick before driving northwest to Gisborne where he disposed of her remains. (AAP)
"When you think about it down the track, you're left thinking 'Jeez, we were pretty awful, for the way we've treated this poor guy'," he told the ABC.
He and his colleagues say Mr Meagher's ability to rise above that harsh treatment and thank police for their efforts leaves a lasting memory.
"(it was) amazing in the way that he was able to forgive," Acting Senior Sergeant Sharon Darcy said.
"He appreciated the work they were doing and held no malice towards the way they had done their job."
Tom Meagher leaves court in 2013. The next year he penned a celebrated article called "The Danger of the Monster Myth" for White Ribbon Ireland. Despite being treated brusquely by police, Mr Meagher thanked detectives for their work in apprehending Bayley. (AAP)
"We were able to eliminate Tom reasonably quickly in this case," Senior Sergeant Butler said. "And the important thing with that was, let's say we never solved the case, the important thing with that is that we can front the media and we can say 'listen, it's not him, we've proven beyond any doubt that it's not him.'"
But police did not intend to simply prove Mr Meagher's innocence. A search of Bayley's house yielded Jill's sim card – and Bayley's cool exterior started to go to water when Detective Sergeant Paul Rowe probed for answers.
"He became rattled — at one point in time he became angry," DS Rowe said, saying Bayley repeated the phrase "I don't want to explain it" a number of times.
"He sat back on his chair," DS Rowe recalled of Bayley when the rapist was asked about the sim card.
"He paused and he slightly shook his head."
Adrian Earnest Bayley, now 45, was out on parole at the time of Mrs Meagher's murder. He had already breached his probation by committing a bloody assault in the months prior to the night he attacked Mrs Meagher "after a fight with his girlfriend". He was walking free because he appealed the assault conviction. In 1991 he was jailed for raping a 16-year-old and attempting to rape two other young women, but only served 22 months after bluffing his way through a rehabilitation course. In 2002, he was jailed to 11 years (and served eight) for raping five prostitutes over a six month period in 2000-2001. After he was jailed for life for killing Mrs Meagher, he faced another three trials for rapes and assaults, all of which he was convicted of. (AAP)
For DS Rowe, along with two forensic investigators who were present when Jill's body was recovered for a shallow grave on Black Hill Road in Gisborne South, investigating Bayley was enough. They did not return to work after the case was closed, and their colleagues, while they held on, were similarly affected.
"The investigation is obviously very intense," Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Iddles said.
"For me personally, you know, I go home at night and I cry."
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016 | The 2012 rape and murder of ABC staffer Jill Meagher appalled the nation and almost broke the detectives who worked the case. | 37 | 1 | 11.695652 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/09/30/09/22/us-calls-bombing-of-aleppo-gift-to-is | http://web.archive.org/web/20161001141752id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/09/30/09/22/us-calls-bombing-of-aleppo-gift-to-is | US calls bombing of Aleppo 'gift' to IS | 20161001141752 | The United States has called the assault on Aleppo by Syria and Russia "a gift" to Islamic State, saying it was sowing doom and would generate more recruits for the militant group.
Moscow vowed to press on with its offensive in Syria, while US officials searched for a tougher response to Russia's decision to ignore the peace process and seek a military victory on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
United Nations aid chief Stephen O'Brien urged the 15-member UN Security Council on Thursday to stop "tolerating the utter disregard for the most basic provisions of international humanitarian law."
The recent focus of the fighting is a Syrian and Russian bid to recapture rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
"East Aleppo this minute is not at the edge of the precipice, it is well into its terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria," O'Brien said.
"The only remaining deterrent it seems is that there will be real accountability in the court of world opinion and disgust - goodness knows, nothing else seems to be working to stop this deliberate, gratuitous carnage of lives lost," he said.
Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari rejected accusations on Thursday that the Syrian government was killing civilians.
"The Syrian government is not bombing civilians. These people are our own people. We don't bomb civilians, we don't kill civilians. We don't bomb humanitarian convoys. We don't do that. Those who did it are the terrorists," Ja'afari told reporters after a Security Council meeting.
French UN Ambassador Francois Delattre said he had started discussions with some council members on a draft resolution to try and impose a ceasefire in Aleppo.
New Zealand UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, president of the council for September, said after the council meeting that members expressed a "great deal of interest" in seeing the French text and a willingness to work on it.
US Ambassador Samantha Power said that what Assad and Russia were doing in Aleppo was "soul-shattering."
"What they are doing is sowing not only the doom of this country ... but it is going to generate more refugee flow, more radicalisation.
"What they are doing is a gift to ISIL (Islamic State) and (Nusra Front), the groups that they claim that they want to stop," she said.
Russia has also accused the United States of "de facto support for terrorism" in Syria.
As Washington threatens to walk away from talks with Russia on Syria unless the fighting stops, Britain's UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters it was time "to move to a different form of diplomacy," pointing to the Security Council.
Rycroft also dismissed a Russian proposal for a 48-hour humanitarian pause in fighting in Aleppo.
Since July, the UN has been calling for a weekly 48-hour truce to allow the delivery of aid to besieged areas. | Moscow has vowed to press on with its offensive in Syria, while US officials search for a tougher response to Russia's decision to ignore the peace process. | 19 | 0.966667 | 11.366667 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/30/09/54/prime-minister-backs-the-sydney-swans | http://web.archive.org/web/20161001152859id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/30/09/54/prime-minister-backs-the-sydney-swans | Sydney Swans get the PM's support | 20161001152859 | Malcolm Turnbull hasn't been swayed by the Western Bulldogs bandwagon.
Despite their underdog status and the fact he believes they're "sentimental favourites", the prime minister is still tipping the Sydney Swans to take out the AFL grand final on Saturday.
"They train in my electorate in Wentworth so I always support the Swans," he told 3AW radio on Friday.
He's picking the Swans will win by eight points.
He admired the sport, he said, but was more interested in rugby and played it until his early 20s.
"I've always admired the speed and athleticism of AFL . It is extraordinary," he said.
He also urged footy players and fans to proudly sing the national anthem at the grand final, dismissing a boycott call from outspoken indigenous sportsman Anthony Mundine. | Even if the Western Bulldogs are the "sentimental favourite" to win the AFL Grand Final, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is still tipping the Sydney Swans. | 5.448276 | 0.862069 | 2.724138 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/02/11/47/russia-warns-against-us-attack-on-syria | http://web.archive.org/web/20161003163710id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/02/11/47/russia-warns-against-us-attack-on-syria | Russia warns against US attack on Syria | 20161003163710 | Russia has warned the US against carrying out any attacks on Syrian government forces, saying it would have repercussions across the Middle East as government forces captured a hill on the edge of the northern city of Aleppo under the cover of airstrikes.
Meanwhile, airstrikes on Aleppo struck a hospital in the eastern rebel-held neighbourhood of Sakhour on Saturday, putting it out of service, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees. They said at least one person was killed in the airstrike.
Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying that a US intervention against the Syrian army "will lead to terrible, tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole.''
She said regime change in Syria would create a vacuum that would be "quickly filled'' by "terrorists of all stripes.''
US-Russian tensions over Syria have escalated since the breakdown of a ceasefire last month, with each side blaming the other for its failure. Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes have launched a major onslaught on rebel-held parts of Aleppo.
Syrian troops pushed ahead in their offensive in Aleppo on Saturday capturing the strategic Um al-Shuqeef hill near the Palestinian refugee camp of Handarat that government forces captured from rebels earlier this week, according to state TV.
The powerful ultra conservative Ahrar al-Sham militant group said rebels regained control Saturday of several positions they lost in Aleppo in the Bustan al-Basha neighbourhood.
State media said 13 people were wounded when rebels shelled the central government-held neighbourhood of Midan.
In the rebel-held portion of Aleppo, opposition activist Ahmad Alkhatib described the hospital, known as M10, as one of the largest in Aleppo. He posted photographs on his Twitter account showing the damage including beds covered with dust, a hole in its roof and debris covering the street outside.
A doctor at the hospital told the Aleppo Media Centre, an activist collective, that thousands of people were treated in the compound in the past adding that two people were killed in Saturday's airstrikes and several were wounded.
"A real catastrophe will hit medical institutions in Aleppo if the direct shelling continues to target hospitals and clinics,'' said the doctor whose name was not given. He said the whole hospital is out of service.
Opposition activists have blamed the President Bashar al Assad's forces and Russia for airstrikes that hit Civil Defence units and clinics in the city where eastern rebel-held neighbourhoods are besieged by government forces and pro-government militiamen. | An air raid on the rebel-held eastern half of the Syrian city of Aleppo has hit the area's largest hospital. | 20.833333 | 0.833333 | 1.5 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/04/12/49/qld-woman-held-captive-for-several-hours | http://web.archive.org/web/20161005124701id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/04/12/49/qld-woman-held-captive-for-several-hours | Qld woman held captive for 'several hours' | 20161005124701 | A man will face court accused of repeatedly assaulting a woman he held captive for several hours at a home in far north Queensland.
The 34-year-old allegedly refused to let the woman leave the home in the Cairns suburb of Manoora on September 25 after the pair got into an argument.
Police say the woman, aged in her 30s, suffered multiple injuries including burns and lacerations during the ordeal, which she was eventually able to flee and seek help from a neighbour.
The man has been charged with six offences, including torture and deprivation of liberty, and is due to face the Cairns Magistrates Court next month. | A man is facing a string of charges, including torture, after allegedly holding a woman captive for several hours at a Cairns home. | 4.653846 | 0.846154 | 2.384615 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/08/03/08/hurrican-matthew-hugs-florida-coast | http://web.archive.org/web/20161008153305id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/08/03/08/hurrican-matthew-hugs-florida-coast | Hurricane Matthew kills almost 900 | 20161008153305 | The death toll in Haiti in the wake of Hurricane Matthew has soared to almost 900.
Tens of thousands in the impoverished Caribbean nation have also been left homeless by the monster storm, which is now ploughing northward over waters just off the US southeast where it has caused flooding and widespread power outages.
The number of deaths in Haiti surged to at least 877 on Friday as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, according to a tally of death tolls given by officials.
Matthew triggered mass evacuations along the US coast from Florida through Georgia and into South Carolina and North Carolina.
US President Barack Obama urged people not to be complacent and to heed safety instructions.
"The potential for storm surge, loss of life and severe property damage exists," he told reporters of the fiercest cyclone to affect the United States since Superstorm Sandy four years ago.
Matthew smashed through Haiti's western peninsula on Tuesday with 233 km/h winds and torrential rain. More than 61,000 people were in shelters, officials said, after the storm pushed the sea into fragile coastal villages.
While highlighting the misery of underdevelopment in Haiti, which is still recovering from a devastating 2010 earthquake, the storm looked certain to rekindle the debate about global warming and the long-term threat posed by rising sea levels.
At least three towns in the hills and coast of Haiti's fertile western tip reported dozens of people killed, including the farming village of Chantal where the mayor said 86 people died, mostly when trees crushed houses. He said 20 others were missing.
"A tree fell on the house and flattened it. The entire house fell on us. I couldn't get out," said driver Jean-Pierre Jean-Donald, 27, who had been married for only a year.
"People came to lift the rubble, and then we saw my wife who had died in the same spot," he said, his young daughter by his side, crying.
With mobile phone networks down and roads flooded, aid has been slow to reach hard-hit areas. Food was scarce and at least seven people died of cholera, likely because of flood water mixing with sewage.
The Mesa Verde, a US Navy amphibious transport dock ship, was heading for Haiti to support relief efforts. The ship has heavy-lift helicopters, bulldozers, fresh water delivery vehicles and two surgical operating rooms.
Matthew sideswiped Florida's coast with winds of up to 195 km/h but did not make landfall in the state. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) downgraded the storm to a Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity as its sustained winds dropped. Category 5 is the strongest.
There were at least four storm-related deaths in Florida but no immediate reports of significant damage although the storm swamped streets, toppled trees and knocked out power to more than a million people.
Two people were killed by falling trees, according to Florida officials, and an elderly couple died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator while sheltering in a garage. | Hurricane Matthew is threatening more destruction in the US after lashing Haiti and killing more than 500 people. | 31.842105 | 0.736842 | 1.157895 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/07/15/44/milliner-spills-spring-race-fashion-tips | http://web.archive.org/web/20161008153759id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/07/15/44/milliner-spills-spring-race-fashion-tips | Milliner spills spring race fashion tips | 20161008153759 | Thousands of people are preparing their flamboyant frocks and fascinators for Sydney spring carnival's most glamorous event, but official milliner Nerida Winter says it is the little things that will catch the judges' eyes.
Winter, who has been the official milliner to the Australian Turf Club since 2003, says she expects to see feminine ruffles, lace and pastels, and structured 80s shapes as big trends at the Moet & Chandon Spring Champion Stakes Day at Randwick on Saturday.
"Don't forget that the races is all about the wonderful sport of horse racing - get involved, dress in your finest daywear and have fun," Winter told AAP.
Despite the focus on frocks, it's the accessories such as jewellery, shoes and quality fascinators that will turn the judges' heads, she said.
"It's all about attention to detail and accessories are the perfect way to express your sense of style."
Winter said while creativity was the key to winning, racegoers should choose quality craftsmanship when it comes to fascinators and "avoid the DIY look".
Models and spring carnival ambassadors Natalie Roser and Georgia Fowler will be joined by photographer Sonny Vandevelde to judge both male and female finalists as they parade their outfits in front of the main grandstand on Saturday.
With prizes totalling more than $75,000, including a BMW 220i Convertible valued at over $65,000, racegoers will be sure to follow Winter's advice.
NERIDA WINTER'S RACE DAY ESSENTIALS:
* A touch of gold for the Moet & Chandon Champion Stakes Day
* Don't forgo the headwear, you will feel out of place!
* Chanel lippy and Charlotte Tilbury eye palette
* Hat elastics and bobby pins for any "damsels in distress"
* Break in new shoes - it's a long day on your feet! | Spring carnival milliner Nerida Winter says DIY fascinators are not an option for competitors in the Spring Champion Stakes Day fashion chute at Randwick. | 14 | 0.76 | 1.88 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/12/09/31/no-power-for-some-vic-homes-until-friday | http://web.archive.org/web/20161012144024id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/12/09/31/no-power-for-some-vic-homes-until-friday | Power, floods continue to hamper Victoria | 20161012144024 | Thousands of Victorians have spent a fourth day without power after the weekend's deadly winds and flood warnings remain for the north of the state.
About 7500 properties were still without power as of 5pm Wednesday, with the AusNet network hardest hit and repairs expected to continue to Friday.
Areas still without power are mostly in the Dandenong and Yarra ranges and south eastern suburbs including Woori Yallock, Lilydale, Healesville and Belgrave.
Wind gusts exceeding 100km/h on Sunday caused almost 130,000 properties across Victoria to lose power and one woman died when a tree crashed into her Millgrove house.
AusNet Services has about 250 field crew supported by the SES and other emergency volunteers working to restore power.
But with numerous single house wires down as well, AusNet spokesman Hugo Armstrong says some customers might have to wait until Friday for power.
"It will probably take us until the end of the week to get all those individual customer faults fully restored," Mr Armstrong told AAP.
Victoria Police and the SES are doing doorknocks in communities affected by the outages, Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley said, but neighbours and family are also encouraged to check on anyone who may need assistance.
In the north of the state, flood waters are inching closer to a caravan park and threatening to cut off access to properties as water continues to rise in parts of the Murray River.
Residents in the township of Barmah were doorknocked and given sandbags as the Murray was expected to peak on Wednesday.
While no significant rain is forecast until Sunday, river levels are still rising as previous heavy rain trickles through the system.
The SES expects high river levels to occur for some weeks.
Fourteen properties in Lower Moira, near Barmah, are predicted to be isolated for three days as waters rise by about 50cm in the next two days.
From Friday, residents in Echuca might see minor flooding.
Premier Daniel Andrews has urged people to heed warnings and stay out of floodwaters.
"This flood event is not over by any stretch," he told reporters. | More than 8000 Victorian homes and businesses have entered a fourth day of darkness as work continues to repair power lines damaged during the windy weekend. | 14.814815 | 0.481481 | 0.777778 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/11/10/47/in-the-dark-diggers-struck-german-trenches | http://web.archive.org/web/20161012155522id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/11/10/47/in-the-dark-diggers-struck-german-trenches | In the dark diggers struck German trenches | 20161012155522 | In the dark of night they prepared, faces blackened and armed with a selection of daggers, maces, morningstars and knuckle dusters to bludgeon anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path.
This wasn't the Middle Ages.
This was France in 1916, with parties of Australian soldiers setting out to raid German trenches, a task at which they came to excel.
A century on, Australians remember the big costly WWI battles such as Fromelles, Pozieres, Bullecourt and Passchendaele.
But most nights, soldiers all along the Western Front would partake in little battles. These took the form of patrols and raids on trenches, sometimes under 100 metres away across "no man's land".
Such raids were designed to gain intelligence, take prisoners for interrogation, to blood inexperienced troops or just to raise mayhem.
Whatever the intent and however raids were conducted, this wasn't a gentle or sporting business.
Australian War Memorial senior historian Aaron Pegram said raiding was bloody and lethal.
Makeshift weapons, generically referred to as knobkerries but typically pick handle clubs, sometimes studded with nails, were intended to silently dispatch sentries. Once surprise was lost, revolvers and hand grenades, were the preferred weapons.
Australians on Gallipoli tried a few night time raids on Turkish trenches with one on May 25, led by the colourfully named Lieutenant Maurice Wilder-Nelligan notably well-planned and successful. He would go on to be one of the AIF's foremost exponents of raiding.
Australian troops arrived on the Western Front in mid-1916, heading into the quiet Armentieres sector to learn the basics of trench warfare.
Unsurprisingly, it was the Germans who landed the first blow. Under cover of an intense localised artillery bombardment, German raiders hit the Australian 20th Battalion in the Bridoux sector, leaving 23 dead for no casualties.
Eleven prisoners were taken, the first of 4000 Australians to become POWs on the western front. Under interrogation, they gave the Germans their first good information on the new Australian arrivals.
Far worse as far as higher command was concerned, the Germans made off with two Stokes mortars, a new and secret weapon.
The officer deemed most responsible for this loss was court martialed but cleared. Years after the war, 20th Battalion members were mocked by other soldiers with the greeting: "Got any trench mortars, Dig?"
Soon the diggers started doing their own raiding, though British, Canadian and Indian troops had been raiding long before the Aussies arrived.
With the Somme offensive approaching, British High Command wanted the Germans to think the upcoming blow could fall anywhere along the line. British commander General Douglas Haig mandated raids to keep the Germans off balance.
A plan proposed by the 7th Brigade was chosen as the diggers' first official raid.
Under guidance of a pair of Canadian soldiers, then the acknowledged raiding experts, a party of 65 diggers spent a fortnight training behind the lines training with revolver and grenade and practising use of the knobkerry for "nut cracking".
They rehearsed attack drills in a replica trench, studied aerial photos of their target with some members even accompanying scouts on night-time ventures into no-man's land.
Their raid, mounted on the night of June 6-7, was supported by artillery and machineguns from across the Anzac sector and proved a complete success.
In six minutes, nine German soldiers were killed and five taken prisoner, at a cost of two dead and three wounded.
Members had blackened their faces with burnt cork and inevitably became known as the "black Anzacs". In recognition of their achievements, members were allowed to go on leave to London.
During the next fortnight, the Anzacs conducted 13 raids and continued right up to the Armistice in November 1918.
Success depended on effective planning and preparation, co-ordinated artillery support and surprise.
Sometimes there was too much of a good thing. On July 2, 1916 raiders from the 11th Battalion found the preparatory artillery barrage had obliterated their target trenches.
Sometimes there wasn't enough. In October 1917, a raid by 88 members of the 10th Battalion ended with 69 dead, wounded and missing because of poor planning, ineffective artillery and a fully alert enemy.
As the war progressed, raids became increasingly elaborate. Such was "the big raid" near Houplines on February 27, 1917, described by official correspondent Charles Bean as the most important undertaken by Australians.
That involved more than 800 soldiers who penetrated German defences on a 700-metre frontage, spending 35 minutes ransacking and killing before withdrawing. Reconnaissance aircraft supported the raid by directing artillery fire onto German guns.
Pegram said the knobkerry was the iconic weapon of trench raiding but they proved very inefficient. Once the fight was on, revolvers and hand grenades were far more effective.
As the war progressed, they were supplemented with white phosphorus incendiary grenades for clearing dugouts and even "stinkpots" a type of teargas grenade designed to render dugouts uninhabitable long after raiders departed.
Raids also became more brutal.
On the night of October 12, 1916, raiders from the 31st Battalion dropped white phosphorous grenades and high explosive mortar bombs down ventilation shafts of dugouts where German soldiers had sought refuge.
The after-action report says between 40 and 50 were killed in this way "with a further 50 being dispatched after coming to the surface to surrender."
Thirteen prisoners were taken and unsurprisingly, they sought to escape. Three survived.
Pegram said killing prisoners defied international law and increased the risk of similar treatment for captured Australians. As well, killing prisoners undermined one of the key purposes of raids, to take live prisoners for interrogation.
Some diggers revelled in the prospect of raiding. For others it was an escape from the monotony of sitting in a trench being shelled, Pegram said.
As the war progressed, some soldiers proved unenthusiastic, with lots drawn to choose raiding party members from the unwilling. | Australians remember the big battles of WWI but few know that most nights Australian troops launched patrols and conducted raids on German trenches | 50.086957 | 0.913043 | 1.869565 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/13/13/30/ten-hours-two-death-on-wa-roads | http://web.archive.org/web/20161017213327id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/13/13/30/ten-hours-two-death-on-wa-roads | WA motorbike deaths surpass 2015 toll | 20161017213327 | Three motorbike riders have died on West Australian roads since Sunday, including two fatal accidents within 10 hours.
The recent deaths take WA's motorbike road toll to 28 for this year, compared to 22 for all of last year.
Acting road safety commissioner Chris Adams said this year's fatalities had mainly been male riders, and about half of the crashes did not involve another vehicle.
"While the road safety commission is working hard to create safer roads and roadsides, motorcycle riders also need to be aware of the risks they face every time they go onto the roads, take necessary precautions, be more responsible for their own safety and be visible to other road users," he said.
The most recent fatality happened in the Perth suburb of Maddington shortly before 9pm on Wednesday, police say.
The 30-year-old male rider hit a square kerb before sliding along grass and hitting a fence.
He was taken to Royal Perth Hospital but died from his injuries.
Just before 11am on Wednesday, a motorbike and a car collided in Barragup, south of Perth, with the 28-year-old male rider dying in hospital.
The third accident involved a 19-year-old rider colliding with a car in Mandurah on Sunday about 9.30pm.
He died later in hospital and his pillion passenger was seriously injured.
There have been 147 people killed on WA roads in 2016 compared to 125 at the same time last year. | Two motorbike riders have died in 10 hours on WA roads, bringing the state's annual road toll to 147. | 12.727273 | 0.863636 | 2.045455 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/17/09/19/donald-trump-slams-saturday-night-live | http://web.archive.org/web/20161019135231id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/17/09/19/donald-trump-slams-saturday-night-live | Donald Trump says Alec Baldwin's parody of him 'stinks' | 20161019135231 | Donald Trump's feelings have been hurt by comedy television show Saturday Night Live.
The Republican presidential candidate has finally broken his silence after a number of skits portrayed him in a negative light.
The White House hopeful tweeted, "Watched Saturday Night Live hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!"
In recent days, Mr Trump has made no secret about his beliefs that the election is rigged and there's a conspiracy by the media to elect his rival Hillary Clinton.
Saturday Night Live, which has a rich history of poking fun at political figures, enlisted Alec Baldwin to portray the billionaire businessman.
Highlights from the most recent skit, which focused on the presidential debate, included Baldwin’s version of Mr Trump lurking around Kate McKinnon’s Clinton to the Jaws theme music.
When Baldwin playing Mr Trump was asked whether he liked kids, he replied: "I love the kids, OK? I love them so much I marry them."
The real life Mr Trump hosted Saturday Night Live last November.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016 | Donald Trump slams Saturday Night Live & Alec Baldwin | 18.416667 | 0.5 | 1.166667 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/19/02/13/iraqi-forces-make-gains-in-push-to-retake-isil-held-mosul | http://web.archive.org/web/20161020070918id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/10/19/02/13/iraqi-forces-make-gains-in-push-to-retake-isil-held-mosul | Government watching for ISIL fighters planning to return to Australia after Mosul offensive | 20161020070918 | As Iraqi forces advance into the city of Mosul, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says the government is working closely with partners around the world to detect Australian foreign fighters who may seek to return home if the Islamic State group (ISIS) is disbanded.
Iraqi forces are making gains after tens of thousands of fighters advanced on Mosul in an unprecedented offensive to retake the city from ISIS.
"It has been our concern that the foreign terrorist fighters who came to both Iraq and Syria to take part in the fighting, the conflict on the part of (ISIS), will then seek to return home at some point," Ms Bishop said.
"We are working closely with partners throughout Europe and particularly in our region to detect those who have been fighting, who are experienced terrorists fighters, and ensure they can’t carry out a terrorist attack in Europe or indeed in our region, or more particularly here in Australia."
Ms Bishop called the Iraqi forces' advance into the Mosul region an "important milestone" in the push to regain the northern Iraqi city.
"It’s a very important milestone because this is the last key strong hold of (ISIS) in Iraq," she said.
Ms Bishop said Australia currently has 400 personnel in Iraq, who are "supporting the Iraqi security forces in training, assisting and advising".
"We've trained about 12,000 Iraqi security forces, including some of those who are in the battalions taking part in the Mosul offensive," she said.
With the crucial battle in its second day, the US military, which is leading a coalition providing air and ground support, said Iraqi forces even looked "ahead of schedule" but senior Western officials warned the battle would be long and difficult.
Advancing in armoured convoys across the dusty plains surrounding Mosul, forces moved into villages defended by pockets of IS fighters after intensive aerial bombardment.
Massive columns of smoke rose from burning oil wells near the main staging base for government forces in Qayyarah, blotting out the horizon.
A soldier at a checkpoint nearby said that IS lit the wells on fire to provide cover from air strikes before the town of Qayyarah was retaken in late August. The fires had been burning ever since.
Heavy smoke was also hanging over Mosul itself as the jihadists burned tyres to shield themselves, resident Abu Saif said.
Speaking to AFP from inside the city, Abu Saif said that while the sounds of air strikes and explosions could be heard coming from outside Mosul, its streets were eerily quiet.
Peshmerga forces take part in an operation to liberate several villages from the control of ISIL. (AAP)
"The streets are empty, the people have been staying at home since the strikes started yesterday," said Abu Saif, a 47-year-old former company manager.
"There is this happiness inside us... because we feel that we are about to be rescued," he said.
"But we are scared that Daesh (IS) can still carry out acts of revenge against the population."
The long-awaited Mosul offensive was launched on Monday, with some 30,000 federal forces leading Iraq's largest military operation since the 2011 pullout of US troops.
Retaking Mosul would deprive IS of the last major Iraqi city under its control, dealing a fatal blow to the "caliphate" the jihadists declared two years ago after seizing large parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Iraqi commanders said IS fighters were hitting back with suicide car bomb attacks but that the offensive was going as planned.
"Many villages have already been liberated," said Sabah al-Numan, the spokesman of the elite counter-terrorism service.
"Iraqi forces have achieved their goals and even more, but we're careful to stick to the plan and not rush this."
The two main fronts are south of Mosul, where forces are moving from Qayyarah, and east, where another push involving Kurdish peshmerga fighters is under way.
In the south, forces inching forward along the Tigris river were training their sights on a village called Hammam al-Alil, while units east of Mosul were close to Qaraqosh, once Iraq's biggest Christian town.
A family fleeing Mosul. (AAP)
Iraqi forces have significant ground to cover before reaching the boundaries of the city, which IS is defending with berms, bombs and burning oil trenches.
A siege is likely to ensue and then a breach by crack units that will engage die-hard IS fighters.
IS forces are vastly outnumbered, with the US military estimating 3,000 to 4,500 jihadists in and around Mosul.
The US-led coalition said strikes destroyed 52 targets on the first day of the operation.
"Early indications are that Iraqi forces have met their objectives so far, and that they are ahead of schedule for this first day," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said.
Most of the coalition's support has come in the shape of air strikes and training, but US, British and French special forces are also on the ground to advise local troops.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned that victory would not be quick.
"It could be a long battle, it's not a blitzkrieg... It's a lengthy affair (lasting) several weeks, maybe months," he told reporters in Paris.
France will host an international meeting Thursday on the political future of Mosul, while the coalition's defence ministers will meet in Paris next Tuesday to assess progress on the military front.
Britain's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said it was "clear that Daesh is now failing" but agreed that progress would be hard-fought.
"This will not be a quick operation, and we can expect Daesh to fight hard to keep Mosul," he told parliament, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
A Peshmerga soldier inspects burnt truck which was used by Islamic State militants after a heavy clashes with Iraqi forces. (AAP)
Aid groups are bracing for a potentially massive humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations' humanitarian coordinator, Lise Grande, said on Monday that a major exodus could begin in the coming days.
Mosul is Iraq's second-largest city and the UN fears that up to a million people could be forced from their homes by the fighting, 700,000 of them in need of shelter.
Iraqi military and police forces have been joined on the battlefront by an array of sometimes rival forces, including the Kurdish peshmerga, Sunni tribal fighters and Iran-backed Shiite militia.
IS once controlled more than a third of Iraq's territory but its self-proclaimed "state" has been shrinking steadily.
If Mosul falls, only Raqa in Syria would remain as the last major city in either country under IS control.
But even the recapture of Mosul will not mark the end of the war against IS, which is likely to increasingly turn to insurgent tactics as it loses more ground.
Just hours after the offensive began, IS claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing targeting an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Baghdad that killed at least 10 people.
A peshmerga fighter walks through the kitchen of an underground tunnel made by ISIL fighters. (AAP)
IS has also organised or inspired a wave of attacks in Western cities and on Tuesday the European Union's security commissioner raised concerns over the potential impact of Mosul's fall.
"The retaking of the IS' northern Iraq stronghold, Mosul, may lead to the return to Europe of violent IS fighters," Julian King told German daily Die Welt.
He said even a handful of jihadists returning would pose a "serious threat that we must prepare ourselves for."
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016 | Iraqi forces were making gains as tens of thousands of fighters advanced on Mosul Tuesday in an unprecedented offensive to retake the city from the Islamic State group. | 51.758621 | 1 | 5.965517 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/19/06/13/a-g-defends-pre-election-appointment-blitz | http://web.archive.org/web/20161020073003id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/19/06/13/a-g-defends-pre-election-appointment-blitz | A-G defends pre-election appointment blitz | 20161020073003 | A batch of 76 bureaucratic appointments made by the federal government the day before the election was called did not go through a selection committee.
Attorney-General George Brandis announced 37 new positions and 39 re-appointments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on the eve of going into caretaker mode in May.
Senator Brandis' department revealed on Tuesday night none of those had been subject to a selection committee or were publicly advertised.
Under protocol, the attorney-general is allowed to choose a suitable person himself.
Some of those may have been based on recommendations by the president of the tribunal, but the department would not say how many.
Senator Brandis insisted he complied with the protocol, which he established with the tribunal's president last year.
He said the large number of appointments were made to fill a backlog of vacancies created by the delay in the protocol's introduction.
Labor Senator Penny Wong read a list of more than 20 of the appointments who she claimed were affiliated with the Liberal party, including a former Liberal senator and ex-chief of staff to Treasurer Scott Morrison.
But Senator Brandis denied any favouritism.
"I don't enquire into people's politics when I make appointments to boards or tribunals," he said.
"There are some people whose politics I know because they're a matter of public record. Politics, for me, never comes into it."
The attorney-general was again questioned about his relationship with Liberal Party donor, Theo Tavoularis, who represented his son in a court case and was among the AAT appointees in May.
Senator Brandis said he did not consider Mr Tavoularis a personal friend, rather an acquaintance. | Attorney-General George Brandis has defended the 76 appointments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on the eve of the election being called. | 13.541667 | 0.875 | 5.541667 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/National/2016/10/19/05/23/woman-allegedly-attempts-to-rob-Sydney-supermarket-with-machete | http://web.archive.org/web/20161020073424id_/http://www.9news.com.au/National/2016/10/19/05/23/woman-allegedly-attempts-to-rob-Sydney-supermarket-with-machete | Brave shoppers detain woman who allegedly robbed Sydney supermarket armed with a machete | 20161020073424 | Terrifying video has captured the moment brave shoppers detained a woman after she allegedly robbed a Sydney supermarket armed with a machete.
The 31-year-old woman allegedly began stealing items behind a service counter after she entered the Woolworths on Rangers Road in Neutral Bay around 6.30pm yesterday.
When confronted by staff members, the woman allegedly produced a machete and began threatening a male employee.
Woolworths employee Phillip Minuto urged his terrified colleague to hand over money from the till to the woman.
"I asked him to follow her demands, give her what she wanted because at the end of the day money is money," Mr Minuto told 9NEWS.
"A life's more important than anything else in the world."
Witness Nick Martin, who also filmed the confrontation, moved in to defuse the situation but the woman instead turned on him.
"I actually walked over to distract her, I guess," Mr Martin said.
"And yeah, it kinda worked - she threatened me and chased me out the door with the machete."
Mr Martin said the Woolworths staff were "very professional" throughout the ordeal and made sure they cleared everyone away from harm until the woman left the store.
"It was quite surreal at first, I didn't quite know what was going on but it became pretty apparent when I saw the size of the machete she had on her," he said.
The woman was arrested by police after being chased down by two shoppers. (9NEWS)
When Mr Martin left the Woolworths, he spotted the woman heading towards another Woolworths on Grosvenor Lane, so he decided to take action with another bystander.
He grabbed the woman from behind while the second man made for the machete and they pulled her to the ground.
"I grabbed her up high and he sort of took the machete off her and threw it away and then I kind of put her on the ground and we held her there until the cops came," Mr Martin said.
The two men held her to the ground until police arrived.
The woman, Jenna Hamm, has been charged with several offences including larceny, being armed with intent to rob using an offensive weapon, wielding a knife in public place, common assault and being armed with intent to commit an indictable offence.
Ms Hamm was refused bail and appeared in Central Local Court today.
She was refused bail and will reappear in court in December.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016 | A woman who allegedly attempted to rob a Sydney supermarket armed with a machete is in police custody after she was the subject of a citizen’s arrest. | 17.357143 | 0.821429 | 2.535714 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/1951/12/18/archives/prince-asaka-becomes-catholic.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161028085053id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1951/12/18/archives/prince-asaka-becomes-catholic.html | Prince Asaka Becomes Catholic | 20161028085053 | We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.
A version of this archives appears in print on December 18, 1951, on page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Prince Asaka Becomes Catholic. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | Baptized in RC Ch | 15 | 0.25 | 0.25 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/28/09/16/pm-open-to-race-hate-speech-laws-inquiry | http://web.archive.org/web/20161028141639id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/28/09/16/pm-open-to-race-hate-speech-laws-inquiry | PM open to race hate-speech laws inquiry | 20161028141639 | A parliamentary inquiry into a contentious section of race hate-speech laws is almost certain with Malcolm Turnbull acknowledging it was a legitimate area for discussion.
But that doesn't mean there should be any tolerance for hate speech or language that promoted racial hatred or "anything of that kind".
"It is a matter that I think needs to have a calm discussion," the prime minister told Neil Mitchell on 3AW radio on Friday.
Mr Turnbull was responding to calls by former deputy prime minister John Anderson and a Liberal senator for a parliamentary inquiry into Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
The section makes it unlawful for someone to commit an act that is reasonably likely to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" someone because of their race or ethnicity.
It's under scrutiny after a complaint was made to the Human Rights Commission against cartoonist Bill Leak over his depiction of an Aboriginal man holding a beer can and unable to remember his son's name.
Mr Anderson wants a "serious, full-blooded debate in this country about the way in which we debate".
"You can't get good public policy from a bad or silenced debate," he wrote in The Australian on Friday.
Liberal senator Dean Smith has urged a parliamentary inquiry into freedom of speech in the wake of the Leak complaint and another case involving students at the Queensland University of Technology.
Senator Smith argues the recent increase in high-profile complaints under section 18C had shifted the debate from "theoretical" applications to the "practical experience" of the law.
Mr Turnbull said the government was considering Senator Smith's call for an inquiry, but acknowledged there was a reasonable argument for having a cool discussion.
Mr Anderson said the Leak complaint was an episode that crystallised for him "the growing belief the West's greatest challenge was to learn again to talk to one another and listen to one another with civility".
"Only by properly considering all perspectives can we hope to find the optimal way through the truly confronting array of cultural, economic and strategic challenges confronting us as a nation," he said.
Mr Turnbull rejected suggestions Leak was a racist, but did describe him as a "controversialist ... a very colourful, passionate Australian of enormous artistic ability".
Free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs welcomed the prime minister's comments.
"Laws which restrict freedom of speech have no place in a liberal democracy such as Australia. Section 18C must be repealed," spokesman Simon Breheny said in a statement. | Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says a calm discussion is needed about a contentious section of the Racial Discrimination Act. | 24.75 | 0.9 | 3 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/1953/11/26/archives/hilton-chain-acquiring-new-yorker-hotel-here.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161030143439id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1953/11/26/archives/hilton-chain-acquiring-new-yorker-hotel-here.html | Hilton Chain Acquiring New Yorker Hotel Here | 20161030143439 | We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.
A version of this archives appears in print on November 26, 1953, on page 60 of the New York edition with the headline: Hilton Chain Acquiring New Yorker Hotel Here. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe | sought by Hilton Hotels Corp | 12.6 | 0.2 | 0.2 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/02/12/54/jury-retires-in-nsw-besotted-killer-case | http://web.archive.org/web/20161103125404id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/02/12/54/jury-retires-in-nsw-besotted-killer-case | Jury retires in NSW 'besotted' killer case | 20161103125404 | A jury is deliberating in the case of a "besotted" Sydney man, who allegedly killed his girlfriend and left a suicide note written on a bedroom wall.
Shahram Hejabian, who spent time as a refugee in Turkey and suffers from PTSD, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Nouha Salame on the basis that he was of substantially impaired mind when she died at his Doonside home in 2014.
The 40-year-old's NSW Supreme Court trial has heard Ms Salame sustained skull fractures and was asphyxiated before her body was found in a doona with her head on a pillow in Hejabian's hallway.
It also heard Hejabian was found "effectively dying" from a medication overdose in a room where he'd written in felt pen that Ms Salame had broken his heart.
He signed off the letter by saying he loved "this lady" and "farewell", the court heard.
The jury retired around 12:15pm on Wednesday. | A jury in the NSW trial of a man, who says he is not guilty of murdering his girlfriend because he was of substantially impaired mind at the time, has retired. | 5.352941 | 0.911765 | 2.323529 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/03/03/38/hazelwood-closure-will-see-bills-rise | http://web.archive.org/web/20161103141303id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/03/03/38/hazelwood-closure-will-see-bills-rise | $85m support for sacked Hazelwood workers | 20161103141303 | Governments have pledged almost $100 million to help the Latrobe Valley cope with the closure of the Hazelwood power station but there are fears up to 750 ageing workers won't be able to find new jobs.
French majority co-owner Engie on Thursday announced it was "no longer economic to operate" the mine and power station and all eight generating units would be closed by March 31.
The station, jointly owned with Mitsui, is more than 50 years old and currently provides more than 20 per cent of Victoria's electricity.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday said "this is a very, very tough time for the valley".
The federal government announced a $43 million assistance package including $20 million for new infrastructure projects in the region and $20 million for the Latrobe Valley to become the country's 10th regional jobs and investment project.
There'll also be $3 million for job assistance, retraining and financial services support for affected workers.
Engie Australia chief executive Alex Keisser said the company had set aside $150 million for entitlements - an average of $330,00 per worker.
"Our sympathies go out to the workers and to their families," federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg told reporters in Melbourne.
He's spoken to the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator who provided an assurance that the reliability of the national electricity market "would continue despite the closure".
The federal government has also written to the Australian Energy Regulator to ensure the closure "does not lead to unjustified price increases".
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says the AEMO had confirmed "there is more than enough supply to deal with all of Victoria's demand" post-closure.
"They are the facts," he told reporters in Morwell.
"There will be others who run scare campaigns (but) that is what they are -scare campaigns."
The Victoria government says retail prices will increase by less than four per cent in 2017 as a result of the Hazelwood shutdown. That's less than $1 a week for households.
The state has committed $22 million for TAFE training and financial and emotional counselling.
A further $20 million will go towards establishing an authority - based in Morwell - that will work to attract new businesses and opportunities to the region.
Mr Keisser said the company was committed to fully supporting its 750 Hazelwood workers - comprising 450 direct worker and 300 contractors.
Some 250 people will still be needed for rehabilitation works at the coal mine and power station site between 2017 and 2023 with Mr Keisser insisting existing workers would be "given privilege".
The federal government has set up a ministerial committee to coordinate its response.
A joint Commonwealth and state task force will ensure both governments work together in a "collaborative way", Mr Turnbull said. | The "imminent" closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station will affect Victoria's electricity prices. | 27.4 | 0.85 | 1.85 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.thepostgame.com/anthony-rizzo-pockets-final-out-world-series | http://web.archive.org/web/20161105123621id_/http://www.thepostgame.com/anthony-rizzo-pockets-final-out-world-series | Anthony Rizzo Pockets Final Out Of World Series | 20161105123621 | Time is the most important factor in giving an artifact value. So when the Cubs finally won their first World Series in 108 years, the final out of Game 7 became a special piece of baseball memorabilia.
Anthony Rizzo is a baseball junkie. He knew this. And when he caught the final out on a throw from Kris Bryant, he pocketed the ball.
Anthony Rizzo doesn’t know what he’s going to do with the final out ball. I doubt he ever gives that up.pic.twitter.com/efTKTymvwv
— Faizal Khamisa (@SNFaizalKhamisa) November 3, 2016
Looking for something, @MLB, @baseballhall, @Cubs? pic.twitter.com/lf5u4p0MCt
— Jeff Eisenband (@JeffEisenband) November 3, 2016
Good luck getting that ball out of @ARizzo44's hand.https://t.co/gpiljKT2pk #CHAMPS pic.twitter.com/iYm7krudAJ
— MLB (@MLB) November 3, 2016
"I don't know what I'm gonna do with that ball," Rizzo told Ken Rosenthal after the game. "It's going to be cherished forever though. We're in the books. We're in history forever. This team is brothers forever, no matter what.
That doesn't sound like a guy who's ready and willing to give that ball to the Cubs, MLB or the Hall of Fame any time soon.
Smooth move, Anthony. But actually, what are you going to do with it?
-- Follow Jeff Eisenband on Twitter @JeffEisenband. Like Jeff Eisenband on Facebook.
Anthony Rizzo, Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians, Kris Bryant, Memorabilia, MLB, MLB Postseason, National Baseball Hall of Fame, pocket, World Series | Anthony Rizzo pocketed the final out of the World Series, and he now has a valuable Cubs artifact. | 15.35 | 0.85 | 1.45 | low | medium | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/11/07/13/05/china-ruling-intervenes-in-hk-law | http://web.archive.org/web/20161108141238id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/11/07/13/05/china-ruling-intervenes-in-hk-law | China moves to intervene in HK politics | 20161108141238 | China's parliament has passed a ruling that effectively bars two elected Hong Kong pro-independence politicians from taking office, Beijing's most direct intervention in the territory's legal and political system since the 1997 handover.
The rare move by Beijing came after Yau Wai-ching, 25, and Baggio Leung, 30, pledged allegiance to the "Hong Kong nation" and displayed a banner declaring "Hong Kong is not China" during a swearing-in ceremony for the city's Legislative Council in October.
The National People's Congress in Beijing ruled that lawmakers must swear allegiance to Hong Kong as part of China and that candidates would be disqualified if they changed the wording of their oath of office or if they failed to take it in a sincere and solemn manner.
The prospect of the ruling sparked protests in the former British colony on Sunday and it is now on high alert for any repeat of the weekend clashes. Members of the city's legal profession are planning a rare silent march on Tuesday night amid pressure for them to take even stronger action.
Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese control in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula that gives the territory wide-ranging autonomy, including judicial freedom guided by a mini-constitution called the Basic Law.
The protests on Sunday night were reminiscent of pro-democracy protests in late 2014 that paralysed parts of the Asian financial centre and posed one of the greatest political challenges to the central government in Beijing in decades.
"This incident shows us the Basic Law is a handicapped legal document and the so-called mini-constitution can be amended and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party at will," said Joshua Wong, 20, one of the leaders of the 2014 protests.
Foreign diplomats were watching closely, stressing the importance of the rule of the law to the city's international reputation.
While the controversial decision effectively bars the two pro-independence Hong Kong politicians from being sworn in, a court in the city must still rule on the case in a judicial review, taking Beijing's decision into consideration.
The promotion of independence has long been taboo in Hong Kong amid fears in Beijing it could spread among other activists and challenge the central government's rule.
"The nature of Hong Kong independence is to split the country. It seriously violates the 'one country, two systems' policy," said Li Fei, chairman of the parliament's Basic Law Committee.
"The Central government is highly concerned about the grave dangers the Hong Kong independence forces bring to the country and to Hong Kong."
Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying, who has governed during some of the city's most violent and divisive times in decades, said his government would fully implement China's interpretation of the mini-constitution.
But Legislative Council president Andrew Leung said the Hong Kong judicial review needed to be completed before confirming if the pair were disqualified. | China has made its most direct intervention in Hong Kong's legal system since the 1997 handover in a new ruling expected to bar pro-independence lawmakers. | 19.62069 | 0.827586 | 2.344828 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/10/14/45/war-memorial-marks-grand-75-years | http://web.archive.org/web/20161111153516id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/10/14/45/war-memorial-marks-grand-75-years | War memorial marks grand 75 years | 20161111153516 | With the flick of a switch, the great bronze doors swung silently open and 75 years ago on Friday, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra was a reality.
It was the culmination of nearly two decades of deep thought and planning, followed by five years of construction, creating an icon of Australia perhaps only surpassed by the Sydney Opera House for national and international recognition.
The idea of a national memorial commemorating those who served and died in the Great War came from official correspondent Charles Bean following the brutal 1916 battles of Fromelles and Pozieres.
In less than two months, the Australian Imperial Force lost more dead and wounded than in seven months on Gallipoli. Worse was to come in searing battles at Bullecourt and Passchendaele the following year.
Bean resolved the participants and their ordeal should be remembered through a national institution.
"On some hilltop - still, beautiful, gleaming white and silent, a building of three parts, a centre and two wings," he wrote in 1918.
A design competition conducted in 1927 failed to produce a clearcut winner and Sydney architects Emil Sodersten and John Crust were encouraged to come up with a joint design.
Then the Depression struck and a budget of what seems a mere 250,000 pounds confined the initial grand vision.
What eventuated was still grand, striking precisely the right note for the tens of thousands of veterans who had fought, been maimed and lost mates.
The dioramas - carefully constructed tableaux of particular battles - might seem quaint in this multimedia era but they remain popular with visitors. At the time they were state-of-the-art, so much so that some veterans found them overwhelming.
"I have to get out, it's all coming back to me, my mate was killed behind me in the middle of that scene. I can't stay," one Gallipoli veteran said after viewing the Lone Pine diorama.
The memorial created a permanent home for a range of artifacts and documents assiduously collected by Bean and others. Exhibitions of these items had been staged first in Melbourne, opening in 1922 and then in Sydney from 1925-35.
The war memorial actually dates its official formation to May 16, 1917 when the Australian War Records Section was founded in London. This was at Bean's instigation to collect and organise documentary records of Australian forces before they were lost. Its centenary is next year.
The unit's first director was a young army officer John Treloar who was to become the memorial's second and longest serving director, starting in 1920 and dying in office in 1952.
The Canberra Times report of the official opening makes clear this was a truly momentous occasion for the new bush capital, then a lot more bush than capital.
The actual opening was performed by Governor-General Lord Gowrie VC who at the appointed moment flicked a switch and the doors opened before the 5000 guests, among them 18 Australian recipients of the Victoria Cross from the Great War.
Prime Minister John Curtin said the new memorial would house the relics of that war and keep alive the sacrifices and service which were the cornerstones of a people's greatness.
And just as memorial was the treasure house of the war of 25 years ago, it would be the treasure house of the war now being fought, he said.
Among the many foreign officials and diplomats who laid wreaths on the stone of remembrance was Japanese plenipotentiary to Australia Tatsuo Kawai, representing an ally from WWI.
Three weeks later he would have been far less welcome. | Seventy five years ago, the new Australian War Memorial officially opened at a grand occasion in Canberra attended by 5000 VIPs, dignitaries and war veterans. | 24.321429 | 0.821429 | 1.321429 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/11/11/03/27/trump-arrives-at-white-house-to-see-obama | http://web.archive.org/web/20161111163210id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/11/11/03/27/trump-arrives-at-white-house-to-see-obama | Trump's triumphant Washington tour | 20161111163210 | President-elect Donald Trump has taken a triumphant tour of the nation's capital, holding a cordial White House meeting with President Barack Obama, sketching out priorities with Republican congressional leaders and taking in the majestic view from where he'll be sworn in to office.
Trump's meeting with Obama spanned 90 minutes, longer than originally scheduled. Obama said he was "encouraged" by Trump's willingness to work with his team during the transition of power, and the Republican called the president a "very good man."
"I very much look forward to dealing with the president in the future, including his counsel," Trump said from the Oval Office. He'll begin occupying the office on January 20.
While Trump noted that he and Obama had never met before, their political histories will forever be linked.
Trump spent years perpetrating the lie that Obama was born outside the United States. The president campaigned aggressively against Trump during the 2016 campaign, warning that his election would put the republic at risk.
But at least publicly, the two men appeared to put aside their animosity. As the meeting concluded and journalists scrambled out of the Oval Office, Obama smiled at his successor and explained the unfolding scene.
"We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds," Obama said.
From the White House, Trump headed to Capitol Hill for meetings with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to discuss the GOP legislative agenda. Ryan, who holds the most powerful post in Congress, was a sometime critic of Trump and never campaigned with the nominee.
Emerging from the meetings, Trump sketched out priorities for his presidency.
"We're going to move very strongly on immigration," he said. "We will move very strongly on health care. And we're looking at jobs. Big league jobs."
Ryan took Trump on a tour of the Speaker's Balcony overlooking the National Mall, the scene of Trump's upcoming inauguration. The view, Trump said, was "really, really beautiful."
Trump was also beginning the process of putting together his White House team. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who worked his way into Trump's inner circle during the election, and top campaign official Kellyanne Conway were emerging as possible picks for White House chief of staff, according to two people familiar with the transition planning.
A third person said conservative media executive Steve Bannon was also in the mix, though others insisted Bannon would not have a White House role. Those involved in the process insisted on anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the planning publicly. A decision on chief of staff is expected in the coming days.
First lady Michelle Obama met privately in the White House residence with Trump's wife, Melania, while Vice President Joe Biden saw Vice President-elect Mike Pence late on Thursday.
Trump's team was said to be sketching a robust role for Pence, an experienced Washington hand, that would include both domestic and foreign policy responsibilities.
Obama and Trump met alone, with no staff present, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters following the discussion.
"The two men did not relitigate their differences in the Oval Office," Earnest said. "We're on to the next phase."
Trump travelled to Washington from New York on his private jet, breaking with protocol by not bringing journalists in his motorcade or on his plane to document his historic visit to the White House.
Trump was harshly critical of the media during his campaign and for a time banned news organisations whose coverage he disliked from his events.
The show of civility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue contrasted with postelection scenes of protests across a politically divided country.
Demonstrators from New England to the heartland and the West Coast vented against the election winner on Wednesday, chanting "Not my president," burning a papier-mache Trump head, beating a Trump pinata and carrying signs that said "Impeach Trump."
More than 100 protesters held a sit-in outside Trump International Hotel just blocks from the White House. The mostly student protesters held signs saying "Love Trumps Hate," a phrase Democrat Hillary Clinton often used during the campaign. | Donald Trump has arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, the address of his future home and office while he is president. | 37.954545 | 0.818182 | 1.454545 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-bank-disrupter-wants-to-become-a-bank-1479323117 | http://web.archive.org/web/20161118074448id_/http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-bank-disrupter-wants-to-become-a-bank-1479323117 | A Bank Disrupter Wants to Become...a Bank | 20161118074448 | British peer-to-peer lender Zopa tried to disrupt the banking system. Now it wants to join it.
The online lender said Wednesday that it is applying for a banking license, an unusual move in a financial-technology world that has long trumpeted the advantages of not being a fully regulated lender.
Zopa’s main business is charging a fee to match groups that want to borrow money with those that want to lend. Most of the loans are made for a year or longer. The group wants to get a banking license so that it can offer more short-term unsecured loans, such as overdrafts.
Zopa wants to “get more diversity in [its] product set,” said Chief Executive Jaidev Janardana. The move would also diversify the platform’s sources of funding. Once regulated, it will take deposits.
That may surprise some industry watchers. Companies like Zopa, which are also called marketplace lenders, are lightly regulated compared with banks because they don’t take deposits and don’t take on the risk of lending money directly. They only act as online conduits for credit.
Mr. Janardana played down the effects of more burdensome regulation associated with becoming a bank and said he was hopeful Zopa would be a fully licensed bank in just over a year.
There are several reasons why some firebrands in the fintech sector may want to morph into banks. Traditional lenders benefit from lower funding costs because they pay little interest on deposits. Most marketplace lenders have to offer higher rates to draw lenders to their platform. Furthermore, banks’ source of funding is much steadier because bank customers are less likely to yank deposits in times of uncertainty.
“Any operating cost advantage that [marketplace lenders] may have is insufficient to offset the banking model’s material cost-of-funds advantage,” a recent report by consulting firm Deloitte said, adding that if interest rates rise the advantage could diminish further.
Meanwhile, in the U.K., the regulator has made it easier for companies to apply for banking licenses, said Stephen Morse, a partner at consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Some banks are piggybacking on the marketplace lenders’ platforms, whose algorithms judge creditworthiness and whose websites attract credit-hungry customers more efficiently than their own systems. In 2015, Metro Bank sealed a deal with Zopa to lend funds via the peer-to-peer group’s platform.
In the first half of the year, U.K. net consumer lending by marketplace lenders increased to £121 billion ($151 billion) from £115 billion the year before, according to Moody’s Investors Service . That is still a tiny chunk of the overall British lending market. Zopa, which was founded in 2005 and is the U.K.’s oldest marketplace lender, has handled more than £1.8 billion in loans.
Write to Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com | British online lender Zopa said it is applying for a banking license, an unusual move in the financial-technology world that has long trumpeted the advantages of not being a fully regulated lender. | 15.111111 | 1 | 13.222222 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/10/26/pharma-shares-trade-after-ipo-expanded/cYZftURtkqF7z3RVYAulkL/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161125171840id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/10/26/pharma-shares-trade-after-ipo-expanded/cYZftURtkqF7z3RVYAulkL/story.html | Ra Pharma shares trade up after IPO is expanded | 20161125171840 | Shares of Ra Pharmaceuticals Inc. ended their first day of trading on Wednesday with no change after the Cambridge biotech company raised $91.6 million in an initial public offering that sold more stock than originally planned.
Eight-year-old Ra is developing drugs to treat diseases caused by excessive or uncontrolled activation of a part of the immune system.
Its lead drug candidate targets a rare life-threatening blood condition known as PNH, or paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
The company said it sold just over 7 million shares of common stock — about 1.2 million more than it had earlier projected — at $13 a share, in the middle of the $12 to $14 range it specified last week.
The shares, which trade under the ticker symbol RARX, hit a high of $14.86 before settling back down at the offer price. | The Cambridge biotech company sold just over 7 million shares at $13 apiece. | 10.733333 | 0.933333 | 4.133333 | low | medium | mixed |
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/11/15/boston-fed-president-says-december-rate-hike-plausible/t3hneBEmNjYHAT7lr0zKMK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161126081158id_/https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/11/15/boston-fed-president-says-december-rate-hike-plausible/t3hneBEmNjYHAT7lr0zKMK/story.html | Boston Fed president says December rate hike is `plausible’ | 20161126081158 | The election of Donald Trump as president may have taken many business leaders by surprise, but it apparently hasn’t changed the minds of the federal government’s central bankers about a likely interest rate increase in December.
With the economy nearing what is considered full employment, and inflation still low, Eric Rosengren, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston president, on Tuesday restated his concerns that waiting too long to raise rates could disrupt the economic recovery.
Investors are pegging the probability of the Fed raising rates next month at 75 percent and Rosengren, during a speech before the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, suggested they may be on target.
“Absent significant negative economic news over the next month, the market’s assessment of the likelihood of tightening in December seems plausible,” he was expected to say during his breakfast speech.
In September, Rosengren joined two other members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee in dissenting with the central bank’s decision to keep rates unchanged. He voted earlier this month to keep current rates, he said, only because he expects them to go up in December.
The Federal Reserve has kept a benchmark rate historically low since the 2008 financial crisis in an effort to jump-start the economy by spurring lending and hiring. The central bank raised rates for the first time last December by 0.25 percent, but shelved plans for several more incremental increases this year following mixed economic news.
Rosengren on Tuesday said he would like to see the Fed raise rates gradually to sustain the recovery. He added that waiting too long for unemployment to fall even further could risk overheating the economy, requiring more rapid rates hikes that could rock the ongoing recovery.
The December meeting will be Rosengren’s last opportunity for a while to have such an influential role in setting monetary policy. His one-year rotating term on the Federal Open Market Committee, the board that sets rates, is coming to an end. | The election of Donald Trump apparently hasn’t changed the minds of the federal government’s central bankers. | 19.631579 | 1 | 10.263158 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/11/17/jpmorgan-chase-pay-million-settle-foreign-bribery-charges/vUViUOF1AIUSkRU6sB92qI/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161126083525id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/11/17/jpmorgan-chase-pay-million-settle-foreign-bribery-charges/vUViUOF1AIUSkRU6sB92qI/story.html | JPMorgan Chase to Pay $264 Million to Settle Foreign Bribery Charges | 20161126083525 | NEW YORK — Vying for lucrative deals in China, JPMorgan Chase deployed all the usual wining-and-dining tactics that big banks use to woo clients. JPMorgan, federal authorities now say, also had ways of sweetening the deal that crossed a legal line.
Federal prosecutors and regulators announced on Thursday a settlement of roughly $264 million with the bank and its Hong Kong subsidiary, accusing them of a vast foreign bribery scheme that may have spread to a number of Wall Street banks.
The case centered on JPMorgan’s hiring practices in China, where it is accused of hiring the children of Chinese leaders to win business in the fast-growing nation. Some of the well-connected candidates were unqualified, authorities said, and often “performed ancillary work” — telltale signs of hidden bribery.
The case could lay the groundwork for authorities to pursue penalties against other big banks as well. Banks including HSBC, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank have hinted that they face investigations into their hiring practices in China as part of a larger sweep by the agency that began in 2013.
“We do not expect this to be the last action resulting from that sweep,” Andrew J. Ceresney, the head of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, told reporters Thursday.
In the investigation of JPMorgan, it was not immediately apparent whether the bank would be accused of carrying out a quid pro quo arrangement, an issue at the heart of whether JPMorgan violated US law governing foreign bribery.
The bank argued that the hiring of well-connected employees was routine in China, and that its own hires fell into a gray area of foreign bribery laws.
But the prosecutors and regulators say that as JPMorgan hired more and more candidates based on referrals from Chinese leaders, senior bankers in several instances explicitly tied those jobs or internships to securing deals with Chinese government-run companies.
To be hired, a referred candidate had to have, in the bank’s own words, a “directly attributable linkage to business opportunity,” a scheme that enabled the company to win or retain business resulting in more than $100 million in revenue for the bank or its affiliates, prosecutors and regulators said.
“The common refrain that this is simply how business is done overseas is no defense,” said Robert L. Capers, the US attorney in Brooklyn, whose office helped lead the criminal investigation into the bank. “This is no longer business as usual; it is corruption.”
Still, authorities acknowledged that JPMorgan cooperated with the probe and they lowered the penalty accordingly. The bank, authorities stated, also disciplined two dozen employees and “took significant employment action” that led to the departure of six employees who participated in the misconduct. | Vying for lucrative deals in China, JPMorgan Chase deployed all the usual wining-and-dining tactics that big banks use to woo clients. JPMorgan, federal authorities now say, also had ways of sweetening the deal that crossed a legal line. | 11.255319 | 1 | 47 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/27/13/56/two-walk-away-from-plane-crash-in-victoria | http://web.archive.org/web/20161128133229id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/27/13/56/two-walk-away-from-plane-crash-in-victoria | Two walk away from plane crash in Victoria | 20161128133229 | A pilot in his 70s and his male passenger have walked away from a light plane crash in northeastern Victoria.
The plane crashed from three metres in the air when taking-off from Wangaratta Airport about 10.30am on Sunday.
While the two men managed to walk away, the plane was destroyed when it burst into flames and caused a grassfire.
The pilot was taken to hospital for observation, an Ambulance Victoria spokesman told AAP. | A pilot and passenger have been able to walk away from a crash that destroyed their light plane in country Victoria. | 3.818182 | 0.772727 | 1.5 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2016/11/03/digable-planets-orbit-back-into-town/jt5ai2eBcrl5Y6uzcLxFfJ/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161129233337id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2016/11/03/digable-planets-orbit-back-into-town/jt5ai2eBcrl5Y6uzcLxFfJ/story.html | Digable Planets orbit back into town | 20161129233337 | Even when the three members of Digable Planets were enjoying gold sales and winning a 1993 Grammy for their debut album, these jazz-sampling, light-stepping young rappers sounded older than hip-hop itself. Perhaps that explains why middle age hasn’t detracted from the excitement surrounding the current reunion tour bringing together Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler, Craig “Doodlebug” Irving, and Mary Ann “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira, which arrives at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston on Tuesday just in time to distract from the election results.
“Truth be told, every time I get ready to perform, I always feel like nobody will come,” says Butler, 47, the group’s de facto leader. “To see those big crowds and stuff, coming for something that’s that old, or been around that long — it’s always a pretty big surprise, man. You know? Always.”
The music that fans flock to hear once embodied hip-hop as “the new jazz” with more retro flair than any other. Digable Planets’ 1992 debut single “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” opened with a descending standup bass figure and horn chart from an old Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers record. And the debut album, “Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space),” reinforced the hit’s pre-rap nostalgia with beatnik-style vocals, and references to classic jazz moments like “Mingus’s “Ah Um” and “Bird on Verve” (not to mention to French existentialism).
For many music journalists, the album’s heady warmth fit neatly into a new alternative rap or “alt-rap” category, an amalgam that seemed to counter the era’s explosion of gangster rap, and that paralleled the “alt-rock” explosion centered on Pacific Northwest grunge bands. In 1994, Digable Planets even paired up with jazz great Lester Bowie for a track on an album that included other alt-rap groups, like the Pharcyde and the Roots, in jazz and rap collaborations for AIDS education, “Red Hot + Cool.” Time magazine selected it as album of the year.
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“Digable were ‘hot’ at the time — one of the groups everyone wanted on their projects as they were reaching out to a larger more mainstream audience,” writes Jon Carlin, cofounder of the ongoing Red Hot project and producer of “Red Hot+ Cool” album, in an e-mail exchange. “They were a delight to work with.”
As Butler says in a phone interview from his hometown of Seattle, his interest in jazz began with his father, “a really avid jazz listener, a collector of vinyl.”
That legacy places him squarely in his generation. “All the brothers who deployed jazz in their sampling talk about the influence of their father’s voluminous jazz record collections, which occupied a sacred and central place in the household,” writes founder of the Black Rock Coalition and music critic Gregory Tate in an e-mail. “Afrika Bambaataa once defined jazz as ‘Black Man’s Classical Music.’”
Even so, from Butler’s current vantage, the focus was simply a starting point for the group’s reach for unbounded artistic freedom — their own refutation of time and space.
“We didn’t intend on making some hybrid of jazz and rap,” Butler says. “You know, it was just like, you go to sample a record that you can happen to get ahold of, which happened to be the ones in your parents and uncles’ collections.”
On the 1994 follow-up album, “Blowout Comb,” Digable Planets largely jettisoned samples for live music, cutting back on the jazzy edge and bringing forward a black consciousness rooted in Five Percenter beliefs, an offshoot of the Nation of Islam that preaches the living divinity of black men. For that matter, Five Percenter tenets were also present in the Grammy-winning debut single “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat),” if one bothered to unpack the dense, pitter-patter rhymes.
“It’s artistic,” says Butler. “So you can Trojan-horse ideas and concepts and phrases and codes — you feel me? — into the music.”
Or, as Carlin puts it, both hip-hop and jazz seek to find “creative expression in a coded way that moved through the mainstream but also had something more profound and personal to say to people in the know.”
After “Blowout Comb,” Digable Planets broke up. “I don’t think, like, because you have some success and then it changes that it’s somehow diminishing,” Butler says. “We felt like we’d had had enough of doing that at the time, so we went our own ways.”
None of their various solo projects have had the same commercial success. But in 2009 Butler reemerged as “Palaceer Lazaro” in the duo Shabazz Palaces, a heady, thoroughly experimental project that won extensive critical praise. “I love what Ish is doing now and I chalk it up to evolution and maturity,” Tate writes. “The impact of Sun Ra, dub-reggae and UK dubstep on his current aesthetic.”
That success led Butler to sign with Sub Pop, a premier alt-rock label. Meanwhile, Veira continues working on a long-anticipated solo project with renowned alt-rap producer Prince Paul, and Irving, more commonly known as Knowledge, tours with Cee Knowledge and the Cosmic Funk Orchestra. According to Butler, their various projects and personal lives kept them apart until recently, “when it seemed like everybody’s schedules and desires met, and we were able to get it done.”
The current reunion marks only the second time since the trio’s breakup 22 years ago that they have returned to touring. As Butler puts it, the chance to tour was not “a gift horse that you wanted to just look in the mouth and not do something about.” Judging from a response so enthusiastic that the band extended the tour through Boston and then Europe, Digable Planets fans feel the same way.
With DJ Earl. At Paradise Rock Club, Nov. 8 at 7 P.M. Tickets: $25. | The beloved jazzy hip-hop act of the early 1990s has reunited for a new tour, which comes to Boston on election night. | 47.730769 | 0.730769 | 1.269231 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/01/10/52/refugee-jailed-for-15-years-for-dv-murder | http://web.archive.org/web/20161202113944id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/01/10/52/refugee-jailed-for-15-years-for-dv-murder | Refugee gets 15yrs for girlfriend's murder | 20161202113944 | Iranian refugee Shahram Hejabian will stay behind bars until at least 2030 for brutally murdering the woman he saw as his "saviour" after she had refused to marry him.
After choking his girlfriend of four years Nouha Salame and bashing her with a blunt object - possibly a hammer - at his Doonside home in Sydney's west, the troubled father took a drug overdose and fell unconscious on his bedroom floor.
Before he blacked out that April 2014 weekend, Hejabian scrawled a rambling message in Persian with a felt pen on his wall that said Ms Salame had "broken my heart", the NSW Supreme Court heard on Thursday.
The killer survived and was sentenced to a maximum 21 years' jail and a minimum of 15 years and nine months by Justice Peter Hidden, a month after a jury found him guilty of murder.
Justice Hidden found Hejabian, 40, lost control after a heated argument that was "directed to his perception of their failing relationship".
"I am satisfied that the accused became very emotionally dependent upon the deceased and as the crown prosecutor put it ... saw her as his saviour in a future which otherwise appeared devoid of hope," he said.
"He wanted her to marry him but no doubt understandably, that was not a course to which she was prepared to commit herself."
The court heard Hejabian was of the minority Baha'i religion and fled Iran with his wife in his early 20s because of persecution.
The couple and their son settled in Australia as refugees but the marriage soon fell apart.
Hejabian remarried, but his second wife suffered badly from schizophrenia and he began a troubled relationship with Ms Salame in 2010.
In the months before the murder, Ms Salame's daughter said he began obsessively calling and turning up unannounced, even telling his girlfriend if she left him he would kill her.
"It seems that she did not take this seriously," Justice Hidden said.
Hejabian himself suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression stemming from his religious persecution.
The judge found his moral culpability was reduced and shaved a number of years off the standard minimum 20-year sentence.
"I am satisfied that the accused had lost self control at the time he killed the deceased and that his mental illness was a significant factor contributing to his conduct," he said.
Hejabian will be eligible for parole in January 2030.
Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467. | An Iranian refugee has been sentenced to a minimum of 15 years and nine months' jail for murdering his girlfriend. | 22.272727 | 0.863636 | 3.318182 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/01/11/58/abuse-reported-against-sex-victim-s-wishes | http://web.archive.org/web/20161202121901id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/01/11/58/abuse-reported-against-sex-victim-s-wishes | 'Self-serving' culture in Catholic Church | 20161202121901 | A Catholic council executive has blamed a "self-serving" culture "that lost sight of its ethos" for the church prioritising its interests over child sexual abuse victims.
Truth Justice and Healing Council chief executive Francis Sullivan on Thursday lambasted a "clericalist culture" characterised by "power, privilege" and self-promotion, during evidence at the Royal Commission into Instiutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
"A culture that has lost sight of its ethos and, in a sense, lost the capacity for self-reflection," he said during a hearing into criminal justice issues in Sydney.
"That can be any institution but ... the Catholic Church's history here is so shameful and confronting, it's not up to us to lecture everybody."
In submissions to the royal commission, the TJHC says obligations to report child sexual abuse should not extend to disclosures made in the confession box.
Mr Sullivan said the royal commission had not heard of perpetrators admitting to offending during confession and that, if they did, going to authorities would likely be part of their forgiveness process.
"The whole point of a person going to something like confession ... means they are so sorry they want to be forgiven," he said.
"If they're that sorry, they will do what it takes to be forgiven."
Royal commission chair Peter McClellan opened the hearing on Monday by acknowledging the justice system's response to child sexual abuse to date had been clearly inadequate.
Mr Sullivan said his council supports the nationwide roll out of legislation requiring a person to report a belief of child sexual abuse to police unless there's a "reasonable excuse" for not doing so.
He said there should be an obligation to report where it is known an alleged offender is still alive, even if the the victim is over 16 and requests no one else to be told.
The Australian Lawyers Alliance has submitted the reporting obligation should relate to all citizens, with broad discretion allowed when considering whether a victim, who may have taken decades to report abuse, should be prosecuted.
ALA barrister Dr Andrew Morrison SC said the obligation to report should exist regardless of victims' wishes.
"Whilst it is stressful and traumatic for victims, the damage done to other potential victims is far more serious," he said.
The hearing is expected to continue on Friday. | An experienced barrister has told the royal commission that sex abuse disclosures should be reported to police even if victims ask that they remain secret. | 17.730769 | 0.769231 | 1.230769 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/04/15/44/two-buses-on-fire-near-sydney-airport | http://web.archive.org/web/20161205123241id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/04/15/44/two-buses-on-fire-near-sydney-airport | Buses destroyed in fire at Sydney airport | 20161205123241 | Two buses in the long-term parking area of Sydney Airport have been destroyed by fire, which authorities believe was accidental.
On Sunday afternoon, the driver of one of the buses noticed his vehicle was having mechanical problems and left his bus parked off Ross Smith Avenue, Mascot, to get some help, NSW Fire and Rescue says.
While he was away, the vehicle was overheating and caught fire.
The fire spread to the bus next to it and then to a third one.
The airport fire service and NSW Fire and Rescue put out the flames but the two buses were "completely destroyed" and the third severely damaged.
No one was in any of the buses when they caught fire and no surrounding cars caught fire.
Inquiries are being made into how the fire started, but it's believed it was accidental, a Fire and Rescue spokesman said. | Firefighters are at Sydney Airport where two buses have caught fire on the airport's perimeter. | 10.117647 | 0.764706 | 1.235294 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.foxnews.com/category/health/reproductive-health/pregnancy.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161206113359id_/http://www.foxnews.com/category/health/reproductive-health/pregnancy.html | Pregnancy | Category | Fox News | 20161206113359 | Caring for a newborn baby can be stressful under any circumstance, but for first-time parents every cry or action can seem like a mystery at first, including the first bowel moveme...
Alongside pregnancy and childbirth, breast-feeding is one of the most normal, natural things your body is capable of.
China might further relax, or even scrap, restrictions on childbirth to avoid a "low birthrate trap", an influential government think-tank has said, as the country debates how to a...
Pregnancy is literally -- and figuratively -- a magical time when the miracle of life can have tremendous potency and transformative power for you and your little one if you have t...
A Topeka man who answered a Craigslist ad to donate sperm so two women could have a baby together is not legally the child's father and isn't required to provide financial support,...
Women who have their last baby when they are older than age 35 may have sharper cognitive skills later in life than those who finished with their pregnancies at a younger age, a ne...
Pregnant women who get the flu, or a flu vaccine, are not increasing their baby's risk for an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a new study suggests.
Texas officials on Monday reported the state's first case of the Zika virus that was likely transmitted by a local mosquito, expanding the spread within the continental United Stat... | Pregnancy news articles and videos from FoxNews.com's Health section. | 24.909091 | 0.363636 | 0.363636 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.foxnews.com/category/health/cancer/lymphoma.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161206133053id_/http://www.foxnews.com/category/health/cancer/lymphoma.html | Lymphoma | Category | Fox News | 20161206133053 | With spring right around the corner (hallelujah!), this is the perfect time to sign up—and start training—for a charity run or walk.
When Renee Koster was four months pregnant, she was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia.
On Oct. 6, 17-year-old hockey player Eddie Klein was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but the diagnosis hasn’t kept him from the ice.
When National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Glavine and his wife, Christine, volunteered to help a local family with a child battling cancer, they were surprised to learn how l...
Medical staff at a Louisiana hospital gave a 12-year-old cancer patient a celebratory sendoff on her last day of treatment.
Young cancer patients, often left infertile after treatment, may be unaware of ways to preserve their options for having children, a study suggests.
Three small children two years apart present enough challenges for any parents, but throw leukemia into the mix and you have the truly daunting case of Lacey and Will Smith of Jack...
The insecticide lindane, once widely used in agriculture and to treat human lice and scabies, causes cancer and has been specifically linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the World Heal...
An 8-year-old Melbourne, Fla., boy grew his hair about 40 inches long over a two-year period to donate it to cancer and burn victims in need, MyFoxDC.com reported. | Lymphoma news articles and videos from FoxNews.com's Health section. | 25 | 0.363636 | 0.363636 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.foxnews.com/category/health/pain-management/rheumatoid-arthritis.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161206133418id_/http://www.foxnews.com/category/health/pain-management/rheumatoid-arthritis.html | Rheumatoid Arthritis | 20161206133418 | Obese people who have weight loss surgeries like gastric bypass are much less likely than those who don't have surgery to develop gout, a painful type of arthritis, according to a ...
Widely used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are associated with an increased risk of heart failure— even in people without a history of cardiac issues, a recent stud...
Pregnant women should get routine blood pressure checks at every prenatal visit to screen for preeclampsia, according to new proposed U.S. guidelines aimed at preventing deaths fro...
In a new study comparing a meditation retreat with just relaxing in the same locale, both options improved stress regulation, immune function and other cellular markers in the bloo...
In the critical first trimester of pregnancy, undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) without a contrast agent is not associated with any negative outcomes for the baby, accord...
Eating a handful of nuts five times per week may reduce inflammation, a condition that contributes to heart disease, diabetes and many other chronic illnesses, say the authors of a...
Mesoblast Ltd on Monday said its experimental stem-cell treatment led to significant improvements of symptoms and disease activity in patients whose rheumatoid arthritis had stoppe...
Shoes with modified midsoles designed to relieve pressure on the knee joint don't improve pain and function for people with knee osteoarthritis any more than a new pair of regular ...
The second-biggest selling drug in the world could get some cheaper competition in the U.S., after a federal panel endorsed an alternative version of the pricey medication used to ...
An experimental drug for rheumatoid arthritis developed by Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline slowed joint damage and improved symptoms of the disease, meeting the main goals of... | Rheumatoid Arthritis news articles and videos from FoxNews.com's Health section. | 27.333333 | 0.25 | 0.416667 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2016/09/19/microsoft-china-transparency-center-beijing/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20161206143446id_/http://fortune.com/2016/09/19/microsoft-china-transparency-center-beijing/ | Microsoft To Open Beijing Transparency Center | 20161206143446 | Microsoft wants to improve its business relationship with the Chinese government.
The technology giant said Monday that it plans to open a so-called transparency center in Beijing intended for government tech workers to test and analyze Microsoft products for security.
Scott Charney, Microsoft’s corporate vice president in charge of making sure Microsoft msft products comply with security and privacy standards, wrote in a blog post that the new facility would give foreign governments in Asia “the ability to review our products and services, both manually and by running tools, but they cannot alter what is delivered to customers.” The last part, about changing what is delivered to customers, is an important point for Microsoft, which doesn’t want to be seen as a company that would change its products based on government pressure.
Charney did not say what foreign governments would visit the new center or the exact date it would open, only that Microsoft plans to host an event when it does open later in fall.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.
The new Beijing center could be controversial to those who worry that by allowing China to inspect U.S. technology products and related software code, China could possibly steal or copy the technology or improve its spying operations. In June, U.S. law enforcement charged a Chinese developer for allegedly stealing source code from IBM and planning to deliver it to a government entity.
In May, the New York Times reported that China has been secretly interrogating U.S. tech companies like Cisco, Microsoft, and Apple in order to learn how these companies’ technology products store data and support encryption. The Chinese government was concerned that the products might pose a risk to national security, the report said.
The new center is Microsoft’s third such facility. Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith first detailed Microsoft’s intentions to build transparency centers in 2013.
Smith wrote at the time that Microsoft intended for the centers to help government customers “review our source code, reassure themselves of its integrity, and confirm there are no back doors.” A back door is a hidden bug or mechanism within a technology product that allows others to spy on users.
In recent years, the Chinese government has voiced concern that several U.S.-based technology companies like Cisco csco and Apple aapl may have installed so-called back doors into their products based on leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden that exposed U.S. espionage activities.
On the flip-side, Chinese technology giant Huawei wants to aggressively expand its data center server business in the U.S., but many U.S. technology analysts worry that the company may install back doors into its server products.
In May, Microsoft Satya Nadella reportedly visited China to discuss with government officials there an ongoing Chinese anti-trust investigation into Microsoft and allegations that it has engaged monopolistic behavior in the country.
Microsoft also has a transparency center in Redmond, Wash. and in Brussels, Belgium.
At the time Microsoft opened its Brussels transparency center in 2015, former Microsoft vice president of security for cloud and enterprise Matt Thomlinson wrote that the Belgium office would “give governments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa a convenient location to experience our commitment to transparency and delivering products and services that are secure by principle and by design.” | New transparency center would let governments analyze Microsoft products for security purposes. | 48.076923 | 0.846154 | 2.538462 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/12/06/02/21/death-toll-in-oakland-warehouse-fire-rises-to-36 | http://web.archive.org/web/20161206154915id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/12/06/02/21/death-toll-in-oakland-warehouse-fire-rises-to-36 | Death toll in Oakland warehouse fire rises to 36 | 20161206154915 | The death toll from the Oakland fire has risen to 36.
The death toll from a fire at a California warehouse crowded with dance party revelers has risen to 36 as fire officials announced they had suspended work because the structure was at risk of collapsing.
Alameda County Deputy Sheriff Tya Modeste said 11 of the 36 bodies recovered so far at the site in Oakland have been positively identified. Previously, the toll had stood at 33.
"We're no closer to finding a cause and we absolutely believe that the number of fire fatalities will increase," Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said.
The fire erupted Friday night in a warehouse known as the Oakland Ghost Ship as a rave attended by between 50 and 100 people was under way.
It spread quickly through the structure, trapping partygoers whose bodies were found scattered through the building's mazelike interior.
Reed said firefighters have reached an area in the back of the building where they believe the fire originated.
The area was cordoned off and work was suspended there late Sunday so that federal investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could gain access.
But all recovery work was halted shortly after midnight after crews noticed that a parapet atop the building's front exterior wall was leaning in.
"For us firefighters working under a wobbly, potentially collapsing exterior wall is extremely dangerous," said Reed. "We will not put our firefighters in danger at this point."
She said work would resume after structural engineers examine the site and come up with a plan.
Survivors spoke Sunday of the speed with which Friday night's fire spread through the warehouse.
Photographer Chris Nechodom, who was at the dance party, said people first thought the smoke was coming from a fog machine.
"And then it got a little thicker," he said. "It all happened within seconds. We started seeing people running around, frantic and screaming 'fire.'"
In a macabre indication of what the fire may have done to the bodies, authorities are asking relatives to preserve hairbrushes and toothbrushes to assist in matching DNA samples.
"We will ask for them as we need them," said Captain Melanie Ditzenberger of the sheriff's department coroner's bureau.
Although the cause of the fast-moving blaze remains under investigation, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the district attorney had opened a criminal investigation as a precaution to preserve options as the case unfolds.
"You have to understand that the scope of this tragedy is tremendous," she said. "We have many, many witnesses to interview. We are in the process of doing that."
The victims identified so far have ranged in age from 17 to 35.
Some were from Europe and Asia, and the Oakland authorities are working with the State Department to contact foreign governments, said Sergeant Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department, declining to reveal which countries.
"We're finding people throughout the entire square footage of that structure," Kelly said. "It's so random. We're finding victims where we least expect it."
Reed has said the interior of the warehouse was maze-like, "filled end-to-end with furniture, whatnot, collections."
"There wasn't a real entry or exit path," she said.
Images published online show artwork, pianos and wooden objects throughout the building, which helps explain why the blaze raced through the structure despite the arrival of firefighters within three minutes.
Firefighters also said the building appeared to have had no sprinklers or smoke detectors.
Officials said the roof collapsed onto the second floor, which was connected to the ground floor only by a makeshift system of wooden pallets.
A dozen bodies were found in an area in the middle of the building, Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton said, describing how debris was being removed bucket by bucket.
The deadliest nightclub fire in the United States in recent decades occurred in 2003, when pyrotechnic effects by the rock band Great White set off an inferno at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island, killing 100 people. | The death toll from a fire at a California warehouse crowded with dance party revelers rose to 36 Monday as fire officials announced they had suspended work because the structure was at risk of collapsing. | 22.333333 | 0.944444 | 14.388889 | medium | high | extractive |
http://mashable.com/2006/08/15/blogger-releases-new-beta-version/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20161206225453id_/http://mashable.com/2006/08/15/blogger-releases-new-beta-version/ | Blogger Releases New Beta Version | 20161206225453 | Blogger, Google's massively popular blogging platform, has released a new beta version today (Monday). They're inviting select Blogger users to test out the new release - if you're chosen, you'll see a link on the blogger dashboard. However, you can also test it out with a new blog by visiting beta.blogger.com.
The biggest change is the integration of Google accounts. For the moment, you can create a new blog using your Google Account, but you'll soon be able to migrate your Blogger account over to Google. Although it's not immediately obvious, they've also made some big changes to the infrastructure - while Blogger used to create static HTML files every time you published a post, the new version just updates the information in the database and creates pages dynamically. In simple terms, that means updating a Blogger blog should be simpler and faster.
There are also new privacy settings: you can make posts public or private, although it's not clear whether private blogs will have feeds (obviously if someone found the RSS feed, they could subscribe to a private blog). What's more, less tech-savvy users should appreciate the new drag-and-drop layout - you can now add and arrange your "Page Elements" using an interface that looks like a watered-down Netvibes. (This is something that Windows Live Spaces has had since the beginning) . They've added tagging, too - but as Google always do, they've insisted on calling these "labels" rather than tags.
Last but not least, they've added more feeds - you can now subscribe to a blog's comments, or the comments on a single post. They've also upgraded from Atom 0.3 to Atom 1.0 and decided to add RSS 2.0 feeds (finally!), but it's still optional.
I've never been a big fan of these closed blogging platforms (Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, MySpace blogs, Windows Live Spaces), but they're massively popular because of their simplicity. I can only imagine that these new features will maintain Blogger's position as one of the world's leading blogging platforms. | Blogger, Google's massively popular blogging platform, has released a new beta version today (Monday). They're inviting select Blogger users to test out the new release - if you... | 11.583333 | 0.972222 | 34.027778 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Kaepernick-still-49ers-starter-after-10778697.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20161207010729id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Kaepernick-still-49ers-starter-after-10778697.php | Colin Kaepernick still 49ers’ starter after awful performance | 20161207010729 | Photo: Joe Robbins, Getty Images
CHICAGO, IL - DECEMBER 04: Quarterback Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers stands on the sidelines in the first quarter against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on December 4, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
CHICAGO, IL - DECEMBER 04: Quarterback Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers stands on the sidelines in the first quarter against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on December 4, 2016 in Chicago,
CHICAGO, IL - DECEMBER 04: Mitch Unrein #98 of the Chicago Bears attempts to sack Quarterback Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers in the third quarter at Soldier Field on December 4, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
CHICAGO, IL - DECEMBER 04: Mitch Unrein #98 of the Chicago Bears attempts to sack Quarterback Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers in the third quarter at Soldier Field on December 4, 2016 in
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) fumbles as he is tackled by Chicago Bears defensive end Akiem Hicks (96) and linebacker Leonard Floyd (94) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) fumbles as he is tackled by Chicago Bears defensive end Akiem Hicks (96) and linebacker Leonard Floyd (94) during the second half of an NFL football game,
Colin Kaepernick still 49ers’ starter after awful performance
Two days after 49ers quarterback coach Ryan Day approached Colin Kaepernick to tell him he was being benched, Day came back Tuesday with some better news: Kaepernick’s demotion wasn’t permanent.
On the heels of a historically hideous performance, Kaepernick will his make his eighth straight start Sunday when the 49ers host the Jets. He was replaced by Blaine Gabbert in the fourth quarter of a 26-6 loss to the Bears.
“We just decided during the game to try to see if Blaine could give us a spark,” offensive coordinator Curtis Modkins said. “Kap is back being the starter. It’s nothing other than that.”
After a four-week stretch of promising play, Kaepernick’s starting status suddenly became a topic based on his start in Chicago. A week removed from collecting 409 total yards, Kaepernick managed 24 against the Bears. He completed 1 of 5 passes for 4 yards, becoming the first quarterback in NFL history to have fewer than 5 passing yards and take at least five sacks.
The 49ers managed 10 first downs and 147 yards after averaging 19.8 first downs and 385.3 yards in their previous four games.
“Sunday,” Kaepernick said, “was a step backward.”
Said Modkins: “We have been playing really good football on offense and the thing had been trending in the right direction. Obviously, Sunday didn’t bear that” out.
The good news for the 49ers: There’s no snow in the forecast for Sunday’s game at Levi’s Stadium.
The fast-melting snow that fell in Chicago clearly affected Kaepernick. Head coach Chip Kelly called for 33 runs and 10 passes with Kaepernick in the game, partly because of the way the slick football was fluttering out of his hand. Still, Matt Barkley, the Bears’ third-string QB who was making his second career start, made the necessary adjustments.
After failing to complete his only three attempts in the first 28 minutes, Barkley, a Southern California native who attended USC, completed 11 of 15 passes for 192 yards.
“It took me a quarter or so to get used to throwing the ball with those conditions,” Barkley said Sunday. “I really had to adjust my arm angle and almost push the ball out instead of flinging it because my thumb would slip out.”
On Tuesday, Kaepernick tacitly acknowledged the weather played a role in his performance, and noted it wasn’t an excuse.
“Elements always play a factor, but you have to be able to handle the elements,” he said. “That’s part of football.”
Kaepernick’s chance at redemption Sunday also could be an audition.
In the offseason, the Jets (3-9) reportedly expressed interest in trading for Kaepernick and they remain in need of quarterback help. After his team’s 41-10 loss to the Colts on Monday, head coach Todd Bowles said unproven Bryce Petty would start their final four games in place of ineffective Ryan Fitzpatrick.
On Tuesday, Kaepernick was asked about the Jets’ interest when he was on the trade market.
“This past offseason we had talks with different people,” Kaepernick said, “but that’s in the past.”
Kaepernick’s future is fuzzy beyond this season. On Sunday, NFL Network reported he would opt out of his restructured two-year contract and become an unrestricted free agent after the season. Asked about that report, Kaepernick told SFGate.com it was inaccurate and “it blew me away.”
He also told a group of reporters that he’ll wait until at least January before thinking about next season.
“I haven’t made any decisions on that,” Kaepernick said. “Those decisions will come after the season.”
Still, even if Kaepernick stays with the 49ers, it’s unlikely he’ll play under the terms of his current deal, which calls for him to earn a $14.5 million base salary in 2017. Among 32 qualified quarterbacks, he ranks last in completion percentage (54.5), 26th in yards per attempt (6.8) and 24th in passer rating (85.5).
In other words, he’s still the 49ers’ starter, but there are no guarantees he’ll have the same role in 2017, regardless of where he lands.
“Right now, I’m part of the 49ers,” Kaepernick said. “My focus is helping my teammates get a win this week.”
Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch | Two days after 49ers quarterback coach Ryan Day approached Colin Kaepernick to tell him he was being benched, Day came back Tuesday with some better news: On the heels of a historically hideous performance, Kaepernick will his make his eighth straight start Sunday when the 49ers host the Jets. “We just decided during the game to try to see if Blaine could give us a spark,” offensive coordinator Curtis Modkins said. After a four-week stretch of promising play, Kaepernick’s starting status suddenly became a topic based on his start in Chicago. Head coach Chip Kelly called for 33 runs and 10 passes with Kaepernick in the game, partly because of the way the slick football was fluttering out of his hand. [...] Matt Barkley, the Bears’ third-string QB who was making his second career start, made the necessary adjustments. After failing to complete his only three attempts in the first 28 minutes, Barkley, a Southern California native who attended USC, completed 11 of 15 passes for 192 yards. In the offseason, the Jets (3-9) reportedly expressed interest in trading for Kaepernick and they remain in need of quarterback help. After his team’s 41-10 loss to the Colts on Monday, head coach Todd Bowles said unproven Bryce Petty would start their final four games in place of ineffective Ryan Fitzpatrick. NFL Network reported he would opt out of his restructured two-year contract and become an unrestricted free agent after the season. Among 32 qualified quarterbacks, he ranks last in completion percentage (54.5), 26th in yards per attempt (6.8) and 24th in passer rating (85.5). | 3.681115 | 0.956656 | 25.613003 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.thepostgame.com/space-jam-20-jordan-brand-nike-warner-bros | http://web.archive.org/web/20161207135923id_/http://www.thepostgame.com/space-jam-20-jordan-brand-nike-warner-bros | Space Jam At 20: Jordan Brand Taps Blake Griffin, Jimmy Butler | 20161207135923 | For Jordan Brand, the celebration of Space Jam's 20th anniversary goes heavy on the nostalgia, as it should considering it is the highest grossing basketball movie ever. But it is also the basis for a fresh campaign starring a new generation of stars with Blake Griffin and Jimmy Butler.
A key part of the campaign is the December 10 re-release of the Air Jordan XI, one of the models that Michael wore in the movie. The XI's popularity has endured with several retro releases, and its use of patent leather remains a distinguishing feature.
A retro edition of the Air Jordan IX, also shown in Space Jam, was released last week. Along with it, Jordan introduced the Space Jam version of the XXXI, which offers a more modern twist on the XI.
But by waiting a week to roll out the latest edition of the XI by itself underscores this shoe's value and significance to the company for the past 20 years. Particularly at a time when rivals such as Under Armour with Stephen Curry and Adidas with James Harden offer appealing alternatives, Jordan Brand can simultaneously hit the feel-good throwback notes associated with Space Jam and forge new ground with Griffin and Butler. Blending the old and the new in a way that doesn't feel contrived can be tricky, but so far Jordan Brand has struck a nice balance.
Of course, there is the luxury of Jordan long having established itself as the gold standard in the realm of basketball shoes. But as we also know, in a field as competitive as athletic apparel, you cannot survive just trying to sit on a lead. Its approach to the Space Jam anniversary shows it still plays to win. One example of this was taking the sound stage at Warner Bros., where the movie was originally shot, and converting it into a basketball court and museum with Space Jam themes to commemorate the occasion.
A good portion of the campaign's imagery has been dedicated to the Monstars, which provided the premise for Griffin and Butler to advance the storyline:
Jordan Brand, Michael Jordan, Nike, Shoes, Sneakers, Space Jam | Jordan Brand blends nostalgia and new stars as it celebrates the 20th anniversary of Space Jam. | 24 | 0.882353 | 1.588235 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/12/06/dana-farber-puts-online-advertising-hold-after-runs-breitbart/QeTuVPTjquwxnZ8ZXJP97L/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161207145804id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/12/06/dana-farber-puts-online-advertising-hold-after-runs-breitbart/QeTuVPTjquwxnZ8ZXJP97L/story.html | Dana-Farber puts online advertising on hold after ad runs on Breitbart | 20161207145804 | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is reviewing its advertising strategy after ads for the prestigious medical center showed up on Breitbart.com, the conservative news site that has sparked controversy for giving voice to white nationalist views.
Dana-Farber and Partners HealthCare, the parent of Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals, are among the many companies whose ads have appeared on Breitbart. Businesses don’t necessarily choose to advertise on Breitbart; many have deals with Internet ad networks that use algorithms to display their ads on a variety of websites.
Breitbart gained attention in recent weeks after President-elect Donald Trump chose the site’s former executive chairman, Stephen Bannon, to serve as his chief strategist and senior adviser. Critics say its articles promote racist and sexist ideas.
The big cereal maker Kellogg Co. and other companies have promised to pull their ads from the website. Breitbart, in response to Kellogg’s decision, launched a boycott of the company’s products.
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Dana-Farber spokesman Steven Singer said he was not aware the cancer center’s ads had appeared on Breitbart. “It was not something we did proactively,” he said.
After being alerted to the ads, Singer said, Dana-Farber put a hold on its online advertising. “We always seek to avoid controversial sites, but this is clearly an imperfect process, and we have paused our digital advertising while we do a careful review.”
Partners spokesman Rich Copp said Breitbart is “certainly not a site that we would target, and we’ve taken steps to ensure that our advertising does not appear there.”
Partners’ hospitals and Dana-Farber are among the best-known hospitals in Boston and often attract patients from other parts of the country. | The hospital says it did not proactively place the ad on the conservative website. | 23.666667 | 0.8 | 1.066667 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/12/07/abbott-moves-scrap-its-million-planned-takeover-waltham-alere/qn31vNNZ5Yl7Hcxe4DLkcM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161208113806id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/12/07/abbott-moves-scrap-its-million-planned-takeover-waltham-alere/qn31vNNZ5Yl7Hcxe4DLkcM/story.html | Abbott moves to scrap its $5.8 million planned takeover of Waltham’s Alere | 20161208113806 | Health care giant Abbott Laboratories said Wednesday that it has filed a lawsuit in an effort to terminate its $5.8 billion agreement to buy Waltham-based Alere Inc., saying the medical test developer has lost significant value since the deal was made public in February.
In a statement, Abbott said Alere has “suffered a series of damaging business developments” that caused it to sour on the acquisition, including Medicare’s elimination of billing privileges for a major Alere division, Arriva Medical. In addition, Abbott said, Alere has recalled an important set of products, and it faces two criminal probes that weren’t disclosed when the agreement was signed on Jan. 30.
“Alere’s not the company it was when we signed the merger agreement,” Abbott spokesman Scott Stoffel said in an interview. “These material adverse events are a product of a lack of external controls at Alere. They constitute a strong base for terminating this transaction.”
Shareholders of Alere — a global leader in tests performed at doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and patients’ homes — voted overwhelmingly on Oct. 21 to approve the acquisition by Abbott. In a separate vote, they OK’d one-time payments to Alere’s top five executives totaling more than $39 million — including nearly $20.5 million for chief executive Namal Nawana — if the buyout is completed.
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In a statement Wednesday, Alere called Abbott’s lawsuit “entirely without merit” and vowed to take whatever actions are needed to compel Abbott to complete it.
“As Abbott well knows, none of the issues it has raised provides it with any grounds to avoid closing the merger,” Alere said. “Alere has fully complied with its contractual obligations under the merger agreement and is highly confident that the merger will be completed in accordance with the terms set forth in the merger agreement.”
Shares of Alere tumbled 8 percent to $36.67 on the New York Stock Exchange, losing $3.19. Abbott’s shares closed up 0.1 percent at $38.48, a gain of 6 cents.
Stoffel said Abbott filed its complaint in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which would have to approve the termination of the takeover. The suit, which will remain under seal for several days, marks the first time Abbott has acknowledged it wants to scrap the deal. Until now, the Illinois-based company’s executives have said publicly that they remained committed to buying Alere.
Alere, however, filed a lawsuit against Abbott in August charging the would-be acquirer with scheming to torpedo the merger and threatening to create a “living hell” for Alere executives if they didn’t accept a walkaway fee of $30 million to $50 million. Abbott dismissed the Alere claims in that suit as “fiction,” while demanding more information from Alere.
After it disclosed its plan to buy Alere last winter, Abbott announced an even bigger takeover, agreeing to pay $25 billion to buy St. Jude Medical Inc. of St. Paul. | The health care giant has filed a complaint to kill the deal, saying Alere’s value has dropped dramatically. | 28.142857 | 0.857143 | 1.714286 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/08/09/05/sa-plan-to-even-playing-field-for-women | http://web.archive.org/web/20161209162145id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/08/09/05/sa-plan-to-even-playing-field-for-women | SA plan to even playing field for women | 20161209162145 | Girls and women in South Australia will be better able to pursue their sporting dreams under a new plan targeting support from businesses.
The plan for the next two years includes providing advice to sportswomen on contract negotiations and making it easier for businesses to work with them.
It will mean more women's sports events hosted in SA and more spectators in the stands to watch them in action, the state government says.
And the plan aims to have more women at the helm of sporting organisations and less girls in primary and high school dropping out of sports.
The state government's SA Women in Sport Taskforce, will be headed by Assistant Minister to the Premier Katrine Hildyard who says the group is determined to change the "appalling" statistics about gender equality in sport.
"It is time to ensure that girls and women can pursue whatever sporting pathway they choose," she said in a statement.
"We must remove structural barriers to them being able to do so and we must support and celebrate their efforts." | The South Australian government has revealed a plan for women in sport in the state that it says will give business more opportunities to back sportswomen. | 7.37037 | 0.740741 | 1.111111 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/24/crisis-in-ukraine-could-explode-gold-rbc-expert.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161214231903id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/24/crisis-in-ukraine-could-explode-gold-rbc-expert.html | Crisis in Ukraine could ‘explode’ gold: RBC expert | 20161214231903 | And in fact, on Thursday morning, as Russian President Vladimir Putin issued what sounded like a warning to the Ukrainian government, gold surged much higher in minutes. If Russia becomes more involved in Ukraine, more sanctions from the U.S. and other countries could be on the table.
Read MoreGold ends higher on Ukraine worries, options buying
On Thursday's episode of "Futures Now," Gero then went on to explain another reason why gold could move higher in the days ahead.
"You have option expiration tonight on the Comex, and options, when in-the-money, become futures contracts," Gero said. "And we have more puts than calls that could be in-the-money if the price goes lower from here. And that means there will be large short positions to be covered, or very large margin calls." | There's something that everyone's missing about gold and the situation in Ukraine. | 11.066667 | 0.666667 | 0.8 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2016/12/19/this-end-snl-feud-between-alec-baldwin-and-donald-trump/REyGP3o5FIjC5ocWXSGZ1K/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161220180639id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2016/12/19/this-end-snl-feud-between-alec-baldwin-and-donald-trump/REyGP3o5FIjC5ocWXSGZ1K/story.html | Is this the end of the ‘SNL’ feud between Alec Baldwin and Donald Trump? | 20161220180639 | For weeks, watching the interactions between Alec Baldwin and President-elect Donald Trump has been like watching a tennis match.
Look left: There’s Baldwin, spackled in orange makeup, mercilessly mocking Trump on ‘‘Saturday Night Live.’’ Look right: There’s Trump, tweeting that the show is unfunny, unwatchable and ‘‘just can’t get any worse.’’ Back to Baldwin, quipping that he’ll stop his impersonation if the president-elect releases his tax returns. Back to Trump, telling the ‘‘Today’’ show how ‘‘the skits are terrible.’’
‘‘SNL’s’’ main event used to be its weekly celebrity hosts; lately, those guests have been a mere sideshow to the Baldwin-Trump battle. This week, Baldwin took another swing.
The show opened with a skit that portrayed Trump as a bumbling idiot who doesn’t realize how Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of him. Putin appears in Trump’s office through a fireplace, carrying a Santa-like bag with a gift for Trump inside: an ‘‘Elf on the Shelf’’ that has clearly been reconstructed into a surveillance camera. Putin instructs Trump to place it next to his internet router and leave it there all year.
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‘‘Vladimir, I’m sorry,’’ Baldwin-as-Trump tells the shirtless Putin. ‘‘But I didn’t know you were coming, so I do not have a gift for you.’’
“We think you are the best candidate, the smartest candidate, the Manchurian candidate,” Beck Bennett’s Putin told Alec Baldwin’s Trump.
‘‘Please, Mr. Trump,’’ Putin replies. ‘‘You are the gift.’’
Even when soon-to-be first lady Melania (played by Cecily Strong) tells Trump she wants Putin to leave, the president-elect is easily swayed to let him stay as soon as Putin calls him ‘‘so smart.’’
Saturday’s show had the highest metered-market ratings since its post-election episode. Viewers were ready for Trump’s rapid-fire response. They refreshed his Twitter page again and again, but the president-elect kept quiet. His most recent tweet came three hours before ‘‘SNL’’ aired, and was about the U.S. naval drone seized by China.
‘‘SNL’’ will be taking a holiday break during the next few weeks, so viewers will have to wait until Jan. 14 - the week before Trump’s inauguration - to see if the feud has ended for good.
But it is possible that by then, Baldwin will have ended his stint as Trump, as he is not a regular cast member on the show. In September, the Hollywood Reporter claimed Baldwin had been hired to play Trump for the entire ‘‘SNL’’ season - but that was when it appeared Trump was likely to lose the election. Since his win, NBC has declined to comment on whether Baldwin will keep the job.
The actor himself has made no mention of whether he wants to keep playing the role. Though it surely keeps his name in the headlines, the weekly preparation for ‘‘SNL’’ is known to be extremely time-consuming. And Baldwin is hardly rolling in free time: He is involved in at least eight upcoming films, according to IMDb, in addition to his bi-weekly radio show, ‘‘Here’s the Thing.’’
Who would replace him as Trump? Some have suggested that one of the well-known Trump impersonators, such as John Di Domenico, should take on the role. But it seems unlikely that the show would bring in a new cast member midseason, especially someone who doesn’t have Baldwin’s name recognition.
No current cast member has impersonated Trump on the show. The role was previously held by Taran Killam, whose contract wasn’t renewed for this season. ‘‘SNL’s’’ longest-serving cast member, Darrell Hammond, has also played Trump. Since 2014, Hammond has been the show’s announcer. It would be surprising for him to leave that job to be reinstated as a full-time cast member.
So perhaps ‘‘SNL’’ executives are hoping they can convince Baldwin to stick around. He certainly seems to enjoy the opportunity to goad Trump. Before this week’s episode, he tweeted, ‘‘I won’t apple-agize. Tonight at 11:30. Live.’’ A minute later, he shared a photo of himself backstage in his blonde wig and red tie.
He was ready for his next move. But without Trump swinging back, is the game still as fun? | After weeks of back-and-forth, the president-elect didn’t share an immediate response to “Saturday Night Live.” | 35.769231 | 0.846154 | 2.153846 | high | medium | mixed |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/dec/21/painting-jean-etienne-liotard-rijksmuseum-netherlands-centuries-in-england | http://web.archive.org/web/20161222051155id_/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/dec/21/painting-jean-etienne-liotard-rijksmuseum-netherlands-centuries-in-england | Liotard painting returns to Netherlands after centuries in England | 20161222051155 | A picture of a tranquil young Dutchwoman pouring her morning cup of coffee is returning to the Netherlands after spending centuries in an English collection.
A Dutch Girl at Breakfast, painted by the Swiss artist Jean-Étienne Liotard in 1756, has been acquired by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
The British government had placed an export bar on the painting because it had been in England for so long. It was bought in 1774 by the artist’s friend and patron, the second Earl of Bessborough, and had remained in the family collection ever since.
However, no British museum could match the price of £4.4m paid by the Rijksmuseum at a Sotheby’s auction this year, so this week the export licence was granted.
Liotard, whose work was showcased in an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London last year, was a star in his day, in demand across Europe for his subtly flattering portraits.
A Dutch Girl at Breakfast is considered to be a rarity because, compared with hundreds of works in pastel, only 30 of Liotard’s oil paintings are known to have survived. This was believed to be the last in private hands.
Taco Dibbits, general director of the Rijksmuseum, said the work had the same atmosphere of peace and simplicity as Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, which the museum also owns.
“The painter allows us to get very close to his subject. As the girl carefully opens the top of the coffee pot, she won’t allow herself to be disturbed by the millions of visitors who will come to see her,” he said.
Liotard was particularly fond of the painting, keeping it for nearly 20 years before selling it to one of his most important patrons. The artist portrayed one of his own collection of Dutch Golden Age paintings in the background of the work.
The green light for the export completes a sensational year for the Rijksmuseum, which received 2.2 million visitors and a Michelin star for its restaurant.
Another of its recent acquisitions dwarfed the sum paid for the Liotard painting: along with the Louvre in Paris, the museum bought a pair of towering portraits by Rembrandt depicting a young couple, Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, for €160m (£134m). | British government grants export licence for work by Jean-Étienne Liotard, bought by Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum for £4.4m | 19.636364 | 0.954545 | 1.954545 | medium | high | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2016/10/14/verizon-unlimited-data-plan/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20161222211502id_/http://fortune.com/2016/10/14/verizon-unlimited-data-plan/ | Verizon Now Offers Hourly Unlimited Data Plans | 20161222211502 | While a couple of wireless carriers have re-introduced unlimited monthly data plans, Verizon has a slightly different twist on the concept: an hourly unlimited plan.
Under Verizon's new PopData program announced this week, customers can use an unlimited amount of high-speed 4G LTE data for 30 minutes for $2 or 60 minutes for $3. The data consumed during the PopData time does not count against a customer's regular monthly data allowance.
So, for example, a customer with a 3-gigabyte-per-month plan could pay an extra $3 and download a 5-gigabyte high-definition movie to his or her phone using an hour of PopData. The plans might also come in handy if a customer wanted to watch streaming video, like an NFL football game, for a specific period of time.
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Customers can trigger the PopData plan using Verizon's app on iPhones, iPads, and Android phones. The app may not offer a PopData plan if the customer is in a location where Verizon's network signal is weak or overcrowded, the company said.
The program is in a beta phase right now, a Verizon spokeswoman said. "The beta launch of PopData gives us an opportunity to learn more about how time-based data options resonate with our customers and how they engage with a digital-only experience through the My Verizon app," she explained.
Verizon executives have repeatedly said that they do not plan to follow the lead of other carriers and offer a monthly unlimited plan. T-Mobile (tmus) and Sprint (s) brought back more affordable unlimited monthly data plans—though with some restrictions—in August and AT&T (t) has an unlimited plan that is only available to subscribers of its DirecTV service.
So Verizon (vz) isn't marketing the PopData offering as an alternative to other carriers' unlimited plans. Instead, it has positioned PopData against using public Wi-Fi hotspots as "a faster, more secure connection."
Competitors were quick to criticize the offering. "When old phone companies start selling you plans that count minutes, you wonder if they are stuck in the 90s, Roger Sole, chief marketing officer at Sprint, says. "Having customers keep track of adding hourly data seems like a lot of work for customers and it could also be extremely expensive."
T-Mobile CEO John Legere took to Twitter to tweak his rival, as he often does. "$3 per hour?!! If you wanted unlimited data from @verizon, it would cost you $2160/mth. That's a lot of #popdata," the CEO wrote amid a series of critical tweets. | An alternative to public Wi-Fi hotspots | 65.5 | 1 | 4.25 | high | high | mixed |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/nov/03/national-portrait-gallery-appeal-buy-duke-wellington-painting | http://web.archive.org/web/20161223071748id_/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/nov/03/national-portrait-gallery-appeal-buy-duke-wellington-painting | National Portrait Gallery launches appeal to buy Wellington painting | 20161223071748 | A 160-year-old problem at the National Portrait Gallery will be fixed if it manages to raise £300,000 from the public to buy an unfinished portrait of the Duke of Wellington.
The gallery on Thursday launched an appeal to help buy the portrait that would fill a significant hole in its collection – the lack of a significant depiction of one of British history’s most important figures.
“We’ve been seeking to remedy this gap since our founding in 1856,” said the gallery’s director, Nicholas Cullinan. “This has long been identified as a crucial omission in our collection.”
The gallery has been offered the chance to buy Sir Thomas Lawrence’s unfinished portrait of Wellington, known as the Jersey portrait, for £1.3m.
With a donation of £350,000 from the Art Fund and using its own funds, £1m of the total has already been raised. The gallery now needs to find the remainder by the end of March 2017.
Cullinan said the fact it is unfinished made the portrait more compelling. “You focus on the man himself rather than his accoutrements of success and power. This is the one above all others that we wanted to pursue,” he said.
The portrait was commissioned a year after Wellington became prime minister by his friend and admirer Sarah Villiers, the Countess of Jersey, a leading society hostess and well-known gossip whose nickname was Silence.
Lawrence died in 1830, leaving the portrait unfinished, although Lady Jersey could have had the artist’s studio complete it had she wanted. It was a deliberate decision not to.
There has been speculation that Lady Jersey, and Wellington, a serial philanderer, were more than just good friends. The historian Andrew Roberts said: “Frankly, from what I know about Wellington and his love life, unless you can write it off, it is safer to assume he did sleep with whoever we are talking about.”
Roberts said Wellington was an extraordinary figure who was one of the greatest generals in British history. He remains the only person to go through the entire declension of the British peerage, beginning as the honourable Arthur Wellesley, before becoming Sir Arthur, Baron Wellington, Viscount Wellington, Earl of Wellington, Marquis of Wellington and, finally, Duke of Wellington.
Roberts said the Lawrence portrait was a powerful one: “You can see in the face, this man is utterly driven, utterly competent, completely in control of his environment.”
The campaign to buy the portrait was backed by the historian Dan Snow. “The ‘Iron Duke’ is one of the towering figures of British history,” he said. “He never lost a battle, reshaped Europe and dominated Britain until his death.
“His career and legacy are intimately involved with the development of the United Kingdom. Now, more than 200 years after his most famous victory at the Battle of Waterloo, it’s time we helped the National Portrait Gallery win the day.”
The gallery tried unsuccessfully to buy another Lawrence portrait of Wellington about a decade ago.
The present portrait was passed through Lady Jersey’s family until it came to the market in 2013 and was bought by the private collector now offering it to the National Portrait Gallery. It has been on loan to the gallery since last year.
Details on how to donate are at npg.org.uk/wellington. | Gallery needs to raise £300,000 to acquire unfinished Duke of Wellington portrait – and plug a 160-year-old gap in its collection | 27.083333 | 0.916667 | 2.25 | medium | medium | mixed |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2016/dec/23/a-love-letter-to-canberra-i-couldve-had-no-better-muse | http://web.archive.org/web/20161223085755id_/https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2016/dec/23/a-love-letter-to-canberra-i-couldve-had-no-better-muse | A love letter to Canberra, I could have had no better muse | 20161223085755 | This is the last night when Canberra will be my permanent home.
I’ve spent it as I did my first, back in late 1993, alone in the same modest motel in the inner south (park anywhere, dinner until 8.30, free newspapers and checkout at 10am, sharp). There was bad stuff going on from a war I’d just visited, my personal life was a shambles and the only thing keeping me in journalism was the city I’d just arrived in.
Running? Not exactly. Staying? A year at best, ‘til I could escape some stuff. Building another life here never occurred to me.
The last two decades and a bit is improbable history for me. I hated the city at first. It gave me reason to. The retired public servant in the flat downstairs (he wore chinos and an ironed polo shirt to tend his modest garden) complained when I left the packing boxes on the verandah for a few weeks and after every time I flushed the dunny.
Eventually the body corporate sent me a formal letter of complaint about the untidy state of my flat’s externals (this will amuse many; I’m the neatest, most ordered person they know).
“Fuck Canberra,” I said to everyone.
Then I got into the work, back when a newspaper was going to be printed every day and forever and you could turn off after you’d filed a story daily (or in my case, weekly) and do other stuff, like exercise and cook and meet people. I met someone and of course it all changed and it became the best place in the country to be a journalist if you wanted bang for buck. And, yes, if you wanted to make a difference, which of course I did (want to, that is).
Like so many people in Canberra with kids, I was seduced. It is a great lifestyle, with ridiculously short front door to school/childcare drop-off possibilities. But that’s not really enough reason to stay if your work is meaningless or you’re isolated and lonely or among the city’s invisible but numerous poor. I never noticed, because I was in Parliament House (or often overseas), how desperately quiet were the streets.
I only noticed this (and so much else about the city) when I became a self-employed, full-time writer in January 2008. I wrote my first book at a desk facing a broad window looking out on a street named after a famous exploratory ship; all the streets in my vicinity have nomenclature of famous explorers or ships: La Perouse, Arnhem, Beagle, Endeavour. How lonely, I realised, it must be for some, in these isolated places, in these big houses quarantined by bush corridors, who have no families and jobs they dislike. The vast bush around us here echoes loneliness or love, inspiration or desperation. It’s not an idyll for all, though it has, mostly, been for me.
I’ve felt the isolation too, though – longed to leave my door, like I did in London and Melbourne, and be part of a life on the street right there. A folly, I’d tell myself, then, for everything else this place gives me.
And that’s the thing here. You embrace the bush and the communities that revolve around it, or you don’t ever quite connect. Like the poor. I’ve often thought that this city – with its vast middle class (there are few super rich or landed types here, like in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide) – is a terrible place to be poor. The rest of the county assumes there is no underclass here.
But the rough sleepers – in those bush corridors and in the streets – and the beggars are everywhere. It saddens me that the public housing estate close to my house, soon to be razed, will make pitifully little allowance for social housing, under a Labor government. It pleases me, however, that, in too many other ways to name here, my city – and the Australian Capital Territory – is the most socially progressive place to live in the country.
There is a pounding heart and a warm, generous soul in this city. Communities thrive almost in spite of the serene suburbia. Artists of all sorts riff off the difference, the uniqueness of living and making life and love in a capital that is small, spread out and held in contempt by the rest of the country.
I get it. Completely. I could have had no better muse than Canberra, where intellectual life is deep and wide, where people look out to the country and the world, where the memory of the nation – incarnate in its institutions like the National Library of Australia and the Museum of Australian Democracy – is everyday.
It’s misunderstood, even within the city itself. The marketers will say this is the city of Walt Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. That’s a fallacy. You can see the ghostly visage of their geometric dream from atop Mount Ainslie or Red Hill. But the dream died with the Anglophile planners who bastardised their blueprint and super-imposed a vast, sprawling suburbia for too few people on top of it.
I love it here (not in the motel, but the city). I’ve called it an accidental miracle of a city. Because it thrives when the planners and two world wars almost killed it, and ironically, now, because it grows in the shape Walt and Marion had envisaged, with greater inner-urban density, with cutting edge architecture and well planned communal spaces.
It’s a great place to be a writer, although I’ve learnt “Canberra writer” can be something of a pejorative. And I don’t need the OECD tell me it’s one of the best places in the world to live.
I’m grateful to have spent 20-something unlikely years here in Canberra. I’ll take away more than I’ve given, including a family, for which I’m lucky and so very thankful. And half a dozen books and a million or so words of journalism. Or does their home remain here?
And then there’s the motel. I’m in the same room as I was in 1993. Nothing’s changed. But me in the mirror.
And there’s still no fucking mini-bar. | After more than 20 years living, loving and writing in Canberra, I spent my final night as I did my first | 54.347826 | 0.826087 | 1.956522 | high | medium | mixed |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/nov/26/art-on-your-sleeve-famous-views-get-shirty-in-pictures | http://web.archive.org/web/20161223121943id_/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/nov/26/art-on-your-sleeve-famous-views-get-shirty-in-pictures | Art on your sleeve: famous views get shirty - in pictures | 20161223121943 | In 2009, Berlin-based photographer Fabian Schubert and artist Hank Schmidt in der Beek went on a hike in the Austrian Alps. They had planned to paint the landscape, but, says Schmidt in der Beek: “Confronted with the immenseness of the mountains and the littleness of my canvases I decided to paint what was nearest to me instead of what was far afield.” Thus the series Self-Portrait Landscape was born: in places where Cézanne, Hockney, Monet painted masterpieces, Schmidt in der Beek instead paints the patterns on his shirts, to the consternation of passersby. Their paintings and on-location photographs are collected in Und im Sommer tu ich malen (“And in summer I do paint”), a new book by Edition Taube. | In scenic spots where the masters painted, two prankster artists instead paint their own shirts | 9.125 | 0.5625 | 0.5625 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20161223-last-minute-gifts-for-green-minded-drivers | http://web.archive.org/web/20161224075152id_/http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20161223-last-minute-gifts-for-green-minded-drivers | Last-minute gifts for green-minded drivers | 20161224075152 | Eco-friendly cars that swap petrol for plugs are becoming increasingly popular. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2015, the number of electric vehicles (EVs) in use across the globe reached over 1.26 million. And 13 million charging stations, which will accommodate that growing number of EVs, are projected to be in place by 2020.
There's still a long way to go — right now, only a handful of urban areas are building the necessary infrastructure to get citizens to buy EVs, or to sign up for an EV ride-sharing program.
But the growing figures show there's no shortage of interested consumers, and they're not just environmental crusaders. With a growing roster of electric vehicles aimed at mainstream buyers, carmakers are trying expand the appeal of electric mobility beyond the hardcore eco-enthusiast.
The holidays are here, but here are some last-minute ideas for the EV lover in your life, from the cousin who only commutes via e-bicycle, or your friend who refuses to sit behind a steering wheel to spew exhaust into the air.
Throw this foldable electric scooter into the boot of your car for a petrol-free "last mile" solution, or for a greener way of navigating sidewalks on your way to work. After a four hour charge, take the 35-pound Urb-E up to 20 miles and hit 15 miles per hour — there's even an optional cupholder. $1,700 (£1,390)
ChargePoint Gift CardChargePoint is a California-based company that operates over 30,000 electric-vehicle charging stations in more than a dozen cities in North America. Use the company's mobile app to find a charging location near you and its availability. Give a pal a paid card and let them power up their EV quickly and, for them, for free.
Forza Motorsport 6 (Standard Edition)
It's nice to see high-octane racing video games embrace the EV revolution, and this latest in the Forza Motorsport series for Xbox One lets players collect and race over 450 Forzavista race cars... and that includes Formula E open-wheel electric racers like the 2015 Formula E #10 Trulli Spark SRT_01E (pictured above). According to the game, "drivers must strategically utilise the available charge in the race car, being careful to not overuse the power or entirely discharge the batteries." $50 (£40)
This Surrey-based company, Cables for Charging, will supply charging cables for any EV user you know, whether they drive an electric BMW, Nissan, Mistubishi, or Audi. The site provides a guide for choosing which charging cable is best for your type of car, and they ship to anywhere in the UK or Europe. £120 to £140
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And 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 Autos, Future, Earth, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. | Practical presents for the petrol-disinclined person on your shopping list. | 47.461538 | 0.538462 | 1 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/actors-pay-dispute-spotlights-small-los-angeles-theaters-1482784879 | http://web.archive.org/web/20161227071033id_/http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/actors-pay-dispute-spotlights-small-los-angeles-theaters-1482784879 | Actors’ Pay Dispute Spotlights Small Los Angeles Theaters | 20161227071033 | LOS ANGELES—Actors in this city’s small-theater scene got a raise this month—to the minimum wage. But some performers aren’t happy about it.
The rift started last year, when a new Actors’ Equity Association contract required members be paid minimum wage, currently $10 an hour in California, for work in small venues, commonly referred to as “99-seat” theaters. Until then, actors in Los Angeles had typically received daily stipends for such work—sometimes as little as $7 a day.
But a group of vocal supporters or veterans of 99-seat theaters, including area theater owners and actors Ed Asner and Ed Harris, sued Actors’ Equity this year, saying the minimum-wage requirement would force small theaters to close. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit on Dec. 8, and the new requirements went into effect on Dec. 15, but the plaintiffs said their fight isn’t over. “We’re not finished,” said Gary Grossman, one of the plaintiffs and the artistic director of the Skylight Theatre Company. Appealing the judge’s decision is one option on the table, he said.
Mary McColl, executive director of Actors’ Equity Association, defended the union’s move, saying that it will help many actors who aren’t stars make a living in the theater. “At the end of the day, this is work,” she said. “It’s not an unpaid internship.”
Actors, or anyone, suing for the right to be paid less can seem counterintuitive. But opponents of the minimum-wage requirement say it puts pressure on an ecosystem that already operates on a shoestring budget and “let’s put on a show” mentality. The city’s theater community lacks the kind of philanthropic support that New York has, they say, and actors often support themselves in day jobs and accept shows at measly pay in lieu of costly acting classes. Several theaters said they will trim shows from their schedules to save costs and begin working exclusively with non-Equity actors.
Los Angeles is covered with 99-seat theaters, often featuring actors looking for work in film and television.
“You can go play Hamlet and have a day job working in television or doing voiceover,” said Veronica Brady, a Malibu-based producer who directed a documentary in support of the “I Love 99” movement against the contract change. “If you want to do a new play, you can do it and see if it has legs for a tenth of what it costs in New York.”
A wage waiver for 99-seat theaters dates to the 1970s, when a large number of actors from New York moved to the Los Angeles area in search of film and television work, said Ms. McColl.
Some actors started their own theaters, and to help the burgeoning scene the union agreed to allow members at so-called intimate theaters with 99 seats or fewer to perform as unpaid “volunteers.” The practice didn’t apply at theaters anywhere else in the country.
When the union moved to scrap the waiver last year, the actors, led by Mr. Asner, sued, arguing that the union had violated a 1989 settlement agreement that set strict rules for altering the waiver policy.
Ms. McColl said the decision to end the waiver began in 2014 when a chorus of actors complained to union leadership that they weren’t able to live on the minimal stipends. Earlier this year, union members voted on eliminating the 99-seat-theater waiver, and roughly two thirds of about 3,000 votes opposed the union’s plan. The vote was advisory, and the union leaders chose to move forward with the change anyway.
“Now we want to have a conversation with the Los Angeles theater community about how we can partner with them to pay our members and to help to make Los Angeles theater scene vibrant,” said Ms. McColl.
The increase in costs hit the production of “Gardel’s Tango,” a new play about Argentine tango singer Carlos Gardel that recently premiered at the Zephyr Theatre. The contract change went into effect during the show’s run, said John Lacey, who wrote, produced and directed the show. He invested about $10,000 in mounting the production and expects to recoup about half of it.
The cost of paying four Equity actors to do a weekend of “Gardel’s Tango” performances went from $132 a show to $429. Mr. Lacey said he couldn’t have afforded to pay his cast minimum wage for the 150 hours they rehearsed.
Going forward, he’s going to weigh the rule change when deciding what to produce next.
“You’re probably going to see a lot more one-person shows,” he said.
Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com and Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com | Actors in Los Angeles’s small-theater scene got a raise this month—to the minimum wage—but some performers aren’t happy about it, saying it could force so-called ‘99-seat’ venues to close. | 21.952381 | 0.952381 | 7.904762 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/face/defining-beauty-moments-2016/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20161227092153id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/face/defining-beauty-moments-2016/ | The most defining beauty moments of 2016 | 20161227092153 | The merging of Coty and P&G was confirmed this year, making Coty the third biggest beauty company, behind L’Oreal and Estee Lauder - both of which made several new purchases this year. Estee Lauder went on a spending spree and acquired Becca Cosmetics, Too Faced and three niche fragrance brands, including Le Labo, Byredo and By Kilian. In its largest acquisition in eight years, L’Oreal bought It Cosmetics over the summer. While it’s relatively unknown here, the skincare and make-up brand that promises to help alleviate skin problems is huge in the US.
Unilever has also upped its game in the luxury sector. Last week, it announced it had bought Living Proof, the premium hair care brand that was previously affiliated with Jennifer Aniston. Living Proof joins Murad, Ren, Dermatologica and Nexxus.
What does this mean for you? In the next year or so, not a lot. Brand mergers usually take between one and two years to settle. However, with the bigger brands buying up successful smaller ones popular, it will be interesting to see how it affects the industry as a whole in the next five years, especially the long-established grande dame brands. | 2016 might forever be remembered as being one of the most politically turbulent years, but in beauty land at least it's been an exceptionally good year for business. | 7.322581 | 0.419355 | 0.483871 | low | low | abstractive |
http://people.com/movies/michael-douglas-and-catherine-zeta-jones-kids-are-all-grown-up-at-music-festival/cm.peo/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20161227093714id_/http://people.com/movies/michael-douglas-and-catherine-zeta-jones-kids-are-all-grown-up-at-music-festival/cm.peo/ | Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones' Kids Are All Grown Up | 20161227093714 | The times they are a-changin’!
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones‘ kids looked all grown up at the Desert Trip music festival in Indio, California over the weekend, where they watched performances by Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones with their parents.
The actress shared several photos of the family, which included the couple’s son Dylan, 16, and daughter Carys, 13, on Instagram.
“So excited. Tickets ready. A Friday night with Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones!!!” Zeta-Jones captioned a photo of the family on Friday. “Can’t breathe with excitement!!! A #DesertTrip of a lifetime!”
She captioned another photo, “What a wonderful weekend. Thank you to our dear friends Michael and Diane for having us at their beautiful home, which used to be Michael’s Dad and stepmother’s home for over 45 years. So special.#DesertTrip”
Another photo showed Zeta-Jones and Carys posing at the concert. “At the show tonight with my darling daughter Carys. #DesertTrip,” the actress captioned.
A third photo showed off Dylan’s stylish Stones jacket. “This says it all. Watching my son see his idols for the first time. Made this night for me. #TheRollingStones #DesertTrip,” she wrote.
Douglas recently opened up about his 16-year marriage to Zeta-Jones at AARP’s 15th Annual Movies for Grownups Awards in February. Speaking about the role his wife played in his recovery from throat cancer, Douglas told reporters, “I think love, without getting too corny, nourishing each other, working at relationships, good sustenance, good food, good kids, all kind of a combination.” | The times they are a-changin’! Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ kids looked all grown up at the Desert Trip music festival in Indio, California over the weekend, where they wat… | 8.538462 | 0.897436 | 13.871795 | low | medium | extractive |
http://nypost.com/2016/12/08/congress-rotten-idea-for-fighting-anti-semitism/amp/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20161227113458id_/http://nypost.com/2016/12/08/congress-rotten-idea-for-fighting-anti-semitism/amp/ | Congress’ rotten idea for fighting anti-Semitism | 20161227113458 | December 8, 2016 | 8:59pm
Last week, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016, a k a S. 10, was introduced in the Senate, read three times, and approved by unanimous consent without debate or amendment — all on one day. That sort of bipartisan consensus, which suggests a bill is so obviously unobjectionable that no discussion is necessary, usually means trouble, and this case is no exception.
In the name of protecting Jewish students from discrimination, S. 10, if approved by the House, will encourage universities to suppress dissenting political opinions and have a chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech.
S. 10, introduced by Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Robert Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), codifies a controversial State Department definition of anti-Semitism that includes one-sided criticism of Israel and opposition to Zionism.
Last year, the University of California declined to adopt that definition based on concerns that it would violate the First Amendment by deterring pro-Palestinian activism. S. 10 would have the same effect on a national scale, notwithstanding its assurance that “nothing in this Act . . . shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment.”
The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is supposed to help the Education Department enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin by educational institutions that receive federal money. Judaism is not a race, color or national origin, yet the Justice Department says “discrimination against Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and members of other groups violates Title VI when that discrimination is based on the group’s actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.”
Furthermore, discrimination can include a “hostile environment” that interferes with a student’s education, and a hostile environment can be created by things other people say.
Given this legal context, the official definition of anti-Semitism has clear First Amendment ramifications. If on-campus speech is viewed as anti-Semitic, it may prompt an investigation by the Education Department, which could conclude that a university has violated Title VI by tolerating anti-Jewish harassment. Awareness of that possibility encourages administrators to regulate and punish speech, which makes students reluctant to express opinions that could be deemed anti-Semitic. The looser the definition of anti-Semitism, the greater the potential for censorship.
Even the clearest expression of anti-Semitism is protected by the First Amendment, provided it does not rise to the level of harassment or assault. It should be possible for a student to question the Holocaust or claim Jews control the media, two examples mentioned in the State Department’s definition, without triggering a federal investigation.
The right response to bigoted misconceptions is refutation, not censorship, especially at an educational institution that values free inquiry and open debate.
S. 10 increases the tension between freedom of speech and anti-discrimination law by stretching the definition of anti-Semitism to cover opinions about Israel and its conflict with Palestinians.
The examples cited by the State Department include “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,” “blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions,” “applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation,” “focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations,” and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” or “denying Israel the right to exist.”
These positions strike many Jews (including me) as grossly unfair, but they are not necessarily motivated by anti-Semitism, let alone synonymous with it. They raise important questions about the justice of Israeli policies, the sources of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, collective vs. individual rights and the legitimacy of nation-states.
A college campus is precisely the sort of place where issues like these should be hashed out. The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act would create a new obstacle to that debate by lending credibility to claims that pro-Palestinian activism creates a hostile environment for Jews.
The Anti-Defamation League, which worked with Sens. Scott and Casey on the bill, claims it “addresses a core concern of Jewish and pro-Israel students and parents: When does the expression of anti-Semitism, anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Zionist beliefs cross the line from First Amendment protected free expression to unlawful discriminatory conduct?”
But the truth is that S. 10 provides no guidance whatsoever on where that line is, meaning it is bound to chill speech that even the ADL thinks should be tolerated.
Jacob Sullum is a Jerusalem-based editor at Reason magazine and a syndicated columnist. | Last week, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016, a k a S. 10, was introduced in the Senate, read three times, and approved by unanimous consent without debate or amendment — all on one day. That… | 19.531915 | 0.93617 | 22.765957 | medium | medium | extractive |
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-dolezal-book-cover-20161031-story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20161228013730id_/http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-dolezal-book-cover-20161031-story.html | What do you think of Rachel Dolezal's book cover? | 20161228013730 | Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist who resigned as president of an NAACP chapter after it was revealed that she was a white woman pretending to be African American, has unveiled the title and cover of her forthcoming memoir on Instagram.
The book, available for preorder on Amazon, is titled "In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World."
The description of the book on Amazon, which is typically provided by the publisher or author, reads: "A lot of people think they know what Rachel Dolezal is. Race faker. Liar. Opportunist. Crazy bitch. But they don’t get to decide who Rachel Dolezal is."
Dolezal was president of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the NAACP from 2014 to 2015. After her parents revealed that she was white and that she had lied for years about her racial heritage, she resigned from the post.
During her years as a civil rights activist, she had filed racial harassment complaints, which were dropped after the revelation of her heritage. She also lost her jobs as chair of the Spokane Police Ombudsman Commission and as an instructor of Africana education at Eastern Washington University.
The description of Dolezal's memoir on its Amazon page suggests that Dolezal still bristles at being described as white.
"On June 11, 2015, the media 'outed' Rachel Dolezal as a white woman who had knowingly been 'passing' as black," it reads. "When asked if she were African American during an interview about the hate crimes directed at her and her family, she hesitated before ending the interview and walking away. Some interpreted her reluctance to respond and hasty departure as dishonesty, while others assumed she lacked a reasonable explanation for the almost unprecedented way she identified herself."
The description of the book calls her story "nuanced and complex," and says it will discuss "the discrimination she’s suffered while living as a black woman."
Dolezal hinted that she would write a book last July, but was evidently unable to draw the interest of a major publisher. Her memoir is being released by BenBella Books, a small press based in Dallas.
Reactions to Dolezal's Instagram post were mixed. One user commented, "I believe that your a wealth of insight and it's a loss that a Black organization did not stand with you because of a color of an individuals skin or a race demographic on a job application."
Another user was markedly less supportive, writing: "Please tell me what she knows about being a REAL TRUE black woman?!?! Girl BYE with this foolishness!! You'll NEVER know our struggles and I don't care how much dark spray tan you put on."
"In Full Color" was co-written with Storms Reback, an Austin, Texas, author whose books include "Ship It Holla Ballas!: How a Bunch of 19-Year-Old College Dropouts Used the Internet to Become Poker’s Loudest, Craziest, and Richest Crew." The memoir is scheduled for release on March 28, 2017.
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Exploring Los Angeles (and the world) with Dylan Thuras of Atlas Obscura | Rachel Dolezal , the civil rights activist who resigned as president of an NAACP chapter after it was revealed that she was a white woman pretending to be African American, has unveiled the title and cover of her forthcoming memoir on Instagram . | 14.75 | 1 | 44 | low | high | extractive |
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