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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/mar/29/exhibition.art | http://web.archive.org/web/20141006231324id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/mar/29/exhibition.art | Exhibitions preview | 20141006231324 | Beyond the changing fancies of the high street fashion stores, beyond the fetishist extravagancies of the haute couture catwalks, fine artists out-imagine them all with reveries that are as unwearable as they might hint at some weirder purpose. Here artists such as Susan Stockwell make clothing out of old maps and coffee filters, refashion accessories into bizarre body extensions, and thus suggest that the clothing we dream up might give something of the awkward appearance of our misfit relationship to the outside world. Clothes are seen here as a means of social suppression and personal liberation, as conformist uniforms and fancy dress costumes. Meanwhile, a video installation by Yinka Shonibare presents the 1792 assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden as a masked ball of quite baroque bemusement. Robert Clark
· Tullie House Museum And Art Gallery, to May 4
The German artist Isa Genzken studied under Joseph Beuys, so it is no surprise to find out that her designs for Ground Zero are socially inclusive. There are no corporate powerhouses here, just community orientated projects designed to regenerate the area. But that doesn't mean she's reneging on the Big Apple's love affair with steel and glass. Genzken has often referred to the New York skyline as having a direct link with sculpture, and her structures remain as audacious as any Chrysler building. Her inspirations for these designs are also being exhibited at Between Bridges in the East End, ensuring a kind of crosscultural dialogue across the city. Jessica Lack
· Hauser & Wirth, W1, Thu 3 to May 17; Between Bridges, E2, Fri 4 to May 25
Mircea Cantor, Ansel Adams, Katie Paterson, Oxford
Three disparate shows held tentatively and intriguingly together by a common if oblique concern with environmental uncertainty. Canyons, great lakes and desert expanses: Adams captures them all in images that are as marvellously expansive as they are free from pseudo-Romantic cliche. Elsewhere, Mircea Cantor's installation conjures a fairytale of uncertainty in the shape of a Transylvanian forest replete with flying carpets woven with angels and aeroplanes. Environmental concern is focused by Katie Paterson in an interactive scenario in which visitors are connected live by telephone to the sound of ice melting in a faraway Icelandic glacier. RC
· Modern Art Oxford, Wed 2 to Jun 1
Essenhigh's paintings are futuristic in spirit. She paints a hinterland peopled by strange amoeboid shapes. Sometimes they writhe in space, at other times she situates them in sublime, dreamy landscapes. Allusions to science fiction and cartoon characters are rife, and the apocalyptic hues of her palette conspire to create visions of heightened emotion. Focusing on the weather and the impact of global warming, her new pictures capture the changing seasons in lurid colour. JL
· Victoria Miro, N1, Thu 3 to May 2
All Flesh Is Grass, Poole
We haven't seen much of Grenville Davey since he won the Turner Prize in 1992, but hopefully this collaborative venture with landscape architect John Hopkins will change that. Davey's sculptures are beautiful, sleek forms made from unwieldy materials. This engaging exhibition consists of his drawings and sculptures, together with drawings and projected images by Hopkins inspired by his role as project sponsor for the Olympic Parklands. Both men ruminate on the role of art in the landscape and how art's intervention transforms it. Jessica Lack
· Art Institute At Bournemouth, to Apr 24
Matthew Houlding & Dean, Hughes Manchester
Matthew Houlding's meticulously assembled architectural models appear like miniature sets for some retro-futuristic movie that has been shelved in the planning. Constructed from old postcards and walls of red Perspex and mirror fragments, his modernist idylls might be fitted with turquoise swimming pools and tiered Mediterranean balconies, yet they seem inescapably shrouded by claustrophobia. Where nature is imagined so neat and safe, maybe human nature's potential necessarily shrinks to size. Even more cool and laconic is Dean Hughes's collection of sculptural conceits. These are clever works that tease the uninitiated with their aura of apparent dead-easiness. A single hole half-punched out of a plain piece of A4 paper is titled Final Hole Punch Piece. Hughes's materials are the stuff of workaday habit: toilet rolls, bus tickets. Of course, he turns practicalities into utterly futile intrigues, and thus into art's potential. Robert Clark
· CUBE, to Apr 26
Ruth Claxton, Jürgen Partenheimer, Birmingham
Two artists here, making it their creative business to obscure the predictable purposes of their chosen subjects. In a specially constructed metal, mirror and glass maze, Ruth Claxton presents her series of porcelain ornaments transformed with various surreal disguises. The paintings, drawings and sculptural construction by Jürgen Partenheimer all seem to quiver uneasily on the edge of visual disappearance, or "aspire to the condition of music" as he puts it. His offsite installation at Perrott's Folly, a Birmingham landmark some 15 minutes walk away, sounds particularly enticing - a collaboration with composer Kevin Volans. RC
· Ikon, Wed 2 to May 18
What's not to like about David Burrows? He creates sculptures and paintings in a riot of synthetic colours as appetising as a Woolworth's pick'n'mix. His exotic creations range from flowers sculpted from foam board to sloppy paintings inspired by Sigmar Polke. Yet I can't really get excited about his new show, in which he has reworked Vogue covers and advertisements. Is there really any need for another artistic interpretation of Kate Moss? Sigh. That said, if you're a fan of acid colours and violent abstraction that packs a Manga-like punch, then this show is certainly one for you. The exhibition concludes with a performance on May 10 by Burrows's fictional guerilla group Plastique Fantastique, which he founded a few years ago alongside the artist Simon O'Sullivan. An evening of technological delirium lies ahead in their collaboration with the futuristic duo Bughouse. JL
·FA Projects, SE1, Wed 2 to May 10 | Body Space | Isa Genzken | Mircea Cantor, Ansel Adams, Katie Paterson | Inka Essenhigh | All Flesh is Grass | Matthew Houlding & Dean Hughes | Ruth Claxton, | 35.3125 | 0.78125 | 3.53125 | medium | low | mixed |
http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/cardinals-lose-more-than-game-in-denver-100514 | http://web.archive.org/web/20141007070526id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/cardinals-lose-more-than-game-in-denver-100514 | Cardinals lose more than game in Denver | 20141007070526 | Updated OCT 06, 2014 10:57a ET
DENVER -- A simple loss on Sunday would have been OK in the long run. This was Peyton Manning's house, the Cardinals were playing their backup quarterback and Arizona already had a 3-0 start in the bag.
But this wasn't just a 41-20 loss to the defending AFC champs. It was a defeat with more devastating personnel losses on a team that cannot afford them.
Quarterback Drew Stanton suffered a concussion that will subject him to league protocols this week. He was wearing sunglasses in the locker room after the game to shield his eyes from the light. Defensive end and captain Calais Campbell suffered an MCL injury on a nasty chop block from Denver tight end Julius Thomas that will sideline him three to four weeks. That had coach Bruce Arians livid and his voice quaking in the postgame press conference.
"I've been coaching for 37 years and that's the dirtiest play I've ever seen in the National Football League," Arians said. "They'll fine the guy but what do we get? We lose our guy for two to three weeks, maybe four."
Unless Carson Palmer's bruised right shoulder nerve is ready to go on Sunday against the Washington Redskins, the Cardinals will also have just one healthy quarterback -- rookie Logan Thomas -- and may be forced to sign another.
"We're not going to make excuses about injuries. We started 3-0 with a lot of injuries," receiver Larry Fitzgerald said. "This is the NFL. Everybody's dealing with it. "It's not the end of the world."
That is the brand of bravado you always hear from NFL locker rooms when key players go down. But take a look at the Cardinals' defensive losses since the offseason when linebacker Karlos Dansby departed unexpectedly in free agency.
Inside linebacker Daryl Washington is suspended for the season for violating the league's policy on substance abuse. Defensive end/tackle Darnell Dockett is out for the season with a torn ACL and linebacker John Abraham is on season-ending injured reserve with recurring concussion symptoms.
Washington, Dockett and Abraham all have been to Pro Bowls; Campbell is worthy of the same honor. Toss in the losses of Palmer and Stanton and this is getting plain ridiculous.
"It's about how to face adversity," said cornerback Patrick Peterson, who also suffered an ankle injury Sunday but isn't expected to miss any time. "How to respond when guys go down. That's what it's all about."
The Cardinals could start by brushing up on some finer points that looked a bit dull on Sunday. Their pass rush was virtually non-existent, a season-long problem that may be unsolvable given the aforementioned personnel issues.
Arizona's offense -- Arians' calling card -- was sloppy. Cardinals receivers dropped at least seven passes, the Cardinals were 3 of 16 on third down and the running game continues to be a problem for an offensive line that has taken major strides in pass protection. Arizona managed just 37 yards on 19 attempts.
In spite of all that, the Cardinals somehow pulled within 24-20 late in the third quarter when Thomas completed his only pass of the game to Andre Ellington, who ran most of the 81 yards for a touchdown.
That's when Broncos QB Peyton Manning took over, leading Denver on three scoring drives in the final period, including a touchdown pass to Thomas that gave him 503 in his career -- five short of tying Brett Favre for the NFL record.
"He's not in the history books for nothing," Peterson said. "The guy is awesome. He's everything that everyone speaks about him. He just came out here and lit us up."
With defensive starters dropping like flies, it only will get harder for the Cardinals to avoid a similar fate on a weekly basis.
Follow Craig Morgan on Twitter | With personnel losses piling up, it's hard to figure out how the Cardinals can sustain their early-season success. | 33.347826 | 0.73913 | 1 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/08/ai-weiwei-royal-academy-exhibition | http://web.archive.org/web/20141008165537id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/08/ai-weiwei-royal-academy-exhibition | Ai Weiwei to get Royal Academy exhibition at Burlington House | 20141008165537 | Ai Weiwei, the artist who has variously suffered violence, detention and denial of travel rights by the Chinese authorities, is to be given his first major show at a UK institution, the Royal Academy of Arts announced on Wednesday.
The RA announced details of an exhibition that will fill its main Burlington House galleries next autumn in the way Anselm Kiefer’s work is on show at the moment, and David Hockney and Anish Kapoor have staged major exhibitions there in recent years.
Tim Marlow, who joined the RA as director of artistic programmes earlier this year, said Ai had never been the subject of a major institutional survey in the UK. “He has claim to be amongst the most famous, if not the most famous artist in the world, but his art is not as widely seen as one might think.”
Details of the show will be worked out in the coming months but the plan is for at least three big installations, said Marlow, with old and new work, as long as the Chinese authorities allow it out of the country. “We have contingency,” he said. “We have access to work that is already out of China.”
Ai became widely known in Britain after his sunflower seeds installation in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2010.
Since then the artist, who has spoken out against human rights abuses and of the need for reform, has become better known for his mistreatment at the hands the Chinese authorities. In June of 2011 he was released from 81 days in detention and has been unable to leave China ever since.
So far that has not prevented him working. At the Venice Biennale last year he installed dioramas, recreating scenes from his incarceration and his work can be currently seen at an 18th century chapel at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and at Blenheim Palace.
The RA show will be far bigger. Marlow said Ai “wants the opportunity to show his work in great places and spaces - that’s how we support him.
“There is a sense of belief at this academy of creative freedom. We believe in the independence and creative freedom of artists and it seems to me Ai is an artist we should be backing.”
Ai’s show was one of a number announced by the RA on Wednesday. Other exhibitions include Rubens and his Legacy; Van Dyck to Cezanne, which opens in January; and Sackler wing shows devoted to the 20th-century American artists Richard Diekenkorn and Joseph Cornell, and the largely forgotten 18th-century portrait artist Jean-Etienne Liotard. | Show will be first major exhibition at UK institution for artist who has been unable to leave China since being detained in 2011 | 21.347826 | 0.913043 | 2.478261 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2014/10/08/ge-hr-exec-we-need-to-think-about-the-stay-interview-not-the-exit-interview/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141008182905id_/http://fortune.com/2014/10/08/ge-hr-exec-we-need-to-think-about-the-stay-interview-not-the-exit-interview/ | GE HR Exec: We need to think about the 'stay interview,' not the 'exit interview' | 20141008182905 | As managers think about retaining top talent from the Millennial generation, support is key.
On Wednesday, at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, California, top HR executives from General Electric and Facebook talked about key workplace trends with Time Inc. editors. In a recent nationwide “Success Poll” released by Real Simple and TIME, a vast majority of female respondents found a link between success and being supportive in the workplace, said Real Simple Editor Kristen van Ogtrop.
That Millennial need for feedback and encouragement is changing how some of America’s top employers think about training and development the leadership in their organization.
“At GE, we need to make sure 38,000 managers do a great job at asking ‘How are you doing?’ ‘What is important to you?’ ‘What does happiness mean to you right now?,’” Susan Peters, the SVP of Human Resources at GE told TIME Editor Nancy Gibbs, who moderated the panel. “I know that sounds a little trite, but we really [need managers to] understand what is going on in that person’s life. This idea of having managers think more about the ‘stay interview’ instead of the ‘exit interview’… Are we doing enough about the former?”
For Lori Goler, the VP of People for Facebook FB , retention of top talent is more about showing compassion than it is about demonstrating the stereotypical female trait of being “supportive.” Leaders who put others before themselves, regardless of gender, often rise about the fray, she added.
“Bringing people along and making everyone better, there are women that are good at that and men who are good at that,” Goler said.
Real Simple and TIME’s “Success Poll” also found that 80% of respondents across genders did not want their bosses’ jobs. “You can be both disturbed and comforted by that,” van Ogtrop joked with the audience of hundreds of top female executives. Yet neither Peters nor Goler said that they see that at their respective firms. Instead, both noted that the poll’s results would likely come out differently if you rephrased the question.
“If you say, ‘Do you want to have greater responsibility, more challenge, new opportunities, stretch, almost everybody would say yes,” said Peters. “We often see our bosses job through a lens that is probably not 100% representative of the job… We need better bosses. That is a given.”
To get Caroline Fairchild’s daily newsletter on the world’s most powerful women, go to www.getbroadsheet.com. | The discussion was on a panel at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit | 38 | 0.846154 | 1.769231 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/10/04/the-ticket-classical-music/T8vdu7hE3FR6FmAQDKS15L/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20141010044132id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2014/10/04/the-ticket-classical-music/T8vdu7hE3FR6FmAQDKS15L/story.html | The Ticket: Classical music | 20141010044132 | BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Christian Zacharias returns to the BSO as both pianist and conductor in a program that includes works by Mozart (Piano Concerto No. 17) and Schubert (“Unfinished” Symphony). Oct. 9-11, Symphony Hall. 617-266-1200, www.bso.org
BOSTON LYRIC OPERA BLO opens its season with a new production of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” directed by Chas Rader-Shieber and conducted by Arthur Fagen, with a cast that features Anya Matanovic, Michael Wade Lee, and Weston Hurt. Oct. 10-19, Shubert Theatre, 617-542-4912, www.blo.org
STEFAN JACKIW After a memorable recital this summer at Rockport, the eloquent young violinist joins forces again with pianist Anna Polonsky, this time for a program devoted to the three Brahms Violin Sonatas. Oct. 5, 1:30 p.m., Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 617-278-5156, www.gardnermuseum.org
COLLAGE NEW MUSIC Under David Hoose’s direction, the venerable new music ensemble begins its season with works by John Harbison, Joan Tower, Jonathan Harvey, and Andrew Imbrie. Oct. 5, 8 p.m., Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music. 617-230-6096, www.collagenewmusic.org JEREMY EICHLER | Jeremy Eichler’s picks of noteworthy classical music and opera performances in Boston and the surrounding area this week. | 11.4 | 0.65 | 0.75 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2014/10/09/12/39/nz-uni-takes-action-over-explicit-pics | http://web.archive.org/web/20141012005140id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/world/2014/10/09/12/39/nz-uni-takes-action-over-explicit-pics | NZ uni takes action over explicit pics | 20141012005140 | A New Zealand uni student is facing disciplinary action after being involved with a Facebook page where users posted explicit photos of former or current girlfriends without their permission.
Otago University conducted an initial investigation after one person complained to the proctor about the "Rack Appreciation Society" page.
The student - who the university won't name, but who has identified himself as Sean McDonald - now faces action which could include suspension, fines or permanent exclusion from the uni.
Vice-chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne said everyone who supported this group in any way should reflect on the hurt and humiliation they had been party to.
"This incident highlights a serious social issue around the objectification and degradation of women in New Zealand society and via social media in particular," she said.
Meanwhile, Auckland University associate professor Gehan Gunasekara, who specialises in privacy law, wants the NZ government to implement privacy law changes, recommended by Law Commission reports, which would give better online protections.
He says the women affected might not have protection under the Crimes Act, although they could still take a potentially costly private law suit.
"If someone consented to have the pictures taken but not to have them published, that's not a crime," he told NZ Newswire.
"It's only a crime if the person is completely ignorant, like a hidden camera."
One person has talked to Dunedin police about the page but Inspector Mel Aitken says police will only investigate unlawful matters - and sharing a photograph without consent may not be unlawful.
Do you have any news photos or videos? | A student at New Zealand's Otago University who was involved with a Facebook page showing explicit pictures of women will face disciplinary action. | 12.32 | 0.84 | 1.96 | low | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2014/06/27/american-apparel-ceo-ouster/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141014085123id_/http://fortune.com/2014/06/27/american-apparel-ceo-ouster/ | Five things reported about American Apparel CEO Charney's ouster | 20141014085123 | The rumors swirling around American Apparel’s recently-ousted President and Chief Executive Dov Charney kicked into high gear this week, with lengthy reports by both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times speculating on his ejection from the controversial apparel company.
Media reports, analysts and investors are all trying to figure out one important detail: what finally led the board to get rid of Charney? The retailer’s stock traded as high as $15 in late 2007, but has languished for years as losses at the company have mounted. American Apparel’s annual loss last year swelled sharply to $106.3 million from $37.3 million in 2012. Litigation involving Charney have also been a concern.
Here are five juicy details that have surfaced this week:
1) Board members reportedly met at the Redeye Grill in Manhattan to plan Charney’s ouster. According to the Times, four American Apparel board members and their lawyer plotted a plan to fire the company’s founder and CEO over steaks and red wine. On that evening — June 17 — board member Allan Mayer agreed to lead the showdown with Charney the following day, the Times said.
2) American Apparel reportedly only had one lawyer in the United States at one point. Charney allegedly forced out important company executives over the past year, including General Counsel Glenn Weinman, the Times said. As a result, a company with about 10,000 employees was left with a single lawyer in the U.S.
3) Charney earlier this year began signing all of the company’s checks — hundreds of them every month, according to the Journal. That was one of several bottlenecks that plagued the retailer.
4) Charney at one point called a new distribution center home. Between August and November of 2013, the former CEO relocated to a California distribution center full time as he worked around the clock to fix a packaging snafu due to software problems. The issue cost the company $15 million, the Journal reported.
5) In May, new information emerged about another long-running lawsuit, the Times reported. That suit was brought by a former American Apparel store manager who alleged that Charney had used a homophobic slur against him and had assaulted him. | Some details from the lengthy newspaper reports on the controversial exec's dismissal. | 30.214286 | 0.642857 | 0.928571 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2013/11/21/protecting-or-rescuing-your-smartphone-on-the-road/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141017043358id_/http://fortune.com/2013/11/21/protecting-or-rescuing-your-smartphone-on-the-road/ | Protecting - or rescuing - your smartphone on the road | 20141017043358 | FORTUNE — Let’s suppose you’re catching up on some work at home and you accidentally drop your smartphone in your bubble bath. Don’t laugh, it could happen: Three-quarters (75%) of Americans with mobile devices admit that they often use them in the bathroom, according to a survey by Sony.
Or say you’re traveling. You’ve got all the data for tomorrow’s big client meeting on your iPhone, and it somehow gets knocked into the hotel jacuzzi. What do you do?
The best first aid kit for a waterlogged phone, says Mike Cobb, is a plastic box with a tight-fitting lid “such as a Tupperware box,” or a sealable plastic bag, half-full of rice (yes, dry uncooked rice) and a small piece of cardboard. “Set the phone on top of the rice with the cardboard in between, and seal it up,” says Cobb. “The rice will absorb enough of the water that you, or a professional, may be able to retrieve all or some of the data.”
MORE: Government crackdowns: Where are the victims?
Weird as it seems to carry a box of rice in your briefcase, Cobb adds, “it is a portable solution. It hardly weighs anything, and it could help you avoid losing all your data.” One note of caution: “Wait several hours before you try turning on the phone. If it isn’t completely dry inside yet, you could short out some key components.”
Cobb is chief engineer at DriveSavers, a data recovery company based in Novato, Calif., whose clients include NASA, Google GOOG , Harvard University, Lucasfilm, and the U.S. Army. He’s spent the past 20 years rescuing imperiled data from phones and other electronics that have been drenched in Gatorade, run through washing machines, soaked in coffee, and squashed in fender-benders.
The recent rise in remote and mobile work has been good for the data-recovery business, as more devices are now regularly exposed to extra hazards. “That’s not to say that just sitting at your desk is risk-free,” he adds — which is why he insists that his team of data-retrieval engineers use special spill-proof cups at their workstations. “You have to push a button to drink from them,” he explains.
A few more of Cobb’s tips for risk-averse road warriors:
Carry a charger. “Laptop batteries die unexpectedly, usually when your charger is at home and you’re not,” Cobb notes. “So pack portable chargers wherever you go.”
Be a little paranoid about public Wi-Fi. “Anyone hanging around an airport or coffee shop with a little knowledge of how to do it can grab your bank account details and other sensitive information more easily than you may think,” Cobb says. He recommends services like proXPN and Anonymizer to mask your location and secure your Internet connection against eavesdroppers.
Take extra care in airports. “Airport X-ray machines and other screening equipment don’t create a strong enough magnetic pulse to harm digital devices, but there’s no guarantee you won’t lose data if your laptop suffers damage from rough handling, such as being dropped by a screener or falling off a moving conveyor belt,” Cobb observes. “Keep a close eye on your devices going through security” — not only to make sure they’re not stolen, but also “so you know exactly what happened” if you have to describe the damage to a data-recovery person.
MORE: 3 ways to change toxic tendencies at work
Always back up everything. Twice. “Any and all important information stored in your phone should be backed up both in the cloud, through a service like Dropbox or Google Apps, and on a laptop,” says Cobb. “You want multiple sources of the same data, so that if one device gets lost or damaged, you have another way to access it.”
Of course, if everyone followed that advice, Cobb’s company would be out of business, but there seems to be no danger of that. “I’ve spoken with so many people who have never backed up any of their devices, ever,” he says. “It just amazes me.” | The rise of mobile work has been a boon to data-recovery companies. | 56.266667 | 0.866667 | 2.066667 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/20/magnum-photographer-rene-burri-dies | http://web.archive.org/web/20141020202124id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/20/magnum-photographer-rene-burri-dies | Magnum photographer René Burri dies | 20141020202124 | The Swiss photographer René Burri, celebrated for his portraits of Che Guevara and Pablo Picasso, died on Monday in Zurich aged 81, the Magnum Photo agency said.
Burri, who lived between Zurich and Paris, had been suffering from a long illness, Magnum said.
Martin Parr, president of Magnum Photos, said: “Not only was he one of the great postwar photographers, he was also one of the most generous people I have had the privilege to meet.”
Burri started working for Magnum in 1956 and covered major political events around the world.
Among his most famous works were an iconic portrait of the revolutionary Che Guevara smoking a cigar, as well as portraits of Fidel Castro and hundreds of pictures of the architect Le Corbusier, and the artists Alberto Giacometti, Yves Klein and Picasso.
He later said that Guevara was “an arrogant man, but he had charm ... He was like a tiger in a cage.”
Of photographing celebrities, Burri said: “You must not come at it like a bulldozer.”
His friends said he took four years to organise a meeting with Picasso.
After studying at the Arts and Crafts school of Zurich, Burri worked as an assistant cameraman for Walt Disney films in Switzerland before joining Magnum.
His first picture, which he took in 1946 when he was 13, was a shot of Winston Churchill driving through Zurich in an open-topped car.
He left his archives of some 30,000 pictures to the Musée de l’Élysee in Lausanne. | Swiss photographer best known for iconic portraits of Che Guevara and Picasso dies aged 81 after a long illness • René Burri – in pictures | 11.346154 | 0.769231 | 2 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/mar/07/richard-hamilton-serpentine-review | http://web.archive.org/web/20141024041958id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/mar/07/richard-hamilton-serpentine-review | Richard Hamilton: Modern Moral Matters | 20141024041958 | Richard Hamilton's Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland
Mordechai Vanunu is disappearing through the Jerusalem streets in the back of a police van. He is on trial for exposing Israel's covert nuclear arsenal to the west. Unable to communicate with the outside world, he presses his palm against the window in the hope that the message written there will tell his story to anyone with a camera: "Vanunu M was hijacked in Rome ITL 30.9.86, 21:00."
It is a harrowing photograph, not least because Vanunu really is about to disappear into solitary confinement, for more than a decade of his 18-year sentence. Richard Hamilton's painting reproduces the shot exactly. But it also commemorates the young man's passing, so to speak, for Vanunu's face is fading into the soft and muzzy surface of the paint (and the future). The terrible intensity of the photograph – the news of what had happened, what would happen – turns slowly, pensively, into the profundity of the painting. The chance reflections of foliage now look like laurels around Vanunu's head.
Or so it may seem to some viewers (me, for one). Others might find it peculiarly mute. It doesn't tell you that the Mossad drugged and "hijacked" Vanunu, how he was punished, why he is holding up his hand, what revelations he brought the world. It doesn't look so very different from the original photograph and if it weren't for the title – Unorthodox Rendition? – might seem equally neutral.
Consider, for instance, that the very same approach is taken to a bowler-hatted Orangeman on the march in Northern Ireland, a British soldier in Belfast and an IRA prisoner in a blanket: long-haired, bare-chested, Christ-like. You might put quite different interpretations upon these works according to your politics or you might imagine Hamilton to be some sort of militant republican. Though think again; he spells out his "vehement rejection" of the IRA in the catalogue.
These works are all based on photographs; this is crucial to their content. Hamilton isn't just relying upon news reportage because he cannot be there at the historic moment. The Troubles, the campus riots at Kent State, Israel, Iraq, the regimes of Mrs Thatcher or Tony Blair: our sense of each is inflected, of course, by the media images. Hamilton was there at the very beginning of this vigorous strain in art, and one of the fascinating aspects of this show is just how many different directions he takes within it.
Take the Irish paintings. They come big-screen, small-screen, split-screen; in diptych and series, more or less legible or remote. Hamilton observes that the Maze protesters have achieved a strange mythic power in the midst of their self-created squalor, lone figures isolated from time and life.
Sometimes he breaks into three dimensions and the rusted metal verticals of the picture frame invoke the bars of a cell. Sometimes the paint precisely imitates what it describes: excrement smeared on the walls, staining, dragging, depicting; excrement itself deployed like paint.
Nothing came over so viscerally in the television images. And the medium's limitations are well-expressed in the Kent State pictures, where you can just about make out a body, or at least a lifeless arm, in the dozen bleary screenprints shaped like televisions. Hamilton had set up a camera to shoot the news footage of the university massacres in 1970 directly from the TV. Transmission diminishes; so does repetition. With each generation of screenprint, the outrage – in both senses – is correspondingly suppressed and obscured.
One of the great strengths of these works is their skilful match of one kind of image with another, of medium with media. But there are times when the two fall out of kilter. Hamilton has had some coins struck with newsprint shots of Blair and Campbell, complete with Latin epigrams; the actual objects are even less potent than the title – Medals of Dishonour.
And Tony Blair as an all-American cowboy (lifesize, in the manner of Warhol's gun-toting Elvis) is toothless either as propaganda or satire. It marks the point where politics takes over and art become subordinate. For those opposed to the war, it is insufficiently complex and forceful; for those in favour, one imagines it may appear, by the same token, naive and simplistic.
Well, leave Blair to Steve Bell. And leave Margaret Thatcher to her own devices. Making something of Thatcher – something more horrifying than she made of herself, at any rate – still seems to be in the gift of other kinds of artists, such as novelists and playwrights. It is good to see Hamilton's Treatment Room from 1983, a walk-in operating theatre where Margaret Thatcher is administering her brand of medicine from a video above the operating table on which you are cast as the helpless patient. But she is doing all the work merely by dictating her message in a party political broadcast with the sound turned off.
Hamilton has produced some of the most potent images of our times. The deathless shot of Mick Jagger and the art dealer Robert Fraser being driven away after a swingeing sentence for possession, the flashbulb flaring on their handcuffs, went through many permutations – smeared like newsprint, fitted with solid silver cuffs, blurred as black-and-white telly – to become more redolent of the period than the original photo. And his Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland is a tremendous coinage, a hybrid of collage and painting, comedy and fear, with its prissy little mouth and protruding sci-fi eyeball.
What they have in common with the Maze pictures, say, or Unorthodox Rendition, is true staying power: sufficient force as images to keep some of the most catastrophic episodes of modern history alive. That may be latent in the source, but Hamilton, now in his late 80s, continues to find ways of bringing it out and keeping it before our eyes. | Richard Hamilton's treated photographs of real events and real people continue to shock and inform, writes Laura Cumming | 58.7 | 0.45 | 0.75 | high | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2014/10/27/global-gender-gap-america/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141027231102id_/http://fortune.com/2014/10/27/global-gender-gap-america/ | Why the U.S. is losing the global fight for gender equality | 20141027231102 | The gap in economic opportunity between American men and women is narrowing, but the U.S. still can’t seem to get ahead in the global race for equality.
The United States came in at No. 20 out of 142 countries in this year’s ranking of gender equality by the World Economic Forum. It marks a comeback of sorts for the country after having slipped out of the top 20 for the past two years.
The Global Gender Gap Index, released Monday night, measures gender-based disparities in individual countries over time. The organization ranks countries based on the progress they’ve made to close the gender gap in four categories: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.
The highest possible score on the index is 1 and means that a country has fully eradicated the gender gap in every measured category. No country has actually done so since the index was first published in 2006.
Iceland, which has had a female head of state in 20 of the past 50 years, ranked No. 1 on WEF’s index with a score of .859. The country was closely followed by its Nordic neighbors: Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The U.S. finished with a score of .746, putting it behind countries like Canada, South Africa and France, but ahead of other developed countries like the United Kingdom and Australia.
A surprising finding is that the U.S. ranks lower than some countries with considerably less economic development. Rwanda and Nicaragua both have less than $9 billion in GDP, but both rank among the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to gender equality. The index measures gaps in access to resources and opportunities as opposed to actual levels of the available resources. Doing so makes the index independent from a country’s level of development. In other words, while rich countries are able to offer more education and health opportunities to all members of society, WEF measures the gender balance of these opportunities respective of how available they are.
“Both rich countries and poor countries can afford gender equality,” World Economic Forum Senior Director Saadia Zahidi said in an interview with Fortune. “Gender equality doesn’t have to only come along once a country is fully developed.”
Among the four equality categories WEF uses to rank countries, the U.S. ranked lowest in health and survival. While women outlive men by an average of about six years in OECD countries, American women outlive their male counterparts by just about three years, which hurt its ranking, said Zahidi.
The U.S. was also penalized by the shortage of women in political power, ending up ranked No. 54 in the political category largely because it has never had a female president. At a cabinet level, the U.S. has seen a slight increase with women holding 32% of positions compared with 27% last year. In Sweden, a relative utopia for female political leaders, women make up 57% of all ministers.
America is making the most progress closing the gender gap in terms of economic participation and opportunity. Ranked No. 4 on WEF’s list behind Burundi, Norway and Malawi, the U.S. has closed nearly 83% of the gender gap in the workplace since WEF first conducted the study in 2006. For the first time, the U.S. exceeded gender parity for professional and technical workers, 55% of whom are now women. Yet it still has work to do on wage equality for similar work: In the sub-category of wage equality, the U.S. received the low score of .66.
At this rate, the global gender gap in the workplace is not expected to close until 2095. Efforts to narrow the gap are moving at a glacial pace because a lot of the benefits are just coming to light now, Zahidi said. More companies globally are acknowledging that businesses that include more women at the top tend to outperform those who don’t. Also, more women are graduating from college than men while buying power among women is growing as well. As public figures like Melinda Gates and Hillary Clinton take on investing in women and girls and closing the gender gap as public platform, Zahidi added the rate of change should increase.
“The notion that gender equality is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing is a fairly new mindset that did not exist in the public consciousness even five years ago,” she said. “In the short-term, this kind of change is hard because it is millions and millions of individual changes that need to come together on a global level.”
To subscribe to Caroline Fairchild’s daily newsletter on the world’s most powerful women, go to www.getbroadsheet.com. | America ranks high globally in economic opportunities for women, according to a new index. But the country lags behind in other key areas like political leadership. | 31.034483 | 0.793103 | 1.068966 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/dylan-mcdermott-dating-maggie-q | http://web.archive.org/web/20141028234356id_/http://www.people.com/article/dylan-mcdermott-dating-maggie-q | Dylan McDermott Dating Stalker Costar Maggie Q : People.com | 20141028234356 | Maggie Q and Dylan McDermott
10/28/2014 AT 05:45 PM EDT
are partnering up for more than just crime-fighting?
A show insider tells PEOPLE that the former
star, 53, is now romantically involved with the Hawaii-born
actress, 35 – who stars with McDermott on CBS's new crime drama
The onscreen detectives sparked relationship rumors last month when they were spotted
to actress Shiva Rose in 2009. They have two daughters together: Colette, 17, and Charlotte, 9.
Reps for McDermott and Maggie Q could not be reached. | The onscreen detectives have been spending time together offscreen in L.A. | 9.909091 | 0.545455 | 1.090909 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/baby-fox-rescue | http://web.archive.org/web/20141029075850id_/http://www.people.com/article/baby-fox-rescue | Couple Rescue Baby Fox Video : People.com | 20141029075850 | updated 10/27/2014 AT 07:45 PM EDT
•originally published 10/27/2014 AT 05:40 PM EDT
Prepare yourself for the most emotional fox journey since
Beau Ouimette and his wife were recently gem-hunting in West Virginia, when instead of a precious stone, they discovered a precious animal. The couple stumbled upon a tiny, dirty fox kit letting out little yelps for help.
A trained veterinarian, Ouimette's wife quickly went to work on the baby animal. After taking a closer look at the fox, she determined the animal was female, roughly one month old and severely dehydrated. Based on the dried blood found around the baby's neck, the Ouimettes also believe the fox was attacked by a predator and separated from her family.
Luckily, the little lady found a new family in the Ouimettes. The pair bundled up the timid animal in one of their coats and brought her back to their home. Over the next several days, the couple bottle-fed the baby and worked on gaining her trust. As a result, the fox's health improved rapidly.
The once weak kit can be seen in the second video below, bounding around her cage, playing with her new friends and, overall, looking in much better spirits.
Wanting what was best for their new fox friend, the Ouimettes decided to drop off the baby at the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center to finish up her recuperation and, hopefully, be released back into the wild – but not without saying an emotional goodbye first. | Beau Ouimette and his wife sprang into action when they found a weak, dehydrated, injured fox in the wild | 13.714286 | 0.857143 | 2 | low | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2011/11/16/group-therapy-for-executives/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141031233834id_/http://fortune.com:80/2011/11/16/group-therapy-for-executives/ | Group therapy for executives | 20141031233834 | True North Groups – a safe place for executives to work on self-awareness – can help build the types of leaders we so need.
FORTUNE — In the past ten years there has been a dearth of corporate leadership — as evidenced by the dot-com bust, the collapse of such companies as WorldCom and Enron, and the financial crisis. This period could be characterized as “leadership’s lost decade.” This is in sharp contrast to the go-go ‘90s when business leaders were hailed as heroes, with some like Jack Welch and Bill Gates assuming rock star status.
Almost overnight, leaders became villains, as the media and the public demanded scapegoats and villains. Since 2008’s global economic meltdown, we’ve been looking for someone to blame, rather than recognizing the larger systemic issues shaping the future of business leadership.
It’s easy to blame economists for their flawed maxims of shareholder value maximization, perfect market theory, and excessive leverage, but business people have only themselves to blame for adopting them. Far too many business leaders, lured by enormous short-term incentives, were willing to place their self-interest ahead of the best interests of their institutions. In chasing higher stock prices, they lost sight of their customers, abandoned their employees, and wound up destroying shareholder value.
Boards of directors bear their share of the blame by searching for charismatic CEOs outside their ranks rather than developing leaders internally. Hewlett-Packard HPQ is a tragic case in point. Since 1999, its board has gone outside its 300,000 employees four times in searching for a savior as CEO. All of them brought in their own strategies and executives and tried to remake HP’s culture in their own image. Instead they destroyed HP’s strengths in innovation and abandoned the unique culture that built the company. Today HP is adrift without a valid strategy or mission that inspires employees.
Contrast HP’s fate with that of IBM IBM under CEO Sam Palmisano, who has emerged as an exemplar for 21st century leadership. After IBM was saved from breakup by Lou Gerstner, Palmisano built a modern-day powerhouse based on IBM’s core values of client-focus, innovation, trust, and personal responsibility. Taking the helm in 2002, Palmisano launched a “values jam” that engaged over 300,000 employees around the world in refining the company’s values.
Envisioning a new architecture for corporations in an era of globalization, Palmisano created an integrated global enterprise based on collaboration rather than structured around product and market silos. The results have been dramatic: Since 2002, IBM’s strategy of innovation and customer focus has resulted in earnings per share increases of 273% and a doubling of its stock price in the past two years.
Often it takes crises like the ones experienced in the past decade to pave the way for fundamental change. It is becoming clear that the 20th century model of all-powerful leaders who rely on rules, processes, and bureaucratic hierarchies does not work anymore, especially in far-flung global organizations. Emerging in its place is a new kind of leadership — one rooted in alignment around shared mission and values rather than shareholder pressures and short-term gains.
25 Top Companies for Leaders
Palmisano is not alone his approach. Unilever’s UL Paul Polman, Novartis’ NVS Dan Vasella and Joe Jimenez, PepsiCo’s PEP Indra Nooyi, Ford’s F Alan Mulally, Avon’s AVP Andrea Jung, and Siemens’ SI Peter Loescher are proponents of mission-driven, values-based leadership.
Decentralized, collaborative leadership requires talented leaders at all levels, not just a few powerful leaders at the top. This raises the question of how companies can develop this next generation of leaders. Historically, large companies have focused on development of a select group of leaders, usually drawn from the headquarters country, based on processes that favor selection over long-term development.
These new requirements impact these processes dramatically. Global companies will require hundreds, even thousands, of collaborative leaders effective in working in cross-cultural teams based in multiple locations. A number of leading companies, including General Electric GE , Unilever, and Novartis, are developing much broader programs to develop large numbers of diverse leaders throughout their global organizations.
This will require entirely new forms of leadership development that focus on EQ — emotional intelligence — rather than IQ. Emerging research by EQ pioneer Daniel Goleman and others has shown that for leaders with IQs above 120, EQ rather than IQ is the distinguishing factor in successful leadership. Unlike IQ, EQ — which is based on high levels of self-awareness, self-control, social awareness, and relationship skills — can be improved. In my experience I have never seen a leader fail for lack of IQ, but have witnessed over one hundred leaders fail who lacked EQ.
In interviews with 125 authentic leaders for True North, we learned that self-awareness: comes from having a deep understanding of one’s life story and crucibles. The life of Steve Jobs bears witness to these findings. Jobs dropped out of college to start Apple AAPL in 1976, was fired in 1985, and lived under the shadow of a fatal illness the last seven years of his life.
As he said in 2005, “Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” No doubt Jobs was a far better CEO of Apple when he returned to the company in 1997.
Gaining such self-awareness requires three things:
The missing link in leadership development is having a safe place where people can share their experiences, challenges, and frustrations and get honest feedback. This link can be provided by True North Groups — small, intimate groups of peers where people can talk openly in confidential settings.
True North Groups provide the feedback that enable people to understand their blind spots, open up their hidden areas, and gain a deeper understanding of who they are at their core. They offer unique environments for people to develop self-awareness, self-compassion, and authenticity.
True North Groups help people grow as human beings and leaders, as they learn to accept themselves — their strengths along with their weaknesses — and gain confidence that others will accept them for who they are. The group serves as a support system that gives people the confidence to navigate difficult situations at work and in life.
During the past seven years my Harvard Business School colleagues and I have pioneered these groups. Over 1,500 MBAs and mid-career executives have experienced them with profound results that many participants consider transformative. Former Marine captain Rye Barcott says his small HBS group was invaluable in thinking through career options. “Our group discussions were intimate and deeply personal — the most valuable thing I did at HBS. They encouraged me not to jump into consulting or banking but pursue my passions of renewable energy and writing a book on my experiences in Iraq and founding Carolina for Kibera in the Kenyan slum. It Happened on the Way to War was published last spring and now I’m working for the CEO of Duke Energy DUK in Charlotte.”
Companies like Unilever are finding them useful for leadership development. Notes CEO Paul Polman, “Forming True North Groups is an integral part of the Unilever Leadership Development Program to prepare our future leaders for an increasingly volatile and uncertain world where the only true differentiation is the quality of leadership of all.” Because there is minimal cost to these groups and limited staff required to support them, True North Groups are scalable for organizations that want to use them to develop large numbers of authentic leaders.
Just as True North Groups can be an effective force in profoundly changing people’s lives — professionally and personally, they can also be instrumental in changing the way organizations work. Widespread use of these groups could lead to a deep bench of the kinds of leaders needed for the future — and create the new generation of leaders that will transform global corporations.
In my view that’s what’s required to overcome the leadership deficit that is harming capitalism and to build global corporations that will be high-performing and sustainable, eventually restoring our trust in free market enterprises.
Bill George is professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and former chair and CEO of Medtronic MDT . He is the author of four best-selling books. True North Groups, his latest book, was published in September 2011.
A shorter version of this article appeared in the November 21, 2011 issue of Fortune. | True North Groups - a safe place for executives to work on self-awareness - can help build the types of leaders we so need. By Bill George, contributor FORTUNE -- In the past ten years there has been a dearth of corporate leadership -- as evidenced by the dot-com bust, the collapse of such companies… | 26.444444 | 0.936508 | 9.920635 | medium | medium | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/10/28/consumer-confidence-jumps-year-high-job-gains-feed-hopes-for-growth/Jdb6kiy5p1OhuY7pCMtNdJ/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20141108144920id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/10/28/consumer-confidence-jumps-year-high-job-gains-feed-hopes-for-growth/Jdb6kiy5p1OhuY7pCMtNdJ/story.html | US consumer confidence jumps to 7-year high; job gains feed hopes for growth | 20141108144920 | WASHINGTON — Consumer confidence rebounded strongly this month, hitting a seven-year high. The Conference Board said its confidence index rose to 94.5, the strongest reading since October 2007 and the start of the recession a few months later. This month’s gains reverse a September decline.
Steady hiring and fewer layoffs have pushed the unemployment rate down to 5.9 percent from as high as 7.2 percent at the beginning of the year. The Conference Board found 17.7 percent of consumers surveyed expect their incomes to improve; the share expecting their income to drop fell to 11.6 percent.
Falling gasoline prices have also helped to improve consumer sentiment.
While consumer confidence has been trending higher, it still lags pre-recession highs. | Consumer confidence has rebounded strongly this month, hitting a seven-year high as job gains raise expectations for economic growth. | 5.956522 | 0.73913 | 5.782609 | low | low | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2014/11/07/hunger-games/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141109183203id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/11/07/hunger-games/ | How getting fired led Hunger Games producer Nina Jacobson to success | 20141109183203 | There’s an old joke that helps The Hunger Games producer Nina Jacobson survive hard times. You know the one: A kid wakes up on Christmas morning to a pile of manure under the tree—only to excitedly claim that there must be a pony in there somewhere. “I always try to find the pony,” says Jacobson.
Like that time she was unexpectedly let go from her gig as president of Walt Disney’s DIS Buena Vista Motion Picture Group in 2006. Though Jacobson oversaw the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, Remember the Titans, and the first The Chronicles of Narnia film, among other blockbuster hits, she was one of the casualties in a management shake-up. But the firing pushed her to start her own production company.
Jacobson launched Color Force in 2007. The company quickly secured the rights to Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. The three subsequent films in the series grossed more than $310 million on a total budget of $55 million, according to the movie finance site The Numbers. The first two The Hunger Games films have done even better, pulling in $1.85 billion on a total budget of $210 million. The next installment in the series, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, will likely reap a similar windfall when it’s released on November 21. Given that track record, Jacobson hasn’t just found a pony—she’s ridden a unicorn through Hollywood, developing stories that she genuinely loves and turning them into commercial hits.
Despite the large box office numbers, Color Force purposely remains a relatively small operation. It has just seven employees focusing on one to two movies a year. “That gives us the ability to tell someone that they will be one of five projects we have, not one of 50,” says Jacobson.
The low headcount keeps Jacobson busy. On any given day, she will pursue rights to material, find financiers to back projects, meet with studio heads, hire screenwriters and directors, be on a location shoot, assist in film editing or map out a film’s distribution strategy. Her ground-level involvement means that she is fully invested in each project.
“I know that everything Nina submits is something that she knows how to make, who the audience is and how she would ask us to market and sell it,” says Fox 2000 Pictures president Elizabeth Gabler, who worked with Jacobson on Diary of a Wimpy Kid and signed Color Force to a first-look deal this summer. “Everything is completely thought out before she makes a move.”
From a business standpoint, everything has to be. With only a few films in development, Color Force can’t afford to have any bombs. And while it likely earns a handsome payday from The Hunger Games—Color Force has been paid an undisclosed fee for its services and given a share of the profits—those funds don’t last forever for an ambitious, growing company in the fickle film industry.
That unpredictability means attention to detail is crucial. Jacobson’s managerial style has transformed from top-line decision-making on projects already in good shape to sweating projects’ details. “As a studio executive, I took the approach that people are competent until proven otherwise. But when you make a movie, because there is so little time to fix things when they break, you have to almost come to it with the mindset that everyone is incompetent until proven otherwise,” she says. “They usually aren’t, but you have to think, What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong?”
“A producer having her level of love of story is pretty rare, “says The Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence. “I think a lot of producers sit in story meetings and have ideas, but I don’t think they are quite as good as Nina’s.”
Jacobson acts as the conduit between the storytellers and the studio, managing costs and editorial concerns and advocating on behalf of what she thinks the film needs. Her background gives her the ability to harmonize the business and the creative sides. “A lot of times people are only able to see one or the other,” says Lionsgate co-president Erik Feig, who oversees The Hunger Games for the studio. “She is one of the rare individuals who has the ability to focus on the forest and the trees.”
Besides The Hunger Games, Color Force has acquired the rights to Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. But first up is a series for FX called “The People Vs. O.J. Simpson,” based on The Run of His Life by Jeffrey Toobin; it’s slated for 2015.
Jacobson’s media diet is voracious and varied. She reads The New Yorker, New York, Texas Monthly and Longreads.com. She listens to “This American Life,” “Radiolab,” UnFictional.” She’s currently watching Orphan Black, Sherlock, Transparent, The Affair, The Leftovers and The Honourable Woman. Her favorite journalists are some of the best out there—Lawrence Wright, Jon Krakauer, David Kushner and Patrick Keefe, the 2014 winner of the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing.
Jacobson’s strong understanding of what makes a compelling narrative resonates with the authors and directors she teams up with on films. “She made me feel very safe [creatively],” says Lawrence, mentioning that even Jacobson’s critiques were welcome. “When she says something about the film, it’s coming from a genuine, smart and tasteful place, and she’s usually right.” (The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins trusted Jacobson so much that their initial deal was struck verbally over the phone before any formal contracts were written up. “I had such a strong emotional reaction to the book that there was no way she could see that she didn’t have a fan,” says Jacobson.)
As Color Force branches out into TV shows, Jacobson envisions controlled expansion. She’ll add another member or two to the company’s staff and do two to three movies a year. At this size, Color Force can remain nimble—and Jacobson can continue to make project decisions based on her own interests.
“We will always be more of a boutique rather than a factory, but we would like to be a slightly bigger boutique,” she says. “When I became a producer, I told myself I will finally be able to bring my dog to work,” she says of implementing the company’s first (and favorite) perk. “Dogs in the office are very important.” | After Disney laid her off in 2006, Nina Jacobson started her own production company—and hasn’t looked back since. | 56.217391 | 0.73913 | 1.608696 | high | low | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2013/04/17/hospital-finances-are-broken-how-to-fix-them/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141109221159id_/http://fortune.com:80/2013/04/17/hospital-finances-are-broken-how-to-fix-them/ | Hospital finances are broken. How to fix them. | 20141109221159 | FORTUNE — American health care is screwed up. It is a bizarre market where the prices that patients pay do not match the quality of care.
Unfortunately, that’s old news. What is new is the nitty-gritty — details about why hospitals might not have any financial incentive to follow best practices. A new paper from researchers affiliated with Harvard, Boston Consulting Group, and nonprofit health care delivery system Texas Health Resources suggests that, in some cases, providing worse care pays off for hospitals. On a hopeful note, some companies are stepping in to challenge the system.
The research group published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association on April 16 that looked at more than 34,000 surgical patients who were discharged from 12 hospitals in 2010. Out of those patients, 1,820 suffered at least one complication from surgery. Of course, patients with complications cost more to treat — they spend more time in the hospital and require resources like nurses and beds.
MORE: Coming to a workplace near you: Fines for being fat?
But the study found that these patients didn’t simply cost more to treat, but the majority of them generated a much larger profit for hospitals.
Privately insured patients with surgical complications delivered almost $40,000 more in profits (per patient) than privately insured patients who had no complications. The margin was smaller for patients with Medicare — those patients who had complications earned the hospital around $1,700 more than those who didn’t have any.
Hospitals didn’t make the same profit margins off of Medicaid patients or those who paid out of pocket, but combined, those two latter groups only accounted for 10% of the total population of patients studied.
That means 90% of surgical discharges at these hospitals during 2010 participated in a payment system that rewarded the hospital if patients faced at least one surgical complication.
“We are entering this phase of tremendous experimentation in changing the model of payment,” says Atul Gawande, the corresponding author on the paper who is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a professor of surgery at Harvard’s medical school, and a medical journalist.
“We have a bonus system here that we’ve known has rewarded perverse behavior, but now we’re able to put some real numbers on it, and it’s a bigger bonus than we’ve ever understood.”
Gawande has described parts of this flawed rewards system in his landmark story “The Cost Conundrum,” which explains some of the financial incentives that drive the discrepancy in the quality of care. Namely, at many hospitals, physicians earn money for every procedure or test performed, regardless of the outcome.
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This mismatch happens all the time in the corporate world — the stated goals of a company may say one thing, but the company could have conflicting systemic financial rewards in place. Take the rogue trader who lost UBS $2.3 billion in 2011. He messed up, but in general, traders are encouraged to take big risky bets, and are rewarded when those bets pay off for companies. Effective organizations not only proclaim their ideals in grand vision statements but reward the kinds of behavior that back up those ideals.
In the case of hospitals, some may argue that the number of complications is out of the administration’s hands. That isn’t necessarily true, Gawande says. There are checklists and procedures that, if enforced, can make surgery safer and reduce the number of complications. “This business case has been difficult to make,” he says. “It will always pay to open another operating room or increase number of patients.” But CEOs of medical centers have a tougher time seeing the payoff from investments to improve the quality of care.
CEOs in other industries are starting to place a premium on quality of health care, however. It makes sense — if employers are paying for health care, they want to pay for care at better, more efficient facilities that don’t have any incentive to charge for procedures that could be superfluous.
That’s why Wal-Mart WMT announced in 2012 that it would foot the entire bill for certain bundled treatments — heart, spine, and transplant surgeries — if employees go to one of six designated health care organizations for treatment. Bundling the treatments involves streamlining the billing process. Organizations that offer bundled treatments enable whoever is paying to avoid a major financial headache. Another draw of going with the selected organizations, says Wal-Mart spokesman Randy Hargrove, is that they prioritize patient outcome over patient volume and have low readmission rates.
Take, for example, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, which is one of the facilities included in Wal-Mart’s program. Doctors there are on salary. “Because physicians are employed and salaried, they don’t have a direct financial incentive to do a particular thing, but really to do what’s in the best interests of the patient,” says Michael McMillan, executive director of marketing and network services for the clinic.
MORE: Is there really such thing as a ‘global CEO’?
Pursuing the best interest of the patient — what an idea. Granted, Wal-Mart’s program is a new experiment. To last, it will probably have to both provide patients better care and save Wal-Mart money.
But it is a push against the grain in an otherwise broken system. Hospitals need not profit from sicker patients. It is a simple concept but a massive management challenge: reward physicians and institutions that are the best at keeping people well. | A new study has found that hospitals benefit immensely from surgical complications. How employers like Wal-Mart and health care providers are tackling this problem. | 38.678571 | 0.785714 | 1.285714 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2014/11/13/smog-choked-china-cuts-a-climate-deal-with-obama-and-tries-to-tame-its-coal-beast/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141113153459id_/http://fortune.com/2014/11/13/smog-choked-china-cuts-a-climate-deal-with-obama-and-tries-to-tame-its-coal-beast/ | With climate deal, China tries to address its deadly addiction to coal | 20141113153459 | This week’s landmark agreement between the U.S. and China on limiting emissions of carbon dioxide marks a significant diplomatic milestone in the struggle against global climate change. The fact that the two largest sources of CO2 have finally agreed to do something about it should, in theory, give a boost to next year’s United Nations climate summit. Whether the actual terms of the deal—which calls for the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28%, compared to 2005 levels, by 2025, and for China to cap its emissions by 2030—have a realistic shot at being met is another question.
On the U.S. side, Republicans emboldened by the midterm elections will work to block any attempt to fulfill America’s side of the bargain, which Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, of Oklahoma, soon to be chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called “a non-binding charade.”
China’s challenge in meeting the terms of the bilateral agreement are not political but structural: simply put, to reduce emissions growth, China must reduce the size of its coal industry, which supplies some three-quarters of China’s electricity. That is no easy task.
But Beijing must take action, because the smog-choked nation can hardly stick with the status quo. The climate deal is part of a larger strategy to address China’s pollution crisis.
The costs of China’s heavy reliance on coal for power generation were highlighted again days before the deal with President Obama was announced, when a pair of researchers at the prestigious Tsinghua University released a study showing that around 670,000 people die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution from coal. Every ton of coal produced in China adds more than 286 yuan ($46) in environmental damage and health costs, reported Teng Fei, an associate professor at Tsinghua University. China produced nearly 4 billion tons of coal in 2013, according to the World Coal Association.
The Tsinghua study follows a 2011 report by the World Health Organization, published in The Lancet, that estimated that 1.2 million people in China died in 2010 from diseases related to all forms of air pollution. China also has by far the deadliest mining industry in the world: One thousand forty-nine coal miners died in accidents in 2013, down 23% from the year before but still far more than any other country.
Mounting evidence of coal’s environmental damage comes as China’s slowing economy has reduced demand for electricity, creating an oversupply crisis for an industry that has known nothing but steady growth for the last three decades. China has reached “a very critical moment in the management of its coal resources, and in the history of the coal industry,” says Cao Xia, a professor of environmental law at Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, in China’s coal heartland, Shanxi Province.
The direct, domestic impacts of the nation’s massive coal industry, which produces and consumes about as much coal as the rest of the world combined, are added to the indirect, worldwide costs in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. No international program to combat climate change can succeed unless China slashes its burning of coal.
“The actions China takes in the next decade will be critical for the future of China and the world,” wrote Fergus Green and Nicholas Stern in a research paper for the Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy, in London. “Whether China moves onto an innovative, sustainable, and low-carbon growth path this decade will more or less determine both China’s longer-term economic prospects … and the world’s prospects of cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions sufficiently to manage the grave risks of climate change.”
Facing mounting public outrage over air and water pollution, the central government’s actions to limit coal use have multiplied in recent months. The Airborne Pollution Action Plan, unveiled by the central government in September 2013, calls for a reduction of air pollution in the northern region surrounding Beijing by 25%, and 20% in the Yangtze River Delta.
Already, strict limitations on coal use in major urban areas, including Beijing and Shanghai, are in place. Planning to cap total coal production at 4.1 billion tons as of 2015, the government said in October it will no longer approve new coal mining projects below 300,000 metric tons (330,000 short tons), effectively banning the small, unregulated mines that have contributed to the coal glut. Hundreds of small mines have already closed, and the government has also taken steps to restrict imports of “dirty” coal—i.e., coal with high levels of ash and sulfur. (Although China’s coal market is oversupplied, imports continue because domestic transport issues mean it’s often cheaper to purchase coal shipped from Indonesia or Australia than buy domestic coal from the northern provinces of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia.)
At the same time, though, China is embarking on a grandiose plan not to shut down the coal industry but to move it inland, away from the big cities of the coast and from the prying eyes of international environmental groups. As I reported for Fortune from Shanxi Province in April, coal producers, under the direction of the central and provincial governments, are building huge “coal bases” in the northwest provinces that will include large mines, power plants connected to coastal cities via gigantic high-voltage transmission lines, huge plants to convert coal to liquid fuel, and related facilities such as concrete plants and chemical plants.
This huge migration and consolidation may well clean up the skies in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, thus reducing rates of respiratory disease and deaths linked to air pollution. It could also rationalize the coal industry, better matching supply to demand, and reduce China’s imports of foreign oil. What it won’t do is reduce the country’s overall carbon emissions; in fact, it could drastically increase them, as more coal gets burned and more carbon-intensive processes – particularly coal-to-liquids conversion – are expanded.
“We are very concerned” about the coal-base plan, says Ailun Yang, a senior associate with the World Resources Institute who focuses on energy issues in China. “Enforcing tougher air pollution standards along the coast will lead to shutting down coal plants, and create demand for a lot more gas. The western parts of China want to supply the gas by turning coal into gas. That process will be very, very bad for the world.”
Headline writers often refer to China’s “addiction” to coal. The relationship might be better thought of as a bad marriage, where neither partner can afford to leave. China needs the coal industry to fuel its demand for energy, which will surely continue to rise as the economy grows (even at rates of 7% to 8% a year, rather than the red-hot 10% to 12% annually of the last decade) and the middle class expands. The coal industry, of course, requires rising demand to continue to grow, to generate returns on its huge capital investments of the last decade, and to provide jobs for the hundreds of thousands of people who work in coal mines, coal plants, and related industries. In Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang, entire cities depend on coal production and processing.
Coal in China has created an economy within an economy, and reducing the size of the coal industry would result in massive unemployment across large swaths of the country. Notwithstanding China’s huge push on renewable energy and natural gas, it’s hard to see how this co-dependency will be broken any time soon.
That’s not to say there’s no hope. China’s overall energy intensity (the amount of energy required to produce a given unit of GDP) has gone down in recent years, as the export-led economy shifts toward higher-tech products and services. Most areas of the country are on track to meet or exceed energy-conservation targets for 2015, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (as reported by Reuters), and the rate of growth in energy use is expected to fall by half this year compared to 2013. According to China-based researchers for Greenpeace, the total amount of coal burned in the first three-quarters of 2014 was 1% to 2% lower than the same period a year earlier.
“The data suggests the world’s largest economy is finally starting to radically slow down its emission growth,” wrote the Greenpeace analysts.
Still, the coal beast on the mainland continues to grow. In October, just as the results of the Tsinghua University study of coal fatalities was being released, the national news agency Xinhua reported that a huge coal field, containing 12.8 billion tons, had been discovered in western Xinjiang. Mining has already begun. | Alarming new studies about the deadly toll of the country's coal addiction are adding urgency to a government plan to overhaul the industry. | 68.04 | 0.68 | 1 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/do-the-coyotes-have-a-goalie-conundrum-111714 | http://web.archive.org/web/20141121123052id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/do-the-coyotes-have-a-goalie-conundrum-111714 | Coyotes may have a goalie conundrum | 20141121123052 | Updated NOV 18, 2014 10:42a ET
The Coyotes have a goalie conundrum.
Devan Dubnyk came within five minutes and 50 seconds of posting back-to-back shutouts on Arizona's just-completed, three-game road trip, stopping 33 shots in a 2-1 win over Edmonton.
Arizona is 4-0-1 in games Dubnyk has started. He has the hot hand and the team is playing well in front of him.
The problem is that Mike Smith is still the No. 1 goalie. The Coyotes are in Year 2 of a six-year deal that will pay Smith a total of $34 million ($6 million this season). The continued belief among the coaches and general manager Don Maloney is that the Coyotes will only go as far as Smith can carry them.
Maybe this dilemma will sort itself out in time, but the Coyotes are 4-9 when Smith plays, and his stats -- 3.43 goals against average and .889 save percentage -- don't compare favorably to Dubnyk's (2.25, .925).
"We've had some inconsistency in that position this year," Coyotes coach Dave Tippett told FOX Sports Arizona's Todd Walsh after Dubnyk beat his old team, the Oilers, on Sunday. "You come in and play solid and it really helps our case."
There is little defense for Smith's first three starts this season when he allowed 16 goals, but he hit a stretch of eight games where he played well in seven of them. It would be hard to find fault with the nine goals he allowed in his last two starts; losses to Dallas and Calgary, but he also could have made some big saves -- the kind of thing you'd expect from your No. 1 goalie.
Where: Gila River Arena, Glendale
Records: Washington 7-7-3; Arizona 8-9-1
Injuries: Arizona F David Moss (hand) and F Rob Klinkhammer (upper body) are day-to-day. There has been no update on D Brandon Gormley (right leg). Washington F Brooks Laich (left shoulder) and D Dmitry Orlov (broken wrist) are on injured reserve. F Liam O'Brien (lower body) is day-to-day.
Quick facts: The Caps' power play is ranked third in the NHL at 25.9 percent, but Washington is just 24th in total power play opportunities with 54. ... The Caps have been off since a 4-1 loss in St. Louis on Saturday. They flew to Arizona after that game. ... The Caps recalled former Coyote Chris Brown from Hershey (AHL) and he could face his old team. ... The Caps used roughly $12 million in cap space to sign defensemen Brooks Orpik, Matt Niskanen and a backup goaltender Justin Peters this offseason. The Coyotes just lit up Peters in Washington on Nov. 2, scoring six goals on 30 shots. Peters has a 3.15 goals against average and a .882 save percentage. Orpik has no goals, four points and has a rating of minus-7. Niskanen has no goals, five points and is minus-3.
On the other hand, the team has undoubtedly played better in front of Dubnyk. While Dubnyk faced a healthy dose of shots in Edmonton, Tippett noted for the second consecutive game that the Coyotes did a good job of limiting quality chances and keeping those shots to the outside. In other words, they played the way Tippett wants them to play.
"He was solid just like the other night," Tippett said of Dubnyk. "We blocked a lot of shots in front of him, but he was big and solid in net. He gave us another really strong game.
"We want to play a certain way all the time whoever is in there. For whatever reason ... we've played well in front of him."
The dilemma for Tippett and goalie coach Sean Burke is how to read that. Five games is too small a sample size to draw grand conclusions. The team could start playing well in front of Smith and all would be right again.
But in the short-term, how do the Coyotes not ride the hot hand when they have already fallen off the Western Conference playoff pace and Tippett has stressed how important it is to stay with the pack and get off to a good start this season?
The West looks even more challenging this season with Vancouver, Nashville, Calgary and Winnipeg all jumping into the playoff picture.
It's important not to let hysteria drive decisions 18 games into the season. Tippett and Maloney both have good track records in that regard. Dubnyk has done his best to distance himself from any controversy and has unfailingly supported Smith throughout the season.
"We always stick together," he told Walsh. "I used to play a lot of games, too and I know there's times during a season where the other guy is going to get a couple in a row. That's the way it is. It doesn't change the situation here."
Dubnyk acknowledges the team has played well in front of him.
"We've talked about trying to be more consistent, but I've certainly had a lot of consistency in front of me," he said. "I don't know if there's any rhyme or reason to that, but I certainly appreciate the way the guys have played in front of me."
At the same time, he doesn't expect his role to change.
"That's part of being a backup goalie," he said. "Just because you play a good game and win doesn't mean you're going to get the next one."
Follow Craig Morgan on Twitter | Arizona is 4-0-1 in games goalie Devan Dubnyk has started; 4-9 in games Mike Smith has started. | 44.64 | 1 | 4.68 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/misty-copeland-vh1-reality-show | http://web.archive.org/web/20141123195449id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/misty-copeland-vh1-reality-show | Ballerina Misty Copeland Starring in New Dance Reality Show | 20141123195449 | 11/20/2014 AT 07:45 PM EST
As a soloist in the American Ballet Theatre and the subject of a widely popular
can now add TV star to her résumé.
Oxygen announced a new series, tentatively titled
in which Copeland, 32, will mentor aspiring dancers as they follow their dreams in N.Y.C.
"With the opportunity of a lifetime and chance to catapult to the top of the ballet world, these aspiring dancers' passion, commitment and hard work will be center stage in Misty's Master Class," says the network's press release.
Copeland – who didn't take her first ballet lesson until she was 13 – knows what it takes to succeed in the dance world.
"During rehearsal season, I take an hour-and-a-half ballet class every morning and rehearse up to eight hours a day, five days a week," she tells PEOPLE.
Despite being criticized when she was younger for having a body that "is what a dancer's shouldn't be, with breasts and muscle and bulky legs," Copeland remained dedicated to her craft and went on to become the second African American soloist in the American Ballet Theatre.
Hopefully, she will pass along that same perseverance to her new students.
"Don't let other people's negative words define you," she says. | The American Ballet Theatre soloist will mentor aspiring dancers for a new show on Oxygen | 17.2 | 0.933333 | 2.666667 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2014/12/02/sprint-cut-rates-att-verizon/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141203124427id_/http://fortune.com/2014/12/02/sprint-cut-rates-att-verizon/ | Sprint cuts rates in half to win AT&T, Verizon customers | 20141203124427 | Sprint’s latest plan to compete with its two larger rivals? Woo AT&T and Verizon customers by offering to cut their phone bills in half if they switch to Sprint.
The Overland Park, Kansas company announced that deal on Tuesday, promising “unlimited talk and text” and a matched data allowance at half the rate of what current Verizon and AT&T customers are currently paying for their monthly plans. Billing it as “The Cut Your Bill in Half Event,” Sprint also promised to pay up to $350 toward customers’ early termination fees or installment bill balances in an offer that will officially launch on Friday.
Sprint S CEO Marcelo Claure called it “the best value in wireless” in the company’s announcement. “It’s as simple as this: Bring Sprint your Verizon or AT&T bill along with your phone and we’ll cut your rate plan in half. That’s a 50 percent savings on your rate plan every month. And this great deal is not just a promotion. This will be the customer’s ongoing price,” Claure said in a statement.
The limited-time offer is a sign that Sprint, the nation’s third-largest mobile carrier, now sees price competition as the best way to battle AT&T T and Verizon VZ . Earlier this year, Sprint and its parent company — Japan’s SoftBank — backed off a $32 billion plan to purchase smaller carrier T-Mobile US TMUS after the two sides failed to reach a deal that could have created a larger mobile company better suited to take on AT&T and Verizon.
Interestingly, Sprint’s new rate offer does not extend to T-Mobile customers. | The offer is the latest attempt by the third-largest carrier to compete with its larger rivals. | 16.631579 | 0.947368 | 2.105263 | medium | high | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2014/12/04/richard-branson-virgin-cruise/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141204204756id_/http://fortune.com/2014/12/04/richard-branson-virgin-cruise/ | Richard Branson's Virgin takes on the cruise industry with Bain's help | 20141204204756 | Virgin Group, the investment vehicle of colorful British entrepreneur Richard Branson, is taking to the high seas, promising to upend the cruising industry with a cruise line business.
Virgin Cruises, with the backing of lead investment partner Bain Capital, will design and construct two new world-class ships with the goal of modernizing what customers expect from a cruise.
“We plan to shake up the cruise industry and deliver a holiday that customers will absolutely love,” said Branson of his plans to bring his travel business to a new realm beyond planes, trains, and spaceships.
Virgin would not say when it would set sail for the first time, but it typically takes at least two years to build such a ship.
But when Branson does eventually break a champagne bottle on one of his ships, he’ll be taking on a few formidable, well-established competitors—Carnival Corp RCL operates 101 cruise ships across its brands, while Royal Caribbean RCL has 41, with another eight in the pipeline.
Both companies have been trying to update the cruising experience for modern tastes. For example, Royal Caribbean just launched its Quantum of the Seas, an ultra-modern ship that offers simulated sky-diving and has an onboard amusement park, among other features.
Virgin Cruises will be led by Tom McAlpin, a former president of the Disney cruise business and most recently the president and CEO The World, Residences at Sea. Virgin Cruises did not disclose either the size or the terms of Bain’s investment, but Sky News reported recently that Bain’s investment would involve hundreds of millions of dollars.
Branson’s travel businesses has had its ups and downs of late: Virgin America, a U.S. airline, had its
last month, but Virgin Galactic, a space tourism business, suffered a major setback when a test flight failed in October. | Virgin Group is launching a cruise line business, promising to shake up the industry. | 22.375 | 0.9375 | 2.5625 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2014/12/12/wage-watch-battle-at-atlantic-citys-taj-mahal-casino-comes-to-a-showdown/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141213112712id_/http://fortune.com/2014/12/12/wage-watch-battle-at-atlantic-citys-taj-mahal-casino-comes-to-a-showdown/ | Battle at Atlantic City's Taj Mahal casino comes to a showdown | 20141213112712 | Union v. Trump war over Taj Mahal casino gets even hotter
The ongoing war between the owner of the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City and the Unite Here union that represents more than 1,100 Taj Mahal workers will come to a head early next week.
In a letter sent to Unite Here Local 54 President Robert McDevitt on Thursday, Trump Entertainment Resorts CEO Bob Griffin said that the union has until 5 p.m. on Monday to drop its appeal of a bankruptcy court ruling that ordered the cancellation of employee health insurance and pension plans. Doing so will keep the Taj Mahal open and its thousands of workers employed, the letter says. Otherwise, Trump Entertainment has threatened to shutter the casino.
Griffin wrote that he thought the union and Trump Entertainment had agreed to a deal earlier this week, but the union never officially signed on. A representative for Local 54 did not immediately return Fortune‘s request for comment.
Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn, the Taj’s sole debt holder, has said that he will take over ownership of the casino and invest $100 million in it in exchange for the cancellation of $286 million of its debt, but that deal is dependent on significant tax breaks that the government has so far denied. (The state senate is currently considering a financial and tax assistance package for the Atlantic City government and its casinos.)
Trump Entertainment has said that it would close the floundering Taj on December 20. If the casino does indeed fold, it will be the fifth one in Atlantic City to do so this year. Atlantic City started 2014 with 12 casinos but, so far, The Atlantic Club, Revel, The Showboat, and Trump Plaza have already called it quits.
Wal-Mart workers notch two big wins
Wal-Mart workers, who have long complained of the company’s poor pay, logged two victories this week.
In the first, Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillan told CBS This Morning that the retail giant will soon boost the pay of its lowest paid workers. “We’re gonna make some changes in a few months that will create a situation where no Walmart associate in the United States makes federal minimum wage. We’ll be ahead of that with our starting wage,” he said.
About 6,000 of the retailer’s 1.3 million workers in the U.S. earn the minimum wage. The company has been the target of protests by Our Walmart, a union-backed group of Wal-Mart workers that’s demanding full-time work and pay of $15 per hour.
A National Labor Relations Board judge handed Wal-Mart workers a second win in a ruling that store managers at two locations in California had acted unlawfully by disciplining employees for going on strike and threatening to close a store if employees joined a group calling for higher pay.
NLRB administrative law judge Geoffrey Carter found that one Wal-Mart manager had gone as far as to say, “If it were up to me, I’d shoot the union.” In another instance, a manager, referring to a rope used to pull heavy loads, told an Our Walmart supporter, “If it was up to me, I would put that rope around your neck.”
Carter also determined that it was illegal for managers to tell employees that their co-workers who decided to strike would soon be seeking alternative employment.
The company has disputed the judge’s finding and is considering an appeal.
Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein: Labor champion?
At a conference on Thursday, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein expressed concern over the state of the nation’s workers.
When asked at The New York Times DealBook Conference about corporations using capital to buy back stock from their shareholders, Blankfein suggested that capital could be invested in hiring or expansion instead.
Later, in response to a question about the sharing economy—including Goldman’s role in raising money from its high-net-worth clients for Uber—Blankfein said that the efficiency of the sharing economy “can sometimes be the enemy of maximizing the labor force.” He added: “The efficiencies are coming at the expense of labor. That’s creating all sorts of problems for the country.” | The Taj Mahal's owners says the United Here union has until Monday to approve a deal to save the casino. That and other news from the world of worker pay. | 24.515152 | 0.757576 | 1.484848 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.foxsports.com/boxing/story/UFC-on-FOX-main-event-111211 | http://web.archive.org/web/20141213180502id_/http://www.foxsports.com/boxing/story/UFC-on-FOX-main-event-111211 | UFC on FOX main event - News | 20141213180502 | Updated Jul 1, 2014 5:22 PM ET
Cain Velasquez's reign as UFC’s heavyweight champ lasted 13 months, a span that lacked a title defense because of his recovery from shoulder surgery.
His first attempt at defending that belt was over not long after it started.
Junior dos Santos stuns Cain Velasquez to nab the UFC heavyweight title in the UFC on FOX.
Junior dos Santos used an overhand right that dropped Velasquez, who was subsequently pummeled with lefts and rights before the fight was stopped 1:04 into the first round in the UFC on FOX debut at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., on Saturday night.
"It was my fault," Velasquez said in the post-fight news conference. "I didn’t pressure enough. The game plan was to go in there and pressure. I waited back too long. I was playing dos Santos’ game."
Santos has some of the quickest fists in the UFC, but his ground game — while capable — has been largely untested. But with one quick punch, dos Santos neutralized Velasquez, a former All-American wrestler at Arizona State who would have had the edge on the mat — if he were lucid.
"I have no words to say what I am feeling," dos Santos said from the octagon as tears began to well up in his eyes. "It’s amazing, my life. I want to say thank you to my family. I have a lot of good people around me."
Velasquez said he "saw everything" as he fell to the mat, but his body "wasn’t really reacting." He said he agreed with referee John McCarthy’s decision to stop the fight.
This was the second time in the past three heavyweight title fights that it failed to reach the second round. Dos Santos will face the winner of the Brock Lesnar-Alistair Overeem bout at UFC 141 on Dec. 30.
"I don’t have any preference," dos Santos said on whom he’d like to face. "It doesn’t matter who my next opponent will be. I am not thinking about that now. I will go back to Brazil for a big, big barbecue for my family."
Asked whom he’d pick to win, dos Santos said Lesnar.
Dos Santos said during a broadcast interview that he was "not 100 percent" and hinted at a knee injury during the post-fight news conference. There had been rumors that Velasquez had suffered a knee injury of his own in training, but he told reporters afterward that he had nothing more than usual nagging injuries.
This was the first loss for Velasquez — who beat Lesnar in the same arena in October 2010 to earn the heavyweight crown — in 10 professional fights.
"I think you learn a lot from losses," said Velasquez, a California native of Mexican descent who had the support of thousands of fans at Honda Center who displayed the colors of the Mexican flag. "From wrestling so long, we have losses throughout our careers. This is no different. I strayed from the game plan. I will learn not to do that again, even for a little bit."
The main event was originally scheduled to headline next Saturday’s UFC 139 card, but was moved up to headline the initial FOX broadcast. The future UFC events on FOX will feature multiple bouts.
There were eight fights on the undercard before the main event got under way. Benson Henderson defeated Clay Guida by unanimous decision in the undercard headliner, which is expected to lead to a shot at UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar when the UFC returns to Japan on Feb. 25.
Dustin Poirier moved toward featherweight contention with a submission win over Pablo Garza, while Ricardo Lamas came back after falling behind early to submit Cub Swanson in their featherweight encounter.
DaMarques Johnson scored a first-round TKO just 1:34 into the first round of his welterweight bout when he knocked his opponent Clay Harvison to the canvas and pounced on him, raining strikes down before the referee called the bout to a halt.
In his first UFC bout, Darren Uyenoyama beat MMA legend Kid Yamamoto by decision in a bantamweight bout. Robert Peralta scored a third-round TKO over Mackens Semerzier in a featherweight encounter, while Alex Caceres, Mike Pierce and Aaron Rosa all scored victories in their bouts. | Dos Santos KOs Velasquez in first round, takes UFC heavyweight
title. | 60.142857 | 0.785714 | 1.214286 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/funny-or-die-reveals-ending-serial-podcast | http://web.archive.org/web/20141218073627id_/http://www.people.com/article/funny-or-die-reveals-ending-serial-podcast | Funny or Die Reveals Ending to Serial Podcast : People.com | 20141218073627 | 12/17/2014 AT 09:30 PM EST
No need to tune in to the season finale of the hit podcast
on Thursday – the guys over at Funny or Die have cracked the case!
Sarah Koenig has brought out the detective in all of us over the past few months with her captivating (and addicting) investigation into the murder of 17-year-old Hae Min Lee back in 1999 – a crime for which her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, is currently serving a life sentence.
But did Syed really do it? And if not, who did?
These are the questions that many of Koenig's millions of listeners are expecting her to answer Thursday in the 12th and final podcast – and they may be setting themselves up for some serious disappointment.
's hilarious parody of the mounting pressure on Koenig to solve what could be an unsolvable case – plus get their take on how the finale will really end. | The comedy website teases the much anticipated finale of Sarah Koenig's popular NPR podcast | 11.8 | 0.533333 | 0.8 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/sun-devils-complete-fall-from-grace-with-rivalry-loss-112814 | http://web.archive.org/web/20141220150537id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/sun-devils-complete-fall-from-grace-with-rivalry-loss-112814 | Sun Devils complete fall from grace with rivalry loss | 20141220150537 | TUCSON, Ariz. -- As improbable as was Arizona State's rise, so too was its fall. In a matter of three weeks, the Sun Devils went from darlings in the driver's seat to duds with an also-ran finish.
No. 13 ASU on Friday bookended its fall from grace with a 42-35 loss to rival and No. 11 Arizona in Tucson, a loss that gave the Wildcats their first Pac-12 South title and a second date with No. 2 Oregon in next week's Pac-12 championship game.
"They were the better team today," said ASU quarterback Mike Bercovici, who relieved Taylor Kelly in the third quarter. "I mean, 9-3, at the end of the day, we have more in the wins column than losses so it's a winning season, but our expectations are 15-0.
"I'm not going to say (the season) is a letdown, but we know we could have achieved more."
Added coach Todd Graham: "Our program is about winning championships. So we're very disappointed today, especially in this game."
Two weeks ago, a night before ASU prepared to play a struggling Oregon State team in Corvallis, the Sun Devils were in the College Football Playoff conversation. They were 8-1, ranked No. 6 in the country and in control of the Pac-12 South with a manageable path back to the conference title game. Late the next night, all that was gone.
"The Oregon State game, that's one you'd like to have back," Graham said. "But either way you've got to win this game to win the Pac-12 championship, and we knew that."
ASU (9-3, 6-3 Pac-12) rebounded after the Oregon State loss to beat Washington State and set up a potential winner-take-all game in Tucson. All either team needed was for Stanford to upset Pac-12 South front runner UCLA and the division crown would remain in the state of Arizona.
Stanford did its part and beat UCLA 31-10 at the Rose Bowl before the game in Tucson ended. ASU couldn't deliver on its end, falling 40 yards shy of tying the game and at minimum sending it to overtime -- though Graham said he already had a two-point play drawn up.
"It hurts because obviously I wanted to be in San Francisco next week," Graham said. "We fell seven points short, but I wish them the best. They won, and they were the better team today."
With ASU's reign as Pac-12 South champions over, the Sun Devils have little choice but to look forward. They will play in a third straight bowl game, though where remains unclear. They also have a shot at winning a 10th game to give them back-to-back seasons of at least 10 wins for the first time since 1972 and 1973.
"We're going to rise up," Bercovici said. "We're going to go get that 10th win for the seniors."
Bercovici stepped in after ASU benched three-year senior starter Taylor Kelly in his final Pac-12 game. Kelly completed 13 of 22 passes for 133 yards and two touchdowns and was sacked five times when Bercovici took over with three and a half minutes left in the third and ASU trailing 35-21.
Bercovici, who was 2-1 as ASU's starter when Kelly was sidelined by a broken foot, completed 2 of 4 passes on his first series, which went just 11 yards. But on his second series, Bercovici led ASU 65 yards to the end zone to pull within a touchdown.
"We felt like we needed a spark," Graham said. "Being behind, we felt that Mike's ability to throw the ball would help us, so we were trying anything. Whether that was a mistake or not, I don't know, but I know we just had to do something to generate some offense."
ASU hadn't scored since Arizona (10-2, 7-2) muffed a punt late in the second quarter. Perhaps worse, though, was the Sun Devils left at least 10 points on the field in the first half. After driving within inches of the end zone on its third offensive series, ASU couldn't punch the ball in and turned it over on downs.
"That killed us," Graham said. "That's really bad."
Zane Gonzalez missed also a 45-yard field goal early in the second quarter.
Bercovici, who finished 14 of 22 for 123 yards and a touchdown, threw a fourth-quarter interception that set up the Wildcats for a quick score.
But ASU's issues were not limited to offense. The defense gave up touchdowns of 69 yards and 72 yards. Arizona running back Nick Wilson scored three times and finished with 178 yards to win MVP honors.
Hampering the defense: the absence of safety Jordan Simone, who was ruled out before the game with lingering issues related to a Stinger.
"That was somewhat of a shock," Graham said. "That hurt us."
Redshirt freshman James Johnson started in Simone's place, but Simone had become nearly irreplaceable on ASU's defense.
"James played very well, but Jordan and his leadership, that's just something totally different," senior safety Damarious Randall said.
Making matters worse, spur linebacker Laiu Moeakiola -- considered the quarterback of the defense -- left at halftime with a leg injury and spent the rest of the game on crutches.
"That killed us," Graham said.
It proved a perfect storm of problems for the Sun Devils, yet they remained in the game until taking their last breath on an incompletion from Bercovici to receiver Jaelen Strong. In the end, they left to return to Tempe with a bitter taste in their mouths, having lost to Arizona for the first time under Graham.
ASU should be able to take pride in having overachieved this season. This was a team that lost nine defensive starters on defense and five on offense, a perfect candidate to take a step back in Graham's third season. Yet here they were in the final week of the regular season in position to repeat as Pac-12 South champions.
But after losing to their in-state rival and falling short when they got so close to playing for the Pac-12 title again, perspective is a bitter pill for the Sun Devils to swallow.
"Those guys are hurting in that locker room," Graham said. "We didn't get it done today, and this one hurts worse than any of 'em."
-- Graham said Kelly remains ASU's starting quarterback and will start in the to-be-determined bowl game.
-- With his first catch of the game, which went for 21 yards, Jaelen Strong went over 1,000 yards receiving this season. He has 1,056, which ranks 10th all time in ASU history. He also caught his 10th touchdown of the season, accomplishing the feat for just the 10th time in program history.
Follow Tyler Lockman on Twitter | As improbable as was Arizona State's rise, so too was its fall. In a matter of three weeks, the Sun Devils went from darlings in the driver's seat to duds with an also-ran finish. | 33.166667 | 1 | 42 | medium | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2014/12/22/ocwen-executive-chairman-to-resign-in-new-york-settlement/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141222130556id_/http://fortune.com/2014/12/22/ocwen-executive-chairman-to-resign-in-new-york-settlement/ | Ocwen executive chairman to resign in New York settlement | 20141222130556 | Ocwen Financial Corp’s executive chairman, William Erbey, will step down as part of a legal settlement with New York’s financial regulator, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Under an agreement to be signed as soon as Monday, Ocwen will acknowledge that it didn’t properly deal with distressed homeowners, may have saddled them with excessive charges from affiliated companies and failed to maintain adequate systems for servicing hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgages, the Journal said.
New York Financial Services superintendent Benjamin Lawsky accused the company of harming hundreds of thousands of borrowers by sending backdated letters about loan modifications and foreclosures, which violated state and federal laws.
In October, Ocwen said it set aside $100 million for a potential settlement with the New York banking regulator.
Ocwen is also facing scrutiny from New York state and the federal government over whether the mortgage servicer improperly stalled short sales of property to collect more fees, Bloomberg reported last week.
Erbey will step down by mid-January as part of a wide-ranging proposed consent order with the state Department of Financial Services, the Journal reported.
Ocwen will also pay $150 million toward New York housing programs and aid to foreclosed homeowners and appoint two outside directors subject to state consultation, the report said.
The state will appoint a new outside monitor to scrutinize every aspect of the company’s operations to insure they are changed to better protect borrowers, the Journal said.
Ocwen will also be prevented from making acquisitions and expanding until it satisfies the state that it has reformed its systems to protect the rights of New York borrowers, the Journal reported.
Representatives of Ocwen and the New York Department of Financial Services could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours. | Ocwen Financial Corp's executive chairman, William Erbey, will step down as part of a legal settlement with New York's financial regulator, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Under an agreement to be signed as soon as Monday, Ocwen will acknowledge that it didn't properly deal with distressed homeowners, may have… | 5.181818 | 0.939394 | 14.272727 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2014/09/22/images-that-are-off-season-universe-and-somewhere-between/IZgPDJYrLQGQzQySPM4a0M/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20141227005417id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/theater-art/2014/09/22/images-that-are-off-season-universe-and-somewhere-between/IZgPDJYrLQGQzQySPM4a0M/story.html | Images that are off season, in the universe, and somewhere between | 20141227005417 | Framingham is a long way from the Cape. Which makes Danforth Art an ideal site to exhibit Brian Kaplan’s “Not Your Vacation.” It runs there through Nov. 9, as does Sarah Pollman’s “Aura/Ground.”
Kaplan took the 15 color photographs in the show on the Cape, but they certainly don’t look like what people think of when they think of Cape Cod. This is an uncrowded, off-season, even wintry place. The images show ice floes, dirty windows, a snowy deck, a tossed-out mattress, a spilled ice cream cone — worse than that, a spilled ice cream cone in an empty parking lot.
As those words in the title “not” and “vacation” might indicate, incongruity is king. But is the incongruity more comic or desolate? And bear in mind that incongruity is a function of expectations. Take away any preconceptions about the Cape, and these photographs start to look a bit different. They’re about what just as much as where. The piled-up televisions (also in a parking lot) in “Sandcastle Resort” are what catch the eye. But notice how the image is as much about the play of parallel lines. The purity of geometry counters — or encases — the jumble of objects. And all 15 photographs have that remarkable Cape light. That’s one thing that’s never out of season.
Sarah Pollman’s “Aura/Ground” is binary. The photographs, all of which are color, come in two groups: five of gravestones, eight of moody nocturnal scenes. There’s nothing morbid about the former. The gravestones are as much sculptural as funerary, and handsomely so. These photographs are themselves binary, evoking past/present, death/life, hard/soft. Pollman juxtaposes the stones, which she shoots head on, with the softness of surrounding elements: leaf, grass, snow.
The night scenes are binary too: partly in focus and partly out. This adds to their sense of mystery. In “Staircase,” a man stands on a set of impressive-looking steps. Is he coming or going? Is the building a museum? City Hall? Library? In “Tree,” branches dominate the foreground. A small human figure stands in the distance, brightly illuminated but out of focus. The artificial light jumps out from the black background. It’s a reminder of the binary relationship that underlies all photographs, between light and darkness, here exaggerated to startling effect.
The title of the Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi’s show “Ametsuchi,” one of two that Lesley University is currently mounting of her work, suggests the extent of her ambition. A rough translation would be “song of the universe.” Both shows run through Oct. 30.
Kawauchi’s untitled color images — there are a dozen, along with a video installation — aim to evoke the wonder of life. “I investigate the connection between dreams and reality,” she writes, “I consider the beginning of things.”
That’s a tall order, not to mention a mite abstract. That Kawauchi succeeds, and rather spectacularly, is owing to her reliance on specificity. God, it has been said, is in the detail. So is wonder — or at least the communicable kind is. Kawauchi photographs controlled-fire burning in Japan. The images are at once straightforward and confounding. Blackened soil and empty sky share the frame with swirls and gouts of orange flame. The economist Joseph Schumpeter famously described the functioning of capitalism as “creative destruction.” What Kawauchi shows might be described in a no less paradoxical fashion. It’s meditative destruction.
The other Lesley show, “Illuminance,” is scattered and vague, as “Ametsuchi” is not. Vatic, not vague, is the effect Kawauchi is striving for. These 36 photographs — eight large, 28 small — show a variety of subjects: a lighted candle, a dead deer, the moon, a hand tying thread, a flock of pigeons. Presumably, there is there some higher unity to be found in such multiplicity. As to what that unity might be — beats me. | Brian Kaplan and Sarah Pollman have new photography exhibitions at Danforth Art, and Rinko Kawauchi at Lesley University. | 40.65 | 0.85 | 1.45 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/12/24/unbroken-shines-light-louis-zamperini-triumphs-face-bigotry-and-brutality/1IXrOWsXBuxpmFmTNiDKtN/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20141227093939id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/movies/2014/12/24/unbroken-shines-light-louis-zamperini-triumphs-face-bigotry-and-brutality/1IXrOWsXBuxpmFmTNiDKtN/story.html | ‘Unbroken’ shines a light on Louis Zamperini’s triumphs in the face of bigotry and brutality | 20141227093939 | World War II POW Louis Zamperini died in July at age 97.
Disappointment” is too harsh a word for “Unbroken,” the glossy, well-made, curiously remote movie that Angelina Jolie has made from Louis Zamperini’s life. A simple “less” may be more appropriate, and it has more to do with our expectations — how dearly readers loved Lauren Hillenbrand’s 2010 biography of Zamperini, how hyped the film version has been, how regally yet intimately its director, Angelina Jolie, has been working the media for months — than it relates to the broad canvas of the movie itself. “Unbroken” stirs a moviegoer by default; it’s an astounding story of human endurance that has been brought a little too safely to the screen.
Zamperini, who died this past July at 97 (he lived to see an early cut of the film), was the rough-and-ready son of Italian immigrants in Torrance, Calif., and “Unbroken” dramatizes the bigotry the boy (C.J. Valleroy) faced and the rebelliousness with which he responded. What kept him from the streets was an older brother (John D’Leo in the early scenes, Alex Russell later) who coaxed him to run track; in an edit you see coming a mile off, the child Louis sprints into adulthood, where he’s played by Jack O’Connell.
At 19, Zamperini ended up at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which Jolie stages with pomp, an eye for historical detail, and an ear cocked for the war waiting in the wings. I won’t spoil what happened there, but the movie turns a qualified triumph into a full-on cinematic one. Enlisting in the Army Air Force in 1941, Zamperini was marooned at sea when his plane experienced mechanical failure during a rescue mission; he and Russell “Phil” Phillips (Domhnall Gleeson, quietly excellent) survived for 47 days in a life raft. Captured by the Japanese, he then spent two years in a series of brutal POW camps. It is quite a life, or half of one.
By far the strongest, most dramatically compelling sections of “Unbroken” deal with Zamperini’s ordeal at sea and the events leading up to it. Jolie puts us right in the cockpits of those B-24 bombers and illustrates the men’s beleaguered camaraderie in the face of enemy danger and Allied bureaucracy. A third castaway, Francis “Mac” McNamara (Garrett Hedlund), is weaker than the other two, both physically and spiritually, and we’re invited to speculate on the qualities that differentiate those who endure and those who don’t. Sharks circle, the sun pounds down, and the movie catches the insignificance of their plight without once cutting to a shot of a tiny raft in a vast sea. On the contrary, we feel as close to their agony as our comfortable lives allow.
When “Unbroken” comes to land once more, though, and Zamperini is separated from Phillips and taken to first the Ofuna and then the Omori prison camps, the film settles into more than an hour of privation and abuse that lacks the immediacy of the ocean sequences. What happens to Zamperini is horrible, most of it at the hands of camp commander Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a.k.a. “The Bird.” He’s played by the Japanese rock musician Miyavi (real name Takamasa Ishihara) as a silky psycho-sadist, one minute cooing odd endearments in the hero’s ear, the next beating him bloody with the bamboo stick he carries everywhere.
Without diminishing the particulars of what Zamperini experienced or his struggles to stay alive, “Unbroken” settles into a rut of painstaking, impersonal craft. The brutalities blend into one another, and the film only catches its breath when Zamperini is briefly taken to Tokyo for a radio propaganda broadcast. In the scene that follows, The Bird lines up all the POWs in camp to punch the hero in the face, and the audience may be feeling they’re getting the same treatment by then. That’s as it should be, yet still the events seem to be taking place on the other side of a piece of glass.
It’s hard to put a finger on why “Unbroken” doesn’t connect the way it should. Is it that O’Connell, an up-and-coming British talent, doesn’t yet have the dynamism to hold the center of an epic? (See this year’s gritty jailhouse drama “Starred Up” if you want a better idea of what the actor can do.) Is it because the screenplay got caught between the big-screen emotionalism of Richard LaGravenese (“P.S. I Love You”) and William Nicholson (“Gladiator”) and the tartness of the Coen brothers? Because we’ve watched too many POW movies and this one never breaks through the conventions to breathe on its own?
Or is it because its maker is a child of Hollywood and now one of its royalty, so that “Unbroken” is, on the surface, everything a well-appointed movie based on this remarkable life should be — except surprising, individualistic, and fired with personal and artistic passion. Between Hillenbrand, Jolie, the studio marketing machine, and the media coverage of Zamperini’s passing, we may have been sold “Unbroken” too well, become too familiar with the tale. A great story has become merely a good film, and we’re left with a souvenir that reminds us of the man it commemorates without truly bringing him back to life.
• Anna Kendrick goes ‘Into the Woods’
• In reversal, ‘The Interview’ to play in US, Boston
• There’s a new ‘Gambler’ in town
• The final ‘Hobbit’ marches off a CGI cliff
• It’s the hard-knock life, retooled, in ‘Annie’ | “Unbroken” review: The story of Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell), who raced at the 1936 Olympics, survived 47 days lost at sea, and endured two years of brutality in a Japanese POW camp. | 27.317073 | 0.853659 | 1.731707 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2014/12/29/is-the-sony-hack-corporate-americas-cybersecurity-wakeup-call/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20141229175859id_/http://fortune.com/2014/12/29/is-the-sony-hack-corporate-americas-cybersecurity-wakeup-call/ | Is the Sony hack corporate America’s cybersecurity wakeup call? | 20141229175859 | Will the massive data theft at Sony ADR be the wake-up call we all need to get serious about cybersecurity?
With this latest in a string of highly publicized data breaches over the past 24 months – at Target TGT , eBay EBAY , Home Depot HD , JP Morgan Chase JPM , and others – business executives and corporate directors must confront to two truths: first, every company relies on information technology and the Internet; second, no corporate leader should be excused for failing to have in place programs to prevent and remediate cyber threats – whether stolen data, corrupted information, compromised identities, or worse.
The question is, how can executives, particularly those without technical background, know what to do? They don’t have to look hard for answers, because information technologists actually know a lot about how companies should protect themselves. Basic “cyber hygiene,” including one approach known by many security experts as Critical Security Controls, will thwart most attacks.
Last year, Jim Lewis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies identified four measures that stop more than 80% of all known attacks. They include: taking inventory of hardware; taking inventory of software; limiting administrative permissions; and automating network monitoring. These measures were also endorsed by Peter W. Singer, author of Cybersecurity and Cyber War, and Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
They’re basic steps — equivalent to brushing your teeth, flossing, and visiting the dentist twice a year. They allow an enterprise to know what’s connected to its networks and what’s running on those networks. They highlight the importance of knowing who has the ability to bypass, override, or change a network’s security settings, and they give organizations up-to-date and measurable information on the state of repair that the networks are in. When things go amiss, enterprises can, with the aid of these controls, move rapidly to respond. Many of the breaches we’ve seen recently could have been avoided with proper cyber hygiene.
Which raises the question: if they are so effective, why haven’t we seen more firms adopt them? Because until recently, the government viewed large data breaches as a problem for the nation’s intelligence community to deal with, while businesses treated intrusions as a nuisance or a cost of doing business.
Some experts criticize basic hygiene as not being comprehensive enough, insisting instead that literally hundreds of measures be included in any company’s cyber security strategy. Others argue that there is no “one size fits all” solution; that every organization must have its own remedy – an argument akin to saying that every car needs its own unique seatbelt system, and that every driver is responsible for finding, configuring and installing it.
To be sure, just as wearing seat belts won’t save you from all accidents or keeping your teeth clean won’t save you from all cavities, basic hygiene won’t stop every cyber attack. But it does represent the most important set of things to do first to limit and reduce the chances.
Every executive and board director should ask the following questions:
Indeed, many corporate business and security leaders have begun to focus on basic security hygiene – a move that may help explain why their companies are not showing up in the breach headlines. Over the long term, companies that succeed financially always seem to focus on the basics of business first – and keeping customers’ data safe is one of the most important business basics.
Accepting this responsibility will distinguish market leaders going forward. If leaders fail to do so, there really is no excuse.
Jane Holl Lute is president and CEO of the Council on Cybersecurity. Lute served as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013. | Tools are available for corporate leaders to do more to decrease their organization’s cyber risks, says Jane Holl Lute, president and CEO of the Council on Cybersecurity. | 23.258065 | 0.83871 | 3.483871 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/matthew-mcconaughey-jim-carrey-new-lincoln-commericials | http://web.archive.org/web/20141230061904id_/http://www.people.com/article/matthew-mcconaughey-jim-carrey-new-lincoln-commericials | First Look: See Matthew McConaughey's New Lincoln Commercial | 20141230061904 | Matthew McConaughey in Lincoln commercial
TalismanPHOTO for Lincoln Motor Company
12/29/2014 AT 05:30 PM EST
, the ball's back in your court.
in October, and now McConaughey is back with new ads for the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid.
In this set, McConaughey, 45, appears unfazed by Carrey's jabs – he continues with the the wistful prose and faraway gazes. This time, he offers some advice on finding balance, or what he calls "the sweet spot."
Matthew McConaughey in Lincoln commercial
TalismanPHOTO for Lincoln Motor Company
"It's not about huggin' trees. It's not about bein' wasteful, either. You just got to find that balance, for takin' care of yourself takes care of more than ⦠just yourself. That's the sweet spot," the actor says in one of the ads as he drives through Griffith Park overlooking the Los Angeles skyline.
last fall, Carrey, 52, pondered similar thoughts on life – McConaughey's life that is.
"Sometimes, you got to go back to actually move forward, and I don't mean go back and reminisce and chase ghosts," Carrey joked. "I mean take a big step back like go from winning an Oscar to doing a car commercial."
Check out McConaughey's new ad: | See exclusive photos from the new Lincoln commercials starring the Oscar winner | 21.333333 | 0.5 | 0.5 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/01/02/15/51/social-media-loving-kiwi-jihadi-mistakenly-broadcasts-his-location-via-twitter | http://web.archive.org/web/20150102063957id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/01/02/15/51/social-media-loving-kiwi-jihadi-mistakenly-broadcasts-his-location-via-twitter | Social media loving Kiwi Jihadi mistakenly broadcasts his location online | 20150102063957 | iBRABO was able to locate exactly where the New Zealand-born ISIL fighter was tweeting from. (Supplied, iBRABO)
A bumbling Kiwi Jihadi fighting for the ISIL terror group in Syria has accidently tweeted his location to the world.
New Zealander Mark John Taylor, who now goes by the name Mohammad Daniel or Abu Abdul Rahman, shot to international infamy in July after posting photos of his charred passport on Facebook and declaring he gone to Syria to achieve “martyrdom”.
But the social media-loving Jihadi has been forced to delete 45 of his most recent Twitter posts after discovering he was freely broadcasting his location to the world after failing to turn off his smartphone’s location tracking software.
Taylor’s tweets revealed that in October last year he was with ISIL forces in Kafar Roma, Syria – a known hotspot for insurgent activity.
Another tweet showed Taylor wearing a black beret sitting in what appears to be a car with several other ISIL members – their faces clearly identifiable.
Realising his gaffe, Taylor quickly deleted his tweets but not before open source intelligence group iBRABO managed to screen grab them.
Mark John Taylor in Syria. (3NEWS NZ)
“It’s a rookie social media mistake and one that intelligence and law enforcement agencies pray for when tracking criminals,” iBRABO founder and Canadian PhD candidate Jeff Weyers wrote online.
“The benefit of material like this when examining foreign fighters is it allows investigators to establish the extent to which an individual is tied to a terrorist group like ISIS.
“In this manner they can better justify potential criminal charges against the individual and at the very least build grounds for their detention and investigation upon their return.”
Several of the New Zealander's tweets clearly showed the faces of other ISIL fighters, providing valuable intelligence. (Supplied, iBRABO)
After revealing his location in Kafar Roma, Taylor appeared to drop off social media for several months before reappearing in the ISIL stronghold of Al Tabqah in early December.
Using his tweets, iBRABO was able to pinpoint the specific house, Taylor was located in in Al Tabqah.
iBRABO describes itself as an “open source intelligence research group” located in Ontario. Mr Weyers states his goal for the site is to identify, educate and hopefully dissuade “vulnerable persons” from joining violent extremist groups such as ISIL.
Taylor stopped tweeting a short time later and his account @m_taylor_kiwi has since been suspended by Twitter. His radio silence occurred at about the same time the Syrian Army started a strong offensive against ISIL forces, suggesting Taylor and his confederates were forced to fall back in a hurry.
Do you have any news photos or videos? | A bumbling Kiwi Jihadi fighting for the ISIL terror group in Syria has accidently tweeted his location to the world. | 24.52381 | 1 | 21 | medium | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2012/10/31/today-in-tech-disney-buys-lucasfilm-for-4-05-billion/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150103052007id_/http://fortune.com/2012/10/31/today-in-tech-disney-buys-lucasfilm-for-4-05-billion/ | Today in Tech: Disney buys LucasFilm for $4.05 billion | 20150103052007 | Also: the iPad Mini reviewed; is Wikipedia tapped out?
The iPad Mini [DARING FIREBALL]
“Wow, it feels like a Kindle.”
“Ew, the screen is terrible.”
That was my wife’s initial reaction when I handed her the iPad Mini to see what she, an avid daily user of an iPad 3, thought. Her initial reaction matched mine exactly, and perfectly encapsulates the experience. The iPad Mini is not a device you need to spend a lot of time with to understand. My snap reaction from a week ago remains unchanged after a week of daily use.
Apple shake-up signals Tim Cook era [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
With his revamp, Mr. Cook is putting his own stamp on Apple and its executive team. Since taking over from Mr. Jobs last year, Mr. Cook has made a series of decisions that deviate from Mr. Jobs’s management tack and style. He has backed efforts pushed by investors and employees such as a stock-buyback program and a charitable giving program that Mr. Jobs had previously opposed.
What Disney is really buying [FORTUNE]
On a Tuesday conference call, the company’s executives began mapping out Lucasfilm’s future. Disney will, for one, make more “Star Wars” movies. Following one slated for release in 2015, the company said “more feature films [are] expected to continue the ‘Star Wars’ saga and grow the franchise well into the future.” It will also find ways to use “Star Wars” throughout its businesses, including theme parks, consumer products, television and so on. “I’ve always believed that ‘Star Wars’ could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime,” George Lucas said in a statement. “I’m confident ‘Star Wars’ will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come.”
Surmounting the insurmountable: Wikipedia is nearing completion, in a sense [THE ATLANTIC]
But what if the decline in engagement has little to do with culture or the design of the site? What if, instead, it’s that there’s just less for new Wikipedians to do?
It may seem impossible for an encyclopedia of everything to ever near completion, but at least for the major articles on topics like big wars, important historical figures, central scientific concepts, the English-language Wikipedia’s pretty well filled out. (There is, of course, room for improvement in articles that have received less attention, but that is a different, yet still very important, set of challenges.) There’s always going to be some tidying — better citations, small updates, new links, cleaner formatting — but the bulk of the work, the actual writing and structuring of the articles, has already been done. “There are more and more readers of Wikipedia, but they have less and less new to add,” writes historian and Wikipedia editor Richard Jensen in the latest issue of The Journal of Military History.
When floodwaters rise, web sites may fall [THE NEW YORK TIMES]
“Suddenly, nobody could get online,” said Arianna Huffington, president and chief executive of The Huffington Post, which went offline about 7 p.m. Monday when the computer servers of Datagram, which distribute its work on the Internet, stopped working because of rising water in Lower Manhattan.
About six hours later, Huffington Post was online, but it crashed again several hours later. It was running again at 8 a.m. Tuesday.
Don’t miss the latest tech news. Sign up now to get Today in Tech emailed every morning. | Also: the iPad Mini reviewed; is Wikipedia tapped out? The iPad Mini [DARING FIREBALL] “Wow, it feels like a Kindle.” “Ew, the screen is terrible.” That was my wife’s initial reaction when I handed her the iPad Mini to see what she, an avid daily user of an iPad 3, thought. Her initial reaction matched… | 9.69863 | 0.986301 | 20.958904 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/patrick-corbin-out-for-season-after-tommy-john-surgery-032514 | http://web.archive.org/web/20150105022723id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/patrick-corbin-out-for-season-after-tommy-john-surgery-032514 | Corbin out for season after Tommy John surgery | 20150105022723 | Updated MAR 25, 2014 6:46p ET
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Diamondbacks left-hander Patrick Corbin underwent ligament replacement surgery to repair a tear in his left elbow, the Diamondbacks announced Tuesday.
The surgery, performed by noted specialist Dr. James Andrews, will keep Corbin from pitching this season, a year after he spring-boarded from a spring training competition for the final rotation spot to his first All-Star appearance.
"It's obviously a setback for him and for us, but you have to deal with these things," said D-backs bench Alan Trammell, pinch-hitting for manager Kirk Gibson on Tuesday after Gibson underwent knee surgery.
"Every club in baseball has to deal with these things. We're dealing with it now, and we'll see what happens. Every time these things happen, it is an opportunity for somebody to step up, and hopefully that happens here. That's oftentimes how careers are started, people get their foot in the door and then take off.
Randall Delgado is expected to rejoin the rotation in Corbin's absence, with top prospect Archie Bradley and hard thrower Bo Schultz to open the season at Class AAA Reno.
Brandon McCarthy will start the U.S. opener against San Francisco on March 31, with Wade Miley, Delgado, Bronson Arroyo and Trevor Cahill expected to follow. McCarthy is to start the exhibition game against the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday, and the others are in line to follow him for the final exhibition games this week.
Corbin, 24, was 14-8 with a 3.41 ERA last season, when he won his first nine decisions and undefeated into July. He had 23 quality starts, tied for sixth in the NL, and he threw 70 percent of his first pitches for strikes, the highest ratio in the league.
"You never prepare for something like that. It's tough," D-backs right-hander Josh Collmenter said. "He was going to be the guy to pitch the first game, and just off what he did last year, you were looking for him to even improve on that. Who knows how good he could have been this year? It's unfortunate there, but the way Tommy John (surgery) goes now, a lot of guys bounce back. So we lose him for the year, but he should be ready to go next year. With him being so young, you hope it is not a setback for his career."
Corbin said he had felt some discomfort most of spring training but considered it normal soreness. But he reported a significant increase in pain on the final three pitches he threw in the seventh inning of a March 15 start against Cleveland. That was to be his final tuneup before pitching the regular-season opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Australia.
"It is never good when teammates get injured, but you have to move on," first baseman and fellow All-Star Paul Goldschmidt said. "Every team is going to deal with injuries and different things. You can either dwell on it or can move on and do the best you can."
Corbin is the latest in a line of young pitchers to have Tommy John surgery this spring, after Oakland right-hander Jarrod Parker and Atlanta right-handers Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy. Parker and Medlen had the surgery for the second time. Parker's first came while he was with the D-backs in 2009.
"The great thing is, we have a lot of experience in our rotation," Collmenter said. "They've all been doing it for a couple of years, and it doesn't change for them. They move up one spot in the rotation, and I don't think that is going to faze them."
D-backs left-hander Matt Reynolds and right-hander Daniel Hudson are recovering from Tommy John surgeries last season. Hudson could be back in mid to late summer after his second operation. Reynolds could return in September, but the D-backs will not rush either.
With a normal 12-month recovery period, Corbin could be available for the 2015 season.
Gibson had arthroscopic surgery to remove loose cartilage in his left knee Tuesday. He is expected to be back in camp in the next day or two at longest.
"He's going to be on crutches for at least a few days,'' said Trammell. "It's been bothering him for a while. If there is a good time to have it done, he at least will have most of the week to get back into action."
Gibson will be on the bench for the final exhibition games this week, Trammell said, but it is unlikely he will make the trip to the mound to make pitching changes until the regular-season opener March 31 against San Francisco.
Follow Jack Magruder on Twitter | D-backs hope to have All-Star pitcher back for start of 2015; Brandon McCarthy to start in U.S. opener vs. Giants. | 36.384615 | 0.846154 | 1.615385 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/04/health-care-job-tips/8H0FLnKv0PttCIIMcdnmgN/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150107132508id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/01/04/health-care-job-tips/8H0FLnKv0PttCIIMcdnmgN/story.html | Health care job tips | 20150107132508 | • Before you sign up for medical training programs, grill the schools on their job placement rates.
• If you’re just out of nursing school, your best prospects initially may be at a long-term care facility.
• Consider home health jobs as a gateway into the health field. Jobs are plentiful, and many agencies offer training. | Tips for finding jobs in health care. | 8.5 | 0.625 | 0.625 | low | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2015/01/08/the-legal-issues-that-could-change-franchising-forever/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150108193411id_/http://fortune.com/2015/01/08/the-legal-issues-that-could-change-franchising-forever/ | The legal issues that could change franchising forever | 20150108193411 | Franchising usually makes it into the mainstream press when Taco Bell jams a new snack chip into its burritos. But in the past year, franchising has been making front-page news for other reasons: Several issues that have been simmering for years came to a head, pitting franchisors against franchisees and labor advocates against both.
The results of those conflicts—and their ultimate consequences for franchising as a whole—aren’t at all clear, obscured by hyperbole, legalese and a lack of guidance from regulators. Whether these issues will reshape franchising for the better, as some argue, destroy franchising as we know it—or change nothing at all—remains to be seen. Whatever the case, the legal and political fights are worth watching.
The most publicized spat was the passage of California Senate Bill 610, commonly known as the fair franchising act, which, to a large degree, stemmed from a dispute between McDonald’s and a franchisee. Kathryn Slater-Carter and her husband, Ed, had operated two McDonald’s MCD locations in Daly City, Calif., since 1983. In 2011, corporate headquarters notified them that the franchise agreement for their unit in the Serramonte Center mall would not be renewed upon its expiration in 2014, but that the company would continue the lease, enabling Slater-Carter to sell the unit to another franchisee and recoup some equity. The company even helped her find buyers for the restaurant, she says.
But in February 2014, McDonald’s decided not to renew the lease, meaning Slater-Carter couldn’t sell the business. After 30 years running the franchise, she would walk away with no payday. As a consolation prize she sold off all the equipment she could from the restaurant.
“Essentially, what it comes down to is the franchisee is the last to know and the first to be punished and first to have his pocket picked,” says Slater-Carter, who still runs her other McDonald’s unit. “I think when it’s done with people who have conjoined interests and are working toward the same end, it’s a good business model. But corporations get so big, and they have to take care of the corporation. They start to see franchisees as a necessary evil.”
It’s a problem franchisee advocates have shouted about for years. In fact several states, including Iowa and Rhode Island, have passed versions of SB 610, guaranteeing franchisees some equity. But many more, including Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania and Maine, have introduced similar measures that have not succeeded. Since California has such a huge franchising sector, its bill got the lion’s share of the attention.
“What’s happened is that over the years, attorneys for franchisors have tightened franchise agreements to the point where franchisees don’t really own any equity in their business,” explains Jim Coen, executive director of the Maine Franchise Owners Association, which supported the bill in Maine. “When push comes to shove, in most franchise agreements franchisees don’t have anything but the equipment they buy. They have no right to the name, to their customer base, and because of noncompete clauses they can’t use the skills they’ve learned. Yet franchising sells units by telling people they can be in business for themselves.”
Slater-Carter’s experience led her to hire San Rafael, Calif., lawyer Peter Lagarias, who testified in favor of SB 610, which was introduced by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara). The bill wasn’t initially expected to go anywhere, but a coalition of franchisees and attorneys and associations put their support behind it and added amendments of their own.
The bill passed the state assembly in mid-August, setting off a public battle. The International Franchise Association (IFA), which opposed the legislation, began running online commercials arguing that the bill would hurt the economy. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which believed it would embolden franchisees to offer higher wages, began running radio ads supporting the measure. In late August, the state senate passed the heavily amended bill. But on Sept. 29, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the measure—a move that came as a shock to the bill’s proponents.
Robert Purvin, chairman and CEO of the nonprofit American Association of Franchisees and Dealers (AAFD), which sponsored SB 610, says the coalition and its partners may seek even stronger legislation in the future but are currently regrouping. “We were honestly dumbfounded when the governor vetoed the bill,” he admits. “It had passed with healthy majorities in both houses.”
Meanwhile, he says, the problems the bill addresses are getting worse. “Without a right of renewal for franchisees, the franchisor can evolve the contract terms to get worse and worse and worse,” Purvin says. “Franchisees really have no choice. The only way to protect their equity is to renew at whatever terms the franchisor says. Otherwise the franchisor can say they don’t want that location anymore.”
Michael Gray, a principal attorney at Gray Plant Mooty in Minneapolis who represents many large franchisors, disagrees. “SB 610 was a fix for a problem that didn’t exist, and it had the potential to create uncertainty, which fosters litigation. The governor’s veto was spot-on,” he says. “There is no empirical data that this bill was needed or that this is a gross problem.
In fact, the courts in California are very protectionist and pretty good at protecting franchisees. This bill would have just created uncertainty.”
The big problem, he argues, is inaccurate notions about the nature of the franchisor-franchisee relationship. “Franchising is a contractual relationship for a period of time,” he says. “What has happened is that a mentality is created where a franchisee says, ‘I’m entitled to this franchise for longer than the term I signed,’ especially if they’re successful and making money. But it’s a contractual relationship. Franchisees never should have the expectation that it will go longer than they signed on for.
“I equate it to a lease,” Gray adds. “If you rent a place for 10 years, you can’t go to the landlord at the end of the term and say, ‘You can’t lease this to anybody else.’ You leased it for a period of time. I don’t know why franchising is that much different.”
The IFA and others argue that equity protection for franchisees will hinder the franchisor’s ability to expand strategically and could affect quality and consistency if the company is not able to close underperforming stores or terminate franchisees who are not maintaining standards.
While SB 610 is shelved for now, another political storm is roiling in the franchise industry. On July 29, Richard F. Griffin Jr., general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), issued an opinion that McDonald’s could be considered a “joint employer” along with franchisees while assessing 43 labor complaints. In essence, his memo states that McDonald’s corporate is partially responsible for hiring and firing, setting wages and benefits, and dealing with employee behavior—tasks that have traditionally been left to the discretion of franchisees.
Critics fear that if this ruling is implemented widely, it will erode the independence of franchisees, as franchisors exercise more control. Some are concerned that it will cause systems to abandon franchising altogether.
IFA president and CEO Stephen Caldeira stated in a press conference in October that franchising is under attack by “unelected bureaucrats and union bosses” and that Griffin’s opinion is “deeply flawed and terribly misguided. … If implemented, his opinion would stunt job growth and create widespread uncertainty. We fear the general counsel has opened a Pandora’s box of costly labor complaints. By proposing such seismic changes, this supposedly independent body is caving to the [SEIU] and is undermining the franchise business model. It must be rejected before it does irreparable harm and before it does damage to the economy.”
Caldeira pointed out that since the July ruling, 61 other labor charges have been filed against 27 other franchisees, though it’s difficult to tell if those were spawned by the opinion or if they are just part of the 20,000 to 30,000 complaints the agency receives each year.
The IFA and 129 members of Congress sent Griffin letters asking him to clarify his thoughts. The IFA also announced plans to file a request under the Freedom of Information Act for any advice memoranda to help elucidate his ruling. At press time, the NLRB had not clarified its position or issued any other statements on the opinion.
The AAFD’s Purvin is also not a fan of the NLRB ruling, although he says it relates to the SB 610 debate. “Franchisor and franchisee agreements have become incredibly controlling; that’s why we’re beginning to see horrific rulings like the NLRB opinion,” he says. “It comes from an evolution of excessive control that developed over 150 years of franchising. As late as 1950, most franchisees were truly independent contractors. Increasing brand standards created a lot more uniformity and consistency in franchising, which was a great thing. But it’s become too much—so much so that now it can be alleged that franchisees are not even business owners at all, that they are employees of the franchisor.”
Adds attorney Gray: “There have been tweaks to the franchise model before, but this is talking about fundamentally changing the franchise relationship. And since it’s built on contracts, once you start throwing external forces on the system that it doesn’t anticipate, it can get very messy.”
Still, Gray isn’t worried about the opinion, predicting that it will spend a long time in court before being struck down. He thinks it’s a gambit by unions to have franchise and fast-food employees, who are notoriously hard to organize, classified as a single group, which may help in unionization efforts. He points to a 2014 case in the California Supreme Court, Patterson v. Domino’s Pizza, in which an employee sued the franchise after claiming that her supervisor sexually harassed her. The court ruled 4-3 that the franchisor couldn’t be held liable as an employer. Gray believes any similar suits will meet the same fate.
“Personally, I don’t think this NLRB ruling is going to happen,” he says. “We’re talking years and lots of legal hurdles. When Griffin sent this memo out, alarm bells went off unnecessarily. It’s a memo, not a ruling. The sky is not falling.”
THE BATTLE OVER MINIMUM WAGE
Another major issue that has been brewing in the past year is the minimum wage, galvanized by strikes by fast-food workers. Gray says the issue is simply another flank in the same battle that is animating the NLRB ruling.
“Increasing the minimum wage is a means of providing a perceived benefit to a large number of people,” he argues. “Those people are then amenable to unionization, because the unions can say, ‘We did that for you—join us and see what other ways you can benefit.’”
Coen of the Maine franchise owners’ group agrees that the minimum-wage movement is about union power, but he believes it also ties into fair franchising legislation and helps explain why the SEIU supported SB 610 and other franchising acts that improve franchisee equity. “The unions realize that if they can help franchisees increase their margins, then the franchisees can pay their employees a higher wage,” he says. “And I really think franchisees will pay higher wages instead of pocketing that income. The customer service experience at the counter is so important, franchisees want the best people they can get. The ones making minimum wage are cleaning tables or in the back. Franchisees shouldn’t be afraid of unions. They should be worried about protecting their equity.”
The test case is Seattle’s minimum wage act, passed in June. The law gives companies with 500 or more employees three years to raise their wages to $15 per hour; smaller businesses have up to seven years to increase pay. But the law treats franchisees as a single unit, with Subway, Burger King and dozens of other franchisee-owned businesses subject to the three-year phase-in—a situation the IFA is taking to court.
These cases seem to be dividing the franchise world along political lines, but Purvin has hopes that the franchise community will sit down and work through its issues instead of letting government intervene.
“Most franchisees have bet the farm on their brands,” he says. “We want the system to work to our mutual advantage. I would much prefer this happen at the conference table, not the legislature. Until franchisors are willing to have that dialogue, though, there need to be rules, and the parties involved need to act in good faith.”
Franchise Industry Not Without Hurdles in 2015
Moving Up the Ranks From Mover to Franchisee
McDonald’s Lays Off Employees as Part of $100 Million Cost-Cutting Effort | Franchising has been in the hot seat in the past year, as a number of legal and political conflicts have come to a head. | 97.076923 | 0.884615 | 2.576923 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/asu-football-young-defense-2015-010615 | http://web.archive.org/web/20150110033725id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/asu-football-young-defense-2015-010615 | ASU football's young defense has potential to become elite | 20150110033725 | Updated JAN 06, 2015 7:28p ET
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Any preseason apprehension about how Arizona State football's program would fare in 2014 probably had to do with how little was known about its defensive unit.
And so any surprise about how successful the Sun Devils became thereafter had everything to do with Todd Graham's youthful defensive players growing into roles vacated by a large senior class.
Mike Norvell's offense hardly skipped a beat this season (and next year should do the same) but it was ASU's defensive unit that developed quickly after losing so many talented pieces. No, the defense wasn't completely to blame as UCLA dropped 62 points on the Sun Devils during their fourth game of the season, but that marked a turning point.
The Sun Devils -- adopting a more aggressive approach -- responded with five wins in a row, four against ranked opponents, while allowing 20.2 points per game. The numbers became more modest through the final stretch of the year for a few reasons, but there will always be "what-ifs" thrown about had the defense been less banged up in a Territorial Cup loss to Arizona that ended the regular season.
It wouldn't be wrong to believe ASU's defense will take another step forward in 2015, even if it loses the production from departing safety Damarious Randall and defensive line standout Marcus Hardison. The Sun Devils should return nine starters, and incoming defensive recruits will be hard-pressed to wrestle away regular reps.
Here's a look at the defensive outlook for next season with the required asterisk of pointing out that spring ball has yet to occur.
Let's start up front, where the Sun Devils will have to replace the biggest gap-filler in both the literal sense and in regards to solidifying a young line that lost all-everything tackle Will Sutton a year prior.
Marcus Hardison's senior season was impressive. He led ASU in tackles for loss, had 10 of the team's 39 sacks and forced three fumbles from his defensive end position.
There's continuity inside with sophomore Viliami Latu, redshirt junior Demetrius Cherry and tackle Tashon Smallwood, who had an impressive freshman season. Mo Latu will add to the experience on the interior.
Graham could opt to move one of the veterans into Hardison's spot, or he could fill the vacancy with a youngster. Expect freshman end Renell Wren, redshirt freshman end Corey Smith and freshman tackle Connor Humphreys to battle for attention. Wren's size (6-5, 255 pounds) and athleticism make him an on-paper favorite to replace Hardison.
Now to what could turn into the most compelling position battle for spring.
The Devil-backer spot that was never quite filled once Carl Bradford left after the 2013 season, and if that problem persists, Graham could again use a more traditional look with two defensive ends.
Edmond Boateng saw some time at the Devil-backer position, and ASU also went with Cherry as a bigger, more traditional defensive end opposite Hardison.
The darkhorse to take the Devil-backer spot is 5-star junior college commit Davon Durant, who will be able to fight for that position in spring ball.
Finally, a complicating factor on the line. The unknown status of junior nose tackle Jaxon Hood, who missed the final five games of the year with a personal issue, could alter the depth chart if he finds his way back onto the team.
Christian Petersen-Getty Images North America
Marcus Hardison (DE), Damarious Randall (S)
Kweishi Brown (CB), Lloyd Carrington (CB), Demetrius Cherry (DT), Salamo Fiso, (LB), Viliami Latu (DT), Antonio Longino (LB), Laiu Moeakiola (SPUR), Jordan Simone (S), Tashon Smallwood (DT)
The defensive backs dominated ASU's statistical production in 2014 after Sutton and Bradford stuffed the box scores a year before that. Safeties Randall and Jordan Simone were one and two in total tackles for the Sun Devils, which is not exactly how Graham drew things up.
ASU's biggest loss outside of Hardison is Randall, barring the NCAA granting him another year of eligibility because of a injury-filled freshman season. He frequently attacked the backfield on blitzes and led the Sun Devils with nine pass breakups in 2014. If he doesn't return, freshmen Deandre Scott and Chad Adams are among the candidates to compete for his boundary safety position.
Simone, who missed the Arizona game, returns as the starting field safety after posting 100 tackles on the year, his first playing for ASU after transferring from Washington State.
The corner spots will see the returns of Kweishi Brown, who grew considerably in his first season since transferring from junior college, and Lloyd Carrington. Freshman Armand Perry and redshirt junior Solomon Means are back as second-teamers, but also keep an eye on the physical Ronald Lewis, a redshirting freshman receiver who is expected to become a fulltime defensive back.
Redshirt freshman Marcus Ball could also have an impact in the defensive backfield at a position yet to be determined.
The starting spots at both linebacker positions and the Spur are filled, and that's good news for the blitz-happy Sun Devils.
Laiu Moeakiola will be back at the Spur -- ASU missed him dearly when he went down in the Arizona game -- while Salamo Fiso (Sam linebacker) and Anthony Longino (Will linebacker) also return.
Their familiarity with one another should propel them toward becoming a more decorated unit moving forward.
True freshmen D.J. Calhoun and Christian Sam also return after solid debut seasons and should work their way into more snaps in 2015. Redshirt freshman Ismael Murphy-Richardson could throw his name into consideration after having strong bowl practices in December, as could Durant if he's not needed at Devil-backer.
Follow Kevin Zimmerman on Twitter. | It wouldn't be wrong to believe ASU's defense will take another step forward in 2015, even if it loses the production from safety Damarious Randall and defensive end Marcus Hardison. | 33.382353 | 1 | 19.411765 | medium | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2011/10/11/tom-bedecarre-silicon-valleys-favorite-adman/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150111061047id_/http://fortune.com:80/2011/10/11/tom-bedecarre-silicon-valleys-favorite-adman/ | Tom Bedecarre: Silicon Valley’s favorite adman | 20150111061047 | AKQA’s ad whiz has cred with techies and Mad Men alike. But with agencies snapping up digital shops, how long can he stay independent?
FORTUNE — In the bifurcated world of digital advertising, where Madison Avenue’s besuited creatives clash with Silicon Valley’s engineers, Tom Bedecarre is the rare hybrid. An ad guy with a warm handshake and 75,000 Twitter followers, he is CEO of AKQA, the largest independent full-service digital advertising agency. His company helps big brands like Nike NKE , Visa V , and Clorox CLX build social technologies into interactive campaigns. With digital ad spending projected to grow 20% this year to $31.3 billion in the U.S. alone, his services have never been more in demand.
As a Bay Area native and Stanford grad, Bedecarre, 55, has built deep relationships with tech companies since the earliest days of the web. Back in 1999 he arrived at a tiny Mountain View office to make a pitch directly to Stanford Ph.D. students Sergey Brin and Larry Page. “They didn’t get it,” says Bedecarre. Though it made a business out of ads, Google GOOG did none of its own advertising for years. Once it did, it joined AKQA’s client roster.
The Smartest People in Tech
These relationships with executives at Google as well as Facebook, Twitter, and other hot startups have helped Bedecarre bring the newest technologies to his clients. In April, AKQA worked with Heineken to launch Heineken Star Player, a game played on a smartphone or Facebook page that lets fans simultaneously watch televised soccer matches, play the game, and publish their results on Twitter and Facebook. “It works because AKQA puts consumers at the heart of the experience and then uses technology as the enabler,” says Floris Cobelens, Heineken’s head of digital.
Bedecarre got his start as an account executive at Ogilvy & Mather in New York and moved to California in 1984 to join Hal Riney & Partners. In 1990 he co-founded Citron Haligman Bedecarre, an early digital agency. Then, in 2001, just as many competitors closed shop after the dotcom bust, Bedecarre merged with London-based creativity agency AKQA and two smaller agencies. (The agency takes it’s name from the letters of AKQA-founder Ajaz Ahmed’s full name: Ajaz Khowaj Quoram Ahmed.) In 2007 private equity firm General Atlantic bought out investors to become the majority shareholder. Meanwhile, Ahmed and Bedecarre have expanded the agency to more than 1,000 employees, and this year AKQA is reported to be bringing in roughly $200 million in revenue.
Bedecarre’s boutique status and San Francisco location give him credibility with his tech partners; they like that he’s an entrepreneur too. If he should choose to sell out someday, he’d surely fetch a high price (Publicis picked up Rosetta for $575 million in May) — something his Silicon Valley friends would appreciate.
This article is from the October 17, 2011 issue of Fortune. | AKQA's ad whiz has cred with techies and Mad Men alike. But with agencies snapping up digital shops, how long can he stay independent? FORTUNE -- In the bifurcated world of digital advertising, where Madison Avenue's besuited creatives clash with Silicon Valley's engineers, Tom Bedecarre is the rare hybrid. An ad guy with a warm… | 8.784615 | 0.923077 | 16.307692 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.people.com/article/eddie-redmayne-prince-william-eton-football-rugby | http://web.archive.org/web/20150111085313id_/http://www.people.com/article/eddie-redmayne-prince-william-eton-football-rugby | Eddie Redmayne and Prince William Were on the Same Rugby Team | 20150111085313 | Eddie Redmayne (left) and Prince William
01/10/2015 AT 07:35 PM EST
is in the news for his
and SAG award nominations, but his college years were pretty newsworthy too – he went to school with
"We were on the same rugby team at Eton College," Redmayne told
in a new interview. "Heâs a wonderful man."
But 33-year-old, who gives an Oscar-worthy performance as physicist Stephen Hawking in the
, admits he "always felt slightly sorry" for William.
"Everyone wanted to tackle the future king of England," explains Redmayne. "He took all the hits."
Now, newlywed Redmayne – who
Hannah Bagshawe just before Christmas – is "just taking it day by day" as he
"When we took on this film, we just felt such a fear in a sense of not wanting to screw it up, and the fact that Steven and Jane [Wilde, Hawking's ex-wife] seem to enjoy it, and the fact that the public is reacting to it – I'm just thrilled," Redmayne told reporters at the Palm Springs Film Festival Awards Gala on Jan. 3. | "Everyone wanted to tackle the future king of England," Redmayne told Glamour magazine | 14.375 | 0.875 | 9.25 | low | medium | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2012/05/31/today-in-tech-what-to-expect-from-aaron-sorkins-steve-jobs-movie/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150113083540id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/05/31/today-in-tech-what-to-expect-from-aaron-sorkins-steve-jobs-movie/ | Today in Tech: What to expect from Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs movie | 20150113083540 | Aaron Sorkin talks about future Steve Jobs movie, impact of technology on his writing [ENGADGET]
The highlights included a frank quote that whoever ends up playing Jobs in his movie — not to be confused with the one already in production with Ashton Kutcher — will have to be “good, and intelligent.” He also confessed to being fully engaged in the “three screens” movement, but wasn’t too prideful to admit that he taps into the brain of his 11-year old daughter for lots of technological help. Pretty wild for a guy that many would label “genius.”
Google, Facebook vie for stake in Vevo [NEW YORK POST]
Sources say the search giant and the social network have held talks with Vevo — the digital equivalent of MTV — about buying an equity stake as they each compete to land an ad pact with the venture. An outside investor could help fund Vevo’s expansion on multiple platforms as well as acquire music rights outside of its home base here, sources said.
Kevin Rose’s next move: partner at Google Ventures [ALL THINGS D]
Kevin Rose, who joined Google in March to work on Google+ along with some of his team from mobile app incubator Milk, has moved to Google Ventures.
Sean Parker: Why did Spotify take so long to get stateside? It could have been Apple [ALL THINGS D]
Though Spotify CEO Daniel Ek didn’t comment, Parker was more forthcoming on Apple’s role: “There was a sense in which Apple was threatened by what we were doing,” Parker said.
Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr speaks out on lawsuit: “Our firm does not discriminate based on gender” [TECHCRUNCH]
In a post published on Kleiner’s official website, Doerr wrote that while he is unable to respond fully to the claims because of legal constraints, he could say that an independent investigation by Kleiner Perkins has found the lawsuit’s claims to be “without merit” and expressed confidence that his firm will prevail in the end.
Goodbye Google Places, hello more Google Plus [CNN]
Announced Wednesday, Google Plus Local is the latest push by Google to incorporate its networking site into more of its other products, with the goal of creating a single, seamless Web experience. Plus Local is designed to let users discover and share information about local restaurants, shops and other sites.
Wasting time is new divide in digital era [THE NEW YORK TIMES]
As access to devices has spread, children in poorer families are spending considerably more time than children from more well-off families using their television and gadgets to watch shows and videos, play games and connect on social networking sites, studies show. This growing time-wasting gap, policy makers and researchers say, is more a reflection of the ability of parents to monitor and limit how children use technology than of access to it. | Aaron Sorkin talks about future Steve Jobs movie, impact of technology on his writing [ENGADGET] The highlights included a frank quote that whoever ends up playing Jobs in his movie -- not to be confused with the one already in production with Ashton Kutcher -- will have to be "good, and intelligent." He also confessed to… | 8.6 | 0.907692 | 10.538462 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-Adam-Gase-s-skills-evident-years-ago-6011076.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20150113125950id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-Adam-Gase-s-skills-evident-years-ago-6011076.php | 49ers: Adam Gase’s skills evident years ago, Ted Tollner says | 20150113125950 | Eric Branc, San Francisco Chronicle
When Adam Gase was a low-level offensive assistant in 2008, then-49ers quarterbacks coach Ted Tollner was impressed with the 30-year-old’s ability to provide wisdom after doing his grunt work.
That is, Gase, now the Broncos’ offensive coordinator, offered suggestions to Tollner and offensive coordinator Mike Martz after hours of video breakdown.
“There are those (assistants who) could see what could be valuable and have insights and suggestions,” Tollner, 74, said Monday in a telephone interview. “They bring more to the table than just being a robot, so to speak. They have creativity. That’s the difference. And Adam always had ideas and thoughts that related well to what we were doing. Those are initial signs a guy has his own creative understanding.”
More than six years later, it’s clear the current 49ers are also impressed with Gase, 36, who will have a second interview with the team Tuesday, NFL Network reported. The 49ers, who first interviewed Gase on Jan. 2, reportedly are hoping to finalize a deal to make him their head coach.
Gase, who also has interviewed with the Bears and Falcons, has become a hot candidate based on his work in his only two seasons as an offensive coordinator. In 2013, the Broncos had an NFL-record 606 points. This season, they scored 482 points, the fourth-highest total in franchise history
“He was very bright — a young, hard-working and intelligent guy,” said Tollner, who also worked with Gase as the Lions’ offensive coordinator in 2005. “I’m not surprised where he is now and the results he’s had.”
Still, there are question marks surrounding Gase, beyond his youth and inexperience. For starters, it’s not clear how much credit he deserves for overseeing a prolific offense headlined by future first-ballot Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, one of the most cerebral quarterbacks in NFL history.
However, Denver does view him as a head-coaching candidate. The Broncos parted ways with head coach John Fox on Monday, and could still promote Gase, the Denver Post reported. The Broncos’ assistant coaches have been told they remain under contract, but are free to explore other options.
In a 24-13 divisional-playoff loss to the Colts on Sunday, the Broncos had 288 yards and scored six points in the final 55 minutes. Manning, who was dealing with a thigh injury, missed a series of deep passes and the defensive-minded Fox suggested the offensive play-calling could have been improved.
"We did probably go to that well too many times,” Fox said of the deep passes.
Tollner, who is retired, has stayed in contact with Gase and think he’s ready to take the next step in his career. However, Tollner acknowledged that Gase would be making a significant jump. Tollner was not an NFL head coach, but he had the top job at USC and San Diego State.
“It’s a new experience,” Tollner said. “Every problem that happens, suddenly, you have to deal with it. It will be a new experience for a guy like Adam, but I think he’s ready for that next step, even though he’s young and things have fallen into place relatively fast. I think he’s ready, but there’s only one way to find out.”
Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch | When Adam Gase was a low-level offensive assistant in 2008, then-49ers quarterbacks coach Ted Tollner was impressed with the 30-year-old’s ability to provide wisdom after doing his grunt work. Gase, who also has interviewed with the Bears and Falcons, has become a hot candidate based on his work in his only two seasons as an offensive coordinator. “He was very bright — a young, hard-working and intelligent guy,” said Tollner, who also worked with Gase as the Lions’ offensive coordinator in 2005. For starters, it’s not clear how much credit he deserves for overseeing a prolific offense headlined by future first-ballot Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, one of the most cerebral quarterbacks in NFL history. The Broncos’ assistant coaches have been told they remain under contract, but are free to explore other options. In a 24-13 divisional-playoff loss to the Colts on Sunday, the Broncos had 288 yards and scored six points in the final 55 minutes. Manning, who was dealing with a thigh injury, missed a series of deep passes and the defensive-minded Fox suggested the offensive play-calling could have been improved. Tollner was not an NFL head coach, but he had the top job at USC and San Diego State. | 2.756 | 0.972 | 30.788 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/1861/03/01/news/affairs-nation-highly-important-washington-movements-president-elect-facts.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150117034248id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1861/03/01/news/affairs-nation-highly-important-washington-movements-president-elect-facts.html | AFFAIRS OF THE NATION. | 20150117034248 | It is said that the President elect was much depressed to-day by a sense of the responsibility devolving upon him, and by the irrepressible conflict now going on between opposing interests among his political friends.
Gov. BOUTWELL and Gen. WOOL had protracted interviews with Mr. LINCOLN to-day. He has also received several hundred callers.
Hon. Mr. SPAULDING, of the Buffalo District, New-York, dined with Mr. LINCOLN to-day at the National Hotel. Mr. Hamlin, Gen. Scott, Gov. Chase, Messrs. Seward, Sumner, Bates, Weed, Crittenden, Cameron, Caleb B. Smith, Speaker Pennington, John Sherman, Chas. Francis Adams, Preston King, Hale, Wm. E. Dodge, of New-York, Judge Davis, of Illinois, and other guests, were present. The dinner was, undoubtedly, the most complete affair of the season.
There is much excitement at the hotels to-night, which are crowded so that it is difficult to pass through them.
Gov. HICKS, of Maryland, is making very earnest efforts to procure a Cabinet appointment for HENRY WINTER DAVIS, much to the alarm of many well-wishers of the new Administration, who foresee that, while DAVIS' selection would add no substantial strength to the Administration, it would be rejected by Maryland as not meeting the wishes of any respectable body of her citizens, and would, on the contrary, be highly obnoxious to a large majority. Besides, his radical Know-Nothingism could not fail to make his selection very offensive to the Northwest. It would be far more judicious to ignore Maryland altogether, than to offer her such a selection.
JOHN BELL denies, as unfounded, the report that he had been offered, or desires a seat in LINCOLN'S Cabinet.
The appointment of SALMON P. CHASE Secretary to the Treasury Department, was definitely settled to-night. CAMERON can have the War Department if he chooses. It is not known whether he will accept, but his friends urge it earnestly upon him.
At 10 o'clock Mr. CHASE had not decided to accept the Treasuryship, nor is it settled whether Mr. CAMERON will take the War Department if Mr. CHASE does the former.
Capt. POPE, of the United States Army, one of Mr. LINCOLN'S traveling suite, delivered a lecture a fortnight since in Cincinnati, upon fortifications, which was published, the next day, in the Gazette. Mr. BUCHANAN, thinking that Capt. POPE referred disrespectfully to the President of the United States, and thus violated the fourth article of war, has ordered him to be Court-Martialed. The trial will take place at Newport, Kentucky, on the 4th of March. Capt. HAZARD, another member of the suite, with Major HEINTZMAN, have been ordered there in connection with the same affair. The petty malice which instigated the Court-Martial, and so assigned it that these gentlemen cannot be present at the Inauguration, causes much excitement and contempt in all circles.
The War Department, this morning, is in receipt of dispatches from Maj. ANDERSON, who denies that he have been ill, as reported. He was never in better health, or better prepared to meet any emergency. He says the work continues on Cumming's Point in erecting the bomb-proof battery, but that, when occasion demands it, he can sweep the whole of it away in a few moments with the guns of Fort Sumter.
Many of the Northern Commissioners went home this afternoon, some for personal reasons, but most of them to avoid the pressure upon them by applicants for office. The great majority, however, will remain until after the 4th of March.
The prevailing opinion among members of Congress to-night, seems to be that the recommendations of the Peace Conference cannot pass. Several who voted for CORWIN'S proposition say they can go no further.
Mr. FIELD'S attendance in the Court was not compulsory. Hon. N. DANE ELLINGWOOD, of the New-York Assembly, was on the other side, and absent. The case is being reached unexpectedly. ELLINGWOOD'S client being personally present, appealed for delay in the absence of his counsel.
FIELD forced on the argument, and left in the afternoon train.
There is great anxiety to hear from North Carolina. The Representatives from that State entertain no doubt as to the final result.
The Senate did little to-day beyond the discussion of the state of the country, and the postponement of the House Committee of Thirty-three's report. Some time was spent in secret session, but nothing was done except the confirmation of one or two minor appointments. The time was principally occupied in discussion.
A large crowd was attracted to the House today to witness the scene expected to arise upon the question of reconsidering the vote upon the report of the Committee of Thirty-three. There was but little excitement, as it had already become apparent that the motion to reconsider would pass. Four men from Pennsylvania changed their position, and the motion was carried by only one vote more than was necessary to secure the two-thirds. The announcement was received with loud, long and continued applause. Just previous to the vote, and while it was going on, the salute, ordered by Gen. SCOTT, in honor of the Peace Conference, was being fired. This added greatly to the interest of the scene. Many opponents of the measure were greatly excited, evincing much chagrin at the result. Some of them at once predicted a permanent split in the Republican Party.
HOW THE ACTION OF THE HOUSE IS RECEIVED. | It is said that the President elect was much depressed to-day by a sense of the responsibility devolving upon him, and by the irrepressible conflict now going on between opposing interests among his political friends. | 27.948718 | 1 | 39 | medium | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2015/01/21/zinepak/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150124072310id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/01/21/zinepak/ | Music-minded Zinepak co-founders strike a chord | 20150124072310 | At a time when digital and streaming dominate debates over the future of the music industry, ZinePak co-founders Kim Kaupe and Brittany Hodak are just starting to hit a high note.
The entertainment-minded would-be entrepreneurs met in their mid-twenties while working together at an advertising agency. They were music fans with experience in merchandising, publishing, and building retail partnerships. They also knew it was an awkward moment for music lovers. CD sales were slumping. Streaming services were taking off.
But what if they could make CDs cool by investing in experiential content for superfans? What if they partnered with some of the biggest names in music and entertainment—Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Disney’s Frozen franchise—to provide existing, eager fans with limited edition merchandise? Kaupe and Hodak scored a chart-topping hit with ZinePaks, the company they founded in 2011 that produces fan club-style bundles of CDs with exclusive tracks and magazine-length booklets featuring photos, lyrics, and artist interviews.
While many of their entrepreneur peers were focusing on startups that require a lot of up-front capital—and in tech, the need to hire expensive developers early on—ZinePak stayed lean. In its first year, ZinePak grew 350% and sold over a million of its limited edition bundles. In 2013, the company pulled in $3 million in revenue.
The company focused on partnering with commercially viable stars. For Katy Perry’s latest album, Prism, there was a delightfully girly bundle of a special edition CD, nail decals, and full-color magazine. A recent Mumford & Sons concert tour ZinePak included a Field Notes-style notebook and markers perfect for an artist signing t-shirts or concert posters.
In April 2014, the company released its first-ever soundtrack ZinePak, a limited edition CD and magazine with music and interviews from the TV series, Orange is the New Black. Other soundtracks followed, for films like How to Train Your Dragon 2.
The ZinePak origin story is largely without discord. During her three-year tenure at Sony’s RED sales and marketing division, Hodak was responsible for creating and cultivating relationships with buyers at Wal-Mart WMT , Target TGT , Hot Topic, and Best Buy BBY . When she left to work in advertising, she diligently kept in touch with her contacts.
A year later, when she and Kaupe left the ad agency with $60,000 of their own savings to launch ZinePak, Hodak called her buyer pal at Wal-Mart, the largest seller of physical music. “I always tell people that was the one and only phone call I made,” Hodak says. Not only did Wal-Mart want to get behind ZinePak. The retailer wanted to be the startup’s exclusive distributor.
The Wal-Mart connection was a bridge to the next high note: signing some of country music’s top artists and performers to co-produce exclusive ZinePaks. It was the end of 2011, and the women were brainstorming new projects. The Academy of Country Music Awards was coming up. Their Wal-Mart pal wondered: why not put out a compilation of nominees to test the waters? The collection was such a hit, a number of the stars featured on the album signed up to release their own exclusive content through ZinePak.
Hodak notes that bootstrapping the company was only somewhat intentional. When she and Kaupe began reaching out to potential clients, they were met with more enthusiasm than they’d expected. Potential clients wanted to become investors and get in on the ground floor.
The women realized there was more to their idea than they’d thought and doubled down on their commitment to not giving out shares prematurely. “It’s not to say we won’t take money at a later date,” Kaupe explains. “But if we did, it’d be strategic. It would be about growth instead of about raising $5 million because I can’t pay my employees tomorrow.”
All 12 of those full-time staffers, by the way, are women. But Kaupe swears there’s no intentional hiring bias. “We take the best candidates for us,” she says matter-of-factly.
Not selling shares or taking any outside investment is the same way rock star Spanx founder Sara Blakely built her billion-dollar fortune. And while Kaupe and Hodak have approached running their company the same way, Kaupe says it took them a while to realize how the rareness of their strategy, or how to measure their off-the-charts success. According to American Express OPEN’s 2014 State of Women-Owned Businesses survey, just 2% of women-owned firms generate more than a million dollars in annual revenue.
“We kind of realized this is a very small group of people. The fact we were able to join within a year—we were incredulous.” Kaupe adds that the fact there are so few million-dollar women-led startups is “slightly depressing but keeps us motivated.” So do fans that keep ZinePaks flying off the shelves.
“All you ever hear is doom and gloom,” Hodak says, measuring the mood of the music industry. “But the superfans—those true, core fans, who have maybe two or up to 20 artists they live and die by, who go see them within 500 miles—they want to own physical products to hold in their hand to show they’re a fan. They won’t ever go away. Maybe it won’t always be records, but there will always be a need for a physical manifestation of the art musicians create.”
“We don’t look at the music industry and say it’s going down, or that this is a bad situation and we need to look at other verticals or industries,” she explains. “We say, what an awesome opportunity to make products for superfans to cherish.” | With millions in annual revenue and no interest in investors, ZinePak shows its co-founders are the whole package. | 52.227273 | 0.772727 | 1.409091 | high | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2014/03/03/reading-spains-economy-through-art-sales/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150128080616id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/03/03/reading-spains-economy-through-art-sales/ | Reading Spain’s economy through art sales | 20150128080616 | FORTUNE — At this year’s 33rd edition of Spain’s ARCOmadrid contemporary art fair, it was pretty easy to tell where you stood in the art world hierarchy.
If you visited over the weekend, you were one of a diminished group of 100,000 or so civilians who forked out between 20 and 40 euros ($27.50 and $55) to bask in art that ran from canonized names like photorealist painter Richard Estes to up-and-comers like Mexican installation artist Héctor Zamora. But if you attended on Wednesday or Thursday, you were likely one of the 400 or so rich folks and art institution bigwigs who’d been invited to Spain, your trip paid in full, in the hopes that you might drop some serious dough on art.
All major art fairs have VIP programs designed to attract big spenders. But ARCO’s dedication of 20% of its 4.5 million euro budget to inviting buyers and promoting the fair overseas shows how Spain’s economic crisis — now more than five years old — has forced the fair to turn its attention from national museums and modest local buyers to big international collectors.
“In the years before the crisis, there were a lot of sales to domestic institutions. This has disappeared, and now there are more sales to foreign collectors,” said Carlos Urroz, ARCO’s director since 2010.
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Spain’s art world was whiplashed by the country’s bubbly rise and quick collapse. The Spanish art market grew 200% between 2002 and 2007, from 160 million to 480 million euros, only to crash to 271 million euros in 2009, according to a study led by Clare McAndrew, founder of research firm Arts Economics, for Barcelona’s Arte y Mecenazgo foundation. The market has recovered only slightly since, hurt in part by the government’s increase of its VAT (sales tax) on art works from 18% to 21% in 2012 (up from 16% in 2010).
“We’re doing very badly compared to pre-crisis,” said Idoia Fernández, sitting in the white ARCO cube of Madrid’s Galería Nieves Fernández, where she is the director. “Last year, if it weren’t for foreigners, ARCO would have been a disaster. We sold only one piece to a Spanish collector last year at ARCO, for 3,000 euros.”
It’s hard to know how a fair is doing, as many are loath to divulge overall sales numbers. Urroz couches his response in gallery “satisfaction.”
“We don’t have sales figures,” he said. “We know the level of satisfaction of the galleries, and we are confident this year will be better.”
What numbers are available aren’t good. In 2003 and 2004, ARCO’s visitor numbers hit a high of 200,000 people annually, but this number fell to 127,500 in 2012 and an estimated 100,000 this year. And big Spanish institutional buyers — especially ones dependent on government support — have cut their spending. Take the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, which trimmed its ARCO budget from 927,762 euros in 2010 to 700,000 euros in 2012, 318,999 euros in 2013, and 204,625 euros this year.
Which brings us back to the international collectors. With local money scarce, ARCO has flown in international collectors and added foreign galleries from Latin America to show those collectors pieces they wouldn’t see elsewhere.
When I walked through ARCO a few hours after it opened on Wednesday, the first collector and industry day, the fair’s redefinition appeared to be working. The VAT had been dropped to about 15.5%, and the halls were full of elder gentlemen in expensive casual wear, women of a certain age who’d undergone extreme plastic surgery, and young guys with tight pants and waxed moustaches.
“Since Carlos has run the fair, it’s made an enormous step forward. It has become so international. Not just European collectors, but ones from Latin America and the U.S.,” said Thomas Krinzinger of Austria’s Galerie Krinzinger, who noted that he’d already sold two pieces for between 30,000 and 50,000 euros.
And it seemed that even some wealthy Spanish buyers had returned.
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Marcia Gail Levine, special projects director at New York’s Marlborough Gallery, said that the gallery had already sold four pieces by Juan Genovés for around 100,000 euros and two by Manolo Valdés for some 200,000 euros to Spanish and American collectors. “Even though there was a crisis, there are certain artists we have that people in Spain were buying. We weren’t hit that bad,” she said. To drive home Marlborough’s immunity to Spanish flu, gallery president Pierre Levai added that ARCO’s generally bad 2012 was an “exceptionally good” year for Marlborough.
To be sure, the international rich have only grown richer in the post-crisis years, and Marlborough is a high-end giant that “virtually invented the modern art market,” according to The Observer. The story is not the same for the middle class of the art world, which, just like the middle class elsewhere, has been squeezed.
“The professionals and the rich come the first days to make big buys. If you have 50 million euros and it goes to 40 million, it doesn’t change anything. But on the weekend, the people pay 4,000 to 5,000 euros to buy something. That wave is more affected by the crisis,” said Juan Ignacio García Velilla, director of the Altxerri gallery in San Sebastián, Spain.
Idoia Fernández of Galería Nieves Fernández, for one, was saddened by the disappearance of the middle-class buyers who used to buy art at the fair on weekends.
“The market of younger professionals who would buy art instead of a 800 euro TV has disappeared,” said Fernández, who had sold three pieces valued between 2,000 and 14,000 euros when we talked the first day. “We’d extended the market to them in Spain, but it’s disappeared. Which is a shame. We had made buying art much more normal.”
Still, things seemed a little brighter, she said. “This year, we’ve already sold two pieces to Spanish collectors,” she said with a laugh. “So we’ve doubled our Spanish sales.” | Spain’s art world was whiplashed by the country’s bubbly rise and quick collapse. Signs of the trauma linger at this year’s ARCOmadrid art fair. | 42.137931 | 0.896552 | 9.724138 | high | medium | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/150years/article/The-making-of-the-Spurs-dynasty-6033004.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20150128162132id_/http://www.sfgate.com/150years/article/The-making-of-the-Spurs-dynasty-6033004.php | The making of the Spurs dynasty: from 1973 to 2015 | 20150128162132 | Photo: San Antonio Express-News File Photo
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
George Gervin weighed barely 170 pounds when he arrived in San Antonio with the Spurs late in the 1973-74. The rest, as they say, is history.
George Gervin weighed barely 170 pounds when he arrived in San...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise moved here from Dallas, after the team (then named the Chaparrals) suffered continuous struggles to attract fans and have a winning season. These photos are from the Spurs’ debut season in their new home, the HemisFair Arena.
In 1973, a tradition began in the Alamo City: the San Antonio...
The Spurs’ debut season was one for the history books, but no fan or no player could have imagined the culture and dynasty the franchise would bring over the next 40 years. The following photos are in chronological order from the earliest Spurs days in the HemisFair Arena to the newly won championship in the modern AT&T Center.
The Spurs’ debut season was one for the history books, but no fan...
The year after their debut season, the Spurs were on a roll, with new, eager fans and solid starters, including the George “The Iceman” Gervin. Here are the photos from the 1974-1975 season.
The year after their debut season, the Spurs were on a roll, with...
The year after their debut season, the Spurs were on a roll, with new, eager fans and solid starters, including the George “The Iceman” Gervin. Here are the photos from the 1974-1975 season.
The year after their debut season, the Spurs were on a roll, with...
The year after their debut season, the Spurs were on a roll, with new, eager fans and solid starters, including the George “The Iceman” Gervin.
This photo shows Bob Bass, who became the head coach in 1974. He had 83 wins and57 losses, and was the only coach to serve as Spurs head coach multiple, non-consecutive times. He moved to Spurs front office as GM at end of 1975-76 season, the Spurs' last with the ABA and Bass' last full-time coaching position.
The year after their debut season, the Spurs were on a roll, with...
George Karl #22 of the San Antonio Spurs poses for an action portrait circa 1970 in San Antonio, Texas.
George Karl #22 of the San Antonio Spurs poses for an action...
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they finished third place in the ABA with a 50-34 record.
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they...
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they finished third place in the ABA with a 50-34 record.
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they...
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they finished third place in the ABA with a 50-34 record.
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they...
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they finished third place in the ABA with a 50-34 record.
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they...
Larry Kenon of the Spurs drives to the basket during an ABA game at the HemisFair Arena circa 1975 in San Antonio.
Larry Kenon of the Spurs drives to the basket during an ABA game at...
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they finished third place in the ABA with a 50-34 record.
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they...
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they finished third place in the ABA with a 50-34 record.
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they...
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they finished third place in the ABA with a 50-34 record.
This photo shows the team during the 1975-1976 season, when they...
The Sound of the Spurs "The Sound of the Spurs, " performed at Spurs games at HemisFair Arena in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The Sound of the Spurs "The Sound of the Spurs, " performed at...
"The Sound of the Spurs," who performed at Spurs games at HemisFair Arena in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, pose with George Gervin.
"The Sound of the Spurs," who performed at Spurs games at HemisFair...
James Silas #13 of the San Antonio Spurs shoots circa 1970's in San Antonio, Texas.
James Silas #13 of the San Antonio Spurs shoots circa 1970's in San...
Spurs player Larry Kenon puts up a shot circa 1970's in San Antonio.
Spurs player Larry Kenon puts up a shot circa 1970's in San Antonio.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Artis Gilmore #53 of the San Antonio Spurs goes for the block against the Los Angeles Lakers during the NBA game circa 1970 at the Forum in Inglewood, California.
Artis Gilmore #53 of the San Antonio Spurs goes for the block...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a disappointment, the team started of the new decade with their shining star, George Gervin, at his best. Also, the team jumped to a new division, Midwest Division of the Western Conference, joining Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Utah and the Dallas Mavericks. Here are photos of the Spurs in 1980.
Although the Spurs finished the 1979-1980 season with a...
George Gervin #44 of the San Antonio Spurs shoots over Rick Mahorn #44 of the Washington Bullets during an NBA basketball game circa 1982 at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland. Gervin played for the Spurs from 1974-85.
George Gervin #44 of the San Antonio Spurs shoots over Rick Mahorn...
The Spurs' Coyote has been working San Antonio crowds since 1983, according to NBA.com.
The Spurs' Coyote has been working San Antonio crowds since 1983,...
Cotton Fitzsimmons coached for the Spurs from 1984-1986, and was fired by the Spurs at the end of 1985-86 season, despite making the playoffs. His next head coaching job was with Phoenix Suns in 1988.
Cotton Fitzsimmons coached for the Spurs from 1984-1986, and was...
Mike Mitchell of the San Antonio Spurs drives to the hoop in a 1986 game vs. the Houston Rockets.
Mike Mitchell of the San Antonio Spurs drives to the hoop in a 1986...
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing key players to switching coaches to, overall, losing many games. The losing 1985-1987 seasons began a four-year drought for the team, just before excelling in the 1990s. Here are photos from the late 1980s, which were some of the worst years for the Spurs.
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing...
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing key players to switching coaches to, overall, losing many games. The losing 1985-1987 seasons began a four-year drought for the team, just before excelling in the 1990s. Here are photos from the late 1980s, which were some of the worst years for the Spurs.
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing...
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing key players to switching coaches to, overall, losing many games. The losing 1985-1987 seasons began a four-year drought for the team, just before excelling in the 1990s. Here are photos from the late 1980s, which were some of the worst years for the Spurs.
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing...
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing key players to switching coaches to, overall, losing many games. The losing 1985-1987 seasons began a four-year drought for the team, just before excelling in the 1990s. Here are photos from the late 1980s, which were some of the worst years for the Spurs.
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing...
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing key players to switching coaches to, overall, losing many games. The losing 1985-1987 seasons began a four-year drought for the team, just before excelling in the 1990s. Here are photos from the late 1980s, which were some of the worst years for the Spurs.
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing...
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing key players to switching coaches to, overall, losing many games. The losing 1985-1987 seasons began a four-year drought for the team, just before excelling in the 1990s. Here are photos from the late 1980s, which were some of the worst years for the Spurs.
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing...
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing key players to switching coaches to, overall, losing many games. The losing 1985-1987 seasons began a four-year drought for the team, just before excelling in the 1990s. Here are photos from the late 1980s, which were some of the worst years for the Spurs.
The later years of the 1980s were rough on the team, from losing...
Gregg Popovich joined the Spurs in July 1988 as an assistant coach under Larry Brown. Popovich left the city in 1992, but returned in 1994, and the rest is history.
Gregg Popovich joined the Spurs in July 1988 as an assistant coach...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the worst teams to one of the best in the biggest one-year swing in the history of the NBA. The Spurs acquired San Antonio favorites Sean Elliott and David Robinson, and then went on to the 1990 NBA Playoffs. Here are photos from the early 1990s, when the Spurs started donning the iconic neon colors.
Alas, redemption. In the new decade, the Spurs went from one of the...
Dennis Rodman was a presence for the Spurs with his defense and work on the boards. He got even more attention for his hair.
Dennis Rodman was a presence for the Spurs with his defense and...
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next year, the Spurs had a shiny, new record to match. In the 1994-1995 season, the Spurs (now with Dennis Rodman in play) posted a 62-20 record, one of the best in the NBA. Here are photos from the mid-1990s.
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next...
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next year, the Spurs had a shiny, new record to match. In the 1994-1995 season, the Spurs (now with Dennis Rodman in play) posted a 62-20 record, one of the best in the NBA. Here are photos from the mid-1990s.
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next...
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next year, the Spurs had a shiny, new record to match. In the 1994-1995 season, the Spurs (now with Dennis Rodman in play) posted a 62-20 record, one of the best in the NBA. Here are photos from the mid-1990s.
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next...
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next year, the Spurs had a shiny, new record to match. In the 1994-1995 season, the Spurs (now with Dennis Rodman in play) posted a 62-20 record, one of the best in the NBA. Here are photos from the mid-1990s.
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next...
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next year, the Spurs had a shiny, new record to match. In the 1994-1995 season, the Spurs (now with Dennis Rodman in play) posted a 62-20 record, one of the best in the NBA. Here are photos from the mid-1990s.
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next...
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next year, the Spurs had a shiny, new record to match. In the 1994-1995 season, the Spurs (now with Dennis Rodman in play) posted a 62-20 record, one of the best in the NBA. Here are photos from the mid-1990s.
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next...
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next year, the Spurs had a shiny, new record to match. In the 1994-1995 season, the Spurs (now with Dennis Rodman in play) posted a 62-20 record, one of the best in the NBA. Here are photos from the mid-1990s.
In 1993, the Spurs got a new home – the Alamodome. And the next...
For the 1997-1998 season, the beloved Tim Duncan arrived in San Antonio, where, of course, he has stayed since. The next season, the Spurs won its first championship.
For the 1997-1998 season, the beloved Tim Duncan arrived in San...
Tim Duncan shakes hands with NBA commissioner David Stern on June 25, 1997, after the Spurs made the Wake Forest senior the No. 1 overall draft pick.
Tim Duncan shakes hands with NBA commissioner David Stern on June...
With a stellar team, the Spurs clenched their first championship in 1999.
With a stellar team, the Spurs clenched their first championship in...
David Robinson carries the NBA championship trophy through the crowd of fans gathered to welcome the team home 26 June, 1999, at San Antonio International Airport. The Spurs defeated the New York Knicks to win the NBA Championship in 1999.
David Robinson carries the NBA championship trophy through the...
Tim Duncan, left, and coach Gregg Popovich celebrate after defeating the New York Knicks 78-77 to clinch the championship in Game 5 of the 1999 NBA Finals in Madison Square Garden.
Tim Duncan, left, and coach Gregg Popovich celebrate after...
Spurs fans celebrate on a balcony at the La Mansion Hotel during the river parade Sunday June 27, 1999 honoring the San Antonio Spurs NBA Championship.
Spurs fans celebrate on a balcony at the La Mansion Hotel during...
In 2001, Tony Parker joined the Spurs...
In 2001, Tony Parker joined the Spurs...
... while Manu Ginobili joined the year after.
... while Manu Ginobili joined the year after.
Of course, the Spurs went on to win their second NBA championship in 2003...
Of course, the Spurs went on to win their second NBA championship...
... and their third in 2005 ...
... and their third in 2005 ...
...and their fourth in 2007...
...and their fourth in 2007...
...and last, but not least, their fifth in 2014.
...and last, but not least, their fifth in 2014. | From the early days filled with short shorts and Afros, to the dynasty the team is today, the San Antonio Spurs have kept one theme going since coming to the Alamo City more than 40 years ago - humble pride. | 199.767442 | 0.697674 | 1.255814 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/empire-keep-it-movin-song | http://web.archive.org/web/20150128214913id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/empire-keep-it-movin-song | Empire's 'Keep It Movin' Song : People.com | 20150128214913 | Serayah McNeill (Tiana) and Gary Bryshere (Hakee,) in Empire
01/26/2015 AT 10:00 AM EST
"My body's like a weapon, it goes bang, bang, bang, bang, bang â¦"
Words from a fiery new
number? Nope, those are the first steamy lyrics off of the song "Keep It Movin," produced by Timbaland and premiering on FOX's
this Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET.
The hit drama, about a music industry family tainted by a lot of bad blood,
on both TV and the
. (The show's songs are available on
For this new number, Bryshere "Yazz" Gray, who plays troubled young rapper Hakeem, teams up with sultry singer Serayah McNeill, who stars as his love interest Tiana. Despite the comparisons fans have drawn, Gray says, their characters weren't inspired by
"I can see why people say that," Gray tells PEOPLE, "but I don't think the storyline really goes there. If that's the case, every relationship would be Chris Brown and Rihanna or Jay Z and Beyonce. He's just a spoiled young guy without any guidance, trying to learn how to be a man through his mistakes and the women that he deals with."Â
As for the actual basis for his character, "It's all me, all Yazz," says Gray, who's a rapper from Philadelphia in his own right. "I'm the only character on the show that [creator] Lee Daniels told to style themselves. So it's all my own swag."
Take an exclusive listen of the new song here, and tune in to Wednesday night's show to see if you get the hip-hop comparison.
returns Wednesday, Jan. 28, at 9 p.m. ET on FOX. | Thanks to characters Hakeem and Tiana, there's a lot of sexual tension in this new tune from the hit FOX drama. | 14.875 | 0.875 | 1.208333 | low | medium | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2015/01/29/uber-other-taxi-hailing-apps-hit-new-roadblock-in-new-delhi/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150129110205id_/http://fortune.com/2015/01/29/uber-other-taxi-hailing-apps-hit-new-roadblock-in-new-delhi/ | Uber, other taxi-hailing apps hit new roadblock in New Delhi | 20150129110205 | New Delhi’s transport department has written to U.S. taxi hailing company Uber Technologies Inc detailing problems with its application for a licence in the city, further complicating the firm’s ability to operate in India’s capital.
While the letter, or “deficiency memo”, is not a rejection of Uber’s application, the company will have to resubmit a portion of it to be granted a licence, a government official said.
Uber’s services have been banned since December in New Delhi, when one of its drivers was accused of raping a passenger. The company restarted operations last week after applying for a radio taxi licence, though the government said Uber was still blacklisted.
In new rules set by New Delhi’s transport department last month, taxi-hailing app companies need to install emergency buttons in their cabs and have tracking devices linked to call centres to obtain a licence.
The memo from the transport department seen by Reuters said Uber did not provide details of its call centre and its application lacked proof of its registered office in New Delhi.
“As an applicant, Uber has to come back if it is interested,” said a senior transport official who was not authorised to speak with media on the matter and so declined to be identified.
“Otherwise, the application won’t move forward… We are not using the word rejected anywhere.”
Similar letters were sent to Uber’s local rivals TaxiForSure and Ola, which is backed by Japan’s SoftBank Corp. The apps of all three firms are currently working in the city.
TaxiForSure did not respond to a request for comment, while Ola declined to comment. An Uber spokesman said the company is working with authorities to understand their requirements.
Several companies in New Delhi offer taxi services primarily via a smartphone app, but the transport department said some are openly flouting rules and are not registered to ply on roads.
The rape accusation in December reignited debate about women’s safety in India and particularly in New Delhi, which is often dubbed India’s rape capital.
Uber is also fighting bans in France, Spain and South Korea for alleged violations including using incorrectly licenced drivers. It has also had to contend with further rape allegations against drivers in Chicago and Boston. | The controversial technology company's application for a license hasn't been rejected...but isn't going anywhere either. | 20.571429 | 0.571429 | 0.857143 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/how-to-get-away-with-murder-recap-hello-raskolnikov-winter-premiere | http://web.archive.org/web/20150130162446id_/http://www.people.com/article/how-to-get-away-with-murder-recap-hello-raskolnikov-winter-premiere | Viola Davis Returns in 'Hello Raskolnikov' : People.com | 20150130162446 | Viola Davis (left) and Liza Weil on How to Get Away with Murder
episode that begins with Annalise Keating (
) putting on her wig is bound to be full-throttle.
has made a point of showing its anti-heroine in various states of polish and rawness. The dynamic between Annalise's fundamentally broken internal life and her very together outside appearance – not to mention when those two collide violently – is largely what has made the show so intriguing. Thursday's winter premiere, "Hello Raskolnikov," was no exception.
The episode opened as Annalise braced herself for questioning about her husband Sam's murder. As we saw in the midseason finale, Annalise is well aware what happened – and, frankly, not that all
bothered about it. Like a skilled lawyer/liar (funny how those words sound so similar), she ingeniously deflected her interrogator's questions, emphasized Sam's infidelity and cruelty, denied any knowledge of the infamous d--- pic and capped off her sob story with a gnashing-of-teeth recollection of discovering her dead husband's body.
It's worth noting that the wig Annalise put on in the episode's opening moments was very suburban soccer mom. Whereas the first half of the season saw Annalise in a gloriously alpha female short crop, now it's all about softening the look, presenting the image of a spurned wife and a would-be mother (after all, it's not the first time Annalise has used her womb as an excuse). Well-played, show. Well-played, Annalise.
As the detectives heard her testimony, we also got glimpses of Annalise's actual recollections of the night. Most notably, she told Wes (Alfred Enoch) that Sam "deserved to die" and bid her pupil, "Now go and do what you've been told." And boy was he told – very explicitly by Annalise (as if she'd done it before) – exactly how to dispose of Sam's decaying corpse.
While Annalise was bolstering alliances – most notably with dismissed detective Nate Lahey (Billy Brown) – the Keating Five was falling apart. Michaela (Aja Naomi King) and Connor (Jack Falahee) were the weakest links. At one point during a post-murder strategy session, Connor self-deprecatingly snarked (and dropped the episode's title), "Hello, Raskolnikov!" Then, looking at the others and getting only blank stares, he said, "
? The guilt eats away at him until he goes cray and turns himself in...." So there's your thesis statement: These are murderers trying to convince themselves they're above the law, all the while silently, invariably rotting from the inside out.
Worst of all? Prof. Keating wouldn't even give them a reprieve from the exam! Cold.
Meanwhile, the not-even-a-chance-at-being-functional relationship between Wes and Rebecca (Katie Findlay) carried on. Rebecca, doubtless thanks to her terrible taste in men, noticed that Wes was strangely unmoved by the fact that he just
but dropped her line of questions once it was time for another makeout session.
One relationship that is inarguably unbreakable? Annalise and Wes. Bonded by their mutual guilt yet unburdened by anything resembling a conscience, they fell deeper into their twisted mentorship. They set a shared goal of proving Sam murdered Lila Stangard, thereby making it look like he'd gone on the lam, and brought in the Keating Five. In a way, this was when student became teacher. Remember when Wes was a hapless dope? Well, now that he has blood on his hands, let's just say he's gotten resourceful.
After some courtroom shenanigans with abortion clinic footage and a confiscated laptop, Lila's death was placed squarely on Sam. Wes's gleeful smile at Rebecca upon hearing the prosecutor dismiss her case was disturbing to say the least.
Later, Annalise crashed a meeting of the Keating Five. Connor and Michaela still foolishly thought they had some room to wriggle out of this sick social club. Annalise came to shut that down – in the most gently maternal way possible. She cupped their faces and whispered consoling words: "Let me help you. Because, if you do, I promise you will get away with this."
But, just to prove that she had something on them, Annalise used the class's midterm exam as a
-like exercise not only in blackmailing her guilty students by rattling off details strikingly similar to the night of Sam's death in a "hypothetical" case study, but also as a class-wide think tank designed to clear them of all charges. You have to hand it to her, the woman is brilliant.
But is she brilliant enough to outfox Sam's own sister? The final scene showed
arriving on the scene. Harding told PEOPLE that Hannah Keating and Annalise will experience "a lot of conflict." And so it begins...
"What the hell, Annalise? No one's this relieved when they find out their husband's knocked up a dead girl – not unless there's something going on." –
"You call it crazy, I call it winning." – | The Keating Five return – and the investigation gets more intense – in the winter premiere, "Hello Raskolnikov" | 48.52381 | 0.761905 | 2.857143 | high | low | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2012/02/25/dont-believe-every-buffett-buys-headline/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150201044323id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/02/25/dont-believe-every-buffett-buys-headline/ | Don’t believe every “Buffett buys…” headline | 20150201044323 | Because the press and stock-market pundits like headlines that begin “Buffett Buys…,” big-type assertions of that precise kind often appear. But such headlines are all too often wrong, for the simple reason that other people besides Buffett do some of the buying at Berkshire Hathaway. Moreover, the confusion has compounded in the last couple of years.
For many years Lou Simpson was the other buyer besides Buffett. Purchases that he made were often attributed to Buffett. I well remember the 2007 day that Fortune’s automobile writer, Alex Taylor, called me in astonishment, asking, “Buffett is buying Carmax stock?” No, I said, the relatively small size of the stake—around $260 million—suggested the buyer was Simpson. Alex checked out the facts and got a nice story out of Buffett-it-wasn’t, Simpson-it-was.
Simpson retired from Berkshire brk.a in 2010. But as he was leaving, taking with him salutes and thanks from Buffett, into Berkshire came new hire Todd Combs, who had previously run Connecticut hedge fund Castle Point Management. (See also: Welcome to Omaha, Todd Combs). Combs made his purchases for Berkshire throughout 2011. When Berkshire filed its 13Fs with the SEC, there were suddenly headlines that said “Buffett Buys MasterCard,” or Visa, or Dollar General DG . Alas, those were all Combs’ purchases, not Buffett’s.
MORE: Buffett beats the S&P for the 39th year
Later in 2011, Buffett hired Ted Weschler, who was then running a Charlottesville, Virginia, hedge fund called Peninsula Capital Advisors, to join the Berkshire investment team. (See also: Meet Ted Weschler: Buffett auction winner, Berkshire’s new hire). Weschler proceeded to start shutting down his fund, planning to do that by early 2012. He had certain stocks in his old fund that he wanted to have in his new Berkshire portfolio. So he secured Buffett’s okay to simply transfer some of his stocks to Berkshire, doing that in the last weeks of 2011. These were to be the beginnings of the Berkshire portfolio that Weschler will run and that is expected to be about the size of Combs’ portfolio, which is now at the $1.75 billion level.
When Berkshire’s 13F filing for yearend 2011 was made a few weeks ago, headlines began to appear that said, “Buffett Buys DirecTV,” or DaVita (which runs kidney dialysis centers), or Liberty Media. Not true insofar as Buffett is concerned. All of those are Weschler positions, transferred over from Peninsula in its final days.
So if Buffett wasn’t buying DirecTV DTV in 2011 or Visa V or any of the others described above, what was he buying? The huge answer, as everybody has known for a while, is IBM IBM , into which Berkshire poured close to $11 billion in 2012. By the end of the year, Berkshire had a gain of about $900 million in Big Blue.
MORE: Geico’s profits plunged in 2011
Buffett singled out three other investments for special comment in his chairman’s letter. One was an addition of $1 billion that Berkshire made to its already large holdings of Wells Fargo WFC , raising its cost basis to just over $9 billion and its ownership of the company to 7.6%. Buffett described banking as “back on its feet” and Wells as “prospering.”
A second financial investment was $5 billion of preferred stock in Bank of America BAC that came with warrants allowing Berkshire to buy 700 million common shares at $7.14 per share anytime before September 2, 2021. Bank of America stock is currently selling at about $8 per share. Says Buffett of this investment: “Our warrants will likely be of great value before they expire.”
MORE: Buffett on housing: Was ‘dead wrong,’ but still believes
Of the third Berkshire investment, Buffett has absolutely nothing good to say. In his letter, he concedes that he completely blew things a few years ago by putting around $2 billion into several high-yield bond issues of utility operation Energy Future Holdings (which in its former life, before it was taken private by KKR and others, was called TXU). Had the price of natural gas risen and given EFH an opportunity to make good money off its coal-burning plants, the company’s bonds would have been golden. Instead, the price of natural gas has nosedived and turned EFH into a financial disaster.
Berkshire wrote down its EFH investment by $1 billion in 2010 and by another $390 million in 2011. Buffett is blunt in assessing his judgment in this matter: “However things turn out, I totally miscalculated the gain/loss probabilities when I purchased the bonds. In tennis parlance, this was a major unforced error by your chairman.”
The writer of this article, FORTUNE senior editor-at-large Carol Loomis, is a longtime friend of Warren Buffett’s and a shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway. She has been the pro bono editor of Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders for 35 years. | Warren Buffett still does most of the portfolio management at Berkshire Hathaway, but the press often mistakes his investments with those of his managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. | 30.84375 | 0.875 | 1.5625 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/mar/23/john-richardson-life-in-art | http://web.archive.org/web/20150203061806id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/mar/23/john-richardson-life-in-art | John Richardson: a life in art | 20150203061806 | "How well do you know Kipling's poetry?" demands John Richardson, almost before the door to his Manhattan apartment has closed behind me. "I'm trying to remember the name of a poem … it's for something I'm writing." Richardson – the first volume of whose Picasso biography won him the Whitbread book of the year award in 1991 – is 88 years old and suffers from macular degeneration, severely hampering his ability to read. But he is still working furiously: writing, now with collaborators, volume four of the Picasso biography, and curating exhibitions. (His Picasso: the Mediterranean Years at the Gagosian Gallery London in 2010 was regarded as a museum-quality exhibition – or indeed, as surpassing museum quality, arising as it did out of an intimate personal knowledge of the artist and his circle.) When I visit, he is drafting an essay on Lucian Freud, whom he had known since he was 18 years old and Freud was 20.
Richardson – who occasionally pauses at length to excavate a name from the deep layers of his memory, but who is otherwise sufficiently youthful to clamber out of a sash window to perch on his tiny terrace at the behest of the photographer – leads me through a startlingly impressive array of rooms, busily decorated with sculptures, deeply upholstered divans, elaborate lamps, antique tables and, above all, pictures. He gestures in the direction of an 18th-century portrait. "That's a Reynolds of Frederick, Prince of Wales. One of Queen Mary's ladies-in-waiting was always trying to get it out of me. They didn't have one at the palace." We whisk past Picassos and Freuds, and I spot what I imagine to be a reproduction of a Braque perched on a side table. It is only later, when I look at the inscription – "Pour Richardson, avec mes amitiés, G Braque" that I realise it's the real thing, a delicate piece in ink and cardboard collage of a bird flying to its nest.
Richardson is one of the last links to a dazzling, lost world: aside from Picasso, Braque and Jean Cocteau, whom he met while living for 12 years with the art collector Douglas Cooper in the south of France after the war, he was on terms with an array of literary and artistic figures – Anthony Blunt, Cyril Connolly, WH Auden, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, Francis Bacon, Nancy Mitford, Graham Sutherland, James and John Pope-Hennessy – many of whom are vividly brought to life in his gripping, gossipy, score-settling memoir, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Above all, the memoir conveys the character of Cooper, one of the most important early collectors of cubist art, who seduced Richardson and then swept him away to France in 1950.
Cooper introduced him to many of the stellar figures who shine out of the memoir's pages, but he was also a domineering, controlling companion. As Richardson puts it: "There was a great deal to Douglas - he was brilliant, he was very funny, there was never a dull moment, but to live under the same roof way off in a rather deserted part of Provence was – well, I sometimes went stir crazy."
He eventually left and settled in New York, writing for the New York Review of Books (among other publications) and organising a successful Picasso exhibition in 1962 that spanned nine galleries. He then set up the New York branch of Christie's with fellow Briton Charlie Allsopp. "We complemented each other. I didn't know much about 17th-century Dutch painting, or Chinese porcelain or silver. He didn't know much about modern painting," he says of Allsopp, the father of TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp. Leaving Cooper, he says, "I was able to grow up and be what I wanted to be – a writer about art with a career at the centre of the art world."
It was going back to France to consult Picasso about the 1962 exhibition that brought forth the idea of the biography. "I'd say: 'Who is it a portrait of?' And he'd say that with works of the late 1930s there were sometimes as many as four people in one portrait – Dora Maar, Nusch Eluard, Inès the maid, Lee Miller, you'll see all of them. So the whole question of identity in these portraits was fascinating. I thought I'd do a big study looking at how one could trace Picasso's style through the portraits of the women who were inspirational to him. Then I realised it was much better to do a large-scale biography."
With its sharp, jargon-free prose, its persuasive art-historical arguments and its pungent insights into its subject's character, the first volume was a revelation. Art historian Richard Wollheim wrote in the London Review of Books: "There is no short way of conveying the wealth, precision and imaginativeness of this book." For critic Waldemar Januszczak, writing in the Guardian, it was "the finest biography of an artist I have read".
John Patrick Richardson was born in London in 1924, the eldest son of the 70-year-old Sir Wodehouse Richardson and his much younger wife, Patty. "My father was totally fascinating and rather impressive," says Richardson. "He was decorated by Queen Victoria and knighted by Edward VII. He was quartermaster general in the South African war, and the first to feed the troops refrigerated beef – he brought in refrigerated railroad cars." After the Boer war he co-founded the Army and Navy Stores, with its HQ in Victoria Street in London and outposts in Calcutta and Bombay. "One day, on a Thursday, which was board meeting day, when he'd always do a tour of inspection of the store, he saw this little woman retouching photos and got interested in her, and he waited outside with a bunch of roses, and one thing led to another." His father died when Richardson, the oldest of three children, was six. "I was enormously proud of my father and to some extent have missed him every day of my life. He was so bright, so funny and warm – heroic in his way."
At 13, Richardson was sent to Stowe, its Capability Brown grounds and elegant 18th-century follies providing the backdrop for some of his earliest sexual experiences. Here, his art teacher introduced him to the work of artists such as Picasso and Schwitters. Richardson shows me a little abstract work that he made at the time, impressively progressive for a 1930s schoolboy. As war broke out he enrolled at the Slade. Later, just as he was called up, he caught rheumatic fever: he was out of the army before he ever put on an Irish Guards uniform.
He lived in wartime London with his mother and siblings, working as an industrial designer by day and doing air-raid warden and firefighter shifts by night. And then there were the parties. "In those days being gay was somewhat dangerous; my best friend was had-up for some non-offence and jailed for a month – you had to be careful. But during the blitz London was kind of amazing. There were these great nightclubs in bombed basements in Soho. And there would be a feeling of tremendous excitement because quite a few of the men would be going off the following day to Egypt. And people were so great with each other during the war. People weren't petty or bitchy, they were out for basically whatever thrills they could get before they were bombed or packed off to the battlefield."
Soon after the war he began to write literary journalism for the New Statesman, mentored by Cuthbert Worsley, the magazine's theatre and deputy literary editor. "Postwar London," says Richardson, "was bohemian fun, but also one felt there was a creative spirit to it, which seems to have ceased." One day in 1949 Worsley took him to a party at the house of John Lehmann – brother of the novelist Rosamond – in honour of Paul Bowles's new novel, The Sheltering Sky. Also at the party was Cooper, who had spent a chunk of his fortune amassing an impressive modern art collection.
"In those days," says Richardson, "booze was always a problem. You had to scrounge around for a bottle of port, then there'd be a bottle of scotch, a couple of bottles of South African red wine, some liqueurs – and so you'd get drunk after three different drinks. I had met Douglas before and I longed to see the collection; it was difficult, impossible, to see great cubist works at the time. So I went up to him and introduced myself. 'I know perfectly well who you are,' said Douglas.
"I said: 'I would like very much to see your collection.' He said: 'There is no time like the present. Let's leave these ghastly people and this ghastly party.' And off we went in a 20-year-old Rolls-Royce, black with yellow wheels, resembling a wasp. We set off at an enormous speed and screeched to a halt two blocks away at Basil Amulree's, with whom Douglas shared a house."
Soon it would be Richardson's home, too: "I slept with Douglas out of curiosity, and also I wanted to get to know him better," he says. Amulree, a physician and a peer "who never did a mean or cruel thing", seemed not to mind. "He lived through Douglas," says Richardson. "In fact, the worse Douglas was, the more satisfaction Basil seemed to get. He wasn't so much masochistic as uptight. Somehow through Douglas he let go. He would hoot with laughter at Douglas's antics; occasionally he would give a slight sigh, but he would often egg him on. Basil was not in the least jealous of Douglas's relationships; Douglas, on the other hand, was extremely derogatory about Basil's occasional relationships."
Cooper took Richardson on something of a grand tour around Europe, which culminated in the discovery of a beautiful, neglected chateau called Castille, where they settled. It was here that they moved into the orbit of the magnetic, contradictory creature that was Pablo Picasso, who lived not far away.
Picasso was between mistresses, with various candidates swirling around. Richardson took a great shine to one of them: Jacqueline Roque. "She seemed perfect for him. She was the right shape – big pair of breasts and a big pair of buttocks and not much in between, and that's what he liked. I went up to Paris and got a present for her, a sort of bullfighter's cape from Dior, and that cemented our friendship, for Jacqueline soon ended up as the mistress."
Jacqueline was with him to the end, devoted to and exhausted by the artist. "The last eight years of Picasso's life there was no one around but her. She was secretary, housekeeper, she lugged around the canvases. She would have to do all the practical things – go to the bank, buy the stuff for the weekend, have a hassle with the lawyer – and be back at home by the time he rose at 10.30. Then she had to remain by his side without even leaving the room until sometimes two, three, four in the morning. And she started to drink. By the time he died she was in terrible shape."
After a dozen years, the relationship with Cooper ground painfully to a halt. A final episode of the endgame came when Cooper was stabbed by a young man whom he had picked up. Richardson, who had moved away by that point but was back to celebrate Picasso's birthday, rushed to the hospital, sleeping on a deckchair by his bedside. When Cooper eventually spoke, it was to enquire: "Where did you find that assassin?"
After all that, "New York was paradise for me," says Richardson. "I felt like a child let loose in a department store. There were white Russian chess players, interior decorators, old-fashioned English people, left-wing politicians." Friends included Andy Warhol, for whom he took part in a soap opera the artist had devised. ("Maxine de la Falaise played a once-famous actress who had fallen on evil days. And I was her brother from London.")
He says of Warhol: "Since he died I've seen all sorts of depths to Andy I hadn't spotted when he was alive. I'm a Catholic and I have realised the enormous importance of Roman Catholicism to him. He went every single day to mass. I think this explains the repetitions in his work – all the Ave Marias, like the 50 soup cans. To me he was like a character out of Russian fiction, the holy idiot. He could portray horrible and hideous things and be surrounded by horrible and hideous people taking drugs and killing themselves. But somehow he managed to retain his innocence and never get contaminated."
Today, Richardson is exasperated by the politics of the US. "Back in those days, most of my friends were to the left. Now the left doesn't exist any more. A woman – the wife of a well-known zillionaire – recently said to me: 'John, I had no idea you were such a liberal.' And I thought, do you know, this is what friends used to say when I was 18. Except they meant I should become a socialist. It seemed to me that history was repeating itself but upside down. I've stayed more or less where I am, politically. My father was a liberal, and I feel liberalism in my bones."
Volume four of the Picasso biography, with the collaboration of Spanish art historian Gijs van Hensbergen and curator Michael Cary, is near completion. It will cover the years from 1933 to the artist's death in 1973. "Finally one can set the whole Communist record straight," says Richardson. Though Picasso "became Communist because he was passionately pacifist and had very strong views about poverty", according to Richardson, he also did so in a fit of pique after "very temporarily becoming a passionate Gaullist" at the time of the liberation of Paris.
He explains: "The de Gaulle people got hold of this, Dora Maar told me, and they came round to dinner. But afterwards, he simply said 'bande de cons' [bunch of cunts] and joined the Communist party the next day." But, Richardson argues, "in private, he was critical of the Communists and very upset by the brutality of the Soviets, but he was stuck – he couldn't withdraw without looking like a turncoat. So up to the end of his life he realised he had no choice but to stay in the party."
And so work continues on a remarkable project; and this slayer, and celebrator, of sacred monsters, forges on towards his tenth decade.
• This article was amended on 26 March 2012. The original said that volume four of the Picasso biography would cover the years from 1962 to 1973. This has been corrected. | 'I was able to grow up and be what I wanted to be – a writer about art with a career at the centre of the art world' | 99.4 | 1 | 24.466667 | high | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2015/02/06/business-majors-job-market/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150208035743id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/02/06/business-majors-job-market/ | Dear college business majors: You're hired! | 20150208035743 | (Poets&Quants) — Barbara Hewitt, senior associate director of career services at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, was more than pleased when she noticed that only 4.2% of bachelor of business administration graduates from the class of 2014 was still seeking employment four to six months after graduation.
“That’s almost the lowest I’ve ever seen it,” Hewitt said.
That wasn’t the only good news in the school’s career plans survey report. Salaries were on the upswing, with 2014 graduates pulling in average base salaries that were $1,520 higher than their 2013 counterparts. And sign-on bonuses were up slightly, with the average signing bonus $157 higher than the previous year.
Wharton is among a number of leading undergraduate business schools that reported strong job numbers for the 2014 class in recent career placement reports, driven by a robust hiring market for finance, steady internship to job conversion rates, and an increased appetite for jobs in the tech sector. Career services offices are responding by offering more intensive career prep to students, from career workshops as early as freshman year to hosting industry panels in growing areas of finance, such as investment management. But in the midst of the improving job market, some schools have noticed a dip in the number of employers coming to campus, as well as a decrease in the number of interviews they conduct, a sign perhaps that students are becoming less dependent on the campus recruiting process to land jobs, career services officers said.
At most schools, there has been consistent employer interest in hiring for entry-level consulting and finance-related jobs, especially those in investment banking. Yet one of the areas that gained hiring momentum in 2014 was the technology sector, where tech companies and startups have been increasingly aggressive about hiring BBAs for entry-level jobs, schools said.
At the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business, the percentage of students who took jobs in the technology and finance fields was “neck-to-neck” this year for the first time, said Velma Arney, McComb’s director of BBA career services, with 12% of students heading into technology and 13% going into banking. Tech recruiters are courting undergraduates more aggressively, hosting additional office hours, coffee chats, and informal events for them, Arney said.
“The largest major here at McCombs for undergraduate business students is finance, so when you see technology starting to rise, it is a bit surprising,” she said. “The technology companies are appealing to this generation of students, who see these companies as a fun place to work. There’s also the cool factor….”
That shift was also evident at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where 18 students went into tech, up from 12 in 2013, said David Vogel, who leads career development and employer relations for the undergraduate business program.
Despite the competition from tech, finance, with its lucrative salaries and hefty sign-on bonuses, remains a popular field for graduates of top undergraduate business programs.
At the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, the number of students heading into finance has “stayed exactly the same,” said Damian Zikakis, Ross’ director of career services, with 44.4% of the class going into that field. Banks have shifted their recruitment strategies a bit in the last year or so as they’ve struggled with many of their recent hires being plucked by private equity firms, he said.
“The banks are trying to figure out ways to keep the students around longer. They’re making those efforts visible to students in terms of corporate presentations and talk of making the hours less demanding,” he said.
The finance sector’s allure has held strong at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School, where 47.8% of students accepted jobs in the field in 2014, nearly the same number as last year, said Tom Fitch, McIntire’s associate dean for career services and employer relations. But students entering finance are expanding their horizons beyond investment banking to look at other jobs in the industry, including trading, investment management, and wealth management, he said. For example, the percentage of graduates going into investment management has steadily crept up over the last three years, from 2.8% in 2012 to 7.2% in 2014, he said. More students are accepting internships in these fields as well, as the school has offered more “industry focus” programs that expose students to careers in niche finance sectors, Fitch said.
“At McIntire, we had a higher number of students this fall bypass interviews and accept internship opportunities than we’ve seen in the past,” Fitch said. “It’s a national trend among some of the major banks, and a trend we anticipate will increase.”
In a surprising shift, several banks and other companies decreased their recruitment efforts on campus in the fall of 2013, especially investment banks that rely heavily on their intern pool for full-time hires.
Campus recruiting was down at Indiana University’s Kelly School of Business, which reported a 7% decline in this area in 2014, according to the school’s most recent undergraduate career services report. Much of the decrease in activity was offset by non-traditional recruiting methods such as virtual recruiting, which has becoming increasingly popular, the school said in the report.
The number of employers conducting interviews on Wharton’s campus was down about 10% over 2013, and the total number of interviews held fell 2%, Hewitt said. With those numbers, she would have expected that more students would have accepted a job offer from their internship, bypassing campus recruiting. That was not the case, as just 34.6% of students accepted a job offer from their internship in 2014, down from 39.1% in 2013.
“I was a little surprised when I looked at that,” Hewitt said. “It’s still a pretty healthy number, but given there were fewer employers on campus, I’d have expected it to go the other way. I guess with a stronger job market, students had more options, even though they were perhaps getting fewer offers.”
Looking ahead to 2015, career services officers said they expect that the strong job market will keep pace, with several schools already reporting even better preliminary numbers for this year’s graduating class.
Wharton’s Hewitt said she already heard one student from the class of 2015 had received a $85,000 starting salary. “If one bank does it, they’ll all try to compete,” she said.
At the McIntire School, 70% of students have already secured full-time offers, up from 60% at the same time last year, Fitch said.
“The job market for them is very good and they are getting great opportunities, including an increase in the number of job interviews and offers,” he said. “I want to be optimistic and say the sky is the limit.” | Undergraduate business programs are reporting strong job numbers for the 2014 class. | 104.076923 | 1 | 4.692308 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/02/03/boston-ymca-names-its-new-chief/hlZpVwcJs5xXaUnZr06THJ/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150208040344id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/02/03/boston-ymca-names-its-new-chief/hlZpVwcJs5xXaUnZr06THJ/story.html | Boston YMCA names its new chief | 20150208040344 | Two months after the departure of a leader that led it through four years of rapid growth, the YMCA of Greater Boston has chosen James Morton to be its next head.
Morton has served as the president and chief executive of the YMCA of Greater Hartford since 2010, where he oversaw a double-digit growth in contributions. He also led a capital campaign that netted $15 million. Before that, he led the YMCA in Springfield, Mass.
He will replace Kevin Washington, who is leaving the post to lead the national YMCA organization in Chicago. Under Washington, who also led the Hartford Y before taking the top post here in 2010, the membership of the Greater Boston YMCA doubled, from around 20,000 to 40,000.
Morton will assume the top post on April 6. | James Morton is the second president in a row to come from the YMCA in Hartford. | 8.882353 | 0.823529 | 1.294118 | low | medium | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/08/17/massachusetts-lost-almost-construction-jobs-past-year-according-trade-group/kTQshBGQtOspFztyBwSNIK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150211135003id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/08/17/massachusetts-lost-almost-construction-jobs-past-year-according-trade-group/kTQshBGQtOspFztyBwSNIK/story.html | Massachusetts lost almost 4,000 construction jobs in the past year, according to trade group | 20150211135003 | A national trade group said Friday that the number of constructions jobs declined in 31 states over the past year, including by 3,990 in Massachusetts — about 3.6 percent.
The Associated General Contractors of America, which based its findings on Department of Labor data, attributed the job losses to a decrease in funding for public projects.
“Public construction cuts in particular are taking their toll on construction employment in many parts of the country,” said Ken Simonson, the group’s chief economist.
According to the group, about 103,300 people work in the construction industry here, down from 107,200 in July 2011. The state ranks 34th nationally in construction jobs, based on Labor Department statistics.
Alaska fared the worst over the last 12 months, the group said, shedding 15 percent of its construction positions. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have added jobs since July 2011, and the numbers remained virtually unchanged in Hawaii. | A national trade group said Friday that the number of constructions jobs declined in 31 states over the past year, including by 3,990 -- about 3.6 percent -- in Massachusetts. The Associated General Contractors of America, which based its findings on US Department of Labor data, attributed the job losses to a decrease in funding for public projects. “Public construction cuts in particular are taking their toll on construction employment in many parts of the country, said Ken Simonson, the group’s chief economist. | 1.913978 | 0.967742 | 16.537634 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2015/02/11/amazon-squeezes-quality-pulp-out-bosch/OGyBtbXSfU0jp2XD44gssK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150214213547id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/television/2015/02/11/amazon-squeezes-quality-pulp-out-bosch/OGyBtbXSfU0jp2XD44gssK/story.html? | Amazon squeezes quality pulp out of ‘Bosch’ | 20150214213547 | There is a group of character actors that have been kicking around for decades, doing good work in long arcs on episodic shows and popping up on the big screen, who are definitely worthy of top billing.
Titus Welliver is one of them. After years of memorable supporting parts on shows like “The Good Wife,” “Lost,” and “Sons of Anarchy,” and films including “Argo” and “The Town,” it’s a pleasure to see his world-weary mug and hear his sonorous baritone front and center on the new Amazon series “Bosch,” which begins streaming Friday.
It’s the first drama for Amazon, and a solid start. “Bosch,” based on the best-selling Michael Connelly series of books, may not set the TV world on fire in terms of storytelling or innovation. It’s another cop show, after all, but it is a quality cop show.
Welliver plays the smoking, swearing, rule-breaking title character, whose full name is Hieronymus Bosch, like the painter. He’s an LAPD homicide detective and war veteran, with the trademark cynicism we’ve come to expect from characters like that. But Welliver never overdoes the hard-bitten routine, showing plenty of vulnerability, easy humor, and sex appeal.
When we meet Bosch, he is on a stakeout with his partner, J. Edgar (Jamie Hector, Marlo Stanfield on “The Wire”) in pursuit of a potential murder suspect, whom he shoots — he says and believes — in self-defense. The first few episodes intersperse his trial for that shooting with a couple of other cases, his life at the precinct, and a budding romance with a rookie cop played by Annie Wersching (“24”), with whom he has an easy chemistry.
While “Bosch” is not a procedural in the case-of-the-week sense, since it has an ongoing story line arc to its 10-episode season, its straightforward storytelling and character makeup feel familiar. There is the scrappy partner who always has Bosch’s back and the philosophical coroner who provides exposition in the morgue and muses on life over drinks. There is the angry captain who is happy to see Bosch twist in court and the supportive lieutenant who wants to hold Bosch’s feet to the fire but looks the other way at his insubordination since it yields results.
A veritable parade of stalwart “Hey, it’s that guy/gal!” actors play those supporting roles, including Alan Rosenberg (“L.A. Law,” “Cybill”), Amy Aquino (“ER”), Lance Reddick (“Fringe,” “Lost”), Steven Culp (“Desperate Housewives”), Abraham Benrubi (“ER”), and Troy Evans (“ER”), among others. And Jason Gedrick (“Dexter,” “Desperate Housewives”) shows up in the second episode as a pivotal — and atypically scruffy and menacing — character.
This is the kind of show that when Bosch’s superior, played by Aquino, learns that he is working cases when he’s not supposed to, she warns him that he could be taken off the homicide beat. “You’ll be doing auto theft in San Pedro, living on Pop-Tarts and instant ramen in a rented room,” she barks at him. You get the idea.
“Bosch” may not be reinventing the wheel, but it’s a sturdy ride. | Titus Welliver stars in the new Amazon crime drama “Bosch,” based on the books by Michael Connelly and begins streaming Friday. | 27.04 | 0.92 | 3.4 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-dance/2015/02/12/nottage-intimate-apparel-seamstress-searches-for-right-fit/ApNaOEj8rtXQ9uTlv6VmQN/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150215141903id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/theater-dance/2015/02/12/nottage-intimate-apparel-seamstress-searches-for-right-fit/ApNaOEj8rtXQ9uTlv6VmQN/story.html? | In Nottage’s ‘Intimate Apparel,’ a seamstress searches for the right fit - Theater & dance - The Boston Globe | 20150215141903 | Esther sews beautiful lingerie for white society ladies. As an African-American woman in 1905 New York, Esther knows her life is circumscribed, but she’s got a plan to open her own business. She’s also 35 and living alone in a rooming house, so when a letter from the Panama Canal Zone opens the possibility of romance, she’s willing to try on a different kind of future.
“The dream is saving all this money to open her own beauty parlor,” says director Summer L. Williams. “And the fantasy is this man who starts writing her letters. Choosing between a dream and a fantasy, that’s a hard choice. I think we’re faced with that choice more often than we think.”
Williams is directing Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel,” with Lindsey McWhorter as Esther, at the Lyric Stage Company of Bostonthrough March 14.
In 2013 at the Lyric, Williams directed Nottage’s “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” the story of an African-American actress in the early days of Hollywood. Are Esther and Vera alike?
“There’s something really significant about women who have the wherewithal to dream, to go after what they want,” Williams says. “Those two women are fully aware of the social circumstances that have influence and power in their lives, but they don’t give themselves over to it.”
The Lyric Stage, 140 Clarendon St., 617-585-5678. http://www.lyricstage.com
The No. 1 topic in the theater world for the last year, locally and nationally, has been race and gender diversity — or, more accurately, the lack of it. In these two Lyric productions, African-American women are writing, directing, and starring in plays centered on the lives of African-American women.
“The idea that I’m telling the story of a 35-year-old black woman who has dreams and aspirations and is really determined to own life on her own terms, even if it means sacrificing in some other ways, that story is pretty familiar to me,” Williams says.
Williams is best known as one of the founders of Boston’s Company One Theatre, for which she recently directed two other works by women of color, Aditi Brennan Kapil’s “Shiv” and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s “We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, from the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915.”
“I’m a woman of color, and I do gravitate to what happens in the mirror sometimes, as well as story,” Williams says. “And luckily, these are some of the best playwrights around. It’s a no-brainer.
“As much speaking as I do around issues of diversity, it’s a part of who I am, it’s part of the fabric of my work, it doesn’t feel outside the norm to me,” she says. “That’s always the best approach, it has to come from the true place. It can’t come from any sort of initiative or ‘We are going to do this because it’s popular to do now.’”
Nottage is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Ruined,” presented by the Huntington Theatre in 2011. While neither “Intimate Apparel” nor “Vera Stark” is as dark, Nottage’s work is always intensely real, Williams says.
“There’s something about her text that kind of lives and breathes in the actor’s body, and the tone of it can shift based on what’s happening with the people in the room in the moment,” Williams says and laughs. “I know that sounds so artsy fartsy. But it rides this really beautiful line that’s very true to life. It’s not all tragedy, not all comedy, It’s very matter of fact. It makes great use of the actors and their ability to really allow the life of the text to enter them and have it merge with what they bring.”
And how does McWhorter make that connection with the text? Is there a line of dialogue or a piece of wardrobe that helps her find Esther in herself?
“I would have to say it’s the sewing machine,” the actress says. “Starting the play there and coming back to it throughout. I don’t know if it’s because it reminds me of my grandmother, who was also a seamstress, but just emotionally it really kind of roots me into the character.”
But it’s the character’s story, too, McWhorter says. “Just thinking about her doing that as a career, and what it was for her to leave [home] at such a young age and provide for herself and make a life for herself. Just her strength. That really put me in the place where I need to be to do the work.”
The cast also includes Kris Sidberry as Esther’s friend Mayme, a prostitute who buys her lingerie. Brandon G. Green plays George, her suitor, and Nael Nacer is Mr. Marks, who supplies her with sumptuous fabrics as well as a glimpse of another kind of future. Cheryl D. Singleton plays Mrs. Dickson, who runs the boarding house, and Amanda Ruggiero is the socialite Mrs. Van Buren.
Both “Intimate Apparel” and “Vera Stark” are period pieces. “What’s most significant for me in that is having a dramaturg, the resource for those silly little questions that ultimately don’t necessarily impact the work, but impact the world” of the production, Williams says. Assistant director Stephanie LeBolt and Lyric Stage associate artistic director A. Nora Long tackle those questions for her.
And Williams has a perfect example of how attention to a small historical detail can elevate a production, thanks to the letters between Esther and her suitor. “Fountain pens! What was going on with fountain pens in 1905, who would have access to them and who wouldn’t? What does it mean for someone to have access to it? It seems silly for a 30-second moment when a pen appears onstage. But it’s significant because it tells a further story about class differences [and] how people might relate to the items they do have.”
While directing “Intimate Apparel,” Williams is already prepping her production of Andrew Hinderaker’s “Colossal” for Company One — “a crazy huge all-movement dance play” — and continuing her work teaching drama at Brookline High School.
“I feel really lucky because it’s everything that I want to do,” she says. “Figuring how to continue to do it and do more of it is my constant challenge.” | Esther sews beautiful lingerie for white society ladies. As an African-American woman in 1905 New York, Esther knows her life is circumscribed, but she’s got a plan to open her own business. When a letter from the Panama Canal Zone opens the possibility of romance, however, she’s willing to try on a different kind of future. Summer L. Williams directs Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel,” with Lindsey McWhorter as Esther, at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston through March 14. | 13.604167 | 0.96875 | 24.010417 | low | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-passes-away/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150217090427id_/http://fortune.com/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-passes-away/ | Steve Jobs passes away | 20150217090427 | Apple’s visionary founder passes away at the age of 56.
The Apple AAPL board of directors this evening released a statement that founder Steve Jobs has passed away, after a long battle with cancer. It says:
We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.
Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.
His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.
Apple also has created a sparse website in Jobs’ memory, and asked people to share thoughts, memories, and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com.
Jobs’ family also released a statement, saying that “Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family.”
More from Fortune on Steve Jobs: | Apple's visionary founder passes away at the age of 56. The Apple board of directors this evening released a statement that founder Steve Jobs has passed away, after a long battle with cancer. It says: We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today. Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source… | 2.765625 | 0.96875 | 16.40625 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/article/5-things-hozier-take-me-church | http://web.archive.org/web/20150220171547id_/http://www.people.com/article/5-things-hozier-take-me-church | Meet the Take Me to Church Singer : People.com | 20150220171547 | 02/20/2015 AT 09:20 AM EST
Unless you've been living off the grid recently, chances are you've heard Hozier's hit song, "Take Me to Church." A lot.
The catchy hit single is on heavy rotation on the radio, currently at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and was nominated this year for a Grammy for song of the year. (It lost out to
The song's video, which shows a young gay couple being persecuted, has been viewed on YouTube more than 110 million times.
But who exactly is Hozier, the charming 24-year-old Irishman behind the song? PEOPLE chatted with the songwriter to learn as much as we could about him – and about his popular tune.
He was born Andrew Hozier-Byrne, but goes by the simpler Hozier. But it's pronounced "Hoze-ee-air," instead of rhyming with "closure."
"It was anglicized from French," Hozier says. But he doesn't care that you're saying it wrong. "It's really not all that different from the way it's being pronounced."
"I listened to his records growing up," Hozier says of his childhood spent in the Irish countryside. "A lot of Chicago blues, folk music, soul and jazz. I had a fascination with the roots of African American music. That would have been my first education in music. I had a real passion for it. I wanted to play it, sing it. I could sing at a young age, but I started to teach myself bass guitar and started writing when I was 15."
"It's about human sexuality," he says. "I grew up in a society where a lot of values were inherited from the Catholic church, and its doctrine teaches people to be ashamed of those aspects about themselves. But lovemaking is a very human, wonderful thing to do."
"Someone had an eye on me as I was leaving high school," he says of his early years. "I had a chance to record demos, but they were kind of wanting to make a pop singer out of me, of the
variety. I didn't feel comfortable with it. I wanted to be a songwriter."
But don't believe the rumors! However, the single singer
friendly with Swift, as well as with
"After the Grammys, I got to spend some time with Ed Sheeran, have a few beers with him and catch up," he says.
As for Taylor? "The rumor mill is new to me, but it's a bit silly to create rumors based on a photograph of two people meeting and hanging at an event together," he says. "But Taylor was always incredibly supportive, Tweeting about the music from early on. She is just an awesome person."
Hozier and Annie Lennox perform at the 2015 Grammy Awards | Taylor Swift "is an awesome person," the Irishman says | 48 | 1 | 1.666667 | high | high | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/02/26/23/05/savile-abused-63-people-in-uk-hospital | http://web.archive.org/web/20150227004158id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/world/2015/02/26/23/05/savile-abused-63-people-in-uk-hospital | British TV star Jimmy Savile 'abused 63 people in UK hospital' | 20150227004158 | Jimmy Savile in 2009. (AAP)
Late British TV star Jimmy Savile abused 63 people connected to a hospital he raised money for, according to a report, prompting claims of a "whitewash" by a lawyer for his victims.
The report issued after an investigation by Britain's National Health Service said nine complaints about Savile's behaviour at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital were ignored over the years but concluded that senior managers "did not know" about the allegations.
Lead investigator Androulla Johnstone said the BBC presenter's youngest victim was eight and the oldest 40 and they included patients, staff and visitors.
The abuse by Savile, who she said was "given the run" of the hospital because of his fundraising role, ranged from "inappropriate touching to rape".
A second report also released on Thursday said Savile may have abused people at a total of 41 state-run hospitals in a history of abuse spanning decades.
Johnstone denied claims of a "cover-up" by staff at Stoke Mandeville, northwest of London, saying her report was critical of the lack of supervision of Savile in violation of hospital rules.
"The individuals to whom these incidents were reported failed in their duty to protect. Consequentially, no intelligence about Savile's behaviour was gathered over the years and no action was taken," she said.
But Liz Dux, a lawyer representing 44 of the victims, said it "beggars belief" that the report found no evidence of senior managers knowing about the abuse.
"Those people who did know what Savile was up to and to whom direct reports were made will get away scot-free," she said.
"It's simply, I'm afraid, a whitewash."
Savile, who was one of the biggest TV stars in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, was a serial sexual predator.
His crimes were only revealed after his death, raising questions about why his behaviour was not spotted earlier in decades of abuse against young girls.
Do you have any news photos or videos? | A lawyer representing 44 abuse victims of UK TV star Jimmy Savile says it beggars belief a report has found no evidence of managers knowing anything. | 14.814815 | 0.851852 | 2.407407 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/active/11423216/Living-in-an-art-gallery.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150227010713id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/active/11423216/Living-in-an-art-gallery.html | Living in an art gallery | 20150227010713 | The artists Annie Morris and Idris Khan don’t do anything by halves. They moved in together only three weeks after meeting in 2009, and bought their Georgian townhouse in Islington, north London, a year later. Both are now among Britain’s most collectable young artists (Morris for her ethereal paintings and sculptures; Khan for his digital collages of photographs), and their richly layered home is testament to their creativity. It wasn’t always thus – the property had been squatted for years and was pared back to its bare bones by the previous owner. ‘When we bought the house all the cornice and panelling had been stripped right down to the original wood, which we found incredibly beautiful,’ Morris says.
Morris first came to prominence after illustrating her childhood friend Sophie Dahl’s novella The Man with the Dancing Eyes, and the contemporary fairy tale’s heroine, Pierre, would no doubt approve of the way she has decorated her home, mixing time-worn finds with whimsical touches and jolts of the unexpected. Like all good fables, the project involved overcoming several challenges before there was even a prospect of living happily. ‘We hunkered down at the top of the house for months, which was freezing because there were holes in the roof and a ceiling was missing,’ Morris says. The property also lacked electricity, and there was only enough hot water for one bath a day in the dingy basement bathroom. Undaunted, the couple set about completely renovating the place, restoring it floor by floor using reclaimed materials where possible, and referring to pictures of Charleston, the Bloomsbury group’s country home, for inspiration.
One of Morris’s distintive peg collages hangs in the bright yellow kitchen (Photo: Ingrid Rasmussen)
The majority of the work was carried out on the lower ground floor, which had been the cellar and is now an inviting open-plan kitchen, complete with reclaimed Aga. Morris and Khan visited neighbouring houses to recreate the original cupboards and panelling, and the space has now been beautifully restored. Although the kitchen’s structural detailing is in keeping with the age of the house, its vibrant yellow walls are less conventional. Inspired by Monet’s home, the colour was matched with a speck of paint that Morris’s mother, an interior designer, had kept from a previous project.
The couple have largely left the scraped-back paint on the woodwork as it was when they moved in, and have added vintage furniture and art by themselves or friends. ‘Everything has a story,’ Morris says. She and Khan spent a good deal of time rooting around salvage yards. ‘We just bought things we loved. My theory is that if you love something, it will all go together.’
The ground-floor sitting room and study are filled with items that reflect their personalities, such as the freehand embroidery on the sofa, designed by Morris, and the photography by Khan. Similarly, Morris created personalised bedlinen for the master bedroom on the first floor, enlisting the help of a seamstress to hand-stitch line drawings of her and Khan on to the sheets. Two further bedrooms on the top floor are also filled with personal touches and art. ‘I don’t want to be precious about things, so artworks come and go,’ Morris says. ‘Things are constantly changing and that makes it exciting. We always laugh and say, “What on earth will we talk about, once the house is finally done?’”
Idris Khan will be exhibiting at the Victoria Miro gallery in London W1 in May (victoria-miro.com)
The ceiling, doors and floor are stripped back to the 18th-century wood, while the recessed storage was built by hand in the original style of the building. The mirror above the fireplace and the vintage armchair were both gifts from Morris’s mother. A sculpture of Morris and Khan, which was created for their wedding in France, stands by the original fireplace. Morris created the personalised bedlinen – inspired by the illustrator Saul Steinberg – by having her own line drawings of herself and Khan hand-stitched by a seamstress.
Morris and Khan worked with a local carpenter to design the cupboards and cabinetry. ‘We went through lots of colours for this room,’ Morris recalls. ‘It was white then pink then blue… Then we saw Monet’s house with its yellow kitchen and that was it.’ The couple picked up the 18th-century chateau fireplace while visiting France. The large farmhouse table was an impulse buy at an antiques fair and the chairs are family heirlooms.
‘The purchase of the bath is a great story,’ Khan recalls. ‘I was in the process of making a sculpture and we were driving around the reclamation yards when a guy drew up and offered the owner a cast-iron bath. Annie shot out of the car and bought it from him for £50.’ Khan designed the bathroom with plenty of storage, against a backdrop of original wooden shutters and floors. | The artists Annie Morris and Idris Khan have surrounded themselves with a curated mix of paintings, sculptures and hand-embellished textiles in their east London home | 31.566667 | 0.733333 | 2.266667 | medium | low | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/george-r-r-martin-game-of-thrones-audio-commentary-in-the-books | http://web.archive.org/web/20150227030503id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/george-r-r-martin-game-of-thrones-audio-commentary-in-the-books | George R.R. Martin Is All About The Books in DVD Commentary : People.com | 20150227030503 | updated 02/25/2015 AT 06:20 AM EST
•originally published 02/24/2015 AT 01:10 PM EST
is based on a literary saga?
Kidding, kidding. But seriously, in his
has a tendency to point out how a certain plot point went down "in the books."
One enterprising fan put together a supercut of every time Martin refers to "the books" during his commentaries. From season 1 to season 4, no "book" was left unturned.
Keep in mind that this supercut was comprised of just four commentaries – "The Pointy End" from season 1, "Blackwater" and "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" from season 2, and "The Lion and the Rose" from season 4.
Rhetorical question: At which point during the 90-second supercut does the word "books" actually lose all meaning? | In a supercut of his DVD audio commentaries, the word "books" officially loses all meaning in just 90 seconds | 7.363636 | 0.727273 | 2 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/51-year-old-single-mom-has-second-daughter | http://web.archive.org/web/20150228054847id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/51-year-old-single-mom-has-second-daughter | Tracey Kahn,51-Year-Old Single Mom, Has Second Baby with IVF : People.com | 20150228054847 | By Sheila Cosgrove Baylis and Alexandra Zaslow
02/27/2015 AT 10:45 AM EST
Tracey Kahn has created a happy little family with the help of modern science.
The single mom and career woman, 51, delivered her second daughter on Feb. 18 and is thrilled to welcome her into their family.
"I'm the happiest I've ever been," Kahn, a successful publicist in New York City, tells PEOPLE. "I get responses like, 'OMG you're so old, why would you do that?' I tell them that I'm in good health and just decided to fulfill my dream of having kids, whether I was married or not. It's all about how you raise them."
Kahn's newborn daughter, Eloise Becket, joins 2-year-old Scarlett, and while both girls are the products of anonymous sperm and egg donors, they are full biological sisters.
Kahn used the same donors and both were conceived via in vitro fertilization, but Eloise was conceived at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York and Scarlett at Weill Cornell. Kahn had Scarlett when she was 49, and when she went back to Weill Cornell Medical Center to conceive again, she was too old to enroll in their program. But Kahn says Reproductive Medicine Associates has many clients in their 50s.
"I met some moms over 50 at the clinic, believe it or not," Kahn says. "I didn't stay close with them, though. Their situation is different because they were all married."
Even though the donors are anonymous, Kahn still got to find out a little about them, like the sperm donor's SAT score and that he likes to travel. She also saw photos of them as children.
She wanted to have kids earlier, but time just slipped by.
"I still have bad days where I wake up and realize I'm going to be 80 when she's 29, but I try not to worry too much about it," Kahn says.
She says she is happy with her lifestyle but hasn't given up on finding a man.
"Don't ever say you can't have kids," Kahn says. "If I've learned anything from this, it's that there's always a way to make a family, and that's just what I did." | "There's always a way to make a family, and that's just what I did," the New York City-based publicist tells PEOPLE | 15.655172 | 0.965517 | 10.689655 | medium | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2009/12/11/bah-humbug-apples-holiday-sampler/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150301071516id_/http://fortune.com:80/2009/12/11/bah-humbug-apples-holiday-sampler/ | Bah, humbug! Apple’s Holiday Sampler | 20150301071516 | Curious about iTunes LPs? For the price of some dreadful music, you can get one free.
It’s hard to imagine Steve Jobs choosing the tracks that appear on the “Holiday Sampler” Apple AAPL released this week, just in time for Christmas.
Barry Manilow singing “Jingle Bells”? “The Twelve Days of Christmas” done as an instrumental by the Mexicani Marimba Band?
This is the kind of music that makes you want to turn off the radio for the month of December.
If Apple really wanted to get people to check out iTunes LP — a bonus-filled format that hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm — they would have done better to give away one of the good ones. For example, The Doors or the Dave Matthews Band albums that Apple demoed for the press last September.
This LP doesn’t do the format, or the listener, any favors. Stephen Colbert, who may be the freshest thing on the album, has it right:
Get ready Brother for another Christmas song They play for a month, Ad infinitum One day it struck me someone must write ‘em So, it’s another Christmas song
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped] | Curious about iTunes LPs? For the price of some dreadful music, you can get one free. It's hard to imagine Steve Jobs choosing the tracks that appear on the "Holiday Sampler" Apple released this week, just in time for Christmas. Barry Manilow singing "Jingle Bells"? "The Twelve Days of Christmas" done as an instrumental by… | 3.449275 | 0.884058 | 9.782609 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/03/06/better-service-bigger-convention-center-can-have-both/zPElqfvLmJK7lgoHAxQhzJ/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150307145712id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/03/06/better-service-bigger-convention-center-can-have-both/zPElqfvLmJK7lgoHAxQhzJ/story.html | Better T service or bigger convention center? Can we have both? | 20150307145712 | Charlie Baker is playing hardball with his proposed budget, telling the Legislature to pick either tax breaks for Hollywood stars or working families.
It’s a political plot line that could have come straight out of an Aaron Sorkin script.
Our Republican governor may have another fiscal twist up his sleeve: Spend $1 billion on the convention center or use that money to fix the MBTA. It’s an idea that has been bouncing around town, one that convention center honcho Jim Rooney wishes would go away.
I can see why. Rooney may have spent five years artfully pushing through a bill to expand the Southie center, but Baker holds the cards on this one.
The Legislature has authorized the bonds for expansion, but the governor needs to sign off on them.
Candidate Baker was lukewarm on a bigger convention hall, and Governor Baker is no different. When he got into office in January, one of his first pieces of business was to order a delay of the $1 billion bond offering for the convention center as part of a budget review.
Rooney doesn’t like all the chatter about tough choices.
“You are making a panic decision to cut one foot off,” he said.
So do legislators still want to expand the convention center? And if presented with the choice of catering to visitors on fat expense accounts or giving the locals a better MBTA, which would they support?
I reached out to a dozen legislators holding key posts and got responses from half of them. Only one, Stan Rosenberg, gave me something that resembled a real answer. The Senate president wouldn’t get on the phone, but I know where he stands after he released this statement:
“I believe in this case there are opportunities to invest in both the MBTA and expanding the convention center. When it comes to prioritizing our investments, however, the recent winter has highlighted the immediate needs of upgrading our public transit system. Residents and local businesses deserve a reliable MBTA to conduct business, get to work and school, and enjoy restaurants and entertainment venues.”
Now this is saying something, coming from someone who hails from T-hating Western Massachusetts.
Legislators say Governor Charlie Baker doesn’t need to make it an either-or case when it comes to funding for a convention center expansion and revitalizing the MBTA.
As for the others, know this much about our Beacon Hill politicians: Back them into a corner and they come back swinging like Rocky.
“I hope he’s not stupid enough to say either-or,” House Majority Leader Ron Mariano said of the possibility that Baker will fund the T instead of the convention center. “It’s crazy. One has nothing to do with the other.”
Karen Spilka, Senate Ways and Means chairwoman, also scoffed at the concept, saying, “I don’t think this is a Sophie’s choice.”
Bill Straus, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, chuckled about the potential maneuver. “It has been a useful public strategy. As you can see with the discussions with the film tax credit, it’s not necessarily how the Legislature views the dynamic,” he said.
The MBTA’s Orient Heights maintenance facility in East Boston could benefit from a boost in state funding.
What Straus is referring to is how legislators, including House Speaker Bob DeLeo, have come out defending the controversial film tax credit, which lures Hollywood studios to make movies in Massachusetts. They argue that, like the earned income tax credit, the film incentive creates jobs and boosts the economy for working families.
Mariano, Spilka, and Straus all voted for the convention center expansion, and all say the Commonwealth should still proceed. Details are scant about how the administration could put the needs of the T before the convention center.
One thing’s for sure: Baker can’t just issue $1 billion of convention center bonds and decide to use that to upgrade the commuter rail. What the governor will need is new legislation to fund the MBTA.
Representative Antonio Cabral, chairman of the House committee that oversees bond bills and capital projects, thinks we don’t have to pick between the hospitality industry and commuters. He said the hotel taxes and other visitor fees that fund the convention center generate enough money each year to throw off a little extra toward transit.
It would require legislation, but the convention center fund could be redesigned to help pay for the T.
It won’t solve all of its problems, but it’s a way to have more tourists and trains. | Charlie Baker is playing hardball with his proposed budget, telling the Legislature to pick either tax breaks to Hollywood stars or working families. The governor may have a similar twist up his sleeve. | 24.638889 | 0.972222 | 10.75 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/03/06/working-mit-wind-tunnel-breeze/jljTzwsJoGjE1uZOULQHEK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150309055857id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/03/06/working-mit-wind-tunnel-breeze/jljTzwsJoGjE1uZOULQHEK/story.html | Working at the MIT wind tunnel no breeze | 20150309055857 | Before Dick Perdichizzi can flip the switch to get another workday started, he has to alert the folks who run the power plant at MIT or the entire campus may go dark within seconds.
That is because Perdichizzi runs the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and with it, the mother of all air fans: a 2,000-horsepower electrical drive attached to massive blades twice Perdichizzi’s size. When it starts up, this machine draws 2 million watts of power, a tremendous sudden drain that requires coordinating with the power plant.
“If other heavy machinery are on at the same time,or if many air conditioners are running on a hot day, we have to wait,” said Perdichizzi, who recalls tripping a breaker that cut power on the campus for eight hours.
Students, companies, and researchers from all over New England come to Perdichizzi to test the effect that moving air has on bicycles, boats, and tall buildings — just about anything curious minds want to expose to the forces of wind. The facility tested the aerodynamics of planes used in World War II.
It includes a control room, with the testing platform down a tunnel accessible through a heavy oval door that could belong on a submarine. The fan is located around two corners, and on a recent winter day the temperature inside matched the arctic air outside.
When the massive fan starts to turn, it is a little like standing next to an airplane turbine, with a sudden onslaught of overwhelming noise. Indeed, MIT cut back the top speed to 170 miles per hour after complaints.
“If you press the wrong button, you go from 50 to 150 miles per hour instantaneously,” said Perdichizzi, a senior instructor at MIT’s aeronautics and astronautics department. “Things that are not properly attached can break. And people can get seriously injured.”
That is one reason most experiments are designed without humans in the tunnel. School classes and other visitors get to experience the breeze — but only up to 35 miles per hour. And never on cold days: “Just imagine the wind chill this fan can generate. It will give you frostbite in minutes.” | Before Dick Perdichizzi can flip the switch to get another workday started, he has to alert the folks who run the power plant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the entire campus may go dark within seconds. That is because Perdichizzi runs the Wright Brothers wind tunnel at MIT, and with it, the mother of all air fans: a 2,000-horsepower electrical drive attached to massive blades twice Perdichizzi’s size. When it starts up, this machine draws 2 million watts of power, a tremendous sudden drain that requires close coordination with the power plant to ensure there is enough capacity. | 3.827273 | 0.945455 | 26.509091 | low | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2012/12/10/fred-wilson-hasnt-done-a-2012-deal/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150313160133id_/http://fortune.com/2012/12/10/fred-wilson-hasnt-done-a-2012-deal/ | Fred Wilson hasn’t done a 2012 deal | 20150313160133 | FORTUNE — Fred Wilson is the best-known venture capitalist east of San Hill Road, thanks to both his wildly-popular blog and early investments in such companies as Etsy, Foursquare, Twitter and Zynga ZNGA . But in 2012, Wilson hasn’t done a single deal.
Don’t get me wrong: Wilson’s firm, Union Square Ventures, has made plenty of investments over the past 12 months. In fact, it has (just barely) put out more cash than in any other year since its 2004 founding. It’s just that Wilson hasn’t personally led any of them.
Wilson typically invests in two or three companies per year, and last year backed four of them. When asked what has changed in 2012, he didn’t really provide an answer. Just seems like the right opportunity hasn’t presented itself (although he apparently is working on a new deal that may or may not close before January).
It’s worth noting that Wilson isn’t alone when it comes to taking 2012 slow. Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital, for example, said in late October that he had yet to do a new deal (although, like Wilson, some of his existing portfolio companies have done follow-on rounds). Sequoia Capital star Roelof Botha hasn’t led any Series A deals in 2012, although he did participate in the $50 million Series B round for Instagram — which agreed to be acquired just days later by Facebook FB .
I’ve also heard a few other notable names, and am double-checking to make sure that something didn’t fly under the radar.
Sign up for Dan’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com | Why can't Fred Wilson find a new startup to back? | 27.333333 | 0.416667 | 0.75 | medium | low | abstractive |
https://fortune.com/2015/03/16/sears-tower-chicago/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150316230705id_/https://fortune.com/2015/03/16/sears-tower-chicago/ | Former Sears Tower in Chicago has a new owner | 20150316230705 | (Reuters) – The Blackstone Group LP agreed on Monday to buy the Willis Tower, the former Sears Tower that for 25 years was the world’s largest building, in a deal that features an observation deck as a tourist attraction and unique revenue stream.
The acquisition was valued at $1.3 billion, making it the highest price paid for a U.S. office tower outside of New York, according to MarketWatch, which first reported the news.
The 110-story Willis Tower at 233 South Wacker Drive is the second-tallest U.S. office building with (0.35 million square meters) of space, and the fifth-tallest office building in the world, Blackstone said in a news release.
“From a risk-adjusted return basis, it’s very attractive, especially with what’s going on in other market places,” said Ken Riggs, president of Situs RERC, which does valuations of commercial real estate.
“Even though it’s an old building, it’s an iconic building. It’s in the West Loop, which I view as a market that has very strong long-term potential,” Riggs said.
Blackstone BX agreed to buy the property, which features a top Chicago tourist attraction in the Skydeck on the 103rd floor, from New York investors Joseph Chetrit and Joseph Moinian and Skokie, Illinois-based American Landmark Properties, MarketWatch said.
The Skydeck attracts 1.6 million visitors annually, a draw that Blackstone hopes to build on. The Skydeck includes the “Ledge,” glass cubes that extend from the Willis Tower with an unobstructed downward view because of the see-through flooring.
“We are bullish on Chicago as companies expand within and move into the city and look for first-class office space,” said Jacob Werner, a managing director in Blackstone’s real estate group. “We see great potential in further improving both the building’s retail operations and the tourist experience.”
Blackstone plans to revamp the Skydeck due to the growing popularity of observation decks, MarketWatch said. The Empire State Building earned nearly 40 percent of its revenue from 4.3 million visitors, or about $82 million in income after expenses. The Willis Tower gets more than $25 million annually, and Riggs said naming rights could boost that when they expire.
The agreement was between Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII and 233 South Wacker Drive LLC. The owners paid $841 million for the property in 2004. The building was the world’s tallest from when it opened in 1973 until 1998.
On a square-foot basis, the price for the Willis Tower was about $340, a fraction of what trophy towers fetch in major cities, MarketWatch said.
Douglas Harmon of Eastdil Secured was the exclusive representative on the transaction, Blackstone said. | Investment firm Blackstone will buy the skyscrapper, once the world's tallest. | 38.071429 | 0.571429 | 0.857143 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/26/art-business-commercial-hirst-koons | http://web.archive.org/web/20150323235839id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/26/art-business-commercial-hirst-koons | When art imitates business | 20150323235839 | For about 15 years, starting in 1996, the Canadian artist Dana Wyse made pills for her pharmaceutical venture Jesus Had a Sister Productions. The magical medication could make you creative, turn you into a good mother or ensure your child was heterosexual. Wyse launched nearly 250 cures, sold in several thousand places worldwide. But it was not a real business, just art. Jesus Had a Sister was not a registered company and the pills, priced between $12 and $250, were mainly sold in museum shops. They were definitely not intended for human consumption.
This is perhaps the most provocative and accomplished example of a fictitious business venture undertaken by an artist. Projects such as this prey on business models, and there are currently around 250 similar ventures, mainly in the US and France.
There are two ways artists approach the idea. Some opt for the practical model offered by business, copying the great Renaissance workshops. Among them are Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami. The last two produce art industrially, multiplying derivatives and monumental pieces in response to demand. They employ large teams of assistants who finish the goods, which then command a high price. They operate along similar lines to a small business. Indeed, at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 Hirst was forced to make redundancies.
Others, such as Xavier Veilhan, take a different approach. For the past 10 years he has been sole shareholder in a limited company with eight employees. Much as for large architecture firms, his team helps him raise funds, but also designs and produces increasingly monumental projects.
Fabrice Hyber launched Unlimited Responsibility in 1994 for similar reasons, though the company has now folded. The idea was to create something between a non-profit and a co-op to organise events, produce art and to publish, making up for the gap between artists and galleries, which rarely contribute to preparations for projects. Hyber has always see the potential in partnership with business. “Being in business is a source of opportunities. I see no problem with that,” he says. “It’s a means, not an end.” But if artists delegate too much, their work loses its singularity. “You have to be careful,” Veilhan says. “I make a point of keeping time for myself, making stuff on my own. The company is a way of doing several things at the same time, but it mustn’t lead to my input being diluted.”
Though they operate as a business, some artists mock the business model. In 1966 the Canadian Iain Baxter started the N E Thing Company. It was registered in Vancouver but pursued rather different aims from most businesses, primarily to produce “visual sensitivity information”. N E Thing organised real consultancy services, set up a photography lab and opened a restaurant. But Baxter described it as a fictitious enterprise, pointing out that art was everywhere, even in corporate logos, headed paper and rubber stamps. Abolishing the distinction between aesthetics and economics, Baxter even set up a workplace at the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, with a president’s office and secretaries going through the motions of corporate life.
In a way this is hardly surprising. As Isabelle de Maison Rouge, curator of the Business Model show at the Vitrine AM, Paris, explained there is common ground between art and business. She cited, “creativity, imagination, risk-taking and the desire to create an organisation”. Yann Toma shares this view. In 1991 he took over the name of a utility, Ouest Lumière, which had ceased trading in 1946. In symbolic terms he saw his creative energy as replacing the electricity originally generated by the company. He sees artistic output as such as a sideline, and has created little in the past 20 years. What matters is flux, networking and sharing. His organisation now boasts 357 “shareholders”, with titles such as the supreme ambassador to new worlds or the director of strategic intelligence.
Toma sees business models as increasingly contaminating the arts. Big museums are profit driven, exhibitions need the patronage of business leaders, and corporate values are predominant in the highest spheres of public life. “The state has quite clearly been replaced by enterprise,” he says. “If one is incorporated as a company, one can keep control of events. Isolated artists cannot impose their ideas, but by setting up a company they can acquire an alter ego.” Though it is not quite the same. “I propose an alternative to the corporation, which is seen as a steamroller,” he adds. “The aim is not to dismantle the model, but to turn it round.” Or better still, transform it.
With this in mind some artists adopt the distinctive features of companies. In 2002 Damien Béguet borrowed designs commonly used by small contractors, creating a promotional ashtray decorated with an imaginary logo. In a slightly different vein Benjamin Sabatier mimicked Ikea, producing flat-pack works of art, easy to transport and store. He borrowed the trademark, International Benjamin’s Kit, elsewhere, in a reference to Yves Klein’s International Klein Blue, aka IKB. Sabatier’s aim is to draw attention to “a production system that has taken on more importance than the aesthetic object itself”.
Naturally, these ventures have a critical aspect. When he designed Cloaca, a machine replicating the digestive system, the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye was mocking capitalism. To underline his point, he produced a range of goods under the same brand name, including toilet paper. But he also mocks himself, having thousands of plastic dolls in his own likeness manufactured in China. Profit is not a concern for ventures of this sort. Maison Rouge claims they are all about “bankruptcy and disenchantment”. “I thought I was being really clever but I lost a lot of money on the dolls,” Delvoye admits. “It’s more like a kid building a house of cards that collapses.”
Despite the success of his DIY art, Sabatier does not want it to become his stock in trade. In this respect, creative artists differ from entrepreneurs – art is not driven by demand – as artist Damien Béguet explains. “Artists, whether or not they make money, continue their work. A company that loses money will stop.” Galleries, however, are wary. “When I take on board the idea of subcontracting, I ask other painters to paint in my place,” Béguet adds. “That’s not a problem in business, but in art it upsets the author ethic. It’s not done.”
This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from Le Monde | Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons produce work on an industrial scale, but artists such as Xavier Veilhan copy commercial models as an act of subversion | 49.961538 | 0.769231 | 1.692308 | high | low | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/03/24/16/35/angelina-jolie-has-ovaries-removed-in-second-preventative-procedure | http://web.archive.org/web/20150324183528id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/world/2015/03/24/16/35/angelina-jolie-has-ovaries-removed-in-second-preventative-procedure | Angelina Jolie has ovaries removed in second preventative procedure | 20150324183528 | Angelina Jolie has written a candid article revealing she has had her ovaries removed to prevent the risk of cancer.
In the piece published today in The New York Times, entitled "Diary of a Surgery", the actress says she planned to have the surgery for the same reason that she had a double mastectomy in 2013 – because her mother, grandmother and aunt had all lost their lives to cancer and she knew that she carried the same mutation in the BRCA1 gene.
Her decision to share that intensely personal choice with the world, also revealed in The New York Times, sparked a global conversation about breast cancer, its risks, and the stigma surrounding surgery and women's choices that was so pervasive it came to be known as "the Angelina Jolie effect".
Ms Jolie writes that her decision to have her ovaries removed was accelerated after speaking with her doctor just a fortnight ago, who called to share her blood test results.
"There are a number of inflammatory markers that are elevated, and taken together they could be a sign of early cancer," Jolie recounts him saying.
"I took a pause," she wrote.
"He wanted me to see the surgeon immediately to check my ovaries."
Jolie, 39, says her husband, Brad Pitt, was on a plane back to the US from France within hours.
"The beautiful thing about such moments in life is that there is so much clarity," she writes.
"You know what you live for and what matters."
She says that for the next week, she worked to keep herself calm and tried to maintain an air of normality in the household in the lead up to the surgery.
When the CT scan results were returned, they were clear, but Jolie says to her relief she still had the option of removing her ovaries and fallopian tubes "and I chose to do it".
It transpired that she had a small benign tumour on one of her ovaries, but there was no metastasis.
Jolie is now undergoing menopause as a result of the surgery, and says this is one of the reasons she wanted to speak publicly about her experience.
"I feel deeply for women for whom this moment comes very early in life, before they have had their children.
"Their situation is far harder than mine."
However, it is possible for women to have their fallopian tubes removed while keeping their ovaries, allowing them to have the option of bearing children.
For herself, Jolie says menopause – and preventative procedures – are nothing to be feared, and can in fact be empowering.
"I feel feminine, and grounded in the choices I am making for myself and my family.
"I know my children will never have to say, 'mum died of ovarian cancer'."
Do you have any news photos or videos? | Angelina Jolie has written a candid article revealing she has had her ovaries removed to prevent the risk of cancer. | 26.952381 | 1 | 21 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/article/downton-abbey-gareth-neame-ending-show-season-6-plans | http://web.archive.org/web/20150327143613id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/downton-abbey-gareth-neame-ending-show-season-6-plans | Gareth Neame on Ending the Series, Season 6 Plans : People.com | 20150327143613 | Maggie Smith (as Violet, the Dowager Countess) and Penelope Wilton (as Isobel Crawley) on Downton Abbey
03/26/2015 AT 02:00 PM EDT
After confirming on Thursday that
will conclude after its sixth season, executive producer Gareth Neame discussed the decision, admitting, "It's a very emotional day for all of the people involved in the show."
"The danger with this sort of thing is to let them go on forever," Neame told reporters during a conference call.
Neame stated repeatedly that ending the show was a joint decision between producers and cast. He also dismissed claims that creator Julian Fellowes solely forced the issue or that the show is shuttering under pressure from exiting cast members (particularly Golden Globe winner
), falling ratings or the show's networks (ITV in the U.K., PBS in the U.S.).
"We've always tried to get our timing right – we've always tried to move the story and our characters on at the right point," said Neame. "It has been about integrity and the integrity of the initial concept ... of a bespoke, well-crafted piece of popular television."
Though he remained staunchly mum on what will happen in season 6, he confirmed that it will follow the same format as previous seasons (11 hours, including a special on Christmas night), that the timeline is "moving into the year 1925" and that all cast members will return – though Smith's Lady Violet is unlikely to find love.
spin-off or feature film, Neame said there are no concrete plans but that producers are "very interested" in a movie.
More immediately, they are "well underway" with the concluding season. All the scripts haven't been written yet, said Neame, but "we very much have an eye to where the characters will end up ... and I think they will make the sixth season the most satisfying of them all." | "Today will be a day of very mixed emotions," Gareth Neame tells PEOPLE of announcing the news | 18.9 | 0.65 | 0.85 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/03/27/pao-verdict-silicon-valley-sparks-reflection-boston-community/Y4zlrW14umnKOTCWpS2qeM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150330232022id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/03/27/pao-verdict-silicon-valley-sparks-reflection-boston-community/Y4zlrW14umnKOTCWpS2qeM/story.html | Charges of sexism roil venture capital world | 20150330232022 | The rest of us have “Game of Thrones” and “House of Cards,” but for those in Boston’s venture capital world, this season’s must-see drama played out in a Silicon Valley courtroom and ended Friday night in dramatic fashion.
Ellen Pao, a Harvard Business School graduate, lost her gender discrimination suit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture titan that backed Google and Amazon — and employed Pao as an aide and junior partner from 2005 to 2012.
As with any good script, there was an intriguing subplot to Pao’s case: The culture of the entire, testosterone-infused venture industry might as well have been on trial, too, as five weeks of salacious testimony about unwanted advances, erotic poetry, and boys-only meetings suggested an institutional inequality that may go far beyond one woman’s assertions.
Moments after a jury of six men and six women rendered its verdict late Friday, Maia Heymann, senior managing director of CommonAngels Ventures in Cambridge, sounded stunned as she absorbed the news over the phone with a reporter.
“Whatever the specifics of this case, sexism absolutely exists,” she said, collecting her thoughts. “Whether this case proved it or not, it’s absolutely real.”
The decision came after a judge ordered the jury to resume deliberations after a discrepancy was discovered.
Despite the outcome, Heymann maintained that the trial “got people talking and raised awareness.”
The decision felt like a bigger letdown to Jules Pieri, an entrepreneur in residence at Harvard Business School, who said she does not know Pao, but believed the decision to take legal action must have been a difficult one.
“No one would invite this much public scrutiny of her personal life and career unless she was either totally certifiable, or totally certain that she was deeply wronged,” Pieri said. “I was hoping for a verdict that could serve as a wake-up call to the segments of our tech economy who haven’t realized this is the 21st century. I fear business as usual has been solidly reinforced.”
Pao was seeking $16 million in lost wages plus punitive damages.
Local venture capitalists interviewed during the final week of testimony and jury deliberations said the trial had sparked conversations about gender diversity on the Massachusetts venture capital scene, where in the last six years there were more deals and dollars than anywhere in the nation, other than California.
“Everybody is paying very close attention because it’s riveting drama and also because it’s a moment to recognize we have a problem,” said Jeff Bussgang, a general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston who received funding from Kleiner Perkins as an entrepreneur in the early 2000s. “It’s a caricature of what’s wrong with the industry.”
A recent Babson College study helped quantify the gender imbalance: 94 percent of investment partners at US venture firms are male. But some question whether there is a problem to correct.
“There is definitely a slice of venture firms in town that aren’t terribly concerned about changing because they think they’re doing just fine,” said C.A. Webb, executive director of the New England Venture Capital Association.
She argued venture needs more women because the firms form a relatively small, super-exclusive club that plays an outsize role in the state and national economies. Culled largely from elite business schools, venture capitalists spend their days raising investment funds that sometimes exceed $1 billion and scouring high-tech hotbeds like Boston and the valley for the next startup that can turn massive profits with a life-saving drug therapy — or perhaps a mobile app that will become a millennial obsession.
Leaving women out of those early investment choices can limit female entrepreneurs’ access to early-stage funding. The Babson research also found 97 percent of venture-backed startups have male chief executives.
Sean Dalton, a partner at Highland Capital Partners in Cambridge, suggested the number of women in venture capital will rise naturally as firms hunt for top talent. At present, Highland has 23 men and one woman on investment teams in Cambridge, Palo Alto, Asia, and Europe.
Dalton noted venture capital firms are increasingly hiring former entrepreneurs instead of pure numbers crunchers — people who can hear a business pitch and offer not only the firm’s money but also sage advice from their own days leading a startup. For years, there were few women working in the startup trenches. As more women launch technology companies, however, Dalton said, they will become tomorrow’s success stories and be coveted by venture firms looking to add operational experience to their ranks.
“Change won’t happen overnight, but the opportunity is there,” he added.
Others believe diversity won’t happen without deliberate measures. Sheryl Marshall, founder of Capital W, an upcoming conference about women in Boston venture capital, contended that firms must be far more proactive in recruiting women.
“There’s a huge amount of women who are invisible to these guys,” she said. “They don’t know them. They don’t travel in the same circles.”
Candida Brush, who coauthored the Babson study and chairs the college’s entrepreneurship program, said many venture firms aren’t looking hard enough, or in the right places, for female talent. Last fall when she published her research just one firm reached out for advice on how to bring more women into the fold.
“I’ve heard the excuse that there aren’t enough women to choose from,” said Brush. “They’re out there in angel investor groups and places like Springboard” Enterprises, a network of investors and mentors for women-led technology companies.
Part of the challenge is there just are not many venture jobs to go around — only 5,891 in the whole country in 2013, down 60 percent in a decade, according to the National Venture Capital Association. Few openings and the potential for great wealth make venture one of the most sought-after, yet difficult to crack, professions in business.
Bussgang, also a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, estimated that in a typical graduating class of about 900, a third would like a job in venture capital if they could get one. Maybe 10 succeed right out of school.
Bussgang’s firm has four general partners — two in Boston and two in New York, all men — and one principal, a woman.
With so many qualified candidates clamoring for a handful of positions, connections are critical.
“Guys were friends in business school, one gets a job at a venture firm and then gets his buddy a job,” said John Burns, chief investment officer at Breakaway in Boston. “Unfortunately I think that’s just the reality of how things work.”
A central theme of the Pao trial was that the few women who do break in to venture capital walk a fine line between being seen as assertive and overbearing. Pao, now interim chief executive of the online chat site Reddit, accused Kleiner Perkins of unfairly denying her promotions, while the firm said she failed to advance on merit.
Maria Cirino, cofounder of .406 Ventures in Boston, called the case “an opportunity to do some self reflection” but added that all venture capital firms should not be lumped together.
For Burns, the reflection began a few months ago. It was he who made the lone overture to Brush after reading her findings, and he followed the Pao trial with interest.
Since Burns reached out to Brush, Breakaway has hired two female interns from Babson’s MBA program and plans to invest $250,000 in whichever woman-led company wins a new startup contest called the Babson Breakaway Challenge.
“There’s some conscious effort required,” said Burns. “I’ve been in the venture business for about 15 years — I’m kind of an insider, if you will — and I didn’t have a full awareness or understanding of the issue. It wasn’t something I had spent a bunch of time thinking about, to be honest.” | As with any good script, there was an intriguing subplot: The culture of the entire, testosterone-infused venture industry might as well have been on trial, too, as five weeks of salacious testimony about unwanted advances, erotic poetry and boys-only meetings suggested an institutional inequality that may go far beyond one woman’s claims. | 24.390625 | 0.984375 | 24.484375 | medium | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2015/03/31/us-russia-rd180-rockets/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150403024432id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/03/31/us-russia-rd180-rockets/ | The problem with the America's Russian rocket phase-out | 20150403024432 | With pressure mounting to wean America off the Russian-built RD-180 rocket engines needed to launch sensitive national security assets into orbit, the Department of Defense is turning to U.S. industry for new ideas. Next month, the Pentagon will seek proposals for—ideally—two competing space launch technologies capable of replacing the RD-180, each of which would be developed under a public-private partnership.
But while the U.S. wants to generate more competition and flexibility within its space launch market, the idea looks more feasible on paper than in practice. It’s unclear (and unlikely) that the nascent U.S. space launch industry can produce new, reliable launch technologies to replace the Russian engines by the 2019 deadline mandated by Congress. And with SpaceX the only private spaceflight company currently on the road to earning U.S. Air Force launch certification, the Pentagon—despite its efforts at fostering competition—may soon trade one launch monopoly for another.
Currently a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin called United Launch Alliance (ULA) owns a monopoly on national security space launches, using legacy Atlas V and Delta IV heavy lift rockets to loft security-related assets into orbit. In an effort to trim cost, the Pentagon plans to retire the expensive Delta IV by 2018. The less-costly Atlas V requires the soon-to-be-banned RD-180 to fly.
Meanwhile, the Air Force expects to certify SpaceX’s Falcon 9 for smaller-payload national security launches in June. Its larger Falcon Heavy rocket—one capable of stepping into the heavy-lift role now occupied by the Atlas V and Delta IV—will fly for the first time later this year. It could enter service as soon as 2018.
The Pentagon’s plan for diversifying its launch options beyond the RD-180 and the Delta IV involves cultivating at least two public-private partnerships into which it would sink $220 million to help develop alternatives to the RD-180. The Pentagon next month will ask companies to submit their proposals for those partnerships, with the aim at producing at least two viable competing launch systems by 2019. Those systems would then compete for up to 28 national security-related launches expected between 2020 and 2024.
The Pentagon roadmap’s main problem is one of timing. Aside from SpaceX, there are only a few U.S. companies in the rocket engine business. ULA is looking into technologies from both GenCorp’s Aerojet Rocketdyne and the Jeff Bezos-backed private space venture Blue Origin. But in a statement last week ULA CEO Tory Bruno said neither technology could be developed and certified before 2022—a full three years beyond Congress’s deadline to stop using the RD-180.
Nor does the Pentagon really want a fast-tracked rocket engine, says Marco Caceres, senior analyst and director of space studies at aerospace consultancy Teal Group. “The engine is the core of your rocket, and the majority of things that go wrong in a rocket have to do with the engines,” he says, “You really don’t want to rush this.”
Moreover, the Pentagon plan intends to spread the cost of technology development out via public-private partnerships, each of which would require roughly a dozen private sector space launches each year to remain viable. That launch demand doesn’t yet exist, nor does a spike in demand appear on the horizon.
All that places SpaceX in a particularly good position to take on a lot, if not all, of the military’s space launches toward the end of this decade, at least until other launch technologies can be adequately matured. Barring a change in Congress’s stance on RD-180 imports or some kind of mishap that jeopardizes its certification, SpaceX might not just break ULA’s military launch monopoly—it may become the monopoly.
“Overall, SpaceX is starting to look very all-American and very attractive, and ULA looks weak without its Delta IV,” Caceres says. “All along ULA has had its eggs in one basket, but that only works as long as you’ve got a monopoly.” | The U.S. Department of Defense wants to increase competition in the space launch market, but it may end up trading one monopoly for another. | 29.692308 | 0.923077 | 2.384615 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/game-report-royals-d-backs-aj-pollock-paul-goldschmidt-032815 | http://web.archive.org/web/20150403043719id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/game-report-royals-d-backs-aj-pollock-paul-goldschmidt-032815 | Royals 10, D-backs 5: Paul Goldschmidt hits his first homer of spring | 20150403043719 | Updated MAR 29, 2015 12:48a ET
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Finally, it looked something like a real baseball game.
The Arizona Diamondbacks fell to the Kansas City Royals 10-5 on Saturday afternoon, but for one of the first times this spring the batting order got second and third looks at a major league pitcher. Their big bats showed the ability to make in-game adjustments. Two home runs -- including the first of the spring from Paul Goldschmidt -- were the bright spots.
Arizona put up seven hits, four earned runs and two homers agaisnt lefty Danny Duffy, who last year finished with a 2.56 ERA. They did so after Duffy rolled through the lineup the first go-around and had six strikeouts against his first nine batters faced.
"He went nine up, nine down," Goldschmidt said. "He's a really good pitcher, you saw how much success he's had in his career. We faced him last year and it was a good job by the whole lineup really after that first time through. There wasn't much panic."
Outfielder A.J. Pollock, who is hitting .382 this spring had a double and a homer.
"It's nice to get a more realistic game, where you get two or three bats off (a quality pitcher)," Pollock said.
After he missed his scheduled start earlier in the week because of a dead arm, Hellickson went 4-1/3 innings, throwing 75 pitches and allowing three earned runs and eight hits. He said his arm felt fresh and he should have no problem getting a 90-pitch outing in before spring training ends to be ready for a full plate come the regular season.
The most significant news regarding the D-backs' search for its fourth and fifth starting pitchers wasn't positive for the lefty. Through the sixth and seventh innings, Ray tossed 45 pitches and allowed five hits and five earned runs.
"(Ray) started out OK but they were real aggressive ... on his fastball," Arizona manager Chip Hale said. "When it's up, doesn't matter how hard you throw, these guys will hit it. He had some good sink on his fastball earlier, in the first couple innings. Once it got up a little bit, it flattened out and they were able to get on it."
The D-backs could push an expected Sunday cut to Monday because an early morning flight to Hermosillo, Mexico, where a split squad will face the Rockies. They could also make the cut before departing at 8 a.m. ... Hale still hopes to make the team's final cuts by next Friday, though nothing is guaranteed. ... Third baseman Yasmany Tomas' at-bats have improved of late after the staff helped him adjust his leg kick. Here's Hale on what Tomas changed in his swing: "What was happening is was just kind of doing a knee turn, which makes your front side kind of pull out too quick. So we went back to have him have that knee tuck -- more like he tucks it off the ground -- instead of leaving his toe on the ground and just turning his heel. It's given him a more timing on the ball and he's had better passes at it." ... Daniel Hudson will get the start in the U.S.-based game against Colorado on Sunday.
Diamondbacks at Rockies Salt River Fields, 1:10 p.m. Sunday
Probable pitchers: Arizona -- RHP Daniel Hudson, RHP Rubby De La Rosa, RHP Brad Ziegler, RHP Addison Reed, LHP Matt Reynolds. Colorado -- RHP Jordan Lyles, RHP Adam Ottavino, RHP John Axford, RHP Rafael Betancourt, RHP LaTroy Hawkins.
Diamondbacks vs. Rockies Estadio Sonora in Hermosillo, Mexico, 1:10 p.m. Sunday
Probable pitchers: Arizona -- RHP Aaron Blair, LHP Dan Runzler, LHP Oliver Perez, RHP Evan Marshall, LHP Vidal Nuno. Colorado -- RHP Christian Bergman, LHP Christian Friedrich, RHP Brooks Brown, LHP Ken Roberts, RHP Scott Olberg, RHP Jairo Diaz.
Follow Kevin Zimmerman on Twitter | Paul Goldschmidt hit his first homer of the spring in a 10-5 D-backs loss to the Kansas City Royals. | 32.666667 | 0.958333 | 2.708333 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/04/02/mcdonald-workers-denounce-corporate-pay-raise/nwmDSa0INi3gJEOf9f2wON/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150405233908id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/04/02/mcdonald-workers-denounce-corporate-pay-raise/nwmDSa0INi3gJEOf9f2wON/story.html | McDonald’s workers denounce corporate pay raise | 20150405233908 | Workers gathered at a McDonald’s in Boston Thursday to denounce the fast-food giant’s decision to raise wages at its corporate-owned stores but not require the 3,100 franchisees who operate the vast majority of its restaurants — and employ nearly 90 percent of the workforce — to do the same.
“McDonald’s announcement is another attempt to undercut workers trying to earn a livable wage,” said Darius Cephas, 24, a McDonald’s employee who spoke at the demonstration at 870 Massachusetts Ave. “I want $15 and a union, and this latest stunt by McDonald’s is a check I can’t cash.”
McDonald’s is the latest corporation to give workers a raise, following the lead of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., and TJX Cos., although those pay increases apply to the companies’ entire workforces.
McDonald’s workers across the country have decried the move, announced Wednesday, as an April Fool’s joke or a PR stunt.
State Senator Dan Wolf, Democrat of Harwich, who filed a bill that would require major fast-food companies to pay workers at least $15 an hour, also spoke at the Boston rally, which drew about 50 protesters.. Wolf received a letter Wednesday from McDonald’s outlining its plan to raise the pay of 90,000 employees to $1 more than the local minimum wage and allow them to earn paid time off.
State Senator Daniel A. Wolf addresses the protesters outside McDonald’s.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Wolf said, “but clearly it’s not enough.”
“More and more people are depending on income from working at fast-food restaurants, and we really need to look at a way to close the gap between minimum wage and livable wage.”
The letter to Wolf did not mention the proposed Massachusetts legislation but noted that franchise owners, who employ about 750,000 people across the country, “make their own decisions on how they run their businesses and pay their employees.”
McDonald’s does plan to expand its free high school diploma and tuition assistance program to all US employees at both company-owned and franchise restaurants, according to the letter. | Workers gathered at a McDonald’s in Dorchester on Thursday morning to denounce the fast food giant’s announcement Wednesday that it would raise wages at its corporate-owned stores, but not require the 3,100 franchisees who operate the vast majority of its restaurants to do the same. | 7.981132 | 0.924528 | 6.396226 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2015/04/02/backing-singer-fischer-steps-center-stage/xZQRXsVoXhuRqULU9BMQFN/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150406005242id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2015/04/02/backing-singer-fischer-steps-center-stage/xZQRXsVoXhuRqULU9BMQFN/story.html | Backing singer Fischer steps up to center stage | 20150406005242 | When “20 Feet From Stardom” was released in 2013, Lisa Fischer’s phone started ringing — and it wasn’t just the usual suspects.
The veteran background singer was a featured player in the Oscar-winning documentary about vocalists who stand behind the headline attraction onstage, helping that star burn brighter. Everyone from Luther Vandross to Tina Turner has benefited from Fischer’s impressive range, power, and nuance, and she has been a shining fixture in the Rolling Stones’ orbit for more than 25 years, and will hit the road with the band again this summer.
One of those phone calls came from Trent Reznor. The leader of Nine Inch Nails invited Fischer out on his “Tension” tour, to which she and fellow vocalist Charlotte Gibson added invaluable warmth.
“It was a gift from the film, really,” says Fischer of the tour she calls the most challenging — in a good way — of her career. “It left such an impression on me on so many levels. He has so many paintings in [his mind] that he wants to offer the world, and I was just really happy to be one of the strokes.”
The gifts continued to arrive. And Fischer, one of the singers in the documentary who seemed most content to work in the background as part of a team, wasn’t sure how to unwrap them all — especially since she wasn’t accustomed to being the painter herself.
“People kept asking ‘What are you going to do now that the film is out?’ And I would say, I don’t know,” she says with a hearty laugh, on the phone from Seattle. She is in the midst of a solo headlining tour that she finds herself somewhat surprised to be on, and that comes to the Wilbur Theatre on Sunday.
“I was getting all these phone calls, and I suck at business and I just panicked,” says Fischer, 56. She reached out to Bobby McFerrin’s manager, Linda Goldstein, with a distress call. “I love the way that Bobby’s career looks to me as an outsider, so I asked her if she would please help me. I wouldn’t know where to begin, and she’s just been a godsend to me, really.”
Goldstein helped Fischer pull together a plan that put her center stage. She introduced Fischer to Grand Baton, the group backing her on tour, and helped with the all-important task of crafting a set list. Although Fischer had released a terrific 1991 solo album, “So Intense,” which yielded a Grammy-winning single, “How Can I Ease the Pain,” she had little repertoire of her own since she had been singing other people’s material for so long.
“The trap I didn’t want to put myself in was being a jukebox, which is what I used to do before I had any background gigs,” says Fischer, a New York native, describing her early days in Top 40 cover bands. “Linda said to me, ‘Why don’t you make a list of songs that you like?’ And I thought, Huh, what a concept!” Fischer lets out another hearty laugh at the idea of finally asking herself what she likes.
Among the songs that made the cut are two Stones favorites, “Gimme Shelter” — when she plays it with the Stones, she thinks of it as an homage to original vocalist and “20 Feet” costar Merry Clayton — and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
“It’s interesting, from where I am standing onstage with them, it’s a boy’s song, you know?” says Fischer, giggling about Mick Jagger’s famed lament. “In order to see myself in it, I have to change some of the lyrics around a little bit, to make it more feminine for me and to also give myself a voice of strength. A lot of times I think we’ve been trained to be good little girls. So it’s nice to actually make a little noise and say you’re trying to tell me this and you’re trying to tell me that but you don’t get me the way I get me. It’s silly and it’s fun and it’s empowering for me.”
One proud former employer and bandmate who knows what it’s like to make the transition from sideman to star attraction is jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, who featured Fischer during his 2010-11 tour. He views Fischer’s tentative steps toward a solo career as karmic justice.
“The cream rises to the top, and that voice is so undeniably great that it took some time, but now she’s on her way,” Botti says. “I saw her [solo] show for the first time a few months ago. And I think we fast-forward a year or two from now and she’s going to be a major act. Lisa will find her way because she has such an awesome musical gift, and she’ll find out what works and little by little test that pool of being more herself.”
Fischer and Botti will both be playing the Newport Jazz Festival this summer — but this will be her first time as a featured artist, not Botti’s backing singer. “I was just like, what?” says Fischer, still incredulous. But as far as labels go, she is resistant to categorize herself, and thinks that this was one of her issues when she was originally setting out as a solo artist.
“As a background singer, you have to bend and flow and not be just one thing,” she says. “I really liked the changing and the moving and the switching my voice around and thinking about music differently, and listening to the artist and thinking, OK, what kind of sound would be good here? So the idea that you’re going to be [pronounced] a jazz singer, an R&B singer, a pop singer? I just want to sing, really.” | A chat with “20 Feet From Stardom” singer Lisa Fischer who plays a solo show at the Wilbur Theatre Sunday. | 51.086957 | 0.956522 | 2.695652 | high | high | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2013/08/08/what-the-end-of-freddie-and-fannie-could-cost-borrowers/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150408045950id_/http://fortune.com:80/2013/08/08/what-the-end-of-freddie-and-fannie-could-cost-borrowers/ | What the end of Freddie and Fannie could cost borrowers | 20150408045950 | FORTUNE – Efforts to wind down the government’s support of America’s biggest mortgage companies are gaining traction; the question now is how much more could it cost homebuyers if Congress scales down Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, or ends the companies altogether.
Recall that Freddie and Fannie collapsed in 2008 after huge losses from far too many mortgages that went sour. The companies don’t actually make home loans — they buy mortgages from lenders, which are then packaged as bonds and sold to investors. For years, that helped banks reduce risks on their balance sheets. It also freed up more money for banks to lend and therefore helped hold down interest rates. If borrowers defaulted, the companies promised to repay investors thanks to an implicit guarantee they had from the U.S. government.
This system worked for many years until the housing market bubble burst; the government rescued Freddie and Fannie with a bailout of nearly $200 billion.
It’s clear now that nobody, especially taxpayers, wants to relive the crisis, or to pay for any more screw-ups. And on Tuesday, President Obama joined the mantra, calling for changes to Freddie and Fannie, similar to the Senate’s bipartisan plan, which would phase out the companies over five years and shrink the government’s role in guaranteeing mortgage securities. The idea of winding down Freddie and Fannie isn’t anything new. As early as 2010, if not earlier, Republicans, in particular, have been calling to downsize the mortgage giants. What makes the efforts different today is that the housing market has turned around and so have Freddie and Fannie, which guarantee 80% of all new U.S. home loans.
MORE: The rebirth of Fannie and Freddie
In the latest proposals, taxpayers would receive more protection, but that will likely come at some costs to the average homebuyer in the way of having to pay higher interest rates.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, has come up with a few estimates. If he’s right, under the Senate’s plan, the typical borrower with a $200,000 mortgage and a 20% down payment could pay about $75 per month more in interest on a 30-year mortgage, or about half a percentage point more. Under the House plan, which would virtually privatize the mortgage market, borrowers on average would pay about $135 more a month.
Nobody is saying yet that scaling down Freddie and Fannie will destroy the housing market. To be sure, many other important details are unclear.
Besides paying more in interest, borrowers may also pay more, if only indirectly, into a government-run insurance fund. Under the Senate’s plan, the government would continue playing a role in the mortgage market, albeit a limited one that would create a new Federal Mortgage Insurance Corp. This is similar to the way the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp insures bank deposits. The FMIC would collect insurance premiums from the industry and keep an insurance fund, which would kick in if a “substantial amount” of private capital is used up, according to the Senate’s bill sponsored by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).
MORE: How Citi is hedging against the foreclosure settlements
The question is what would be considered a “substantial amount.” Also uncertain is how much the premiums could cost lenders, as well as how much gets passed onto borrowers.
The biggest question of all, perhaps, is if the mortgage market is left entirely up to the private sector, could the popular 30-year-fixed rate mortgage cease to exist? This will largely depend on the creation of an FMIC, which would absorb many of the risks that come with such long-term loans, Zandi says. If the mortgage industry is left entirely up to the free market, it becomes less likely that lenders would offer such loans that have made buying more affordable for many borrowers. | There are plenty of unanswered questions around the potential unwinding of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but one thing is certain: It will cost homebuyers more to get a mortgage. | 22.909091 | 0.727273 | 0.969697 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/13/us/immigration-post-loses-its-nominee.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150409065838id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1981/11/13/us/immigration-post-loses-its-nominee.html | IMMIGRATION POST LOSES ITS NOMINEE | 20150409065838 | WASHINGTON, Nov. 12— Norman Braman, President Reagan's nominee for Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, withdrew his name from consideration today, saying that he wanted to devote himself to his automobile business in Florida.
In a letter to Attorney General William French Smith, who recommended him for the position last June, Mr. Braman said he had reached ''the regrettable conclusion'' to withdraw in view of ''the current depressed market'' affecting the auto industry.
Mr. Braman, a millionaire, owns a Cadillac dealership in Miami. He has described it as the largest or second largest retail distributor of such cars in the United States.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has not had a Presidential appointee in the Commissioner's office for more than two years. Members of Congress and Congressional auditors have repeatedly said that the agency lacked the firm, professional management needed to cope with a steady influx of legal and illegal aliens. Earlier Desire for Post
In their exchange of letters, neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Braman gave any reason for Mr. Braman's withdrawal other than his concern about his business. In an interview in mid-October, Mr. Braman expressed no reservations about taking a Government job. He expressed confidence that he would be confirmed by the Senate and enthusiastically described his plans for improving the agency.
Representative Romano L. Mazzoli, Democrat of Kentucky who is chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, said today that Mr. Braman's withdrawal was ''a real disappointment for me and a setback for the agency in its efforts to modernize.'' He suggested that Mr. Braman's ''extensive business dealings in the past needed so much verification that it just went beyond the time available.''
Senate aides investigating Mr. Braman's background said that they had not turned up any problems but that they had not completed their work. Immigration officials said that Mr. Braman had probably become frustrated by the delays.
An assistant to Mr. Braman in Miami said that he had left this morning on a business trip to Europe and could not be reached for comment. Job Rights Vote Delay
Meanwhile, at the request of the White House, the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources delayed a vote today on the nomination of William M. Bell to be chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. There were indications that Mr. Bell, a black businessman from Detroit, might not have won approval.
Major organizations representing blacks, women and Hispanic Americans have opposed Mr. Bell on the ground that he lacked the experience to head the Government's chief agency for enforcing laws against job discrimination. White House officials said that President Reagan was standing by the nomination and wanted additional time to lobby for it.
Asked if there was any thought of withdrawing the nomination, Edwin Meese 3d, counselor to the President, said, ''No, absolutely not.'' At the immigration service, there have been several acting commissioners since Leonel J. Castillo resigned in September 1979. President Carter nominated Matt W. Garcia, a Texas state legislator, to succeed Mr. Castillo, but the nomination was never confirmed by the Senate. Deputy Commissioner Mentioned
Informed speculation about a new nominee focused today on Alan C. Nelson, the deputy commissioner, who is a friend of Mr. Meese. Mr. Nelson said in an interview that he was a possible candidate. He noted that he had worked in the office of the District Attorney for Alameda County, Calif., with Mr. Meese and D. Lowell Jensen, who is now Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division of the Justice Department.
In the interview last month, Mr. Braman said that he was qualified to head the immigration service because of his proven success as an entrepreneur.
Senator Paula Hawkins, Republican of Florida, had recommended him for the job. But when she first mentioned it, he recalled, ''I almost laughed - I mean, immigration and naturalization.'' When his brother and his lawyer tried to dissuade him from taking the job, he said, ''That intrigued me all the more.''
President Reagan announced on Sept. 28 that he intended to nominate Mr. Braman. Before that, Republicans and Democrats in Congress had chided the President for not selecting an immigration commissioner or a coordinator for refugee affairs.
Mr. Reagan later said that he was nominating H. Eugene Douglas to coordinate the refugee activities of the Departments of Justice, State and Health and Human Services. Mr. Douglas, a former executive of the Memorex Corporation, is a specialist in Asian affairs on the policy planning staff of the State Department. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not yet held a hearing on Mr. Douglas.
Illustrations: photo of Norman Braman | Norman Braman, President Reagan's nominee for Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, withdrew his name from consideration today, saying that he wanted to devote himself to his automobile business in Florida. In a letter to Attorney General William French Smith, who recommended him for the position last June, Mr. Braman said he had reached ''the regrettable conclusion'' to withdraw in view of ''the current depressed market'' affecting the auto industry. Mr. Braman, a millionaire, owns a Cadillac dealership in Miami. He has described it as the largest or second largest retail distributor of such cars in the United States. | 7.567797 | 0.983051 | 39.135593 | low | high | extractive |
http://fortune.com/2015/04/09/samsung-galaxy-s6-sales/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150412115632id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/04/09/samsung-galaxy-s6-sales/ | Samsung Expects Record Galaxy S6 Smartphone Sales | 20150412115632 | Samsung said Thursday that it’s expecting to ship record numbers of its new Galaxy S6 flagship smartphone this year, Reuters reports, helping to boost the South Korean company’s earnings in 2015.
The company also expects the standard S6 model to outsell the more expensive S6 Edge, which features a curved display that runs along the device’s outer edges. The S6 Edge’s curved screen poses a manufacturing challenge, Reuters notes:
Samsung expects the flat screen S6 to sell more than the higher-margin S6 edge – priced about $120 more in South Korea – but mobile chief J.K. Shin said at a media event on Thursday the firm won’t be able to keep up with demand for the latter model in the near term because the curved screens are harder to manufacture.
Shin also said that the electronics maker is going to produce “a variety of wearable devices” in the future, although he didn’t give specifics.
Earlier this week, Samsung projected that it made $5.4 billion in operating profit in the first three months of the year, a 30% drop year-over-year. Meanwhile, Samsung’s chief smartphone competitor, Apple, said it sold a record
iPhones in the fourth quarter thanks to strong sales over the holiday season. | But the S6 Edge's curved screen is posing a manufacturing challenge | 20.25 | 0.833333 | 2 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/julianne-hough-brooks-laich-kiss-washington-dc-photo | http://web.archive.org/web/20150416203834id_/http://www.people.com/article/julianne-hough-brooks-laich-kiss-washington-dc-photo | Photo : People.com | 20150416203834 | Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich
04/16/2015 AT 10:45 AM EDT
What's better than an airport reunion?
was clearly very happy to see her boyfriend, Washington Capitals player
, when she touched down in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
The pair shared a sweet embrace, with Laich, 31, handing his
love a bouquet of tulips and, ever the gentleman, helping her with her luggage (which included two curious pups) as they made their way out of the airport.
Hough, 26, reunited with Laich after spending her weekend in California. First, the pink-haired dancer
with a group of friends (which included
), then she was back in work mode on Monday when
It's a busy time for Laich as well as the Capitals squared off agains the New York Islanders in the Stanley Cup playoffs in D.C. on Wednesday.
While the Capitals lost to the Islanders, Hough was sure to show her support for her boyfriend's team, writing on Instagram, "Rocking the RED tonight! .... and pink!..... and leopard!#GOCAPS #playoffs @brookslaich go get 'em baby!!"
Hough and Laich have been dating since February 2014 and showed off their ice rink skills on New Years Eve with
at the Nationals Park in D.C.
10 Years of Dancing with the Stars
PEOPLE's 10 Years of Dancing with the Stars | The dancer-actress, 26, got a warm welcome from her NHL beau | 17.733333 | 0.533333 | 0.933333 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://fortune.com/2012/08/31/job-hunting-how-to-spot-the-right-or-wrong-cultural-fit/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150417041708id_/http://fortune.com/2012/08/31/job-hunting-how-to-spot-the-right-or-wrong-cultural-fit/ | Job hunting? How to spot the right (or wrong) cultural ‘fit’ | 20150417041708 | FORTUNE — Dear Annie: I’m unhappy in my current position for a number of reasons, none of which seems likely to change anytime soon, so I’ve been looking around for a new job for the past couple of months. All the career advice I’ve heard (and read) mentions that a good “fit” is essential. But nobody ever tells you how to determine whether the “fit” is there or not. I’ve had a couple of interviews lately where it seemed to me that both the interviewer and I were putting our best feet forward and saying what the other side wanted to hear, which is natural enough, but I haven’t felt I’ve gotten a clear idea of what it would really be like to work for these companies. They all say they value their people, reward individual initiative, offer opportunities for advancement, blah, blah, blah, but how can I tell if it’s all just part of the script or if they really walk the talk? Any suggestions? — Seattle Skeptic
Dear Skeptic: You’re right, this is tricky. The culture of any organization — that ineffable mix of traditions, habits, assumptions, and unwritten rules that add up to “how we do things around here” — is so complex, and so subtle, that it’s hard (if not impossible) to sum up in a few simple phrases. So, even with the best of intentions, many job interviewers tend to fall back on the clichés you’ve been hearing.
At the same time, though, you owe it to both yourself and the company to peer past the happy talk. Especially since you’re already working, “you don’t want to end up in just any new job,” says Jim Hinthorn. “You want one where you’re going to thrive — and that means finding the best ‘fit’ possible.”
MORE: America’s workers: A year of ups and downs
As a veteran human resources executive who is now a coach for the national career-counseling network Five O’Clock Club, Hinthorne has spent decades pondering the “fit” question from both sides of the interviewer’s desk. In his view, getting it right requires you to do a fair amount of sleuthing to learn as much as you can about a prospective employer before you meet with anyone there.
Beyond the standard homework every job seeker should be doing — like studying the company’s website and annual report, and reading up on it in the trade press — take advantage of resources like Vault.com and Glassdoor.com. “You can get invaluable insights from the comments employees and ex-employees post on these sites,” Hinthorn notes. “You might also seek out current employees on LinkedIn and ask them what it’s like to work there.”
The more specific your questions, the more useful the answers are likely to be. “You’re far more likely to find the right fit if you know exactly what you’re looking for,” Hinthorn says. So think hard about what you want in your next job, pinpointing what’s really important to you, what’s optional or negotiable, and what doesn’t matter at all. The Five O’Clock Club has developed assessment tools to help with this, spelled out in a book called Targeting a Great Career by Kate Wendleton, the organization’s founder and president. But with a little introspection, you can do the same thing on your own.
“Some of the values people want in a job are, for instance, independence, creativity, power, money, adventure, working for a cause, or having time for a personal life,” Hinthorn says. Once you’ve come up with a short list of what matters most to you, you can focus on those areas when you pose questions to people who are already there.
“To some extent everyone adapts to the prevailing culture in a company — casual versus more formal dress codes, for example — but certain things are non-negotiable,” Hinthorn points out. “And you are the only one who knows what those things are.”
MORE: Job-hunting law school grads will face a ‘perfect storm’
Let’s say you decide that one of your non-negotiable items is time for a life outside of work. Before going to an interview, come up with questions that will give you a glimpse of whether that will jibe with the company’s culture. “Ask, for instance, what the interviewer’s typical day is like, especially if he or she is your prospective boss,” Hinthorn suggests.
As a candidate for a senior HR management job, he once asked that question and heard that the interviewer “put in half days on Saturdays and Sundays, on top of working 12-hour days during the week and attending client dinners several evenings a month,” he recalls. “I didn’t ask, ‘Is work-life balance important to managers at this company?’ But I sure found out.”
Hinthorn also recommends asking to speak with people who currently report to your prospective boss. “Ask them what he or she is like to work for, including questions like, ‘If you could change one thing about this person, what would it be?’” he says. “People tell me, ‘I couldn’t ask that!’ But in all the years I interviewed people, I never thought anyone asked too many questions. Most job hunters ask too few.”
Talkback: What questions have you asked in job interviews that helped you identify a good (or bad) cultural fit? Leave a comment below. | It’s not always easy to get a clear picture of a company’s culture in a job interview, but thoughtful preparation can help you ask the right questions. | 35.032258 | 0.83871 | 1.483871 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/first-all-girl-quintuplets-mom-interview-danielle-busy | http://web.archive.org/web/20150417140457id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/first-all-girl-quintuplets-mom-interview-danielle-busy | All-Girl Quintuplets in United States : People.com | 20150417140457 | 04/16/2015 AT 01:55 PM EDT
It's rare to have quintuplets, but having them all be girls is unheard of – at least since 1969.
Danielle Busby and her husband Adam made international news last week when Danielle delivered all-girl quintuplets in Houston, Texas, a first in the United States. Born at just 28 weeks, they weighed between 2 lbs. and 2 lbs. 6 oz.
The Busbys, who already have a 4-year-old daughter, spoke about how well their babies are doing and how Danielle, who delivered them all in just four minutes, was able to hold one of her daughters for the first time earlier this week.
"It was an emotional downpour," she said on the
Thursday. "I got to hold her two days ago, and I got to hold [her sister] Ava last night. It's been hard to see your baby in the isolettes, but that moment where you finally get to touch your baby and hold them, there's no better feeling than that."
With the babies on oxygen at the hospital, Adam talked about how precious and tiny they are.
"I'm still getting used to changing them right now in the NICU," Adam said on the show. "It's pretty overwhelming because they're so tiny. Their legs are this big around, and whenever they kick, I don't want to grab them firmly because I'm scared I'm going to break them."
Dr. Alexander Reiter, who delivered the girls with help from over a dozen other medical personnel, said they're all doing well.
"Danielle is a trooper, and her positive attitude definitely shined through the pregnancy and the delivery," Dr. Reiter told
The couple has been documenting Danielle's pregnancy on their website, | Danielle Busby and her husband Adam welcomed Olivia Marie, Ava Lane, Hazel Grace, Parker Kate and Riley Paige | 16.761905 | 0.52381 | 1.952381 | medium | low | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2015/04/15/sprig-funding/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150418112652id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/04/15/sprig-funding/ | Meal delivery service Sprig raises $45 million in funding | 20150418112652 | Meal delivery service Sprig has raised $45 million in its Series B round, led by Social Capital and Greylock Partners. This brings the San Francisco-based startup’s total funding to $57 million.
As part of the round, Ted Maidenberg of Social Capital will join the board of directors, which already includes Greylock’s Simon Rothman.
Sprig delivers ready-made meals from its two kitchens—one in San Francisco, the other in Palo Alto—to area users in 15 to 20 minutes. Diners can choose from three daily options at lunch and dinner, and brunch on the weekend. Customers can purchase dinner all-in for less than $15 on average. The company uses dynamic pricing, like Uber and Lyft, for delivery, with the average fee clocking in at around $2.75. (Sprig’s CEO and co-founder Gagan Biyani previously worked as interim head of growth at Lyft.)
Sprig sends out cars in advance of customers placing orders, which Biyani says makes Sprig much faster than traditional delivery. “We use data science to predict when orders are coming in,” he explains. Delivery vehicles have special equipment to keep meals hot or cold as needed. (A typical dish, as listed on Sprig’s website: free-range “Petaluma Farms chicken breast cooked in a zaatar spice tomato yogurt sauce. Served with a lemon-herb bulgur pilaf with toasted pine nuts and a cucumber-tomato salad. Tzatziki on the side.”)
With this latest round, Sprig plans to expand beyond San Francisco and Palo Alto, starting with the rest of the Bay Area followed by Chicago. The company has plans to go into several more cities later this year, and Biyani believes the system will work in every city in America, as well as the suburbs.
“We are turning delivery of food on its head,” Biyani says. “Convenience and quality have always been at odds in the food business. Our belief is that’s unnecessary.”
This round for Sprig is only the latest example of money pouring into a new generation of meal delivery businesses, which also includes Spoonrocket, Maple, and Munchery.
Sam Kass, former White House chef and executive director of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Initiative, who also invested in the round, said the industry is ripe for a shake up as food culture shifts toward healthier and more sustainable food. “Interestingly, and almost strangely, the food space has largely been left out of major innovations and technology on lots of levels from the field to the plate,” Kass tells Fortune. Kass says he plans to do more investing as a way of improving how people eat. “I think the private sector is going to be a major force of change in the next five to 10 years,” he adds.
Biyani believes the food sector is ready for change as Americans now spend more at restaurants and bars than at grocery stores and want to eat well but don’t have the time to do it. “Today’s food options are so optimized for cheap and convenient but not health,” he says. With Sprig, the goal was to “make it simple to eat well.” Every meal is focused on “clean cooking”— having as few additives as possible—and organically sourced.
Biyani says that Sprig has proved it can scale, delivering some 500,000 meals since its launch in November 2013. The typical customer orders one meal a week, with a large percentage that orders two to fire times a week.
Watch more business news from Fortune: | Investors, including former White House chef Sam Kass, are betting on food delivery startups as a way to shake up the industry. | 27.6 | 0.84 | 1.96 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/03/16/tuesday-business-agenda/tG2K7fevPGiVv4sm8JBPtO/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150418214025id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/03/16/tuesday-business-agenda/tG2K7fevPGiVv4sm8JBPtO/story.html | Tuesday’s business agenda | 20150418214025 | OSTraining is hosting a two-day classon how to work with Drupal, one of the most popular platforms for building websites. 9 a.m. Monday to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Courtyard Boston Woburn/Burlington, 240 Mishawum Road, Woburn. $399 to $749.
The 2015 O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference will be held at the Hynes Convention Center, 900 Boylston St., Boston, and will cover all aspects of a software architect’s career. 8 a.m. Tuesday through 8 p.m. Thursday, $945 to $2,445.
Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board are hosting a discussion with the chief executive of Boston 2024, Richard Davey, about the long-term infrastructure and impacts of the city’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Tuesday, 7:45 to 9:45 a.m., Suffolk University, C. Walsh Theatre, 55 Temple St., Boston. Free.
Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito(above) and Undersecretary Nam Pham of the Massachusetts Office of Business Development will disclose the first recipients of the $1 million storm loan fund announced by Governor Charlie Baker in February. Tuesday, 3 p.m., Down Home Delivery and Catering, 2 Bowdoin St., Dorchester.
This month’s meeting of the Clean Tech and Energy Special Interest Group will focus on energy solutions for transportation, featuring discussions with Tesla owner Harold Nahigian, Eamon Carrig of Autonomous Marine Systems, and Eversource Energy’s Andrew Kasznay. Tuesday, 5 to 7 p.m., TechSandBox, 105B South St, Hopkinton. $25 to $35. | Drupal, Boston 2024, and more notable events and things to know. | 20.642857 | 0.642857 | 1.214286 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/david-letterman-michael-fox-final-show-look-back | http://web.archive.org/web/20150419014346id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/david-letterman-michael-fox-final-show-look-back | Watch Michael J. Fox Go Back in Time with David Letterman on The Late Show | 20150419014346 | 04/16/2015 AT 12:10 AM EDT
Somebody cue Huey Lewis and the News:
is ready to go back in time.
Fox was a guest on Wednesday's edition of
ended up flashing an oldie but a goodie photo of the actor from 1985. It was from Fox's appearance on
when Letterman worked at NBC.
"I was 23 or 24," Fox, now 52, told Letterman. "Those glasses are incredible. I got them from Charles Nelson Reilly."
"You've got it going on there," Letterman quipped.
Fox ended up being one of Letterman's favorite guests. He sat across the late-night host a total of 41 times.
"I wanted to thank you for everything you've done for me and TV," Fox told Letterman.
on May 20. A-listers like
, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey are set to appear on his show in his final weeks.
Stephen Colbert will replace Letterman, 68, when he leaves the show.
airs weeknights (11:35 p.m. ET) on CBS. | Michael J. Fox makes his 41st and last appearance on The Late Show | 16.538462 | 0.615385 | 0.923077 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/kareem-abdul-jabbar-recovering-quadruple-bypass-heart-surgery | http://web.archive.org/web/20150419071556id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/kareem-abdul-jabbar-recovering-quadruple-bypass-heart-surgery | Basketball Legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Recovering After Quadruple Coronary Bypass | 20150419071556 | 04/17/2015 AT 09:30 PM EDT
is recovering after undergoing a quadruple coronary bypass on Thursday.
The 68-year-old was admitted to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles this week with cardiovascular disease, the hospital said
Friday. The heart surgery was successful and Abdul-Jabbar is expected "to make a full recovery."
The NBA's all-time leading scorer "is looking forward to getting back to his normal activities soon," the hospital said, and asks fans to keep him in their thoughts "and, most importantly, cherish and live each day to its fullest."
Abdul-Jabbar, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, retired in 1989, after a 20-year career that started with the Milwaukee Bucks and then the L.A. Lakers.
He is also an actor and starred in the 1980 film
as co-pilot Roger Murdock and has appeared on TV shows including
The 7-foot-2-inch star, who is also a best-selling author,
that he was suffering from chronic myeloid leukemia, but
that his cancer was "not life-threatening at this point in my life." | The 68-year-old underwent heart surgery in Los Angeles on Thursday | 18.25 | 0.916667 | 2.75 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2015/04/15/critic-corner-for-thursday-april/mbm05bDiXDNgFOSqhw0ijO/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150420010727id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/television/2015/04/15/critic-corner-for-thursday-april/mbm05bDiXDNgFOSqhw0ijO/story.html | TV Critic’s Corner for Thursday, April 16 | 20150420010727 | The opening bit of this episode finds Louie needing to poop while at the market with his daughters. The three of them struggle to find a toilet on their walk home, with a “No poop for you”-type moment. It sounds hysterical, and Louie could certainly make the experience funny onstage. But in the episode, it’s a painful and demoralizing view of being human. That’s one reason I love this show: It’s less about making jokes and more about the sad, routine life that leads a passive ginger bear of a man to find a respite in making jokes.
Pamela Adlon, who is back on the show in this episode, deserves special notice. I love the way she is constantly challenging Louie to come out of himself, over small things like his movie choice and over big things like what he wants from life. She’s the active yang to Louie’s passive yin. Adlon has had a successful career as a voice performer — she was Bobby Hill on “King of the Hill” — but she’s a memorable actress, too, based on “Louie” and “Californication.” FX recently ordered a pilot from her, in which she’ll play an actress raising three daughters. Louis C.K. is co-writing and directing.
My Strange Addiction 9 p.m., TLV
He eats bricks, and I’m not talking ice cream.
LA Frock Stars 9 p.m., Smithsonian | Louie 10:30 p.m., FX The opening bit of this episode finds Louie needing to poop while at the market with his daughters. The three of them struggle to find a toilet on their walk home, with a “No poop for you”-type moment. | 5.808511 | 0.978723 | 37.659574 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/1864/10/08/news/war-georgia-official-dispatch-secretary-stanton-hood-s-operations-sherman-s-rear.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150421034359id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1864/10/08/news/war-georgia-official-dispatch-secretary-stanton-hood-s-operations-sherman-s-rear.html? | THE WAR IN GEORGIA. | 20150421034359 | In a recent dispatch, it was mentioned that Gen. SHERMAN was taking measures to protect his communications from the rebel forces operating against them. Dispatches received last night show the fulfilment of this expectation.
Major-Gen. GIO. H. THOMAS was sent to Louisville to organize the troops in his district, and drive FORREST from our lines, while the attention of Gen. SHERMAN was directed to the movements of the main rebel army in the vicinity of Atlanta.
On the 4th of October the rebels had captured Big Shanty, but were followed closely up by SHERMAN, on the 6th. A severe engagement was fought by our forces under Gen. FRENCH, in which the rebels were driven from the field with heavy loss, leaving their dead and wounded in our hands.
Details are given in the following dispatches from Gen. THOMAS:
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Thursday, Oct. 6 -- 11:30 P.M. Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War:
The following telegram is just received from Chattanooga:
Gen. SMITH, who left here yesterday, 5th inst., telegraphs that the enemy retreated last eveniing from Allatoona, moving in the direction of Dallas, leaving his dead and four to six hundred wounded in our hands. Our loss was about one hundred killed and two hundred wounded.
The Resaca bridge will be repaired by to-morrow, and the trains will be able to run as far as Allatoona, going via Cleveland and Dalton. Nothing further has been heard from SHERMAN since my dispatch of yesterday; but the retreat of the enemy toward Dallas indicates that he was close on their rear near Allatoona. I have not heard from Gens. ROUSSEAU or WASHBURNE to-day, but presume that they are pushing FORREST as rapidly as the condition of the roads will admit. We have had heavy and continuous rains for the last five days, rendering the roads and streams almost impassable. I have just received the following dispatch from Gen. GRANGER, dated Huntsville, 10 P.M., 6th: The courier reported drowned crossing the Elk River, is in. He lost the dispatches while crossing the river. He reports that two rebels were captured yesterday, who say that they left FORREST at Lawrenceburgh the night before crossing South. Gen. MORGAN's advance was skirmishing with the enemy this morning on Skive Creek, he being unable to cross the creek on account of high water. He hopes to be able to cross by to-morrow morning, when he will push him still further on. The Alabama Railroad will be repaired from here to Pulaski in one week.
Another and unofficial dispatch reports as follows:
"Telegraph repaired to Allatoona to-day. The action yesterday was severe. FRENCH attacking with his division, seven thousand strong, and suffering heavily, leaving his killed and wounded in our hands to the number of one thousand, while we lost only three hundred. The fight lasted six hours altogether. From Florence we hear that MORGAN has FORREST cornered, has captured his transportation, and that the gunboats prevent all retreat across the Tennessee."
Satisfactory reports of the operations in progress before Richmond and Petersburgh have been received, but their details are not at present proper for publication.
A dispatch from Gen. STEVENSON reports that an officer of Gen. SHERIDAN's Staff had just arrived. Gen. SHERIDAN was still at Harrisonburgh. His supply trains were going on all right, occasionally interrupted by guerrilla parties, the only rebel force on the road.
This officer brought in the remains of Lieut. JOHN R. MEIGS, of the Engineer Corps, the only son of Brevet Maj.-Gen. MEIGS, Quartermaster-General. He was killed by bushwhackers on Monday last, while making a military survey. In the death of this gallant young officer the department has occasion to deplore no ordinary loss. Last year he graduated at the Military Academy of West Point with the highest honors, at the head of his class. He was commissioned Lieutenant of Engineers, and immediately went into the field. He performed meritorious and distinguished services during the campaigns of last year on the fortifications at Baltimore, Harper's Ferry and Cumberland, and was made Chief of Engineers of the Army of the Shenandoah. In the campaigns he accompanied the army under SIGEL, HUNTER and SHERIDAN. In every position he gave proof of great professional skill, personal courage and devoted patriotism. One of the youngest and brightest ornaments of the military profession, he has fallen an early victim to the murderous rebel warfare.
Gen. ROSECRANS reports that Gen. EWING made good his retreat to Rolla, losing only a few [???] and those killed and wounded by the way, very few in number. From the number of the wounded rebels, the enemy's loss will not fall much short of [???],000 hors du combat. EDWIN M. STANTON.
The rebels have disappeared from Alatoona. Our victory there yesterday was complete. The rebel Surgeons surrendered their hospitals into our hands, with from four hundred to six hundred rebel wounded. Gen. CROSS was slightly wounded in the cheek; also, Col. ELLET, of the Fourth Minnesota in the thigh. An entire division attacked Alatoona, under FRENCH. Lieut. AMSDEN, of the Seventeenth Wisconsin Battery, lost a leg. | Major-Gen. John A. Dix: In a recent dispatch, it was mentioned that Gen. SHERMAN was taking measures to protect his communications from the rebel forces operating against them. Dispatches received last night show the fulfilment of this expectation. | 21.869565 | 0.934783 | 30.152174 | medium | medium | extractive |
http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/new-mexico-state-women-win-wac-tourney-031415 | http://web.archive.org/web/20150423080251id_/http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/new-mexico-state-women-win-wac-tourney-031415 | New Mexico State women win WAC tourney | 20150423080251 | Updated MAR 14, 2015 9:01p ET
LAS VEGAS -- Whether it was inside or outside, New Mexico State couldn't seem to miss in the first half of the Western Athletic Conference final Saturday against Texas-Pan American.
The Aggies shot 69 percent in the opening half and routed the Broncs 70-52 for their first tournament title and first NCAA bid since 1988.
Tourney MVP Brianne Freeman finished with 17 points and nine rebounds for the Aggies (22-7). Sasha Weber had 20 and Shanice Davis 14.
"The kids were ready to play from the opening tipoff," New Mexico State coach Mark Trakh said. "Sasha got us going offensively in the first half and we played great defense against a very athletic team."
Texas-Pan American (19-14) struggled offensively throughout the game, making just 24 percent of its shots overall and 14 percent in the second half. The Broncs missed their first 13 shots after halftime.
Cha'zaye Wright led the Broncs with 15 points and Shawnte Goff had 11, but they were a combined 8 of 24 from the field.
"Sometimes it falls, sometimes it pours," Texas-Pan American coach Larry Tidwell said. "We had a good mind frame out of the locker room, but when we didn't hit our shots, it gets frustrating."
New Mexico State began to pull away midway through the first half, mostly as a result of its hot shooting. The Aggies made eight consecutive baskets, including 4 of 4 from 3-point distance, against Texas-Pan American's 2-3 zone, then scored from inside.
Freeman was difficult to stop under the basket, scoring on a series of layups and making 6 of 7 shots in the first half for 11 points. When the Broncs collapsed on her, Weber (5 of 6 from long distance) burned them with outside shooting.
"Brianna opens up our outside game because people just can't stay matched up on us," Trakh said. "They've got to honor her. They've got to send a double (team) or try to play her one on one and take their chances on her."
A 13-0 run over a 5-minute stretch gave the Aggies a 20-point lead, 33-13.
Texas-Pan American: The Broncs beat second-seeded Bakersfield in the semifinals and were trying to win their first tournament title. The university, which has never reached the NCAA Tournament, will merge with Texas-Brownsville this summer to become Texas-Rio Grande Valley.
New Mexico State: The Aggies recovered from a horrendous start to the season, going 0-5 in November before winning 22 of their next 24 games, including Saturday's tourney championship. They hadn't reached the WAC Tournament final since 2008.
New Mexico State: NCAA Tournament. | The Aggies shot 69 percent in the opening half and routed Texas-Pan American 70-52 for their first tournament title and first NCAA bid since 1988. | 18.5 | 1 | 12.066667 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/article/george-clooney-amal-enjoy-dinner-new-york-city-julia-roberts | http://web.archive.org/web/20150423223201id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/george-clooney-amal-enjoy-dinner-new-york-city-julia-roberts | George Clooney and Amal Enjoy Dinner in New York City with Julia Roberts : People.com | 20150423223201 | Splash News Online; Inset: Kevork Djansezian/Getty
04/21/2015 AT 09:25 AM EDT
, a casual dinner date includes none other than America's Sweetheart herself,
The three were spotted dining together at Claudette in New York City on Monday evening, where they enjoyed a three-hour meal.
Roberts, 47, and the 53-year-old actor are in town filming the
, while Amal, 37, has taken up residence at Columbia University, where she's
The couple certainly seem to be
at New York's hottest eateries.
"Amal and George look happy and in love," a source in their New York social circle recently
. "They're spending time with other couples and friends who are bright and driven and interested in improving the world." | The three were spotted dining at Claudette in New York City on Monday evening | 10.857143 | 1 | 7.571429 | low | high | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/27/artist-of-week-anthea-hamilton | http://web.archive.org/web/20150424234711id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/27/artist-of-week-anthea-hamilton | Artist of the week 209: Anthea Hamilton | 20150424234711 | Walking around Anthea Hamilton's installations can feel like you've stumbled onto a theatre set without a script. There are plenty of cues but you have to keep improvising the lines. They typically feature cut-outs of women's legs in wood or Perspex. There might be artfully arranged prop-like objects including food, or kimonos, hanging like costumes, ready to be stepped into. Then there are her blown-up images of yesteryear's body beautiful: Amazonian gym queens, pouting pin-up boys and hunks with luscious hairy chests. It's always sexy, funny and formally seductive.
Yet what to make of this young British artist's weird conjunctions? The heap of buckwheat for instance, echoing the cut-out silhouette of a dark-eyed man with a fulsome chest rug reclining in a low-cut swimsuit? This, astonishingly, turns out to be the young Karl Lagerfeld, long before the ponytail, big collar and gloves. It's a shock: another Karl behind another image. A more whole version, like the wholesome food he's paired with? Maybe. The associations Hamilton tempts us into making feel as provisional as the props and wheel-on, inch-thin theatre scenery the work resembles.
Massive images of the sweatband-clad head of disco icon John Travolta welcome visitors to her current show Sorry I'm Late, where they're pasted over the towering walls of the entrance corridor. He also bounces around as a screensaver on a series of screens aping the kind of clocks you find in banks, reporting the time across the world. Disco might have originated as a subculture that brought together African American, Latino, gay and psychedelic communities of New York City, but, as Hamilton implies, it's Travolta's image that now dominates. Yet shown in profile, in stony pixelated grey and on a monumental scale, he starts to resemble other ideals of male beauty: a classical bust, a Greek god.
Sometimes Hamilton paints gallery walls with the deep blue of Chroma key video paint, as it's known in the movie business where it serves as a backdrop for action that will later be superimposed into other settings. There's a similar sense that things might go anywhere, with the alter-universes she conjures into being. It's a place where culture, identity and sexuality are always in flux, ready to be reinvented.
Why we like her: For Leg Chair, built from Perspex cut-outs of her own flexed legs, with a rice cake at the crotch. It's a deliciously absurd spin on sexist precedents, including Allen Jones's notorious sculptures depicting semi-clad women doubling as furniture, the nude Christine Keeler hiding behind a chair back, and Sharon Stone's crotch shot on a swivel chair in Basic Instinct.
Strange Fruit: One of Hamilton's favourite paintings is Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber by the 17th century Spanish artist Sanchez Cotan. Its fruit and veg hanging against a black void seem fit to burst with metaphor, though its original intention was mathematical: a sequence recording decay.
Where Can I See Her? At First Site, Colchester to 25 November. Her performance Kabuki, is at Tate Tanks, SE1, 5 October. | Skye Sherwin: From Perspex legs to a young Karl Lagerfeld and huge images of John Travolta's sweatband-clad head, exploring this artist's work is like stumbling on to a weird and wonderful theatre set | 16.025641 | 0.846154 | 1.564103 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2015/04/21/chipotle-carnitas-crisis/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150425002834id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/04/21/chipotle-carnitas-crisis/ | Chipotle's carnitas crisis to persist for a few more months | 20150425002834 | Chipotle Mexican Grill is grappling with a carnitas crisis, and relief will only come much later in the year.
In February, the burrito restaurant chain stopped serving pork at hundreds of its restaurants after suspending a supplier that had violated its standards. The restaurant insists on pork from pigs raised in humane conditions with ample room to move, rather than in cramped pens. The move, which Chipotle says is important to its reputation among the younger consumers, slowed the company’s sales growth in the first few months of 2015 and has created a shortage at about around one-third of its 1,800 restaurants at the start of its peak spring and summer seasons.
Chipotle co-CEO Steve Ells told Wall Street analysts on a conference call Tuesday that the company has found a new supplier that can help it fill the gap and is now conducting on-site visits to examine every aspect of the supplier’s operation. Barring any glitches, Chipotle should be gradually increasing its supply of pork over the summer and be back in full supply sometime during the autumn, he said.
The pork shortage, along with the bad weather that afflicted the eastern half of the U.S. this winter, lowered Chipotle’s comparable sales growth by about 2 percentage points to 10.4% in the first quarter, below the 11.8% analysts were projecting. The company’s shares CMG fell 5% in after-hours trading.
Compounding the problem for Chipotle is the fact that its customers are creatures of habit, typically ordering the same dish on every visit. So the pork problem didn’t prompt all that many to try something else.
“We had hoped that the shortage would encourage our carnitas customers to try another menu option, and some did, but many have decide to hold out until carnitas return to their market,” Ells said.
Chipotle made things worse for itself by rotating which markets would be carnitas-free for six weeks at a time during the winter. That created confusion among customers about which restaurants at which times were out of carnitas, with many not knowing when their local Chipotle was back in supply. That “worsened the sales impact,” Ells said. Chipotle has stopped rotating the carnitas blackouts. The Associated Press has reported that carnitas represent about 6% to 7% of entree orders. (Chicken entrees are by far the leader of the pack.)
Adding to Chipotle’s challenges, beef prices are near historic highs, pressuring its margins. As a remedy, it will most likely raise the prices on its steak and barbacao items by as much as 6% later this year, placing Chipotle in a bind given its stated vision of keeping its menu options “accessible.”
Last year, Chipotle did not see customers trade down from its steak and barbacoa after it increased prices on those items more than on other items. (Higher prices accounted for the bulk of Chipotle’s comparable sales growth last quarter.) It must be hoping the same will happen this year, because its customers apparently don’t try other menu items, like carnitas, which in any case will still be hard to find in huge swathes of the country. | The burrito chain says it expects its pork shortage to be fully resolved by the end of the year. In the meantime, though, Chipotle is facing pressure on its sales. | 17.764706 | 0.764706 | 1.176471 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/adult-learning/race-online-2012 | http://web.archive.org/web/20150425085734id_/http://www.theguardian.com/adult-learning/race-online-2012 | Digital learning joins the race online | 20150425085734 | Some adults relish the social aspect of joining a class when they return to learning. For many others, however, research shows that use of a computer in the comfort of their own home is much more appealing. Studying online means that they can work where and when they choose, away from the bustle and competition of the classroom.
But not everyone has that choice. Would-be adult learners who do not have access to the internet are among the key targets of a national campaign, Race Online 2012 (raceonline2012.org), which hopes to inspire and support everyone in the UK to go online. The campaign is the brainchild of Martha Lane Fox, e-commerce businesswoman, who last year was appointed UK digital champion by David Cameron.
"I don't think you can be a proper citizen of our society in the future if you are not engaged online," says Lane Fox.
Currently almost one in five people in the UK – 9.2 million – do not have internet access, and Lane Fox is using the prospect of a digitised 2012 Olympics to try to galvanise as many people as possible to get online. The independent campaign runs on a small budget (remaining unaffected by government ICT cuts, Lane Fox insists), and is working with 1,100 partners across the public, private and charitable sectors to put a positive message across about the benefits of going online – including savings in shopping and holidays, opportunities to study and pursue interests. The campaign has enlisted around 100,000 "digital champions" to offer support, and is working on providing low-cost starter-kits.
Four million of those not yet online are both "socially and digitally excluded", including 1.9 million low-income families with children, say campaign organisers. While some older people may take the view that they don't need the internet, for those doubly excluded, internet access could be a lifeline, Lane Fox believes.
Research by UK Online Centres shows that people who are online achieve better grades in exam results and are 25% more likely to get a job.
"It's very important that middle-class people do not underestimate the value and the empowerment of being given access to the internet," Lane Fox argues. "For adult learners, it's fundamental: it's raising the chance of becoming a learner on your own terms, and finding courses you can do at your own pace. That can be extremely rewarding and significant." | Race Online 2012 hopes to encourage everyone in the UK to go online, making adult learning accessible for all | 23.65 | 0.8 | 3.3 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/04/21/newport-grand-owners-seek-relocate-expand-facility/YJGdq2Ij5zJxzxatgUfEqK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150426001947id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/04/21/newport-grand-owners-seek-relocate-expand-facility/YJGdq2Ij5zJxzxatgUfEqK/story.html | Newport Grand owners seek to relocate, expand facility | 20150426001947 | PROVIDENCE — A new casino in Tiverton, along the Massachusetts border, might replace the Newport Grand slots parlor in Newport.
Twin River Management Group announced Tuesday they had secured the rights to acquire 45 acres of land off of Route 181. They say they would transfer Newport Grand’s existing gambling license to the new casino if their proposal is approved.
Twin River Management Group Chairman John Taylor says the hope is a new casino would make Rhode Island more competitive, as neighboring Massachusetts prepares to open no fewer than three gambling facilities in the coming years.
Taylor says the decision to relocate makes sense because of Newport Grand’s location and the city’s reticence to expand gambling. Twin River Management Group acquired Newport Grand in March.
The proposal needs the approval of voters in Tiverton. | The Newport Grand slots parlor might be moving to Tiverton, along the Massachusetts border, and expanding. | 7.947368 | 0.842105 | 4.105263 | low | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2015/04/23/crony-capitalism-charge-on-comcast-merger-is-collapsing/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20150426184735id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/04/23/crony-capitalism-charge-on-comcast-merger-is-collapsing/ | ‘Crony capitalism’ charge on Comcast merger is collapsing | 20150426184735 | When Comcast CMCSA and Time Warner Cable TWC first announced their $45 billion merger last February, the criticism came quick. Most of it was from those concerned that the pairing would only further reduce competition in a cable television and broadband marketplace where many consumers already were dealing with virtual monopolies.
But there also was a smaller group that used the merger as an opportunity to bash the Obama Administration for alleged crony capitalism — insisting that the deal would fly through because of ties between the White House and Comcast’s C-suite.
Now that the merger appears to be on death’s door, are these same folks getting ready to write their apology posts? (Update: It’s dead)
For example, here was Matthew Continetti in The National Review: “There is little chance the merger will be stopped. Comcast, Time Warner, and their political fixers have spent years preparing for this moment — by buying off the Democratic party.”
And then there was Kerri Toloczko in a widely-read Forbes post titled: “How Obama’s Justice Department Selectively Blocked A Merger By Republican CEOs.” She isn’t quite as certain about the merger’s outcome as was Continetti, but does assert that, in such matters, “money buys favors from the Obama Administration.”
Want more? How about Dennis Kneale: “However terrifying, #1 Comcast’s buy of #2 TWC may well win approval — from the same Obama Administration that put the kibosh on AT&T’s $39 billion bid for T-Mobile and nixed the notion of a Sprint-T-Mobile tie-up. Why the special treatment? Let’s look at access, connections and overlapping agendas. Comcast’s ownership of MSNBC, the de facto Obama Network, can’t hurt its standing in the White House.”
I even saw some subsequent arguments in less reputable places about how Obama only pushed for net neutrality rules in an effort to give cover to the Comcast-TWC merger
To be clear, regulators have not yet formally ruled on Comcast-TWC. But since news reports first surfaced last week that the deal was in serious trouble, none of the three aforementioned writers have yet offered up a follow-up post nor even mentioned the news via their Twitter accounts. Now who’s selectively blocking things? | Remember when Comcast's deal for Time Warner Cable was just going to sail through because Obama and Comcast's CEO were golfing buddies? | 17.76 | 0.64 | 1.12 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/beyonce-khloe-kardashian-met-gala-motivation-instagram | http://web.archive.org/web/20150507175252id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/beyonce-khloe-kardashian-met-gala-motivation-instagram | Khloe Kardashian Calls Beyonce Her Motivation of the Year : People.com | 20150507175252 | Khloé Kardashian (left) and Beyoncé
05/05/2015 AT 10:20 AM EDT
was just as in awe as the rest of us after
shut down the red carpet at this year's
Monday evening to rave about the "Drunk in Love" singer's
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"I just got my motivation for the year!! Holy moly!! Yes!!!! I see you!!!!" Kardashian captioned a series of three shots of the performer posing in the sheer, jeweled gown. (She also included the universal
Knowles – who was last to grace the carpet alongside husband
– glowed in a custom-made Givenchy haute couture dress by Riccardo Tisci. The gown sparkled in the flash bulbs, with its multicolor crystals strategically placed to elegantly cover her chest, backside and other intimate parts.
The star topped off the look with a sleek, high ponytail and blue eyeliner. | "I just got my motivation for the year," the reality personality captioned a shot of the singer on Instagram | 8.227273 | 0.772727 | 4.227273 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/bollywood-star-salman-khan-sentenced-5-years-jail-hit-and-run | http://web.archive.org/web/20150509001050id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/bollywood-star-salman-khan-sentenced-5-years-jail-hit-and-run | Bollywood Star Salman Khan Sentenced to 5 Years in Jail for Running Over a Homeless Man | 20150509001050 | 05/06/2015 AT 09:10 AM EDT
Bollywood actor Salman Khan was sentenced to five years in jail on Wednesday for a hit-and-run that occurred over a decade ago.
Khan, 49, was found guilty of culpable homicide for killing a homeless man in the 2002 hit-and-run in Mumbai. The actor had claimed that his driver had been behind the wheel at the time of the accident, according to
Indeed, his chauffeur, Ashok Singh, told the court that he was behind the wheel "as the tire burst and brake jammed," causing the car to drive up on the sidewalk, running over five sleeping people and killing one. But the judge ruled that the actor was driving at the time and that he was under the influence of alcohol, the
Khan had pleaded not guilty to all charges, which also included rash and negligent driving, causing hurt by endangering life and drunk driving.
His lawyer will appeal the conviction. "Salman was neither drunk nor was he behind the wheel at the time of the accident," he told
Wednesday. "He had been drinking water all evening." | The actor had claimed that his driver had been behind the wheel at the time of the accident, which occurred in 2002 | 9.565217 | 1 | 15.869565 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/article/ioan-gruffudd-forever-axed-tv-series-renewed-cancelled | http://web.archive.org/web/20150510193426id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/ioan-gruffudd-forever-axed-tv-series-renewed-cancelled | Ioan Gruffudd's Forever Axed - Did Your Favorite ABC Series Make the Cut? | 20150510193426 | 05/08/2015 AT 12:20 AM EDT
didn't live up to its title after all.
as ABC tries to make room for its new fall shows, PEOPLE has learned.
The network also yanked the comedy
after one season. The goose got cooked for the prime-time food competition
Plenty of veteran shows will get another day in the sun, though.
will come back for another season, as will
On the comedy front, newbies like
will stage comebacks, as will
, which will each return for seventh seasons.
And don't despair, friends of the mirror ball!
will be back, as will
There's just one holdout: it's unclear whether
ABC will announce its fall 2015 schedule Tuesday in New York City. | ABC also canceled Resurrection and Cristela on Thursday | 18.75 | 0.5 | 0.5 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/kris-jenner-kylie-kendall-mothers-day | http://web.archive.org/web/20150511173850id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/kris-jenner-kylie-kendall-mothers-day | Photos : People.com | 20150511173850 | Kris Jenner (inset) and her Mother's Day gift
05/10/2015 AT 05:45 PM EDT
is feeling the love from her famous brood this Mother's Day, as her children lavish her with gifts and share sweet memories of the reality show matriarch on social media.
The 59-year-old mother of six was gifted an opulent floral arrangement from her youngest children
on Sunday. Kris posted an image of the massive white, pink and creme arrangement on Instagram, captioning "Mothers Day Flowers!!!!!! Thank you @kendalljenner @kyliejenner for the amazing love today and every day... 2 of my most precious blessings are these 2 babies!!! #doesthismeanyouguysaredoingthedishes tonight?"
Kendall, 17, and Kylie, 19 weren't done there, however. A few hours later, Kris shared yet another surprise from her daughters with ex-husband
– Â a giant balloon message. In the snap, seen above, the family's famous foyer is filled with white and red balloons spelling "I [heart] Mom."
"And then THIS arrives!!!!!!!!!! Whoa!!!!! Thank you @kendalljenner @kyliejenner,"
. "I love you both so much #ikindofhavethebestkidsintheworld #loved #overwhelmed #family #blessed."
Kris's older children also honored their mother, who was profiled by the
this week, by sharing old family photos on Instagram and Facebook.
, 34, shared a black and white photo with her mother and daughter,
"Everything I am I owe it all to you mom! Everything I will teach my daughter you taught me first," the
star wrote. "Thank you mom for being there for me & loving me unconditionally! I love you so much!!"
also joined in on the fun with a series of photos.
In the first image, Khloé, 30, and Kris wear a giant snake over their shoulders in Kris's home. "Mothers love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. I love you mama," she captioned.
In a later, adorable throwback photo, young Kris is wearing a fanny pack with a tiny Khloé, who's sporting a Minnie Mouse backpack and a giant bow in her hair.
A photo posted by Khloé (@khloekardashian) on May 10, 2015 at 11:40am PDT | The mom of six was lavished with gifts and kind messages on social media | 33.071429 | 0.785714 | 2.071429 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2014/11/25/01/37/iran-nuclear-talks-extended-by-7-months | http://web.archive.org/web/20150514202003id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2014/11/25/01/37/iran-nuclear-talks-extended-by-7-months | Iran nuclear program talks extended by seven months | 20150514202003 | Headquarters of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran in Tehran. (AAP)
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani will address the nation on state television later on Monday after nuclear talks with world powers were extended for seven months.
"He will talk to the people," Iranian news agencies said, shortly after diplomats in Vienna announced that Monday's deadline for a final nuclear deal had been missed, setting a new date of June 30 next year.
Live appearances for the president are rare, but on October 13 he used a late night television interview to say Iran and the West would solve the nuclear crisis, even if there was no agreement by November 24.
Iran and the P5+1 group of nations (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany) implemented an interim deal in January that gave Tehran some relief from economic sanctions in return for curbs on its disputed nuclear program.
But the road to a final deal has stalled since because of disputes on the extent of uranium enrichment Iran would be allowed to undertake and on the timetable for sanctions on the Islamic republic to be lifted.
The missing of Monday's deadline followed a failure to agree a full deal by July 20, the original target date.
Rouhani, elected last year, has staked a lot of credibility on finding a solution to the nuclear issue.
His aim has been welcomed abroad but he has also come under pressure back home from hardliners who say Iran has already made too many concessions to the P5+1 group.
Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful but the West has not yet accepted its assurances and believes Tehran's activities could mask the long-term military plan of building an atomic bomb.
Do you have any news photos or videos? | Diplomats have given themselves a seven-month extension to obtain a deal on Iran's nuclear program. | 18.105263 | 0.736842 | 1.157895 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2015/05/16/cooper-takes-aim-american-sniper/ECzbjlXwMA1c0G65KRvVLM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20150517093259id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/movies/2015/05/16/cooper-takes-aim-american-sniper/ECzbjlXwMA1c0G65KRvVLM/story.html | Cooper takes aim in ‘American Sniper’ | 20150517093259 | Two half-hour production retrospectives accompanying “American Sniper” (2014) rightfully put the focus on Chris Kyle, the late, famously lethal Navy SEAL empathetically brought to the screen by Bradley Cooper and director Clint Eastwood. We hear at length from Kyle’s widow, Taya (played by Sienna Miller), and from screenwriter Jason Hall, who was well into developing his script with Kyle when news broke of the venerated Iraq vet’s untimely death. Oscar nominee Cooper explains that the movie is meant to be viewed simply as a story about soldiers, their families, and the cost of war. (Cooper’s dual creative involvement as actor and producer comes through loud and clear. No wonder Eastwood, who knows from hyphenates, predicts he’ll eventually try directing.) It takes a while for the discussion to turn to Eastwood’s signature economical style, and how this lent itself to crafting such an unvarnished portrait. “I had done war stories before, but this one was different,” Eastwood says. Still, put in the added study time that DVD encourages, and you start to see his affinities all over. Kyle earned the tough-guy moniker “Legend” for the way he coolly walked into spots like Fallujah and imposed order. Shades of the Man With No Name coming to town. When Kyle finally makes his exit from service — in the middle of a blinding sandstorm — it’s a compelling visual variation on Eastwood’s established preference for minimal lighting. And check out Eastwood’s routine Cold War thriller “Firefox” (1982) to see how much more thematically nuanced his concern with post-traumatic stress has grown over time. (Warner, $28.98; Blu-ray, $44.95)
HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 2 (2015)
For all its gleeful ridiculousness, “Hot Tub Time Machine” had some resonance. Nothing so profound that it couldn’t fit in with the crotch jokes, just some modest, on-target musings about how we can’t truly recapture the past. Apparently, the cast and crew didn’t get their own message. Five years on, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke are back for a less relatable murder-mystery sequel that doesn’t exactly work overtime imagining the future. Extras: unrated footage. (Paramount, $29.99; Blu-ray, $39.99)
Much has been made of the hard-to-believe fact that director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Golden Globe winner was produced with the financial backing of Russia’s Ministry of Culture — never mind the film’s relentlessly bleak, mournfully disgusted take on contemporary Russian life. Aleksey Serebryakov plays Kolya, a workaday sort in a remote coastal town who’s faced with all manner of novelistic trials, starting with a corrupt mayor who’s trying to take away his land. Slow going at points, but the atmospheric and emotional starkness are striking. Extras: filmmaker commentary; on Blu-ray, Zvyagintsev Q&A from the Toronto International Film Festival. (Sony, $30.99; Blu-ray, $34.99) | “American Sniper,” “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” and “Leviathan” arrive on disc this week. | 25.391304 | 0.826087 | 2.130435 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/05/12/14/35/reporter-confronts-hecklers-during-live-cross | http://web.archive.org/web/20150517174519id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/world/2015/05/12/14/35/reporter-confronts-hecklers-during-live-cross | TV reporter schools heckler over vulgar remark | 20150517174519 | The joke was on a group of male hecklers after a female reporter in Canada confronted them during a live cross.
Around six Toronto Football Club fans were put on the spot by City News TV's Shauna Hunt after one of them yelled "f--- her right in the pussy" in the Ontario capital on Sunday.
"I get this every single day, 10 times a day, by rude guys like you," Ms Hunt is heard saying as she takes chase.
"When you talk into my microphone and say that into my camera to viewers at the station I work at, it's disrespectful and degrading to me."
But her explanation falls short on one of the fans present, who refuses to be shamed.
"You're lucky there's not a f------ vibrator in your ear like in England because it happens all the time," he says.
Being that it was Mother's Day in Canada, Ms Hunt tosses another question his way.
"If your mum saw you?" she asks.
"My mum would die laughing," the fan replies.
In a statement to the Toronto Sun, Ms Hunt explained she and fellow female reporters are the targets of similar abuse on a daily basis.
"But on Sunday at the TFC game it was out of control," the statement read.
"I had intoxicated men yelling it at me. I was interrupted during interviews and was anxious about going live. I felt like a piece of meat. I had reached my limit, and it was time to push back!"
Earlier this year, the creator of a series of newsreel bloopers which inspired hecklers to interrupt journalists with the catchphrase confessed that it was all a hoax.
Do you have any news photos or videos? | The joke was on a group of hecklers after a reporter in Canada confronted them during a live cross. | 17.45 | 1 | 7.9 | medium | high | mixed |
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